So… we're chugging along with STNW. I'm writing and I'm not stopping and oh man… this fic has truly developed a life of its own. XD Thanks for all of your continued support. Keep it up!
IMPORTANT BULLETIN: Many of you have asked about what exactly Kaiba went through that screwed him up so much. I imagine you guys already have a pretty good idea; you're are all writers, and there are millions of Kaiba brothers-abuse fics on this site. I don't feel as though I'm in a position to write something so graphic in enough detail to make it worth reading - especially in a T-rated story. Thanks for understanding and sticking with me.
I promise this chapter is still exciting! And if not, your money back. ;)
"That was the most embarrassing event in the history of my life," Seto said, collapsing onto a couch in the living room of the Kaiba mansion. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, pulling his coat closer around him.
"I'm so sorry, big brother," Mokuba said softly, dragging a trash can over beside where Seto lay – just in case – before taking a seat next to him on the floor. "I really am."
"I'm beginning to wish I'd taken those two fools up on a beer or two."
"We have some sake in the fridge from that meeting last week, if you really want it that bad," Mokuba replied hesitantly, biting his lip.
"Really?"
"Yeah. I'll get it."
Seto remained in somewhat of a stupor, only dimly aware of what was going on around him. He felt drunk already, what would a little sake hurt? And of the hangover to follow? Screw that. It wasn't as though he had plans to go anywhere the next day. Like Joey said, if he could show his face in public again he'd be way ahead of the game. And anyway, it wasn't like he'd drink that much. Not really. Just enough to dim everything down a little bit. Blur the harsh, fine lines enough to make things thinkable again.
"Here you are, Seto," Mokuba said, handing his brother a shallow cup full of the bitter, clear drink.
"Thanks, Mokuba. Go to bed, if you want. I need to be alone."
"Okay, big brother."
However, Mokuba had no intention of following his brother's direction. He had just opened the new bottle of sake, and knew that Seto wouldn't just take what he gave him. In this state, he was capable of pretty much anything. No, Mokuba knew better than to leave Seto alone like this. He knew all too well what could come of that.
He'd seen it happen to their father.
No, not Gozaburo. Their birth father. Seto had thought that his brother was too young to understand, but that was not the case. Their father hadn't really been an alcoholic, per se, but he had a very addictive personality. As the story went, he'd been through hell and back to give up smoking before Seto was born, but he'd managed. However, after their mother died, he'd given up hope. He took up drinking, and the habit became an all-out addiction. It was alcohol poisoning that finally got the better of him – and landed the boys in the orphanage.
Seto had never touched any of them. Drugs, alcohol; he'd known better. Being the first kid, he thought he'd probably inherited it. He'd always turned them down whenever they were offered to him – until now.
Hence, Mokuba knew better than to leave Seto alone like this.
Mokuba sat in his brother's study, wondering what horrible chain of events had brought them here. To this terrible, lonely night. When the world was turned upside down and he'd had to take charge and take care of his older brother.
Mokuba thought that he heard footsteps in the kitchen. It had to be Seto. Who else would it be?
The tears started to come back. Those stupid tears that he thought he had finished earlier.
Suddenly and without any kind of warning, he was interrupted by the ringing of Seto's office phone. When he'd come to his senses, he immediately picked it up so that the ringing wouldn't disturb Seto.
"Hello?" he asked hoarsely, cradling the large black receiver with two small hands.
"Mokuba? It's Joey again."
"Joey?" Mokuba asked, still not thinking entirely straight.
"Yeah. Tristan and I are sitting around here feeling like shit over what happened with you and your brother," he sighed.
"I'm not feeling so great myself," Mokuba admitted.
"Yeah… why are you answering your brother's office phone, anyway? I thought for sure that he'd be in there working like a slave to get his mind off of everything."
"He usually does," Mokuba said softly. "But not now."
Mokuba paused.
"He wanted me to leave him alone, but I couldn't do that."
"Why not, man?" Joey asked, sounding as though he wasn't sure if he wanted to hear the answer.
"Because he's doing something I've never seen him do, ever. He's drinking, and in no small quantity."
"Oh hell," Joey whispered.
"I told him that we had sake in the refrigerator, and he just completely went off on it."
"Why the hell did you tell him that?" Joey demanded.
"Because he'd just get it himself anyway. And I couldn't see him like that and not do something."
Joey softened up a little.
"Alright kid. It's okay. Where is he?"
"He's on the couch. If he gets up again, I don't even know what I'm going to do. He has no tolerance for this stuff. He never, ever drinks, and you know how skinny he is."
"Is he still conscious?"
"Apparently, because he's still downing the stuff," Mokuba said, his voice cracking.
"I'm coming over."
"What?" Mokuba asked incredulously.
"I'm coming over," Joey announced again. "This is just too much."
"You can't do that," Mokuba said, still in disbelief.
"Why not?"
"I… I don't know."
"Exactly," Joey replied. "So what's the code to open the gates?"
"It's 10-25…" Mokuba found himself saying. "It's his birthday - Seto programmed it in after our stepfather died."
"His birthday?" Joey demanded. "That seems a little easy to guess, don't you think?"
Mokuba faltered.
"I don't know... we haven't ever had anyone try to break in before anyway."
"Whatever. I have it written down. I'll be over in five minutes – at the latest."
He was about to hang up when Mokuba spoke up again.
"Joey – wait," he said. "Are you sober enough to drive?"
Joey laughed.
"Are you kidding, kid? A beer and a half is nothing to me."
"Okay, if you say so."
Mokuba didn't feel as if this was the time to point out that this was still a beer and a half over the legal limit for a minor. Firstly, he didn't think that Joey would listen anyway. And secondly, he was so desperate for company that he hardly cared himself.
Mokuba decided to wait for Joey on the front porch. Funny, it was where he always used to wait for Seto, back when he first started working. Mokuba brushed a hand up against the window and realized that it was a surprisingly cold night. Grabbing a fleece blanket off of a shelf in the study, he wrapped it around himself and sat outside waiting.
True to his word, Joey arrived in well under five minutes. He had no trouble unlocking the gates, and was down the driveway and beside Mokuba before the younger Kaiba really knew what was going on.
"Okay," Joey said, rubbing his hands together with the energy that he'd accumulated in the adrenaline rush that made him drop everything and come over. "It is chilly out here. Let's go inside."
Inwardly agreeing, Mokuba opened the door and the two stood side by side, alone in the entryway.
"Kid," Joey started, "you've been through way too much already tonight."
Mokuba nodded solemnly, blinking back tears again.
"You need to go to sleep. Hell, forget sleep, you need to go upstairs and bury your head in your pillow and cry your eyes out. You don't have to be a little man all the time; it's okay to do that sometimes, you know. And men cry, too."
Mokuba nodded, looking as though he might not hold out until he made it upstairs. Feeling a surge of intense sympathy, Joey knelt down on one knee and wrapped his arms around the smaller boy in a tight, older-brotherly kind of a hug. Mokuba did likewise, holding on to Joey like he would Seto – if Seto were around and okay.
"Just hang in there, kid," Joey whispered. "I'll take care of your brother. He's in good hands."
Mokuba nodded, pulling away and racing up the stairs to his room. Joey shook his head. Poor, poor kid. But what a trooper.
Unfortunately, it wouldn't be so simple with the older one.
Joey walked through the kitchen, trying to find his way through to the living room. From the way Mokuba talked, it sounded like it was somewhere between the dining room and the study. And dining rooms were generally off the kitchen…
Ah-hah.
Joey wandered into a room just beyond the cases of china and mahogany dining table. He could see a few sofas and an entertainment center outlined in the dark, and could barely see the outline of a person huddled on the couch, a half-empty bottle of sake at his feet.
"Rise and shine," Joey said rather loudly, turning on nearby lamp. Blinded by its brightness, he dimmed it down a few clicks with a dial on the wall.
"Wheeler?"
The syllables were a little slurred, and it sounded nothing like Kaiba at all. It was deep and could have been someone like him, but it carried none of the usual superiority or contempt. It just sounded like a pathetically drunk teenage boy.
And the person speaking looked almost nothing like Kaiba either. His trench coat didn't look half as formidable thrown over him like a blanket, and his usually perfectly neat hair was ruffled until it stood almost on end. He had a lost-boy look in his eyes, as though he didn't know exactly who he was or how he got there.
"Yeah. It's me."
"What are you doing here, Wheeler?" Seto asked. He didn't seem angry; so much as he seemed genuinely curious as to what Joey was doing in his living room at midnight on a Saturday. He also looked as though he was trying to pick out which Joey he was talking to. He could have counted about four.
"I called because I felt so bad about what happened earlier. And your brother told me that you got into the rice-wine."
"Why would he tell somebody like you a think like that?" Seto demanded. Joey laughed, a sound somewhere between amusement and a sick feeling of pity.
"Now you're sounding like yourself. See? You're figuring out who I am and everything's coming back."
"I don't want anything to come back," Seto said softly, moaning a little as he reached for the bottle of sake. "I obviously need more if things are coming back."
Joey bit his lip, feeling so terribly sorry for this poor lost child before him that he didn't even know what to do.
"I know you don't want anything to come back," he whispered, more to himself than to Seto. "I wouldn't either."
However, he knew that he needed to act quickly. Joey quickly reached for the bottle of sake, and as his balance was much better than Seto's, he pulled it out of its owner's reach very quickly.
"You're out of sake," Joey lied, picking up the bottle and putting it on the bookshelf. "None left."
"But I had some, just a second ago," Seto insisted, reaching out an arm.
"Well now you're out."
"Really?" Seto whispered.
"Really," Joey replied quietly. "But you've had enough."
"I haven't had enough, though," Seto insisted, his voice cracking. "I still remember, so I haven't had enough."
"It's okay to remember, though," Joey said, "you'll have to remember sometime."
"But I want to never remember," Seto said, looking almost as though he realized how little sense was made by the words he was saying. But Joey understood.
"You can't do that, though."
"Why not?"
"Because your memories, what's happened in your life… they're a part of you. Like your company is a part of you. And Mokuba is a part of you."
"Nothing that happened with Gozaburo is part of me," Seto said forcefully, giving Joey a furious look. However, his fervor was interrupted by a nasty coughing spell that ended with him retching rather un-glamorously into the wastebasket beside him. Joey gave him a pitying look, running his fingers through his own blonde hair.
"Yeah… I know. It sucks."
Suddenly, Joey got an idea. The regular Kaiba would never, in a million years, admit to or live up to what happened with his stepfather. But clearly, Joey wasn't dealing with the regular Kaiba. And circumstance regardless, it would do him a world of good to get this off his chest. Well, might as well make the best of the situation; here went nothing.
"Tell me about Gozaburo," Joey urged gently, handing Kaiba the fleece blanket that Mokuba had discarded. Kaiba accepted it, and wrung it through his hands as he spoke.
"Stay With You" – Goo Goo Dolls
These streets
Turn me inside out
Everything shines
But leaves me empty still
And I'll, burn this lonely house down
If you run with me
If you run with me
I'll stay with you
The walls will fall before we do
Take my hand now
We'll run forever
I can feel the storm inside you
I'll stay with you
Fooled by my own desires
I twist my fate
Just to feel you
But you, turn me toward the light
And you're one with me
Will you run with me?
I'll stay with you
The walls will fall before we do
Take my hand now
We'll run forever
I can feel the storm inside you
I'll stay with you
Now come in from this storm
I taste you sweet and warm
Take what you need
Take what you need
From me
Wake up this world
Wake up tonight
And run with me
Run to me now
I'll stay with you
The walls will fall before we do
Take my hand now
We'll run forever
I can feel the storm inside you
I'll stay with you...
