Hello, hello to new comers and beloved old readers alike! So, this story has been posted for forever, unfinished. That is about to change! I've rewritten the chapters, so please reread them and give me your opinion on it, especially if you remember the originals. I would love to get any tips on how to further improve my writing! Anyway, for those of you that are new, this is a Seto/Joey story, with lots of crack humor in it. Why? Because its funny. At least to my demented brain! :D Anyway, hope you all enjoy!
One Long Week
Chapter 1- Day 1
Joey stood still, staring at the closed doors in front of him. He could feel his last chance for freedom taunting him – singing, Na na na na, boo boo! - as it stood safely outside the confines of the Kaiba mansion. Lucky bastard.
He wondered if he could somehow sneak out the doors without Kaiba realizing it. He quickly decided against it, figuring by now Kaiba would have ordered his body guards to shoot him on sight if he tried a daring escape. He took a deep breath. Great, just great. Now he was faced with a horrific week filled with taunts, insults, and really big jerks named Kaiba. Joy.
He decided to go look in the kitchen for a knife to kill himself.
He turned around, with every intention of finding the closest sharp, metal object that would get the job done as quickly as possible, only to find the steely eyes of Kaiba glaring at him barely a foot away. He nearly jumped out of his skin, not expecting Kaiba to be so damn close, but decided to play it off as simply a twitch. A really bad twitch. Hell, maybe he'd feign epilepsy, if it helped convince Kaiba that Joey had most definitely not been scared by him. A ridiculous notion, really.
"Whadya want, Kaiba?" Joey growled, trying to put as much venom as humanly possibly into his words. Maybe he could poison him just by talking to him! He tried to send mental death vibes, just for good measure.
Kaiba scowled, unfortunately still looking in good health. The brunette's eyes narrowed. "I don't like your manners. This is my house, and you will give me the proper respect, mutt." He gave a deadpan glare at Joey's derisive snort, which instantly shut the blonde up. Kaiba's mental death vibes were much more admirable. And probably actually worked. "Now, follow me upstairs to find you a guest room." He stomped down the hallway, leaving Joey to scramble after him if he wanted any hope of ever finding his room.
As the two walked toward the staircase, Joey stared in awe at the vast mansion. Everything was immaculately clean, from the pristine white walls to the just-as-clean carpet. It was too clean. He briefly considered the possibility of discreetly wiping off some of the dirt on the soles of his shoes into the floor. Just so he could say that he had soiled the Kaiba mansion.
As if reading his thoughts, Kaiba snapped his head around, to give another heated glare in his direction and whoa. He looked pissed. Joey instantly abandoned his train of thought. Sheesh. The guy could read minds. Joey was sure of it.
As the two walked further up the flight of stairs, the blonde noticed there seemed to be nobody else in the mansion, save for himself and the Kaiba brothers. He had always imagined the place bustling with maids and butlers, but it was desolate as a desert.
Then again, he thought with a silent snicker, you couldn't pay me enough to come here every day to wait on this guy hand and foot.
Not to mention, he added to himself, he's got the social skills of a stump …
Kaiba turned around to glare again. And Joey would forever deny squeaking in what was definitely not a girly fashion. Fucking mind-reader.
After finally climbing the enormous staircase, they came upon a rather spacious hallway with several identical doors on each side. Kaiba stopped, causing Joey to nearly bump into him from behind. The shorter teen quickly took a few steps back, figuring the more space between him and Kaiba, the better.
Ignoring Joey, the Kaiba motioned to one of the doors. "The one on the end leads to my study," Kaiba pointed out before gesturing at another door. "The one on the left of it belongs to me, and the one on the opposite side of the hall belongs to Mokuba. You can choose any other room. I think that should be easy enough instructions, even for a dog." Kaiba sneered, and Joey's hand twitched, as if about to punch the brunette on its own accord.
Personally, Joey wouldn't have been too angry with his hand. In fact, he might have given it a congratulatory pat.
Taking a moment to breathe, Joey nodded to himself, and deemed it safe to move without worrying about involuntarily tackling the CEO to the floor and punching his lights out. Donning his mischievous grin, he strolled up to the door right next to Kaiba's. "I think I'll take this one here." Kaiba silently raised an eyebrow in question.
Joey cheerfully explained, "This way, if I need to pee in the middle of the night, I can just ask you where the bathroom is instead of wondering around for hours and hours, and most likely end up in some secret dungeon you have." It seemed reasonable enough to the blonde, and he certainly wouldn't put it past Kaiba to have hidden torture rooms lurking around just waiting for the hapless blonde.
Kaiba smirked. "And what if I tell you that I don't deal with dogs before six in the morning and to go back to your room?" He stared at the blonde, his eyes flashing dangerously, daring him to try and challenge him.
Instead of rising to the canine bait, Joey just smiled innocently back. Using the sweetest voice he could muster, he beamed back, "Then I'll just have to pee on you. I'm not house trained yet."
Obviously not the response the brunette was expecting, Joey fully enjoyed the flustered expression on Kaiba's face, and - what the hell?! - was that a slight blush on Kaiba's cheek?
Joey blinked, but Kaiba had gone back to his usual stony-faced expression. Tilting his head in confusion, Joey wondered if it had even been there in the first place. It disappeared so fast, Joey wasn't sure if he even saw it. Nah, Joey thought, I must be imagining it. After all, a blushing Kaiba seemed as likely as a charitable Bakura, i.e. not at all.
Kaiba coughed slightly, mentally patting himself on the back for quickly regaining composure. And elsewhere in the world, Bakura screamed in bloody murder as he suddenly got the urge to give half of his stolen treasures to Goodwill.
"Well, I guess we'll just have to fix that. We can't have you soiling my good carpet." Ignoring the look on Joey's face that clearly said the blonde was trying to tell if Kaiba had just told a joke or not, the brunette opened the door to the spare room and pointed to another door inside. "That door leads to a jointed bathroom between our rooms. Don't mess it up, I refuse to tolerate with a messy puppy."
Joey just nodded dumbly, still trying to determine if Kaiba had told a joke. Granted, it was a bit of a lame one as far as jokes go, but it would still be a monumental first. Then his stomach growled, and Joey was brought out of his musings. He laughed nervously, scratching the back of his head sheepishly. "Hey, Moneybags, you don't have any food on ya, do you? I'm starved! Being carried all the way over here can really take it out of you!" He patted his stomach for emphasis.
Kaiba rolled his eyes, looking much put upon, and motioned for the blonde to follow him while muttering something that sounded suspiciously like 'damn garbage disposal better not eat the whole kitchen.'
After what seemed like an agonizing twelve mile trek - to the blonde because of his immense hunger, and to the brunette because he had to put up with the ravenous blonde - they finally reached the kitchen. It was at this point that Joey began to think that maybe his stay wouldn't be so bad after all.
The kitchen was huge, large enough to fit his entire apartment in, and best of all – it was entirely full of food. Joey immediately decided that any place that had this much edible junk in it couldn't be all that bad. Then Kaiba coughed behind him, bringing him out of his euphoria-induced seizure, and he realized that Kaiba's presence slightly overshadowed his food high.
Taking another look around him, the kitchen had a cozy feel to it despite its giant size. The windows had blue cloth drapes, a softly ticking clock hung on the wall nearby, and there was even junk mail strewn haphazardly across the counter. Upon closer inspection, he realized the kitchen even came complete with pictures of the Kaiba brothers on the fridge. Oh hell, yeah. Blackmail!
He walked up to them, and immediately found his favorite picture. Sure, there were lots of cute pictures – Mokuba losing his first tooth, the Kaiba brothers at Christmas, things like that – but this one. Oh, this one. There were no others quite like it.
It was a very amusing snap shot. It looked like it had been from Kaiba's birthday from a few years ago, and he guessed that Mokuba had forced him into that ridiculously sparkly purple party hat, judging from the horrified look on the brunette's face. Of course, that expression could be from the fact that someone apparently had thought that a frog would make a nice present, and was in the process of landing on Kaiba's head when someone thought that it would make a great Kodak moment.
Which it did. Kaiba's look of complete and utter shock was absolutely priceless.
Joey couldn't help the snicker that came out of his mouth, which was immediately followed by full out guffaws. Kaiba looked over to see what Joey was laughing at, spotted the incriminating photo, and a definite blush crept onto his cheeks. Joey made a mental note to write to Guiness World Records that he was the only non-Kaiba in the world to see him embarrassed and live to tell the tale.
For now at least, he added mentally, unaware as Kaiba debated to himself where he would dump the blonde's sorry corpse after he was through with it.
Kaiba gave a slight cough, and quickly took the pictures down in what he hoped was a discreet manner.
It wasn't.
There was a moment of awkward silence, where Kaiba was hopefully praying Joey would ignore his embarrassment and never mention it ever again, and Joey's brain had short-circuited due to an overflow of blackmail opportunities and innumerable future laughs at the brunette's expense.
After a few moments the blonde shook his head, remembering the dire need to feed his empty stomach, which was currently growling in a much displeased manner. It seemed to be saying something along the lines of, Feed me, you ass, or so help me God, I will eat my way through your flesh and you'll never eat again. Since dying by way of starvation was not very high on his life of Things I Must Do, he decided feeding his angry stomach would be a very good thing.
"So, what do you have to eat, Moneybags?" Joey asked, arms behind his head as he gazed around the kitchen. So many choices, so little time. He wondered if he could manage to eat it all before his time at the Kaiba mansion was up. He then decided his new goal in life was to literally eat Kaiba out of house and home.
Kaiba smirked evilly – or maybe smiled pleasantly, it was hard to tell. He only seemed to have the default expression of eternal displeasure with Joey's existence - and went rummaging through a cupboard under the sink. After a few muffled grunts, and a few louder curses as the brunette banged his head on the cupboard as he moved to stand back up, Kaiba reemerged holding a can behind his back.
Joey, being Joey, did not see anything suspicious about this. In fact, the only thing he could think of that he wanted food, now. He made this quite clear by threatening to disembowel the CEO in his sleep if he didn't get some nourishment right this very second.
Kaiba was all too happy to oblige, which should have tipped the blonde off. Being the lovable, dense moron that he is, he sat blissfully unaware, tapping his foot impatiently. The brunette then proceeded to open the can and pour the thick brown substance into a bowl and handed it to Joey.
"The mutt's dinner." The cobalt eyes sparkled in what could have been a mischievous manner, but was probably closer to a taunting sneer. The brunette's lips twitched upwards in just the smallest fraction of an inch, which should have sent Joey running for the hills.
Joey noticed none of this, however. What he did notice was an edible something placed in front of him.
Not being picky, Joey quickly grabbed a fork and dug in, crooning happily. He had just taken a huge, sloppy mouthful when he finally noticed Kaiba watching him far more eagerly than was probably good for Joey's personal health, and glanced down toward the can that was now sitting on the counter. He caught a quick glimpse of the label, which seemed to be laughing haughtily at him.
Alpo.
That fucking bastard has just fed him dog food.
Death was going to be had. Oh yes, it would. A slow and painful death for the bastard. And then, life would be good.
Before implementing any plans of a gruesome murder he may have concocted for the brunette, Joey promptly spit everything currently in his mouth all back out. Unfortunately for Kaiba, he happened to be in the line of fire and now had a large blob of slobbery…gloop… dripping off of his nose. The sight was so comical that Joey decided that life was good anyway, despite the fact that Kaiba was still breathing.
There was undisturbed silence for the span of about 2.6 seconds, before all hell broke loose.
Mokuba happened to walk in the kitchen just then, but after looking at both his brother, who was definitely not in his happy place and trying to strangle the life out of a certain blonde, and Joey, who was laughing so hard despite the death grip around his neck that he had started to choke on his fork, the raven-haired kid walked right back out.
Sometimes, you were just better off not knowing.