Second Chance Christmas {{ Masterpost :: Photobook }}
archiveofourown.org/works/27832405/chapters/68139094
Summary: The radio had droned on about an incoming polar vortex. How could the weatherman have known that his ex-husband would be on the plane?
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Following an acrimonious divorce, Joey and Kaiba have managed to co-parent the kids without seeing each other for three years.
After Kaiba is caught in a blizzard, Joey is forced to spend the holiday with his ex-husband, and confront certain feelings that he thought were dead.
Rating: Explicit
{{ Photobook: a collection of key pieces and the header images }}
The sleet fell heavily against the car, turning the view through the windshield into an impressionist painting of abstract asphalt and splotchy red break lights. The drives to the private airport in Westchester were always the worst. Even though Kaiba rarely accompanied the kids on the flight from Japan, even the haunting proximity to the shiny private jets and the trappings of his ex put Joey on edge. Not because he longed to be driving the expensive cars parked in the lot or any other petty envy, but because the whole place always reeked of Kaiba’s ghost. How the man could haunt the freeways and tangled overpasses from thousands of miles away was yet another unsettling superpower of his ex-husband.
As it stood, the side tackle that Joey settled on was perfectly effective. They rolled in the snow a bit, Kaiba able to twirl and pass the phone between his hands deftly and Joey ready to brute force the situation. He had no qualms with getting snow in his ex-husband’s hair or up his nose.
What was surprising was when Kaiba stopped fighting. He had been pinned down pretty well, back digging into snow, wrists held by Joey’s determined fingers as if handcuffed over his head, flakes stuck to his eyelashes and drenching his scarf. Joey had one knee jamming Kaiba’s thighs into the ground.
Joey paused with those hands in his vice grip, feeling Kaiba’s muscles relax under his hands. The palms were facing him, and they were empty. The only metal that Joey could see was the one thing he had longed to forget—Kaiba was still wearing his wedding ring.
Joey got up in his face, so close he could smell Kaiba’s shampoo. Other than the soft sandalwood scent, it felt a bit like when he was riling up a rival high school bully back in Domino. “Fight me! Make me leave! You want me to go so bad? Then make me!”
Kaiba smirked, knowingly. Then he leaned his head back against the chair. His bangs fully eclipsed his eyes. “I won’t. I’ll just sleep here.” There it was again. The checkmate tenor.
“Fine!” Joey plopped down in the seat next to him, the velvet of his matching seat just soft enough. “Then I’ll sleep here too.”
If Kaiba shifted his eyes to check, Joey couldn’t tell under the thick brown bangs. In any case, the stubborn ass didn’t get up. He didn’t storm off or leave. He just stayed there, like a determined rock under Joey’s constant observation.
After about half an hour, Joey heard the even breathing pick up into a light snore.
In the morning, Kaiba awoke alone in the guest room, with no memory of how he got there.
When they were married, it had been something of a post-shower ritual for Joey to help his husband with the scar cream. It was never all that effective, the cuts were too old, and the tissue had healed in a fairly gnarly way. But it felt like a nice way to address everything without having to talk about it. An unspoken source of healing—even if pretty futile.
It was also unbearably intimate, a fact that Joey had somewhat forgotten.
No one else was ever so intimate with Kaiba—and he certainly wouldn’t let anyone else near something so vulnerable. Even now, Joey was somewhat surprised that he had been allowed, running his finger over the raised skin. He was always as gentle as he could be, almost reverent, and he could hear the skimming of his thumbprint grazing his ex’s skin.
Kaiba’s breathing had gone from intentional and deep inhales in response to the massage to a sort of shallowness, as if he was trying to keep his torso from moving and unsettling Joey. Joey drew his finger across an old gash towards the top of his back.
Kaiba’s skin quivered under the cool cream, and it was almost overwhelming. Joey tried to finish the rest of them quickly, old feelings bubbling in his chest too strongly. The familiar smells and touches were too potent.
Joey didn’t say it—he couldn’t find the will to say it yet, and he didn’t say it for another year. But in that moment, Joey knew that their marriage was over.
“I don’t want to let go of you,” Seto admitted to Joey. Seto looked up from where he was snuggled into Joey’s chest, eyes softer than Joey remembered them.
Eventually they had shredded all of the wrappings and the kids were completely occupied with their gifts. Alexis was tearing open the booster packs and struggling her way through the more complex words on some of the cards. Atticus had his deck out, too, and he leaned over her shoulder and explained some of the text and card effects patiently.
Joey glanced over at Kaiba, who was smiling the same smile from Mokuba’s wedding photos.
“Remembering what it was like to be a big brother?” Joey prodded.
Kaiba nodded. “Things were rarely this peaceful, but when they were… I did not always know how to appreciate it.”
Joey reached a hand to Kaiba’s back and stroked over the soft cashmere of the black turtleneck reassuringly. “I wish things had been different too.” And Joey leaned his head onto Kaiba’s shoulder. “But they’re pretty good right now, huh?”
Kaiba nodded, hair shifting against Joey’s.
“I cannot promise that it will never happen again. But I can promise that I am not giving up on us.”
