Disclaimer: I've said it before and I'll say it again; were I to own Yu-Gi-Oh! it would not be marketed as a children's show. Just saying.

"I can't seem to say good-bye
Though I've tried a million times
The more I learn, the less I know
About the art of letting go

For all we feel, and all we know
It's not easy letting go."

~The Art of Letting Go, Pat Benatar

Chapter 14

The sting of his bad split with Seto was still fresh, but Alistair was starting to come to terms with it by the time he'd been living with Ryou for a week. He was a survivor, always had been, and knew that it would not do to dwell on the hurt after having experienced the horror of his brother's death eating away at him for so long. Being around Ryou helped.

He knew that it was a bad idea to pursue the Brit for the very reason Ryou had stated himself: that he was merely trying to find an easy way to get over Seto, namely focusing his attention on someone else.

But Alistair wasn't convinced that that was completely true because he really did like Ryou. He liked his sweetness and how it juxtaposed with his love of horror movies and video games and all things occult, admired his selflessness and inner strength, his authenticity. He liked the way that Ryou blushed when he was paid a compliment, pink staining his otherwise pale cheeks, and how his feathery white hair framed his face and constantly fell into his bright tawny eyes.

He also liked how normal life with Ryou was, how ordinary. No mansion, no limo, no absurdly overcomplicated security system, and no secrets, just two roommates starting college and trying to figure out career plans like thousands of other people all over the world.

"I'm completely knackered," Ryou declared when he arrived home from class that evening and flopped down next to Alistair on the bed where he'd been working through yet another calculus test on Ryou's laptop.

One of the things Alistair had learned early on was to expect not to always understand what Ryou was talking about due to a lack of familiarity with British slang given that Trudy never used it. 'Knackered' though was one he had quickly become accustomed to.

"Maybe you wouldn't be so tired if you didn't stay up until three in the morning playing video games." Ryou childishly stuck his tongue out at him.

"It's not like I do it on purpose; I just sort of lose track of time…"

"I kept telling you what time it was and you kept saying that you'd stop in ten minutes."

"Did you really? I don't even remember that."

"Are you sure you're not wearing the Millennium Ring?" Alistair teased.

"God I hope not; I can't afford to go through that again."

Ryou, unlike either Alistair or Seto whose hardships were still very touchy subjects, liked his ordeal with the Spirit to be made light of because he felt it helped him get past it, which he'd explained to Alistair after Yugi had left the day the redhead had officially moved in. He'd complained about how Yugi and his friends always danced around the issue with they hung out with him.

"I hate it," he'd said, "because I know they're all thinking about it. But instead of just coming right out and saying so, they try to act like it never happened."

"What books did you talk about in your class today?"

"Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Treasure Island. Since they're both by Robert Louis Stevenson we spent a lot of the day comparing the two which I thought was rather silly. Talking about the actual stories is so much more fun and interesting.

I really enjoyed Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for probably obvious reasons, but my professor really embarrassed me during our class discussion by bringing up something that I'd mentioned to him over our lunch break about how I feel bad for Dr. Jekyll. He made me restate what I'd said and let me go on about it for almost five minutes only to explain to everyone that by feeling that way I proved how much I don't understand Dr. Jekyll's character.

I don't see how a feeling about a book can be wrong though; stories mean different things to different people based on each person's life experiences. But it wasn't like I could tell him that I felt that way because I too know what it feels like to have a demon inside of you that takes you over and does terrible things, so I had to just sit there feeling like an idiot until he finally moved on to something else."

"If it would have been me I would have said that to him. Told him that I think he's wrong about there being a 'correct' interpretation."

"He's my professor though; I can't just criticize him like that, not if I want him to give me a good grade."

"Maybe, but if you would have stood up for yourself you might have been able to convince him that you were right." Ryou shrugged.

"I'm not as bold as you are when it comes to that kind of thing." He was referring to an incident that had occurred on Sunday night when the two had gone to the store to buy food for the week.

On their way out, Ryou had paused to try to win a chibi zombie plushy from a machine near the exit. Having achieved his goal he'd triumphantly held up the toy, causing several passing teenage boys to snicker. Without missing a beat, Alistair had rounded on them.

"I don't know what you're laughing at when you probably couldn't win the game no matter how hard you tried." It was the kind of thing Joey would have done had he been there.

"Yeah, well, being bold isn't always the best idea…" He could think of plenty of fights with Seto that could have been easily avoided if only he hadn't been so determined to prove to the brunette that he wasn't the only one who could verbally spar.

Ryou suddenly noticed the website that Alistair had pulled up on the screen.

"What are you working on?" he asked.

"Oh. It's calculus. I have to take a class this semester and I'm trying to play catch-up before it starts. I never really learned any of this stuff," Alistair admitted ruefully.

"Do you want any help? I'm pretty good at math."

"Really? Yeah, sure, thanks."

"No problem." Just then Ryou's stomach growled loudly. "Hmm, maybe I should eat something first."

"There's frozen pizza in the freezer. I had one earlier and I almost made you one too, but I thought you'd rather make bangers and mash or something."

"Do you even know what bangers and mash is?" Ryou asked good-naturedly, getting up to make himself a salad.

"Not a clue."

As soon as Ryou began moving things around in the kitchen, Sewell leapt off her perch on the windowsill and started twining herself around his legs, purring. Much like Trudy, Ryou had won Sewell over through the use of food.

"Hang on," he laughed. "I haven't even opened the tuna yet." The minute he did open the container she began mewing loudly and trying to jump up on the counter, but she was too small to jump high enough.

He tipped the tuna juice into a bowl and set it on the ground for her where she quickly lapped it up. He put the finishing touches on his simple salad of lettuce, tuna, and tomato, pinched a small piece of tuna off for the cat and walked back into the bedroom, Sewell hot on his heels.

"You spoil her," Alistair pointed out as Ryou dropped the piece of fish for the calico.

"How could anyone not? She's so cute." He reached down and scratched her behind her ears.

"Seto couldn't stand her. He never liked her which she must have known because when we tried to have her sleep with us she attacked his feet. That was pretty much the last straw." At the mention of Kaiba, Ryou bit his lip. Every time the CEO was brought up it was another reminder to him of why it was that he and Alistair couldn't pursue anything. Alistair noticed Ryou's troubled expression, correctly guessed its source and hastily changed the subject. "I don't suppose you're still willing to help me with this, are you?"

While Ryou ate his dinner and Sewell played at their feet, he tried to teach Alistair a few tricks to help him more quickly and efficiently solve his calculus problems.

"Is it starting to make sense?" he asked after a half an hour.

"Definitely. Thanks."

"No problem. It's just as well that I brush up on that. It may never matter again, but then again, maybe someone else will need help that I'll only be able to provide if I keep my skills sharp."

"Thank you for not making me feel stupid."

"Why would I? It's not your fault you don't understand it; you never learned it. And even if you had, if you don't get it that doesn't make you stupid. 'Stupid' is a horrible thing to call someone."

"You'd be a good teacher."

"Maybe. But I wouldn't have any idea how to get a bunch of kids to be quiet or break up fights or anything like that."

"A tutor then. There are plenty of people who would pay you a lot of money to tutor their kids." He was thinking of the fat paychecks Mokuba's tutors surely received.

"Hmm…perhaps. But I do have a rather busy schedule; it'd be hard to find time to tutor kids in between all of the other social obligations I have."

"You mean like watching movies and playing games?"

"And going on dates and attending parties and…I don't know…going clubbing. Things like that take up a lot of time you know."

"Oh certainly. I go to so many parties that sometimes I have to survive for weeks at a time on caffeine alone."

"We are utterly ridiculous," Ryou said, laughing. "If we don't begin re-evaluating our lifestyle immediately we're going to die of socialite-itis."

Soon thereafter, Ryou took some clothes into the bathroom with him so that he could change into something more comfortable than the jeans and button up he had on.

He emerged a minute later wearing a pair of loose-fitting pajama pants with game controllers on them and an oversized plain white t-shirt that did nothing to disguise his slender frame. He scooped his empty salad bowl off the bed and walked out to the kitchen to wash it, leaving Alistair staring after him.

Alistair knew perfectly well that he was far from over Seto, who continued to invade his dreams, but he was also aware that just as he didn't plan on waiting around for Seto to take him back, Ryou had no plans to wait for him to get over Seto. Eventually he would find someone else and Alistair would have missed his chance.

Ryou returned from the kitchen.

"I don't know about you, but I'm in the mood to slaughter some zombies." He pretended to crack his knuckles in anticipation. "What?" he added when Alistair didn't come back with some remark about him having class in the morning.

"Do you remember what you told me the first night I was here? About not wanting to be used anymore? I've been thinking about it a lot. Am I over him? No, not by a long shot, but I can't say I'm surprised. I stalked him for seven years. He was all I thought about. Then I fell in love with him and lived with him and slept in the same bed as him every night for almost a year. I don't know that I'll ever be completely over him, but does that mean that I don't deserve to try to be happy with someone else?

I've been sitting here debating whether or not to tell you this— and maybe I shouldn't have, but I like you a lot and I really want to kiss you." He looked up from the spot he'd been staring at; just to the left of where Ryou was standing, and met his gaze.

Ryou didn't know what to say. No one had ever said anything like that to him before. Sure he occasionally got hit on, but always in a very crude, base way, and not by anyone he cared to get involved with. He liked Alistair—a lot—but he was wary. Seto Kaiba was not a person he was comfortable being compared to. He wasn't self-assured, rich, handsome, or clever like Kaiba was; how could he possibly hope to compete?

"I like you too," he said finally. "But I don't know…" He bit his lower lip and mulled it over some more.

Alistair stood up and joined Ryou in the doorway. Eyes wide, Ryou stood perfectly still, knowing that if Alistair were to try to kiss him again, he wouldn't stop him this time. Alistair slowly reached out to brush the Brit's overgrown bangs out of his eyes and let his hand trail down the side of his face and torso, coming to rest on his narrow waist. Just as slowly he leaned in and brushed his lips against Ryou's.

Though the Spirit of the Ring had had no reservations when it came to using his host's body in ways that made Ryou cringe even now, he himself had never kissed anyone before. It felt wonderful to be wanted by someone, and the pressure of Alistair's mouth against his caused a swooping sensation in his stomach that he'd been afraid he'd only ever read about.

Kissing Ryou was a completely different experience from kissing Seto. Where Seto was rough, Ryou was gentle, where Seto seemed to be carved from marble, Ryou was soft, though Alistair knew him to be far from fragile.

Ryou wrapped his arms around Alistair's neck as they continued to kiss, and it occurred to the redhead that unlike with Seto, here he would be the one whose direction was followed, though he wasn't sure how far Ryou would want to go.

He gently pushed the Brit up against the doorframe and when the gesture wasn't met with protest, tilted Ryou's head to the side and began kissing along the racing pulse in his neck. Ryou sighed in pleasure and closed his eyes after tentatively twining his fingers into Alistair's hair.

In what was supposed to have been one swift motion, Alistair placed his hands on Ryou's thighs and picked him up with a small grunt. It wasn't nearly as easy as Seto always made it seem, but he managed to carry Ryou over to the bed before they both fell onto it with Alistair on top. At this point he and Seto would have started ripping each other's clothes off, but in light of the Brit's obvious innocence, he decided that a different approach would be more appropriate.

"Tell me if I do something you don't like, ok?" he said, looking down at Ryou whose long white hair had flayed out over the pillow. Ryou was a bit embarrassed by the statement, knowing that Alistair was only saying so on account of his inexperience. Still, he nodded.

"I will. But you have to promise that you won't think I'm easy." Ryou's voice was coy.

"Of course I don't think that." He leaned down to kiss him again, sliding his hand up the side of Ryou's thin t-shirt as he did so.

Not long thereafter, the Brit's shirt lay crumpled on the floor. Ryou's skin was so pale that in the moonlight it practically glowed. And it was perfectly flawless save for a jagged scar on his left bicep.

"What happened?" Alistair asked, tracing the spot with his fingertip. Ryou, who was very self-conscious when it came to the ugly disfigurement, told Alistair the story of how the Spirit, in an attempt to aide Marik Ishtar, had stabbed himself (and Ryou by default) in the arm with a piece of broken glass. He ended the story by covering the scar with his hand, saying:

"Don't look at it; it's ugly."

"If it makes you uncomfortable, I won't. But you shouldn't be embarrassed by it."

"Every time I look in the mirror and see that scar, it reminds me of him. I can't even begin to explain to you what it was like having him in my head for so long. Even when I was me I could feel him lurking in my mind, waiting to take over again. Fighting him was even worse; it left me so drained and hopeless. It got to the point where all I wanted to do was die so I didn't have to watch on helplessly while he ran around doing terrible things anymore. But he wouldn't let me. Every time I tried to kill myself he'd take over so that I couldn't."

Alistair lay down beside him and wrapped an arm around Ryou's waist.

"You don't have to talk to me about this."

"No, I want to, it's just that no one ever wants to hear about it. It's so maddening to listen to Yugi and Téa and Tristan and Joey get all worked up about the Pharaoh being gone when no one ever even acknowledged what I had to endure at the hands of the Spirit of the Ring. I still dream about it sometimes," he added softly. "They have no idea how much he tortured me."

"I'm so sorry that that happened to you," Alistair said, pulling the snowy-haired Brit closer. He couldn't imagine anyone hurting someone so gentle. Ryou rolled over so that he and Alistair were lying face to face.

"Thank you for listening to me. You're the first person I've talked to about that." He snuggled up against the redhead's chest so that Alistair's chin was resting on the top of his head.

They lay together for almost two hours, alternating between talking and kissing. Outside it started to drizzle which only served to make things cozier.

"Do you want to watch a movie?" Ryou asked suddenly. "I could make popcorn."

"Don't forget you have class tomorrow." Ryou sat up and waved the sentiment away.

"I know, but even if we watch a movie now I could still get to bed before midnight."

"Yes, but I know what's going to happen. We'll watch a movie and then it'll remind you of some game, you'll spend another thirty minutes looking up and downloading the game, and then at least an hour and a half playing it which will put you in bed, at the earliest, at almost two in the morning."

"I'd still get seven hours of sleep," Ryou pointed out cheerfully. "Come on; I'll let you pick what we watch!"

"What you mean to say is you'll let me choose between vampires, zombies, ghosts, and psychopathic serial killers."

"I'm sorry, was that not clear?" Alistair sighed, but he was smiling.

"Serial killers then."

"Oh, I know a really good one! Have you ever seen Silence of the Lambs?"

"No."

"It's rather old, but it's a classic about a cannibal named Hannibal Lector."

"Why not?"

With a real life backdrop of rainfall, Ryou and Alistair sat on the floor in front of the TV eating popcorn and petting Sewell every time she walked past while the movie played.

Afterwards, as Alistair had predicted, Ryou ended up gaming until almost two at which time they both crawled into bed, Alistair pulling the Brit against him.

It was then, after Ryou fell asleep, that Alistair thought about Seto. Was the brunette still shut up in his room? Had he cut himself again? Or was he over the whole thing already? Did he miss him at all?

As angry as he was at Seto, he couldn't help but continue to think back on the haunted look of utter betrayal that had been on his face when he'd seen Alistair standing in the doorway after getting home.

He believed that Seto meant what he had said about hating him more than he'd hated Gozaburo. Knowing what he knew about the brunette made him worry that Seto might not see this as one incident, but instead see it as another in a series of betrayals and heartaches, thus causing him to be more upset than he otherwise would have been.

He also really wanted to know what exactly Britney had told him. Given that Seto had been planning on going public with regards to his sexuality anyway, he assumed that there must have been more that was said than just that, and he had a horrible feeling that Britney had told him what had been told to Darren about the scars on his wrist. It was the single most personal thing, besides his occasional nightmares about his step-father, that Alistair had known about Seto, and he never should have told Darren even though he hadn't mentioned Seto's name.

The more he thought about it the worse he felt about everything that had happened. He finally decided to take Trudy up on her suggestion to check up on Seto and make sure, if nothing else, that he was alright and once more offer the brunette the chance to hear his side of things. But he was scared. What if, though it was highly unlikely, the brunette did forgive him and ask for him to come back? He couldn't do that to Ryou after promising that he wouldn't use him. Oh but his heart still longed for Seto, and no matter how much he liked Ryou, he wasn't sure that that would ever change.

Alistair slid the door to the sauna shut behind him.

"Will you at least try to relax and stay still this time?" Seto asked with a small frown. Alistair shrugged. He felt horribly mischievous for some reason.

"I might." He felt himself grinning. Seto rolled his eyes, but Alistair could see the smile twitching on his lips.

"Come here." The next thing Alistair knew, he was lying on his back with Seto on top of him, the CEO's cobalt eyes boring into his. He reached up and traced the muscles in Seto's chest with his fingertip

"I love you, Seto," he said softly before pulling the brunette in for a kiss.

Before long, Seto started to go down on him, causing Alistair to arch his back in pleasure.

"Seto…mmm, Seto…"

"Alistair, wake up." Alistair's eyes snapped open. Ryou was looking down at him concernedly. "Are you alright?" he asked as the redhead tried to pull himself out of the dream.

"What?"

"You were thrashing around and mumbling about something, but I didn't understand what you were saying…"

"It was nothing." Alistair felt both annoyed that he'd been woken up and guilty that he felt annoyed. "I'm sorry I woke you up."

"Don't apologize; it's fine. And if you ever want to talk about anything, I'm here for you, I promise."

"Thank you. But right now I just want to go back to sleep."

"Alright. I have to get up in about an hour, but I'll try not to wake you up, ok?" They lay back down, Ryou wrapping his arms protectively around Alistair who was very grateful that he hadn't still been spooning the Brit while having that dream. What was wrong with him?

Author's Note: 'But they've only been broken up for two weeks!' you cry in indignation. True, but I've gone through break-ups myself before, and it was always in the first few weeks afterwards that I felt the most inclined to jump into bed with other people as a coping mechanism. Alistair, unlike Seto, was never so guarded about his feelings, and I therefore find it reasonable that he would quickly fall for Ryou-especially given that they're living in such close proximity to each other, and also since he already knew that Ryou liked him.

And then there's Ryou who's been craving closeness after being isolated against his will for so long; of course he'd fall into Alistair's arms. I would.