Chapter Text
"Don't lay down with the dog, and you won't get fleas."
It's been a year.
The date passed on the calendar without much fanfare, though there was a level of tension in the house that didn't go completely unnoticed by Seto Kaiba. He, as usual, pretended he didn't notice. Pretended he didn't catch Mokuba marking off the little boxes by hand, despite the fact that he had a smartwatch perfectly capable of tracking the time without paper and pen. Pretended he didn't notice the small amount of relief that lifted off the boy's shoulders. Pretended he didn't notice his younger brother quietly requesting their personal chef a small and personalized cake to himself (because he damn well knew Seto Kaiba wouldn't eat it) just because it's been finally, finally a full year passing relatively normally, without major deaths or disruptions or Kaiba killing someone (or getting himself killed) with his own, two hands.
It really shouldn't be a cause for celebration, honestly, and Kaiba damn well knew it. It should just be a normal day passing, or if he was going to celebrate the fact that Seto Kaiba finally had awoken from his coma, it shouldn’t be a day that followed him around like that the whole year--something that kept his brother up at night when he went to check on him. Something that caused Kaiba to stand in the doorway while Mokuba was tucked under his blankets, both utterly aware that the other shouldn’t be awake, but both also painfully aware of the fact that neither wanted to approach the other, neither wanted to disturb the peace, neither wanted to rip open the band-aid and talk.
They really should talk.
He told himself, over and over again, that they were going to find the time to do it. He told himself that they were going to sit down and put their phones away, put Kaiba’s laptop away, take off the earpiece and even shut off the neural chip he’d installed in the back of his head, and sit down and talk.
But they never do.
And time passes by, until a month becomes a year, and by the time Mokuba is ordering a cake because his brother hasn’t gone and gotten himself thrown into the barrier of time and space again, the distance grows wider until a canyon is between them, until a few steps is the entirety of the zero event horizon, until the black hole catches him in its edges and time is frozen to a point of no return, and Kaiba couldn’t take a step even if he wanted to.
It’s been a year.
He’d woken up to Mokuba, as he usually did. Back when he’d come back from the edge. It must have been several times by that point, that he’d gone and done that. He should order the kid more cakes.
He’d woken up to Mokuba screaming his name, the system failing, thrown back into his body and the sensation too much for him to stand.
He’d woken up screaming himself, back arched and mouth open, and when Mokuba had grabbed his hand he’d almost crushed it in his own fist. He also wondered, idly, how many times he’d done that. He didn’t think any amount of cakes would make up for that.
But he’d survived. He usually does, somehow, and he’s not exactly sure why or how, but he always ends up here again, back home, staring in front of his work laptop while Mokuba goes about his daily life.
He should have thought of it as a good thing, and he knew that.
He should have thought of this return to normalcy is something that they should both cherish, and he knows he should think that, for once, the chance to normalcy should be something he should grasp with two hands, pull to him, squeeze and dig into, drain the juices from, drain any chance of happiness he’ll ever have like a vampire drinking blood from unsuspecting prey, but he also knows the fact that it won’t last, because it never does, so even though he will never really know when or how it happens, he still knows that he can’t rest, even for a second.
There’s a reason why his doctors told him to not drink caffeine, of course. And there’s a reason why he always wears such heavy, layered clothing, even indoors. Seto Kaiba’s resting heart rate was around a hundred beats per second. The doctors called it poor circulation. The way that his fingers turn cold at the edges, the way, when standing, he can’t move too quickly or the darkness creeps at the edge of his vision, threatening to pull him under.
When he sits alone at night, his heart hammering in his chest, dragon wings thrumming, beating inside his rib cage, a tire iron against his lungs, some part of him always wondered if it was the fact that it could be hereditary, or if it was the abuse he’d put on his own body of sleepless nights and endless energy drinks, or if it was diving into the space between world, or if it was the fact that his heart was thrown to the floor like glass and he was told to pick it up again, because he always screwed things up, so it wouldn’t have been the first time dishes were thrown to the ground and he was handed a broom and told to pick through the glass, and don’t cut your fingers, because it was your fault in the first place that things ended up like this .
Take some superglue and don’t mind the blood stains. When he presented it to Mokuba they were still serrated pieces, and Mokuba still accepted him anyway. Because Mokuba always accepted him. Because no matter what he did, or where he went, Mokuba still followed him, happy on his heels, tail wagging, ears perked, even when he tied him to the post with a bowl and drove away.
He shouldn’t think about Mokuba like that.
Dogs aren’t people.
He, at the very least, did take the day off.
He counted that as a small victory to himself. To be honest, he didn’t want to. Spending time away from work is painful, though perhaps not in the literal sense, or in the sense that he wanted to think about, but it is. He hated it when he saw how Mokuba’s eyes sparkled when he agreed to spend the day with him. He hated the fragility in Mokuba’s voice when his younger brother asked to sit beside him on the couch. He hated the honest joy in Mokuba’s voice when they spent time together like this.
It wasn’t because he didn’t enjoy it. It really wasn’t. He enjoyed doing it. He enjoyed making Mokuba happy, and he enjoyed making Mokuba know he was close by. Most of all, he enjoyed making Mokuba smile. A genuine smile. One he hadn’t seen in a long time.
He just hated the fact that it came with this. That it came with the genuine, tentative, ephemeral joy that only lasted a few hours before Mokuba knew Kaiba would close himself off again, pull back, and they would go back to the way that things were before. Moving separately, living separately, a huge empty house with empty walls and portraits of themselves growing up, Seto Kaiba sitting on a chair with Mokuba standing beside him, always at his side, hand clinging to one arm and framed by the dark red curtain spilling over Seto’s shoulders, a shadow of Gozaburo’s hand still resting on his shoulder, something that still creeps onto his back when he’s least expecting it.
He hated that it came with this. He hated the knowledge that things were on a timer. He hated the knowledge of the fact that he could never make it last forever. A year passed and time was somehow never ending and never stopping and never starting. Nothing could last.
At least dragons got to live forever.
It was about making Mokuba smile, though, and he knew that. And he did that. And he would keep doing that. No matter what he had to do.
No matter how many times the sword pierced his heart when Mokuba’s hands shook after they clung to him, no matter how many times Mokuba snuck into his room to make sure he was still breathing, no matter how many times Mokuba begged him to go to sleep so he didn’t find him passed out at the computer again, and Mokuba would cry because he was convinced, then, that just for a moment, that Kaiba’s body had given out on him and he was really left alone here, again, like he had so many months ago, convinced that he really was alone in the world with nobody to trust, because one of the first things he’d learned was a lesson directly from Seto Kaiba himself: that he couldn’t trust anybody else in the whole world.
He had to give Mokuba at least one day. It was what he owed him after months and months and months and months of giving him nothing but silence.
He owed him so much more, but he didn’t know if it was possible. Not until they could talk.
Kaiba was distantly aware, in some part of his mind, that Mokuba wasn’t entirely alone, of course, when things had gone down the way he did. Honestly, he would have been surprised if Mokuba had been alone--despite everything, despite how much he hated himself for it (and despite how much he wanted Mokuba to feel the same way he did) he knew Mokuba wasn’t going to be alone.
He had heard, after all, from Mokuba, that he had been visited in the hospital during the first time he’d been in a coma. Several times, actually. He couldn’t have possibly been aware of it--he hadn’t been aware of anything in the state that he’d been in--but he wasn’t alone.
And, more importantly, Mokuba wasn’t alone.
The visits had stopped, though, after he’d come to. That had come to be expected. There wasn’t any need for anyone to come and interrupt him, anyone to come and bother them while they were doing just fine, living life just fine , perfectly healthy and perfectly safe, with a whole year without anything bad happening.
It was his own damn fault, and Kaiba wouldn’t be budged on that. The other really should have been expecting it the moment that he’d shown his face on Kaiba property, with the gall to walk right up to their door and not expect to be met with instant hostility for daring to act like he was welcome here, daring to act like he’d owned the place, and daring to be so familiar with his little brother .
It was during their time spent together, and that was also probably why it pissed Kaiba off as badly as it did, too. It was a day that he’d planned to really be there for his brother, to really show Mokuba that he still loved and cared about him, and this mongrel suddenly showed up at his front door, groceries in arms (didn’t he remember that they had world-class chefs anyway? Didn’t he remember getting poisoned by those chefs?) and with a bright smile on his face that was suddenly cut off by the moment that Kaiba had been the one to personally answer the door for the other.
He took great pleasure in that, actually. He had to remember this the next time that he saw the other. He could do this more often if he got the chance to see that smile drop.
He’d been the one to notice exactly who it was, and despite the fact that Mokuba had just insisted that he’d forgotten to tell Jounouchi Katsuya that he’d actually agreed to spend the day with him (something which pierced another sword straight into Seto’s heart, despite the fact that he’d very nearly said no to begin with) and that he was happy to just ask for Jounouchi to go home (why had he even asked Jounouchi to begin with? Why him ?) Seto still opened the door anyway, his lips pressed into a thin line, somewhere between a smile and a stone cold sneer.
It was a full moment of silence between the two of them, and it distantly occurred to Kaiba that they hadn’t actually spoken to each other since the ending of Battle City, not directly. How many years was that by now? He had started losing track of time once everything ended.
Maybe that's why Mokuba insisted on a physical calendar. Maybe he should invest in one properly himself.
“What are you doing here, deadbeat ?” He asked, the words coming out with venom, cutting on the old nickname he’d given the other in high school. An old animosity welled up in him, an old viciousness, and he could already feel the poison swelling up inside his lungs, coursing through him, sending his pulse thrumming, heart hammering.
It made him feel alive .
“I’m here to see Mokuba.” Jounouchi replied, a lowness in his voice already indicated that the barbs were digging under his skin. Perfect. Perfect . Kaiba’s fingers curled into fists at his side, adrenaline hitting him, muscles wiring.
He wanted it, and he knew that. He wanted an excuse, any excuse, to excise the demons in his blood, to throw cleansing salt in the wound. It didn’t matter who it was, not really. Anybody worked. But Jounouchi never seemed to give up from what he remembered, always stared at him with a viciousness in his yes and a curl in his lip and a rough voice that demanded Kaiba look at him despite all the times that he was knocked down, and that was probably why he worked so well, because of the fact that he always got back up again.
Despite all of the things thrown at him, despite how much Kaiba stepped on him, he would always bite back, a viper digging his fangs into Kaiba’s heel, and he didn’t care about the venom, because he was already poisonous at it is, what was a little more acid spilling into his blood?
He stepped aside, opening the door a little wider for the deadbeat to crawl inside. He slipped his shoes off at the door, the same ones he’d been wearing since high school, and he dropped the groceries at Kaiba’s feet, a dog trained to heel. Kaiba walked right around them until he was standing in Jounouchi’s face, uncomfortably close, until he could really look the other in the eyes.
“Why is Mokuba talking to you?”
“What does it matter to you what he does?” Jounouchi bit back. “He’s old enough to make his own decisions on who he talks to. You don’t own him.”
“He’s my brother, I have a right to know who he does and doesn’t talk to, and you’re not one of them .”
“What would you even know about any of that?” Jounouchi’s voice was rising quickly, drawing the attention of several servants, who were already spilling down the halls to soothe their master, claws clicking on the tile, tags on their collars, following their leads. Their heads were bowed as they talked, but Kaiba wasn’t listening, and he honestly didn’t care. “It’s not like you were here for any of that, anyway!” Jounouchi continued, black flame bullets on his tongue. “Someone had to be, and someone still has to be, when you go and vanish again!”
“You don’t know anything about that!” The words popped behind his eyes, flashbulbs, dizzying and painful and true. “You’re just an outsider, a mutt, a dog who doesn’t know his place! ”
“And ain’t that just so fuckin’ sad, then, that this dog gives more of a shit about your brother than you ever did !”
“Jounouchi--” The protest came from Mokuba, and normally, that would have been enough for him. It normally would have been a lighthouse in a downpour, the last piece of his heart, the thing that got him up and moving when he’d given up, the thing that always dragged him back from the event horizon, but not this time--not when his name was in the other’s mouth, a blade used to pierce him, directly into his soul.
“You don’t have any right to talk about him!” Kaiba clenched his fists tighter, shoulders pulled to the wire. “You don’t know anything about us, anything about him!”
And Jounouchi smiled.
“What’s Mokuba’s least favorite food?”
Kaiba’s heart stuttered in his chest.
“Green bell peppers.” All children hated green bell peppers. He remembered Daimon scolding Mokuba to eat them when they were both first adopted.
“Wrong. It’s celery .”
Kaiba swung.
It wasn’t with much grace, and it wasn’t with much thought put behind it, because their fights were never very pretty in the first place. They were never about pasts or futures or even the present, they were never with some grand purpose behind them, the way that Kaiba usually tried to think his fights were about, no matter how much Mokuba hated them, and no matter how much Mokuba hated him a little bit for doing them.
His fights with Jounouchi were always angry, and desperate, and a little dead inside. But then, so was everything else about the two of them when they met, and that was probably why they did these things in the first place.
Kaiba was a full year behind, at this point, with muscles pulled to bone, and Jounouchi was more experienced with dirty swings anyway. He knocked Kaiba’s arm to one side, and without much time to react, he’d sucker punched Kaiba straight in the diaphragm, under the ribs, knocking the wind out from him, and causing him to stagger backwards.
They’d dueled exactly one time. Back on the cliffside in Duelist Kingdom, at midnight. Jounouchi had used Red Eyes Black Dragon, and it had been destroyed in an instant with Blue Eyes. Now, he sort of wondered how things would go.
He wanted to find out.
He used his elbow to smash into Jounouchi’s jaw, knocking the other back, and Jounouchi backhanded him straight across the nose--a wet crack, and light popping behind his eyes, and he was sure it was broken. He tasted blood on his tongue, and it wasn’t the first time, and he was sure it wouldn’t be the last.
Jounouchi grabbed him by the back of his head and slammed him into the wall, and he tasted the bitter rush of adrenaline in his throat, and he could feel the edges of his vision fuzzing, pulsing, darkness creeping into his vision, veins swelling at the edges as blood ran down his lips and dripped onto his chin, a proper vampire, and something about that felt right, almost as much as a feral dog with foam on his mouth, just like the one holding him by the hair.
“You don’t want to mess with me, rich boy.” Jounouchi’s lip curled, fire behind his eyes, and Kaiba had the urge to spit blood, and so he did. Another crack and he was shoved back against the wall again.
“You have no right to be here. No right to even stand in front of me.” Kaiba hissed back. “You’re a stupid dog, not even human. You come from nothing, your life is worth nothing, you should have stayed dead .”
“It doesn’t matter what you think of me!” Jounouchi’s fist tightened, and Kaiba smiled back at the pain, the rush, the blood, alive . “For once in your life think about your brother! For once in your life act like one! Forget about me, and think about him !”
“What do you know about being a brother? Didn’t you bring your sister to come watch you die ?”
“You motherfucker --”
“ Stop !”
The arms that were thrown around his waist pulled him out of it, and in an instant, the fight was gone from him. He looked down, the anchor holding him to the shore, the thing pulling him back from the storm, the lighthouse blinking through the turbulent sea.
Exhale .
He was let go of, and he was backed away from by the dog, and Mokuba squeezed him tighter, tears spilling down his cheeks and into Kaiba’s shirt. Instantly, both arms wrapped around Mokuba in return, and Jounouchi stuffed his bloodied and bruised hands into his pockets, but he still didn’t leave.
Why didn’t he leave?
“You’re lucky I didn't get you thrown out and arrested.” Was the first thing out of Seto’s throat, damaged and filled with blood, and Jounouchi scoffed because they both knew the police were useless and fed right out of Seto Kaiba’s pockets anyway, so it didn’t matter what he said or did, because it wouldn’t be the first or last time Kaiba used them to get what he wanted, anyway.
Such is the power of the one who holds the collar and leash.
“I came to check on Mokuba.” They were right back to the start of the circle, and he could already feel himself boiling inside again, and Mokuba squeezed Kaiba tighter, before turning to properly face the other.
“Thank you.” His voice was small, shaking, a sniffle in his words. “I-I really do appreciate it. But Seto agreed to spend the day with me. You can go ahead and go home.”
Jounouchi watched the both of them again, watching, waiting for something that Seto didn’t quite understand, before he gave a little shrug, and started to walk back towards the door.
“You ever need anything, or you ever feel unsafe, you can go ahead and call me, you hear?” He asked, and the sheer and utter audacity made Kaiba’s insides turn to acid, and Mokuba nodded into his chest, and with that Jounouchi slipped on his shoes and he started to walk out the door, before he turned over his shoulder and called something else out.
“By the way, rich boy, next time you throw a punch, tuck your thumb below your fingers, so you don’t get it hit. And make your opposite shoulder face me.” The grin he tossed was arrogant and daring, the fire back in his eyes. “ Good luck .”
The sound of rain swept through the parlor as the other left, and Mokuba finally let go to close the door behind him, and Kaiba was left standing there for a full minute before he realized that his entire body was shaking.
It took an hour to clean up the blood, and to set Kaiba’s nose right. He couldn’t taste the cake that Mokuba brought him, but he never really liked sweets in the first place, so that was probably for the best.
Neither talked about what happened, but then they usually didn’t talk about things that happened, anyway, so that really wasn’t new for either of them. Mokuba stayed attached to his side the entire time, Kaiba smoothing his fingers through his hair every few minutes so that he knew Kaiba wasn’t going to get up and walk off.
He was usually followed, these days, when he did. Just like when the two of them were young, at the orphanage. Just like when he started high school, Mokuba started his own little gang to mirror the way that the Big Five followed Kaiba around in meetings. Just like when he’d started to carry Kaiba’s briefcase so that he had an excuse to be right behind him, no matter where he went, no matter what he did, no matter what darkness he vanished into, Mokuba was right behind him.
Maybe there was a good reason the gap was widening between them. Maybe there was a good reason the dog’s words bit him so dearly, lock jawed, and wouldn’t let go.
He smoothed his hands through Mokuba’s hair, and he hoped that when the other pretended to sleep, he didn’t have nightmares about death. He was sure that Mokuba did, though.
It was fine.
It wasn’t like they were going to see him again, anyway.
Mokuba had him, and he had Mokuba, and there wasn’t anyone else in the world who could come between them.
It was fine.
"Dogs never bite me. Just humans."