Drabbles the seventh
Guest: They will find Mokuba… eventually. *Dark chuckles* And Yugi will be able to solve the puzzle… once again, eventually. Remember, cannon says it took years. It won't be that long though.
Make Them Speak
Joey and Kaiba hadn't fought for a week. Usually, two people not fighting for a week would be a good thing. And at first, the others thought it was. They thought the two needed some time to come to terms with their feelings, and this was their way of doing it.
But a week into it with absolutely no contact, at all, it was time for an intervention. After school, Atem would talk to Seto and Yugi would talk to Joey and they would get somewhere.
That was the plan anyway.
"Hey, Joey..." Yugi hesitated as she and Joey walked towards her car to head home. She was unsure of how to broach the subject of Kaiba. Joey grinned down at her, completely normal. That's what she had been like all week; completely normal except for when Kaiba was around. Yugi decided to just jump right in. "What's going on with you and Kaiba?"
Joey immediately stopped walking, face clearly reflecting her inner turmoil. "Kaiba?! Nothin's goin' on between me and him!"
"Joey," Yugi stopped and faced her friend with a cautious expression, "you two haven't talked, much less fought, in a week. Something's up."
"It's nothin', Yuug. Just some weird stuff happenin', it'll all be back ta normal in a bit." Joey waved her off, hoping against hope that what she had just told Yugi would actually happen.
"It's alright to be scared, you know. When Atem found out about our tattoos matching," Yugi took the suspiciously blank look on Joey's face as a sign that she was actually listening for once in her life, "it was really weird for a while, but then we actually started talking and-" Joey suddenly snapped out of her daze.
"Atem?" She asked, eyes widening. "Wait, are you two goin' out?!" Yugi had not wanted this conversation to turn like that.
"N-not officially..." She stuttered out, fearing what Joey would do to the short Yami, especially when her eyes narrowed into dangerous slits and then ran off without another word.
It was her job to threaten any and all boyfriends/soulmates of their little group, even though none had any before, and she wasn't going to let Atem be an exception! He may be nice for a Yami, but he was still a Yami after all.
"Where is the car?" Seto asked through clenched teeth when he and Atem made it outside to where the limo usually picked them up. He had been planning to jump in, shut the door, and order the driver off without his cousin, but it seemed that plan was down the drain. Atem had been trying to get him to talk about Joey the whole way over. It didn't work, but it was definitely irritating. Why couldn't Atem just accept that he felt nothing but irritation and possibly hate for the stupid blond mutt?
Heck, why couldn't he?
Because, as much as he denied it, his mind had the two tattoos etched over and over in his head and there was no way he could have mistaken them. And the way Joey had been acting around him, he knew that even she knew what was up. If she didn't, she would have argued with him like normal, not scampered off like a scared puppy on Monday.
"Oh, didn't I tell you?" Seto turned his murderous eyes onto Atem, who sounded much too innocent. "It won't be here for another thirty minutes."
Before Atem could start poking and prodding again, as that was no doubt the reason he had told the car to come late, Seto cast around for Bakura or Marik to distract his morally-sensitive cousin. They were nowhere to be seen. Those traitors had known exactly what Atem was planning.
"Fine. Let's get this over with," Seto snarled, spinning to face the smaller man. "I don't care about the Mutt. I have no feelings for her. I have no idea where you get these ridiculous ideas, but they are entirely false and-" Suddenly there was a shout from a little ways behind him, interrupting his denial-inducing rant (for both Atem and himself) and the widening of Atem's eyes made him pause.
That pause was long enough for Joey to fly straight past, latch onto Atem's arm, drag him away several feet, and then start yelling so loud that it didn't make a difference.
Seeing the Mutt like that- yelling out threats, complaining about never being told anything- knocked him out of denial.
Why would he need to deny that he was in love with Wheeler? Why would he need to pretend that he didn't know the tattoos matched?
The answer was simple. He didn't need to deny anything because there was nothing to deny.
Joey had knocked him out of denial and straight into delusion.
"I'm guessing the plan didn't work?" Malik asked while the six friends watched Kaiba and Joey arguing as if they hadn't been completely avoiding all contact just the previous day.
And so it begins
"Who's dis Mokuba?" Joey asked one day after school, directing the question at the three Yamis. She had heard the name at least five times since they had begun to spend more time with said boys. Honestly, she wouldn't have even been curious had it not been the way the word was said. It was whispered, or muttered in private conversations that suddenly cut off when the participants realized they were being listened to.
"Seto's little brother," Atem offered in explanation after a moment of silence.
"He has a brother? I haven't seen him," Yugi asked in surprise.
"Well he was taken away years ago, so I'd be surprised if you had." Bakura remarked with a smirk. He knew exactly what type of effect that would have on the Hikaris, and he enjoyed destroying fragile psyches.
Just like my little sister...
STAB. A metaphorical knife drove itself straight through Joey's heart.
"How old is he?" Yugi asked, eyes wide.
"He'd be ten now." Atem answered.
TWIST.
"And it was Gozobura Kaiba, most powerful man in the world and his adoptive father that took him," Malik chipped in. The same person who took Ryo's father. Joey saw Ryo blink away tears.
Like Serenity was taken by our mother...
DRAG.
"Is there anything I can do to help?" Yugi asked immediately.
"We could use all the help we can get," Atem said grimly.
"I'll help too," Ryo spoke up.
"I will also," Malik agreed. They all turned and stared at Joey in expectation. She looked to almost be in actual physical pain. They all knew it was at the prospect of actually helping Seto.
But there was a little ten year old boy in trouble, and everyone expected her to help.
STAB STAB STAB STAB STAB.
This kid sounds so much like Serenity... NO! Nonononono, I'm not making connections with Kaiba, we're nothing alike and neither are our siblings! He's probably a brat used to getting whatever he wants!
She turned away from them sulkily, stuffing her hands deep into her pockets and slouching over.
"How long's it been since Kaiba saw him?" She finally asked, after a moment of gritting her teeth. As much to her surprise as everyone else, it was Kaiba's cold voice who answered.
"Three years, 360 days, 18 hours."
Almost four years. He was six when that high-and-mighty Gozobura guy kidnapped him. Joey hadn't seen Serenity face-to-face in four years. She was taken away by Joey's mother when she was six.
MASSIVE MORALITY KO!
The others looked on, mildly confused and slightly disturbed, as Joey started falling backwards almost comically in slow-motion. Almost before they could even register the strange occurrence, she was back to skulking. She slowly turned, glaring heatedly at all of them.
"Fine, I'll help ya find da kid, but I ain't doin' it ta help rich-boy! Just 'cuz he's a kid!" She added the last part in a defensive yell, prompting the others to stare at her strangely. She turned cherry red. "I need ta get home. Bye." She hurried off on the opposite direction.
"Joey, the apartment's that way!" Ryo giggled at her friend's antics.
"I KNEW DAT!"
"What, exactly, do you think that stupid mutt and the rest of the geek squad can do to help Mokuba?" Seto demanded of Atem when they were alone in his room later that day.
"Seto," Atem sighed, "it is unfair of you to call Joey names like that; you hardly even know her. Besides, when it actually comes time to rescue Mokuba her experience may come in handy."
"What experience?" Seto asked, scoffing. Atem gave him a disappointed look.
"Exactly." He said, driving in his point about how Seto didn't actually know anything about Joey. Then, much to Seto's immense annoyance, he turned and left without so much as an explanation. Immediately, he pulled out his laptop and searched for Joey's profile on the database.
Nothing.
Not nothing like her record was spotless, nothing as in she didn't even have a profile.
Usually, he would have taken into account that he was her soul mate and therefore (since all profiles had their tattoos) Gozobura didn't want him to know about her. However, though his subconscious offered up that idea, he was still in denial and therefore refused to even think about it. In fact, when he looked up Wheeler the only profiles that appeared were a girl named Serenity, age 14, one named Rin, age 40, and a man named Jacob. They were all a family, though Rin and Jacob (weirdly normal next to the two woman's names) had split up about eight years ago. The really strange thing is that all three profiles mentioned a Joey Wheeler, daughter/sister, which Kaiba still thought was a stupid name for someone to name their Hikari daughter. So he couldn't even convince himself that she was smart enough to change her name and have them not figure it out.
Scowling in annoyance as he read up on what was known of the three, there wasn't very much that would interest him; Jacob was practically a beggar after all and people in the upper class didn't really care much for them or their lives, and Rin hadn't had contact with anyone that may have remotely known Joey for almost ten years. He moved to the profiles of the gang members that he could remember (which was all of them that he saw) and found them infuriatingly low on information as well. The only interesting part was there was a time, consistent on all of their records, where the crimes they had committed dropped to almost zero. He found this strange, but ignored it because it had no relevance to his search. Every single one of their profiles mentioned a Josephine Wheeler (perhaps Joey's full name?), but as an unwilling accomplice or even victim of the gang. Which was weird, because Joey was in no way a victim and there wasn't enough chocolate in the world to get her to do something that she didn't want to.
He made a mental note to order an expansion on all of their files; he was sure he could manipulate Gozobura into believing it a good idea. Which it was. It was actually rather puzzling that Gozobura hadn't done it already, being a paranoid control freak and all, but he was also very arrogant and believed those that low on the food chain could not harm him.
Realizing he wouldn't get much information from this type of people, he decided to try the Mutt's friends, as they seemed a bit better off than her. The search for Yugi's file also came up blank. There was a Solomon, age 75, Yugi's grandfather, and her two parents. Pretty much the same thing happened with all of them. None of their files would show up, but there were several files that mentioned each of their names.
Scowling in annoyance, Seto closed the laptop a bit harder than strictly necessary. What had Atem discovered about the mutt that was so helpful?
What he didn't know, is that Atem had made the whole thing up just to prove his point.
Factoid #29: I'm sure you've noticed that everyone thinks that Joey's mom is a stuck-up wench that hates Joey. Well here's the thing: the only two people who have actually met her are Joey and her dad. Joey was eight when she last saw her mother, and that was when said woman took her little sister away, so her little eight-year-old mind basically turned her mother into the bad guy for everything. Joey's dad is always drunk, so he can't really set that straight, and it doesn't help Joey's perception of the woman that she left her alone with a known alcoholic gambler with no job. Now, is Joey's mom actually like this in this story, or is this really the case of unreliable narrators? You'll just have to wait and see.
