Queer As Tachi – Chapter 69
Once his driver had returned to KaibaCorp with the bags from Alastair’s hotel, confirming that it had indeed suffered some damage and many of the guests were being asked to relocate, Kaiba promptly demanded to be taken home, putting any other matters in Roland’s hands until the morning. The company building was damaged but not condemned, and they had contingency plans in place in the event of just such an emergency, which were already well in progress. Kaiba had done all that he could himself, so it was time to retreat and escape the chaos, to go home and take care of his injury, to look after Mokuba and do something about Alastair. He noticed on the ride home that Mokuba seemed to carry absolutely no grudge towards Alastair whatsoever, but his little brother always had been the more forgiving one, more empathetic even to Seto’s rivals and enemies. He had been more understanding of Alastair’s plight and his reasons for going after Kaiba in the first place, seeing much more quickly than Seto the qualities in him that were worth forgiveness and mercy. Kaiba sat in the corner of the back seat sullenly gazing at the darkened window while Mokuba beside him conversed eagerly with Alastair, wanting to hear how he was making his living now. Alastair explained that he was an international courier, working out of Europe, delivering important and valuable packages to people who needed them urgently and securely delivered in person. He was doing it mainly to see the world, though he did get paid extremely well because the people who used such a service were very serious about their goods not being lost or tampered with. It was good money, fast, and he had few expenses living such a nomadic life, so it suited him. Kaiba snorted to himself, but didn’t interrupt the small talk, because Mokuba was much better at it than he was. It allowed him to find out everything he wanted about Alastair without having to ask himself.
When they got to the house, Kaiba gave it a once-over to see that there wasn’t much out of place, and got a report from the staff as to damage and issues. They were lucky, compared to the KaibaCorp offices – a few valuables were broken after falling off shelves, there were tree limbs in the pool, but nothing serious had befallen the Kaiba estate. They even still had power. Kaiba sighed gratefully and declared that he was going to go lay down for a while, on doctor’s orders that he should rest, but Mokuba was allowed to come and get him when dinner was ready. As Seto closed himself away in his room, his little brother decided it was his duty to show Alastair around, and then personally made up the guest room for him since the house staff was busy cleaning up from the earthquake. Night was falling fast, and Alastair sat looking out the guest room window at twilight stealing in from the east until he heard the call to dinner. Kaiba joined them, looking as though the rest hadn’t done him an ounce of good, his arm resting securely in the sling the infirmary had provided. Afterward, instead of going back to bed, he prowled restlessly around downstairs and finally dragged out his laptop, wanting to network his computers to see if there was anything wrong with any of them. Not long after, Alastair came down from the guest room, having had a nice, hot shower and a change of clothing and curious to see what the master of the house was up to in lieu of their date. He found Kaiba in his study, hunched over his computer with a scowl on his lips and a glare of death directed mostly at the screen in front of him. “Problems?” Alastair flippantly asked.
Kaiba’s eyes shifted sharply in his direction, as if displeased by his intrusion, and then settled back on the screen. “Nothing you need to be concerned about,” he muttered.
“Uh oh.” Alastair came closer and perched himself on the corner of the desk in order to look over Kaiba’s shoulder. “How bad is it?”
Kaiba grimaced, mostly to himself, as he used his good hand to type in a command. “The KaibaCorp mainframe is up and running,” he answered gruffly, “but some of the servers aren’t responding. I’ve got some techs on it, but they keep insisting it’s a software bug…because there isn’t any possible way the servers could be damaged,” he added sarcastically. “They’re protected in earthquake-resistant bunkers deep inside the company.”
Alastair gave a small chuckle. “I’m guessing you don’t agree with their assessment.”
“Bunch of morons.” Kaiba typed something in the instant-message window in the corner of his screen and then winced again. “And not being able to type with both hands doesn’t make it any easier to argue.”
Alastair’s hand came to rest on the desk beside his arm. “Want me to take a look?”
Kaiba glanced up at him out of the corner of his eye with a sullen glare. “I don’t need your help.”
“Oh, so you like typing with one hand.” Alastair sat back and smirked. “I’m sure the morons in your tech department can keep up if you type at half speed.”
Seething, Kaiba turned insolently back to his computer and tried to keep working, running what tests he could over the network connection before cursing his inability to function and slumping back in his chair. He rubbed absently at his left arm, which ached a little. Alastair sat quietly beside him, reading everything on the screen with a quick flick of his gray eyes, saying nothing and offering nothing. Kaiba studied him for a long moment and then heaved a put-upon sigh. “You’re supposed to be a hacker type,” he complained. “You think you can figure out my network security, or am I going to have to stand here and guide you by the hand?”
Alastair straightened up in interest and then grinned. “I know your security already. Unless you got smart and changed it since I last hacked into your encryption codes.”
“Of course I did,” Kaiba snorted. He pushed back the chair and got up, leaving it free to be taken. “Let’s just get one thing straight. You’re only driving, because you have two hands that work. I give the commands.”
“Suit yourself.” Alastair slid into the chair and scooted up to the computer, his fingers flying over the keyboard as he familiarized himself with the current setup and located the server connections that were not responding. Kaiba positioned himself behind the chair to watch, telling him where to start, but the young hacker leaped ahead of him, double-checking the security codes and encryption sequences to be sure that no outside interference was causing the problems. With some of KaibaCorp’s servers down, it would be too easy for an attack to sweep in and steal secrets, but it looked like everything on that end was secure. He tested every network connection and then leaned in as he left Kaiba’s instruction and flew through pages upon pages of script, debugging and decoding until he had isolated the problems and could throw everything he had at them. Kaiba fell silent and just watched, impressed by Alastair’s speed and skill but not enough to tell him so. He took some satisfaction in seeing Alastair run into the same brick walls as he had, but it was what Alastair needed in order to diagnose the problem. At last, he sat back a little with a sigh. “You’re right,” he announced. “The bunkers may be earthquake-resistant, but not earthquake-proof. Something’s physically busted. Hopefully you won’t have to replace a server, but the only way to know is to get down in there and check it out.” He glanced over his shoulder at Seto. “This side connection, which computer is this?”
Kaiba didn’t need to see which one he indicated to know what he was questioning. “My private supercomputer here in the house.”
Alastair’s eyebrows went up in interest. “Oo, supercomputer? Where is it?”
“None of your business,” Kaiba said curtly.
Alastair snorted and went back to the laptop. “Fine, I should have known. It’s not on the same server as any of the rest of your mainframe or network stations, so it’s perfectly safe.” He shot an admiring look over his shoulder. “Not bad.”
“Would you expect anything less of me?” Kaiba leaned forward a little, peering at the screen. “So, it’s a hardware problem.”
“Pretty much.” Alastair let a little smile cross his lips. “You know, if your KaibaCorp tech guys are too dumb to figure it out, maybe I could go down to the office with you tomorrow and hunt out the hardware myself. Since I’m not doing anything else except waiting around for my courier package to be prepared for pickup at the end of the week.”
Kaiba stood there without reaction for a moment. “What makes you think I want to let you poke around my mainframe?” he grumbled after a bit.
“Vindication, maybe. Show those idiots you were right, with a little outside verification.” He shrugged. “I don’t know, I just thought maybe you’d want your servers back online within the day, rather than waiting around for a week for them to find the broken bits. Since your arm is going to keep you from doing it yourself.”
As much as he hated to call Alastair right, Kaiba knew he was. He couldn’t argue with the assessment. “Fine,” he begrudgingly consented. “I’m not paying you, though.”
“It’s okay.” Alastair stretched out his hands to tell the IT worker on the other end of the connection that he was signing off and they should call it a day, and then quickly backtracked his way out of the system to ensure that it was completely closed off to any outside attacks during the night. “Anything else you want me to do before I log off the network?” he wondered of his partner.
“That should do. Log out of each connection but leave this one for last.” Kaiba stood watching him do so, and that was when he realized he was absently stroking Alastair’s red hair. Not only that, but he had been doing it the entire time he had been standing there looking over his shoulder while he typed. It was a completely involuntary thing, but noticing himself doing it made him immediately cease.
Alastair felt the combing fingers retreat from his hair and glanced subtly back. “You don’t have to stop,” he murmured.
Kaiba said nothing, only setting his hand firmly on the back of the chair. He distracted himself for a moment checking the computer screen to see that Alastair was completely logged out of the network, and stepped aside in order to shut his laptop down himself. “You’re sure you want to crawl around my server bunker looking for problems?” he asked as casually as he could.
“I’ve got nothing better to do.” Alastair rose and stepped from behind the desk, putting himself directly in Kaiba’s way. “Mokuba’s already gone to bed,” he noted. “There’s no one around to see, Kaiba.”
Seto refused to lift his gaze and meet his eyes. “He made up the guest room for you, right?”
“Yeah, it’s all fine.” Alastair tilted his head curiously. “You know, it’s been a rough day. If you want to talk…”
He trailed off, noticing that Kaiba most likely did not want to talk. Yet, he didn’t move from his place either, just standing there facing Alastair in the darkened room. After a bit, Alastair relented and shook his head pityingly. “You should go to bed,” he suggested. “You need the rest, so your arm can heal. Besides.” He lifted his head and gave Kaiba a sneaky smile. “We’re obviously not going to have sex tonight like you planned. You may as well just go get some sleep.”
Kaiba held his gaze, though his expression remained sullen. “You don’t know what I planned for tonight.”
“I know that you wanted to see me, and spend some time with me, no matter what sorts of feelings might be in your head…for me or for anybody else.” Alastair gave a small, wry laugh. “Even if you only wanted to spend our time having sex. It’s better than nothing. But get your rest, now. You need it.” He took a step forward to bring him dangerously close to his companion, brushing his face with soft fingertips and leaning in to kiss him in the most wonderful way. Just when Seto began to kiss back, finding himself hungry for it, Alastair broke away and caressed his cheek once more. “Good night.” He stepped around him and swept past him on his way to the stairs and his room.
A few minutes later, Kaiba closed himself away in his room and got ready for bed, finding it difficult with his left arm immobilized but under no compunction to ask anyone to help him with this matter. He got into bed and laid there on his back with his broken arm resting on his chest in as comfortable a position as he could manage, his head too full of conflicting thoughts to let him go to sleep no matter how much his battered body craved it. He didn’t know why he had insisted so strongly on bringing Alastair back with him, the hotel was only a convenient excuse. Even more perplexing was his decision to blurt out that he might have a crush on a girl he hardly knew. He hadn’t expected the flash of regret in Alastair’s gray eyes when he said it, even if it did seem like a reflex action to keep him an arm’s length away. None of it made sense to him, and it was all the more garbled by the pain impulses continually feeding into his brain from his arm. Kaiba never liked to take medication unless he was in absolutely mind-crushing pain, he preferred to have his head clear and his focus intact, but it meant dealing with the constant ache throbbing through his elbow and up into his body. It was keeping him awake, and being awake meant thinking.
He did have some strange feelings every time he dueled Shandy online, but only because she flirted so outrageously with him and didn’t seem to fear or hate him like most duelists in the world. He wasn’t exactly seeking her out, but it always pleased him when she appeared online and bugged him for a rematch, for no fathomable reason. Kaiba sighed at himself as he laid there considering it. What the hell is wrong with me? I don’t even know her. She lives in England. It’s not like she’d jump at the chance to quit school and fly over here to fawn at my feet if I asked her – she’s not that kind of girl. Though he may not have known much about her, he gathered from her personality that she was too independent for stupidity like that. She wasn’t wowed by his money or status and would never abandon her world for his. Not that he wanted her to, either. He didn’t actually have direct thoughts of intent toward her, or feelings for that matter. He only knew that it pleased him to see her username highlighted in his watchlist while he was working online. What did that mean? Interest? Something just above casual indifference that he hadn’t felt before? But then Alastair…
Kaiba glared at the ceiling. What is it about Alastair that makes me unable to get him out of my mind? Shandy only dueled him, and talked cards, but had hardly shared anything of herself. Duel Monsters may have been his passion, but not the kind of passion that made him want to talk about it in his free time, to make it a subject of both casual and serious conversation. Kaiba simply didn’t converse. He dueled, and then he moved on to the next activity, be it sleeping or working or whatever. The cards motivated many of his company’s biggest products and fueled his greatest ideas, but they were not enough for him to sustain a relationship over. He and Alastair had never talked cards or the game, they had spoken seriously about weighty matters and then didn’t talk at all. Kaiba knew about Alastair’s new job, he had mentioned it the last time they met in May to explain why he had been in Domino for one night only. But apart from that, they just slept together, having no other real reason to get together. He couldn’t say he loved Alastair in any sense of the word, but he knew the young man made him feel all kinds of things he never felt before, including for Shandy. To think of him being just a few doors down right now, under the same roof, close enough to call for, made his body flush hotly and ache with need. For a brief moment he snuck a hand under the sheets and caressed himself idly, as if to reassure his body that he had no intention of neglecting its needs. It could have just been the exhaustion of the moment, but he craved Alastair, and cursed his injury for rendering him incapable of satisfying his desire. If that’s all it is, he chided himself, just sex and nothing more, then it shouldn’t matter. Anybody will do. Why does it have to be him? He closed his eyes in a painful wince. Why here, why now? Why did he walk into my life all of a sudden? And why can’t I push him away? Kaiba hated being enslaved to his feelings, including the anger and bitterness that colored so much of his life to this point. He hated the mere possibility that they were dictating his decisions, even the words he chose to say. He and Alastair had only seen each other twice since being on opposing sides, hardly enough for anything resembling a relationship, and yet he had invited him home, wanting him near. Was it just for the chance to fuck him again? Or was there something else driving him, something that was glad to see him appear where least expected and didn’t want to send him off to fend for himself in the broken city?
That’s impossible, Kaiba scoffed at himself, tucking his uninjured arm under his pillow to wad it up under his neck. I don’t love Alastair, it has nothing to do with it. He’s just a good fuck, that’s all. Frowning, he grunted at the pain in his left arm and tried to roll onto his other side, letting the cast flop heavily onto the bed next to him. Any further thought had to be squashed down, or he would never get the rest he needed to heal. It wasn’t likely that he and Alastair could do anything, anyway, with his arm broken. The week would pass and he would disappear again on his world travels, leaving Kaiba safe in his solitude once more. He was just taking from Alastair what he needed, like he did with any other person who crossed his path – he used people, whether for business or dueling or sex, and had nothing else to do with them. And yet, as much as he tried to comfort himself with that thought so he could nestle down to sleep, it bothered him to think that saying that stupid thing about feeling something for Shandy might have hurt Alastair. At least, that was what his eyes said, even if his mouth said something different.
Though his school was closed to deal with the aftermath of the earthquake, Mokuba woke up at the usual time the next morning even without an alarm, by force of habit. He decided to get up rather than roll over and go back to sleep, if for no other reason than to make sure his brother was feeling better when he got up, knowing full well that Seto intended to go into the office even if it was heavily damaged. Mokuba scuffed his feet into slippers and wandered into the hallway, contemplating going to look in on his brother himself, and then considered that maybe he wasn’t alone. Grinning to himself, he ducked into the bathroom first and came out just as he heard a door up the hallway creak open. He glanced to see it came from the guest room, not his brother’s room, and Alastair came out alone, shirtless, rubbing an eye sleepily. Disappointment made Mokuba frown to himself. So they didn’t spend the night together. Damn. Then again, Seto had a broken arm. Perhaps it would happen later in the week. He put on a lazy grin for their guest. “Morning, Alastair.”
Alastair had been looking up the hallway to Kaiba’s closed door, but his head whipped around upon hearing his name. “Oh, hey kid,” he greeted Mokuba. “I thought you’d be sleeping in.”
“I wanted to see if Seto was feeling any better,” the younger Kaiba admitted. “You could have slept in yourself…”
“No, I’m going with him to KaibaCorp,” Alastair said. “He needs somebody with half a brain to go see why the servers aren’t working.” He came down the hall toward Mokuba, but only set a hand on his head and ruffled his shaggy hair as he passed on his way to the bathroom. “Doesn’t look like he’s up yet, though.”
Mokuba glanced over his shoulder at Alastair’s retreating back. “You want to go wake him up?”
Alastair paused in the doorway but didn’t look back. “No,” he sighed after a moment, “I’ll leave that to you. Somehow I think he’ll respond better to you.” He gave a little chuckle under his breath and disappeared into the bathroom.
Mokuba frowned all over again. Now that he knew Alastair was his brother’s lover, it all made sense – beautiful, tortured Alastair, who had fought Kaiba only to give up his soul in the end, and then disappeared out of their lives rather than face Seto with the knowledge that he owed his life to him. Something must have happened between them to bring them to this point, but Mokuba wasn’t about to take it for granted. He secretly hoped the two of them would get together as long as Alastair was here, because something about Alastair obviously made his big brother happy. If there was ever a time Seto needed someone to make him happy, it was now. But apparently not this morning, so Mokuba shook his head and went down the hall to rap on his brother’s door and see if he was awake.
Tristan seemed to have suffered no further effects from being trapped in the rubble and nearly smothered by gas fumes, so the hospital released him the next morning with orders to remain on bed rest for exhaustion for at least two more days. Duke eagerly pulled himself away from overseeing the cleanup of his shop in order to run down and pick him up, and settled him at home in their bed for some serious mothering. The shop’s employees were doing a good job picking up most of the merchandise that had been knocked off shelves, but there were shattered windows to replace and plenty to clean and remove, necessitating the temporary closure of the store. Considering that most of the shops and businesses around Domino were also closed and life was going to be rather abnormal during the cleanup process, it wasn’t a big deal. It actually gave Duke more opportunity to look in on Tristan and make sure he was comfortable, no matter how much Tristan swore he was fine and didn’t even need rest. Doctor’s orders were doctor’s orders, though, so he sprawled out to be taken care of and consented to having the gang over to visit him whenever they could get away from their own cleanup processes. The phone calls went out, and they all agreed to get together at Duke’s place later that day, after Yugi was done with work and Joey had finished cleaning. The healing sleep of the Puzzle had done Yugi a world of good, he was feeling much better and enthusiastically pitched in to right everything at home and in the shop so they could open. They had suffered no real damage, and just like after the typhoon a year prior, it was astonishing just how many people felt the need to go out and visit a game shop right after a disaster, to regain some sense of normalcy or perhaps escape from the uncertainty and hardship for a bit. Kame game shop was happy to be there to help them with that.
There was only one office on the executive level at KaibaCorp headquarters that had suffered no damage, so Seto Kaiba appropriated it for his own use and sent all of his underlings to lower floors to scrounge for space themselves. The business was operating on a skeleton crew, and much of the company’s day-to-day operations had been transferred temporarily to the branch office in Los Angeles while the Domino office underwent repair and reconstruction. It was very clear to Kaiba, as he set up his laptop in the new office and began coordinating everything himself, that it was going to take upwards of a couple of months before everything was back to the way it was yesterday morning. At least the penthouse level took the only real damage, lower floors were just cluttered with broken glass and ceiling panels. The building itself had no structural flaws to speak of, according to the engineers already combing it for the slightest cracks in the foundation. Kaiba had taken Alastair down to the server bunkers in the deepest bowels of the company and left him there to fend for himself, figuring that he could find his way around the computers of his own accord. It was a brilliant move, he guessed when the last reaches of the network came fully online less than two hours after they had arrived. Not too long after, Alastair breezed into the office as if he owned it, a smudge of dust on his nose and a rather self-satisfied look on his face. “Boy, your people aren’t just stupid,” he remarked the moment he passed through the door, making Kaiba look up with a frown. “That’s the kind of incompetence that borders on negligence. You ought to fire the whole lot.”
Kaiba eyed him warily. “I see you got the network up and running.”
“Yeah, but you’re going to have to replace a server,” Alastair sighed. “I re-routed everything through the others, they can handle the bandwidth for a while, but to get everything fully functional the way you want it, you need a new server.” He made a face. “It’s trashed. Earthquake-resistant my ass.”
A smirk slowly began to make its way onto Kaiba’s face. “Would you like to be here when I call the tech department heads in for a conference?”
Alastair grinned evilly. “Oh, can I?”
Kaiba grunted a sort of chuckle and returned his attention to the laptop, pecking across the keyboard with one hand for a bit until his brief flash of amusement faded and returned him to the grouchy, sullen Kaiba who had started the day. “I hate this,” he seethed after a minute. “I can’t do anything myself, I have to just stand back and supervise everything on account of my arm. I can’t type, I can’t even duel.”
“Yeah, you look frustrated,” Alastair said candidly, brushing off his shirt after crawling around the server bunkers all morning. “Supervising isn’t your thing, is it? You’re the hands-on type.”
Kaiba made a pained face and reached across to rub his left shoulder. His companion gave him a curious look. “Still hurts? Want a hand?”
“No.” Kaiba rubbed his shoulder again and then resumed his feeble attempts to type.
Alastair shrugged and let him have his way. “So how is everything looking, anyway?” he wondered, glancing back at the open office door. He could see down the hallway to the pile of rubble cutting them off from Kaiba’s real office.
“Our usual operations have been cut back in order to divert time and money to the cleanup and reconstruction,” Kaiba reported stiffly. “KaibaCorp. USA is handling the daily routine, such as distribution and customer service, but I should have this place ready for all staff to return by the time you leave here.” He glanced briefly at one of the windows on his screen and sighed. “It’s going to take weeks to get this all restored. Nearly all the windows in the building have been shattered, furniture and cubicles and inventory have been knocked down on every floor, and you’ve seen our executive offices.”
“Yeah…” Alastair returned his gaze to his companion and studied him for a moment. He was as closed off as ever, grouchier than usual on account of the pain in his arm, but something about him made Alastair want to stay instead of finding a ride back to the estate where he could hide out with Mokuba. “So,” he began as airily as he could, “any other computer problems you want me to look into? As long as I’m here…”
Kaiba mumbled something that wasn’t exactly an answer, leaving Alastair with no choice but to wander around the office poking into things, ending up behind the CEO and peering over his shoulder. For all his complaining about the speed with which he was able to work now, he appeared to be getting a lot done. Seto growled to himself, then, and sat back in his chair, flexing the fingers sticking out from his cast in a vain attempt to stretch them. “Dammit,” he muttered. “No, I don’t know what else you can do. Just…don’t get in my way.”
At that moment, Roland entered the office at a brisk pace, checking only briefly at the sight of Alastair standing guard-like behind Kaiba’s chair. “Sir,” he reported immediately, “the crews have arrived to begin removing the debris from this floor.”
“Good,” Kaiba snapped. “Have them get to work. And send up the department heads from IT, would you?” he added as an order, giving Roland a displeased look. “I have a few things I need to discuss with them.”
“Right away, sir.” Roland glanced at Alastair one more time, and then suddenly did a clear and amusing double-take as he finally recognized the red-haired young man. “You! You were the one who attacked Mr. Kaiba on his plane! That’s where I’ve seen you before!”
Alastair gave him an aloof look. “Yep, that was me.”
“He’s here at my request,” Kaiba said sharply. “It’s nothing you need to worry about, Roland, so just go back to work.”
Roland didn’t look convinced, but he knew better than to argue with the boss and slinked humbly out. Alastair followed him and closed the door, shutting them both into a quiet sanctuary to protect against the noise of workers hauling debris away. Another glance at Kaiba found him grimacing and rubbing at his arm again, at which Alastair sighed and trudged back around behind him. Without warning, his hands came down on Seto’s shoulders and began kneading them firmly. Kaiba stiffened. “Stop that,” he muttered.
“Man, you’re tense,” Alastair remarked, not heeding the order. “No wonder you’re in so much pain.”
“It’s my arm, stupid, not my shoulders,” Kaiba grumbled, but then Alastair’s thumb dug into the back of his neck in such a way as to make him go limp and let out a grunt of relief. He let it go on for a few minutes and then shrugged a shoulder to try and disengage his partner’s hands. “I mean it, stop. What if someone walks in?”
“Your people aren’t dumb enough to walk in without knocking,” Alastair pointed out. “Don’t worry, I won’t let anyone see. I have no desire to out you in front of your employees.”
Kaiba’s cheeks flushed red, necessitating the diverting of his attention to his computer to try to cover it. “I’m fine, I don’t need your help.”
The hands eased away from his shoulders. “Fine,” Alastair said quietly. “I’ll stop trying.”
Not too long after, the IT managers came in for their meeting, already seeming aware that this was not going to be business as usual. Having Alastair come in out of nowhere, diagnose the problems, and fix everything all before lunch had already embarrassed them, but now having to try to give an account of themselves in his presence made them self-conscious and uncomfortable, to say nothing of the fierce dressing-down they all received from the company president. They very nearly lost their jobs, but Kaiba told them he couldn’t afford to be embarking on a search for a whole new technical department while trying to rebuild the KaibaCorp offices, so they had a reprieve in which to shape themselves up or pay for their incompetence with their jobs down the road. Alastair was given to be a consultant of some kind, brought in temporarily, not a threat to any of them. “I want the new server shipped to be here by the end of the week,” Kaiba added sternly to the techies, “so he can oversee the installment before his retainer is up. I want no more mistakes. This company relies on computer technology, we can’t afford to have any more problems like this surprising us. That’s all. Now get out of my sight.”
Alastair waited until they had gone before raising an eyebrow and remarking, “Consultant?”
“What the hell else do you want to call it?” Kaiba glanced subtly over his shoulder. “The actual reasons we know each other and you’re here aren’t qualification enough to explain you poking around my servers.”
“Fair enough.” Alastair glanced at the clock in the corner of the computer screen. “It’s about that time. Want me to bring you some lunch?”
Kaiba was already pecking at the keyboard again. “I don’t eat lunch.”
“Fine.” Alastair picked up his coat from where he had left it draped over a chair and swung it over his shoulders. “I won’t hurry back, then. I’ll leave you alone, since that’s what it seems you want.”
The door slammed shut, closing Kaiba back into silence. He lifted his eyes and glared at the door, but his mood softened after a moment and gave him reason to sigh. It had nothing to do with Alastair himself, he was just jumpy having him around in the off chance someone blundered into the office at the wrong time and noticed that they were something other than casual acquaintances or business relations. The last thing he needed was some underling racing off to spread rumors about his sexual preference and ruining his reputation in the business world. Rubbing his sore arm again, Kaiba pushed his chair away and turned it away from the desk, leaning back and closing his eyes for a few minutes. It was the only thing he could do to put it aside so he could focus on work.
Alastair returned more than an hour later, slinking quietly through the door so as to keep it closed as much as possible. The workers down the hall cleaning up debris were making quite a racket. Kaiba barely glanced up from the computer at his entrance, having already guessed it was him by his failure to bother to knock first. From over the corner of his computer screen, he watched Alastair prowl silently to the chair in the corner, take off his coat, and then stand there for a bit with his hands in his pockets, staring at the floor. Kaiba returned his eyes to his work, but commented, “Bored already?”
Alastair glanced at him. “Well, the work did take a lot less time than I expected…”
“Do you have any problem coming back here at the end of the week to make sure those morons installed the new server correctly?”
The young foreigner shrugged. “As long as it arrives before I leave.”
Kaiba gave a nod and resumed his task, having finally trained himself to type a little faster with one hand. It was still a burden, now straining his right hand and wrist, but he gritted his teeth and pressed on, not willing to show pain to anyone, least of all Alastair. He was not vulnerable and refused to be thought of as such, no matter what sort of damage he was doing to himself in the process. He was only partially conscious of Alastair going to the window behind him and looking out, trying to occupy himself while Kaiba ignored him. At last, though, he slipped up and gave a little growl, flexing his right hand just as Alastair turned and caught him doing so. The red-haired man heaved an annoyed sigh and came up beside Kaiba, taking his hand and beginning to rub his thumbs across the palm where his muscles had tightened up. Kaiba jerked it back immediately, snapping, “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Trying to help you,” Alastair snapped back. “Your wrist is sore, I take it?”
Kaiba pulled his hand into his chest, trying to rub it with the fingers of his immobilized arm. “I don’t need your help,” he sullenly grumbled.
“Is that so?” Alastair faced him in challenge, setting his hands on his hips. “You’re just going to spend the rest of the afternoon sitting here making little noises under your breath every time something hurts? I know you’re too stubborn to take something for it, you’d rather suffer. Well, maybe I heard your suffering and wanted to help out if I could. Do you have a problem with that?”
Taken aback by the sudden outburst, Kaiba shrank even more into his moody shell. “I don’t need it.”
“I don’t care.” Alastair reached down and grabbed his hand, perhaps a little roughly, and pulled it back up so he could massage it. Kaiba could not have fought back without actually launching into a physical fight, so he sat there and took it, glaring up at Alastair the whole time. To his surprise, Alastair knew what he was doing. He laced his fingers between Kaiba’s and rubbed at his palm, working out the strain caused by awkward one-handed typing, and then turned his hand over and gently massaged his wrist. As he finished up, he let Kaiba have his arm back and glanced to him, reading his companion’s expression carefully. “What else? Your back bothering you?”
Kaiba averted his gaze. “It’s nothing you can help with. I’m fine. That was…enough.”
“Cut the tough-guy act and deal with it,” Alastair said sharply. “You got injured. It happens to the best of us. If you’re going to torture yourself by coming into work and trying to oversee everything, you’re going to have to put up with the fact that it’s going to hurt and I’m going to try to do something about it.” He tugged at Kaiba’s good arm. “Come on. Get up out of this squishy chair, it’s not good for you.”
Kaiba narrowed his eyes, but reluctantly got to his feet. “What do you know about it?”
“I’ve picked up some things here and there.” Alastair pulled his coat off the spare office chair without arms and dragged it around, indicating that Kaiba should sit in it. “Sideways,” he added. “Obviously.”
Growling to himself in frustration, Seto did as ordered, though he was now far away from his work and at his companion’s mercy. Alastair said nothing more, and just went to work rubbing the knots out of Kaiba’s shoulders and neck. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, Kaiba was bothered by more than just his broken arm. Being forced to sleep on his back and keep that arm at his side all day was messing up the rest of his body, to say nothing of hidden bruises caused by debris in the midst of the earthquake. He received Alastair’s assistance reluctantly, but it was better than suffering. He had only been sitting there less than a minute when he began complaining. “Do you have to be so rough? I thought you were supposed to be helping.”
“It’s not going to go away if I don’t press hard,” Alastair reasoned.
“What are you, some kind of expert?”
“No,” Alastair flippantly replied. “I’ve just been told I’m pretty good at this.”
A dark mood swept over Kaiba. “By who?” he asked accusingly. “Other lovers?”
Alastair gave a slight chuckle. “Valon and Mai. When we all lived together.”
“Oh.”
“You’re awfully tense, though,” his partner went on. “I can’t do much for the long-term. You should probably see a professional. You can certainly afford it.”
“I don’t need your advice,” Kaiba seethed. “I can take perfectly good care of myself, thank you. I haven’t even been sick in years, I refuse to let anything stop me from putting in a decent day’s work.”
Alastair laughed in a low, understanding way. “I see, now. This frustrates you, doesn’t it? Being made to feel like you can’t do your job, and not being able to fix it yourself. It’s out of your control, and you hate that.”
The CEO bristled with annoyance. “You don’t know anything.”
“Funny, I thought I had you pegged perfectly.”
Kaiba glared down at the floor, trying to keep himself still while Alastair kneaded his neck. “Why do you even care? It wasn’t too long ago you wouldn’t have even bothered to show up here. Is this some kind of lame attempt to get on my good side?”
“That would imply you had a good side,” Alastair said dryly.
“I don’t have to put up with this, you know,” Kaiba snarled. “I may not have use of one arm but I could still lay you out without breaking a sweat. I’m just humoring you so you’ll leave me alone the rest of the day.”
“If you say so.”
Alastair’s refusal to back down frustrated Kaiba even further, making him growl again. Neverminding that the backrub did feel good, Alastair’s closeness was something he wasn’t used to and didn’t know how to handle. “If you’re trying to use this to get something out of me, you’re sorely mistaken,” Kaiba decided to grumble. “You’re here by my good graces alone, I could just as easily send you off to find another hotel. If you annoy me too much, I’ll do it without a second thought.”
Alastair waited a moment’s pause before responding. “Does this annoy you?”
Kaiba glared hard at the floor again. “No,” he finally said with a small growl.
“All right, then.” Alastair’s hands slid out to his shoulders and kneaded them with firm circular motions, taking out much of the strain of supporting the broken arm. “You can rail at me all you want, I don’t care. Just tell me if something I do hurts more than it helps.”
Sighing, Kaiba reached up and rubbed his forehead with his good hand. “Just remember to back off immediately if someone knocks on the door. I don’t want them getting any ideas.”
“Fair enough.”
“Who I choose to keep company with is no one’s business but my own, but there are some things my employees shouldn’t know,” he continued muttering. “Their unmitigated trust in me to hold this ship together is what keeps them loyal to me, the last thing I need is someone’s confidence wavering because they think I’m weak. Judging by how surprised Roland was to see me walk in the door this morning, none of them expected me to be back at work the next day with a broken arm. They’re in awe of me, and I intend to keep it that way. I have to be strong for their sake, to show no weakness, not even pain, in front of them. That’s how KaibaCorp thrives in this economy.”
“Interesting philosophy,” Alastair murmured as he worked. “Can’t say as I disagree with it.”
“Anyone who tells you business thrives on teamwork is full of shit,” Kaiba complained. “One man can make or break a company, if he’s the right man. You should know that – you worked for a president whose loss caused an entire worldwide organization to crumble overnight.”
“That’s true.”
“I don’t need help to keep my company running, but I know when I stumble across someone I can use at the right time. Even a rival. That’s all it is. I’ll take what I can get, you’re just useful to me right now. I’m not going to take some kind of medication that’s going to leave me drowsy and stupid, but if this will let me keep my focus through the end of the day, it’s worth a shot.”
“I get the point.” Alastair chuckled to himself. “Are you done ranting now?”
Closing his eyes, Kaiba sighed and collapsed back against the body behind him, consenting to the hands that came to rest on his shoulders. Alastair wasn’t going to break, no matter what Kaiba said to him, so he had no choice but to live with his presence. The soft caresses along his collarbone weren’t too bad, either. “What do you want from me?” he mumbled after a moment.
“Nothing.” Alastair’s fingers slipped into the collar of Kaiba’s button-down shirt and rubbed lightly along his neck, caressing rather than massaging now. “I know it’s hard for you to believe that someone could do something nice for you and not want anything in return, but it’s the truth.” He held Kaiba back against himself and combed his fingers through silky brown hair. “Take whatever you want out of it – pleasure, a good time, some benefits to your company, whatever. It doesn’t bother me.”
Kaiba leaned against him for a while, no longer fighting against his closeness. Alastair had weathered the sulking without flinching and gave back as good as he got, there was nothing more Kaiba could do but accept that he wasn’t going away. After a long silence, Alastair nudged him to sit back up and gently rubbed his knuckles against Kaiba’s back. “Did I get at least some of the tension out?”
“It’s better,” Seto grudgingly admitted. “Thanks.”
“No problem.” His gliding touch ran the length of Kaiba’s shoulder as he came around him and passed him, heading for the door. “Take it easy for a bit. I’m going to run down and surprise your computer geeks one more time, make sure they haven’t messed up any of my security measures.”
Kaiba remained sitting there long after Alastair had gone, wrapped in his thoughts. But they weren’t something he wanted to treasure for long, so he eventually forced himself back into the soft office chair behind the computer to work. He may have been slowed down, but not incapacitated, and intended to work for as long as it took to bring KaibaCorp back to life.
Dinner seemed like the perfect time for friends to get together, so that evening, Duke and Tristan were invaded by the others just in time to turn a convalescent visit into a small party. With Tristan ordered to stay in bed or at least not move around too much, Duke was doing the cooking, and Yugi, Joey, and Mai brought what they could to contribute before sitting down in the living room with Tristan to swap stories of what had happened to them individually during the earthquake. Téa had phoned each of them at some point in the day to check up on them from Osaka, having heard all the news from her family and wanting to know for herself that her friends were okay. Now that it was a day past, Yugi didn’t feel such trepidation about it, and shared as much as he could of his reasons for being at KaibaCorp and being trapped with Kaiba in the office. He was no longer ashamed or afraid to tell his friends how Yami came to his rescue, and protected both him and Kaiba in his own way, until they got help and were free. It was a rather interesting tale, with the benefit of a long rest in Yami’s ethereal arms to put everything into perspective. “So what did he want with you, anyway?” Joey pestered him. “What was this business meeting about?”
Yugi gave an awkward shrug to try to pass it off – he didn’t want to say anything so soon. “We didn’t really get that far. The earthquake hit before we could go into detail. I don’t think I’ll even hear from him to reschedule for a few weeks, there’s going to be a lot of work to get KaibaCorp fixed up. Whatever he wanted, it’s on hold.”
“As long as he doesn’t decide to forget it altogether during this downtime,” Duke said warningly. “It would be a nice excuse not to have to explain himself.”
“Well, he does owe me,” Yugi pointed out with a smile. “I saved his life. He hates to let anybody hold that over him. I’m sure I’ll get a call sooner or later. And when I know anything, I’ll let you guys know. I won’t keep you in suspense.”
“You checked up on Bakura, right?” Joey asked him.
“Yeah, on my way over.”
“How’s he doin’?”
“He’s all right. Still a little sore, he said, but he didn’t faint again or anything. He sends his regards,” Yugi added to Tristan.
Tristan nodded from his place reclining on the couch, half-wrapped in a blanket. “Thanks. Man, that’s the last thing we need – any more of us getting hurt. But I suppose it could have been a lot worse.”
“Yeah, all things considered, we got off easy,” Joey remarked. “Not even all that much damage.” He nodded towards Duke standing in the doorway to the kitchen, where he could both talk to his friends and keep an eye on dinner. “Your store probably got the worst of it.”
“And it’s mostly cleaned up now,” Duke agreed. “Still got a few things to get fixed up, I’m on a long list of people needing new windows, but at least I’ll be able to open for shorter hours tomorrow. Things’ll be back to normal in no time.”
Yugi gave Tristan a wide-eyed look. “What are you going to do about work? How long will they let you be off for an injury?”
Sighing, Tristan glanced briefly at his boyfriend before answering. “Well, since a doctor made me stay home, they’re okay with that. But…Duke and I talked about it last night and…something he said kind of struck a nerve. It’s not the best job in the world, it’s pretty dangerous even without earthquakes making us have to start all over from scratch. I’m thinking maybe I should look for a better job, something where I don’t have to worry about getting hurt at work.” Another glance toward the slender young man in the doorway. “I don’t want Duke to have to fret about ever getting a tragic phone call.”
His friends gazed at him in interest. “You sure?” Joey questioned. “That’s a pretty big decision to make. You sure you’re not just freaked out by what happened?”
“No, he had a point I couldn’t argue with. I’ve been complaining about other people getting hurt on the job, I’ve always known it was bad but I didn’t think I was good for anything else.” Tristan smiled easily at his friends. “Guess I just didn’t look hard enough.”
Yugi chuckled. “Who would have thought? After all this time, working hard, putting so much into it, you get hurt in an earthquake.”
Tristan groaned. “I know. It’s the worst kind of irony. Of all the things…”
“I’d have thought you would have gotten hurt on your motorcycle way before anything like this happened,” Joey taunted him. “Goes to show you – there are a lot of other tragedies that can happen to us and Duke would still get that nasty phone call.”
“As long as it’s not the kind of tragedy that could have been prevented,” Duke said darkly before turning and going back into the kitchen.
The others nodded their understanding. “It’s probably for the best,” Yugi said sympathetically. “Maybe you can find something you like better.”
“Something that pays better,” Joey grinned.
“I can ask around my office, see if they’re hiring in the mail room or something,” Mai offered.
“Nah, that’s okay. But thanks,” Tristan smiled. “I’ll be off for a few more days, and then when I go back, they’ve already agreed to take me off the site for a couple of weeks and let me work in the main office. Temporarily. It’ll give me time to look around for something better.”
“Well, good luck,” Yugi enthused. “I wish you all the best, Tristan.”
Dinner came shortly after, and talk turned to much more lighthearted things now that everyone had shared their particular story of the quake and talked through their worries. It was good to be able to sit down with each other and share the company of good friends after such trauma, to give thanks for their lives and homes and just hang out like normal for a while. Whatever time it might take the rest of the city to clean up and move on from the disaster, this particular group of friends was already well on its way to being good as new. They didn’t stay long, though, deciding to leave early enough to let Tristan get a good night’s sleep. After they left and the flat quieted, Tristan lay in bed listening to Duke shower and get ready to join him. He wasn’t tired, no matter how much he insisted to his friends, but now he had his boyfriend’s uninterrupted attention. He tucked his arms under his head and waited for Duke to come out of the bathroom and douse the lights, all except for the reading lamp by the head of their bed. At last, Duke appeared in nothing but his underwear, combing a hand through his wet hair. Tristan purred a little chuckle. “Now that’s a nice sight.”
Duke eyed him. “I thought you were supposed to be asleep.”
“I told you, I slept enough today. I’m wide awake.” Tristan’s brawny body heaved with a long sigh. “Not in any shape to do anything else, but I’m awake.”
“It’s too hot to sleep anyway,” Duke complained, padding over to the bed and flopping onto it. Indeed, Tristan had already noticed this, for he had only the sheet covering his lower half while the rest of the blankets had been shoved to the foot of the bed. After a moment, Duke sat up and sidled closer to his partner, curling up beside him so Tristan could pillow his head on his boyfriend’s thigh. “Yeah, I’m awake too. Too much going on in my brain.”
Tristan nestled comfortably against him, closing his eyes contentedly as a hand came down around his head and fingertips traced lightly around his earlobe and down his neck. “Anything you want to share?” he murmured.
“Nah,” Duke replied. “Just…little things. What I have to do before I can open the shop tomorrow, stuff like that. Nothing deep.”
“’Cause you know you can tell me anything…”
“I know.” Duke leaned his head back against the wall and engrossed himself in simply sitting with Tristan and stroking his neck tenderly for a while. The window nearest their bed was open for air, but there was no breeze to cool the July night. After a time, Duke spoke up quietly. “Joey’s right, you know.”
“Hm?” Tristan raised his head enough to glance up at his partner’s face.
“There’s a lot worse things that could happen to either of us, at any time.” Duke gazed blankly across the room as he spoke, still gently caressing his boyfriend’s ear. “Accidents or whatever. I don’t really have any right to ask you to quit your job because I’m afraid you’ll get hurt.”
“Yeah, you do,” Tristan said softly. “Because you love me. That gives you the right to worry about me.”
Duke shook his head. “You don’t have to quit your job if you don’t want to. I’ll deal with it.”
“Maybe I want to.” Tristan settled his head back down against his partner’s leg. “It’s not like you were wrong, deep down. You had a point. But we don’t have to worry about it now.” He lifted a hand and ran the backs of his knuckles along the outstretched leg he was pillowed against. “They’re going to keep me in the office for a certain period of time, until they’re sure I’m safe and healthy. That gives me time to think about it, and look around.”
“Just don’t do it because I overreacted and begged you to,” Duke muttered sheepishly. “Do it because you want to.”
“Don’t worry.” Tristan’s head shifted slightly. “I don’t want to lose you, either. Now, come here.” He pushed up onto his elbow and wrapped an arm around Duke’s waist, pulling him down into the bed alongside him. Though surprised, Duke had no reason to argue, and sank eagerly down into the bedding with Tristan half on top of him, curling arms around him to snuggle him and resting his head on Duke’s chest. It wasn’t long before Duke’s eyes closed, and a few minutes later he was sound asleep without even turning out the last light.