A/N: Heya!

I know it's been a while. School stuff and lack of inspiration being the main problems here. I can't promise to update regularly really, because it depends a lot on the homework we get and my amount on learning for the driving license.

This chapter's hassn't been beta'd yet. If you glimpse a mistake or anything, tell me and I'll fix it.

I really hope you enjoy the chapter!

All the best,

much love!

Chapter 7: An offer you can't refuse

"His name's Noah." Mokuba finally said.

Both he and Joey were in the living room in Kaiba Mansion, the blond lying on the carpet while Mokuba sat cross-legged, his back leaning against the dark red couch.

"He seems like a nice boyfriend", Joey said, somewhat triumphant because he had spend the last hour trying to get anything out of Mokuba about the green-haired boy, but up until now with not so much as an annoyed look, exasperated sigh or a blush as a response. It seemed like the black-haired boy wanted to talk about it after all.

"He's not. …my boyfriend, I mean", he added hastily as he saw Joey who had thrown a shocked expression at the boy who had spoken, that changed now to one of surprise.

"You seemed pretty intimate in my opinion."

Mokuba sighed. "But that was the first time he ever kissed me! I didn't even know he was into boys until today." He banged his head against the armrest. "He moved here at the start of this term and we got along really well, but I wouldn't have ever thought that he liked me that way."

"What about you? Do you like him that way?", Joey asked, a certain brunet popping up in his head. He shook his head to dismiss the picture, grateful that Mokuba's eyes were closed and he didn't see the blush tinting his cheeks.

"I don't know. I mean, he is an awesome friend and he comforts me whenever I have a problem or I need advice," a small smile made its way to the black-haired's lips. "You know, it's so easy to be myself around him."

There was a short pause.

"He's also a really good kisser..."

…

How Joey and Mokuba had been able to turn the kitchen into a battlefield within the three and a half hours that had passed since Joey had picked the black-haired boy up from school, neither of them could explain.

By the look on Kaiba's face when he had opened the door to the room after he came home from work, he was too shocked to listen to an explanation, anyway. Joey watched nervously as Kaiba looked from one side, cupboards covered with dough, to the ceiling, something looking suspiciously like pancakes hanging halfway from it, to the other side, smoke evoking from the oven, then back, shortly pausing at the blond before his eyes finally settled on Mokuba. His expression had turned completely blank by that time, even though Joey was quite sure he had seen one of the brunet's eyes twitch.

Joey glanced to his right, where Mokuba stood rooted to the spot. He looked agitatedly at his brother, shuffling his feet nervously on the floor.

"What on earth happened here?," Kaiba finally said, his voice distant, like he was talking to himself, rather than the two teenagers in front of him.

When Mokuba didn't seem like he would answer anytime soon, Joey decided it was best if he responded.

"Mokuba and I baked a cake." He tried to muster his most convincing smile, but had the impression that Kaiba wasn't buying it. The blond's eyes glanced to the oven that still belched smoke. "…well, we tried to, that is…" The brunet followed his look slowly, as if in a trance. Great. Just great. Joey was just beginning to accept that he might be in some way infatuated with Kaiba and now he had ruined everything by ruining the kitchen of said brunet. The blond looked up hesitantly, awaiting some kind of outburst from Kaiba.

It never came to that, though. To Joey's utter surprise, the brunet just closed his eyes for a moment before walking past the kitchen counter and grabbing a towel that hung at one of the shelves' doors.

"I'm cleaning up here, so go upstairs and wash off all the baking ingredients," he simply stated, making a sideway glance to the mess that was Mokuba. "I'll try to get something delivered and when you are finished, we'll have, dinner." Kaiba walked to his brother, one hand ruffling the younger's hair, who on his part frowned, even if Joey could tell that he wasn't upset but really, really grateful.

When the black haired boy turned around, sprinting off, Kaiba and Joey were left behind, a silence stretching between them again.

Joey watched perplexed as Kaiba put stained bowls in the sink, wiped the dough from kitchen surfaces and placed cooking ingredients back in their shelves. As the brunet was just about to deposit a package of flour in the cupboard over the oven he caught Joey staring at him, cocked his head a little and asked in a neutral voice.

"Something wrong?"

Joey immediately straightened up. "Yes…- I mean no-… maybe...-", why was he so nervous? He let out an exasperated breath, "..Just… just surprised I guess…"

"About what?"

"I didn't think you'd be so calm," Joey looked at Kaiba intently, trying to make out some hidden anger or annoyance, but he couldn't. The brunet rather looked amused, right now.

"Well, maybe you should revise your low opinion of me." He said, giving him a funny look that made heat rush to Joey's face.

"Yeah, I should." He said slowly, because really, it was true. Joey had thought of Kaiba as nothing more than an arrogant egoist a few days ago and he was becoming more and more aware of the fact that he hadn't judged quite rightly.

Kaiba did look taken aback by Joey's words, but caught himself pretty quickly. He gave him another look which expression the blond couldn't really place, before walking around the table directly towards Joey. He stopped in front of the blond, a hand reaching to his face and Joey had to repress the urge to lean into the hand. Kaiba's face was right before him and the blond was struck by the idea of Kaiba leaning down and kissing him, but a moment later the brunet leaned back, something doughy between his thumb and middle finger. Joey let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.

"You had something in your hair," Kaiba asked as if that wasn't obvious. His voice somewhat sounded lower than usual. Joey felt hot all of a sudden, although he was sure that the temperature hadn't risen and he hoped the flour covering his face would hide the blush creeping across his skin.

"You should wash as well, you look…," Kaiba seemed to choose the word carefully. "Well, terrible."

Joey felt a little offended until he saw the small smile that had formed on the brunets face. His hand was still only centimeters from Joey's head and it took all of the blond's willpower to not lean into it. The brunet's eyes had darkened somewhat and Joey noticed for the first time that they were not completely blue, but also nearly golden on the edges. He could feel the brunet's breath on his face, and the warmth radiating from his body. His heart was speeding up its beating and Joey was sure that Kaiba would notice it. He suddenly wanted nothing more than to press his hand to Kaiba's chest, just to feel if his heart was thumping the same speed. His hand twitched at his side.

A cough behind him pulled him back to earth and when he turned around he saw Mokuba standing in the doorway, one eyebrow cocked and an amused smile playing around his lips. For the uptenth time this day, Joey could feel his face heating up. He lowered his gaze, and walked past the black haired boy, out of the kitchen, and heard Kaiba calling after him "The bathroom is upstairs, first door on the left."

"I left a towel out for you!", Mokuba added cheerfully.

As soon as he had opened the bathroom door, he dashed to the sink, turned on the cold water and splashed it across his face.

What the hell was that? He was thinking frantically. The prospect of finding Kaiba in any way endurable would have sounded absolutely ridiculous to Joey a few days ago. He would have likely put it on the "10 Things That Are Less Likely To Happen than Christmas Falling on a Friday The Thirteenth" list. Still, he couldn't really deny the fact that he was feeling anything but hate or indignation for Kaiba right now. And he didn't know how to cope with that at all.

It didn't help things that the brunet stubbornly behaved in so unexpected ways that Joey had to almost constantly change his mind about him, none of the decisions for the worse of Kaiba.

Joey sighed and looked up in the mirror hanging above the sink. He immediately knew what Kaiba had meant with him looking terrible. His hair was nearly completely white, his face was covered with dough and what looked like a chocolate smudge was on one of his cheeks. His clothes weren't much better off. Stains of all kinds of cooking ingredients were sticking to his red jacket and something like raw eggs was dripping from his elbow. Deciding that the stains would not go away by just dusting himself off he decided to pull off the jacket, because he wanted to look at least a little tidier when he came downstairs again. His hair was less of a problem, because he simply washed it in the sink before drying it with the towel. Giving himself a quick once-over, he decided that this had to do and made his way out of the room and down the stairs again.

When he got back into the kitchen, he found one Seto Kaiba leaning over what looked like some glasses filled with black and white flummery, layered so it created a nice pattern. The brunet looked sideways at Joey, when the latter approached the interesting looking glasses.

"Your hair's wet", the brunet remarked in a matter-of-fact voice, returning his attention to his work. Joey noticed a half gone chocolate bar beside the cooking plate.

"What are you cooking?", Joey asked, hesitantly, because he didn't know if cooking was the best topic to talk to Kaiba about right now.

"Dessert, actually", the brunet answered, taking the glasses and putting the one by one into the fridge. "Since your… attempt to bake… did not work out, I decided to make something."

"Chocolate parfait", he answered to Joey's curious look, when he had turned around. "It's Mokuba's favorite food."

And there it was again, that warm feeling in the pitch of Joey's stomach. He tried to put it aside, though, concentrating on the conversation he didn't want to break off.

"Can I ask you something?", Joey said.

Kaiba seemed a little surprised, but nodded. " Technically you already did, but I take that you wanted to pose an actual question and not just a permission for it." He smirked at the blond with a twinkle in his eyes.

Joey huffed at the joke. He had almost forgotten about Kaiba the Sarcastic. Kaiba the Good Brother had been spending the majority of his time with him today.

"Why were you not upset about earlier?", he asked instead of a witty comeback.

"You mean when I came home to find the kitchen looking like a bomb had exploded in it?" Kaiba eyed him amused. "Well, first off, because I couldn't really expect anything less from you," Joey tried to object, but the brunet cut across him. "secondly, what use would it have been if I had thrown a fit, upsetting not only Mokuba on his birthday but also you, even though we had just decided to behave civil around each other?" He looked at Joey as if expecting a counter argument. Joey didn't have one, though.

"Look", Kaiba went on after a short pause, "I'm not really that good at all the show your affection stuff, but Mokuba is really important to me and I know I upset him enough with all the days I have to work late so I shouldn't make it worse with throwing fits at each and every little thing he might not have done completely to my liking", a weird look crossed the brunets face, as if he was about to say something else. He kept quite though and looked back at the cooking plate.

"I think Mokuba can be happy to have you as a brother." The words had come out so fast that Joey hadn't been able to hold them back.

Kaiba looked up and was about to say something when the doorbell rang.

"The delivery service", Kaiba explained. "I'll be right back." With that he turned and walked in the direction of the front door.

Joey stood there feeling more and more confused with himself by the moment. Had Kaiba just talked with him about his feelings? This was confusing. He huffed and walked in the opposite direction in the adjoining room, where Mokuba sat on the couch, skimming through some magazine.

Joey flopped down beside him, took a cushion from beside him and clutched it against his chest.

"Seems like I'm not the only one who is getting confused about his feelings for another boy." Mokuba called from beside him.

The cushion made contact with the black-haired boy before he knew what hit him.

…

The dinner went well, except for Mokuba's badly disguised attempts at hiding the knowing smiles he cast across the table whenever Joey dropped his knife or choked on his Chop Suey when Kaiba had asked him if he should open a widow because he felt a little hot.

After they had finished with the main course, the brunet stood up and walked into the kitchen only to emerge seconds later with the dessert that Mokuba wolfed down with delight, but only after Joey had embarrassed himself with a solo of "Happy birthday to you" that Kaiba outright refused to join and the blond didn't want to leave unfinished.

When that was finished as well, and all plates had been piled at the sink Kaiba turned to Mokuba.

"I think it's time for presents", he said. " Or rather the present." Joey looked sideways to see Mokuba looking really excited at his brother.

"Do you think you can get next week off of school?", he asked.

Mokuba looked puzzled. Then his eyes suddenly went wide and his mouth opened to form a perfect O. "Are you…- Is this- Do you mean what I think you mean?", Mokuba stammered, sounding astonished.

"So what do you say to a few days in London?"

The black-haired boy broke into a blinding smile. "Really?"

"Really," Kaiba answered.

"But doesn't the Cooperation need you?", Mokuba asked.

"They'll have to do without me for a week. I just landed a deal with a really important partner of ours, so that safes me some benefits for the next few weeks." Kaiba had a really smug expression on his face while he said that and Joey had to conclude that the meeting today abviously seemed to have gone quite well.

"I think Joey should come, too," Mokuba suddenly said making the blond jump in surprise. When Joey caught the black-haired boy's glance, he noticed the twinkle in the boys eyes. "He's your assistant…", he threw a smile at Joey from over his shoulder. "…and the internship time is not over when we go."

No, no, no. Joey regretted telling Mokuba all the details of the internship when they had been in the kitchen earlier. The black-haired boy looked far too smug right now. And a week with Kaiba was definitely not the wisest move in his current situation, even if the excitement building up in his body was telling him otherwise. Joey looked from the grinning Mokuba, a sudden urge to kick him under table seizing him, to Kaiba, who he had expected to look at least partly as stunned as the blond felt. He wasn't prepared for Kaiba to say calmly:

"I think you're right." He looked at Joey with an unreadable expression.

"What!", Joey shouted.

"Mokuba's right. We worked together for three days, from which the first was not very productive and the second a downright fiasco." Joey was unpleasantly reminded of his outburst earlier that week. "I'll have to go on a business trip on Friday and Thursday was your day off, if I remember correctly…?"That was true. The internship was only scheduled for four days a week. "…So, if Mokuba and I are spending next week in London, I can't really give you a positive grade for it, can I?"

Joey wanted to shout: "Yes, you can!", at the brunet. This was going the complete wrong way. Kaiba was still looking at him, surely expecting some kind of reaction from him, but right now, Joey wasn't able to do or say anything. When he glimpsed Mokuba's smug expression, though, a sudden inspiration struck him. If Mokuba wanted war, he could fucking well have it.

"I'd like to a lot, actually", he said slowly, his face turning to the black-haired boy. "But if your brother has someone to go on the trip with him, then shouldn't the birthday child as well?"

Mokuba was looking pretty calm for a moment, before he seemed to catch on, eyes widening.

"I think Noah should come, too, he is a very good friend of yours, isn't he?"

Mokuba looked flabbergasted. "No, -he, well—yea, I mean, - he is my friend, but… -"

"Then it's settled", Kaiba said. "I'll give him a call first thing in the morning." He stood up. "I'll do the washing up now."

Turning around and walking out of the room, he was completely oblivious to the two remaining boys staring daggers at one another.