"I know it was for the best... But I wish I'd had one more chance to let him know what he meant to me."
The dark is all around Yugi now, and his sight is fading. The will to fight is still there, but his body has had enough, more than enough. Aigami (or Diva, if you will), then Kaiba, then the demon-thing from the Cube; three duels in a row, none easy. Too much like Shadow Games. There's no strength left in him for anything else. The cold is searing him to the core and he can feel himself dissolving, disintegrating. As his legs buckle, there's time only for a soft sigh, an aching sorrow, and neither will matter in a moment. He's done, and his world with him. Maybe the darkness will be kind enough to erase him utterly, leaving nothing behind that could regret or suffer. He doubts it, but it's the only hope he has now.
Then the light comes down.
Yugi burns.
He's wrapped in an inferno, his blood is molten, his flesh incandescent. Why is he not a pillar of ash? There ought to be nothing more left of him than embers.
But there is.
The cold recedes, banished, forgotten. There was never such a thing as cold or darkness. Yugi can't imagine it, though he knows full well a heartbeat ago that was all he could perceive. He's melting yet not consumed. Something is holding him together even as he's incinerated, holding back all pain and fear.
No... Not something. Someone.
The living flames encircling him have a name. He knows it as well as his own. Son of Ra, Lord of the Two Lands, Great House, Noble Protector.
He is in the arms of a god, and the god's name is Atem.
Yugi shivers.
Such anger, such outrage. The sacred order of the cosmos has been tossed carelessly aside and the Chosen of Ma'at IS. NOT. PLEASED. Something will be done about this, and something will be swift and severe. Such disregard cannot be overlooked or made apology for.
Beneath that is a second layer of wrath, far more personal. Someone has dared to offer harm to those the King calls friends?! Nations have fallen for less . Atem's rage at this instant is more terrible than a thousand suns, and where that rage passes nothing will remain.
It's more than a mortal can bear. Don't all the old legends spell out how perilous a thing it is to anger a god? Just being near that anger should be his doom, and Yugi hasn't even been noticed yet.
Or perhaps he has.
He's still in his right mind, and he feels oddly comfortable and comforted alike. That strength surrounding him is shielding him from itself, and even now is turning its full gaze on him.
He is bathed in, filled with, brilliance. Atem cast off his mortal existence (or what remained of it) when he lost the Ceremonial Duel. He is purest light now, returned to the heavens from which (or so the ancient Egyptians believed) he descended to rule on Earth.
Yugi would be happy to confirm that for them, from his new-found perspective, if they were here and he could speak. They aren't, he can't; he's pretty sure he is alive, but as for the breathing part, the answer's unclear-ask again later.
Ascended or not, the Pharoah has not forgotten Yugi. This most precious vessel, let his name be praised for ten thousand times ten thousand years. That will be a fair beginning to honor all he's done and all he is. He moves with ease into that so-familiar body, nestles around Yugi's weary heart, makes room in a finite form for the infinite. The matter of Diva and the Plana will keep for a moment. There is something more which must be settled first, something that only now can be settled.
Yugi burns.
When Atem lay imprisoned, Yugi freed him. When he faltered or went astray, Yugi was his lighthouse, his anchor. Yugi has believed in him, gave body and soul and breath for him, would've given life for him. Such devotion from one so young; how should even a God-King be worthy? What less could he do but stand as sword and shield?
That time is past. Yugi stands strong on his own, and if he weeps in the midnight for all that he lost, he still manages to smile in the morning. He would not take back a single turn of the cards.
So then, it remains to ask a final question. So much given; will the vessel take something in return, the one thing that the Pharaoh has which might hope to equal what Yugi gifted him with?
A small thing indeed; a candle's flicker, the first star of evening, and yet Yugi can feel Atem tremble, awaiting the answer. That opens his eyes, feeling that very human hope and fear and knowing why it exists. It would've been unbearable no matter what the answer before; rejected or parted, either one a path of sorrows. It could still be.
Yugi can't help it. His eyes tear up again. He is holding a god's dreams in his hands, more beautiful than he deserves. Surely some mistake. Not him, not the weak one, the lonely one, a nobody, a nothing until the magic brought a stranger who showed him the brightness of his own life.
But yes, the small one, brave one, heart that broke with kindness but refused to be shattered by hate. Treasured and adored for eternity, no matter what, but... Ah, is there, could there be more?
This is the sweetest fire of all. It pierces Yugi through and through as he reaches out, arms wide, and whispers Yes, yes.
In the instant of those words a Name inscribes itself on Yugi's heart, into the very fiber of him (as it is written so let it be done) and joyously Atem claims what is finally, irrevocably, utterly his.
It is perilous to anger the gods.
It is even more perilous to be loved by them.
Yugi is beyond caring. Atem's hands are warm on his face as they've only been once before. Atem's mouth is gentle and coaxing on his as it's never been before. As no one has ever been before.
He's not completely unfamiliar with the way that kiss makes him feel. What teenage boy hasn't fumbled his way to understanding his changing body, its new needs and urges?
His own gender never interested him, but this is Atem, his other self, friend, companion, playmate, protector, and now his lover. It isn't about the body; it's the bright shining spirit that he's missed and yearned for. He's uncertain exactly where to go from here but so eager to learn, and Atem obliges. With lips and tongue and fingers and body he teaches and worships and dances Yugi over the edge into a white-hot moment that shakes him to his core; makes Yugi arch and keen, hardly knowing his own voice, as he pulls Atem close, closer, THERE.
They burn, together, and rise like phoenixes, soaring, diving, dying a hundred little deaths of the most glorious, rapturous kind, because, well, god. Atem will have it no other way, not for his Yugi. It's the best, most wonderful game of all: both of them win.
And Atem's tears taste like summer, like joy, like being complete and whole at long, long last.
It does end, some unknowable time later. Even a Pharaoh must abide by some rules. Besides, there is a matter which must be resolved, the first task Atem returned for. Soul in soul they move as one, Atem finishing what Yugi began. The Palladium Oracle is there, in place and eager to be drawn, and they draw it together to banish the darkness. Together they watch the world reborn in a shower of gold. When all is as it should be, they part.
And here, at the last, Atem comes to him neither as god nor Pharaoh but as Yugi first knew him, the Spirit of the Puzzle, his form an echo of Yugi's own. Without words, somehow Yugi knows: when the book of his life turns its last page, the Pharaoh will return to escort him down the Path of Souls, past the Twelve Watchtowers. No need to stand for judgement. His heart was long ago weighed and found worthy. Until then, he will live his own life, make his own adventures, but not altogether alone. There is a touch of Atem within him now, and a piece of Yugi that Atem will carry until the day they reunite in the Eternal Khemet to be parted no more.
Yugi nods, once, and Atem is gone, returned to the light, to the sky. Drawing a breath, the young man turns to greet his friends. There are explanations to make, messages to convey. Somewhere, far across the ocean, the other Millennium Items have followed the Puzzle, and that will be an end of them. The world is safe again, and this time no one will try to call up what they don't understand.
Well, maybe Kaiba will, but that's a worry for another time. For now, it's back to their blessedly normal lives.
Except...
Not all the time; only when he is heartsick or weary or hurting, sleep opens the doorways of the soul and he dreams.
In those dreams, in the arms of the one who loves him best, Yugi burns.