Disclaimer: Is this really still necessary? ~le sigh~ Fine. *puts hand on heart* I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh!
"No sorrow, no heartache
No bed names, no sex games
No they won't remember or ever be tender
No loving, no caring, no program for pairing."
~My Clone Sleeps Alone, Pat Benatar
Chapter 17
As they got ready for bed that night, Seto reviewed what he wanted to say to Alistair who at that very moment was struggling to undo his tie.
"I can't believe you actually like wearing stuff like this! How do you get it off?"
"Stop yanking it like that and just do this." Seto set his toothbrush down on the counter to assist his bedmate. He reached out and gently slid the knot down enough for Alistair to pull it over his head.
"Thanks," Alistair said, tossing it aside.
"Hey! That's a really expensive tie! But you're welcome." He returned to brushing his teeth. Soon thereafter, Alistair joined him.
"How long do you spend brushing your teeth?"
"I don't want to get a cavity."
"Have you ever?"
"Once when I was eight. I don't care to repeat the experience."
"Surprisingly I haven't ever had one I don't think. Even when we were on the run, I knew it was important to take care of my teeth. Toothpaste was one of the only things we carried with us."
"Hmm…"
"What are you thinking about? Whenever you do that I always feel like you're passing judgment or something."
"For all you know, I am." Seto finished brushing his teeth, replaced his toothbrush in its' holder, and stood leaning lightly against one of his bedposts, waiting for Alistair to finish in the bathroom.
Alistair could sense that there was something going on in Kaiba's head, he just wasn't sure what. He prepared himself for a lecture about having more or less invited Joshua to dinner. He hadn't meant to put Kaiba on the spot, he'd merely wanted to help the man who he could see needed it. He braced himself as he exited the bathroom to see Kaiba lolling against his bed.
"Where are you going to go when you leave here?" Seto asked unexpectedly.
"Huh?" The question was out of left field.
"You heard me."
"Maybe back home."
"Back home? Oh."
"I think going back would help me overcome my nightmares. I'm starting to think that's what they're trying to tell me, that it's time. It's something I have to do." Alistair lowered his eyes sadly. "For Mikey and for me." Seto understood and in that moment chose to abandon his preconceived arguments. Trying to reconcile with the past was something he could certainly appreciate.
"You'll need a plane."
"You offering?"
"Yeah."
"Thank you."
"When do you want it by?"
"I'm not sure. Soon enough that I won't overstay my welcome."
"How long will you need it for?" Alistair, no fool, could tell that Kaiba was trying to fish for how long he'd be gone. The notion that Kaiba would actually miss him caused a fluttery sensation in his stomach.
"I don't know yet. As long as it takes."
"Just keep me posted."
"I will." Seto gave him a small nod. They stared at each other momentarily before Alistair stepped forward. There didn't need to be anymore talking.
Normally when they did this, Seto was overly aggressive in an attempt to assure Alistair of his dominant masculinity, but after having assessed how many weak positions Alistair had already seen him in, he eased off a little bit and concentrated more on living in the moment, finding that he quite liked feeling Alistair's silky red hair on the side of his face, the fullness of his lips and the slight calluses on his fingers. Alistair in turn relished in the unexpected softness of Kaiba's skin, the solidness of his muscle, and the lines of his body and how he fit against them.
"I love you," he murmured between kisses, and in that moment he knew that it was true. By some twist of fate, he'd fallen in love with Seto Kaiba. The pronouncement caused Seto to freeze. He didn't know how to respond, what to do. He cared for Alistair, more than he'd ever cared about anyone besides Mokuba, but love? Trust him unconditionally with his heart and soul?
"I can't," he said, pushing Alistair away.
"Why?" Alistair demanded, hurt.
"I just can't."
"Why?"
"I'm not like you!" Seto barked. "I can't feel things the way you feel things, ok? I don't know how…"
"Don't be stupid," Alistair started. "You're not a robot." Suddenly his mind flashed back to the footage he'd watched of the Duelist Kingdom Tournament from several years before. In his duel against Yugi, Kaiba had essentially threatened suicide if Yugi didn't let him win, and then paused to taunt him for his humanity before turning on his heel for the castle and his chance to win his brother back from Pegasus. As he'd been leaving, one of Yugi's friends, a girl, had lectured Kaiba about his lack of compassion, saying he spent so much time with his computers that he forgot how to deal with real people. Maybe she'd had a point. He'd never seen Kaiba look so uncomfortable before. Could it be that Gozaburo's conditioning and his general lack of human interaction on any kind of extended level had stripped Kaiba of the ability to process emotions like love?
Very rarely did Seto find himself in situations that were beyond him and more often than not he was the cleverest out of whatever group of people he found himself amongst. He knew how to manipulate things and people, how to quickly analyze data and make decisions, but for all of his knowledge (which had its limits given that he'd only ever studied things that would be useful in the business and computer worlds), he found himself coming up completely blank with regards to how to understand his own feelings. Feelings and emotions had always ever been costumes he put on to fit any given situation. At business meetings he was polite, he asked questions about a potential partner's family and life, at work he was tough and ruled with an iron fist, to the public he was a cocky, coldhearted, but very talented duelist and businessman, to Mokuba he was a pillar of strength and confidence, to Alistair…he didn't know. He was never sure, least of all now, what emotion would be appropriate to display around the man he had come to like very much. I am like a robot, he thought. And no one ever bothered to program this into me.
Alistair wished he knew what to say, but he was at a loss. He could see that Kaiba was going through some sort of internal meltdown but knew better than to console him. He couldn't imagine growing up the way Kaiba had and he found himself hating the man that had done this to the proud CEO. Gozaburo had in essence slowly killed Seto over the years until there was only Kaiba left, someone with just the barest idea of what it meant to be human.
God only knew that he himself had suffered plenty over the years, but never once had he lost sight of his humanity. He may have been on the run and under constant threat of death, but if anything that had brought him closer to the people he met along the way, and even though his trust in institutions of any kind was at an all time low, he had never stopped trusting people as individuals. Maybe that made him naïve, but he decided he'd rather be naïve than completely isolated in his own head the way Kaiba seemingly was.
"Alistair, I'm sorry, but I can't," Seto repeated, avoiding making eye contact, now painfully aware of just what his rise to the top had cost him. "I can't be that for you. I don't know how to love you, anybody."
"Yes you do," Alistair contradicted him. "I know that you love Mokuba."
"Oh really? As you so kindly pointed out, all I do is try to keep Mokuba weak and under my control."
"Don't patronize me."
"I'm not. I've been thinking a lot recently and I've come to the conclusion that maybe you're right. Maybe I am just trying to keep him dependant on me so that I won't end up alone."
"What are you talking about?" Alistair said crisply, though inside he was starting to become concerned by the tone of Kaiba's voice; it reminded him of how he'd sounded the day Trudy came to pick him up from the hotel. "This whole 'I'll end up alone' thing sounds like a self-fulfilling prophesy to me. If you act like a dick to everyone, the odds are good that no one will want to be around you. So cut it out."
"I don't think you've been paying attention," Seto snapped. "I don't know how to do anything else."
"You're a lot of things, but a quitter isn't one of them; you're too competitive. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and do something to actually help yourself. Going against what you've been taught isn't easy, believe me, I know. At the beginning, even though I knew that I had no reason to hate you anymore I couldn't stop myself from trying to piss you off because that was my instinct since I'd been told for years that you were my enemy, just like Gozaburo told you for years that you can't trust anyone but yourself, that emotions are for the weak, that being a Kaiba means that you're supposed to do everything on your own, and that's not something you can shake off just like that, but underneath all of the negative things he pumped you full of you're a good person Seto, I've seen it. Gozaburo would have left me on that plane to die, and he certainly wouldn't have put me up in his house once he saw that I was alive, but you did.
I asked you before why you did that, and you blew me off, but I think it's because you're afraid to admit that you aren't a bad guy because you're afraid of making mistakes, of failing." When Seto didn't say anything, Alistair decided to challenge him: "tell me that I'm wrong. If you look me in the eye and tell me that you couldn't care less about anyone but yourself I promise I will walk out that door and never bother you again."
Seto weighed his options. Telling Alistair to get lost would certainly be the easier choice, the safe choice, but was that what he really wanted? To eliminate from his life the one person who had ever offered him a future where he didn't end up alone?
"I don't understand why of all the people in the world you'd want to be with me," Seto said slowly. "I've seen couples in town. How they walk down the street holding hands, buying each other flowers and teddy bears, saying 'I love you' every time they have nothing else to say. I'm not like that, I will never be like that."
"I know. The day you buy me a teddy bear is the day I request that you have yourself committed. I know who you are, and it's you that I want, not someone that looks like you but is romantic. Besides, I'm not interested in a relationship like that; can you honestly see me wanting to walk around holding hands? I just want what we have now to continue."
"I don't know Alistair…" Seto started, the idea of being tied to another person even in such an unofficial capacity causing him to feel claustrophobic.
"No pressure," Alistair added, slightly self-conscious. He was beginning to think that perhaps he'd sorely misjudged the grounds for Kaiba (Seto)'s discomfort.
"I'm not sure what to think. I can tolerate you more than just about anyone else, but that's not the same thing as love and I feel like I'm just using you."
"Using me? How?" Seto sighed as he tried to sort out what he was trying to say. He wasn't used to articulating his thoughts as much as he found himself doing with Alistair.
"Obviously I'm physically attracted to you which in and of itself is unique, and I think you're fascinating which is also unusual for me since most people don't hold my attention which leads me to believe that maybe my interest in you is just the result of curiosity and I only want to keep you around to satisfy that curiosity. And I'm not sure if you've noticed, but I need my space and-."
"And what?" Alistair interrupted him. "You're afraid I'm going to want to be glued to your side? Do you know me at all? I need my space too, and it was your idea to share your bed, not mine. I don't want to change anything about what we have already."
"Then why bring it up at all?"
"I didn't mean to say that out loud, but I'm glad that I did, because now at least we can acknowledge what's going on here." Seto flicked a piece of lint off of his light blue pajama shirtsleeve while he formulated a response. He didn't really want to 'talk about it' anymore now that they'd established that nothing was going to change.
"Let's go to bed," he said finally. "I have to get up early tomorrow." Alistair knew that meant that Seto was agreeing to let things stay as they were, though he would never admit that Alistair had been the one to change his mind because that would be akin to confessing that he'd been wrong which he would never do.
As they settled into bed together, Seto lying facing the wall, Alistair facing the door, Seto tried to stop his mind from reeling. Alistair loved him. Alistair loved him. At least he said he did, and presumably thought he did. But why? What was there about him to love? Alistair had always pointed out the things about Seto he didn't like, and the only positive thing he'd ever even alluded to was Mokuba. Was that reason enough to love him?
You're a good person. Seto had been called a lot of things in his life, but never that. What did Alistair see in him that was good besides the way he'd raised his brother? Gozaburo would have left me on that plane to die, and he certainly wouldn't have put me up in his house once he saw that I was alive, but you did. It was true that it would never even have occurred to him to leave Alistair to die, but he wasn't sure that that qualified him as a good person or just a decent one.
His entire life was a contradiction. He was constantly being told that he was someone no one wanted to be around, that he was coldhearted, unfeeling, greedy and arrogant. And it was true that objectively he came across that way, he'd tried very hard to as a means of self-preservation, but his actual actions were the complete opposite.
He had turned Kaiba Corp into a gaming company because he hated the idea of funding wars he didn't believe in and getting innocent people killed, and because gaming was something that he enjoyed and knew how to improve to make other people happy. Kaiba Land was a project he'd dreamed of since he was living in the orphanage. An amusement park to which he would invite orphans so that they could have a break from the bleakness of the lot they had been given. Sure he was competitive, and along the way his victories had fed his ego, but he had been taught that being the best came with bragging rights.
He scrunched his eyes shut tighter. When had his life become so complicated? Part of him wanted to blame Alistair for ripping his perfectly ordered existence asunder and another part wanted to thank him.
He could hear Alistair's deep breathing, indicating that he'd already fallen asleep. Shifting ever so slightly so as not to wake him up, he looked over at the redhead who had rolled over onto his back without Seto noticing, his head still tilted to the side, the gentle rising and falling of his chest visible even through the quilt. It was the first time Seto had ever seen Alistair sleep peacefully. It suddenly occurred to him that Alistair was really no different than anyone else. He was going to leave too. Resent him, push him away, a voice in his mind that sounded quite a bit like Gozaburo whispered. Look at yourself; he's already messing with your judgment. He's fucked you up and now he's going to leave. Typical.
Alistair rolled over in his sleep, closer to Seto. Seto regarded the sleeping man and just like that the voice vanished. The stone on Alistair's necklace glittered in the moonlight and Seto recognized the color though it took him a moment to place it; it was the same color as the light from the Seal of Orichalcos card. He puzzled over the similarity for a moment before Alistair sighed in his sleep and murmured something, opening his eyes long enough to focus on Seto, smile slightly and rest his hand on Seto's arm before falling asleep again.
When Seto lay back down he could feel the heat of Alistair's body next to his and settled up against it so that Alistair's forehead was resting against his upper back. He couldn't remember a single time in his life that he'd ever been so close to someone.
Author's Note: I think it goes without saying that this marks the beginning of the second half of the story. We're halfway there. All that remains is getting Seto to where Alistair is (which could take a while). Though both characters come with a lot of baggage, Seto's inability to connect with people is what makes writing stories with him so difficult; he fights love tooth and nail the bastard. Still, he's come a long way already...