So, a screenshot from a recent episode of Supernatural (10x13, "Halt and Catch Fire") has been circulating around Tumblr in which a background character bears a superficial resemblance to Mokuba from Yu Gi Oh!, and fans have been reblogging it with captions like "What was he doing there? lol" I jokingly reblogged it with the tag "don't tempt to come up with an explanation, because I will" (YGO and SPN are my primary fandoms, after all). To my surprise, I got a message from a follower asking me to do just that. And so, I present to you, a crossover oneshot in which Mokuba winds up stranded in the small town in Iowa where the episode takes place. Enjoy!
-Storychan
Mokuba was beginning to regret begging his brother to let him come with him on his business trip to America. It had started out alright, he supposed. They'd flown the Blue Eyes jet from Domino City to Chicago, and then Seto had had a fruitful meeting with the CEO of the Chicago-based hologram-making-device company that wanted their technology used in future models of Duel Disks. But, then the CEO had insisted that if they wanted him to sign the contract, they needed to let his attorney look over it first. Then, he'd confessed that his attorney was away on business himself – in Des Moines, Iowa.
Seto had wanted to take the jet to Des Moines immediately, but, as the CEO said, "It's only a 5-hour drive from Chicago to Des Moines. Do you really want to waste jet fuel to go one state over? Here, take my limo. I'll loan it to you, free of charge. Go ahead! Unless you want to wait a few days for my attorney to come back from his trip…."
Seto didn't have a few days. He wanted to be concluded with this business so he could fly back to Japan as soon as possible. And so, he and Mokuba were stuck on a very long car ride. Seto was tapping away irritatedly at his phone, unable to believe the level of inconvenience he was faced with. "Is this how they do business in America?" Mokuba heard him mumble. "Maybe I should've just told that foolish old man that I don't have to let him sign my contract, I can take my business elsewhere if I want to, because I'm Seto freaking Kaiba…..Idiot. This is ridiculous….Why do I bother…."
"Let's just do it, Seto-niisama," Mokuba advised, "and get it over with. Their technology seemed really cool, so I think it's worth it."
"You're right," Seto sighed, and began playing a game of solitaire on an app he'd downloaded, smirking at the challenge of playing against himself. Mokuba's own phone had died, otherwise he'd be on it, not staring out the window at the rain. Instead, he tapped on the partition in front of him, intending to initiate a conversation with the chauffeur.
"Hey, kid," the chauffeur responded, lowering the partition. He was a fairly young man, Mokuba would guess he was in his late twenties or early thirties. "Is there something I can help you with?"
"What's your name?" Mokuba began.
"Dexter Marian," the man introduced. "Nice to meet'cha."
"Are we there yet, Dexter-san?" Mokuba whined.
"This is America, so you don't have to call me '-san'," Dexter corrected. "I mean, you can if it makes you feel more comfortable, but…."
"Dexter it is then," Mokuba decided, smiling.
"Okay. Sorry, I don't get a lot of customers from Japan," Dexter shrugged. "Anyway, to answer your question, Mr. Kaiba, no, with this storm brewing, I don't think we're going to reach Des Moines any time soon. In fact, the storm's making it a little hard for me to navigate, to be honest. I don't usually drive this far outside of Illinois."
"Oh man, are you serious?" Mokuba gasped.
"You better get us where we need to go, you incompetent," Seto warned.
"I'm doing my best, sir," Dexter assured him. "I'm just trying to get you and your brother from Point A to Point B without getting struck by lightning."
"Do it faster," Seto ordered impatiently.
"Sir, with all due respect, if I drive any faster in this weather, we're going to get in an accident."
"I'm sorry, Dexter, I thought I was the boss," Seto said sarcastically. "Which means you do what I say without complaint."
"Technically, sir, the CEO of Chicago Hologram Solutions is my boss," Dexter reminded.
"Dexter, if you do not shut up and drive, I swear, I will….."
"What? Get out of the limo and walk to Des Moines?" Dexter snapped.
"Please, don't fight!" Mokuba pleaded. "Seto-niisama, if you distract Dexter by yelling at him, he can't watch the roa-WHOA, WATCH OUT!" Mokuba couldn't finish his sentence properly, because suddenly a truck with two teenagers in it swerved past them, causing Dexter to swerve to the other side of the road to avoid hitting them. The tires of the limo skidded on the road, which was wet from rain, and Dexter couldn't regain control of the vehicle. The limo was sliding closer and closer to an abandoned barn on the side of the road….they were going to hit it!
CRASH!
Mokuba's head slammed forward, and he would have hit the partition if Dexter hadn't lowered it. His seatbelt was the only thing keeping him from sailing into the front compartment as the bumper collided with the wall of the barn and smoke poured out of the hood.
"Is everyone all right back there?!" Dexter cried in shock.
"I'm fine," Seto said, before turning his attention to Mokuba. "Are you hurt? Do you need a doctor?"
"No, I'm fine," Mokuba assured him. "It looks like we're all ok."
"The limo isn't ok," Dexter frowned, getting out to take a closer look at the damage. "I'm so sorry, Mr. Kaiba, sir, but it looks like we're going to have to stop in the nearest town to get it repaired."
"Are you kidding me?" Seto grumbled. "I'm trying to close a business deal, and now I have to waste time in Middle-of-Nowhere, Iowa while you visit a mechanic?"
"It wasn't Dexter's fault," Mokuba reminded, trying to calm his brother down. "The kids in that truck came out of nowhere."
"Yeah, I'm going to report those damned brats to the local P.D. as soon as I can," Dexter promised. "Tch. Kids these days. I bet they were texting and driving." He slammed a fist into the hood of the car in frustration. "Luckily, I got a look at that guy's plates. He had a vanity license plate, which'll make the nimrod easy to track down. It said 'Semper Fi'."
"So, the guy that made us crash was a military man?" Mokuba guessed.
"Nah, too young," Dexter guessed. "Probably borrowing the car from family….Whatever, let's see if we can get a lift to the nearest town, get you boys in a motel before it gets dark, alright?"
"You think we're going to have to stay in town overnight?" Seto growled.
"Well, with this level of damage, I don't think the mechanics will be able to make the limo driveable again that fast," Dexter confessed. "But, hey, it's alright. My sister, Delilah, she goes to college in town, she can pick us up. I'll give her a call."
"Where exactly is 'in town'?" Seto asked.
"Spencer, Iowa," Dexter replied.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
The Next Day
"I can't believe that Delilah girl never showed up," Seto complained, lounging languidly on his bed in the Spencer Motel, "and that we had to walk all the way into town. I should report that Dexter guy to the limo company for putting us through that."
"It's not his fault," Mokuba shrugged, eating a handful of Cheetos that Seto had bought him from the vending machine outside. American snacks were awesome. "If you want to blame somebody, blame the guy in the truck who made Dexter crash."
"That guy is dead," said Dexter, entering the motel room through its unlocked door suddenly with a stricken look on his face.
"What?" Mokuba cried.
"What do you mean, he's dead?" Seto gasped, sitting up.
"Apparently his GPS malfunctioned," Dexter explained, "causing him to drive off a cliff."
"That's terrible," Mokuba said sadly.
"It gets worse," Dexter frowned. "His name was Billy, and he was Delilah's….He was my sister's friend. She was totally distraught, and that's why she wasn't able to meet up with us last night."
"That poor girl," Mokuba sighed sympathetically.
"I…I need to be there for her," Dexter explained. "I can't stay long, but I wanted to let you know that the limo is, in fact, going to take a few days to repair. So, you'll be here for a while. Go…see the sights, I guess. I'm sorry. I can't chaperone you."
"It's alright," Seto said, standing up and walking over to Dexter with a surprising amount of empathy on his face. "Being there for a sibling when they're in trouble is very important. We understand."
"Thank you, Mr. Kaiba," Dexter replied, visibly relieved. He obviously had been expecting Seto to yell at him again. "And, again, I'm sorry for the inconvenience."
"Go be with your sister," Seto suggested. "We'll wait."
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
A few hours after he left, Mokuba was feeling extremely bored. "Seto-niisama," he called to his brother, who was checking his work e-mail, "can I go take a walk for a little while?"
"As long as you don't wander too far," Seto permitted. "Just…walk around the parking lot if you want to stretch your legs, but don't go anywhere I can't see you from the window."
"Ok," Mokuba agreed, pulling on his yellow vest before walking out the door. The parking lot itself was pretty boring, he realized, as he walked through it. All the cars looked generally the same…except for one. It was a really old-school American model with a black paint job. It looked like it might be from as far back as the 1960s. If he had to guess, Mokuba would say it was an Impala.
He noticed two men walking towards it. One was extremely tall, with long hair that reminded Mokuba of his friend Ryou's, only brown. The other man was bowlegged, with short blonde hair and a smattering of freckles. Brothers, Mokuba guessed, like Seto and I. The two were talking animatedly to each other.
"So, we already talked to the family of that Billy kid," the shorter one recapped. Billy? Mokuba thought as he eavesdropped. That's the name of Delilah's friend, who died….probably a coincidence, right? I mean, it's a pretty common name in America, isn't it?
"Yeah, the one with the 'Semper Fi' truck," the taller man recalled.
Ok, they were definitely talking about the dead guy who caused the limo crash, Mokuba realized. But…why?
"So, we salt n' burn the truck, right?" the shorter man suggested. "Yeah, it seems like a pretty open-and-shut case," the taller man agreed. "You got the kerosene?"
Were they….plotting to set the dead man's truck on fire?! Mokuba gasped. Why would they do that? Should he follow them and find out? What if they were dangerous?
Suddenly, Mokuba's phone rang loudly, and he ran back inside so that the suspicious American men in the parking lot wouldn't hear it and catch him spying on them.
"H-hello?" Mokuba answered uncertainly after slamming the door. Seto looked up from his computer with a raised eyebrow.
"Hey, it's Dexter," said their chauffeur from the other end of the line. "I was wondering if you wanted to come to the cafeteria at my sister's college and have lunch."
"Oh," Mokuba muttered. "Uh…ok, sure, Seto-niisama and I will meet you there." He prepared to walk down the street to the college with Seto, deciding, with a wave of guilt, to not tell his brother about what he had seen.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Mokuba became more nervous when he saw the two men again at the cafeteria. He didn't approach them, but rather tried not to look at them as he took a seat next to Dexter. A woman with reddish hair joined them, who Mokuba assumed was Delilah.
"I see you staring at those guys over there," Delilah said immediately. Crap, Mokuba thought.
"Man, the short one's really eating a lot, isn't he?" Delilah laughed. "Hey, I know they look out of place, but it's ok. They're agents from the FBI. I talked to them earlier about Billy."
"Why would the FBI be interested in a car accident?" Seto wondered.
"They're saying….it might not be an accident," Delilah confessed, frowning and looking shaken up. "They asked me if Billy had any enemies. I told them he and his brother used to fight a lot, but…he's dead."
"You think if his brother were alive, he'd try to kill Billy?" Mokuba asked, surprised. "I love my brother so much….I can't imagine a family so messed up that they'd want to hurt each other."
"Yeah, I know what you mean," Delilah nodded. "Dexter and I are super close, even though we're usually in different cities lately."
"Actually, if your limo hadn't happened to crash nearby," Dexter confessed, "I wouldn't have been able to see Delilah. She'd be dealing with all this alone. So…thank you."
"I wouldn't be totally alone," Delilah protested. "I have my roommate, Julie. She's awesome. And my friend Kyle."
"Well, I'm glad you have people here at school you can count on," Dexter smiled.
"Yeah," Delilah agreed. "I don't know what I'd do without them."
Mokuba continued to sneak glances at the two men in the corner. Are they really FBI agents? he thought to himself. And if so, why would they burn evidence like that guy's car?
Something, he thought with a wave of concern, doesn't add up.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Mokuba went back to the motel and watched television for a few hours, trying to relax, and to convince himself that the "FBI agents" were exactly what they seemed. It wasn't his business, anyway, he decided. Hopefully he and Seto would be out of this creepy town soon and on the way to Des Moines.
"I think I'm going to call Dexter," Seto announced, "and see if the limo is fixed yet. As bad as I feel for his sister and her dead friend, we need to get out of here and go give that contract to that attorney."
"Right," Mokuba nodded. If the agents were up to something, he wanted to be as far away from them as possible. They unnerved him.
When Seto began talking to Dexter, a stricken expression crossed his face before he muttered something and hung up.
"Did Dexter have bad news?" Mokuba hypothesized.
"Yes," Seto replied, "but not about the limo. It seems that another of Delilah's friends has died."
"What?!" Mokuba cried, shocked. "That's insane! What happened? Another accident?"
"No," Seto shook his head. "It seems the girl – Julie – was murdered."
"Murdered?" Mokuba gasped. Why were so many deaths happening in this sleepy little Midwestern town?! When he'd watched American movies on TV, he'd always gotten the impression that it was the big cities that had all the crime.
"That's right," Seto sighed. "I don't think this town is very safe. I want to leave before something bad happens to you, little brother, even if we have to walk to Des Moines."
"We….we can't leave yet," Mokuba said guiltily.
"What? Why not?" blinked Seto, confused.
"Because….I saw something," Mokuba confessed. "The…the agents Delilah told us about. They were staying here, in the motel."
"Really?" Seto questioned. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I was scared," Mokuba admitted.
"Scared of what?" Seto asked with a suspicious glare, pulling Mokuba closer to him. If the agents were after his little brother, they were dead!
"I….I heard them talking about burning the property of the first guy who died," Mokuba revealed. "Seto-niisama, what if they burned it because it was evidence of a murder? Wh-what if they killed him?"
"We have to warn Delilah," Seto realized. "She might be next!" With his white coat trailing behind him, he grabbed his brother by the hand and ran for the door.
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They wandered through the college campus, frantically looking for Delilah. Instead, they only found her friend Kyle, who was blasting heavy metal music from giant speakers when they walked into his room.
"Turn that drivel off," Seto snapped.
Kyle complied, but glared at Seto as he asked, "What are you guys doing here?"
"We think we know who killed your friends," Mokuba confessed.
"Whoa, what?" Kyle gasped. "How could you possibly know something like that? Who the hell are you, anyway?"
"We're people who know what we're talking about, so please just listen to Seto-niisama and I!" Mokuba pleaded.
"Wait…Seto?" Kyle blinked. "Like, Seto Kaiba?"
"Yes, that's my name," replied Seto impatiently.
"Get out!" Kyle grinned, his mood lifting instantly. "You're the CEO of the company that invented Duel Disks, right?"
"Are you a duelist?" Seto asked, surprised.
"Yeah, Duel Monsters has actually gotten pretty popular in America lately," Kyle explained. "A lot of guys in STD play."
"STD?" Seto repeated, feeling a sudden urge to cover his brother's ears.
"Sigma Theta Delta," Kyle clarified. "My fraternity."
"Oh."
"What I really love about the latest model of Duel Disk," Kyle said, picking his up off the floor and strapping it to his wrist, "is that it has Wi-Fi connectivity."
"Yes, it's a very innovative new feature we're experimenting with," Seto nodded. "We're still debating whether to include it in our next model."
"Wow, so you're really the Seto Kaiba," Kyle continued, starstruck. "I saw you duel in Battle City on TV. You were amazing, bro! Can I duel you?"
"Um, Kyle-san," Mokuba reminded, "I get that you're excited to meet a big-time celebrity like my brother, but….we were trying to tell you about who we think killed Billy and Julie…."
"Oh, right, of course," Kyle nodded, his expression turning to a somber frown. It was obviously difficult for him to even think about. Of course he would want to distract himself with something, anything, else, Mokuba realized. As Kyle moved to unstrap the Duel Disk, his wrist hit the "ON" button by accident and suddenly the hologram of a monster card he had left in the card slot after his latest duel appeared.
It was a Buster Blader – a hulking Warrior-type monster that carried a sword. Mokuba had seen this hologram a dozen times before. It was, after all, in their friend Yugi's deck. But, something was….off about this holographic projection. It looked…angrier, somehow. Vengeful. Mokuba couldn't explain it.
"Seto-niisama," Mokuba gaped, "w-why is Buster Blader raising his sword like he's going to attack?"
"What?" Seto's jaw dropped. "The hologram isn't supposed to do that unless the duelist attacks a monster! This isn't even a duel…is it malfunctioning?"
Buster Blader continued to behave strangely. It turned so that it was facing Kyle. What kind of glitch was this? It was swinging its blade back even further, as if preparing to do serious damage. But…to what? There was no duel going on here – no field and no monsters. Who did Buster want to hit? No, Mokuba thought. Monsters don't "want" anything. They're just images projected by an electric machine.
Buster Blader swung its sword towards Kyle and….wait, why did the hologram look so solid? It couldn't actually touch them…right?
"Oh god…." Mokuba cried, realizing what was happening, just as the blade connected with Kyle's torso and blood spurted everywhere like a hose. Kyle's body dropped to the floor as Buster Blader's pixelated form winked out of existence and oh god he was DEAD how was this possible OH GOD and suddenly Mokuba was screaming and so was Seto and then everything went black.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
The next thing Mokuba felt was a gentle hand shaking him awake. At first he thought it was his brother's, but when he'd opened his eyes, he saw that it was the tall man he'd seen at the motel earlier, one of the "FBI agents" who he, until he witnessed the inexplicable Duel Disk death of Kyle, had believed were responsible for the string of recent murders.
But they couldn't have done this, Mokuba realized. There was no logical explanation for what they had just seen. It was impossible for even the most experienced hacker to turn a holographic sword into a murderously real one. This wasn't natural. It was….supernatural.
"Who are you?" Mokuba said weakly, still smelling the scent of blood, thick in the air, that had caused him to pass out earlier.
"My name is Sam," the man introduced. "Sam Winchester."
"I'm Mokuba," Mokuba responded. "Mokuba Kaiba….w-where is my brother?"
"My brother Dean is taking a look at him," Sam responded. "He hit his head kinda hard when he tried to grab you when you keeled over like that."
"Is he alright?" Mokuba gasped. "Also – wait – you have a big brother, too?"
"Your brother is fine," Sam confirmed. "And yeah, Dean is four years older than me."
"Seto and I are four years apart, too," Mokuba replied. During the events of Battle City, Seto had been 16, while Mokuba had been 12.
"But, seriously," Mokuba continued, "who are you guys?"
"We're called hunters," Sam explained, figuring there was no point in lying after what the boys had just seen. "My brother and I we fight….monsters. Things like ghosts, they're, um…real."
"I know," Mokuba nodded sagely.
"Wait, you do?" Sam blinked, doing a double take. "How?"
"My friend Yugi was possessed by the ghost of an Ancient Egyptian pharaoh for a while," Mokuba confessed. "Yugi-kun was actually friends with the ghost, though, and helped him move on to the next life."
"Friends with a ghost?" Sam repeated, perplexed. "But, didn't the ghost ever try to, you know, hurt people?"
"At first, he did," Mokuba admitted. "But then Yugi-kun taught him that hurting people was wrong, and helped him to become a nicer person."
"Really?" Sam replied, furrowing his brow. He'd never seen a ghost be able to recover from the violent madness that eventually plagued all vengeful spirits…could the power of friendship really do something like that? He wanted to scour the Men of Letters library later for any mention of such a phenomenon.
"Yeah, really," Mokuba confirmed. "My friend Ryou-kun was possessed by a spirit, too, but that one was a lot nastier."
"Vengeful spirits usually are," Sam laughed. "Now, listen…your brother already told us what you guys saw happen to Kyle."
"You think a spirit did that?" Mokuba asked, still shivering from the memory. He'd watched a man die…he still couldn't believe that KaibaCorp technology had done that. On some level, he felt guilty.
"The ghost my brother and I have been hunting," Sam explained, "We think it's the ghost of a man named Andrew Silver – he died in a car accident, when his car hit a WiFi tower. Now, he's using anything connected to WiFi to attack people."
If we hadn't added WiFi connectivity to the latest Duel Disk model, Mokuba realized, feeling sick, the ghost of Andrew Silver wouldn't have been able to attack Kyle through Buster Blader.
"If the Duel Disk hadn't been there," Sam assured him, "the ghost would have found another way to kill Kyle. Like, maybe those speakers over there," he added, gesturing to a massive sound system in the corner.
"Why it did it want to kill Kyle though?" Mokuba wondered. Before Sam could answer, the door burst open as Delilah and Dexter spilled into the room and Delilah dissolved into hysterical screams at the bloody scene.
"I tried to stop her from coming in," Dean frowned, entering, with Seto, a Band-Aid stuck to his forehead, trailing closely behind.
"He's going to kill us all," Delilah moaned. "Oh god, I'm next. Andrew's going to get me."
"We're not going to let that happen," Sam swore.
"Delilah," Dean prompted gently, "can you tell us why Andrew Silver's ghost is after you and your friends?"
Delilah's eyes flicked towards Dexter uncertainly. Mokuba realized that she didn't want to admit to whatever horrible thing she had done while the brother she idolized was watching.
"Delilah-san, it's ok," Mokuba soothed her. "An oniisama – I mean, a brother – has the strongest sort of bond with you. He's known you your whole life, seen every good and bad moment in your life. He's been there for you in every moment before. If you tell him what you did, I know he'll still love you. A brother's love is forever."
"He's right," Dexter nodded, putting a reassuring hand on his sister's shoulder. "Del, whatever you and your friends did, just tell me. I just want you to be safe. And if we know what happened, it will make us easier for us to protect you….please."
"Ok," Delilah said tearfully, and began to explain: "Billy, Julie, Kyle, and I were driving somewhere, really late at night. I don't remember where. We…we weren't really paying attention to the road."
Just like the night you hit our limo, Seto thought rather uncharitably.
"We…we were taking selfies, and reblogging photos," Delilah confessed. "I-I know you're not supposed to have your phone out when you're driving, but…Billy did. We all did. And so when Andrew came flying down the road so suddenly, we didn't see him…" Delilah sobbed, struggling to continue.
"It's ok, Del," Dexter comforted her. "Your big brother Dex is right here, ok? The ghost isn't gonna get you, no matter what, so just keep going, ok?"
Delilah nodded and continued. "We…we hit him," Delilah revealed, weeping with guilt. "His car sailed into a telephone pole, and…and then….the electric wires fell on his car, and then he was burning, and…oh god…." They killed him, Mokuba realized. That was why he was after them. Quietly, Seto wondered if the ghost of their stepfather might come back with a similar vengeance one day. Either way, he had no right to judge. At least the death Delilah caused had been an accident.
"I told Billy to call an ambulance," Delilah concluded her story. "I…I told all of them to call 911, but Billy just…drove away. He said we all had to cover up what happened. Oh god, Dex, I've wanted to come clean to you, to anyone, for so long…I'm so sorry…."
"Sssh," Dexter soothed, gathering his sister in his arms. "Delilah, I had no idea what you were going through, I'm sorry…I should have been here for you all this time, instead of letting your friends coerce you into hiding all this…"
"It's not your fault," Delilah shook her head. "You live and work in Illinois, and I'm out here in Iowa. It's not your fault that I decided to go to school out-of-state. If your limo hadn't broken down when you were trying to drive Mokuba and Seto to Des Moines, you would never have had any real reason to make a random visit like this. I mean, I know your boss would never have allowed it…"
Dexter looked pained. "I want to move out here," he decided. "To make sure nothing like this ever happens to you again." He turned his attention to the Kaiba brothers. "It looks like I owe you a thank you for dragging me out here, after all," he told them. "So that I can save my sister."
"It's not like we planned for our limo to get ruined," Seto shrugged.
"We got bigger problems to deal with right now," Dean reminded, holding up a shaker of salt. "I'm gonna make a circle with this," he explained, "and then I'm gonna need all of you to get inside of it. It'll keep the ghost away from you."
Mokuba, Seto, Dexter, and Delilah agreed, and sat within the perimeter of sodium that Dean set up. Sam and Dean drew their guns ("Rock salt bullets," Sam illuminated, "can take down any ghost.") Dean did his best to smash any electrical device in the room that he could with a large crow bar. But, suddenly a phone, left by some random student, rang on the nearby couch, and the charred, mutilated face of Andrew Silver appeared on its screen.
And then he was there, stepping towards Delilah (who Mokuba was crouched next to in the circle) with murderous intent. Mokuba had never been so terrified in his life. He clung to Seto's white coat, shaking.
And then, suddenly, Sam was reaching for not his weapon, but his phone. He activated a video-messaging app, and suddenly a woman – Andrew's wife, Mokuba guessed – was on the screen, pleading with him to stop:
"It's Corey. Please listen to me. You have to stop this. Revenge – it's hollow. And it's pointless. It won't bring you back," she begged. "I should have said this earlier. But, I couldn't let go. But it's time… for me to let go and for you to do the same."
Andrew's ghost looked at her pixelated face, seeming to seriously consider what she was saying, phantom tears in his eyes.
"Please, I'm begging you," Corey continued, emotion choking her voice. "Do it for me. Do it for us….Goodbye."
And then Andrew was gone.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
In the aftermath, sitting in the car with the Winchester brothers (who had graciously driven them back to the motel after Dexter and Delilah left), Mokuba didn't know what to say. He'd had magical adventures before, but this was…different.
"I think that stuff you said back there to Delilah – you know, about how a brother will always be there for you – was pretty cool, Mokuba," Sam said, breaking the silence.
"R-really?" Mokuba asked, looking up hesitantly.
"Yeah, I agree," Dean smiled. "I've always looked after Sammy. Made sure nobody hurt him. Practically raised him."
"Same here," Seto spoke up. "After our parents died, Mokuba was all I had – and I was all he had, too. I'd do anything for him."
"I know how you feel," Dean empathized. "I mean, after our mom died, Sammy and I were kinda on our own."
"Our dad was still alive," Sam clarified. "But he had…his business, which meant he had no time for us. And even when he did, he wasn't exactly…Father of the Year."
"Neither was our stepdad," Mokuba recalled. "But…we made the best of it. Just us brothers, against the world."
"Exactly," Dean smiled, and Seto felt like, unlike those dweebs back in Domino City, perhaps Sam and Dean really did understand.
"As a thank you for your help with this case," Dean continued, "I was thinking I could fix your limo up for you. I'm, uh, kinda handy with cars."
"We didn't do anything," Seto protested. "Here, I can pay you…"
"No need," Dean insisted. "Unlike the crappy mechanics Dexter sent you to, I think I can get you guys on the road to Des Moines in just a few hours."
Mokuba frowned.
"What's the matter?" Seto asked.
"Well…I was just wondering…" Mokuba blushed. "If, uh…we could stay and hang out with Dean-niisan and Sam-niisan just a while longer…I mean, if it's ok with them!"
"Fine by me," Dean grinned. "I know a pretty sweet pie place a couple hours from here."
"Can we, Seto-niisama?" Mokuba begged.
"Alright," Seto conceded, unable to believe that he was really postponing the conclusion of his business deal any longer. But…he'd almost lost Mokuba back there to that haunted Duel Disk (he would not be including WiFi connections, he decided, in any future models) and now he wanted, more than ever, to spend time with his little brother. Business could wait. "Quality time with my brother always comes first."
And Dean, thinking about how much time he had left with Sam before the Mark might take him over completely, found that he could agree.