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: Kaiba was a bit bold in the last chapter—how will he deal with the consequences now?
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Seto couldn't sleep. He stared at his ceiling, cursing himself for how out of hand he was letting himself get. He'd worked too long, too hard to let himself ruin it just because some blonde dog had come sniffing around his house. Yes, he felt sorry for Joey. Yes, he hated the fact that Joey had no mother in the picture and a dad that beat him up. Yes, Seto had to admit it, he hated that he knew how Joey felt. He saw himself in Joey—a poor, less educated, impulsive version of himself.
A nicer version of himself. The way he would've been had he stayed at the orphanage instead of tricking a sadistic monster into adopting him and his brother.
At three-thirty in the morning, Seto gave up on sleeping and got out of bed. He sat on the edge of his bed for almost twenty minutes before giving up and getting dressed. Once he was dressed, he left his room and before he realized it, he was standing next to Joey's bed in the guestroom.
After ten minutes of watching blonde sleep and listening to him murmur about wanting hamburgers with more cheese, Seto kicked the foot of the bed to wake Joey up.
"Nyeh! What's happening!?" Joey called in alarm, sitting up and clutching his pillow to his chest as if protecting it from an attack. "Kaiba? What's goin' on? Is there an earthquake or somethin'? I felt the bed move!"
"That's because I kicked it," Seto said, holding back on calling Joey a stupid dog. "Get up."
"Why? It's three in the mornin'! What's your problem?" Joey said, looking at the clock and letting his tone turn to a weepy, pathetic groveling sound.
Now that he had Joey awake, Seto was at a loss for what to do with him. Joey wasn't like Mokuba. Seto couldn't just go into his room and strike up a conversation, no questions asked.
"We need to practice our presentation," Seto said, knowing once the words were out how crazy and manic he made himself sound—how like Gozaburo Kaiba he sounded.
"Stop it," Joey moaned, lying back down. "You're crazy if you think I'm getting' outta bed at three in the mornin' to study with you!"
"You're lazy," Kaiba growled.
"And you're a psycho!" Joey yelled. "First you're nice to me, then ya kiss me, now you're wakin' me up in the middle of the night! What's wrong with you!?"
Seto just stared at him. There was no answer for his actions. He was getting obsessed with Joey the way he got obsessed with new projects and inventions. Joey was all he thought about—all he really wanted to think about. He couldn't sleep knowing Joey was alone in a room down the hall with a split lip and countless bruises on his neck and arms. Joey was a careless, sloppy street punk—but he was Seto's careless, sloppy street punk. He shouldn't be getting beaten by his father. Not at his age. Joey should be fighting back, and if he refused to do it, Seto was going to have to do it for him.
And Seto didn't want arrested for beating Joey Wheeler's father half to death just because he couldn't beat Gozaburo who deserved it the most.
"Get up, Wheeler," Seto said, kicking the bed again. Joey let out an indignant cry and rolled over, pulling the blankets over his head.
"You're crazy—Crazy Kaiba! Crazy Kaiba!"
Seto growled and grabbed the blankets from over Joey's head, yanking them until his pet was exposed.
"Cut it out!" Joey yelled. "What do you want?"
Seto stared at Joey and weighed his options. Joey would never tell anyone what he did. He wouldn't go to the press about the odd, forceful kisses no more than he would tell about the faulty virtual games Seto had made and failed to perfect. Seto began to wonder what all he could get away with before Joey finally snapped.
Not that Seto was going to push it that far. He wasn't mean; he wasn't a rapist. He wasn't going to hurt Joey. There was no need to hurt Joey, anyway. If he didn't like Seto's advances, he would've punched him in the face or fought him off by now. No… The pup wanted Seto's attention.
And who was Seto to deny the pup anything?
Joey watched in petrified horror as Kaiba sat down on the bed and then started crawling toward him. He couldn't tell if it was scary like a horror film, or scary like a crime drama. Kaiba was moving toward him like…
Joey flinched and started trying to crawl back up toward the headboard to get away. Kaiba was coming at him like some kind of teenage fantasy, porn star. Everything from the way the bright, white security lighting that bled through the windows lit up Kaiba's face to the way he moved his shoulders and hips. It was…sensual—it was crazy!
"Y-you tryin' ta mess with me, rich boy?" Joey said, trying to sound ferocious but just sounding nervous.
"Hush," Kaiba said, reaching out slowly with one hand and cupping Joey's cheek. His thumb traced the sore spot on Joey's lip where his father had punched him and Joey flinched. Kaiba was obsessed with the injury. Then it was like he really thought he could kiss it and make it better.
Kaiba crawled over top of Joey's body, even when Joey started flailing his legs to get him away. Kaiba pressed his lips against the side of Joey's mouth and then ever so slowly started moving to the left so he could kiss Joey full on. It was different from the rushed kisses Kaiba had given him before. This one was slow—it was intimate and practiced.
Joey tried to push Kaiba away, but Kaiba just grabbed his wrist in an almost gentle grasp and pushed it aside. Once he let go of Joey's wrist, he placed his hand on the back of Joey's head and held him still as he started running the tip of his tongue against his captive's lower lip. Joey made a noise like a cry and tried to turn his face away.
He'd had a lot of fantasies in his life, but none of them ever involved cocky, rich boy Kaiba crawling into his bed and kissing him.
When he tried to open his mouth to tell Kaiba to back off, the rich boy took it as an invitation and moaned slightly before sliding his tongue into Joey's mouth. The hand on the back of his head went from holding to caressing, and Joey squirmed as Kaiba's other hand came around to rub at his hip.
Joey was completely out of excuses for how crazy Kaiba was acting—so what if he was stressed? Who cared if he was tired? It was going on four in the morning! Why was Kaiba in here trying to rape him when he should be in bed sleeping and fighting off the crazy!?
When the hand on his hip started going toward Joey's abdomen, the blonde finally lost his cool. He screamed into Kaiba's mouth and started pushing on him again. He was gearing up to start a real fight, even if it meant Kaiba's legal team would spin it and make Kaiba the victim somehow, but as soon as he screamed, Kaiba pulled away. Kaiba just backed off and stared at him as if he didn't understand why Joey was freaking out.
"Did I hurt you?" He asked in a tone Joey had never heard Kaiba use, not even toward Mokuba. It harbored so much sympathy—so much fear. It showed he cared. It showed how much he cared.
"Why—Why do you keep doin' that!?" Joey yelled, staring at Kaiba who stared at him in return. Did he really think it was okay to just do with Joey what he wanted? Where in their history together did he get the idea that it was okay to start kissing him whenever he wanted—or that Joey wanted him to? "And don't say 'cause I'm yours—because I'm not! All you ever do is pick on me and make me feel bad about myself. Don't think that because you can get whoever you want that you can come in here and try to screw with me too! I'm not one of your fans, money bags—"
"Fans?" Kaiba echoed, like the word was foreign to him. "I don't take fans to bed with me, Joey."
"Yeah right," Joey said. "Like you learned that whole display from playing around with your pillow." Once the words were out, Joey choked on them. Kaiba's face looked haunted and he pulled away. He didn't think Kaiba reacted that way because he was being rejected for the first time. And when that look of fear grew worse and worse until Kaiba got up from the bed and disappeared into the hallway, Joey thought that maybe Kaiba hadn't 'leaned that whole display' in any way that was pleasant.
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Like always, Joey was taken to school in a separate car from Kaiba after breakfast. Kaiba entered the dining room just long enough to tell Mokuba he would be home late from work, and then just walked out without eating or even looking in Joey's direction. Joey couldn't blame him though. He'd be embarrassed too if he crawled into some other guy's bed at three in the morning and tried to cop a feel.
Joey wasn't mad at Kaiba for it though. No, he was mad at him for an entirely different reason.
Like not showing up to class for their presentation. Kaiba just never came. Joey was left sitting in his desk looking around like an idiot, expecting Kaiba to stroll through the door—but he never did.
"Where's your partner, Mr. Wheeler?" The teacher asked, looking at Joey with a smug expression as if he actually held the answer. How the hell would he know where Kaiba was? Kaiba was his own person, and he sure as hell didn't answer to Joey.
"N-no clue," Joey muttered.
"Is this your way of saying you two need another extension? You already had an extra day to work…"
"Our project's done. I don't know where Kaiba is," Joey said, scowling in the direction of Kaiba's empty seat. How dare Kaiba make him go to his house and sleep over—get harassed—and then not even come to class on the day the project was due!? Who did that guy think he was!?
All of his lunch period, Joey yelled to Tristan about it. They sat together on the roof, Tristan casually eating from his bento while Joey screamed around a fancy sandwich Kaiba's dinning staff had made him "at Master Kaiba's command."
"Wow, Joey. He's got you even more worked up than usual," Tristan said. "Maybe somethin' happened to him."
"If somethin' happened to him, this whole town would know about it the second it happened! There'd be girls cryin' everywhere, afraid he lost his good looks in a car wreck."
"From what you've told me, I think his fangirls are gonna be crying over something else here soon," Tristian said, giving Joey a devilish smirk.
Joey felt his face turn red and he focused more on his sandwich—stuffing the rest of it into his mouth to avoid talking.
"Has he really been trying to kiss you?"
"Trying?" Joey said around his mouthful of food. "He's succeeded. Multiple times!"
"And you still haven't punched him?—I'm starting to think you like it, Joey."
"Hey! That's victim blamin', man! That's not even funny!"
"Victim blaming? All he did was kiss you. If you didn't like it, you'd tell him to stop it."
"I do! He keeps doing it! This morning he crawled into my bed with me. He's actin' weird."
"He got in bed with you? And you didn't punch him?"
"I yelled at him," Joey said with little conviction.
"Okay, the Joey I know would never let Kaiba get away with that. What's he done to get inside your head?"
Joey sighed and set the sandwich aside. In his time with Kaiba, Joey had learned that he wasn't ias/i horrible of a person as he'd thought. The guy had some dark secrets, and whatever they were caused Kaiba to be nicer to him…and when Kaiba was actually trying to be nice, he wasn't that awful of a guy. Joey wasn't planning to run off into the sunset with him holding hands and skipping, but he wasn't planning on punching Kaiba in the face for being handsy either.
"He's just actin' strange, Tristan. When he was in my room this morning, he was…vulnerable. It was weird seeing Kaiba like that."
"Vulnerable? How?"
"Eh, I said somethin' to him," Joey said, leaving out there part where Kaiba's kissing transformed from something forceful to something a little more sensual and seductive. "He just looked really hurt and he walked off—he didn't even insult me back or anything. He just walked away."
"Yeah, and skipped class you would present late and lose points—and probably have to go back to his house."
"Why would I have to go back to his house?" Joey muttered.
"Duh, because he's luring you in. I bet you anything, if you don't go to his house tonight, he won't be in class tomorrow either. He's gonna make you come to him."
Joey groaned and scratched at his head, annoyed that Tristan was able to figure that out before he could. Of course Kaiba was going to trick him into going back to his mansion? How else would keep Joey around? If the project was finished and turned in, there'd be no excuse to see him (or kiss him in the middle of the night).
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"I don't care what you think, Wheeler. You can tell I'm busy. I didn't skip class to draw you into my house. If I wanted you somewhere, don't you think I'd tell you? I don't have time to play mind games."
Joey stood in front of Kaiba's desk at his office, fuming and feeling his eyebrow twitch erratically. Kaiba was smirking the whole time he spoke, making it obvious that he was playing 'mind games.' He didn't show up because he wanted to see if Joey came chasing after him. In a few minutes, the dog insults would be coming in rapid fire.
"Right. So you're tellin' me you just skipped class and left me hanging because you just decided work was more important than our grade!?"
Kaiba rolled his eyes and Joey was prepared to cock back his fist and punch him.
"If it means that much to you, Wheeler, I can give teacher a call and have her work something out for you," Kaiba said, adopting a condescending tone and an even more twisted smirk.
"What's your problem, rich boy? You're up to somethin' and I know it. You'd better tell me what it is before I beat it out of ya," Joey said, scowling darkly and raising his fist as threateningly as he could.
"You? Beat it out of me? You don't stand a chance," Kaiba said, his eyes narrowing and his smirk fading into tightly pressed lips.
"Don't tempt me, moneybags. After the stunts you been tryina' pull, I could ruin your reputation in all the local papers. So don't…don't tempt me." Joey's passion faded immediately into fear when Kaiba stood from his desk, a dark expression in his face and eyes.
"Are you threatening me?" Kaiba said, his voice low. He stepped around the desk and stood threateningly close to Joey who looked up at him nervously. "Because if you think you have any leverage against me, you're mistaken. You come here to my office, in my company. If you had a problem with me, you should've taken care of it yesterday. Do you have a problem, Wheeler?"
Joey swallowed hard and shook his head. That vulnerable image of Kaiba that he had in his mind was gone—completely replaced by this Kaiba, the one that was silently threatening to break his neck.
"Get out," Kaiba said.
Nodding, Joey backed toward the door. Kaiba stared at him until the door finally closed. Even as he walked out of the Kaiba Corp office building, Joey still felt those eyes on him. Frigid and spiteful.