Disclaimer: I solemnly swear that I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh!

I see the streets burn every time I fall asleep. I'm losing all my sanity. I can't hide from the voice that speaks inside of me."

~Street Dreams, Hollywood Undead

-Chapter 2-

Nothing to Live For

Alistair hadn't slept soundly for as long as he could remember. Deep sleeping was something that could get a person killed where he'd grown up, and ever since his brother's death he'd been plagued by nightmares, causing sleep to lose any appeal it may have had. He was exhausted despite having lain in a coma for who knew how long, but he couldn't bring himself to close his eyes. He tossed and turned on the built-in cot one of the crew members had directed him to, trying to get comfortable, the blanket caressing his cheek. It wasn't that the cot was hard, quite the contrary; he practically sank into it, and the blanket was made of some fluffy, extremely soft material. Counter-intuitively, it was precisely this level of comfort that prevented him from relaxing.

How could he possibly live under the same roof as Seto Kaiba? Perhaps Kaiba wasn't guilty of ruining his life, but he was still a generally deplorable human being. But this was his ticket to a better life. A life where he wouldn't have to run anymore. It was definitely tempting. And he didn't have to like Kaiba in order to use him. But to what end? What would be the point of having a 'better life' when he had absolutely no one to share it with? He had no family, no friends. He had had a purpose, but it had been taken from him. Now he had nothing to drive him, nothing to live for at all.

Feeling suddenly completely relaxed, Alistair stood up and padded towards the main cabin, intending to force the hatch open and jump. He stood before the cold reinforced steel standing between him and the vast emptiness of the sky. He reached out a hand and rested it lightly on the red handle of the emergency door. Still, he hesitated, knowing that as soon as he opened the door there would be no turning back.

"Are you going to stand there staring at it, or jump?" Alistair whipped around. Kaiba was sitting in one of the chairs in the corner, a sleek black laptop open on the fold-out tray in front of him.

"Don't mock me," Alistair snarled, wondering how he could have missed the fact that he wasn't alone.

"I don't feel like I have to; you do well enough all by yourself." His tone, ridiculing as ever, made Alistair want to slap him.

"You have no idea how I feel!"

Seto rolled his eyes. He had been quite shocked when he realized what Alistair was contemplating, but quickly realized that the best way to get him back from the edge would be to make him angry."Let me guess: you're feeling stupid for having picked the losing team and don't want to lose what's left of your dignity by accepting my help."

"This has nothing to do with you! I don't even know why I'm listening to you; I could open this door and end it for both of us! God knows the world would be a better place without you in it."

"Really? Let's think about this, shall we?" Seto closed the computer with a snap and stood up. "Let's say that you open that door and get both of us killed. With me dead, Kaiba Corp would fall to Mokuba. To you that would probably seem like a victory, but what you aren't taking into consideration is that Mokuba doesn't have a head for business. Oh sure, he knows how it works, for the most part, but he lacks the temperament to make good business decisions and the company would start to founder and stock prices would start to plummet-still not anything you'd lose sleep over.

However, given what I know about Mokuba, he'd do anything to keep Kaiba Corp from going under in honor of my memory, but would end up with no choice but to form a partnership, and I can think of several arms dealers who would gladly buy in to get their hands on my technology, and the last thing I think you'd want is to singlehandedly bring another weapons manufacturing company into the world. So you tell me: would opening that door really be the best choice?" Loathe though Alistair was to admit it, Kaiba had a point. What was he doing thinking about suicide anyway? He slowly backed away from the emergency door. "I didn't think so. Go back to bed, Alistair. And put some stock in your own life because no one else is going to do it for you." Without replying, Alistair stomped back to his cot, cursing Kaiba for always getting in his way.

In the main cabin, Seto breathed a sigh of relief before sitting back down to continue working on putting his company back together again. Thanks to the monster scare orchestrated by Alistair's old boss, Dartz, the company was currently lying in ruins, and stock was at an all time low. He knew he was going to have to pour all of his concentration into changing that, but was confident that he could. If all else failed he could always release an updated version of the duel disks and throw a tournament and he'd be back on top. Still, that wasn't as easy as it sounded and the last thing he needed was the distraction of an emotionally volatile Alistair wandering around. He hoped that his gruff tactic had worked and would keep the man from doing something stupid.

Alistair was convinced that sleep was out of the question given all the adrenaline pumping through his veins after his argument with Kaiba. Who does he think he is talking down to me like that? Alistair glared out one of the jet's small, oval windows. Several red lights pulsated gently in the darkness and despite himself, Alistair felt his eyelids growing heavy as he watched them. I'll get him back for treating me like that when he least expects it, he thought to himself, first sitting then lying down on the cot, and finally, pulling the plush blanket over himself. Much more quickly than he would have thought possible, he sank into sleep.

It was one in the morning when Seto heard the moans and ragged sobs. His first thought was that something was wrong with Mokuba and he thrust his computer aside, jumped to his feet and prepared to go to his brother post haste, but then a terrified voice called out: "no!" and he realized it was Alistair. He swiftly crossed to Alistair's room and flung the door open only to find the other man curled up on his cot, the grey blanket twisted around him and his sleeping face contorted in pain.

"Alistair!" Seto whispered urgently, flipping the light on. "Wake up!"

Alistair jarred awake, his red hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. "No!" he yelled, pointlessly urging himself to run faster. If he could just reach the tank in time… The scene suddenly melted into blinding white and as his eyes slowly adjusted to the light, he could see that it had been another nightmare; the tank and his brother were gone. His glance locked in on Kaiba whose face was washed out by the artificial lights.

"What do you want?" he snapped, embarrassed that someone had witnessed his outburst.

Seto was taken off guard by Alistair's venom, but quickly recovered his composure."You were yelling your head off and someone needed to get you to shut up." It was Alistair's turn to be taken aback. Valon had told him he talked in his sleep when they'd roomed together while tracking Yugi and his friends after first arriving in Domino, but he hadn't mentioned yelling, though he must have been to have caused Kaiba to investigate.

Alistair aggressively wiped several tears off his cheek."Go away." Deep down, he was grateful that his sleep had been interrupted, but he'd never admit it, especially not to Kaiba. Kaiba didn't deserve his gratitude.

"Hmph." Seto graced Alistair with a disdainful look before flicking the light back off and leaving. Seeing Alistair suffering clearly frightening night terrors reminded him of how torturous sleep was for him sometimes.

It had been far worse just after and in the years leading up to Gozaburo's death, but even now he still had nightmares featuring his step-father, and when he did he often awoke much like Alistair: covered in sweat, wild-eyed, and thoroughly shaken. As far as he knew, no one, not even Mokuba, knew, and he intended to keep it that way.

So yes, he could empathize with Alistair, something he never expected to feel. He prided himself on being utterly unique, enjoyed blowing Yugi and his annoying friends off by telling them that they couldn't possibly understand him. But despite that, it felt good to know that he wasn't the only one who was unable to shake the past.

The plane landed without incident at four-thirty local time for which everyone on board was grateful. Alistair and Seto had exchanged nary a word since the former had woken him up the night before, although Mokuba had done his best to start some form of conversation.

A sleek black limo came to pick them up at the airport, and Seto ordered the driver to first take them to Kaiba Corp headquarters, wait outside, then take them home. When they arrived at the immense glass skyscraper that dominated the landscape of downtown Domino, Seto got out of the vehicle without a word, Mokuba slipping out after him. Alistair turned to the driver.

"Thank you for the ride Mr…"

"Jones," the man replied, visibly surprised that a passenger would offer any sort of appreciation. Mr. Kaiba hadn't given any sign that he even knew he existed except to bark orders at him, and hadn't thanked him in years, and even Mokuba had stopped.

"Thank you Mr. Jones," Alistair said sincerely.

"You're welcome." They exchanged small smiles before Alistair jogged to catch up with the Kaiba brothers who were almost to the door.

"Try to keep up, will ya?"

"I'm sorry, next time I'll take after you and be a little more oblivious to those around me."

Seto was confused, but let the comment slide."Mokuba: meet up with Roland and tell him to make a full report of any problems and anything else I should know about and to have it on my desk by tomorrow. You," he pointed at Alistair, "come with me." Alistair had never liked being ordered around, not by Dartz, not by anyone, but always found himself complying anyway.

He followed Kaiba through the building's ground floor, the walls of which were covered in giant framed posters of the company's past marketing campaigns. Alistair saw everyone take notice of them, but no one dared speak to their boss directly, and they quickly looked back to their computers.

Both of their jackets, one white, one black, scraped the marble floors of Kaiba Corp, the heels of Kaiba's combat boots coming down hard enough to sound off the walls.

They arrived at a block of elevators, got on the next one, and Seto forcefully pushed the button that would take them to the top floor. Alistair absently found himself wondering what on earth Kaiba had to be so angry about all the time. The elevator dinged a minute or so later and the doors opened smoothly. The pair stepped off into a completely blank hallway, broken up only by one giant decal of the Kaiba Corp logo. It would have been boring were it not for the huge paneled windows lining the corridor. Alistair would have taken a moment to check out the spectacular view of the city, but Kaiba was already walking past him.

They reached the end of the hallway and entered a small room where a young woman was seated at a desk, talking in a very matter-of-fact way into a black phone balanced on her shoulder while she typed into a computer. She looked up briefly as they entered the room and nodded in acknowledgment before returning to her work. Without slowing his gait, Kaiba continued across the room to a second door that led to what Alistair knew to be his office from the time he'd spent learning about Kaiba Corp- and about Kaiba.

Seto swept into the room he'd spent more time in in the last six years than any other place on earth. He strode to his desk and sat down in his custom designed desk chair which was emblazoned with the KC seal.

Seto had expected Alistair to be impressed; the few others who'd been allowed in his office had certainly had something to say about all his trophies lining the walls, mostly from dueling tournaments, but some from chess, and the crystal Blue Eyes White Dragon statue sitting in the corner, but Alistair didn't even take a moment to look around. Seto didn't know it, but Alistair had seen the office many times already via hacked security footage.

Since there was no other chair in the room, Alistair stood in front of Kaiba's mahogany desk, arms crossed.

"What did you want to talk to me about?" Without answering right away, Seto hauled his ever present steel briefcase onto the gleaming surface of the desk, and quickly unlocked it, snapping it open and rummaging around for a moment before selecting a piece of paper, shutting the case, and placing it back on the floor. He set the handwritten document in the middle of the desk and whipped a pen out of the stash next to a container of his business cards, poising it over the paper.

"As far as I can tell, your skills are: piloting planes and jets, computer programming and hacking, and dueling. Am I leaving anything out?"

"No," Alistair replied, unsure where Kaiba was going with his statement.

"Good. I was thinking about it last night, but it isn't hard to see that your ability to pilot planes and jets is your most marketable skill. And more importantly, one that will keep you out of my way." He circled the word 'pilot'. "Do you have a license?"

"No."

"I didn't think so. Luckily for you I still have contacts at the aviation academy I got my pilot's license from. Could you pass a written aviation exam?" Seto half expected Alistair to tell him he couldn't read, but instead the redhead nodded. "Then I'll give them a call so you can take the test and start logging flight hours. Once you have your license I'll test you out myself, and if you're good enough you can pilot one of the company planes." Kaiba sat back as though the matter was resolved, but the pronouncement left Alistair reeling.

"Hang on, you can't just decide my future for me!"

Seto sighed. "Are you saying you have a better idea?"

"Well, no, but…"

"But nothing. I'll make the call tomorrow and you can take the test next week, end of discussion. Next," he stabbed a second bullet point with the tip of his pen, "I'll tell you about the house. I have top of the line security, so that everyone who enters has to first be authorized by a retina scan. Expensive, but worth it. The rest of the grounds are protected by—."

"I already know all about your security system," Alistair cut him off. "Anything else." It took Seto a moment to recover from his shock. No one dared to interrupt him.

"If you're such an expert, how is the rest of the house protected?"

Alistair rolled his eyes before rattling off the different security measures Kaiba had taken to protect his house, ending with: "but honestly, all someone would have to do is get past the cameras on the north side since it's the least protected, and as long as they kept walking in a perfectly straight line they could sneak all the way up to the house, scale the wall, and enter via the balcony since there's a tree branch blocking one of the camera's angles."

Seto's mouth formed a thin line, yet he was impressed (but unhappy) that a punk like Alistair could outsmart the security layout he'd designed himself and again found himself wondering if he shouldn't employ him as a KC programmer or as a member of his security team, but he discovered his pride wouldn't allow him to admit, even indirectly, that Alistair had outsmarted him.

"How do you know all of that?"

Alistair smirked. "A better question would be: what don't I know? I've been watching you for years. I had originally intended to break into your house and force you to duel me there, but then I realized that hitting you where it really hurt would require me to endanger this," he gestured around the office. "And I knew you couldn't resist a challenge from Pegasus, so I decided that bringing you to Duelist Kingdom and forcing you to relive one of your worst memories would be even better." He couldn't keep the zeal out of his voice. He'd been so proud of his plan, certain that being in Duelist Kingdom would distract Kaiba enough to allow him to gain the upper hand and win.

"Would it have been worth it to you?" Seto asked. "Would defeating me really have made you feel better?"

"Of course. The soul of my enemy going to feed the beast that would bring about the world's rebirth; why wouldn't that be satisfying?"

"Ok, ignoring the facts that you would never be able to beat me and that a card can't take someone's soul, if there even is such a thing, beating me wouldn't wouldn't erase your past."

"You're one to talk!" Alistair shot back. "You threw a whole tournament just to put your past behind you."

"How did you know that?" Seto demanded, unnerved. He'd never told anyone but Mokuba of the true purpose behind the Battle City tournament.

Alistair looked Kaiba directly in his eyes, gray meeting blue."I told you: I know everything about you." Alistair's stare was so intense that eventually it was Seto who found himself looking away, saying:

"You don't know anything about me."

Alistair shrugged, knowing that he'd emerged as the victor of their verbal sparring match and that Kaiba knew it too.

Seto spent the next ten minutes explaining the rules of the house. Alistair tuned out most of it, preferring to admire the view out the window behind him.

"Are you even listening to me?"

"Not really."

"You are aware that I'm doing you a favor, right? The least you can do is pay attention."

"And I'll take your favor, but I'm not going to get on the ground and lick your shoes the way everyone else does. Why should I? I have no respect for you."

Seto had always wondered, in an offhand sort of way, what would happen if he ever met someone he couldn't intimidate, but now that he knew he realized the result was doing nothing but giving him a headache.

"You know something Alistair: I don't get you. You hate me despite knowing that I never did anything to you. Even when you thought it was my stepfather who was responsible for your family being killed, you knew that that had nothing to do with me. If anything you should be thanking me; I turned this company around because believe it or not I don't like war either which is why I'm getting ready for the release of our new duel disk and not our new tank. We're on the same side!"

"Maybe you don't like war, but that does not mean we are anything alike. I don't care how many orphanages you've funded because anyone who thinks they're too high and mighty to thank their driver is scum in my eyes. You disgust me," he all but spat at the CEO.

Inexplicably, Kaiba laughed. "That's what this is about? Not thanking my driver? Grow up, Alistair. It's his job to drive me where I need to go; my 'thanks' are his paychecks. Do you know the last time anyone thanked me for anything? When I offered to take the kids from the local orphanage to Kaiba Land. And do you want to know why I was worthy of their thanks? Because opening the amusement park doors for free is not part of my job, it's extra. It costs more money than you could ever even dream of to run a park that size for one day. That's the kind of action that warrants a 'thank you.' And so does saving the life of some jumped up biker punk and putting him up in your house, but I won't hold my breath. Now will you stop telling me how much you hate me long enough for me to explain to you how life in my house works?" Fuming, Alistair tried to focus on what Kaiba was actually saying.

"Where was I? Oh, right. On weekdays, Mokuba has tutoring from ten to four and since I don't usually eat at home on weekdays, breakfast is at nine, lunch is at one, and dinner's at seven. On Saturdays breakfast is at ten, lunch is at two, and dinner's at seven-thirty. Our housekeeper has Sundays off so we order in or go out whenever we get hungry. You're going to be living in the east wing so she'll clean your room on Thursdays. She also takes care of the laundry."

"I only have these clothes and I can wash them myself."

"Yes, about that. You'll be going to a top ranked aviation school, not the biker gang convention, so I'm going to send you to the mall with Mokuba, probably tomorrow, to get some clothes, preferably clothes that fit well enough to cover your stomach." He glanced inadvertently down at Alistair's exposed midriff. To mask the moment, he swept the paper he'd been referring to off the desk and held it out. "In case you forget anything I told you, it's all written right here." Alistair took the paper, grumbling about why, if Kaiba had written it all out, the lecture was necessary.

While Seto paged Mokuba and had Mr. Jones pull the car around, Alistair glanced back over what Kaiba had written. His handwriting was terrible, presumably because he rarely had to write anything longhand, but it was legible. It was then that it occurred to him that there was no reason why they'd needed to come all the way up to Kaiba's office for this-they could have just stayed in the car. What a show-off...

Before Alistair could comment on it out loud, Kaiba stood up abruptly, retrieved his briefcase, and proceeded to stride from the room at an unnecessarily fast pace. On his way out he told his secretary to expect a report from Roland without slowing down. Alistair had to jog slightly to catch up and caught the disapproving look the woman threw at him over the top of her computer. Refusing to break down and tell Kaiba that he was walking too fast, Alistair powered through it and matched his pace.

They met back up with Mokuba in the lobby and the three of them got back in the car. Alistair didn't care much for the limo because the way the seats were arranged forced him to either sit next to Kaiba or face him, and though he found both options unsavory, he chose to face him. Mokuba had opted to sit next to his brother, and Alistair tried to focus his attention in that direction to avoid looking into Kaiba's eyes again. Though he had won their staring contest, looking directly into the man's eyes had made him distinctly uncomfortable; Kaiba's eyes were like two shards of sapphire; cold and hard, but undeniably beautiful. Alistair reminded himself that that beauty was only skin deep and that inside Kaiba was a hideous creature that would be destroyed were it ever to see the light of day.

Seto spent the car ride back to the Kaiba estate trying to decide if he'd done the right thing by inviting Alistair into his life. The man was a loose cannon, there was no denying that, but he didn't think he presented any real danger to anyone but himself-at least that's what he hoped. No, the problem was that despite having completely different backgrounds, the similarities between the two were undeniable. Alistair shared his fearlessness, his thick skin. They were both older brothers who had had to take on the role of parent and who had their childhoods violently wrenched from them and then spent years fixated on plowing ahead in order to put their pasts behind them. They'd both even hated Gozaburo, albeit for extremely different reasons. He saw so much of himself in Alistair that it scared him because it forced him to see things he didn't want to see about his own character. It had rattled him to have it pointed out that he hardly ever thanked anyone for anything.

Being told that he was gauche by someone who had walked into a billion dollar corporation wearing a cutoff tank-top should have been laughable, but he had realized the validity of Alistair's statement as soon as he'd said it. Of course he'd defended himself, giving the logical answer, an answer that, while perhaps cold, was not one to be argued with. Still, he couldn't help but wonder when he'd stopped thanking people. He'd used to be the one to offer his gratitude to the driver back when Gozaburo had still been alive. He'd found his step-father's lack of appreciation despicable, but now he was no better.

Upon arriving at the sprawling estate, Seto immediately broke off from the group to go to his room to shower, leaving Mokuba to show Alistair to his room, not that the latter really needed a tour; he knew the layout of the mansion by heart. Still, there was something very different about walking through a house than merely studying the blueprints.

Alistair was struck first by the sheer lack of warmth. The walls were white, the carpet, black, and the furniture, heavy and modern. The few paintings featured on the walls were severe swirls and dashes of red that didn't seem particularly artistic to Alistair, though his knowledge of art was negligible.

They entered a large hall; the location of the many decadent corporate parties thrown by Gozaburo Kaiba, now hardly ever used except for the traditional ball hosted each New Year's to which the department managers and other influential business owners were invited.

The floor was made up of huge slabs of black and white marble. A person standing on the grand staircase and looking down would be able to see that the floor was in fact a giant chess board; testament to Gozaburo's love of the game. Overhanging the hall were several giant crystal chandeliers. The light from huge paneled windows reflected through the crystals and caused the apparition of rainbows which crisscrossed through the air. The entire room reeked of self-indulgence, and even though it was beautiful, Alistair found the notion that someone could spend such obscene amounts of money on things when he'd grown up having to scavenge for food perverse.

He suddenly realized that Mokuba had been talking to him, probably about the hall, but he hadn't heard a word the kid had said, nor did he really care so he nodded absently to give the illusion that he was paying attention while Mokuba continued to rattle off fun facts about the décor.

They finally arrived at the room designated as Alistair's for the course of his stay. The room, if you could call it that, more like an apartment, featured a four-poster bed with red sheets and hangings, a large window overlooking the grounds in the back, and if he remembered correctly, the door on the far side of the room led to a bathroom, while the door on the left wall led to a walk-in closet.

"I called ahead to have Trudy stock the bathroom so you'd have a toothbrush and shampoo and all that stuff." Mokuba started to fidget and Alistair realized he was waiting for him to say something.

"Thanks."

"If you need anything else—."

"Tell Roland. Yeah, your brother gave me to low-down on how things work around here." He produced the paper he'd gotten from Kaiba out of one of his jacket's many inside pockets. Mokuba looked it over and started laughing.

"This is such classic Seto."

"What do you mean?"

"He runs his life using lists. It's really funny. They're the only thing he writes longhand besides his signature. He writes lists for the silliest things. Don't tell him I told you, but he has a list up in his bathroom listing the order he does things in the morning and has sub-points explaining why." He started laughing again and even Alistair had to crack a smile at the thought of Kaiba standing in the bathroom in a pair of Blue Eyes White Dragon themed boxer shorts poring over a list. Step one: brush teeth in order to remove plaque and coffee stains and leave enamel looking clean and white.

"Oh, and I forgot to tell you; we recovered your bike from DOMA's headquarters and had it transported here from the plane. It's in the garage if you ever want to ride."

"You got my bike?" Alistair asked blankly.

"Yeah. To be honest, I forgot all about it, but Seto remembered and told Roland to have someone pick it up on our way back."

Alistair knew that he was expected to express some sort of thanks for Kaiba's thoughtfulness, but he couldn't stomach it, so he merely changed the subject. "You have a game room, right?" Mokuba had hoped that telling Alistair about what Seto had done would show him that Seto wasn't a bad person, but it hadn't worked.

"Yeah. It's not far from here; do you want to see it?"

"Sure."

The game room connected to Mokuba's bedroom and boasted all the major gaming consoles and several giant screens as well as a couple of arcade games including an elaborate, classic pinball machine. Several bookshelves lining the back wall were filled with easily over two hundred titles. And of course there were duel disks; the different official incarnations plus one that looked custom-made.

Alistair hadn't ever really played video games or games of any kind besides Duel Monsters, but he'd always wanted to, and now it seemed he'd have the chance. But there was one thing about the room that struck him as odd.

"Who uses all this stuff, just you?" he asked.

Mokuba looked wistful. "Recently, yeah. Seto and I used to play games together but since he always wins he thinks it's boring, plus obviously he's really busy."

"Don't you have friends to play with?" He hadn't had any friends since before Mikey got killed, but he saw no reason why Mokuba shouldn't. The melancholy expression on Mokuba's face intensified.

"Not really. Since I get tutored at home I don't have the opportunity to make friends. But I can't go to a regular school because it's too much of a security risk and I seem to get kidnapped enough as it is. Besides, I think most people would be too intimidated by my brother to want to hang out with me."

Alistair rejoiced at the opportunity to badmouth Kaiba."Your brother seems pretty selfish to me; always putting his life before yours."

"Oh, no! That's not what I meant by that at all! He's just trying to keep me safe. Everything he's done has been to make sure I have a better time growing up than he did."

"But you aren't," Alistair pointed out. "You're not living at all because you aren't experiencing anything. At the very least you should be able to make friends."

Mokuba continued to look thoughtful. "Maybe. But I don't see how I'll be able to until I'm older and can take care of myself."

"What are you, thirteen?"

"Fourteen," Mokuba corrected him, confused by the random question.

"By the time I was fourteen I could shoot a pistol and do some serious damage with a knife. Age and size are no excuse. I think your brother's keeping you weak to keep you under his control."

Mokuba shook his head. "He just wants me to have a normal childhood."

"This is normal?" Alistair gestured to their surroundings.

"I mean," Mokuba corrected himself, "he doesn't want me to need to know how to shoot a gun or be tough."

"But you do need to, and he knows it."

Mokuba licked his lips uncomfortably. "I don't know…"

"I could teach you if you want."

"Teach me what? I don't really want to shoot a gun."

"No, not that. Well, I mean, I could, but I just meant that I could teach you how to fight. I don't know any fancy techniques, but I was always able to take care of myself. If you can defend yourself there's no reason why you shouldn't be allowed a little more freedom. Even your brother can't argue with that. And if he doesn't want you to fight, I can teach you to shoot. But really, you just need to learn to stand up for yourself. You make yourself look weak, so he sees you as someone who needs to be protected even though you're not a little kid anymore."

"Maybe you're right," Mokuba murmured. "Would you really teach me to fight?"

"It's the least I can do." He really liked Mokuba even though he blindly defended his brother. Although even that Alistair could understand; as an older sibling, he knew how much Mikey had unconditionally looked up to him. It was that blind devotion that had made him listen to his brother and get in the tank even though he was scared and hadn't wanted to. Alistair forced himself not to think about it. "If you want we can start right now; I know you guys have a gym." Mokuba's eyes shone with excitement, but then he yawned so widely Alistair heard his jaw pop.

"I'm kind of sleepy," Mokuba admitted. "Jet lag. Aren't you tired?"

"No. I'm used to sleeping on weird schedules. I don't usually have a 'full night's sleep;' I just take naps throughout the day. I'll probably sleep for a couple of hours later."

"Oh. Well, you're welcome to stay and play with some of the stuff as long as you wear headphones and keep the door to my room closed to block out the light."

"No, thank you. I think I'll just go back to my room."

"Ok, well I'll see you at breakfast. I don't know if Seto mentioned, but I usually eat at around nine. If you're up before that, Seto eats at seven." He yawned again.

"Even if I'm up, I'll wait and eat with you." He would rather go hungry than have to suffer through a meal with Kaiba.

Alistair bade Mokuba goodnight before walking back towards his room. He almost bumped right into Kaiba whose bedroom he had to pass in order to get there. Kaiba had decided for whatever reason to fling the door open and if it hadn't been for Alistair's quick reflexes he would have been hit squarely in the face.

"Watch what you're doing," Alistair snapped. "You could have broken my nose!"

"What are you doing lurking outside my door?" Seto asked unapologetically, absentmindedly straightening his black turtleneck. "Trying to catch me with my pants down?"

"You wish. I wasn't lurking; Mokuba was showing me the game room."

"Where is he?"

"He went to bed because he was feeling jet-lagged."

"Hmph. He's never going to get back on a normal sleep schedule that way. He hasn't learned," Seto said more to himself than to Alistair. "What are you still doing here? Do you not know the way back?" He smirked at the thought of having to give the former DOMA employee directions around the house.

"I'm just waiting for you to get out of my way." Alistair could practically hear Kaiba's internal struggle between not wanting to do what he said and wanting him to go away.

"There should be a please in there somewhere, but I wouldn't expect someone of your background to know that." He smirked again and stepped aside. Insulted, Alistair felt his fists ball up, but forced himself to stay cool.

"I'd say thank you, but I wouldn't expect someone of your background to know what that means." He saw Kaiba's eyes narrow, but before he could retort, Alistair stepped around him, the trench coat he was still wearing whacking into Kaiba's leg. A highly skilled Duel Monsters player he might not be, but Alistair's aptitude for verbal sparring was not lost on Seto who had never met anyone quick-witted enough to go up against him before. Most people, Joey Wheeler being a prime example, were quickly reduced to gibbering and physically lashing out, but Alistair, while clearly angry, hadn't. In a depraved sort of way the thought excited him; finally a worthy opponent.

Back in his room (though he didn't really consider it 'his'), Alistair took his jacket off, hung it over the back of the desk chair he'd been provided with and proceeded to empty the pockets and take stock of his things. As he pulled each item out, he set it on the heavy wooden desk that accompanied the chair.

He had the paper Kaiba'd given him, the Dino Dude action figure, a small pair of scissors he mainly used for cutting his hair, a spool of black thread and a needle, a black penknife, the keys to his motorcycle, a pair of sunglasses, a small amount of money, and the cell phone he'd used to keep in contact with Raphael and Valon that was now dead; the charger was back at DOMA's headquarters in San Francisco, rendering the phone useless. And that was it, everything he owned. He was looking back over the items when he realized what was missing: his duel disk and deck. He had no idea what might have happened to them, but shrugged it off; he hadn't been very attached to them anyway. The only two things he had that he cared about were his brother's toy and the pocket-knife which had belonged to his father. Other than that, he had little to no attachment to material things.

He had nothing better to do than check out the rest of the room before taking a shower, so he wandered across the floor and opened the door to the bathroom, flicking the light on. The enormous bathroom featured a Jacuzzi-sized sunken bathtub along one wall and a shower with frosted plate-glass sliding doors on the other. The sink was white porcelain with silver accents, and the floor, black and white checkered tile. The frame of the mirror above the sink was a glossy black to match the floor and inlaid with an intricate silver design. On the wall above the bathtub was a painting of a close-up of a red rose, the color popping in the otherwise plain room.

No one had bothered to mention it, but Alistair knew from the blueprints that this was no guest room, but the master bedroom, and he would have found it strange that Kaiba hadn't claimed the room for himself had he not known as much about the Kaiba family as he did. The room had been Gozaburo's, and given what he knew of Kaiba's relationship with his adopted father, he wasn't surprised that it had stayed vacant. The thought that he was going to be living in a dead man's room didn't bother Alistair; he'd experienced too much to be put off by death.

He left the bathroom and wandered into the closet. The first thing he noticed besides that it was made up of a ridiculous amount of cubbies, was his duel disk sitting on an empty shelf, deck still intact. Apparently someone had gotten it after all. There wasn't anything of interest other than that, so he turned the light off and went back to the main part of the apartment. Sinking into a black leather couch situated in front of a glass coffee table, Alistair tried to sort out the chaos his life had become.

Everything had happened so fast. The last seven years of his life had been leading up to his duel with Kaiba and now that it was all over he had no idea what to do next. And what had actually happened? He very much doubted that Kaiba had single handedly defeated both Dartz and the Great Leviathan; he must have had help, presumably from the Pharaoh which meant that Raphael had been defeated as well. And what of Valon? Had he beaten Joey Wheeler or lost? What happened to them once Dartz was defeated? They had by no means been friends, but they'd been in his life longer than most people.

Another thought struck him: what day was it? How long had he been out of it? It must not have been long because his muscles hadn't atrophied, though he flexed just to be sure.

And now here he was, sitting in Kaiba's dead step-father's bedroom, about to be put on the fast track to becoming a pilot for Kaiba Corp. The irony in that wasn't lost on him. He had every intention of turning down Kaiba's offer; after all, he detested everything the company stood for: capitalism, greed, and self-indulgence. As soon as he had the license he intended to seek employment with another group like Dartz's; one that stood for making the world a better place. In the meantime, he planned to take advantage of everything living with Kaiba had to offer, starting with helping Mokuba become more independent. Kaiba was a lost cause, but Mokuba's eyes, he felt, could still be opened. Without the overbearing shadow of his brother smothering him, Alistair believed Mokuba might be able to use his money and influence for good. Maybe they could even work together.