Faint under patternless taps.
Raindrops on the roof.
"What are you so damn excited about?"
The words interlaced with a sigh as Seto flicked through emails on his phone.
Laughs flickered near his shoulder.
Just barely louder than the car engine somewhere ahead.
"A magician never reveals his secrets."
Wonderful.
It must be ridiculous.
It was always ridiculous.
Never mind that the last instance, that god awful construction of pillows and blankets and whatnot in the living room, hadn't been uncomfortable after all.
"You're not a magician."
"At least admit you're curious."
He fixed his lips into a scowl as if to make up for the smile before it.
"Ever the mystery are we…?"
"You dragged me from work, Max. I assume there's a reason."
"Some reason, Seto?"
The brakes of the limo squeaked.
The two rushed up to the house out of the rain and in past a servant holding the door open.
A snap produced a crowd of them all scrambling to dismantle armor.
Coats. Briefcases. Folders. The phone…
Taken and disappearing into one of Maximillion's pockets.
A click of a tongue contrasted a thoughtful hum.
"Stay here."
His voice was farther down the hall when Seto heard it again.
"And close your eyes!"
"There better be a good reason for all this."
Breathy complaints only to himself.
The house was quiet. Thrum of a nearby air conditioning unit from somewhere high up. Soft clatter of dishes and utensils after what must have been lunch.
Where was he..?
Then there was something.
Lavender smoothing into his senses.
"Ah!" Pegasus's sudden accusation from nearby. "I saw that…"
Seto sighed with purposed volume.
"Hands out. Mouth open."
Anything to get this over with.
Cold spoon resting on his tongue, Seto bit. Something dense. With cream. No. Icing. All the better for the lack of tinny store-bought taste.
"Cake."
"Congratulations. Your taste buds are alive and well."
"Why cake?"
A moment lapsed into silence.
After an annoyed sigh faded, something with significant weight dropped unceremoniously into Seto's still-open hands.
"How you could forget your own birthday is beyond me."
Open eyes found Maximillion making some effort to scowl at him, something taken more seriously if he wasn't standing there with a spoon in hand.
Seto picked at the ribbon, a length of it falling across his arm as he dug fingers in under the paper. There in crumples was a thick volume. The cover – leather – a smooth blue where it wasn't gold flecked in what had once been an elaborate pattern or print, the title pressed between the rises of a hubbed spine.
Seto opened the book carefully, if only to hear how the binding crackled with age. Fingers reverently smoothed over a yellowing page and to its gilded edge. Little thought filled his head other than lifting the whole of it to his face to breathe in the age, the everything. And judging by how thick the volume was…
"Unabridged."
"Naturally," Maximillion confirmed.
Seto closed the book, staring at it there clutched in both hands and not seeing it at all, unable to focus on anything other keeping a straight face. There wasn't anything to be done about the blinking.
And for a painfully long moment, the pair of them couldn't find a word to say.
"This was the one wasn't it?"
Maximillion's flicked hair off his shoulder.
The first time he had been invited over.
For play rather than work.
What felt like a thousand years ago.
Maximillion had strode reverently past the bookcases and asked him.
"Which is your favorite?"
And here it was.
Seto bit his tongue as if doing so would keep all the words he could say stuck there in his throat.
"Yes," he nearly whispered. "Thank you."
Just like that, Maximillion was all smiles, albeit slow ones.
"You're welcome."
He led the way through the hall into a relatively empty kitchen, remaining staff trailing out one by one.
Doors opened. The refrigerator and a French pair, welcoming in the rain.
Seto perched at the spacious bar, hand sweeping over the counter twice before he gingerly set the book there.
Glass lid aside, a round, dark cake sat on the counter between the two.
Between absent murmurs of a lone voice, it slowly lost shape.
"I thought this would do. Just the two of us."
Seto edged a spoon carefully under a faint purple swirl of icing so as not to ruin the shape.
"What's the book about?"
What he'd heard of it began and ended with the title.
Seto glanced at the dark cover as if it might speak for itself.
It was about…
Everything.
"Loss. Justice. Devotion."
"Capes and crusaders come to mind."
"Not exactly."
But then, in his own eyes, every man was a hero.
"If it has your stamp of approval it must be something… I might have to take a look myself, one of these days."
Seto tugged the spoon out of his mouth and set it down, positively bristling with needless offense.
"This book is well over a thousand pages long. It'd take you a year."
"I beg your pardon."
"You never even finish the paper."
Granted neither of them did.
"Fine." Maximillion abandoned the prior point. "How long would it take you?"
Seto's brow furrowed a moment and relaxed in the next.
"A month."
Where he leaned on the counter, Maximillion allowed a laugh to vibrate up through his chest and carry words along.
Daring but softly so.
"I'll match you page for page."
Seto looked at him then turned a knowing smile back to remaining half or so of the cake on the counter.
"There's no way for me to be sure you won't cheat anyway."
A half-hearted frown claimed features.
In spite of it, he leaned just as Seto began to.
And spoke even while amusement-brightened eyes wandered down his face.
"You know I don't mean it, Max."
A pause for the sake of one.
"How would I know that?"
Quiet words while lips twitched, seconds from mutiny. A smile. Suddenly there then melting. Into a kiss.
One.
More.
Quiet and many. Fainter breaths and smaller kisses. Pattern slowly losing form through the soft gray of afternoon rain.
Smoothing together.
Then sound in a warm staccato.
Underlying notes deeper. Steady reaching. Fingers threading into silver. Grazing his ear.
An unexpected cry broke them apart.
Maximillion lifted an arm, saw the lavender smear and sighed. He whisked away and returned with cloth, dabbing at his sleeve. But he gave up soon.
Cufflinks in subsequent little taps on the stone counter and one picked back up and polished at as if just to do so.
"I'll read it to you."
He set the bit of metal down slowly, found eyes on him.
And a little smile in them where it wasn't elsewhere.