Duke was already out of his side of the truck, and stared at the interloper. Tristan leaped to the ground and slammed his door closed.

When his friend started forward – even though he was only on the other side of the truck – the brunette still felt miles away. He couldn't stop the other man from breaking into a run and throwing his arms around Seto's neck. Tristan leaned on the fender, then grimaced and yanked his elbows away from the surface. It was still hot, the engine underneath popping as it cooled. He glared at it, inexplicably furious with the fading burning of his skin.

Seto wrapped his arms around the slighter man's waist after a few moments, and stroked his back. Tristan watched, eyes narrowed with dislike and a horrible feeling of intrusion. It was his house, dammit!

Duke pulled away at last, as though he'd realized they were being watched, and turned back, giving Tristan a good look at his expression. He looked…

Happy…?

That hurt. He'd spent three days of walking on eggshells to make the man smile, and the minute Duke's ex showed up, Seto Kaiba made all of that effort look superfluous. It wasn't fair.

Tristan waved, a sardonic smile curving his lips. "Don't mind me."

Duke's lips parted, and he started forward, but Tristan stepped away from the fender as he did so, pulling the door of his pickup open again. He just couldn't witness this any longer. What had Duke told him last night…a lot of lies? A tiny voice niggled at him not to leave so fast, but he ignored it.

"Tris? What're you—?"

"I haven't changed?" Tristan snarled, and leapt up into the cab. Duke smacked against the glass of the side window with the flat of his fist. For the second time today, the ponytailed man look frightened to death.

Go to hell, Tristan thought, a prick of guilt and wicked glee mixing at once. He started the engine and threw the transmission into reverse, pulling out of the driveway and grinding gears again to shoot down the street. A glimpse in the rearview mirror showed the thin man staring after him.

He looked ridiculous in those boots. They were too big for him.

Tristan turned the corner.

Duke's fists clenched as the truck disappeared, and didn't turn from his vigil until he heard Seto's voice brush the back of his neck like a caress. "Glad I didn't expect much of a welcome from him."

"You used me!" Duke accused as he spun, and Seto shrugged.

"You hugged me first, Duke, if you're going to play games like an infant. He chose to leave. Which, considering, isn't all that much of a shock."

Duke visibly wilted under those words, and sighed. He was being childish. Tristan would come back, some time. It was his place, after all. And after what he'd said and how he'd acted, he couldn't really blame Tristan for wanting to leave. "I suppose you're right."

Seto smiled and came down the steps to Duke's side. "At any rate, he's not the reason I came to this place. You are." His expression was confident and self-assured. It grated. "I expect he wouldn't want to hear that."

"He trusts me." I hope, Duke added silently, praying that the next set of engine sounds was Tristan's. "If you came for me, then you wasted your time." He leveled a sober set of green eyes on Seto's deep blue and tried to ignore the brief betrayal of surprise and pain in their depths. Seto Kaiba revealed nothing for a reason. He wasn't above manipulating his own feelings to get something he wanted – he gave nothing away without a second motive. Duke told himself this firmly.

"You and he have…resumed your relationship?" The hurt blinked away, leaving cold and sarcasm in its place. "Right where you left off, I assume?"

"What are you getting at?" Duke suddenly felt the cold to extremity through his jacket and jeans, and shoved his hands in his pockets. He'd taken off his gloves in the truck. Soaked as they were, they'd still have been insulation against the chill. Tristan would have noticed. Tristan would have seen him shivering and put his arms around him by now.

And oh gods was he ever pissed at himself for thinking like that. What was he now, a girl?

"You've slept with him already, haven't you?"

"What?"

"Was it the first day you got here, or did he wait twenty-four hours before he attacked you like a stag in rut?"

"As if it's any of your business – which it isn't, by the way – yes. We made love last night." In a passion, Duke had dropped fluidly back into Japanese. His fists clenched inside his jacket. "Which is more than I can ever say was between us."

"You know that's not true." Seto's voice was level, but the muscles in his jaw tightened.

"Did you trick me in the first place? Your company doesn't need Dungeon Dice to survive! You lured me in with all those plans for a—"

"And you were having problems already," Seto broke in, "I did not lie to you, Duke, I swear that."

"You used me. You know how important that game is to me. You used it to get close to me, didn't you?"

"I would never put my company at risk for something like that!"

"For love?"

"Do not twist my words." Seto retorted icily, "You and I are far too alike – you would no more put your business at risk for the sake of love than I. But that is hardly an indication of how I feel for you."

"Do you even know me at all?" Duke spat, incredulous, stepping away from the taller man.

Seto reached after him belatedly, and dropped his hands after a few moments of exchanging glares. "Do you know me?"

"If I'm wrong in thinking that you just came after me because a possession of yours ran away, then obviously…I don't."

A frozen pause. And then, "how dare you."

"It must have been pretty embarrassing for your lover to take off like that. Without so much as a note or two weeks' advance warning."

"After what I went through for you? After everything that I did for you – did you not expect me to be hurt?"

"Hurt?" Duke spat, teeth snicking shut on the end of the word. As though he were biting it. "You don't feel hurt. You don't feel anything."

"That's not true. I came after you."

"Because you didn't want anyone to find out that I'd run away from you!"

"Because I don't want you to run away from me!"

"Because you can't stand to lose!"

"Because I love you!"

Silence followed. Duke turned and went back to the bench by the door where Seto had been waiting for them when they'd pulled up. He sat down, keeled over and pressed the cold heels of his palms into his eye sockets.

He'd come here to get away from Seto. There, he'd said it. The trip wasn't to find Tristan so much as it had been to find an escape. His recent ex-lover knew to talk even the skeptical, cynical Duke Devlin into anything – convince him of anything, given enough time. Tristan, he'd hoped, could block Seto for him. Give him enough of an anchor to refuse.

But Tristan wasn't there now. Who did that leave? God? Dame Fate?

Himself?

He heard footsteps, soft-soled in the light cake of snow dusting the sidewalk leading from the driveway, and then the shift of heavy fabric as someone sat down next to him. A palm lightly touched his shoulder.

"Don't," He snapped, but the pressure didn't go away.

It wasn't Tristan. Tristan would have let go.

The palm slid over his back, around his other shoulder. Pulled him in close. He smelled weatherproofed wool, and turned his face toward the slightly abrasive folds of dark fabric, dropping his hands.

"I found you attractive when I met you. I couldn't understand why someone as brilliant as you would throw your lot in with Tristan and his friends," Seto lowered his voice. "He's not worthy of you. He never was, and I'll never understand why you can't see that."

There was no response.

"You know I need you," Seto continued, "I can't do this on my own."

"You need me," Duke echoed, muffled, just for the sake of saying something.

"Dungeon Dice Monsters is still just getting off the ground. You can't oversee production from here."

"I know." Was Seto's voice a touch patronizing? Why was he treating him like a child?

"And Mokuba misses you." Seto tried another tack.

One slender eyebrow arched over a disbelieving green eye. "It's almost been a week. He's still at the university." You'll have to do better than that. But he knew he was wearing down. It seemed that Seto knew it, too.

"I don't want you to go. Come back with me."

"So you won't look foolish?"

"Of course not, Duke."

"…I have to tell Tristan."

Seto's expression was unreadable. "Leave him a note." He got to his feet.

He did that once. Doing it a second time would be unforgivable. "In person." Then, after a second or two, "What are you, made of ice?"

The taller man had walked to his rental car, meanwhile, and unlocked the driver's side door. He looked up at Duke. "Sometimes I wish I were."

The new orange street lamps dotting the subdivision around the laundromat flickered on and made seeing hard. Tristan's eyes had always been sensitive to bright lights at night, and he squinted against the pain.

He flipped the turn signal on the steering column and turned right. A slender woman with dark hair stood on the corner, waiting to cross the street after he passed. The creamy lamb's wool lining of her denim jacket stood out against the shadows as he bleached her with headlights.

Fifteen minutes of corner-turning turned out to be fruitless, of course. How did Seto run him off – without even trying?

He felt baited and used. The radio lambasted him with an obnoxious used car advertisement. Tristan snarled and reached to turn it off, but changed his mind and simply turned the volume down. Noise was better than silence.

Why did he let the guy get to him all the time? Duke shouldn't have to face him alone. But who was he kidding? Duke could take care of himself. He was more independent than a cat, sometimes. And in the right crowd, he could be an arrogant bastard, even to people he cared about. Or pretended to care about.

Maybe Seto Kaiba and Duke Devlin really was the better match. Maybe Duke just outclassed Tristan to a point where he couldn't keep him. Didn't want to keep him. It was sacrilege to tie up someone that willful. When he'd ridden horses with Rick, he'd been told to let his mare have her head.

So sure, he could stand to ease up a little on Duke. So what right did Dukehave to call him scared? Hadn't he already proven to the other man that he was trustworthy? Why did he have to be touchy-feely? Some people were just different. Nobody knew how much Tristan wanted to not care. How much he wanted to be like Duke.

Maybe Duke would like to hear that.

And Tristan was tired of turning corners. He made a left and headed home.

Seto was gone and Duke was waiting on the bench beside the front door when Tristan got back. Hope rose in his chest, and he swallowed hard as he pulled into the drive. The sun was going down, and the headlights washed Duke even paler than usual before Tristan switched them off.

He looked awful, sick and guilty. People always looked like hell in front of halogen lights.

Tristan tried not to chew his lip and got out of the truck.

Duke watched him slam the door and walk over.

"I'm going back."

Underneath the bulk of his coat, Tristan's body arched and tightened in pain as though he'd been punched in the gut. He looked down, ready to kill whoever had just conjured the wind that iced the back of his neck. He shouldn't have left…shouldn't have disappeared when Duke needed him the most. So what if he was still having problems with people? Why was he letting other people decide his life for him?

"Is that what you want?" Thank God that he had his back to the light. Duke couldn't see his face properly. The cool tone of his voice only trembled a little.

There was a long pause. "He needs me."

"Is that what you want?" Tristan asked again.

"Tristan, I don't have time for this. Let me in so I can get my things."

"No."

"Fine," Duke said with an exasperated shrug, and started to stand, forcing Tristan to back up a step, "I'll leave them behind."

"Are you…I thought you weren't happy with him."

"He can't run my part of the company without me."

"So do it from here!"

"…I can't."

"Won't."

"Take your pick."

"Is this because of me? Because of what happened today?"

Duke shoved his hands in his pockets and met Tristan's gaze squarely. "No. Although it probably would have happened eventually, anyway. Look Tris…"

They both winced at the familiar nickname.

"…Tristan, nothing's going to happen. He needs me to take care of DDM. I need to be there, Tristan!"

"He's doing what he always does. There's always a reason. He asked if we slept together, didn't he?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Dev, I know him. Probably better than you do." There was no denying the snide remark lurking somewhere in the background of that statement, and Duke's fists doubled over inside his coat pockets. "He gets off on controlling people. He's good at it. He can take your worst fears and use them against you."

"Are you going to let me inside or not?"

"…yes."

"Okay."

"But only so I can get my boots back."

Tristan moved past him to the door, and bent down to pick up the newspaper that had been chucked earlier in the day onto his mat, and gold and silver slithered out of his collar.

"What's that?" Duke asked softly when Tristan straightened and grabbed the pendant before it could be noticed, shoving it back down his shirt.

"Old high school ring." He swung the door inward and gestured the older man inside.

There wasn't much to pack up – Duke shoved yesterday's laundry into a duffel and tucked it inside one of the heavy canvas travel bags he'd brought. He left the bedroom, carefully avoiding looking at the bed. If he was having second thoughts, Tristan thought, he was doing a damn good job of hiding them. Maybe Seto Kaiba was a better opponent than he'd ever given Shizuka credit.

Duke shouldered his bags and headed to the door without a goodbye. Tristan was just coming out of the bedroom when he spied the man standing out by the curb through his front window, cell phone to his ear, bags gathered at his feet like puppies. He followed.

"What, no goodbye?"

"I thought it'd be easier if I—"

Tristan stopped him before he could go any further, joining their mouths furiously with both arms twisted around the back of Duke's neck in case of escape.

He didn't, latching onto the lapels of Tristan's coat instead.

After a few seconds, the brunette got the sensation that he was being allowed to kiss Duke this last time, and pulled back. "You thought wrong. What are you doing out here, anyway?" Calling Seto to come and get him, Tristan thought bitterly, and didn't say it.

"Calling a cab." It was too late. Tristan was standing with his face to the sun. Duke had an excellent view of his expression. A study in defeat.

"It'll take a cab ten minutes to get out here. I'll drive you."