Rescuing Strays

By: Lanku Black

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.

Summary: He often wondered why fate was mocking him. Seto finds a distraught Jou on the street and takes him home. They're both broken, but can they find it in themselves to fix eachother? Yaoi JxS JouxSeto JoeyxKaiba

Warnings: Mentions of rape and abuse.

"Do you have proof?"

The woman nodded weakly and walked out of the room. She was short and chubby with traditional Japanese face- long black hair and dark eyes. She wore boring clothes and speech was much too formal in Seto's opinion.

Seto shifted uncomfortably in his seat, glancing around at the shabby surroundings. He'd never liked being in places like this for too long, because they reminded him of the orphanage he'd been forced into with his younger brother. The orphanage had never been all that clean and it was never a place that inspired feelings of safety and security and he'd vowed a long time ago that Mokuba would never be forced into a place where he wasn't both safe and secure.

He was so caught up in his musings that he almost didn't notice that the woman had returned. She had a small photo album in her hand. It was pastel yellow with a blue cat on the cover and under the cat the book proclaimed itself to be 'Little Memories'.

Seto felt sick just looking at it.

But Seto was a Kaiba and so of course the woman could only see a calm disinterest on his face and annoyance in his demeanor. He took the book she had outstretched and flipped through it. He bit the inside of his lip. So they had evidence.

Well, he decided standing up, that really doesn't mean anything at all.

"You don't mind if I keep this, do you?" He didn't plan on giving it back in any case, but she agreed to let him have it. "I'll be in contact with you soon." After he got the photos analyzed thoroughly, anyway. He was halfway out the door before she called him back.

She gave him a nervous smile and stuttered out, "Well… couldn't I just…speak to Mokuba-san? For even just a minute?" Kaiba hated her in that second- her and her husband who was supposedly at work. He hated that they seemed like spiders desperate to get in and refusing to leave afterwards- poisonous and destructive.

The CEO of Kaiba Corp.'s eyes became hard as steel. "Don't even think of going anywhere near him, and don't you dare talk to him." With that he shut the door. He sincerely hoped that that would be the last time he'd hear about the Kouryuu's.

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He spiraled down the stairs, frantic to get as far away from the sickly sweet smiles of all-consuming fucks crawling all over him and wanting something he didn't want to give them. He took a deep breath of air and suddenly felt as if it was the first he'd taken in years.

He didn't like it when the walls closed in on him.

He walked to his car and put the album in his seat. He told the driver to go home. "I think I'm going to go take a walk."

The driver gave him an incredulous frown but nodded and did as was told.

With Seto's only real way out of the part of town he avoided the most gone, the powerful boy was left discomfited and angry. He turned and sauntered in the opposite direction with only his thoughts and the night as company.

iamalineiamalineiamalineiamalineiamaline

It had started to rain a couple of hours ago. There had only been a light drizzle at first so Seto thought that maybe it would die out in time; instead, the spattering rain had become a full-blown rainstorm.

He called to get his driver to come back and he himself was walking back to the apartment building where his meeting had been held. He hadn't realized that he'd wandered off so far until he started walking back.

The brown haired boy hadn't been paying any attention to his surroundings so when he tripped over something and fell, he was thoroughly surprised. When he realized that that something he tripped over was a very aberrant Jounouchi Katsuya, he growled.

Seto Kaiba was definitely not having a good day.

amialineamialineamialineamialineamialine

'My head hurts,' Jou groaned to himself as he leaned up against the building closest to him. He was sure that he'd been running for hours, and for a second he couldn't even remember what it was he was running from.

Then it all caught up to him.

His teachers and the school's guidance councilor. Their faces- full of pity. But mostly, Jou remembered the words. He couldn't remember who said them; by the time they got around to talking the blonde boy had already been panicking and the adults' faces had meshed into one being bent on hurting him- unwittingly or not.

"…your father died. We're very sorry…"

Then the being faded into a dirty street corner that Jou wasn't familiar with. And his father was dead. The boy slumped to the ground. He put his face in his hands and was surprised to see that his hands were wet. Was he crying? No, Jou realized, it's raining.

The logical part of the boy's mind demanded that he get up and find shelter before he ended up getting sick and dying of pneumonia, but Seto only laughed at that. He was too tired to move. Besides, he argued to himself, everyone else keeps dying, why not me?

Then the world lost its color, and the blonde fell unconscious.

ihopei'malineihopei'malineihopei'maline

"Mutt?" Seto blinked, shaking the boy. "Wake up, make-inu!" When he received no response, Seto frowned. Looking around through the rain, he saw that he was very close to the building his driver had agreed to pick him up at, and he turned back to Jou.

Kaiba Seto had never been known for his kindness- in fact it was quite the opposite. If you asked a random person on the street what they thought of when they heard the name Kaiba Seto it almost went without saying that they would connect to him a ruthless businessman whose clever strategies put him at the very top in the gaming industry.

He especially was not known for his kindness to mutts, but he found that he just couldn't bring himself to leave this particular pup out in the rain in his condition. What exactly the 'condition' was, Seto actually had no idea. He put his had on Jou's forehead and winced, pulling back. He was burning up!

What in the world enticed the boy to be out in the city with a fever so high- especially in the rain? The brunette bit his lip. He most definitely planned to find out and then to kick the puppy's ass for worrying him.

There was a flash of light and Seto turned to see one of his cars coming towards them down the empty street and sighed in relief. Heaving the sick boy into his arms, Seto muttered, "I don't make a habit of picking up strays, mutt, so consider yourself lucky."

He loaded himself and Jou into the back seat of the car and they sped away into the rainy night.

A/N: I'm not sure I really like this… I liked it when I was writing it but then when I was rereading it, I didn't like it so much. Oh well. R/R Plz. Hopefully it'll get better as the story progresses...