Title: Grave Robber

Summary: Seto wanted to take his secrets to the grave, but when a class project lands him and Joey closer than desired, those secrets become harder to protect than ever. Especially when Joey is discovering the common ground they share.

Contains: Yoai, lemon in random chapters, references to child abuse and molestation, sudden flashbacks, arguments, and occasionally ooc-ness

Pairing: Seto X Joey

Disclaimer: I do not own yu-gi-oh or the characters, I also make no money from the writing of this fanfic.

Author's Note: Everyone is gossiping! Why? It's not as exciting as you think, but here are some scraps of affection of Joey's part.

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The corners of the room, the hallways, the rooms at the end of the hall, and even the outside pathway was teeming with them—whispers from the girls about how the shit was about to hit the fan. It all started because one girl, close to Joey Wheeler, confessed to another girl that Joey and Seto Kaiba (that's right, Joey's arch rival) were sitting together in an unused—though not unpopulated—spare classroom working on a project together during the lunch hour.

The class in which the project had been assigned had chocked on its gasps when the two were partnered, but to hear that they were actually working was enough to make everyone feel faint.

It was to be expected of Seto Kaiba, as one girl stated to her group of friends in the hallway. He was a professional, he was used to dealing with people he didn't like. But it was still surprising that he even made an effort when it was obvious the Joey Wheeler would just slack off and make them both fail.

Around campus, girls cooed, guys shrugged, and Seto and Joey worked on a project indifferent to it all.

"It's decent," Kaiba said, scanning over the presentation Joey had uploaded on the laptop. "I can fix up a few things and add my part over the next couple of days." After saying only those few words, he closed the project and turned to Joey with chilled eyes.

"That's it?" Joey asked, brow raised in surprise. "What no lectures this time?"

"I'm through wasting my time."

"Oh, is that so?" Joey asked, raising his voice and glaring. Kaiba didn't reply to him, but turned his laptop more to himself and began entering codes into the various applications on his desktop. Joey didn't look at the keys as the other boy typed, he knew better, but he couldn't help but be enraged and in awe at the same time as he watched the young CEO work.

His focus was unbreakable, even when Joey waved his hand over his eyes. There were graphs up, documents up, and, by the time Joey gave up and walked off, Kaiba had answered over fifteen e-mails from several inboxes without faltering or pausing to think about what to say.

Joey wandered through the halls for the remaining time before the lunch period reached its conclusion. He was not thinking in depth about anything or worrying about anything that Kaiba had said or had refrained from saying. (It did dawn on him for a moment that Moneybags didn't call him a mutt or a dog during their last encounter, but he didn't pay the fact much mind. Kaiba had been in a hurry to get back to work.)

"Joey! Joey, wait a moment!" Joey stopped before entering his next period classroom. A girl he recognized from passing, though he'd never really spoken to her before, was running towards him, holding out a folded piece of paper in her hands. "Kaiba asked me to bring this to you!" She was out of breath by the time the paper made its way into Joey's hand.

"Ooo, Joey's getting letters from his secret admirer!" It was Tristan, pushing past Joey and slipping into the classroom. The girl flushed and then darted away after saying a short word of farewell.

"Shut up, man," Joey hissed. He opened the letter and looked it over. He was lucky enough to finish it before Tristan ripped it out of his hand.

"'Five O'clock, the mansion, tomorrow.' Well that's real polite." He handed the note back to Joey who crumpled it in his fist.

"I hate this guy," Joey grumbled. "He never meets anywhere convenient for me. Always at his office and now at his house."

"Well, duh," Tristan chided. "He's forcing you into his schedule. He's got work to do."

"At his house? Now he's just trying to rub his money in my face. 'Meet at my house' why I oughta…"

( ) ( ) ( )

Joey could have smashed something he was so angry. 'Five O'Clock, the mansion, tomorrow', well, it was five, he was at the mansion and there was no Kaiba! There was a Kaiba, but not the one that he needed at the moment.

"Like I said, Joey, I'm sorry. He got held up at work again," Mokuba said, guiding Joey through the entrance hall, down a corridor, and into a modern-looking sitting room. There was a computer desk in the far corner with a panel of windows behind it and a TV hanging on the wall with a long black couch sitting perpendicular to it. "When he gets home he'll come here first." Joey sat down on the couch and stared at the wall. "Want me to wait with you?"

"No, that's fine. Go do your homework or something. I'm not letting that brother of yours blame me if you don't get stuff done."

"My work's already done for the day. I always get it done before Seto comes home." Mokuba remained standing in the doorway and Joey stared at the wall intensely.

Somewhere, a clock was ticking loudly.

At five thirty, Kaiba finally made his arrival, storming into that modern sitting room, clipping Mokuba's shoulder in a way that surprised Joey, and then tossing his briefcase down onto the computer desk.

"Seto, I had the kitchen staff set another place at the table for Joey." Mokuba didn't wait for his brother's words of reprimand. He slid out the door and disappeared while Kaiba still loomed over his desk with his teeth gritted and bared.

"I'm taking it that someone had a bad day," Joey mumbled under his breath. He was aware that Kaiba would catch the words, but not conscious to how violently the man would react to them.

"I am in no mood!" Kaiba shouted, turning to Joey and scowling darkly. His blue eyes, usually frigid, were now burning with rage and hate.

"Whoa," Joey commented, tossing his hands up in surrender. "Relax."

"I don't have time to relax! I have just enough time to finish the work I have with you and then I have to get on a plane and leave for a board meeting that was supposed to be two weeks from now!" Joey wanted to shout back, to tell the rich boy to direct his rage at someone else, but refrained. "And then maybe, if I'm lucky, I'll be home tomorrow night so I can get my share of this worthless project done!" Kaiba's chest heaved with his heavy breaths and Joey merely watched in silence as the breaths slowed and the flames in his eyes died down. "Did you finish anything?" He asked, suddenly calm and composed.

"Yeah," Joey said with a slight stammer. It was creepy how fast Kaiba got his temper under control. He stood up from the couch and walked over to Kaiba's desk warily. "I sent it to your e-mail like you said." Kaiba grunted in response and turned on his computer.

"It's obvious that Mokuba is expecting me at dinner, so I guess we're going to have to compile this as quickly as possible before he calls us to eat." The computer booted and Kaiba once again surprised Joey with the nearly elegant, though speedy, way he entered in all of the codes for his system's security. "As I said before, after I'm finished I have to leave." Kaiba paused for a moment and turned his eyes towards Joey suddenly. "You can't stay here after I've left."

"Didn't plan on it, rich boy!" Joey snapped, his self-control dwindling.

"Good." Finally, Kaiba accessed his e-mail and began to combine Joey's work with his own, leaving Joey feeling out-of-place and more than slightly embarrassed. The quality of the work that Kaiba had done was by far superior to Joey's, even though the former had had less time to work than the latter. As to feeling out-of-place, once Kaiba started working, he zoned out completely. He didn't ask Joey for confirmation of the decision he made, he just executed them, moving pieces of information around, redecorating and reformatting as he saw fit.

Joey wondered why he had appeared in person at all.

Seto wondered why he'd even had Joey show up at all. He knew before hand that he didn't need to see the irritating blonde dog to get the work done. All he needed was the file. He didn't need Joey Wheeler staring at him stupidly and breathing down his neck while he had to work, and he didn't need Joey there to prevent him from yelling at Mokuba. (It wasn't that he enjoyed scolding the child, but when he told Mokuba he didn't have time to eat, he meant that he didn't have time.) It was impossible to get anything done properly with Joey there judging his every move…and he'd known that all along.

So why had he requested that the mutt show up?

"There, we're finished with that part," Seto said, leaning back in his chair and nodding at the computer screen. "I'll get the rest of it done when I get back from the meeting tomorrow night. If you have anything else you want thrown in, send it to me before seven tomorrow morning." He began shutting down the computer before Joey could even comment or make a suggestion.

Why had he asked the mutt to come here? Why?

He wanted to know why! It was throwing his whole evening off. He had a business report to make out and a letter to send to the school depicting, for the thousandth time, why he couldn't make it to class and why the meeting trumped his education. (These letters were merely a legal formality by now. It was obvious to the world that he didn't need the high school education. He already had degrees.) He had all of these things to do and more, yet he'd asked for the blonde to show up?

Why?

"You okay?" Joey asked, snapping Seto out of his trance. The businessman felt flustered, but it didn't show. Ever since he was a child, he'd feel shame whenever he was caught while in a daze. Even before Gozaburo, even before his father had died…maybe since birth…The only difference was that, now, thanks to Gozaburo, he was capable of hiding that shame and embarrassment.

"Why wouldn't I be?" Seto snapped, crossing his arms and his legs while leaning back in his office chair.

Maybe that was the reason he'd had the dog come to its master—he loved seeing how inferior it was to him, loved leaving it speechless.

But if the mongrel was speechless, why was it talking?

"Well, you seem kind of stressed and…I dunno, tired."

"Tired?" Seto echoed dumbly. After the word was out, he couldn't retract it. Therefore, he had to run with it. "You don't know the first thing about being tired." It made him even angrier when Joey just shrugged as a response.

"You should speak when you're spoken to." That ignited Joey's fuse which left Seto feeling satisfied.

He wanted his dog to speak, and it would speak for its master.

"Maybe I don't know what it feels like to be tired, but it doesn't mean I can't sympathize, you jerk! I was tryin' to be nice!" Seto smirked and Joey was still left fuming when Mokuba entered the room cautiously.

Joey did know what it felt like to be tired, maybe not as tired as Kaiba was, but tired enough. But he bit back his rage as best he could—Kaiba was tired, and Kaiba was stressed. The least Joey could do was try to be cooperative.

( ) ( ) ( )

When Joey got home, the first thing he did was punch the wall. It hurt his hand like hell, but he was mad enough that he didn't care. How many times had Kaiba called him some variation of the word "dog" during that meal? What the hell was wrong with that guy? Joey had tried as hard as he could to keep from yelling at him—telling himself over and over that Kaiba was stressed, Kaiba was tired, Kaiba was feeling overwhelmed—but damn it, that was no excuse to turn into a straight-up bully!

Joey bet that—that Kaiba even picked on Mokuba when no one else was around! That's probably why no one ever saw the kid duel unless he really had to. Because he always had his brother's voice in his head cutting him down!

After an hour of fuming and storming around his cramped, messy bedroom, Joey sank onto his bed and stared up at the ceiling. His rage dissipated, allowing clear thought, and small clouds of memory from health class exploded in his brain.

Every health class had some sort of section on bullying and psychology—usually before sex-ed and after nutrition. According to them, no one becomes bully because they want to—they just feel the need to belittle others because they lack confidence themselves.

Joey could see that in Kaiba. Yeah. It was obvious. Kaiba wanted to be intimidating and mean to others so no one would dare pick on him because he was…adopted? No, that wasn't right. Kaiba didn't seem like the type to care about that kind of thing. He was adopted, yeah, because he wanted to be, and by being adopted he became a multi-millionaire. That was nothing to feel ashamed about.

So that couldn't be it.

So what was it? There was something. Joey could taste the lack of confidence on the air in Kaiba's mansion, and it wasn't from Mokuba either.

Joey sat up and sighed heavily. Maybe he was just imagining it. Maybe it was just the stress the man was under or his exhaustion.

But wait…

Suddenly, it burst in Joey's brain.

It was so obvious. Why did Seto Kaiba feel the need to intimidate anyone he found that was weaker than himself? Because it had been done to him. And, by who? Gozaburo Kaiba. Why had Gozaburo tormented his adopted heir? Well, probably for two reasons.

He wanted to make Seto into an intimidating, cruel businessman, and because he was probably tormented by his father…and his father was terrorized by his father, and his father before him by his father—it was an endless chain of intimidation for the greater good.

Well, when he thought about it that way, it made Joey kind of sad. Kaiba probably didn't even notice that he was doing it or how hurtful he was being. (Well, his comments weren't exactly hurtful, they were just irritating.) And, if he did know, he probably didn't know why. He was acting unconsciously.

And if that wasn't the truth? Joey pondered for a moment. If Kaiba knew how mean he was being, and did it on purpose, and knew why he was doing it…then he was doing it for revenge. In order to bring the same sort of hurt and ill-feelings onto someone else that had been pressed onto him.

Would that not mean that, deep down, Seto Kaiba was nothing more than a wounded kid?

Joey heard the front door slam and turned his head towards his bedroom door. The television switched on—he could hear the sudden voices—but the sound didn't drown out his father's angry mumbling.

Nothing more than a wounded kid with father issues…

Not unlike himself…

"You here, boy?" Joey's father called from the living room.

"Yeah!" Joey called back. "You need somethin'?"

"Nah! Just making sure." Apparently, his dad was in a good mood that night and Joey sighed in relief. He didn't have to hear any yelling—for at least a little while.

Kaiba…

Who knew he was so deep.

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A/N: Yes, Kaiba is seeing himself as Joey's master. Why? For no adequately explored reason as of yet except for his personal urge to educate all things inferior to himself. But he'd better watch out because Joey's on his tail—he's figured out one of Seto's secrets. How long before he tells Kaiba of this, and how long before he uncovers more?