I don't know if I'm any good at writing Zero, but he's become a very comfortable character for me. I'd like to think that, in the absence of a war to fight and people to murder, he's probably a much softer person.

Ryo is learning how to play Duel Monsters. I LOVE IT.

Don't let me go down this road again

We both know where this ends

In a storm of feeling, I'm so unappealing

I can't play these games

-Neck Deep

"Kaname...what kind of sword is this?"

"It's called the Legion Edge." The pureblood removed the bowl from the coals, wafting a hand over it before handing it over to his young companion. "It is a hunters' weapon. Ancient. As old as I am."

"Huh." Seth turned the blade over in his hand, admiring the silver glimmer it cast by the light of their small fire. "I don't see how it's different from any other sword."

Kaname took a seat beside him, gesturing toward the bowl. "It can be used to hunt and kill vampires. Eat."

Seth took up the bowl, frowning a little. "Vampires like you?"

The pureblood seated at his side smiled indulgently. "There are no vampires like me."

"None?"

"None. I am the only one of my kind, as far as I know."

"As far as you know?"

"We aren't the most social of creatures. We have no overwhelming sense of loyalty to our kind, no intrinsic family structure. We aren't like humans. We seem to be little more than predators. Animals."

Seth looked over at him, frowning. Kaname's eyes were distant, the flames reflected across their surface. "Kaname, you're not an animal."

The vampire smiled faintly, turning his head to meet Seth's gaze. "No?"

"Of course not. Anyway, the world isn't divided into people and animals, anymore than it's divided into good and evil. There are colors in between. Shades of gray." Seth smiled, clapping Kaname on the shoulder. "Anyone who would turn back to save someone they barely know can't be a bad person."

"By that line of reasoning, neither of us are bad people, then."

Seth released a long, slow breath, slipping the sword into its scabbard and beginning to eat, considering Kaname's words. "No. I suppose we aren't."

The night was perfect, cool and dark, each star a blazing pinprick in the sky. Both travellers had gotten quite good at making fire, and they had become quickly accustomed to one anothers' company, making the journey across the desert more bearable. Kaname had intended to escort Seth to the royal city to repay his debt, but he found he liked the boy a great deal, and he couldn't help but pity him for his plight. His mother lost, Seth had plowed forward with startling resilience, but he was an outcast, after all, and a young one at that. Kaname had no intention of leaving him behind.

"Tell me why people who can use magic are treated so poorly here," Kaname requested, waiting until Seth had finished off his bowl of stew with gusto before speaking once more. "Why your mother felt the need to hide you."

"That's what I'd like to know," Seth answered, running a hand through his hair, dislodging a fine coat of sand. "In the royal city, sorcerers and magicians are revered as being emissaries of the gods themselves. I don't know why it would be otherwise in the outlands."

"You must have an idea."

"Just one. I did wonder if perhaps the prejudice against the magically gifted is in fact propagated by the Pharaoh's court, in order to herd magical people toward the city and into the priesthood."

"Like sheep to a shepherd."

"Just so." Seth pushed the coals they'd been using to cook back onto the fire, scowling into the rising flames. "Once he had all of Egypt's magicians corralled in the palace, the Pharaoh would have a nearly invincible army...none could stand before him. I don't want to live a life of secrecy, but I don't want to be anyone's foot soldier, either. Not even a king's."

Kaname hummed, lying back on his blanket and gazing heavenward, admiring the stars. "So what do you plan on doing in the royal city, Seth?"

"I'll join the priesthood, obviously." The boy laid back as well, lacing his hands behind his head. "I won't be anyone's servant, but I can play the game for a while, at least. Just until I'm strong enough and rich enough to leave for good. I'll find my future elsewhere."

"You'll leave Egypt?"

"Unless something makes me want to stay."

"What might that be?"

Seth was quiet for a time. When he spoke again, it was in low tones. "Promise you won't laugh."

"I promise."

"The girl I rescued from the trade caravan. If I found her again, if she didn't want to leave...she might be worth staying for."

Kaname smiled, but didn't let his younger companion see. "I don't think that's something to be laughed at. It's a touching sentiment. I'm sure she'd appreciate hearing it."

Seth huffed, more to himself than to Kaname, pushing his fringe out of his eyes. "I doubt it. She doesn't even know me."

"Well, you don't really know her, either, now do you? Yet you feel that way about her. There's no reason to believe the feeling isn't completely mutual."

"It doesn't really matter. It's not as if I could take a wife as a priest, and leaving the priesthood is as good as betraying the Pharaoh himself." Seth sighed, shaking his head. "The world wasn't meant for people like us, Kaname."

"Maybe not." Kaname reached over, patting the boy lightly upon the head and offering him a warm smile. "I suppose, then, that we'll just have to make our own."

"Hey...are you awake?"

Zero leaned over the back of the couch, pillowing his cheek in his palm as Seto Kaiba rejoined the world of the waking, blinking up at him in bleary confusion.

"It's not like you to fall asleep in the middle of the day," Zero commented, walking around the couch and flopping down upon it as the CEO sat up, cradling his head in his hands with a groan. "You okay?"

"Yes," Seto said, his voice muffled slightly. "I'm fine. What time is it?"

"Fourish. Mokuba says something's on the TV that he wants you to watch?"

Seto squinted down at his watch, rubbing one eye. "Shit. It's the semifinals. Rebecca is dueling Vivian Wong today. Should be streaming live...where's the remote?"

"I got it." Zero turned on the television, switching to the channel Mokuba had requested before bounding upstairs to make sure his own TV would record it. "It gets live coverage? Why does a game get so much attention?"

"Humanity loves competition. Look at how much hype there is around chess, or poker. It's a niche market, but gaming gets a lot of attention from its dedicated fans." Seto waved a hand toward the television, where the huge arena that would enable for three-dimensional dueling was being raised. "And this tends to be a lot more exciting than watching old men move pieces around a board."

"That's true, I guess…" Zero wrapped his arms around his knees, lifting his eyebrows as a test monster flickered into life on the field. "You made the 3D software, right?"

"If by 'made' you mean wrote, performed troubleshooting for, tested, paid for, and mass produced and distributed, then yes, I did."

"Yeah, that's what I meant," Zero snorted, nudging Seto's leg with his shoulder from his seat on the floor. "Where'd you learn all that stuff?"

Seto shifted on the couch, leaning back and running his hand through his hair. "My mother was a programmer. After she passed, I learned from her notes."

"Weren't you pretty little when she died? You must be a prodigy." When Kaiba didn't reply, Zero glanced sideways at him, stiffening when he caught sight of the other man's scowl. "Uh, sorry- I didn't mean to bring up anything painful or...whatever."

"No, no, it's fine- you're fine," Seto answered quickly, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I've just got another damn headache."

"Take a pill," Mokuba said, bouncing into the room with a bottle in hand and dropping it in his brother's lap. "Not that pill, another one. I picked that up at the store today."

Seto frowned, picking up the bottle and squinting at the label. "Iron supplements?"

"For your anemia. I wondered if maybe that was making your headaches worse. I know Yugi and Ishizu get 'em too, so it's not just you, but...it was just a thought."

For the briefest of moments, Zero figured Kaiba would have a brisk retort, would chuck the bottle back at his brother with a snorted remark about not needing medication to function normally- but the CEO only shrugged and popped the bottle open, and Zero could have sworn he saw just the tiniest ghost of a smile.

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it." Mokuba grinned, sitting down on the couch and nudging Zero to make him scoot over, out of the teen's foot space. "Alright, just in time. Zero, did Nii-san clue you in?"

"Uh, kind of- the blonde is your girlfriend, right?"

"More like Mokuba is her boyfriend," Kaiba said with a snort.

Zero frowned up at them. "There's a difference?"

"There's a difference," the elder brother confirmed, smirking when Mokuba scowled over at him.

"The other girl is Vivian Wong," Mokuba went on, shooting his brother one last sullen expression before looking back at the television. "She was a serious competitor during the Grand Prix a few years ago-"

"And she serially dates top-ranked duelists all around the world."

"Seto."

"It's the truth. I didn't say it was a bad thing."

"You're not exactly singing her praises, either," Mokuba sighed. "Zero, have you ever watched a duel before?"

"Nope," Zero replied, shaking his head. "It wasn't big where I'm from."

"I didn't know there was anywhere in Japan that wasn't watching DM with baited breath. It's kind of weird." Mokuba pillowed his chin in his hand, smiling a little when Rebecca and Vivian paused in the middle of a battle phase to exchange a few heated remarks. Rebecca's ears appeared to be turning red. "Aw, Bec's pissed. She's really cute when she's mad, huh?"

"Cute the way a bulldog is cute when it gets overexcited," Seto commented. Mokuba chucked a pillow at him.

Much to their surprise, the game lasted all of twenty minutes- Kaiba remarked dryly that he'd spent hours in the arena before- and ended with a snatched victory for Rebecca, advancing America into the finals. Mokuba sprang from the couch and ran upstairs to call her, leaving Kaiba and Zero to watch the fanfare on the television.

"Hey," Zero said suddenly, struck by an oddly appealing idea, "teach me how to play this game."

Seto looked up from perusing the ingredients list on the iron supplements (active ingredient: iron) and lifted an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"Duel monsters, right? Could you teach me how to play?"

"Of course I could," Seto huffed, as if genuinely affronted. "Why do you want to learn?"

"Well, I'm living in your house," Zero pointed out, amused. "And it's a big deal to you and Mokuba, obviously. I read somewhere that it's good to take an interest in what your lover enjoys doing."

For a shocked moment, Seto could only stare at the hunter before spluttering out a response. "Hold on just one- hey- lover?"

"That's what I said," Zero answered cheekily, tilting his head back against the couch and grinning up at his host. "I could just call you my employer, or my landlord, but neither of those would be completely accurate, right?"

"Why do you have to call me anything at all?"

Zero frowned a little, letting his gaze wander to the ceiling. He chewed over his response before speaking. "Why do labels scare you? Is it because they imply permanence?"

A weighted pause followed his question, but then Seto abruptly got to his feet, stuffing the bottle of supplements into his pocket and heading for the door with a curt "Fuck you" over his shoulder.

"What? Hey-" Zero scrambled to his feet, grabbing the door before the CEO could slam it closed and catching the other man's arm, holding him back with strength only a hunter could possess. "Sorry, okay? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to piss you off. I need to call you something because I can't deal with stuff that isn't set in stone, things that are liable to change. And it's been that way for me since Kaname died. Alright? That's it."

"...Yes."

"Yes what?"

"Yes, I don't use words like boyfriend or lover because I'm a fuck up who's scared shitless at the prospect of having personal relationships." Seto looked at Zero, his face deadly serious- but only for a moment. He quirked his head to the side, smirking. "Is that what you want me to say?"

Zero blinked, surprised, and then reddened when he realized he was being teased. "You don't have to be a dick about it, you know! Christ!" He let go of the other man's sleeve, turning to head back into the living room, but Seto snagged him before he could get far, startling the hunter by wrapping his arms his waist.

"Call me whatever you want," he said in what could only be described as a grumble, dropping his forehead against Zero's head with a sigh. "Especially if it helps you deal with losing Kaname."

The runaway hunter blew out a long, slow breath, shaking his head and lifting one hand, tangling it into the chocolate strands of hair that tumbled across his shoulder. "You're a lot like Kaname, you know. In a lot of ways. But I'm not using you as a substitute or anything. I swear."

"...You and Jou aren't anything alike."

"Is that a good thing?"

"It's an ambiguous thing. So what are you going to call me?"

"Asshole. Obviously."

Seto snorted, lifting his head an inch and dropping it back against Zero's shoulder. "Fair enough."

"Was Jou the first person you slept with?"

Seto sighed, lifting his hand, watching the silver strands slip between his fingers like water around stones. After several months as a bachelor, the weight of someone's head upon his shoulder and an arm flung over his waist was foreign, but not unpleasant. He could even see how it might be comforting.

"No, he wasn't. I was already twenty-one when we started sleeping together, and I'm rich and strikingly good-looking and compulsively moody. What are the odds that I'd still be a virgin?"

"You also hate intimate contact," Zero reminded him, adjusting his head and pressing his cheek a little closer to Seto's chest, closing his eyes and listening for his heartbeat. "Hah, by the way."

"Kaname was a snuggler?"

"Big time. But don't evade. So who was your first?"

Kaiba reached an arm out, opening his fingers, stretching toward the ceiling and staring between his fingertips into the darkness, struck through by moonlight from the open window. He lowered his hand, resting it against his forehead. "This woman I met at a fundraiser. She was married, but her husband had just been caught having an affair. She slept with me to get back at him."

"How does that follow?"

"People do irrational things when they're hurt." Seto shrugged the shoulder that wasn't currently occupied by a drowsy hunter. "He was one of my competitors in the software business. That probably fueled the fire."

"Mm." Zero opened his eyes, tilting his head back to look up, mentally tracing the strong silhouette of Seto's jaw. "How old were you?"

"Sixteen. Right before Battle City." A pause. "Her name was Emiko. She brought me up to her hotel room and spent about an hour telling me all about the shit going on in her marriage. Her husband was a creep. He and Emiko were talking about having a baby, but he went and got a vasectomy while claiming to be away on a business trip. Didn't want to get his mistress pregnant. The really fucked up part is that he insisted that he still loved his wife and didn't want to leave her." He sighed, closing his eyes. "I don't know how you do that to someone and then claim to still love them."

"It's shitty," Zero agreed quietly. "She must have been a lot older than you."

"Five years, give or take."

"Isn't that illegal?"

"It is in America."

"Doubly shitty." Zero nestled a little closer, tightening the arm he had draped over Seto's waist. The CEO was taller than Kaname, but thinner. Lanky thing. The hunter couldn't help but smile a little at that. "You were too young to be someone's revenge fuck. I'm sorry it happened to you."

"It didn't happen to me. I was a willing participant. What sixteen year old boy doesn't want to get dragged off to bed by some corporate douchebag's hot trophy wife?"

"You weren't just a sixteen year old boy, though. You had a lot on your plate as it was."

"I suppose." Seto dropped a hand back into Zero's hair. Something about the texture soothed him. "The shittiest part was when I got back."

"Yeah?"

"Mokuba asked me if anything interesting happened, and I told him no."

"Well, he was- what? Twelve? What were you supposed to say?"

"Nothing, I suppose. I still didn't like lying to him." He scratched the crown of Zero's head. "Kaname was your first, right?"

"Yeah. First for everything." Zero closed his eyes, recalling- for the thousandth time that day- his noble, beautiful pureblood, the way he smiled, sad and gentle. Always. "The first time we kissed...it was raining. I could barely see him. His bangs were wet, and I felt water running down the back of my neck. Everything else is kind of...blank."

"I think the first kiss is supposed to be like that. Or so I've been led to believe."

"I guess so." Zero pushed himself up, looking down at the other man stretched out beneath him. He couldn't help but to stare for a moment, meeting that blue gaze with confidence for perhaps the first time ever, admiring the spill of chocolate hair across the pillow. "Nn. You're really cute when you're not scowling, you know."

"I've heard." Seto wound a hand into the hunter's hair, dragging him down, dragging a tantalizing lick along the length of Zero's tattoo before crushing his mouth in a kiss. Zero gave in to it, gave into the heat, the slick, heady pressure of another tongue alongside his, the want flickering to life in his core. His fingers tightened in Seto's shirt, twisting the fabric. He pulled away with difficulty, breathing hard, brushing their mouths together briefly in a sloppy imitation of a second kiss before lowering his head. He slid a hand beneath Seto's neck, gathering his hair and pulling it away from his nape. His heightened senses picked up the scent and sound of rushing blood.

Seto gasped sharply when fangs penetrated him, skin dimpling and opening beneath razor-fine points. Almost at once he was swept away by a sense of weightlessness, the sensation of floating out of his own body. The almost sinful act of blood drink, the act of being consumed by another human being- and there was no doubt in his mind that Zero really was human, in a way that went deeper than tissue and blood and DNA- was both twisted and erotic at once. It wasn't the first time Seto Kaiba had experienced it, but their previous liaisons hadn't compared to this. Thirst and hunger and need had evacuated this encounter, leaving something intimate and deeply trusting.

He couldn't wrap his head around why the hunter made him feel this way. It wasn't the way Jou made him feel. It was neither better nor worse, but it was certainly more powerful, and he'd felt it from the moment he saw the younger man unconscious in the alleyway. It was why he'd picked him up, why he'd let Zero come back home with him from the hospital, why he kept the hunter around, why he hired him. Why he wanted to kiss him.

Fuck. I guess I just like him.

And that thought, because it was bizarre and foreign and so obliquely normal, made him laugh.

Zero lifted his head, licking his lips, looking at the other man in bemusement. "What? Tickles?"

"No, it hurts like hell." Seto snorted, running a hand through Zero's hair, grinning at the bewildered expression on the hunter's face. "I guess I've just never had a crush before."

Zero blinked, startled, and then his expression softened. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand before leaning down to lick the wound he'd made in the other's neck, soothing the abused flesh. "Huh. That makes me your first. What do I win?"

"A bumper sticker."

"What's it say?"

"I don't know. But it's got hearts on it and other goofy shit like that."

"And a dragon?"

"Always."

Zero grinned, tucking his head against the side of Seto's neck and brushing his mouth over the corner of his jaw. "Good. Then everyone will know it's really from you."

Didn't Hibiki have a daughter named Emiko who was about four when Seto was born? Huh.