DISCLAIMER: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! In fact, I only own part of this story line. Thank you, Dreizhen, for helping me work out all of the details! You're the best kitten ever!
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Wow, it sure has been a long time since I worked in the Yu-Gi-Oh! fandom! … Okay, all of the people reading Memory, Family, and Demon please don't hurt me! I swear to God, I'm working on it, 'kay? It's just… you know, so long in the same fandom will really take it out of you. Plus, I've been reading Marik/Malik fics (my favorite YGO pairing!) so… yeah. I was going to use the Japanese names for this, but because I re-watched Battle City, the English ones keep coming out so I just gave up. Anyway… enjoy!
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CHAPTER ONE – Tea's Desperation
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'No!' the brunette girl howled to herself, 'This can't be happening! It just can't be!'
Tea Gardner paced around her fluffy pink and yellow bedroom in a fury, refusing to accept what had happened a mere few hours before. She picked up a Magician of Faith plushie and threw it against the headboard of her bed, getting a tiny bit of satisfaction when it bounced off. But then it landed next to a Mystical Elf plushie and her fury returned as she remembered that was a card in his deck!
'He was supposed to love me!' she raged in her mind, 'I stood by him all of these years! I went with him to Duelist Kingdom! That insane psychopath, Malik, even took over my mind in Battle City! I risked my own safety to go back in time to Egypt and help him defeat the darkness even if Ryou and Malik ruined all of our hard work! * So how could he betray me like this?'
~FLASHBACK~
"Hey, Yami!" Tristan greeted as he and Joey came up behind the group during lunch. **
Tea was sitting with Yugi and Yami at the planter the group of five had made their own, trying to find the few edible bites in what the cafeteria was trying to pass off as food. Duke had dropped by to say "Hey" before taking off to go to the Dungeon Dice Monster Club meeting that was taking place in their classroom. Ryou and Malik were sitting close enough that they would be able to hold a conversation with the planter cluster if they raised their voices, but not so close that anyone from the group could hear what the two were chattering about under the watchful eyes of Bakura and Marik who had scared some freshmen away from a picnic table and were dueling (without Shadow Magic for once).
Joey gazed past the group for a second and locked eyes with a certain blue-eyed millionaire who was leaned against a tree with a book held open in one hand. Seto raised an eyebrow but gave Joey a slight nod before going back to his reading. Those two had finally gotten together – with a little help from Mokuba and surprisingly (to Tea) Yugi – and watching them have any interaction even that little made Tea sick. How could Joey be dating the jerk who had always been so mean to him and Yugi? She didn't know what Joey was thinking!
"What is it, Tristan?" Yami asked, setting aside his box-lunch for a moment to see what his friend wanted.
"Joey and I are having an argument and we want you to settle it!" Tristan announced.
"Hey, hey, leave me outta this!" Joey countered, "All I said was that we needed a fair judge; you're the one who immediately thought to pester the pharaoh!"
Yami laughed indulgently – that low sexy sound that always made Tea go weak at the knees – and his eyes twinkled with a bit of dark mischief. "How can I help you boys?"
"See, Joey and I were looking at this magazine and we got into an argument about one of the pictures in it!" Tristan turned around the magazine and showed Yami the picture in question. "Is she not hotter than Kaiba?"
Yugi squeaked in surprise at the two-page spread of a naked girl on her knees with her breasts hanging down, winking and making a kissy-face at the camera.
"That's disgusting!" Tea announced, angry that Tristan would disturb their lunch with something like that, "Put that dirty magazine away! Those things are pieces of trash aimed at degrading women!"
"You're a girl, Tea; you don't get it. It's not a big deal." Tristan pushed it a bit closer to Yami whose expression was somewhere between aversion and amusement. "So, what do you think?"
Yami chuckled and reached one hand out, covering Yugi's eyes – getting a protesting "Hey!" from his hikari – and cocked his head. "Well, I suppose she's fine. She's… well endowed."
"Just 'fine'? Come on, Yami, don't be like that!" Tristan urged, "Look at her; she's a total babe! Her long hair is so pretty and I love her eyes, man! And 'well endowed', huh? She's definitely got a great pair of jugs on her. So why just 'fine', huh?"
"What are we looking at?" Ryou asked as he and Malik walked over to see what all of the commotion was about. When he caught sight of the picture, he blushed bright red and muttered "Oh, my!" before clasping a hand over his mouth. Malik, on the other hand, laughed maniacally and announced, "You could suffocate someone with those things! Death by titties!"
"But what a way to go!" Marik joked as he and Bakura joined them, almost completing their huge group. Tea glanced over at Seto, but he seemed to have no interest in what "The Geek Squad" was up to.
"Right, right! So why just 'fine'?" Tristan repeated, not about to let it go that easily.
Yami looked hesitant for a moment, purple eyes falling to his hands clasped in his lap, then he confessed, "When I got all of my memories back, I found out that I don't prefer the company of females, Tristan; I'm gay."
Malik snickered and poked the pharaoh's shoulder with his Millennium Rod. "As is every other yami, hikari, Kaiba, the Mutt, and Duke for sure (just look at him)! Join the club!"
"What?" Tristan protested, "You're telling me I'm the only straight guy in this whole group?! That's messed up!"
"Well, Tristan," Ryou piped up, smiling, "If you don't want to be feeling left out, I think a tall, sweet, muscley guy like you would be just Duke's type."
Everyone laughed as Tristan pretended to be dying, clawing at his own throat and making choking noises.
Everyone, that was, except Tea. As soon as Yami had said the words "I'm gay", her entire world had turned upside-down.
~END FLASHBACK~
'I'm not in the least bit surprised that Ryou and Malik are that way! Ryou is the girliest out of all of the guys, and Malik with those shirts! And I should have known their sick and twisted yamis would be disgusting perverts with all of the things they've done! But how could Yugi have never told me he was?! And how can the pharaoh be that way?!'
She angrily tossed the Mystical Elf plushie onto the floor. There was no way Tea was going to let Yami be gay. She loved him! She would do anything for him! She had glared away all of those stupid girls who just wanted Yami because he was famous! How dare he suddenly tell them he liked guys?!
Needing some air to clear her head, she pushed aside the pink curtains and opened the window, breathing in deep. What infuriated her most was the way Yugi had smiled so shyly at Yami after his little announcement! Was Yugi trying to move in and steal Yami away from her? She and Yugi had always been friends!
Tea knew most of the people in their group didn't particularly like her – Bakura had threatened to turn her into a plushie if she didn't shut up on a multitude of occasions, Malik had announced quite haughtily that he could get more guys than Tea at a straight-guy convention, and Marik had simply taken to shoving her when she was in his way – but she didn't care what they did since Yami always stood up for her against them and as long as he liked her, that was the most important thing. But because of that, all of her 'friends' were going to support Yugi if he really did like the pharaoh!
She loved Yugi like a little brother, but she wasn't about to lose Yami to him! Not that easily!
Having spent so much of the past four-and-a-half years in the presence of Shadow Magic and ancient spirits, Tea would have to be stupid to deny the existence of magic – which was just another reason Kaiba didn't belong in the group in her opinion – so she had decided to use some of it to help her for once!
All of the girls in her class had been squealing recently about a little shop that had opened up near the school that sold talismans, love potions, and minor spells, and Tea had decided to check it out after school to see if there was anything there that could make sure Yami never picked anyone over her!
At first, even she scoffed at the inside of the shop with all of its cheap-looking spell-tags and the fake crystal ball up front, but she was determined to try.
~FLASHBACK (I promise, the other chaps won't be so full of them, but the prologue-y chap needs them)~
Tea looked through the selection of love potions the shop had to offer, opening a few bottles and sniffing at the contents. Most of them smelled like rose-water, and she imagined that was all that was inside. She growled and put the bottle down, wondering if this had all been a waste of time.
"Is something wrong, dearie?" asked the old wrinkled woman in a tattered shawl that stood behind the counter gazing into the foggy crystal ball. "I can't imagine a pretty girl like you needing a love potion to get the attention of that special guy."
Tea hesitated for a moment then decided through to caution to the wind. Desperate times called for desperate measures! "Do you have any love potions that would work on a spirit?" she demanded.
"A spirit?" the woman rasped.
"One that's about five-thousand years old. I'm so in love with him and I've done so much for him, but he told me today that he thinks he's gay! I can't let that happen!"
The woman cackled and eyed Tea as if though judging her. "Normally I would think dearie was making a joke, but you have the aura of someone familiar with real magic. A five-thousand year old spirit. That's going to be a tough one. Obviously a potion won't work."
"It might," Tea admitted, "It's a long story, but he's got a physical body even though it's not his original one." ***
"This spirit is possessing someone?" the woman demanded.
"No. Like I said, long story."
The woman shook her head disapprovingly, but Tea was sure that was because she was used to working with malevolent spirits like Bakura and Marik and not great guys like Yami. "Well, I suppose it could work, but a love spell would be far more effective in this case I think. Yes, that's just the ticket! Come in back with me, dearie."
She lead Tea into the back room of the shop and Tea stared in shock at the collection of preserved creatures in jars, bones (some of which looked human), and huge dusty books. It was one of these that the woman grabbed, blowing the dust off of the cover and sending it into the air. Tea coughed loudly as the woman flipped through the pages until she stopped and let out a victorious crow.
"This is the one! It will bind his heart to you and make sure that you're the apple of his eye for all eternity!"
Tea took the book, expecting the text to be some obscure scribbles, but it looked more like a page from a language textbook with a pronunciation guide and everything! No animal sacrifices, bargains with the devil, or other voodoo craziness involved!
"I'll take it!"
~END FLASHBACK~
'It was expensive, but it'll be worth it if it will make Yami love me the way he should have all along!' Tea decided, opening the book to the page with the folded down corner. For a second she felt guilty that she was going to use magic on the pharaoh, but he had betrayed her first by being gay!
"Here goes nothing!" she said firmly before starting to chant. The words were gibberish to her, but as she said them she could feel the power flowing through her body in the same pulse as the rhythm of the spell. The shadows in the room started to cast in odd directions and a high-pitched whine started up in her ears but she kept going.
A huge wind gusted in through the window and Tea had to stop for a minute, throwing her arm up in front of her eyes as several leaves blew in and some specks of dirt got into her eyes, making them burn. She quickly rubbed her eyes with her fists and went back to the book, finishing the spell even though the pulse, shadows, whine, and wind all got stronger and stronger as she continued.
As the last syllable past her lips, the power that had build up inside of her exploded in a wave that knocked everything off of her desk and dresser, all of her plushies and pillows off of her bed.
Tea collapsed on the ground, feeling exhausted by how the spell had drained her, but thrilled because she was sure that the release of energy meant her spell had worked!
She never even noticed that – in the split second she had been blinded by the wind – the wind had flipped the pages of the book.
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* = For the sake of the story, Yugi and Yami refused to part with the other halves of their souls, and Ryou and Malik begged Yami to have mercy on the other halves of their own souls. Yami brought Bakura and Marik back from the Shadow Realm… blah blah blah.
** = I know I put earlier that Memory World already happened and thus they would know the pharaoh's real name was Atem, but I like Yami better actually. So let's pretend he doesn't want them using 'Atem' in case they need it to help with another dark force in the future, kay?
*** = I'm not even going to try to explain how Yami, Bakura, and Marik got their own bodies, or how they got enrolled in school, or…. Yeah. I'll just say "Seto did it" and let that suffice. (Are you figuring out that back-story and I don't get along well?)
