Glass
Seto had tried to sleep, but the room was too cold for him to get comfortable, and the knowledge that he was being watched kept him too alert. He also didn't know when Pegasus would be coming back, and the glass wall left him with no privacy to avoid being creeped up on.
So, after checking the room one more time and determining that there were no hidden escape paths, he grabbed the book written in Russian and read it through. It was a copy of Maxim Gorky's Mother, which Seto hadn't read before, but after reading it, decided that he could have gone his entire life without reading it and been perfectly content. It had been a while, however, since he had put his Russian to practice, so translating the book kept him occupied where the subject and content failed to.
By the time Pegasus came back, Seto had put Mother back on the bookshelf and reclaimed the spot on the bed. The room seemed to have gotten colder, and even the thick blanket was doing a poor job preventing the chills that had taken over Seto's skin.
"Good afternoon, Kaiba-boy," Pegasus said after a brief stop at the panel on the wall. "You had told me you were starved, but you only ate the chips."
The chips had been in a sealed bag, so if Pegasus had tampered with the sandwich, the same couldn't have been said for the chips. Seto had double checked the seal for any holes, no matter how small, but found the bag airtight.
"I'm sure it's not the first time you ruined someone's appetite."
"That's fine. I brought your dinner. Could you bring over your plate?"
Nothing on the plate Pegasus carried was sealed, so Seto doubted he would eat any of it, but he wanted more information, and Pegasus had the ability to walk away. Seto forced himself to get out from under the blanket and put his feet on the floor. He had left the plate on the bookshelf, and picking it up, he walked it over to the hatch.
Pegasus traded the plates and left the old one on the floor. When Pegasus's hand reached through, Seto debated making a grab at it, but didn't know how he would threaten Pegasus from that position. Pegasus couldn't reach the switch for the door, so even if he agreed to open it in exchange for Seto not snapping his wrist, Seto couldn't make him do it.
Seto opted to return to the bed after finishing the switch.
"Is something wrong?" Pegasus asked. From his tone, Seto inferred that Pegasus meant his withdrawal and not his anger at being kidnapped.
"It is freezing in here."
"I have the heat on."
After he spoke, Pegasus looked up toward the ceiling, but then let out an "ahh" quiet enough the intercom couldn't catch it, but Seto could see the word on his lips.
"The vent is out here," Pegasus said, gaze still on the ceiling.
"You didn't hire a professional to design your dungeon?"
Pegasus knelt back down to the hatch and lifted it. He looked around the hallway for a few seconds before standing, but making sure to keep his leg against the hatch door to hold it open.
"It wasn't your plan me to suffocate?" Seto asked.
"This is hardly funny," Pegasus said. "I spent a lot of money on this room, and to think I overlooked something as crucial as air circulation is a travesty."
"Easily remedied by letting me out."
Seto tried to adjust himself to look as collected as he could while sitting on the bed. He crossed his legs under the blanket and rested against the headboard even though it was just as cold as everything else in the room.
"You'll have to give me a second to run make a call."
Pegasus didn't lock the hatch when he left. So long as it wasn't locked, Seto supposed that he could hold it open to allow air to pass through. Keeping it propped open wouldn't be a permanent solution. If Pegasus had installed a lock, then he wanted it to be kept secured.
When Pegasus came back, he had a wooden chair with him. He used it to hold open the hatch door, positioning it carefully in front of the glass wall.
"This will have to do for now. I'll get a more permanent solution tomorrow."
"Are we on your island?" Seto asked.
Pegasus glanced up from the chair, pushing away the plate with Seto's untouched sandwich to get it in the spot he wanted. "We are."
"Then don't keep me in here. It's not like I can get off an island so far off shore without drawing your attention."
"I want your company, Kaiba-boy. If I have to chase you down all the time, that wouldn't be worth my effort."
"So I'm basically a leashed pet?"
"Basically," Pegasus said. He finished with the chair and inched back, like he was waiting for the chair to slip or the hatch door to slam back down. But it held, so he looked over at Seto.
"Did you start any of the books?" Pegasus asked.
"I don't speak French."
The confusion on Pegasus's face seemed genuine enough. He took the same spot he had during his last visit, against the wall and under one of the light fixtures.
"It's the language of love! Why haven't you learned?"
"Gozaburo didn't do much business in France," Seto said.
"It's been years since his death, silly boy."
Seto glared. "Being fluent in nine languages is more than enough."
Pegasus inclined his head as though conceding to Seto's point. "Even so," he said. "It's a good language to know."
"If I'm going to be your prisoner for the rest of my life, then I don't see any reason to have learned it."
"You shouldn't call yourself a prisoner."
"Then what term am I allowed?"
Shrugging, Pegasus said, "You're allowed whatever term you'd like. I just wish you wouldn't use that one."
"This is the second time you've held me prisoner. I've woken up in a cage both times. Is this your fetish or something?"
"Don't sexualize this. I told you that you are only here to provide me with company."
"Then what should I make of this?" Seto said. "If you just want me for company, you wouldn't keep me far enough away that no one would ever find me. I'm sure there would be more convenient places to have stored me."
"Maybe I just get lonely in little spurts."
"Join a book club."
"Would you like to start one?"
"I'm not cooperating with you."
Pegasus smiled. "You seem chatty enough."
Seto felt it was time for a subject change because he didn't want Pegasus asking more about why Seto was so talkative, although it was fairly obvious that he was digging for information. So since Pegasus had brought it up earlier, Seto felt relatively safe heading back to the subject of Mokuba.
"Are you really never going to let me go?"
"I have no plans to."
"Why do you think I'm going to play nice when it means I'll never see my brother again? Never return to my life?"
Pegasus held up a finger that seemed less like a silencing gesture than an 'I'm about to make a point' gesture.
"I never said you wouldn't see your brother again."
Seto leaned forward, unwilling to jump off the bed in anger before he made certain that he confirmed what Pegasus meant. The room was still cold and Seto didn't think any heat would come through the little opening Pegasus had made. He needed to confirm before making himself more miserable and making a spectacle of himself.
"Mokuba doesn't deserve this. You don't deserve Mokuba."
Pegasus raised his eyebrow, or maybe eyebrows, Seto couldn't see both, and lifted a palm in a motion to the room Seto was trapped inside. "I never said I would do this to him. You're making some brash assumptions."
"Then what should I assume?" Seto said. He still didn't lean back because he thought that at any moment, the anger would take over and he would need to be able to spring to his feet.
"Maybe after a while, I'll trust you with a phone, or let you video chat with little Mokuba. Maybe I'd let him visit or let you visit him. Maybe I'll bring you pictures or just keep you updated on his well-being. Maybe he will want to live with me to stay close to you. How many more scenarios should I come up with to prove that you have no idea what I'm capable of or willing to do? This isn't supposed to be torture, Kaiba-boy. It's like I said. You can make this as miserable as you want to be."
"I don't want you near Mokuba."
A little shrug from Pegasus and the topic faded. Since Seto didn't like where it was headed, he let it go in favor of a better, easier subject.
"It really is freezing in here."
"I don't think I can fit a blanket through there," Pegasus said, giving the hatch a small point. He sounded upset about it.
"Lift up the wall."
"I figured you would catch on to how it works. But we haven't built up enough trust with each other for that sort of thing."
Seto exhaled slowly and moved back, sticking his hands under the blanket since they had started to numb.
"I'm going to take a guess that your more permanent solution to my lack of air circulation is to cut holes in the glass, high enough I can't reach them. To get enough air, and possibly the heat through, those holes will have to be either big or numerous. Or, you could cut one big enough that you can run the duct from the air vent down and into the room, guaranteeing the heat comes in and that I have enough air. Do the last option and you'll have a hole large enough to put a blanket through."
"But also one that you could slip through."
"Not if you run a duct through it."
"Then the door can't open whenever I decide you're ready to get out."
Seto tucked away that information to mull over later.
"I didn't say to fix the duct in place. This ceiling is at least twelve feet, so I can't reach it to knock it out or to climb through any opening you might put up there. Don't attach the duct and you can slide it out whenever you need to raise the glass."
"I will think it over tonight. Let's get to the subject of you eating."
"I'm not hungry."
"But you ate the one item I gave you that was sealed. Does that mean you only want me to bring you processed foods? TV dinners or instant noodles you can cook in hot water from your sink?"
The idea was unappealing, and very likely a threat, although Pegasus made it sound like it was what Seto had asked for.
"You're on the other side of the glass," Pegasus said. "I'm not opening the wall, so even if I drugged you, what would I get out of it?"
"You said that I have no idea what you are thinking. And you proved you can come up with a myriad of examples to demonstrate your own points. I'll leave it to you."
"Would you like me to taste test all your food for you? I could treat you like some snotty prince who needs a slave to test for poison. Shall I call you Prince Seto? Give you gold and chocolates? Rain diamonds down on you? 'Oh, my little prince, allow me to die for you!'"
Seto flipped off Pegasus in a quick motion, then put his hand back under the blanket.
"I'm not poisoning your food or drugging it. It's just a salad. Cross my heart."
"We haven't built up that level of trust."
Pegasus chuckled and checked his watch. "I'll tell you what, Kaiba-boy. Eat your food. If I poisoned it or drugged it, I swear I'll let you go."
"I have no way to enforce your promise."
"I swear on my late wife's grave. There's nothing in your food but a touch of razzle dazzle."
Seto didn't know if that was the name of some weird drug or just Pegasus being ridiculous, but he was hungry and if Pegasus was really going to keep Seto trapped away forever, starvation would not be the way Seto would kill himself.
But it was too cold to get out of the bed.
"I'll think about it," Seto said.
"Then I suppose I'll have to accept that answer for now. But really," Pegasus said, bending forward to pick up the abandoned sandwich. He took a bite out of it and wrinkled his nose. "Not so good after a couple of hours, but just because the jam congealed and the bread got crusty. I'll make a different kind tomorrow."
Seeing Pegasus take the bite did help calm Seto's concern that Pegasus had poisoned his food. Although, it could have been a very elaborate plan. Pegasus could have left the first meal, maybe even the first few meals, alone so that he could prove his point.
"So I'm going to be here for the rest of my life," Seto said.
"I think we've covered that."
"What am I supposed to do with my now-freed schedule?"
Seto knew that there was something else missing from the situation. No one just kidnapped one person for the sake of company, especially when the kidnapped person was Seto Kaiba. Last time, it had been SolidVision and KaibaCorp, so Seto knew that Pegasus wanted something, even if he wasn't ready to tell Seto.
"I hate to go back to the pet analogy, but I intend to use a reward system."
"You're going to train me," Seto said, curt and flat.
"Condition? Acclimate to my presence? Reward good behavior so I don't have to punish you acting out?"
"So I'm your dog?"
"I actually think you'd be a cat, little prince, but that's not the idea. The sooner you warm up to me, the more I'll give you to do."
While he wanted to scream and shout and try to crack the glass, he knew that it would get him nowhere. Patience would be his only way out, and Pegasus wasn't in any hurry. Pegasus spoke of a lifetime, so he just had to wait out Seto. And Seto had to wait for Pegasus to trust him in order to get the door raised.
And even then, Pegasus had to know that Seto would try to get away the first chance he received, so he would probably be watched more carefully once he earned his way out of the cage. Waiting for Pegasus to slip up might mean years. And the slip up would have to be large enough to give Seto a chance to get off the island or to contact someone back in Domino.
But, if Seto was really as out of the way as Pegasus claimed, by the time someone made it to the island to rescue him, Pegasus could have locked him away. And then he would never be allowed out again.
So he would only get one chance. When he took his chance at getting out, it had to be foolproof.
"Thought of a way to escape me yet?" Pegasus asked.
Seto must have been lost in thought longer than he assumed. "I haven't."
"I've run through all the scenarios myself. You'll notice that your books are paperback."
Seto had noticed. A hardback, while unlikely, had a better chance of shattering the glass. Seto hadn't tried hitting it with a fist yet, but assumed that Pegasus would have picked a sturdy material that could withstand Seto's strongest effort. He didn't want a failed effort recorded.
"You're going to let me out of here eventually," Seto said.
"Out of this room, yes. It's really up to you."
"Okay, so when I do get out of here, then what?"
"I have a whole wing waiting for you. A full bedroom, bathroom, library, office, kitchenette, the works."
"But I'll be locked in there too?"
"Baby steps, Kaiba-boy."
"And the step after that?"
"We'll discuss when the time comes," Pegasus said.
Seto slouched into the bed. "I thought you were an open book."
"Those chapters haven't been written yet."
"So not only am I supposed to believe you are the loneliest millionaire in existence, that you kidnapped me for company, and that you built this insane cage to store me in, but you never thought of the endgame?"
"This isn't a game, Kaiba-boy. Notice I'm not pulling out my deck and challenging you."
"Don't change the subject."
Pegasus stepped up to the glass to stare down at Seto. If the room had been any warmer, Seto would have done the same. He cursed the cold room and his lack of shoes.
"There is an endgame, but the number of steps it takes to get there will depend on you."
"Or you could end this charade and tell me what you really want with me."
Pegasus rolled his eye. "We're back to this? This is what I want. You, talking to me and keeping me company."
He checked his watch.
"I don't see much else we can talk about," Seto said.
"How about we get to know each other? Play the favorites game?"
"No."
"We'll alternate. What's your favorite color?"
Seto closed his eyes and lowered his faced toward his lap. Out of all the things he had expected when he woke up kidnapped, playing such a childish game had never crossed into his thoughts. But Pegasus was the game master and Seto still hadn't finished the rule book.
"I don't have a favorite color."
"Everyone does."
"I don't."
"Fine then. Ask me."
"This isn't my sort of game."
"Because it doesn't involve attacking anyone?"
Seto kept avoiding Pegasus's gaze. He thought better with his eyes closed, and they had started to ache from having his contacts in too long.
Just because he wasn't throwing things, shouting, or making threats he couldn't back up did not mean that he had contented himself to be Pegasus's dog. He had established that there wasn't a way out of the room without the door being opened. Pegasus just had to open the door.
"How about your favorite book then?"
"Lyrical Ballads."
"Isn't that poetry?"
"It is."
"I think you're lying to me, Kaiba-boy," Pegasus said, pouting.
"I'm talking to you, aren't I?"
Pegasus's laugh rung through the garbled speaker, as well as through the opening of the hatch. It was distorting, and Seto wished Pegasus would turn off the intercom while the hatch was open. For the money he spent on Seto's display case, he should have sprung for a better speaker.
"We have to trust each other if you want to move to your wing."
"You can't be serious," Seto said. He had been thinking it, but hadn't intended on saying anything. Asking for Pegasus to let him out would come too close to begging if he wasn't careful.
"Trust is crucial—"
"No. You can't actually keep me here."
"No? What's stopping me?"
Lifting his head, Seto glared at Pegasus, actually biting down on his tongue to keep from saying anything he would end up regretting. It had only been a day. He couldn't lose it already, not to Pegasus.
But Seto didn't have an answer. Aside from morals, which Pegasus had already proved he lacked, and outside influence, which Seto had no control over or knowledge of, there was nothing. Seto couldn't do anything, and for all he knew, Pegasus had managed to get him here without anyone knowing what happened.
"I don't suppose asking nicely will make you come to your senses?" Seto said.
"I doubt you could ask nicely if you wanted to."
"That's not an answer."
"You're staying here."
Seto set his jaw and leveled his glare on Pegasus.
"Then get me another fucking blanket."
Seto was sure he imagined the "tsk," but whatever Pegasus had to say would meet uninterested ears. The only thing Seto had that Pegasus wanted was conversation, and he wasn't inclined to give it to him unless he started getting something in exchange.
"I'll see if I can find one small enough to fit through. Getting the heat running through will help."
Seto's mouth remained closed. He slipped down so he could lay his head against the pillow, signaling the end of the conversation. It wasn't like he could make Pegasus leave him alone, leaving Seto with the only option to make Pegasus as bored as Seto had been the entire day.
The speaker remained on, and Seto counted the seconds until he heard it crackle off. He made it to a hundred and eighty-seven before his room fell silent. He hadn't closed his eyes, so he watched as the lights dimmed, staying on just enough he had to squint to make out any shapes. He didn't have any intentions of eating, and trying to get through the book in Spanish with the lights down would be more trouble than Seto felt up for.
He gave sleeping another shot, although he must have stayed awake for over an hour, too worried that moving would release all the heat he had been saving up.
By the time he did fall asleep, he still didn't understand the game he was caught up in.
Thanks to all who reviewed, favorited, and followed this new story!
You can expect an update on Saturday, January 16th.
