It Was a Dark And Stormy Night

Body

Well, here we go - a little more about OC Jada, some Anzu/Tea bashing and a (hopefully) surprising plot twist. (My intense dislike of Tea is the reason I wrote Jada into my stories in the first place. I think Yugi deserves better....)

Again, many thanks to all the people who've taken time to review! And thanks, Icz, for the info! At least I know I didn't miss anything.....

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"So how bad is it?" Seto was saying. It was an hour or so later and they were back at the house. Jada had just gotten off the phone with the mechanic that had fetched her car.

"Not very. The branch cracked the windshield, of course, and the hood's scraped, but they think it'll be all right once they get the mud flushed out of the engine and get it dried out. Probably some of the upholstery will have to be replaced, though," she said. "He said he'd take care of it, but he didn't give me an estimate."

"Don't worry about the money," Seto said. "My lawyer wants to know if we're pressing charges."

"I think the trucking company should pay for the repairs," Jada said. "Yami said it was just an accident, that the wind started to blow the truck over, but the driver still shouldn't have left the scene like that." The former pharaoh, sounding very much like his hikari, had insisted that truck driver had never even seen them. Jada and Yugi weren't so sure, but Yugi didn't care so long as Yami was all right. Tristian had decided to stay with his badly-shaken girlfriend instead.

"The pharaoh's getting soft. Had it been me, the bastard would be scattered all over the Shadow Realm by now," Bakura growled. He was sitting on the sofa with Ryou and Jada was perched on the arm.

"Fuhgedaboudit, tomb raider," Jada sighed. She was now dressed in black leggings, white socks crumpled around her ankles, high-top black Reeboks and an oversized white sweatshirt featuring a dour-looking cartoon cat and the caption I AM SMILING. Seto thought it would have been rather more approprate for Baukra. "I'm just glad everyone's still here."

Outside, the wind was starting to concentrate its fury from the southeast, howling in gusts hard enough to rattle the windows and occasionally shake the huge house. The rain had started in earnest about ten minutes ago, althought it wasn't coming down too hard yet. So far the power was still on, although there had been a couple of near-blackouts. Bakura glanced out the window, then picked up the remote and started flipping through channels, bored with the constant storm coverage. As he did, Jada got up to get a vanilla Coke from the kitchen as Yugi and Yami came down the stairs, freshly showered and changed, holding hands.

"You're still here, I see, pharaoh," Bakura growled.

"Thanks to my hikari," Yami replied, hugging Yugi close.

Bakura shrugged. "Could be worse, I guess." That was about as close to being nice as he ever came. He kept flipping through channels. "What the---?"

"Wait wait, leave that on leave that on leave that ON!!!" Jada yelled, running back in.

"What is it?" Ryou looked from the TV to Jada and back again.
"I didn't know Cartoon Network had Funny Bunny!" Jada exclaimed. "I used to watch that all the time when I was little! I just loved watching him outwit the Long Paw of the Law!" She had clasped her hands together under her chin, her dark eyes faraway and dreamy as she spoke. A sheaf of jet black hair picked that exact moment to fall over the left side of her face, but she didn't shake it back right away. "I always used to think cartoons were real when I was little, that there really was some kind of a toon world----"

"Jada, you're really starting to scare me now----" Seto said, looking strangely at his cousin. Yami and Yugi were looking at her strangely as well.

She looked at them, bewildered and slightly miffed. "Why? What's wrong with Funny Bunny? Didn't you ever watch cartoons when you were little?"

"You sound just like Pegasus," Yugi said, finding it hard to keep a straight face.
"Like who?" She looked even more bewildered.

"Duelist Island?" Seto reminded her.

"Oh yeah." She looked sheepish, then did a double take. "Waaaaait. He liked Funny Bunny?"

"Don't freaking remind me---" Seto groaned.

"Aw guys, c'mon. Stealing souls aside, he couldn't have been all bad if he liked Funny Bunny!" She sat down on the sofa, taking the remote away from Bakura. "Gimme."

Joey shook his head. "Man, Dragon, I hate to say it, but your cousin's whacked."

Seto looked at Mokuba, who'd lept onto the sofa to join them. "It seems to run in the family, Pup." He looked at the TV. "The Long Paw Of The Law?"

Yami, meanwhile, had sat down in a luxuriously overstuffed chair with Yugi on his lap.

"Are you okay, Yami koi?" Yugi whispered. He knew the pharaoh was far more shaken than he wanted to let on.

"I am as long as you stay close to me, my little amethyst," Yami murmured in reply, nuzzling Yugi, who kissed him in reply, tongues entwining, dueling.

Moments later, a violent gust of wind screamed around the house, making it shudder, straining the unboarded windows in their sockets. (The grounds crew had boarded as many windows as they could, but some they'd been unable to cover completely.) The blast grew in ferocity, bending the trees nearly to the ground, toppling one nearby that they couldn't see, but heard and felt as it crashed to its doom. Waves of rain blasted the windows. Yugi whimpered and hid his face against Yami's shoulder, and Yami buried his face in Yugi's wild ruff of hair. Mokuba and Jada were clinging together in a similar fashion, and even Bakura looked unnerved. Seconds later, the lights blinked, once, twice, then went out entirely as the wind slowly dropped back but didn't die entirely.

"How strong is this storm again?" Seto said shakily in the aftermath, looking around. He and Joey were clinging together, too.

"Where's the radio?" Jada said. "And shouldn't we turn on the generators?"
Not Not yet," Seto said, recovering a little of his usual aplomb. "Wait until we need them. They only have four days worth of fuel."

"What do you mean, "only" four days?" Ryou said. "What kind are they?"

"Diesel. But it might be a few days before I can have them refueled," Seto replied. "If this storm gets any worse we might be out for awhile."

"I'll go get my boombox," Mokuba said, bouncing up and running upstairs. The house was quite dim, but there was still some dim gray light coming in the windows. Outside, the wind yowled and rain slashed, sounding like gravel being flung at the house. Yugi cuddled closer to Yami, feeling impossibly safe in his darker half's strong arms. Yami held him tighter, kissing the top of his head.

"I'll get a flashlight," Jada said, heading into the kitchen.

"We need candles, Pup," Seto said, going up the stairs. "Wait here."

"Who needs candles?" Bakura growled, nipping at Ryou's ear and making his hikari squeak.

"Torches always were impractical," Yami observed. "You had to keep a servant next to each one all the time with a bucket of water in case the wind turned. Otherwise you risked burning the palace down."

"I thought everything was made of stone," Yugi said, looking innocently up at Yami.

Yami kissed his koibito's nose. "Not everything, chibi tenshi. That wouldn't have been practical." He hugged Yugi tighter. "Boats, for instance. I would have loved to have taken you sailing along the Nile, my jewel. You would have loved it."

"I don't know. I get kind of seasick," Yugi admitted.

"Ginger root takes care of that," Yami replied as Seto came downstairs with an armload of various candles, which he arranged on several tables before lighting. As he lit the last one, Jada came back in with a flashlight.

"It no workie, guv'ner," she said in a very bad British Cockney accent, then looked around. "Oooh, how romantic."

"Romantic? Jada, you're in a house with a bunch of gay guys, in case you hadn't noticed," Joey informed her solemnly.

"So? You guys know how to do romance," she said, sitting down on a nearby chair, curling one leg under her and hugging the other one, leaning her left cheek on her knee. "I'm sure Yami here didn't take Yugi's virginity in less than five minutes in the back of a Subaru."

Ryou started to say that had more or less been how it happened with him and his yami, but Joey spoke first, looking at Jada. "That must've sucked."

She shrugged. "What the hell, it got the job done." A bitterness crept in under her flippant tone despite her best efforts. "Now if I'd been the only job getting done, we could have worked something out."

"Is this the one you caught with the chick at the concession stand?" Seto said.

"No, this is the one Yugi caught riding Tea in the art annex bathroom," she replied. "The very next night."

Yugi flinched, remembering. They'd been at the Welcome Back Mixer, Yugi with Tea and Jada with her then-boyfriend, the captain of the baseball team. First Jada's boyfriend had vanished, then Tea had gone to "powder her nose." Fifteen minutes later, Yugi and Jada had walked from the cafeteria over to the nearby art annex to use the bathrooms over there - and poor Yugi had discovered the two of them quite naked and going at it backed up against a urinal. His startled cry had brought Jada running over to see what was wrong. Needless to say, the ensuing scene hadn't been pretty. The incident had landed the heartbroken Yugi in his Yami's arms, sobbing, and Yami had tried his best to comfort his heartbroken aibou -- and, well, one thing had led to another and what had started out as the worst night of Yugi's life had turned into the best. He hadn't known until this moment that Jada and her now-ex-boyfriend had slept together, though, much less that it had been her first. If that had happened to him, he was sure he would have died of a broken heart.

"Ouch," Seto said, wincing.

"Whatever," Jada shrugged. "I'm over it. I'm going to go see about Mokuba." She took a candle and went upstairs, calling, "Hey, squirt! What'cha doing up there?!"

Seto shook his head. "We have got to find my cousin a decent guy," he said. "It's the least we could do, you know."

"Yeah, but who?" Joey said. "Tristian's got a girlfriend, and as for the rest of us--" he shrugged.

Yami, meanwhile, was gazing into Yugi's eyes. "I still have to find a way to thank you, my beloved," he murmured, kissing his little one softly. "Were this Khamet, the honors you would have received----"
"Yami---" Yugi blushed, looking down, then back up through his golden bangs.
Yami kissed him again. "Wait here, koi." He got up, setting Yugi back down in the chair, then went up the stairs. Yugi curled up, hugging his knees, already missing the security of his Yami's arms. A gust of wind shook the house again and he shivered, then looked up as Jada and Mokuba started down the stairs. As they did, there was a knock on the door.

"The heck--?" Seto said, then remembered he'd programmed the gates to unlock in case of a power failure during the storm. Otherwise no one would have been able to get in or out. And of course the gate buzzer and doorbell were out.

Jada, who was closest to the huge front doors, had gone into the foyer to see what was going on. "Who is it?"

"I'm sorry to intrude, but I haven't any idea where I am or how I got here---" The voice was masculine and somehow familiar, although they couldn't quite place it. "I was wondering if I might use the phone?"

"It's probably not working," Jada said, fumbling with the locks and hauling one of he double doors open. It explained the crash they'd heard a bit earlier. "I think---" She broke off, stunned. The man who stood before her was about a foot taller than she was and stunningly handsome, almost beautiful, really. He was, of course, drig weg wet and quite disheveled, wearling a crimson double-breasted suit with a white ruffled shirt. He had long, silvery hair that straggled over the left side of his face in dripping strands, obscuring it. She knew he was older than she, but couldn't guess by how much. His one eye she could see was a liquid topaz color, beautiful, but dazed and bewildered.

"I---" he started, then staggered, trying to to catch the doorframe. He leaned against it for a moment before he abruptly collapsed, falling forward. Jada barely caught him in time to keep him from cracking his head on the marble floor.

"Oh my Goddess---" she exclaimed, kneeling to lower him to the floor - he was too heavy for her to hold up. "Guys---?" She looked around and let out a startled "eep" when she found herself staring into Yugi's dumbfounded amethyst eyes. Seto, standing behind Yugi, didn't look too pleased.

"How the hell did that bastard find us?" he said softly.

"Seto!" Jada exclaimed. "For the Goddess's sake!"

"No, Jada, you don't understand," Seto said. "That's Pegasus!"