[WARNING: Lemon Alert. The ship is about to sail. Adult situations ahead.]
The moon glowed over the edge of the skylight, touching everything in the bedroom with faint silver light. A few clouds slid lazily over its face. Yugi watched from the bed as they grew more numerous and thicker. Looks like a storm's brewing... that's gonna kill the Duels for a while. Maybe we could hang out at the Galleria... security there usually doesn't care if we're Dueling, as long as we stay in the food court. I'll bet Kaiba talked to them about Battle City too. He'd be sure to check weather reports, arrange for indoor venues. He doesn't care if any of us get soaked to the skin, but the water wouldn't do the Duel Disks any good. He pulled the sheets up a little farther, wriggling into their warmth. I'm a little scared... a little excited too. I want so much for this to be right.
Did I ever feel this way about the Pharaoh before? Did I ever want to lose myself in him? I don't... I don't think so. I think it's Yami. Something inside of him calls to something inside me, and I want to answer that call with everything I am. No matter where it takes me, I want to go. With a soft sigh he closed his eyes, falling into the black.
The familiar corridor running to nowhere but here, the place in his (their) soul where they could touch, met him. He spared his Soul Room only a glance before turning to the other doorway, putting a hand on the door. "I'm here."
It swung noiselessly open, revealing the vast labyrinth of the Puzzle. This time, instead of cold gray stone only dimly visible, torches glowed in sconces all along the walls, making them look warm and bright. As he walked forward he could feel a lingering heat of a long cloudless day in the stone underfoot.
"Chosen." Yugi looked up, following the voice, to the staircase where Yami stood. "This way."
"It feels so different." Yugi walked up and took Yami's proffered hand. "Guess Bakura was right; it's happy we're here."
"It's happy you're here." Reaching out, Yami opened one particular door, stepped aside and let Yugi see within. The smaller boy caught his breath in wonder.
The walls of this room were a dusky rose, painted here and there with garden scenes. Candles gleamed everywhere, set on metal lattices, in small clay pots, floating on bowls of water atop the few pieces of furniture: a table, with chairs draped in rich cloth and furs; a desk; a dressing-table with a great polished bronze mirror; bronze racks supporting reed baskets. At the far right wall a half-pipe poured a small stream of water into a sunken pool, and at the far left, near the window, stood a canopied bed, carved and decorated with images of animals.
"Is this-?"
"It seems familiar. I think... I think it must be my room, my bedroom, from the palace where I was born and lived. When I returned here earlier I was drawn to this place. Do you like it?"
"It's beautiful, aiseru. Just... just like..." Yugi paused, shaking his head. "Why am I being shy? You know everything, even the things I didn't want anyone to find out about me. There are so many things I want to say, but I can't get them from my head to my mouth."
"Then say them a different way." Yami dropped Yugi's hand and softly kissed him. "Say it with these hands... this body."
Yugi reached up and twined his arms around Yami's neck. "I'll try," he answered, "but I don't know what I'm doing..."
"Mm, don't you?" Yami teased. "Are you sure? Don't I remember a videotape Joey lent you?"
"Yami!" Yugi turned bright red. "You were supposed to- I thought you- you were watching?!"
"Curiosity is difficult to control, even for a king. -Ah, Yugi, forgive me. I'm not trying to make you ill at ease."
"Bakayarou," Yugi growled. Then the corners of his mouth turned up and he burst into laughter. "Like I said, even the things I never wanted anyone to know. Okay, you got me. Still, that, ah, that was a guy and a girl."
"I don't think it'll make much of a difference, chosen." Yami started unbuttoning Yugi's pajama shirt. "In fact, it might be easier. We've lived with our own bodies all our lives, haven't we? There are no mysteries about those shapes. Discovering how you like to be touched... showing you how to touch me... that's what I'm looking forward to." He let his thumb drift over the soft skin at the base of Yugi's throat, stroked the delicate collarbones. "You take my breath away," he whispered, and gave Yugi another kiss. A much longer one.
"I'm so pale," Yugi breathed as Yami continued to undress him. "I look like soap. Or a fish's tummy."
"You are glorious. A lotus blooming at night, snow under the stars- do you remember, when it snowed here? How I woke you up and demanded to know why pieces of the clouds were falling from the sky?"
"Yeah, it took me a minute to figure out you'd never seen snow."
"You took me outside and let me feel it falling on my face, my eyelashes... it was cold and it was magical and I could've stayed out there all night, except my feet were going numb and you wanted to go back to bed."
"I made it up to you. We had a great time building a snow fort and getting into a snowball fight with the gang- oh!" Yugi jumped a little as Yami's hands drifted down the line of his spine to tickle the cleft at the very end. "That's nice."
"I'll remember that." Stepping back, Yami gestured. "Your turn."
Slowly Yugi removed Yami's shirt, then the bottoms. It was easier than he'd imagined it would be to look Yami up and down, watch the candlelight play across his skin. Still easier to let his hands follow suit, running over the slim chest, sliding over the ribs to the small of the Pharaoh's back. Easiest of all to press against the warm body for another of those marvelous, dizzying kisses.
Somehow they crossed the floor without completely letting go or stumbling, found the bed and fell across it, Yugi on top. Daringly he trailed kisses down to Yami's throat, risked a nip that won him a soft growl, and slid his thigh between Yami's.
Yami responded with a low cry, half sigh, half moan, and arched up to meet that wonderful friction. Both his hands clutched Yugi's hips, trying to pull him closer still as they ground together, kisses deepening, tongues exchanging touches, hungry for the softness of each other's mouths.
After a few moments Yami rolled over, covering Yugi, and from that new vantage-point his hand could slide past Yugi's waist to explore, caress. That was only the first overture; next the Spirit kissed a line down the trail his fingers had blazed, pausing not at all as his mouth took up the task.
It was all Yugi could do to catch his breath. His body ached for, pleaded for, demanded release. "Wait, wait," he gasped, "too close, I'm about to lose it-!"
If Yami heard, he paid no attention. Or rather, he paid more attention; his motions intensified until the younger boy arched and wailed with ecstasy. As Yugi relaxed, Yami sat up, and Yugi found out which other emotion made purple turn to scarlet fire.
"Twe moorwet ntek nis zas mejhotru iny tayi ba," Yami said- no, Atem; the young God-King before whom a nation once trembled with both adoration and fear. "Ntek laru vate, ohir twe poibo asade zas artru nis seger ntek kown twe darowe!"
And the halls of the Puzzle echoed back his words:
I love you to the depths of my soul. You are mine, and I will break the heavens to keep you if I must!
Nothing of the modern world about him at all, that thin veneer cast aside, five thousand years between their two lives, their two times. Such as Atem was the world had long forgotten. To love him was to love the storm, the shadows, the secret fires at the heart of earth and sky... and perhaps to be lost to any or all of those forever.
Yugi never hesitated. He reached out and laid a palm flat to Atem's chest, feeling the other boy's heart racing. "Your name is Atem," he said, "but you're my Yami. Forever my Yami. You're mine too."
The Pharaoh bent over him. "Wonin mai nis io, setepen..."
Then come to me, chosen...
"Nit kown twe nesew xoto Peraa, ntek poibo shi tayi Itey."
For if I am a Pharaoh, you shall be my Prince.
A touch, fingers opening a pathway, one body welcoming another, and a breath of wind blew out the candles.