Chapter 16

"Let me do this for you. Let me heal you. All you have to do is wish it."

Yugi barely registered the words. His mind was abuzz with possibilities, but caution made him hesitate. He scrubbed a hand over his eyes. "I can't... I need some time..." He took a deep breath and leaned into Atem's comforting embrace. "I need some time to think about this. It's a big change. Huge! I have to..."

Atem stilled Yugi's babble with a tender kiss. "Of course." He grinned. "In the meantime, I believe I was promised pancakes for breakfast."

Laughter bubbled up from somewhere in Yugi's chest. He felt oddly light, as if all those butterflies that had taken up residence in his belly were fluttering their wings at once. The tiny part of his brain not filled with thoughts of running and jumping without pain, spared a second to fear for the weather in China.

"Pancakes. Right!" He stepped back, still clasping Atem's hand, and tugged. "So, what'll it be? Blueberry or chocolate chip? Your wish is my command."

They both froze. His giddiness evaporating, Yugi paled. He hadn't meant the words to be mocking; they'd just slipped out. He risked a peek at the genie. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean-"

Atem's laughter interrupted the apology. "It's okay, Yugi."

Relieved, Yugi pulled him toward the door. "So? Blueberry or chocolate chip?"

"Both."

"You know, it's a good thing you're a genie. Otherwise, with the way you eat, you'd be as big as a house in no time."

"Shut up and make with the pancakes."

"Yes, dear."

-o0o-

After they'd eaten roughly an IHOP's worth of pancakes, Yugi stood at the sink, up to his elbows in soapy water. Sure, he could have let Atem magic the mess away, but he had always found the act of washing dishes to be relaxing and good for focusing his thoughts. And, boy, did he feel in dire need of some focus right now. As he scrubbed the plates clean of the syrupy remains of breakfast, he pondered their current dilemma.

"Your mind is a thousand miles away." Atem's deep voice drew Yugi from his tangled reverie. "What are you mulling over so fiercely?"

"Seto." Gaze on the faded colors of one of his mom's hand-crocheted, Japanese dishcloths as he swished it through the water, Yugi sighed. "It may not seem like it from his recent actions, but he's been a good friend to me over the last year. On his own terms, anyway. Seto really has a hard time doing 'friendship'. I think he doesn't like how vulnerable it makes him.

"But he put himself out there for me. I'll never be able to repay him for going to bat with the other regents for me. He saved my job. Sure, I may've been relegated to tackling the impossible inventory, but if it wasn't for his intervention, I'd be flipping' burgers this summer instead of sorting artifacts. And he's a good listener. He used to let me rant for hours, if I needed to. "

Atem accepted the plate Yugi handed him to rinse and dry. "That does not sound like a man who would resort to petty name-calling."

"That's just it. He's not! It's not like him at all. I know I hurt him, so I'm not all that surprised he lashed out at me. But the way he did it, calling me a 'cripple'... That wasn't Seto. Maybe when he was a kid, he might have done it...but now? No way. He'd have come up with something subtle and cutting, not a schoolyard taunt. And that phone call afterward? That was just bizarre. This... all that's been happening... It's just not the Seto I thought I knew." Yugi shifted so that he could look Atem in the eyes. "Of course, last night pretty much threw everything I thought I knew about him out the window, anyway."

Bending closer, Atem nuzzled Yugi's cheek. It was an oddly comforting gesture and Yugi leaned into the caress.

"Okay." The genie dropped a chaste kiss on Yugi's nose before resuming his assigned task. "So, why do you think he came here last evening?"

"That's what I was trying to figure out. Seto doesn't like people, and he especially doesn't like Joey or Téa. He'd never willingly subject himself to their company for a few minutes, much less for hours. I mean, just to watch a movie? It doesn't make any sense."

Yugi was silent for a moment. Now that he thought about it, Seto had been acting 'off' for a while, not just since that disastrous date. In fact, it had started when Seto returned from Turkey. He had gone there to see if he could find anything to help clear Yugi's name of the theft charges. It was shortly after his return that he had asked Yugi out. Come to think of it, even that was kind of strange. They had been friends before that, but Seto had never expressed an interest in being anything more. The invitation to dinner and a movie had come out of left field, but Yugi had been feeling so depressed (and, yes, lonely) that he had accepted without much thought for the oddity. Now, he was regretting his impulsiveness.

Having finished the dishes as they talked, Yugi let the water out of the sink and wrung out the crocheted tawashi, draping it over the faucet to dry. "Okay, so it looks like Seto's figured out – or at least suspects – the truth about you."

"He certainly seemed to," Atem agreed, mouth turned down in a deep frown.

"Yeah... You said that, even if he gets his hands on the puzzle, he can't use it to control you?"

"He... shouldn't be able to." For the first time, the genie looked a bit uncertain. "It's never worked that way for anyone else."

"Why am I hearing a 'but' in that statement?"

"But... What if he wants the puzzle for some other reason?"

Yugi's eyes widened. "Like what?"

"I don't know."

They had both begun to pace, passing each other heading in opposite directions as they worried at the conundrum.

Finally, Yugi slammed on the brakes and spun around to face Atem, stopping so fast he almost collided with his lover when Atem didn't immediately correct for the sudden change of direction.

"Okay," Yugi said, in a take-charge tone of voice. "We're not taking any chances with your safety, so here's what we're going to do. We're going to retrieve the puzzle and put it somewhere Seto can't get hold of it."

"If that's what you want. I'm still not convinced it's a real problem. How would he know where to even look for the puzzle?"

"How does he know you're a genie? As for finding the puzzle... I learned a long time ago never to underestimate Seto Kaiba." Still, maybe Atem was right. How would Seto know where to begin looking for the... And then a terrible thought hit Yugi. "The inventory!"

"What?"

"You said every object in every room... Is the puzzle included in the inventory?"

"I..." Hesitating, Atem frowned. "I don't think so."

"You don't know?"

"I admit, I let the magic take care of the details. It might have included the puzzle, although I don't think it would. After all, the puzzle's presence is transitory. It's going to disappear soon."

"Don't remind me. I hate thinking about you leaving." Shaking himself, Yugi added, "This means we don't have much time. He could check the inventory and, if the puzzle's in there, it would lead him straight to it. Your magic was too damn thorough." Near panic, Yugi suddenly realized he was forgetting something important. Like the fact that... "You're a genie! You can just magic the puzzle here."

When nothing happened, he eyed Atem in surprise. "Well? What are you waiting for? Alakazam, already!"

"Unfortunately, my magic cannot directly affect the puzzle. Otherwise, I would have destroyed the cursed thing centuries ago."

Right. Why was nothing ever simple? Pausing only long enough to snatch up the cane he'd left propped against the wall, Yugi began a hobbling sprint for the door. "Okay, fine. We'll just have to break a few traffic laws, 'cause I want to get there as quick as humanly possible."

"Or I could just magic us there." At Yugi's look, Atem added, "I may not be able to bring the puzzle here to us, but there's nothing preventing me from taking us to the puzzle."

"Other than the fact that your little teleportation trick nearly gives me a coronary every time you use it, you mean. Besides, what if somebody saw us? We can't risk blipping in and out of thin air like that."

"Why not? I can always make them forget they had seen us."

"We are not the Men in Black! We can't go around messing with people's memories!"

Scowling down at him, Atem said, "What does the color of our clothing have to do with anything?"

"You- It- We are so having our own version of movie night once we have the puzzle safely at home."

When Atem simply stared at him for a long moment, Yugi hastily replayed the last few seconds of conversation over in his mind, but couldn't figure out what he might have said to earn that particular expression, which appeared caught halfway between fond and bemused. Then Atem smiled and slid an arm around Yugi's shoulders to give him a gentle squeeze.

"Whatever you say, sweetheart." The genie grinned. "But I'm driving."

-o0o-

Atem parked the car in the lot behind Crawford Hall, and Yugi tumbled out of the door, only Atem's quick reflexes saving him from face-planting onto the asphalt. Yugi groaned. "You are never getting behind a steering wheel again!"

Atem frowned down at the man dangling limply in his arms. "My driving is not that bad."

"On what plane of reality?" Yugi groaned, twisting to shoot the genie an incredulous glance. Atem made demolition derby drivers look like the fabled little old lady from Pasadena. It was surely only thanks to divine intervention (and the judicious application of magic) that they'd made it to the school in one piece. After a moment, Yugi's wobbly legs decided to resume supporting his weight. Holding out his hand, he snapped his fingers in a gesture that brooked no arguments. "Give me the keys. For the sake of my poor abused nerves, I'll be the one driving us home."

"It's not my fault that stupid silver Volvo cut me off at the intersection!"

"It's your fault you turned it into a donkey cart."

"A donkey cart is about all that driver could handle." Atem gave a haughty sniff. "I did him a favor."

"Argh!" Throwing his hands up in the air and giving it up as a lost cause, Yugi limped toward the faculty entrance at the back of the building. Less grand than the public entrance at the front, it had the saving grace of being a mere dozen steps from a service elevator.

Atem caught up with him half that distance later and offered the cane Yugi was certain he'd forgotten to bring along from the car. He accepted it with a grateful smile and leaned his weight on it, taking some of the strain off his weak leg.

Frowning down at him, Atem asked, "Would it not be easier to allow me to conjure us directly to the floor where we left the puzzle?"

"Didn't we already have this conversation? We'll take the elevator like normal people. Somebody could see us— And, no! You can't erase their memories if they do. "

As if to prove Yugi's point about being observed by random passers-by, a young male voice called out, "Yugi! Hey, Yugi – Wait up!"

Looking back toward the source of the shout, Yugi's eyes widened as the last person he'd expected to run into at Crawford Hall hurried toward him.

-o0o-

Not the longest chapter, but since it's been so long since I was able to update this story, I figured you guys might like it anyway. :)

ETA: A big "thank you!" to Kurama no Miko2003 for pointing out that I accidentally called Atem "Yami" several times in this chapter (the perils of flying without a beta reader, my friends), an error that I have now corrected.