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: Yaoi, 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: Joey goes digging for more of Kaiba's secrets. But all's well that ends well, right?
( ) ( ) ( )
Joey felt like he was about to throw his desk against the wall when he got to class—the class where he needed to present his and Kaiba's project—and Kaiba still wasn't there! Kaiba had promised that he was going to be there yet his seat was empty. The teacher was doing role call and Kaiba still wasn't there!
"And where is your partner today, Mr. Wheeler? Are you presenting on your own?"
Why did the teacher ask him where Kaiba was? Kaiba was his own person. All you had to do was turn on the news to see that.
"How should I know?" Joey asked. "He said he was gonna be here."
"We'll give him a few minutes, but if he doesn't come, you have to go on your own."
Joey groaned in discomfort and stared at the door. Just as he was about to wish Kaiba would lose his next business deal as punishment for holding out on him for so long over this stupid project, Kaiba walked through the door.
"Ah, you finally decided to show up, Mr. Kaiba," the teacher said.
"I have a meeting in half an hour," Kaiba said, his voice as rigid and stiff as ever. "Let's make this quick."
The teacher sighed heavily and gestured for Joey and Kaiba to go to the front of the room to give their presentation. Joey, who hated giving presentations, dreaded it even more when he was paired with Kaiba. It was intimidating to stand beside him. When Kaiba gave his portions of the presentation, he spoke better than their teacher—he demanded attention and boasted an air of confidence. He knew how to speak in front of groups. He wasn't nervous, wasn't shaky, didn't look like he was about to cry like some of the girls who had given presentations did.
He spoke so clearly and so directly—only a hint of arrogance in his tone.
Joey's portion of their presentation paled in comparison. Joey stammered, he got mixed up and misspoke. It was hard to act confident when Kaiba was watching him as he spoke. Just watching—staring. It was all Joey could do not to blush.
He would never tell Kaiba, never stroke the rich boy's ego by admitting that when he'd never really found Kaiba attractive until he stood next to him at the front of the room. At that moment, he just looked so confident and powerful—and Joey stood next to him as an equal.
And when their presentation was done and Joey was about to go to sit back down at his desk, Kaiba looked at him with a certain gleam in his eyes. It was a glance that no one else in the room understood. All eyes were on them and none of them, not even the teacher, realized what that little, quick gaze meant.
Without a spoken word, Kaiba left the room as soon as Joey was back at his desk. Joey sat down, feeling like he was about to start shaking. It was that glance—that short gaze. It struck him to the core. It wasn't like the usual looks Kaiba would give him. There wasn't arrogance or loathing—it was all…affection.
( ) ( ) ( )
Joey sat on the roof for lunch with Tristan, Téa, and Yugi sitting around him. After spending a little bit of time talking about their classes and who was more discouraged over the amount of homework they were assigned, the conversation turned its focus to Joey and how he was handling his stay at the Kaiba mansion.
"So are you ever going to tell us what's going on between you and Kaiba?" Téa asked, picking at her lunch. "I still don't understand how the two of you are living together and not beating each other up. You guys hate each other. So what changed?"
"I told ya," Joey muttered. "He saw my dad gettin' rough with me an' he didn't like it."
"Kaiba threw you on the ground at Duelist Kingdom, Joey. Since when does he care about your wellbeing?"
"Nyah—Stop askin' me!" Joey yelled, unable to give a real answer.
"Something's going on between you two; now spit it out!" Téa yelled, more humored than angry.
"I could tell you, but I think old Joey here would pitch a fit," Tristan said, laughing more at Joey's expense.
"It's not that hard to believe Kaiba just feels bad for Joey after what he saw," Yugi said, coming to Joey's defense.
"I'd believe you if he didn't have Joey sleeping at his house before he walked in on the fight," Téa said. "Something's going on between those two, Yugi. And if Joey was really our friend, he'd tell us." Her tone was playful but that didn't make Joey feel any better about it. It wasn't that he wanted to keep his relationship (if that's what it was) a secret, he just didn't want to make Kaiba look weak or vulnerable. The whole basis of his connection to Kaiba came from his history of abuse, and those weren't Joey's secrets to share.
"It's complicated," Joey mumbled. "Kaiba… His life's complicated and he's not good at showin' stuff."
"What he's trying to say is he and Kaiba are dating," Tristan said.
"What!? Since when!?" Téa yelled.
"We're not dating," Joey mumbled.
"Of course not," Tristan said. "You're just boyfriends who live together."
"Shut up, would ya?" Joey snapped. "I don't want it in the papers, and Kaiba doesn't need this right now."
"He really asked you to keep it a secret?" Téa asked, looking skeptical and annoyed.
"We… We talked about some stuff, okay? And I promised I wouldn't tell anyone. I can't tell ya why we're together, we just are."
"But you hate Kaiba," Téa said.
"I never really knew Kaiba," Joey said. He used to just see Kaiba's anger, hostility, and arrogance. He never understood where all that pent up rage came from. Kaiba was no different than himself—a hurt kid with a bad past—only Kaiba didn't get the chance to make friends who could support him and lead him out of the dark place. He'd been hurt, tortured, and had no one to turn to for comfort. He'd been forced to keep it all a secret—a secret that festered into shame and resentment. It was all insecurities, and Kaiba had been trained to never show that sort of weakness. All of his self-doubt was transformed into arrogance, a mask of superiority and fury whenever that image was questioned or threatened.
"So what changed?" Téa asked. "I know Kaiba, and it's not like him to just open up to someone—especially not you."
"I don't wanna talk about it," Joey mumbled.
"Come on, Joey. We're not trying to make fun of you guys, but Kaiba's not known for being all warm and fuzzy," Téa said. "How do you know he's not just playing you?"
"Because I know, okay!?" Joey said. He didn't want to get angry—it wasn't Téa's fault she did know Kaiba's darker secrets—but it was hard to stay calm when all he saw in his mind were images of Kaiba from the night before, shaking in the aftermath of another nightmare with that haunted look in his eyes. No one saw Kaiba that way, not even Mokuba. That was Joey's insurance that Kaiba wasn't just toying with his feelings. That wasn't acting…
"Jeez, don't lose your temper," Téa said, rolling her eyes. "We're just worried about you."
"Well don't be," Joey mumbled. "Kaiba's…an okay guy."
"An okay guy?" Yugi echoed, looking at Joey with too much concern. He seemed to pick up on the fact that Joey wasn't as sure about the relationship as he acted.
"Wow, how romantic," Téa mumbled.
"Well… Kaiba takes some getting used to. It's weird to go from hating someone to—"
"Sleeping with them?" Tristan suggested, laughing. Joey had never felt more mortified in his life than he did when Téa and Yugi gaped at him with open jaws.
"It's not like that!" Joey yelled.
"You slept with Kaiba?" Téa asked, still staring.
"No," Joey said with little conviction. Technically they hadn't really had sex yet, but they'd done enough—or Kaiba had done enough to him rather.
"I don't know how I feel about this, Joey," Yugi said quietly.
"It's nothin' you guys need to be worried about."
"I just don't want to see you get hurt, Joey. I know Kaiba doesn't let a lot of people close to him, so I don't think he's doing this to toy with you. But it's like Téa said. Relationships aren't Kaiba's specialty. He may have a bad past, but that's no reason to let him pressure you into things you don't want or that you're not ready for."
"I appreciate the therapy session, but I'm capable of making my own decisions," Joey said, closing up his lunchbox and shaking his head. He didn't want to admit that the main reason he let Kaiba keep manipulating him was because he did pity him. Yugi and Téa…they just didn't understand. They didn't see the look Kaiba got in his eyes when he remembered his stepfather's abuse.
No he didn't like the way Kaiba forced himself on him the first time—or the next time. He didn't like it, but he understood. Kaiba didn't do it to be cruel. That was apparent when he froze every time he thought he'd caused Joey to hurt.
But Joey could never explain that to his friends. It was too personal. For the first time, he had secrets that weren't just his to keep. They were Kaiba's secrets…and no one else had a reason to know them.
( ) ( ) ( )
After school, Joey returned to the Kaiba mansion where he proceeded to do his homework and set to work on that list of foods he liked and didn't like for Kaiba's cooking staff. Once all of his work was done, Joey began to explore the mansion—checking out sitting rooms and entertainment areas with all the large TVs and sound systems. All of these modern rooms were on the first floor of the house, but once Joey was on the second floor, it was like time had frozen.
On the second floor there were sitting rooms—lounges with old leather furniture—and libraries. Studies… There were magazines on the end tables and coffee tables all dated from five and six years previous. There was even a newspaper from all those years ago resting on a table beside a leather chair. Everything was wiped clean of dust and fingerprints, but it was still preserved in time. Joey could smell the faint, stale scent of old cigars on the air. Everything was as it had been when Gozaburo had still been alive.
It didn't seem right… Kaiba seemed to want to destroy everything that reminded him of his stepfather. Living in the same mansion that the man had owned was probably a way for him to prove to himself that he was in control of the past, but leaving these areas untouched contrasted his revolutionary attitude.
Then Joey wandered into the only room in the Kaiba Manor that was filled with cobwebs and dust. It was a room that looked like a classroom. There were textbooks on shelves on the back walls, charts and maps leaning against them. At the center of the room was a long table with only one chair at the end… This was Kaiba's classroom—Seto's classroom. His childhood was lost here, and no one had been allowed to touch it since.
Joey was surprised that the door hadn't been locked or plastered over, reinforcing the idea that the room didn't exist and that the things which happened in it never transpired.
He felt a sinking in the pit of his stomach as he backed out of the room. There was another room now that he wanted to find, just to see if it was preserved as well—the room where Seto had stayed when he'd first been adopted. The room he'd been hurt in. If Kaiba kept that room preserved like he did the classroom and the majority of the second floor, then Joey knew there was more damage done to Kaiba than he was letting on—and he let on about a lot.
Finished exploring the second floor, Joey went up to the third where the bedrooms were. He passed guest room after guest room, accidentally walked into Mokuba's room where the younger Kaiba was on the phone with someone and was not at all pleased about being intruded upon, and then continued to the other end of the hall.
There he found the second master suite. Like the lounges on the second floor, this room too was infected with the stink of cigars and leather. It was, however, also covered in dust. Some of the furniture was covered in sheets, but the bed—a king-sized monstrosity of carved wood with dark quilted sheets over the mattress—looked as if someone had just climbed out it. If not for the dust on the twisted sheets, Joey would've wondered if someone had slept there in the night.
Joey felt lured closer to the bed, maybe because in a room full of white sheets it was the only dark fixture that remained. He reached out carefully and pulled the heavy quilt aside, exposing more and more of the slightly gold tinted fabric of the mattress cover. As quickly as he'd moved it, Joey shoved the quilt back into place. There was a dark stain near the middle of the mattress cover and Joey knew from the shape and the dark tint that it was blood. He'd seen two small drops and then a large, crescent shaped smear and that was enough for him.
It wasn't a lot of blood, but just the thought of how it had gotten there caused Joey to feel close to tears. Seto had just been a kid when he'd moved into this house. He'd been a kid trying to provide for his little brother. Gozaburo took advantage of his stepson's desperation, He'd used the boy for everything he could and destroyed every piece of innocence the orphan had left.
Joey backed out of the room and closed the door quietly behind him, trying to understand why Kaiba left it that way. Servants had been allowed in to cover the furniture but not fix the sheets… The room was never cleaned but it remained unlocked where anyone could find it. Why?
Across the hall from Gozaburo's suite was the room where Seto had been kept after he'd been adopted. It was large, dusted, pristine—almost. It would've looked like another guest room if not for the chess board sitting at the center of the bed.
There were little piles of white and black pieces on opposite sides of the board, but the distinguishing feature was that the White queen had the Black king in checkmate. Joey had a feeling there was a bloodbath on the sheets underneath that chess board, but he wasn't about to dig to find out. The small patches in Gozaburo's room had affected him enough.
( ) ( ) ( )
Kaiba didn't make it home for dinner, didn't even come home in time for the kitchen staff to prepare a meal for him before they left, didn't come home until well past eleven o'clock and Mokuba was already in bed. Joey was sitting in Kaiba's room on his bed, wearing his dog pajamas and staring at the wall. He didn't know what to do to fill his time.
It was a lonely house. There were books to read, but none of them were novels. It was such a stuffy, formal house… Apart from Mokuba, Joey had no one to talk to, and Mokuba was almost as busy as his older brother. Joey was surprised to find that Mokuba did do a fair amount of work for the company—though nothing as demanding as a CEO position—working with schedules and, as Mokuba stated over dinner, "investigating suspected embezzlement and fraud."
When Kaiba finally did come home, Joey was almost too afraid to greet him when he came into the room. He couldn't imagine an extended day at the office resulting in a very good mood.
"I swear to you, Wheeler," Kaiba said, taking off his tie and tossing it toward the hamper across the room. Joey tried not to cower, but after living sixteen years under the roof of a violent drunk, bad days at work intimidated him. He always waited for the anger to turn on him. "One of these days I'm going to kill Pegasus."
Joey opened his mouth to stammer out that he was sorry, wanting to do anything or say anything to diffuse the tension, but as soon as his lips were parted Kaiba's lips were pressed against his own. Kaiba was crawling over him on the bed, making the kiss deeper and deeper until he had Joey lying back against the pillows.
"Ya know, that's not exactly the most romantic—"
"Shut up," Kaiba said, kissing him again and slipping one hand underneath Joey's pajama shirt.
"I'm not—"
"Hush," Kaiba growled. Joey whimpered and tried turning his face away from the kiss. When Joey made the quiet, pained noise, Kaiba finally stopped and pulled back just a little. "My staff told me you were digging around in my spare rooms."
"I got bored," Joey muttered. There was no point denying it. Kaiba knew where he'd been and probably knew what he'd seen. He couldn't get mad about it though. If he wanted the past to go away, he would've let those rooms be updated and cleared, not left behind with blood and mementos from the past. It was like he'd wanted someone to see…
"You got bored?" Kaiba asked, laughing slightly and attaching his lips to Joey's neck. "Try spending six hours poring over Industrial Illusions contracts looking for hidden messages."
"Hidden messages?" Joey asked, squirming slightly under Kaiba's touch.
"Last time Pegasus offered me a contract, there was a line on the fifth page saying if no negotiations were proposed, I had to meet him for brunch the third Sunday of every month."
"Maybe he's just lonely," Joey suggested, sighing in relief when Kaiba finally backed off.
"Page ten said I have to tell the media I only enjoy the company of prostitutes whenever I'm asked if I'm dating someone in an interview," Kaiba said.
"Okay, that one's pretty bad."
"Exactly. These contracts are massive. And once I'm done weeding through them I have to draft a counter proposal and hope I didn't miss anything."
"Have you ever missed anything before?" Joey asked, getting a mental image of Kaiba being forced to play dress up because of a clause he missed on page sixteen.
"No," Kaiba said, getting up from the bed and taking off his suit jacket. "So…other than digging around where you don't belong, how was your day?"
Joey almost choked on his tongue. Seto Kaiba just asked him how his day was… Kaiba didn't ask anybody how their day was—expect Mokuba, maybe.
"It was okay," Joey said. "Tristan and Téa are asking questions about us."
"You told them about us?" Kaiba asked, his eyes narrowing.
"They're my friends!"
"What did you tell them?"
"Nothing…nothing intimate," Joey said. "I just told them I was living here. They figured out the rest on their own."
"Figured out the rest of what on their own?" Kaiba snapped.
"Don't be a jerk," Joey muttered. It amazed him how quickly Kaiba could shift from seductive to argumentative. "You know how close I am to my friends. I'm not gonna keep them in the dark about this."
"As long as they can keep their mouths shut you don't have to," Kaiba said. "I don't want this ending up in the papers."
"People are gonna find out eventually," Joey said with a sigh. "I'm not gonna be your dirty little secret forever, ya know?
"My secret? You think I want it to be this way?" Kaiba asked. For once he didn't sound angry when he argued. "The tabloids would destroy you. Yes, they're eventually going to find out, but it'll be on our terms when we decide we're ready for the public to intrude on us."
"And when's that gonna be?" Joey asked.
"When you figure out whether or not you're going to stay," Kaiba said.
"You haven't given me much of a choice. I can't go back to my dad's; he'll probably kill me when he finds out I've been living here…"
"You know I won't let that man hurt you," Kaiba said. His tone was so reserved, almost sad. Joey had a feeling that there was something else going on under the surface that Kaiba was trying to keep buried.
"Somethin's the matter," Joey said. "I can tell, so don't try to lie to me about it. What's wrong?"
"What makes you think something's wrong?" Kaiba asked, hanging his suit jacket back up in his closet before beginning to unbutton his shirt.
"You're… I don't know—I can just tell! What's bothering you?" Joey turned away when Kaiba finished unbuttoning his shirt, even though he had a white undershirt beneath it.
"That's what's bothering me," Kaiba said firmly.
"What?" Joey asked. "I thought you liked it when I stood up to you."
"No, not your immature attitude. You won't even look at me."
"I'm shy!" Joey yelled, knowing that that wasn't the real issue. Kaiba just stared at him until Joey looked away and gave in. "It's weird for me, okay? I never thought about you like that before. Usually—like with the girls I've been with—I think about it beforehand. Like, I consider it being a possibility. Maybe, you know, fantasize a little about it… You were always a jerk to me. I never thought about kissing you or…or stuff, so I'm not prepared for it."
"That answer is a copout," Kaiba snapped.
"No it's not!" Joey argued. "This is just weird, okay? I feel like I'm in the middle of dream—or a nightmare! I keep waiting to wake up in my bed with a bad concussion or somethin'. You hated me, Kaiba. You can't blame me because I'm still in shock about it."
Kaiba stared at him with those cold eyes, unblinking.
"It doesn't mean I don't like you," Joey added. "It's just weird and…I don't know how to—Ah!" Joey groaned in frustration and scratched at his head. He wished Kaiba could just accept things as they were.
"Don't know how to what?" Kaiba asked, no understanding at all in his tone.
"I don't know how to date another guy!" Joey yelled, flushing with embarrassment. "I've never even thought about being with a guy before you! It's still weird for me."
"That's why I told you we'll wait until you've made up your mind before we let the press find out that you've been here," Kaiba said.
"I don't need to make up my mind," Joey mumbled. "I like you. I may not know what the heck I'm doing, but I don't want to leave."
"You don't have to do anything," Kaiba said. He took off his undershirt and tossed it toward the hamper to join his tie. Joey stiffened when Kaiba returned to the bed and started crawling over top of him again. He made Joey lie back against the pillows and began to kiss and suck at his neck.
Joey squirmed but thought twice before pushing on Kaiba's chest to get him to back off a little. He didn't want Kaiba to get upset, so Joey gave in and let the billionaire do as he pleased—he just hoped Kaiba didn't try to take it too far. Even if Kaiba didn't understand it, Joey wasn't really prepared for this relationship. He'd never imagined himself being with someone like Kaiba—a guy like Kaiba—and it took some getting used to.
Joey let out a low gasp when Kaiba's hand suddenly slid inside his pajama pants and began stroking him. Yeah, this definitely took some getting used to!
Kaiba pressed a quick kiss onto Joey's lips and then started kissing his way down his throat and neck. Then he went lower and Joey's body tensed, his heart beginning to pound. Kaiba went lower and lower, stroking Joey's cock with his hand until, with no warning, he wrapped his lips around the head and started sucking. Joey tried to protest, more shocked than upset, but all that came out was a choked moan.
Kaiba looked up at him then, still working his mouth up and down. He stared at Joey with those blue eyes—those eyes so many other people dreamed about—and Joey fought not to look away. He knew it would just upset Kaiba if he showed aversion to the touches, and within just a few seconds of having Kaiba's tongue sliding along the underside of his member, Joey was willing to do anything to keep it from stopping. He was willing to get over the fact that this was Kaiba—Seto freakin' Kaiba!—if it meant the brunette would keep his lips moving.
When Kaiba broke the stare, Joey let his head go lax against the pillows. Kaiba wrapped his fist around the base of Joey's cock and began stroking it in time with the motions of his lips. He pressed the tip of his tongue into the slit of Joey's cock, teasing until precum leaked into his mouth. Joey moaned helplessly as Kaiba sucked on him harder, fisting the base of his cock and using his lips to pay extra attention to the head.
Joey squirmed under Kaiba's touches, letting his mind fixate on the multitude of pleasurable sensations coursing through him. He tried not to remind himself that the only way Kaiba knew how to do this so well was because he'd most likely been coached by his stepfather when he'd been a kid. The thought was there in the back of his mind, but it was far in the background—especially when Kaiba took his hand away and began to deepthroat him.
It wasn't long after that when Joey came, bucking up into Kaiba's mouth. Kaiba pulled off and then immediately went into the adjoining bathroom. As Joey was coming down from his orgasm, he could hear Kaiba spitting into the sink and then washing his mouth and hands before he returned to the room.
He sat down at the foot of the bed, leaving Joey to pull up his pajama bottoms on his own to cover himself. Joey waited for several minutes, trying to catch his breath and waiting for his heart rate to slow, but Kaiba didn't move to lie down or change into his night clothes.
With a groan, Joey sat up and crawled over to the foot of the bed. He rested his chin of Kaiba's shoulder and wrapped his arms around his torso. Kaiba didn't respond at all to the touches, not even when Joey started nuzzling him—playing up the stupid puppy image Kaiba kept forcing on him. When Kaiba stayed still, Joey took a deep breath and let his hands slide lower down to the front of Kaiba's black work slacks. He let his palm smooth over the obvious erection underneath the fabric, but when he squeezed a little bit Kaiba turned and shoved him backwards.
"Don't," he said bitterly.
"I was just gonna—"
"I don't care! Don't touch me," Kaiba snapped. The anger immediately faded from his face once Joey's only response was to stare and was replaced with anxiety. "Just…don't touch me."
"Fine," Joey said, still taken aback from how violently Kaiba had reacted. It made sense—Joey knew instantly why Kaiba resisted him—but he also knew that Kaiba saw his own reservations as a weakness. He was afraid to have Joey touch him, and fear was one of the greatest weaknesses a person could have. "Less work I gotta do, rich boy," Joey said, pretending to be unfazed and rolling onto his side in a position to go to sleep. "You gonna change or are you sleeping in your work pants?"
Kaiba didn't say anything but stood up from the bed. He grabbed a pair of pajamas from his dresser and then disappeared into the bathroom to change. When he came back, he immediately turned out the light and got into bed with a fair amount of space between himself and Joey. At first, Joey was willing to let Kaiba have his space, but then he found himself creeping closer and closer until his nose was buried in Kaiba's back.
He was still getting used to the idea that he and Kaiba—Seto Kaiba, the rude and pushy CEO of the Kaiba Corporation—were a couple. Of all the people Kaiba could possibly want and have, he chose Joey… Joey didn't really understand why, but as he cuddled into Kaiba's side, he decided that it certainly wasn't a bad thing. It was obvious that Rich Boy had no idea how the hell to handle a relationship—especially a physical one—but Joey was coming to find that endearing. Kaiba wasn't mean about his insecurities. He didn't ever really force Joey to do things he didn't want. In private, he was kind of nice…
Joey felt comfortable with Kaiba when they were on their own, not like before when they were always at each other's throats.
Just as he was about to fall asleep, Joey felt Kaiba's weight shift as if he were trying to crawl away. In his sleepy stupor, Joey groaned and pulled Kaiba back closer to him, murmuring something about how it wasn't time for work yet because nothing else came to mind. The other boy sighed, but laid still for a few moments longer before rolling over and draping an arm over Joey's shoulder, holding him in return. His body was stiff for several minutes before he let out a heavy sigh, as if giving up or giving in.