Chapter Fifteen – Acceptance

Seto's POV

The sunlight is what awakens me. Somehow, I've managed to sleep until the sun came up… I never do that. It actually feels good.

I turn over to snuggle – I can admit it – closer to Yami… but he isn't there. I open one eye and look, and it turns out I'm right. He's gone already… damn. That means I have no excuse for not getting up.

I slide out of bed and into the shower, grabbing my school clothes on the way. In the morning – now – the events of last night all seem like a bad dream… maybe they were. No, I guess they can't be. Especially since I remember waking up from a dream last night… I sigh beneath the hot water. It really did happen. I don't… want to believe him. I don't want there to have been anything before this lifetime… especially this stuff I'm remembering. That would mean that he's killed me probably hundreds of times. And that I've killed myself for him several times. This life is already hard enough… I don't want to have to worry about that.

It also means we really did have that conversation last night. Maybe I'm an asshole… but he didn't take me up on it. I'm not sure why. Sex is sex. I know that that's what he wants, so why didn't he take it when I told him he could?

I wander downstairs with my hair still wet, idly wondering where Yami is. I didn't drive him off with my attitude, did I? I didn't mean to…

No – I find him in the kitchen. He's… cooking. Why is that? Who cares – it looks great. Smells good too. If he's going to cook every meal, maybe I'll eat them all…

"Yami?" He looks up at me and smiles, and my worry evaporates. He isn't angry with me or anything. I hadn't realized I was so concerned about it…

He sets the spatula down and wraps his arms around me. "Are you feeling better?" he asks, and I nod, taking a seat on a stool at the island. He strokes some hair out of my face and smiles. "Good. Breakfast, if you want it…"

I nod. "It smells good," I tell him quietly. He smiles again and puts a couple pancakes on a plate from the platter where they're cooling and adds a couple strips of bacon before setting it in front of me. He kisses my forehead quickly – that was strange – before going back to the stove and tending to his newest one.

I eat them quietly, but watch him. He seems completely indifferent, as though last night never happened… I honestly don't mind. I don't know why he's doing it, though…

"Good?" he asks, looking over his shoulder. I look down at my plate briefly in surprise and see the pancakes mostly gone, and nod, swallowing. "Yes… where did you learn to cook?"

"Yugi taught me… I was tired of feeling useless."

I just nod. "I should thank him…" It really is good.

He sits beside me with his own plate, sporting a stack several times the size of mine. I'm not bitter; he understands how much I can eat, even if I do like it. While I'm poking the bacon – I don't know yet if I've any desire to eat it – he takes my empty right hand and makes me look at him.

"You really are feeling okay?"

I nod. "I'm fine." Just a little worried when I couldn't find him this morning… then again, I'm paranoid, and usually worried about several things at once…

He nods and squeezes my hand, taking another forkful of pancake before he speaks again. "Seto… I want to talk to you."

I don't look at him. "Is this about last night?"

"Yes, it is. Seto…"

"Why didn't you take me up on it?" This will bother me for the rest of my life if I don't ask.

He squeezes my hand again. "Because you didn't want me to."

"But I told you you could. You wanted to."

"But you didn't want me to," he repeats. I shake my head. It only works like that in the movies…

He sighs and sets his fork down, wrapping his arms around me. I let my head rest on his shoulder; I feel warm and safe, no matter what he's going to say right now. I have to believe his promises…

"Seto, you know, you must know, how this is supposed to work… I love you, and I refuse to hurt you, even so much as to take advantage of you. If you don't want me to, I won't. I want to, I want to show you how much I love you and how it should be, but I won't until you will not only allow me but actually want me to."

To be honest, his words scare me. The unknown scares me. People are supposed to take what they want and fuck the will and desire of anyone else. That's how the world works. And here he is, claiming to love me and to want to treat me with some modicum of respect… the only respect I get is what I beat out of people. I don't really want this…

He just rubs my arm and makes me relax, as though he can read my thoughts. I think I'm done with breakfast.

"Let's stay home today, Seto," he suggests, far too reasonably for such a blasphemous sentence.

"I don't think we should… we need to go to school today."

"No, we don't."

"Is there an reason for this, or do you just feel like cutting class?"

I think he smiles. It sounds like it anyway. "We haven't been able to be alone for long… I think we need some time. We need to talk, because if we don't, we'll never get anywhere… every other night will be like last night, and we'll utterly destroy any progress we've made…"

He has a point, I suppose. A day completely alone to figure things out and such couldn't hurt, unless it breaks us apart… but if it does, then we only would have broken up anyway, and better sooner than later.

I finally nod, and he strokes my hair gently. We only have the briefest of moments of peace before Mokuba bounces in, grinning as he sees us, then zeroing in on the plate in front of me.

"Nii-sama – you ate breakfast?"

I nod, a little amused at the disbelief in his voice. "Yami is a good cook."

"Aww…" He pouts. "Any left for me?"

Yami smiles and points with his fork toward the counter. "You're welcome to any that's left. I don't think Seto wants any more…" I shake my head, and he nods. "And I'm rather full myself."

"Great!" He snatches the platter of pancakes and drowns them in enough syrup to make me gag from the smell alone. I gently sit up and tug on Yami's hand to pull him from the room. He follows willingly enough.

"Yami and I aren't going to school today," I tell Mokuba as we leave. "I'll see you after you get home." He just nods and waves us away.

Yami leads me – I've no idea when he took the lead – into one of the sitting rooms on the ground floor, where sunlight is streaming through sheer curtains and the entire room is warm and almost aglow. He pulls me toward a soft faded pink couch and settles me against him as he lies out, wrapping his arms around my shoulders. I rest my head on his shoulder and comfortably hold his hands in place.

Does he really love me? He keeps telling me so… I want to believe it, I really do. I like him a lot… I feel better with him than I do even with Mokuba. No offense to my brother, but Yami just makes me feel…

He keeps telling me he loves me. Does he expect me to say it back? Can I even do that? Not that I don't want to, but I'm not a good liar, and I've no idea if I do… But he hasn't minded yet. Maybe he doesn't mind. Maybe he understands. I hope so, because I don't want to lose him… I don't want to lose this. I hope we can work out anything that needs to be worked out today, so I won't have to worry anymore…

"Seto?"

He startles me, and I open my eyes to look up at him. He smiles when our eyes meet and strokes some hair out of my face. "I was just wondering if you were awake. Mokuba left about half an hour ago."

"Oh." I close my eyes and lean against him again. "Yeah, I'm awake." After a moment, I sigh, without moving. "You probably want to start talking about now…"

"We don't have to, if you don't want to."

For a while, I take him at his word, and the warm sunny silence reigns. I do have to speak, though. "About last night… I'm sorry."

"Do you even know what you're apologizing for?" It doesn't sound like an accusation, just a question.

"Of course I do. I'm apologizing for being paranoid and a bit out of it… I know you're not using me. I just… don't want to believe what you're saying… about the dreams…" My voice got progressively smaller there.

He rubs my back. "I understand that, Seto, I really do. I need you to, though… I need you to accept it. You'll never be happy if you don't… you'll always be afraid of me, and neither of us wants that…"

I nod in the crook of his neck. That's true. I don't want to be afraid of anything, especially him… "I'm also sorry for driving you away like I did…"

He kisses the top of my head, a strangely comforting gesture. "You're not apologizing for that, Seto," he tells me.

"Really…?"

"Really." He tilts my head up and kisses me softly. "You're apologizing for mistakenly thinking that Gozaburo ever did anything good for you. And you're promising to never think that gain."

"Am I?" Somehow, I hadn't known that…

He smiles. "You are. All he ever did was hurt you. Any lessons you learned were not ones that you ever needed to know…" He doesn't let me reply, leaning down to kiss me again. I let him. It doesn't really matter, does it? I suppose, maybe, I should believe him… not because I want to, but because he says so.

"Then I'm sorry for what he did to me…"

Yami frowns. Nope, apparently, I don't get it yet… "It wasn't your fault. I told you that."

"But you don't deserve sloppy seconds… someone's leftovers…"

This is incredible… he appeared to be about to slap me for a moment there. Infuriating, am I? "Don't say that," he tells ms. "It wasn't your fault, and you don't apologize for something that wasn't your fault. I'm just glad to have you; I thought I'd lost you forever. It doesn't matter what anyone else did to you; I love you, Seto, and I always will, no matter what."

I only stare at him for a moment; he really does care. After a moment, I offer him a tiny smile, and he wraps his arms tighter around me, leaning down to give me a kiss.

I shift in his arms to kiss him back more deeply, my hands resting lightly on his waist. After a moment, his kisses move to my neck and I tilt my head to the side for him. I run my hands up his sides, feeling his lithe body through his clothes. There can't be an ounce of fat on him, only hard lean muscles and taught skin…

He unbuttons the top two buttons on my shirt to nip at my collarbone, kissing away the slight sting, and shifts slightly under me until he can prop himself up and run his hand through my hair as he kisses me properly. It feels good to have his hands all over me – right, like something I never knew I was missing but I can't live completely without it.

This doesn't frighten me.

My shirt slides completely off my shoulders, still inside my coat. I do not now, and I have not since he came here, want him to look at me. My body is disgusting, pale and thin, with too many scars and not enough attention to how it looks. I've hidden it well, never exposing more of myself than I had to, never letting him see my body… But it was all in vain. It doesn't seem like he cares, or minds, pushing my arms away as I belatedly try to cover myself and kissing my chest with the utmost gentleness.

I don't understand it… how all this time I could have been missing something that I never had. I don't mean the sex, I've had that and hated it – I mean him.

I run my hand through his hair and down to pull his shirt off over his head. He never dressed for school, so I have no coat to have to deal with. His skin is smooth and soft, and his body is so much nicer than mine; he seems skinny, but he's muscular, too, and he obviously never skips meals to the point of anorexia. I like his body, so much I could probably stay here without going a single bit further all day…

We've shifted so that he's supported mostly overtop of me, rubbing my side gently. Most people, if they knew what he does, would perhaps think it would be kinder to me to let me be in control, to avoid triggering a flashback or reminding me of something I can't take. He knows… he knows I can't do that. I don't even have to tell him for him to understand that it would be too much like what was done to me, that I would rather have it happen to me a thousand times than do it to someone else. I don't know how he understands me so well, but I love him for it.

"Do you want me to, Seto?" he murmurs against my neck, sending a shiver down my spine as his hand rubs my stomach, brushing lower, against my pants.

I run my hand down his firm, tanned chest before I answer. "No…" I say finally. He recoils as though I burned him. Probably thinking, what? That I've responded, undressed him, because I've been trained to? No, I was trained to do nothing but lie there and take it.

I pull him back down and kiss him. "I don't want you to…" I murmur against his lips. "I need you to. It doesn't feel wrong… I can't stop now. I need to have this." And if he stops now, I will never forgive him, not after giving me a taste of it like this… Even if all of the deaths I've dreamed were true, I would hate him far more for leaving me like this than for all of them put together.

He smiles once, looking into my eyes, then slides one hand into my hair and kisses me again, his other hand opening my pants. There is a brief surge of apprehension, but I can overcome it easily and help him. Even the heavy golden weight of his Puzzle pressing coldly into my chest as it droops on its chain seems familiar and comforting…

Slowly ending the kiss, I pull off both his Puzzle and my locket simultaneously, shirting on the couch to set them aside on the table above my head. Neither Yugi nor Mokuba is with us now, no memories, no duties, no pasts. There is just us, and this. This is how I want it.

He is smiling as I look at him again, and murmurs "You used to like it with the Puzzle on…" He is slowly sliding my pants down as he kisses me, though, before I can make sense of it, and it doesn't seem all that important, really.

This time, he doesn't even bother to look at my body when he exposes it, just rubbing his hand down my side and the side of my leg in a way that feels so good without taking his eyes from my face. "You're beautiful, Seto…" he says quietly as he kisses me again; I want to point out that he didn't look, but that doesn't seem very important either. My hands slide down his boy but hesitate at his waist, leaving his pants alone. One last chance to back away.

He moves so that he doesn't need his arms to hold him up and gently puts his hands on both of mine as he continues to kiss me, gently guiding them to open his pants and push them down. It feels better to let him guide me, or maybe just to have his hands on my, and I move as slowly as possible.

Eventually his pants are dropped to the floor, though, and he presses his body against mine. We fit together so perfectly. And then he just proves himself again, and doesn't rush me, apparently happy to lie here and kiss me, feeling my body without pressuring me into anything I don't want, or making it seem like it's all he wants… I still want him, of course, and would hate him if he stopped… but not as much anymore, I think.

In the end, it's me that has to tear my mouth away from his neck and tell him to go on, that I don't want to wait anymore. He only smiles, as though that were a game to see who would give in – or is that give out? – first, but kisses me again and slides his body along mine as he pushes my legs apart, making me groan. Yes, I do want him now – very much, right now.

I'm used to doing it another way – they never wanted to see my face, I suppose – but he leaves me on my back like this and slicks his fingers in his mouth, removing them quickly to slide one inside of me. It's neither new nor painful; it's familiar, like it never has been before, and I welcome it.

I close my eyes as he prepares me; when he's done he pulls them out and pushes my legs up, positioning himself. He touches my face lightly and gets me to open my eyes, and I look up at him, finding his blood-colored eyes directly above mine.

"If it gets too much," he says quietly, "if you start to think it's him, or anyone else, just look at my face, and remember that it's me, and that I love you. If you have to, don't be afraid to tell me to stop. I will. If you ask me to, I will. I won't hurt you."

If nothing else, if I had any inclination to distrust him, his eyes convey his sincerity. I can't speak around the block that's suddenly formed in my throat, but I nod. No one has ever said anything like that to me. Ever.

He nods back and slowly begins to push his way into me. It isn't a violation, an intrusion, a crime, something to fight against. This is two pieces of a puzzle slowly falling together as I accept him, as he works his way into my body.

He finds his place, buried to his hilt inside me, and I change positions to wrap my legs around him and hold him there as, suddenly, I know I've been wrong all day, every day, since he first confronted me – none of what I thought was the ultimate rightness, not his holding me, his touching me, his being with me, none of those were what was so unbearably right. This is what is so right… this is the ultimate perfection in the universe, the cosmic alignment as everything falls into place. This is exactly… right.

"I love you…" he murmurs, holding still, and kisses me. I hold him down to draw it out. I need nothing more than to just stay here within this bubble of perfection for as long as we can do so…

"I love you too…" I manage to say, quietly, holding onto him. It sounds so strange, to hear that, coming out of my mouth… but it feels just so right. I can't explain it… I feel like I'm supposed to love Yami, and this is just fulfillment of the natural order.

Yami smiles and begins to move, drawing back for a moment before pushing back in, and repeat… He's being slow and drawing it out; I feel like we could do this for hours. I almost want to. Until Mokuba comes home, maybe…

I hear my voice cry out, but that's not important; the sudden pleasure as he hits that elusive spot inside of me is what's important. I feel myself pulling hm closer, and I know I want him to do that again, but neither of those has very much to do with my mind anymore.

"Yami, more… please…"

We obviously won't last hours. Five more minutes, maybe, if we're lucky, He doesn't reply, changing his position and repeating, finding the spot again. I can only hold on, telling him how good it is. There's no way I could start to think this was Gozaburo. No way. This is him, and it's so different…

"Gods, Atemu…" My face hides in the crook of his neck, pulling him against me. He enfolds my erection in a warm hand and begins stroking it, taking my breath away in a wash of excited sensation that makes me press against him without thought or compunction. I've never felt like this before…

"Gods, I love you… ntjr Seto… you are so beautiful…"

"Seti-koi… aishiteru… you're so beautiful…"

"Saiteau… God, you're beautiful, mon amor… Je t'adore…"

"Seto…"

"…so beautiful…"

"…I love you."

"Seto…" he murmurs breathlessly into my ear, audibly close to himself. "Gods. You're so beautiful, Seto… I love you…"

I cry out into his shoulder, digging my fingers into his back as he says it, driving me headlong over the edge in my mind and away from coherence, leaving me only with him, with the love of him that I can never express…

The world slowly comes back into focus. I could honestly care less about the fact, except that it allows me to realize that it's his comfortable warmth on top of me. A small noise of absolutely no meaning escapes me and I shift slightly to pry my fingers from his back. I think I made him bleed with my fingernails.

"I'm sorry about that, Atemu," I murmur to him, and wrap my arms around him to hold him close to me. I just don't want to let him go. I want to stay like this forever now.

He shifts as well and runs his hand through my hair. "You called me 'Atemu'," he says gently, as though expecting me to take it back.

"It's your name." I didn't mean to call him that, or so say my explanation aloud, but they're both right…. I know they are. Just like being with him feels right. And… maybe I should trust my instincts once in a while instead of ignoring them. I have a feeling my life will get easier.

He doesn't reply to that, only kisses me deeply, and I return it instantly.

"Seto…" he murmurs. "I'm never going to leave you…"

"I know. It's different this time."