Hey guys! Hopefully you'll enjoy this week. Gambit chapter one is up tonight. Please go check it out.
Chapter 1: Act 4: Flipping the Board
Drea wanted to tremble, every astral muscle tried to spasm, and curling his fingers he pursed his lips, bit his tongue and curled. On his stomach, on his forearms, forehead scraping sheets the softness of the nest offered no comfort. Sequesters dealt pain and as they said in Troy: don't ever deal any more than you can take. Drea was the best, Drea destroyed, Drea could take what would have a Champion writhing on the tiles or the splatter of the battle field. He lived in the trenches of the supernatural and natural turf war to keep the cap on the great secret of how the universe was run.
"Ah…" he hissed low, groaning through his teeth, panting out. "You're sure-" he paused choking "-they can't find us here?"
"No God can penetrate into a black spot. Ammit can't even see his child anymore. You're off the radar." Zorc murmured somewhere not so far off as Drea contained himself trying to pace his words to hold in the screaming instinct.
"Good," he spat, "I could…" another pant, "I could be given a sentence in Limbo for a violation like this."
"Your trial will be over soon." Zorc assured. "You have impressive resolve."
"I don't-" he grunted round the knot in his chest, "-need your pity. Ah!"
Everything radiated with the throb of the call. His edges of his soul were caught. He had twined them up in a bundle for this inane, insane, plan. He had trapped himself, core, soul and all, in his astral form and refused the fishing line summons trying to tug him back to his body. To dissect his soul like this from his current physical body was agonising and until that body died, soulless but capable of breathing if nothing else, he could not reincarnate. He was past the point of no return. He was dooming himself for this plan of Zorc's with very little real information. He shouldn't trust this thing, this World Eater, but for a chance…
Drea would do anything.
Zorc probably didn't look as human as his current visage would suggest. Drea could feel it. He was a supernatural detective, a hit man, he knew monsters in the night and he knew this thing was in no way, shape or form anything like a human being. He doubted it had a heart. He imagined this was what it felt like to be with Lilith the Mother of the Seers. So it was with millenniums of inbuilt, trained and weathered instinct that he took the fleeting touch of the thing's fingers through his hair. Repulsion turned his head.
"Don't touch me." He spat. It was the prying, curious, crawl of a spider over something new. It was animal, slime, less-than-ness sneaking over him without real human compassion he could sense. "Ghn…"
"Very impressive," it resolved with a lilt, taloned fingers hovering over him. "I am already fond of you."
"If this," Drea warned viciously, "if this is all some game I will destroy you. You better come through."
"I will. You underestimate me."
"You still haven't told me," he groaned pathetically and chastised himself, "what you want in return for all this."
"A moment of Atreyu's time, something fleeting, something new and nothing irreparable."
"Bullshit." He spat in agony. "No one does this for nothing."
"What's meagre to you is grand to me." Zorc supposed. "If you do not trust why comply with this feeling?"
"Loneliness." Drea muttered through clenched teeth. "Heh," he laughed hoarsely, "what have I got to lose?"
"Loneliness?" Zorc seemed to play with the word as if it were new and gathering it up to some conclusion that clawed maw of a hand, the joke of the appendage in some human shaped mockery, settled between Drea's clothed shoulder blades as they shook and ran down his mildly quaking spine.
His hair splayed round his face, his eyes burned, his cheeks aflame from fever and Drea had no strength to argue with his soul and this ridiculous monster at once. He let it pat him, try to comfort perhaps or simply satisfy curiosity, and those claws came cold through his hair like a fresh breeze. He collapsed from his elbows, submerged face down in the softness of the nest in this black spot of the universe the World Eater had somehow made where gods did not apply, and shook through this torment.
It patted him, like a cat petting its owner, and bizarrely disgusting as it was to Drea's disposition he allowed it for the moment.
"So," Leon murmured beside Yugi as Jaden argued with his parents over the cell, "are you happy it's Yami?"
"Ecstatic," Yugi cooed. "He's…He is Jenzar Fraveous. He belongs in Camelot."
"I thought so too," he laughed, arm still hooked in Yugi's. "Gave us a fright didn't he?"
"That's Jenzar for you," they sighed with mutual understanding, "never a dull moment."
"Well hopefully we can steal a few for a little while." Leon pleaded.
"I'm not even going to pretend," Yugi snorted as Jaden shoved his phone back into his pocket, eyes rolling back, groaning. "How'd it go?"
"You'd think you were a bunch of Vikings and I was asking them to go rape, pillage and plunder down town Tokyo." He huffed. "What do I look like? Squishy and molestable?"
"Something like that." Leon teased.
"Eh!"
"They're your parents. They have to worry." Yugi quirked. "If they didn't worry about you buggering off with older men I'd be ripping you out of there. I wouldn't let you do it. Yami'd be picking you up."
"I'm seventeen." Jaden postured flippantly. "I can handle myself."
"Nope, sorry," he snorted, "I don't care if you're thirty or thirty-thousand."
"To Trey we're all still five." Leon chuckled.
"It's kinda cool if it's Trey though," Jaden teetered playfully.
"Heh," Yugi laughed, "Yami better hurry the fuck up. I'm freezing!"
The con was closing up for the day. Hordes of teenagers had already dispersed in the falling sunlight and waiting outside the double glass doors onto the back car park the three of them had huddled like penguins. Mokuba and Joey had already left an hour ago. Joey was a little sore from the duelling, ever so slightly, when Yugi pulled out all the stops to thrash the remaining table hoppers the blonde American, Leon and Jaden included. They'd had fun but Joey had been, from what Yugi understood, on something of a confidence roll in the professional duelling circuit since Kaiba had taken a vacation from it. It was healthy to get a little taken aback every now and again Yugi supposed but he had assured the blonde he wasexceptionally talented.
Really Yugi probably had an unfair advantage over Joey. Luck magic didn't work on Faens and without that the entire strategy of Joey's deck with the chance fail safe's he had to fall back on fell apart. Yugi made the entire duel strategy based. Joey was a competent duellist but chance sometimes took things out of your hands and forced both players into corners to adapt. Not with Yugi. He liked the blonde though, very much, he was glad the Luck Lottery would be sticking around even if Joey didn't realize he was part of a coven.
Leon and Jaden, his Nephele and Morphis, were actually rather dashing duellists themselves. Yugi understood the attraction to the game for them like he did for himself. It drew a lot of the soul types who maintained order and retained memories. Pegasus knew that he was sure. Jaden had a ways to go but there was flair and Leon, Lord, Leon knew strategy and Leon had a very well built deck.
Rubbing his upper arms furtively Yugi and his cohorts gave a relieved little cheer where Yami emerged from the double doors and threw his hands over his head.
"Sorry guys," Yami greeted, fingers skirted ruffling over Jaden's head and crept snug round Yugi who leant back into the warmth. "I'm starving! Who wants Italian?"
"Indian," Yugi and Leon chorused.
"Indian then," he laughed, tilting to Jaden. "You have fun without me?"
"Everything is epic and nothing hurts."
Jaden ate like no one had ever fed him and Yugi hardly noticed that Leon was even a little bit older than him or Jaden. Leon and Jaden argued like they'd been raised together, really they had many times, which only made it harder to think they hadn't been weened together for four hundred years. Yami glowed beside him at the table as Yugi scrapped rice out of the little kitschy tin urn the waiter had left. This was the celebration he'd wanted. He couldn't have all his family present because of the Secrecy Pact and his Natural World coven might not be in attendance tonight but for a little moment he just wanted what amounted to Jenzar and the kids. This was Yugi's version of normalcy. It made the tension in his neck ease.
This called for a sacrifice, it occurred to Yugi, like some medieval knight who added a new flourish to their coat of arms after a particularly legendary battle the Champions liked to mark things. As a Faen Yugi, Atreyu, was more disposed to make an offering of some sort back to the universe in thanks as some kind of way to assure this happiness a little longer. Call it karma buffering.
The drinks were winding down and he'd have to get the others home soon, so shuffling in his seat Yugi fished in Yami's pocket unceremoniously.
The Champion jumped.
"Warn me why don't ya?" Yami laughed as he startled the pair of them with his reaction.
"Sorry," Yugi snorted, fishing out the other's smartphone. "In my head a little."
"What do you need?" The author offered as Yugi brought up goggle on his handset, one firm hand resting on the back of Yugi's chair, and the Faen could sense a prickle of Champion instinct riling to life. The traditional head of family wanted to provide.
"Just wondering if there's a piercing parlour nearby," Yugi answered casually and while Leon seemed perplexed Yami had, to his credit, apparently acclimatized himself to this sort of thing because he didn't appear anywhere near as surprised as he should've been.
"Okay?" He supposed. He really would let Yugi get away with anything wouldn't he?
"Oh my god!" Jaden clapped. "Can I get a tatt?"
"No." All three adults chorused unanimously.
"Oh come on," he whined, "it'll be fun! Just a little one?"
"You are like the universal voice of bad ideas…" Leon snorted. "Like Wheatly."
"Makes Yugi GLaDos," Jaden quirked.
"Yami's Chell." He agreed.
"What's that make you?" Jaden supposed to Leon.
"Pfft, newbs," Yugi laughed gesturing round the table with a sharply pointed finger as he assigned roles. "I'm Caroline, Yami's Cave Johnson, Leon's Chell, Jaden's Wheatly and Drea's GLaDos. Back me up here Jenz?"
"Is now a bad time to say I have no idea what you're talking about?" Yami hesitated to receive several pained groans in reply. "What?I never got round to playing it!"
"Charlatan," Leon murmured dramatically, "blasphemer."
"Shun the non believer?" Jaden suggested with a giggle.
"Cha-arlie," Yugi mumbled under his breath as he bit his own lip against the giggles.
Jaden and Leon collapsed and before another breath could be ushered all three of them were cackling while Yami, poor thing, looked even more flustered and bamboozled than a moment ago. What had Virginia Woolf written once about birds speaking in Greek? Yugi tried to recall it before remembering his total aversion to all things Woolf.
"I feel old all of a sudden," Yami chuckled.
"I feel ancient," Yugi grinned.
"So, question," Yami murmured, "why are we going to a piercing parlour? Do I have to swear a vow of fealty or something?"
"Nah, I just want to…" he fumbled, "I don't know, sanctify this."
"Does that mean I'm about to get prodded with sharp objects?"
"As much as I'm sure you'd love it, no," Yugi grinned. "It's my turn."
"Oh?"
"Who wants to come with?" Yugi diverted.
"Me!" Jaden called automatically thrusting his hand in the air like he was in a fictitious classroom startling the awkwardly glancing diners round them.
"Well too bad," Yami shot playfully, "it's like eight thirty. You need to go home. Don't you have school tomorrow or something?"
"Screw school. The only education I need is in ass kicking," Jaden shrugged dismissively assembling all his swagger into one concentrated blast, "and I'm top of that class."
"Ah-huh, sure hero," Leon chuckled. "I can drive you home if you like? Nicer than catching the bus."
"Yeah?" He wavered at the prospect. Deep down Yugi was quite sure Jaden understood no amount of posturing would convince he and Yami to let the teenager stay out with them too late. When Jaden turned eighteen, Yugi grinned, heaven help him. It would be a coven birthday to remember. He could already see it. He had to plan this things after all.
"You got our numbers and email?" Yami checked and beaming Jaden nodded himself silly like his brains might rattle out his ears, like a puppy really. Yugi couldn't fault his enthusiasm. It had been a massive confidence boost for him to discover about the Faens and to have friends in on the secret filled a gaping hole so many of them dealt with.
"Okay, then I'll go get the bill," Yami decided over Leon and Yugi's protests. "No, don't give me that, if I want to spoil the three of you then I will do the spoiling thank you."
"I thought you were going to punch the piercer," Yugi cackled as he flipped the locks of the front door, wiggling his nose.
"It looked like it hurt," the Champion returned protectively, twitching back as he threw off his jacket. "Doesn't it?"
"Little bit," the Faen admitted, "I kinda like the sting though."
Yami fumbled quietly at the massive side table near the front door and Yugi didn't regret causing the minor testosterone seizure for a second. Tonight had been normalcy reformed in the twentieth century. He felt more like Atreyu than he had in three centuries and with that under his belt he rather liked the crinkling ache of the nose stud. He liked having Leon and Jaden's numbers in his phone again. He liked having his coven expanded. He liked having Yami. He liked the protective flicker of queasiness he'd heard Yami moan with when, hissing, Yugi had felt the piercer dig the needle into the metal plaque just inside his right nostril. It was just like Jenzar, Yami now, to want to hit someone, tense his arms from shoulder to curled firsts, when it was Yugi's choice to endure the pain.
"You know that really turns the Pharaoh on," Yami mumbled uneasily. "I can hear him purring in my head. He's like a really perverted tumour."
"You get used to it." Yugi winked.
Heba loved piercings too and there was an old tribal warrior somewhere in Yugi's head, some Rengul, who quite loved war paint and ceremonial tattoos. Their enjoyment seeped into him and made new experiences seem mellower. Every new moment was lurching into a fresh pool before realizing it wasn't so new at all. Every time Yugi thought he was doing something he had never done before his immortal memory supplied comparisons: rainforest streams he'd bathed in looking up to the sunlight through the canopy, a thousand other stranger forms of body modification he'd endured, and even a myriad of sexual positions he'd tried. It made the universe less frightening. Yugi could see things differently, sense things, and it was much less frightening to learn math when he remembered learning Latin.
"You're not scared of him?" Yami asked and blinking Yugi leant back into the door as the Champion approached languidly to fold his body over Yugi's smaller form. He was older than Yugi, by no short stretch, and it bamboozled Yugi to think Yami had found him attractive despite the age gap.
"Of course not," he murmured, distracted by the ruddy, downy, warmth of the taller body as his fingers fumbled over Yami's clavicle. "He's part of you. He'd never hurt us. He might kill someone else but he'd never hurt us."
Yami's hands glided up his side, the Champion leant into him, and slowly the man softened to nuzzle the side of Yugi's face. The Faen tensed in curiosity, was Yami switching with another incarnation? No, he still felt like himself but he held Yugi a little closer purposefully.
"Mine right?" He whispered.
"All yours," Yugi cooed weakly, fingers tangling round his neck as he tried to pull himself up more into Yami.
"I love you so much," Yami hushed into his cheek, fingers squeezing at the small of the Faen's back snug between his tee-shirt and the door. Yugi floundered a little at the outpouring, unsure, caught between anxiety and gooey submissive joy.
"I love you," he promised sincerely, he did. He wondered if Yami had any idea how happy he was that he didn't have to share. How glorious it was that Atemu was his, would stay with him, and would have a future with him. "What's wrong?"
"It's just so surreal." The author laughed breathlessly against his cheek. "It's like… I don't know. Suddenly I don't have to be worried any more. This is my family and you're mine but it's so weird. It's like… like I read all seven Harry Potter books and then the next day I amHarry Potter. My minds' kinda shell shocked with, like, a dangerous happy overload. It's not bad I just…"
"What?" Yugi insisted guiltily.
Was this his fault? Probably, he rued. He rushed ahead and no doubt Yami was having a late onset of whiplash now the initial surge was done. They had so little time to detox in this life. It was stupid but part of Yugi was nervous that Yami was unhappy being Jenzar, that he'd rather be independent of them after all and centuries wondering if Jenzar had left him played at his concerns now.
"I'm sorry," Yami answered oddly but with immense sincerity.
"Sorry?" The Faen baulked. "What the hell for? You haven't done anything!" Except from being exceptionally awesome of course.
"I just feel like I should've been here," he mourned resting his weight into Yugi. "The part of me that is Atemu, yeah that was okay because I was too weak to do anything, but the part of me that was in the Seer nest… I feel stupid for getting caught. I promised to protect you and I got tricked like a dumbass. I feel like I should've known better."
"Hey, shh," Yugi snapped grasping at Yami's cheeks. "That's never happened before. I don't even know how Cassidia focused long enough to think of something smart like that and stick with it. It was like a fish walking. You're not superman, how were you supposed to know? They played on how much you loved me. You weren't an idiot. Any other Champion would've run guns blazing into that."
"I feel like I should've." He chastised weakly nose to nose. "I can't make up not being here to your past lives, to you, and… I hateknowing you were alone and scared. I hate that you had to protect me."
"Come on, give me a little credit, I can take it." The Faen defended lightly. "Besides if it was going to happen to anyone better it was us. We kick ass. I don't know a Champion other than you, Amar or Yusei who ripped in two could've found their way back to their Faens. You found me. You didn't even know who you were. You never gave up. You did amazing. If we were still in the 1400s minstrels would be writing little ballads about you right now. That's legendary types of awesome."
"I'm just frustrated," Yami sighed, burying his face into Yugi's plush cheek. "You're precious. If anything had happened to you while I was gone…"
"I'm fine." Yugi stressed arms hooked tight round his shoulders.
"Yeah but you always say that," the Champion chuckled, "you had a sword in one side and out the other and you told me you were peachy once."
"It was a nice day." Yugi grinned. "I'm not going to let a little murder spoil a lovely afternoon."
Yami laughed, weak, arms flexing round him securely. Yugi worried the Champion's spine with his palms trying to reassure some tension out of the limbs that were coiled round him so intensely. It was a little wave of sadness but Yami seemed to be lifting his head above it. Typically it was more the fear that something might've happened than anything that had actually happened which was cloying, tearing, at Yami-Jenzar.
"I want to take you to bed." The author whispered softly. "I don't want to let you go."
"Never have to." He promised heels twisting in the carpet revelling in the fact that behind Yami there was no salt line and no longer any need for one.
They'd coil in the bed again. Yugi would feel the bizarre warmth of another body limply lulled behind him for another night and be soothed down to his core into a deeper sleep than he'd known in years. Hopefu-
The air round the house rang suddenly.
Yugi tensed, cutting the thought, and round him Yami stiffened like a roused dragon raising its muzzle to an intruder. The Faen expanded his senses, focused, and could almost hear Yami's brain ticking over with the same inquisitive thrumming. His back felt cold, light seemed to flicker in the dark hallway, and twisting in Yami's arms Yugi pressed his eye to the stain glass panel.
How they did this so naturally, without ever needing explanation, was the very tangible embodiment of real magic. Yugi's secret world solidified and he was at once very chilled in his jeans as if a frigid draft was slipping under the bottom of the front door. He scanned outside, blurred by the colours and texture of the glass, in the darkness under the street light to make out the hazed but solid figure looming in view. He could make out little else but the blackened outline but his core could sense the foulness in a way he couldn't word and it instantly made him uneasy.
"There's someone outside," he whispered, "on the sidewalk down the stairs."
"It's a Seer." Yami told him certainly. "I can feel it."
"One of the stragglers left on Earth during the fight with Cassidia." Yugi nodded afraid to drag his eye away because it seemed improper or dangerous. "They don't have a new Queen for Earth now, not yet anyway-"
"Working off its own instincts then," the Champion murmured, grasping Yugi's elbow firmly. "Back up a little Baby. Go stand by the stairs."
"But-" protective instinct made Yugi flair.
"I'll make it go away," Yami promised quietly confident, and Yugi was conflicted to agree with him or to overrule him.
He couldn't really do that anymore however he realized. Yami was Jenzar. Yami knew more about this than even Atreyu did. It was his job to deal with this kind of conflict, the knight and protector of the home. Yugi would have no luck arguing but after four centuries alone and months mothering, coddling, Yami's weakness he fought himself to peel back from the door.
Watching intently Yugi lingered at the banister of the stair well, unnerved, and straight as a ruler in his posture Yami waited unwaveringly with his hand on the handle of the door. Atreyu, Yugi, had forgotten this. This feeling of clustering himself up in the blankets, hiding the little ones against his breast, while Jenzar snuck out of their shack or palace and chased the demons of the universe back to whatever hells they had crawled out of.
The memory was razor sharp now, acute, and Yugi at once recalled the life times when he didn't yet remember he was Atreyu where Yami's past lives had. Once, it must've been in Russia, Yugi hadn't remembered it all yet and Jenzar knowing before him what was going on had taken charge. They'd been in an empty house, Yugi had been a small boy that time, and Yami's past self (Rosco wasn't it?) had wrapped him snug in a blanket as suddenly the doors of the abandoned hovel had begun knocking slowly. Yami, Jenzar, had told him not to leave the room for anything till the elder returned and Yugi's past self distinctly remember the screeches, the whooshing slaps, like a great man sized bat had been let in the front door as he hid in the bedroom. He remembered hearing the struggle, remembered Yami's past self coming back, remembered being scared and held and told everything was fine. How many times had Jenzar told him that nothing bad would ever happen?
In the present Yami unlocked the front door slowly and as quiet as they were Yugi could hear the shuffle of footsteps up the front steps.
There was no way a Seer could pass the threshold of this house with all the fortified Mountain King-esque magic Yami and Yugi had layered into the walls. The red net of Yami's magic wouldn't allow it and the pendant which was the Lance of Lazarus hummed warm against Yugi's clavicle in the mounting chill. Still the Seer might follow them, might watch them, like a rat waiting for a crack to exploit and just the presence hanging over them was exhaustingly unnerving. It was the same feeling of knowing a lion or a wolf was just outside and hungry.
Yami was transformed in that dim light from the frazzled, racoon eyed, author Yugi had put himself in the way of months ago. He was ready, steeled, waiting for just the right second to pounce like a finely muscled predator on the threshold with its hind legs tensed. Yami had undergone so much change under Yugi's watchful eye. He'd seen it happen before him like dye colouring paint to slowly deepen with swirls. He'd seen Ryou become miserable but resolved to his bittersweet love, seen Kaiba become an ass then a terrified maraca then an even bigger ass, and seen himself transfigure from a mouse to a star with a nuclear powerhouse. Yet to see Yami from the stumbling, naturally charming but ruffled sweet guy to the regal hero eager to run to his defence was magnificent and fresh. It was to Jenzar's credit that every single piece of him would keep fighting even under the hardest circumstances. Even without a core beautiful Atemu, Yami, had followed Yugi to the ends of the earth and beyond.
The Seer, waiting on the door step, knocked.
Cocky bastard.
Yami gave a warning growl, wrenched the door open and before Yugi could let go of the banister to lurch to him the Champion delivered a hard, well directed, crunching slap to the grinning face.
The teen body the Seer possessed, stumbled back giddily, blinking and at once the toothy grin on the human face had vanished along with the sharp darkness of the eyes. At once there was a befuddled teenage boy on their doorstep blinking dumbly at Yami.
"W-where?" He gasped stupidly as he was wrenched from the possession.
Yugi's shock caught his laugh in a ball in his throat.
"Go home and stop playing with Oujia boards." Yami ordered in a deadpan snapping the door shut.
"D-Did?" Yugi laughed despite himself. "Did you just slap a Seer out of their meat-sack?"
"Mayhaps," the Champion quirked smugly over his shoulder, flicking the locks shut easily.
"Ha!" The Faen cackled delightfully. "Oh my god! I love you! I am madly, hopelessly, in love with you!"
"It was kinda cool wasn't it?" Yami grinned wickedly as pounding across the carpet Yugi flung himself back into his arms. The Faen scrambled almost up the Champion, fingers curling through his locks, to drag Yami into a firm haplessly childish kiss.
The Champion gave a smug trill in the back of his throat and riled right back to that joyful place Yugi's core carried him the last inches from affection into attraction. It was a precipice he'd walked with Yami but now he could kiss him guiltlessly it was hard to convince Yugi's core that they should keep their hands off him for more than a moment. He jumped to Yami's touch and there was something about the competency with which Yami protected him which made him nearly lusty in a kind of pearl sheen.
Yugi curled his fingers in Yami's shirt and tugged.
"Hmm?" Yami purred tilting his head.
"Couch or bed. Pick one." Yugi ordered softly.
"Hah," he snorted, "I'm guessing we're not sleeping?"
"Okay, I picked couch," the Faen replied dismissively. "Scoot."
The author laughed merrily, nearly flushed, and after Yugi had flicked the lounge room light collapsed on the sofa. In response Yugi was quite brisk to clamber into Yami's lap, hook his hands in the collar of his shift, and straddling his lap eagerly pulled him into a kiss. Their lips smacked, messy, all post-adolescent hormones bubbling and Yugi found himself making a satisfied sound in the back of his throat. Unwilling to break contact he sounded again when Yami's hands skimmed up his leg and wrapped round his waist.
Yugi's soul, his core, was tingling to be closer, impossibly closer, and nearly standing on his knees the Faen attempted to have as much of their forms in direct contact as possible. Yami laughed a little between a kiss at his keenness and with one arm stout round his hips and the other hand grasping behind the younger's neck pulled Yugi back down to sit properly in his lap. The Faen whined, Yami's hand ran under the back of his top, and as Yugi tried to straighten against him again the Champion held him still to pepper light kisses along the column of his neck.
"I don't think you can get any closer," he teased. "You're welcome to try but really."
"Hmm," Yugi tilted under another kiss, "shut up because reasons."
"You've never done this before have you?" Yami appeared to realize softly. "I'm the first aren't I?"
"Ah-huh," he admitted freely, and nestling in a little Yugi forced their foreheads together rather sheepishly. "You were actually my first kiss too."
"Oh," Yami sighed, was that with embarrassment or pleasure? "You were waiting?"
"Jenzar Fraveous had my virginity on layby all through high school." Yugi shrugged.
"I'm totally going to trap you under me on this couch now, okay?" He smiled cheekily floundering under a surge of whatever emotion Yugi couldn't quite identify. "That's way too…God."
"Oh no," the Faen chided, hands pushing at Yami's shoulders to force him back sternly into the couch. "You're staying right there."
The author frowned mildly but wouldn't bother arguing with Yugi smiling the way he was. Jenzar Fraveous had a weakness for his smile that Yugi wasn't above exploiting. The younger slipped in his lap and knees hitting the carpet Yami shuffled up a little from his slacker's slouch when Yugi butted at his knees with his palms. The Champion seemed to have his suspicions and rather oblivious of him Yugi rose slightly on his legs, parted Yami's and hooked his finger's round the man's zipper.
"Whoa," Yami caught his wrist quickly, "really?"
"I want to." He murmured insistently up into Yami's eyes and when the author seemed to pause thoughtfully added: "don't you want me to?"
"I breathe air, I'm a warm blooded male," Yami smiled, "of course I do. Are you sure?"
"You have no idea." Yugi promised certainly teasing. "You know how many years of teenage pregnancy scares I missed being responsible while I waited?"
"It's not fun. I promise." He consoled fingers easing round the Faen's wrist to brush his forearm and the back of his palm. "I guess if you want…"
He grinned tucking his hair back and heart bouncing up an octave darted back to unbuckle the author. The man tensed, Yugi inhaled, and the Faen nearly lost his nerve for a split second before Heba gave him a little push of bravery, falling forward, making Atreyu swoon at the forefront of Yugi's mind.
Yugi had spent years watching Ryou stumbled through romance. He'd watched Kaiba turn his nose up at it. He'd seen girls swoon and boys fawn and since entering university as a badass eclectic Yugi had his share of offers for lovers romantic or not. He'd resisted, steadfast but knowledgeable because of this man. The promise that Jenzar was out there somewhere, his soul mate of four billion years, had assuaged any doubts about being a twenty year old virgin till Yami had ambled into the picture. Carolyn Smith, his serial killer and Kaiba's nunnery buddy had all likewise stayed virgins perhaps unrealistically because they'd been waiting.
Now it was worth it and now Yugi was hungry for old dirty pleasures.
The presence of Heba and Atreyu in him, as him, pressed Yugi with experiences of their own to give him a little flare of courage. Heba gave him the reassurance of prompting: take the shaft, gentle bucko, run your hand along it and he'll jump- Yami moaned, head lulling back a little, legs giving out a little to slacken in the seat- yep, just like that. Typical Jenzar reincarnation! I could play this fool like a flute!
Yugi tuned Heba out a little, could feel him as he always could, and surrendered more to Atreyu who was his true self as he ran his tongue along the tip. Slick, sticky, salty nearly like sweat and Yugi shivered a little as his opposing hand found purchase on Yami's thigh. Hot, hard, apparently the author appreciated being waited for Yugi supposed with a grin. It must've been an old strain of Yami's possessiveness arousing the Champion with Yugi's promises to virginity that left him sacred and safe as this man always seemed to want whatever the century. That was all not to say that Jenzar didn't love them when they were less than pure but Yami's past selves had a habit of wanting to be the 'first man on the scene'. His hand ran weakly along the shaft and Yugi had to admit, Atreyu backing or not, his mind was surprising amounts of filthy considering the thrumming coo he gave on reflex upon settling his lips round the head.
Yami moaned, was lost, totally slouched and fingers digging into the cushions encouraged Yugi to suckle without saying a word. Yugi sighed a little through his nostrils, closed his eyes, and got a taste for Yami rocking ever so slightly on his knees. He could smell the musk of an older man, could taste pre-cum, and rippling inside he was rather lush with it. This was good somehow, satisfying, normal as if licking Yami off was some reward for saving the day. Yugi was sure he must've been four shades of crazy considering the giddiness.
He'd had the dirtiest day dreams about a faceless, unknown, reincarnation of Jenzar Fraveous sometimes a girl, sometimes a guy, and one way or another so long as they had thissoul they got him hot. Yugi took a little more into his mouth at the thought, Yami purred huskily, a set of fingers carding and curling in his hair till the Faen suckled. Yugi was pretty sure any day for a hot blooded male where a Faen slipped between their thighs and, retrospectively, begged to pleasure them was a pretty stellar weekday.
Yami's fingers tightened in his hair as Yugi ran his tongue along the underside, pushed him back a little, drew him back in and Yugi caught the rhythm to rock on his knees. In effect his lounging King hardly had to thrust with Yugi rocking for him like some subservient, eager to please, whore grateful to service him. Wasn't a bad image actually, Yugi pursed his lips, tightened his mouth a little when Yami hit the back of his throat and the convulsion brought another heady little moan.
He remembered Sanctuary, crawling on his hand and knees deviously under another dinner table between the knobby knees of other Faens and Champions. He remembered finding Jenzar's boots, pushing his knees apart, grinning, and giving the other one hell of a surprise with his evening meal. Faens were mischievous little troublemakers…
Clearly too Yugi remembered Venice a good couple of centuries ago when they'd rambled like rabbits between masquerade balls. Remembered other men stealing his lips in-between drinks, remember what they'd called 'Roman Love' at the time, remembered that version of Yami tossing him into a garden wall and hefting Yugi's thighs up round his hips under the balcony of a senator. He remembered Yami, Jenzar, challenging far too many people to duels. Remembered floundering like a girl, embarrassed, when that version of Yami had swung them into a Catholic confessional and forced Yugi down onto his knees to 'say his prayers' during evening mass.
Marquis de Sade eat your heart out Yugi nearly purred, swooning a little, letting Yami direct him with increasingly strong hands. Yugi's hands grasped his knees, allowed the elder full reign to work him, use him, take him and felt his thighs press together in his jeans with sticky, heated, warmth. This man, just this one, could to whatever he wanted to Yugi and, helpless to resist, the Faen was sure there wasn't a thing he wouldn't allow.
"Ah…" Breathy, masculine, half a grunt that held so much old testosterone Yugi gave a trill of his tongue along the Champion's arousal as Yami bought him closer again. This man, author, thing made him weak.
Yugi had wondered for a while if he could be aroused by human beings. He'd gone four hundred years without really being tempted, however beautiful the creature tempting, because if they just weren't Jenzar, weren't Yami, then…
"Fuck," Yami hissed, "you've got to be cheating… fuck if I know how but… Oh."
Yugi had to make quite an effort not to laugh. What did Yami think this was an extra Faen power? Someone needed to stamp gullible on Yami's forehead in big flashing letters.
Yami was slickening in his mouth, hard. Yugi could taste the sour notes of his arousal more clearly now. He shuddered a little, shivered, and, surprising himself, wanted it. The Champion's fingers curled in his hair tighter still, tugging a little, raising the tempo for Yugi to comply with and the sting of the tugged locks was acute in the signals it sent all the way down to Yugi's pelvis. He could get used to this. Yami hit the back of his throat, hips raising as his hand brought Yugi back to meet the flex, nearly fucking his throat and convulsing, coughing with what little space he had, Yugi's hands curled on his knees. Yami fell back a little, hissed, and for some bizarre reason, moaning, Yugi liked the temporary loss of oxygen.
That did it…
Yami purred, fell back weightless, and seemed to spasm, groaning, when Yugi swallowed round him.
"You didn't have to…" he sighed weakly with consideration, and slumping back on his knees to inhale Yugi coloured a little.
"Wanted to," the Faen confessed, bitting the corner of his bottom lip hard as Yami lurched up groggily to grin down at him.
"Oh…" He rumbled at the sight of it. "You areperfect."
"Why?" Yugi teased. "Cause I swallow?"
"Jesus fucking Christ," Yami groaned. "Stop that. You have no idea how much I want you when you're like this. Where were you hiding all this horny the first time we fake dated?"
"Took serious effort," Yugi confessed mildly, "but good?"
"I'd give you a medal if I had one." The author promised.
"I'll settle for your wallet?" He sassed.
"Do that again and I'll probably say yes." Yami snorted shaking his head.
"I'm totally going to abuse this new power," Yugi laughed, "especially if you're going to pay me for my services."
"I thought that was a Faen duty?" The elder teased, grasping his upper arms to tug him in a little, "servicing his Champion?"
"Hmm," he rolled the sound over at the back of his throat, Yami's lips skirting his barely. "You're hard to resist."
"At this rate I'm going to lock you in a tower."
"Sounds like a good investment," Yugi quirked challengingly, "real estate's big at the moment."
Atreyu felt himself stretch in his calves as he phased in. He was back to full capacity, unhindered by any well-meaning but inexperienced partners and mad with the thrill of it was riveted for his first mission proper with Jenzar. He wanted that hum of their synchronization that left them so wordless and natural like when he and Atemu, Jenzar, had stormed the laboratory months ago. Yugi had fallen asleep in strong arms, submerged here to the Supernatural side of the Veil, and in a ripple then Jenzar was next to him settling into his armour.
The Champion turned, his tattoo faded and their new disguises settled before the notice of anyone around them. The subjects of this dimension had been momentarily enthralled to miss their arrival upon the scene and pressed together in one of the back rows of a large, parked, school bus Atreyu took a moment to smile at Jenzar.
"Tem," he whispered, as the other's fingers curled round his. Finding his hand under the overlarge sleeve of his hoodie.
"Trey," Jenzar, his Atemu, smiled warmly squeezing his fingers with a quietly booming grin. If there was anything Atreyu knew thrilled the other it was a good, solid, hunt and on a good day Atreyu could clear three in a night.
They were hiding as school children amongst the others in the bus. Atreyu could sense immediately the song of this dimension, see the colours of it, and he knew in a way that wasn't really conscious that there was infection here. It was as if instantaneous to arrival he was uploaded with some knowledge of where the problem was and vaguely what it was. He knew it even if he couldn't tell what shape it would take and Jenzar would be prepared to protect him as he mended the problem whatever the obstacles.
The bus was just one in a set of parked, equally packed, buses stuffed with casually dressed kids and teachers on some empty field. There was a forest in one direction out the opposing window and from Atreyu's not too far ahead of them he was sure there was a rather large log cabin. The children were milling between the buses some inside, some on the grass outside, chatting in the fading sun of an early evening.
It never struck Atreyu as odd that the Natural world sometimes so closely resembled the Supernatural. The Supernatural world had outlasted the various versions of the Natural world, it was more constant, and when souls settled on a planet invariably they ended up shaping in it some fashion to mimic the Supernatural dimensions many of them dreamed of. Every soul could touch beyond the Veil a little after all. Still Atreyu could taste the difference.
In the field a drum beat started, firm and sudden, rattling the students who began gossiping as it pounded round them.
This hunt would be fast.
Atreyu felt as if he could see a wave approaching him very on the horizon, something quick footed and able. He surged with minor panic, knew it was the cause of their trouble, and fumbled next to Jenzar in instinct. The Champion's ears were perked, eye's sharp, and Atreyu could feel the hidden pulse of the Lance of Lazarus just waiting eagerly to be summoned. The Lance was their last option, Atreyu wanted to be more subtle than that but as the drum beat intensified he knew they had hardly any time.
He needed a pen, he told himself, and testing him the dimensional energies resisted his attempt to summon one. There was a brief glimmer of fear, Atreyu could feel what was coming was not to be tarried with, and forcing on the dimensional magic snapped into submission when it found him insistent enough, worthy enough.
He grasped Jenzar's hand, tugged it up, and pulling the lid off the desk pen with his teeth found himself scribbling on the back of the Champion's palm.
"Protection," Atreyu explained, briefly meeting Jenzar's eyes.
This word, which came out of the ether at the prompt of some instinct, was plastered on Jenzar's hand clumsily before he attempted to sprawl it on his own. Jenzar stood in the seat beside him, the gossip was becoming more frantic round them, and out of sight outside the bus up ahead the first scream sounded. The dimension sung louder round Atreyu, hurting at the disturbance, the Veil pained with it and it told him as its energy was internalized through him like a filter what to write and how to use it.
The second scream, a girl, and the children began to panic.
"Multiples," Jenzar hissed knowingly glancing at his hand as Atreyu sprawled the magic key word on his, "point and shout?"
"Point and shot," Atreyu agreed. "Go."
"Roll, I'll take the back," Jenzar always took his back.
Atreyu squirmed out of the seat past Jenzar, ink smudging on his sweaty skin, into the clustered isle and striding strong his aura sent the panicking children back round him as the screams outside began to overwhelm the drums. These things were nasty fast.
Atreyu's feet scampered down the stairs of the bus, Jenzar striding proud and imposingly tall in his stolen skater boy cargo pants if not a little gangly because of the Glamour they were currently under. He pushed out into the wave of hurtling teenagers on the grass of the field, between two parked buses, and didn't bother to ask how this has happened. They were in crisis.
Atreyu barely hit the soft, moist, grass and as three teenagers ran barrelling past him shrieking he only had a second to fling his scribbled hand out in front of him and shout.
"Sepono!" He had no idea what it meant or why this was the magic word but it was.
The thing was black, bony, nearly eight foot with a gazelle's running feet and at the word it shattered vaporised with a wolf like growling howl.
Jenzar hit the grass no less than a second later behind him taking a strong stance facing the opposite direction thrusting his own hand out in preparation. A second one hissed, twisted, Atreyu could feel it and hear it rustling the grass, a blood clot, surging towards them round the side of the other bus and it changed direction suddenly. There were at least ten of them, crisscrossing the field, closing in now very aware of them.
"Move," Atreyu ordered. The source of the rip in the Veil here, the source of this infection, was the Cabin he just knew.
"Three, two…" Jenzar paused, hand hooking in Atreyu's belt behind his own back, to hold them back a second and- "Sepono!"
The second one came just round the back corner of the bus to fling at Atreyu's back, where Jenzar was waiting expectantly for it, and it had hardly emerged before the Champion had wiped it clear off the map.
The other creatures howled, teens still slipping and screaming round them, and Atreyu mused briefly the word must be some way of revoking the creatures to send them home to their own dimension. Jenzar released his belt, the means by which he had been telling Atrey to wait a moment, and when he pivoted Atreyu took it as permission to run on his own feet forward through the crowd.
The two buses they were wedged between closed in ahead, in the sea of teenagers fleeing, and Atreyu had to throw his hand over the shoulder of a falling girl to shout at the appearance of a third demon closing in its chase. Jenzar never left him, his heat ever present at the Faen's back, like a magnet locked onto his signature. Even in typhoons, against mammoths, Jenzar had never come unstuck from Atreyu. A Champion could never lose sight of their Faen.
They found serious momentum. Atreyu didn't think a human being in the Natural world could move with as much speed and grace as their hunting pair. They were like lions rumbling and darting through the crowd. One came up on Atreyu's side but as he noticed it lunging Jenzar had obliterated it. His razor sharp man moved in such a way that when they melded together in pace it was mesmerizing. It was addictive to Atreyu to spin and race in this way. It was who he was.
Connies slapped the grass, the night set in, and Atreyu heard the thrum of the drums as a heartbeat of the source of this trouble as they encroached upon the cabin with its' wide open door. Atreyu moved unnaturally up the stairs, seemed to leap, with the uplift of his core and Jenzar was up behind him facing the field, shouting as the demons continued to amass. Atreyu flung his hand out, summoning himself to total power, and the thing hunched over the fire place chanting turned empty yellow eyes to his entrance. It was goat like, nearly a man, white whiskered with hoof like fingers but he hardly had time to contemplate it in detail.
"Sepono!" It flew out of Atreyu in a second, just as the chanter spotted him, and shrieking the yellow eyed goat dropped an orb clasped in long spindly fingers.
It shattered while the goat vanished, sending out a wave of power that flung Atreyu back into Jenzar and tumbled them down the cabin stairs, and with its destruction so followed the drum beat pulsating through the air. Jenzar rolled them halfway through the fall, Atreyu ended up on the grass underneath tossed onto his back, and all priorities the Champion secured himself on one elbow with his hand out defensively.
Jenzar's eyes flickered, Atreyu caught his breath and in a heartbeat threw his head back to gaze upside down at the world.
"Gone." Jenzar decided curtly, business orientated, but glancing down at him broke into a beam. "In record time."
They hardly needed full words. It was magical the flourish with which they could flow straight to the crux of a problem so effortlessly. Atreyu smiled, felt radiant, under Jenzar and could not have been more himself if he tried.
1 Jaden, Leon and Yugi were giggling about the video games Portal 1 and 2 as well as Charlie the Unicorn youtube videos.
2 Marquis de Sade is a French revolutionary writer who…(laughs) Oh kids if you haven't heard or read anything by him it's probably for the best. Let's just say they named Sado-Masochism after him.
3 'Enthralled' is something fairies or other supernatural creatures used to reportedly do to humans. It's like stunning, hypnotising, brainwashing….
4 Sepono is a Latin verb it basically means to 'put away from one's self', disregard or isolate.
5 'Glamour' was popularised in Harry Potter. It's when a supernatural being puts on a disguise.
Okay so, proper lemon next chapter and some… good/bad news depending on your perspective. I don't think it's anything dreadful but we'll see what you guys think. Have fun Beautifuls and don't forget to go give Gambit a taste for me!