Notes: For Flufftober - "You Kept This?"
Part one of a series - "Joey Mutou"
In which Joey was at the orphanage at the same time as Seto and Mokuba and was later adopted by Grandpa Mutou. While his experiences at the orphanage were bad, Joey's spent the last several years raised in a loving home with family that cares for him, so Joey Mutou has less of a temper than canon Joey Wheeler.
Good Luck Charm
Joey was more than a little furious with Seto Kaiba after everything that had happened with the Blue Eyes White Dragon card he'd destroyed and Gramps' time in the hospital for his subsequent heart attack. But Mokuba's life was in jeopardy - Pegasus wasn't likely one for treating his kidnapping victims well - and there were more important things at stake than sating Joey's temper. So he didn't call Kaiba back when the asshole stormed off. But he did quietly follow after when the others were busy playing guessing games over Kaiba's plans.
"What the hell do you want, Mutou?" Kaiba snarled whirling around to face Joey when they'd walked a fair distance in silence. Seto apparently finally getting fed up by Joey following along.
Instead of answering with words, because Joey knew he wasn't going to do a great job of keeping things civil, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a battered, frayed Duel Monster's card. It was a little too damaged to be allowed to be used in an official duel and had been since the day Joey had been gifted it as a child. But when he was first learning to play, Gramps had allowed Joey to keep it in his deck and it had kept him from being defeated in too humiliating a fashion by Yugi plenty of times.
The downside of growing up as the foster brother of a Duel Monsters prodigy was that getting his butt kicked happened with regularity. At least he'd been used to losing at chess to Seto before moving on to Duel Monsters with Yugi. So he could lose with... well, not grace, but close enough.
He held out the card insistently and Kaiba, reluctantly, took the card to look at it. And froze.
Seto put down his briefcase and, looking startled and disbelieving, ran a finger over the damaged top of the card. The familiar tears caused by Mokuba, who'd been too young to realize he was being too rough with the delicate cards.
It was only then that Seto looked at Joey. Really looked at him for the first time since they were assigned to the same homeroom class at school.
"Joey... Wheeler?" he asked quietly.
"Up until Grandpa Mutou adopted me, anyway," Joey said. "Then I took his last name and Yugi became my brother."
There's a lot of things Joey wants to ask. What happened to Seto and Mokuba after Gozaburo Kaiba adopted them? Why didn't Seto keep in contact like he'd promised? Did Seto or Mokuba ever miss Joey the way he'd missed them, like his heart had been ripped out of his chest?
He doesn't ask any of it, though.
"You kept this?" Seto laughed, voice harsh. "It's worthless."
"In official duel, sure." Joey took it back. "As a good luck charm from two people who used to be my dearest friends… it's worth everything."
"What the hell do you want, Wheeler?"
"Mutou," Joey corrected mildly. "And your secret weapon, if I had to guess, is a new, improved, mobile version of your holographic dueling arenas. I keep up with tech blog rumors about the latest and greatest shit coming out of Kaiba Corp and it's the only thing I can think of that might give you an edge over Pegasus' mind-reading bullshit."
It's absolutely worth following the other teen for the stunned expression on Seto's face alone and Joey's certain that means he guessed right.
"Have you actually tested it yet, or is it going to be as big a surprise to you as it is to Pegasus?"
Kaiba pursed his lips and looked away.
"And have you even dueled since Yugi beat your ass, or were you hiding away moping because some nobody from nowheresville in Domino's suburbs proved to be a better duelist than you?"
And Joey smirked as Kaiba snarled, "he's not a better duelist than me. He got lucky."
"I'm pretty sure you were lucky it didn't occur to us to sue you for deliberately pushing an old man to have a heart attack using simulation tech that wasn't approved for public use yet," Joey retorted. As it was, Kaiba Corp had ended up paying for Gramps' medical bills anyway. But Joey was rather certain it was Mokuba who'd done that, not Seto.
Mokuba had been shifty about it when Joey asked him about it during their brief time with the kid between him escaping Pegasus and being recaptured. And, well, Mokuba didn't seem to recognize Joey. So Joey hadn't wanted to push the question too hard. Things were awkward enough as they were without adding in orphanage related drama.
"He signed the liability wavers," Seto muttered.
"Yugi didn't," Joey retorted. "Honestly, the PR for you could have been a lot worse than just you losing a duel to a newcomer to the dueling scene. But Yugi's pretty good at ducking reporters and since I don't look like Yugi, I tend to get overlooked entirely. Which'll change if I manage to place in this tournament, but for now no one really gives a shit about me."
"What's you're point, Joey? What do you want?"
"I'm not delusional enough to think I could win a duel against you any more than I could win a chess match, but I've gotten pretty good. I managed to beat duelists like Mai Valentine and Rex Raptor, so I'm at the very least a gifted amateur by your terms. You need to personally test your new dueling system and you need to get the rust off your dueling skills. And I'm volunteering." Joey paused and then added, "Mokuba needs you at your best when you face Pegasus or you'll wind up dancing to his tune anyway.
"Let me help."
Kaiba looks at Joey with a hard stare. And then he glanced down at his briefcase.
"Fine." Kaiba popped open the case and tossed Joey a circular disk.
Joey caught it awkwardly, inspecting the device curiously. Slots for cards and what looked like a holographic projector… definitely still in the early stages of development. It seemed like an awkward setup and perhaps designed by someone who didn't actually play the game. Likely a project Seto had been keeping an eye on, but not a pet project. Yet anyway.
Still, it was fairly straightforward to attach to his wrist and Joey tested the getting the right flick on tossing the disk itself into the space in front of him and then recalling it back to his hand so that it didn't smack him in the face during the duel itself.
Seto looked amused.
"Pegasus assaulted Gramps. Put him in the hospital in a coma," Joey said. Since shadow magic wasn't likely to go over well with Seto's more skeptical world view.
"I'm sorry to hear that," Kaiba replied. Almost sounding like a normal person instead of the sarcastic little shit he'd always been.
"Originally I was going to just tag along for moral support for Yugi. But then I got a call from Serenity. Insurance denied mom's attempt to claim the eye surgery Serenity needs to keep from losing her eyesight. It's too experimental or whatever. So I convinced Yugi to help me join the tournament instead, so we can hedge our bets on winning. If one of us can win the prize money, it'll not only cover the latest round of medical bills for Gramps, but Serenity's surgery too. Otherwise… mom can't afford it and while Gramps wants to help, the game shop just doesn't make enough money to cover it."
"Why are you telling me this, Wh-Mutou?" Kaiba stuttered over his last name, as if he was having trouble keeping the past and present straight.
He definitely needed a duel to settle him and a win to get his confidence back. Joey just hoped he could do that without losing his own confidence in the process. Though if it helped Seto get Mokuba back, it'd be worth a little self doubt on his own part.
"Because, honestly? You need a reality check. You aren't the only person with problems, Seto Kaiba. And if you don't learn to accept help gracefully, you're going to wind up letting Mokuba down. Maybe not today. God, I hope not today. But down the road when you clam up into your shell so damn hard that you can't see how much of an ass you're being even to your little brother… you'll wind up pushing him away if you aren't careful. We may not be friends anymore, but I don't want to see you alone."
Then, before Kaiba can snarl something defensive and offensive, Joey asked, "so we gonna duel or what?" And then he drew his hand, tossed a monster down in defensive mode with a face down magic card and threw the disk into the field in front of him.
The affect was instant and definitely more immersive than the arenas Pegasus was using. The duel arenas put the duelists above the action, looking down on the world. This put them in the middle of the action, letting even average sized monsters tower above them in their holographic form.
"Amazing," Joey breathed. "Your engineers do good work."
"They'd better, for what I pay them," Kaiba retorted, drawing his own cards and taking his turn.
Because Joey's taking the duel calmly, he knows better than to just throw monster after monster at Seto. Maybe if he'd let himself go into this duel angry, he might've forgotten everything Gramps and Yugi taught him about strategy - everything Seto had tried to teach an angry young Joey about chess strategies that had gone over his head as a kid - but he'd cooled down on the walk and while taunting Seto, goading him into this duel.
So he strategized. He even managed to whittle Kaiba down to eight hundred life points before the last of his own went down the drain. Joey knows he played his best and he did incredibly well for playing against a champion of Seto Kaiba's caliber.
"Not bad, Joey," Seto allowed as the holograms dissipated, leaving the two duelists a bit dazed from the loss of the light. "For an amateur."
"Thanks," Joey replied dryly. "And it's 'gifted' amateur, thank you very much." And then he jumped, startled by the sounds of Bakura, Tea, and Tristan calling out reassuringly that he'd done well.
He hadn't noticed them walk up to join them, but no doubt Yugi had kept everyone quiet during the duel itself. There was a proud smile on his brother's face when Joey glanced over. And, unlike the others, Yugi knew about Joey's history with Seto Kaiba. So he'd have known that something more important than a duel test-running Kaiba's duel disk system was going on.
Even if Seto Kaiba himself didn't realize it, this had been a sort of closure Joey had needed for a long while.
So he took off the duel disk and retrieved his deck from the return slot, checking to make sure all his discarded cards had been returned from the graveyard. Then he handed it back off to Kaiba.
And, on a whim, Joey held out the old lucky charm card too. It was a mirror force card. Pretty generic as far as trap cards went, but useful nonetheless. Seto had joked about Joey needing to learn to tone down his temper and let insults wash off him, returning with a salvo that would devastate his opponent instead of himself.
Well, Joey was still learning. But he wasn't doing so bad these days.
"You may not believe in the whole heart of the cards thing, but maybe you do need a reminder that you're not alone in this. And that if the opportunity arises, I'll be trying to help Mokuba too. And so will the rest of my friends."
Seto, hesitantly, accepted the card again. This time, tucking it away in his jacket instead of ridiculing it.
"Whatever," Seto muttered petulantly.
"I expect that back later. When you've got Mokuba free from Pegasus, safe and sound."
"Like I'd want to keep something so useless on hand anyway," Kaiba retorted. But he'd already accepted the magic card, so it clearly still meant something to him too.
The Seto Kaiba that Joey used to know had smiled more and been kinder. Less self centered. And, perhaps, he hadn't been entirely destroyed by whatever his adoptive father had put him through after all.
Maybe one day down the road, when Kaiba was ready to talk and Joey was ready to listen, they could have a few much needed conversations about the past. And talk about being friends again in the future.
Well, a guy could hope anyway. And certainly Seto could do with a few friends to keep him a little more grounded in reality.
It isn't exactly difficult for Joey to sneak around the castle after Seto's defeat at Pegasus' hands. Seto's soul might currently be AWOL, but knowing where the teen's body was could be an advantage.
That was probably then when Bandit Keith sneaked into Joey's room to steal the card that'd make him eligible to compete in the finals, or at least that's what Joey later assumed. But Joey couldn't regret his little jaunt around the castle, locating the room where Seto's body was stashed. Sitting too still and too patiently for orders to follow. (Besides, Mai gave him her card after she lost her duel to Yugi, so it all worked out in the end.)
With no will within to command him, Seto waited for someone to tell him what to do.
So, once the guards were away, Joey stepped into the room and, hesitatingly, ordered Seto to follow him.
Tristan, Bakura, and Tea had been given their own rooms, so there was no one to think Joey was a weirdo for having Seto sitting on his couch, staring blankly at the wall and chairs across from him.
And then Joey went to sleep. He needed to be fresh for the duels in the morning and having at least one of the Kaiba brother's in a relatively safe place had to be good enough for now.
In the morning, of course, Seto's still staring at the wall. He hadn't moved an inch in the night and he didn't sleep either.
"You look like you need to sleep," Joey said.
Seto kept staring ahead.
"Right," Joey muttered. "Not a command. So creepy. Okay, let's try this. Go to the bed, take off your shoes and coat, get under the covers, and go to sleep."
Without a word, Seto went to do just that.
"Just so creepy," Joey muttered. And then he headed out of the room.
The only reason Joey stuck with Tea and Bakura in the balcony was because he knew Tristan had really sneaked off to look for Mokuba himself. And if there was anyone Joey trusted to sneak around a castle and not get lost, it was Tristan.
He'd have preferred someone went with Tristan, but one person could sneak around alone more safely than two. Though he'd still been relieved when Bakura went to find Tristan… until Tristan came back carrying both Mokuba and Bakura.
Whatever was up with those Millennium Items was certainly concerning. At least the spirit in Yugi's Millennium Puzzle was friendly instead of evil like the Ring's.
But it all turned out for the best in the end. Pegasus upheld the terms of his duel with Yugi, freeing not only their Grandpa, but Seto and Mokuba's souls too.
It was nice to see the brothers reunited, even from a distance. But Joey figured that was the end of it. He probably wouldn't see Mokuba again, unless things changed between himself and Seto. Which wasn't likely.
So he was a little surprised when Seto looked over at him and then said something to Mokuba. There was some more back and forth between the brothers and then… Mokuba was running over to Joey.
"You're really Joey Wheeler? Our friend from the orphanage?" Mokuba demanded.
"Well, it's Mutou now," Joey said, ignoring the way Tristan was sputtering beside him, "but yeah. I think Seto's still got that card you gave me when you two were adopted. I loaned it to him for good luck."
Seto was walking up more sedate pace. He pulled out the battered card and handed it back to Joey without a word.
"Why didn't you say anything before?" Mokuba asked. "I've missed you so much, but by the time Seto took over Kaiba Corp, you were gone from the orphanage."
"You two looked for me?" Joey felt surprised… and pleased. He hadn't expected that.
"Just wanted to make sure you weren't still stuck in that hell hole," Seto muttered absently, pointedly avoiding looking in Joey's actual direction.
"Well maybe I'll tell you what happened sometime," Joey offered with a grin. "And I didn't say anything because you didn't recognize me. Neither of you did. Last thing I wanted was you two to think I was only speaking up looking for a hand out or whatever."
"I'd never think that," Mokuba insisted loyally. "That's not your style."
"If Mokuba were to want to spend time at the little game shop your grandfather runs…" Seto trailed off, glancing between Joey and Yugi.
"He'll be welcome," Yugi promised.
"You, not so much. Pretty sure Gramps'll kick you out on sight," Joey drawled, a little too amused by the tell tale signs of Seto pouting at that response. No doubt Mokuba was the only other person who'd be able to tell, but Joey remembered how expressive Seto used to be and there were still echoes of that in the person Seto'd become.
"It'd be amusing to see him try," Seto retorted. Then, "I've got a helicopter inbound from Domino. If you're all still here when we're ready to take off, there should be just enough room for the five of you to join us. Otherwise, I suppose you'll have to hope Pegasus will provide you with transport."
Then, turning on his heels and his coat billowing dramatically behind him, Seto stalked off.
Mokuba hugged Joey which was just… he'd missed this kid. Not his little brother, but they'd been close nonetheless. "I'm gonna visit," Mokuba promised. "I want to hear all about what happened after Seto and I left the orphanage."
"You got, Mokie," Joey promised.
And then Mokuba was racing after his brother, like always. "Wait up, Seto!"
There was a moment of silence and then, surprisingly, it was Bakura who asked, "when, exactly, were you friends with those two?"
"That's what I want to know!" Tristan chimed in.
"Mokuba mentioned an orphanage," Tea added. "Did he mean the one where you met Yugi? Did you know them then too, Yugi?"
"No, I was only there a few days and it was long after those two had already left," Yugi spoke up.
Joey huffed a sigh and began to tell his friends about what happened after his dad died. And the rather eventful year that followed.