Disclaimer: You know the drill: I say something not very witty to convey the point that I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!

"Take a look into my eyes one last time
So we never forget
The way we were before
When we came alive at the moment we met

I'll give you all I've got to give
So let's try one last time

Now that we know just who we are
Now that we've finally come this far
I'm ready for one more battle scar

'Cause we're still worth fighting for."

~Still Worth Fighting For, My Darkest Days

Chapter 25

After ordering one of the interns in advertising to draw up a design for the poster, Seto and Alistair had been picked up by Alfred and driven to the Kaiba mansion.

Seto had called ahead so that Trudy would have time to put together some kind of snack, but even though he'd told her that he was bringing Alistair with him she didn't believe it until she saw him get out of the limo. She looked hopefully at the pair of them, but Seto shook his head slightly, indicating that they weren't in fact back together. Looking slightly disappointed, she'd told them that she'd set out a plate of fruit and a pot of tea in the drawing room for them before retreating to her apartment.

True to his word, Seto did his best to keep his sarcasm and impatience to himself while helping tutor Alistair. The redhead had much less difficulty picking up German than he had picking up calculus which also helped keep the peace.

"I don't know why you thought you needed my help," Seto said after they'd been studying for an hour and a half, tossing a grape into his mouth and lounging back in the black leather drawing room sofa and closing his eyes. Alistair 'tsked' indignantly from where he was sitting on the floor.

"I never said I needed your help!"

"Relax." Alistair flared his nostrils but recognized that Seto had merely been teasing him. That would certainly take some getting used to.

Casting around for something to say lest his gaze linger too long on the brunette's uncharacteristically serene face, Alistair's eyes landed on the violin hanging on the wall.

"I wish I could play an instrument."

"So pick one and learn how," Seto replied without opening his eyes. "All it takes is practice, same as anything else."

"How much did you have to practice before you could play the violin properly?" Seto sat back up and shrugged, reaching for another grape.

"A couple of years. I'm still not very good at it, but that's just because I never really prioritized it."

"The one time I ever heard you play I thought you sounded really good," Alistair said without thinking before suddenly realizing that mentioning that night to Seto might not be wise considering that that had also been the night he'd caught the brunette cutting himself. Seto's eyes flashed momentarily, but he took it in stride.

"I didn't realize you heard that." There was a pause. "My step-father barely let me practice and now I don't have time to, but whenever I felt like…" He grimaced before continuing. "Whenever I felt like hurting myself I always came here and played to try and stop myself even though I knew I'd do it anyway. Those were the only times I played for years."

"Why not right now?"

"What?" Seto looked taken aback.

"Play something for me," Alistair said, closing the grammar book lying on the coffee table sitting between them before pressing his palms into the carpet and leaning back expectantly. "You're always so quick to show off; surely you can play something for me at my request."

"I…" It had honestly never occurred to Seto that playing the violin didn't have to be in connection to feeling depressed.

"Go on. If you don't I might just have to tell Joey that you're not perfect after all."

"Don't talk to him about me!" Seto snapped.

"Why do you hate him so much? Ryou told me that you always pick on him. He's admittedly not very sophisticated, but that doesn't warrant getting ridiculed by you at every opportunity."

"He's a moron; isn't that enough?" Seto asked vehemently, visibly flustered. Talking to Dr. Coleman about his dislike of the blonde had been easy, but for some reason Alistair's seemingly offhand question was really ruffling his feathers.

"I don't know if I'd go that far," Alistair replied, taken aback by Seto's extreme reaction. "I mean, I'm not sure 'smart' is a word I'd use to describe him, but…" Suddenly he had a thought. He narrowed his eyes and smiled slyly. "You just like yanking his pigtails, don't you?"

"What?" Seto asked, trying with all his might not to let Alistair see just how hot under the collar this conversation was making him.

"When I was in elementary school that's how all the boys showed the girls that they liked them. They'd tease them and pull their hair."

They stared at each other for a moment, Alistair occasionally snickering, and Seto trying to force the excess blood to drain from his cheeks. Suddenly, he stood up and wrenched the violin off the wall, tuning it while the redhead continued to laugh.

"Do you want to listen to me play or do you want to sit there and laugh?" Alistair tried to compose himself. "And for the record: you're wrong. He's a deadbeat loser and should be treated as such, end of story." He angrily placed the bow to the strings and began playing the first thing that popped into his head: Devil's Trill. It was the only song that Gozaburo had instructed him to learn on account of its' complexity which he'd felt would most impress any guests he had over to the house.

Though he hadn't played it in years, his fingers danced automatically across the strings, faltering here and there, but staying mostly in tune. Alistair, from his perch on the floor, listened with rapt attention. He wondered if it would ever cease to amaze him that someone could pick up the relatively simple-looking instrument and with a flurry of random (it seemed to him) twitches of the bow and accompanying finger motions produce such a melody.

"That's incredible," he said once Seto had finished an abridged version of the song.

"Not really," the brunette shrugged, placing the violin carefully back on the wall. "That's probably the worst I've ever played that. I'm out of practice."

"Maybe you should play more often then."

"Hmm…"

"What was that called?"

"Devil's Trill."

"Why's it called that?"

"Because that's what the composer named it."

"So you don't know." Seto sighed in irritation.

"No, I don't know. But does it really matter why? The music is what's important. It could have been called 'Song 483' and it still would have sounded the same." Just then Alistair's cell phone started buzzing and he retrieved it from his back pocket. It was a text from Ryou asking when he was coming home.

"Are we done for today?" he asked Seto who in the meantime had returned to his original position on the sofa and checked his own cell phone messages.

"Why, is Bakura not capable of finding ways to occupy his time without you?" he sneered, replying to a text his brother had sent asking for a translation of an email he'd received from one of their factories in China. Alistair rolled his eyes.

"Not even you can make jealousy look attractive."

"As if I'd ever be jealous of Bakura. Last I heard he has to take two pills a day just to keep himself from murdering everyone he can lay his hands on." Alistair thought about asking how Seto knew that, but instead shot back with:

"Last I heard you have your own pills to take." Seto set his jaw.

"I don't need those."

"Oh yeah, that's right: you don't accept help from anyone or anything."

"You're saying you think I need my mood dictated by antidepressants?"

"Obviously your psychiatrist thinks so."

"I can take care of myself." Alistair rolled his eyes.

"Have it your way. Anyway, I should probably get going." As he said it he remembered that he didn't have his motorcycle with him. His realization must have shown on his face because Seto smirked and said:

"Need a ride?"

Alistair hadn't often ridden in Seto's sports car, but he'd not forgotten how fast the brunette liked to drive.

"Don't you ever get pulled over?" he asked as they streaked down several narrow side streets.

"Please, I own this city," Seto scoffed. "Half of the cops in Domino probably have spouses or at least a family member who works for me." Given how much of a monopoly Kaiba Corp had come to have in just about every line of business, Alistair didn't doubt it. "And even if that weren't the case, they know better than to arrest the person who donates so generously to them every year."

"And all so you can drive as fast as you want? That's despicable."

"So is stalking someone for seven years just because you think their step-father indirectly caused your life to suck, and yet here you are." Alistair crossed his arms. "In future you might want to make sure you don't have skeletons in your own closet before you criticize someone else."

"Congratulations on always having a snarky comeback," Alistair said sourly, turning away. Still, he had to admit that even though he hardly ever won, he'd missed their banter.

They arrived at the apartment complex alarmingly quickly in Alistair's opinion and Seto pulled around back, parking next to a beat-up mini-van. The fact that Seto hadn't just let him out at the curb made him nervous.

"Seto," he began slowly, angling to bolt, his right hand already curling around the door handle. Seto noted the redhead's spooked expression.

"Relax," he said, rolling his eyes. "I wasn't going to." He could only assume that Alistair thought he'd pulled around back in order to have the opportunity to try and kiss him.

"Oh."

"Disappointed?" Seto's trademark smirk was back in full force.

"Of course not," Alistair said snippily, though he couldn't help vividly imagining climbing across the seat and passionately kissing the brunette before going down on him in the middle of the parking lot.

Seto, who was having similar thoughts, strengthened his resolve to stick to his original plan.

"Do you have time tomorrow to study?" he asked. "I don't think I completely understand how to recognize an accusative preposition."

"Oh ha, ha, ha," Alistair said sarcastically. Accusative and dative prepositions were the ones he still had trouble with. "Yes, I do have time tomorrow. But it would have to be after four."

"Would you want me to pick you up?"

"No; I'll have my motorcycle with me; I can just drive to the mansion myself."

"We could go somewhere else if you wanted." Alistair rolled his eyes.

"Like where, Kaiba Corp headquarters?"

"Wherever you want." Alistair eyed Seto suspiciously.

"What did they do to you at the hospital?"

"You already asked me that."

"Did you leave out 'electro-shock therapy'?"

"Don't be absurd. I told you: I decided to make a few changes." Alistair continued to eye him distrustfully, his hand never leaving the door handle.

"I'm not an idiot; I know what you're doing. You're trying to win me back. But I know you. The moment I'd say yes would be the moment you'd stop trying and before long we'd be right back to where we were before."

"I disagree. And considering 'where we were' when we first met I'd say we haven't done too badly for ourselves."

"We aren't right for each other." Seto snorted derisively.

"Says who?"

"Me. You pay off cops, you're in charge of a company that does more harm than good, and you're unnecessarily cruel to anyone who happens to cross you."

"Careful, I wouldn't want you to fall off that high horse of yours. Call me whatever you like, but at least I never tried to kill someone just because they disagreed with my ideology." Alistair flushed.

"My intentions were good."

"Oh yes, killing all the 'bad' people and somehow turning the world into a paradise inhabited only by the pure of heart is so noble. Pity that such a world will never exist."

"All you're doing is proving my point."

"Am I? I thought I was pointing out how very similar we are. We want the same thing; we just have different ways of going about it.

You've chosen to believe that deep down people are good and that given the chance every person would always choose to do the right thing. By being kind you're hoping to convince other people that they should be too, thus making the world a better place.

I on the other hand, don't believe that people are inherently good; I believe that people are inherently selfish. But since I also want to create a better world I had to think of a way to harness this selfishness to my end. And I have. Where you see a soulless corporation I see hundreds if not thousands of people who would be collecting unemployment money or drowning in debt if it weren't for me. Do you know what the unemployment rate in Domino is? Less than five percent. And do you want to know why? Because there's a place for everyone in my company if they're willing to work hard enough. And the more I expand the more jobs I create, and the more money I make, the more I can put that money to good use."

"Like buying a jet shaped like a dragon?" Seto set his jaw.

"Like providing every child at my old orphanage with the chance to dare to dream for something better. And it's not just them. I may not give them money, in fact I take it, but in return I offer anyone who buys my products a place to escape to. A world where all of life's problems can be solved with a duel disk instead of a gun, where anyone can be a hero, even a puny loser like Yugi Motou.

So maybe my utopia isn't as ambitious as yours, but at least mine is real."

"Then why did you want to kill yourself?" Alistair asked, relinquishing his grip on the door handle at last.

"The same reason that I presume you were willing to die trying to kill me; you realized that by erasing all of the 'bad people' you'd be the only bad person left.

Do you know what happens to things that continue to exist past their prime? They rot. And considering that anyone who I'd ever had the misfortune of getting close to stabbed me in the back and hastened my fall from grace I thought death would be preferable. I didn't want to turn into my step-father, but it was either that or kill myself. Obviously I chose the latter."

"But it didn't work."

"No."

"So what now?"

"That's where you come in. After facing my step-father in the cyber world and defeating him and then destroying the last physical evidence of his spiteful empire I didn't know what to do. Surpassing him had been my goal for as long as I'd been his son, and then I did it.

Then you came along and pointed out just how similar to him I'd become. At first I resented that, but I knew that it was true no matter how much I didn't want it to be.

I've been told by more people than I care to count that I have everything, and they're mostly right. I have power, I have money, I have intelligence and strength, and according to the tabloids I have physical beauty, but because I'm human I'm also selfish, so I want more than that. I want you. And at this point wanting you is one of the only things letting me know that I'm not him."

"What about Mokuba?"

"Mokuba doesn't have the guts to tell me when I'm wrong. Either that or I've done a better job convincing him that I'm perfect than I thought." They both fell silent for a moment.

"Maybe I'm naïve," Alistair said finally. "But I want to believe you."

"So do." Seto felt suddenly hopeful and tentatively reached out and rested his hand on top of Alistair's which was resting on the seat between them.

"I don't—."

"You said yourself that you want to live without expectations. I can't promise you that I won't screw this up, but I can promise you that I'll try not to, and my succeed/fail ratio is nearly unmatched." Alistair continued to look uncertain, but he didn't pull his hand away. "What are you afraid of? If you're worried about what Bakura would say—."

"That's not it."

"What then?"

"How can you be so convinced that this is what you want? You've never been with anyone else." Seto tightened his grip on the redhead's hand.

"I know. And considering that I'm a genius, when I say I know something, the probability that I'm right is extremely high."

"Just because you're a genius that doesn't mean that you're automatically right about everything."

"No, but it means that I have the brains not to say I know something when I don't." Alistair wasn't as sure about Seto's track record when it came to declaring he knew things that he didn't as the brunette seemed to be, but he was glad to know that the CEO had at least thought about it. And he'd be lying if he said that Seto staring into his eyes while saying that he was sure the redhead was the one for him hadn't given him goose bumps.

"Ok," Alistair said slowly. For a split second, Seto was stunned. Even though he'd thought of nothing but this moment all weekend, it still took him by surprise that Alistair was actually agreeing. As the realization fully hit him he felt a grin beginning to stretch its' way across his features. "I'm not moving back in though," Alistair said firmly, though he too bore a small smile. Seto forced his face back into its' usual blank expression before saying:

"Of course. I understand." But he wasn't sure he actually did. Granted, his knowledge bank when it came to relationships wasn't nearly as vast as his bank account, but he couldn't imagine wanting to live in such close proximity to someone you'd broken up with. What he did understand was Alistair's desire to establish his own, separate life. He'd always understood that, and he respected it.

"Good." Alistair laughed wryly. "I can't believe I'm letting you talk me into something like this again." He thought back to the time that Seto had convinced him to fly back to Domino with him.

"You forget: much of my job involves talking people into things. Anyway, when and where do you want to meet up tomorrow?" As he spoke, Seto found himself stroking the back of Alistair's hand with his thumb, greedily taking advantage of being able to touch him. Even before Mokuba had gone to talk to Darren Seto had missed that, though he'd tried hard to bury the emotion, certain that he'd never get that close to anyone ever again.

"We could meet up right after I get off of work, so around four-thirty if you have time then. As for where…" He pondered for a moment, trying to decide just how committed to studying he actually was.

"Going somewhere public might be problematic," Seto pointed out. Alistair nodded. No matter how much Seto may have changed as a person, he was still the city's biggest celebrity all things considered. Even if the Duel Monsters phenomenon had escaped the notice of some of the residents, everyone knew Kaiba Corporation. "We could use Kaiba Land," he suggested. "If you don't want to use my house."

"No, that's fine. I'll drive there after class tomorrow."

"Fine. I'll have whoever's working let you in."

"Are you sure I'm not still authorized? Because I still had access about a month ago."

"A lot can change in a month. Hmm…I guess it would be easier to just reauthorize you…"

"So then I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Yeah." But neither of them made any effort to move. "I want you to know that those things I said to you that day…I was angry; I didn't mean them," Seto apologized awkwardly.

"Yes you did. And I understand why. You thought I'd betrayed you, which I suppose I did in a way by not telling you when I realized that you needed to know, so I deserved it. When I told you that I wasn't sure I could ever forgive you for some of the things you said I meant because of why you were saying them. You should have known me better than to think I would actually do that to you out of spite. That's what I'm not sure I can forgive."

"You're right; I should have trusted you. I'll make it up to you, I swear it! I can't take it back, but I'll find a way to prove to you that that won't happen again!"

"You can't promise that. But I can't promise with certainty that I won't hurt you either, so we either have to walk away from this now or acknowledge that even if we try our best we still might end up failing. Our expectations last time were far too high. Or at least, mine were."

The concept of admitting that he might fail was something that Seto found repulsive. After all, admitting that failure was a possibility was as good as making it a reality in his opinion.

"I don't think I can do that. I always play to win." Alistair had expected as much. Some things about Seto would probably never change; he'd accepted that a long time ago.

"I guess you can't always be the realist."

"I'll leave that to you. Stolen any souls for an ancient Atlantian ghost recently?" Alistair pulled his hand away and crossed his arms.

"That really happened and you know it."

"All I know is that a year ago some loony who wanted a shot at beating a real duelist dressed up as Pegasus and threatened my company in order to coerce me into a duel."

"Funny how we got from there to here," Alistair agreed, uncrossing his arms. He couldn't believe that that had only been a little over a year ago given everything that had happened.

"Tcha."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Seto shrugged.

"A lot can happen in a year."

"Maybe to you, but I was used to days full of tedious surveillance, shooting and dueling practice and a lot of just sitting around listening to Dartz talk about the way the world used to be. Everything started blurring together after a while, especially once we started collecting souls. I can't even remember the names of all the people whose souls I captured," Alistair mused, absentmindedly cracking his knuckles as he reminisced about his days as one of Dartz's three most trusted servants.

"Don't feel too bad; I can't even remember the faces of all the people I've ever fired."

"That makes me feel so much better."

They both wanted nothing more than to throw their arms around each other and kiss as though the other person's lips were air and they couldn't breathe, but neither was willing to initiate anything. Seto scorned such a frenzied display of affection as ridiculously romantic, and Alistair couldn't help but think of Ryou waiting for him upstairs, and how he was going to have to explain this to the Brit once he joined him in the small apartment.

"I should leave before some maniac who got their license out of a cereal box comes and dents my car," Seto said, breaking the silence that had fallen between them. Alistair nodded and started to open the car door when Seto leaned across the seat and rested his hand on the redhead's cheek, staring into his lustrous argent eyes. He would have been content to stay like that for a moment, but Alistair took the matter out of his hands by pressing his lips against Seto's.

The kiss did not last nearly as long as either of them would have liked, but they both saw that it was time to return to the real world, at least for a time.

"I'll see you tomorrow," Alistair said softly, kissing the brunette one more time before getting out of the car, the sensation of their combined lips lingering.

As Seto began driving away he raised his left hand nonchalantly in farewell, a small smile on his face.

The punch-drunk feeling of happiness that his reunion with Seto had caused began to dissipate as Alistair walked upstairs. What was he going to say to Ryou?

Thank god he and Ryou had already broken up or else this would inevitably have turned ugly, but even as it was it would be awkward at best and painful at worst meaning it would more than likely fall somewhere in between.

Ryou had gotten home promptly at twelve-thirty and immediately turned on his PC to finish the rest of his homework which after several hours of hard work still wasn't complete.

By the time Alistair dragged himself back into the apartment, Ryou was 'quite cross'; the algorithm he'd been working on was proving more difficult than he'd thought. Still, he managed to shelve his annoyance in order to ask Alistair how his day had gone.

"Is your group terrible?" he asked as he sliced an apple at the kitchenette, intending to spread peanut butter on the slices.

"No," Alistair replied, his tone uncertain.

"What does that mean?" Ryou laughed.

"I just have one partner."

"Oh?"

"Seto." Ryou stopped cutting mid-slice and looked over.

"What?"

"He decided to join my class. I didn't know he would," he added. Ryou, in an attempt to keep his feelings of resentment to himself, turned back to chopping the apple, though he admittedly cut down much harder than he needed to.

"I guess he wasn't kidding about not giving up on you." The Brit clearly wasn't in a good mood, and Alistair hated to make it worse, but he was also loathe to put off telling him after how badly that strategy had worked out for him the last time he'd tried it.

"We went to his house to study together."

"Did you get much studying done?" Ryou was sweet by nature, but even he had his limits.

"Yes actually."

"That's just lovely. And I'd absolutely love to hear more except I have an algorithm to correct and a write-up to do as well as some math homework of my own so if you don't mind cutting your riveting story short I'm going to get to that." He set the knife down hard in the sink and practically flung the apple wedges onto a plate next to a generous portion of peanut butter.

"Ryou…"

"I'm happy for you, truly," Ryou said, not sounding happy at all. "I just have a lot to do and not nearly enough time to do it in and...and I can't help but feel like you knew this would happen from the beginning!"

"That's not fair."

"Isn't it?" Ryou asked, uncharacteristically angry, slamming the plate back on the counter, causing several of the slices to fall to the floor. "You told me that you weren't going to go back to him, that he'd have to do a 'complete 180' and stupid me believed you." His voice grew huskier and he couldn't keep tears from shining in his eyes. "I really thought that there might be a chance that eventually it would be the right time for us. And it's not your fault or anything; I'm not blaming you it just…it hurts." Unable to hold back his tears any longer they began pouring down his face which he quickly covered with his hands. "I'm so sorry," he hiccupped. "I told you I'd be happy for you and I know that breaking-up was my choice, but I can't." Alistair hated seeing his friend in pain but wasn't sure there was anything he could do to ease it.

He walked to stand beside the Brit and rested a hand on his trembling shoulder.

"I'm not worth all of that," he said softly as Ryou continued to cry. "I'm not that special."

"But you understand me," Ryou wept. "Anyone else I'll ever be with won't know about the Millennium Items. They'll just think I'm crazy if I try to explain which means I'll have to hide that part of who I am for the rest of my life and pretend that it never happened. It's not fair!" He turned abruptly and threw himself against Alistair, burying his face against the redhead's shoulder and clutching onto him.

Without hesitation, Alistair wrapped his arms around him, though he truly was at a loss for words. He hadn't even thought about that considering that the two people he felt the closest to, Seto and Ryou, were both people who had either witnessed the Orichalcos' power or who were in a position to believe in it. Seeing Ryou so distraught made him realize how lucky he was in that respect.

He was in an extremely uncomfortable position. A part of him wanted to tell Ryou that he would give up on Seto in order to be with him, but if he did that he'd hurt Seto; the one he himself was actually in love with, however if he stayed with Seto he'd feel guilty for damning Ryou to precisely the future he'd just described.

He'd be happy with Ryou, he knew that, but he'd also feel resentful given that it wasn't him that Ryou loved, but the idea of him. Seto feelings, he felt, regardless of his inconsistent behavior, were genuine.

Eventually, Ryou cried himself out. Raising his red-rimmed amber eyes to meet Alistair's he said:

"I'm sorry I'm always falling apart around you." Alistair tightened his grip around Ryou's shoulders.

"Why do you always apologize? It's ok to be upset."

"I know, but I feel bad for making this awkward for you." He wiped the remaining tears off his face with his fingertips, but didn't back out of Alistair's embrace.

"Don't. I should feel bad; this is my fault. And there's nothing I can do to fix it, and I don't know what to tell you about having to pretend that you really did have a psychotic break except that that sucks and I'm sorry. But you're more than just that. The Spirit was a big part of your life, but he wasn't all of it. You're an amazing person with or without that as a part of your story. Anyone who you'll ever be with will know that you're smart, that you're a good cook, that you're kind and loyal and hardworking. And that you're really into video games and horror films and the occult," he added with a small smile. "And if you ever want to talk about the Spirit, I'll be there; I promise."

Ryou let the words sink in. It was far from an ideal solution, and he didn't completely like it, but Alistair was right that perhaps it was time to start thinking of himself as more than just 'that kid who got possessed by a vengeful ancient Egyptian spirit'.

"Thank you," he said, fresh tears rolling down his cheeks. But they weren't tears of sadness this time.

"Of course."

Author's Note: Poor Ryou. Personally, I put a lot of the blame for this on Alistair. Take it as a life lesson: don't get involved with someone new until you're legitimately emotionally ready to commit to someone else. But maybe there will be a happy ending for our little Brit yet...

Oh, and the chapter title translates to the concept of two people wanting to do something which neither person is willing to initiate.