Chapter Text
Half the people in the world are men. Why does it have to be you that stirs me?
Half stolen from a favorite movie, the question reached the chill winter air in a wordless sigh. The reason for the thought and the wryly amused smile that followed was hanging over the workbench in Tristan Taylor's garage. His eyes caught the picture of the three of them - himself, Serenity Wheeler, and Duke Devlin, posed in their formal attire with cheesy smiles and victory signs. They stood on the biggest pier on Domino City's coast, creamy sunset light painting their grins while the ocean frothed behind them like Serenity's dress.
Unorthodox since she discovered her independence, Serenity had three best men, rather than bridesmaids. After all, who better to witness this new first than her brother and the pair of boys she loved like brothers. At least, she loved them like brothers since she'd stumbled on them together in a pretty unbrotherly position, depending on your taste in manga.
Serenity's discovery of their relationship had been about ten years ago. The photo over the workbench had been taken three years ago, the Friday before Serenity's wedding.
Tristan hadn't seen Duke in a year. At least not in person. Not since they'd broken up for the last time.
He was hard to miss in photos, though, standing next to Seto Kaiba in half a dozen magazines, with smiles and prototypes of an expansion to Dungeon Dice Monsters. "Billionaire gaming giants Kaiba Corp. and Industrial Illusions join forces for new holographic research," the headline read.
The tabloids got right to the point. "Love in the cards for Kaiba-Devlin Duel Monsters Merger. Mutual friend tells all."
Fuck.
He'd tried not to believe it. Tried to believe that Duke couldn't possibly see anything in that overdressed, self-absorbed egomaniac. When neither party denied the relationship, Tristan realized that he couldn't deny it, either. They were brilliant inventors, successful businessmen, and wealthy beyond his wildest dreams. It made sense.
Tristan moved to America shortly afterward. Because, given the circumstances, that made sense.
He worked off and on in small towns across the country, making his way slowly west, and south. He didn't need to. Frugal and cautious, Tristan had a respectable amount of cash at his disposal by the time he left Japan. But he had plans for that.
When he reached Texas, Tristan decided to put a few plans in motion, and began scouring the realty magazines.
By January, he'd put a down payment on a home, and invested most of his savings in a custom motorcycle garage now in Amarillo. Business had grown to a point that Tristan was considering hiring another mechanic. He wasn't rich, but he could pay his bills on time.
Though it put him utterly out of reach of Duke and Kaiba's world.
In Tristan's opinion, the further away, the better.
To them, he was just another one of their marketing statistics. male, twenty to twenty-five, self-employed, automotive engineer, annual gross income of--
--he was someone they tried to sell to. Honestly? Probably didn't. His demographic was outside the industry's targets. A red stat on the spreadsheet.
Bastards.
Tristan glared at the picture over the seat of the old Triumph and refused to acknowledge its presence thereafter.
Not for another twenty-four hours, at least.
Tristan was in the middle of heating another makeshift late-night dinner of popcorn in the microwave when the phone rang. It'd be Joey, Serenity's older brother, and Tristan's oldest and best friend. Nobody called this late at night except Joey. Dammit, couldn't the guy ever remember that Japan was on the opposite side of the world, and that morning for him wasn't necessarily morning for everybody else? He waited until the fifth ring to be sure that whoever-it-was really wanted to talk to him, and poked the 'stop' button on the microwave before it scorched the popcorn. He snagged the cordless and turned for the living room. The Speed Channel was airing Vintage British Motorcycle Week. If Joey wanted to talk to him that bad, he could share Tristan with the Nortons and the Triumphs.
"Hello?" He asked, skeptically.
"Tris?"
It wasn't Joey. There was only one person who called him by that nickname. Tristan froze.
"Tris, are you there?" The voice on the other end asked after a pause, sounding concerned.
"Y-yeah. Hey, buddy, how're you?" He recovered quickly, though not without a hard swallow. "Haven't heard from you in a long time, man."
He needed to sit down. The couch was the closest and Tristan all but fell into it, ordering his treacherous adrenaline to ease off before his hands shook.
"I know." Was there an apology in the tone? "I've wanted to call you for a long time."
"Hey, it's okay. Looks like you've been too busy, anyway." Somehow, Tristan kept the sarcasm out of his voice.
"Yeah, a little, but I still wanted to talk to you. Missed you, man."
Tristan let the arm of the couch take all of his weight, and dropped his forehead into the palm of his hand. The last time Duke said that to him had been the evening he returned from a long business trip abroad. The words had come as he'd been tucked in bed against Tristan's side, sated, his skin bearing the metallic tang of sweat and sex. Even more than a year later, Tristan could still remember the hot, sticky press of Duke's body stretched out against him while he slept.
He realized too late that it was a bad time to be daydreaming over the past. For a breath, the endless restraint crumbled, releasing the words that pressed against the back of his teeth. They slipped out before Tristan could catch them. "I've really missed you, too."
There was a long pause on the other end of the conversation.
Tristan caught the dangling end of the slack before it ate up the entire phone call.
"So you and Kaiba, huh? Read about it in one of those gamer magazine... things." Nope, not the tabloids. He was never going to admit to reading those things. Even though Elvis wasn't dead, Bat-Boy was still held captive at some research facility, and yes, a huge red dragon had been spotted over Battle City. "Funny, back when we were kids I spent most of my time being pissed at him."
"Tristan," Duke tried to interrupt.
"Things are working out pretty good here. I've got my own place, my own shop, the old gang even calls sometimes. Never gonna see as much money in a lifetime as Seto makes in a year, but eh, I'm happy. I guess." Tristan was rambling, and he knew it. But he wasn't still torn up after a year of being without Duke, and he wasn't about to let the other man think anything of the sort.
"You are?" He couldn't properly read Duke's tone through all this distance, but Tristan fancied it was incredulity. After all, could Duke imagine anyone ever getting over his devastating charms?
Of course not. It was one of those things that just didn't happen.
"Yep. Pretty much. It's nice here. If you and Kaiba get the chance, you oughta see what you're missing," He grinned against the receiver. "they've got real trees here. Big ones. Well, in some places, not so many here."
"Actually? I was considering that."
"Oh? Going on vacation, or something?"
"Or something. Got some room for one over there?"
The air density thickened. Tristan's chest tightened and his heart flipped over; leaped into his throat.
"Do you think that would be okay?" Duke asked, as Tristan struggled to answer, "Would you mind showing an old friend around?"
Tristan told himself to stop reading things into it. They were only old acquaintances now, too much broken mess between them to ever be more again. There was no harm in putting up an old friend for a visit. Maybe they could even find whatever friendship remained and patch things up. Serenity could stop inviting them to separate parties, Joey could stop trying to pick a side.
No hypotheticals, Tristan ordered himself firmly, suddenly aware of how long he'd been keeping Duke waiting for an answer. He knew where hypotheticals went. He grounded himself in the present, where things were, honestly, pretty okay.
His heart returned to the proper place. With a deep breath, Tristan answered. "Sure, Dev. That'd be great. When are you thinking of coming?"
"Tomorrow?"
"Not a fan of advance notice, are you, buddy?" Tristan blinked in surprise. Well, he had that kind of money. People as rich as Duke could dash off for anywhere at the drop of a hat.
"I was packed to go anyway." The sudden clipped change of tone in the other man's voice indicated that perhaps this wasn't a spur-of-the-moment journey. And not exactly a pleasure cruise.
Besides, Tristan knew his ex, inside and out. His explanations were thorough and obvious, and rarely left anything hanging unless he wasn't supposed to say it in the first place. And whether Duke liked to admit it or not, his expressive voice made him very easy to read.
"Dev, what's wrong?"
Another long pause.
"I'll tell you later."
He hung up.
Tristan listened to the dial tone in mild disbelief for a moment or two. Then, he took the cordless back to the kitchen and collected his bag of popcorn. It was cold and he wasn't all that hungry anymore, but eating was better than thinking. His heart was sneaking back up into his throat, carrying hope and all the hypotheticals he kept trying to ignore.
He wasn't sure he wanted to think at all for a while.