There was shouting in the hallway.
"Bakura, I'm gonna kick your scrawny ass; I can't do this! Yugi, talk some sense into him! No, wait, what are you – "
Kaiba assumed by the sudden silence that someone was covering Joey's mouth. There weren't many ways to shut Joey up once he was riled, and that was the most effective. After a moment Joey was literally shoved into the hospital room, Bakura and Yugi at his back. Bakura winked and Yugi gave them a thumbs up before the door slammed shut. Kaiba heard the head nurse start to scold them. Between Mokuba and the nurses, he imagined that Yugi was a master at getting yelled at.
"Why am I here?" Joey demanded, turning Kaiba's focus from what was going on outside the room to what was facing him inside it. "I'm willing to bet it was your idea. I don't work for you anymore; I don't come at your command." Amusing: tough as he was trying to sound, Joey wouldn't look directly at him; he was obviously edgy, and his hands were jammed into his pockets. He was the picture of insecurity.
"Hello to you too," Kaiba said derisively, looking at the hospital food that had been left for him. He'd eaten Yugi's 'peace offering' earlier; he was hoping to avoid the hospital food. "Actually, it was Bakura's idea, but I do have some questions for you."
"Well, I don't have any answers," Joey snapped. "Why would I have anything to say to you now?"
The bickering reminded Kaiba of old times, back before he had ever left Domino. All he had to do was be a little more condescending and make a few offhand dog comments, and he probably wouldn't know the difference… except that this time around he cared, and then he hadn't. It felt odd to make that emotional distinction. "Because I may have judged you unfairly," he explained, his voice painfully even. Whether he cared or not, he still hated acting passive when in hostile company. "I've heard a little of your story from Yugi, I've gotten an earful from Bakura, and now I want to hear the whole thing from you so I can once and for all decide what to do about you."
The words seemed to take the fight out of Joey, and his eyes seemed focused on his toes. "I thought all our decisions were made."
"Maybe they are; this is a chance to make sure."
It took Joey a minute, but he finally took a seat at the farthest corner of the bed – it was surprising that he chose to sit there rather than in the chair. "Well, I was born in Domino on January – "
"Don't be a wise-ass," Kaiba interrupted. He was being serious; he didn't want stupid humor. "You know what I mean."
Joey cringed. "Right. Well, it's like…" He took a deep breath. It was almost like he was afraid of his words. "Do you know the only people who always stood by my side are my friends? Well, and my sister."
"Is that why you answer to Yugi like a lovesick schoolgirl?" Kaiba's words were more barbed than he meant them.
"Not quite how I would have put it…" Joey frowned. "But yeah, I suppose so; I'm worried one day he's just gonna leave too."
Kaiba was quick to criticize. "That's ridiculous; if he's wasted so much time and breath being your friend, why would he ever stop?" It bothered him that to his ears, the criticism almost sounded more like comfort.
With a snort and a shrug Joey replied, "My dad dealt with me longer, and on my eighteenth birthday all I got was an ultimatum: start paying rent or get the hell out. Yeah, great guy; spends most my life being the skeleton in my closet, then tosses me out like trash as soon as he can."
Kaiba had stories that made Joey's life sound like a fairy tale. He rolled his eyes. "So you had a bad relationship with your father; that's supposed to make it okay for you to ruin your chances with everyone else? If everyone with a bad family life did that, the human race would be doomed."
"I don't think we're ones to be discussing the fate of the human race. And besides, my dad was just the beginning of a long line of rejections," Joey dramatized, his words gaining momentum, becoming less restrained. "There was a girl in my first year of college that told me I was a great guy to have a good time with, but I wasn't someone to settle down with – and over time, there were many more that agreed. Then there was the whole ten-month marriage fiasco. That just confirmed it for me; the only good thing that came from that was that we stayed friends."
"You've told me this," Kaiba said impatiently. "The bad-relationship excuse. If I recall, we got past that before, and were doing a pretty damn good job."
"That's the problem. Do you know what it's like to get burned all the time, Kaiba? After a while you get used to it, like if everything's going too good, then something is wrong – it just doesn't feel right. I'm sure there's a fancy psychological reason for that, and knowing you, you probably know the name of it and who discovered it. But it's…" Joey sounded almost wistful as he continued, "All I really want is something stable, something simple. I want to wake up and understand why I am where I am; I want a love that's not going to fail me the morning after. I just… I feel too old to be having such doubts. No one else I know does. I feel like I should understand life by now."
"You're a dreamer," Kaiba retorted. "There are old men on their death beds who still have questions. It's a fool's hope to want so many guarantees; it doesn't happen, especially when you start half the fights you claim to not want."
"Well, I figured that you were going to drop me sooner or later; I was just hurrying it along. If relationships with women were confusing, you were ten times more, and I'd rather walk away with my dignity somewhat intact than hope for the best and be dropped."
Kaiba sighed. He was an idiot for caring so much about Joey and all his messed-up ideas. There were about twenty replies he could come up with for that, but in the end, only one conveyed his annoyance. "I don't appreciate being clumped into your generalizations."
Joey looked at Kaiba, and they stared at each other for a minute – a silent battle of wills. Finally Joey looked away, down to his hands. He looked back up to Kaiba. "Does that mean I screwed this up?"
"More than you can possibly imagine." Before Joey could say anything, Kaiba continued, "And don't you dare start pitying yourself for it; you love to play the victim in these little games of yours, and I want nothing to do with it – it's pathetic. If it weren't self-inflicted, I might not mind, but all of this is mostly your fault." He had just fallen short of yelling, more emotion seeping into his words than he intended. He didn't mean to get so irate, but it had happened naturally.
"Mostly?"
Good catch. Kaiba took his tone down a notch. "Yes, mostly," he admitted. He hated to say it, but… "I probably could have let some of those fights go."
"No," Joey said. "I knew they would get you going, and if you had ever given in, I just would've pushed harder. It's always been easy to fight with you."
"Thanks," Kaiba said sarcastically. "But unlike you, I didn't go into this relationship thinking about the fights."
"What do you think of?"
"I probably didn't; if I had, I would've known it was stupid from the get-go."
Joey stood. "Sorry," he said softly. He started for the door.
I didn't tell you to go, you idiot. "Leaving again?" Kaiba sneered. "Is that all you can do?"
"What do you want to me to do?" Joey erupted, his back to Kaiba. "You've scolded me, told me exactly what I've done wrong, but you haven't told me what you want from me." He turned, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at Kaiba. "I've expressed myself using all the words I can think of, so maybe it's your turn to share that little bit of information."
Kaiba spared a small smile – what else was he supposed to do when he was amused? It was quite an outburst, and it gave him the perfect opening without sounding too desperate. "I can do that all in one word."
"And that is?"
Kaiba looked at him solemnly and said, "Stay." He watched Joey go through a range of emotions: surprise, confusion, fear…
Finally Joey turned away, focusing on the wall. After a moment he managed to ask, "Why? After all the shit I just said, and all I've said and done to you, why would you want that?"
Kaiba shrugged. "Damned if I know. All I know is that you need to be back where you belong." I need you back where you belong.
"And that's with you?"
"It could be," Kaiba said. "It's up to you at this point." Just like when he had first posed the idea of a relationship to Joey, he couldn't push the issue in one direction, wouldn't make up Joey's mind for him.
The blond gently pinched the bridge of his nose and returned to the bed, only closer to Kaiba, near his knees. "It was much easier to deal with you when we were enemies."
"Would you rather be enemies? I can do that." Even scarier, Kaiba was willing; it would be too easy, just like when he had left Joey leave for Seattle without a fight. He would never forget how to be the world's enemy… but he was tired of that role. It was wearisome, and at that moment he just wanted to be able to give a damn without so much drama.
"No…" Joey sighed and stood – all his movement was starting to make Kaiba dizzy. "This will probably be the lamest thing I've ever said, but… I gotta take some time to think about it."
Think about what? What is there to think about? The whole issue seemed pretty cut-and-dried to Kaiba, but all he could do was nod; it wasn't as though he really had much of choice. "That's fine."
"I…" Joey crossed his arms over his chest and turned away. "You have no idea how much I'd like to crawl onto your bed, kiss you and pretend this could all be solved that easily," he said softly. "But I know better than that, and so do you. I just… I'll just talk to you later, okay?"
"Okay."
Joey was right – Kaiba knew that it wouldn't be that simple. After all, they had tried to hide the problems under sex plenty of times, and look where it got them. A part of him wanted to say something cheesy, maybe something old-movie-like, something to let Joey know he would be patient. The rest of him didn't want to waste the sentiment, especially when he wasn't so sure if he really COULD be so patient. He'd never had to wait for anyone before.
Damn sentiments – they made his chest tighten, his stomach flop in nervousness, all as he watched Joey head for the door.
"Bye," the blond said, glancing over his shoulder at Kaiba for an instant before he left, and then Kaiba was alone in the room again. He heard Bakura and Yugi start asking questions in the hall, heard Joey snap at them. Kaiba just stared at the door.
That hadn't been what he had expected. He thought Joey would give him a resolute answer, thought that he would either stay or go, and life would go on. Instead he found himself with something so irresolute that he wasn't sure if he should start moving on without knowing, or if he had to sit in some emotional pause-mode, waiting to know what was going to happen next.
Kaiba hated that prospect. Waiting around made him feel pathetic, like he wasn't capable of coming to a solution on his own. Made him feel stripped of power.
"How'd it go?" Bakura asked from the doorway. Kaiba hadn't even seen him enter.
"You can't guess?"
"I'm trying to be in denial – what are the chances that he's just angry because he didn't get any?"
Kaiba rolled his eyes. "He's going to think about it," he replied testily.
"Oh. How long?"
"I don't know."
"Do you intend to wait for him?"
That question hit the nail right on the head.
And Kaiba didn't have an answer.
notes
Many thanks to Sarasus for beta'ing.
So here's the story -- I changed the last chapter of this (and the next chapter) at the last minute; its really quite funny, if not a little fucked up, lol. ;; It makes me slightly nervous, though, because the fact that I NEEDED to change it came out of nowhere.
Looking back on it, I'm glad I did.
So... one more update left. OO I'm going to get the last chapter and the epilogue in the same update, because it seems silly to be to do them seperately. But wow. One. x.x
Again, sorry for the inconvenience, but reviewer reponses are at: http: www.geocities.com / enjoythehiatus / stories / le / currentreviews.html (without spaces)