Deliverance

A/N: 1. I’m going to finish Graffiti, I really am. I just wanted to write this today instead. I can only focus on real themes for so long before the urge for fun starts beating me over the head. 2. There is no character death in this story, despite evidence to the contrary.



The taste of copper and salt was the only thing that was constant within the darkness. Copper, salt, and pain. The pain was so constant that it stopped hurting quite some time ago, fading into a dull ache that just reminded him that he was still alive.

The pain, blood, sweat, and darkness were becoming old friends. The fingers of his left hand were swollen and hot, and Seto had given up trying to move them. Each one had been bent and twisted until it snapped because he refused to talk when he heard his brother’s frantic voice on a speaker phone. He was ashamed that he had ended up screaming. Sharp lines of pain had been scorched across his back with a hot iron brand, as a punishment for head-butting one of the idiots holding him. His shoulders were cramping and stiff, since they had hung him up by his wrists after he tried to punch one of the faceless people who brought him food. But all of that was bearable. The thing that was truly torturing Seto Kaiba was that he had been able to see the same dim light through the hood over his head since he’d been kidnapped. The light never changed—the angle, the intensity, and the color were always the same. It made it impossible to tell how much time had passed, or even what time of day it was.

Of all the things that he had ever imagined about being kidnapped, not knowing what time it was wasn’t supposed to be that big of a deal. He was beginning to understand some of the odd quirks his little brother had developed. After the half-dozen times that people had tried to take his brother away from him, the fact that Mokuba always slept with the light on and insisted on having a waterproof titanium watch, powered by kinetic and solar energy, with hands that glowed in the dark, no longer seemed so strange. Seto was already trying to figure out how to implant a microchip in his optic nerve that would provide a digital time readout in his vision at all times. That was his plan if he happened to survive, anyway. He really should have been trying to escape and plotting his revenge instead.

He did manage to raise his head a bit as he heard the door open. He tilted his head towards the sound of soft footfalls. He lifted his chin, hoping to feel the business-like hands that came every now and again, lifted the bottom of the hood over his lips and unceremoniously dribbled water into his mouth. He had never imagined he could feel so thirsty.

“I told you this wouldn’t be a waste of your time,” said the voice that Seto had come to think of as the Boss.

“Are you kidding?” A new, but somehow more familiar voice came from the same direction. “You dragged me all the way back to Japan because you can’t handle a petty ransom?”

“Not exactly. I dragged you back to Japan because I thought you might appreciate having a chance to take care of this one yourself. When we were kids, you used to rant about how you’d give anything to be able to nail the Seto Kaiba, after all.”

“Kaiba?” The familiar voice came closer. Seto couldn’t quite match a face or name to the voice, but he knew it nonetheless. In the dark haze of his mind, he saw a bright smile that, for some reason, brought out a seething anger that he hadn’t felt in years. “That’s Seto Kaiba?”

“It is.”

“You kidnapped the Seto Kaiba? Figures no one was willing to pay to get him back…” The new voice chuckled.

“Oh, they will. He’s been a pain in the ass, though. He needs someone to put him in his place. And I thought you might appreciate a gift. He needs to stay alive, obviously, but that’s about it.”

“He the one who did that to your face?”

The Boss said nothing.

The new voice chuckled again. “You too afraid to deal with him yourself, then?”

“I am not afraid,” the Boss’ voice quivered. “He was suitably punished every time he was disrespectful. He’ll live, as long as his back doesn’t get infected, but he’ll remember to mind his manners next time.”

A pair of calloused but surprisingly gentle hands turned Seto’s dangling body around. There was a sharp intake of breath behind him. “I see,” the new voice said levelly. “Why did you bring me here? You know I’ve never liked this kind of thing.”

“Oh, I’m not asking you to do anything messy. I just thought you might like to have a go with him, that’s all. Don’t you want him?”

Seto couldn’t help but lift his head at that comment. They couldn’t actually be talking about what he thought they were talking about. He was a guy. He was a mostly straight guy. Sure, he had been fighting them every chance he got, but there were some things that even gangsters wouldn’t do to another guy. He’d only ever even been mildly curious once, and that was after a lot of alcohol. Even then, he had definitely only been curious about what it would be like to be on top.

The Boss continued, his voice held a coaxing tone. “If I swung that way, I would do him myself. After all the crap you used to complain about, I thought you might welcome a chance to see him on his hands and knees… Plus, he really hated you.”

“No one is going to pay for him, you know,” the new voice insisted, not answering the question. “Everybody has always hated the bastard, me included.”

“They’ll pay,” the Boss insisted. “It was just too perfect to let it pass, you know. I remember how much you used to pine after him. Do you want him or not?”

“Nah,” the voice said with a calm that seemed impossible. “I told you, I’m not into this type of thing. If you need somebody to finish him off, though, well, I might be interested in that…”

After a long moment, the Boss answered, “No. He’s got to stay alive. Orders.”

Gentle fingers grazed the tender skin along the edge of the highest burn on Seto’s back. Seto didn’t hiss or yelp, despite the electrifying pain. “You’re going to regret that. If he ever gets out of here alive, he’ll hunt you down and destroy you. Of course, if you finish him off, then Mokuba Kaiba will hunt you down and destroy you, so it’s kind of a no win situation.”

“Then why are you so eager to do it?”

The fingers tracing the burn on Seto’s back trailed down his rib cage, almost tickling him. “Because he was always a bastard.”

“Aren’t you afraid of Mokuba Kaiba?”

“Me? Nah, I ain’t afraid of anything—I’m not allowed to die yet.”


* * * * * *


The new voice came back on its own after what felt like days. Whoever it was, they entered quietly and shut and locked the door behind them. Calloused fingers pulled the hood up so that it just came up over Seto’s mouth. Seto felt a plastic bottle against his lips and eagerly drank down the room temperature water when it was poured into his mouth. Instead of just a few drinks, the voice patiently let him drink the entire bottle.

When those same rough fingers gently touched his lips, Seto tried to bite them. He heard the other man laugh in the darkness, and he braced himself for the blow that was sure to follow. He tightened his muscles and turned his head away, but nothing happened.

Instead, the fingers trailed their way down his naked, soiled body.

“You’re going to hate me for doing ‘dis,” the voice promised.

Seto braced himself and tried to clench his legs together.

Somewhere to his left, metal shifted against metal and he heard the sound of breaking glass. A moment later, he heard the roar and felt his legs fly out from underneath him. He felt like he was being hit by a thousand ice cold nails, all trying to drive their way into his legs and hips. As the pain moved across his body, Seto couldn’t help but scream. The pain crashed over his penis and his other hip, then ran down his leg and up again, then moved around and roared over his butt and the back of his legs. His legs flew with the force of the impact as though he was a rag doll.

And then the pain stopped and instead of feeling like he was being stabbed by nails of ice, he just felt like he’d been frozen. His legs, he realized, were dripping with water. He had been hanging in the same position for who knows how long, and he had never been let down to use a toilet. He had enough physical sensations to focus on that the urine and shit caked to his lower body didn’t seem like a big deal, but now that his legs had been sprayed cleaned, he realized just how much of a relief it was to be free of the grime.

Footsteps echoed around him and something sharp stabbed into his left butt cheek. The spot burned for a moment.

“Believe it or not, I’m sorry,” the voice whispered into his ear. “You know how to swim, don’t you?”

Seto heard the door unlock and the footsteps fade away and he was left alone in the darkness again.


* * * * * *

Time passed. He tried to keep track, he really did, but he could only count so many drinks of water before he tried to count seconds in between the drinks of water, to get some idea of what type of schedule they were on. After that, it took three hundred thousand, two hundred and forty-seven seconds before he finally accepted that there was no schedule. The light stayed the same. The hood stayed on. Pain stayed painful. Voices came and went, sometimes bringing food, sometimes bringing water, and sometimes bringing more pain. The new voice returned seven times, occasionally groped him, stabbed him in the ass each time, and then left.

When the Boss’ voice came back, he brought the new voice with him again. “Might be your last chance,” said the Boss. “You sure?”

“Nothing in this world would make me want to fuck that bastard,” the new voice said calmly. “Kill him, sure—fuck him, no. I don’t even think you could find a whore who would be willing to touch him.”

Seto’s head was spinning from hunger, endorphins, and dehydration. It conjured a memory he’d long since put behind him, a memory from another time when his head was spinning and he’d heard virtually those same words, in that same voice.

Since he turned fourteen, Seto had been dealing with proclamations of love, or just lust, from every girl who walked by, and a few of the guys, too. The day of his high school graduation, he’d brushed off six girls before noon. But nothing had prepared him for seeing that same look of shimmering admiration and hope in the eyes of the biggest loser in school when the idiot had cornered him after the graduation ceremony and awkwardly asked him to a movie. If he had any inclination that the Mutt had been interested, he might have responded better. But before Seto had even processed what the idiot said, he had kissed Seto. Seto had reacted automatically. He punched the worthless moron, insulted him, and left.

But he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it. After picking up a girl, screwing her in his car, taking two cold showers, and drinking four shots of liquor and two bottles of sake, he’d found himself crashing the graduation party of his high school rival, Yugi Mutou, looking for that damn idiot Mutt. Despite the hope in the Mutt’s eyes when he confessed to liking Seto, the evening didn’t go quite the way Seto expected. When Seto suggested they skip the movie and just go to a hotel, the hothead had shouted those same words. Nothing in this world would make me want to fuck you, bastard! And then he attacked.

When Seto‘s hangover faded enough for him to try and remember the night before, he convinced himself that it was the alcohol. Alcohol could make the straightest of guys a little curious, after all. But when Seto’s hangover faded, a fury that he never quite understood had taken over. Seto hadn’t been ruthless about expressing that fury, but he’d come close. He had hacked into Jou’s official dueling record and added three official allegations of cheating, disqualifying him from all Duel Monster tournaments from that day on. Then he remembered overhearing the Mutt talk about going to the same university as his idiot friends, and had actually gone in to the university admissions office and bribed one of the employees to review the Mutt’s record and reject him. After he bought the coffee shop where the Mutt had spent his entire senior year working, he insisted that the manager fire the Mutt and refuse to offer him a reference. Seto was even more furious when nothing seemed to make him feel better.

He might have killed the Mutt for playing with him like that, except that he couldn’t. He had too many memories of fighting with the Mutt that seemed important for some reason. There had been too many conversations disguised as insults being traded back and forth, too many wrestling matches that suddenly seemed like more than wrestling matches. Looking back on their years of fighting, even Seto had to admit that their interactions were the closest he’d ever come to flirting with someone. After eight weeks of wondering what might have happened if he’d just gone to a movie with the Mutt, Seto tried to track him down. The dingy closet that matched the apartment number listed on his school record was vacant, though, so Seto had stopped bothering.

He never did see him again, and now Seto was glad things had worked out the way they did. The Mutt had obviously hit the bottom of the barrel going so fast that he’d drilled himself through the barrel and into the bedrock—he’d become a common criminal.

Somewhere in the room, Seto heard the distinct sound of a phone being dialed. He could hear the ring as the call connected, so he knew that the Boss had brought in a speaker phone again.

“This is Kaiba,” Mokuba said curtly, answering after three rings.

“Kaiba-sama,” the Boss said in a charming voice. “This is your last opportunity to save your brother’s life. You have until two o’clock to deliver the money. A series of anonymous couriers will deliver it from the drop off point. If you refuse, you will get to hear your brother die.”

Seto heard the metallic noise as the slide of an automatic pistol was pulled back. A moment later he felt the hard barrel of the pistol bump into his forehead through the bag. The pistol felt cold and was held in a steady grip.

“I need proof that my brother is still alive,” he heard Mokuba’s voice over the phone.

“Say hello to your brother,” the Boss instructed Seto. When Seto didn’t make a sound, he heard someone step behind him. Something sharp and cold dug into the oozing burn across his shoulder blades.

When the blinding pain faded, Seto realized that he must have screamed, because the Boss was talking to Mokuba again. The pistol had vanished for a moment, and was replaced with a smooth, fluid motion. Was the Mutt on the other end of that steady barrel? The thought made a violent tremor run through Seto’s entire body. The Mutt wouldn’t be able to shoot him. He’d always been the most loyal of Yugi’s little circle of friends, defending anyone who showed him the least kindness, trailing after Yugi like a lost little mongrel all because the other boy was his friend. The Mutt would never be able to shoot someone he had liked.

Just like it had years before, his mind forced him to think about the whole spectrum of things that might have happened if things had been different. Would the idiot have followed him around like that? Even as the pain in his back and hand faded until he felt almost nothing at all, he felt tears trickle down his cheeks, dampening the black fabric surrounding his head. Would the Mutt have cheered for him at duels? Would they have gotten into a fight over what movie to see and ended up killing each other that night? Would he have felt like a girl in bed? That was the same damn question that had inspired him to go to Yugi’s party in the first place. He was only curious, after all. There was nothing in Seto’s stomach to throw up, but he felt like he was going to anyway.

“The money will be dropped off five minutes before two o’clock,” Mokuba said calmly. “My brother will be in the park and unharmed?”

“Oh, he’ll be in a vehicle near the park. We’ll drop him off as soon as the courier is safely away,” the Boss said with a laugh. “I’m afraid he’s already very badly hurt. But, if you get him to a hospital quickly, he might survive… Relax, Kaiba-sama, you’ve got a chance to save his life…”

Seto heard the phone beep as the call was disconnected.

“You wanna wait until you’ve got the money?” the voice Seto now recognized all too clearly asked.

“Yeah. We’ll wait for the call. Let’s get him to the docks.”

With a metallic click, Seto’s hands slipped from the shackles holding him off the ground. He dropped in a heap, unable to lift his head, much more move his arms and legs. The men holding him seemed to have expected this, since they didn’t bother ordering him to stand up or to walk. He was hoisted over someone’s shoulder and carried, with his hood still on, for about fifteen minutes. He was laid down, with a surprising amount of care, in the backseat of a car. The door shut behind him, but it wasn’t locked. And, he realized with a surprise, they hadn’t bothered to chain up his hands again.

For the first time since he was kidnapped, he was surrounded by bright light. It filtered through the black mesh fabric over his head and his eyes drank in the light as though it were life itself. His eyes hurt from straining against the darkness.

For a moment, he sat still, listening and trying to plot an escape route. The front doors of the car opened and the vehicle shifted as people entered from either side, then the doors shut again. He could try attacking them from behind, but that would require that he be capable of moving, and he was too weak and too stiff to even think about moving. Even if he could lift his arm, half of his hand was shattered and most of the muscles in his shoulder had locked into a rigid mass of knots. They hadn’t bothered to tie him up in the back seat because there was no risk of him being able to do anything. From the front seat, he heard the sound of metal sliding against metal. The car engine roared to life and they began to move.

“I gotta thank you again, you know,” the Mutt said whimsically. “Might have never gotten a chance to settle this score if I’d stayed back in the states.”

“That’s what friends are for, man. You never did tell me what he did to you, though.”

“Nothin’,” the Mutt insisted. “He was just always a bastard.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s enough. I’m me, remember?”

“Yeah,” the Boss half-whispered. Seto wished he could peek through the hood into the front seat. How had his long lost Mutt gone from a half-wit side kick to someone that his made even his torturer sound terrified?

As the throbbing along his back began to fade even farther, Seto found his mind clarifying. He realized that he could tolerate the pain enough to risk beginning to move his arms again. Seto shifted his shoulders experimentally. The pain that should have come with the subtle movement was there, but it was dull and distant. He tried to surreptitiously curl into a fetal position, moving his shoulders down and up again. The stiffness made each motion feel impossible, like finishing the last hundred yards of a marathon. He had to try, though.

“He really is determined,” the Boss said in an amused voice. “He’s actually trying to move… Hey, genius! It’s called muscle atropy, you ain’t gonna be able to make it very far.”

“Atrophy,” the Mutt corrected.

“Thank you Mr. Thesaurus.”

“Dictionary,” the Mutt corrected him again.

“Whatever!”

“Like you’ve ever been qualified to correct some else’s mutilation of the language,” Seto rasped, before he could stop himself. His throat was so dry that every syllable hurt. The silence that descended over the car was palatable. He listened for the sound of bodies shifting, trying to tell when the inevitable punishment would come.

“Told you so,” the Boss said finally. “Needs somebody to take him down a notch. I said it, didn’t I? Nothin’ I did managed to teach him any manners.”

“Well, now that’s where we’re going to have to agree to disagree,” the Mutt’s accent faded noticeably. “Breaking someone should never be aimed at getting them to respect you. If things have gone that far, then they’re already dead. You don’t drag it out for their sake, because they’ll never learn proper respect anyway, and it’s just a waste of time. You drag it out for everybody else. We’re really going to have to talk about how you conducted this operation, ‘Tani, because if I hadn’t showed up, all you would have gotten out of it is a bit of cash and a dozen knee breakers who are ready to take you down.”

“What the hell? You just throw my fucking name out like that?”

“And you’re too damn slow,” the Mutt sighed. “No amount of money is worth letting some asshole spread your nose across your face like that. You should have brought in everybody in the damn building and finished him then and there. Instead, you called me. Because you didn’t finish him right away, they’ve had a week to decide that you’re too fuckin’ weak to bother listening to. Least you had me along to carry him to the car.”

“You mean when you didn’t want me to cover up his back?”

“He can be taught!” The Mutt exclaimed. “Those burns look nasty. It’ll make everybody who saw them think twice about following through with anything. Still, you should have just shot him. You should have dragged him out into the street, taken that hood off, faced him like a man and then shot him.”

“I’m not going to kill a mark in front of that many witnesses! You know damn well that there’s a leak somewhere, and in the street anybody could have seen! I go back to prison and my old lady is going to kill me!”

“Exactly. Weak and cowardly. Damn it, ‘Tani, you’re playing this like a fucking amateur. I wouldn’t be surprised if half of your own guys turn you in after this, just so they can get you out of the way without having to look like traitors. Respect is only a distilled type of fear, and it’s respect from your guys that you need. Respect from a mark is worthless. Disrespect from a mark spreads like a fucking plague.”

“We can’t all operate like we’ve got a death wish, you know! I’ve got family to think about!”

“Your family’s going to be the death of you,” the Mutt insisted. “Trust me on that one; I know what I’m talking about.”

Seto heard a ragged breath from the driver’s seat. The hum of the engine slowed down as the car gently coasted to a stop. When the Boss spoke again, his voice was soft and almost sad. “If it comes down to that, then so be it. I mean, you said it yourself, at her funeral—we’re all dead anyway.”

“Damn straight. Everything else is just a matter of time.”

After a moment, the Boss shut off the engine and opened the driver’s side door. “You know, you’re kind of depressing to hang out with.”

“Oh, I know how to have fun, too,” the Mutt sounded like he was smiling. Seto cringed as he heard the pistol’s metal slide jerk back into place as the Mutt chambered a round form the clip. “Wanna grab a beer after this?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Seto felt himself being hoisted by two strong hands beneath his arm pits. He was half-dragged out of the car and across a surface that felt like it was made of two-by-fours, then his legs were twisted around and he was propped up into a kneeling position. He could feel the sun against his back—exquisite warmth where his skin was unbroken and agonizing pain where the oozing charred skin was drenched in sunlight. Somehow, though, he felt like the pain should have been worse. Was it possible that his body had simply given up on transmitting signals from his nerve endings, knowing that it was going to die?

“Wait!” he begged, when a shadow slipped across his face.

“No,” the Mutt replied in an unbearably normal tone.

“I just… I get a few last words, don’t I?”

“If I recall, you always liked to have the last word,” the Mutt joked. “It was always annoying.”

“But I have to apologize!” Seto rasped. “Take the hood off, Jounouchi, please!”

“It won’t matter,” the Mutt insisted. But he heard feet moving and felt the shadow move. A moment later the hood was pulled off of his head and he saw the afternoon sun reflecting off of the waves beneath him, making the entire world sparkle like a dazzling blue diamond. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he saw the Mutt standing there with a half-smirk on his face. His hair was short and a bit darker than it had been in high school, and unlike the rags he’d worn as a teenager, the gray pinstripe suit he was in looked expensive, expertly tailored, and it clung to an athletic body that would have made Seto guess he’d found work as a personal trainer. As Seto met the amber eyes that had once been so full of life, loyalty, and hope, his breath caught in his throat. There was no life left in Jou’s eyes. There was nothing left in them at all.

“I’m sorry,” Seto whispered. “For everything… For graduation… That night… The university… Your dueling record… The coffee shop… It’s a bit late, I know, but I’m sorry…”

The surprised look in the Mutt’s eyes was just as easy to interpret now as it had been when they were in high school. “All of that? Damn. You should be sorry. You know, ten years ago, I’d have kicked your ass. Now, though…” Jou shrugged apathetically and the empty smirk returned to his features. The pistol rose so that it was pointed down at Seto’s chest. “I can’t say I care. Nothing’ personal.”

Seto expected the pistol to be loud. Instead, four soft pops hit him like one tiny sledge hammer after another, throwing him back off of his knees. He expected to hit the wooden dock beneath him, but instead he tumbled back, falling away from the pier and from Jounouchi’s smirking face. Ice cold sparkling water crashed around him, sloshing over his face as he dipped beneath the surface. Through the water, Seto saw Jou smile at the other man, tuck his pistol into the jacket of his suit, and walk away as though nothing had happened at all.