Chapter 3- Midnight Interlude

Seto Kaiba sighed irritably for the twenty-seventh time in the past - he checked his watch - forty-seven minutes and twenty-three seconds. Putting down the book he had been trying diligently, but failing horribly, to read, he looked up once again at the closed door that lead to the joined bathroom he shared with his new…pet. He smirked to himself, thinking of how easy it was to bait Joey. He really couldn't put into words the enjoyment that came from riling the fiery blonde. He decided not to dwell too long on the reasons behind why he only wanted those intense chocolate eyes of his on him.

Speaking of the blonde, Seto thought curiously, returning his focus to the door. What the hell is he doing in there? After all, it had now been forty-eight and fifty-two seconds.

Said mutt had been in the bathroom for what was getting close to being an hour, and if he was correctly interpreting the gurgling sounds coming from the other side of the door, using a hell of a lot of mouthwash for God knows why. He had briefly entertained the hope that maybe the blonde was drowning himself in the toilet, or bathtub, or sink (he wasn't picky. Whatever got the job done, you know) but after hearing the blonde spitting in the sink, realized he was doing some heavy duty cleaning of his mouth. He didn't want to know why.

Being the kind-hearted, caring, compassionite person that he is – and here, the reader will take a moment to snort in disbelief, because Kaiba may be a lot of things, but delusional had not previously been on that list - Seto had stormed to the door after the first ten minutes, pounding the door down, yelling for all the world to hear for the mutt to "stop wasting all the goddamn Listerine."

When the only response he got was Joey muttering something about the horror of it all, and that he must be possessed by demons from the underworld and had taken over his thoughts, Seto decided to open the door to see if he was all right. It wasn't because he cared about the mutt's well being, alright? It was only because he needed to know if he should put up some extra locks on his door if the blonde had suddenly turned deranged and decided to come after him in a psychopathic homicidal rage.

All he got for his concern, however, was a rude kick to the jaw, and some more yelling about the world coming to an end.

And so Kaiba sat on his bed, rubbing his abused jawbone and decidedly not sulking about the matter, and debated whether or not he should brave the wrath of the hysterical blonde once more. After all, fifty-one minutes and seventeen seconds was really long. After a few moments though, he realized that the light to the bathroom had gone out and all he could hear was blissful silence, save for the ticking of the clock on his mahogany bedside table.

He looked over to check the time, and was surprised to find that it was nearly one in the morning. The CEO closed his eyes, tenderly massaging his temples, willing sleep to overcome him. As if it wasn't bad enough he had to put up with the mutt during the day, now he couldn't go to sleep because of him. He groaned, flopping back onto his bed, thinking of how he would have to be up in only four hours.

He gave another sigh, and took one last look about his room. Maybe Mokuba's right….I really need to decorate more. He had never really felt a need for personal luxuries in his own room. He spent most of his time in his office anyway. The mutt just happened to be lucky that he was on vacation for a week. Though, this was definitely not how he planned his time off turning out.

Beside his alarm clock stood a picture of him and Mokuba from a time when they were much younger, when the younger kid still needed help on his spelling tests and he himself had been considerably more carefree. It sat delicately on his bedside table in an ornate silver frame, where it faced the side of the bed. The corners of Kaiba's mouth turned upward in the smallest smile as he gazed upon it.

Continuing his impromptu inspection of his barren room, he glanced over to the dresser, sitting under a large mirror. It was made of the same glossy wood as the bedside table. The only other piece of furniture was his desk, where his laptop sat humming quietly. The bare necessities. He never had any need for anything else. Giving a big yawn, he turned off the light and crawled back into his large fluffy bed, his last thoughts wondering if Joey's bedroom was as empty as his, or crammed to the brim with all sorts of sentimental junk.

Meanwhile, one room over, Joey flopped onto the bed, curling into a ball on top of the deep magenta covers. He normally would have taken that moment to revel in the fluffy softness of the material, if his mouth hadn't felt like it had just been decimated by a gallon of acid. His mouth tingled –hell, more like it burned - and he was sure that the Listerine had eaten a hole through his tongue, or at least turned it raw for a month. As drowsiness began to overtake him, just before he drifted off to sleep he numbly thought that he should probably stay in bed for the rest of the week, just to preserve his sanity. Spending too much time with Kaiba couldn't be good for his mental health.

Too bad that isn't what happened. Joey would probably never make a full recovery.

After a couple hours of fitful dreams about popcorn and cold, staring blue eyes, Joey found himself suddenly sitting upright in his bed. He also found himself realizing he really had to pee. Giving a prolonged groan that clearly stated he'd rather still be fast asleep, he quickly trudged over to the door to the connecting bathroom. He gave a long happy sigh as he began to relieve himself.

Meanwhile, Seto was also having restless dreams, though of a very different sort. To protect the readers, we won't go into explicit detail. Instead, we'll just say they happened to involve a certain blonde, a skimpy puppy costume, and a leash. Waking up with a start, he was horrified to find a certain… problem that males usually experience when dealing with someone they find very attractive.

The only problem was, Kaiba did not find Joey attractive. Not at all. Mokuba was right, he thought. Working too hard really has made me lose my mind. He growled, vowing to take vacations more often if this was the effect working was going to have on his brain, as he got up from his bed, in nothing but silky black boxers, heading to the bathroom to take care of male problem.

In the bathroom that Kaiba was currently walking towards, Joey was whistling a happy little tune to himself, which sounded suspiciously like The Song That Never Ends, as he finished going to the bathroom. He then heard the door creak open ominously behind him, so he did what any other testosterone-filled male would do. The surrounding neighbors all jolted awake by the blonde's shriek. But he wasn't scared. Joey Wheeler never got scared. Really. No. Really.

Although, what he did see next made him double over with laughter. In fact, he would later bill Kaiba Corp. for the medical expense of his ruptured spleen from laughing too hard.

There was Seto Kaiba frozen in the doorway, looking like a deer caught in the headlights – or perhaps a fish, the way his mouth kept opening and closing in silent horror - standing there with an all-too-obvious bulge in his boxers. His face turned from white to tomato red within a split second, setting a new world record in speed, and his eyes narrowed at the hysterical blonde. Seto took a menacing step toward him. He could always worry about where to dump the soon-to-be corpse later.

Joey's laughter died as he noticed the brunette's twitchy hands slowly making their way to his neck, and realized he should probably hightail it out of there, though the mile wide grin remained plastered to his face.

He slowly backed into his room – he saw on the discovery channel never to make sudden movements around dangerous beasts, and he was in front of the most dangerous of them all – while still leering at the embarrassed, and doubly furious, brunette. Before he could be strangled, he reached the safety of his room, slamming and locking the door between himself and the brunette – adding his dresser as a barricade for good measure - but not before oh-so-innocently asking Seto if he was having sweet dreams. Because, you know, obviously he was.

Joey laughed hysterically to himself, crawling back into bed, and thanked God for such a funny memory. Pulling the covers up to his chin, he fell asleep with a grin on his face as he permanently imprinted the image of Kaiba with a hard on into his brain. His last thoughts before drifting back to sleep were, That would have been another great Kodak moment. Too bad I didn't have a camera...Kaiba has very nice abs. I should ask him where he works out...

And he suddenly sat back up in bed, realizing the full consequences of pissing off the richest man in the world with access to professional hit men and enough money to buy off any judge.

Shit.

I'm gonna die tomorrow...