Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to Yu-Gi-Oh!

Warning: So, the same as last time. The cursing should be relatively mild but grows a little more at times, Season 0 Yami whose a bit more unhinged in this story than he was in Behind You, so keep that in mind.

Note: There are various/copious mentions of blood, some graphic images of death, sensual moments and feelings, touches of violence/abuse, slight OOCness but it's due to stress (and it's mostly going to be from Yugi whose going to suffer pretty badly where Yami is involved and choices he makes in order to help Yami), slight touches of depression, possible triggers

Update Schedule: I'm going to try (again) for bi-weekly updates

I'm pretty hard at work keeping up with my update schedule for STB so I'm slacking in every other department. I'm sorry. But I WILL try to get back on track with this story and see to getting to biweekly updates like I'd initially planned. Just remember that my schedule is packed for the most part between updates and work itself. But feel free to give me a little nudge to update at some point if it's been a while. Message me or review asking. I don't care; either one works for me. Just don't be surprised if I can't guarantee the update at a certain time.

I just finished the rewrite for this chapter and I'm not sure that I really got to comb through all of the errors before. If they're terrible, point them out. If not, feel free to ignore them.

I don't really think I need to say it, but just in case, the air pump for a bike would potentially be able to pump an air mattress. The problem with it would be the possibility of keeping it from sliding and dislodging and thus losing air. There would be a pretty high chance of that happening. So that's why it's harder for Ryou to get the air mattress blown up.

The average time for a regular pump to inflate an air mattress is about ten to fifteen or twenty minutes. An electric pump would take about five minutes. And blowing it up with your mouth would take about an hour or more altogether.

Chapter VIII

"What do you think that even means? That whole idea that we have to…conquer the other team?"

"I do not know."

"He said we should do it by any means necessary but that killing was out of bounds. What do you think—?"

"I do not know."

Yugi blinked slowly, startled by the way the words had gone from a mere grunt to a snarl. He blinked again, stunned when he realized that there was no anger behind them, just the mere speech of those words. He had put no emotion into them and they were dead, stale, as he recounted the way he'd spoken them a second time.

Then he slowly looked over, raising his head and frowning in puzzlement. He did not sit up from his spot on the bed, instead still unsure of moving in such a fashion. If he got too close to Yami, he thought the deity might grow furious. And he did not want to unintentionally hurt him in any way as he had before. He still remembered the way those red eyes had looked so utterly haunted and horrified by his declaration formerly.

Yami was seated at the desk again, unnaturally small and slumped in his position in the chair. His hands were in his lap, his legs drawn together. His shoulders were slouched. His head was angled sideways and downwards. His fingers were twitching and Yugi could see that he was staring at him as if he did not recognize them in the slightest.

"Yami, we need to come up with some kind of plan."

He meant for the words to come out firm, somewhat authoritative. He had meant to make the other raise his head and look at him again. He wanted to see his eyes, if perhaps the red of them was not so dull as they had seemed when his magic had been stripped from him. He wanted to pretend that such a thing was impossible, that he had dreamed that up altogether.

But he could not hold the note and so he sounded much like he felt as he looked over at the taller teen—pathetic. His voice was some pitiful plea, and looking at Yami made him feel no better or stronger in that sense. He couldn't think straight as he peered at him, because Yami looked as if he had shrunk visibly and would then continue to do so for the sake of having to disregard his own pains.

But Yugi could not do this on his own.

He knew that.

There was absolutely no way.

He was a human playing against some kind of a…a beast that had somehow managed to subdue a god. He knew better than to think for even a moment that he could do this on his own. He knew that he could not.

But, if he had assumed that strength would make the other boy respond, he was wrong. The note of desperation provoked Yami enough to make him raise and turn his head slightly. His red eyes remained on his hands but he cast a somewhat strong illusion of paying him attention now.

"We need to find a way to win."

There was a long minute of silence, one with such thick tension that it made the smaller teen move to sit up as his stomach tossed and his heart leaped into his throat. He tasted blood like he felt the growth of his own horror and he shifted uncomfortably to sit up, eyes wide and terrified.

If Yami had lost hope to win…

He shook it off.

There was no way that the red-eyed deity would have. But he was so despondent in front of him, staring at his hands and refusing to so much as lift his eyes towards his face. He looked sickly in his thin physique, by far unhealthier than Yugi had ever assumed the boy of appearing formerly.

Where was all that passion and anger he knew Yami to possess? Where was all that strength and willpower that so often seemed capable of smothering his own whenever they began to argue? Where was his cunning? His hateful amusement?

Was it all…gone?

"What is the point, Yugi?" he finally asked, tilting his head. Now his eyes flickered away from his fingers, disgust relieving them of their study. But he looked to the desk now, staring at what he knew could only be his reflection.

The image to greet him there was a pale silver, almost transparent shape of which he knew to be similar to his own body. The edges of it were softer than they should have been, as if somehow his reflection might still writhe despite his powers being depleted. And now he could, for the first time, truly see that he did appear rather similar to Yugi in looks.

But the red of his eyes was a disgusting milky pink, so washed out that it was hard to remain looking at it. And, as he stared at it, he wanted nothing more than to erase it from existence altogether. It was somewhere in the back of his mind that he thought of the fact that it might be possible. But another part of him was disdainful of the very idea.

Suicide was for humans.

Death was for the gods.

He turned away from it. "It will not win me more than my strength back, which is too little to be satisfying as it is. But what would that do for us regardless, Yugi? Is there a reason for me to want it back? I have no meaning here," he murmured in a soft tone, surprised to find that Yugi was gaping at him with a horrified expression now. "I have such fragmented memory that I cannot tell myself what it was that I once was, nor what I shall do with myself later. What is the point in trying to bring them back when I do not have any understanding of what I am beyond physical stature?"

Yugi tried to shut his mouth, but his jaw fell back open again almost immediately. He blinked, mind stumbling as it tried to find some kind of words for him to speak. He wanted to think of something—anything—which he could tell him to make him feel otherwise. But the truth of it was that he was right.

Yami didn't have a clean memory of what he was before beyond being a god. He had his species in mind and he knew how to use his powers. But he did not have the ability to think back on his own purpose or what it was that made him a god in the first place.

But some part of him was desperate to attempt to console him. It was a stupid, pathetic need inside of him. And he knew it was borne more from his own personal desires than it was for the reassurance of the other boy in question. And so a million different responses tried to crawl their up from his lungs. But none of them would make any sense to a deity with so little understanding of much of the world around him.

Saying that he liked him did nothing.

Saying that he though he thought he was worth it would not make Yami so much as blink.

Saying he cared would most likely make the other boy scoff.

Saying that he gave him a sense of purpose would do nothing but cause him to bristle.

And so Yugi held his tongue, despite the fact that he knew Yami craved more than anything some sense of direction which he might be able to follow. He wanted someone to tell him what to do, if only so that he had a task for that moment in time. It was one of the most transparent things about a god who often guarded every little aspect of himself from Yugi's prying eyes.

He had known since they had first met. Yami had shown him that truth on several instances. He had been desperate, keen for some sense of responsibility beyond Yugi himself.

It was jarring to the smaller teen most often, how those few times Yugi had considered it, he'd found himself unable to shake that conclusion in the slightest. Yami would spring at the opportunity to protect him if it only meant something to do. He would push away his hatred long enough to secure Yugi's safety.

Of course, often his actions went too far, however. And he was far more violent than was truly necessary…

But he still did it. He still tried.

He did it with strength and overwhelming energy. He was passionate about it, flaring to life like embers right before they gave birth to dancing flames. He strived with it, a form so powerful and full of amusement that he could not fathom it ever being extinguished. And yet, looking at him now…

Yugi shook his head slightly to banish the thought. No, Yami was not completely dead. He was…recovering. Yugi took this thought and held it as close to his heart as he could. It was the most powerful, all-encompassing idea he thought he had ever come upon in his life. It gave him just enough strength to get to his feet and move over to his side.

Yami still did not glance up but he hadn't truly expected him to.

"Look, Yami… It's going to be okay," he whispered quietly, glancing at his reflection now as well. The sight of it, so pale and almost…human…made his heart pound and rattle within his chest.

He's going to be fine. He's going to recover. He's going to be fine.

We'll win this.

He'll be fine.

We will be fine.

He repeated this mantra for what felt like hours, unsure of what more he might possibly do. But he could not tear his eyes away and the sight did nothing more than upset him. He hesitated and then shook it off. He got to his feet and moved over to the desk in a deliberate fashion, using his palms to hoist himself up onto the desk in order to scoot back and completely shield them both from the reflection.

He needed to focus on Yami.

He needed Yami to focus on him.

He needed to…

Yugi swallowed hard. He hadn't realized that Yami had turned his attention on him, red eyes peering at him almost blindly. The stare was long and distracted, distanced to such a great length that Yugi could do nothing more than try to keep the bile from coming up his throat.

But the sight of his expression also gave him a sense of knowledge as to what it was that bothered Yami about the situation more than anything. And so he embraced the thing that he had blind to formerly while they had been outside.

"It's going to be hard figuring it out all, but I—we can do it. We can fix this. We'll win and maybe that will give us some kind of hint about the purpose you're looking for. I highly doubt that you are being punished for something." He raised a brow, nearly scoffing, and then smirked playfully. "I don't think the other gods have anywhere near enough strength to punish someone like you."

Yami blinked. And then he tilted his head, his lips tugging slightly. But they were pulling downwards and the way his eyes narrowed made Yugi nearly flinch.

"You're a lot stronger than anyone I've ever met. The fact that you just accepted this Game when you could have easily just gone into hiding instead says a lot more than you're willing to give yourself credit for." He was hideously aware of just how much of a gamble it was that he was taking in proclaiming such a thing to begin with. "And you're so headstrong that I doubt any god in any mythology could match your will or strength. And what could you have done to be punished? You're definitely not always the nicest, but you're never unjust."

When Yami merely stared at him with that same expression, Yugi struggled to think straight. He kicked his legs out of nervousness, a childish thing that he could not remember doing in years. The deity did not respond to the physical action, though he did look at the direction of which he sent them as if he might have thought he would lash out and kick him.

"The only gods I ever heard of in mythology that were punished was when they went against someone more powerful. Zeus punished Poseidon often because he liked to play tricks. And Aphrodite was punished by Hera—I think?—for her adultery with Ares. Most gods were punished because of a power higher than theirs was upset. I don't think there's a single one that's stronger than you."

Yami watched him for a long moment, then snorted softly and turned away with a shake of his head. "That is a nice gesture, albeit foolish and childish, to attempt to alleviate my frustration," he commented with a disdainful sniff. Yugi could see his eyes flickering about the room for a moment as he sought his next words. "But I do not believe that it is working in the slightest."

"It wasn't to alleviate anything. I'm serious."

"And you are disgustingly naïve to declare such a thing." Yami turned to him with a harsh glint in his eyes now, fury making them sharper than every. "Whatever that creature may be, he is right, Yugi. With the black hole that seems to have replaced my memories, I do not recall what kind of god I might have been. I do not know for sure that it will ever come to me fully what I have done or what it is that I was created for. I could damn well be one of the lesser gods. For fuck's sake, I could be as low as Morpheus."

"Morpheus?"

The puzzlement in his tone made Yami pause in his angry tirade. He blinked, then tilted his head as he stared at Yugi, searching his face for any sense of the possibility that he might be joking. When he found none, his mouth grew dry and his mind was wreathed with embitterment.

He turned away, drawing in a deep breath to keep from snarling.

Of course this foolish boy would spout things about the higher beings in Greek mythology and miss the smaller ones. Everyone could do that kind of thing, he supposed, but that was because those lesser gods were not worth the time it took to memorize them. He was almost amazed at that moment that he himself remembered the lowly deity as it was.

"The sandman," he finally said, muttering the words and closing his eyes tightly. He had nearly forgotten what it was that the damn god even did to begin with. "Morpheus is the sandman. He gives you sleep and bestows restful dreams or hideous nightmares. He was created only for this purpose."

And so he was useless beyond that.

"That's a pretty big job to do though, Yami—I mean, think about it. He has to put billions of people and animals to sleep."

And what a great purpose that is, Yami thought dryly, nearly shaking his head spitefully. But he knew nothing else. There was no other purpose he possessed. If he were to have to put animals and people to sleep, he was constantly at work. And he did not have other powers with which he could subdue the potential problems to accrue later. Had the humans not risen up against the Greek gods in some myths and fables? And what had Morpheus done then? Putting them to sleep could hardly be effective then.

He closed his eyes tightly.

"I would much rather be Hades. At least he was able to sit on his throne and enjoy his Underworld." He opened his eyes after a moment, looking over at him again with a melancholic gleam to his gaze. "I say these things as if I might be one of them but I am unsure if they had ever once existed. I have so little memories of before your bringing me here or being in the Shadow Realm and I can no longer recall…"

"It doesn't matter if you remember or not, Yami," the smaller teen stated firmly, shaking his head. He was aware that Yami was too tired to argue with him now, but had it been any other day, he would have all but destroyed him in that sense. But now the other boy seemed hardly to care to so much as hear himself or Yugi speak. "You will be okay. You'll get bloodied but you'll come out unbowed. That's the way of the gods, right?"

Yami blinked slowly, startled by the words. Then he snorted and tilted his head, smirking as he considered him. "You are an absolute imbecile. What would you ever know about the gods?" he stated with something that was between fond amusement and bitter resentment. He turned away after a moment, looking down at his hands in his lap. He flexed his fingers and examined the nails that glinted beneath the lamplight from the nightstand. "It is strange, but I suppose I was expecting something more to change beyond my already pitiful reflection. Perhaps I thought my form would no longer be as it is, proportioned or easily recognizable."

Yugi shivered but did not answer, looking immediately away to the window.

If he had never known his face prior, Yugi would never have recognized him to begin with. He did not look like Yami. He didn't look like the deity that had so arrogantly challenged him with the declaration that Yugi needed him to survive. He did not look like the boy who had shared his bed with him and subsequently punched him in the fact when he'd woken him from his sleep. He did not look like that boy in the slightest.

He looked small and defeated and weak.

He looked miserable and pathetic and beaten.

He looked as if his will had been broken and scattered away as his magic had been stolen from him.

He seemed like a mere shell of the deity that had once threatened to kill Anzu for kissing him on the cheek. He did not possess that same fire, that stubborn and hostile amusement that made his eyes harder and yet somehow softer all at once. He seemed simply as if he might have somehow died on the inside, folding inward.

And the color that was his eyes had begun to split with spirals of black, forks of lightning that came from the starburst pupils and splintered his irises hideously.

But, as Yugi glanced at him again after a long minute, he thought that more than ever Yami looked as if he were mourning the loss of himself.


Yugi knew it was unfair that he was standing in front of him like this at the moment. And it did not help that he was glaring at him—because he just knew he was; he'd been unable to wipe the scowl off his face since he'd left the house. But he could not stop himself and he felt sick as he thought of the damage that was being done to the three of them.

He drew in a deep breath.

Ryou looked sickly, uncomfortable and terrible nerve-wracked. Yugi imagined that he himself would have looked the same in his place had he their circumstances been more alike.

Because, unlike with Yami, Yugi imagined that he probably did not know what had happened to begin with. And he had no idea what might have come from the hitchhiker performing such a ritual. And Yugi himself had no idea what might have happened as an after effect of such a thing, if perhaps it had somehow caused residual damage to Ryou as well.

And he thought he similarly would be disconnected to the various things happening around him.

"How much do you remember of the last few days?" he asked quietly. He forced his shoulder into the door to push it open enough to allow him to step into the small apartment. He waited for Ryou to speak for a few moments, then slowly looked over his shoulder. He had expected, for a brief moment, that the other boy might have fled. But instead the door had been shut and the white-haired teen was leaning against it, eyes shut tightly as if the pressure had broken him much like it had Yami.

When Yugi stepped a little closer the other boy jumped and looked at him with wide eyes that bordered on panicked and hysterical in expression. The smaller boy halted, unsure of what more to do than step back; Ryou stared back at him with eyes the shade of coffee with amber around his pupils. It was a beautiful shade, with a rather stunning effect, and it struck him for the briefest of seconds. But his mind was already wandering again.

He had things to do. Admiring someone's eyes was not going to fit into his busy schedule.

"How did you…? Are you…?" The brown eyes flickered across his form rapidly, looking him up and down before Yugi could think straight. But he seemed dissatisfied with whatever conclusion he had come across and the smaller teen was struck by the fact that he was looking for physical signs of a misery to match his.

If he hadn't been wearing his school uniform, Ryou would have seen arms riddled with immense bruises. He would have seen the sharper design of his shoulders where he'd lost some of the muscle due to stress. But he was far more emotionally drained than he was physically, and the state that Yami was in did nothing to help him bounce back from it.

"Did I hurt you?"

Yugi shrugged dismissively, unable to face him any longer. He narrowed his eyes and drew in a deep breath, voice curt as he answered, "It doesn't matter." It didn't. He could not have cared less should it have been him to be harmed. At the rate that his life seemed to be going, after all the bullying that he had endured growing up, being beaten physically now would simply be something an embrace with an old lover. "So, what do you remember?"

He asked so calmly that for a moment Ryou thought perhaps the worst thing could have possibly happened would have been that they had made out or something. Yugi spoke as if it were nothing more than idle chitchat and nothing phenomenal had happened. And maybe for Yugi this was normal but for him?

"Not…uh, not much." He frowned at him noticeably. And then he tilted his head, narrowing his eyes as Yugi puffed his cheeks out and turned to him again. "I… There's a pretty huge black spot in most of my memories right now. I don't think I remember anything from the last couple of days, honestly."

Yugi nodded and glanced over at a painting on the wall. It was some kind of Victorian design, a man with dark hair and a sharp jaw dressed in a dark red coat with a ruffled undershirt. And it made him blink as his mind momentarily pictured Yami in the outfit. The thought nearly brought a grin to his face, as he was sure the deity would have sneered at him for the very idea.

Instead he turned back to Ryou again. He wondered at the way he should phrase it to preserve Yami's sense of power, to protect his weakness, but he was not sure there was any true way to do so. This was the only solution he could come up with at the moment…

"Then let me go ahead and explain what actually is happening, okay?" he announced. His eyes darkened a shade as his frustration grew. His lips pulled downward into a grimace much like the scowl he had worn upon knocking on his door. He drew in a deep breath, then hesitated again.

What were the odds of Ryou truly trying to harm Yami? Would he do so if they were in the same room together? What if he left them alone for a moment and came back to a similar situation of what had happened with the deity and his mother those few days ago?

What would happen to Ryou if Yami got the bright idea to lash out? Would he simply kill him? He shook the thought off, swallowing hard. Now wasn't the time to worry about this, he knew. He would have plenty of time to do that later.

"I brought Yami here with the Puzzle. He has been here for a few months now but he's getting weaker than ever. And that's because of that…thing that controlled you before. It has something to do with it. It's been…leeching off of Yami's power somehow. The thing that controlled you before…came from the Ring. Now there's this…trial of some sort called a Shadow Game." Yugi ignored the urge to snap at him now, feeling as if he were betraying Yami in a manner that none of them would be capable of fixing. And so he drew in a deep breath, trying his hardest to focus again. "You play it and you pretty much die if you lose. Yami is betting a lot of things on this Game."

Ryou blinked at him, brown eyes growing wide at the declaration that followed.

"And I have a lot that I have to put at stake in order to help him now."

When Yugi stepped closer, the other boy stepped back and into the wall, eyes wide and horrified. The smaller teen curled his lip, the expression one that might have made him nervous if he were not already too unnerved to do more than gape at him. Now Yugi stared at him as if he might throw him through the wall, a harsh certainty in his expression that made Ryou realize that he was willing to do anything to get ahead.

The thought was stunning to him as he stared back at him.

"And you're going to help me."

"What?" he snapped, eyes widening further. "I don't want to—"

"Well, isn't that so fucking sad? You're already involved, whether you like it or not." Yugi hesitated for a moment, drawing in a deep breath to help suppress some of the anger that threatened to bubble out. He narrowed his eyes into slits and shook his head. There had to be another way to understand, right? He had to find the alternative to simply punching him in the face and dragging him out of the apartment and to his house. Because he was only seconds from doing just that.

But there had to be an easier way. Yugi couldn't afford to mess something up by hitting him and potentially breaking some kind of stupid rule within the Game or something. He didn't know enough to make any moves for sure. And so he simply looked away for a moment, chewing the inside of his cheek.

He could guilt him into agreement. He could guilt him into coming over to his side in this Game. He could do it. He knew that much. It was not hard for him to do such a thing in the slightest.

"Ryou…" He turned back to him now, making his voice more urgent. "This thing came from your body and it is wearing a face that's extremely similar to yours. Imagine this, okay? If it kills someone, it will be you that someone points the finger at."

The other boy was frozen in place, eyes wide and horrified.

Yugi fought away the urge to let his happiness show on his face. He had not expected the fight to be won so quickly, but the thought of jail time was usually enough to scare someone regardless. And he was not the least bit ashamed to say that he would have reacted in the exact same manner had it been his life in question.

"Get it? Good." He turned to the door anxiously but quickly rearranged his features. He did not need Ryou to see how scared he was at the moment. Yami would be okay at his house for a few minutes more; being alone right now was probably better for him as it was. But then… He shook the thought off. No, Yami would be fine. "Now, the rules of the Game we're playing right now are that we have to…capture the other team. Alive. Which means that no one is going to get hurt, okay? Yami and I are basically going to babysit you until the Game is over with. It'll be great—a fun time, absolute party. You'll have the time of your life, I promise. You'll even get to see how much of a bitter asshole he is."

Ryou blinked wide eyes at him, startled by the last handful of words. Then he grimaced and shook his head, bewildered as Yugi began to look around. "Why are you going to help him if he's such an ass to you?" he finally asked when he realized that the smaller teen would not elaborate on the situation without prompting.

In an instant the smaller teen's head snapped towards him. His expression was fierce and annoyed. "Because, I keep fucking up left and right with him and now I'm going to do the one thing I know will actually help him." Yugi paused, furrowing his brows as he took in the other boy's expression. Ryou looked stunned, as if his honesty might have touched on a nerve that he was not expecting him to come across. His eyes were incredibly wide with his confusion and something about the amber around his pupils made Yugi feel almost sick to his stomach. "Just come on. I don't want to have to do anything drastic. But I'm not afraid to lay you out and drag you to the house."

For a moment he seemed skeptical of the idea. And then he blinked when he saw the clear warning in his eyes. "Uh, no…uh, I-I'll come." He hesitated. "I thought you were a pacifist, though. That's what Joey said anyways…"

Yugi snorted. "Not if I'm trying to help someone I care about," he answered, though he flashed him a grateful grin and opened the door. He wanted, for the smallest of seconds, to simply fall to his knees and thank the gods for this small mercy. And he wished that everything in this Game—and his life in general—could be so easy.


Yami was not initially sure what it was that had diverted his attention. For the better part of the hour he'd been staring at a book, reading it comfortably and without worry. And then he'd felt something tell him to look up. And so he did so, considering the sight in front of him. For a moment he craned his neck out, tilting his head drastically, fingers pressing on the pages almost painfully enough to snap his own bones.

He thanked his keen senses, however, because at least now he understood what the hell it meant to not believe his own eyes. He'd thought he'd seen everything at one point or another. Hell, he'd done a few things that might make Yugi cry.

But now he blinked and tilted his head further, peeling his lip back and narrowing his eyes in bewilderment.

Yugi was trotting forward into the room, head held high. His shoulders were raised and he was all but skipping in his triumph. That was the word, Yami knew, because he could feel the smallest inkling of such victory beneath his skin. But it was the fact that he had someone's arm in his hand and was pulling them into the room that made him stop short. But when he recognized the form, Yami had the impulse to leap to his feet.

It was simply the fact that he knew he was not in the state of which he might be able to fight back that kept him seated there. He swallowed hard and looked back and forth between the two humans. And the thought of fighting, the realization that he could not do so, was powerful enough as to make him want to bury himself under the blankets and avoid seeing them both altogether.

His reflexes had not slowed. But he was well aware that the strength in his body was not as wired as it had been when he still had magic. He could inflict some heavy damage, but it would be more mundane than the usual. He would have to aim and find the moment of opportunity. He would probably bleed far worse than ever as well should he engage in physical combat in this state.

So, instead, he forced himself to let loose the tension in his muscles and stare at the two figures in front of him blankly. He did not bother to say anything further, instead tilting his head and looking at Yugi pointedly.

The smaller teen dropped a large box in the corner of the room, where there would be enough space and the door would not collide with the newcomer's housing situation. Then he caught sight of a long pole, a metal cylinder of some kind, with a length of rubber and thread and a metal head.

Yami considered it for a moment, a thought forming in his head, but shook it off. It did not look like something that would be used in one of Yugi's explicit videos. That was nothing that he could imagine someone wanting to put in their—

"It's an air mattress," the smaller teen announced to him when he saw his puzzled and fascinated expression. Yugi cast him a look that could almost be classified as warm as he considered him. But Yami nearly bristled when he saw the amusement there, the way that he seemed both flustered that he had to explain and yet patient enough that he would not judge him for his missing knowledge. "The other is a pump for him to blow it up with. It's so that when he sleeps on the floor it's more comfortable."

The red-eyed teen blinked at him and tilted his head once more. He recalled immediately a similar conversation that the two of them had had a week or two prior. When he had begun sleeping on the floor, Yugi had offered him the same accommodation and had even appeared visibly upset when Yami had denied a desire for it.

But he had not argued with him about it. Instead he had allowed the deity to sleep as he'd desired, curled up on the floor with a pillow and a blanket so that he might cover himself. He had not gone into detail as to what it was that his dismissal of the item might have made him so incredibly anxious. His insides had curled at the very mention of the idea. And he had not had the strength to expose yet another weakness to the smaller boy.

Because he was so unstable at times that when he'd woken on the bed he'd been in a near panic. The mattress was too soft and it sank too comfortably beneath their weight. It made him feel as if he were being swallowed up in preparation to be eaten alive. And that was enough to make him realize that he needed something firm and stable beneath him, something that would never change its shape or form beneath his touch.

The ground was the only truly constant axis in his mind. It was always flat. It always allowed him to readily brace himself should he have to. If he were to take that away, his lungs would constrict and the panic would build in his veins and he could not so much as think straight should such a thing come to happen. Then he would feel pain spike through his whole body. And his chest would ache for hours upon wakening. And he could not fight away the dizziness as the world spun and he struggled to stay in an even slightly upright position.

Even with the clearly superimposed smile that marked the face of the person laying on the air mattress, Yami had not been able to convince himself that the air mattress would be a stable and comfortable place to rest.

He shook the thought off when he noticed that the brown eyes had wandered to them.

The white-haired boy was taking the mattress from the box but Yami could sense that his attention was caught upon them as well. Yami tilted his head, a pensive expression crossing his face, and he shot him a warning glance that told him to heed caution upon looking at him. The boy flushed and ducked his head, grumbling something that the deity assumed to be a curse word.

"He's spending the duration of the Game with us," Yugi explained as he moved to take a seat on the bed beside him. Yami turned his head and looked at him slowly, puzzled and alarmed by the very idea. He cast a small quick glance at the white-haired boy again but Yugi simply stared at Yami as if he were the only person in the room. As the deity turned back to him, his dark red eyes grew bemused. Yugi was watching him with a slightly amused but nervous expression that spoke of clear anxiety as if he were fearful of Yami's reaction to this new development. "That way we have one of the other team, as the rules stated."

Yami blinked again, a long and rather slow movement. Then he turned his head to glance over at the white-haired boy with amused eyes. Ryou was looking at them pointedly now, curious as to what they were talking about. The deity's lips began to pull up into a wide smirk.

"What if I decide we need to fuck?" he demanded in a low drawl, snorting in amusement as he was given the exact reaction that he had once expected. The white-haired teen's pale face lit up bright red, all the way to his thin collarbones, and he froze from his attempt to lay the mattress out on the floor. Ryou let out a soft choking noise which caused Yami to snicker and Yugi to smile in amusement.

He was still watching the newcomer when he ducked his head and grumbled about how much of an asshole the two of them were. Then he shook his head with that same flushed expression, white hair showing his movements easily.

The red-eyed teen burned back to face Yugi now; his eyes grew wide with surprise as he saw what awaited him there. Yugi was looking at him with something that Yami felt suspiciously could have been much akin fondness. But he could not truly name such a thing, as he was sure that the expression was not something that he himself had ever fully seen before.

He knew this expression only from glimpses into Yugi's various dreams. He knew them only from a few instances in which he had witnessed a familial moment or it might have been that Tea was looking at him.

But he did recognize something else within his eyes—bright laughter. He could see that. And it made him feel far calmer than his previous thoughts, his breath no longer caught in his lungs and choking him at the very idea.

"Then we have him drag the mattress out into the living room and have our way with each other," he stated. He was teasing him, but there was also a rather serious note within his expression that made the other pause and blink in open surprise once more. "As loudly as we want."

"Oh bloody hell."

Both of them snickered in unison as they caught the sound of Ryou's startled, frustrated whisper. Yugi winked at Yami playfully, reaching over after a moment. The deity stiffened visibly, eyes widening further, but he did not attempt to push him away in any manner. So Yugi's fingertips brushed over his cheek, caressing the soft skin for only the briefest of seconds. There was something gentle and patient there, like the affection of a parent looking at their child.

It made him bristle.

But then Yugi turned away to look at their newcomer as he struggled with the task of blowing the mattress up. His blue-violet eyes were burning with laughter. Yami hesitated, caught somewhere between relief and disappointment to find that Yugi was no longer paying him attention. And so he finally turned away as well, looking towards the white-haired boy in the corner.

He was tempted then to ask Yugi what it was that made him simply sit back and watch. It seemed rather uncharacteristic for him from what he understood of the small teen. It seemed that Yugi would have thought to help him upon seeing someone struggling with a task. Yugi was one of the few altruistic souls on earth, one to run headfirst into a conflict with nothing more than a desire to help those he deemed necessary of it.

Yami supposed he had to be somewhat thankful for that, in truth. He had offered to help him long before he had ever even attempted to think to ask for it, after all.

His eyes caught Ryou's for a brief second as he huffed and then glanced at them. No doubt their snickering had caught his attention once more. Yami blinked at him, smirking in amusement, but something about the way his brown eyes flickered made him stiffen. And so he frowned after a brief second. He tilted his head, narrowing his red gaze, and considered him darkly.

There were gears moving behind the other boy's eyes.

And Yami was not sure that he cared even slightly for the direction that they might be turning.

Ryou did not seem malicious at any rate, however.

But there was still something there…

Yami turned away again quickly. He glanced at Yugi, seeing that the smaller teen was grinning lopsidedly. For a long while the white-haired boy continued to struggle with his air mattress. And then he finally seemed satisfied enough to lie down. He rolled over with his back to them, but Yami could still hear him grumbling about how much of an asshole they both were.

"I took the pump out of the box," Yugi whispered softly, abruptly, into his ear. Yami flinched away from him as if he had been struck, the close proximity startling him. The red-eyed teen spun on him again, blinking wide eyes, feeling sick to his stomach. Then he blinked and furrowed his brows at the smaller teen. But Yugi pretended not to notice his panic, keeping his voice low as he explained further. "The one I gave him was to a bicycle. I am not even sure how he managed it."

Yami chuckled softly, remembering vaguely a conversation that he had with him about something similar. Yugi had explained to him that he would have set up the air mattress with the pump within the box, that he would have it set up within fifteen to twenty minutes altogether. He had mentioned bikes in the meantime, however, something about a childhood memory that he had not fully indulged upon seeing Yami's bewilderment. Then he had explained that they both required two entirely different pumps. He had said that the end pieces were different, that they performed two different purposes due to their designs.


Yami woke to Yugi's head on his chest. It was almost a smothering sensation to realize upon first waking. He was almost startled enough to pant and push him away entirely. He was exhausted and horrified, feeling almost as if he might vomit at any moment.

Then he realized that he was simply curled up against him. Their legs had gotten tangled and it had startled him as well. But that had always happened. He recognized that sensation easily enough.

It was something that never failed when they slept within the same bed. They would always become tangled and intertwined together. Sometimes they would be in a position that was much like the one which Yugi had once called "spooning", one or the other pressed against the chest of the person behind them. Other times they were tightly entangled, legs and arms caught beneath around each other's and things of that nature.

But this time he recognized the position rather quickly.

His arms were wrapped around Yugi's torso. His fingers were braced against his spine, between his shoulder blades. His legs were tightly folded and tangled about Yugi's own. It was unnerving at first, but the realization came to him that Yugi had not moved in any way as to restrain him. He had not been attempting to hurt him in any way, either. The deity blinked and shifted his weight, drawing his arm away as Yugi pulled his own from beneath the pillow.

The red-eyed teen blinked and tipped his head to the side curiously. Yugi blinked a flash of blue-violet eyes which greeted him warmly. The small teen was clearly wide awake, staring at him closely.

"Hi."

The deity blinked at him slowly once more. "Why are you awake?"

"You were twitching a few minutes ago," Yugi answered, looking at him with those same warm eyes. "I figured that I would check on you when you woke up."

"Oh." Yami paused and tilted his head a little further. "Well I am okay, I believe. I am tired."

"Okay."

Yugi pulled away from him and the deity released him immediately. He untangled their legs and swallowed hard with searching his face. Then he watched the taller teen as Yami dug his arm up and beneath the pillow, blinking at the other boy. Yugi pressed his own face into the soft material of the pillow, closing his eyes tightly.

Yami watched him for only a moment longer, his red eyes searching his face rapidly. It was odd to study the taller teen, though now Yugi felt winded once more. He was watching a tall teen who looked smaller than he had ever seen him before. When he stared at him with those blackened, lightning-forked eyes, Yugi found himself shivering. He could not hold it back, the sense of despair and bewilderment which came through him. Instead he swallowed hard again and looked briefly over the deity's shoulder.

"Ryou has been passed out for the last couple of hours," he told him quietly. He stared at the form on the other side of the room, then looked quickly to Yami again. "I think whatever it was that happened with whatever that thing is really managed to drain him too."

"Well, he did form an entirely new body in order to play this Game. It had to have been painful for him as well." Yami did not speak about this further for a long moment. He tipped his head towards him for a moment, studying him for a long while in the darkness. There was something about his expression that was unreadable, something which Yami himself could not understand in the slightest. But he could not place it and so he simply studied a moment longer.

It was possible that he was simply seeing things.

It was possible that he was simply becoming increasingly paranoid due to the Game.

He did not truly know what might be going on.

"I must admit that I was rather surprised you did not come to offer him the bed," he said wryly, watching and searching his face with a small smirk of amusement. "I would have expected you to make us sleep on the floor instead."

Yugi shook his head slowly. "I wouldn't do that to you." He paused and laid his head a little further into the pillow. His eyes grew sharper than ever, darker than Yami had ever quite seen before. They glittered briefly like gemstones and the deity began to feel almost sickened. There was something so terribly estranged in Yugi's eyes, though he had no thoughts to conceivably explain it. "And he would not be here if I didn't plan on winning this Game."

The taller teen looked at him more fully for a long moment. "Do you honestly think the odds are favorable enough?" he asked slowly. He felt sick, afraid of his own words as he considered the chances of loss. It would be so easy for them to be pushed into a corner and choked of their chances…

Yami's potential demise was not something he truly wanted to consider. It was nothing that he thought himself capable of fully taking into account and not lashing out at. The very concept was far too strange for him.

How was an immortal being truly meant to contemplate their own mortality?

He wanted to puke at the very concept. He was meant to be unaffected by time or age or anything even remotely of the scope of human life. Sickness was meant to be a mere infliction that a god bestowed upon a creature far beneath them. There was nothing in their living stature that was meant to be altered by such a simple concept.

Time was not something Yami could tell. And he did not affect him the same way as it did Yugi. That was true. But it should never have had an effect of any kind at all.

He frowned at his own thoughts, pushing them away in order to hear his human charge's answer. Maybe Yugi could keep his thoughts from drifting down the wrong path as they were so constantly now…

"No…but we can tip them there."

Yami's frown deepened. It made sense that Yugi would deny it at the moment. There was no reason to say that they were winning. He nodded after a moment. The idea that he had to place his faith in a human was almost more jarring than the sensation of his skin being split and oozing blood. He thought of the glint of a knife, the gaping wound of muscle and veins and blood. And he remembered faithfully then and there his own torturing Ushio.

He blinked at the thought, jaw clenching briefly. He had never bled so much in his life. He had never once experienced such a concept before. Or perhaps he had not in such a way, in truth. It was somehow helpless to call upon such sensation again at such a moment.

But he shook it off again.

Yugi was right.

They could tip the odds in their favor. If there was nothing else he knew himself to excel at, it was the art of adapting to situations that he could not outwardly change. He did not know how to work a game in his favor, whether it was video or board or card.

And he had been so easily matched more often than not by the human laying in front of him.

The boy could easily beat video games in half the time it took most others. He had a knack for puzzles and a cunning ability to solve riddles in his first try. His ability to pull things in his direction, no matter how bleak the damage appeared… It was a beautiful thing that Yami had found himself admiring despite himself.

He could be with only a single digit to his health points. And yet, somehow, he would turn it around in order to win within minutes. Sometimes it even took mere seconds.

And he was intelligent.

Yami knew that, even if he often made him feel as if he was not. It was not always on purpose that he did it, but he knew and recognized the moments that it happened. Sometimes he would say something in such a way that it would come about as offensive to the smaller boy despite not realizing his tongue had gotten ahead of him yet again. He would send him extremely hurt looks that would simply startle Yugi and when he met them head on, he was forced to surrender to his will and turn away within seconds.

Then, very slowly, with as much precision as he could muster, he would find his way around to begin a small conversation with the other boy. Yami would attempt his hardest to bridge that hideous gap which he had brought to form between them, a fissure which threatened to shape itself there beneath their feet. And he knew it was the smaller things such as those that managed to make Yugi more comfortable with him after such painful moments.

While he contemplated this, watching Yugi and wondering at the idea of victory towards the Game, the small teen found his thoughts on something completely different. His eyes had turned away from Yami. They glittered still in the deep darkness, focusing entirely on the shape in the corner of the room. His thoughts had become twisted. They wrapped themselves mercilessly around each other in endless loops. But he felt that he was incapable of these things within his thoughts…

But he remembered Yami's influence on him now as well.

He had felt something distinctly similar, though hideously dark as they were. The darker trains of thought had been brought through exposure to him. But they seemed to taper off and almost completely dissipate after a few weeks of direct contact with him.

But now they were surging forth. And he hated himself for them.

Because, watching the way he breathed in and out so easily, Yugi wanted nothing more than to kill the teenager resting in the corner of his room. Beside him, Yami's own breathing was incredibly steady, but there was still that occasional terrible shudder in his chest.

And it scared Yugi.

It horrified him.

It was terrifying to hear it.

He wanted nothing more than to somehow offer him the strength to make it heal. He wished with everything in him that he might be able to push its inabilities aside. But he did not know how.

And he had no idea how it was that he was meant to fix this.

And, as he looked at the corner of the room again, Ryou seemed perfectly fine physically. Despite his surroundings, he even appeared to be dreaming easily. Meanwhile, he himself was clinging to the red-eyed teen in order to check his breathing. He was desperate to know that Yami still possessed a heartbeat.

Yugi was trying his hardest to make sure that the other did not somehow slip away between his fingers despite it all. He was struggling pitifully with the task of not alerting him to his intentions as well.

And he knew Yami was trying his hardest not to lash out.

He could see it in his face when he'd woken so close to him like this. He had seen it when the deity had jumped so violently when Yugi had whispered in his ears. His eyes had flashed violently. He had recoiled violently, only managing then to keep from throwing out a hand to inflict pain on him.

Yugi knew that.

He recognized it.

Because his body was far too tense.

And his sleepiness would be gone in an instant.

He watched Ryou for a moment. And he considered, for the briefest of seconds, getting up, wandering into the kitchen for a knife. He would butcher him simply and easily. He could stab him to death before he'd even wake completely if he only tried to find a vein of any kind.

It remembered there only for a brief second, however.

But he recognized it.

And he knew it.

Yugi shivered. His eyes snapped to the deity in front of him. His desire had been short-lived yet so incredibly sharp. The force of it had physically winded him. He wanted to ask if he had experienced anything similar.

But he saw that his eyes were closed again. He was not fully asleep yet, but he was drifting closer than he had been before.

He must have truly been exhausted.

Yugi shook the thought off, then looked toward Ryou for a brief second once more. He shivered and the movement made Yami twitch but did not draw him from his sleepiness. He knew for a fact that Yami had not planted those thoughts in his head, though he had not expected him to have in the first place.

The feeling of desiring violence had been borne from himself, his own desires. He was upset with the rules of the Game, despaired with Yami's lack of identity as it had begun to grow so much achingly deeper.

And he wanted nothing more than to fix it all.

And to fix it, he had to save Yami.

And in order to do that, he had to win.

Yugi blinked slowly and looked at Ryou again. It was a brief consideration but now he frowned and narrowed his eyes. Something about the Game must have been influencing his thoughts. Because, should he harm Ryou, that meant that they would surely lose. Because, Yugi knew, should he hurt him now, he wouldn't stop until it was too late.

And he could not afford such a thing.