Shadow: Would've been up an hour or so sooner, but I got distracted by Kelpy-kun and her links-ful of wonderful AMVs. Nothing but nothing beats the mental images of Atemu dressed up in the dress of Princess Anastasia… (grins)

Pairing: Flareshipping – Seto Kaiba x Yami no Yugi x Yugi Mouto. And watch out for Kaiba's language if you mind that stuff!! (He has a lot to be annoyed about.)

Notes:

Koryuu – (Japanese) Little Dragon

Aibou – (Japanese) Partner/Soulmate

Koi – (Japanese) Love

Little Gifts

2: Pine Needles

Kaiba Seto breathed in the soft, woodsy scent of pine, jammed his hands into his trenchcoat pocket while leaning against the nearest free section of wall and sulked.

He'd been dragged from his office against his will, his laptop confiscated, bundled into the back of one of his numerous limos and driven off to this little farm at the godforsaken-end of nowhere so his kidnappers could race around a field full of pine-trees, ooing and ahhing over every. Single. Damned. One. And there were quite a few.

The sad thing was, they weren't the only ones doing that… The field and yard leading up to the farmhouse were both full of people, crowds and couples milling around to pick a tree or two before rushing off, tree usually dumped in some poor male's arms, to pay at the stall over by the way they'd come in. The world gone mad.

Kaiba deeply resented being there. For God's sake – he was Kaiba Seto. He paid people to do things like this for him. But no. His two lovers had taken it into their heads this was what they wished to do this year, and come hell or high water they would have their way. Something about wanting to make Christmas more 'personal'. Kaiba wasn't sure exactly what they meant, but from the recent haranguing he'd received in his own home over the past few days he was aware it entailed doing everything he'd usually get his staff to do, all while said staff looked on in great amusement. And so he'd obligingly decked the halls as bid, strung steamers and banners about, festooned the doors and lintels with wreaths of holly and ivy and stolen quite a few kisses underneath the mistletoe at every available opportunity. (He'd drawn the line at decorating the giant tree in the Kaiba manor's entrance-hall though, forbidding his three family members to attempt it either. The tree was simply too big and he was afraid someone would fall and snap their necks trying to bedeck it, and so the experts had been called in and even Kaiba had grudgingly admitted it looked good.)

But now…they were searching for the smaller trees, the ones for the living-room and bedrooms. And the two who had plotted against him had run off to conduct their raptures elsewhere, and Kaiba had leaned against the nearest wall and sulked quite unbecomingly. Not that he cared, at that point in time. He wanted his laptop back.

"Seto…" The lightest of touches on his arm, and Kaiba turned to scowl at the youth who had laid a hand on him. Yami ignored the glare, smiling pleasantly. "We found the perfect tree for the living-room."

"Good. Can we go now?" Kaiba didn't care to hide the petulant whine in his voice, too put-off by the entire situation for it to matter to him right then.

"We've trees for the other rooms to find first." Yami's smile turned indulgent, his body warm as he leaned in towards his boyfriend, the softness of him in this odd half-embrace vaguely mollifying to his ill-tempered lover. "Do you want to come see the one Yugi and I have already chosen?"

Kaiba tried vainly to grab at his fast-fleeing sullenness within his mind, but Yami's long warmth against him felt so utterly wonderful outside on this cold day that it escaped his grasp completely, melting away like snow on a summer's day. "…I'll be paying for it regardless of whether I see it or not."

"True." A nod. "But at least if you come see it you'll have something to do." One black-gloved hand caught Kaiba's elbow, raising the other so Yami could guide his lover over to where he'd left Yugi guarding the tree they'd picked out.

Kaiba uttered a token protest as they went. "Yami…it's just a tree."

"No, it's our tree." A gentle correction, the once-pharaoh cheerfully ignoring each and every perfunctory complaint that left his companion's lips as they went along. Eventually they came to Yugi, the slighter male's eyes lighting up at the sight of them both.

"Seto!" Yugi gestured him over, Yami not offering the tallest of the three of them a choice, dragging Kaiba to his aibou by the arm. Once there Yami freed the brunette, abandoning the CEO to give Yugi a chaste kiss on the lips.

"This is the tree we wanted for the living-room." Yugi waved a hand at the tree beside them, lips quirking somewhat when Seto tried – and failed – to look dutifully impressed at it.

It was, to Kaiba's eyes, in every way a perfectly ordinary pine tree. Nothing about it seemed so extra-special to distinguish it from the thousands of others scattered around them – oh, come on. It was green, it still had the majority of its needles, and it was a tree. What more did they need? Turning around about to comment on this Kaiba came face to face with Yami and Yugi, the former having slipped around to hold the latter from behind during the short while Kaiba had been distracted, propping his chin up on the smaller youth's shoulder. Both yami and hikari looked amused.

Kaiba felt quite left out. Aside from the whole 'let's snuggle each other' thing his two lovers seemed to be participating in right then, the nearly identical smiles of both signalled there was something Kaiba was missing out on. And when both of those smiles were turned on him…

"What?" The question was a snap. Kaiba hated being kept out of the loop.

Two sets of purple eyes – one light, one dark – looked at each other, and then, back at Kaiba. "Nothing," was their owners' chorus.

Kaiba's right eye took on a twitch. "It's not 'nothing' when you both look like that." Just above a hiss. "What are you two up to?"

"We told you Seto – 'nothing'." Innocence didn't seat easily on Yami's face, eyes such a strange shade of purple they were almost red gleaming with badly-hidden laughter.

"Do you like the tree?" Purity radiated off of Yugi, the angel with the devil leaning on his shoulder.

"…It's just a damn tree, Yugi. Yami. Do you expect me to break into rapturous praise over it?" Kaiba tried to rein in his ill-temper, not really wanting to end up in the middle of a shouting match with his two lovers in the middle of a field.

"Not at all, Koryuu," Yami did his gliding thing again, shifting around Yugi so he could wind himself around Kaiba, nuzzling the bare skin at the side of the brunette's neck, "we just expect you to pay for it, and help carry it back to the limo."

"Why can't you carry it?" Kaiba frowned down at the other, but allowed his hands to drift to rest on Yami's hips. "And watch who you're calling 'little'."

Red-purple eyes practically glowed. "Why have a dog, and bark yourself?" Laughing at his boyfriend's expression Yami was shoved away, resuming his position as substitute ivy around Yugi. The smaller duelist rolled his eyes, but allowed the other to remain there.

Kaiba scowled, snatching up the tree Yugi had pointed out to him and storming off to pay for it, muttering all the way. Everyone else who crossed his path hastily got out of his way – the flustered woman sitting behind the cash stall would've ran away as well, but one glance from stormy blue eyes froze her to her seat with the quietest squeak escaping her throat.

Having paid for the tree he carried Kaiba bore his cargo to the limo, dumping the pine in the hands of a carefully neutral driver before stalking back into the field of Christmas trees for sale in pursuit of Yami and Yugi.

He found the two, hand-in-hand, enthusing over some other unlucky plant with much hand-waving and giggling and cries of 'but think of the cleaning!' Kaiba ignored all of it, striding up behind Yugi before bending down to whisper in the other's ear: "Just pick a fucking tree already, and we can go."

A reproachful look from his smallest of lovers. "We want at least two more trees, Seto."

"Then how about this one?" The CEO waved a hand at the one closest too them.

"Too scrawny." Yami's tone was laconic.

Next in line.

"Too dark."

"This one?" Third one along.

"Too big."

"This one?" Fourth.

"Too old."

"Just pick a bloody tree!!" Both Yami and Yugi frowned at him, and a couple nearby turned around to stare. Kaiba felt a headache coming on. Forcedly he tacked on the end: "Please."

"…I like this one." Hesitantly Yugi laid a hand on the bark of a tree a few metres away from his two scowling, strained companions, drawing both their attentions to him.

"Then I'll go pay for it." It was Yami who spoke, tone placid, moving to pick up the chosen pine. Smiling slightly, Yugi stepped out of his way.

Kaiba reached out to snag Yami's arm. "Are you sure-?"

"I have the money, Seto, and I'm perfectly capable of carrying a tree." Much like his hikari's, Yami's smile was small. The metaphorical olive branch had been extended, in the form of a pinecone. "Why don't you stay here and help aibou pick out the last tree?"

Kaiba let the other go wordlessly, watching Yami recede into the distance to pay for the pine. Standing there, he felt a smaller – gloved – hand slip into his own, giving it a slight squeeze. Yugi's voice was soft. "…If this is really bothering you all that much we can just pick any tree and go, Seto-koi."

They could just pick a tree and go… The thought sounded wonderful to Kaiba. He was sick of this field, sick of the rows upon rows of pines, of the bitter cold, of this whole damn affair but –

But…he couldn't help remembering how excitedly both Yugi and Yami had discussed their plans in the limo getting there, and how happy the two had looked bickering playfully as the tried to choose their tree. Yami's gleaming wickedness, and Yugi's sunny cheer, and how, this year, they'd wanted Christmas to be 'personal'…

Kaiba sighed, and gave in to his conscience. "No, it's alright." He gave Yugi's hand a gentle squeeze in return, bending down to brush a swift kiss to the other's cheek. "It's only one more tree, after all, and it would be a shame to pick a runt after you and Yami have spent so long carefully selecting the others."

Yugi beamed at him, and promptly dragged him off down another row of trees. When Yami returned not so long later it was to find the two guarding their last choice fiercely – Yugi because he was determined not to let anyone else steal what he dubbed 'the best pine in the field', Kaiba because after spending so long searching for the bloody thing he wasn't going to let someone run off with it, thereby starting the whole process of hunting down 'the perfect tree' again.

And so, the final tree was taken to the stall to be paid for. The woman working as the cashier was forced to endure the terrors of Kaiba Seto one last time, and Yami and Yugi got their trees. The limo-driver got a trunkful of pine needles, and Kaiba Seto got his laptop. Peace reigned in the car back to the Kaiba manor - and then promptly got broken again, as Yami and Yugi immediately set about putting their new purchases up. Then Kaiba Seto was put through hell by his two lovers once more, so much so he felt himself wondering for what had to be the twenty-fifth time that day why on earth he kept them. And then the two kept helpfully wandering under the mistletoe again, and he remembered pretty quickly.