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, referencées 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: Joey goes digging for answers. Hopefully he gets some this time, especially after all the reflection he's been doing about Kaiba's actions. Who knew Joey thought so much!
( ) ( ) ( )
Joey sat on the roof for lunch with Yugi, Tristan, and Téa. He was still grumbling about Kaiba skipping their class again today, and complaining about how the uniform he was wearing—Kaiba's uniform, although he'd yet to admit that to his friends—was too large and made him look scrawny.
In class, the teacher told him if Kaiba didn't come tomorrow, Joey would have to present on his own… He had a feeling Kaiba wasn't going to come—Kaiba was holding out on him because he knew it would make Joey come back to his mansion in order to confront him.
"So how's it going at Kaiba's?" Tristan asked when Joey had mumbled to himself for too long.
"At Kaiba's? What do you mean?" Téa asked. "I thought he made you meet him at his office."
"He really let you in his mansion?" Yugi asked.
Joey had kept Yugi and Téa out of the loop when it came to the weird relationship with Kaiba. At first it was because he didn't want Yugi to get worried about Kaiba bullying him, and also because he really just didn't want people making a big deal out it. He'd thought he project would be a simple "get in, get it over with" kind of process. He'd never expected that Kaiba would start kissing him and trying to defend and protect him.
"Didn't he tell you? He's been staying at Kaiba's mansion," Tristan said. Joey growled at him and shook his head.
"Wow," Téa exclaimed. "And you mean to tell me you two haven't tried killing each other yet."
"It's…It's weird. I think Kaiba's on some drugs or somethin' because he's actually been nice to me for a change," Joey said. He didn't want everyone to know about the private things that were happening, things he'd only told Tristan out of sheer desperation. He felt the last person Kaiba would want knowing that he had some sort of a crush on Joey was Yugi—his arch rival.
"Do you really think he's taking something to make him act nicer?" Yugi asked, actually sounding worried.
"I don't know," Joey said, sighing. During their talk at breakfast, Mokuba had made it sound like Kaiba had a crush on him. Kaiba had been fighting it and fighting it, but apparently having Joey near him—near him and alone—for an extended period of time had completely destroyed his self-control. Mokuba had said Kaiba was so mean to Joey because he liked him and because it wasn't acceptable for Kaiba to be attracted to another guy. It made sense. For Kaiba, image was everything. If his investors or the public no longer liked him, his company would start sinking. And Kaiba loved his company—it was how he provided for Mokuba, the person he loved more than life itself.
"You're being weird, Joey," Téa said. "Did something happen between you guys?"
"I'd say so," Tristan said, laughing even though Joey shot him a death glare. Why was Tristan trying to drag it all out in the open? Didn't he know Kaiba would kill Joey if he found out he was gossiping about him?
"What happened?" Yugi asked.
"I dunno," Joey said. "We…we talked about some stuff—"
"You're hiding something," Téa said, tapping her foot impatiently. "Kaiba doesn't just start up friendly conversations with people. Especially not you. He practically hates you. So what made that change?"
Joey sighed and started scratching at his head anxiously.
"I don't know, you guys. At first he was mean to me like always, then he just got…close." Joey didn't exactly know the right way to describe it. He wasn't going to say Kaiba picked on him until he decided to kiss him, and then keep kissing him, and then break into his house to beat his dad up, and then push him against the wall and do sex stuff with him. No way. Even Tristan didn't know about the sex stuff, or that Joey had spent the previous night in the bed of Seto Kaiba, CEO of Kaiba Corp.
He didn't know how to tell them about that, if or when that time ever came.
"He showed up at my house last night," Joey said, trying to go with the prime example of Kaiba's change of heart toward him—his shift from hating to protecting. "My dad and I were fightin' again, and he was winning. Then, the next thing I know, Kaiba's in my house beating up my dad to get him off me."
"Really?" Téa asked, staring in wide-eyed shock. "How did he even find your house? What was he doing there?"
"I'm… I'm not sure. I think I forgot some stuff at his house when I stayed over to work on the project—"
"How many times has he had you stay over!?" Téa asked.
"Uh—a few," Joey said, forgetting that it wasn't the most normal thing in the world to have a guy everyone thought hated Joey make Joey sleep in his house. "But the real point is, after Kaiba found out about my dad, he started to be a little bit nicer."
"It's no secret his stepfather wasn't exactly kind to him," Yugi said quietly. "He sympathizes with you, Joey. That doesn't make him crazy."
It does if you knew what else he was doing, Joey thought.
"The thing is, he doesn't want to let me go home," Joey muttered. "I tried to leave last night and, long story short, he practically made it impossible."
"You're not the type of person to let other people make you do things you don't want to do, Joey," Téa said. "Something else is going on here, and I think it has to do with you sleeping at his house and wearing his clothes."
"Ah, come on, Téa!" Joey said, trying to hide his embarrassment. "I couldn't go home after he beat my dad up and I didn't have my uniform with me. I had no choice but to borrow one of his."
"Come on, Joey, just spit it out," Tristan said, grinning. Joey wanted to punch him, but didn't have the energy.
"Spit what out?" Yugi asked. "Did something else happen?"
"From what I've heard," Tristan said, smiling at Joey with a malicious glint in his eyes. "Kaiba's got a thing for old Joey here."
"A thing? Like…a fixation?" Téa asked. "I mean, he's obviously stalking him if he shows up at his house for no reason just in time to be the hero."
"Yeah, fixation's a good word," Joey mumbled. It was really more like an obsession.
"Come on, Joey—just tell them. It'll be funny," Tristan said, trying to force Joey to talk about the kisses. Despite his good humor, it was not funny! Kaiba's feelings weren't funny.
So Kaiba had a crush on him. Even if Kaiba had made a point to bully him, Joey didn't want his friends to start making fun of Kaiba for finally breaking down and showing affection for a change. Kaiba had a bad past; he wasn't shown a lot of love. He didn't know how to love anyone other than Mokuba, and Joey had a pretty good understanding of where he'd learned about physical love.
He resisted showing affection because he'd been taught to see it as a weakness—taught to see it as shameful. And all that resisting just led to built-up tensions that exploded. When Kaiba couldn't fight it anymore, he was pushy and aggressive. Deep down, Joey felt that Kaiba really just wanted to be loved. Everybody wants to be loved. However, not everybody was taught that love was a weakness that needed stomped out.
Joey couldn't tell his friends that Kaiba had bullied him so much—degraded him so much—because the pressure of fighting his affection was so overwhelming to him. Even now, Kaiba couldn't speak kind words. His only way of telling Joey he even liked him was to say "you're mine." Kaiba felt out of control and he wanted to prove to himself that he was still in charge of something.
"What's supposed to be so funny?" Téa asked. "Did he walk in on you changing or something?"
"It's nothin', guys," Joey said.
"Joey," Tristan said, still trying to pry.
"Just drop it, alright!? You're makin' me sorry I ever told you anything!" Joey yelled.
Kaiba's affection—his love—wasn't a joke, If Joey's assumptions about Kaiba's past were right, that his stepfather had done more than just slap him around and yell at him, then those kisses Tristan wanted so badly to exploit were a bigger deal than any of them could possibly imagine. Joey wasn't going to let them make fun of Kaiba. It would hurt him… Joey didn't want to hurt him.
Joey didn't know what it meant yet, but he liked Kaiba. He hadn't forgotten all the grief that guy had given him over the years, but he was willing to forgive. Maybe.
( ) ( ) ( )
Before going to face Kaiba and give him a piece of his mind about skipping class for the second day in a row, Joey knew he would have to stop by his own home and check on his dad. Even if Kaiba was insistent that Joey shouldn't care about him, Joey still loved his father—booze and all. Besides, there was nowhere else for Joey to go since Kaiba would be at his corporate office until dinner time—and possibly even later.
Joey crept through the front door of his house and was shocked when the stench of booze wasn't the first thing to strike his nose. The house was spotless except for the dirty man sleeping on the couch… Joey's father had an amount of bruises and cuts on his face and hands, but otherwise he seemed alright. The empty bottle of alcohol on the coffee table—the only out of place thing in the room—hinted that the man was just passed out drunk.
Apparently, Kaiba had called in a cleanup crew to help keep Joey's dad from pressing charges for the attack. Joey was surprised it worked. His dad liked money a lot more than a clean home and charging Seto Kaiba with assault would've probably been a million dollar pay out…
Maybe Kaiba had already given him a million dollars. Joey wasn't going to wake up his father to ask.
Suddenly, there was clattering sound from the kitchen and Joey started. No one lived with him except for his father. Who was hiding out in his house?
Cautiously, Joey stepped over to the kitchen doorway and peered inside. There was an elderly woman standing over his kitchen sink, scrubbing it with a brush to get out the old grease stains on the metal.
"Um…hello?" Joey called. The woman turned to look at him and smiled.
"Oh, good. You're home. Mr. Kaiba wanted me to tell you that he asked me to help your father keep up with the housekeeping." The lady laughed and then went back to scrubbing. "I can take care of your father. I used to be a nurse before I retired."
"Kaiba sent a retired lady to clean up after my dad?" Joey said, thinking out loud.
"I need the work to keep me busy. I don't mind. Your father isn't so bad as long as he's…pacified."
By pacified, Joey felt she meant drunk.
"Um…Thanks," Joey said, watching the woman work with a feeling of guilt. He'd never bothered to keep the house clean and now this poor old woman was cleaning up his mess.
"Also, Mr. Kaiba wanted me to tell you that his car will be here at four-thirty to pick you up for dinner. My shift ends at three, so I'll be on my way out soon."
"Okay," Joey said moving to go to his room.
"One more thing," the old woman said. "Mr. Kaiba took the liberty of moving some of your personal things to your room at the mansion."
Joey froze, the meaning of the words not quite sinking in. He bolted for his room and almost screamed when he saw that all of his clothes, movies, and games were gone. It looked like someone raided the place and then dusted it clean and vacuumed.
It was no wonder Kaiba sent an elderly, retired woman to clean his house. If it'd been someone younger, Joey would've given them a piece of his mind!
( ) ( ) ( )
When Seto got home from work, the first obstacle he was faced with was Joey. Apparently, he wasn't very excited about being moved into the mansion more or less permanently. The only things he'd instructed his workers to leave behind in Joey's old home were the pieces of furniture—a bookshelf, a broken bed, and a dresser. Everything else, Seto had had placed in Joey's new bedroom at the mansion—one placed directly across the hall from Seto's room.
"What the hell was that about, Kaiba!?" Joey snapped. "You can't just steal all my stuff and put it where you want without even asking me first! What's wrong with you!?"
"I told you I wasn't going to let you go back to that house. You have an adequate room here, and I can guarantee that no one here is going to beat you up in a drunken rage."
"No, they'll just kiss me and back me into a wall!" Joey yelled.
Some people saw anger as an attack. It made them feel threatened or cornered. For Seto, anger was a challenge—just another game. Could he escalate it? Could he soothe it? Sometimes not knowing what the outcome of his moves would be. Learning new things had always fascinated him. He loved knowing things that people his age weren't supposed to know—like how to build incredible, high-tech machinery.
It was the same with relationships. He had no idea how they worked, and now it was challenge to see how he could shape this one.
So while Joey kept fuming at him about invasions of privacy and how he had things he didn't want Kaiba Corp employees digging through, Seto just watched the blonde's curled lips. He waited and waited for the perfect chance, and as soon as Joey's mouth formed the perfect o shape, Seto grabbed Joey by the back of the head and pressed their mouths together.
Maybe it was wrong—maybe he'd gone crazy—but the more he let go, the more he gave in to the horribly anxiety that gnawed at his chest whenever the pup was near, the better he felt. It was like a drug. Everyone in his house had their silence bought and paid for. Here, he could do whatever he wanted and the media could never know. It was shameful, but it was safe.
And once Seto let go, all the tension left him. He didn't feel so hostile anymore, and when he did he knew he could just strike up a fight with the dog. Joey knew how to argue and Seto knew how to fight without hurting feelings.
He didn't know a lot about relationships, but he felt that he and Joey had a good dynamic. He could yell at Joey and Joey would yell back. He wouldn't fall to his knees and cry. He wouldn't beg forgiveness or grovel. Joey was just as proud as Seto was—and that was what made him perfect.
As he kissed Joey on his open mouth, he couldn't help but moan. Joey wasn't fighting him, but he made a loud noise of displeasure as Seto stroked the hair at the base of his neck. After several seconds, Joey's complaints stopped and Seto broke the kiss. Part of him wanted to let it go on—to explore more and touch more—but he couldn't bring himself to do it.
As much as he liked Joey, as fascinated as he was by the pup, he didn't like touching people. He liked his space. Very few people were allowed to be as close to him as Joey was now. It was part of the reason tabloid magazines had never been able to spread relationship rumors about him. If he was never seen with anyone in public, there was no scandal to whisper about.
"Did you do what I asked?" Seto said as Joey stared at him and panted, trying to catch his breath after the kiss.
"What?" Joey asked.
"Did you make out a list of meals for my cooks to add to our rotation?" Seto asked. He didn't really expect Joey to have done it, but he had nothing else to say the boy. He wasn't about to ask how school had gone—that was a question he reserved for Mokuba.
"Eh, I'll do it later sometime," Joey said, scratching the back of his head.
"Fine. I have a video conference in half an hour so I won't be at dinner," Seto said. He saw the way Joey's face drooped. It was slight, but Seto had a feeling it was because Joey was feeling sorry for Mokuba.
"When are you gonna eat?" Joey asked, sounding a little uncomfortable.
"After my conference. The cooks know to keep a plate warm for me."
"Yeah, but what good is it to have a whole table set and not get to eat from it?" Joey asked.
"The world doesn't revolve around my tastes and my stomach, Wheeler. Right now, it revolves around whatever hoops Pegasus wants me to jump through."
"Your conference is with Pegasus?" Joey asked, actually following Seto as he walked upstairs to his room.
"We've been working on creating the holograms for some new cards. It takes a lot of programming to get the monsters to act so natural, and Pegasus is more involved in their design than you'd think."
"It's kinda unfair that you get all the info on the new cards before they're even released," Joey said.
"Even if I didn't have an insider's look I'd still be a better duelist than you."
"Not better than Yugi," Joey muttered.
Seto tried to ignore that last comment. It took a lot of self-control not to let his anger get the best of him, but he didn't feel like spending the rest of his evening trying to formulate duel strategies to beat Yugi's deck. All of his other calculations had failed and he didn't know why…
He didn't want to let his mind get caught up in it—especially not with a video conference with Pegasus coming up. Pegasus liked to play games of his own and Seto didn't need to have his patience worn out by then.
( ) ( ) ( )
When Kaiba's video conference was finally over, Joey took it upon himself to bring Kaiba his food. Not because he wanted to be cute little server-boy, but because it was an excuse to get Kaiba alone and talk to him.
If Kaiba was going to keep forcing kisses on him and forcibly moving Joey into his mansion with him, Joey wanted to know exactly what was going on. He didn't like being a bystander in his own life.
Kaiba was in his home office still when Joey brought him the dinner. At first, Kaiba didn't even look up when the door opened and closed, but when he realized it was Joey in his office instead of a domestic, he actually seemed a little amused.
"We never finished what we were talkin' about this mornin', and I still wanna talk to you," Joey said. Kaiba scowled at him and leaned back in his chair.
"As far as I'm concerned, that discussion is over. You admitted to me that your father doesn't care about you. What else is there to discuss?"
"You, rich boy," Joey muttered.
Joey's eye twitched slightly, irritated by how smug Kaiba managed to sound. Deep down he realized that Kaiba's attitude was a front for any and all of his insecurities, but it didn't make it any more bearable.
"You want to discuss me?" Kaiba said, raising one brow in amusement. Still, he sounded snide.
"Yeah, you."
"What could you possibly want to know about me? Don't you read the tabloids? My life story is all there."
"I don't wanna know about how much money you make an' who you met for dinner on business trips!" Joey snapped.
"So you have been reading what they write about me," Kaiba said, smirking. Joey hated how pleased Kaiba looked—like a cat that had successfully captured a mouse.
"That's not important!" Joey yelled. His only knowledge of Kaiba in the news was from whatever was on the cover of magazines in the supermarket check-out lines. It wasn't his fault the lines were long and the only thing to keep his attention was pictures of Seto Kaiba with big captions reading KAIBA CAUGHT IN CAFÉ WITH I2 REP (pg. 32). "Look, I know you don't wanna talk about it, but I do. You're a private person and I get that, but if you wanna keep me around and…you know, stuff, then we gotta be open with each other. It's not fair that you know all of my secrets and I don't know any of yours."
"You obviously have something you want to ask, so stop with the lecture and get to the point, Wheeler." Kaiba's humored eyes immediately turned dark and Joey felt his stomach tighten. He didn't want to make Kaiba angry, but he needed to know… There was so much uncertainty about what exactly was happening between him and the CEO. Joey just wanted to know something about the other man…
"Don't get mad at me," Joey said, knowing it was a useless request since Kaiba had a mind of his own and was more than happy to assert it whenever he could. "But I gotta know…"
"Wheeler," Kaiba said, eyes getting extremely narrow as his frustration began to show. "Haven't I taught you by now that stalling is just a waste of everyone's time? What do you want?"
"Na—I'm tryin'! I just don't want to make you mad!"
"I'm already getting mad."
Joey sighed and forced himself to give up. If he didn't ask now, he never would. He took a deep breath and cringed as he let the words go.
"You act like what happens between me and my dad is personal to you. I just wonder if…the same thing, you know, happened…happened to you."
"I spent over a year in an orphanage. What do you think?"
"I'm not talkin' about at the orphanage," Joey said, cringing at how insensitive he sounded. The death of Kaiba's parents and how he ended up in an orphanage to begin with was an issue, but not the one Joey felt needed addressed right away. Kaiba seemed to have worked through all of that. He wore his new surname proudly—the Kaiba name—like a badge or medal he'd earned. "I'm talkin' about your stepdad and you know it. Ever since we met you've been nothin' but a jerk to me, then once you figured out he was beating me up you got all protective. It gets under your skin more than anything else—and that's sayin' somethin', Kaiba, because the only other thing you let bother you is losing to Yugi at Duel Monsters. So I wanna know…your stepfather, he did the same thing to you, didn't he?"
Kaiba was quiet for a very long time, staring with narrowed eyes. Joey sank his teeth into his bottom lip, waiting for Kaiba to snap. He looked like he was about to snap. Oh God, he was about to snap. Kaiba was finally about to lose his mind. His eye twitched!
Joey cried out a little squeal of fear when Kaiba's eye literally twitched.
He'd been crazy to think Kaiba was going to open up. Had he thought Kaiba'd magically turn all warm and fuzzy because he pitied Joey?
"I-I'm sorry," Joey said quickly. "I just—I thought… I-I don't know. I—I said I was sorry!" Joey began to panic when Kaiba stood up from his desk slowly. When Joey moved toward the door, preparing to run for his life, Kaiba grabbed him by the arm and backed him into the wall again—that cold, haunted look in his eyes. "I'm sorry!" Joey called.
"Why do you care about what happened between my stepfather and me?" Kaiba asked, his voice as cold as his eyes. His grip on Joey's wrist became crushing and Joey cried out in pain. It was useless to try to fight because the more he squirmed the more agitated Kaiba became.
"Because you care about what happened between my dad and me! It—It wouldn't be right if you protected me and I didn't show concern for you!"
"Stay out of my business," Kaiba said, locking his eyes with Joey's in an unrelenting stare.
"Why should I?" Joey snapped. "You broke into my house and beat up my father—then sent some servant to clean up after him. Why would you do somethin' like that?"
Kaiba didn't say anything. He just kept eye contact—his face blank.
"Kaiba…" Joey tried to put some compassion into his voice, hoping that Kaiba would realize Joey was just trying to get to know him and not fish for information to sell to the tabloids. Apparently, Kaiba took that compassion to mean something entirely different.
At first, Joey thought he was about to be grabbed and thrown through the wall. Kaiba fisted his hand in the hair on the back of Joey's neck and pinned him that way against the wall, then he forced their lips together, waiting for Joey to cry out from the pain of his hair being yanked so he could slide his tongue into Joey's mouth. The hand that wasn't in Joey's hair grabbed onto his hip hard enough to leave bruises. When the hand left his hip and began to tug at the front of his jeans, Joey moaned in protest and started pushing against Kaiba's chest. Even when he used all of strength, Kaiba wouldn't budge and panic began to take over all of Joey's thoughts. All he could focus on was the wall digging into his bag, the fist in his hair, the tongue invading his mouth, and that hand forcefully rubbing him through his jeans.
Just when Joey was about to scream, all of the contact stopped and Kaiba took a small step back. Joey looked up to meet his gaze, faced with the same harshness and coldness as before. He swallowed hard and tried to think of something to say, terrified that Kaiba would grab him again. Sure, Joey had been backed into corners before—beaten until he was bloody and barely able to move—but what Kaiba had been insinuating, touching him that way when he didn't want it, that was different. That was worse.
As it was, Kaiba was just staring at him now, taking in the fear on Joey's face. Was he planning something? Planning a way to pin Joey so he couldn't escape or a way to gag him so no one would hear it if he screamed? Was Kaiba really that kind of person?
He couldn't be—No, he couldn't be. If he was cruel, he wouldn't have gone ballistic when he saw Joey's father hitting him. Kaiba's instincts were to protect, not to torture. Right?
"If I were my stepfather," Kaiba said, his eyes so dark it made Joey shudder. "I wouldn't have stopped." He gave Joey one last, harsh push to the chest, causing him to smack the back of his head on the wall and let out an involuntary whimper.
After that, Kaiba left his office, slamming the door behind him. Joey stared at it after he was gone—all of his questions answered.