Disclaimer: The story is all me, I just happen to enjoy dragging these boys along for the ride, though I cannot, alas, take credit for them.

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"We had a once in a lifetime
But I just couldn't see
Until' it was gone
A second once in a lifetime
May be too much to ask
But I swear from now on

If ever you're in my arms again
This time I'll love you much better
If ever you're in my arms again
This time I'll hold you forever."

~If Ever You're In My Arms Again, Peabo Bryson

Chapter 26

Mokuba was extremely annoyed to discover that he was the last to find out that his brother and Alistair had patched things up.

"It's none of your business," Seto said when confronted by his irate younger sibling who'd heard from Roland who'd heard from Kanzo that Seto had reauthorized Alistair to open the front gates. Mokuba put his hands on his hips as his brother continued to calmly write an email to the manager of the Hamburg Kaiba Land.

"Seto! You can't just ask me to take over your job for you and then tell me absolutely nothing!" Seto rolled his eyes before looking up. As glad as he was that Mokuba was growing into his own person, it had been much more convenient when he'd obeyed him without question.

"What do you want to know?"

"I want to know what happened. What did you say to change his mind?" He had a hard time imagining Seto making some grand romantic gesture to woo Alistair back to him, but clearly he'd done something that had worked.

"I reminded him that unlike Bakura I don't have a body count." Mokuba eyed him skeptically but supposed it would be asking a lot of his brother to expect full disclosure.

"So is he going to come back and live with us?" he asked.

"No."

"Why?"

"I don't want to trip over him every time I turn a corner." Mokuba was sorely tempted to bring up the morning he'd very nearly tripped over the both of them passed out on the landing, but chose instead to continue his interrogation despite Seto very obviously wanting to keep the details of his and Alistair's reconciliation to himself.

"But you're together again, right?"

"We weren't 'together' before." Mokuba sighed in exasperation and crossed his arms.

"Oh that's right, I forgot."

"Watch it," Seto said warningly. Mokuba was coming dangerously close to using the 'Kaiba, there's clearly something magical going on and I can't believe you're still denying it' tone. "Mokuba: I don't have time to discuss this with you right now. I have a lot of work to get done before I'm supposed to meet him at home so could you please stop pestering me?" He turned back to his computer.

"I thought you said he wasn't moving back in."

"He's not. I'm tutoring him in German," Seto answered as he typed. Mokuba stared at him blankly.

"German? Oh." Something suddenly clicked. "You weren't joking about taking a class at the university."

"Don't you have your own relationship to deal with? Why are you bothering me about mine?"

"Hilary and I are normal; you aren't, so of course I'm going to have questions."

"Meaning what exactly?" he asked, looking over at Mokuba again, his eyes narrowed.

"Well…You and Alistair are both guys." That was the last thing Seto would have expected his brother to say and it left him uncharacteristically speechless. They stared at each other for a moment until Mokuba could no longer contain himself and started laughing. "Chill out; I'm just kidding. Obviously that doesn't matter. What's weird about you and Alistair is how you both are about it. You aren't dating, you are dating, you won't touch each other, you make-out dunk on the landing—."

"That happened once."

"—you argue all the time, you go to rescue him; it's wildly inconsistent."

"What's your point?"

"You asked me why I always want to know what's going on with you." There was another pause. "Are you two actually going to study?"

"Cut it out."

"What, I'm just asking."

"Enough. Don't you have homework or something to do?"

"No."

"Well, I don't have time for small talk."

"Ok, I understand, you don't want to talk about it. I'll go. But you know: I really am glad that you and he are back together."

"Hmm…Just promise you've grown up enough not to be jealous this time." Mokuba flushed.

"That won't happen again."

"Good."

"So I guess I'll see you later?" Mokuba said questioningly.

"Why wouldn't you?"

"I mean," the mischief crept back into Mokuba's dark blue eyes. "If the two of you go straight to your room I probably won't see you again until tomorrow." Seto started to order him out of the office, but Mokuba beat him to the punch by retreating to the door. "See you later!" he said, giggling as he exited the room, the door clicking shut behind him.

Seto sighed before returning to his correspondence. When had his life turned into a soap opera?

"I'm not sure when I'll be back," Alistair answered Ryou honestly as he grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl Ryou kept on the countertop despite it taking up half the space.

After talking for almost three hours straight the day before, he finally felt that he and Ryou were in a good place again. He knew that Ryou still did and probably always would resent Seto which was a shame given that he felt the two actually had a lot in common interest-wise.

"Should I save some food for you?" Ryou asked, picking Sewell up off the floor and holding her against his chest, causing her to commence to purr loudly.

"Um…" He was actually under the impression that he wouldn't be back at all that night. Ryou inferred this through Alistair's obvious discomfort. Ignoring the bitter taste that information left in his mouth he managed to keep his expression neutral.

"I'll toss whatever's left in the fridge so it'll be there if you want it."

"Ok, thanks."

As he'd more or less figured, Alistair found it next to impossible to concentrate in his classes that day. He took less than adequate notes in Biology, his professor's droning even more insufferable than usual and he embarrassed himself in his English class by being called out for daydreaming.

After arriving at work he had a few minutes before the start of his shift and he chose to spend them in the young adult section which, because school was in session, was deserted. While sitting in one of the armchairs he pulled his photo of Seto, Mokuba, and Trudy out of his wallet.

Was he really ready to go back to that world? Was he sure that he loved Seto? How much had his years of obsession influenced his feelings? Was he merely holding onto him because hating and loving Seto Kaiba were the only stable emotions he'd ever known? Something had certainly drawn him to the brunette in the first place and something was pulling him back now, but what was it?

The longer he sat staring at the picture the more he began to realize that although he'd stalked Kaiba for years, the CEO had never been his real obsession; vengeance had. Seto had merely been the medium through which he'd channeled his rage. And it hadn't even really been Seto that he'd hated, though he'd eventually tricked himself into thinking that it was; it was the shadow of Gozaburo Kaiba he'd actually been chasing.

No, the longer he thought about it, the more undeniable it became: he was in fact truly and irrevocably it seemed in love with Seto Kaiba.

Now that he'd let go of both his misplaced and justified anger towards the brunette the mere thought of him caused a swooping sensation in his stomach. I can't wait to see you.

Smiling, he put the photo away when he saw his colleague Zoe approaching.

"What'cha looking at?" she asked by way of greeting, plopping down in the chair next to his.

"Nothing," he answered dismissively, quickly standing up before she could attempt to trap him there. He'd long since decided that he didn't care much for the way that Zoe went about campaigning for his friendship, namely asking questions that she wasn't really close enough to him to ask and mostly about his love life.

"Obviously it was something nice." Patience during social interactions had never been Alistair's strong point, and he despised people prying into his business when he'd already indicated he didn't want to discuss whatever it was.

"Look: Zoe; it's none of your business." He managed to stop himself short of sounding annoyed, but she nonetheless seemed to take offence.

"Sorry for asking," she snapped.

"I don't mean to be abrupt, but given that you and I aren't friends I don't feel like you have any kind of right to interrogate me." She looked taken aback and hurt given that she had considered them friends. He could sense that she was either gearing to cry or argue with him and he quickly cut her off at the pass. "I have to get to work; you know how Himeno is," he said brusquely, leaving her sitting there and escaping to the backroom to begin sorting the returned material. He supposed that he'd treated her harshly, but after what happened with Darren he'd be damned if he let anyone find out about Seto again.

"Sir, can I ask you something?" Roland asked Seto tentatively as the latter began packing up for the day, the sunlight streaming in through the huge windows causing the manservant to shield his eyes.

"What is it Roland?" Seto replied absently, sorting papers into his briefcase.

"All due respect sir, but are you sure it's wise to bring him back into the picture after…after what happened the last time?" Seto wasn't sure if he was referring to his suicide attempt or the Out Loud article or both, but either way the statement had raised his hackles.

"It's your job to take over for me when I need you to, to run errands for me, to protect Mokuba, and to act as a mediator when it comes to the press; it is not your job to tell me how to conduct my private life."

"Of course not, but—."

"I appreciate your concern, but I advise you not to question me again."

"Understood," Roland dutifully answered, though he was far from convinced. He liked Alistair for the most part, but unlike his boss, Roland found it difficult to forgive the redhead for almost getting the Kaiba brothers killed. Seto sensed his long-time consultant's dubiousness.

"You will treat him with the same respect that you pay me and you will look out for him with just as much diligence as you do Mokuba. If you fail to do these things you can find yourself a new job. Alistair is one of us."

'Us' referred to the handful of people that Seto implicitly trusted and valued which up until Alistair had shown up had consisted of Mokuba, Roland, Trudy, Saito, and sometimes Yugi. Roland still wasn't sure what the redhead had done to earn himself a place amongst them, but if Seto was absolutely certain about it, then he could hardly argue against it; Seto Kaiba was by far the most fiercely loyal person he'd ever known. When he trusted someone it was forever.

"Understood," Roland repeated, and Seto heard in his voice that this time the man meant it. Snapping his briefcase shut he said:

"Good," before walking past Roland to the door where he paused momentarily and turned back. "I've known you longer than I've known almost anyone else. Have I ever made the wrong choice before?"

"Uh…" The honest answer was 'yes'. There had been several occasions where Roland had found his boss's motive questionable, though admittedly it had been some time since he'd last felt that way. He looked into Seto's face and for the first time in years saw uncertainty and perhaps even fear there.

"What if I'm making the wrong choice?" Seto asked, his tone philosophical.

"I doubt very much that you are."

"You said only a minute or so ago that you didn't think I should trust him."

"Yes, but then I remembered that even if some of your decisions are…you've always been a good judge of character. Or at least, I think so."

"Thank you," Seto said without changing his expression. Then he left.

After arriving at the Kaiba estate and parking his motorcycle in the garage, Alistair met Trudy at the door.

"It's so good to see you," she said, pulling him into a tight hug.

"You just saw me yesterday," he reminded her, smiling nonetheless and hugging her back.

"Yes, but I didn't really get to greet you properly what with Seto there and all." There was a slight pause after she let him go. "He didn't say much about that, but he seemed happier after he got back from dropping you off at home yesterday; are you two…?"

"I think so." She tried to contain her excitement. She still didn't completely understand the concept of being gay and actively avoided thinking about what it was that Seto and Alistair did behind the closed bedroom door, but Trudy loved both of them and therefore wanted them to be happy.

She'd been afraid that Seto would never open his heart to anyone, and then Alistair had blown into his life. She'd watched on as slowly, very slowly, Seto had fallen in love with the passionately righteous biker who had once sworn to kill him. She wondered if Alistair would ever know just how intense she could tell that Seto's love for him was. He'd complained that the brunette was too guarded, but if he could have seen the way that Seto looked at him, as though he could gaze at him forever, he would have known just how deeply Seto's feelings for him ran without needing verbal confirmation.

"Is there anything to eat?" Alistair asked.

"What a question! Of course. I wasn't sure how hungry you'd be so I—."

"Made enough to feed an army?" he interrupted her snidely.

"Make fun of me all you like, but one day you'll thank me."

"For what, giving me a potbelly?" Their friendly banter was cut short by the purring of an expensive car pulling up the driveway.

Alistair ran a hand through his hair. He'd never been self-conscious around Seto before (with the exception of having been ashamed of how dirty he'd been when Seto had come to rescue him from his homeland), but he suddenly found himself wishing he could look in a mirror before the CEO walked into the house. The first time they'd fallen for each other had been very organic in the sense that neither had had time to worry about how they looked, but this time he at least felt obligated to make an effort to look good.

Trudy hovered, unsure whether she ought to wait to greet Seto or allow them a moment of privacy. Ultimately Seto took the decision out of her hands by opening the door. He was surprised to see Trudy and Alistair standing directly in the doorway, but quickly adapted.

"Hey," Alistair said, not sure why he was feeling so cowed.

"Hey," Seto replied, hesitating a moment before setting his briefcase down, stepping forward and leaning down slightly to lightly kiss him by way of greeting, his arms snaking around Alistair's slim waist.

The longer the kiss lasted, the more flustered Trudy became. Not only had she never seen two men kissing before, in her opinion a kiss lasting longer than ten seconds ought to be conducted in private. Turning away from them she said:

"I'll just go tell Mokuba that lunch is ready, shall I?" before hurrying off.

"That was," Alistair started after they finally broke apart, though Seto's arms were still wrapped firmly around him, "really unexpected." Seto smirked.

"I told you: I never do what people expect." They kissed again and Alistair rested the side of his face against Seto's shoulder and closed his eyes contentedly, noting how natural it felt to do so. This was where he belonged.

Two hours after they started studying Seto realized that Alistair was no longer truly paying attention to what he was saying, so he fell silent and set the textbook aside.

"Sorry," Alistair said when he registered that Seto had stopped talking and that he'd been unintentionally tuning him out in favor of just looking at him, taking in his aristocratic nose, his prominent cheekbones, strong jaw, pale lips, and of course, his sapphire eyes. He'd watched with mild fascination as the brunette explained the grammatical rule they'd been working on, quirking an eyebrow every time he made a point he wanted to emphasize.

"It's fine," Seto replied. "You won't really need to worry about the genitive case for a while anyway." He leaned forward and without much prompting, the two commenced to kiss each other quite passionately, gently biting down on the other's bottom lip, their tongues moving together.

As they kissed, Seto began running his hands up and down Alistair's thighs, Alistair quickly doing the same to Seto, though he wished that he could actually caress the brunette's soft skin instead of the relatively rough material of his pants but knew that for that he'd have to wait. Seto however, wasn't as patient as Alistair was. He moved his hands from Alistair's legs to his waist and swiftly forced the redhead onto his back on the carpet. Alistair looked at Seto in surprise as the brunette lowered himself on top of him and began dragging his lips along the side of his neck. He would have said something had Seto not increased the pressure, instead winding his fingers into Seto's hair and relished in the feeling of being pinned down by his solid weight. He began letting out small sounds of enjoyment which he quickly tried to stifle by biting his lower lip. Seto noticed and stopped what he was doing and sat up.

"Do you want to go upstairs?" he asked with a slight grin given that he felt he already knew the answer, twirling a lock of the redhead's hair around his finger.

"Yeah," Alistair answered vaguely, already missing the feeling of Seto's mouth against his neck. They stood up and readjusted themselves on the off-chance that they ran into either Mokuba or Trudy on their way to Seto's room. As it happened, they didn't, and they both found it extremely difficult to keep their hands off of each other, far more than they ever had before. Alistair chalked it up to it having been so long since they'd done this, but Seto attributed his reluctance to completely let go of Alistair to the fact that he finally understood how lucky he was to have him and that being this close to the redhead was a privilege not a right, and that he should enjoy it while it was there and make sure that Alistair knew just how happy that privilege made him. He'd messed that up the first time, prioritizing aloofness over romance; a leftover side effect of the way he'd been raised, and though he still thought that laying sappiness on too thick was repulsive, he'd decided that there was nothing shameful in showing and telling the redhead how he felt about him in moments when he felt particularly strongly about it. Like now.

Standing in the middle of his bedroom, Seto pulled Alistair against him, his hand coming to rest on the back of the redhead's neck. Alistair looked up at him and in that moment he felt suddenly and inexplicably emotional and found himself tightening his hold on the brunette.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he replied thickly, it's just that I'm so glad that you didn't die. And not just because I would have felt like it was partially my fault, but because then I'd have had to add you to the list of people I've lost and I'm not sure I could have handled that."

"Do you always have to be so dramatic?" Seto teased in order to help get him back in a good mood. It worked and Alistair quickly swallowed the lump that had manifested in his throat.

"I'll show you dramatic!" He shoved Seto backwards, but Seto had anticipated it and reached out, grabbed the redhead's wrists, and dragged him with him, taking it one step further and swiftly bending down enough to heft Alistair into his arms just long enough to deposit him on the bed only to pin his arms over his head.

"You were saying?" Alistair struggled and eventually managed to free his arms which led to several more minutes of wrestling until Seto got Alistair in a headlock he couldn't break out of. The exertion left them both breathing hard.

Seto gradually loosened his grip around Alistair's neck so that his head was merely resting in the crook of his arm. Alistair had been certain the moment would lead to a kiss, but Seto surprised him by instead pulling up the redhead's black tank top with his free hand and commencing to trail his fingers down his chest, feeling the ridges of his ribs, the curve of his hip bones, and the slight dips in his toned torso.

Because of Alistair, Seto had come to be fascinated by the concept of touch as a form of intimacy. It was different than sex because there was nothing inherently sexual about holding someone or feeling their heartbeat against yours, and if anything tracing the unique shape of Alistair's form made him feel somehow even closer to him than sex did. He wasn't just touching anybody; this was someone that he knew, that he shared memories with, someone he loved, and he wanted to know every part of him.

Unlike Seto, Alistair had always understood the significance of touch, though he had shunned it after Mikey had gotten killed. He didn't want to become accustomed to being close to someone only to have them disappear and leave him on his own again. Even now he still shied away from touch for the most part even though he craved it when it was absent because being touched by another person meant he wasn't alone.

He leaned more fully into Seto as the brunette continued to caress his exposed skin, eventually sitting up and removing his shirt completely before lying back down, resting his left hand on Seto's upper thigh as the brunette resumed his exploration of his body, sighing as Seto's fingers trailed along the sensitive skin of his lower stomach. Still, he didn't move; he'd never seen Seto look quite so innocently curious before. This resolve didn't last long however and as soon as the brunette unbuttoned his pants, Alistair hastened to help him take them off, leaving him in just his boxer briefs, though those quickly followed his jeans onto the floor.

"Aren't you going to take your clothes off too?" Alistair asked haltingly as Seto began jerking him off.

"Eventually," came the reply.

Seto watched as Alistair's eyes began to glaze over and chose that moment to shift position so that he could take him into his mouth, causing the redhead to arch against him before reaching out to twine his fingers into Seto's hair, alternately running his hand along the curve of the brunette's back, wishing again that it was skin and not fabric he was touching, though admittedly he didn't have the concentration to think too much about it. Seto would have kept going had Alistair not told him to stop several minutes later.

He shifted position again, propping his back against the pillows as Alistair rolled over on top of him and un-tucked his black turtleneck, pulling it up so he could kiss along Seto's lower abs.

"Hang on," Seto said, unclasping the gauntlets he was wearing and setting them on the floor, hesitating before pulling his shirt over his head, very aware of the nasty half-healed lacerations on his wrists that Alistair would now see. Alistair had guessed that the wounds were the grounds for Seto's discomfort.

They were large, much larger than the brunette's other self-harm scars, about an inch long, and vertical, and although they'd started to heal, it was obvious that they'd leave very noticeable, lumpy scars.

"They're ugly." Alistair tore his gaze away from Seto's wrists and looked into his face. The brunette's tone had been, in typical Seto Kaiba fashion, very matter-of-fact, but his eyes revealed just how self-conscious he was. Alistair couldn't help but think of Ryou and how uncomfortable the scar on his left bicep made him.

"You shouldn't think of them like that. To me they could never be ugly because seeing them is a reminder that you're alive when you could be dead. Because someone stitched you back together I can touch you and kiss you and have sex with you and talk to you. I'm very grateful for these scars." He lifted Seto's left wrist to his mouth and pressed his lips against the uneven skin.

At Alistair's words, Seto felt much as he had after his first duel with Yugi. He still didn't really understand what it was that Yugi had done to him, but he'd felt lighter as though some invisible weight had been lifted off of him. That time he'd been left feeling empty, but this time it wasn't that a weight had disappeared leaving nothingness in its' wake, but rather as though it had been transformed into something else, something powerful.

Mokuba would always be important to him, but his brother had only very rarely seen the demon that he'd had trapped inside him, a demon that Gozaburo had fed, but that had come as a result of Seto's refusal to feel the hurt of his parent's deaths. Alistair had seen the demon many times and fought with it, but despite having seen just how hideous it was he hadn't run, instead choosing to see past it to the glimmer of goodness underneath. But he'd done more than that; he'd implored Seto to fight for it, and at long last Seto felt that he had. Finally, all the poison was gone, and here Alistair was again, standing by him despite the fact that Seto had never felt more weak and broken. Seto found it ironic that Alistair claimed that he made him feel safe when in this moment it was the other way around. The redhead made him feel secure enough to be vulnerable.

"I love you," he said huskily and Alistair looked up, shocked to see tears shining in Seto's eyes and on his cheeks, but unlike the first time that the brunette had cried in front of him, Seto didn't look away.

"I love you too."

They lay in bed quietly for so long that they eventually fell asleep, Alistair's head against Seto's chest.

"How long should I wait for them?" Mokuba asked Trudy after already waiting ten minutes for them to join him at the dining room table. Trudy shrugged.

"They know when dinner is. Go ahead and eat up; I'll just take their plates and put them in the fridge. If they ever do manage to drag themselves downstairs I'm sure they're intelligent enough to think to look there." She'd gone to retrieve the pair from the drawing room only to see that they were no longer there, though they'd left several books of German grammar rules behind leading Trudy to believe that studying was no longer on the agenda.

Ryou thought about texting Alistair to see if he'd be back for dinner but thought better of it. He knew perfectly well that he wasn't, and a text would only serve to make things awkward.

"I guess it's just the two of us tonight," Ryou said to Sewell, who looked up when she heard her name, her large yellowish eyes zeroing in on him. "What shall we watch?" He examined his shelf of DVDs and finally selected a zombie apocalypse movie he'd recently acquired: World War Z. He hadn't yet been able to watch it because Alistair couldn't handle movies with tanks and guns in them. I don't mind them as much if I'm controlling them, like in Duel Monsters or a video game, he'd explained, but I hate them in movies; I can't stand the sound.

He loaded the movie into his DVD player and sat back on his beanbag chair with his dinner of enchilada and salad on a tray on his lap. Sewell, seeing the food was within reach, jumped off the window ledge and attempted to climb onto his tray.

"Hey," he said, shooing her away as the opening credits started to roll, "you've already had your food." She meowed at him and once again tried to sneak a bite. Laughing slightly, he set the tray aside and pulled her into his lap and proceeded to rub her head and scratch under her chin until she started purring and settled down contentedly, allowing him to reach over her in order to reach his dinner and he rewarded her with a very occasional pinch of the meat.

As the movie progressed he realized that her purring and warm weight were enough for him not to feel lonely. Sure she couldn't hold a conversation the way a person could, but she listened and showed affection in her own way, and she lay down to sleep on Alistair's pillow when Ryou got into bed several hours later and he discovered that he didn't miss the redhead as much as he'd thought he would. Maybe I can just be a crazy cat lady, he thought to himself as he fell asleep. At least they wouldn't judge me for being interested in magic and fortune telling.

Author's Note: Sorry for going on a bit of a hiatus; Uni left me pretty pressed for time. But I officially have the whole thing written now, it's just a matter of posting it! I hope you're all still enjoying!