I had this in my wips for quite some time now and just decided to put the two ideas together for Kaiba's birthday. And play a little with the prompt title ^_^

23. Present

After he closed the door as silently as he could he took the few steps over the small porch and sat down on the cold stone. It was still morning, at least he assumed it was. He could never really tell what time it was here exactly. But the sun hadn't risen to her highest peak and her heat wasn't as intense as it usually was either.

He pulled his turtleneck over his head, not because he was cold but because he wouldn't sit in front of Atem's chamber half-clad. Of course he knew people were talking already but that didn't mean he should and would give them more reason to gossip.

Then again, he had spent the night here, in his chamber even so people were certainly talking anyway.

Well, he couldn't care less about their opinions. None of them did matter.

The only person that mattered was on the other side of this world, outside of this realm and he had left him alone the whole night. At least here it was the whole night, he didn't know how much time had gone by on the other side. He had to go back as fast as he could.

Just… He'd known before that night actually, that someone else mattered to him as well. He wouldn't have made all his way down here if it was different, surely. It had taken him some visits, some more duels until he had accepted that there was more between them, that he wanted more.

And then yesterday, after he'd passed out and was too weak to go back to his brother they'd… engaged in a passionate duel of a different kind.

It sounded easy, seemed like the natural conclusion to all of this but it wasn't. Quite the contrary.

No, it made everything even more difficult, put them in a even more desperate situation. Like the road they were walking down had suddenly met a dead end.

All because he'd let his guard down around him this one time.

Granted, Atem had done the same.

And it wasn't as if he hadn't enjoyed it. Again, quite the contrary.

He still felt him, his skin still tickled and sounds, whispers and images were still as vibrant, as intense and as clear as the moment they were emitted.

The urge to shut his eyes and shake his head to get rid of it all was hard to suppress but he did it anyway. He, no they had done it now so there was no need to try and forget it. He'd always told him the past didn't matter anyway. Only the future did and he intended to live on these words.

But for the first time, he didn't really know how to do that.

A movement in the corner of his eyes suddenly caught his attention and he turned his head on reflex.

There stood a young girl at the end of the courtyard, her long silver-blue hair was almost longer than her shabby dress and she stared at him in astonishment just as Seto stared back at her. She didn't move for a while, as if she was awestruck. Which happened quite often here, since these petty people couldn't comprehend his emergence in any way. Normally they stayed away from him, left him alone and only whispered behind his back when he walked by. Not that he cared, he'd just noticed it.

But this girl seemed different.

She was still standing there and looked at him, apparently considering if she should come closer or just leave again and Kaiba simply watched, somehow unable to tear his eyes away from her.

There was something about her that fascinated him and he felt an excited rush in his veins when she shrugged her shoulders and finally walked up to him.

He kept his eyes on her as she came closer, daring her to retreat but her steps got bolder the closer she came.

It was weird the way her eyes seemed to glow as she looked at him. She cleared her throat softly. "Can I sit down?" Despite the fact that she had cleared her throat before opening her mouth, her voice still had a small pitch in it and Kaiba frowned at her.

"How should I know if you can?"

It was a usual retort to stupid questions like that but to his surprise he felt a pang of regret jolting through him. She had asked nicely after all, there was no need to be so brusque. Even more surprisingly the girl simply chuckled.

"Oh, I can. Here, I'll show you." She grinned, that certain, oddly familiar gleam still in her eyes but he still couldn't pinpoint why it had that effect on him.

She sat down right next to him, a little too close maybe, for his liking. Something radiated off her body now that she sat there with him, so close that he could touch her when he reached out. It wasn't the addictive, appealing warmth he felt around Atem that he had finally given in to last night and that he could still sense in his core – it was something equally intense and powerful and yet entirely different.

She looked expectantly at him although Kaiba had no idea why. He didn't know what she wanted; he didn't want company and he didn't want to talk, let alone to a young, impertinent girl.

"My name is Kisara." She said as if she expected that word would ring a bell. It didn't, of course and slowly but surely he was getting curious as to what was up with this girl. "I've wanted to talk to you for a while actually. But whenever you came here you had only eyes for him." Her voice had a snarky undertone to it as she nodded her head in the direction of Atem's chamber.

Kaiba shrugged. "There's nothing else here that could possibly interest me."

"I see…" She seemed crestfallen, if not downhearted and Kaiba wondered why. "Well, of course not... but I thought…"

She stopped midsentence and shook her head with a smile, obviously choosing to keep the rest of her sentence to herself.

Then she fell silent and Kaiba thought she was already done with small talk and would leave him to his pondering again. Although, weirdly, he felt comfortable in her presence, like he had been in her company before, maybe even his whole life. Why didn't that unsettle him?

"This was the first time you stayed overnight…" It sounded more like a statement than a question and anger began to rise within him after all.

"That is none of your business."

"No, it just struck me."

This girl became more and more peculiar with every word she said and Kaiba felt like she was up to some sort of preaching.

"If you allow…" she stopped and chuckled at the look on Kaiba's face. He knew it, she was just as predictable as everybody else. "I'm sorry. It's just that…" She spoke deliberately and slowly, choosing her words with care and Kaiba allowed himself to listen. "You're always striving for the future, always looking ahead and never back but you are stuck in your time with him. So much so, that you chased him all the way here. For more than just a duel or your revenge. Your relationship with him is far more complicated than that… He's a creature of the past, while you're bent on the future… and in the meantime you both forget to live in the present…"

Kaiba side glanced at her, wondering just how she knew all this and why he let her talk so much all the while she just stared ahead to a distant point, as if she was looking at something or someone he couldn't see.

Then she continued. "But still… you made it this far and I'm sure… you'll find a way to combine your determination and Atem's purpose."

Now he stared openly at her.

What the hell was with this girl?

She had obviously died at a young age and yet she sounded almost as pretentious and smart-aleck as Atem.

Just who was she? Why did she seem so familiar?

He missed something, he knew it.

Speaking of missing… There was one thing, one word about her speech that raised his suspicion. Not because she had used it, but because she had left it out and he wanted to know why.
"Not... Pharaoh Atem?" He frowned at her and when she turned his head blue eyes locked onto equally blue ones and Kaiba's breath caught a little. But he swallowed it down. "I mean… everyone else here calls him that, bows and shows him respect whenever he walks by or moves or just breathes. Except you. Why?"

She blinked at him, open confusion in her eyes for a moment before it vanished and was replaced with steadiness and a small, knowing grin. "He's not my pharaoh. I served another. And my loyalty is his alone. It always was and... always will be." Her glance nearly pierced him and there was something in it that told him he missed the meaning of her words. "... Just as he is loyal to me."
She gave him this meaningful smile again and for just a moment her eyes flashed with a determination Kaiba had seen so many times before and knew just too well.
And it was in this moment that Kaiba recognized just who she reminded him of this whole time and he gasped for air.

He had seen Atem's magician and the girl too but he thought they were the only ones. Never in his wildest imaginations had he thought that his almighty dragon was really…
She chuckled softly at his wide eyes and slightly open mouth but didn't say anything, just smiled. So, Kaiba opened his mouth.

"You are… my..."

He started but then he heard the door behind them being yanked open and a voice calling out his name desperately.

Kaiba turned to the source of the voice, denying and ignoring the stumbling of his heart at the call as well as the halting of his breath as he saw him.

He thought that after last night he had seen everything, that there couldn't be another surprise, another novelty. But now he stood there with sleepy eyes and messy hair, clad in nothing but a thin blanket that started to slip from his shoulders as he stared back him. He wasn't far, only just a little out of his reach and Kaiba could clearly see the marks he left on him, the irrevocably proof that their union hadn't been a dream. Not this time.

Kisara's chuckle at his side got him out of his thoughts and when he looked back at her she still smiled at him, but differently this time. "Well, I better go now. It was nice... finally talking to you."
He managed a nod and opened his mouth to say something but she leaned forward and kissed his cheek swiftly. Kaiba jumped at the gesture and was about to be indignant but when he saw the mischievous smirk she threw in Atem's direction and the pharaoh's uncertain glance at the scene before him he couldn't help a small grin of his own. Their wordless exchange amused him and erased the last doubt he had about her identity.

He watched silently as she got up. "Remember what I told you." She said, then nodded his head at him, turned and walked away as smoothly as she had approached him, her long silver-blue hair swaying behind her life a stream of water.

Kaiba still couldn't believe it. Who this skinny, beautiful, mild-mannered girl really was.

He was so caught up in watching her that he hadn't realized that Atem had come closer to him and he jerked a little when the man cleared his throat beside him and took the place Kisara had been sitting in before, blanket now firmly tugged around his shoulders as if trying to hide the traces of their encounter, as if shielding away and raising yet another barrier between them.
They sat like that for a while, neither saying a word.

"Sorry for interrupting you earlier." He said suddenly and Kaiba all but twitched. "I didn't want to scream like that I just... I thought you were already gone."

Kaiba scoffed. "Don't judge me by your own standards."

"Kaiba..." Atem started and the tone in his voice sounded tired, battle-weary. "That... was something else."
That almost made him laugh. "Oh, of course it's different when you do it."

"No." Now he sounded infuriated again, with that hint of angriness that let Kaiba tremble every time. "It is different now."

He kept silent after that, contemplating if he should look at him or not, if he should touch him or not, what it meant that he longed for it but still kept his desire at bay. He felt adrift but fought to keep afloat in all of this wonderful chaos.

"Seto..."

And there it was again. His name, so softly spoken with his voice, rolling off his tongue so naturally and casually and Kaiba let out a breath unconsciously. He felt him stiffen beside him and saw him fidgeting with his fingers out of the corner of his eyes. It was obvious, that he was nervous. "I want you to know... I thought about it and I appreciate you coming here, coming for me but as much as I want to, as much as I wish things were different... I can't change them. I am dead, I am here now, where I... where the dead belong and that is why..."

"Don't you think I know that?" He interrupted him and glared at him. "And yet you still convinced me to stay yesterday. Don't you dare tell me it was a mistake. Because it wasn't. And you know it."

Atem shook his head slowly. "No, I didn't mean that."

Kaiba felt his patience fading. He was already stressing him enough when he was lecturing him but this stammering unnerved him even more. "Then what?"

He shuffled his feet and when Kaiba heard him swallow he braced himself for what was to come out of his mouth next.

Apparently people had a habit for preaching today…

"Kaiba…" So he used Kaiba again now, huh? Fascinating. "This is the realm of the dead and you are many things but certainly not dead. Not yet, at least. You have your whole life ahead of you, in contrast to me. And yet you keep coming here but, Kaiba… You don't belong here."
He made a noise in the back of his throat that could have been hhhave been a laugh if he had tried hard enough. "No, I don't belong here." He agreed and Atem stiffened some more despite the fact he'd said it first. But Kaiba knew he struck a cord with his acceptance. However it wasn't all he had to say to that and he turned his head and looked Atem dead in the eye. "But you don't belong here either."
Now Atem stared at him in return and Kaiba could watch how annoyance and frustration slowly darkened his expression. "Kaiba…"

"No." was all he needed to say to shut him up. "You know I'm right. So for once in your life, just accept that I am right, and not you."

Atem sighed, but it wasn't heavily it was, if not defeated then accepting. "Even if that's the case… it's not that simple..."
"Isn't it?" He went on, not even thinking of stopping here now. "Well I didn't just sleep with you because I could tell you to fuck off the next morning. I did it because I had made up my mind. I knew it would have consequences, that it wouldn't just be a one-time thing and that it would not… heal my infuriation with you." He stood up, facing Atem from above and for once feeling like he really was above him.
"I want you, more than for just a fling or a duel. I want all I can get and all you can give and I want you back. Literally. And I won't stop looking for a way to achieve that."
He stopped there, as if suddenly realizing what he had said, how much he had revealed and then stared down at Atem, unwavering, demanding, a sort of questing in his eyes that was only visible for a short moment, and solely for the person in front of him. There was no point in hiding anything anymore anyway.

"Still… I've made my choice, Seto." Ah, it was Seto again now. That meant he was nearly there. "I can't just go back on it."

He shook his head. "That wasn't your choice, it was what you believed destiny expected from you." Kaiba held his hand out for Atem to take it, and when he did after a while, he pulled him up and close to him. "The next time I come here… I want you to make a choice of your own."

It took Atem a moment to nod but Kaiba was glad when he did and he nodded in return.

He watched him lean up to him and he leaned down to him as well but stopped right before their lips could touch and instead put his forehead against Atem's.

"Why?"

"Because it would feel too much like a farewell. And this isn't one."

Atem nodded again but they remained like that for a moment more, neither willing to let go of the other so soon.

But Kaiba did, eventually, take a step back and turned away.

He'd walked some distance when he stopped once more and called over his shoulder. "Two more things before I go..."

"Yes?"

"You've lived in the past for too long, you should give the present a chance too. And…" He turned his head to look at him, amused by the way he still clutched that blanket and threw him a smirk. Atem caught it and with a mischievous grin of his own let the blanket fall from his shoulders a little. Kaiba laughed and then remembered that he wanted to ask him something. "And would you tell Kisara something from me?

Atem smiled and shook his head. "How about you tell herself when you come back?"

Kaiba grinned at the meaning behind these words and nodded.

"I will."