Third Bite

x

When Seto woke, he was disoriented, had no idea what he was doing sleeping on the couch. There was a pleasant hum of ache in his body that made him feel aware of the fact of living, but he couldn't revel in it longer than a minute. The memories came flooding back, the details magnified through the panic that seized him. Still naked, he staggered across his office, grappled for his fallen suit jacket and groped out a cigarette. He stuck it between his lips and breathed through his nose, never lighting it. He sat on the soft carpet, his sure hands shaking, his steel eyes blown wide in the shock of what he's done.

'I've taken that kid and...'

His guilt wasn't born naturally, however. His brain registered it not because of the universal morals normal people possessed, but because his mind immediately supplied a counterbalance image of his own violation. He saw himself in the boy and he saw his stepfather's associates in himself, people he has murdered himself, people he despised, people he swore he would never compare himself to. And yet, it had finally come down to this.

"Look at all this power I have and I can still not undo this…" He muttered around his cigarette, rubbing his scalp with the ball of his palm. "Well… better that way… this proves what a piece of shit I really am… good…"

He pulled himself together, stood and numbly gathered his clothes. He dressed, rubbed the almost-stubble on his chin and grunted in the back of his throat. He spat the cigarette from his mouth.

He still tasted the boy on his tongue, his spit and blood, both sweet as candy. His scent, his silk skin, his thrilling, lovely cries, every memory of him was soaked into him, clinging to his mind, building into his bones.

At the same time, he heard the cracks of a whip, he felt the sting of it bite down into the small of his back, his thighs and buttocks, he felt the hands from years ago, he felt the disgusting kisses again, he felt the pain where it should never hurt, and again, like he hadn't in years, he felt the squeeze of the collar around his throat.

"Gh…!" His airpipe locked up and he coughed, blinking hard. He grabbed his neck, clawed the skin as though there really was something cinching his throat closed, he just couldn't take it off. His lips were turning blue. He struggled to get a hold of himself again, to force himself to breathe right, to tell his genius brain that no, no, the squeeze was not real, he didn't need to choke to death for an age old memory, come on, he COULDN'T GIVE HIM THAT PLEASURE!

"HAHHHH…!" He gasped in air, hacked and coughed, bent over on the floor, looking pitiful and hating it. His ego, that carefully constructed wall around the crooked, battered thing inside, creaked under the sudden blow to it. His eyes watered and he wiped at them with the back of his hand. Wheezing, he felt a dull ache burn in his neck and he felt wetness there. He didn't realise that he was bleeding.

He'd never get any work done that day, he knew that already. As to what he would do that day, he had no clue and it pissed him off. Kaiba Seto was never at a loss. He was never out of his wits, he never faced a challenge he couldn't tackle, he never made a mistake he couldn't make right later.

'...how do you make something like that right? Nobody has ever made it right for me. I'll carry it around like dead weight for the rest of my life. Can it even be made right? Is it something that you can heal?'

He stared at his personal phone. When had he taken it out…? Numbly, he smoothed his thumb over the screen, counted the names.

Ankerya

Greed

Hawkeye

Klive, Dr.

Leona-chan

Orihara

Yoko-san

Was he honestly thinking of asking for help with this? How cowardly was that? It felt like asking someone to forgive him for what he's done, to tell him it was okay, that he could make it up to the boy, he wouldn't have to worry.

Fuck that. He wanted to worry.

He tucked the phone back into his pocket and picked up his monitor, looking at it. It was smashed, but probably nothing he couldn't repair. New parts, a little soldering and…

He hauled it across the room with a ragged, furious howl and it crashed into the wall. Panting, he marched over to it and stared at the shattered electronics. In his head, a deep, cigar-roughened voice echoed like ghosts from a past long forgotten.

'...that's all you're good for, look at that, look long and hard, that's what you are, you break objects, you break people, you break everything and everyone around you because you're a fucked-up, insane monster, that's what life gave you, that's why your parents tried to kill you, that's why your brother left you too. You will never set that boy right again. If you go to him now, you'll just make it worse-'

"If I turn my back on him now, I'm not the man I want to be." He told the broken monitor. He bent down and picked it up, laid its pieces on the couch. He'd repair it later. Soldering always soothed his nerves.

He breathed out, rubbed at his aching neck. When he glanced at his hand and saw that it was red, he didn't feel a thing. His mind was full of the boy. He would go and see him. He would tell him clearly what happened and why and he would ask him to never forgive.

Let him never wash this off. Like all the rest of the wrongs he's done, he'll frame it like a picture and remember it. That way, he'll never become like Gozaburo. He will never fall into the mistake of ignoring the the awful truth that he was a monster. He couldn't afford to or he would find himself someday stepping over all the boundaries he's set for himself. As he always said, only a Kaiba could say no to a Kaiba. If he never said no to himself, he'd be sitting in a throne made of human limbs by now…

He dug out another cigarette and he lit it this time. Smoking stick after stick, he took out his laptop and sat down in front of it to work on finding the boy. He had no idea what he'd say to him exactly… he'd have to ad-lib it, see how he reacted, see what he said first. Then he'd tell him. He'd find the words. Maybe he'd just say the absolute truth, the gist of it.

'...what poor excuse for a human I am...'

He sighed, smoke pouring from his lips. He pressed the butt out on the top of his mahogany desk, lit another cigarette. The picture on the screen seemed to sublimate and squeeze into his pores like pollution, travelling down the highway of his veins to begin culminating in his heart.

The boy really was wildly beautiful.

'...I'm going to tell him that, too… I'm going to keep saying it until he believes me, because he has to know. He has to get it. He has to understand that it wasn't his fault, but I couldn't say no to my greed this once. He'll have to know that even if I'm the worst piece of shit on this planet… even if he never wants to look at me again, I'll… always want to have him… that's unchangeable…'

He sent the address of the dorms to his phone then got up and left his office. Messy as it was, he couldn't focus on something as ridiculous as tidying it. He had nothing on his mind but the boy. That boy. Killua Zoldyck...