Disclaimer: I am only borrowing these guys for my own amusement; I don't own them. #Truth #Facts

The will to win, the spark within

The strength within the hearts of men

The drive to press, to strive for best, to rise

You've just arrived

The quest is driven through

Passion

~Passion, Blackalicious

Chapter 8

Since coming to the Kaiba estate, Alistair had seen Kaiba only a handful of times. Nonetheless, he could sense that Kaiba was now going out of his way to avoid him. Initially, this had left him feeling relieved and even rather smug: he alone had managed to rattle Seto Kaiba. But after a fortnight had elapsed, he grew restless. Especially at night. Try as he might to remind himself of all the loathsome aspects of Kaiba's character, his traitorous right hand always found its way under the waistband of his underwear.

For his part, Seto was more or less able to push the matter to the back of his mind. Stocks began to rise when the kick-off of the American Duel Monsters Nationals brought with it no rogue hologram sightings. Tickets to the finals had sold out within minutes, prompting PR to encourage Seto to put in an appearance, which he'd ultimately agreed to. There was nothing particularly appealing to him about watching Rebecca Hawthorne trounce 'Bandit' Keith Howard, but at least it would give him an excuse to ignore the rest of the world for an hour or so.

The success of the American Nationals had conveniently happened concurrently with someone 'leaking' a teaser for Kaiba Corporation's upcoming VR adventure game, the graphics of which had left even non-duelists buzzing with excitement and given the major gaming journalists plenty to talk about. The hype had resulted in PR pressing Seto to give an interview on the Dueling Network. Seto had reluctantly agreed so long as he wasn't asked about the hologram monster scare. It turned out to be a naive misplay on his part.

At first, the interview had been relatively standard. Seto had been seated at a low coffee table on a plush couch alongside two of the Dueling Network's annoyingly perky hosts between whom there existed an ambiguous tension. After getting through the pleasantries and standard questions, the man had predictably asked about the VR teaser and if a release date had been set before transitioning smoothly to the American Nationals.

"Any favorites?" he'd asked, settling in comfortably, his eyes narrowed into a slight squint in demonstrative attentiveness.

Seto had given his analysis, which more or less mirrored official predictions that it would come down to Rebecca Hawkins and 'Bandit' Keith Howard in the finals, but that Rebecca would win.

Being asked his expert opinion, even regarding so droll a match-up, had lulled Seto into a false sense of security, so when the other host, who'd done little more than giggle at anything remotely funny either he or the other host had said, steered the interview suddenly towards the latest KC advertisement for Kaiba Air, he'd thought little of it.

"KC has really become the Domino brand in the last few years," she'd begun. "And after that iconic blimp during the Battle City semi-finals, we've all enjoyed the second-hand glory Kaiba Air provides. Is it just a coincidence that the interior design is so similar?"

Seto had honestly never cared enough to pay attention given that he had little direct involvement with the airline, but he supposed it had been on purpose, and said as much. He was slightly confused about why the girl had even bothered bringing it up until her follow-up question made it horrifyingly clear.

"Speaking of KC Air," she paused to flick a dark strand of hair behind her ear. "You and Mai Valentine sure looked cozy in the behind the scenes footage-anything the girls need to be worried about?" She was referring, of course, to the fact that both duelists had starred in the ad.

Knowing that she'd probably been waiting the entire interview to ask the question made Seto want to breathe fire and flip the coffee table, but though he managed to keep his anger inside, the desire must have shown in his eyes because he saw her conspiratorial smile falter. "No," he responded crisply. "We were very happy to have Miss Valentine team up with us, and are planning further collaborations in the future, but her relationship to me is , I assure you, strictly business." It was extremely generous. In fact, Seto was fairly certain that off-set he and the Valentine woman hadn't exchanged so much as a glance, let alone even stood close enough to justify the hostess' insinuation, which he knew meant she had concocted the story as a flimsy alibi for delving into his personal life.

The conversation made him deeply regret having agreed to a cameo in the ad in the first place since the tone had indeed been rather suggestive. After a montage of Mai basking in the airline's first class benefits, she'd dropped her lipstick on the ground and stooped to pick it up only to realize after they'd reached for it at the same time, that the person sitting behind her was none other than Seto Kaiba. This had been followed by a close-up of their prolonged eye-contact before cutting to a scene in which Mai relaxed on the set of a Duel Disk ad. "That's why I always fly Kaiba Air," she told the camera as around her two young women curled her long blonde hair. "You never know who you might run into."

"Ah, ok," the hostess said without missing a beat, and forcing Seto to sharpen his vigilance when he saw the 'gotcha' gleam in her eye. "Are you seeing anyone currently?"

Even more annoyed than before, Seto was nonetheless forced to answer. God forbid he contribute to the rumor by declining to comment. With his fingernails digging so hard into his leg his knuckles had turned white, he spat out the word 'No,' with enough firmness to leave no doubts and a finality that dared dispute.

Luckily for everyone involved, the other host had the tact to quickly change the subject. "Well, of course, with so much going on, you must be pretty busy these days. Speaking of which, can we expect to see you competing again any time soon?"

But nothing else mattered. The damage had been done. For the next week, rumours that Seto Kaiba and Mai Valentine were sleeping together swirled around every major and countless minor tabloid news sites, and every existing image in which the two had existed in the same room was pulled apart. The only element of the situation that Seto found any pleasure in was imagining that if he listened hard enough, he could hear Joey Wheeler braying in jealousy. "And there's no such thing as bad press, right?" Mokuba had managed to ask with a straight face.

The only person who didn't seem to have anything to say on the matter was Alistair. Given that he'd been avoiding him since 'the incident' Seto shouldn't have even noticed. But he'd expected Alistair to nevertheless find some way to dig into him about it. He was annoyed to find that Alistair's seeming indifference was far more insulting than anything he possibly could have said. Unable to deny that Alistair's refusal to goad him had caused 'the incident' to circle back around on the carousel of important things he shuffled through over the day, Seto chose to cease freezing him out and cornered him one night when Alistair was leaving Mokuba's game room.

"Do you have something to say to me?" Seto demanded after blocking Alistair's path by standing squarely in the middle of the hallway.

Alistair, who'd been doing his best to follow Kaiba's lead by avoiding him, was startled to find himself so obviously sought out.

"No," he responded slowly, his eyes trained on Kaiba's slippered foot. "Everything's fine. Why?"

"Don't play coy: I know you've been laughing at me. So go ahead." Here Seto paused to cross his arms. "Give me your best shot."

After working out what Kaiba was talking about, Alistair felt a pleasurable jolt of adrenaline in his stomach even though he knew he was reading too much into what was clearly nothing more than a particularly immature and paranoid incarnation of Kaiba's delusion that he was always at the forefront of everyone else's thoughts. "I really don't care," Alistair answered dishonestly. "Anyone with half a brain knows you aren't sleeping with her, but that you probably could be if you wanted to, so there isn't much to make fun of."

Against his will, Seto felt the corners of his mouth twitch downwards, deepening his frown. "You really have nothing to say? Nothing at all?"

Alistair quirked an eyebrow inquisitively. "Do you want me to have something to say?" This time he was positive he wasn't just imagining the tension in the moments that followed.

Realizing he was trapped, Seto could do little more than mutter "of course not," before turning on his heel and escaping back to his bedroom and quickly shutting the door.

The instant the latch clicked, Seto closed his eyes and cringed as the full effect of the flow of the conversation hit him. What had even been the point of that interaction? To provoke Alistair into teasing him? For what purpose? He chastised himself for being so uncharacteristically impetuous a la Joey Wheeler.

With his twentieth birthday only months away, Seto finally found himself forced to acknowledge what the press had said all along: he really was just a teenager after all.

As he blow-dried his hair and pulled on his clothes an hour later, after his customary swim, Seto tried to kid himself into believing he was going to go to his home office, even going so far as to map out a mental schedule for an hour's worth of work. He kidded himself into being surprised when his feet led him past his office to the door of his step-father's room. Except he wasn't thinking about his step-father. For the first time, his reluctance to enter the room had nothing to do with Gozaburo at all. I wanted to. The thrill ran through him afresh. He wasn't entirely sure what would happen when (when? When had he become so certain?) he opened the door, but he was almost ludicrously eager to find out. He needed to ascertain what Alistair was up to, and this was the easiest means of accessing that information.

It was going on midnight when Alistair heard the door creaking open. He didn't have to look up from his perch on the bed to know who it was. After what had happened earlier, a part of him had expected (and hoped for) as much. He'd resorted to using the desk lamp to read by, too lazy to get out of bed to turn the overhead light on. Nonetheless, Alistair could make out Kaiba's shadowy silhouette filling the door frame. Without taking his eyes off Kaiba, Alistair marked his page with one of his Duel Monsters cards, placed A Tale of Two Cities on the desk, and stood up. Behind him, Sewell flicked her tail indignantly for having been disturbed before padding to the other, more stable half of the bed.

Seto crossed the room so that he and Alistair were less than a foot apart. This was a bad idea, he knew, especially because it was Alistair. But Alistair was available. More to the point: Alistair was what he wanted. To gather information from, he reminded himself. And Seto had gone to far greater lengths than this in the past to get what he wanted, had he not?

As with chess and Duel Monsters, Seto felt compelled to make the first move. Even now when he felt less sure of himself than he'd ever felt in his life, he refused to show any measure of hesitation. Hesitating was something a Kaiba simply did not do.

Silky hair against his face, warm breath on his cheek, Alistair's body against his. And then his mouth was on Alistair's mouth. His hands were on Alistair's back, Alistair's hands were in his hair. And they were twined so closely together that Seto could feel Alistair's ribs against his chest.

Kissing wasn't anything like Alistair'd expected. It was sloppier. Harder. Of course he couldn't overlook the fact that it was the first time he'd truly kissed someone. Kaiba too as far as he knew-and he had reason to believe he did. Maybe it was a skill you refined over time. But even though it was ostensibly nothing more than the crashing of lips and the exchanging of saliva while occasionally bumping teeth, it was the most pleasurable thing he'd ever experienced. The feeling of Kaiba's mouth against his and the pressure of his hands on his back were magnified to such a degree of intensity that Alistair wondered if his grip on Kaiba wasn't the only thing keeping him upright. He also wondered if Kaiba knew what he was doing.

Seto did not know what he was doing. Now that he was actually kissing Alistair, he realized the next steps were a complete mystery to him. Was he just supposed to stop now and leave? But somehow they'd fallen onto the bed while he'd been thinking and his mouth had found the hollow of Alistair's neck, and then his shoulder, and Alistair was panting, sighing, bucking against him, his fingernails digging into his shoulder blades.

Sissy. The voice was his step-father's. Seto jerked backwards as though Gozaburo were actually in the room. He realized he was breathing hard, noticed Alistair's brow-creased confusion-noticed too how appealing the redhead looked sprawled so beautifully beneath him, his vivid hair flayed across even redder sheets. Sissy.

Kaiba silently stood up, his face artfully blank, and without any kind of explanation, he abruptly left the room, Alistair staring inquisitively after him, disappointed, but not surprised that they hadn't done more. Not that he could really conceptualize what the 'more' would have been. Just that he wanted it and Kaiba wasn't giving it to him for whatever reason.

He doesn't trust me, he reasoned, rolling over. Well fine, because I don't trust him either. But what, really, did trust have to do with it? Surely trust and lust weren't mutually exclusive. Surely he was allowed to hate Kaiba and still want to be pinned beneath him. He rolled over again, one hand now resting on his inner thigh.

Surely.

Seto stalked back to his room three doors over and paced back and forth across the plush carpet as he had several weeks before.

It was infuriating how much sway Gozaburo still had over him. It had been over six years since his step-father's death and still Seto couldn't escape, not when he was asleep, nor when he was awake apparently. This has nothing to do with him, Seto told himself firmly. Who cares what he'd think of me? He's dead. Really dead. No more computer programs to hide in-gone. With great mental effort, he shoved his step-father aside.

The pristine plane of his bed loomed and he pivoted and paced back towards his closet. He couldn't ignore that a boundary had been crossed with no hopes of it ever being truly put back in place. As he thought it, he realized he could actually still smell Alistair on him: a sort of earthy, sweaty smell that ought to have been repulsive. He found himself focusing on it for a time before he recalled that he had far more important things to think about. He started up pacing again.

What had he learned? He'd learned that Alistair's skin was surprisingly soft. He'd learned that Alistair fit rather well beneath him. And mostly interestingly, he'd learned that he himself was able to get a thrill out of something other than Duel Monsters.

What he hadn't been able to determine, was what Alistair was up to. He needed more information. Information best gained through more such encounters. His stomach flip-flopped at the thought. He supposed that as long as he didn't let things get out of hand, there was no harm in that.

And so a routine was grounded. Seto began coming home a half an hour earlier, going first to Alistair's room (which he was coming to associate with his step-father less and less), then swimming off the adrenaline and contemplating if he'd gleaned any insight into Alistair's plan, then going to bed.

Alistair had surprisingly little trouble adjusting to the new twist in the saga of his life. In some ways, he felt that fate had had a hand in it. It was beautifully circular. Kaiba had been the source of his angst and anger for so long, it couldn't possibly be a coincidence that it was Kaiba now smoothing his feathers. There was only one thing about it that he found odd. Like a windup doll, Kaiba seemed to have an internal timer which caused his engagement in their encounters to gradually slow before ceasing completely. It was annoying and intriguing, and more than anything, Alistair wanted to know how to wind him back up again, but was maddeningly unable to find the key.