Timber

Inspiration: Santal Massoia, Touch by Troye Sivan (not to worry, Bon Jovi is making a comeback in another story), and flames, especially where the fire burns to its white hot, blue-red, purple-yellow. Not mine.

Disclaimer: Do not own YGO.

Please do NOT light your drinks on fire at home.

For Choco, who requested Revolutionshipping, mid-series, vamp-y Anzu, and "all kinds of drunk." Here we have the mope-y, happy, melancholy, funny, fuzzy, dizzy, and pseudo-ey kind of drunk.

...

Tea had a dusting of freckles across her chin.

That was the first thing Atem noticed.

The second thing he noted was that, for some strange, inexplicable reason, he hadn't noticed those gold-speckled dots before. Probably because he hadn't so blatantly stared before, at least, not directly and definitely not longer than for a few hours at a time. Sure, Yugi snuck in glances when she wasn't looking, but that was different. Those were just looks, little peeks at how one eyebrow arched higher than the other when deep in thought, the slightly burgundy tinge of cheeks when Joey told dirty jokes, and the wine-stained dents where teeth settled while drinking.

Drinking.

Mixing, pouring, chugging, and blending alcohol, because the third thing Atem noticed was that she was surprisingly adept at juggling bottles, tumblers, and lighters. The flames above the latest shot glass creations danced on the granite countertop. Long and sleek, waves of light rippling on the expansive shelf of liquors on the wall. Trust Kaiba to have a fully stocked liquor cabinet for drinks at 30,000 feet, and, of course the girl full of surprises would know how to mix, shake, and stir better than the boy who curated the best scotch collection west of the British Isles.

Atem wasn't sure how he ended up here. Not here here, by the bar. That was easy. Joey getting gutted by Marik this morning explained that. What was hard was why Atem was here here as in, slinging back drinks while nursing a bruised hand instead of in the hospital ward in Joey's place.

It should have been him and only him.

Not Yugi, who was just a nice boy who solved some age-old artifact, not knowing it would change his life forever. Not Joey, who was just another nice boy who wanted to play card games in peace. Now Yugi's nursing a broken heart in his soul room while Joey's heart might actually be physiologically broken with a comatose mind, wrapped in some clinically white contraption of sheets with wires and tubes clinging to every exposed surface. Monitors beeping in a shrill dirge. Scrubs scurrying from side to side, barking orders like "10 CC Epi! Stat!" and "Intubate in three! Two! Intubating no-"

Damn. It. All.

Here wasn't where Atem wanted to be at all. Damn saving the world. He just wanted to be as drunk as possible. Removed from everything. Just for a bit. Somewhere over the rainbow where things actually worked out and people didn't get hurt from playing effing card games. Teenagers can just be teenagers there. Yugi and Joey can live the boring, mundane lives they were meant to live there. They'd flirt awkwardly with Tea and Mai, maybe even go on a few dates, then perhaps even settle down and fight about stupid things like who forgot to feed the dog and who left the recycling bin roasting in the sun there.

Yugi might still get that chance...if Marik lost tomorrow.

Joey might not ever get the chance.

There.

Not here.

They deserved to be there.

They're not there because he's here.

Wth that, Atem threw back another shot, feeling the sting of alcohol burning somewhere close enough to a broken heart. Tea was really a good bartender, he thought in his drunken stupor. That was the fourth or maybe even fifth thing he hadn't noticed before. Nothing was said after gently prying his bruised fingers away from a bottle of booze couldn't be opened with swollen eyes as well as fingers.

She opened the heavy glass hexagon with a lopsided smile, took it behind the bar, and pushed shot after shot in his direction. Atem didn't ask what they were; Tea didn't explain. All she did was light them on fire before sliding them down a granite runway. Together, they watched the alcohol burn. Slow, steady, orange tumbling into red, veering into blue, crashing into white-gold flashes of smoke. Atem let the glass burn his fingers just a little bit, guzzling like a thirsty man lost in a cobalt paradise when the liquid cooled.

What thing was this? The eighth? The tenth?

Atem didn't know anymore. Didn't care, didn't really want to know anymore, either. Tea looked gorgeous. Illuminated by...drunkenness or love or whatever the hell the sudden infusion of warmth near the heart happened to be. Words spilled.

"Do you feel like I belong here, Tea?"

The question felt stupid. He felt stupid. Of course he didn't belong. Why the hell would he belong in a body that wasn't his, a time that wasn't his, emotions that weren't his?

Or...were they?

There was a fuzzy tingle in Yugi's heart whenever Tea was around, like the faint jingle of an ice cream truck on a hot summer's day or a silver-y jingle of bells at Christmas time. The feeling inside his heart now...that was just leftover from Yugi's sulking, right? There was no way he would belong here, with someone who was so vibrantly alive that the burgundy-colored wine appeared to dim under her smile.

And then fingertips reached out. An impulsive yet tentative touch of skin to skin, lip to lip, cheek to cheek, heart to heart. Silky chestnut to mussed red-black-blonde, syrup to soda, strained through a tumbler of agave and coconut. Sweet. Fig-like. Raisin-coated cinnamon toasted over sandalwood planks, the taste caressing his lungs.

"Of course you belong here, silly. With us. With me."

The words curled. Soft. Steady. Heady, too, with a touch that intoxicated as much as the fingers curling around bangs. Suddenly the lightheadedness of downing flaming shots felt heavy. Leaden, almost. Whatever he thought being drunk felt like, this, right here, wasn't it.

Here was a different kind of drunk altogether.

...

Tea grinned against his chest, a dabble of freckles shining the light. A sliver of a smile curled.

Good thing Yugi has no idea Pepsi is just flammable, not alcoholic.

He's got a duel to win tomorrow.

...

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