"A Greek Bridge Built Too Far"

"Did you ever think we'd get here?" Yuugi asked Atem a couple of hours later. Up till now, they were talking about nothing. Isis hadn't returned from her trip to the hotel's cafeteria, leading both of them to suspect she wasn't planning on coming back at all. Yuugi wondered what she would have thought about the way it had progressed in these few short hours. Certainly he had had no inkling of what awaited him the moment he'd set out to find someone whose identity he hadn't been sure of until he'd seen him with his own eyes!

While these thoughts ran through his mind, Atem shifted onto his side, kind of peering off thoughtfully into the distance, giving Yuugi's query some consideration.

"Perhaps," he answered at last, "if you clarified your meaning of 'here' I may be able to respond more readily?" Yuugi pinched him. He jerked back. "Ow! All right, I deserved that. If you are referring to this," he pointed to himself and then to Yuugi, "I had been hopeful, yes."

"You realized how you really felt."

"Oh, I knew how I felt. I believe I mentioned that before, though perhaps you forgot, taking into consideration how… preoccupied you were. Sometimes you can be so impertinent, Yuugi!" Atem reached up and impishly flicked a small lock of Yuugi's hair away from his cheek who responded by making a face. "At the time, I knew it could not be, and I kept my real feelings hidden. You would not have been able to accept them. Not then."

In a bit of a pout, Yuugi bit his bottom lip for a second, digesting this. "I don't agree with that," he began, disappointed. "It wouldn't have mattered to me." He smiled nostalgically. "For me, coming from you, it would have meant so much."

Sighing softly, Atem stared up at the ceiling. "I know, I… I just did not want to make the parting any more difficult than it already was."

Hearing the melancholy in Atem's voice, Yuugi moved a hand over and rested it lightly upon the other's hip. "Maybe not," he began kindly, absently rubbing small, comforting circles over Atem's stomach. "It wouldn't have mattered anyway, if you think about it; time enough to find out these things when we're both dead, huh?"

Atem hummed in response and closed his eyes, plainly enjoying Yuugi's attentions. "I suppose that is one way to look at it, yes."

Yuugi smirked triumphantly. "You give in to me entirely too easily, mou hitori no boku. What?" Atem's face had turned sour. "What is it?"

"We are now two separate people, as we have always been." Atem captured the hand caressing his skin, carding their fingers together, folding them. "I have never been your other self."

Yuugi shrugged, perfectly nonchalant. "Probably not, but you are my other half."

The god of men grinned. "As you are mine, aibou."

In contentment, Yuugi closed his eyes, and allowed their foreheads to gently connect. "I can't believe how much I missed hearing you say that." He sighed contentedly. "No one's ever called me that but you."

"No one ever will." It was a promise.

"Good."

After a time, Atem moved away from Yuugi and sat up, linking his arms loosely around his upright knees. Yuugi caught a glimpse of the expression on his face and pulled himself up as well, viewing the other man with concern. "Atem?"

Atem seemed unable to speak. He simply shrugged.

"Tell me." Yuugi urged, touching his back, massaging it gently. A few more heartbeats elapsed. "Please tell me?" he added in an even quieter voice.

The ex-pharaoh exhaled a hurricane of a sigh. "It is Sarah," he confessed, catching Yuugi rather off guard. "I am afraid I may have irreparably damaged my relationship with her."

"Why do you think that?" Yuugi asked, refusing to pick at Atem's thoughts for the answer, because there were certain things he felt needed to spoken aloud.

It was a long few minutes before Atem seemed able to bring his gaze to Yuugi's, and what he saw in his crimson eyes was unmitigated remorse – and dread. "Before I came to Japan, I had started a relationship with her… an intimate one," he finished uneasily.

"Oh," was all Yuugi could think of to say.

Atem looked so upset, Yuugi was more worried about him than he was about the fact he'd just learned Atem was stepping out on the woman who'd brought him back to life. "However," he continued haltingly, glancing at Yuugi constantly, as if waiting for him to lash out. "I understand your modern day sensibilities. I know neither you nor Sarah will be all right with me being with the both of you." His head dropped between his hands and cradled upon his kneecaps. "I was so happy to see you," he mourned wretchedly. "I was so happy you felt the same for me, I… I did not think about the consequences! I am so sorry. This is not fair."

Yuugi half-smiled, and shook his head somewhat. "It isn't," he agreed calmly, very careful not to put any negative inflection in his voice. "You need to speak with Sarah. You need to do that anyway. Tell her what happened. I can't say she won't be hurt but I believe if you're both truly friends, then your friendship will definitely heal in time." He noticed Atem staring at him wide-eyed and unblinking. "What?"

"You are… incredible. How can you possibly not be upset?"

Yuugi laughed and gave his other a healthy pat on the back. "Believe me I am, in my way. But!" He cupped his pharaoh's cheek, stroking his thumb along his elegant jaw line. "I'm going to let you decide what you want to do," he said softly. "What you and I have can't be overtaken by anything: I'm here for you no matter what."

Anything else he might have said was lost when Atem reached for him and engrossed them both in a deep, rough, and frankly, really smoking hot kiss. Coming up for air, Yuugi gulped, and using all of his will power, threw the sheets off and slid out of the bed. He began to hunt around for his clothes, glancing at the digital clock, his mind going to other things. If he didn't arrive home soon, his mother was probably going to think he'd been abducted again, and he wasn't in the mood to explain this development just yet. Besides what could he do if Atem decided to stay with Sarah? He didn't imagine her being okay with it, however; he also didn't know the woman and so shouldn't assume anything about her. He paused for a moment, forgetting the current turmoil, to admire Atem following his roll off the other side of the bed and settling into a long, leisurely stretch. The Egyptian ruler from millennia past owned the body of a god. In the eyes of the Chosen One, he was a slender, tanner version of Adonis. He definitely had the physique for it!

Yuugi felt a flush of heat crawl under his skin and prickle the hairs up on the back of his neck. Adonis, Great Re, now that was going a Greek built bridge too far! Was it Greek? He was so sure it was Greek…

Yuugi was so entranced by his innocuous musings he completely failed to notice Atem sidle up behind him as he rummaged around on the floor for his pants. Spying him from the corner of his eye, Yuugi straightened up immediately. Atem slanted his head to the side, appraising Yuugi's mildly startled reaction with a quietly amused air. His fingertips traced the skin of the younger man's pale face, skipping over his soft lips, to his chin, trailing lightly down his neck. Yuugi felt his mouth turn up softly in a smile. I feel like I could sit on top of the world when he looks at me like that.

As I feel I could rule over it with you watching me, aibou.

Yuugi blushed violently. He really needed to learn to keep his more personal thoughts closer to his chest. We are going to kill our friends if we talk like this around them, he warned. It may even convince Jounouchi to reverse his opinion of Anzu's vampire romance novels to that of thinking them good literature.

Atem chuckled as he finished pulling on his pants and carefully closing the fasteners. "I fear there is no force in the universe capable of changing that, Yuugi," he replied aloud.

Yuugi paused in the middle of buttoning up his shirt, thrown for six. "You read vampire romance novels," he stated.

"I have not. But Isis does."

Yuugi stared at his partner, mouth hanging slightly open. Now that was news to him.

A bit stifled, Atem held up one hand and shook his head, indicating the topic was not one up for further discussion. He finished dressing and moved to start putting on his remarkable array of accessories. After studying him for several more seconds, Yuugi stood before him and picked up one of the studded wrist cuffs. "Let me."

Atem offered no protests. They traded shy smiles the whole while Yuugi put on his necklace, his earrings, and his throat buckle. The waist chains went on last. Finally Yuugi stood back and checked out the other from head to toe. "Man," he concluded without bothering to hide his envy. "I am so jealous."

Atem smirked (sexily) and laid one slim hand on his hip. "You need not be, Yuugi."

"I know that, it's just," Yuugi lifted and then uselessly flapped his arms at his sides, gesturing to his other, "wow."

"It pleases me that I can leave you yearning to find adjectives to describe my resplendence."

"Maybe if they'd been invented, I could," he replied dryly, unable to help the rising peal of laughter that emerged. "We," he added pointedly, "need to move along."

Atem reluctantly acknowledged this with a dip of his head. "Yes. We both have things we need to do." Quietly, he called out after Yuugi, watching the other man open the door. "Come see me again before I return to Egypt?"

Crestfallen at this pronouncement, Yuugi didn't let it show on his expression or taint the smile he gave Atem. "Of course! You'll have to come out with the gang before then anyway. You know they're not going to let you go without a proper good bye."

Atem smiled weakly. "Kaiba has made it abundantly clear I was not to take off without dueling him one last time, as I had promised. Do not worry I doubt that I am going anywhere."

They shared equally harassed expressions before simultaneously bursting into laughter.

Later that evening, Yuugi tried to make sense of what had happened. Honestly, he didn't know what he wanted to feel; his emotions were in such a tangled snarl already. There was elation at his unrequited feelings being returned, the thrill of broaching the last barrier separating him from his other, and the happiness at everything having been made possible at all. There was also the jealousy too – and a little bit of anger as well. But the anger was more objectified, intellectual, hanging off somewhere separate from him than anything he was really feeling. The envy was closer, more of a little twisting feeling in his chest.

He couldn't bring himself to hate Sarah or wish Atem to abandon her for himself. If Atem was in love with her, and she him, and they had something special going on, then the both of them had a right to that happiness. Besides he felt somewhat responsible for this mess, though logic told him this sat squarely on Atem because he didn't tell Yuugi about Sarah before their tumble. Yuugi would not have instigated a physical relationship if he'd known about her.

I love Atem and what happened with him today, but, he amended with a small, contented smile, I know now that I don't need physical commitment from him. We're beyond that, really. I know I come first in his heart. He can't help it the same way I can't help it. If I were still with Aki right now, I think I might have even done it. He nodded firmly, his expression hardened in determination. In fact, if he chooses her and she rejects him, I'll personally go find her myself and make her take him back!

He might just do that anyway, although not for the reasons one might assume. It would be awkward – gods it would be awkward - because he had never before met a woman whom had been intimate with someone he'd been intimate with. Weird! But he'd get by it. After all, he'd just been through the worst slice of hell in his entire life. So what was this but a molehill in a world of mountains? This Dr. Sarah Chanson had become a part of the Millennium Phase of their lives, and unwittingly, a very deep, personal part of Yuugi's existence. Atem had allowed Sarah to be important to him on a level he had not allowed Anzu or any other woman they had both known. He needed to know that if he had to walk away, he was leaving Atem with someone worthy of him.

But he was mine first, Yuugi thought fiercely, narrowing his eyes at the dishes he was washing. I know I have no right to claim propriety over him, he continued, as if in apology to himself. It nearly destroyed me when I had to let him go four years ago. I am not capable of doing that a second time. If he wants to share his life with Sarah, I want him to if she makes him happy. But if he should need anything, no matter what it is, I hope he comes to me.

Yuugi meant what he had said to him earlier. It scared him to the depths in which his loyalty went to the former pharaoh of ancient Kemet. He'd always loved him dearly, both through the good times and the bad times, indiscriminately, unconditionally. Once upon a time, such a realization might have disturbed him. Now he accepted this facet of himself as he had come to accept the fact he'd watched Otogi gun a man down and felt no regret about it whatsoever.

After drying them, Yuugi placed the last dish back in the cabinet and started up the stairs to bed.

A soft knock on the door gave him pause. Automatically, Yuugi's mind double checked where everyone in the house was. His mother went to bed an hour ago, Anzu had gone to sleep three hours before because she had to get up early to get on a flight back to New York, and Jounouchi had moved back to his place yesterday. He snatched a glance at the clock hanging on the wall nearby. Who would decide to bother him so late? The detectives? A chill seeped into his stomach. Oh hell, he hoped not. There was going to be a trial soon, sure, charging his and Otogi's abductors with their kidnapping, amongst other things, but they wouldn't come this late to ask questions. His lawyer, maybe? No, he dismissed the notion at once. She'd call first, not interrupt her client in the middle of the night.

When he opened the door, his mouth fell open a little.

Atem smiled weakly. "Hi."

Still staring unblinkingly, Yuugi robotically stepped aside and let him in. Wearing a windbreaker across his shoulders like a cape, with his hands in his pockets, Atem affected a little shrug of his shoulder when Yuugi raised an eyebrow in silent askance after closing the door behind him.

"I could not sleep," he confessed.

With a gesture of his head, Yuugi indicated they needed to head up to his room, and they stole up the stairs quietly. They did not speak until the bedroom door was closed.

"Did you talk to Sarah?" Immediately Yuugi flinched inside – ouch, that is not what he had meant to say first. He should have started with something else; in fact he'd had another reply all ready to go too. Instead this was what popped out. He was a glutton for punishment. Rude, he thought, very rude. "Sorry," he muttered, looking away.

"No. Do not apologize to me when there is nothing you need to apologize for." Atem took a deep breath and released it, lowering his pensive gaze to his feet, shuffling his weight from leg to leg uncomfortably. "Yuugi," he began softly, "please do not hate me."

"You want to stay with her."

Atem's mouth turned down, unhappy, and there were tears on his eyelashes. Disarmed from within and without, Yuugi felt a knot form in his throat threaten to dissolve at any moment. Be strong, man, be strong. Yuugi took a measured, slightly shuddery breath, and nodded. He understood, he wanted to say, yet preparing to hear it said and then actually hearing it said were two different things.

"Okay," Yuugi whispered, at length. "It's okay."

"No it is not!" If Atem continued to look and sound like that, Yuugi knew it wouldn't be for much longer. "She reacted just the way you did. She was not angry. She did not cry. She… she said to remember the last thing she told me before she returned to America. She said I was her friend above anything else. She would leave it up to me!" Atem paced back and forth, not knowing what to do with his hands, holding them up before him, clenching and unclenching them in fists of frustration. Suddenly he rounded on Yuugi, his eyes bright with pain and regret. "By Set, I don't know to do!" He came close to shouting, his deep tenor a shadow of bitterness and sorrow. "Why won't either of you fight for me?"

Yuugi bit his bottom lip. He went up to the man and took the fists his other had made and held them until they unclenched and loosened. His violet gaze met Atem's crimson one, gray-bright in the moonlit darkness pouring from the skylight. Atem suddenly and swiftly seized Yuugi tightly by the shoulders, digging in his digits. Yuugi winced and tried to pry free, and failing that, he simply chose to remain in his other's grip, staring back at him silently. It distressed him to see Atem so torn, so lost. He felt the other's turmoil keenly in his own head and heart, and knew he could not – would not – make it worse by throwing his own jigsaw emotions into the fray. So he remained quiescent and still.

After gazing upon Yuugi's pale face for a few more moments, Atem mumbled something in another tongue before he swept down and caught Yuugi's mouth in his own. This kind of raw passion was new to Yuugi and he found himself struggling to keep his head above the surface to avoid drowning in it. At last, starved for breath, he grabbed the sides of Atem's head and forced their hungry, needy lips apart. It was the battle worn look on Atem's face, the ghost edge of a heartbreak waiting to shatter his soul apart that showed Yuugi the dearth of his struggle. He truly was unable to choose. He loved both of them and his pride would not allow him to forsake either of them in his heart. If this were ancient times, Atem's choice would have been made for him: Sarah would have been his official, public choice, while Yuugi would have been the only man not dismissed from the king's chambers for the night. Somehow, when he thought about it in that light, things had worked so much more simply in less civilized times.

"Go," he told his other half, struggling to preserve his fading composure. "Don't throw away what you have with her because we stole a few hours together. Losing you to Sarah isn't worse than losing you forever." When the ex-king didn't move or speak or change the expression on his face, Yuugi fought back the intense urge to scream, sob and tear out hunks of his hair. "Please, go to her, I beg you!" His voice wasn't breaking, it wasn't. "You're in so much pain right now I can't take it!"

Dumbfounded, Atem's lips parted, and his mouth fell part way open. "You… can feel that?"

"I feel everything!" Yuugi blurted out desperately, without thinking – or caring. "And I know you love her differently than you love me but it's true, it's real, and I will not destroy that!" He was panting by the time he reached the end of his breathlessly delivered sentence.

Bowled over, Atem studied him curiously. It seemed as if forever passed before he spoke again. "No."

The confidence in his response confused Yuugi. "What?" he said faintly. "No? What do you mean 'no'?"

Atem approached Yuugi and embraced him again, soothingly, his chin tucking over his shoulder neatly. "No," he said again, more warmly.

"But…"

Atem drew back just enough so they were face to face, nearly nose to nose. "You have always sacrificed your desires for mine," he murmured. "It is what I love about you, but it is also what grieves me about you." He closed his eyes, as if debating. After a brief hesitation, he opened them again. "Yuugi," he insisted, "I want you in my life."

Yuugi stared at him. There was never any question of that as far as he was concerned. "I want you in mine."

Somehow this caused the tension to ease throughout the other man's body. Gradually, Atem's hands fell away. Yuugi felt a smile yank up the corners of his mouth. It hurt. Resignedly, Atem watched him back, and he could see his other forcing his own smile. He sighed in mutual defeat. They weren't fooling one another at all were they? Their thoughts and emotions were lying before each other, exposed to their eyes, hearts, and minds, naked in the wan light of the moon.

Letting his knees buckle, as he no longer felt able to stand with the rush of emotions overwhelming him, Yuugi slowly sank down to the carpet. Atem went with him, wrapped his hands around Yuugi's head and cradled the younger man's head against his chest. Yuugi welcomed the embrace, leaning in to it. He let Atem turn his chin up, and exhaled harshly through his nose, welcoming the familiar and all too brief caress of his other's lips against his own. He remained where he sat, watching Atem as he rose gracefully and moved for the bedroom door. Just for a moment, before he left, he glanced back at Yuugi. He smirked.

After Atem was gone, Yuugi turned his clear gaze toward the stars, and smiled at them.