"I built a home and wait for someone to tear it down

Then pack it up in boxes, head for the next town running.

I've got no roots, but my home was never on the ground."

~No Roots Live, Alice Merton

-Chapter 16-

Let's Have a Kiki

Alistair was certain that Kaiba hadn't intended for 'if I feel like it' to become something of an inside joke between them, but after three weeks of him saying it after their hour at the pool, he had to wonder if on some level it wasn't a bit tongue in cheek. Either that, or Kaiba actually wanted the escape hatch, which was also plausible.

By the end of the first week, the water wasn't nearly as frightening, and Alistair was beginning to understand why people might find swimming enjoyable, though he would never call it relaxing. Unfortunately, Kaiba's teaching skills showed no signs of improvement, for which he made no apologies.

"You're not paying me to do this," he reminded Alistair when the latter complained about his instructor's often harsh criticism.

"Which I guess you think gives you license to be a dick," Alistair had replied huffily, pushing his unpleasantly wet hair out of his eyes.

Seto shrugged in response, his eyebrow quirking slightly and a small smirk playing around his mouth. He put his arms up just in time to avoid getting hit in the face by the water Alistair shoved in his direction.

"You realize how childish that is, don't you?"

"Oh, shut up." But there was no real malice in it.

Initially, Seto had missed having the pool to himself and getting to unwind by swimming laps after work. And sometimes he stayed after Alistair had gone, but often he found something just as relaxing in the company of his house guest.

There existed for him a lingering fascination where Alistair was concerned. His first impression had been of a gullible victim of arrested development whose immature notions of good and evil were frankly laughable. It became clear over the months that this assessment held elements of truth, but beneath these seemingly damning shortcomings lay a paradoxical gift of perception. He always seemed to know how he was feeling as though a barometer of his emotions, visible only to Alistair, hung beside him. It was unsettling but incredibly useful as Alistair had seemingly decided to go out of his way to ensure they got along.

Suspicion still lurked at the back of his mind (fair, seeing as he tried to kill me), but as the days and weeks dragged on he could see nothing to justify it. Alistair, true to his word, never mentioned what he'd seen in the drawing room, nor did he pry into what had led Seto there. Nor did he seem to have any plans whatsoever; or none that he chose to discuss, and Seto wondered what Alistair was going to do once he left. His offer that Alistair work as a KC pilot still stood, but the redhead had never officially accepted leaving Seto wondering if he had other ideas. Several times he'd found himself on the verge of asking, but hadn't.

Alistair had always looked down his nose on Valon and Raphael for using booze as a numbing agent, but by the end of the summer, he'd come to understand why they'd often turned to it. He'd started having unsettling dreams in which was always running around dark, labyrinthine settings searching for someone, sometimes his brother, sometimes his mother, and sometimes he was unsure if he was looking for someone or running away. Alcohol, for all its evils, washed his mind of them, and so he basked in the blessedness of uninterrupted, restful sleep. He knew better than to settle into being a lonely drunk, alone in his room, though which meant he'd had to find a more socially acceptable means of getting his fix.

It had never been his intention to entrench himself so deeply into Darren's friend group, but by the end of August, he had become a regular fixture at their gatherings.

Darren and Britney's apartment acted as a kind of halfway house and home base for a large portion of Domino U's queer student body, in town over the summer for classes or internships. At first, many of their discussions of student life and politics had left him nodding along, raising his can of beer to his lips when anyone seemed on the verge of asking his opinion. But after a while, he discovered that through their annotated audiobook version, he had come to understand most of what they were talking about down to the gossip they were prone to engaging in about each other. And in the freedom of the summer there always seemed to be time for a booze-fueled kiki.

A kiki, by Darren's definition, seemed to be a gathering of his best friends, organized for the purpose of discussing one of three things: the various niches of academia they inhabited, politics, or pop culture. Sometimes a mix of all three. As long as the handle of vodka or cans of beer held out, these discussions could last until late in the night.

When Alistair arrived at the apartment and let himself in using the keycode that was part of the Darren Wiley friendship package, he was unsurprised to hear shrieking laughter before he'd even opened the door.

In addition to his roommate, Britney, the core of Darren's 'squad' consisted of three members. Milena was, as decided by everyone else, the resident 'hot girl'. He'd never seen her looking less than perfectly put-together, no matter what time of night it was or what they'd been doing. Red lipstick seemed to permanently pigment her lips, and thick arched eyebrows set above large dark eyes gave her a sultry appearance attractively offset by her dry sense of humor.

Any late night political discussion was usually sparked by Henry, who Alistair had never seen without his phone in his hand. Alistair actually wasn't sure what to make of Henry whose obsession with following the news seemed oddly mismatched with his role on campus as a theater actor and costume designer.

Rounding out the group was Christian. Easily the most flamboyant, Christian sported a dramatic and ever-expanding range of hair colors in various styles that often clashed with his loose, floral shirts. That Boy George and David Bowie were his style icons was almost too on the nose not to feel contrived.

It was Christian's cackling that he could hear through the door. He entered the apartment, kicked off his shoes, and gave a vague, general greeting. He could tell the moment he sat down beside Darren on the sofa that it was a kiki night. 90s pop music blasted from Britney's computer speakers and a handle of cheap vodka and several two liters of soda acted as the coffee table centerpiece.

The group had thrown themselves haphazardly around the room, Milena sharing a wobbegong bean bag chair with Henry, the majority of her body lying on the floor next to her empty cup, and Britney and Darren lounged on the sofa. Christian, seemingly unable to sit still, was perched precariously at the edge of the coffee table, one hand curled loosely around a plastic cup and the other holding his cell phone.

"You might want to get some before we completely smash it," Darren said hospitably to Alistair, pointing at the handle with his own half-finished drink.

Alistair thanked him and leaned across to the table to tease a fresh cup off a largely depleted stack and inexpertly mixed the vodka and soda. He grimaced at the first mouthful, but knew after several more the disgust would fade.

In the interim, Christian had doubled over with laughter, long bright bangs falling into his eyes like the bizarre plumage of a parrot with its feathers on backwards.

"What are you laughing about?" Alistair asked with insincere curiosity.

"Daisy made a new post on PictureThis," Christian explained through his giggles.

Daisy, who Alistair was half-convinced was a myth rather than a real person, was a common target for jokes, and Christian in particular seemed to derive pleasure from mocking the often pseudo-intellectual captions of her PictureThis posts.

The picture in question was of Daisy sitting in what looked like a lecture hall. Her long pale hair had been pulled into two braids and she had a pen propped against her pillowy lips as though deep in concentration. The caption read: "we are the world we create."

Vapid perhaps, but not worthy of even cracking a smile over in Alistair's opinion, though he did so obligingly as Christian tilted his phone away again.

He sipped his drink as he took in the usual rounds of anecdotes about people he only knew by name, careful to laugh in all the right places as he surreptitiously refilled his cup two more times.

When the daily rehash finally came to an end, Darren unexpectedly got up from the couch .

"So, I realized today I had a ton of printing credit left over and I thought I'd put it towards the beautification of the living room. You'll gag when I show you!" He disappeared into his bedroom and immediately had his seat stolen by Milena. The powerfully floral scent of her perfume, already notable in any room she occupied, seemed to become infused unpleasantly with his already questionable mixed drink, making it a struggle to choke down. He thought it might be rude to move far enough away to avoid tasting her perfume, though, so he forced himself to chug the rest.

"What do we think?" Darren asked, returning from his room and brandishing what appeared to be a life-size blow-up of Kaiba's first PictureThis photo.

"Oh my god, yas!" Christian's stamp of approval was backed up by the rest of the group. "Can I just?" he joined Darren and stood against the paper so his back was pressed to poster-Kaiba's chest. "Maybe you'd like to let me take this to your room for a while?" he joked and the others laughed.

"Alistair, your face," Britney giggled suddenly and Alistair quickly closed his mouth and looked away.

"Oh!" Christian added teasingly. "Maybe you need this more than I do!"

"No! It's not that!" Alistair protested as he felt himself starting to flush. "I...it..."

"You've never seen that picture before? Who are you?" Milena demanded lightly. "I'm a lesbian and even I've forced myself to look a few times."

"'Forced,' yeah right," Darren chided her. "You can't tell me you wouldn't peg Seto Kaiba if you had the chance."

This comment sent them off on a tangent about whether or not Kaiba would be a top or a bottom and what they'd all do if they had the opportunity to be his sugar baby.

Knowing how much Kaiba hated that picture and watching a roomful of people talk about him like that made Alistair increasingly uncomfortable the longer it went on.

"Hey, guys," he said after the conversation had continued for almost ten minutes. "Maybe we could talk about something else. This is stupid." It was the first time he'd ever given a contrary opinion about anything the others talked about, and in their drunkenness, they found it funny.

"You feeling left out?" Darren asked with a grin. "What would you do with all that money?"

Somehow, that was the last straw. "You know, you guys are always talking about how it's wrong to objectify people, but look at what you're doing! Why is it ok to do it to him?" He tilted his chin briefly towards the poster, which Darren had tacked to the wall above the couch.

Instead of feeling ashamed and dropping it as Alistair had expected, the group largely seemed to take offence.

"You can't possibly think," Christian began, for once sounding serious, "that catcalling women on the street is the same as talking about fucking a celebrity none of us will ever even meet."

"Yeah, I do actually," Alistair replied firmly, setting his cup on the table. It was a stupid argument, he knew that, but he was unable to stop himself from pressing on now that he'd started.

The laughter left everyone's faces as the unexpected tension started to mount.

"Guys, let's just chill," Henry said, detaching himself from his phone and attempting to lightly pull Christian down onto the beanbag with him, but Christian yanked his arm away.

"Oh, ok, I see, so do you also think that objectifying male celebrities who post half-naked pictures of themselves on PictureThis leads to sexual assault? Because that's what happens to women whether they've posted sexual pictures of themselves or not."

"That isn't what I'm talking about," Alistair snapped. "Look: you've said that you hate it when people reduce women to their bodies, and so now I'm saying that I don't like doing that about anybody, so can we just talk about something else?"

"Seriously, guys," Britney agreed tentatively, inching towards her laptop to presumably turn the volume up and put everyone back in a partying mood.

But for whatever reason, Christian too had decided not to let it go.

"Ok," he said with a dramatic, sweeping gesture that caused the plastic baubles on his earrings to jangle together. "You want to talk about something else? What about the fact that you think you're too good for us?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Alistair demanded hotly, his hackles raised once more. He found himself standing up, and sensed the room's collective wince when they realized the argument wasn't going to be extinguished so easily.

"We're just hanging out and having a good time, and you're sitting over there with your fucking moral superiority. Like, who the hell cares about Seto Kaiba's feelings? Honestly, I would have expected that someone like you would be worried about more important things." Christian crossed his arms, his slightly bloodshot eyes daring Alistair to rebut.

Milena and Darren gasped, and for a moment, the only other sound in the room was Britney Spears's repetitive request to 'hit me baby one more time.'

"Someone like me?" Alistair spat, now so angry that each word was a tremendous effort. He could feel his nails biting into his trembling palms and he was dimly aware of the tightness of his muscles.

"Christian," Henry cut in sharply, "that's really n-."

"Yeah, someone like you," Christian said over him, his cheeks flushed scarlet with vodka. "We know you've probably seen some really messed up shit, alright? Doesn't mean you get to be all 'holier than thou' especially since you're obviously doing well enough for yourself now to afford those Balmain jeans. Oh, I dare you to hit me." While he'd been talking, Alistair had gotten close enough that they were standing almost nose to nose and for a moment, the stone on his necklace seemed to glimmer a bright turquoise.

"How dare you imply," Alistair breathed through clenched teeth, "that I would feel superior because of what I've been through. I've seen kids get shot in the street because they stayed out past curfew and heard people screaming while they watched their houses burn. And you think I think of that as a trump card I can hold over you to win some petty argument? Fuck you."

Fighting against his instinct to sink his fist into the side of Christian's face, Alistair shoved past him, ignoring Darren's weak request that he stop. The unexpected bullseye Christian had found felt like it was soaking his self-image in bloody disillusionment and he knew he couldn't stay in the apartment a moment longer than he had to.

He yanked his coat off a hook by the door and left without looking back to see if the others had unfrozen.

As he stomped towards the elevator, Alistair wasn't sure if he wanted to kick the wall or cry. He never should have let Mokuba buy clothes for him. He should have insisted on somehow paying his own way. Shouldn't have agreed to being kept by the Kaibas like a glorified pet in the first place.

He jabbed the down button on the elevator and rested his forehead against the wall. It had been stupid trying to be friends with them. He should have known months ago that they had never really accepted him. He'd only been kept around because he'd hooked up with their leader and they probably assumed he still was.

The elevator dinged and the doors slid open, and he became aware that he didn't know where he wanted to go. He trusted himself to drive, but drive where? Back to the Kaiba mansion? No. Get a motel room? But with whose money? Kaiba's? He snickered humorlessly. What a great situation he'd gotten himself into. It had been almost funny listening to them talk about what they'd do if they had access to Kaiba's fortune: go on lavish vacations, buy a private island, bathe in gold, hire a personal chef. But here he was, in possession of Mokuba Kaiba's debit card, and he couldn't even bring himself to book a room at a one star motel.

After stepping off the elevator into the lobby, he was able to swallow his anger enough to consider his options, though he came up unsatisfied.

Not wanting to risk one of them chasing him down, Alistair finally just left the building and began wandering aimlessly up the sidewalk, his anger draining out with each step, replaced instead by something heavy and impassive.

For the most part, the city was off the streets, either asleep or up partying for the last weekend before the start of the fall semester. It was colder than he'd expected, almost too cold for the mosquitoes, though he saw one hopeful bat flit between two tortured trees, butchered by young couples, and desecrated by careless dog walkers.

Maybe he should just drive back to the house. What was one more night? But his feet carried him past the parking garage and he turned absently in a dizzying series of lefts and rights. Occasionally, a car drove past and Alistair wondered where anyone could be going so late at night. Probably the hospital, he thought morbidly.

Unsurprisingly, almost everything was closed for the night. The corner liquor store, surely teeming with customers only hours before, stood dark and silent. In accordance with the unspoken law, it was an ugly, beige building that seemed unsure of what shape it wanted to be, one end curved around the street, another tapering off jaggedly like the end of a block of cheese that had been cut carelessly into. Nestled against its run-down side was a nondescript burger joint called Barbara's Burgers and BBQ that seemed at one time to have been painted a bright blue. A yellowing sign in the window proclaimed it to be the recipient of the 2008 'best burger in town' award, an accolade apparently given out annually by the Domino Times.

The sign made Alistair frown. The owner had probably been so proud of that recognition at the time. He imagined a Trudy-like woman beaming as she taped the paper to the window. He wondered how much time she'd spent straightening it and changing the height so that every passerby would notice it. Now, the edges were curling and the letters had faded to gray.

Eventually, Alistair chanced upon an all-night coffee shop, the number '24' lit up above the door in neon pink.

He was relieved to discover he would be the only one there, able to drink a coffee in peace while he figured out what to do. When he approached the counter, he realized that the dumpy middle-aged barista was wearing a Battle City t-shirt under his apron. It almost made Alistair laugh.

"Can I just get a coffee? For here," he clarified, his eyes on a sticker on the cash register that said 'Brewtiful.'

"You're not thinking of robbing me, are ya?" the barista asked, his tone somewhere between joking and serious.

"No! Of course not." Alistair quickly reached for his wallet and extricated the correct change.

"You're from across the border, aren't ya?" the man inquired much more conversationally as he placed the cash in the till. Alistair nodded curtly, hoping that would be the end of it.

"Thought so," the barista said as though it was only through his keen sense of observation that this fact had been uncovered. "I can tell by your eyes. You get people dying their hair that color every now and again, but you can't buy those eyes."

"I guess not."

The coffee machine began to gurgle and whine, and the barista was momentarily distracted as he set about emptying the filter and pouring the steaming liquid into a ceramic mug which he carefully placed in Alistair's hands.

"There you go."

"Thanks." Alistair intended to sit as far away from the counter as possible in case there was any doubt that he wanted to be left alone. Before he could turn around, however, it seemed the barista was determined to make one more stab at conversation, bored no doubt after hours of quietly waiting for someone to walk in.

"You know, I always wondered if it was true about the girls you got over there." He sounded almost conspiratorial though Alistair had no idea why.

"They exist," he replied uncertainty, and the man laughed.

"So I've heard. No, no, I mean, in bed. You always hear about how you haven't had sex until you've played with fire."

The expression gave Alistair pause, but he couldn't think of where he'd heard it before.

"I wouldn't know," he replied honestly and instantly regretted it. He could sense that he was being scrutinized, and was held in place by it.

"No, of course you wouldn't." The barista's tone had gone cool. He turned his back on his customer and began clearing out the inside of the coffee pot.

Unnerved, Alistair followed his initial instinct to sit by the door and forced himself to chug the scalding coffee before setting the mug on the table, tossing down a tip, and slipping back into the night, his stomach lurching uncomfortably with its mixed contents of alcohol and caffeine.

A few buildings down, he caught his reflection in a storefront window, illuminated by a nearby street lamp. His own pale gray eyes looked back at him and for the first time, he saw himself the way everyone else had always seen him: as a foreigner. That's what Christian had really been saying; that he shouldn't be allowed to have nice things. He should be hollow-eyed and downtrodden, and oh so thankful to be there so that his life could finally begin. Except, apparently, he wasn't really ever supposed to get past the first part.

Was that how Trudy saw him too? Mokuba? Kaiba? Some upstart foreigner who had no right to any emotion other than gratitude? Whose obligation was to dumbly agree with with everyone else said because he didn't and couldn't know any better? Did they think he was stupid because no one had offered an alternative after his school had been reduced to rubble by a stray shell?

He sat down on the gravely pavement, the brick wall rough against his back, and stared vacantly at the darkened windows of the grocery store across the street. What was he doing here? What was he ever going to be able to do here?

If he applied for asylum he was just going to go from being Kaiba's charity case to the government's. And that was if they even accepted his application. And then what? He'd have a pilot's license he couldn't use, and no credentials to his name other than a tenuous association with Paradias if Dartz had bothered keeping any records (which he doubted).

A laugh burbled up through unsmiling lips. And he'd thought that he might be able to go to college? He'd be lucky if he could get a job stocking shelves at a gas station.

Maybe I should go back. His life in Domino was feeling increasingly meaningless, so why not? Take his chances in his own country where maybe he could actually make something of himself. But even as he thought it, Alistair knew it wasn't any better of a plan. He had nowhere to go there, he knew no one, and moreover, it scared him.

Just the thought of breathing in ash and dust made his mouth dry. And in the silence of the night, he could hear the screaming, the sounds of stampeding feet, could feel the ache of running until being forced to heave up whatever you'd managed to eat onto your feet.

He couldn't go back.

His fingers curled into the cracks on the sidewalk around him before he wrapped his arms around his knees and buried his face against them, making no effort this time to stop himself from crying.