Author's note:

Someone asked me via comment what was with the masturbation scene. Since this is a Joey chapter I think it's a proper time to explain. I'm attempting to show that Joey has issues with sex and sexuality, as show with his thoughts of "sex is the easiest way to break someone" and with his "I'm enjoying myself, so I must look like a whore". Once again, Joey shows discomfort with the human sexuality as shown with comments towards Kaiba and the random punk!couple.

Season 0 reference: Miho, a ditzy girl that used to be with the gang. Tristan was insanely smitten.


I'm not a morning person, but here it is six o'clock in the morning and I'm making a mad dash towards freedom. I'm going to put as much distance between me and that damn mansion as physically possible. Night is dying off slowly, but there's no sun to break through the bitterly cold fog. I feel like a convict. The lawn is so open and long that I feel like a prisoner breaking out a prison courtyard. Somewhere in my drowsy paranoia I expect to see search lights and helicopters.

I'm the type of person that would hurl an alarm clock across the room then get up before noon, but even my anti-morning mind can tell that Kaiba has taken the dog analogies a little too far.

He has me locked in.

I guess it's just a property gate, but I don't like being on the wrong side of locked iron bars. It sentiment that runs thick I'm my hot blood.

I stare at the gate in disbelief. Through the bars I see the road, the sidewalk, and the part of the world that Kaiba doesn't control. I can smell the dew on the grass and it's somehow sweeter than the finely manicured lawn on the mansion side of the gate. I can see freedom, but there are literally just a few pieces of inch thick steel keeping me from it.

"Dammit," I whisper. My breath turns to fog in the frigid morning. I size up my opponent. I could scale it, if I got a good grip, but something tells me it's hooked up to an alarm. I put hand through the bars. I have thick wrists, and they barely fit through the gaps.

"Can I help you?" Someone asks condescendingly, and I jerk my wrist back through the bars like I've been burned. So much for sneaking out, but that's fine by me. I'm eighteen years old. I shouldn't need to sneak out of anywhere. And

A man on the opposite side of the gate comes into view. A KaibaCorp employee, if the pin on his lapel means anything. I guess he's the gatekeeper. "Oh. You're Master Kaiba's guest." The voice suddenly offers me full respect.

Master Kaiba? So we are all just his slaves now? That's something for Kaiba to get off to. "Well, can you let me out?" The disgust drips from my voice.

The guy flips a switch and the gates creak open. "Thanks, man." I say. I can feel the air change as I cross the threshold. This is life, this is freedom, this is everything Kaiba's money can't buy. "You know where a bus stop is around here?"

The man isn't pleased, but I can't say I care. "Master Kaiba has a fleet of vehicles. They are available for your use."

"No, that's fine. Seriously. Where's a bus stop?" The air is starting to smell more and more like asphalt and less like manicured flower beds. I don't need another flashy show of wealth shoved in my face.

"Keep to the right; it's at the first intersection. If you hurry you might be able to catch the 6:25 bus.

"Thanks," I start waking again. Good riddance to all things KaibaCorp.

"Uh, sir?"

I scowl and turn backwards. He just told me to hurry and now he's holding me back. "What?"

"Master Kaiba isn't going to be happy that I let his guest take a bus. Sir, let me just call down to the garage. There are limos, Ferraris, Lamborghini, Mercedes, a Rolls-Royce."

"God no," I guess the man is trying to help, and I don't mean to be a jerk ass, but I'm tired of Kaiba being so fucking rich. Today it's fleet of vehicles. Last night it was Kaiba and his fancy pants twenty fork dinners. Sometimes I got nothing for dinner. On the good nights I had a pop tart. That's the reason I stuff myself when there's food. Cause I'm like an animal. I eat now, because I'll never know when I'll be able to eat again. For the love of all that's holy, quit rubbing it in, Kaiba. We know you're rich - richer than I'll ever be. "Thanks, honestly. I'm fine. Tell Kaiba –"Hmm what do I want him to tell Kaiba? I have a lot of stuff I want to say. Most of them start with "go fuck yourself" and end with a list of various household tools. "Tell him that I'm going for a walk, or that I refused the car. Or something,"

"Be careful, sir,"

Be careful? I've been riding a bus since I've been old enough to walk. I've been riding one by myself since I've been six. I start jogging in the direction the man indicated. My protectiveness over my sister will have me dragging my ass back behind that iron gate, but for now I'm going to visit the one friend who has a front row ticket to the show of my ruined life. I'm going to see Tristan.

By the time I hit the bus stop, it feels like my lungs are on fire. I'm getting out of shape.

Bus rolls to a stop and with a loud whoosh the driver opens the door. I put my dollar in the bus-box. I'm now down to $22.35. I have to do something about the money situation, and fast.

Looks like I'm not the only poor sap taking the bus this morning. A ragged old man with matted dreads takes swigs out of a paper bag. With every screeching stop, more and more freaks join me. A punk girl with a rainbow Mohawk letting an overly tattooed skinhead run his grimy hand up her fishnets. They glare at me and start making out.

I move to the opposite side of the bus. I don't like the whole touchy-feely shit.

The wheels on the bus go 'round and 'round.

My brain naturally goes into that sing-song rhythm of yesteryear as I stare at the changing scenery outside of the window. The last time I sang that song I was nine, ten? Something like that.

It was one day when my so-called parents were fighting rougher than usual. Serenity and I used our loose change that we picked up off the sidewalk to buy a bus ticket. We didn't really know where we were going, but the route took us by the beach and it seemed as good a place as any to run to. We spent that day playing in the sand castles and poking at starfish that we found in the tide pool.

Serenity was more interested in the sandcastles. She took her time, carefully smoothing out each sand-wall until it was perfect. She was that kind of kid – quite and finicky. She told me that she wanted to come back here day after day, year after year, until it was big enough that we could live in. We wouldn't have to go back to our family then, she said.

I didn't have the heart to tell her that her sand-castle wouldn't last the night, moreover a year.

Eventually, I decided that we need to leave. I figured mom and dad would go into fits when they realized we were gone. I pulled Serenity by the hand, back up the hill to the bus stop, but she tugged away. She looked back one more time at her sand castle and smiled. When we reached the top of the hill, I looked back a second time, and I saw it crumble into the sea. Serenity's eyes were rapidly going bad, so she never saw the fall coming.

In the end, noone missed us. Not even the bus driver thought twice about letting two disheveled kids off on the side of the road. That's that kind of kids we were. Forgettable, unloved, and ignored.

I was running away with Serenity then. Now, I'm running away from where she is.

One awkward ride later I find that I'm getting even more strange looks as I leave the bus. A cop in a parked police car exchanges dirty looks with me.

I do look suspicious, I suppose. It wouldn't be the first time someone mistook me for a criminal. Tristan doesn't exactly live in the kind of area thugs like me normally come around. The pavement isn't broken, and there's a cute little river-rock pathway that leads into two stories of red-bricked normality.

I smell bacon, and my stomach growls at me. God, I'm hungry.

Do I knock? Or should I wait? By my watch it's 6:59. Tristan's family is probably still home.

His family is cool, I guess. His mom is warm and welcoming, but I always feel a burden to her. I mean there is only so many times a random blonde kid can show up at your door at 1am before it gets on your nerves. Not only that, there's a baby in the house now. Tristan's sister got knocked up a couple years ago by some bouncer at a bar she works at.

I walk to the front stoop, suddenly realizing how big of a mess I am and wondering what lie I'll manage to pull out of my ass if Tristan's mom answers the door. The little roof on the entry stoop is supported by brick columns, with crawling vines twisted around them. Everything from the polished wood door to the cheery welcome mat looks like a scene ripped out of an American Dream magazine.

I feel that scary since of isolation in my heart. At first it was at Kaiba's Estate, now it's at Tristan's suburb. I don't belong anywhere.

I start to raise my knuckles to knock against the door, but now I'm close enough that I can hear the goings on inside. There's a loud, cheesy moaning that sounds way to well rehearsed to be real. With the crappy jazz elevator music, I can tell its porn.

Porn plus bacon means Tristan has the house to himself. I push on the door. It wasn't even closed all the way.

Inside the noise is even louder. There's a porn playing on the big flatscreen in the living room. Some blonde chick in only a school girl skirt and tie is getting pounded by a cock bigger than her forearm. The girl's all groaning and moaning and the man's belching out stuff like "take it, slut," and "Who's your daddy, bitch".

Who says that kind of stuff during sex anyways?

I follow the smoky smell of bacon and grease into the kitchen. God, this kitchen makes me nostalgic. I've spent at least 70% of my high school nights in this red-tiled kitchen. Tristan's mom used to work third-shift, so that meant me and Tristan spend most of our nights making cock jokes about Tristan's mom love of rooster decorations, and eating any strange combination of food that look good through our blood-shot eyes. And face it, what doesn't look good through blood-shot eyes? Tristan's sister was supposed to be watching us, but as long as we didn't bother her, she didn't care. Sometime's she'd buy us booze if we'd promise to leave her alone, and sometimes we'd cut her a share of weed for not ratting us out.

Yeah, his sister was a great role model. Did I mention she's a stripper and got knocked up by a bouncer?

Now I see that it's like the old days, just me and Tristan in the kitchen. I see him in his boxers and an old t-shirt standing over a frying pan. I decide to pose against the doorframe for awhile. Wonder when he'll notice me?

Not 30 seconds later, Tristan turns around with a white-hot frying pan full of bacon. He sees me, he stops, and screams like a little girl.

Seriously, How high pitch can a grown man's voice be?

I put my fingers in my ears. "Shit, man what was that about?

"What the hell you doing barging in here like that? It could have been anyone in here. What if it was my sister or mom?" Tristan clears his throat, and makes his voice go deeper, like that's going to change the fact that he just hit a note worthy of most middle school cheerleaders. "Sis is pretty ghetto; she'd smack you with a tire iron as soon as say hey,"

I laugh at him. "Nah, I heard porn and smelled bacon. I knew it had to be you,"

Tristan puts the frying pan on the counter and we bump fists – the preferred way of showing affection by manly-men everywhere. "Sit. I made extra", He points to a chair at the kitchen table, and I do 'cause I'm freaking starving. "And while I'm thinking about it," He turns towards the counter, picks up a magazine, and throws it in front of me. "Check it out, eh?"

"Busty and barely legal?" I read the title page. A girl with striped thigh-high socks is deep-throating a lollipop. "You have porn, what else is new? I flipped the paged gingerly. "And I don't even wanna know why that page is wet, do I?"

Tristan makes a face. "It's orange juice. But that's not what I'm wanting to show you. The centerfold, man." He thumbs through the magazine to a page with a well-worn dog ear. "Here,"

I got to give him credit -the girl in the center fold is a hot one. She's lying on her stomach on a beach in some country where it must be legal to run around in a piece of dental floss and nothing else. I follow her tan legs from one page to the other. They're long, sandy and glistening with sea mist. Mmm, I'm a leg man. My gaze moves past her rounded hips, to her flat stomach, and up to her chest. I'm a tit man too, apparently. Then I finally reach her face – the very last place a man looks at in a porn mag. "What the hell man? Is that Miho?"

"Yes! Yes!" Tristan puts a plate in front of me, before turning back to fill his own. "That's the chick that broke up with me using backstreet boy lyrics way back in freshman year."

"Well granted, if you know they were backstreet boy lyrics, then year she shoulda broke up with you." I start shoveling my mouth full of eggs and bacon as soon as I can get the fork into my hand.

"Excuse me for being into pop music. I'm not much into the angsty rap-metal-liken park 'slit my wrists and die' music. Life's depressing enough without it."

We eat in silence for a while. That's another perk with having a friend for so long. It doesn't matter if we are laughing, screaming, or just not talking at all, it's all okay. It's comfortable. Here, I can forget my troubles temporarily. It's like the two of us are back in middle school, eating breakfast after a night of staying up too late, and playing video games too loudly.

"So how's Mai?" Tristan finally breaks the silence.

That takes me off guard. "What?"

"How is she?"

I narrow my eyes. "Why do you care?"

Tristan shrugs. "Because I'm not getting any, so I have to live vicariously through those who are,"

I skip right past the "getting some" part. It was once or twice. Okay, three times. But I can only recount the story so many times. She literally threw me a condom and asked for a card game. Only this time, she said she would trade my v-card for the best night of my life. And I have to say, it was a good trade. "Vicariously is a big word for someone who smells like strippers and burritos," I make a face. "And what about that Cassandra girl?"

"Actually, that's my sister's perfume," He takes the collar of his shirt and holds it over his nose. "And I'm pretty sure there's something about a hand job in a car that doesn't scream 'girlfriend.' Besides, she kinda gave up on me after we've missed so much school." He stops and actually stares me in the eye. I know he's going on one of his self-important rants when he stares trying to act all wise and fatherly. He becomes very serious. "We're going into senior year. If we miss any more we won't be able to graduate. Granted, we can file a petition for excruciating circumstances, but if they say no, I'm not sure if we'll be able to graduate with our class.

"Meh," I keep stealing glances at the girls in the magazine "If I don't graduate this year, I'm not sure I'm going to go back another year. I'll drop out and get my GED – ya know "the Good Enough Degree," High school has been hell for me. It's not my classmates; none of them are stupid enough to bully me. The teachers on the other hand, have no problem with using me as their whipping boy. I don't plan on going back there for any long than I have to.

"So how's your new life with your mom?"

Now that's the loaded question. This is the question he's wanted to ask all along. "I'm not with my mom," I say as casually as possible. I stare down on the grease running from the bacon.

I hear Tristan choke a bit, but I don't look up to see for sure. "Why?" He asks, he's trying to keep his voice level but it comes out all croaky and breathy.

"She died,"

Tristan chokes again and drops his fork. "When? How? When's the funeral?"

"It's already happened. She died when we were with Kaiba.". I finally look back up at Tristan. He's shocked. Heck, who wouldn't be shocked? It's not every day some tells you that their happily ever after got cut short due to an unexplained death and a blimp ride from hell.

"Then where are you staying?"

I avert my gaze again. I study the girls in the magazine. They looked like there barely older than Serenity. What guy would get off to a girl that young? Only a pervert. It makes me sick. "With Kaiba,"

Tristan goes stone still, and pale. "Quit joking, man," He says. His words are playful but his tone is dead even. He knows that Kaiba is that one spark that can set me off like dynamite.

"Wish I was. Serenity went asking for pity I think. Not that I can really blame her, I mean we were pretty pitiful looking. But did it have to be Kaiba? I think I'd preferred Hitler to that maniac. Well, Serenity got this letter, right? And it says something like 'cause she couldn't get a chance to claim her – our –mother's stuff, that it all went to pay this huge ass medical bill she had racked up."

Tristan let out a low whistle. "I knew something was up. I've been trying to get a hold of you. You know you can stay with me. I'm sure Mai and Teá would take Serenity"

"See that's the thing. Serenity's got all these little girl ideas about family and togetherness, and she don't want to go to separate houses. But, Kaiba's psycho. He got a hard on by looking at her crying, Tristan," I was so disgusted when I saw that the first time I literally threw up, and now I feel the bile rising in my throat at just the thought of it. "Get this. Serenity is trying to get his attention or approval or something. She's all the time trying to talk to him. I think she could actually be attracted to him." I push my plate away. The eggs and bacon suddenly seem slimy, greasy, and unappetizing – like Kaiba.

Tristan leans forward, acting like he's going to tell me a great secret "Daddy issues," He says, his features serious.

"Daddy issues?" I repeat. What does this have to do with anything?

"Serenity has daddy issues. Think about my sister. I mean dad up and left before I was old enough to know him, but my older sister was crushed. That's why she's a stripper. It's some kinda issues with male attention,"

"I'm sorry man, but the reason your sister is a stripper is because she reeks of whore. Not 'cause her daddy split when she was in preschool,"

"Maybe, but why does she reek of whore?" He asks philosophically. He gestures into space like that's going to make his words seem more credible. "Either way, what are you going to do?"

"That's why I'm here. I just don't know." I throw my fork and it hits the plate with a clink. I cross my arms. "I guess I start with money, get a job or something,"

"There's this place hiring not far from here. It's some kind of stock-boy job I think, but I don't know the company. Heavy lifting and stuff comes easy to you,"

I make polishing motion on my bicep. "You got that right,"

Tristan starts to stand. "I'll drive you there." He stops suddenly then looks sheepishly downwards. "After I put on some pants,"