AUTHOR’S NOTE – it’s been a while since I remembered to do this, so I’d better do it now. I would like to emphatically remind readers that some chapters of this story are 18+, such as this one. It contains adult content and should NOT be read by anyone under 18. If we find out minors are accessing it, we can ban you. Fair warning. Thank you.
Queer As Tachi – Chapter 70
In the days following the earthquake, Alastair stayed out of the way for the most part, enjoying the peaceful solitude of the Kaiba estate while his host insisted on going to work as usual. Mokuba’s fifteenth birthday came and went during that time, but he only had a couple of school friends over to play games and eat a lot in celebration. His school reopened quickly, so he didn’t have much time to take off and hang around with their houseguest, but Mokuba seemed to really like having Alastair there regardless. It gave him someone to chat with at dinner, who interacted with him more than his brother and didn’t try to parent him. Kaiba’s days were long and difficult and left him irritable come nighttime, not to mention disinterested in entertaining his guest or embarking on strenuous activities, but Alastair never pressed him to do anything. He lurked around the estate doing his own thing, mostly taking advantage of the comfortable room and amenities to enjoy a relaxing vacation of sorts while waiting for his next job to come through. The businessman paying for his courier services had his cell phone number, and would be calling him when the package was prepared for delivery, but he already knew it would be perhaps a week of down-time in Japan before he would get that call. It would have been nice to spend some of it outside by the pool on the estate grounds, but it had been damaged and dirtied by the earthquake and was currently drained for repairs. Not to mention, a heat wave swamped the region, making it far more desirable to stay inside where it was air-conditioned and cushy.
The day after Mokuba’s birthday gathering, the younger Kaiba found Alastair reclined on the leather sofa in Seto’s study, reading, of all things, a software manual to pass the time until Kaiba got home from the office and they could all sit down to dinner. Mokuba wrinkled up his nose in distaste when he saw what Alastair was engrossed in. “A computer manual? What are you doing, Alastair?”
Alastair lowered the book enough to grin over the top of it. “How else am I going to know all the holes and security patches so I can hack into it?” He raised the book to cover his face again. “Being a brilliant hacker isn’t all trial and error, kid. It takes research, being on top of things.”
Mokuba made a face at the cover of the book. “You sound like my brother.”
A dry laugh came from behind the book. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Mokuba came around the desk and perched himself on the corner of it, so he could see Alastair regardless of whether he wanted to keep his nose in the manual. “Alastair…you like my brother, right?”
Alastair’s head whipped toward him, his eyebrows going up in surprise. “What? Where did that come from?”
“Well…you guys have…like, been together,” Mokuba tried to explain. “I know Seto’s not the cute and lovey kind, but he’s been out with you, so…I thought maybe…you liked each other.”
Alastair smiled faintly, almost sadly. “Mokuba,” he said gently, setting down the manual and sitting up, “it’s more complicated than that. You know your brother. He doesn’t let anybody get close to him, not even me.”
Mokuba sighed in annoyance. “Yeah, I know. Is that why you haven’t tried to…get close to him since you’ve been here? I think you should,” he immediately pressed without waiting for an answer. “He doesn’t say anything but I know how happy he was after he started seeing you. He was in such a good mood, I could hardly believe it. Whatever you guys do, it’s a good influence on him, and I kind of want to see him like that more often.”
Alastair shook his head slowly. “It’s not a good time,” he demurred. “He’s got a broken arm, and is in a lot of pain. I don’t want to bother him when he comes home from work, he needs to get his rest so he can heal up.”
“Well…” Mokuba gave him a hopeful look. “Maybe if you guys spent the night together, he would relax a little and rest better?”
The young foreigner laughed. “You’re trying to fix me up with him. You want to see us together that badly?”
“Well!” Mokuba held up his hands helplessly. “I just want to see Seto happy. I know something about you makes him happy, even if he doesn’t want to admit it. And you’re cool.”
“Thanks,” Alastair smiled. “But I don’t think it’s as easy as you make it sound. I can’t beg, convince, or bribe Kaiba to be with me, it’s his choice whether he wants to or not. He knows I’m here, and he knows how I feel about him. It’s up to him to act on it. And I don’t think you can talk him into it either,” he added, pointing sternly at Mokuba. “Just in case you were thinking of trying.”
The younger Kaiba gave him a wide-eyed look of innocence that didn’t fool him for a minute. “I just thought that maybe he needed you to like…ask him out or something. You should.”
“Don’t pester him about it.” Alastair looked away. “If your brother wants me, he’ll make it known one way or another. I’m not going to interfere. And I’m not going to put my life on hold waiting for it,” he added with a hard look at Mokuba. “At the end of the week when I get my phone call, I’m gone, no matter what. If he doesn’t want to make a move by then, that’s his choice. I’m not going to sit around pining after him.”
Mokuba’s shoulders sagged defeatedly. “I guess you’re right,” he mumbled. “I thought maybe I could help, if you needed me to ask him for you, but…I know what he’s like.”
Alastair’s expression softened. He leaned forward and clasped his hands before him. “It’s not like I don’t want be with him,” he assured. “Yes, I do like your brother, for some strange reason. But I know not to push him. He’ll come to me when he wants to. And if that doesn’t happen this week, so be it,” he shrugged. “Maybe next time I’m in town.”
“It’s so cool to have you around, though,” Mokuba enthused. “You’re so much more fun to talk to than him. And you have the coolest stories!”
Laughing, Alastair relaxed back into the couch. “Trust me, you’ve heard all of them,” he snickered. “Most of the time, being a courier isn’t so cool. It’s a lot of sitting in airports and taking long, ugly flights. I don’t get to see as much of my destinations as I’d like.”
“Then why are you doing it?”
“Fast money.” Alastair smiled coolly. “I want to be able to start a new life somewhere, when I find a place I like, and buy myself a new motorcycle. I gotta have money to do that.”
Mokuba sat up eagerly. “You could do that here…”
The smile faded. “We’ll see,” Alastair sighed. “Who knows? Maybe I don’t like Japan enough to live here.”
“Well, I guess I can’t really say anything about that,” the younger Kaiba admitted. “I’ve only ever lived here, I don’t know what it’s like in other parts of the world.” He grinned suggestively. “But my brother is here. That’s a good reason, isn’t it?”
Alastair shook his head again. “It’s not enough, kiddo. I don’t mean to say something stupid about you not being old enough to understand, but you’re not old enough to understand. Life is complicated when you’re an adult, and just having someone you’d like to get to know better and be around isn’t enough to change your whole life over. Especially when that someone is Kaiba.” He made a face in complaint. “He doesn’t even know what he wants, I can’t expect him to ever make up his mind and give me a reason to stay.”
“Stupid Seto,” Mokuba groused. “He needs to get over himself.”
That made Alastair burst out laughing. He was still laughing a few minutes later when Kaiba arrived home from the office and only gave his houseguest and his little brother an odd look when he found them snickering together over some private joke.
It wasn’t that Alastair hadn’t attempted to seduce Kaiba during the course of the last few days. Seduce, perhaps, being a little strong – he had often sidled up to him, talked to him, tried to rub his sore neck and be kind, in the off chance that Kaiba wouldn’t turn down his advances. But Kaiba usually claimed to be in too much pain and discomfort or just too busy, giving Alastair the impression that it wasn’t going to happen thanks to the injury. What he didn’t know was that behind his aloof façade, Kaiba was in a world of turmoil. His complaints of pain were merely to keep Alastair at arm’s length, to keep their relationship from becoming more than just sexual. The gentle treatment was softening Kaiba’s resolve and making him even more conflicted, resulting in a subconscious desire to put Alastair off completely, to use the broken arm as an excuse to keep them from being together for any reason. Neither of them chanced flirtation or even overt friendliness in front of Mokuba, not wanting to corrupt his teenage mind with the knowledge that they had sex with each other, so for those few days Kaiba had been proving cold and standoffish as usual. Yet, for all his attempts to reject Alastair’s closeness, he still caught himself occasionally thinking about the red-haired young man, or staring after him as he moved about the house. The fact that Mokuba didn’t hate him, and was actually carrying on some kind of friendship with him, made Kaiba feel better about having snuck around with him in the past. The connection was out in the open, now, if Kaiba chose to pursue it – at least he had Mokuba’s acceptance, and that meant volumes.
That evening, after listening to the other two chat over dinner about the most inane of topics, Kaiba sequestered himself in the study to finally go back into the wireless dueling network to check up on its status. He had already looked into it as administrator, to make sure none of the servers were down and the earthquake had not disrupted service, but this was his first chance to go online and see how the disaster had affected duelists themselves. The moment he connected through his spy account, a message window popped up in front of him – from Shandy. Bloody hell! it said. It’s about damn time! I thought you were dead or something!
A smirk began to cross Kaiba’s face. Duel disk? he typed back, hoping not to have to type any more than that. The disk was on his desk, even though he couldn’t strap it to his arm as usual. The wireless node lit up almost immediately, giving him the satisfaction of having Shandy’s attention without hardly trying. “You should know it takes more than a little earthquake to get rid of me,” he said smugly into the headset.
“Bloody hell, Kaiba, you could have gotten on sooner than this,” Shandy complained at him. “I’ve been watching your name – both names – for four days. Your network wasn’t down, so I thought you’d have some sense to peep on and let the world know you weren’t killed.”
Kaiba frowned to himself. “Who else in the world would care?” he muttered. “It’s not like I can duel you right now anyway.”
“Why not?”
“My left arm is broken.”
Shandy swore at him, in a caring sort of way. “You all right, mate? What happened?”
Kaiba sat back in his chair and rubbed idly at his arm. “I hurt it during the earthquake, of course. I’m fine,” he added crisply. “I’ve been busy, there’s a lot to do to get the KaibaCorp offices up and running again. At least the wireless network wasn’t affected, except for a brief outage. All duels in progress were interrupted but the records were backed up right up to the minute the quake hit.”
“Oh, I don’t care about the damn network,” Shandy snapped at him. “I just wanted to see for myself that you were alive and well. It was only a little byline on the news, I had to go hunting on the internet to find out more and that was where I saw that KaibaCorp was all busted up.”
The faintest smile curved Kaiba’s lips. He was quietly pleased to hear how irate she was that he hadn’t bothered to sign in and assuage her worries sooner. “You thought something might have happened to me?” he asked in a low tone.
“Well, yeah,” she replied casually. “All we hear is, ‘earthquake in Japan, centered so many kilometers from Domino City,’ and oh look, KaibaCorp got hit hard, and then you don’t show up for a few days. I kinda figured you were busy, but a little part of me got worried, yeah. My boyfriend said I was overreacting – guess I owe him a five-spot now. He said you’d show up when you wanted to, all fine and dandy.”
Kaiba’s heart instantly froze within him. He stared at the computer screen, at the window with Shandy’s introductory message and the watchlist for the network, his expression going cold. “Your…boyfriend?” he managed to murmur.
“Yeah, we were watching the news at his place when I said I hoped you were okay. The pictures they showed looked pretty bad – how bad is it, really?”
Kaiba’s face flushed hot in embarrassment at the tangled thoughts racing through his head over that one little word. “Not very,” he forced himself to say. “I’m sure they just chose to show the worst examples of damage.”
“Ah, yeah, that sounds about right.”
Kaiba cleared his throat of the thickness that wanted to choke him off. “Not to cut this short, but my arm is bothering me. I just wanted to log in to make sure the network was all right.”
“Aw, yeah, you should take care of that,” Shandy said flippantly. “Rest up, mate. Take good care of yourself, get the maids to fluff up your pillows or something. We want you back in dueling condition right quick, don’t we?”
“Yeah,” Kaiba muttered darkly. “Whatever. Thanks.”
“Take it easy.”
He reached to the duel disk and terminated the connection immediately, shutting down his online status as well and then turning off his computer. Kaiba sat for a while staring at the darkened screen, and then slammed a fist down hard on the desk. Dammit! he cursed himself. How could I have let myself fall for it? A boyfriend! She had a boyfriend all this time and played me for a fool! I let myself relax just enough to let her in so she could stab me in the heart and stomp all over it! Squeezing his eyes shut, he pounded his fist on the desk again and then dropped his head into his hand. Damn her! She really had me good. I may have won every duel, but she beat me in the bigger game. This is what I set myself up for! How could I have been so stupid?
A rush of anger overwhelmed the shame. She played me. She never intended to go anywhere, all that flirting was for no reason. She played me like any other pathetic man on the planet, toying with me because she figured I’d fall for it. Never again! You hear me? He lifted his head and glared at the black screen. Never again! If this is the price to pay for opening myself up to liking someone, forget it! Love is worthless! I’m through with it! But then, he heard voices upstairs – one voice in particular – and another emotion rushed in to replace the anger that was ebbing out of him. Maybe I ought to just swear off girls, he considered, as the gentle murmur of a stranger’s voice upstairs filtered through his defenses and speared his shattered heart. He couldn’t hear what Alastair was saying, just that he was talking to Mokuba in a pleasant tone somewhere near the stairs where their voices would carry through half the house. Yeah, that’s it. I’m through with girls. They just want to play mind games and flirt for no reason. She probably just wanted the attention, from the president of KaibaCorp and Duel Monsters champion. Well, she can go to hell. Kaiba sat there brooding for a while, as the sun set outside and plunged the study into darkness, his thoughts becoming less coherent until they were nothing more than a blur, a vague, gray mist of emotion that made him push himself out of his chair and storm upstairs.
Hearing a shuffle of feet, Alastair glanced up from the book he had been skimming to find Kaiba standing in the doorway of the guest room, a dark look in his eyes. “Kaiba?” he wondered.
Seto faced him squarely from the door. “Are you in love with me?”
“W-what?” Alastair sat up a little from his reclining position on the bed. “What kind of a question is that?”
“Just answer it,” Kaiba said curtly. “Are you in love with me?”
“Well…” Alastair set the book aside, blinking at Kaiba’s stern figure. “I…I don’t know. It’s kind of a hard question to answer.”
Kaiba’s eyes narrowed, and with an angry snort he turned and blundered away down the hall as abruptly as he had appeared. Bewildered, Alastair scrambled to his feet and chased after him, calling, “Kaiba!” into the hallway. It got Seto to at least stop and glare over his shoulder. Alastair approached him cautiously. “Why would you just up and ask me that? I don’t get it.”
“It’s not that hard of a question,” Kaiba grumbled. “Yes or no.”
“It is so a hard question,” Alastair argued. “You and I haven’t been seeing each other long enough for me to know how I really feel about you. Though I will admit,” he said more softly, “I care about you. I think about you a lot. I think, given time, if everything kept going the way it is right now…I probably could have those feelings. But it’s too early to tell.” He peered at Kaiba in the dark hallway. “What the hell brought this on, anyway?”
Kaiba turned stubbornly away from him and leaned his good hand on the wall. “It’s nothing,” he grumbled. “I just needed to know. But if you don’t even know…”
“Do you?” Alastair challenged him. “Can you say whether or not you love me? Or is that word not in your vocabulary?”
Kaiba turned sharply back towards him, and held his gaze for a long time before backing down and averting his eyes again. “I don’t know,” he murmured. “I don’t think I know what love is. Any time I think I might be figuring it out, it all backfires on me.”
“It’s not an easy thing to figure out,” Alastair said understandingly, folding his arms over his chest. “I’ve never been in love. The only people who loved me – my family – were taken away from me, and the rest of my life has been hard and cold. It’s hard to even know what love is, let alone whether I can feel it for anyone.” He lifted his eyes and gazed solemnly at Seto. “Something tells me your life has gone pretty much the same way as mine.”
Kaiba was still staring intently at the floor to avoid meeting Alastair’s soft gaze. “I love my little brother,” he muttered under his breath. “It’s not the same thing. Familial love, it’s not…”
“No, it’s not,” Alastair agreed. “But it’s where we learn to love. And we both had that ripped out of our lives far too early.”
Seto closed his eyes. “I had to be strong, for Mokuba’s sake. I had to set emotion aside and manage without it or we would have both lost everything, including each other.” He glanced up at Alastair and noticed his downcast expression. “You had to do the same.”
“That’s right,” Alastair said sullenly. “I had to be strong for my brother, but then I lost him. I never had the chance to grieve. Dartz may have used my feelings against me, but when it came right down to it, I was expected to be cold and ruthless and not rely on emotion to guide me. Except for hatred.” He grew even more solemn, his eyes glittering in the dim darkness of the hallway. “It was a wretched cycle – I had to push down everything except my hatred in order to find the power to exact my revenge for the people I loved. It seemed to make perfect sense then, but…” He shook his head and lifted it proudly, blinking back his emotions. “Sometimes I feel like it’s too late to go back and re-learn about things like love, after having lived so long without it. As long as there were people around to use, why should I want to care about any of them?”
Kaiba’s expression flickered only briefly, as he heard his own personal philosophy parroted back to him. Coming from anyone else, it sounded stupid. “I never thought it was too late,” he said dejectedly, “I just never thought there was a reason to bother. I got this far by myself, why should I change now?”
“I agree,” Alastair said. “So why is this happening to us?”
Kaiba sighed tiredly. “You got me.”
His companion gave him a thoughtful look. “We both have the same paradox. We’ve lived almost parallel lives…which have left us both unable to love, even though it appears both of us long for it.”
Seto turned away again, though it was too late to stop this conversation from happening. “You think so?” he said heavily.
Alastair lowered his voice for privacy’s sake. “Do you…want to feel something for me? Or did you ask me that question before because you wanted to cut me off before anything even got started?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
They stared at each other for a long moment, and then Alastair backed away shyly. “I may not be able to put a name to what I feel, but I do feel strongly about you. If you can stand to wait and see what it turns into…I’d be willing to try. I don’t know what it is you want, but…asking me a question like that makes me think you want more than just to use me for a good fuck now and then.”
Neither of them realized that Mokuba was listening to the entire conversation from behind his door, since they weren’t all that far down the hall from him. He remained completely silent, though inwardly he was lifting a hopeful wish to the heavens that his brother was going to say something nice and romantic and they would go off down into his room together…
Kaiba sighed hard. “I don’t know what I want,” he grumbled. “I don’t know anything. None of it makes sense anymore. I don’t know who to trust, so all I can do is rely on nobody but myself, as usual. I’ve come to realize that trying to trust other people only gets me hurt in the end, so I’d rather save myself the trouble and just push everyone away.” His voice suddenly hushed, so that no one but Alastair standing across from him could hear him. “But why can’t I push you away?”
“I don’t know,” Alastair said honestly. “Is that the problem? You want to be your usual self but I’m in the way?”
“You’re making this harder than it should be,” Seto said heavily. “I never should have asked you to come here to the house.”
“I’m sorry.” Alastair turned and made to go back down the hall to the guest room. “I’ll leave you alone, if that’s what you want. It’s probably easier for you that way.”
“Alastair…” Kaiba stared hard at him, waiting until he turned back around to finish his thought. “You don’t seriously want that, do you?”
The red-haired young man gave him a mournful look in return. “All I want is for you to give me a chance. I may not be very good with emotions any more than you are, but at least I’m honest. You asked me if I love you, and I said I didn’t know. I don’t know. It may not be helpful, but it’s the truth, because I don’t know how to give you anything else.”
Another long silence lapsed between them, as they stared at each other, waiting and wondering. At last, Kaiba gave a small nod and turned his shoulder. “Come on, let’s finish this somewhere more private.” He glanced furtively down the hallway. “This isn’t the sort of talk I want to be having where there are too many ears.”
It was late enough that most of the house staff had been dismissed, so Alastair guessed there was just one set of ears he was worried about, but he nodded his consent and followed Kaiba down to the room at the end of the hallway. It was the first time all week he had been permitted into Kaiba’s bedroom, a thought which gave him the slightest lift of hope as the door closed behind him and Seto went to slump to a seat on the bed, fatigued. Alastair drifted closer, but waited until he received a nod of permission before taking a seat beside him, on Kaiba’s right side so as not to accidentally bump his arm. They sat together on the end of the bed for a long stretch, saying nothing, staring at the floor. It was Kaiba’s place to continue the conversation as he had indicated, but either he had nothing more or it was taking an untold amount of courage to bring it up. At last, he lifted his head slightly and stared at a spot on the wall instead. “You know what I said the other day about there maybe being some girl I know…?”
“Yeah…?”
“Forget it.” Kaiba’s eyes narrowed in a glare. “It’s not going to happen. I was a fool for even entertaining the idea of returning her flirting. She toyed with me like I toy with my dueling opponents, and in the end it’s all pointless.” He sighed hard and dropped his voice to a sullen murmur. “It was the girl who beat me in the world tournament. She offered me a rematch, and I accepted, I’ve dueled her several times and won every time, proving to myself that she just got lucky that once and I really am the superior duelist. But the whole time she kept flirting with me, until I didn’t know why I was dueling her anymore. I just logged onto the network, to check something, and she was waiting for me. She wanted to know I was all right after the earthquake. Just when I was thinking maybe she cared about me, she mentioned that she has a boyfriend.” He growled to himself. “She set me up and I took the fall. I hate to be played by anyone, least of all a girl, and if that’s the way it’s supposed to go, forget it. Life is too short to be wasted fucking with people’s heads when you have no intention of following through with it.”
Alastair remained silent until he was sure Seto was done. Then, he murmured gently, “So that’s it. You wanted to know if I was fucking with your head, too.”
“I have no patience for those kinds of games. I have enough to worry about without adding that into the mix. If that’s what love is, then I truly am better off without it. We both are.”
“I don’t think it is,” Alastair said with a shake of his head. “Because I don’t feel like doing that to you. I may not know much, but I know I wouldn’t do anything like that to you, because I’ve never learned to play those kind of games. You’re right, life is too short. I’d rather be brutally honest, because it weeds out all the people like that. If they don’t want to be honest with me? Fuck them. I don’t need them.”
Kaiba eyed him sidelong. “I seem to recall you being rather good at a particular type of head game yourself.”
“That was different,” Alastair insisted. “And it was another lifetime ago entirely. I may have baited you, but I dropped the game when it was time to get serious. Some things just have to be handled that way.” He gave Seto a hard look. “This isn’t one of those times. This is serious. So, no games. Just the honesty you deserve from me.”
Kaiba held his gaze. “And what makes you think I’m willing to trust you? I tried opening up just a little and got burned.”
“You trust me with your body,” Alastair said pointedly. “You even trust me around your little brother. If that isn’t enough to gain your trust in other matters, then nothing will. I can’t make you and I can’t beg you.” He pushed himself off the bed and took a couple of steps toward the door. “I’m not going to push. If you don’t want me, I’ll go. I won’t bother you again.” He gave Kaiba the barest glance over his shoulder. “You and I have lived the same life. What you’re struggling with, consider that I feel the same thing. What have you given me to make me want to trust you? You argue with me all the time, you belittle me and close yourself off from me when I try to get close. I ought to be feeling the same way you do about that girl – why should I bother trying when I just get shot down?” He turned away and tried to go to the door, to open it and let himself out, give himself escape, but he couldn’t move from that spot. All he could do was sigh to himself. “I can’t push you away, either. I don’t want to.”
The silence between them became heavy and pronounced, as they retreated into their individual dark thoughts and stayed there for too long. Finally, when it seemed Alastair was about to break and flee for the door, Seto roused himself and simply murmured, “If you don’t want to, then don’t.”
Lifting his head, Alastair turned back, making a questioning frown. But Kaiba said nothing further, and didn’t look up. His face was blank, but not upset. Alastair returned to him and sat back down, searching his face for more explanation, but none came. “Is this my chance?” he wondered.
Blue eyes flicked up and gazed narrowly at him. “You promised me honesty.”
“And you’ll get it.” Alastair’s eyes narrowed as well. “Just don’t play me, either. I don’t like it any more than you do.”
“I wouldn’t know how to,” Kaiba said with a shake of his head. “I can’t promise you any more than that, though. I’ll give you your chance. At this point, I don’t think I have anything more to lose, except to prove that I was right all along and I don’t need anyone.”
“That’s all I’m asking for,” Alastair agreed. He lifted a hand and brushed it down Kaiba’s arm, pleased to feel the warmth beneath his sleeve and the firm shape of his muscles. They both glanced up at each other at the same time, and blinked, at which Alastair whispered, “Do you want me to go, so you can rest?”
“No,” Seto replied. “There’s no need. I’m done resting. My arm doesn’t hurt.” He glanced down at it with a frown. “Though it’s going to get in the way of anything else…”
“Not necessarily.” Chancing a smile, Alastair reached across and touched the back of his injured hand tenderly. “We can try something different. If you’re willing.” He chuckled a little under his breath. “I’m sure a deep talk like this hasn’t exactly turned you on.”
“No…” Kaiba turned his head and leaned closer, intoxicated by his companion’s presence enough to whisper, “…but having you here in my bedroom has.”
“It’s about time,” Alastair purred in return. “I tried to be patient and wait, but it was getting hard.”
“Yeah, well…you weren’t the only one,” Kaiba sighed.
Alastair glanced his lips subtly across Kaiba’s cheek. “You want this?” he murmured.
He was answered with a nod. “I want it.”
“Okay.” Alastair reached to turn Kaiba’s face to him with his fingertips, and then kissed him gently. The response was slow but unmistakable. There was a growing heat beneath the surface, stifled for far too long and begging to be let loose. Alastair slid his hand down Kaiba’s neck to his throat and began to deftly unbutton his shirt, until he had enough room to sneak his hand inside and caress warm skin. He progressed no further than that for a while, indulging Kaiba in a long session of simple, caring touches to put them both at ease and awaken their slumbering desire. In the process, his hand found the card-sized locket resting against Kaiba’s chest, protected by his shirt. A faint smile touched Alastair’s lips as he picked it up and sprung the clasp, discovering Seto’s most hidden secret: the photo of Mokuba, torn in half so each could place the other close to their heart. Alastair shook his head slowly. “You can never tell me you don’t know anything about love,” he said dryly, indicating the locket.
Kaiba’s face flushed. “It’s nothing,” he muttered.
Alastair ran his thumb along the golden edge of the locket before closing it again. “You have someplace special you put this?”
Kaiba nodded toward the bureau across the room. “Just up there.”
His partner gently lifted the cord over his head and removed the locket, getting up to put it safely on the top of the bureau. He slunk back towards the bed more slowly, lifting his t-shirt up and peeling it off on the way. He generously helped Kaiba out of the sling so his heavily-bound arm could at least move freely, and then sank down astride his lap. There was still a considerable weight of solemnity and angst on them both, but it didn’t make seduction any less possible. Alastair balanced himself carefully so Seto wouldn’t have to hold him, and concentrated on favoring him with slow, heated kisses to build him up just right. Kaiba had been wearing button-up shirts all week long, for ease of getting the sleeve over his cast, making it easy for Alastair to work him out of it and bestow his naked chest with appreciative touches and kisses to his broad shoulders. At last, Kaiba let himself fall back on the bed, catching himself on his good elbow, and Alastair stretched out on top of him, kissing his way down to chest and nipples. Kaiba gave a low moan at the exquisite feeling, letting his cast flop uselessly out of the way while he curled his other hand around the back of Alastair’s head and guided him to find the most sensitive places to kiss. After a good long time, Alastair finally pried himself up and braced his hands on either side of Kaiba’s head, gazing down at him. Neither were smiling just yet, but they shared the same look of eager desire. Licking his lips, Alastair murmured, “I suppose I should get what we need before we get too carried away.”
Kaiba nodded slightly. “You know where everything is,” he mumbled in embarrassment. “Although…” He tilted his head to look not at the door to the master bath, but the head of the bed. “…the condoms are in the bedside table.”
Amusement twitched Alastair’s eyebrow. “You were planning to fuck me all along.”
“Of course.” Kaiba frowned at him. “You expected anything less?”
Alastair narrowed his eyes right back. “I was being good. You said you were tired, and your arm hurt.”
“It doesn’t hurt now.”
Sniffing in annoyance, Alastair pushed himself off the bed and stalked across the room, going to the bathroom to fetch the lubricant first and leaving it on the bedside table where the condoms were hidden. Along the way, he decided to shed his jeans, doing it slowly and deliberately in full view of his partner and leaving them piled on the floor with his shirt. Kaiba had sat up a little to watch, and while the look in his eyes wasn’t a smile, it was certainly approving. Alastair self-consciously combed his fingers through his hair, pulling an errant strand out of his eyes, and prowled back to the bed to stand before his lover. “Well?” he wondered. “Are you ready?”
Kaiba eyed him curiously. “But, how are we going to do it if my arm…?”
“You’re not interested in being on the bottom for once, are you?” The look Alastair received was answer enough, and made him chuckle faintly. “Didn’t think so. You’re the aggressive type, that’s one of the things I like about you.”
Kaiba studied him warily as he sat up fully to meet him. “So how does one stay aggressor when he’s stuck flat on his back thanks to his arm?”
“Lay back and relax and I’ll show you.” Alastair helped him to do so, and once Kaiba was nestled comfortably against the pillows, he found his partner crawling up over the top of him, descending to kiss his stomach and chest again for a while first. He worked his way up to Kaiba’s lips, and savaged them for a time before pulling back to whisper beside his ear, “You’re in good hands. I’ll take good care of you tonight, you don’t have to worry about straining yourself.”
“I’m not some weakling,” Kaiba retorted, his voice a low growl.
“Of course not.” Alastair pulled back enough to give him a soft smile. “Think of it as me wanting to thank you for your hospitality this week.”
Kaiba breathed a long sigh. “I guess I can’t argue with that.”
Alastair sat up, straddling his partner’s hips, and pushed gently on his chest to get him to stay reclined in the pillows stacked at the head of the bed. His hand wandered, finding a nipple on one side and tracing around it delicately, teasing until it hardened and Kaiba gave a soft gasp. Encouraged, Alastair slid back enough to give himself room to undo Kaiba’s belt buckle and pants and tug them off. He crawled back into place after tossing them aside and bent his head to kiss his partner’s abdomen, taking his time and letting his fingertips glance along the inside of Kaiba’s thighs the whole time. Kaiba laid back lazily in the pillows, breathing heavily but otherwise quieted by the slow seduction and in no rush to change the mood. Watching Alastair’s lithe, beautiful body arch and stretch as he moved about was enough to arouse him, to say nothing of the way he kissed and touched and even breathed. He wasn’t even naked yet; somehow, watching him prowl about in just his tight briefs made Kaiba even more aroused than expected. And it was obvious, too, making Alastair snicker a little to himself before reaching to tug down Kaiba’s briefs and fling them onto the growing pile of clothing at the foot of the bed. This time, when he returned to position in the middle of the bed, he reclined beside Kaiba’s right hip and leaned across him to give him a teasing lick, fondling him affectionately and lavishing his erection with plenty of attention. Kaiba clenched his good hand on the pillow beneath his head, making an effort to control his panting breath and not let himself be pushed too far too fast. Fortunately, Alastair knew just when to pause, figuring him prepared enough for the new position he intended to try. He stretched up to give his partner a deep kiss and then rolled over, reaching for the bedside table. Kaiba laid still and consenting while first condom, then lubricant, was provided for him, and then Alastair tossed off his underwear and prepared. Neither of them said a word as Alastair climbed astride Seto, knees on the bed on either side of his hips, and positioned himself above the waiting erection. Blue eyes widened only slightly, but Kaiba understood now, and clasped his lover’s wrist to tell him that he could proceed. Closing his eyes, Alastair tilted his head up and back with a pleasurable gasp as he sank down onto Kaiba’s erection, bracing himself with his hands on Kaiba’s abdomen. He would be doing all the work, and Kaiba would reap the benefits.
Alastair pushed himself up on his knees and sank back down again, letting out a breathy moan at what it felt like to him. He shifted around a bit, and found a good position in which he could keep doing that, over and over, for as long as he had the strength. Kaiba settled in to watch and feel, unable to do anything else at all, which was fine. He didn’t have to fret about his arm at all, it was sufficiently out of the way and he was still getting pleasured as he desired. The sight of Alastair rising and falling onto him, eagerly exerting himself in this way, sent heat rushing through Kaiba’s body and mind. He was beautiful, sexy, wanton…the way his red hair framed his face, and the golden light of the lamp on the bedside table played along the curves of his shoulders and trim chest, all gleaming with sweat… Kaiba couldn’t tear his eyes away. Alastair rocked back a bit, and settled into the right position to have them both screaming in a short time, the friction of his body sliding up and down rippling up Kaiba’s length and all the way through his prostrate body from mind to toes. The soft gasps became light cries as Alastair pushed himself further, faster, even though the strain was beginning to make his legs tremble. Then, Seto reached out with his good hand and cupped it over the head of his lover’s erection, caressing him with a circular motion. Shaking, Alastair paused completely for a moment, his shoulders hunched forward as he braced himself with hands splayed over Kaiba’s ribs, his body heaving with every gasp. Kaiba continued to stroke him, captivated by his submissive posture and the way he just sat there panting, eyes half-closed and pleading. He could feel Alastair’s trembling down through his own body, even though he wasn’t thrusting at the moment. Then, Alastair pushed himself up and closed a hand gently over Seto’s. “Stop,” he breathed. “You don’t have to.”
Kaiba paused but did not take his hand away. “You’re almost there,” he murmured.
Taking a deep breath, Alastair tossed his hair out of his eyes and braced himself once again, deciding to continue. He flexed his legs and resumed pushing himself down onto his partner’s cock in a steady rhythm, biting his lip and trying to hold on until he had brought Kaiba to climax. It was difficult, what with the hand still playing lightly on his erection, stroking him in encouragement. Alastair tightened his grip on Kaiba’s hip and sped up, rising up as far as he could and sinking back down swiftly, over and over, until he could feel the hips beneath him twitch and try to thrust back against him. It was a good sign, and he responded by increasing the pace even more, losing himself in the motion with his head fallen back and eyes closed, keening softly as his own body began to escalate toward the peak at the same time. Kaiba suddenly let out a growl, and recoiled beneath him, pressing himself back against the pillows and gasping out loud as he came. His hand closed on Alastair’s cock, and with a yelp he came as well, arching back as his body spilled itself across his lover’s stomach. He fell onto his hands, bracing himself while he struggled to catch his breath, but neither of them moved for a while. Kaiba nudged him with a hand on his thigh, indicating that he wanted to get up. Alastair cautiously slid off him, and helped him sit up, but Kaiba held him back with just a raised hand to indicate that he could go and clean himself off without assistance. Nevertheless, a minute or two later, Alastair followed him into the bathroom, and sidled up behind him to wrap his arms around him, kissing him on the back of the shoulder. The heavy look Kaiba gave him over his shoulder was more than words could have conveyed in that moment, and then they broke apart, effortlessly weaving around each other to take care of their own needs as if they had been partners for years and were used to it. Alastair left the bathroom first, going over to find his underwear on the floor even as the light clicked off behind him, and then a hand took him by the arm. He glanced to Kaiba, wondering, but the expression which met him was impossible to read. Only the fact that he had been stopped from leaving or even dressing told him that he was to stay, even though the one asking him could not have prevented him from doing so. He could have left, and in his state Kaiba would not have been able to physically restrain him.
Alastair turned back, and after a wordless moment, Seto dropped his arm and reached to flip back the sheet, intending to climb into bed. Alastair followed him, stretching out alongside him and wrapping his arms around him. His hand slid down beneath the sheets to show his appreciation for their mutual lack of pajamas, and before Kaiba could even think about going to sleep, he found himself being happily stroked off with complete disregard for whether or not he was tired or able. At least his body knew better than his mind what it wanted, and responded in turn, leaving Kaiba doubly sated and exhausted by the time Alastair finished and curled up against him, holding him and kissing his neck. Not too long after, he was pleased to see a disheveled Kaiba sleeping in his arms, completely passed out with the sort of restfulness he had not been able to find all week long.
Mokuba had seen his elder brother come home from the office, so he had to be around somewhere, but a brief search of his usual haunts – including his bedroom, with door ajar – turned up nothing. The guest room door was closed, but being as Alastair had said something that morning about taking a nap after fiddling around with some computer stuff, it didn’t seem that unusual. Mokuba was about to knock to see if Alastair knew where Seto was, but he was arrested by the sound of laughter coming from behind it. Not just laughter – low, pleasurable laughter, in Alastair’s breathy tone, followed by a snicker that was unmistakably Kaiba. Eyes wide, Mokuba turned on his heel and darted away from the door as quickly as possible. He knew better than to interrupt, particularly if his question had just been answered.
The quiet, angsty sex of the night before had paved the way for a more open encounter between the two young men, as if they needed to make up for the time lost earlier in the week. It was Alastair’s fault for flirting with Seto the minute he walked in the door; expecting to be put off again or at least just given a look to show that the attention was appreciated but not about to be reciprocated, he was surprised to find himself dragged upstairs and pinned against a wall. Being as the guest room was closer, they just fell into it and disappeared for a more lighthearted session than last night. But the necessary supplies were down the hall in Kaiba’s room, so all they could do was toy with each other for now and collapse on the bed in a tangle of half-naked limbs to have a good laugh about all that repression finally breaking. “See?” Alastair taunted as he laid with an arm flung over Kaiba’s chest. “I told you your arm wouldn’t stop you.”
“To a point,” Kaiba muttered. “There are still a few things I can’t do.”
“Mm, then I look forward to coming back when you’re all healed up and seeing what I missed out on,” his partner purred. “Shouldn’t be too long.” He tugged up a fold of Kaiba’s shirt, which had never actually come off, and licked his chest sensually.
Kaiba heaved a long, eager sigh at the feel of lips on his skin. “You think it’ll be tomorrow?”
Alastair ceased his kisses and gave a little grumble. “Most likely. This is probably my last night here.”
“I suppose we’d better do something with it, then.” Kaiba stretched and made to get up, only getting so far as to sit and comb fingers through his messed-up hair. He shifted away and sighed. “Mokuba will be disappointed to have to see you leave.”
“Yeah, the kid likes to have me around.” Alastair sprawled across his bed, keenly watching Kaiba’s back. “I like him. He’s a nut.”
Kaiba heaved a gruff chuckle. “Completely unlike me.”
“I wasn’t going to say that…” Alastair pushed himself up and hunted around on the floor for cast-off clothing so they could make themselves presentable. He tossed Kaiba’s pants at him and trusted him to get dressed by himself, having given up helping unless there was some obvious sign that Kaiba was in pain and could have used a hand. Judging by the playful romp they had just enjoyed, pain wasn’t an issue. When they had both dressed and smoothed themselves over, making sure there was no evidence of what they had just done, Alastair fluffed his hair properly in the mirror. He could see Kaiba behind him in the reflection, gazing at him with an interesting sort of expression in his eyes. Some of the hunger from their brief encounter was still there, but behind it was something else, something that didn’t seem natural for Kaiba to feel.
Catching Alastair looking at him through the mirror, Kaiba turned away sharply and checked his shirt one more time to make sure it was tucked in. “I have some things to take care of after dinner,” he muttered, “but…”
Alastair smiled at his reflection. “Want me to come down and drag you away from the computer when it’s late enough?”
“If you want.” Kaiba went to the door and unlocked it, peering out briefly to make sure Mokuba wasn’t anywhere nearby to catch him coming out. Assured, he glanced at Alastair one more time, but didn’t know what more to say and just left. Alastair chuckled to himself and followed him out. So much was still left unspoken between them, but for now, he could live with it.