Jounouchi made it to Yuugi's door just before the storm. It had chased him down the street—a dark, nervous energy that sank into his skin and almost carried him away. The sky cracked under the weight of everything that it strained to hold back, and just as Jounouchi sheepishly shut the front door, its resolve finally shattered into spears of lightning and a wall of steamy, silver rain.

Yuugi was waiting for him on the couch, eyes swollen with sleeplessness, starring at the bottom of his mug.

"Where have you been?" He whispered. "I was so worried…"

Jounouchi hovered at the doorway, stared at his shoes. "I'm sorry, Yuugi." He mumbled. "It just took longer than I expected." The lie made his skin burn.

Yuugi shook his head. "It's okay, Jou-kun. As long as you're alright." He smiled. "At least Shizuka isn't awake yet. I didn't know what I should say if you weren't back in time…"

Jounouchi winced and sighed. "Yeah, that would have been…" He shook his head and tried to clear the tension out, but he only seemed to reignite the cinders of his memories of the night before. He could feel his face begin to flush, his heart jump in his chest. "But hey, I'm here now! And check this out—" Jounouchi pulled the stack of manila folders out from under his jacket with a flourish, beaming. "Not too bad, huh?"

Yuugi sprung up and grinned. "That's great! That means you're almost done, right?"

"Yeah, but it's not over yet—I still have to get new documents to give to the school and hospital."

He sat down and flipped through the files that Kaiba had given him. In the shadows and stench of his apartment they hadn't quite come into focus, he hadn't been able to fully convince himself that they were real. But in the soft light of Yuugi's living room each drop of ink seemed to bubble with life. He could feel the roots of his family tree rushing into the earth, the leaves at the tips of its branches whispering against the edge of the sky. Everything was connecting together, and growing. And for a moment he didn't care that it was all counterfeit, because he was standing in the boughs—golden, invulnerable, and ascendant. "Funny," he murmured. "All this for a piece of paper." He shook his head and yawned. "Man, I'm exhausted."

But as Jounouchi ruminated on the feeling, he wasn't sure that it was exhaustion that he felt. Something wild and tumultuous was surging through him, dancing in the darkness behind his eyelids, tying knots in his abdomen.

"Yuugi? Onii-chan? What are you two doing up so early on a weekend?"

"Uh…" Jounouchi scrambled to hide the papers under a couch cushion.

"Studying for entrance exams!" Yuugi chirped, gesturing towards a stack of shiny test-prep books on the coffee table. "We only have a few more weeks to prepare."

"Oh.." Shizuka frowned and began to flip through one of the books. "Don't you go to cram school for that?"

"We missed the sign-up deadline." Yuugi replied, an odd combination of nervousness and regret playing across his face. "You know—Egypt."

Shizuka nodded, eyes hovering on Jounouchi.

Jounouchi couldn't tell how deep Yuugi's lie went. The days immediately before their journey to Egypt had all rushed together—the days following their return were a sun-bleached blur. If such a deadline had existed, Jounouchi certainly hadn't been concerned about meeting it.

"Oh, that's awful. Isn't it hard to study on your own?"

Jounouchi and Yuugi exchanged a cautious half-grin.

"I'm fairly optimistic." Yuugi replied.

"Yeah," Jounouchi laughed. "You're looking at the dream team here! World-saving extraordinaires! We can handle a little test."

Shizuka giggled. "If you insist." She paused for a moment, biting her bottom lip. "I'm going out with Mai later, do you want to come?" She smirked at Jounouchi. "Or will you be too busy studying for that little test?"

"Whoa—Mai is still in Domino? I thought she took off after the showcase!"

Shizuka fidgeted with her hair, not quite looking at him. "I might have convinced her to stay a couple of weeks longer." She shrugged, laughing softly. "You're welcome to come."

"I wish I could, but…" Jounouchi's eyes darted over to Yuugi, to the pile of workbooks on the table and the stack of photocopies stashed in the couch. "Next time, I promise."

Shizuka nodded. "Sure. Then you better study hard now to make up for it!"

When Shizuka had left Jounouchi collapsed on the couch, longing for a moment to sleep but unable to close his eyes. The room was too bright, every sound too sharp. The landscape of his memories was sharp cliffs, towering mountains, and a hungry, howling ocean.

-xxx-

Seto glared out his window, fingers twitching at his sides. The ground below was still swarming with protesters—a mess of swirling black bodies that seemed to pool around his feet. The rain had not been enough to wash them out of the streets, they didn't quake under lightning and thunder. They had been camped outside his office since before he had snuck in that morning. He hadn't listened to their chants or read their pamphlets, but one image—a skull and crossbones, sloppily painted on bright green poster board—reappeared every time he closed his eyes.

They said something about poison in the water, chemicals in the air. A toxic waste site at the edge of town and mass graves on the beaches of Korea.

He wanted to ball his fists, to yell like thunder But that wasn't me! I'm not responsible for any of those things

But there was a mass graze buried in the heart of Egypt that he couldn't forget, a hospital bed in Domino. So he bit his tongue and ripped his thoughts apart and tried to ignore his searing headache and the acid bubbling in his chest.

He sat down, laid his forehead on his desk.

On hot days like these the air conditioning system turned on at five in the morning to blast every warm corner with white frosty air. Seto had adjusted the thermostat in his office until the room was the temperature of winter, but there was still warmth on the edge of his scalp and under his fingertips and between his lips. Dangerous summer nights fluttered between his ribs and howled like rain and thunder down in the pit of his stomach.

It was insidious and awful and so sweet and sublime that—

That he couldn't believe that all of the blood in his body hadn't begun to surge out onto the carpet.

That he hadn't dared to look too closely at his own reflection for fear that he wouldn't recognize it.

That he had to quietly run his fingertips up and down his trembling forearms and wrap his hands around the base of this neck, just to listen to the way his pulse was screaming. To feel the way his heart was beating so hard, so fast, as if it were trying to run away.

Seto groaned and pounded his fist on the table.

He had beat the sun to his office, searching for silence and stillness and peace. But even here, in this room off ice-cold edges, everything was swimming and steaming and melting together and now Seto couldn't breathe without still smelling him, couldn't rest in the skin he had touched.

Seto slowly uncurled his fists and slid a finger along the lines on his palm. There was an eruption at the end of every nerve—a tender, unfamiliar pain at the thrill of being touched.

He ran a hand through his hair, tugging at the roots the same way Jounouchi had. His body remembered every place that his hands had been. And the harder he tried to blot them out, the more the memories poured into him, desperate to be reignited.

Seto traced the outline of his collarbone through his shirt; let his fingers search out every unyielding seam in his clothing that seemed to exist solely to be broken apart.

He gripped his thighs and his hands were shaking. Dug his toes into the carpet. Squeezed his eyes shut and tried to pretend—if only for all these few dark and twisted moments—that nothing else mattered and nothing existed but the memory of his hot breath on the inside of his ear, the clumsy desperate way they had collided and clung together.

He held onto anything that he could reach and ripped and wrenched at it until it felt like every joint in his body was about to come loose. He was a storm choking on its own lightning, an overgrown forest holding its breath—helpless against the wrath of a single match.

He could have lost himself in a haze of steam and shadow, if it weren't for the tap on his shoulder.

"Do you need a hand with that?" A snicker.

"Go away."

"Oh, Seto—you must have realized by now that it's not nearly that easy." There was a movement at his side, and Seto had to turn his head away to avoid the gaze of the figure sitting on the edge of his desk.

More laughter over his shoulder. "At least you could get it up this time—that must be a relief, hm?"

"Shut up," Seto muttered between grit teeth. "Why are you two still here? I've done everything you told me! And—And how can you touch me—"

The low laughter continued, and Seto flinched as a set of sharp fingernails dug into his scalp. "Oh, Seto, your willful naiveté isn't nearly as charming as you believe it is."

"I'm not—"

"Shhh." The hand twisted in his hair. "Honestly, Seto, you believe that you have fulfilled the task laid out before you? Did you believe it would be so simple? Hm, you're an even bigger fool than I first imagined."

Seto didn't respond, and the chanting of the protesters and the drumbeat of the rain filled the silence that he left behind.

"Seto, look at me."

"No."

"Look."

A hand curled under his chin and jerked his face upwards, forcing him to lock eyes with a pair that was nearly identical to his own.

Seto wrenched himself away, fell out of his chair, scrambled across the room till his back was against the wall. "Go away," he snarled. "I don't need you!"

Seth and Noa exchanged a small, sardonic smile.

"Now, Seto, you can't honestly believe that—can you?"

"Don't tell me what to believe!"

Noa approached him first. There was something about watching him walk that made Seto feel nauseous. "Then stop being so stubborn and simply accept the truth."

Noa sat next to him, pressed a hand against his chest. He smirked at Seto's sharp, shallow breathing, at the way he struggled to keep himself so rigid and composed.

"Exciting, isn't it?" He whispered, leaning against Seto's ear. "Being touched? Being wanted—just for yourself?" He laughed. "For once."

Seto's insides were screaming. "H-how are you doing this?! You—You're not supposed to be able to touch me!"

Then they were both looming over him. Noa pushed up his damp shirt sleeves and his touch was lacerations and Indian burns. It was the same feverish way they had touched each other when they were children, when the only feeling they had known how to inflict was pain.

Seth kneeled at his side, continued to pull his hair. "That's how this works, Seto. You want to touch him, don't you?" He chuckled. "If you allow him to touch you, then you allow us to as well." He smiled as Seto shivered under the weight of his voice. "It's inescapable."

"Th-that can't be true."

"It is." He dipped his head down, whispered into Seto's ear. "That's the price you pay…" His hand hovered briefly over Seto's heart, then sunk lower, not content to stop until he felt Seto gasp and shudder. "For deciding to feel." He pressed his lips against Seto's neck, making sure he could feel his smirk. "You either have no emotions or you open yourself up to them all—no one is allowed to live half alive." He pressed himself harder against Seto's side, leaned a thigh across his hips. "You must accept that, and face your responsibilities fully."

"No—I won't! Go away!"

Noa laughed again. "So you'd rather be alone and empty forever?"

"I never said—"

"Then you don't get a choice!" Noa snarled. He paused, leaned closer, licked his lips. "Murderer."

"Pathetic."

"Shut up!"

Seth furrowed his brow and turned to Noa. "Is he always this difficult?"

Noa nodded. "I'm afraid so. Seto has never been very good at admitting when he's wrong about something." His face twisted into a cruel smile. "Or being second best at anything."

"Get away from me."

Noa rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. "Only once I'm sure that you understand me, Seto."

"I understand!" Seto stood suddenly, flinging Seth and Noa away. "Stay away from me!" He snarled, panting, backing into the bookcase behind him. Seto felt a shudder and a bang, and everything began to fall down around him. Chess trophies, design awards, his honorary degrees—each hit him on the back of the head and across the shoulders as it fell. And eventually it was all too heavy, and he fell too.

Seth and Noa frowned down at him. Seto buried his face in his hands. The room was filling up with inky cold water—a rising tide of everything that was too large to control. He was going to be swallowed in it, swept up in a sea of memories that were too sharp and dark to remember. Drowned in feelings that were too big and deep and sharp to keep carefully locked away.

He could hear the chanting again. Murderer murderer murderer pathetic loser weak fallible useless worthless nothing

"You know that he can help you." Noa pointed to the bookcase where one golden trophy remained on its shelf like the last patch of land in a bleak and endless sea.

"I don't want his help," Seto muttered. But he couldn't turn away from that one remaining golden light—the only thing that was steadfast and standing as the rest of the world rattled and fell apart.

"I know," Noa sighed. He shrugged. "But just look at what doing everything alone has gotten you."

There was a flash of lightning. Thunder so loud that the building seemed to jump off its foundations. When color and sound returned, Noa and Seth had vanished.

Seto shivered. He stood, though his legs were shaking, and staggered to his desk. He glared down at the pile of phones in his trash can, held his breath, and pulled one off the top. He collapsed into his chair and plugged it in as if he were wiring a bomb.

"Yuugi," Seto's voice was dry and uneven. "Is Jounouchi there. I need to talk to him."

There was a pause at the other end of the line and for a moment all Seto could feel was his pounding heart and trembling fingers.

"Hey, what is it—"

"Meet me."

"Wh—"

"Meet me. I—I want to try again."

Seto slammed the phone back in its cradle before Jounouchi had a chance to respond. He sat in silence for several moments glaring at the phone and listening to the discordant sounds of the street. As he rose, straightened his clothes, and slunk out of the office, the pace of his heart and of his breathing never slowed.

-xxx-

The rain fell hard and fast, and Jounouchi was soaked by the time he reached his old apartment.

The ground was steam and drowning, and the inside of the apartment was a furnace. Jounouchi waded through the simmering darkness, trying to ignore the way the air made his eyes sting.

"Hey, anybody here?" He had whispered and tiptoed through this room too many times before. Those memories swam in every shadow.

He jumped when he collided with Kaiba's shoulder. "Geez, you could have warned me! Or turned the light on or something…"

Seto stared at him for several moments before replying. "The electricity doesn't work. The demolition crew disabled it."

"Oh, right. I guess that was bound to happen eventually." Jounouchi bristled as Seto began to orbit him, glaring at his shadow. "What are you doing…"

"You grew up here."

"Pretty sure we've had this conversation before. Did you call me up to swap childhood stories or something? I actually have work to do, you know…"

"Right." Seto snarled, flinched, continued pacing. His eyes darted to Jounouchi occasionally. "So why did you come?"

Jounouchi raised his brows and smiled smugly. "I figured you deserved a second chance."

"Hmph." Seto shook his head. "How generous of you."

"I'm just teasing. You should be able to handle a little joking at your expense every once in a while."

Seto stopped pacing, glared out of the corner of his eyes. "And you're a criminal."

Jounouchi's face became sharp with anger. "Was."

"Was. Right." Seto snorted. "You're too good for that now, right?"

Jounouchi shrugged. "Well, yeah—I'd like to think so. It's been a while since I ran around with that crowd…" He frowned. "So, uh, why did you ask me here? You're acting kind of…creepier than usual." He laughed. "I mean, if this is your way of flirting, it could use some work…"

Seto shut his eyes and shook his head. "No—it's—I'm not trying to flirt with you." He scowled at the idea. "I'm…" He turned back to Jounouchi, and his vision seemed to come into focus for the first time. "I'm trying to understand."

"Understand what?"

Seto stepped closer to him—cautiously, as if afraid of triggering a trap. "How you got to be this way."

"What are you talking about—" Jounouchi caught his breath when Seto gripped the back of his neck, fingers digging into the base of his scalp.

Seto pulled him closer until Jounouchi collapsed against his chest, breathing heavily. But just as Jounouchi was preparing to melt into his arms, Seto flinched and abruptly stepped away.

"Well, you're certainly good at playing hard to get…" Jounouchi mumbled. He slid up to Seto's side, curled an arm around his waist. He spoke as if he were striking a match—soft, sharp, as dangerous and as intimate as a flame clutched between his fingertips. "There's nothing to be afraid of. C'mon—tell me what you want."

Seto shuddered against him and Jounouchi could feel something in his rigid composure become unbound. It felt the same as when an earthquake had hit their house one summer, and all the dishes had rattled in the cabinets and there had been nowhere safe to stand. There was that same sense of danger in Seto now, and Jounouchi was seized by the same exhilaration. He pulled Seto closer until his sopping clothes had drenched them both.

Seto swayed slightly, clenched and unclenched his fists, shut his eyes. Even in the darkness all he could see were shades of gold and crimson, starbursts and explosions and the way Jounouchi glowed and burned like embers and coal. There wasn't enough air for him to breathe, not enough space to think. He only existed in the places where their bodies touched, but the kind of life he felt there was too effervescent and light, too ravaging and raging and dark. Jounouchi was all around him, consuming him, turning him inside out.

He took several sharp, shaky breaths. Listened to the thrashing of the wind and rain outside the door, the way it collided with the sea and beat against every wall.

When he spoke, his voice was dry and brittle.

"I want you to fuck me."

"W-what?!"

Seto swallowed, didn't quite look at him. "Is that a problem?"

"N-no…" Jounouchi was riding the crest of a wave, careening forward. He was miles above the ground. "I don't have a problem with that—I just didn't think that that was what you would want."

Seto shrugged.

"Well, then—" Jounouchi pulled Seto's face down. They kissed as if they had been starving for it. And now there was nothing but a rush of hands and lips, surges of heat that left them desperate and shaking. Jounouchi shoved him backwards until his back was pressed against the wall and there was no space for light or air between them.

Jounouchi peeled away slightly and gazed around the room. "Uh, this way," he mumbled, grimacing slightly and tugging at the collar of Seto's shirt.

Jounouchi led him back through pools of musty shadow, to a small dark room in the back of the apartment where the walls seemed to sway and the floor sunk around their feet.

"Come here." Jounouchi pulled him down to a ragged looking mattress on the floor and they both seemed to fall in. Jounouchi rolled on top of him and ran his tongue up his neck, laughed softly into his ear. "God, sorry, this is really gross. I'm all wet…" He sat up and peeled off his shirt, then twisted it in a rope until it made a puddle on the floor. Seto watched the way his eyes burned through the semidarkness, eventually coming to rest on his face and searing straight through it. "You sure you think this is a good idea?"

Seto groaned. "I'm almost certain that this is the single worst idea I've ever had."

Jounouchi smiled slyly, then jolted. "Oh, uh…fuck. Shit." He rushed out of the room, calling "I'll be right back!" over his shoulder.

Seto could hear Jounouchi muttering under his breath as he rummaged through the kitchen cabinets. He returned a moment later, swinging a clear plastic bottle.

"What is that?"

"…Canola oil. I don't think we have, uh, any of the real stuff around here."

Seto frowned. "Why do you need a bottle of canola oil."

"Ha, what?" Jounouchi's face seemed to be caught halfway between a smile and a frown. "You really don't know how this works, do you?"

"As if you do."

"More than you do—that's for sure! I took the time to look it up!" He blushed slightly when Seto raised a brow at him. "Hey, make as many faces as you want—at least I tried to educate myself."

"Whatever."

Jounouchi leaned towards him and licked his lips. Lightning split across his face. All Seto could see was the way the light caught in his eyes and how everything around him seemed to glow and swell and take up the entire room. That was how it felt with Jounouchi crushing down on his chest, grabbing at his clothes and biting his lips—Jounouchi was becoming bigger and harder and Seto was sinking and struggling to remain above water.

"You're going to have to relax," Jounouchi whispered in his ear. In the darkness he could hear the smile in his voice as he added, "if you want me to be able to get inside you."

"It's—difficult."

"I know. I know." Jounouchi paused, took Seto's hand and held it against his mouth. "Do you trust me?"

"I don't know…" Seto shuddered as Jounouchi sucked on his fingertips. "I think you're pretty stupid."

Jounouchi grinned. "Ha, nice. Then why does that make you?"

"Incredibly stupid."

Jounouchi laughed and dropped his hand. He puffed out his chest and pulled back his head, gazing for a moment at the ceiling. Seto could feel the tension in his hips, the way his thighs clenched together to hold himself upright and to hold Seto between them. It was like standing paralyzed on the shore, watching the swelling surf, completely unable to run or to fathom what might happen to him when the wave finally came.

For a moment there was silence and Seto felt nothing at all, then he was caught up in a rush of hot water, thrown against the waves and tossed to the bottom of the ocean floor. The coast he knew was ripped apart and reconfigured, ground down into grains of sand and glass. And in the tumult and the darkness there was a knife-blade pain, a sword stabbed through his stomach that tore him in two.

The earth was shaking from the rotting foundations of their apartment complex to the weakness in Seto's knees. He held his breath and pulled at anything that he could reach—anything that could keep him floating and alive. He snatched at Jounouchi's wrists, pulled his hair, struggled to speak but could only groan and gasp.

Jounouchi was all frenetic energy and random impulses. Seto bit back the thought that he fucked the same way he dueled—thoughtless and chaotic and instinctual. But it was that same unpredictable motion that was upending him now. Jounouchi was the crest of his wave—the thick white foam that charged down at the earth, shattering under the weight of its own force.

And that was how Jounouchi finished on top of him—scattered, sparkling, and light—wetter now than he had been standing in the rain, mumbling "did it hurt?" into the shell of his ear between battered breaths.

-xxx-

A/N: If this chapter strikes you as a little weird, that was probably intentional. This chapter also kind of marks a turning point in the narrative—I'm going to be changing the structure up a bit and the linearity of the progression of time is going to break down somewhat. It's a little risky and maybe a little weird, so if anything is ever confusing or unclear please let me know! That is the only way I can get better : )