Chapter 12

A/N: Special thanks to everyone who reviewed! Special mention to Lalalei and Tropicalia Sonata who reviewed every chapter! Apologies for taking so long to write the next chapter, the finale chapter(s) after this one shouldn't be as long coming...

After Kaiba forced Atem out of the car, he peeled off, not slowing until he had made it around the corner. He was tempted to peel off onto the highway and speed all the way back home, but he knew that wouldn't help. No, he wanted to do something he'd been disallowed to do by Gozaburo, something simple - to go back to his room, turn off all the lights, and wallow in his own misery for a while.

Not something a winner would do. Certainly not something a Kaiba would do.

But to hell with it. He was doing it anyway.

He was lucky enough not to run into anyone on the way back, and he headed straight into the manor and up the stairs. God, he was exhausted. When the hell had he last had a fight with someone like that? At the worst times in his life, he and Mokuba hadn't been on good terms, but Seto had never unloaded on him like that. He'd just been...cold. Cold to him, cold and dismissive.

As the adrenaline from the fight faded, something unexpected happened.

Kaiba smiled.

It was small, tiny even.

He still felt the urge to punch the nearest wall or scream into the first pillow he could lay hands on, but he felt something else, too.

Hope.

This whole friendship thing...it was getting harder to dismiss it all as total nonsense. Sure, he'd have to be pushing fifty before he'd ever volunteer to hang out with the mutt, but still...saying the F word out loud was something he'd never thought he'd do.

And ripping into someone like he had Atem? Yeah, the idiot had it coming.

But Kaiba had never cared about anyone outside of Mokuba to feel like screaming at them before.

And if he had changed this much already, maybe there was hope.

But hope for what, he had no idea. Not yet.

Kaiba made it into his room without running into Isono or anyone else. He didn't punch a wall or scream into a pillow, but he did take the rare privilege of taking of his jacket, tie and shoes and dropping himself down on his bed. He never got to do this, either, especially during the day.

Atem had really messed up everything his life was supposed to be. Trodden on everything he understood about life, winning...and then he had just disappeared. Anyone would hate him for it.

It was cool here in his room, the curtains fitted perfectly to block out the light during the day. He could probably doze off, if he wanted to...

Seto leant back into his pillows, feeling all the muscles in his body unclench. Maybe it would help him to do this more often. Take breaks during the day, even if just once a month. Nowadays it was more like once a year.

He rolled onto his side, letting his eyes drift shut as he thought. Sleep was tempting, a deep one instead of just a power nap. But if those damned dreams were to return...

Seto turned onto his back, propping his head up with pillows. He shouldn't be liable to drift off like this. And anyway, he needed to think.

Now he was calming down, he could start to see that from Atem's perspective, his outburst had maybe...come out of nowhere? He had told Atem that he wouldn't go without a duel, that much was true, but...at the same time, he'd always thought Atem understood that it was more than that. They were rivals on a road of battle. They had pushed one another to greater and greater heights, and Atem had seemed to know that.

Up until he left, anyway.

Then he realised Atem had been lying about all that. Lying about valuing his friends more than anything, lying about the power of unity even Kaiba had had to recognise. He threw it all away, just to be someone else's puppet, yet again.

And he hadn't even waited to say goodbye to Kaiba, after everything they had been through.

If he tried to detach his anger from the thought - just for a second - and think about it from Atem's perspective, he could only assume that...maybe he had thought Kaiba wasn't coming?

Kaiba hadn't emailed Yugi back about it until the last second, so it stood to reason that maybe they hadn't seen his reply when they were in Egypt.

But that still left him with the same frustrating question: why? Why hadn't Atem just assumed he would make time to come? Did Atem think that little of him?

Kaiba groaned, mashing his face into the pillow so he could curse a blue streak. Now he remembered why he didn't bother with having 'friends'. Because it led to frustration and annoyance. He certainly hadn't had much of that when he'd been on his own, that was for sure.

For the first time in years, Seto felt like a nap was in order. He needed a break from all this nonsense.

Suddenly there was a soft knock at the door. "Seto?" Mokuba said softly. "Are you in there?"

Seto sat up, tiredly running a hand down his face. He debated not answering, but couldn't bring himself to hide. "Yeah. I'm here."

"Are you OK?"

When Seto wasn't sure how to answer them, Mokuba added softly, "Can I come in?"

"Yeah...sure."

Mokuba opened the door a crack, looking almost alarmed to see Seto sitting on the bed, almost fully dressed. "Are you not feeling so good?"

"No, I...I'm all right, I just..." He stopped again, seeing on Mokuba's face that he already knew something was up. "I...had a fight with Atem."

Mokuba nodded, not remotely surprised. He perched on the end of the bed. "About what?"

He weighed up how to answer. He didn't think it was a good idea to bring up the dreams he'd been having. They were awful head-trips and he was still Kaiba Seto, brother of Mokuba, before he was any ancient priest in a past life.

"About him," Seto said. "How stupid he is sometimes."

Mokuba laughed suddenly. "Yeah, he is that. Specifically though?"

"Well, specifically..." Seto found himself smiling unexpectedly, caught off guard by Mokuba's reaction. "I don't know, just...how he left without waiting. How he runs around never doing anything that actually benefits him. I mean, did he have no interest in life when he was here?"

"How do you mean?"

"He did everything in service of winning whatever tournament was going. We didn't see him a lot outside of those, did we? But then he just gives up his titles to Yugi and takes off? And I'm supposed to perpetuate this lie to other people that Yugi is my rival, and not him? I could really give a rat's what other people think, but Atem certainly does."

"Maybe he thought that couldn't be helped?"

"That's just it! Oh, it couldn't be helped, destiny this and destiny that. He just frees himself from having to choose for himself, then he just dropped this life when he was done!"

Mokuba looked a little confused. "...And dropped you at the same time, right?" he asked softly.

"Yeah." He swallowed hard. "Mokuba, I know I promised you I would duel him this week and send him back, but-"

"That isn't actually what you want, is it?" he said softly. There wasn't the slightest bit of surprise in his voice, or his eyes. Seto could see in them: he already knew. He understood. But he was waiting for Seto to say it. For Seto to understand it, too.

"Mokuba-" Seto paused, taking a deep breath and running a hand through his hair. "I love you, and I know I haven't always done right by you. I've been backsliding on that lately."

"It's OK," Mokuba said softly, and Seto's heart twisted when he added, "I'm pretty much old enough to take of myself now, anyway."

"Saddling you with the company, though, that wasn't entirely fair. I just assumed I could handle everything, like usual."

"Mm-hmm?"

"But I..." He swallowed, the words physically painful when he tried to force them out, "I had actually...made a friend. My second friend ever, aside from you. And I couldn't admit I didn't want to lose that - lose him. I have to know if our rivalry - friendship - meant that little to him." Another deep breath. "I...don't care all that much if we duel again, or if we don't. Because I might have made him think that was all I cared about because of how it's been...til now."

"All right," Mokuba said calmly, then suddenly grinned and punched him on the shoulder. "So why don't you tell him that?"

He got up, giving him a friendly salute on the way out. "Once you've figured it out, let's all have takeout together, OK? I didn't eat that well in Egypt and you owe me one."

"You got it, VP."

And Mokuba headed out the door, his footsteps disappearing down the hallway.

Seto laid back again, suddenly exhausted. No meetings for today. Just a long-deserved nap.

He wouldn't be able to get anything done until he'd resolved this thing with Atem, anyways.

Seto must have drifted off again, because he woke to another soft knock on the door. He blinked, rubbing his eyes and looking out the window. It was dark and it had been raining. Shit - what would happen to the equipment on Atem's arm if he was out in the rain-

He sat up, swinging his legs over the bed and realising the door was still open a crack.

Atem was standing there, bone dry. Seto let out a breath, about to greet him when he remembered their argument.

Atem wasn't meeting his arm. He was looking at the floor, an ashamed expression on his face.

"I need to speak with you," he said, softly.

"You're damn right you do," Kaiba said, without thinking. Atem looked up, surprised, a half-smile on his face.

Seto had that feeling he used to get when he was younger before board meetings, a feeling like he was about to jump into the void with nothing to save him or slow him if he fell.

But he also had a new feeling, deep down in his gut: a feeling that things would be all right, no matter what happened.

Because he was ultimately a different person now, whether Atem stayed or not.

Kaiba Seto might finally break past the last part of the cycle he had been stuck in.