#shadow13

At the end of their duel in the alleyway, Jonouchi says to Yugi, “You’re shaking.”

It is not Yugi, though, per se, though it is his body trembling. It is the rich voice of his spirit half that says, “I am.” Jonouchi approaches him slowly, duel disk folded back against his arm again, and he stands very close to his friend. Yami half laughs, “I-It’s funny, now that everything is alright, I think it’s hitting me…” He swallows and looks up into Jonouchi’s amber colored eyes, “How much it…wasn’t alright.”

He doesn’t say anything at first, shifting on his heels. “It is now.”

“Mhm.” He nods, but the trembling hasn’t stopped. “I just don’t…know what I would have done…if I’d really lost you.” He has ideas, though. He would have hurt Kaiba, certainly, for allowing that ridiculous farce to go on, and for what? His own egomaniacal pride. He still wants to. And Marik, he thinks he knows so much of the shadows, not half of what the Spirit of the Puzzle knows-

That’s wrong. Yugi’s gentle voice from within him, warm and golden, like the first ray of the dawn. Marik was a victim, too. Everything turned out right now, I don’t want to focus on hurting people. But it’s hard. It’s still hard, and there’s so much of him inside that’s burning and full of rage- I-I feel that, too- Where does one stop and the other begin?

“Hey.” Jonouchi is so close, Yami closes his eyes and breathes in the rich, musky smell of him. It’s not cologne, it’s more natural, with just hints of his soap; a lingering odor of cigarettes, not overwhelming. The scent of late teenage angst on the burgeoning edge of manhood.

He feels dizzy.

“Yuge- you wanna sit down?”

“It’s not…I’m not-” 

Jonouchi assesses him. “You’re the other piece of him. The pharaoh, whatsit.”

“Something like that, yes…” He looks up at him with eyes burning with want, and his throat feels dry. If he really was the Pharaoh Isis said of him, these are things he probably knew, in his own time, in his own body. What it is to want, to have that want slaked on a cool mouth, like water flowing from a pitcher-

Jonouchi has steered him against a brick wall, leaning over him, the shadow his body casts is cool. “Listen - gotta slow that roll.” Apparently his eyes have been betraying him, even if his mouth hasn’t spoken. “Wouldn’t be right - kissin’ my friend when somebody else is behind the wheel, know what I mean?”

“Yes…I’ve taken so much already, done so much to a body that isn’t mine… He doesn’t complain, but-”

“He never would.”

“If I weren’t Yugi at all-” His breath comes heavy. “Would you kiss me then?”

"What you are is spoiled."

Isono looms over him in the bed, Seto's long limbs a helpless tangle, white cheeks flushed. Difficult not to spoil a pretty piece of porcelain like this.

"Am not." Seto looks up at him with hot, pouting blue eyes. "I am not spoiled, Daddy."

"Oh yes, you are..." He plods kisses across his collarbone, down the chest- He's broadened out so much from the coltish boy he used to be, intent on building the muscle needed for handling the pressures of space. Isono thinks he also just likes the way it feels, the way he looks. 

He can't say he dislikes it himself.

He runs kisses down the lines of his abs, and then the inside of his hip, and into the sweet, musky curls of dark hair between. "Constantly pitching fits if you don't get attention..." Seto whines in response. "Everything has to be done your way...Heaven help us if you don't get exactly what you want, when you want it-"

"Isono-"

He silences him when he finds his mark, mouth slipping around that sweet length of his. Seto shuts up, which is so rare with him, except for the hiss that escapes that red mouth, whole body arching off the bed in contact. Isono takes his time, feeling him twitch and go turgid in his mouth. He pulls off and wipes his lips with the back of his hand.

Mokuba watches Yugi while he sits backwards in her little chair, hands atop the back and chin resting on those. He's fascinated, observing her hold up different dresses in front of herself in the mirror. The blue? The red? "If you don't like either of those, why don't you just go shopping?"

"It's not a matter of not liking them, Mokuba. Besides, I can't buy a whole new outfit for every event."

He tilts his head to the side. "Why not?"

"Well," she hangs them both up on the armoire door and sits at her vanity once more. "It isn't thrift-"

"You get an allowance, don't you?"

"I like to send as much of that home as I can, but more importantly, one shouldn't become spoiled about these things. Moderation is the soul of virtue."

"Hm." He rolls his head on his neck and makes some passing attempt at studying, but he's never very interested in the book. "Doesn't make sense to me. Why marry a rich family if you don't spend the money?"

Yugi's fingers tangle on her lap. "I wish you wouldn't say things like that."

"Why not?"

"I just wish you wouldn't. Anyway," she puts away the jewelry she'd gotten out for comparison and joins him at her writing table. "There's certainly no point in thinking of shopping for anything, until I know if your brother will be available to accept the invitation."

"You can't go to a dance by yourself?"

"It's different when you're married," she waves at him, sighing over the beautiful, engraved invitation. "This isn't a public dance, it's a private party. It would be awkward to go by myself."

"I don't understand," Mokuba shakes his head. "What does Seto have to do with that? Weren't you invited to private parties before you were married?"

"Well, yes-" She gives a flustered huff. "Alright, tell me about a dance you've been to, and I'll explain what's different."

"I haven't been to a dance."

Yugi almost falls out of her chair. "What- never?" Mokuba shakes his head. "Well, I know you're a little young, but- never?"

"Never. I don't even really know how to dance."

"Oh goodness." Without waiting for further instruction, Yugi gets up, flips on the radio, and holds her hands out to him. "Alright. Come here."

Mokuba stares at her, face going pink. "I-I can't dance with you! What if I step on your feet?"

"Better mine than some girl you fancy. Up you get, Mokuba Kaiba." As if he suddenly has two left feet, Mokuba is reluctant and awkward getting up from his chair. His face is burning red, and he can barely seem to look at Yugi as he takes her hands. "Not quite, your right hand should be on my back, like this." Steam is about pouring out of his ears as she adjusts him. "Now, we won't do any formal steps, but after that, you just sort of bounce along to the rhythm." She begins to bounce slightly, smiling at him. "Just loosen up a little, that's it. Now when your right foot goes forward, my left will go back, and so on."

He has a very difficult time of it, and he does trod a little on her feet, always with hasty murmurs of apology. "It's fine. Try not to act so scared to death." The back and forth motion is getting easier, so she starts to turn them in a circle. "And then you just go around the room this way, and you'd get through just fine."

"B-but I wouldn't know what to do with a girl in my arms for an entire song!"

Yugi snorts. "You'll figure it out, believe me - by which I mean, it's the perfect opportunity to have a conversation, just between yourselves."

"Is that what you and Seto do when you dance? You talk?"

It's Yugi's turn to go a bit pink. "Some, yes."

"What els-"

The door between Yugi's room and that of her husband is thrown open. She stops, still in the brother's arms, a jaunty tune playing along on the radio. "Seto-" He actually came home tonight - and he looks like a storm cloud in a tweed jacket.

He does not acknowledge her. "Out, Mokuba."

"Seto, Yugi was teaching me how to da-"

"I said out." The young man looks hurt, letting Yugi go with a parting glance - before scurrying out her door to his own room down the hall. Seto locks it behind him. "Well, this is a pretty little picture I interrupted."

"I was teaching Mokuba to dance," she continues where he left off, fingers knitting together without anything else to do.

"I'll bet, and a few other things, too."

Yugi's brow furrows. "Such as what?"

"'Such as what,' don't play innocent little girl games with me, Yugi." He's ripped off his jacket and thrown it onto her bed with its white-and-pink coverlet. "What kinds of games do men and women play alone in a bedroom!"

"Given that Mokuba is a boy, and not a man, I would imagine that would eliminate those games as choices."

Seto only snorts. "Fifteen is old enough for plenty of people."

She hates this. She sits here all day, aching to see him, hoping he'll say they'll go to this dance, and it's his arms she'll be in - and then he comes home, and makes everything so horrible- "I think you'd better leave, Seto." Yugi turns toward her vanity. "I don't like talking to you like this, so I think we had better just go to bed."

She only just gets warning of his movement from her mirror, that fuming face suddenly behind her and his fingers digging into her arms. "It's a capitol idea, my wife - at least the bed part."

Yugi can only give half a scream as she's lifted up and almost slammed onto her bed. Seto is yanking his tie loose. "Seto! Stop it, what are you doing!"

"My matrimonial duties." He's so incensed, he's gotten his shirt off without undoing the cuffs. Yugi yells again when he grabs her by the ankle and drags her down the bed, his mouth crashing over hers. Seto swallows the sound and ravages her mouth, turning any noise to confused whimpers, leaving her breathless. He looks like he wants to say something else, some angry thing, but he can't, or can't decide what, so he only fumes as he strips off her dress.

"I don't like you like this," Yugi tries to wriggle away, but not very hard.

"You don't like me at all." He is plodding kisses up her neck, across her collar, hands spreading over every inch of skin he uncovers. "So what else is new?"

But that isn't true, not at all - it's him that's decided he doesn't like her, with his late nights in the office, the cold responses to her attempts at closeness. If she asks to spend time with him, she's needy and clingy and demanding; if she gives up and tries to keep busy by making friendships or improving his brother's cold life one iota, she's some kind of...of slattern, or-

"Yugi." He sounds breathless, feverish, as he pulls off her various stays and ties. Seto himself is only in shirtsleeves, but he's unfastened his trousers. He seems anxious to see her bare, but in too much of a hurry to undress himself. "He's a boy. Whatever you think someone younger could give you, he can't, I'll show you. It takes a man to truly, deeply satisfy a woman." He suddenly is kissing her there, and Yugi just about lifts off the bed. When his tongue isn't making tight circles around her clit, he pulls back, panting. "I make it good, don't I? Does anyone else?"

"Seto-" Her fingers are in his hair, tears at the corner of her eyes, shaking her head. "I-I wouldn't know- there isn't anyone else-"

"Yes..." He sounds desperate, fingers replacing his mouth and slipping within her. "Yes, because she wants to be a good wife. No one else gets to taste or to touch, do they?"

"Mm!" She shakes her head, biting her lower lip.

"You want me, don't you, Yugi, my sweet little girl?"

Her hands grip the sheets as if she might lift from the earth without them there to ground her. "Yes!" Her voice is sobbing.

There's a sound of parting fabric, his belt dropping to the floor- and suddenly Seto is above her and within her and all around her. His arms wrap her, and his mouth plods hungry kisses at her neck as he takes her - over and over and over again-

And she doesn't want it to stop, not now, not ever. Horrible as he is in these moments, she'd rather have her husband like this - than never at all.

"You wish it were the other me, don't you."

"Please, don't say that." She has enough guilt to deal with. She tries to tell herself she was a teenager, virtually a child, she didn't really know- But what she had done to Yugi, always pushing him to be someone else, it's difficult to forgive herself for. It's difficult to not know how someone without their own physical body thinks or feels about you, someone who isn't always there - someone who isn't, strictly speaking, supposed to be there.

It's difficult to know who she feels for what person. She'll always love Yugi, in some capacity-

But-

But, Bakura is grinning against the back of her neck, hands wrapped around her as she stands at the kitchen sink. He's been kidding her again. "Angel," he calls her, as he so often does. And he never cares who it is she wanted! He never holds a damned thing against her, and he makes her forgive herself in the process. "Here's the secret, little lover." He peels the rubber gloves from her hands, so it appears dishwashing is over for the present.

"There was never that much of a difference."

Anzu turns, pouting a little, mostly assessing. "I'm not sure if you're trying to make me feel better-"

"I mean it."

"Sure, you mean some part of you wanted the destruction of the world."

"Some part of everybody wants that. Some asshole runs into you and spills your coffee and doesn't say sorry - 'Humanity is garbage, we should just,' and so on." He places a kiss against her throat and her eyes close.

"And some part of Yugi wanted to light people on fire."

"I'll bet money on it."

Anzu pulls on his platinum hair. It brings his head up, dark eyes half-lidded, mouth grinning. He does look wicked like this. "You're awful."

"And you-" he leans in for another kiss, "really, really love that about me."

"I'm-!" She's yanking his chain, and she's always been good at that. He takes a sip on his beer. "It's good to see you again, Mai."

"Good to see you, Jo." She flags down the bartender and asks for a cosmopolitan. "I see you made it to the semi-finals."

"You saw my duel?" He perks up again. "Hot stuff, wasn't I?"

"Sloppy with your traps, you're lucky your opponent was so green." The drink arrives and she sips it delicately. Lipstick isn't even left on the rim, she's that good. She always is. "I'd have wiped the floor with you."

And there are so many things he'd rather have her do to him on a floor. He's had too much, his eyes are soft, and so is his head, he doesn't even bristle like he should. "Maybe you'll get your chance." He means it as an innuendo, however it can be interpreted.

"Hm." She smiles at him over the rim of her glass, dangerous, gorgeous, a harpy and a lady all herself. There are times Jonouchi would welcome those claws. "You can keep dreaming, I'm taking out Ryuzaki tomorrow. And then, the finals, and I take the African crown."

"Yeah? It'll look good on you."

She smirks at him, and loses some of her edge. "You're a softie."

"Guess so. I'm just so happy not to drink by myself, I..." He doesn't have to say anything else.

Mai leans against the bar, her curtain of blonde curls falling in a wave behind her. "It's tougher, without Yugi joining you, huh?"

"Pah," Jonouchi shrugs. "He's happy making games in Domino, so I'm happy, too."

"And your sister?"

"She's happy in school. She'll want me to say, 'hi,' for her."

"And you? When are you happy?"

Jonouchi smiles at her. "Right now, Mai."

She's flustered by the comment, her nose wrinkles and her eyes get hot. "Oh- you-! You're doing this on purpose to psych me out."

"Is it working?"

"Shut up." She leans forward and pecks him on the mouth. He gets the briefest taste of cranberries. She pulls back just as quickly, nd they gaze at one another, surprise of the moment rolling off them-

Jonouchi launches forward, and finds Mai Kujaku fits as well in his arms as he always imagined, though their teeth keep clashing on this first, serious kiss. They part for breath, and while the hotel bar isn't crowded, they aren't alone, people have noticed - perhaps all the more for how empty it is.

"Uh..." His ears blush very slightly. "My room?"

"I'm not spending the night," she tells him, getting an arm free to flick her hair over her shoulder.

"It's not like that, Mai."