Sasami: We finally made it to chapter six. Magical yea! tee hee *^^

Nijuu: Not just a "yea," but a magical one at that. o.O

Sasami: Magical yea is a long story, e-mail me if you want to hear it all. *^^ Anyway, I'll stop my babbling and start the chapter. I promise there will be NO LEMONS…lots of fluff in this and coming chapters, but nothing too citrus-y.

Nijuu: We still don't own Yu-gi-oh. Do I even have to keep saying it at this point????

Sasami: That said here comes the warning.

Beware the ensuing shounen ai/ yaoi fluff!: I am a sucker for fluff. What can I say? There will be some fluffiness here! No lemon/lime goodness though. Mmmmmm. And oh how I enjoyed writing the fluff. *^^

Today's song is Tangled, by the band Maroon5 off their 1st album Songs About Jane. Enjoy!

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Fears of the Stone

Chapter Six: Tangled

I'M FULL OF REGRET

FOR ALL THE THINGS THAT I HAVE DONE AND SAID

AND I DON'T KNOW IF IT'LL EVER BE OK TO SHOW

MY FACE 'ROUND HERE

SOMETIMES I WONDER IF I DISAPPEAR

WOULD YOU EVER TURN YOUR HEAD AND LOOK

SEE IF I'M GONE

CAUSE I FEAR

THERE IS NOTHING LEFT TO SAY TO YOU

THAT YOU WANNA HEAR

THAT YOU WANNA KNOW

I THINK I SHOULD GO

THE THINGS I'VE DONE ARE WAY TOO SHAMEFUL

The pharaoh cast a final lingering look at his hikari before leaving the room. So it was done then. Yami would have to wait, for the sake of his hikari. He was becoming agitated by the length of time that was passing with no change in their relationship. Yuugi should have trusted him by now, and it was exasperating to have things not be as such. Yami turned down the music and changed the song before proceeding to put away the groceries.

Did he love his hikari? Yes. He had figured that out long enough ago, but the events of the morning had him feeling something new. He wanted more than just Yuugi's love and trust at this point. Ra, the boy was just so beautiful. Ivory skin and deep eyes, soft and yielding and vulnerable, and oh so graceful. He was tempting and completely unaware of it.

Finishing the chore of the food, Yami settled himself on the couch and focused on the music floating through the house. His favorite song wafted through the speakers. Yami propped himself up against the edge of the couch, head supported on the back of his hand with one leg tucked loosely beneath his opposite thigh, and closed his eyes in silent meditation, urging his nerves to calm. His cool exterior betrayed no emotion and none of the wanton desire that coursed through his veins. Nothing. If only he could make his mind obey him as his body did.

Yuugi stood in silence staring at the door with tears still running down his face. It was strange how just one look could melt away all his doubts and fear and increase them a hundredfold in the same instant.

The young man turned and walked towards the window staring up into the brilliant late-morning sky, its vibrancy grating on his currently hyperaware senses. Wiping his eyes, Yuugi slid down against the wall, sitting in a patch of lazy sunlight trickling through the glass. The wall was warm despite the cool December air outside, calming to the distraught man who sought its comfort and support. Leaning his head back against the wall, Yuugi gazed at the clock on the wall opposite to him. 11:00. only 11:00. It suddenly felt as though the day would turn out to be far too long for anyone's own good.

So he sat there in silent contemplation of the morning's events. Basking in the sunlight, in an ironically relaxed state, Yuugi realized how complicated their relationship had abruptly become. Life had been normal until recently, save for the ancient pharaoh living in his mind. But now…now the spirit was quite tangible, and considerably more attractive in person. It was as much the allure of the pharaoh as his disposition that set Yuugi on edge. It was a slow decent into madness, terrible and haunting, and it thrilled him.

Yami was tall, well taller than his hikari at least, and slender with gently accentuated muscles and an air of unadulterated regality. Every movement dripped with superiority and something that commanded attention and respect. Or perhaps it was fear. His hair was wild and unruly, spiking in every unnatural direction possible. Ebony tresses slowly edged into scarlet at the tips and golden blonde shot through his deep toned hair and framed his handsome face. Sun-stained skin burned golden upon him and the pharaoh seemed to smolder perpetually beneath his skin. His eyes too burned with that unholy fire. Crimson like liquor in a crystal chalice melted into a violet hue when he gazed upon his delicate reflection, and hardened scarlet in passion at trespassers in their souls.

Yuugi's ivory skin was flushed and his eyes were relatively swollen and raw owing to the influx of emotion that had only moments before ceased to surge through them. He sat, arms limp at his side and legs stretched out in the sun before him with his head drooped at an angle toward the gentle curve of his shoulder in fatigue. It had not always been such a strained relationship. Where had life gone wrong?

Yuugi closed his amethyst eyes, their hue dulled with emotions he could not work out, and listened to the now toned down music floating up through the floor from the room below. He had forgotten the music when Yami embraced him; the world always seemed to stop when he was around. It was as though life itself fed off the breath of the pharaoh. The song now playing was a favorite of his yami's. Loud and livid with a hint of underlying sorrow; Yami seemed to echo the emotion with his very existence. Yuugi had heard the voice of his yami ring so clearly and eloquently out that day, but never before or since. He sang like a being caught somewhere between heaven and hell, clear and crisp tainted with millennia's worth of pain and loneliness, with a sound nothing could ever posses here or after.

He had begun to doubt his sanity in that moment. Foolish. Falling in love again was foolish, and yet the simplicity of a song had confirmed it all. Perhaps the words he sang were not those of the actual song, or perhaps he never sang at all. Yuugi often doubted whether he had imagined it or not; in all reality, it was almost certainly not music that he heard, rather the sound of Yami's soul striking a chord with some untold truth. Nonetheless, it was beautiful.

That was it. The foolish mistake of falling in love again had doomed their existence. Life had not wronged them, Yuugi had. He alone had taken away any chance of happiness, of freedom, the chance for the life he so wished to blame.

It was love then, the root of his trouble and his undoing. Now, that he had come to a conclusion, Yuugi was unable to remedy the problem. There were too many variables, too many uncertainties in their relationship, so much he required before he could move forward. Clearly, another confrontation was essential to the end of all this madness. Accordingly, Yuugi rose slowly, dreading the chill in the room below. Turning to view the lucid blue of the winter's morning, he found that the deceptively clear sky hid clouds dark as night beyond the horizon. Sunlight would gradually melt into the haze of the storm, and only the hand of God himself could stop the ensuing destruction left in its wake. "Let loose the floodgates." Yuugi murmured sardonically as he left the room.

Sliding his fingers along the painfully white wall, Yuugi began his decent. Filled with apprehension and uneasiness, he pressed nearer to the blinding intensity of the hallway along the stairs. Closer to the reflection of the morning light, and farther from his demons hiding in the shadows. The shadows prowled around him, reaching at his steps from behind and darkening the path before him, all the while feeding the fiends of doubt and despair he harbored. And there, at the end of his journey stood the object of his fixation, the veritable source of the shadows.

"Yami." Yuugi spoke softly, hand still pressed lightly against the wall, more now for support than comfort. Across the room, at the foot of the stairs sat the pharaoh. It was staggering how such a simple act as sitting could emanate such an enticing picture as what was before Yuugi. Yami was sleek and feral and carnal and sex and darkness and danger and…so many words to explain him, and yet they were utterly insufficient. He was simply Yami.

//Hikari.// the pharaoh answered, opening a single crimson eye. He raised a regal eyebrow at his reflection. So the time at last had come. He sighed, closing his eye once more.

"Yami, I want to…no, I need to-" the younger man tried valiantly to begin, but found the words were no longer there. Pulling closer to the wall, Yuugi wished desperately to disappear from the awkward position he had walked into.

//Ask me what you will Hikari. I have never hidden anything from you that you desired to know.// Yami uncurled his leg from beneath him and settled into a more comfortable position. Opening both of his eyes to give his hikari undivided attention, Yami was not oblivious to the fact that he had all of Yuugi's. Yami had reached his breaking point when his hikari had called him so softly, and self control was out the window. A blush crept across Yuugi's face as he stared at his other. The older man had settled himself back against the plush cushioning, legs opened comfortably in his all too revealing black leather, hands ghosting dangerously close to things Yuugi thought best ignored.

"Who are you?" Yami had expected Yuugi to question him for years, but this question was one he had not been prepared for. It seemed such a simple question, but it clearly was not. Taking a deep breath, Yami replied with the best answer he could procure on the spot.

"Yami."

"I know that much. I have heard and know all your names, Yami, pharaoh, Yugioh, mou hitori no boku*, but these are all just names. Who are you truly?"  Things needed to be assessed, and whatever Yami had been expecting was not what Yuugi would give him.

//…I am all of those things. Perhaps I have misunderstood your question hikari.// the pharaoh was taken aback. Nothing in his mind seemed to click, and such a seemingly random question in combination with his desire for the apprehensive young man standing across the room was making coherent thought virtually impossible.

"Who are you supposed to be for me Yami?" And there it was, the blatant underscore of all the conflict from the morning and the days leading up to it. Yami understood the reasoning behind his hikari's question. It occurred to him that if he had not been so overwhelmed by the tension between them at that moment, Yuugi was probably letting loose emotions through their link. He was too blinded to tune in to them now.

Yami rose from the couch and sauntered over to where Yuugi stood, hips swinging in conscious seduction. All of this waiting and tension and apprehension were unbearable and quite tiresome to the pharaoh, and he was attempting to move beyond it in a way suitable for all involved. //Aibou.// he purred, //I do not know who I am to you, that is for you alone to decide. Who you are to me though, that is a different matter. You were my omote, you still are my hikari, and you are so much more.// Yami sidled closer to the man, hastily narrowing the gap between them.

"Why did you start calling me your 'aibou'?" Licking his dry lips and flushing a deeper red, Yuugi attempted to continue his questions. He was unsure of himself under this new sort of heated gaze from his yami. There was much left unresolved within himself to have all this pressure upon him; yet, he was drawn to the passion radiating from the spirit.

//I call you aibou because that's what you are. My aibou.// Yami left no space between them, pinning Yuugi against the wall and leaning in to him. //Because you are the only one meant to hear such words.// Closer still.

Resting his forehead against that of his hikari's Yami's lips brushed Yuugi's as the young man tried to keep sane thoughts. Soft and delicate and always hot. He was failing miserably. The pharaoh would sweep his lips slightly against his hikari's, letting them rest only long enough to leave Yuugi wanting more. Melting. Yuugi felt as though he were melting into his darkness, breathing him in short ragged gasps, and not being allowed enough to satisfy him.

His salvation came with the ring of the phone. Pulling away from Yami with more effort than he thought humanly possible, Yuugi darted across the room to pick up the phone, answering it breathlessly. Yami growled at the interruption of what was turning into a potentially rewarding encounter. After some silence, Yuugi responded cheerfully to the caller.

"…of course I'll come. Yes, and Yami too…no I suppose you're right, it would be rude to leave him here….okay…see you soon Jii-chan." the phone clicked softly into its holder as Yuugi walked back past where was now leaning against the wall, looking rather irritated, and began to ascend the stairs before stopping to speak. Without turning to face his yami, he spoke, still quite breathless, heart beating hard against his ribcage. "Jii-chan found something on a dig he wants us to see. He just got back to Japan now and is on his way to pick us up."

"Where are we going?" Yami sighed sullenly as he watched Yuugi continue to climb the stairs and head for the bedroom. It looked like they would both have to wait for what they wanted. Black storm clouds drifted into view of the window, dimming the dazzling sunlight.

"Egypt."

YOU'RE JUST AN INNOCENT

A HELPLESS VICTIM OF A SPIDER'S WEB

AND I'M AN INSECT

GOING AFTER ANYTHING THAT I CAN GET

SO YOU'D BETTER TURN YOUR HEAD AND RUN

AND DON'T LOOK BACK

CAUSE I FEAR

THERE IS NOTHING LEFT TO SAY

TO YOU

THAT YOU WANNA HEAR

THAT YOU WANNA KNOW

I THINK I SHOULD GO

THE THINGS I'VE DONE ARE WAY TOO SHAMEFUL

AND I HAVE DONE YOU SO WRONG

TREATED YOU BAD

STRUNG YOU ALONG

OH SHAME ON MYSELF

I DON'T KNOW HOW I GOT SO TANGLED UP

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So there you have it. A long chapter too! I'm so proud! I know the Egypt thing is old and dead, but I swear this isn't going to turn into a 'let's learn about everyone's pasts' kind of fanfiction. This takes place after Yami knows who he is…blah blah blah…please review as always! *^^

The next chapter should be out sooner than this one was. Promise. I know where it's going now.

*mou hitori no boku: one of those irritating little phrases that doesn't translate well between Japanese and English, but it means roughly the other me.