Rock Bottom: Season Zero

Blackmail

After the lock on Seto's door had been broken, he'd borrowed a screwdriver from their landlord and swapped his and Mokuba's bedroom doors. He'd decided that it would take less effort and time than if they moved all of their things from Seto's room to Mokuba's room. Something had to move, and Seto had chosen the doors. No way was he going to let Mokuba sleep in a room without a lock on the door. It didn't take all that long for Seto to complete the swap, and as soon as he finished up, he told his brother that it was time for bed.

"I'm scared, Seto," the middle-schooler admitted timidly, not wanting to sleep in Seto's bed alone.

Thus, Seto had moved the mattress off of his bed-frame and pushed it against the other mattress on the floor. The two brothers were sleeping together again, and Mokuba started to feel safer. This arrangement, however, did not come without its drawbacks, which he would discover in the coming weeks.

"Seto! Seto, wake up!"

The elder brother woke with a start, sighing after a moment as he identified Mokuba's face in the obscuring shadows of the room. He was panting hard as he rolled onto his side, still trying to recover himself after his dream.

"What's wrong?" he asked the wide-eyed child.

"You were crying in your sleep," Mokuba murmured as he lay down again, looking his brother in the eye. His small hand reached out and held Seto's cheek as concern weighed heavily on his heart. "Were you... having a nightmare?"

"Yes," Seto answered somewhat breathlessly, trying to hide the true terror he felt as he embraced his brother. "But it was nothing more than a dream. I'm okay. We're okay."

"Are you sure?" Mokuba asked, furrowing his brow as his cheek pressed against Seto's cotton t-shirt. It puzzled him that his brother wouldn't take his shirt off no matter how hot he got at night now, even though summer weather had arrived early this year. He'd done so last summer, so why not now? Was he hiding something? Was he simply shier now than he had been a year ago?

"Yes, I'm sure. Go back to sleep, Mokuba. I'm sorry I woke you."

Mokuba nestled in against his brother and drifted back to sleep while Seto focused on calming himself. When he'd awoken, he'd felt like he could hardly breathe. He wasn't surprised that he'd made noises in his sleep, given just how upsetting his dream had been.

Gozaburo's dead, he repeated over and over in his mind, still somewhat unable to believe that fact.

Yes, he's gone, and he can never hurt you again, Seth murmured into his mind, casting a spell of deep sleep over his lighter half, who instinctively struggled against the magic. Let me help you, Seto. Stop trying to fight me.

Seto didn't answer the spirit in words, but he did cease resisting, letting out a sigh of defeat as he relaxed into sleep.

Seth wished for Seto to trust him. He couldn't think of anything more that he could do to make Seto trust him. He wondered if the troubled teen would ever fully trust anybody. If he couldn't trust someone with whom he shared a body, someone whose heart, mind, and soul were all open to Seto's exploration at any point in time, how could he ever trust somebody whose inner self was closed to him? He prayed to Ra that one day, Seto would have his faith in humanity restored so that he could find it in himself to trust again.

How could Seto ever love if he couldn't trust?

~~~~~~~~~~

At the end of the term, Seto applied for his diploma early—since he'd earned it—and graduated with as little pomp as possible, according to his plan. His father didn't care, but his friends were all proud of him and quite impressed, and their opinions mattered far more to him than his father's. By this point, he'd already applied to KaibaCorp and received notice that they wanted him to come in for an evaluation. A week later, he was working full-time for them doing what he loved: programming computer software, and in doing so, he was able to help KaibaCorp pioneer the field of holographic projections.