Disclaimer: I do not, nor did I ever, own Yu-Gi-Oh! I am however, becoming overly attached to my boys.

"I pick all my skirts to be a little too sexy
Just like all of my thoughts they always get a bit naughty
When I'm out with my girls I always play a bit bitchy
Can't change the way I am sexy naughty bitchy me."

~Sexy, Naughty, Bitchy Me, Tata Young

Chapter 27

Over the next few weeks Alistair and Seto didn't get to see much of each other outside of the German class they shared, which made both of them look forward to it much more than they otherwise would have. School suddenly picked up and Alistair found himself needing more and more time to study and complete homework assignments, and Seto got quite busy at work planning that year's red carpet Duel Monsters event which he and Pegasus would be co-hosting in San Francisco for the second year in a row. Seto had argued in favor of Domino, but as with the year before the inventor of Duel Monsters had pointed out that since it was an international event people would be flying in from all over the world, making the 'Golden Gate City' a more central location. Seto had continued to gripe about it throughout their video conference.

"Now, now, Kaiba Boy," Pegasus had said. "There's no need to be so sour. Think of it as an opportunity to get some last minute sun before the winter."

"I don't tan," he'd replied irritably; he didn't want the image of him sunbathing half naked in Pegasus' head.

The event was set to take place at the end of October at the San Francisco Kaiba Land. There would be several exhibition matches and Pegasus would unveil his new line of Duel Monsters cards which Yugi would debut in a duel against Mai Valentine. That decision had left Seto sulky for days. He understood the logic: the King versus the Queen of Games, but he still felt jilted even though he hadn't even suggested that he duel Yugi. He had to be content to duel Leon Wilson; Siegfried von Schroeder's younger brother who'd won the Kaiba Corp Grand Championship Tournament but lost to Yugi in the battle for the Duel Monsters crown.

"It won't even be a challenge," Seto had complained to anyone who would listen. "And it's humiliating! I should be dueling Yugi, not some stupid harpy whore! Mai Valentine couldn't beat Yugi in a duel if her life depended on it!"

"That's good though, right?" Mokuba had said tentatively. "I mean, if she did beat him wouldn't that be bad for your ranking?" That had shut Seto up in a hurry.

He'd been thinking about his ranking a lot recently. If he were to retire now it would be as the second highest ranked duelist in the world which, while not ideal, would at least be respectable, but if he didn't, there was a chance, however slim, that some rookie would come along and defeat Yugi which would drop his ranking down to number three which was, in his opinion, unacceptable. He'd been in that position once before after Battle City when he'd lost to Yugi in the semi-finals. He would have challenged Marik Ishtar in order to win back his number two spot, but Marik had retired after the Tournament ended so he hadn't needed to. So the question remained: did he risk embarrassing himself a fourth time in a public bid for the crown, or retire? Alistair had scoffed at the idea.

"You can't retire. What would the world do without the Yugi/Kaiba rivalry?"

"It's only a rivalry if there's back and forth," Seto had replied grumpily.

"But—."

"Just drop it. Dueling isn't exactly your area of expertise."

"Ok, fine," Alistair had said, crossing his arms. "But you're being ridiculous. No one would care except you if you beat him."

"That's not true!"

"Sure it is. Face it: a lot has changed since you were last 'the Duel Monsters champion'; there are lots of 'champions' now, including you. Even if you 'took back' your title, there would still be people who liked Yugi better, or even Joey, so why don't you do yourself a favor and lighten up." Seto had been so offended that he'd cut off contact to Alistair for two days until he realized that a: the redhead wasn't going to apologize for bruising his ego, and b: he had a point.

No matter where he went, Alistair found himself unable to escape hearing about and having to discuss the upcoming Duel Monsters event. If he wasn't listening to Seto complain about it, he was forced to sit through Yugi and Joey talk about it when the group got together. It had gotten so bad that he'd almost begged off of hanging out at Joey and Tristan's apartment the night before Joey and Yugi were set to fly out to San Francisco, but Ryou had begged him to come.

"It'll be easier to leave if you're there because we can say that you have to work early tomorrow; Joey always tries to get me to stay over and I really don't want to because they don't have air conditioning so it's always miserable, but even if there were I would never be able to get to sleep on account of Joey's snoring." Eventually, Alistair had relented even though it meant missing out on seeing Seto before he left which the brunette had been none too happy about and it had led to a spat about money of all things after Seto reminded Alistair that it wouldn't matter if he went with Bakura to Wheeler's place if he would take the weekend off of work to come with him to San Francisco.

"I can't afford to do that," Alistair had reminded him when he'd mentioned it to Seto over the phone. "I have to work as much as possible so that I don't have to take out any loans next semester."

"I can just pay for it for you."

"No; I want to pay for it on my own; we've talked about this before!"

"You're being stupid: I'm offering, so just take it!"

"No! And I don't know why you care so much if I go or not anyway; it would hardly make a difference since you'll be busy the entire time."

"Thanks again for agreeing to come with me," Ryou reiterated timidly as they approached Joey and Tristan's apartment building which was even more dilapidated than theirs with graffiti snaking up the sides and chunks missing from the cement steps. He hadn't been able to help but overhear Alistair and Seto's argument and he felt bad for being partially to blame for it.

"Sure. It'll be…something." They were buzzed in shortly thereafter by Tristan and took the building's rickety elevator to the sixth floor where they were greeted by Tristan, Yugi, and a tipsy Joey.

"Come on in guys!" Joey said jovially, ushering them into the apartment, the floor of which was littered with take-out cartons and empty pizza boxes. "You want anything to drink?" He indicated a half-empty crate of beer.

"No thank you," Ryou declined, though Alistair took him up on the offer; he figured he'd need a beer or two in order to make it through the evening.

He amended his hypothesis slightly when Mai made an appearance a half an hour later. He'd need at least four beers in order to tolerate her.

"There's my Queen of Games," Joey greeted her, jumping up to give her a kiss.

"This place is a mess," Mai said as soon as she crossed the threshold, tossing her long blonde curls over her shoulder. Alistair rolled his eyes. She hadn't changed much.

"If it bothers you so much—leave," he muttered so that only Ryou could hear him.

"Oh come on, Mai; it's not so bad," Joey insisted, throwing an arm around her shoulders. "But if you really hate it than just focus on my handsome mug instead." Suddenly Mai noticed Alistair sitting in the corner with Ryou.

"Wow Joey; you harbor all sorts of trash in this place."

"Nice to see you too, Mai," Alistair said through slightly gritted teeth.

They'd never gotten along, not since the first day Valon brought her back to the base with him. He'd hated the fact that Valon babied her and tripped over himself trying to make her happy. Even Raphael had indulged her princess-like attitude, but not Alistair which had led to the two of them butting heads dozens of times over the course of the year that she was with them. And of course Valon had always taken her side, saying that Alistair was the one not making any effort to get along. Things had come to a head when she'd taken his favorite pair of sunglasses and then lost them. She hadn't even been sorry, saying that they were only sunglasses and he could easily get a new pair. Of course that hadn't been the point, which he'd been quick to mention, adding that if it had been the other way around she never would have been so blasé.

"I did you a favor to be honest," she'd said with a trademark hair flip. "They weren't even cute." At that he'd lost it and very loudly challenged her to a duel at which point Raphael had intervened, bodily preventing Alistair from attacking the leggy blonde and reminding him that they had more important things to worry about than a lost pair of sunglasses.

"I wouldn't have thought you'd still be hanging around," she said, "unless," she added, "you're still after Kaiba, in which case let me be the first to tell you that revenge has been out of style for a while."

"It's nothing like that," Joey cut in. "I told you before that he and Bakura are roommates; don't you remember? He's one of us now."

"You might have mentioned it, but I tend not to remember things that aren't important." Alistair started to get to his feet, but Ryou put a restraining hand on his shoulder.

"Leave it," he advised him softly. Alistair relaxed his muscles, but nonetheless shot back with:

"I'd be offended if I didn't know that you're a natural blonde, but as it is I completely understand remembering something like that being difficult for you." She pursed her pink lipstick coated lips.

"At least I wasn't an eighteen year old fangirl. I'm pretty sure there wasn't a square inch of your room not covered by a picture of Kaiba."

"You would know seeing as you broke into my room to steal my sunglasses!" She eyed him with a pitying look on her face.

"Please tell me you aren't still bent out of shape about those dollar-store rejects. You're better off without them hun; they clashed with your hair."

"Does anyone want pizza?" Tristan asked awkwardly, holding up a box of pepperoni pizza from the shop where he worked.

"I'll take a slice," Yugi answered, grateful that someone had interrupted the argument.

"Me too please," Ryou said.

"None for me," Mai put in with yet another hair flip. "I'd hate to get fat right before gracing the red carpet. Speaking of which," she added to Joey, "you did get those clothes I sent you, right?"

"Yup; I packed them as soon as they got here. Thanks again by the way; we're gonna look great on Saturday!" Alistair rolled his eyes. Much like Valon, Joey had obviously succumbed to Mai's trashy good looks and prominent cleavage. They both seemed willing to lick her shoes for the chance to get in her pants. It would have made Alistair feel like gagging if the blonde's nauseating perfume hadn't already been enough.

The party broke up at around midnight when it became clear that Joey and Mai needed some quality time alone.

"We were never that bad, were we?" Ryou asked, pulling his helmet on and preparing to slide onto the back of Alistair's motorcycle.

"I think we did a pretty good job of keeping it classy," Alistair answered, trying to ignore the migraine he'd had pretty much the entire night. He wasn't sure if it had been Mai's perfume or even just her voice, or the three beers he'd had, but in any event, it was making concentrating next to impossible and as Ryou got on the bike behind him he questioned his ability to get them home safely. "I don't feel so great," he admitted. "Can we just sit on the ground or something for a few minutes?"

"Do you think you need to throw up?" Ryou asked in concern, getting off the bike and helping Alistair do the same.

"I don't think so," Alistair answered, sitting down in the middle of the driveway, pulling his helmet off, and resting his forehead on his knees. "I just have a headache."

"Maybe you should drink something. You're probably dehydrated; it was really hot in that apartment and all you had was beer and pizza."

"I don't know. Yeah, water sounds good."

"I'll be right back." Alistair dimly registered the weight of Ryou's hand leave his shoulder and heard him talking to someone…Yugi, but his head hurt too much for him to focus on what they were saying, though he assumed Ryou asked Yugi to go get water for him because a moment later the Brit was back at his side, pushing his bangs off his face so he could press his palm against his forehead.

"You don't feel like you have a fever."

Yugi returned a few minutes later with a bottle of water which Alistair quickly downed, dumping the remaining droplets over his head. A cool breeze had picked up in the meantime and within a few minutes he felt much better.

"Thanks," he said, noting that Yugi was still hovering.

"No problem. And um…if you want I could drop you guys off."

"It's ok," Alistair said. "I'm alright now. I guess I was just overheated or dehydrated or something."

"If you're sure…"

"It's fine. And uh…good luck at that thing on Saturday; I may not like her very much, but Mai's a really good duelist."

"Thanks. I'm just going to do my best and see what happens. Are you going to watch?"

"I can't; I have to work. But I was planning on catching the highlights later on and I'm sure Ryou can give me an overview. Anyway, I hope that you and Joey have fun and get to see a bit of San Francisco while you're there; it's a cool city."

"Thanks," Yugi repeated. "Get home safe guys," he added, walking to his car and driving away.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Ryou asked as Alistair hauled himself to his feet.

"Yeah, I guess I just had an allergic reaction to Mai Skankintine."

"That's not very nice. She isn't so bad. I mean, it was rude of her to say some of those things to you and steal your sunglasses, but she can be quite kind when she wants to be even if she has an interesting way of showing it. She's blunt, but then again maybe that isn't a bad thing. She's certainly put Joey in his place on several occasions, some where he needed a pep-talk and some where he needed to be knocked down a few pegs."

"Shouldn't you hate her for stealing Joey from you?" Alistair asked, mildly annoyed that Ryou would harbor bad feelings towards Seto but not towards Mai.

"I used to. Well, hate is a strong word, but I felt like if only she wasn't there I might have had a chance with him, but I realized at some point that if it hadn't been her it would have been someone else. We could be the last two people alive and he still wouldn't be interested in me that way."

"What about him did you like so much?" Ryou was slightly taken aback by the question.

"His confidence more than anything else I suppose. And the fact that he wouldn't change who he is for anyone. He's really caring as well and he'd be the first to stand up for anyone he saw being mistreated in some way. And he's quite good-looking as well," he added, smiling slightly. "Why do you ask?" Alistair shrugged.

"No reason." The truth though, was that after finding out that Seto had fancied Joey, albeit very deep down, he'd wondered why. Sure the sandy haired duelist was attractive in a rough around the edges sort of way, but no matter how hard he tried to picture it, he couldn't imagine Seto actually putting up with Joey's loud mouth, much less finding it endearing. "Let's go home."

"Are you sure you don't want a few more minutes?" Ryou asked in concern.

"No. I don't know what that was about, but I'm ok now. Besides, I have to get to bed; I have class at 8:30 tomorrow." He mentally groaned just thinking about it. He liked his psychology class; he just wished the discussion section wasn't so early in the morning on a Friday.

"And you can't skip it?" Alistair shook his head.

"Attendance is part of the grade. Besides, I have to turn in a paper tomorrow." He mentally congratulated himself on not having procrastinated until the last minute and for having taken the time to sit down and finish it before they'd left.

On the ride home Alistair thought about everything he had to do the next day, groaning when he remembered that he'd signed up for a double shift at the library. Well, at least he didn't have any homework hanging over his head…

Author's Note: Alistair and Seto don't have a perfect relationship. Far from it. There's still one major thing that they have to resolve. Oh, and to anyone who's a fan of Mai; I'm not trying to purposefully make her look bad, but my headcanon is that Alistair doesn't like her because he (unbeknownst to even himself) had feelings for Valon. And since this is from his perspective, she ain't gonna look that great. And she is pretty sassy.