Coming Out Of The Dark

Body

Big thanks to everyone who reviewed!

BTW, I didn't delete the original files entirely - they're still on my hard drive, and I'll probably do something with them eventually. There was just no way I could find to make the story work that way. I did decide to keep the original premise of Tea dumping Yugi for someone else entirely instead of having her and Yugi competing for Yami. Anything I could do along those lines has already been done, and better (if you haven't read "Last Christmas" on ff.net, go check it out!) Yami, however, might be about to find himself the object of some unwanted female attention from another source....not Jada, though. She doesn't fall for decent guys like Yami. She only goes for the really screwed up ones - like a certain prancing crimson palomino, perhaps? But that's another story altogether.....

*winces as Pegasus whacks her with his Dark Rabbit card* Okay, on with the story....

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"Don't make me go back yet Yami, please. Wait until Grandpa's asleep or something---" Yugi sniffled.

"Aibou, he'll be worried. He knows something's wrong," Yami said.

Yugi started to cry harder. "Y-you told him! Oh Yami, you told him---"

"Not quite. I just ran out of the house," Yami admitted. He had sent the others home - no one felt like going back to the dance after Tea's betrayal - and he and Yugi were huddled under the half-roof of the shelter. Yami had quickly dematerialized and reappeared in order to dry off, but Yugi was, of course, still soaking wet and shivering. Yami wanted to get him out of the rain and into dry clothing before the little hikari caught his death, but Yugi didn't want his grandfather to know anything had happened. "Aibou, come on. You'll be sick."

"I screwed up everything---" Yugi sniffled. "I -- I was trying to get away so nobody would find me and I wouldn't ruin anyonnighnight, but I screwed up everything anyway. Tea was right, I'm just a nuisance. I just screw things up for everyone, I ---" He was interrupted by a sneeze.

"Come on. We're going home," Yami said, gently but firmly, scooping Yugi up and heading back for the shop. Yugi sniffled dismally, but didn't protest.

~*~

"Yami, be careful. Some of that doesn't mix," Solomon warned the pharaoh, who was assembling a battalion of cold medications on the kitchen counter. He went to look at some of the boxes and bottles. "None of this stuff keeps you from getting a cold, you know. It just relieves the symptoms once you have it."

Yami looked at him. "What will prevent a cold?"

"Nothing you haven't already done, I'm afraid," Solomon sighed. The moment they'd gotten in, Yami had gotten poor Yugi out of his wet clothes and into a hot bath. "Poor Yugi. He was so looking forward to tonight, too. And to have her do that to him." He shook his head. "You go see if he's all right. I'll fix him some hot chocolate."

Yami heistated, looking at the boxes a moment more, then went to see about his aibou. He found Yugi huddled on his bed, wrapped in a blanket and staring dismally into space.

"How are you feeling, mon hitari no boku?" he asked, sitting down with him. "Are you getting warm?"

Yugi nodded, leaning into Yami's embrace. "Sorry for being so much trouble."

"You're not trouble, aibou. It was all that bitch's fault," Yami said, stroking Yugi's still-damp hair. Once his little hikari had gotten warmed up a bit, Yami had helped him out of the tub, dried him off and dressed him in the warmest pair of pajamas he could find - blue ones with feet. Yami could actually think of a dozen other ways he wanted to warm his small one up, but he didn't dare try right now - not with Yugi emotionally totaled like this. "Don't think about it any more tonight, chibi ichi. There will be time enough to figure out what we want to do."

Yugi nodded. He was wiped out, physically and emotionally. Right now he needed to be held and comforted, reassured that someone still wanted him around. He snuggled closer, tucking his face into the curve of the dark spirit's neck. It felt so nice being held like this. Yami was so warm. He even smelled nice, too, kind of musky and spicy ---- before Solomon came in with the hot chocolate, Yugi had fallen asleep in Yami's arms.

~*~

"Yugi, weren't you and your friends going to the movies this afternoon? I thought you wanted to see The Hulk," Solomon was saying. It was about one PM that next day, Saturday, and Yugi was in the back room of the store, scanning pack after pack of cards into the computer with the bar code scanner. It was a mind-numbing job, but someone had to do it.

Yugi shook his head. "Not today, Grandpa."

"Getting out would make you feel better," Solomon said, ruffling his grandson's hair. Before he could say anything else, thought, Yami called from the front, "Mutou-san? The credit reader isn't working."

"Strip down, face toward you, Yami----" Solomon went to see what was going on. The former pharaoh tried, he really did, but he had, at best, a latently hostile relationship with technology.

Yugi sighed, dropped the bar code reader and put his hands over his face. He didn't know how he was going to face any of his friends. He should have stood up for himself, should have said something, but he'd just frozen. Then it had just hurt so badly----- Gods, you're almost seventeen, he berated himself. Why do you always have to act like such a baby?

"Aibou?"

He looked up as Yami sat down next to him. "What?"

The pharaoh looked almost shy. "Would you go to that -- movie --- with me, aibou? As my date, I mean."

"As your----" Before Yugi could get any words out, Yami kissed him. Yugi was too stunned to react - not that he even knew how, he'd never been kissed before. It was --- it was nice, though. More than nice. It left him trembling, flushed, breathing hard, awash in an emotion he couldn't even put a name to. It was kind of the same breathless feeling he'd used to get around Tea, just a thousand times more intense. Was it --- what he thought it was? Did Yami---?

When their lips parted, Yami gazed deep into his aibou's amethyst eyes. "I love you, in case you haven't figured it out. And I am not about to abandon you like that bitch did. Nor am I about to sit back and watch you get hurt again. I love you, you belong to me and I will let no other have you!" His tone was fierce, almost predatory, but his crimson eyes were awash with an almost startling tenderness. It made Yugi shiver. All at once he couldn't get any words out, so he settled for throwing his arms around Yami's neck and kissing him back as best he could. Yami responded, gently running his tongue along his koi's lips, then sucking gently at them to part them. His tongue slipped between, gently, softly exploring the virgin sweetness of his little angel's mouth----

That was when Solomon came back in.

Yugi cried out and jerked back, falling off the box he'd been sitting on before Yami could catch him. He landed with a startled squeak, sending up a flurry of Styrofoam packing peanuts.

Solomon burst out laughing. "Haven't you boys ever heard of locking doors?" he scolded affectionately, winking at Yami and offering Yugi a hand out of the box he'd landed in. "Now hurry up ant ret ready before you miss your movie," he added with a smile.