A/N: Hope you guys are still with me. I'm not great with drabbles, which is why they usually end up a lot longer. So, some may be longer, some shorter, it really just depends on how much I'm trying to cram into one sitting. Please forgive the inconsistency.
Parlay
He's not stupid.
He wonders if Seto knows how fucking transparent he is ( so terribly see-through like all that expensive crystal china he loves buying ). It's not hate. At least, not all of it. It's not love either, but it's something. Something strange and obscure, like shadows and deceit and no one answer would be a right one because there isn't a right answer to this. Seto singles him out, hangs onto his every word. As if everything he says matters. Every odious barb thrown at him, every inexorable battle for dominance holds weight. He's heard people call the brunette worse things and watched the CEO shrug it off as if it's of no consequence. But never to Joey, oh, never him.
If he really thought about it-and he tells himself that he doesn't-he thinks he might not hate the CEO half as much as he should. Such a revelation excites and disturbs him all at once.
He doesn't know what they're fighting for or what the victor gets other than a half-moment of supremacy before the other comes back; snarling and growling and more vengeful than the last time.
But he thinks, that maybe, just maybe, he can turn this violent crusade into something different. Maybe not something perfect, or even all that much better, but something more defined, something with a beginning and middle and end; something more than this emotional limbo. Something other than the clawing, snapping, snarling half-beasts they reduce each other to.
If he plays his cards right, he thinks he just might be able to.