Later that day, at Tristan's insistence, they abandoned the house and took his truck for a tour of Amarillo. Despite the fact that it was trapped in a tangle of mesquite and red-striped sandstone mesas, the town really was a far cry from the 'middle of nowhere.'

"That's the American Quarter Horse Museum," Tristan pointed out Duke's window towards a yellow concrete building, a huge stone horse statue on a pedestal on the roof. He tried to slow down and pulled over to the other lane to give his passenger a better look.

"I thought you only liked horses with a dual exhaust," Duke snorted.

"Hey, these are smart. I've ridden some at a friend's place."

"You're kidding me," He deadpanned, "You? Riding something with a mind of its own?"

A second or two of silence followed. Then Tristan snickered.

Duke rolled his eyes and sagged against the armrest of the door with a snort, fingertips touching his forehead. "Well, at least your filthy mind hasn't changed any. I guess that's comforting."

Laughter filled the battered truck cab. When it died away, Duke snuck a look over at Tristan, and caught him looking back. They shared a smile before Tristan turned his eyes back to the road.

The day looked a hell of a lot brighter after that.

"No."

"Yes."

"No, you're kidding me."

"Nnnnope."

"I find this borderline obscene."

"That's because you have a personal connection to the deceased."

"Well, obviously," Duke snorted. "So what kind of whacko would just plant these out in the middle of nowhere? I mean, seriously."

They really were in the middle of nowhere. On the eastern side of Amarillo, past the last vestiges of suburbia and in the middle of dense brush. Ten Cadillacs poked tailfins up out of the ground in a line parallel to the road. Duke circled them, hands in the back pockets of his blue jeans as his head craned up to squint at the graffiti decorating every square inch.

"Our whacko." Tristan replied fondly.

"Oh, so you've lived here a year and suddenly he's your whacko, too?"

"I ate the food, drank the water, and watched the porn. I'm officially an American."

"I always thought it took a little more effort than that," Duke bantered inattentively, tilting his head as he tried to follow some would-be prophet's scrawl along the second Cadillac's right fender. It was hard enough to read because it was English. Why did it have to be at a forty-five degree angle and eight feet off the ground, too?

"Well, in another few years I'm going to vote. Is that enough?"

Duke suddenly looked back at him. Tristan stood at the end of the path leading to the clearing in the brush, cracking the hard mahogany rind of a mummified mesquite pod with his fingernails. "You're planning on staying here for good?"

"Why not?" Tristan shrugged, "I've got a good business, it's a nice location, and I'm happy here."

"But your parents back in Domino…Serenity misses you. Hell, everybody misses you!"

"You don't think I came here just because of you, did you?"

"You mean you didn't?" Faced with the question for the first time, Duke realized quite obviously that he did think that. He couldn't help it. It slipped out before he could stop it.

Tristan sighed. "Okay. Yes. The thought of running away had crossed my mind at first. But no. I came here because I wanted a totally new start. There's no future in the bikes I love in Japan, Dev." He shrugged and spread his hands in a gesture of defeat, broken mesquite pod still clutched between forefinger and thumb. "They want Yamaha and Suzuki and Mitsubishi. Plastic, pretty, cheap. You know as well as I do that nobody in hell's going to want a rebuilt Harley."

Duke shook his head and laughed. "I forgot how passionate you were about bikes. Well, at least I got the 'leaving for love' bit right." He wrapped his arms around his own narrow chest and felt inexplicably lonely.

Tristan saw it, and frowned. "It's too damn cold to be out here like this. Let's go eat."

"Not yet. Can we go see that 'floating mesa' thing you mentioned earlier?"

"Oh, that? Well…it's a gray enough day, I supposed it'll work."

"Can we go up there?" Duke asked as he walked back to Tristan and let the brunette lead him to the truck. Tristan slung his arm around Duke's shoulders and tucked him against his side against the stiff breeze picking up.

The unconscious comforting gesture surprised them both.

"I think it's private property. But we might," he added when he saw the disappointment flicker. Opened the door for him and would have boosted him up if Duke hadn't already taken matters into his own hands and leaped into the passenger seat. Green eyes shot him an accusing glare. Wisely, he backed off. Duke was one of those people who took challenges to the extreme, and the last thing he wanted was for the other man to do something stupid to prove himself an equal.

"Oh, that is so cool!" Duke walked up to the whitewashed planks through the bushes and dropped his palms on them. "It's just a fence!"

"I told you that was what it was down by the truck," Tristan panted, stumbling up over the squat brush to stand beside him. "And we didn't have to go halfway around the mesa for me to tell you that."

"It's not my fault you're such a wuss."

"I'm not!" Tristan retorted, "But this is private property and I honestly don't want to have the cops hounding us in a few minutes, okay? Nobody can see us from this side."

"Scaredy cat."

"There's rattlesnakes out here too," Tristan continued, unmoved by the taunt, and looked back over his shoulder at the path down, "but it's winter, and it's cold, so hopefully they're hibernating…what the hell are you doing?" He turned his head just in time to see Duke straddled halfway over the fence.

"Going up on top," Duke answered, as if that was perfectly obvious, and kept going. Tristan grabbed his arm.

"Oh, no you're not."

"Oh, come on, Tris. Take some chances already! What's the worst that could happen? Somebody sees us and turns us in? We're not hurting anything."

"But we could get caught!"

"And that," Duke explained as he shook out of Tristan's stunned grip and finished going over the fence surrounding the top of the mesa, "is why you never made out with me in public, isn't it?"

He started away through the chaparral. Tristan stared after him, pondering this. Grimaced. "Goddammit…"

Followed.

"Hey, look at this!"

"What?" All pouting aside, Tristan scrambled over the top of the incline and stood up on the broad, flat summit of the mesa. He was a good fifteen seconds behind Duke, who was already across the rim and on his way to the opposite edge.

Duke threw his arms wide, taking in the world at large around them. The wind howling around the mesa whipped the tails of his denim jacket into wings. "This!"

Tristan came up behind him and looked over his shoulder. It really was spectacular. This far from the ground, the scrub on the sandy soil below melted together into a heather haze. The clouds were thick and low and dark on the undersides, and scraped low overhead as though they might brush their heads on the very ceiling of the world.

"We're floating with the mesa," Duke was going on, "if some guy comes driving along that road, he'll see us on top of the floating mesa."

This didn't strike Tristan as comforting.

But then a stark black ponytailed head leaned back onto his shoulder, and his arms found their way around Duke's chest.

"This was what you wanted, this morning, wasn't it?" Duke asked, quietly, ignoring the high wind that flirted with their jackets and tugged at their hair. His palms lay over Tristan's hands, cool as the rest of the day. "Not sex. You wanted this."

"Hey, I'm not turning down either," Tristan protested, and Duke could feel the bristle of stubble and the crease of his grin against his temple. He found himself smiling at the clouds, even though they blotted out the sun and left the plateau chilled.

"I always asked too much of you, Tris." His hands tightened on Tristan's knuckles, nestling his entire length into the warm forgiving curve of the other's body.

"I never tried hard enough."

"I never stopped loving you…"

"Me neither."

It wasn't exactly the admission of passion Duke was hoping for. But Tristan released and turned him at once, and pulled him in and pressed his mouth to a pair of startled parted lips.

He was only startled for a breath, and then his arms went around Tristan's neck. If anyone looked over the Floating Mesa, they'd have seen a single shadow standing on the edge.

"3 MESSAGES" Blinked Duke's cellphone when he turned it on in the truck, still flushed, shivering, and windblown from being on the plateau.

The first was from Joey's little sister, Serenity.

"This is Serenity, and it's kind of late but I thought I'd call anyway. Seto just called and told us that he called you. All I can say is you go, girl, and call me back whenever you get a chance. All my love."

The next two were from Seto Kaiba.

"This is Seto. Duke, call me when you receive this voicemail. I demand to know what you told Serenity."

"Duke, I will be headed for America as soon as I can get a flight out. I absolutely refuse to let you go like this."

Tristan remarked on Duke's long face, but when the other man let him hear the message, he felt like he'd just swallowed rocks. Seto Kaiba was the last person he wanted to deal with! He offered to take his companion to the nearest restaurant, and Duke agreed. Soon they were tucked into a corner booth with cups of coffee to keep the waitresses away.

Duke was suddenly quiet and stiff. The thin hands flexed on the tabletop were pale. Tristan reached out, but he pulled back.

"This isn't fair," Duke sighed, after a long silence.

"Well, whatever happens, I've got your back," Tristan reached a second time. Slowly. Fingertips crept past his cup of coffee. To the center of the table. Waited.

Duke looked down at the blunt fingers, with the crescents of dirt and grease ground under the nails. They seemed older than Kaiba's.

Tristan's hands turned up entreatingly. I know I fucked up the first time, they said. Let me help you now.

"Okay," Duke replied, solemnly, and found comfort in the warm, broad strength of the fingers enveloping his.

There couldn't have been a better time, Tristan thought. "Tell me about him?"

Snort. "What don't you already know?"

"Besides what's in the papers? Not much. You know he was never one to just hang around with us. Even in school."

"Yeah, he was a loner." Duke reached for his coffee cup. He took a slow sip, and stared into the depths of the dark, sweetened liquid for a long moment. "So…what do you want to know?" His tone was wary.

Tristan searched the slowly warming hand still in his grasp. Admired the vast difference in skin color; pale and tan. "Why does he call you 'Duke'? When three fourths of the population of Japan knows you as 'Dev'?"

Duke shrugged. "Because it's my first name. 'Dev' is apparently too casual, and it wouldn't look good if he called his lover by his last name."

Tristan bristled a little. After all, 'Dev,' had been the moniker he'd started dubbing Duke Devlin. It sounded cooler, back when they were kids. "Even though you say you don't like it?"

Another shrug. "Seto Kaiba is a stubborn ass. You do the math. And I never said I don't like it…but screams cliché. 'Duke of Dice?'"

Tristan snickered. "Did you ever think about Yugi's name?"

Dev blinked. "Oh. No, I didn't." The thought surprised a real chuckle out of him, "Poor kid."

Tristan's hopes rose. "How's he doing, anyway?"

"Same old. You've only been gone a year, man. He's collaborating with Industrial Illusions and Duel Monsters tournament winners to make some kind of tutorial videos. Oh, and Teá's close to kid number one. She's about ready to pop."

"I heard she was pregnant the last time Joey called. Man, I can't believe she and Yugi waited so long. At least Yoga's okay for pregnant women, so she doesn't have to stop teaching."

"Speaking of. Has Serenity called you lately?"

Tristan blinked at the sudden change of topics. "No. Not for a few weeks. Why?"

Dev paused, as though he were debating on something. Had something happened?

"Well…I don't know if I should tell you or let her tell you…but she's about three weeks pregnant, too."

Tristan sat back under the weight of that. Sure, Serenity had grown out of the itty bitty kid he'd hung out with when she tagged along after Joey…but pregnant? 'Married' was hard enough to deal with. "Wow."

Dev grinned. "Yeah. Exactly what I said. She only knew for a couple of days for sure when I left." The grin faded as quickly as it flashed. "She'll probably call you soon."

"Hopefully. I wanna know why she didn't call me first." The earlier kiss was still slowly burning away on Tristan's lips. He needed to steer them back to what they were going to do about Kaiba.

"Easy," Dev chuckled, "She always did like me better than you."

"That's bullshit! If I were straight I swear I'd have ditched you for her in a heartbeat."

Dev had smiled – actually, really, truly. No matter how briefly. He didn't do that very often.

He'd make him smile again. And then they'd deal with Seto Kaiba.