A/N: OOoOOOoOOooOOooo I sense backstory~
~XxX~
Mokuba had given Noah a small funeral, throwing some lilies from the main room into the sea, I had hung back, leaning against the wall and trying to rationalise my feelings away. I was angry. No, more than that, I was enraged. The "Death-T" fiasco was unforgivable and irredeemable unless I heard it from both of their mouths as to exactly why and if they regretted it. If not, I would be spending the rest of the tournament in my room and with the unconscious members of the troupe. My eyes bore into the backs of the heads of both Seto and Yugi. Someone, or someones, were getting hit.
~XxX~
"You." I stated flatly, walking into Kaiba's so called 'private office' with two things in my hands, I had decided to go for him first, considering Yami wasn't around and I didn't want to yell at Yugi. I sat in the chair I usually did now and glared at him, when I got really, really, unvelieveably angry, I went horribly calm. He didn't even look up from typing.
"Callaghan." I was acknowledged with a word.
"I want answers, Kaiba."
"You haven't asked a question, Callaghan."
"Death-T." The way I said it, even that wasn't a question but it stopped him typing. Infact, for a second, I think it stopped him breathing by his lack of movement. Several seconds passed in silence before Seto turned to face me fully, he regarded me coolly.
"How much do you know of it, Callaghan?" His voice was level but his eyes betrayed the fact that he was genuinely curious.
"Gozaburo's computer." I answered bluntly, not breaking eye contact, "He doesn't switch of computers when he leaves them."
"An eco-lover he was not."
A vein pulsed in my throat. "NO." I winced and looked away from him, towards the screen. The three God cards were showing on it and I felt my anger boiling, I looked back to him, calming my voice. "No. Not diversions. Death-T, Kaiba." His eyes narrowed at me before he turned away too.
"No."
"Yes."
"No, Callaghan." He wasn't typing, just looking at the screen as I counteracted.
"I already read the file, Kaiba." I paused, "And I read yours too." Silence. Strained. Next next words he spoke were strained also.
"You read my file."
"Your medical file, yes."
"...Get out, Callaghan." The finality in his voice, mixed with his resolve to continue typing didn't throw me.
"No." I scooted my chair closer to the desk so as to set the first thing down, my coffee, I noted his glance towards it and answered his unspoken question. "Attempted murderers don't get coffee."
"Out." The word was hissed at me and I snarled, shoving him hard in the arm.
"No. You are going to fucking tell me what the fuck was going through your mind when you decided to fucking build an entire theme park dedicated to murder. You hired a serial killer for god's sake!"
"Get OUT, Callaghan. Do NOT touch me again." The enunciation on the two words and the repeated use of my last name broke my compousre and everything came out.
"Shut up! Just, shut UP! I've had it up to here with your over-the-top arrogance and your sidestepping my questions!" I was growling now, "Tell me why, that's all I want to know! I just what to know why the hell you did this? I thought I was getting to know you!" The glare he shot me spoke volumes, "Oh don't. I'm not just doing this to you, I'm going after Yami too. If he thinks it's perfectly okay to put people in coma's and make them feel like they're dying over and over-"
"Out."
"THIS IS GOING NOWHERE! I AM GOING NOWHERE! STOP CALLING ME CALLAGHAN!" I yelled at him, standing up abruptly and pointing at the door while I shouted. A second passed with me breathing rapidly and he stood calmly, looking down at me now that I was two inches taller and back to his height thanks to my (real) heels.
"Callaghan, you may have read my personal medical file, but that doesn't mean you know me." Cold, like when we first met, "I can take you being around, because you can keep up and you won't leave me alone. But you invaded my privacy and now have the gall to confront me." He glared at me and I felt the wall go right back up, I felt like hitting him, so I did. Well, tried to. He caught my hand before it made contact with his cheek and glared at me. I gasped indignantly, how dare he stop me from slapping him.
"Let go." I yanked my hand out of his grip on the 'go' and then frowned before my eyes widened. That...felt horribly familiar. "You-" I looked up from my hand to him, "You did that!" I was shocked now, I had assumed Yugi...
"I can't have someone dying in my tournement, Callaghan, I've already told you this."
"You saved my life." I sat down in my chair again, landing with a 'fwump,' "Why do you keep doing this to me, Seto?" The 'why do you keep making me an emotional scatterbrain' went unsaid. A sigh of exasperation from my left before he too, sat.
"And I thought we were making progress, Callaghan." I didn't have the energy to glare at him, instead setting the second thing down on the desk, a lemon muffin.
"It's a badge of honour." More silence passed. Just as I was about to say, 'not the muffin' he answered.
"Hmm." I could hear the mild suspiscion in his tone.
"I understood that after seeing your chess game..." I paused, trying to remember why exactly I had taken to using his first name, "You're just...so...frozen all the time. It seems that to get any degree of emotion out of you, people have to use your first name." I snickered, "Of course, with Gozaburo, it inspired hate, with Noah it was patronisation but with Mokuba...I mean, I know he's your brother and therefore the thing that you love and care for, but I just..." I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, I hadn't been looking at him before, preferring to lean forwards in my seat and rest my elbows on my knees, but now I really couldn't see him, "Ever since the first day of school, I have known three things. Teá is a good person to be friends with, both authoratitively and just in life, this cardgame is apparently taken very seriously and that you were a bastard." I felt the eye roll.
"Lovely, Callaghan, truly insightful." I opened my eyes and sat up straight after he spoke, staing at him and knowing that the only reason I wasn't blushing right now was because I wasn't thinking.
"But you're just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing, you're enough of an enigma to keep me interested, you're certainly intelligent enough to keep me talking and you're enough of a big brother to let me know that I'm doing the right thing when I choose to hang around even if annoys you." More silence, this was getting boring now.
"I bet against him, Callaghan." Seto spoke with a half defeated half pained voice and my heart stopped for a second. Was he...willing to talk to me?
"You were an idiot." I agreed and smirked at the venomous look he shot me.
"I do not need you to berate me too, Callaghan. Do you not think that I don't regret it? That I haven't tried to put it behind me? That when I look at Mokuba I don't remember the look on his face after I pressed the button to inflict the penalty game on him?" He snarled at me and turned away, I sighed.
"I don't think quite so little of you, I've seen you fight tooth and nail for him too you know."
"You read my medical file, Callaghan, you know what I went through. I deliberately made my brother go through that. I forced him, to teach him a lesson."
"I can't say anything to make you feel better about Death-T, Seto. Nor would I want to. But I can certainly say somthing else, Mokuba still loves you, Yugi and his friends still hang around and hell, you saved Joey's life a few days ago, you saved Teá's too." I looked down at my left hand, remembering the virtual world and how someone had dragged me out of harm's way, "You saved my life." I sighed and clenched the hand to a fist, "And you've saved your brother countless times. I don't know who it was that built Death-T, but he sure as hell isn't here."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"...Meaningful pauses or not, if you don't eat that muffin, I will."
~XxX~
A/N: I never really understood what was meant when people said that some characters just write themselves, but Sophie is one HELL of a writer XD I was not planning to go this way at alllllll XD I hate this chapter, but you guys know already that my inherent hate for Kaiba/OC and my perfectionist nature when it comes to chracterisations and plot stop me from liking this fic myself XD
~Ava