CHAPTER 29: FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC

BARGAINING: In "The Last Unicorn," a wine drinking clock tries to explain time to a bumbling wizard, a world-weary everywoman and a newly minted hero. "When I was alive, I believed — as you do — that time was at least as real and solid as myself, and probably more so. I said 'one o'clock' as though I could see it, and 'Monday' as though I could find it on the map; and I let myself be hurried along from minute to minute, day to day, year to year. (…) Like everyone else, I lived in a house bricked up with seconds and minutes, weekends and New Year's Days, and I never went outside until I died, because there was no other door. Now I know that I could have walked through the walls. (...) You can strike your own time, and start the count anywhere. When you understand that — then any time at all will be the right time for you."

MORAL: The most wonderful thing about our imaginations is the way they allow emotional truths to stomp past reality without a backwards glance.

Kaiba had come to the conclusion that Atem's internal alarm was set to sunrise. But he liked the mornings when Atem's clock was a bit too slow – or when Kaiba himself woke up a little in advance of his own sensor. Kaiba liked sitting up and waiting for the sunlight to filter through the windows and turn Atem from shadow to flesh.

As the light hit his face, Atem mumbled something in his sleep and twitched a couple of times before cracking one eye open.

"I win," Kaiba said.

"It's a new day. We both win," Atem said.

Kaiba smirked. "Sore loser."

Atem sat up at that and rolled his eyes. "If you're going to keep talking nonsense, I might as well go back to sleep." He threw off the covers instead, stretched and got out of bed. Atem wandered into the bathroom and then out to the balcony. Kaiba headed to the bathroom for a quick shower. He figured he'd left Atem enough time to greet the day in private and joined him on the balcony. He came up behind Atem and hugged him.

"A day of battles," Atem said, thinking of his upcoming reckoning with Yugi.

"Fight with honor," Kaiba answered.

Atem smiled as he relaxed and leaned against Kaiba. "Always."

They headed downstairs for breakfast. Mokuba didn't appear. Kaiba went upstairs. Mokuba's bedroom was empty. It looked like a hurricane had blown through it. It was hard to tell if anything was missing. Kaiba frowned and went back downstairs. He was about to call Isono, when his phone pinged. Kaiba pulled it out and read Mokuba's text: "Have something to take care of at Kaiba Corporation. Don't worry, I got Isono to drive me."

Kaiba showed the text to Atem. Atem smiled and held Kaiba's hand. "Trust Mokuba to fight with honor, as well."

Kaiba drove Atem to the pier where he'd once relinquished his role in a duel to Yugi, where Yugi had once fought and saved Jounouchi.

"Thanks," Atem said as he got out of the car. "I have some time to kill and spending at least some of it at the nearest body of water is always a good move."

Kaiba nodded and drove off. Atem watched until his car had sped out of sight. Atem wasn't sure if Kaiba understood something that he wasn't clear on himself; there was something comforting about watching the water and remembering how far Yugi would go for those he loved. He walked around the pier for a while, decided that Yugi would be awake and ready to see him, and headed to Yugi's house.

Atem steeled himself to knock on Yugi's door, but Yugi opened it before he'd raised his hand. Atem wondered if it was a carryover from their old connection, or if Yugi had simply been peeking from behind the curtains, awaiting his arrival.

The colors on their clothes matched, a mixture of yellows and blues. Yugi was in faded jeans and a pale yellow button-down shirt. Atem was in an Egyptian blue tunic with gold leather pants that matched the gleam of his Puzzle and earrings.

Yugi led the way to the kitchen at the back. He got a pair of lemon sodas from the fridge and handed one to Atem.

"There's something I have to tell you," Atem said as soon as he sat down.

"There's something I have to ask you," Yugi said at the same time.

They paused and then both said, "You first."

They chuckled. Yugi's laugh was slightly higher pitched, harmonizing with Atem's lower tones.

Atem drew in a breath. "The Netherworld can't be my only home. As much as I love it and the people I've found, without you and Kaiba and Domino, something will always be missing. I want both worlds. I'm sorry."

"Sorry? For what?"

"You tried to give me peace. You tried to give me paradise. I'd rather be swallowed whole by Amit at the judgment than live knowing I've disappointed you."

"Atem, no!"

Atem got up and began pacing, his route forming lopsided circles; the kitchen was too small for perfect orbits. Yugi wondered if pacing was a habit he'd picked up from Kaiba, who certainly had the room for it, or if Atem had always wanted this freedom of movement and finally had a body to express it.

"That's all I do," Atem continued. "Mahaad's disappointed that I'm not the pharaoh he remembers. I left Kaiba without saying goodbye. You gave me everything. I wouldn't blame you if you were disappointed by my wanting more."

"Never!" Yugi grabbed Atem by the shoulders, interrupting Atem's endless, misshapen circuits. Yugi looked into the blood red eyes that no longer matched his own. "How could you think I'd ever feel like that?

Atem smiled. "Whenever I talk to you, it all sounds so simple. Then when I'm alone… have you ever tried so hard to be the person you think you should be, that the person you are gets lost in the shuffle?"

Yugi paused, considering Atem's question. "No. Not really. I've always known who I am. I just didn't like him much. But you and Jounouchi and Anzu… you guys liked me. I hung around with you long enough to realize I could like myself too."

"But what if we had stopped?"

Yugi's eyes opened wider than should have been possible. "Stopped liking me? Why would you?"

Atem chuckled ruefully. "I don't know either. Maybe hanging around Kaiba leads to asking impossible to answer questions."

"That doesn't mean it's a bad question," Yugi said thoughtfully. "You have the right to figure out who you are, regardless of what anyone – even me – thinks. I got to do that. You deserve the same chance."

"I think you need a body to truly have an identity; you need a vessel that's indisputably yours." Atem wondered if Yugi had discovered the same thing; he certainly seemed to have come into his own in the time Atem had been gone. But before Atem could ask, Yugi had turned away.

"There's something I need to know, too – and I'm finally ready to hear it," Yugi said. "That morning… when we walked into the pyramid… when we faced each other… did you want to stay?"

"I didn't know how to want back then. I was content to let our duel have the final word."

"If I'd known you had any doubt at all, I would never have agreed to the Ceremonial Duel!"

Atem nodded. "I know. That's why I hid it from you."

"You shouldn't have had to shoulder it all on your own," Yugi insisted.

"You tried to teach me that it was okay to rely on your friends. I would have said I'd learned. But when it came to this, I didn't know how to lean on anyone but myself. I couldn't be anything other than the person I am."

Yugi smiled. "And that person's pretty terrific!"

They'd moved closer throughout their conversation. Atem reached out to embrace Yugi.

Yugi stepped back. "I didn't do it for you," Yugi whispered so softly, Atem had to lean in to catch the words. "Not totally. I thought I did. I told myself that. But I don't know… I guess I wasn't ready to admit that I wanted to be my own person, that I wanted my own life."

Atem put his hands on Yugi's shoulders. "It's what I wanted for you as well."

Yugi collapsed against him. "So, I did the right thing?" Yugi's words came out in a rush, muffled against Atem's shoulder.

"You saw more clearly than I. We needed to be separate, to learn who were when we weren't together."

"When I realized I'd be fine without you, that even though I missed you as if I'd just lost an arm or a leg, when I admitted I wanted to be myself... I felt guilty. I needed to believe everything was perfect where you were." Yugi stepped back again and lifted his chin. "But I've learned something, too. Anzu's in America. Jounouchi's going to make it big as a duelist and then he'll be traveling all over the world. People coming and going hurts, but it's better than going and never coming back."

Atem nodded.

"Are you happy?" Yugi asked.

"Yes. And when we get through this meeting with Shadi, I'm going to be happier, still. Horakhty keeps asking me what I want. It's time I answered."

Yugi looked down. "I'm the one who should have asked you that. I was your partner."

"You'll always be my partner," Atem said fiercely. "And I wouldn't have known how to answer, then."

"And now…"

"I want what I have. Freedom." Atem cupped the Puzzle. "Once this was my cage. Now it's my wings."

Yugi smiled at him. "I'm glad."

Atem shook his head. "Everything got so mixed up. I didn't tell Kaiba I was leaving. I knew he'd push back. I knew he'd point out every instance when I was avoiding the truth. And that decision led to his coming to the Netherworld, which led to my return…" Atem shrugged, "...which led to this entire mess we find ourselves in."

"Do you think we'll ever untangle it all?" Yugi asked.

Atem tilted his head to the side, considering the question. "Probably not."

Yugi grinned. "Yeah, I hope we never do as well."

Mokuba knew he had to tell his brother. It had gone way too far for anything else. The only problem – beside his wanting to hide under the bed covers until it all went away – was how to do it. Going into his brother's office – or worse – telling him at home was impossible. He'd tried the night before, only to lose his nerve the minute he'd entered the house. He'd garbled out a couple of sentences and rushed upstairs, choosing the head under the covers option.

Mokuba considered practicing on Seto's avatar first, but the thought turned his stomach. In the end, after stalling his way through the morning, Mokuba settled for manipulating the security feed he'd hidden the previous day, so that a brief glimpse of Shadi reappeared. He sent it to his brother in a confidential email. Then, he sat in the computer lab and waited.

Kaiba came rushing in. "Where did you find that? It wasn't on our security feed last night. How did Shadi avoid our facial recognition software?" Kaiba closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and stared at Mokuba. "You manipulated the footage. No one else could have done it."

Mokuba nodded.

"Did Shadi threaten you? He better be dead or I'll kill him all over again. He had no right to drag you into this mess!"

"Shadi told me more than you ever did about what's going on! He didn't drag me into anything! I am in the middle of it! I always have been. You disappeared and I didn't know if you were coming back and stop acting like that's no big deal! We planned it together! I helped you every step of the way! And then I was alone!"

"Mokuba…" Kaiba hung his head.

"It's like we were partners up until we weren't," Mokuba mumbled, his eyes on the ground.

Kaiba took a step towards Mokuba and stopped. His hands clenched into fists at his sides. "I got lost. I couldn't see anything but that Atem had left without a word. I didn't mean to do the same thing to you." He lifted his hands, palms outward, and dropped them. "Words are so useless just when you need them the most. I'm sorry."

Mokuba bit his lip. He hadn't expected his brother to apologize, not while he was gearing up to confess all the things he'd almost done.

"Please, Mokuba. I need to know. What did Shadi say?"

Mokuba took a breath, his eyes still on the floor. "That this was all because of Atem. That, because we wanted to see him, Atem couldn't rest and neither could we. That everything would have been better if he'd never shown himself to you that time when you were testing out Duel Links."

"It's not Atem's fault," Kaiba said quickly.

"I like Atem! You know that. But Shadi made me think: Atem made a choice."

"We've all made choices," Kaiba said. "I was the one who left you, not Atem."

"You also made a choice to take care of me," Mokuba said in a small voice.

"And I don't regret it, not for a moment." Kaiba paused, studying Mokuba's downcast face. "Now that I know the pitch, why did you listen? Why didn't you tell me you'd seen Shadi right from the start?"

"Shadi told me… Shadi said…" Mokuba swallowed, then finished in a rush, "He said that he could take away the bad memories… Gozaburo… missing Atem so much you risked dying to find him… Shadi said that only the good stuff would be left. You hate the past. You know you do."

"That doesn't mean I want it deleted!" Kaiba roared.

Mokuba winced. "You keep saying that the past was hell," he insisted.

Kaiba breathed in deeply, then concentrated on exhaling, fighting for control, forcing himself to stop, to listen, to think. He ran a hand through his hair and nodded. "If Shadi had framed it differently, I might have taken him up on it, once," he admitted. "But I can't change the past without changing myself. And that would be the final shattering, beyond hope of rebuilding. I'd be erasing myself in a way no enemy ever could." Kaiba's voice softened. "But then you'd have the brother who smiled at you in the orphanage back."

Mokuba opened his mouth to protest, then shut it and nodded.

Kaiba pressed his lips together, for once in his life too tired to summon up his anger. "The brother you wanted."

Mokuba's head shot up at that. "I thought it was. I was wrong. I was stupid. Everyone kept trying to tell me… all those times at the orphanage, you were never really smiling."

"Every time I smiled at you, it was genuine. I wanted you to feel safe."

"That's not what I'm trying to say!" Mokuba's voice dropped. "You were scared."

Kaiba fought the urge to look anywhere except at Mokuba. "Yes."

"I got so confused. I made a hologram of you… or the you I kept picturing in my head."

"Good idea," Kaiba approved.

"I played Babanuki with him."

Kaiba frowned. "What for? Games that rely on luck are stupid."

"It's a great game! It made me realize he wasn't you. I'm so ashamed, acting like I wanted to trade you in when we belong together, no matter what. I love you. I swear it." Mokuba's face crumbled. He pitched forward into Kaiba's arms, sobbing. "I'm sorry, Nisama. Please forgive me."

"Already done." Kaiba stroked Mokuba's hair.

"I was afraid you'd hate me," Mokuba mumbled into Kaiba's torso.

"Never. You're my brother. I won't forget that ever again." As he felt Mokuba relax against him, Kaiba's world righted itself; he'd finally stumbled into doing the right thing. He was never going to become the smiling, easy-going brother of Mokuba's dreams, but he could do this.

Kaiba would have been happy to have stayed holding Mokuba forever, but he'd never been one to shirk a responsibility. And he had to know more about this visit so he could analyze its risk. Kaiba drew in a breath and studied his brother. Mokuba had stopped shaking. He'd even stopped crying. "Okay, it's time to tell me. What exactly did Shadi say?"

Mokuba paused a moment in thought, then repeated their conversations from memory, picking up confidence as he finished.

"You have a Millennium Item? You know what the Rod can do." Kaiba refused to believe his brother would ever have used it on him. He would rather have his world shatter once again than believe that.

"That's why I took it." Mokuba looked at his brother and his confidence faltered. "You know I'd never…"

"Yes." Kaiba said, interrupting Mokuba could finish his sentence.

"How?"

"Because I do. Because you're not me." Kaiba paused. "Because I love you."

Mokuba grinned up at him. "Duh! I know that!

Kaiba grunted. "That's okay then."

"I just kind of figured since I wanted nothing to do with it, better us than Shadi, you know?'

"Excellent thinking." Kaiba leaned down and put his hands on Mokuba's shoulders. "This is important, Mokuba. You didn't promise anything or play any kind of game with him, did you?"

"Of course not!" Mokuba's smug grin slipped out again. "You taught me better than that!" Mokuba snorted. "Trusting a weird stranger that just walked through a wall… please.

Kaiba laughed. "You did good. It's strange that Shadi left it here without getting an agreement."

Mokuba nodded. "I know. If anything, he was smug about it… like just leaving the thing here was enough."

Mokuba fished the Rod out of his backpack. He held the Rod, still in its pouch, out to his brother. "Now that you know…"

Kaiba's brows drew together. "Keep it."

"Nisama?"

"You're my vice president. I trust you unreservedly."

Mokuba beamed up at him.

Kaiba paused, reviewing the conversation, trying to find the loose end; he knew they'd left one dangling when Shadi's name had come up. He grunted as his memory came through once again. "Mokuba, I don't know what's going to happen when we meet Shadi – or afterwards. But like I told you before, Atem wants to see me. After all, he came here once. It's logical that he can do it again. He's going to try anyway. He's not going to walk out on us again."

Mokuba's mouth dropped open. "I was so worried he'd just bounce when this was over and that would be that. Wait… what do you mean you told me?" Mokuba's voice rose to a squeak on the last words.

Kaiba frowned. "I did. The last time we talked about this. I told you not to worry. I told you we had a plan."

"And you thought that meant… you thought..." Mokuba shook his head, caught between tears and hysterical laughter. He launched himself at his brother again and hugged him tightly. "Nisama, you're unbelievable, sometimes."

"I know," Kaiba said smugly, laying a hand on Mokuba's hair.

The Ishtars had landed in Domino without fanfare in the morning. Isis had an obligation to share her information with the pharaoh and with Yugi, to reveal that she'd regained the Necklace, that it had remained untouched in her care. They'd arranged to meet everyone tomorrow. But by the time the afternoon had started to drag to a close, she found herself walking towards the Kaiba Corporation building. It wasn't hard to find; its tower still dominated the skyline.

Kaiba had almost certainly learned of their arrival by now. Her visit was, in a sense, a formality. Except that wasn't quite the right word. She wondered if her pilgrimage was fate or something simpler, a rare impulse of friendship for someone who had changed her life.

Isis hadn't seen Kaiba since Battle City. Even the negotiations for his dig at the site of Atem's tomb had been conducted through intermediaries.

She thought back to Battle City, to the tower Kaiba had built on the rubble of his childhood. She'd lectured Kaiba about destiny there – only to end up confiding her fears for her brother and confessing her guilt. He'd listened. She'd given up hope by then. Unexpectedly, Kaiba had returned it. She'd tried to write to him, had composed and deleted pages of text in the weeks following Battle City, before sending a three-word email: "All my gratitude."

Kaiba's reply had been equally brief. "None is required."

She drew in a breath and went up the elevator, walking down the hallway and past his secretary as if she wasn't there.

Kaiba's lips twitched as Isis entered. "I should have expected this. And no, that's not some half-assed attempt at reading the future."

Isis smiled back. "Of course not." She drew the Necklace out of her pocket and laid it on his desk before sitting down facing him.

He glanced at the Item. "My surveillance was less complete than I thought." He leaned forward and returned his gaze to her face. "Your taste in jewelry has remained the same."

She shook her head. "Not quite." She paused. "I haven't worn it. It's become a reminder, a reassurance that it is simply a piece of jewelry. If the Necklace still has a voice, I can't hear it or have forgotten how to listen."

Kaiba frowned at the Necklace. "Why bring it here? Do you think I'm running a thrift store for used Millennium Items?"

Isis smiled. "Because of all the people I've met, I think you understand."

"What?"

"What it feels like to fail a sibling. How much you'd give to make it right again, to claim the right to protect them again. Why I was tempted, why I needed to hold it in my hands, why I had to prove to myself that I've moved past its pull."

Kaiba studied Isis with renewed interest. Isis bore her burdens as gracefully as ever. It was one reason that she'd stood out among the other losers (himself included) at Battle City. Kaiba nodded, serious now. "Yes."

"You're not surprised," Isis said, gesturing to the Necklace. "Except, of course, by the implied slight to your surveillance system."

"No. Some people burn their hands and never go near fire again. And some people just figure that they can outsmart the stove."

"Which are you?"

Kaiba grinned. "The difference is: I actually can outsmart a stove."

Isis inclined her head, refusing the bait.

Kaiba paused. His voice turned a little hoarse as he added, "Knowledge – even false knowledge – is a drug. You didn't look like the kind of person to go cold turkey."

Isis' smile widened, turned a little taunting, the way he remembered it from his Battle Blimp. "Why do I feel it's your drug of choice as well?"

Kaiba snorted. "It doesn't take a Millennium Item to figure that one out."

"I was sure I knew where I was going, even if I feared the destination. Now…" Isis shrugged. "It's hard to follow the light of the future when all you can see is mist. And then you think: if only I could see, I'd make the right choices – even though you know that it's not true, that it was never true. Chasing certainty led to the worst choices of my life."

Kaiba swallowed. "I know."

Isis looked up, startled. She'd almost forgotten she'd had company.

"Knowledge… control… call it what you will. You can't stop chasing it, illusion or not, dangerous or not, even as it leads you to your own destruction," Kaiba said.

"I thought if I just knew, I could make the past right, I could make up for everything, I could make us a family again."

Kaiba's lips twitched in something resembling a smile. "Try talking. It's a pain, but it works better than you think. Even practicing with a hologram helps." Kaiba shrugged. "If you want to go that route I could…"

"I think talking with a person is preferable, but thank you for the offer." She smiled as she got up. She swept the Necklace back into her pocket. "I enjoyed seeing you. You understand. That's rare."

"Me, too," Kaiba said.

Isis wanted to laugh at the puzzled look on Kaiba's face but managed to hold herself back.

Kaiba looked away briefly, then returned his gaze to her face and added, "If you email, I'll answer. Hell, I'll even pick up the phone."

"Generous, indeed," Isis murmured.

Kaiba grinned. "I thought so, too. We could… we could talk about brothers."

Isis lifted her chin. "I have two brothers to your one."

"It would take two to match one Mokuba."

"I thought we were going to talk, not boast."

"I have two brothers," Kaiba mimicked. "Sounds like bragging to me."

Isis surprised them both by laughing. "Are you offering to listen to me complain about Malik and Rishid's travel vlog?"

Kaiba shuffled through the papers on his desk and held up a drawing of the cutest, most ridiculously earnest, baby Blue Eyes White Dragon imaginable. He was wearing a bright yellow hardhat with the KC logo on the front. "Mokuba wants to make this abomination our mascot. I'll probably let him."

This time, Isis' laughter wasn't as surprising. After a brief pause Kaiba joined her.

Mokuba walked into the mansion. He headed automatically for the game room. Atem was there, watching something on his phone, ignoring the massive monitor on the wall in front of him.

Atem looked up. "Kaiba's still at work."

Mokuba nodded. He sat next to Atem on the couch and tried to decide if he was glad he'd caught Atem alone or the reverse. Like most things lately, it was a bit of a split decision, but he knew an opportunity when he saw one. He cleared his throat. "I thought you were a danger to him."

"We're all dangerous, we can all hurt each other. I can't promise the future, no one can." Atem chuckled. "Unlike Isis, I can't even see the future."

Mokuba snorted. "Neither could she." Mokuba leaned forward and looked down. His hands were on his knees. He twisted them together. "Did you talk to my brother today?"

Atem shook his head. "Not since this morning. I called him right after I saw Yugi. If there's something you told him, you don't have to worry. I'm sure he'll keep your confidence."

"That's not it. He shouldn't have to. Not in this." Mokuba drew in a breath, swallowed and then blurted out, "Shadi gave me the Millennium Rod. It's in my backpack."

Atem's eyes widened to Yugi levels. His jaw dropped. Even the golden stalks of his hair seemed to curl into question marks.

Mokuba couldn't resist grinning at the sight, before shifting his features to penitent seriousness.

Atem blinked. "What? No, wait. How?"

Mokuba sighed and gave Atem an abridged version of events.

"Thank you for telling me," Atem said when Mokuba finished. He leaned forward and put a hand over Mokuba's, stilling their twisting movements. "How is Seto?"

Mokuba's smile flickered to life, then grew. "He was something else. I thought I knew… I even made a hologram… but Nisama, he's in a whole 'nother league."

Atem nodded. "He often is."

They sat for a moment in silence. Then Mokuba shook himself and said, "Let's build something."

Within a half hour, Atem and Mokuba were engrossed in rearranging everything in the room, including the furniture, so that one push would cause a domino effect, toppling everything.

"Are you sure your brother taught you this?" Atem asked.

"Sure. It's just basic physics," Mokuba replied.

Atem shrugged and went back to dragging a chair into place as the front door opened and closed. Mokuba rushed into the hallway and launched himself at his brother.

Kaiba picked his brother up and hugged him, before setting him back on his feet. Kaiba glanced from his brother to Atem. Atem nodded. Kaiba returned the gesture and followed Atem into the game room.

Kaiba surveyed the mess. "What did you guys do? That ball's never going to pick up enough velocity to knock over that vase, not unless we increase the slope." He came over and started adjusting the angle of the slide. He grunted in satisfaction when the preparations were complete. They watched as Mokuba sent a billiard ball rolling down the improvised chute which knocked over the vase, setting off a cascade of falling video games lined up on a table, which released the next trap. When the room looked like an earthquake had upended its contents, the three of them went in for a late dinner, flush with victory.

They tacitly adjourned to a different room afterwards. Kaiba added his share to the day's news, repeating Isis's information about the Necklace. Kaiba and Mokuba analyzed what it had revealed about the holes in their spy network – ignoring Atem's protests that trust in their friends had proven a stronger safeguard than surveillance – until Mokuba started yawning. Kaiba accompanied Mokuba to bed, as if he'd never stopped, as if Mokuba had never gone upstairs early to dodge their nightly ritual.

Kaiba came back downstairs. "Some day."

"On all fronts," Atem agreed.

"I didn't expect…" Kaiba's voice trailed off.

"What?"

Kaiba shrugged. He'd gotten better at beginning sentences. Completing them was harder.

Atem walked to the center of the room, slinging his jacket over his shoulders like a cape. "Just pretend I'm a hologram." His lips twisted into a self-mocking grin. "And I'll pretend I'm wise."

"You do okay."

Atem's mouth broadened into a genuine smile. "Thank you."

"You don't have to pretend you have any answers. Just pretend to listen."

"I can do better than that. I can promise the real thing."

"I'm glad Mokuba told you," Kaiba said abruptly.

"How do you feel?"

"Like the world just got handed back to me." Kaiba laughed. "He made a hologram. Smart kid." Kaiba swung around as if he could find release only in motion. "We talked. He chose me. I mean we've always been a team, but this is different. I never really thought about it, that he, that someone…"

"Would see you and choose to stay," Atem finished.

Kaiba ducked his head, then lifted it and smiled. "Yeah, but he did."

"He's not the only one." Atem cleared his throat. "Thank you for not saying, 'I told you so,' when I told you about Yugi."

Kaiba smirked. "When something's that obvious, why bother with words?"

Atem picked up a throw pillow – and threw it. Kaiba caught it and swung back, widely. Atem slipped under his guard and shoved a smaller pillow in his face, while Kaiba took advantage of his greater height to bop Atem over the head, repeatedly. With a bellow, Atem tackled him into the sofa, abandoning pillows for the more satisfying task of kissing Kaiba breathless. Kaiba tried rolling Atem over, but they both landed on the floor, winded.

"Bed?" Atem asked.

"Bed," Kaiba confirmed.

They raced upstairs, "accidentally" bumping into each other along the way. Atem gave a contented sigh as the door closed. They didn't waste time talking. Kaiba was frankly surprised they managed to make it to the bed, especially given they'd stopped to undo each other's pants along the way, leaving them half-shackled by their own clothes. They fumbled to strip off the remainder once they'd finally reached their goal.

Kaiba was continually surprised at the endless variations on such a simple, almost mindless act. He would have sworn that tonight, sex would be merely about release, with no deeper meaning attached. Atem needed an outlet for the tension that had grown inside of him, that had taken on a life of its own, as he'd waited to hear Yugi's reply, as he'd waited for Yugi's hug to confirm everything he should have known from the beginning. Just as Kaiba had stood in his computer lab and listened to Mokuba say that he was the brother Mokuba wanted, feeling like a champagne bottle about to pop. And now in Atem's arms, with Atem in his embrace, they both had the chance to let go.

And then Kaiba's lips fastened on Atem's… and suddenly he was pushing Atem into the mattress. Atem was devouring his mouth in response, before breaking free to bite Kaiba's neck. And that quickly, it was about him and Atem all over again.

Atem's hands began their own frantic search. Kaiba groaned as Atem found his target, stroking and pumping, picking up speed and rhythm. Kaiba clutched Atem to him, his fingers marking Atem's hips, wanting nothing so much as to sink into Atem, to have Atem's cinnamon scent replace the air he breathed, to drown himself in Atem's desire and his own.

It was mindless after all.

It had started with a pillow fight, had turned into a frantic tumble, more a wrestling match than a romantic tryst. Every movement was overlaid with that wonderful feeling of turning over a winning card just when you thought you'd gone down for the final count. Their separate victories somehow merging into a shared exhilaration, a shared climaxing, cascading joy.

It was about Atem after all.

Kaiba had hoarded his triumphs for so long, hugged them to himself in a vain attempt to keep each one from slipping through his fingers. But Kaiba no longer craved solitary triumphs.

Victories of the heart are sweetest when shared. And who else was there but his rival, the duelist he respected above all others, the duelist who had always made his heart tremble with desire?

It was mindless after all. It was intimate after all.

And most of all, it was fun.

It made them laugh when they opened their eyes to a tangle of clothes, to Kaiba's Blue Eyes White Dragon plushie gazing up at them reproachfully from the floor, where he'd been pushed by their tangled bodies.

.

Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter!

AUTHOR'S NOTE: From the moment I decided to include the Ishtars in this story, I knew I was going to write a scene where Isis talks to Kaiba. I love the scene at Alcatraz where Isis starts out trying to convince Kaiba it's his duty to help the pharaoh with predictable results. And then, once she's convinced there's nothing she can say that will shake him, she starts talking about her resolve to save her brother or die with him. She's not hoping for anything at this point, but her words hit deep because when Kaiba hears them he suddenly realizes he's not alone. Like Isis, he'd die for his brother, and also like Isis, he feels guilty for all the times he's failed to live up to his own promises. And that flash of fellow feeling, leads him to help Isis save her brother, in much the same way Yugi saved Mokuba. I loved the way Kaiba ends up paying that gift forward to someone in the same situation.

I've been looking forward to this chapter, because I've been writing about all the different ways Yugi and Atem, and also Kaiba and Mokuba, can find to avoid talking – and listening – to each other, and I wanted to have both of those strained relationships come to a head in the same chapter.

Especially now, it's really nice to hear from people and know that people are still reading and enjoying the story.

Stay safe everyone!

SOCIAL MEDIA NOTE: I am on Tumblr, Dreamwidth and Pillowfort as Nenya85. Come check me out there!

To paraphrase Louise Rosenblatt, "A story's just ink on the page until a reader comes along to give it life." This is my way of saying that I'd really like to hear what you think. Please comment.