All characters belong to Takahashi. I make no money from this. This may seem hopeless. Next chapter will be a little better. Cross my heart.

For a Moment

For a moment, all the air was sucked out of the room. For a moment, the world stopped turning, and the molecules that made up solid, liquid, and gas stopped their vibrations. In that moment, Tea looked into the eyes of Seto Kaiba and felt something inside her snap.

This is what it's like to die of fright, she thought.

Kaiba stepped through the door.

Run.

He closed the door. Locked it.

Kill him, something inside her screamed, kill him, or he'll kill you!

He turned to face her. His eyes were bright.

"You locked me out," he whispered. "I saved your life, and you locked me out."

"No, you didn't." Tea hated how her voice shook, how she couldn't coax it any louder than a harsh whisper. She clutched her blouse closed over her bare breasts, hating them, hating her whole body--its weakness, its soft femininity. "You did not save my life."

"I did," his voice became slightly higher, but no louder. "That crate was going to crush you. The man in the crane was going to drop it on you, but I didn't let him. I protected you. " Kaiba was speaking softly and quickly. There was something childlike in his speech. His eyes grew larger and sharper as they stared at her. So far, he hadn't seemed to notice she was pretty much naked. She realized that he was telling the truth, and the realization weighed down her heart with fear, despair, and guilt—if it were true, was she ungrateful? If it were true, would she have no right to be afraid, to deny him?

"I protected you, and soon I'll have all the god cards, including Yugi's," he said. His voice was back to its smug timbre. " You saw what they can do, and soon they'll be mine. You can't even imagine the full extent of what that means, but even you should know that it makes me the most powerful duelist, and the best man." Slowly he removed his coat, and tossed it over a chair. He stood and looked at her, cocking his head. The light over the bed was a dim halo, but even in the sepia and blue-black shadows his eyes glowed, so cold they were more silver than blue.

Tea stared back at him. For several moments, she struggled to speak. It was like the dreams she had sometimes where any sound she would make, if she could make any sound at all, would come out a hoarse whisper, no matter how hard she tried to rupture the barrier in her throat and scream, and where the very air itself was a spider's web that trapped and paralyzed while the nightmare came closer, and closer….

"I'm not going to do anything with you," she rasped.

Kaiba's eyes widened, and his face went slack. He looked down and rubbed the back of his neck, running his hand through his hair. Then he straightened his shoulders and looked her in the eye.

"But you would with Yugi, wouldn't you?"

The words seared into Tea. Wasn't that what she thought about when she touched herself, she and the Pharaoh kissing, embracing, and touching on the feather mattress by the Nile? Did Kaiba know?

Her feelings showed on her face, because Kaiba continued. "Yes, you would, and you probably do. You even let the mutt do what he wants with you. I saved you. Yugi didn't. Wheeler didn't."

"I don't do anything with them," Tea wanted to wake up, warm and safe, with Ivan beside her and her parents down the hall, feeling the sweet relief that a nightmare was just that. "I told you I didn't."

Kaiba mulled that over excruciatingly slowly. Tea looked everywhere, looking for an escape hatch, a place to run. Could she jump on the sink, and then push open a ceiling tile? No, the ceiling was smooth molded plastic. Under the bed? No, no space under there. Then Kaiba opened his mouth.

"You can prove it to me."

"No!" Tea felt the threads of her self unraveling—her innocence, her bravery, were slipping between her fingers—but she knew, in that moment, that she would fight.

"I took care of you!" Kaiba's words hissed between his teeth and Tea again heard in his voice and saw in his face the desperation that blindsided her in the closet and outside the girls' bathroom.

"I took care of Mokuba," she replied. "I saved his life. I protected him. We're even."

Seto's eyes softened, turning from ice to ocean water. "He is grateful," he said, his voice soft. "As am I." He lifted his arms. "As you should be." He took a slow step toward her.

When he moved, Tea unfroze and flung herself backward, hitting the wall behind her, twisting to the side and hurling herself through space as he stepped forward. The room was so small, not like Joey and Yugi's. She soon barked her shin on the bed, but she made herself keep moving, onto the bed, but he wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her down onto the mattress. His hand clamped over her mouth. His breath streamed around her face. It smelled like mint and bitter coffee.

"Let me do this!" His voice made her shudder. She thrashed her head back and forth, but he just pushed on her mouth harder, grinding her lips on her teeth, as she kicked and tried to roll away. One arm, the arm that kept her blouse shut in a death grip, was pinned between them, but the one that was free went to the back of his head, grabbed his hair, and yanked. She felt the hairs pull loose of his scalp. A short cry burst from his throat, a cry that tapered into a hiss. His hand spread and covered her nose as well as her mouth, cutting off her air.

He was quiet for a few seconds, looking down at her as if he himself couldn't believe what he was doing.

At first, it wasn't so bad, not being able to breathe. Tea thought it would be better than the alternative. But as the oxygen in her lungs burned away, panic set in. "Listen," he whispered, "I won't hurt you. I'm only doing this because you just hurt me."

Tea's lungs felt like shriveled husks. Her body shuddered under his as she sobbed without sound.

"You'll like this," he whispered. "I can promise you that. You liked it before."

Please Dear God, Tea prayed, Please make this quick. No matter what you give me, dying like this or whatever he's going to do, make it be quick.

"I know you like it when I hold you," his voice was even softer. "Be good for me, and I'll be good for you."

Tea swore the little pockets of her lungs were exploding, one by one.

"Be good," he whispered, his cheek against hers. He relaxed his airtight grip on her face, and she eagerly sucked in air through the gaps of his fingers as he turned the light off over the bed. In the darkness he reached back. Tea heard him open his pants.

This is it, she thought. I've failed.

She felt his naked hand on her breast. It was gentle.

I could scream, she thought, and Yugi will save me.

The thought of Yugi coming in and seeing her like this, naked and frightened underneath Seto Kaiba, made her sick.

His breathing went into its familiar cadence, quick and hissing. His hips began the customary grinding. His hand left her face to join his other hand, only now the journey was bare skin on bare skin.

Scream. Scream now.

She opened her mouth, gasped, tried to make a sound, but all that came out were little cries and sobs.

Kaiba answered her cries with a moan. It was a different sound than anything she'd heard him make before. It sounded almost like he was crying himself. Along with this new sound was a new sensation. He was pressing something hard and rubbery and smooth against her belly. Tea had no illusions this time that it was a screwdriver or a gun or a switchblade. She knew it was his naked penis. The tip of it was damp.

The strange shape and heat of his penis against her were so surreal Tea was only vaguely aware of his fingertips sliding down her rib cage. He pushed himself up so that he straddled her, his haunches pushing her thighs apart, his hands grasping her wrists. Tea closed her eyes, not even wanting to see the shape of his silhouette in the glow of the city lights that shone through the windows.

He moved so that his knee was between her legs and he could lie back down, his groin pushing into her side. He tentatively stroked down her belly until he reached her panties. He cupped her through the silk, and then used one finger to push the cloth aside. For a moment, Tea was never so aware of flesh and nerves, the difference in the texture of skin from one body part to another. He stroked, and she shuddered. For a moment, to her horror, that wonderful wet warmth flowed from her cheeks to her nipples to her abdomen to her crotch and all the way down to her toes, melting muscle, and it felt so good, and then he pushed his finger in and for a moment—

A white-hot knife. A searing sting.

Tea finally could scream, even though it was only a feeble little cry. And as she screamed, Kaiba came.

There was something new added to the convulsions of his body and the moans and grunts he buried in her hair. Tea felt his penis pulse and twitch as hot slime coated her side and stomach.

She let her head loll to the right. Through the tearing pain, she saw the lights of Domino city below. In those lights, she saw the bed table, and on the bed table she saw a Kaiba Corp pen. It was smooth and sharp and silver—not surprising that Kaiba would tie everything back to the Blue Eyes White Dragon—and Tea saw herself picking up the pen and thrusting it into Kaiba's neck. She could imagine the resistance of his skin at first, before it yielded and warm wet blood would flow from the artery. She would see the shock on his face from the lights of the city, and with the shock, there might also be the pain of betrayal.

Tea, very calmly, very smoothly, reached for the pen.

She had just touched it with her fingertips when Kaiba grabbed her arm and gathered it in, along with the rest of her, close to his body. He lay there, panting, holding her tightly, while his sperm turned cold and sticky on her stomach.

For a moment, a moment she was sure would seep into every other moment of her life until she died, Tea mourned. She grieved not only for her plan, but for the person she was, the person who would never dream of harming any living thing. She grieved for the gift she could have given, now spoiled by Kaiba's intrusion.

For a moment, just a little moment that lasted way too long, Tea Gardner lay in Seto Kaiba's arms and wanted to die.