FicWad

Can you STAKE My Heart?

There isn't any fluff in this story, and I think, no angst. There is some yaoi so if you're anti-yaoi, bye, I'll miss you. I don't own Jounouchi Katsuya, or Kaiba Seto and Mokuba. All else has been emitted from my brain.

I was listening to a My Chemical Romance song and I got the inspiration for this. These are parts of that song, and it's called Vampires Will Never Hurt You. I think it actually has something to do with the story so I plugged it in.

And if the sun comes up will it tear the skin right off our bones?
And then as razor sharp white teeth rip out our neck, I saw you there
Someone get me to the doctor, someone get me to a church
Where they can pump this venom gaping hole
And you must keep your soul like a secret in your throat
And if they come and get me
You put a spike in my heart

Can you take this spike?
Will it fill our hearts with thoughts of endless nighttime sky?
Can you take this spike?
Will it wash away this jet-black feeling?

And now the nightclubs sets the stage for this
They come in pairs, she said
We'll shoot black holy water like cheap whiskey
They're always there

Someone get me to the doctor, and someone call the nurse
And someone buy me roses and someone burn the church
We're hanging out with corpse, and driving in this hearse
Someone save my soul tonight, please save my soul

And as these days watch over time
And as these days watch over time
And as these days watch over us tonight
I'll never let them
I can't forget them
I'll never let them hurt you, I promise

Struck down before our prime
Before you got off the floor
Can you stake my heart?
Can you stake my heart?
Can you
Stake me
Before
The sun goes down?


Two brothers run through the forest, their footsteps loud against the crunching dead leaves. As one of them slips, the other pulls him back into a standing position. Neither makes any sort of attempt at conversation as they flee in desperation. The elder of the two looks back and his mouth opens into a round 'o' of surprise.

"Faster, Mokuba!" They slip through the trees, mere dark flashes flitting away from their pursers.

`But they're so much faster. Especially now that blood has been spilled on both sides. Seto flinches as a branch whips against the large wound on his arm. He feels the cool, wet crimson water dripping slowly down his arm, but he ignores it.

If they're both going to survive this, Seto has to ignore everything, except for those monsters chasing them. Run, his brain screams. Run. But Mokuba's tiring; Seto can see this easily. They both been running at all speed for miles, and even all heir training won't be of any help soon.

Vampires don't breathe, and their stamina is incredible. Seto knows this, but still he continues to run. He and his brother are going to end up exhausted and unable to move another step. They'll become easy prey to the bloodthirsty creatures. No. Not after all those years of work, training and pain they endured to get this far.

They have to stop fleeing from their troubles, and face their problems if they're going to get anywhere at all. Killing one of them apparently wasn't enough. They would all have to be killed.

"Mokuba," Seto gasps as he jumps over a fallen tree in his path. "I'm going to fight them. I'll be able to hold them off until-"

"I'm not going to leave you, Seto. You idiot." Mokuba suddenly stops running, and Seto nearly gets whiplash as he follows his little brother with his eyes. The younger Kaiba faces the direction in which the vampires will come from. He slips out his stake from inside his coat. On the stake Seto sees the intricate designs Mokuba has engraved into it over the years. By now it's nearly completely covered by carvings.

Seto isn't convinced by Mokuba's confident tone at all. The hand that's holding his stake is shaking violently. Seto knows precisely what he's feeling, because those same surges of fear are hitting him. But, despite it all, he steps firmly towards his brother, ready to fight along side him, and unsheathes his staff with a steady hand. He knocks his staff against a nearby tree, and it hits with a loud, resonating thunk. The end of the staff rearranges itself, and gears twirl in a strange clandestine dance and Seto's staff is now a deadly scythe.

The brothers listen in silence as the vampires begin slowly down. It seems that they know that the two of them have decided to stop and fight.

"Seto, if they get me, and the sun goes down . . . take this spike and-" But before Mokuba finishes his sentence, the first vampire launches itself onto them, and Mokuba and Seto ready themselves for a long, hard fight.

They're well trained; anyone with any knowledge at all about their sort of fighting would know that. But there are too many to fight against, now.

The vampires claw at the two violent, in a craze to reach their centers. They want-need-blood. And the two brothers are little but sacks of blood to them. Seto knows this all too well, and stick as closely to his brother as he can without getting in his way. Mokuba is good fighter, and he's scolding Seto on several occasions for crowding him to the point where he cannot fight. He moves with the liquid movements of one who can fight and knows it. Even still . . .

Seto hears a scream, but it doesn't register. It can't be . . . Mokuba?

He whirls around, expecting to see a vicious, fighting Mokuba doing what he does best . . . slaying. Instead he sees a Mokuba that's on his knees. A vampire is lingering above him, holding what looks like about a foot of Mokuba's stomach in his hands. Seto's eyes flash back to his little brother, who seems to already be dead. He catches on last look of Mokuba's bloody corpse falling down onto its face before the vampires launch themselves onto the cadaver in a frenzy of blood and hunger.

Seto cringes in disgust, and backs away slowly from the grisly scene. He should feel guilty, angry . . . no. He must save those emotions for later. Right now, if he allows those feelings to distract him, he's doomed to end like his brother.

And so, he backs right into a vampire. He looks different from the others, his back straighter, his attitude politer, and his attire elegant. But when he smiles, his fangs are just like those of the others, and his eyes are dilated from blood lust. "Tsk, tsk. Kaiba Seto. Did you really think you and your brother were up for the challenge?" And then, before Seto has even time to protest, the vampire sinks his fangs Seto's neck.

Seto feels a sharp prick in the spot, but even the tingling fades after a little while. In its place, he feels complete ecstasy. He tilts his head back to expose his neck further to the vampire's lips, and moans loudly in the back of his throat. His hands find he vampire's shoulders. He grips them in an inhuman grip. Seto's far too engulfed in his pleasure to notice the vampire's eyes getting wide with shock.

Then, without quite knowing what he's doing, he pushes the vampire's fangs away from his neck. Blood spurts out like water from a geyser, but Seto isn't concerned with that anymore. He's merely grinning at the vampire in a chillingly disconcerting way. Said vampire simply stares at its 'victim' with wide, glazed eyes, unsure what is going on. Never before has a human been so demanding, and his lips are covered in the sweet, sweet blood of the vampire slayer. That is probably why he doesn't stop Seto when he leans over and slides his own fangs into his neck.

Seto gasps in sweet surprise as the blood gushes into his mouth, and he swallows greedily. He doesn't even notice when the man's legs give out under him, because he's hold the man's shoulders so tightly. No . . . he's not letting go so soon. He's fallen in love with taste of the crimson water that all creatures are made up of.

And when at last, only a thin stream of blood is spilling through his lips, he breaks away and the empty vampire crumples to the ground with a loud thud. Then, turning smoothly towards the other vampires, who, finished with Mokuba are staring at him, confused and admiring. Then he grins, his teeth covered with a thin layer of blood still, and without a word, walks past the bloody clump of body parts that had once been his little brother.

And the rest of the vampires follow their new leader.

>>>

Jounouchi Katsuya walks into the town at midnight. Glad to be away from the claustrophobic feeling all those trees give him, he takes out a stake from inside his jacket. Confidently, he wanders down the empty streets until he finds an appropriate place to begin.

The year is 300 Plaustic Age, and Katsuya is a modern vampire slayer. No more do slayers tie themselves to religion, as had the priests of the decades past. He had no use for prayer or faith. All he wanted to do was rid the world of the monsters that were plaguing it. He didn't need any sort of god to do that.

The bar is empty, though several half-empty glasses are still on the counter. Katsuya studies one, and finds that the beer is not yet room temperature. The drink could not have been left there more than an hour before. But yet, the whole building, he finds after search each room carefully, is quite empty. He frowns, and he walks outside once more.

He doesn't like this silence, just as he hadn't liked all those trees. Vampires have no use for industrialism, so they surround themselves nature. Katsuya has found he likes the cities, full of life and metal, far more than the silence the forest brings. Yet another reason to fight them.

"Well, hello there stranger. It's been a good, long time we've had someone so exotic here in town." The voice is deep, and slippery cold. It's a vampire. Katsuya knows the voice well. Although he might recognize it more if it were screaming. He turns slowly, so as to not make the vampire think that he's afraid of him. He's got his trademark grin on his face, a simple and easy-going one that makes all the girls-and some of the guys-melt back home.

The vampire is wearing a long, black trench coat that covers most of its body, and light gray buckles line his upper arms. Its hair is a dark chestnut brown, and its eyes are unusual. Most vampires' eyes turn a misty gray when they are sired. This one's are a bright cobalt blue and both of those incredible eyes are concentrated on him. Katsuya feels himself get that odd tingly feeling in his chest, and he chides himself angrily. It's a vampire. It's just an empty shell of what it once might have been. You know this, Katsuya. This is why you are the best.

"Exotic? That's one thing I've never been called before." And suddenly the vampire is right in front of him. Katsuya didn't even see it move. He finds himself paralyzed with fear. Never before has he faced a vampire who could move so quickly. The vampire leans over and sniffs him noisily.

"You smell exotic, yet oddly familiar." It moves back again, and pushes Katsuya's face up so that he's looking the vampire right in the eyes. "Are you from Kusko?" Katsuya's eyes widen in surprise and the vampire seems to take that for an answer.

"I remember Kusko, well. Those tall towers in which one could go to the very top and pretend to fly. Those empty fields where my brother and I once trained so diligently." Its eyes are suddenly filled with longing and sadness, and Katsuya is shocked to find the creature act so human-like.

"Those towers have been gone for decades," Katsuya answers harshly, hoping to hurt the vampire. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work, and the creature just raises a single, thin eyebrow.

"Of course they have. Slaying priests owned those towers and all slayers know how to do is destroy." Suddenly Katsuya's spike is out of his hand, and clanking on the dirt street. Once again, Katsuya hadn't even seen the creature move. "Don't you, slayer?" A thin smirk slides onto the vampire's pale face.

Katsuya pushes him away roughly, and run to pick up his fallen stake. He soon has it in his hand, and stands up again, desperately looks around to find the vampire again.

It's disappeared. Katsuya breathes deeply, trying to regain control of his body once more. It fails as soon as he feels something cold and wet on his neck. He whirls around, and sees the vampire smirking at him once again. It licks its lips in a hungry fashion and whispers in a husky voice, "I was right. You're going to be delicious."

Wiping at the wet spot on his neck with the hand that isn't holding the stake, he takes several steps away from the vampire. Katsuya reminds himself to not let the vampire out of his sight. "Do you know who I am, vampire?"

The vampire follows him step for step. "No, I cannot say I do, slayer."

Now it's Katsuya's turn to grin. "That's why I'm so good."

The two of them are stepping careful circles around each other, but Katsuya knows that the vampire is only playing with his food. If it wanted, it could probably easy overcome him. Now, Katsuya will have to use that fact that the vampire underestimates him to his own advantage.

"Do you know who I am, slayer?"

"You're a vampire clan leader. That's all I need to know," he hisses back sharply. Then he lunges violently towards the vampire, using all this speed and strength in an attempt to knock over the powerful vampire. It simply dodges the attack and watches stoically as Katsuya slides across the dirt street painfully.

"You may call me S. That's all anyone's called me in centuries." Centuries? Katsuya lifts himself onto his knees, and couches. He sees the blood on the dirt, but he dismisses the thought.

"I didn't ask for your name, vampire," he rasps angrily, still trying to act as if he's not afraid. In truth, he's never been more terrified. He can't get himself up, he realizes. His leg isn't listening to him. So, he decides to act as if he wants to sit on the ground. The vampire will probably see right through the pathetic ruse, but Katsuya has little else going for him but tricks.

"You haven't heard of S then, slayer? Well, I go out of my way to not draw attention to myself. All I need a good amount of blood and I'm happy. These creatures that serve under me are just an interesting bonus, really." His voice is still that smooth, cold voice, but it's got an amused attitude to it now.

"You claim to have lived centuries, then, do you?" Katsuya asks in an incredulous voice. If he truly had, the slayers would have a record of this 'S.' No, not even. They would have already had defeated him long before.

"Well, yes."

Katsuya laughs, long and loud. "You know, I really couldn't label you in any way that I've label my former opponents. Now I can. You're one of those that think I'll be impressed by how long you say you've lived. Well, I'll have you know I've fought and killed a sixty year old vampire." S doesn't respond, but that doesn't surprise Katsuya. Some vampires easily cloak their true emotions.

"The opinion of a little slayer from Kusko doesn't interest me. But . . . " Another thin smirk slithers onto that pompous face of the vampire. Those grins are beginning to infuriate Katsuya immensely. "Perhaps you will recognize my old name. Being a slayer from Kusko, you will no doubt know the records, won't you?"

"We don't keep records anymore, vampire. Only the priests kept those. Records would only cause discord and cause us to fight amongst ourselves." He might have gone on, but the vampire's expression stops him.

"So you, young slayer, are not even a priest?" He laughs, a loud, earsplitting laugh, and clutches his side. "I pity you. How did you ever expect to beat me?"

"I'm one of the best slayers around, vampire! Don't you mock me!" Katsuya is trying to ignore the intense pain in his legs as he pulls himself upright. He's not going to let this vampire treat him like a toy.

"Now who is trying to impress whom? Well, perhaps you've heard of Kaiba Seto anyway. Last I heard, he mastered the notorious scythe-spear." A wind blows through at Katsuya answers with stunned silence. The vampire's trench coat is blown stray and Katsuya catches a glimpse of something white under there . . .

"Kaiba Seto was the last person to ever master that weapon. Him and his brother could have become the greatest slayers of their time, possibly of all time, if they hadn't disappeared . . . several centuries . . . " And then Katsuya sees what S is getting at. "You want me to believe that not only you're centuries old, but that you're one of the legendary Kaiba brothers?"

"I don't want you to believe. That fact that you don't believe me doesn't mean I'm not who I say I am." The vampire turns around, its trench coat fluttering about it as he does so. "Come to the bar tomorrow night, and ask for me. I promise I won't let any in this town hurt you." The vampire looks for a moment as if it's going to look back, but he doesn't. "I want to kill you myself."

So Jounouchi Katsuya, the infamously proud slayer, is left standing there, still feeling like a toy.

>>>

Kaiba Seto chuckles to himself as he enters his hidden tomb. He's told his 'minions,' as they call themselves, those both dead and living, to make sure the slayer isn't harmed while in his territory. He hopes the young one will not flee. He looks forwards to good fight, and a good meal afterward. He's found, in his centuries in this world, that blood is more potent the more passionate the person is before they die.

The trench coat comes off immediately, and he hangs it lovingly on the back of his metal chair, along with the buckles. Then, Seto climbs into his bed, and pulls the blankets up to his chin. Day is dawning about a mile above him, but sleep evades him, anyway. He tries calming himself as he does before mediation, but this only makes him more awake and thoughtful than before. What had caused him to spare the life of this specific slayer?

When he thinks about this question long enough, he finds he can only think back on the way the moon had shone of the slayer's golden strange of hair, on the way his mouth had twitched when he angry, of how he pulled himself up even though he was fairly badly wounded. He hasn't felt like this since . . . well, since he was human.

Human. So this is a human emotion, is it? It is weakening him, then. Good, yet another reason to defeat that slayer. Seto sits up in, almost without meaning to, and begins to unwrap the bandages on his legs. They're stiff from age, and nearly crumple in his hands. They're the last link he has to his humanity, and it feels like an appropriate time to get rid of them.

They were once signs on his level as a priest slayer. Yellow for level one, green for level two, red for level three, blue for level four, black for level five, white for six and gray for seven. Once you reached level seven you were concerned a mature slayer and no long needed training. If Seto and his brother had beaten the vampires in the woods at that day he would gotten his gray wrappings, and Mokuba his black. But Mokuba had been killed and Seto had been sired and both of them had no more use for wrappings.

He looks down at the white wrappings on the ground, and is filled with yearning to go back. But he cannot. Yes, it's best if he forgets the past, and accepts the present.

And so he lies down in his bed again, awaiting sleep.

When he awakens night has fallen again above. He slips out of his bed, and slides on his beloved trench coat, ignoring those irritating buckles. Those were part of his human self as well. Time to get rid of them. Perhaps he'll give them to his fan girl bartender at the bar, he thinks, slipping them into his pocket.

Once on the surface once more, he breathes in a sweet breath of night air.

And then hastily begins coughing as he realizes there's thick smoke in the air. Why is it that when he decides to take a breath of air, he always smells everything but what he wants to smell? Is this what a human goes through every day? He glances around, ready to find the source of the repulsive smoke.

There, behind the bar. He takes his time getting there, and arrives there to see the slayer throwing something into the bonfire. He looks around, and the younger slayer seems alone. Why is it no one has challenged him? They all know Seto's opinion of bonfire. The fire could spread and endanger the beautiful forest that surrounds the town like a loving mother.

The slayer smiles cheekily at Seto. "Well, aren't you going to greet your lackeys?"

The slayer . . . killed everyone? There are humans that are loyal to him. Had the slayer killed them as well? Either way, this did not go well with Seto. He hadn't felt a deep loyalty for anyone, but he felt it was his duty to control the clan in which he lived in. Had he now, so simply, failed them?

"Why did you do this? None of them would have harmed you, I gave you my word of that." Seto begins to take of his trench coat, slowly, already missing it.

"You really expected me to believe that you'd keep your word? It took about three hours too kill them all, and until right now to burn the last of them." The slayer looks too triumphant, too excited and proud as he says these things. Didn't humans pride themselves with their moral standards? If humans were all they said they were, this young man could not possibly human.

But Seto knew all too well that humans were just as bad-if not worse-than vampires in their own ways. Vampires rarely lie to themselves as humans do every second of their pathetic lives.

Kaiba throws his trench coat over the fire, and smothers part of it down with his hands. He has to do this several times before the fire is completely gone. Then he turns back to the slayer, blowing on his smoking hands gently, but with his eyes on the slayer the whole time.

"I'm Jounouchi Katsuya, vampire. Now you'll know the name of the man who defeats you." With that said, he runs over and begins attacking. Seto dodges easily, surprised at the man's agility despite his wounds from the day before. Well, he could have some fun with this, he supposes.

For a long time, he teases young Katsuya with near misses. Then, Seto, bored with the game that had only half interested him to begin with, lunges out with a hand and grabs the slayer's neck carefully. He feels the human wriggle in his grip, but he pretends Katsuya's naught but a slippery fish.

Then the slayer's pressed against him, and he doesn't seem to be struggling anymore. "You're a lovely prey, slayer," Seto murmurs, caressing the golden tresses gently. The slayer says something in return, but Seto isn't paying attention to anything it says anymore. He's taking in the slayer's delicious humanity before he drinks it up.

He presses his lips against Katsuya's tasting humanity with his own lips. Oh, it does taste luscious. Then he kisses his way to the slayer's neck and bites.

Katsuya had thought he could blind this vampire with anger and thoughts of vengeance, but it had barely responded to the fact he'd killed its companions. At first he had thought that he might actually get this vampire, but soon it became painfully apparent that 'S' was toying with him once again. And then the lightening-fast hand grabbing him in mid-attack, and the feel of the cold lips pressed against his own.

He shouldn't have enjoyed it so much. He's about to die, and he's still euphoric about the sensation of a kiss.

He gasps as the vampire's fangs break skin, but it's more out of surprise than out of pain. "Oooh . . ." The sound slips through Katsuya's parted lips and wraps his arms around the vampire to pull him closer. "More . . ." he whispers furiously. After a few moments he can't even summon up enough strength to say anything else. He's weakening, tremendously, and his death is near, he can feel it. It seems that, if he wanted to, he could reach out and touch it.

But he doesn't want it to end here. He's enjoying the feeling of the vampire's mouth sucking his blood more than he could have ever imagined, but . . .

So Katsuya pulls away, and strength rushes back into him, but it seems to be a borrowed strength, and it begins to leave him almost immediately. Well, he doesn't need it long. Just long enough to . . .

Seto is surprised at the slayer's actions. Never has a victim of his broken away willingly from his fangs. But the taste of this one's blood fogs up his brain. He can't think straight and winds up with someone else's pair of fangs in his own neck.

Again? Seto thinks to himself, his thoughts still foggy and unclear. He wants to look over at his dead brother, again. And the ecstasy of being drunk from the taste of blood. How is it this has come to pass again? The vampire that sired him is long dead and-

Katsuya. He's not in the woods anymore. He's behind the bar, and the smell of smoke would probably still be easily smelt if Seto took the effort to breath it in.

Katsuya. Katsuya's drinking from him! As soon as he realizes it, his wavering eyes snap open, and he stiffens. His strength is leaving him. All that power he accumulated decade after decade . . . this young imprudent puppy is stealing! He rips his neck away from the slayer-though, actually, he isn't very well a slayer anymore, Seto thinks gleefully-and takes several steps back.

He has to admit, Katsuya looks even better dead, his lips stained with Seto's own blood and a glazed, pleasured look on his face. Seto grins despite himself.

They would both be breathing hard, if they were human. Katsuya looks up at Seto, and smiles back, a sly, impish grin that makes Seto want to kiss him. Or bite him, either one seems very enticing.

"So, Katsuya, how do you like being dead?" It's better to be straight with the ones you sire. If you make an attempt to subtly tell them they're dead, it will be even harder.

Katsuya falls to his knees, staring at his own hands in horror. No, Seto thinks, this isn't how he's supposed to react. The former slayer is shaking his head, as if by simply denying the truth, it will change. Seto steps over to the new vampire, walking slowly so as to not frighten him. "Katsuya?" Seto almost calls him slayer, but that would probably help Katsuya deny the fact he's been sired.

Then Katsuya crawls off. Seto watches in wonderment as he wraps his pale-white hands around a spike. Perhaps he should warn him about how vampires can't kill themselves. Hell knows Seto himself tried it, again and again. But Katsuya doesn't seem to make an attempt at killing himself. Instead, he looks up at Seto, a sad, hopeless look in his eye.

"Can you take this spike? Will it wash away this jet-blank feeling?" Seto, if they get me take this spike and-no. Not the memories. Before Seto's very eyes, Mokuba is appearing before him. He's begging him to save his soul. Soul? What soul? As much garbage as humans spouted about souls and the like, their actions never seemed measure up. Slayers should know this more than any other humans. After all, vampires keep their souls, like a secret in their throats. Humans don't have souls to begin with.

Yet, Seto still takes the stake from Mokuba's hand. He owes his brother something. And once again, the figure kneeling on the ground in front of him is Katsuya, but it doesn't make a difference anymore. He plunges the stake into Katsuya's heart and the late Katsuya falls over, this time truly dead. Seto sighs, and stands up straight, dusting the dirt off his knees.

And then he's gone.

AHHHH. What the heck?