Disclaimer: I own all of Season 4 on DVD and a lurid amount of cards and merch, but sadly, not the rights to the actual show.

"The tricks were hard to catch
But now I see right through
No more hurting me
No more loving you

A fantastic debut
Taking part in your masquerade
I starred as the fool
And while the music played
I gave my heart to you
Boy, how was I confused
I was only being used."

Fell for the Enemy, Chris Crocker

Chapter 13

After using the little bit of cash that he had on gas, Alistair tried to figure out what to do. Ultimately he'd have to get into contact with Trudy so that he could get Sewell and his wallet and maybe some of his other things, but he'd have to wait until at least the next day or else risk her getting in trouble with Seto for having helped him which meant he needed to find a place to stay for the night.

He wouldn't have had a problem just sleeping on a park bench except that if he got arrested he'd be in trouble given that he had no kind of ID and no one to bail him out. Plus, if they ran his name through the system there was a good chance they'd realize that his information was faked. The last thing he wanted to happen now that he was finally forming some semblance of a normal life in Domino was get deported.

There was no way in hell he was going to go to Darren or Britney for help which didn't leave too many options. He called Moira, but she and her family were on vacation in Los Angeles visiting friends for the holidays and were therefore unable to offer him a place to crash, leaving him with only one other person he could call unless he wanted to spend the night at Zoe's (which he most certainly did not).

As he dialed Ryou's number he tried not to think about any of the many reasons why it was very bad idea.

"Hello?" Ryou said, picking up the phone, surprised to be hearing from Alistair again so soon.

"Hey." Alistair's voice sounded strained. "You don't have to feel obligated, but if it wouldn't be too much trouble could I possibly sleep on your couch or your floor or something tonight?"

"Is something the matter?" Ryou asked in concern. "I mean, of course you can, but…"

"If you don't mind I don't really want to talk about it right now."

"No, that's fine. Do you want to come over now?"

"Only if that wouldn't mess up your day."

"Not at all." Ryou relayed his address and some simple directions which Alistair followed to a dodgy looking apartment complex on the fringes of the projects that had begun popping up on the outskirts of Domino. Ryou met him at the door to show him where he could park his motorcycle.

"It's not very nice," Ryou said apologetically as they walked back to the front of the building. "But you're welcome to stay as long as you like."

"Thank you," Alistair replied gratefully.

Ryou took him up to his apartment on the fourth floor.

"It's a bit of a mess, so I'm sorry about that. Whenever I play video games I sort of lose track of my sense of cleanliness."

The apartment was as small as the Kaiba mansion was big and consisted of a kitchenette, a bedroom, a tiny bathroom, and a small, cramped living room. A large, old fashioned TV took up most of one corner and was currently displaying a paused video game. On the floor were a huge beanbag pillow and a half eaten bag of chips and a bowl of salsa.

"Are you hungry?" Even though he was painfully curious to know what had brought Alistair there, the redhead had said he didn't want to talk about it, and Ryou wasn't about to press him.

"A little."

"You're more than welcome to share that with me." Ryou indicated the bag of chips.

"Sure." Alistair sat down on the floor and dipped a chip in the salsa. "What are you playing?" Ryou returned to his seat on the beanbag chair.

"It's a series called Silent Hill; this is the second one. They're really quite creepy, but even after everything that happened with the spirit I still like them."

For the next two hours Alistair listened to Ryou explain the premise of the series and watched him play. By the time they finished their snack, Alistair decided to reveal to Ryou why he was there.

"Seto and I broke up," he said, apropos of nothing as Ryou got up to throw the empty chip bag away.

"I'm sorry," Ryou, who had suspected as much, replied sincerely. He liked Alistair and therefore took no pleasure in the news even though it by all accounts left him free to pursue the redhead if he wanted to.

Saying it out loud made it real to Alistair, which it hadn't been before. Up until he'd called Mokuba only to have Seto snatch the phone from him, he'd thought that maybe, just maybe, the situation was salvageable. Seto had made it clear that that would not be the case. No matter how ugly their arguments got, the brunette had never said he regretted saving him before.

He started to cry, and once he started it took him fifteen minutes to stop. Ryou, without saying a word, sat beside him on the floor and put a comforting hand on his back. By the time he was able to pull himself together, Alistair's head had found its way to Ryou's shoulder.

"I'm sorry," he apologized, sitting up and wiping the tears off his face. "I didn't think that would happen." He pulled himself together by replacing the feelings of heartbreak with feelings of anger.

"You cared about him; of course you're going to be upset."

"It's just so stupid! I didn't even do what he thinks I did!"

"Then maybe you can explain it to him." But Ryou wasn't sure he believed that himself; Kaiba wasn't the kind of person who seemed to be interested in listening to what anyone else had to say. Alistair rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, right. Whatever, it's probably better this way. If he can turn on me this easily then I'm better off knowing that sooner rather than later…I really am sorry for putting all of this on you." Ryou shook his head.

"Not at all. Although…Can I ask you why you called me? We just met."

"I don't really have that many friends that I could ask. It's mostly just been me, Seto, Mokuba, and all the people that work at the mansion with the exception of my coworkers at the library, but I'm not really friends with them. I didn't want it to be that way, but because I didn't do anything to stop it, my life sort of revolved around Seto. I became anti-social because he is, not necessarily because I wanted to be. I'm not really a people person, so I wasn't craving friends, but what I didn't realize was that if this happened, I'd have nowhere to go, just like last time…" Ryou's brown eyes filled with concern.

"Do you really have nowhere to go? Because maybe if you call the housing office at the university they can do something to help you. It's sort of last minute, but they might still have something available. But wait: do you even have any money?"

"I do. Not a lot since most of it went to paying tuition for this semester, but enough that I could probably rent a place like this. I'll have to drop a class or two and only study part-time this semester in order to work longer hours, but it's doable."

"I don't know how you'd feel about this, but you could always stay here. It's small, but it's bigger than a regular dorm room. The rent is really cheap already, and if we split it, it would be even cheaper…" He trailed off, hoping that Alistair didn't take his offer the wrong way. Alistair looked at him in surprise.

"That's really generous of you, but you don't have to do that; letting me stay here even just one night is enough."

"If you don't want to that's ok, but don't say no just because you think I'll regret asking. The truth is that I'm quite short on money too and I was already thinking of looking for a roommate, but I wasn't sure how to go about doing that since technically only one person is supposed to live here. Not that that would be a problem," he added quickly. "I've only ever met my landlord once, and that was when I signed the lease. I got the impression that as long as you pay your rent on time he doesn't care what you do."

"You're serious?"

"Quite. I know it might seem strange to ask you to move in when we've only just met, but I mean, that's how it works on campus as well, and there you don't get any say in who you room with."

"I tell you what: how about I stay for a week, and if we don't drive each other crazy by then, then we can make it official. Well, not really, but you get the idea. And even if we decide not to, if you tell me how much rent is for a month, I'll pay you half of seven days worth." He suddenly remembered Sewell. "Oh, but I have a cat, I don't know how you feel about that…"

"A cat?" Ryou's eyes lit up. "I've never had a cat, but I always wanted one. What's his or her name?"

"I named her Sewell after the author of Black Beauty. She's well behaved, and she won't scratch the furniture or anything, but she's really skittish. She was a stray that I found outside a restaurant downtown and when I took her to the vet, he told me that he was fairly certain she'd been abused by her previous owners."

"Poor thing," Ryou said softly. "People can be so cruel." He of course was thinking of all of the horrible things the spirit of the Ring had done without any kind of remorse. "Is she still at Kaiba's?" Alistair nodded.

"That and everything else I own. I wouldn't really care except that my wallet's there too, and all of my legal documents. I could survive without all the other stuff, but I need those papers…"

"You'll get them. And I can't wait to meet Sewell!" He smiled at the thought of a cat wandering around the apartment, sleeping on the beanbag chair, or perched on the window ledge. Mostly though, he was excited about the prospect of not being alone anymore.

Ryou, unlike Alistair or Kaiba, was not a loner by choice. He hated being alone, but no one seemed to want to be around him once they found out about his 'psychotic break' except for Yugi, Joey, Tristain, and Téa, but that was only because they knew the real story. He knew he could have asked one of them to move in with him, but every time he'd thought about it, he'd changed his mind, not wanting to put any of them on the spot when he knew that he still sometimes made them uncomfortable.

After that, Ryou gave Alistair a small tour of the apartment, explaining its little quirks, such as the upper right hand burner on the stove that didn't work as well as the others, the water in the shower that took just over five minutes to heat up, and the sometimes faulty air conditioner in the bedroom.

The walls of Ryou's tiny bedroom were covered with video game posters, several of which Alistair recognized from Silent Hill and one that was a blow-up of the art from the Change of Heart Duel Monsters card. A small bookshelf was lined with games as well as the books that Alistair had lent him.

"You really like video games, huh?"

"Is that obvious? If I could I'd love to work in video game design."

"I thought you had no idea what you wanted to study."

"Yes, that was a bit of a lie I suppose. I'd like to study game design, but, I don't know. If I turned out to be no good at it…I'd feel like such a failure. And even if I am good at it, who would hire me? You may be accepting of my less than stellar past, but not everyone is so open minded." He sighed but quickly plastered a smile back on his face. "A trouble for another day. Feel free to stay here, but I have to go shopping now that there are two of us for dinner."

"I'll come with you. And I can help you cook too, but only if you tell me what to do; the only thing I can make is the kind of soup where you just throw anything edible you can find into a pot of boiling water." Ryou laughed.

"I've made that myself on occasion."

Due to the constant company of Ryou and the distractions of his TV, Alistair was able to keep himself together until two in the morning when they finally decided to call it a night.

"I can sleep on the floor if you want," Ryou offered awkwardly, realizing that Alistair might not want to share a bed with him.

"No, it's fine; I can. It's your place and your bed. Anyway, I think I'll take a shower first if that's ok."

"Of course. The hair dryer is in the top drawer of the cabinet if you want to use it. I know I have to or else my hair will never dry."

"Thanks."

After he turned the water in the slightly stained shower on and stood underneath it, he was unable to repress his memories from the day any longer and tears began leaking from his eyes again. It had never occurred to him that there would ever be a fight that would definitively end things between them. They had always kissed and made up. Always. He knew this had been different though. All of their other fights had revolved around politics or math or Seto's brazen disrespect towards his employees, this time the subject matter had been very personal.

Alistair sorely wished that he hadn't allowed anger to get the better of him. If he would have stayed calm he could have gone after Seto and tried to reason with him, but instead he'd left in a rage and now the situation was unsalvageable, at least on his end. He couldn't just march up to the Kaiba mansion or Kaiba Corp headquarters and demand that Seto talk to him, though Seto was more than capable of hunting him down if he wanted to. But would he?

Given that it had taken the brunette years to admit that magic (which had been appearing in his life left and right) was real, how long would it take for him to believe that Alistair wasn't lying? A decade? And how long was he, Alistair, willing to wait?

Just the other day he'd called Seto the love of his life, had said he could never imagine being with anyone else. Had that really been true? And if so, did that mean that he'd never find anyone to make him happy again? Would he revert to the broken wanderer he'd been before without Seto there to give his life meaning? Surely fate couldn't be so cruel.

Through the thin wall, Ryou could hear Alistair crying and his heart went out to him, though he felt there was really very little he could do to help his new friend.

Eventually Alistair walked back out of the bathroom. Seeing that Ryou was still awake he said:

"I hope I didn't keep you up."

"No, no, of course not." Ryou sat up in the small bed, his expression one of concern. "Are you alright?" Alistair shrugged and sat next to him on the mattress.

"I have to be. He dictated how I felt for seven, almost eight years; I'm not going to go back to that again. I just want my own life!" He hung his head and Ryou put a hand on his shoulder.

"I understand." Alistair turned to him, meeting the snowy-haired Brit's amber eyes. Ryou wasn't like Seto; he understood. He knew what it was like to have everything pulled out from under you, to never be able to make decisions for yourself, to be shunned, to be an outcast, and he therefore grasped the true value of friendship and love after having been denied both for so long.

If he couldn't be with Seto, maybe Ryou could make him happy.

Ryou anticipated the kiss a second before Alistair made to plant it on him and in that split-second he made the choice to move out of the way.

"You don't really want to do that," Ryou said kindly. "You're just upset. You'd regret it tomorrow."

"But you wouldn't." Ryou blushed.

"It's a bad idea. You and Kaiba just broke up today. What if he calls you tomorrow and asks for you back? Besides, if we want to live together, we can't do this."

"Tomorrow," Alistair scoffed. "When I worked for Dartz every waking minute was spent working for tomorrow. When today was tomorrow I assumed I'd be spending it with him, but I'm not. I'm sick of always focusing on the future. The world could end tomorrow for all we know, so why not just do what we want to right now?"

"Yes, but why do you want to? Because you like me, or because you miss him? I've had quite enough of being used thank you very much." For the first time Ryou sounded annoyed. When Alistair didn't answer, he rolled his eyes and lay back down. "Let's just go to sleep. And don't think of sleeping on the floor; there's more than enough room for both of us on this bed."

Chagrined, Alistair lay down beside him. The sheets smelled of flowery fabric softener, very unlike the musky cologne that Trudy soaked Seto's sheets with, and they were slightly frayed, but soft enough. Still, it took him the better part of an hour to fall asleep.

By the next day everyone at the Kaiba mansion was extremely worried about Seto who still hadn't come out of his room, though Trudy had taken the master key and unlocked the door, informing the shadowy figure lying in the dark on the bed that she was going to bring him food and if he didn't eat it she'd be forced to call the hospital so they could send someone to force-feed him.

The part of his brain still connected to the real world registered what she said, but he didn't answer, though he did pick at the food that she brought up on a tray in case she wasn't bluffing about the hospital. It was utterly tasteless and as soon as he was finished eating he rolled over and went back to sleep.

Mokuba took it upon himself to cancel his classes so that he could sit beside his brother on the bed, but Seto never looked at him in a way that led Mokuba to believe he even knew he was there; his normally piercing blue eyes were vacant and flat.

"Say something," he pleaded, lightly shaking the brunette's shoulder. "Please!" He thought about calling Alistair. Maybe the redhead could do something. But he wasn't completely sure what to believe about the fight that had caused his brother to fall into a comatose state. Had Alistair done what Seto accused him of, namely betraying him, or not? Seto seemed so sure that he was right, but Alistair had continued to refute it and his denial had seemed sincere.

It was exactly what Mokuba had been afraid of. By letting his guard down, Seto had left himself in an extremely vulnerable position. The younger Kaiba knew exactly how sensitive his brother was beneath the tough façade, and had borne witness to Seto baring this soft side to Alistair who had seemingly stabbed him in it.

He lay beside his brother and hugged his prone form. Please get better. I can't live without you.

Seto knew he ought to say something, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He had no strength anymore, no will, just emptiness. The thoughts that swirled through his mind always circled back to a single question: why? What had he done to deserve all that he had suffered? Had losing his parents not been enough? Surely that was more than enough for any person to bear. Yet, fate had had far more in store for him.

When he'd tried to make the best of the lot he'd been given by being adopted by someone who by all accounts should have been in the perfect position to set both him and his brother up for life, that had backfired and he'd been put through four years of hell. But he'd survived a second time and had made the best of things yet again, turning the Kaiba name around and fulfilling his childhood dream of building a theme park for orphans.

Then he'd found Alistair and he'd thought that finally the Gods (if in fact there were any) had deigned to smile favorably on him for once. But no, it was merely history repeating itself for a third time. Well, he'd learned his lesson.

I give up.

There was no point in getting up only to be knocked down again so he'd just as soon stay down.

It took three days for Alistair to convince Trudy that he was being truthful and had not intentionally hurt Seto. She told him how distraught the CEO was and asked Alistair to come with her back to the mansion to try to reason with him when the pair met for a tea in the city, but Alistair refused.

"If he can turn on me this easily, he clearly never trusted me, so why should I try to convince him now? Let him think what he wants; his paranoia isn't my problem anymore; he made that pretty clear."

"You don't understand Alistair. He's shut himself up in his room and he won't come out. He's barely eating, he's-."

"I don't care. He didn't want to listen to what I had to say, so he can suffer the consequences. I'm through trying to protect him from himself."

He'd taken the two bags that Trudy had packed of his clothes and a carrier holding a very unhappy Sewell, paid for the drinks, and left the teashop to wait for Ryou outside.

Several minutes later a small blue car, driven by an even smaller, spiky-haired young man pulled up to the curb.

Ryou had filled Yugi in on his new roommate and asked if he could help the two of them get Alistair's things to his apartment. Yugi had been more than a little surprised to hear the news and again wondered what was keeping Alistair hanging around town, but he'd agreed to help.

Ryou climbed out of the passenger seat.

"Is this Sewell?" he asked, dropping to his knees on the pavement to peer in at her. She hissed at him and retreated to the very back of the carrier.

"She's not too happy about being in there."

"I don't blame her. I hope she feels better once we let her out." The two loaded the bags into the trunk before piling into the car, Alistair riding in the back with Sewell's carrier on his lap.

"Thanks for the ride," he said to Yugi, slightly embarrassed given how he'd fled from the champion duelist the last time they'd met.

"No problem. Any friend of Bakura's is a friend of mine." Alistair wasn't sure he quite believed that; something in Yugi's gaze still seemed wary.

Mokuba had been unsuccessful in getting Seto to go to the press conference that they'd scheduled for that afternoon and had been forced to take his place, stating to the cameras that his brother was very ill and therefore unable to attend.

The entire event turned out to be more or less pointless. Though Mokuba held his own, he lacked Seto's charisma, and Britney had been so unnerved by what had happened at the meeting that Monday and was so angry that Darren had done exactly what he'd promised not to do, that her questions weren't nearly as pointed as she'd planned; she felt that they'd made the Kaibas suffer enough already; there was no need to drag it out any more. Both parties left feeling relieved that the affair was over.

Mokuba had little time to relax however, because as soon as the meeting was finished he had to return to KC headquarters to act as CEO in Seto's stead which turned out to be easier said than done, though between himself and Roland, the news that Seto Kaiba was out of commission indefinitely stayed contained. As far as most people knew the elder Kaiba was still calling the shots and could return at any moment, healthy and ready to fire anyone who had slacked off in his absence.

After this went on for over a week however, Mokuba started to wonder just how long he could keep the charade up. Eventually either someone would figure out that Seto was MIA or he'd be forced to tell. And what if Seto didn't recover?

Every day he expected to wake up and find Seto sitting in the kitchen with a cup of coffee in one hand and the newspaper in the other, but instead, he'd been the one forced to get up at the crack of dawn and down the liquid caffeine in order to stay awake through each ten to twelve hour workday.

By the following Wednesday morning he was mentally and physically exhausted and he wasn't even pulling as many hours as Seto normally did.

Trudy couldn't help but take notice and she did her best to talk the teen out of working so hard.

"I have to," he'd told her tiredly on Friday morning.

"You look like a raccoon, Mokuba. Have you slept at all this week?"

"It doesn't feel like it. But I have to do this. Kaiba Corp doesn't run itself and I have a lot of catching up to do. It's my own fault; I should have been paying attention all along and I never did."

After Mokuba had gone into the office, Trudy marched upstairs to chastise Seto, hoping that by berating him she'd illicit some kind of a response from him.

He was lying in bed like he'd been doing since the previous Monday afternoon when she swung the door open and flicked the overhead light on. He scrunched his eyes up against the sudden brightness but otherwise didn't acknowledge her presence.

"Your brother, your fifteen year old brother, just left this house looking like he hasn't slept in days to run the company that you have suddenly decided to abandon. I don't care what you think Alistair did to you; you have no right to put Mokuba through this! Or me for that matter. Do you have any idea how hard it is for us to see you like this?"

"Turn the light off," he said finally, his voice raspy from disuse. "And leave me alone."

"I'll call the hospital if you don't stop this nonsense. I mean it. And not that you even care about my opinion, but I don't believe that he did what you think he did. I spoke to him last week and he swears up and down that he didn't betray you."

"He's lying,"Seto responded flatly. Darren could only have found out about the cutting from Alistair telling him directly, therefore Alistair had told him, simple as that. "And don't you dare call the hospital."

With that said he rolled over so that his back was to her and tried to go back to sleep, not that sleeping brought him peace, but it was all he had the energy for aside from dragging himself to the bathroom and occasionally pacing back and forth across the room, analyzing everything he could remember of the last year, trying to pinpoint the exact moment that Alistair had hatched his plan.

Author's Note: Since this is now a post-canon fic and a sequel, I feel a little more at liberty to have the characters do things that are 'OOC', however, I am still striving to stay true to their canon personalities while working with their back stories which is why I think that Seto, under these circumstances would completely shut down; Alistair seemingly betraying him the final nail in his coffin of self-loathing.

Not gonna lie, Ryou is a hard character to write, but I'm trying to do him justice since he's such a sweetheart, but not nearly as frail as he's often portrayed in fanfiction.