Chapter Ten:

Seto measured the length of the chain and realized it wasn't long enough to hang himself.

He lay facing the bathroom door and ignoring the hands on his back. The chain was just under five feet. It was long enough for Seto to get his leg on the bed and to reach the desk chair. Only a few weeks had passed since his birthday, but Seto couldn't remember how he managed to sleep when the chain had been two feet shorter.

Being able to sit in the chair felt like an accomplishment. Not an accomplishment like creating the Solid Vision software that revolutionized military training simulations, but a skewed form of the same. It would be his final achievement before he died.

Seto's head was warm, like a computer hummed inside, working in overdrive. The rest of his body shivered in the chilly room, but his head trapped in the heat. Seto wanted to call it a migraine, although he understood that the pain hadn't reached that level. His head didn't ache as much as it pulsed. Of course, he knew there was a pulse in his brain, but this was slow, too slow to be a reflection of his heart beat. It expanded and retracted in large, wide movements, each one gradually increasing the warmth.

Little warm paths traveled down his back. Everywhere they touched locked in the heat for less than a second before dropping down to the temperature of the rest of his body. The finger trails focused mainly on his scars. Seto was actually grateful for the callused skin that helped keep him from feeling the touch.

Seto tried to pull his legs in closer, but the chain stopped him. Seto tugged in vain, but the bed's leg held firm. He had tired of working to pull off the leg. It was attached to the bed frame, which was made of solid wood and had rounded corners unsuitable for trying to crack his skull.

Seto pressed his wrists against his eyes and curled his fingers in his hair. Exhaling, Seto felt the man's breath fade into a sticky cold. After so many weeks, all Seto ever seemed to feel was hot or cold. Hot, cold, and the heavy haze that swam in front of and around him. Those he could focus on and let fill his mind rather than the touches.

"Seto, I wish you would tell me where you got all these," the man said. Seto felt another warm line down his lower back. Far underneath his skin, he felt the remnants of the worse pain. The worse pain gradually stopped hurting as much. Seto almost wished it never lost the edge. At least then he wouldn't feel like it was a constant.

"Or at least how you got them all."

'Dear Mokuba,' Seto thought, wishing he was actually able to write down his thoughts rather than just think them. But with his kidnapper so close, he didn't want to risk the man reading anything. He could write to Mokuba later on, when the morning came or the night – whatever time the man decided to leave each day.

'He keeps asking me about the scars on my back-' Seto cut the thought short, not knowing where he wanted to go. Seto let his head fall deeper into the pillow, hoping to trick his body into relaxing. He hated his body's reflexes. Every time he buried his face in his pillow and began to suffocate, his body pulled back.

"You could tell me about it, Seto. I'm sure you have never told anyone."

Seto's hair was getting too long. The ends tickled against his nose and longer strands caught in his mouth. Even with his hands covering the majority of his face, hairs worked through and tickled his cheeks. Seto wanted his hair cut, but knew that he wouldn't be allowed to do so himself. If he was allowed access to scissors, he would stab them through his wrists. He kept quiet on the subject.

The hand on his back moved to play with his ear. The fingers tugged on his ear and circled the outside.

"Seto," the man said. Seto tuned him out so that he wasn't subjected to the rest. It hadn't been more than a day since Seto took his last shower, but he was already considering asking for another. He would wait to ask when Jim came down and when his kidnapper went up. Jim left him alone, just sitting on the bed while Seto stayed in the bathroom with the door open. Maybe Jim would lose his concentration long enough for Seto to breathe in enough water to fill his lungs.

Seto liked to think it was Thursday. If he counted the days correctly - and since he quit his tally several kidnapper visits ago, he was just guessing - then Mokuba would be at school. Unless he had already gotten out of school. After so many months, Gozaburo had probably hired after-school tutors to speed up Mokuba's education.

"Seto-"

'He tried to get me to talk about how I got them, but I refused to answer.'

Seto thought the world of his brother, but he knew that Mokuba was not capable of keeping up the level of schooling Seto received, not with the additional training that accompanied the lessons. The fingers on his back stung like the riding crop. When Seto dreamed, he dreamed about Mokuba first, then about snapping the riding crop in two.

Even his hands had light scars tracing them. The numbers on his fingers and palms were far less than the number covering his back. Maybe if he broke a finger, it would get infected. The infection could spread, and Seto could die.

"Now, Seto-"

The hands, the hands were a constant, just like the worse pain. As impossible as it was, the hands felt like a larger part of Seto's life than the man himself. The hands liked to touch him, to feel his scars, to travel places they shouldn't.

Seto shook his head, which brought his kidnapper's attention to Seto's hands. He pulled them from Seto's face, leaning over Seto and peering down. Seto stared at the inside of his eyelids. Looking at nothing was better than that face, those eyes, the constant focus.

'I'm just tired of thinking about them. Even when I'm kidnapped I can't escape the scars.'

"-and Seto-"

'I hate them.' He thought of the word "them" as more encompassing than just his scars. The man, the room, the bed made for two, the shared toothbrush holder, the lack of a razor with which he could cut his wrists, the chains – all of them he hated.

He never should have gone to work that day. His time would have been much better spent at his home office, working form his desk, and getting his projects done on his own time, rather than Gozaburo's clock. If he hadn't been at KaibaCorp, he might still be at home. He might be having dinner, breakfast, lunch, whatever the nearest meal was, with Mokuba. Or maybe he would still be chained up, only to a different bed.

Seto forced his hands out of the man's grip. His eyes burned. Seto went back to covering his face, but really just wanted to press his fingertips against his eyes, like that would ease the aching. All it produced were the phosphenes flashing in the darkness. The shapes didn't resemble anything, just static against the dark field of Seto's closed eyes. Seto wanted to gouge his eyes out, but knew it wouldn't kill him, but further his helplessness. He didn't want to add another scar.

'I don't regret anything that lead up to them. I always understood that each mark was one less for you.'

Gozaburo would have followed through with the hundreds of threats.

"Oh, Seto-"

Seto's nose felt like it would start running any moment. He breathed in heavily in resistance. The fingers had moved to his chest. They moved up and down with each rise and fall. Seto didn't flinch. He didn't remember when he stopped flinching.

'They would have been for you, most of them at least.' Gozaburo did like to inflict Mokuba's punishments on Seto. Seto had always wondered if Mokuba had ever learned the house rules. He broke so many, multiples on a daily basis. If Mokuba had known, there was no way that he would have continued in his recklessness.

Seto felt, although he was doing nothing more than thinking to Mokuba, like a little prayer to a figure he could never reach, that he was being unfair to his brother. Not all of his scars came from Mokuba's mistakes.

'I did earn several myself.'

The man moved away. Seto didn't move, knowing better than to assume he was leaving for the day, night, afternoon. Seto used the man's momentary absence to adjust the blanket around his body. The basement room felt colder today than it had on all the days before. Maybe he was sick. He wouldn't die of a fever.

When Seto was fifteen, he sneaked out of the house. Rather, he tried to sneak out, but with the constant surveillance and security, his every movement was recorded. Seto returned the next morning with the belief that he got away for the night. He hadn't even done anything wrong. He just wanted out. That night was the reason his two end fingers on his left hand faced at a slightly different angle than the rest of his fingers.

'Maybe I regret those a little.'

"Seto-"

Seto loved Mokuba, but he didn't believe that Mokuba was strong enough. Mokuba didn't have to grow up being strong. He had never been exposed to the struggles that Seto faced daily. Of course, Mokuba did experience the initial childhood trauma of losing almost all of his family, but he had been seven when they left the orphanage. After that time, Seto handled everything for him. Mokuba couldn't take Gozaburo.

'I don't want to think that you might end up with scars like mine.'

Seto's nose wrinkled when he felt a breath on his face.

He liked helping Mokuba. 'You are my little brother and I am supposed to protect you. I can't do that from here-'

He couldn't even escape the man's exhales and breath-light touches. Seto turned his head farther away, then rolled over. The tiny wave he had become accustomed to fighting back started to resurface. It urged him to shove the man, to push him away, to do anything. That wave had been fought back so long ago – Seto stopped counting the days – and got easier to suppress. One length of metal affected everything.

'And I can't handle that, Mokuba.'

"Okay, Seto."

Nothing was okay. Seto wasn't okay. Mokuba wasn't okay. Neither situation would ever be okay. Seto couldn't even die to get away from it all.

The hands brushed his hair away from his face and his neck. There were several places on Seto's body that he was beginning to hate. His neck sat near the top of the list, just under his mouth and-

"-beautiful, Seto."

Seto was failing to do anything. If he couldn't keep himself safe, he would never be able to help Mokuba again. Even if – when, Seto reminded himself – he was let go, Seto would be the one needed help. Seto wanted to protect himself, but he wasn't even sure who he was anymore. He certainly had changed since that last day at work. Even since he tried to break out. Since the last time he saw Mokuba.

'Am I failing you as a brother?'

He couldn't do anything now. His kidnapper or Jim decided when he ate, when he slept, when he showered, everything. Seto was unable to decide even when he would die.

'My every decision has been for you. Now what?'

Seto thought about it. Now what? There was nothing now. There wasn't even a what. Seto should have thought, Now nothing. He had nothing but the attention of a rapist. The man stripped him of everything from his clothing to his personality. Seto wanted to drift, to be anywhere else if even for a moment, even back in Gozaburo's shadow.

'You have to take my place?'

The image of Mokuba staring in the mirror, trying to cover a black eye came to mind. Seto's visualization was so real that had to shake his head to shatter the picture just like the mirror he saw Mokuba staring into. But shaking his head just drew more attention. Everything he did drew attention. He never minded the attention before.

Mokuba could handle the press. Seto knew that much at least. As long as Gozaburo didn't decide that Mokuba's bubbly energy was unfit for the Kaiba name, Mokuba would have no issue in facing the press. The charisma Mokuba possessed would work him through almost any situation he would meet.

'Stay safe, Mokuba.' Seto kept thinking the words again and again. Over and over, he let the words cross his thoughts. Stay safe. Stay safe. Please be safe. Second only to getting back to his brother, Seto wanted nothing other than to know, to conclusively know, that Mokuba was all right. 'Do it for me,' Seto thought, then changed his mind. 'Or for yourself – just do it.'

"Seto, if-"

The blanket was pulled away. Seto exhaled and waited for it to start again.

'If I get out of his, I am going to need you to be okay.'

This time, Seto didn't bother changing the if to a when.