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“You know I hate it when you do that.”
Seto glowered at the magical hats, Blue Eyes still poised to attack.
Across the room, eyes like red jewels flashed in amusement. A dark chuckle rang out; quiet, yet effortlessly audible over the beeping machinery and the solid vision audio.
“Would you have me win by placating you, Kaiba?”
“I would prefer if you didn’t win at all.” Seto grumbled, hackles raising ever so slightly at the smirk in that voice as it drew out the syllables of his name.
“What I really wish is that, just once, you could see how annoying it is to face down your little party-hat trick.”
He studied the hats again as the Pharoah looked on, bemused.
Someday Seto was going to wipe that smirk right off his face.
“Blue Eyes! Attack the hat-“
“Very well, Kaiba.”
Seto’s attack stalled a second time.
“What now?”
“I said very well.”
Atem took a step forward, then another, working his way across the room in confident strides.
“We’ll switch decks.” He announced with a smile.
“Can you program the system so that you can replay the hats?”
“What?”
Seto drew back, duel disk held protectively to his chest. He knew he was gaping like a fish.
“Can you replay the turn?” Atem repeated with fond exasperation.
“Then I can face down the dreaded Magical Hats; so offensive that they throw off even the great Seto Kaiba.”
Seto should have had a retort waiting, should have felt a sense of anticipation at prospect of some verbal sparring, but he was frozen.
“Play with your deck?” He said, testing the idea.
“And let you play with mine?”
He’d never willingly let anyone play the carefully crafted deck and he’d only played without it in simulations, or to test Mokuba’s attempts at deck-building.
Atem was gazing at him, curious, though he must have known where Seto’s mind had gone. Was the man really suggesting that he would let anyone but himself or his reincarnation command the Dark Magician?
Seto told him as much.
“You’d really just hand over those cards to be used against you? I doubt it.”
He tried to put some bite into the words, forcing his arm away from his chest.
“Not just to anyone.” The pharaoh said solemnly, casting a glance at the hats and his faithful servant hidden there.
“I’ll let you use them. I trust you, Seto. And I know you’ve made an exception before for me.”
“That was only one card.” Seto protested far too quickly.
It had been just one card, but a card that had thrummed with the power of destiny- so tangible that it had almost been cheating to use it.
“That meant a lot to me, especially at the time.” Atem reminded him, not unkindly. He was still formidable up close, still commanding, even when he was offering an olive branch.
Seto cast around for a snide remark. Everything had been so much then; ancient inscriptions he could inexplicably read, ancient artifacts that filled the air with the scent of ozone and gave off strange reverberations. He could still feel the itch of it sometimes, beneath his skin and impossible to scratch. Then there had been this other side of Yuugi that Seto found himself so drawn to, strutting around like he owned the world, making outlandish claims, shaking Seto’s sense of reality.
He was staring dumbly at his opponent now, remembering when he should have been acting. Atem angled his head at the Blue Eyes, moving to put a hand on his shoulder.
“You can trust me. I’ll take care of them.”
He wanted to shrug the hand off, to spit and sneer out of pure defensive instinct. But there was no use pretending he hadn’t crossed dimensions for this man; hadn’t spit in the face of gods to bring him back. He may not have been willing to accept a lot of mumbo-jumbo about linked souls and destiny, but it was too late to start declaring that the man before him meant nothing to him.
He’d had plenty of rivals in life.
This was something else.
“Fine. I accept.”
He fed his hand back into the deck slot and pulled at the straps of his duel disk, holding it out reluctantly for the trade. Atem did the same with his usual poise and grace.
“Are you afraid I’ll win?” Seto teased him.
“And you’ll have to admit your success is just down to your cards?”
“Are you afraid I’ll win?” Atem jabbed back.
“And you’ll have to admit I’m just that good?”
Seto raised an eyebrow, but declined to comment, moving to the main computer the override the previous move.
“You’ll see a message asking you to accept the override.” He told Atem, selecting the “Accept” option on the borrowed disk, securing it to his arm.
Something about it felt totally foreign.
Something about it felt too familiar; a current of energy that was dark and laughing.
Atem accepted the override and the disk spit the two spell cards back into Seto’s waiting hand. Dark Magician returned to the field.
Seto was disgruntled to see that he would have chosen the wrong hat.
“It’s your move, Kaiba!”
Looking across the field was a shock. Seeing Atem standing beside the Blue Eyes kicked his heart-rate up. He should have been furious, but there was a sense of anticipation instead. It was as though the Pharoah had every right to stand in the shadow of the dragon.
The duel disk was prompting him to set up the hats.
“Alright, let’s see how you like it.”
The hats were equally annoying from this side of the duel, so contrary to his usual style of play. Outguessing an opponent like Atem when he would rather just overpower him was a challenge he didn’t relish. And a turn of phrase he didn’t dare dwell on.
He tried to select the places more or less at random.
“Go ahead. Pick one.”
Atem drew a new hand a smirk fixed firmly on his face. He contemplated his cards for a moment and shrugged.
“Why should I choose just one?”
He activate a spell card, his first play with Seto’s deck. Seto forced himself to breathe.
“I’ll activate polymerization, fusing Blue Eyes and my Assault Wyvern into Blue Eyes Tyrant Dragon!”
“My Assault Wyvern.” Seto grumbled. The magical hats had come back to haunt him again. “And since Tyrant Dragon can attack once for every monster on the field. I can destroy all three of your magical hats.”
The first two hats revealed the spell cards and were vaporized in turn. At the last hat, Atem hesitated.
“Blue Eyes Tyrant Dragon!”
Seto watched him closely, the way his hand stilled, mid grand gesture, the way his eyes reflected uncertainty- one of the few times since Seto had met him.
The revealed magician seemed to stare back, impassive.
Would he truly do it?
Seto’s mouth was dry. The room seemed stifling. Something hot and possessive was bubbling up in his chest, not at his cards being used against him, but at Atem taking command of them. He knew that he was attached to them, much more attached than most, but the feeling startled him.
“Attack!”
The command jolted Seto out of his thoughts. The usual satisfaction of seeing his dragons destroy the magician was tempered by the thought of having to defeat them in order to win.
Atem looked confident as ever, completely in control once more.
“I’ll set this card and end my turn.”
Seto drew with a flourish that he hoped covered the way he shook his head, trying to clear the sense of unbalance at watching the dragon’s attack from the other side.
“Confident, aren’t we?”
But who wouldn’t be? With gleaming bronze skin and glittering ruby eyes, limbs lined in gold and the aura of command about him no matter where he was. This was a man who could and had brought adversaries and worshippers to their knees.
Seto smiled. Here the mighty king had met his match.
“I activate Eternal Soul, which allows me to bring your magician back from the graveyard.”
Seto anchored his focus on the duel, on slowing his breathing and trying to reduce his time spent holding the card, seeing its glossy surface. It had a strange sort of pulse that buzzed from his fingertips up his arm as though the card were alive, or at least electrified.
The faithful mage appeared again in a cloud of shimmering smoke.
He wasn’t the only one reacting, either. Atem’s mouth had fallen open in an expression of delight, or maybe more. His gaze, dark and pleased, passed between Seto and the hologram. There was a sharpness in that look of pleasure, something hungry.
“That’s not all. I play Thousand Knives, allowing me to destroy Blue Eyes Tyrant Dragon.”
The dragon was pierced be a hailstorm of daggers, collapsing inward with a shower of sparks.
“Well done, Kaiba.”
Atem was focused wholly on him now, a goading smirk playing over his lips.
The cocky bastard was daring him to attack. Was he simply that enamored with Seto calling on his favourite monster, or was the face down card a trap?
Seto did a mental tally of his cards.
He liked the odds. He liked the idea of wiping that smirk away.
“Dark Magician, attack his lifepoints directly!”
The magician raised his staff. He hesitated.
“I said attack!”
The system acknowledged the command, but the magician didn’t move. He stared at his master, still unreadable.
Typical.
“If I’d known you were going to pull this sort of bullshit I would have never agreed to this.” Seto shouted across the room, bewilderment fueling his anger.
They were paper trading cards, weren’t they? They were being projected by an electronic system. They had no free will.
“I wouldn’t expect such surprise from a man who summoned a god card out of thin air.” Atem chuckled, giving the magician a nod and bracing himself. With a great show of reluctance and a piercing glare in Seto’s direction the figure raised his staff and hurled a bolt of energy at the Pharoah.
Atem appeared unruffled, still smirking as the smoke cleared, but the lifepoint counter did drop significantly.
“Satisfied?”
He quirked an eyebrow at Seto, his expression smug and knowing.
“Seto, when the other talk about the loyalty of their cards, they speak figuratively.” He proclaimed, discarding his jacket in one fluid motion.
“You and I command the very souls trapped within them.”
“This isn’t your ancient world, or your afterlife, so spare me.” Seto called back.
“Solid vision is science. This is the future, not the past.”
Atem chuckled.
“You think that matters to men like us, that this isn’t a temple? That there are no burning censers or inscriptions you can magically decipher?” He replied as Seto hastily ended his turn.
“Seto, we could dispense with the cards and holograms right now and have an all out shadow game if you weren’t so keen on denying your heritage.”
He drew a card, eyes roving the banks of computers.
“Though I wouldn’t advise it in a fragile environment such as this.”
“You know, you only call me Seto when you’re trying to convince me of something.”
“Oh?”
“Usually something ridiculous.”
Seto let a small smile play over his face. He’d been beseeched and expositioned to by Yuugi and company more times than he could count; destiny this, fate of the world that. Ancient magic, etc. The begged him to accept it.
Atem challenged him with it.
What other explanation was there for his presence here? It would never have come to be if he hadn’t made Seto Kaiba desperate enough to believe in magic.
“Are you tempted?” That honeyed voice purred.
“Perhaps I can teach you, somewhere built to withstand such power.”
Seto thought of the feeling that had coursed through his veins when he’d summoned Obelisk. He remembered the intoxicating wash of power and life and wondered if it could possibly be safe to get used to that feeling.
There had been a time when he’d been certain of the danger of desiring anything other than power and control. But he’d allowed desire to drive him across the dimensions for one person and here he was.
"But why don’t we finish this duel and see where that takes us?” Atem mused.
The suggestion that things were twisting away from the ordinary conclusion hung in the air.
Seto eyed the face down card.
“Conscription.” Atem supplied helpfully.
“And I’ll tribute the Celtic Guardian to summon Krystal Dragon.”
The duel went on. The Dark Magician fell and was not resurrected, lifepoints eroded and Seto cursed his own Mirror Force card with almost as much venom as he’d used for the magical hats.
He played a facedown card, useless, because Atem knew the deck and would know he was bluffing.
Seto had the feeling Atem knew when he was bluffing anyway.
Still, if he could last out the next turn, he had a strategy to turn things around.
Confident as ever, Atem moved to make his draw. The smug grin transformed info something predatory and charged as his gaze flicked to Seto and back.
The minute he touched the card, Seto knew he’d drawn the other Blue Eyes.
His body shuddered as if someone had reached out and yanked on his very soul. Those crimson eyes bored into him, full of mischief as Atem stroked the surface of the card lovingly with his thumb.
Seto’s knees buckled. He caught himself before he sank to the floor.
“Your beloved dragon.” The pharaoh mused.
“Will she yield to me, Seto?”
Seto opened his mouth, but the challenge died on his tongue. He could almost feel the feather light touch. Most of his blood seemed to have diverted South.
“I-“
But they weren’t talking about him, were they? He licked his lips. Atem’s eyes followed the movement.
“Why don’t we find out?”
Atem brought the card around in an arc before settling it into the slot, fingers lingering on the prismatic image.
Seto steeled himself. This was pure nonsense. He was having some sort of anxiety attack over someone else using his deck. Atem was trying to play some sort of bizarre psychological game and Seto’s body was becoming confused.
But he could feel it-the tug of it in the back of his mind, a touch something deep within him recognized and hungered for.
“Come forth, Blue Eyes White Dragon.”
It echoed in his ears, Atem’s voice still impossibly clear despite the summoning audio.
The beast rose, roaring and thrashing. It fixed Seto with it’s burning blue eyes. His heart was galloping in his chest, his skin felt incredibly hot, and sweat was beading in his hairline.
He wanted; craved.
“Blue Eyes White Dragon.” Atem called, searing the sound of that name in that voice into the vault of Seto’s memory.
“Attack his lifepoint’s directly.”
The dragon showed no qualms about attacking. She knew her master wouldn’t appreciate a show of mercy.
Seto faced down the glaring blast, trembling with the power of it.
All of this time he’d thought his quest was about pride, about victory, that he desired a challenge and nothing more, but enveloped in the blinding white lightening those smoke screens were burnt away.
The attack knocked him to his knees. When it ended he stayed down, trying to slow his breathing as the simulation ended.
“Even the way you’ve created this system.” Atem mused, the click of his boots loud in the now quiet room. He stopped, looming over Seto, eyes dancing.
“You know in your blood that the game should have a price and that losing should have consequences.”
Seto blinked up at him, trying to make sense of the situation.
He felt adrift.
“And what are the consequences?” He said softly, his own voice sounded strange to him.
Atem seemed to consider the question seriously. Then the predatory smile returned.
“Traditionally,” He drawled, hooking a thumb under Seto’s chin.
“Part of your soul.”
Seto tried to hide his sharp intake of breath at the touch, but there was no way to hide how the blush rose on his pale cheeks.
Before him, wearing the trappings of modern life, was a god in human form; one that possessed the power to sap his strength and still his tongue. This was the one who had driven him past the edges of reality.
“You want more of it?” Seto rasped.
There was a beat of charged silence.
“Perhaps I want all of it.”
Atem pulled him in by the lapels of his coat, lips warm and insistent and right like nothing Seto had ever felt before.
He let out a desperate sound, hands cradling the back of the Pharoah’s neck.
A hand brushed his jaw, hot as a brand, too real not to be a miracle.
“Do you think that anyone else could have found me? Do you think anyone else would have tried?”
Atem murmured, stroking over his pectorals with reverent hands.
“Has anyone else ever inflamed you like I do?”
“I’ve never really-“ Seto managed, to overcome to be embarrassed.
The other man seemed pleased by the admission.
“Of course not,” He purred, hands trailing lower.
“Because we were made for one another. Since we first dueled, you have been mine.”
He bit at Seto’s lip possessively before his voice softened.
“And I have been yours.”
His hand slid lower still, coming to rest on the button of Seto’s jeans, toying with it.
Seto buried his face in the crook of the pharaoh’s neck, overwhelmed. He mouthed at the soft skin there and was rewarded with a deep moan, another slow, passionate kiss.
Atem had more or less lowered himself into Seto’s lap and everywhere they made contact his skin seemed extra sensitive. He shivered at each touch.
“We could continue this here on the cold floor.” Atem managed, breath coming faster. His hand was still teasing somewhere in the area of Seto’s fly. The other buried itself in his hair, tugging gently. The sharp sting of it brought an unexpected surge of pleasure.
“But I know somewhere in the mansion you have a bed the size of a small apartment with very expensive sheets in a very expensive shade of blue.”
He ran his tongue up the shell of Seto’s ear, eliciting a whimper and a small shudder.
“And it would be a shame to waste that.”
They found it almost impossible to tear themselves away and the they lingered close, hands brushing lips, shoulders, hands as Seto shut the system down. He pressed Atem into the elevator wall as it rose smoothly into the main house.
“Before we go any further,” He struggled to complete the thought, cut off by another kiss, another surge of want.
“Yes?”
Atem grinned up at him, angling his head to capture Seto’s lips again.
“I want my deck back.”
The master suite shimmered under the light of a crystalline blue lamp. Hidden touches of metallic paint and inlaid silver flickered in its soft glow. The duvet was rich blue, cloud soft and interwoven with silver thread.
“You have a king’s taste for opulence.” Atem remarked, stretching languidly. He was grateful for the warmth of it as his blood began to slow and his skin began to cool. He tucked himself closer into his bedpartner’s side, seeking more heat.
“I simply prefer the best of everything.” Seto mumbled, half dozing, apparently unbothered by the chilly room.
The blankets pooled around his waist, revealing the rolling plains of muscle Atem had so enjoyed exploring.
“Why settle for anything less?”
The room was decorated in marble sculptures, mostly dragons, Atem noted with amusement. A rock waterfall took up the whole wall leading into the ensuite.
“Why indeed.”
Atem reached across him for the bottle of liquor, skimming his fingers over those deliciously sculpted abs. The bottle and glasses had been waiting for them, but had gone ignored for some time. Seto must have ordered it before they had left the basement.
Atem filled his glass, wondering if such things were kept on hand in case of guests or if the other man had stocked the cellar to his own tastes. The whisky was smokey, spicy and sweet, surprising for such an acerbic man.
“Do you entertain like this often?”
Seto snorted and held out his own glass for a refill. He watched the amber liquid flow into the tumbler and them fixed Atem with his cerulean stare.
“It’s my favourite.” He said, tilting the glass so that the whisky caught the light.
“It reminds me of you.”
Atem rolled the liquor over his tongue, carefully weighing hid words as the admission and the warmth of the alcohol seeped into his chest.
He settled for action. Another deep, unhurried kiss, spiced with orange and cloves.
“That’s the sweetest your sharp tongue has ever been.”
“Shut up.”
But it was said with fondness and the barest hint of a smile.
Atem rested his head on Seto’s shoulder.
“I like your tattoo.”
The dragon coiled itself around Seto’s bicep. Its head and foreclaws emblazoned across his shoulder. The design and art were impeccably done; a striking blend of blues and blacks.
“My late teenaged rebellion.” Seto chuckled, shifting so that the dragon seemed to slither on his skin.
“I programmed the machine myself.”
“Of course you did. Who drew it?”
“I did.”
Atem let his fingers trace the spread wings.
“It’s incredible.”
“Who do you think drew the first concepts for the holograms? Or for the duel disk prototype?”
“I did not mean to insult you.” Atem cut in, apologizing with a kiss to the other’s collarbone. There were so many things about this man that he didn’t know and so many things he could learn. The mundane, everyday minutia would only amplify the bond, if Seto dared allow him further in.
He tried not to hope too hard.
“Can you make one for me?”
He considered the dragon more closely.
“Perhaps the magical hats?”
The teasing had the desired effect.
“I am not drawing those stupid hats.” Seto groused. Atem put his glass on the night stand.
“Then I shall think of something else.”
He pushed himself onto his hands and knees, hovering over the other’s body.
“Later.”
Fin.