Disclaimer: If I owned Yu-Gi-Oh! you can bet your bottom dollar that the series would have gone in a very different direction...

"Sometimes you don't understand
Sometimes I am what I am
Sometimes I just can't be
Everything you hoped I'd be
And sometimes I wish that you could see
I'm not like you I'm not like them
I won't pretend cause I am what I am

~I Am, Dope

Chapter 7

Mokuba was more than a little taken aback when he went to walk downstairs only to see that Seto and Alistair were blocking the way. To his relief they were dressed save for Seto's shirt being unbuttoned. Alistair was leaning against the wall with one leg dangling over the top step and his mouth half open and Seto was curled up awkwardly with both legs off the landing and his head in Alistair's lap.

Since he couldn't go downstairs without stepping on them unless he wanted to go the long way around, Mokuba had no choice but to wake them up. He cleared his throat loudly several times but finally realized he'd have to do more. He climbed down to the landing and prodded Seto in the side with his foot.

"Seto, get up; you're in the way," he said when his brother merely cracked his eyes open before closing them again and pressing his face more comfortably against Alistair's lower stomach.

Suddenly something clicked in his brain (the part that wasn't starting to pound) and he sat up quickly and instantly regretted it.

"Mokuba," he croaked angrily, coughing. "What are you doing here?"

"You're in the way," Mokuba repeated.

"In the…?" Something else clicked and he realized for the first time that he and Alistair were still lying on the landing (though how they'd ended up there in the first place was fuzzy in his memory). Humiliated, he shook Alistair roughly. Alistair groaned and shoved Seto away.

"No," he grumbled, scrunching his eyebrows.

"Get up," Seto snapped, his own voice unnecessarily loud in his ears.

"Why?" Alistair snapped back, wincing as he sat up properly and was hit by both a throbbing headache and a crick in his neck. He noticed Mokuba standing over them and struggled to make sense of the scene, finally, like Seto, coming to the realization that they hadn't made it to the bedroom last night and had in fact spent the entire night on the landing after one of them (he wasn't sure which) had tripped, causing them both to fall over which he'd found pretty funny at the time. "Oh."

"Excuse me," Mokuba said after the silence dragged on for almost thirty seconds. He climbed past them and walked down the stairs without looking back. As soon as Mokuba was out of sight Seto turned to glare at Alistair, but Alistair cut him off before he had a chance to start.

"Don't. This is not my fault." Seto flared his nostrils but kept his mouth shut. Slowly the two of them half climbed, half crawled up the six steps leading to the hallway and into Seto's bedroom. Too exhausted to change into his pajamas, Seto peeled off his clothes and fell into bed, Alistair only half a step behind him.

"Good morning Mokuba," Trudy said cheerfully as she brought the teen his usual breakfast of blueberry pancakes and syrup.

"Hey," he greeted her, debating whether or not to tell her about Seto and Alistair getting drunk the night before. This was one of the times when the lines between employee and mother-figure blurred in his mind when it came to Trudy. She sensed that something was bothering him, taking the matter out of his hands.

"What's wrong?" she asked, sitting beside him. "You look like you're brooding about something."

"It's nothing. None of my business anyway."

"Did Seto and Alistair get into another fight?" As fond as she was of them it annoyed her to no end how often they quarreled, particularly around Mokuba who, given his adoration of Seto, would probably end up taking a lot of relationship cues from them.

"No, the opposite actually."

"Oh?" But Trudy wasn't sure she knew what he meant. Feeling like a tattling child, Mokuba explained:

"They got really drunk last night and fell down the stairs which woke me up, and when I went to go see what had happened they were lying on the landing and…doing stuff." He made a face. "And then this morning when I got up they were sleeping on the stairs until I woke them up." It took Trudy a few moments to process that.

"Well, I suppose that explains the half empty bottle of vodka and two decks of Duel Monsters cards scattered all over the library this morning and why Seto didn't come down for breakfast."

"It was just really weird. Seto's never gotten drunk before." She took in Mokuba's expression of distress mixed with disappointment and pursed her lips.

"I'll certainly have a word with them once they finally drag themselves downstairs, but Mokuba: Alistair and Seto are adults, and if they want to drink, they are at perfect liberty to do so, though I'm not saying I approve, not at all. Especially if they're falling down the stairs from it. That being said, I agree that…" She paused to find a word. "I agree that… canoodling on the stairs for anyone, particularly you, to see was completely inappropriate. Do they know that you saw?" He shook his head.

"I don't think so."

"Then perhaps you ought to inform them that you did and that it made you uncomfortable. Knowing Seto that should be enough to resolve the matter. But don't behave like a child about it or he'll treat you like one. And I certainly wouldn't recommend you acting like them doing this is somehow a disappointment to you. You knew just as well as I do what they are to each other."

"Ok, but that doesn't mean I want to see it!"

"Mokuba: you are far too old to whine; it's not at all becoming. Now eat your breakfast."

As the teen drenched his pancakes in syrup, Trudy made the decision not to tell him about the newspaper article and to wait for Seto.

Seto and Alistair slept for the better part of the early afternoon, finally getting up at a quarter to two and even then only very reluctantly.

"I am never doing that again," Seto declared as he brushed his teeth for a second time, determined to get the horrible taste of day-old vodka out of his mouth. "I can't believe I let you talk me into that!"

"At least you had fun though, right?" Alistair pressed, towel-drying his hair.

"Not in the slightest." In fact, he had, and though he supposed the alcohol was partially to blame, a lot of it had to do with Alistair. Mostly he shouldn't wonder, though the vodka was a good excuse to hide behind. He knew that he would never lose to Alistair in Duel Monsters which took the edge off, but he still had to work in order to win which made it, well, fun. And even though what they had done afterwards was, objectively, pretty ridiculous and completely undignified, that had been fun too.

"I can't believe we were able to fall asleep right there." Seto shrugged. He was still trying to figure out what, if anything, he wanted to say to Mokuba about that. But before he dealt with his brother he knew he had better check his messages; he'd noticed that he'd missed 16 phone calls which could only mean one thing: someone had screwed up and needed him to come straighten out their mess.

"I'll meet you downstairs," Seto told Alistair after the redhead had gotten dressed. "I have to figure out what's going on at headquarters."

"Alright. Do you want me to have Trudy go ahead and fix you a plate?"

"Yeah. And coffee too. I won't be long." Alistair nodded and made his way downstairs as Seto looked through his list of missed calls which included five from Roland, several from PR and his secretary, and three from his lawyer. He narrowed his eyes. What could have happened that would require his lawyer to get involved? After taking a pill for his headache, he called Roland.

"What's going on Roland?" Seto asked brusquely as soon as the man picked up.

"Where have you been?" Roland asked, taking Seto aback.

"I'm the one asking the questions here. What happened?" Roland had been up all morning trying to appease the various departments while anxiously waiting for his boss to either show up or call him back. He couldn't believe that Mr. Kaiba hadn't seen yet.

"Are you familiar with the magazine Out Loud?"

"No, what is that?"

"It's one of the most nationally prevalent gay publications. They just released their new issue this morning and the main article is about KC and it isn't very flattering."

"Is that all?" Seto started to relax. Bad press in some obscure magazine wasn't anything to get worked up about.

"We've been getting phone calls about it all morning. You're going to have to say something."

"What does the article say exactly?" Seto asked, already crossing the room to look it up on his computer.

"The author is some girl who apparently worked for us for a few months in order to conduct an investigation into our business practices. In the article she claims that Kaiba Corp is a hotbed of sexism, homophobia, and racism."

"And we care because?" he pressed, already on the magazine's website and clicking on the article.

"Because she has the data to back it up." Seto began scanning the article, which was dramatically titled: Exposing the sexism, racism, and homophobia of Kaiba Corporation.

"I'm on my way," Seto said shortly. "Get the head of PR, have Valarie call my lawyer back and have him meet us in the boardroom in an hour and a half. And after you do that, pick up a copy of this magazine for me."

"Yes sir!" As soon as he got off the phone with Roland, Seto finished reading the article which was almost ten pages long and detailed the experiences of the author, someone named Britney Whinnery, at Kaiba Corporation.

She described the disproportionate female to male ratio with women making up 68 percent of the total employee count, which she said "would be a good thing were it not for the over-sexualized uniforms female employees are forced to wear for the amusement of the men. Furthermore, despite an overwhelming female presence, less than 5 percent of the highest paid Kaiba Corp employees are women." The paragraph was accompanied by photos of several female and male KC employees, contrasting the short skirts and revealing blouses of the women to the much more conservative suits and polos of the men.

The second section of the article denounced Kaiba Corp's lack of diversity, and the third, the lack of a policy preventing an employee from being fired based on their sexual orientation or transgender status.

The politically correct, whiny tone of the article caused him to roll his eyes several times, but once he'd checked her numbers against the KC database and saw that they indeed matched up he felt himself growing livid. This was not good.

"Seto?" Seto whipped around. Alistair was standing in the doorway looking concerned. "Did you hear?"

"Did I hear what?" Seto snapped. What now? He noticed that Alistair was carrying a newspaper. "What?" Alistair bit his lip before holding the paper up. The headline read:

Out Loud Slams Kaiba Corp.

"How is that possible?" Seto breathed, snatching the paper from him and scanning the article which was essentially an abridged version of the longer Out Loud story.

"Is it true?" Alistair asked tentatively, not sure he wanted to know the answer.

"Is what true?"

"What that girl wrote." As distracted as he was, Seto couldn't fail to notice the expression on Alistair's face.

"I don't have time to get into this with you right now Alistair," he replied, retreating into his closet to get dressed. Alistair followed him.

"So it is true. How could you run a company like that?"

"Because I don't care. It makes no difference to me what the female employees are wearing or not wearing, whether or not there's female representation in management, what color anyone is or whether they're a man, a woman, or a robot." He angrily pulled on a pair of black jeans.

"How can you not care? If this is true, that means that your company is perpetuating some really unsavory and outdated policies."

"Look, if I had known that it would be this big of a deal I would have done something about it. These numbers have Gozaburo written all over them. Do you honestly think that I personally had a hand in oppressing the women at KC or making sure to keep diversity down? Gozaburo was the sexist, racist bastard, not me. And it's not like I'm not going to deal with it now." Alistair started to say something but Seto cut him off. "Look: since when have I ever cared about what's right and what's wrong as long as I get what I want? So a few women have to wear short skirts, big deal. At least they have jobs. This Britney Whinnery woman just wants some attention and decided that the best way to get it would be to write a little sob story."

"That's really how you feel about this?"

"Are you actually surprised?"

"No. Disappointed."

"It doesn't really matter what I think at this point; I have to change it regardless. And now it'll probably cost me a lot of money."

"You and your money," Alistair muttered disdainfully.

"Yes. Me and my money. The money that paid for you to be here, that's going to pay for college for you and probably Mokuba too, that money."

"Please. Even if all three of us went to the most expensive university in the country for four years it'd hardly put a dent in your fortune. What's the rest of it for; cars, trips, toys? Face it: you could use the money you have to do really good things, but instead you just spend it on yourself! And beyond just that, you don't even care who you have to step on in order to do it!" Alistair was working himself up into a fury, very similar to the fury he'd felt towards Kaiba before he knew him.

"This isn't exactly news to you; I've always been like that! I never said that I wasn't or pretended to be the noblest person to ever walk the earth like Yugi does. I'm not the good person you seem to think that I am!" He angrily picked the newspaper off the floor of the closet and threw it at the redhead. "That's who I am; deal with it!" He continued to get dressed while Alistair stared at him.

It was true that living with Seto had, to a certain degree, caused Alistair to forget just who it was that he lived with. Seto was a good person. Kaiba was not. And unfortunately, it was Kaiba that ran the corporation. Did being with the CEO make him a hypocrite? He was after all reaping the benefits of a lifestyle he didn't agree with. But it wasn't the benefits that had kept him at the mansion—it was Seto.

"Seto," he said finally, causing the brunette to look up from snapping on his silver gauntlets.

"What?" Seto asked warily.

"I'm sorry."

"For what? I know how you feel about my company." Given that, he oftentimes wondered why Alistair bothered staying with him.

"For always acting surprised when something like this comes up. It's not fair for me to be angry with you for being yourself. I'm the one with the problem."

"Then why do you stay with me? I'm exactly the kind of person you say you hate. You told me once that it's because of people like me that the world is rotten. So why are you here?"

"Don't ask me to try to explain that."

"Well that sure fills me with confidence," Seto snapped sarcastically and Alistair could practically feel the brunette putting up a wall around himself again.

"It's complicated."

"No. I don't think it is." Alistair didn't like Seto's tone. "You've tricked yourself into thinking that I'm someone that I'm not. Someone who gives a damn about other people, someone who does the right thing. I'm. Not. I'm not like you! I'm an egotistical, manipulative, calculating, selfish asshole. I do what's best for me. And at this moment what's best for me is to go lie to a bunch of reporters and tell them that I'm oh so grateful that this issue has been brought to my attention and that I'm going to make sure it gets fixed." He snapped his second gauntlet in place and grabbed his Duel Monster's card locket off a small shelf to his right.

"You're not Gozaburo."

"Excuse me?"

"You're not your step-father, Seto. You spent two duels trying to convince me of that, and now that you have, you're suddenly saying that you are. Gozaburo didn't care about anyone but himself; but you're not like that. I know you love Mokuba and I…Well, I like to think that you care about me too. I don't know why you seem to think that doing good things makes you somehow weak or whatever it is that you think it does. And no, I'm not happy that these things are true and that you're only going to fix them because you have to, and I know that that aspect of who you are as a businessman isn't likely to change, which is not your most attractive quality by the way, and I'm horribly hypocritical for being with you, but I don't care.

God only knows that you're one of the most difficult people to get along with that I've ever met, and you can be a lot of the things that Gozaburo was because that's what you were taught, but you also turned Kaiba Corp into a gaming company because you don't believe in war any more than I do, and you opened up a chain of amusement parks that you let orphans visit for free because you want to make their lives just that much better. Your step-father would never have done either of those things."

"What's your point?"

"I just don't understand why you don't apply the goodness that I know you have in you to more aspects of your life."

"Is it your life's mission to turn me into some kind of saint? Because if it is, then you're welcome to go back to hating me," Seto replied finally and Alistair sighed in annoyance. Seto realized that he'd have to demonstrate to the redhead that he had in fact been listening and wasn't really blowing off everything that he'd said. He crossed to the doorway where Alistair was standing and cupped the redhead's face in his hand.

"Look at me," he commanded and Alistair looked up from glaring at the floor. "I appreciate your opinion. This could potentially get ugly and I'm glad to know that I've got at least one person in my corner. I know that you don't agree with everything that I do, and I'm not really sure why, given that, you stay with me, but I'm glad that you do." He kissed him then, knowing it was bound to be the only pleasant experience he'd have that day between trying to figure out what to do about the article and then actually doing it. He wished he could just press pause on all of that and stay in bed with Alistair all day instead. But alas, that couldn't be, and eventually he had to end the kiss and continue getting ready for work before leaving for the KC skyscraper.

When he arrived, he was greeted by Roland who filled him in on the mayhem that had been ensuing all day. They'd had hundreds of angry calls and emails, most of which targeted the company as a whole, but many were directly aimed at Seto himself.

"We've managed to discern two main categories," Roland explained as he and Seto made their way towards the conference room. "One is people who are mainly calling and writing to agree with the article and demand that we address the points the author raised, and the second is people, mostly parents, complaining about your status as a celebrity and a role model. They're concerned that," he pulled up an email on his phone as they rode the elevator up to the twelfth floor, "'by running a company that treats it's female employees like second class citizens and sexual objects, Kaiba Corp and Seto Kaiba are sending the message that this is acceptable behavior. As a role model, Mr. Kaiba should not be encouraging young girls to dress like porn stars in order to get a man's attention. Furthermore, he shouldn't be promoting the objectification of women to his male fans.'"

"That doesn't even make sense," Seto said angrily, deeply annoyed that someone could send what was clearly supposed to be a sanctimonious message so full of faulty logic.

"Most of them are like that."

"Terrific." The most irritating thing about the whole situation was that he couldn't simply resolve the matter by pointing out all of the flaws in the accusations because that would only serve to further piss off the people spewing them, which wasn't what he wanted, which meant he was going to have to kowtow to their holier-than-thou bullshit.

"Sir, before you go in there, there's one more thing you should know." Seto didn't like the tone of Roland's voice.

"What is it?"

"Schroeder Corp has issued a statement. I'm sure that PR will bring it up in full, but essentially, Mr. von Schroeder has reached out to the editors of Out Loud on their online forum to say that he finds KC's practices abhorrent and that he and his company would never do something as archaic as treat it's employees with such disrespect."

"Siegfried," Seto snarled. He could just see the pink-haired businessman sitting out on some beach, laughing in delight at KC's plight while he issued the statement. He was clearly going to attempt to use the situation to drum up positive press for his own company. It was the kind of thing Seto would do if the situation was reversed, but as it was it just added to his already bad mood.

Representatives from the company's legal and PR departments as well as Seto's personal lawyer, Eske Uedo, crowded the conference room. They all started up talking as soon as Seto entered, flanked by Roland. He refrained from speaking until he'd taken his seat at the head of the table. One glare was all it took to effectively shut everyone up.

"How much of this can we deny?" he asked. One of the legal department representatives spoke up.

"Not much as far as we can tell," he said. "Unfortunately, her numbers add up."

"And she was allowed to write this? I thought all employees had to sign a confidentiality agreement."

"They do. But that only covers revealing product information to rival companies or posting it on the internet, publishing it in newspapers etc. All the data she used is available for the public to access."

"And the pictures?"

"Those are fine too. She blurred out the faces as well as the background."

"So you're telling me that there isn't anything we can do to discredit her? Nothing at all?"

"I'm afraid not sir, at least not based on the information we have so far."

"Who is she?" he demanded. This time it was one of the PR reps who spoke.

"She's a recent graduate of Domino U who's been quite present in the local activism scene for the last two years. This isn't her first exposé. We have copies of some of her other articles, most of which are from University publications, however, several are from local newspapers. This is the first time she's been involved in something this big though."

"I'll make sure it's the last," Seto said through gritted teeth. There was no way he was going to let some do-gooder nobody ruin his reputation. "Has anyone from the inside said anything?" he asked warily, not quite able to stop himself from noticing that of the fifteen people in the room, most of whom were quite high ranking, only one of them was a woman, and from the looks of her she wasn't anyone with any kind of power—just an assistant he guessed.

"Not yet sir, but it would probably be best if we held some kind of meeting to address this." Seto nodded. He'd expected as much.

"Fine. How about tomorrow." The PR representatives exchanged glances.

"Would that leave enough time for you to prepare sir?" one of them asked tentatively. Seto narrowed his eyes.

"Of course or else I wouldn't have suggested it. Roland! Get a memo made up scheduling an emergency company-wide meeting with the heads of all of the departments for three-fifteen tomorrow."

"Sir?" Seto locked eyes with the timid-looking girl from the PR department. The girl felt a bit queasy as the intimidating CEO's icy gaze fell upon her. "Um…if what the girl said in her article is true, than wouldn't that mean that a meeting with the department heads would be mostly men? Shouldn't there be some women there too since what was said is mostly about them? And maybe some minority and LGBT representatives as well?" Seto regarded her coolly.

"That's a good point," he glanced down at her nametag, "Jade." She looked deeply relieved. "You can be one of them. Roland: in the memo, ask that each department head bring a couple of women, ethnic minorities, and LGBT reps with them. I want to settle this from the inside out. And make sure that this meeting is common knowledge."

For the next three hours, Seto and the PR and legal reps hashed out how best to prevent any further damage and how to address the issue publicly. Ultimately, Seto decided he wanted to go head to head with the girl who had written the article. He said that he wanted to appear to sympathize with her position, but the real reason was that he wanted to be able to look into her eyes as he ripped her apart. No one messed with his company without paying dearly for it.

At their cramped apartment, Britney, Darren, and a large group of friends were celebrating their victory. Operation KC had been more of a success than they had ever dreamed it could be, due mostly to the fact that they'd so meticulously spread the story around, first alerting the local newspapers of the upcoming exposé, then taking to the internet.

"To our amazing reporter!" Darren said, raising his beer.

"To Britney!" everyone chorused while she laughed.

"You guys are acting like I did this all by myself! I couldn't have pulled this off without you!"

"So what's next?" a girl named Sharron asked. "Or should I say: who's next? If we can take on Kaiba Corp we can take on anybody!" Just then the phone started to ring.

"I'll get it," Darren offered. It wasn't often that they got calls on their land line. Assuming that it would just be a telemarketer, he picked up the receiver. "Hello?"

"Who is it?" Britney asked as Darren's expression became concerned.

"It's for you," he said. She got up. Before he handed her the phone, he added: "it's Kaiba Corp." Feeling suddenly nervous, she took the phone from him. It had never really occurred to her that she could get into trouble for what she'd done. They'd done everything they could to make sure that they couldn't get sued for anything that had been said, but she supposed they could have missed something.

"Hello?" she said, trying to sound business-like.

"Is this Miss Britney Whinnery?" a smooth female voice asked.

"Yes." Darren motioned for everyone to be quiet and Britney discreetly put the call on speaker.

"I'm calling on behalf of my boss, Mr. Seto Kaiba. He'd like to extend his gratitude for the issues your article brought to light. Here at Kaiba Corp we value any information that could lead to making our company better."

"I'm glad that he feels that way." She hoped her voice didn't contain any trace amounts of sarcasm.

"He would be very grateful if you agreed to meet with him for a press-conference we plan on holding next week so that he can personally clear up any questions you might have regarding your time as a KC employee."

"I…"

"You don't have to make a commitment yet; we just wanted to extend the offer to see if you might be interested."

"I'm interested, but I'll need some time to think about it."

"That's understandable. We've drawn up a proposal which has been sent to the email address you provided to Out Loud that I believe is connected to a website you run."

"That's right."

"If you could kindly read through it and then send us back your decision by noon tomorrow that would be greatly appreciated."

"Yes, I will."

"Excellent. We look forward to hearing from you Miss Whinnery. Goodbye." The line went dead. Everyone in the room stared at her.

"I guess this isn't quite over yet," Darren said, more to break the silence than anything else. "It seems like your article did enough damage to get him involved. That's a good thing, right?"

"No, it's a very bad thing," Britney's boyfriend Eric said hotly. "Everyone knows Seto Kaiba's reputation. He'll tear her apart if she goes."

"What can he do?" Darren argued. "We have the truth on our side. Our data is real, her story is real. To be honest: he's the fool for wanting to talk to her."

"He's not stupid; don't you think he knows that by now? I don't trust this. It's a set-up."

"Why don't we read through the email they sent first?"

"Isn't anyone going to ask me what I want to do?" Britney snapped. "I want to read the email and then decide if it's a bad idea." She stalked over to her laptop and pulled up her email as everyone crowded around.

It was fairly straightforward. Kaiba wanted to meet with her in order to discuss a press conference they were planning on holding the next week where she would be free to ask him direct questions regarding her concerns about KC's practices.

"I don't like this," Eric repeated. "The turnaround is too fast. That magazine comes out this morning and the same day he's emailing you saying he wants to meet up for a friendly little chat? Something's up."

"Either that or he's just being cocky," Darren pointed out. "By contacting her right away he probably hopes that we'll think he's got something on us and back down. But what he doesn't know is that it doesn't matter because I've got something on him." The pronouncement was met with stunned silence.

"What?" Britney asked incredulously.

"Let's just say that he and I have something in common besides our devastatingly good looks."

"I don't follow…"

"Do you remember Alistair?" She and several other people nodded.

"He and Kaiba were seeing each other."

"They were seeing each other? You're joking." He shook his head.

"Nope. He was even living with Kaiba who I guess also helped get him his pilot's license."

"We can't threaten him with that," Eric said firmly. "He'd sue us into the ground. Even if you had proof that'd be a really dangerous threat to make."

"It wouldn't have to be a threat necessarily; it could just be a sort of an FYI. An 'I know what you did last summer' kind of a thing. Just so he knows better than to try anything funny."

"How sure are you that Alistair was telling the truth?" Britney asked.

"Babe, you're not seriously considering using that, are you?" She set her jaw.

"I don't want to, but I also don't want to be made to look like a fool so that he can save his own ass."

"He was telling the truth alright; he was a terrible liar. Besides, he didn't want to tell me; I figured it out." A short dark-haired young man spoke up:

"Is it our place to threaten someone with something like that though?"

"Dhan: he's going to try to discredit her to invalidate the entire thing; I think that gives us permission to pull some underhanded tricks ourselves, don't you agree?"

"I'm not comfortable using something like that," Britney said slowly. "But I'm not completely against it. Darren: why don't you come with me? I don't want to go by myself anyway."

"To the meeting?" She nodded. "If I go by myself I'll just get nervous and say something I shouldn't or cry or both. I never met him while I worked there, but the way everyone talks about him…I don't want to have to talk to him on my own."

"Of course I'll go with you."

By the time he left KC headquarters that night, just a little before eleven-thirty, Seto had a horrible headache. He'd dealt with his fair share of controversy over the years, particularly in the last two and a half, so he was confident that this too would blow over; it was only a matter of paying off the right people, but it was tedious and exhausting.

Both Mokuba and Alistair met him at the door leading from the house to the garage.

"What are you going to do?" Mokuba inquired the moment Seto got out of his car. Seto closed his eyes.

"Please don't ask me about that right now Mokuba; my head is going to split if I have to think about that for one more second. I had Roland send you an email with the notes from the meeting. Read that if you want to get caught up." Mokuba wrinkled his nose but said nothing. He'd gotten the email, but had been hoping Seto could give him the abridged version so he wouldn't have to wade through the twenty-seven page write-up.

"Are you ok?" Alistair asked in concern; Seto looked completely worn out.

"I'm fine. I just want to take a shower and go to bed. Stop interrogating me!" Mokuba and Alistair exchanged glances as Seto stalked past both of them.

"I'll find out what's up and I'll tell you tomorrow morning," Alistair promised, turning to follow Seto upstairs. Behind his back, Mokuba made a face. Had the redhead not been there, he would have been the one to get Seto to talk.

By the time he got to the bedroom, Seto was already in the shower, and Alistair opted to join him.

Seto was standing with his face up against the spray, rubbing his temples with the tips of his fingers.

"Don't ask," he said sharply without opening his eyes as Alistair closed the door to the shower behind him.

"I won't," he promised, allowing the warm water to drench him. He knew that Seto wouldn't be able to resist complaining about whatever had gone down for much longer—he just had to wait. Sure enough, within several minutes, Seto began telling Alistair what had happened, ending with:

"She'll regret the day she decided to tangle with me!"

"I've no doubt." Seto couldn't tell if Alistair was being sarcastic or not and chose not to respond. "I'm sure you've already thought about this," Alistair added, "but on the off chance that it hasn't occurred to you: you are aware that tearing her apart at a press conference isn't going to solve the problem, right? The publicity that her article has gotten isn't going to go away even if you manage to discredit her given that everything she said is true."

"You're right: I have already thought about that. But if I hold this press-conference I can kill two birds with one stone: her, and her allegations. My plan is to tell her how right she is and how hard I'm going to work to rectify the situation. But make no mistake: even though she'll see it as a victory, the moment she so much as drops a gum wrapper on the street I'm going to make sure her life becomes a living hell!"

"Why? Because she dared to point out KC's shortcomings? Grow up." Alistair's harsh tone took Seto aback, but he quickly regained his composure. Narrowing his eyes he said:

"You're supposed to be on my side, not hers!"

"Well, I'm not. But because I care about you I'm going to support you. You, not necessarily what you do. I'm not Mokuba: I don't just blindly champion every decision that you make, you should know that by now." They glowered at each other, but underneath his façade of annoyance, Seto wasn't unhappy that Alistair disagreed with him. The fact that the redhead had a mind of his own and was willing to call Seto out when he was wrong was something that Seto appreciated, albeit deep down. Alistair knew it too, and yet, here they were with the same song and dance as ever; both pretending that they were angry just to save face. It was ridiculous, but he didn't really mind, usually.

While they were getting ready for bed after getting out of the shower, Alistair noticed that Seto kept rubbing the back of his neck. After he'd done this several times, the redhead began to get annoyed by the fact that Seto wouldn't just tell him he wanted a massage.

"Lie down," he said irritably, and Seto looked up at him, startled by Alistair's tone.

"Why?"

"You're obviously really tense. Let me do something about it." Seto would have been inclined to think the statement was sexually charged were it not for the fact that Alistair knew better than to try and take control in that context.

"Ok?" In truth, the motion had been habitual; his neck and upper back were almost always sore after a combination of hunching over a computer and being forced back into ramrod-straight posture whenever he was walking around.

He got on his stomach on the bed and Alistair sat down beside him and began trying to work the knots out of the CEO's back.

"Doesn't this hurt?" Alistair asked, amazed by just how tense Seto's back (which had already cracked several times) was.

"Kind of." But he didn't tell Alistair to stop and after a few more minutes it started to feel perfectly delicious. Alistair felt Seto start to relax and was able to be a bit gentler.

"Where did you learn how to do this?" Seto asked with mild interest.

"I didn't. I'm just guessing based on where I get aches in my back. Does it feel good?"

"Yeah." They were both silent after that save for the occasional appreciative grunt from Seto every time Alistair managed to work out one of the knots between his shoulder blades; the place he stored the most tension.

Finally, Seto rolled over onto his back so he was looking up into Alistair's face. He reached up to tuck an errant strand of red hair behind his ear. Alistair took the cue and leaned down to give the brunette a kiss, which, as was almost always the case, eventually turned into something more. He never understood why it was that they took a shower knowing perfectly well they were just going to get sweaty almost immediately afterwards.

To Seto, sex, like swimming, had become a means of escaping not only his inner monologue, but the stress of being Seto Kaiba. When he and Alistair had sex, nothing else mattered.

He wondered briefly afterwards, once the redhead had already fallen asleep nestled up beside him, if that would always be the case. Would there come a time when that would no longer work?

Rolling over so that he was facing Alistair's sleeping form he couldn't imagine that it would, then again, he was sure that most people thought that when they first got together with someone, yet divorce wasn't uncommon, break-ups either. But he had never been 'most people' and Alistair wasn't either. Surely they would be different.

At this point he couldn't imagine life without Alistair in it any more than he could imagine life without Mokuba and it scared him a little. Unless he was having one of those days he didn't worry about his little brother abandoning him, but sometimes he couldn't help but think that one of these days Alistair would wake up and realize that he didn't love him anymore. That they were too different. That Seto was too selfish. He wasn't sure that he could handle it if that happened. Alistair had left him quite defenseless when he'd worked his way into his heart. If he were to leave, Seto was certain that he would break, and that knowledge made him very uneasy.

I really am selfish, he thought to himself as Alistair rolled over in his sleep, closer to Seto. I know that I'm selfish for making my happiness depend on you. And I know that you know it. Is that why you stay with me; to protect me? You shouldn't. You deserve someone who's a far better man than I am. That in mind, he settled in to try and get a few hours of sleep before he had to get up and endure another chaotic day at Kaiba Corp.

As his arms wrapped themselves around the sleeping redhead he had one final, desperate thought before drifting off to sleep himself: please don't leave me.

Author's Note: Seto, though we all love him, is not the kind of person who always makes the morally correct choices; he is in charge of a major company after all, and I think it's important to keep that in mind. Even though he found Gozaburo deplorable, Seto is his disciple and he's oftentimes disrespectful to the people he works with (I cite season 2 and Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie) and generally uncaring about them (after all, he threatened to put a company that actually cared about its employees out of business if they didn't buy it back from him for way more than it was worth). It's the dark side of Seto Kaiba, and not very attractive, but for a relationship to work I think it's important to acknowledge both the heaven and the hell in your partner.