AN: I don't own Yu Gi Oh! Apparently all I own is a bunch of very weird thoughts that prompted this story. I apologize for the extreme randomness, though if you've dealt with the pain of writing maybe you can appreciate some of the pain in this story...Hope you enjoy!

15. Unique

"No! I won't let you die!"

Jounouchi was on the walkway, heading toward the front door when he heard Atemu's unmistakable voice shout it out through the walls of the house. There was only one person he could be talking about.

Yuugi!

Stricken with sudden terror the man bound up the stairs to the front door, flinging it aside and running into the house. He had almost ripped open the door to Atemu's office when Yuugi's slightly startled face looked up at him from the living room sofa as he stood by the office's French doors, one hand on each delicately curved handle.

"Oh, hello Jounouchi," he said pleasantly, reading glasses perched on the end of his nose as he held the newspaper in one hand and a pencil in the other.

Jounouchi grabbed at his chest and slunk against the doors. He slid to the floor in a wave of relief. "God, don't do that to me Yuugi, I nearly had a heart attack!"

Yuugi snorted lightly as he placed his crossword puzzle, pencil, and glasses on the coffee table beside a cup of tea. He rose and chided his friend as he made his way to him. "You're only thirty-six Jounouchi. Maybe it's time to cut back on the trips to Burger World."

"Eh, I'd rather die young and full than old and hungry," Jounouchi, as per usual, had quickly recovered from his shock and accepted the hand his shorter friend held out to him, allowing himself to be helped up.

Yuugi moved to shut the still open front door.

"Yes, but if you die on my floor I'm afraid I'll have to deal with your husband," Yuugi laughed, the first signs of crow's feet crinkling up as he did so.

"But then he'd have to deal with yours, eh?"

Yuugi opened his mouth, but before he could reply a loud crash and bang echoed from just behind them; along an exclamation of, "No, live damn you, live!"

"What the hell is he doing in there? I thought he was working on his next book today." Jounouchi regarded the door behind them with an odd look.

"Oh he is," Yuugi said wryly, glancing at the room where his lover of seventeen years and husband of twelve raged. "He's battling his writer's block at the moment."

"Yuugi, you know I love Atemu, but your husband is goddamn weird."

"Hmm," Yuugi tapped his chin thoughtfully and looked off in contemplation. "I like to think of him as unique."

Jounouchi nodded, caught between smiling and rolling his eyes at the obvious love between two of his closest friends. They stood for a moment in silence. Finally Yuugi broke from his reverie.

"So, would you like something to eat, Jounouchi? I have-"

"-send the damn things to the Shadow Realm," came muttered through the French doors, followed closely by a string of curses.

"...Shadow Realm?" Jounouchi's eyebrow quirked.

All Yuugi could do was shake his head. "Don't ask."

Several hours later, long after Jounouchi had left and returned to his own, impatiently waiting Yuugi was sure, husband in the Kaiba mansion, the other inhabitant of his shared home finally made an appearance.

Yuugi bit his lip in restraint as his husband shuffled into the kitchen like a war-torn zombie and practically fell into the seat at the table, promptly dropping his face onto the cool surface. Laughter fully under control he made his way to his much fatigued husband and began rubbing the older man's back in a soothing circular motion.

"You alright?" he asked.

When he only got a grunt in return he bit his lip again to suppress a giggle.

"Anything get sent to the Shadow Realm?" he queried, which, according to his husband, was the place where all ideas, once they turned sour, were sent to die.

"No," the response was followed by a sigh. "But I hardly got anything done."

"Poor baby," Yuugi cooed. He began to knead his husband's shoulders, earning a contented moan from his lover.

"Mmm, feels good," was Atemu's reply. The eloquence that had helped him pen bestsellers had a way of disappearing under Yuugi's touch, much as his mere presence had done for the first six months they had dated.

"Are you done exorcising your demons?" the younger of the two squeezed his husband's arms, trying to relieve him of the tension there.

"No," came out with another heavy, reluctant sigh.

"Well," Yuugi bent and placed a kiss on the back of Atemu's neck, who rewarded him with a shiver. "I'll be going to bed then, come up when you're done."

No sooner had he released Atemu from his touch than the man's head lifted off the table and he rose from his seat.

"You know?" he said, "I think I'm done exorcising demons for the night."

"Why am I not surprised?" Yuugi gave a hearty laugh and let his suddenly revitalized husband pull him to their bedroom.

Seriously, I have no idea...Hope you enjoyed? Thanks for reading!