#kindredshipping

Sleeping Headcanon

1.      Yusei doesn’t sleep.

2.      He’s so used to being up late working on things, it usually takes pure exhaustion to get him to actually go to bed.

3.      Those days are usually every other.

4.      He will cuddle with Judai and Johan until he’s sure they’re out before he slips out of bed to get back to work.

5.      Judai struggles to sleep.

6.      Yubel does their best to keep the nightmares at bay but even they can only do so much.

7.      Haou can sense when a night is going to be rough and it disappears right before bedtime so his presence doesn’t cause any additional problems.

8.      Judai is usually the first asleep after kissing Johan and Yusei a couple of times.

9.      It’s usually super early in the morning when it happens. Judai makes sure to sleep on the outside of the pile so he can shoot out of bed if he needs to.

10.  He ends up covering his mouth and running to the farthest bathroom to not disturb either of them.

11.  However, this means he usually misses the fact that Yusei isn’t there.

12.  He runs into the bathroom, gets sick, and then cowers on the floor, trying to hold himself together as his eyes flash between brown, gold, and dichromatic.

13.  There’s usually a soft knock at the door. Yusei learned very quickly to not touch him since he would lash out, the memories overwhelming him.

14.  Yusei doesn’t ask him how he’s doing. Instead, he gives him things to count. He asks him to describe the feel of the tile under his hands. He asks him to think of lists of five, then four, then three, and so on until Judai’s breathing is back to normal.

15.  Sometimes his eyes get stuck in the other colors and Yusei tells him he loves all the colors his eyes could be because they are all part of who he is.

16.  They stay there for a bit until Judai assures him that he’s alright.

17.  Then, no matter what season it is, Yusei makes him a cup of Martha’s famous hot chocolate to help calm him down.

18.  The two of them end up cuddling on the couch until morning. Judai falls asleep on Yusei’s chest, listening to his heartbeat and Yubel uses a little extra magic to speak to Yusei, thanking him for his help.

19.  Johan usually sleeps well but he has moments where he has massively bad nightmares of his time being controlled by Yubel that he wakes up in panic attacks like Judai.

20.  He usually sleeps in the middles since he likes the warmth so he has to be careful climbing out of bed.

21.  He doesn’t get sick but he is clearly shaken.

22.  Yusei is the one who usually finds him either because he was awake and Johan didn’t notice or Johan’s movement woke him despite how careful he was.

23.  He doesn’t have to ask since both Johan and Judai admitted early on that this would probably happen.

24.  Johan assures him he’s alright and he tries to act with composure but Yusei knows better.

25.  He takes Johan’s hand and gives him some hot chocolate. They cuddle. They talk softly. Mostly, they just stay quite.

26.  Johan finds a lot of strength in Yusei just being there.

27.  Judai usually joins them at some point, having woken up naturally with neither of them there.

28.  All three fall asleep in a weird heap on the couch.

29.  If that doesn’t happen, then Johan goes back to bed to cuddle Judai while Yusei goes back to work or joins them.

30.  Yusei sometimes has nightmares too. They happen closer to the anniversary of Momentum’s implosion.

31.  His nightmares are more jagged than Johan or Judai but they still shake him up pretty badly.

32.  Johan and Judai have gotten good at trying to distract him a few days before hand.

33.  However, that starts to backfire a couple of years later when Yusei puts two and two together.

34.  He doesn’t say anything though. Just softly thanks them.

35.  When he wakes up, panicking later that night, the two of them are read: hot chocolate, blankets, and some kind of movie to help distract him.

36.  Nights of real rest are great.

He breathed in deep and quickly turned back to his computer screen, the words suddenly not making any kind of sense as something cold shot up his spine. No. There was no way. Those things did not exist. He refused to accept what he had just seen. There had to be a logical explanation.

Didn’t there?

“Excuse me,” a voice asked him, “Are you alright?” He looked up. The two men at the table were now looking at him. The one who spoke had teal-blue colored hair and equally blue eyes; he wore a light lavender colored blouse-style shirt with a darker blue vest over the top. “You look like you’re about to be sick.”

“Or you’ve seen a ghost,” the other added. He was dressed in a dark t-shirt with a red jacket over it. His hair was a light brown and stood out in nearly every direction (not that Yusei could judge with his own black mess) and his eyes were a warm brown. He took a breath as he registered the statement. A ghost? Those things did not exist.

But….

“I’m fine,” he finally answered. He couldn’t stop himself as he blurted out, “but what happened to your two friends?” The two of them shared a look.

“It’s only been us here,” the brown haired one said.

Yusei blinked, “You mean you don’t have two friends that are dressed up for Halloween somewhere around here?”

“Oh, they just left,” the blue haired one cut in just as the brown haired one went to say something. He shot the other a look and it seemed to take a second but, eventually, he got the meaning and quickly clamped his mouth shut again.

“They couldn’t have left that quickly,” he argued. “Are you pulling some kind of prank?” They shared a look again, and Yusei started to get mildly annoyed with it. They didn’t say anything to him for some time. Finally, he closed his laptop and stood to pack his things. Clearly, this was not where he was meant to be. Before he could walk away from the table, the brown-haired guy caught his wrist gently; electricity shot up Yusei’s arm and he flinched at the sensation even though it did not hurt. It felt a bit good.

“Sorry,” he said quickly, releasing him. “It’s just… Can we walk with you for a bit? Here’s not the place to talk.” Yusei blinked. A couple of alarms went off in his mind, but he ignored them, in favor of nodding his consent, and the three of them left together.

The brown-haired guy leaned forward as they walked, “I’m Judai Yuki and this is my partner, Johan Anderson.” Johan raised a hand in greeting when Yusei looked at him.

“Yusei Fudo.”

“Nice to meet you Yusei,” Johan greeted. Judai smiled and continued introducing the two of them.

“We’re paranormal investigators; basically, we work to help people in desperate situations involving anything they can’t explain or handle.” He straightened, walking forward a little bit. Yusei couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow.

“Ghost? You two deal with ghosts?”

“More or less,” Johan nodded.

“You do understand ghosts aren’t real?” They shared another look.

“Yeah, that’s what a lot of people say.”

“But we happen to know differently.”

Yusei stopped and leaned his head to the side a bit, “Alright, I’ll bite. What is your proof? A grainy photo? Horribly shot night-vision scenes? A scar you got from something being magically thrown at you?” Johan snickered and Judai had to cover his mouth with his hand. After a few seconds, the two of them could not help but laugh at his response. Yusei was taken a bit off guard. “What’s so funny?”

“You were so deadpanned when you were asking,” Judai breathed.

“It was hilarious,” Johan added. Yusei found himself blushing a bit, and he turned his head away, trying to not let them see how embarrassed he was. They recovered after a few moments. “And to answer your question, nothing like that.” He pointed off over his shoulder, “Do you see them?”

Yusei looked, then shook his head. “See who?”

“Our friends from the café,” Judai clarified. Yusei looked over their shoulders again, but still only saw the street in front of them. He shook his head.

“Nobody’s there.”

“But you did see them in the café?”

“I saw something ,” Yusei pointed out. “I don’t know what it is I saw.”

“Deny it all you want Yusei,” Judai returned, “but you did ask us about it, which meant that you did see them.” He pointed between the two of them. “Johan and I are mediums. We can communicate with spirits and we’re pretty certain that you’re at least a little bit sensitive since you could see our familiars briefly. You can’t see them right now even though they are standing next to us without utilizing too much of theirs or our energy.” Judai nodded, as if his point made a whole ton of sense. “I wonder what it would take to help you see them again? What made it possible at the café?”

“Do you think the setting had something to do with it,” Johan added. “I remember reading a report that that café has natural running water under it.”

“That might have something to do with it.”

“You two are crazy,” Yusei returned. Nothing they said made any sense! Ghosts didn’t exist, but now they were claiming… all of this ? Johan smiled at him apologetically.

“It’s a lot the first time. You probably don’t believe us, but I have a suggestion.” He clapped his hands together. “Why don’t you come with us tonight? We have a job at a local place this evening. It’ll give us a chance to show you what you’re talking about and to confirm if you are sensitive or not.”

“Full offense, but I just met you.”

“I know.”

“How can I trust you?”

“You can’t.” That took him by surprise and Yusei felt staggered a bit. “But you might find it more interesting than you think. I promise.” Yusei looked between the two of them. Logically, he had no reason to trust either one of them. Something in his gut, though, told him something completely different; it was whispering that he should take the chance and see where this was going to lead. After a few seconds of the two of them staring him down, he finally sighed. He raised his hands in defeat.

“Alright. I’ll join you.”

Johan and Judai smiled at each other.

My, my, my- how the night had suddenly turned around.

*****

The house they were investigating turned out to be an older mansion on the outskirts of the city. Yusei made sure to let a couple of people know where he was going. Martha was worried, of course, but Jack and Crow got a huge trip out of the fact that he, Yusei Fudo, was going ghost hunting. Of all things in the world.

What a weird first date , they had teased.

He had left the house with red across his nose and both cheeks, but he had not given them the satisfaction of seeing it. Yusei slammed the door on his way out.

He now sat leaned up against his red motorcycle. Neither of them had arrived yet. This left him time to do a little extra research on the address on his transparent tablet. The mansion was built in the year XXXX by a rich mogul who wanted a place for his new bride to be the mistress of; however, he built over sacred ground, despite multiple warnings, and thus, “cursed” the home and his family for all eternity. They lost several children in birth and early into childhood. Eventually, the wife passed of an illness, but information on which one was scarce. Her death was the final straw for him. The mogul retired from the home and disappeared into obscurity. It was left to rot. Reports of families moving in and immediately moving out were plentiful in the first few decades after the original owner’s leaving, but quickly teetered off as rumors of a haunting became more prevalent.

He scrolled up on his tablet, murmuring. “Reports of a white lady…. Children laughing… shadow figures…. Objects being thrown. So just your run of the mill hoax?”

“Well, even if it is a hoax, it’s still our job to ease the worries of our customer.” He looked up, not necessarily startled by the sound of Johan’s voice, but a bit surprised that he hadn’t heard them approaching, especially in the large, older van they were driving. Judai was behind him, starting to mess with some equipment. Yusei closed the tablet and placed it in his pocket. “We’re glad you decided to come. What’d you find in your research?”

“Nothing out of this world,” he confirmed, arms still crossed. “Pretty standard reports. White lady, children, objects being thrown.”

Johan nodded. He turned his head a bit, as if listening to someone, and he smiled after a few seconds before saying, “That was pretty much everything we were able to find or was given to us as in our initial customer request.” He paused for a second, “I better help Judai with the equipment. As brave as he is as a ghost hunter, he’s a complete ditz when it comes to setting it up.”

“Would you like me to help? I’m fairly good with technology.”

Johan shot him a grateful smile. “You don’t have to. We’re the ones that invited you out here.”

Yusei rolled up the sleeve of his jacket. “Don’t worry about it. I might as well do something useful now since I’m probably going to mess up your results anyway.” Johan shook his head but led him over to the wired mess that had become Judai. It took them about an hour, once they had untangled him, to set up all the equipment they planned to use and since they were getting paid a hefty price, they were using everything . EVP, static night vision, Mel meters, motion detectors. You name it, they had it. The sun was starting to set when they finally started to sync up all their equipment, recording audio introductions on their three different recording devices. Johan helped Yusei into a specially made vest with several different pieces of equipment attached to it such as a night vision camera, perspective camera, and a few other useful tools like glow sticks, back-up batteries, and flashlights. Yusei felt the electricity again as his hand brushed his arm. A soft blush touched his cheeks. He did not miss the fact that Johan had one as well. Was it possible that he was feeling it too? What was even more astounding to him was that this was the second time he had felt it… with both of them.

Judai smiled brightly when they came back from the back of the van, “That vest looks good on you Yusei.”

Oof, that blush was not going away any time soon.

“Thank you,” he managed to get out without sounding like a stammering idiot.

Yusei had had feelings for people before in his life. Aki, the young lady who had become one of his greatest friends of all time, was one such example. His friend Kiryu was another. However, he had never been in this kind of situation before; his feelings for the previous two had come at different times. This was new. And a bit confusing, especially with how fast everything was moving.

“Are you feeling alright,” Judai asked. Yusei turned to face him. He was looking up at him, his brow furrowed a bit. “You’re not having second thoughts, are you?”

“You make it sound like I’m regretting my wedding or something.”

“Hmmm, I’m pretty sure this isn’t as stressful as a wedding.” He smirked. “But if you’re feeling scared, I recommend hanging back behind us.”

“I can’t be scared of something that doesn’t exist.”

“We’ll see about that.”

“Me being scared or ghosts being real?”

“Yes.”

Yusei shook his head as he walked away, and he followed. Johan bowed mockingly as he opened the front door. Judai gave him a quick kiss on the forehead before blowing a kiss back at Yusei and disappearing into the darkness, only the light of his flashlight illuminating a soft outline of his head and left shoulder. The two of them followed.

The entryway was as bad as you could imagine. Dust clung to everything. Spider webs decorated every corner, and the stairs, and the molding, and the walls, and basically every available square inch. Old paint and wallpaper were missing in great chunks. The building material was old and decayed. An odd sensation of dread shot through Yusei the longer he looked down the hallway. There was no discernible reason for the feeling. He grabbed both Judai’s and Johan’s shoulders, preventing them from stepping any further inside.

When they turned to look at him, he raised his hands apologetically, but dropped them and breathed, “Something isn’t right.”

Judai blinked, quickly looked to his right, and briefly nodded. “What are you feeling?”

“I don’t know. All I know is that if we go any further, something bad is going to happen.”

“But we’ve already been in here multiple times,” Johan assured him. “We had to set up all the static cameras, remember?”

Yusei hesitated. That was true. They’d already been in and out, and up and down all sets of stairs, as they’d been busy setting up static night vision cameras in a couple of the hotspots, specifically where the white lady and the children were often seen and heard moving about. Nothing seemed to happen during that time, and he rationalized that they would be fine in this moment.

The feeling, on the other hand, would not leave him alone.

He started to say something again, but Judai started moving inward and Johan followed. The feeling grew worse as he raised a hand to stop them.

A white figure suddenly appeared at the end of the narrow hallway. The three of them froze, but Judai, after a few seconds, threw a hand back. What Yusei could not see was how his eyes shifted from brown to green and orange, ready for whatever was about to occur. Johan took a step back. Something creaked. The white figure raised its head and with an unearthly scream, it shot forward at them. Judai jumped back. Johan moved in front of Yusei which put the three of them into roughly the same spot on the floor. Yusei looked down immediately as the sound of breaking wood caught his attention; just before the figure could reach them, he grabbed both of them close to him.

The floor gave way, and they fell into darkness.

*****

“Yusei, Yusei, Yusei!” He blinked. Everything felt sore and painful. It took him a few moments to remember that they had fallen through the floor. He groaned. Thankfully, nothing seemed broken, but he was going to be feeling this for the next few days; Martha was probably going to order him to go to a doctor, and for once, he probably wouldn’t protest it. A soft smile crossed Johan’s face. He was momentarily confused.

“I’m dead,” he breathed, “I swear I’m seeing an angel.”

“You wish,” Johan laughed. “But Judai and I owe you quite a bit for saving our lives.”

“What happened?”

Johan crossed his arms, contemplating on how much to share. “Well, you see….” He paused and changed his question, “Did you happen to see a white figure come at us?” Yusei shook his head.

He struggled to remember. Nothing came to mind however and he shook his head. “All I saw was you and Judai get defensive.”

“Maybe that’s for the best,” he mused. Louder, he said, “Anyway, we all were standing on the same space and the floor gave way. You just barely managed to brace us against you before it happened. You took the brunt of the injury.” He pointed to some old bags of flour that were clearly busted in the fall. “You really do have to have a guardian angel at least since this is what we landed on. Judai went back upstairs to double check everything. We should really get out of here.” He stood. Johan offered out a hand, which Yusei took gratefully. Together, they made their way back up the stairs and, to his surprise, the sun was starting to rise.

How long had he been out?

Judai was at the back of the van, putting away most of their equipment. He looked up when they exited. Without hesitation, or warning, he ran for Yusei, catching him in a tight hug; Yusei flinched a bit but accepted it.

“Thank you,” Judai breathed. “We wouldn’t be standing here if it weren’t for you.” After a few seconds, he released Yusei’s waist, backed away from him, and bowed. “I’m also so sorry. I should have listened to your warning. I know better than to ignore things like that.”

Yusei waved a hand. “No harm, no foul.”

“Well, a little harm,” Johan reminded him, elbowing his side. He flinched again. Johan walked over and wrapped an arm lovingly around Judai’s shoulders. “As such, breakfast is on us.”

“If you’d like,” Judai quickly added. Yusei did not miss how brightly red his expression had become and he smiled.

“Sure,” he agreed. “As long as the ghosts aren’t invited.”

“No promises,” they said together.

The three of them managed to hook their transportations together and rode back to town in the van. Yusei looked out the window. He was surprised when a weight hit his shoulder; Judai had slumped over, soundly asleep. Johan smiled apologetically.

Something swelled in his heart. He turned to look out the window once more and mused that he would not mind trying it again. Ghost hunting that is. Falling into decrepit basements he could definitely do without.

Judai shifted a bit on his shoulder and Yusei looked down at him softly.

Yeah, maybe just one more time.

*****

Thank you so much for reading!

The story on AO3

The mini bang collection

Check out LightningClawedSky on Deviantart