Please let me know what you think. I've always felt (there's poem that said this) that until it's been read, a story is just ink on a page – so I'd like to hear from you.

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CHAPTER 11: CHEMISTRY LESSONS

KAIBA'S POV

It was almost time for Yami to arrive. I was in the lab by myself. I'd just finished the prototype of the first dragon for 'Dragonflight.' A bronze. The leader of the pack. I'd turned him into a hologram so I could see his movements. It was what I'd signed the contract for – the true pay-off.

I watched him as he soared above me. He had a large wingspan and the powerful back and shoulder muscles needed to support his flight. His scales and body plates were uniformly bronze. But it wasn't monotonous, even in a beast that big. When the holographic sun hit them, each scale turned into a prism of gold, orange, pink and red. When he moved through the light he looked like the tail end of a supernova as it fades into the night sky.

I had just finished coding in his fiery breath. Blue flames would have been hotter, but when people think of fire, they think of yellow and orange, and those colors complimented his hide much better.

'You are truly a gifted sorcerer,' Seto said. I should have known the dragon would have attracted his notice.

'There's no such thing as magic,' I replied reflexively.

'The labels change, the idea endures,' he replied. 'We called monsters to life out of stone; you do so out of light. Only the element has altered.'

'Whatever's on your mind, spit it out,' I offered.

'What would you do if you began to doubt? If you wondered if everything you had believed in… had been trained to be… turned out to be wrong?'

'Are you asking what would I do, or what I did?' I queried, and for once the only sarcasm in my voice was a note of self-mockery. 'Are you asking me how to rebuild your heart after it's been shattered down to the bedrock?'

'If not shattered, then cracked.'

'I went back to the crucial things in my life; the things I had put in danger through my own carelessness; and without which life would be meaningless. I went back to my promises.'

'My pharaoh has forgotten, but I remember,' Seto said thoughtfully. 'Maybe as long as there is one priest who keeps to his oaths, then even in this strange world, the gods are not truly gone.'

'I guess this means that you'll be wanting to waste my time tomorrow with your fool prayers.'

'As I have every morning, since I was old enough to perform the ceremony. Before my arrival here, the gods had waited 3,000 years to be properly greeted each morning. It would not do to further try their patience by neglecting them so soon after resuming my duties.'

'Well one of your gods will be here soon, and I don't plan to keep him waiting either,' I couldn't resist saying. Once Seto left, I had to laugh at the idea of anyone coming to me for spiritual guidance. Luckily I was into a more earthly form of ecstasy.

YAMI'S POV

Unimaginably, it had settled into a routine. Kaiba met me at the door every night, as if he silently accepted that I needed the fifteen minute walk to settle into myself: to be my own, before I could be his. Afterwards, he drove me home (we were always slightly pressed for time.) He would drop me off a block from the game shop and watch as I went into the apartment upstairs.

Sugoroku knew I went out each night, although we hadn't discussed it. He had only asked one question, as I returned home on the fifth morning.

"Will this harm Yugi?"

"Never. I swear it."

He nodded, satisfied, as he held the door open for me to enter.

I was grateful for his forbearance, but I couldn't resist asking, "Don't you have any other questions?" I knew both how talkative and how curious the old man could be.

"Many. But having been granted time and freedom of action, I am not going to propose that you trade in your privacy in return."

I nodded. I didn't know if he would approve, and didn't want to strain his tolerance or remind him that this was not his decision to make.

I was at the mansion, now. I needed those fifteen minutes, but now that I was here, neither of us proposed wasting a moment more. We were naked and in bed. I looked at Kaiba. Somehow the fragility of our time together and its constraints gave it added value.

"Do you have any idea how precious you are to me?" I asked.

Kaiba didn't answer. Of course. It was another difference between us. Kaiba accepted the fifteen minute delay; he silently accepted my limitations. But I wanted to understand his.

"Are you still that allergic to talking?" I asked.

Kaiba looked at me. "Come with me," he said.

I followed him out of the bedroom. It didn't seem to bother him that we were wandering naked through his mansion. Before I had the time to ask where on earth we were going, we arrived at his kitchen.

Kaiba went to the cupboards and the refrigerator and began taking out seemingly every kind of bottle imaginable, as far as I could tell with out rhyme or reason. It was only when he took down the food coloring that some of the logic behind his choices was clear – most were colorless liquids – or nearly so. He added the different colors, separately to his choices, then carefully layered them in a glass, slowly pouring one atop the others. His body was shielding the glass from my sight.

"Look," he finally said, as he stepped aside.

It was beautiful. At the top of the glass was band of light blue that melted into pink, then a thinner one of orange-yellow, and a still narrower ring of pure gold. The next band softened to pink, through purple, and back to a darker blue. Kaiba had caught a vision of the sun setting on the ocean in a glass.

"It's stunning," I said, and meant it.

He smiled bleakly, took a spoon, put it into the glass and stirred, fiercely. The vision was gone. All that remained was a glass filled with an unappetizing, mud-colored liquid.

"Never shake up anything that's inherently unstable," he said.

"I am willing to bet that the sun will return," I answered.

Kaiba gave me a genuine smile at that. He picked up the glass and left the kitchen, calling over his shoulder, "Stick around for a couple of hours then, and see if your faith will be rewarded."

I gladly followed him back upstairs. He carefully set the glass on the table beside his bed, before turning to me with much less gentleness. I didn't mind. This should have started to feel familiar by now. It should have started to feel as routine as the fifteen minute walk I took each night to get here. It didn't. Instead, I found myself concentrating anew on the fierceness of his touch, on the intensity of his focus. If Kaiba would not speak, I would simply learn to listen to all he did not say.

It was only as I was ready to leave that I looked away from Kaiba to the glass on the nightstand by his bed.

"It seems that if the bonds are strong enough, even after a thorough shaking, things will settle to their natural state." I said, relieved to see that his original vision had remained true to itself.

"But we would have wasted three hours, and time is the one thing neither of us have to spare."

"It is worth the payment of time to know that even in the midst of uncertainty, some things will hold constant."

But I knew what Kaiba meant. There were moments when even my love for Yugi, my knowledge of the great debt I owed him… and my guilt at my own disloyal thoughts… weren't enough to keep me from wanting this time with Kaiba to go on forever, without interruption.

MOKUBA'S POV

Once again, I was downstairs in the morning before my brother. He came into the kitchen with that god-damned little smile playing across his lips. It looked out of place, and so damn right. I found myself wondering yet again if this was what he would have looked like all the time... if he'd never hooked up with Gozaburo... if we hadn't landed in the orphanage... if my Mom hadn't died... if I'd never been born.

I shook my head. That wasn't going to help – and my immediate problem was my brother. I was the one in charge of security at the mansion, well routine security anyway. So Nisama had to know that I knew. It was over a week. If I didn't say something soon, he'd start to wonder why. Except I had no idea what to say.

Not that there was any way to say anything to my brother – except straight out.

"Why didn't you tell me? About Yami, I mean?" I asked.

"His name is Atemu. And it wasn't a secret. You'd know the minute you checked the security tapes and saw him arriving in the middle of the night – not to mention when you saw him leaving with me three hours later. Why? Does it bother you?"

He spoke casually, as if the answer didn't matter. He looked at me, and anyone else would have said that it was a penetrating stare. I knew better. In some ways my brother was incredibly myopic. He wouldn't know how I really felt unless I told him.

"Well..." I said, choosing my words carefully. "I kind of hoped you'd meet... you know... a real person."

"Atemu is real," he said flatly.

I rolled my eyes. "I meant one with his own body. Atemu's just borrowing his."

"We're all just borrowing our bodies, if you think about it – and one day we're going to have to return them. Atemu's just doing it a little more directly."

I didn't know whether to laugh or scream. Nisama had a point. He always had a point. That didn't change the fact it was the stupidest thing I had ever heard come out of his mouth. And it didn't change the fact that this wasn't what I wanted for him.

"It bothers you," he said softly, a muscle in his jaw tightening. The smile was gone. And I knew if I said, 'Yes, it bothers me,' that smile was never coming back.

I shook my head before he could tell me that it would be all right.

"It just takes a little getting used to," I said, "But I'm cool with it. Atemu's an okay guy."

I watched his shoulders relax as he grabbed a cup of coffee. The main benefit from our spending so many years lying to each other, was that I was really good at it when I had to be.

YUGI'S POV

We were sitting on my bed, just talking. It was fun being with someone whose existence was as fractured as my own. Seto was thinking out loud.

"The traits Kaiba and I have in common, are paradoxically the ones I can be sure are uniquely mine… characteristics that are part of the fabric of my being uninfluenced by circumstance or time. I have always been ambitious, unable to rest easily. That need to prove myself has not changed. But I have always wondered if the qualities I value, were as much a part of me as my flaws; if they ran as deep. It is reassuring to know that for all his failings, Kaiba is capable of steadfastness and courage."

"He always was. What about Atemu? Is that another thing you feel the same about?" Kaiba had told me that it wasn't, but I wanted to hear it from Seto.

"That is the way in which we are most different," he said looking at me with that intent blue stare. "I do not desire to have a god in my arms."

And then his lips were on mine.

He gave me the barest second, the shortest measure of time to either draw back or move forward. I opened my mouth, and then I was in his lap, and his hands were tangled in my hair.

I liked his enthusiasm.

I unbuttoned his shirt. He shrugged it off. I stopped, staring at his chest. I could see faintly, old scars reminding me that he had been not just a priest, but a warrior in an ancient world. The other marks – the ones attracting my attention – were newer.

I discounted the bruises from what were clearly his and Kaiba's still-ongoing fights. I was too busy staring at the bite marks on his neck and chest, the gouges as he turned his back.

I recognized them. When I looked at Seto's chest I saw Kaiba. Yami had brought home far fainter versions once, along with his embarrassed apologies, even though none were needed. The marks would only appear when he materialized. Even though we both knew I wouldn't be wearing them, it had never happened again.

Seto followed the direction of my gaze.

"He is my other self," he said quietly but unapologetically.

I swallowed and nodded.

These bites, these scratches by rights belonged to Yami. But while Kaiba had acceded to Yami's wish or demand to leave what he considered to be my skin relatively untouched, Kaiba had needed an outlet; something he could brand as unmistakably his. I looked at Seto and marveled at Kaiba's restraint with Yami; realized how even in the midst of fulfillment he must have felt some piece of Yami slipping through his fingers. I decided to tell Yami to let Kaiba have his head next time. I didn't want the brief time Kaiba and Yami had together to be tainted with longing; and I decided I'd rather see Kaiba's marks on the body that matched my own, than look at them on Seto.

The thought of Kaiba with Yami didn't bother me the way seeing those kisses on Seto's chest did. I knew better now. I wasn't jealous of Yami… maybe because ours was an indissolvable bond, and not – for all the times we had made love – primarily a sexual one.

I looked at Seto's chest. "We are such opposites," I mumbled doubtfully, thinking of Kaiba and wondering how anyone, much less the two people who mattered to me the most, could want the both of us.

Seto looked at me blankly, until he realized that I wasn't talking about him.

"You and Kaiba may seem to be at opposite ends of the spectrum… but maybe you are not as far apart as you believe. What are the things you would die for?"

"Loyalty, family and friendship," I said without a second thought.

"Two out of three isn't bad. It took 3,000 years to move the pharaoh closer to Kaiba, at least in affect, and me closer to you. Perhaps," he said thoughtfully, "It is why the pharaoh and I do not feel desire for each other, any more than you and Kaiba do."

I reached out and touched the bite mark on his chest, just above one nipple. It was as deep as it looked.

I looked at Seto, wondering how alike he and Kaiba were… and what I had gotten myself into.

"Are you wondering if I have the same habit of marking my lovers as if they were my prey?" he grinned. "Possibly it is time to find out…"

I had a moment's doubt before it was erased by the gentleness of his lips. He had been in a sensory-less limbo for 3,000 years. I would have figured he'd be impatient. But he acted like we had all the time in the world, and like there was nothing he'd rather do with it than kiss me. He left my lips to move to my ears, my neck, still at the same slow pace.

I moaned, and tugged at his hair, pushing his head downwards. He resisted long enough to peel off my shirt. Before bending down to me again he paused and said, "The true waste of time would be in not savoring this moment I have been blessed with. I will not lie. I have enough memories to remember the pleasure this brings. But I am here, now, with you – and to be with you is to be truly reborn."

He finally moved further down my body. His breath tickled my stomach as he added, "If all my memories were stripped from me, as long as this one remained, I would be content."

"Don't stop, then," I answered as I slid out of my pants. "Let's make sure this is a memory to beat all the others."

His hands slid down my back. His mouth trailed still lower. In spite of what we were doing, there was a purity to his movements that seemed to belong to another, more ancient world. It was seductive.

Seto might not have wanted a god in his arms, but I certainly didn't mind being treated like one.

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Thanks to Clarity for editing this chapter.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: One thing that's always struck me about Kaiba is how visually creative he is. It's as if all his unexpressed feelings come out in his holograms. Pegasus drew the Duel Monsters – but it's Kaiba who truly brings them to life, and makes them move. And it occurred to me that his holographic system is a high tech equivalent to the magic you see the priests use to draw the monsters to life from their stone tablets.

It's funny, but until I was typing in the final editing changes, it didn't occur to me that Yugi and Seto have a totally different idea of 'wasting time' than Yami and Kaiba.