On Katherine Newton’s career: you’re right, she is doing great. I’ve enjoyed almost everything I’ve seen her. Hell, a couple times I didn’t even recognize her at first. Just goes to show that Claire was a poorly thought out and written character meant to pander to the hellers that won’t stop screaming.
I saw her in Freaky and it was fun.
Exactly, I'm seeing a lot of posts on my dash regarding Lisa Frankenstein and it took a few of them for me to realize that was her.
I absolutely agree, she wasn't the problem, CLAIRE was a horrible character and she could only do so much with what she was given.
Wishshipping headcanon - Yugi’s and Jou’s first kiss was after Jou woke up from his coma from dueling with Marik. Yugi was just so happy he was okay he couldn’t hold back anymore.
Yes yes yes!
And he all but lunged at Joey, wrapping his arms and legs around him before kissing him. You can clearly see the tears running down Yugi’s face before he buried his face into Joey’s neck, apologizing over and over for dragging him into his and Yami’s mess, and just how sorry he is.
Joey, meanwhile, is slowly rebooting. And you can tell when the lightbulb turns back on, because Joey’s whole face is now red (after it slowly consumed him by starting at his nose before spreading to his cheeks and ears, and then down his neck, etc.) and his eyes a blown wide open.
In the background you can spy Serenity giggling happily, while Tristan, Duke and Téa grumble about bets being made. Mai is confused, cause she always assumed they were already dating...
Anyways, once Joey_TheMan_Wheeler.exe has finally started working once more, he gently sets Yugi back on his feet and grabs his face to prevent his best bud from looking anywhere but at him and says, “Yug, shaddup,” before kissing him, which in turn makes King_of_Games.exe stop working (Yami is having a field day and is chuckling at Yugi, and has plans to tease the two).
Cue Serenity stepping forward and saying, “So that means I get to call Yugi ‘big brother’ now, too?” which effectively makes the two split apart after what seems to be a minute long kiss.
Notes: This fic was commissioned by the lovely @chiazu with the prompt, “Wishshipping, hurt/comfort, Yuugi has nightmares about Jounouchi dying during the duel with Malik after Battle City.” Thank you so much for the commission; I hope you enjoy the fic!
Something was wrong.
Yuugi didn’t so much know this as he felt it, deep in his chest and shivering under his skin. He wrapped his arms around himself and took a gulp of hot, stifling air as his eyes strained to see through the darkness around him.
Something was missing.
His head pounded as he tried to force himself to see even two feet ahead. Nothing. There was nothing but pitch black above, around, or below. He scuffed his shoe and found that it slid with minimal resistance. The ground was smooth, at least. Metal, maybe, but with no light aside from a few dancing embers here or there he had no way to see---
Hacking coughs burned his throat and forced him to double over, first standing, then kneeling. He couldn’t see the smoke, really, but he could smell it, could feel it as it seared his throat with every necessary, aching breath. Yuugi braced himself on hands and knees, his fingernails scraping against what felt like metal grating, scraping for something, anything---
(---a hand to hold, a sleeve to grasp--)
---to help him get his bearings.
But there was nothing, nothing---though there was, there was something . . . it was because there was nothing that he knew there was something missing. He wiped his mouth with a shaking arm as his coughing subsided, and once more lifted his head to see through the---
A rush of furious heat slammed into him, forcing his stinging eyes shut as he doubled over again. In contrast to the gloom around him, everything behind his closed eyes was gold---burning, blinding gold that scrunched his face in pain. It hurt to see, hurt to breathe, hurt to think the heat was so oppressive, but that---that wasn’t---
An inhuman cry rent the air, and in that moment Yuugi knew he wouldn’t have been able to breathe even if he wasn’t trapped in a burning nothingness.
He wrenched his eyes open and looked around frantically, blinking past the tears that streamed down his cheeks. Nothing, nothing, nothing; the air was orange-gold now, the embers sparking like specks in the smoke, but he couldn’t see---couldn’t see anything---
A whimper, a dying croon in contrast to the agonized keening from before. The last breath of a slain dragon to tell Yuugi that it was no longer that something was missing, but that someone was lost. A choked gasp from his raw throat came out like a sob, and he squeezed his eyes shut as he put his forehead to his knees---
“. . . ake up! Yuugi!”
Yuugi woke with a sense of disorientation so strong and sudden that for a second he wasn’t sure where he was.
But that was silly. He was in his room---he was always in his room, or at least he usually was when he first woke up. He wasn’t on his knees, bent over in an endless expanse, struggling to breathe through ungodly heat. He was lying on his back in his bed, sweat sticking his pajamas to his chest and his bangs to his face, the room dark but still lit by the gleam of moonlight through his window blinds. And there was nothing wrong, nothing missing, no one lost, or dead, or dying. Everyone was home where they should be, perfectly fine.
Everyone . . . Yuugi swallowed hard, and grasped his bed covers in a tight fist.
But he wasn’t alone. In the endless expanse of his dreamscape he might have been, but here he always had another with him. The Spirit of the Puzzle, Yuugi’s “Other Self”, took spirit form beside his bed, and leaned over in concern.
“Is everything all right, partner?” he asked.
Yuugi smiled weakly. “Yeah. Everything’s fine.”
His other self’s frown didn’t waver. “You seemed disturbed. Was it a bad dream?”
“It . . . yeah. Something like that.”
Yuugi was never sure how to describe his dreams. “Nightmare” was the technical term, he guessed, but he never dreamed of things like serial killers chasing him, or showing up to class stark naked. Instead, his dreams took the form of shapes and colors, sensations and sounds rather than anything concrete. He could remember the feeling of the heat scorching his every breath, could feel the weight of despair and panic in his bones, could still hear the agonized keening of the dying Red-Eyes Black Dragon ringing in his---
Yuugi reflexively scrunched his shoulders up to block his ears, even though there was no sound in his room. He didn’t want to hear that sound ever again. Not even in his own memory.
“You don’t look well,” his Other Self said, and Yuugi forced his shoulders to relax as he sighed through his teeth. The concern was nice, but as much as he didn’t ever want to hear a Red-Eyes Black Dragon die again, he also didn’t want to--- “If you tell me what’s wrong, I could help.” ---talk about it.
“That’s okay,” Yuugi said, and he forced another smile as his Other Self’s frown grew. “It was just a bad dream. I’ll be fine by morning.”
“Mmm. If you say so. But if you have another, we’ll need to talk about it.”
Yuugi rolled his eyes. “Okay. If you say so.”
“I do,” his Other Self said. “And if you say no that time, we’ll play a game for it.”
For a second, Yuugi thought he heard wrong. But when his Other Self continued to stare at him as seriously as ever, Yuugi shoved himself up into a half-seated position and demanded, “Are you serious?”
Finally, his Other Self’s frown gave way to a little smirk. “If that’s what it takes. Is it?”
Yuugi huffed, and flopped back down on his bed, turning his back to his Other Self. “I can’t believe you. Me? Of all people?”
“What’s wrong with it? It wouldn’t be a Shadow Game,” his Other Self said, and Yuugi was glad his back was turned so that nothing of how his stomach turned at the phrase would show on his face. “And the Penalty would only be that you would have to tell me what was bothering you.”
“Just a Penalty for me, huh? Because you know I’d lose?” Yuugi muttered.
His Other Self hummed a moment before he said quietly, “No . . . I don’t think I do.”
Yuugi furrowed his brow. He’d meant what he’d said as something of a joke. His Other Self was ridiculously skilled at gaming, but it wasn’t as if Yuugi himself was a slouch, and enough loud pep talks from Jounouchi had encouraged him to be less self-deprecating. But the seriousness with which his Other Self had responded was . . .
It was strange, but not as much as the way his heart dropped when he thought of Jounouchi and his aggressively uplifting encouragement, the faint echo of the Red-Eyes’ death cry resounding again in his memory. He clutched his blanket tighter for support before he asked, “Hey . . . Jounouchi-kun’s okay, isn’t he?”
“He seemed fine when we saw him today,” Yuugi’s Other Self said, and Yuugi released a sigh of relief. “Why? Did something happen?”
“N . . . not recently,” Yuugi said, but even after he said it it felt like just as much of a lie as his initial denial was. It had been only a week since Battle City had ended and they had all returned home---only a week since Malik had tried (both directly and indirectly) to kill Jounouchi three times, and succeeded on the last, if only temporarily. But Yuugi felt as if Battle City had aged him by years, no matter how ridiculous that sounded. Maybe he was experiencing the inverse of what his Other Self felt.
“All right,” his Other Self said dubiously. “But if you have any concerns, you should ask him at school tomorrow.”
“I will,” Yuugi said, even though he knew he wouldn’t.
As he always did when he was anxious about something, Yuugi got to school early the next day. He sat in his desk, his shoulders feeling like they were holding a coiled spring between them, tapping his foot against the floor. His Other Self didn’t say anything about it, but Yuugi could feel him watching with rapt attention. It was simultaneously the best and worst; he appreciated the concern, he really did, but being watched so closely did nothing to ease his anxiety.
“Mornin’, Yuugi!”
But that did.
The instant Yuugi looked up and saw Jounouchi’s sun-bright smile, the spring that had been lodged between his shoulders broke and fell away. For the first time since he had woken from that awful dream the previous night, Yuugi felt himself able to smile genuinely, every muscle in his body relaxing.
He might have heard a Red-Eyes Black Dragon die, but that didn’t mean it actually happened.
“What’s up?” As he always did, Jounouchi tossed his own bag onto his desk before making his way to Yuugi’s, not missing a beat. He leaned back against the desk, half-sitting on it, his arms loosely crossed as he leaned over to look down at Yuugi. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” Yuugi said, and his answer was automatic, but it was also true. Now he knew for sure: Everything was okay.
Jounouchi watched him for a second, lips pressed tightly together, before he leaned down closer, eyes narrowed in a shrewd look. On instinct Yuugi pulled back, but that only caused Jounouchi to lean even closer, so close their foreheads were nearly touching.
Up close like this, Jounouchi’s eyes looked like they had flecks of gold in them.
“Hmm . . . okay,” Jounouchi said finally, apparently having discerned something from staring at Yuugi up close. “But if anything comes up, you tell me, all ri---aagh, what the hell---?!”
Jounouchi leaped back, swinging behind him, frantically trying to brush something off his neck. The something became clear a moment later as Bakura skipped out of the way of Jounouchi’s flailing hands, and stepped in front of Yuugi’s desk, smiling brightly.
“Good morning,” he said, holding up the shoelace he’d used to tickle the back of Jounouchi’s neck.
“Morning, Bakura-kun,” Yuugi said, returning his smile.
Jounouchi, on the other hand, was not so amused. He yanked his jacket down to fix where it had been rumpled, and then demanded flatly, “Bakura, what the hell?”
“Sorry. You were so distracted I couldn’t resist,” Bakura said, his smile never wavering as he slipped the shoelace into his pocket. “I had to take the opportunity where I saw it.”
“Oh yeah?” Jounouchi said, and there was a light in his eyes now, a challenging arch in his eyebrows, that gave Yuugi enough warning to scoot his chair back. “Then maybe I can’t resist doing this!”
On the last word he launched himself forward, and threw his arm around Bakura’s neck. Holding him in a headlock, he began furiously mussing Bakura’s hair with his fist.
“Jounouchi-kun!” Bakura gasped, half-laughing as Jounouchi smooshed his hair down into his eyes. “Stop, I give up, I’m sorry!”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Jounouchi said, and he released Bakura from what Yuugi could tell had been a painless noogie with one final muss of his hair. By now, Bakura looked as though he’d walked to school through a tornado, and no amount of attempting to flatten his hair back into shape would help him. Yuugi bit down on another smile.
Everything was fine. There was nothing he could do to stop his dreams; he’d learned a long time ago that they would repeat as many times as his subconscious felt it necessary, and that the most he could do was try to decipher what they meant, and then live with that meaning. But as exhausting as it was to be woken by nightmares, even the same one, night after night, all that mattered was that everything in the waking world was as it should be.
Honda and Anzu crossed the room to join them, Anzu handing Bakura a comb so he could try to fix his hair, Honda throwing a playful punch Jounouchi’s way that Jounouchi batted to the side. As he fended off Honda’s roughhousing, Jounouchi glanced Yuugi’s way and tossed him another grin.
Wishshipping headcanon: Jou said 'I love you' to Yugi after battle city once they had their final duel together. He wanted to wait until he felt like was good/worthy enough for Yugi. So it doesn't matter who won that duel because in the end they got what they wanted.
Ok I agree with part of this 100%, it would be after battle city. I’m not sure that he would feel ‘good enough’ for Yugi though because he has such low self esteem. I feel like Jounouchi is the type of person who would bottle it up for a while and then either confess or accidentally blurt it out during a happy moment (which could definitely be a duel tbh because they’re nerds).
