Okay, so here's the whole story.

Warnings: Implied Seto/Yami.
Details: Seto and Yami live together along with Mokuba. Seto and Yami are both 20, Mokuba's 15 and in highschool. Yuugi and co are in various colleges, so there won't be a lot of noise from them, at least at first.


They awoke to a loud crashing noise downstairs.

"If that's Mokuba, I'm going to kill him," Seto muttered, rolling out of bed and hunting for a bathrobe to cover his mostly bare form.

Violet eyes winked at him in the semi-darkness.

"Over by the bathroom door," the ex-spirit's deep voice suggested, a hint of laughter coloring his words.

He found the robe and slipped into it before wrenching the bedroom door open and going downstairs. In the dimly lit corridor, he checked the time on his watch and groaned. Awake at 3:42 in the morning on a weekend? He knew there was something terribly wrong with the picture.

Once downstairs, he began calling his little brother's name softly into the shadows. No answer in the living room, no light on in the bathroom, nothing in the foyer…

Dammit, if he woke us up trying to get a snack at four in the morning –

He checked the kitchen. Nothing. Well, if Mokuba had gotten up to get food, he'd certainly beat a hasty retreat, although Seto couldn't blame him. He was a bear in the morning, and he knew it.

With a wolfish grin to himself, (and knowing he would have avoided himself if he'd ever had the misfortune to wake himself up by stealing food from the kitchen at four a.m.) Seto came back to the bedroom he shared with his dueling rival-turned-lover to find Yami sitting up in bed, waiting for him.

"Was it Mokuba?" he asked.

Seto shook his head wordlessly. The silence demanded an explanation, so he offered one. "Probably, but I didn't catch him at it." Whatever 'it' was.

Yami shook his head, settling back down into the warmth of the pillows and comforter.

"I take it you won't be filleting him, then?"

Seto shook his head again, shrugging off the robe as he did so, then climbing back into bed. Yami's body arched around his, the heat reminding him just how easily he chilled.

"Goodnight."

"Goodnight."


He woke all at once, and sat, puzzled for a moment. Why – ? Oh, yes. The alarm hadn't rung because it was Saturday and Yami had convinced him to take this particular Saturday off. 'Spend some time with Mokuba' had been the exact wording, actually…

"Awake?"

He turned over to see Yami, stretched out, catlike next to him, head propped up on one hand.

"If you want, I can make breakfast today," the violet-eyed duelist offered.

Seto sat up, brushing sleep from his eyes. "Depends what you have in mind."

"Nothing fancy – maybe a trio of omelets. We've got enough random foodstuffs to make three decent ones, I think."

He thought for a moment before nodding. Not that he didn't enjoy the chocolate chip pancakes Yami usually made on Saturdays, or the Cheerios he subsisted on during the week, but…

"Change is good," Yami remarked, rolling out of bed and picking up a pair of shirts interlaced on the floor. The two items found themselves hurled towards a hamper on the other side of the room.

"You missed," Seto observed, already sifting through the closet for something to wear today.

Yami glared and stalked over to the tangled shirts lying sheepishly just in front of the hamper. "You're lucky I can't banish inanimate objects to the Shadow Realm," he tartly informed the shirts. He scooped them up and deposited them in the hamper with a bit more force than was strictly necessary.

Seto wriggled into a comfortable, dark green, long-sleeve shirt. The material was very warm. That was good. He hated being cold. The sweatpants he chose to go with the shirt were also green, but more mint colored. No trench coat – Yami hated when he wore them inside.

He adjusted the cuffs on the long-sleeve shirt until they were situated to his liking, then looked up to see Yami buckling the last of his accessories. The ex-spirit had chosen a warm blue sleeveless tee with the faded words I.M. GAWD etched across it. His sweatpants matched Seto's in design, but they were black and a little tighter than the CEO preferred for his own clothing. Silver imitations of Egyptian jewelry decorated Yami's wrists and a set of red and blue studs marched their way up the side of his right ear.

Seto nodded when Yami winked at him, and relaxed a bit. For some reason he was tense – tenser than he had been in a long time. Still, even as he opened the door and let Yami precede him into the hallway of the mansion, he felt a twinge of shame that he had to schedule a day-long appointment with his little brother in order to actually see him…


"You're never going to win, you know," the teen warned, an amused look in his grey-blue eyes.

"You keep saying that, but I haven't seen you do anything to back it up – damn!"

"Oh, haven't I?" Mokuba laughed.

Seto glowered at the video game screen. "You'd think after having invented this game, I might have had a chance to win at it," he growled. He was joking, though, despite his harsh sounding words and surly demeanor, as Mokuba knew.

The CEO growled again before looking back to the couch where Yami casually lay, watching with interest despite the open dueling magazine in his hands.

"Yami, care to challenge the King of Video Games?" Seto asked, rising to his knees and offering the game remote.

Yami paused for a moment, looking to Mokuba for a confirmation of the invitation. At the black-haired teen's eager nod, the ex-spirit dropped the dueling magazine and rolled off the couch to take Seto's place.

Meanwhile, the brunet commandeered the abandoned couch to watch his brother and lover play the video game he had designed.

"Is this your newest one?" Yami asked, fiddling with the control to scroll through choosable characters.

Seto nodded.

The shorter duelist sighed theatrically and turned to Mokuba. "So, what are the rules of this game?"

He leaned over to pick up the dueling magazine while Mokuba launched into an explanation. The part of his mind actually listening to the conversation was fascinated that his younger brother could hold onto so much information. He's practically got the rule book memorized, he mused, and I haven't even let him see it yet…


"As much as I hate to admit it," Yami said, about a half hour into play, "I think you've got the upper hand, Mokuba. Unless – " he paused to consult the rule book Seto had dragged out specifically for his use.

"It won't work," Seto said, his voice slightly muffled from behind the dueling magazine.

Yami looked up. "What won't work?" he asked.

Without putting the magazine down, Seto listed off approximations of point values and both advantages and disadvantages for the two players. "Mokuba's got you in the exact same situation he had me in right before he beat me," Seto finished, finally putting the magazine down.

Yami looked partly offended, partly amused. "Are you suggesting I can't figure out a way to win where you couldn't?" he asked, his voice dangerously soft.

Seto shrugged. "I designed the game," he reminded Yami, "and once the players hit a certain point, the outcome is inevitable. What you really need to do is figure out a different strategy for defeating the Cyber Queen on the level before this one. Whenever I use any of my mages on her, I can't win on this level."

Yami's eyes opened wide, impressed.

Mokuba laughed at his awestruck expression. "Does this mean I win, then?" he inquired impishly.

The violet-eyed duelist paused, looking at Seto. "Usually I see everything to the end, but if Seto is right, then it would be a waste of time, when we could be doing something – constructive – instead."

"Constructive?" Mokuba sounded less than eager.

Seto watched his lover tweak his brother's nose.

"Yes, constructive. Like, say, lunch. It's already past noon."

The half-frown melted from Mokuba's face to be replaced with a grin. "Okay!"

Seto considered getting up, but couldn't quite summon the energy. Yami came over, a little concern on his face.

"Are you all right?"

"I'll be fine."

"That's not what I asked."

There was no reply for that. He didn't even try to come up with one. Yami frowned slightly at his silence. "I'll be in the kitchen if you need me."

Seto nodded. As his lover disappeared into the next room over, he found himself reflecting – a habit that he used to find annoying. Now though, it seemed more like a therapeutic sort of release.

He was twenty – his brother was fifteen. In three more years, Mokuba would leave. In another god-knew-how-many more, he would retire from being CEO. Hopefully, by that point, Mokuba would be ready and willing to run the company. Hopefully too, Yami would still be around. Maybe Mokuba would have a family.

He'd never wanted a family outside the one he already had, really, but he also had to admit that it might be nice to have a niece or nephew. Especially one of Mokuba's.

But maybe Mokuba didn't want a family other than the one he had already, too. In that case –

Seto had finally gotten up and wandered into the kitchen where Yami was heating up the oven for white pizza. Mokuba looked up from the table when Seto came in. Yami's face was a little tight.

"Nii-sama? Can I have a brother?"


Author's Note: Another Kaiba one, you ask? Well, yeah. I swear, it's not my fault! He's decided to become my personal muse, apparently, and won't get out of my head! But that's another story, for another time and place. Much thanks goes to Lightning Sage who is doing the beta job for this.

--Now, yes, I stuck Yami in this story with Kaiba and there isn't any explanation on that either, but this is where I get to say tough beans! and laugh. Nah, not really. I'm not that cruel. Well, mostly not, anyway.
--The right ear only piercing in males is supposed to mean he's gay. Just random trivia, I guess.
--About the videogame...Now, I know Yami's King of Games and all that, but I figured that if he messed up before and couldn't rectify the situation, even he would lose. (Like he did to Rafael in the DOMA season with the OC seal.) Anyway, little Mokuba needed an ego boost, so that's how I gave it to him. He got to beat both his brother and the King of Games.