Let Me Help You

Help

How had things gotten this bad? Joey didn't even know anymore. His father was always blowing all the money he stole from his son on beer and marijuana. Meanwhile, Joey struggled just to hold his life together between high school, two part-time jobs, and paying the rent his father never bothered with. When Mr. Wheeler was drunk, he often went into fits of irrational rage, which were always taken out against his teenage son. It had been going on for so long that Joey was just grateful his father hadn't tried to do anything worse than that.

Joey was always careful to hide his bruises from his friends and everyone else at school, but it was even harder to hide his developing anorexia. It had started because he simply couldn't afford to feed himself properly; he was behind on rent, and his father kept uncovering each new hiding place Joey thought of for stashing the rent money. Eventually, all of the verbal abuse thrown at him during his father's drunken violence began to sink in. He was worthless. He didn't deserve to eat. On the bright side, all of the money that he didn't use for food was helping him to catch up on rent.

All he ever consumed at school was either water or soda, and maybe the occasional bag of chips, when he thought his friends were starting to get suspicious. His anorexia had gone on for a few months now, he was thoroughly emaciated, and it had been a few days since he'd eaten anything solid. Tristan had bought an extra chocolate bar from the vending machine and offered it to Joey, who'd found himself unable to turn down the offer from his long-time best friend. Joey thought he'd be fine with eating it, but it ended up making him feel so sick that he went to the bathroom after third period to throw up. When he'd finished emptying his stomach, he was having a hard time supporting himself. He tried to stand upright, but his vision filled with stars. He passed out as he was exiting the bathroom stall, and who should find him but Mr. Moneybags himself?

It had taken only a few minutes for Seto to get a pretty good idea of what-all was going on in Joey's life. And what did he do? Well, he hadn't taken Joey to the school nurse, like any normal person would have done. Instead, he'd helped a half-conscious Wheeler stumble out of the bathroom and out of the building, getting him into the back of Kaiba's limo before joining him on the opposite seat and telling the driver to start taking the long way towards his mansion. Then he'd waited for Wheeler to regain full consciousness.

"Kaiba, wha-?" Joey eyed the limo's interior with confusion and suspicion only to let out a grunt as Kaiba tossed him a bottle of water. He shot his arch-rival a glare as he unscrewed the top and started to gulp the water to remove the taste of bile.

"Alright, Wheeler, I know you're in trouble, so don't even try to lie to me about it. I assume you haven't told your friends, otherwise they would have been all over before I had a chance to find you."

"What exactly is it that you think you know, Kaiba?" Joey growled, wondering if he could manage to bluff his way out of this.

"You're emaciated, anorexic, covered in bruises, and, quite frankly, lucky to be alive," he stated as he considered the blonde with cold blue eyes.

"Shut up, Kaiba!" Joey snapped indignantly, flushing as he felt vaguely violated. How else could Kaiba have known all that without at least lifting his shirt? That arrogant, overbearing jerk. "What's it to you, anyways?"

"Does it even matter at this point?" the CEO retorted. "I'm giving you two options Wheeler: you either tell me what's going on and let me help you, or I can check you in at the hospital and call Yugi to tell him where you are. It's your choice." He sat back nonchalantly and crossed his arms, smirking. Either way, Joey would get the help he needed, which was Kaiba's sole objective in all of this.

Joey was furious to find himself at the billionaire's mercy, furious with himself for getting found out, furious that it had to be his rival who found him. "And what's in it for you, Moneybags?" Joey shot back. He was behaving like a wounded animal backed into a corner; he felt scared and threatened, so he was lashing out at his rescuer aggressively as a means of self-defense.

"What, I'm not allowed to do an act of charity that doesn't directly benefit me?" Kaiba scoffed. "You have such a low view of me. Even so, you're in no place to reject my help. Just look at yourself. You can hardly stand on your own, you're starved near to the point of death, and I'd bet good money that you have at least two broken ribs." Unspoken was the fact that he had the luxury of losing such money without batting an eye.

His condescending tone made Joey's skin itch. He would have loved to wipe the smug look off of his face, but it took all of his energy just to stay upright and conscious. His face became livid, his own anger riled. He inhaled deeply, ignoring the stabbing pain in his chest, and shouted, "Don't act so high an' mighty wit' me, Kaiba! You're one to talk, wit' your turtlenecks and your fancy armor." Joey gestured vaguely at the studded metal cuffs sheathing Kaiba's forearms. "Who's ta say that you ain't hidin' somethin'?" Joey's face twisted in pain as he slumped back against the seat, hugging his ribs as he gasped for air.

Kaiba's jaw clenched, his sapphire eyes smoldering with fury but he kept his mouth shut, glaring at the world that passed outside the tinted windows for a few minutes. "Gozaburo was a hard man to please," Seto muttered, surprising Joey with a flash of near-vulnerability he'd never seen in his classmate before. "Not even Mokuba knows how much of a monster he truly was." As Joey stared at him in confused shock, Seto turned to face him again, wearing an expression that seemed to convey that he understood Joey's present predicament far more than he'd ever admit in words. Then his gaze hardened again, and he added, "Now make your decision: my help or the hospital?"

"I can't let Yugi know," Joey said finally, eyes downcast. He couldn't burden his friend like that; Yugi was so good-hearted that he would blame himself, and Tristan would too, since he'd been the only one to know just how awful Joey's father could be.

"My place it is then," Kaiba gave the driver instructions to go straight for his home, then turned back to his passenger, speaking in a calm tone like the businessman he was. "The KaibaCorp medics will take care of you when we get there. I have to get back to the office because something's come up. Once the medics have examined you and we know what-all is wrong, we can hash out a deal. I won't stop you from going to school, but I won't let you go back to that cesspool you call home. I can offer you a job in my household with room and board included, and with pay and conditions better than what you've got at whatever crappy jobs you're working now. Like I said, we'll figure out the details when I get home from work, but that's something for you to consider. In the meantime, you should probably call one of your friends and tell them that you felt ill, so you went home early. That way they won't worry about you."

Joey just nodded, still puzzling over Seto's words in his mind. What had Gozaburo done to his eldest step-son that made Seto hate him so much? Not even Mokuba knows how much of a monster he truly was... What manner of monster was Gozaburo Kaiba? He doubted that Seto would tell him if he asked. Besides, the pain in his ribs took precedence in his mind at the moment.

"Sit up straight, Wheeler," Seto snapped, eyes glued to his smartphone as he frowned over an email from one of his employees. "Slouching makes it worse."

Joey huffed in exasperation, but straightened up just the same, surprised when it did indeed make his breathing less pained. He glared at Kaiba through narrowed eyes. How had he known? The more he thought about it, the more questions he had, and the more he realized how little he truly knew about the successful young president of KaibaCorp.

When they dropped Joey off at the Kaiba estate, the doctors were astonished at Joey's state: severely underweight at 97 pounds, two broken ribs, almost too weak to stand, and bruised so badly the contusions easily covered a third of his body. They gave him painkillers and a salve to speed the healing of his bruises, then put him to bed in a guest room and brought him whatever food he requested: New York pizza, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and a chocolate milkshake. They cautioned him to eat slowly, lest he make himself sick. Again. Joey was slow in eating, still working past the psychological blocks that had prevented him from eating even when he was able to. It was strange going from having no food at all to having as much as he could ask for.

He still struggled to understand Kaiba's motivation for helping him, but if he was honest with himself, he had to agree with Kaiba: he was truly in no place to refuse his charity.