Aria: Holy shnyckies. That's a lot of reviews for one chapter. Hey, Bakura! They like me!
Bakura: You know, "denial" ain't just a river in Egypt. And HOW many times have I told you not to hug me?!?
Aria: But...you're fluffy.
Bakura: You DIDN'T just say that.
Aria: Of course not. Besides, you're just pissed off that I haven't written about you yet.
Bakura: *pales*
Aria: Bwhahaha. Um, so, to my reviewers:
Animom: I know...I try so hard to avoid clichŽ and then I fall for one of the most obvious ones out there...but it seemed to fit at the time. I might take it out when I go back and edit...but I'm not sure yet. Thanks for the DVD advice, too. And, no, it isn't the Worst Case Scenario Handbook. Good guess, though.
Kinsako: Here! Enjoy!
Dillon: Hey, no problem. Good to see you around at the Lair, too. Good vibes headed your way. Glad you liked the shower scene---I wasn't sure I could write that without going limey, but I wasn't sure I really wanted to go there. Thanks!
Angel and Tala: Thanks for the...umm...support. *grins* Good to see you're on my side. Hope you like the update.
Chys: Your wish is my command. Thanks for the double review (here and at the Lair)
Lady Jane: Thank you and thank you. I take "lovely" and "unique" as two very high compliments. Anyway, I'm glad you've found it, and I hope you keep reading!
Kimi no vanilla: Ah, excellent. Glad you liked the kiss...it always is sort of a problem, getting that first kiss in there. It almost always seems way too abrupt or forced...I must have rewritten that scene ten times. Thanks!
Sakata Ri Houjun: The reason I use the dub names is because when I started writing this, I only saw the dubs. Since then, I've gotten some DVDs and I love hearing the original Japanese...and even though I now think of, for example, Joey as Jou, I still think "Tristan" and "Tea". *shrugs* So we'll see.
Vappa: No problem! You've reviewed now, and I appreciate it. I'm glad you like my style and the kiss...hope you like this chapter too!
Shousetsuka1: Thanks. Here, have some more!
Hyakuhei: Heehee. Yay for nasty cliffhangers. I admit, those seem to be occurring a lot with my stories of late...
Callisto Firestarter: Good guess, but no. Now come back to life, so you can read this next chapter!
Kagemihari: Yay! Thanks for the great review!
Lethe Seraph: Hahaha! I'm psyched you like my story so much. I was so excited when I finally got a point where I could get them to kiss! I was really grinning like an idiot for an hour afterward. Very silly. Anyway, this chapter opens with Kaiba's reaction, so...
Yami Hoshiko: You're right, I DO work hard on this, but I'm still flabbergasted whenever I get any notice, especially to the extent that this story has gotten. And yes...THEY KISSED! Believe me, I was just as surprised as you.
GreenLeaf33: Thanks for the great review and the shout-out in the LJ community. I love the icon!
Aria: As an aside, I would like to dedicate this chapter to Dillon, who has had a rough patch (involving apple jelly) and is really one of the coolest people I have never actually met, and to Animom, for all your help with both DVD and writing advice and the fantastic support I get from both of you. Hope you like it!
Also, I'm offering up, as a prize, to the first person to correctly guess the title of the book, a one-shot of the pairing of your choice. Here's a clue: the book is SCIFI/FANTASY, and it's written by one of the people who co-wrote "Good Omens". Good luck!
Onward!
Disclaimer: If I owned YGO, I wouldn't be a poor college student. And yet here I am, in my dorm room. Funny how that works.
RESCUE
Chapter 7: Control
His mind went white.
The smallest things were making a huge impression on him---the way the cloth of his robe lay loosely against his skin, the way his breath and pulse echoed under the buzz of silence in his ears, the way Joey's mouth lay---moved---against his. So gently.
Like sunlight.
Like water.
Did he close his eyes? Did it matter? His mind was still spinning from exhaustion and still weak from the effects of nearly freezing and then being revived by his worst enemy who was now kissing him.
Oh God, his mind whispered, but softly, because this was new, this was different, he hated it, he longed, suddenly, desperately, for more, recognizing slowly the shivers of heat that flicked across his skin, the waves of warmth that moved against him the way Joey's mouth moved against him and then there was a hesitation, a moment of warm breath that smelled---tasted---like apples and then the pressure was gone, the warmth fled and Joey pulled back, opened his eyes---he closed his eyes, Kaiba caught himself thinking, feeling a sharp thrill---and looked up.
I'm falling, he thought, as he felt the wind from his dream circle his ankles, his wrists, his body, cold and teasing and seductive. He saw a flash of heat in the honey-clear eyes, and panicked, felt fear sprint exquisitely up his nerves, and stood suddenly, practically tossing Joey out of his way in his haste to be up and out and away.
He suddenly longed to be in his dream, to fall out into the cold wind that tore at him.
"Kaiba..." Joey's eyes were hard, dark, flickering with captive heat. He stood, straightened, brushed his shaggy blond hair out of his eyes.
They looked at each other, for an instant that was really forever, and Kaiba thought he saw two Joeys, one that stood across from him with an eyebrow lifted rebelliously, arms crossed over his narrow chest, and then one who pushed over to him and ran long fingers over the sensitive skin of his neck and jaw line, gripped the back of his neck and pulled his head down, hard, laid his mouth on Kaiba's again. He could feel that heated kiss, tasted apples. He could feel that Joey's mouth against his, could feel a hand trailing, slowly, down the skin laid bare and inviting by his open robe. He could feel the heat of that Joey reverberating through his body, and realized uneasily that he almost wanted it. Did want it.
Wanted it. Wanted Joey.
But then there was that other Joey, and the other Joey acted out the other path, split the two futures in one movement and then brought them back together so that Kaiba's double-sight was gone and he could see clearly as Joey turned, walked out the door and down the hallway, one hand in his pocket.
The world swirled.
* * *
Outside, safe in the hall, Joey leaned against the wall, taking deep breaths and trying to get his hammering pulse back to a normal speed and pressure. The blood was cycling through his body at an alarming rate, making him light-headed, making the solid world around him spin annoyingly. How could he focus on what just happened when the floor was tipping up and down?
He heard a rustle from the room down the hall, and shot from his leaning position, shoved one hand in his pocket and another into the dark gold mass of his hair, taking refuge in his usual habits, as his pulse abruptly soared. He sent a quick prayer to the impassive ceiling that Kaiba wouldn't come out into the hallway, and waited for a tense second as he tried to think of ways to not LOOK tense, or at all as if anything out of the ordinary had happened.
'So, how you feeling, Kaiba? Warmer? 'Coz you look pretty hot...' He pictured it, and winced, grinning a little foolishly to himself. Another thought edged its way in, and he grinned to picture it: 'Hey Kaiba, you've got some soup on your lip. Let me get that for you...'
He flushed a little, looking quickly at the door but Kaiba didn't come out and he turned, a small weight lifted, throwing the ceiling a "hey, thanks" look and conspiratorial wink.
He hoped his mind would take a little while to catch up---he didn't think too much of the self-explanation, self-analysis, self-psychotherapy idea, but knew it well all the same---and waited fatalistically for his mind to start screeching.
After all, he HAD kissed the guy.
A guy.
He shrugged a little, and sighed a little, and kept walking. Not like it was that huge a deal---he had kissed and been kissed by plenty of people and come to the conclusion that it really didn't matter what sex they were as long as there was some kind of chemistry. Not that he ran around shouting this to the skies---he didn't DO labels---but there it was. And---he paused for a second, frowning.
That had been some pretty intense chemistry.
A shadow stirred in his mind, a little voice snickered.
So it wasn't so much that he had kissed a guy, as much as it was he had kissed Kaiba---and Kaiba had kissed him back. Kind of. In a shell-shocked, holy-shit kind of way.
He grinned a little, and went to watch Mokuba beat Tristan at some more video games.
* * *
Kaiba stood in his room, waiting for his body to catch up with his mind and start moving---although, to be perfectly honest, he argued with himself, it wasn't as though he particularly longed to act on the impulses his traitorous mind was sending his equally traitorous and extremely, annoyingly compliant body.
So he waited for control, until he had his inner rebellions quashed and had blocked all confusions from his mind.
Until that last taste of apple was gone from his mouth.
If he'd been able to see himself, however, he would have despaired of ever regaining even a modicum of control, since the shell-shocked look on his face and rigid body gave away far more than he realized. In his mind, he was regaining utmost control, cooling those flushes of passion and reactions with perfected walls and locks, while his visceral self---the self that was shocked and pleased and had kissed Joey back---harbored itself quietly away in his body and his muscle memory, in the slowly slowing pulse and the deeper, more regular breaths, awaiting a more opportune time to sneak unsuspected images and ideas across Kaiba's mind. It was this visceral, intuitive self that reluctantly gave back control of his body, retreating as he paced across the room, still fighting down the feeling of Joey's mouth on his, ignoring the ensuing shivers and pulling on clothes with a vengeance that the unoffending pieces of material hardly deserved. Moving back to the bed, he glared at the rumpled sheets and comforter, as though they has imbibed some essence of the weakness he had shown, as though they represented, somehow, the comfortable rough warmth of Joey. Not to mention this unfamiliar chaotic frame of mind.
His hand rested lightly on the laptop, and he hesitated for a moment before picking it up and packing it away in its carry-case. That done, he stood in the middle of the room for a second, contemplating his next course of action. Already his mind was beginning to click back into its accustomed, efficient cycles, effectively banishing outside stimulus and circling in on itself, empty of emotion and passions.
Empty.
He turned swiftly and left the room.
His mind was already ticking over things he needed to deal with---an entire day of work had been lost, and with yesterday's fiasco he could hardly afford that. Time-tables rushed through levels of his brain, adapting and edited as he prioritized, barely noticing as he threw on his customary blue coat, feeling the weight of it settle around him comfortably, not noticing at all as Mokuba padded into the hallway, followed by shouts of laughter an open doorway further down the hall.
"Where are you going, Seto?"
He could feel his back stiffening, felt his body fall into its usual passive-aggressive pose, his back straightening, his shoulders back and his arms by his sides, one hand tucked into a pocket and the other grasping the silver handle of his briefcase. He flicked out his keys.
"Out." He didn't look up.
"Out?" Mokuba was incredulous. "Seto, come on, you're supposed to get rest, work can wait---"
He turned now, and looked at his little brother. Something deep in him tried to move, but he quashed it, turned a cool gaze on the smaller figure. "I'll be back later," he said. "Don't wait up."
"But---"
"Don't argue with me, Mokuba. And get those two clowns out of the house. I don't want them here when I get back."
Crest-fallen, Mokuba nodded. "Alright, Seto. But when---"
"Later." His voice still rasped. Anger suddenly flared, and he turned abruptly, trying to ignore the look in Mokuba's eyes.
He had more important things to worry about.
* * *
"Oh come on, come on, come---no! Not again! Dammit, Tristan, if I didn't know you're a pillar of morality, I'd swear you'd been cheating."
Tristan laughed, and flopped back into the squashy black leather of the couch. "Aw, Joey," he said. "I never knew you cared."
"Like hell I do, you cone-headed freak. Hey, where'd Mokuba go? He needs to come back in here and school your scrawny butt. Get your head back down to normal size." Joey laughed as Tristan flung himself over and began pummeling him good-naturedly.
"The only schooling going on here is what I'm going to do to you. Lost your touch, have we? I thought video games were your area of expertise, Joey. You're just jealous that my innate talent has surpassed your lucky streak."
"Whatever," Joey said, blocking the flailing arms and laughing. "It's just that you've been spending so much time in your own little fantasy world that a virtual existence is practically your natural habitat now."
Tristan snorted. "MY fantasy world?"
"You know, the one where Serenity actually likes you."
Between laughing so hard he could barely breathe and tumbling with Tristan, half on, half off the couch, he didn't really notice when Mokuba came in. Especially since the kid was unnaturally quiet.
It wasn't until he'd pinned Tristan that he finally looked up, and seen the kid sitting at the end of the corner, a small smile at one corner of his mouth.
"Oh, hey Mokuba," he said, grinning. "We were just talking about you. I think Tristan needs another butt-kicking to burst this bubble he's living in---whoa!" He yelped in surprise as Tristan threw him off and pinned him against the couch, leaning heavily back into him. "Tristan," he gasped. "Can't...breathe..."
His friend settled against him a little more solidly and winked at Mokuba. "Upstart, this one," he said, nodding back to Joey, who was gasping theatrically, pinned between Tristan's broad back and the unmoving couch. "Has no respect for his betters."
"Hah!" Joey managed to wheeze out. He felt as though his bones were rearranging themselves. Much as he wanted to "rearrange" Tristan. "The only thing better about you is the quality of hair gel you use. Seriously, man, you use super glue to get that to stay?"
"Ah, Joey," Tristan intoned in a deep, fatherly voice. "You have much to learn, my son."
"Yeah," said Joey. "Like how I'm your son even though you ain't even a year older than me."
Tristan grimaced.
"So, Mokuba," Joey wheezed, sending the boy a pained smile, "will you teach this punk a lesson and get him offa me, please?"
Tristan shook his head slowly. "Shameless, Joey, shameless." But he got off, and Joey sat against the couch for a moment, wheezing dramatically. Mokuba smiled slightly, and he realized something was wrong. Usually the kid would have joined right in, being, predictably, less repressed than his icy older brother.
Not that that was a surprise, Joey mused. Third-world nations were less repressed than Seto Kaiba. Monks were less repressed. He could go on and on, but the fun would have to wait. Wincing, he got up and deposited himself next to the kid, watching Tristan set up the game system.
"So," he said conversationally. "How's he doing?"
"Gotta be better than you," Tristan threw over his shoulder.
"Sorry, Mokuba, but I'm about to be rude," Joey said, covering the boy's eyes with one hand and flipping Tristan off with the other, getting a grin from both. He settled a little more comfortably into the squashy leather of the couch, closing his eyes halfway. God, he was tired.
"Oh, I don't know, Joey," Mokuba said, with just a hint of a sigh in his young voice. "The same as ever, I guess."
"That bad, huh?"
"Shuddup, Tristan," Joey said good-naturedly. "So, why you worried, then?"
Mokuba looked crestfallen. "You can tell?"
Joey reached over and ruffled the thick black hair. "I AM an older brother, Mokuba. You pick these things up. So, what's up?"
Mokuba shrugged, watching as Tristan began a game. "I don't know," he said. "It's just---he got in really late last night, and overslept this morning. You don't know how weird it was that I had to go wake HIM up."
"I can imagine," Joey said drily.
"And then he said he couldn't go to school because of work, and then I got home and he's..." He trailed off unhappily. Joey listened quietly, a strange ache gathering in his chest. So, he was right. There WAS something wrong. He just didn't know what.
"And then, the way he freaked about me checking up on work for him...he's never like that. He usually lets me in on everything, and if he's busy than he gets me to check it for him. And now he's gone off to the building and I just want him to stay here and get better!" It came out as a childish explosion, mildly surprising Joey, since Mokuba had always seemed pretty mature for his age. Pretty mature for Joey's age, too...although he usually attributed that particular fluke to his being less fundamentally screwed up than the older Kaiba.
Then his brain caught up.
"Wait," he said, half rising from his lounging position on the couch and staring at Mokuba. "He's not here? He left?!?"
Mokuba nodded. "Yeah."
He bit down on the stream of curses that threatened to flood out of his mouth, and willed himself to calm down.
"Of all the stupid things to do..." he muttered, restricting himself.
Mokuba shrugged. "It must be something to do with work," he said. "That's why he said he wasn't going to school today, anyway."
Surprisingly, it was Tristan who turned and answered, shutting off the game as he did so. "Actually," he said, "I was going to bring this up earlier, but it got pretty chaotic so I forgot about it for a bit. You know I went to KaibaCorp while you came here, right," Joey nodded, "So I had to go talk the receptionist into letting me in. She said Kaiba wasn't there, but she was pretty helpful once I told her we thought something was wrong, and said something weird had been going on yesterday---he'd had her call the entire board and the company lawyers together, and they'd all been locked in a meeting for hours, she said. But she wouldn't let me through, no matter HOW shamelessly I flirted." He winked at Joey.
"Anyway, she got distracted with a bunch of class at one point, so I, ah, slipped on by, and found a computer to check thing out on. Turns out there was an attempted coup yesterday---some poor slob from publicity tried to betray KaibaCorp to this other, smaller company. Diamente, I think it was called. So, anyway, Kaiba calls this emergency meeting yesterday, and around 11 or so they released a statement stating what had happened, and that they'd found the guy who did it, and that he be, ah, 'reprimanded'.
"Trouble is, this morning that same guy was checked into the hospital for severe cuts, all over himself. It looked like a suicide attempt. So they check it out, and they find out the guy's been blacklisted---so he's not just not working at KaibaCorp anymore, but he's not working at any entertainment corporations, period."
Joey started, his jaw loose. Was he serious?
"But that was this morning," Tristan said. "It turns out, this afternoon they got a call from his usual doctor, who said the guy was prone to panic attacks and was on medication---so they did a check and it turned out he hadn't been taking his meds for about a week, maybe more. And then they checked with the hospital, which told them that at first glance it looked suicidal, but that the guy---Daniels, I think---has old scars all over his arms and legs. Used to cut himself, and he'd gotten drunk when he found out about the blacklist, hadn't taken his meds, had a panic attack and went back to his old ways. At least, that seems to be pretty much the case," he said, shifting slightly.
Mokuba was staring, his mouth working slightly, his eyes wide pools of horror.
"No wonder Kaiba's freakin' out," Joey mused. It all made a kind of sense, in a twisted, sick and disturbed kind of way. "So when he left school yesterday, it must have been to set up that emergency meeting. And then, today, he found out about Daniels and flipped...wow." He ran a hand absent-mindedly through his hair, wondering at the strange turn of events...and at finding himself with the unexpected experience of pitying Seto Kaiba.
But all thoughts of sympathy for the elder Kaiba took backseat once he took a look at Mokuba. Tears were swelling in the clear gray eyes, although Mokuba's face had the tight, pinched look of someone trying not to cry. "Hey," Joey said uneasily. "Hey, Mokuba, it's okay. It'll be fine. Your brother can definitely take care of himself."
Now the eyes were turned on him, and Joey's heart twisted to see the unhappiness there. "I thought that," Mokuba said. "But if he can take care of himself so well, how come he needed so much help today? Seto would never put himself into that kind of risk...so why now?"
Joey shook his head, at a complete loss. "I don't know, Mokuba, but I'm willing to help if you want me to."
The kid brightened immediately. "Would you?"
"Absolutely," Joey said, giving him a wink.
"Then you wouldn't mind going over to make sure he's okay?" Mokuba pressed, looking warily at Joey, who laughed.
"I guess not...but right now?"
"Yes!"
He grinned. "Alright, then. But listen, you'd better stay here, with Tristan." The other boy nodded, and patted a seat beside him. "He'll keep you entertained while I go sort this out."
He swung his worn, comfortable jacket over him, and turned to go out the door. "You two be good, okay?"
"We will be," Mokuba said, grinning. "And Joey...thanks."
He softened a little. "No problem, Mokuba."
A minute later he shouldered his way out the door, silently cursing the cold-hearted bastard, for making Mokuba worry.
For making him worry.
* * *
The building was cool, thrumming with the busy silence of sleeping machines. His footsteps fell thinly on the tiles as he pushed through the familiar glass doors to the main lobby and through to the elevators until he was cocooned in a cylinder of steel and glass, rising swiftly to the top of the glittering tower.
His heart rate had returned to its normal, slow pound while he'd been thinking, his mind attaining that perfect level of cool, rational analysis necessary to the company's survival.
To his survival.
After all, he mused, watching as the bright points of light that were the city in the dark fell beneath him, this is how I am. To trust yourself and only yourself is the best way to live, to work, to be. He didn't have time to ask others for the opinions, couldn't depend on anyone other than himself not to mess things up. After all, hadn't he been, once again, the one to take charge yesterday? The one who single-handedly pulled the company out of ruin? Hadn't he always taken care of Mokuba by himself
So why had it suddenly become too much for him?
He watched the dropping lights impassively, skipping deliberately over these useless reflections. Useless they were, indeed. He had no time to question his own resources, could only continue as he knew how. Cool, efficient.
Alone.
The light at the top of the elevator flashed, once, and he gripped his briefcase with one hand while the doors slid smoothly open, walking into the glass-walled office where he worked his days and nights and life away, moving to the large, glossy desk and placing the briefcase on it.
But then he did something unknowingly strange.
Instead of seating himself at the desk, taking out his laptop and files and folders and papers, he walked past the desk, trailing his fingers gently along the polished wood, leaving a streak of misted over gloss, and moved to stand before one of the large windows, looking out through and past his own reflection to the brilliant points of light beneath and around him. He could see the ghostly version of himself in the glass, and thought abruptly that this was the real version of Seto Kaiba, trapped here, a ghost of himself in cold, silent, transparent glass.
So he stood for a long time.
When he moved next, it seemed dreamlike, his fingers moving softly over the glass, his eyes slightly unfocused as he placed one hand flat against the glass, feeling the hum of the wind outside and the heat from his palm being sucked out into the dark.
Like his dream.
He thought, then, of cold, tempting winds, of the freedom and the solitude and the cold comfort they offered---closed his eyes and thought of falling down into the dark, into the swirling dark of a cold wind, away from a sudden vision of Owen Daniels sitting in a room alone, drawing a knife slowly over his arms, watching the sinuous path of blood appearing silently; away from the bitter cold and helplessness of freezing slowly in the clear comfort of water; away from the shivers and insecurities and waves of undefinable sensations that flooded him whenever he was in contact with Joey.
Contact.
He craved it, suddenly, viciously, longed for it---a terrible, exquisite torture that snapped through him like a blade, like a needle, coppery and sweet and utterly terrible. He flung himself suddenly against the glass, against the ghost of himself that he saw there, flung himself into the solid, unyielding glass and it hurt, but he still pressed himself into it, his eyes closed now and his breath sobbing in his throat as he fell into a vision of warm autumn sunlight flooding over dappled water, through flaming fall-changed leaves, warming apples that fell with soft thuds in an orchard, that tasted sweet and crisp and warm, that he had tasted on Joey's lips, on Joey's breath---all these things were somehow represented by Joey---his warmth, his life, his laughter and glowing golden-brown, autumn-gold eyes---and he closed his eyes tighter, wishing they would go away, longing, desperately, for them to become real, pushing against the glass as if it were his prison, as if he were no longer himself but the reflection he saw so clearly now in the window, caught and unable to move, to change, to exist outside himself.
"Out."
His voice was rough and quiet and ragged with stress.
"Let me out."
His hand slid down the cold glass, found the handle to the window.
"Let me out!"
The window flung open and he was immediately engulfed in a wild, streaming wind, looking out, as the wind sent cold fingers teasing through the room.
He stared down into the darkness.
The wind whipped around him, dragging at his arms, his legs like a lover, teasing at his coat, pulling at his clothes. How easy to just fall, to let go into the loving cold wind, out and away and down and out and down...
He leaned forward, his eyes closed. How easy, letting go.
Except it wasn't easy anymore, there was something holding him back, there was something linked around his waist, holding him back and safe and warm and wanted. He looked down in astonishment at the arms that wrapped solidly around his waist, but his gaze was caught by a wisp of wheat-sun-autumn gold that flicked by his eye.
He smelled apples.
* * *
Aria: Sorry it took so long to get this chapter up, but it was the hardest so far to write. I wanted to put in more of the character's reactions to things, as well as to introduce outside elements to Joey and Seto's sudden dilemma...The Joey/Tristan thing was fairly spur-of-the-moment, and I have to wonder if Tristan, as I've written him, has a crush on Joey? Hmm. What do you think? Just a thought. Anyway, please review, as they make my dreary stressful college life much happier, and keep me writing!
Bakura: You know, "denial" ain't just a river in Egypt. And HOW many times have I told you not to hug me?!?
Aria: But...you're fluffy.
Bakura: You DIDN'T just say that.
Aria: Of course not. Besides, you're just pissed off that I haven't written about you yet.
Bakura: *pales*
Aria: Bwhahaha. Um, so, to my reviewers:
Animom: I know...I try so hard to avoid clichŽ and then I fall for one of the most obvious ones out there...but it seemed to fit at the time. I might take it out when I go back and edit...but I'm not sure yet. Thanks for the DVD advice, too. And, no, it isn't the Worst Case Scenario Handbook. Good guess, though.
Kinsako: Here! Enjoy!
Dillon: Hey, no problem. Good to see you around at the Lair, too. Good vibes headed your way. Glad you liked the shower scene---I wasn't sure I could write that without going limey, but I wasn't sure I really wanted to go there. Thanks!
Angel and Tala: Thanks for the...umm...support. *grins* Good to see you're on my side. Hope you like the update.
Chys: Your wish is my command. Thanks for the double review (here and at the Lair)
Lady Jane: Thank you and thank you. I take "lovely" and "unique" as two very high compliments. Anyway, I'm glad you've found it, and I hope you keep reading!
Kimi no vanilla: Ah, excellent. Glad you liked the kiss...it always is sort of a problem, getting that first kiss in there. It almost always seems way too abrupt or forced...I must have rewritten that scene ten times. Thanks!
Sakata Ri Houjun: The reason I use the dub names is because when I started writing this, I only saw the dubs. Since then, I've gotten some DVDs and I love hearing the original Japanese...and even though I now think of, for example, Joey as Jou, I still think "Tristan" and "Tea". *shrugs* So we'll see.
Vappa: No problem! You've reviewed now, and I appreciate it. I'm glad you like my style and the kiss...hope you like this chapter too!
Shousetsuka1: Thanks. Here, have some more!
Hyakuhei: Heehee. Yay for nasty cliffhangers. I admit, those seem to be occurring a lot with my stories of late...
Callisto Firestarter: Good guess, but no. Now come back to life, so you can read this next chapter!
Kagemihari: Yay! Thanks for the great review!
Lethe Seraph: Hahaha! I'm psyched you like my story so much. I was so excited when I finally got a point where I could get them to kiss! I was really grinning like an idiot for an hour afterward. Very silly. Anyway, this chapter opens with Kaiba's reaction, so...
Yami Hoshiko: You're right, I DO work hard on this, but I'm still flabbergasted whenever I get any notice, especially to the extent that this story has gotten. And yes...THEY KISSED! Believe me, I was just as surprised as you.
GreenLeaf33: Thanks for the great review and the shout-out in the LJ community. I love the icon!
Aria: As an aside, I would like to dedicate this chapter to Dillon, who has had a rough patch (involving apple jelly) and is really one of the coolest people I have never actually met, and to Animom, for all your help with both DVD and writing advice and the fantastic support I get from both of you. Hope you like it!
Also, I'm offering up, as a prize, to the first person to correctly guess the title of the book, a one-shot of the pairing of your choice. Here's a clue: the book is SCIFI/FANTASY, and it's written by one of the people who co-wrote "Good Omens". Good luck!
Onward!
Disclaimer: If I owned YGO, I wouldn't be a poor college student. And yet here I am, in my dorm room. Funny how that works.
RESCUE
Chapter 7: Control
His mind went white.
The smallest things were making a huge impression on him---the way the cloth of his robe lay loosely against his skin, the way his breath and pulse echoed under the buzz of silence in his ears, the way Joey's mouth lay---moved---against his. So gently.
Like sunlight.
Like water.
Did he close his eyes? Did it matter? His mind was still spinning from exhaustion and still weak from the effects of nearly freezing and then being revived by his worst enemy who was now kissing him.
Oh God, his mind whispered, but softly, because this was new, this was different, he hated it, he longed, suddenly, desperately, for more, recognizing slowly the shivers of heat that flicked across his skin, the waves of warmth that moved against him the way Joey's mouth moved against him and then there was a hesitation, a moment of warm breath that smelled---tasted---like apples and then the pressure was gone, the warmth fled and Joey pulled back, opened his eyes---he closed his eyes, Kaiba caught himself thinking, feeling a sharp thrill---and looked up.
I'm falling, he thought, as he felt the wind from his dream circle his ankles, his wrists, his body, cold and teasing and seductive. He saw a flash of heat in the honey-clear eyes, and panicked, felt fear sprint exquisitely up his nerves, and stood suddenly, practically tossing Joey out of his way in his haste to be up and out and away.
He suddenly longed to be in his dream, to fall out into the cold wind that tore at him.
"Kaiba..." Joey's eyes were hard, dark, flickering with captive heat. He stood, straightened, brushed his shaggy blond hair out of his eyes.
They looked at each other, for an instant that was really forever, and Kaiba thought he saw two Joeys, one that stood across from him with an eyebrow lifted rebelliously, arms crossed over his narrow chest, and then one who pushed over to him and ran long fingers over the sensitive skin of his neck and jaw line, gripped the back of his neck and pulled his head down, hard, laid his mouth on Kaiba's again. He could feel that heated kiss, tasted apples. He could feel that Joey's mouth against his, could feel a hand trailing, slowly, down the skin laid bare and inviting by his open robe. He could feel the heat of that Joey reverberating through his body, and realized uneasily that he almost wanted it. Did want it.
Wanted it. Wanted Joey.
But then there was that other Joey, and the other Joey acted out the other path, split the two futures in one movement and then brought them back together so that Kaiba's double-sight was gone and he could see clearly as Joey turned, walked out the door and down the hallway, one hand in his pocket.
The world swirled.
* * *
Outside, safe in the hall, Joey leaned against the wall, taking deep breaths and trying to get his hammering pulse back to a normal speed and pressure. The blood was cycling through his body at an alarming rate, making him light-headed, making the solid world around him spin annoyingly. How could he focus on what just happened when the floor was tipping up and down?
He heard a rustle from the room down the hall, and shot from his leaning position, shoved one hand in his pocket and another into the dark gold mass of his hair, taking refuge in his usual habits, as his pulse abruptly soared. He sent a quick prayer to the impassive ceiling that Kaiba wouldn't come out into the hallway, and waited for a tense second as he tried to think of ways to not LOOK tense, or at all as if anything out of the ordinary had happened.
'So, how you feeling, Kaiba? Warmer? 'Coz you look pretty hot...' He pictured it, and winced, grinning a little foolishly to himself. Another thought edged its way in, and he grinned to picture it: 'Hey Kaiba, you've got some soup on your lip. Let me get that for you...'
He flushed a little, looking quickly at the door but Kaiba didn't come out and he turned, a small weight lifted, throwing the ceiling a "hey, thanks" look and conspiratorial wink.
He hoped his mind would take a little while to catch up---he didn't think too much of the self-explanation, self-analysis, self-psychotherapy idea, but knew it well all the same---and waited fatalistically for his mind to start screeching.
After all, he HAD kissed the guy.
A guy.
He shrugged a little, and sighed a little, and kept walking. Not like it was that huge a deal---he had kissed and been kissed by plenty of people and come to the conclusion that it really didn't matter what sex they were as long as there was some kind of chemistry. Not that he ran around shouting this to the skies---he didn't DO labels---but there it was. And---he paused for a second, frowning.
That had been some pretty intense chemistry.
A shadow stirred in his mind, a little voice snickered.
So it wasn't so much that he had kissed a guy, as much as it was he had kissed Kaiba---and Kaiba had kissed him back. Kind of. In a shell-shocked, holy-shit kind of way.
He grinned a little, and went to watch Mokuba beat Tristan at some more video games.
* * *
Kaiba stood in his room, waiting for his body to catch up with his mind and start moving---although, to be perfectly honest, he argued with himself, it wasn't as though he particularly longed to act on the impulses his traitorous mind was sending his equally traitorous and extremely, annoyingly compliant body.
So he waited for control, until he had his inner rebellions quashed and had blocked all confusions from his mind.
Until that last taste of apple was gone from his mouth.
If he'd been able to see himself, however, he would have despaired of ever regaining even a modicum of control, since the shell-shocked look on his face and rigid body gave away far more than he realized. In his mind, he was regaining utmost control, cooling those flushes of passion and reactions with perfected walls and locks, while his visceral self---the self that was shocked and pleased and had kissed Joey back---harbored itself quietly away in his body and his muscle memory, in the slowly slowing pulse and the deeper, more regular breaths, awaiting a more opportune time to sneak unsuspected images and ideas across Kaiba's mind. It was this visceral, intuitive self that reluctantly gave back control of his body, retreating as he paced across the room, still fighting down the feeling of Joey's mouth on his, ignoring the ensuing shivers and pulling on clothes with a vengeance that the unoffending pieces of material hardly deserved. Moving back to the bed, he glared at the rumpled sheets and comforter, as though they has imbibed some essence of the weakness he had shown, as though they represented, somehow, the comfortable rough warmth of Joey. Not to mention this unfamiliar chaotic frame of mind.
His hand rested lightly on the laptop, and he hesitated for a moment before picking it up and packing it away in its carry-case. That done, he stood in the middle of the room for a second, contemplating his next course of action. Already his mind was beginning to click back into its accustomed, efficient cycles, effectively banishing outside stimulus and circling in on itself, empty of emotion and passions.
Empty.
He turned swiftly and left the room.
His mind was already ticking over things he needed to deal with---an entire day of work had been lost, and with yesterday's fiasco he could hardly afford that. Time-tables rushed through levels of his brain, adapting and edited as he prioritized, barely noticing as he threw on his customary blue coat, feeling the weight of it settle around him comfortably, not noticing at all as Mokuba padded into the hallway, followed by shouts of laughter an open doorway further down the hall.
"Where are you going, Seto?"
He could feel his back stiffening, felt his body fall into its usual passive-aggressive pose, his back straightening, his shoulders back and his arms by his sides, one hand tucked into a pocket and the other grasping the silver handle of his briefcase. He flicked out his keys.
"Out." He didn't look up.
"Out?" Mokuba was incredulous. "Seto, come on, you're supposed to get rest, work can wait---"
He turned now, and looked at his little brother. Something deep in him tried to move, but he quashed it, turned a cool gaze on the smaller figure. "I'll be back later," he said. "Don't wait up."
"But---"
"Don't argue with me, Mokuba. And get those two clowns out of the house. I don't want them here when I get back."
Crest-fallen, Mokuba nodded. "Alright, Seto. But when---"
"Later." His voice still rasped. Anger suddenly flared, and he turned abruptly, trying to ignore the look in Mokuba's eyes.
He had more important things to worry about.
* * *
"Oh come on, come on, come---no! Not again! Dammit, Tristan, if I didn't know you're a pillar of morality, I'd swear you'd been cheating."
Tristan laughed, and flopped back into the squashy black leather of the couch. "Aw, Joey," he said. "I never knew you cared."
"Like hell I do, you cone-headed freak. Hey, where'd Mokuba go? He needs to come back in here and school your scrawny butt. Get your head back down to normal size." Joey laughed as Tristan flung himself over and began pummeling him good-naturedly.
"The only schooling going on here is what I'm going to do to you. Lost your touch, have we? I thought video games were your area of expertise, Joey. You're just jealous that my innate talent has surpassed your lucky streak."
"Whatever," Joey said, blocking the flailing arms and laughing. "It's just that you've been spending so much time in your own little fantasy world that a virtual existence is practically your natural habitat now."
Tristan snorted. "MY fantasy world?"
"You know, the one where Serenity actually likes you."
Between laughing so hard he could barely breathe and tumbling with Tristan, half on, half off the couch, he didn't really notice when Mokuba came in. Especially since the kid was unnaturally quiet.
It wasn't until he'd pinned Tristan that he finally looked up, and seen the kid sitting at the end of the corner, a small smile at one corner of his mouth.
"Oh, hey Mokuba," he said, grinning. "We were just talking about you. I think Tristan needs another butt-kicking to burst this bubble he's living in---whoa!" He yelped in surprise as Tristan threw him off and pinned him against the couch, leaning heavily back into him. "Tristan," he gasped. "Can't...breathe..."
His friend settled against him a little more solidly and winked at Mokuba. "Upstart, this one," he said, nodding back to Joey, who was gasping theatrically, pinned between Tristan's broad back and the unmoving couch. "Has no respect for his betters."
"Hah!" Joey managed to wheeze out. He felt as though his bones were rearranging themselves. Much as he wanted to "rearrange" Tristan. "The only thing better about you is the quality of hair gel you use. Seriously, man, you use super glue to get that to stay?"
"Ah, Joey," Tristan intoned in a deep, fatherly voice. "You have much to learn, my son."
"Yeah," said Joey. "Like how I'm your son even though you ain't even a year older than me."
Tristan grimaced.
"So, Mokuba," Joey wheezed, sending the boy a pained smile, "will you teach this punk a lesson and get him offa me, please?"
Tristan shook his head slowly. "Shameless, Joey, shameless." But he got off, and Joey sat against the couch for a moment, wheezing dramatically. Mokuba smiled slightly, and he realized something was wrong. Usually the kid would have joined right in, being, predictably, less repressed than his icy older brother.
Not that that was a surprise, Joey mused. Third-world nations were less repressed than Seto Kaiba. Monks were less repressed. He could go on and on, but the fun would have to wait. Wincing, he got up and deposited himself next to the kid, watching Tristan set up the game system.
"So," he said conversationally. "How's he doing?"
"Gotta be better than you," Tristan threw over his shoulder.
"Sorry, Mokuba, but I'm about to be rude," Joey said, covering the boy's eyes with one hand and flipping Tristan off with the other, getting a grin from both. He settled a little more comfortably into the squashy leather of the couch, closing his eyes halfway. God, he was tired.
"Oh, I don't know, Joey," Mokuba said, with just a hint of a sigh in his young voice. "The same as ever, I guess."
"That bad, huh?"
"Shuddup, Tristan," Joey said good-naturedly. "So, why you worried, then?"
Mokuba looked crestfallen. "You can tell?"
Joey reached over and ruffled the thick black hair. "I AM an older brother, Mokuba. You pick these things up. So, what's up?"
Mokuba shrugged, watching as Tristan began a game. "I don't know," he said. "It's just---he got in really late last night, and overslept this morning. You don't know how weird it was that I had to go wake HIM up."
"I can imagine," Joey said drily.
"And then he said he couldn't go to school because of work, and then I got home and he's..." He trailed off unhappily. Joey listened quietly, a strange ache gathering in his chest. So, he was right. There WAS something wrong. He just didn't know what.
"And then, the way he freaked about me checking up on work for him...he's never like that. He usually lets me in on everything, and if he's busy than he gets me to check it for him. And now he's gone off to the building and I just want him to stay here and get better!" It came out as a childish explosion, mildly surprising Joey, since Mokuba had always seemed pretty mature for his age. Pretty mature for Joey's age, too...although he usually attributed that particular fluke to his being less fundamentally screwed up than the older Kaiba.
Then his brain caught up.
"Wait," he said, half rising from his lounging position on the couch and staring at Mokuba. "He's not here? He left?!?"
Mokuba nodded. "Yeah."
He bit down on the stream of curses that threatened to flood out of his mouth, and willed himself to calm down.
"Of all the stupid things to do..." he muttered, restricting himself.
Mokuba shrugged. "It must be something to do with work," he said. "That's why he said he wasn't going to school today, anyway."
Surprisingly, it was Tristan who turned and answered, shutting off the game as he did so. "Actually," he said, "I was going to bring this up earlier, but it got pretty chaotic so I forgot about it for a bit. You know I went to KaibaCorp while you came here, right," Joey nodded, "So I had to go talk the receptionist into letting me in. She said Kaiba wasn't there, but she was pretty helpful once I told her we thought something was wrong, and said something weird had been going on yesterday---he'd had her call the entire board and the company lawyers together, and they'd all been locked in a meeting for hours, she said. But she wouldn't let me through, no matter HOW shamelessly I flirted." He winked at Joey.
"Anyway, she got distracted with a bunch of class at one point, so I, ah, slipped on by, and found a computer to check thing out on. Turns out there was an attempted coup yesterday---some poor slob from publicity tried to betray KaibaCorp to this other, smaller company. Diamente, I think it was called. So, anyway, Kaiba calls this emergency meeting yesterday, and around 11 or so they released a statement stating what had happened, and that they'd found the guy who did it, and that he be, ah, 'reprimanded'.
"Trouble is, this morning that same guy was checked into the hospital for severe cuts, all over himself. It looked like a suicide attempt. So they check it out, and they find out the guy's been blacklisted---so he's not just not working at KaibaCorp anymore, but he's not working at any entertainment corporations, period."
Joey started, his jaw loose. Was he serious?
"But that was this morning," Tristan said. "It turns out, this afternoon they got a call from his usual doctor, who said the guy was prone to panic attacks and was on medication---so they did a check and it turned out he hadn't been taking his meds for about a week, maybe more. And then they checked with the hospital, which told them that at first glance it looked suicidal, but that the guy---Daniels, I think---has old scars all over his arms and legs. Used to cut himself, and he'd gotten drunk when he found out about the blacklist, hadn't taken his meds, had a panic attack and went back to his old ways. At least, that seems to be pretty much the case," he said, shifting slightly.
Mokuba was staring, his mouth working slightly, his eyes wide pools of horror.
"No wonder Kaiba's freakin' out," Joey mused. It all made a kind of sense, in a twisted, sick and disturbed kind of way. "So when he left school yesterday, it must have been to set up that emergency meeting. And then, today, he found out about Daniels and flipped...wow." He ran a hand absent-mindedly through his hair, wondering at the strange turn of events...and at finding himself with the unexpected experience of pitying Seto Kaiba.
But all thoughts of sympathy for the elder Kaiba took backseat once he took a look at Mokuba. Tears were swelling in the clear gray eyes, although Mokuba's face had the tight, pinched look of someone trying not to cry. "Hey," Joey said uneasily. "Hey, Mokuba, it's okay. It'll be fine. Your brother can definitely take care of himself."
Now the eyes were turned on him, and Joey's heart twisted to see the unhappiness there. "I thought that," Mokuba said. "But if he can take care of himself so well, how come he needed so much help today? Seto would never put himself into that kind of risk...so why now?"
Joey shook his head, at a complete loss. "I don't know, Mokuba, but I'm willing to help if you want me to."
The kid brightened immediately. "Would you?"
"Absolutely," Joey said, giving him a wink.
"Then you wouldn't mind going over to make sure he's okay?" Mokuba pressed, looking warily at Joey, who laughed.
"I guess not...but right now?"
"Yes!"
He grinned. "Alright, then. But listen, you'd better stay here, with Tristan." The other boy nodded, and patted a seat beside him. "He'll keep you entertained while I go sort this out."
He swung his worn, comfortable jacket over him, and turned to go out the door. "You two be good, okay?"
"We will be," Mokuba said, grinning. "And Joey...thanks."
He softened a little. "No problem, Mokuba."
A minute later he shouldered his way out the door, silently cursing the cold-hearted bastard, for making Mokuba worry.
For making him worry.
* * *
The building was cool, thrumming with the busy silence of sleeping machines. His footsteps fell thinly on the tiles as he pushed through the familiar glass doors to the main lobby and through to the elevators until he was cocooned in a cylinder of steel and glass, rising swiftly to the top of the glittering tower.
His heart rate had returned to its normal, slow pound while he'd been thinking, his mind attaining that perfect level of cool, rational analysis necessary to the company's survival.
To his survival.
After all, he mused, watching as the bright points of light that were the city in the dark fell beneath him, this is how I am. To trust yourself and only yourself is the best way to live, to work, to be. He didn't have time to ask others for the opinions, couldn't depend on anyone other than himself not to mess things up. After all, hadn't he been, once again, the one to take charge yesterday? The one who single-handedly pulled the company out of ruin? Hadn't he always taken care of Mokuba by himself
So why had it suddenly become too much for him?
He watched the dropping lights impassively, skipping deliberately over these useless reflections. Useless they were, indeed. He had no time to question his own resources, could only continue as he knew how. Cool, efficient.
Alone.
The light at the top of the elevator flashed, once, and he gripped his briefcase with one hand while the doors slid smoothly open, walking into the glass-walled office where he worked his days and nights and life away, moving to the large, glossy desk and placing the briefcase on it.
But then he did something unknowingly strange.
Instead of seating himself at the desk, taking out his laptop and files and folders and papers, he walked past the desk, trailing his fingers gently along the polished wood, leaving a streak of misted over gloss, and moved to stand before one of the large windows, looking out through and past his own reflection to the brilliant points of light beneath and around him. He could see the ghostly version of himself in the glass, and thought abruptly that this was the real version of Seto Kaiba, trapped here, a ghost of himself in cold, silent, transparent glass.
So he stood for a long time.
When he moved next, it seemed dreamlike, his fingers moving softly over the glass, his eyes slightly unfocused as he placed one hand flat against the glass, feeling the hum of the wind outside and the heat from his palm being sucked out into the dark.
Like his dream.
He thought, then, of cold, tempting winds, of the freedom and the solitude and the cold comfort they offered---closed his eyes and thought of falling down into the dark, into the swirling dark of a cold wind, away from a sudden vision of Owen Daniels sitting in a room alone, drawing a knife slowly over his arms, watching the sinuous path of blood appearing silently; away from the bitter cold and helplessness of freezing slowly in the clear comfort of water; away from the shivers and insecurities and waves of undefinable sensations that flooded him whenever he was in contact with Joey.
Contact.
He craved it, suddenly, viciously, longed for it---a terrible, exquisite torture that snapped through him like a blade, like a needle, coppery and sweet and utterly terrible. He flung himself suddenly against the glass, against the ghost of himself that he saw there, flung himself into the solid, unyielding glass and it hurt, but he still pressed himself into it, his eyes closed now and his breath sobbing in his throat as he fell into a vision of warm autumn sunlight flooding over dappled water, through flaming fall-changed leaves, warming apples that fell with soft thuds in an orchard, that tasted sweet and crisp and warm, that he had tasted on Joey's lips, on Joey's breath---all these things were somehow represented by Joey---his warmth, his life, his laughter and glowing golden-brown, autumn-gold eyes---and he closed his eyes tighter, wishing they would go away, longing, desperately, for them to become real, pushing against the glass as if it were his prison, as if he were no longer himself but the reflection he saw so clearly now in the window, caught and unable to move, to change, to exist outside himself.
"Out."
His voice was rough and quiet and ragged with stress.
"Let me out."
His hand slid down the cold glass, found the handle to the window.
"Let me out!"
The window flung open and he was immediately engulfed in a wild, streaming wind, looking out, as the wind sent cold fingers teasing through the room.
He stared down into the darkness.
The wind whipped around him, dragging at his arms, his legs like a lover, teasing at his coat, pulling at his clothes. How easy to just fall, to let go into the loving cold wind, out and away and down and out and down...
He leaned forward, his eyes closed. How easy, letting go.
Except it wasn't easy anymore, there was something holding him back, there was something linked around his waist, holding him back and safe and warm and wanted. He looked down in astonishment at the arms that wrapped solidly around his waist, but his gaze was caught by a wisp of wheat-sun-autumn gold that flicked by his eye.
He smelled apples.
* * *
Aria: Sorry it took so long to get this chapter up, but it was the hardest so far to write. I wanted to put in more of the character's reactions to things, as well as to introduce outside elements to Joey and Seto's sudden dilemma...The Joey/Tristan thing was fairly spur-of-the-moment, and I have to wonder if Tristan, as I've written him, has a crush on Joey? Hmm. What do you think? Just a thought. Anyway, please review, as they make my dreary stressful college life much happier, and keep me writing!