Mistletoe
A YuGiOh fanfic
by Quickening
The Spirit frightened her
sometimes.
He was an unknown entity,
mysterious and solemn, and completely unlike the shy, kindhearted boy whose
body he shared. He was intense,
passionate, and seemed to hold no remorse about the steps he was willing take
to win the duels he was constantly challenged to. Even if it meant physically harming his
opponent, as he had nearly done during his duel with Kaiba atop Pegasus’s
castle tower. He was, after all, the
King of Games, and the Pharaoh of ancient
But he was also fiercely
protective of Yugi, and seemed to genuinely care about the boy; had even
allowed himself to lose that duel to Kaiba upon the child’s frantic pleas for
him to end his final move, which might have knocked Kaiba right off the castle
and to a very deadly fall on the rocks far below. The Spirit had seemed to feel ashamed of his
actions after that and did his best to make amends to his now-rather-frightened
young vessel.
Yes, the Spirit did frighten
her…and yet…he drew her at the same time, a bit like a moth drawn to a lighted
window…and she had no idea why.
Téa Gardner sighed as she
opened the cabinet door above the oven and began pulling out ingredients in
preparation of her annual Christmas cookie baking frenzy, a tradition her
grandmother had started with her when she was barely four years old and that
she had continued with every year afterward, even after her grandmother’s
death. Not having a lot of money on her
hands, Téa found it easier to bake her friends’ gifts rather than going out to
buy them something each year. And nobody
really minded. After all, Téa’s special
sugar cookies were the best-baked cookies in
This year was going to be a
little different, however. This year,
unlike the other years when Téa made the several dozen batches of cookies on
her own, she was going to have some help, from a most unexpected source. And she wasn’t entirely certain as to whether
to be glad or anxious about that.
The doorbell chose that moment
to peal loudly, startling the girl out of her thoughts and making her jump in
surprise, before she hurried to the front door and—taking a deep, fortifying
breath—opened it wide with a bright smile on her face. “Good morning!” she chirped, trying to hide
her anxiety as a pair of serious, deep-amethyst eyes rose to meet her own blue
gaze.
The Spirit—otherwise known as
Yami—gave a polite nod of his head in return, his gaze warming slightly at the
sight of his other half’s friend. “Good
morning,” he greeted her, his breath frosting in the chilly air. Téa’s smile had faltered slightly upon
feeling the impact of those eyes, but now she forced it back to her face and
stepped aside, gesturing for the young man to step inside the much-warmer
house. She blinked as he passed her—she
always forgot how tall he was
compared to Yugi, who barely reached her shoulder—and was about to offer to
take his coat when she realized he wasn’t wearing one.
“You know, it is winter now,” she teased gently,
plucking at his black, sleeveless shirt.
“You should at least wear a sweater.
No sense in the both of you
getting sick, after all, right?”
Yami blinked at her, those
serious purple eyes at level with hers, and disconcertingly close. “I suppose so,” he agreed amiably. “It isn’t that far between our two houses,
though, and Yugi was in a hurry for me to leave for some reason.”
Téa smiled slightly, laughing
a little as she led him into the kitchen.
“Well, it was his idea for you
to come. He told me he wanted you to
know a little more about Christmas traditions.”
She looked back over her shoulder and added in a conspiratorial whisper,
“But personally, I think he just wanted to sneak a peek at my secret recipe for
those sugar cookies so he could make them whenever he wants instead of having
to wait a whole year in between batches.”
Yami blinked at her again; his
eyes unfocused slightly, then cleared, and a small smile passed over his
lips. “Yugi said to tell you he heard
that, and he is mortally offended at such an accusation.”
Téa burst out laughing. “So he’s here, too, then?” she questioned,
glancing at the large, gaudy Puzzle hanging around his neck.
“Yes, in our Soul Room,” Yami
replied.
Téa tilted her head to one
side, pursing her lips. “That’s kinda creepy,” she admitted. “That two different people are sharing one
body. It’s kinda
like having a split personality or something.”
Yami raised a slender eyebrow,
and she hastily added, “Oh, not that I mean it’s a bad thing or anything! Please don’t get mad at me! Sometimes I speak before thinking…”
“Don’t worry, Téa. I’m not angry,” he assured her gently. She nodded and turned to the counter on which
her ingredients were sitting, and he couldn’t help but notice the tenseness in
her shoulders. He frowned, studying her;
she sought to hide it, but he could clearly sense her unease with him. Was he wrong in coming here, after all?
<<Give her some time, Yami. She just doesn’t know you well, that’s
all,>> Yugi’s voice whispered in his mind reassuringly. <<That’s
why I wanted you to help her make cookies today. So you could get to know her. She’s really a very nice person.>>
I’m certain she is, Yami replied mentally. If she is your friend, she must be.
“Yami? Are you okay?”
Téa’s voice brought the Spirit
out of his silent conversation, and upon noticing the hidden worry in her eyes,
he gave her a reassuring smile. To his
surprise, she looked startled. “What is
it?” he asked, the smile vanishing from his face.
“What?” Téa blinked, then blushed slightly. “Uh…nothing,” she replied, sounding a bit
sheepish. “It’s just…I…um…I hardly ever
see you smile, that’s all. You’re so
serious all the time.” Almost as an
afterthought, she added, “You have a nice smile, though. You should use it more oft…” Her voice trailed off suddenly and she
blinked at him, apparently only just realizing what she’d been saying. The blush in her cheeks grew warmer,
especially upon witnessing the astonishment on Yami’s face, and she abruptly
decided a change of topic was in order.
“So, anyway, I just want to
mix this batter up and then you can help me roll it out,” she stated
briskly. “I’d let you help me mix it,
but like I said it’s my grandmother’s secret recipe and I’m the only person
alive who knows it, well aside from my mother, so you can watch television or
there are books in the den or…”
Téa realized she was babbling
like an idiot, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. Yami’s presence seemed to overwhelm her in a
most disconcerting fashion, and she was annoyed with herself for letting it get
to her. After all, she’d been with him
like this before, such as the time Yugi had asked her to give the Spirit advice
on regaining his lost memories, which he had eventually succeeded in doing,
thus discovering who he was…or rather who he used to be. It was no wonder
that he held such a royal air about him.
He’d practically been worshiped as a god all those thousands of years
past, and had single-handedly saved ancient
Maybe that was why she was so
uncomfortable now, she decided, because a literal king was standing in her kitchen, and unlike before when they were
out in the city, it was just the two of them; just her, and him, and no crowds
jostling them around, no other people to disturb them. Well, Yugi was there, too, sort of, but that
didn’t really count. After all, he and
Yami were practically the same being.
Minus a foot or two and a
whole boatload of magnetism, of course.
It really wasn’t any wonder
why Yami’s presence was so… intense. He
really was quite a handsome, charismatic young man. One might almost say beautiful, especially
those devastating eyes. Yugi would look
like that one day, she acknowledged with a bit of wonder. When the smaller boy finally came into his
own…the ladies were going to swoon. It
was somewhat disturbing to think about that, to think that she might lose her
best friend when he finally got around to dating actual girls. Things wouldn’t be the same between them.
She was staring, she suddenly
realized, and Yami was staring right back.
Not questioning, not accusing, but simply looking, his eyes gazing
unwaveringly into hers as he allowed her to make her examination. She immediately dropped her gaze to the
counter between them, clearing her throat nervously as one hand reached up to
push a wayward lock of hair behind her ear.
“Um…anyway…I’d better start mixing now,” she murmured, mentally kicking
herself for acting like such an adolescent schoolgirl in the midst of her first
crush. “Make yourself comfortable. There’s juice and soda in the fridge if
you’re thirsty.”
He nodded wordlessly and turned
to glide gracefully over to the kitchen table, lowering himself onto one of the
chairs and turning to face her, watching silently as she began to crack eggs
expertly into a bowl and measure flour and other ingredients. “No peeking,” she scolded playfully, trying
to hide her actions from the Spirit’s probing gaze and succeeding in smudging
the front of her apron with flour in the process, exactly as her grandmother
had done when she had teased Téa about “no peeking” those many years ago.
The familiar actions of making
sugar cookies did a lot to take the edge off Téa’s nervousness, and soon she
found herself relaxing as she hummed a familiar Christmas tune she and her
grandmother used to sing together, allowing herself to be caught up in the
memories of past years. The process of
baking these special cookies was always bittersweet for her. On one hand, she loved to make them because
she always loved to see the blissful expressions on her friends’ faces when
they bit into one of her cookies every year.
But the memories that were brought back as she made them were sometimes
as sad as they were happy. It was always
at this time of year when she missed her kind, loving grandmother the most.
“Téa, is something
wrong?” Yami had noticed the melancholy
expression that had settled over the girl’s graceful features, and concern grew
in his eyes as he studied her. Her head
snapped up in shock as she blinked at him, but then a soft smile graced her
lips and she shook her head.
“No, I’m fine,” she assured
him. “I was just remembering, that’s
all.” Hesitating, she added, “My
grandmother was the one who started this cookie-baking tradition with me, when
I was barely old enough to know how to work a stove properly. We did it every year, and then we’d decorate
her house while we were waiting for the cookies to bake.” Her voice saddened a little. “She died when I was ten, though, so since
then I’ve kind of been doing this on my own.
But I always remember what it was like, back then, with the radio
blasting Christmas music and Grandma dancing around the kitchen to Bing
Crosby…” She trailed off and smiled
again, her eyes glimmering with memories.
“Is she the one who gave you
your love of dancing, as well?” Yami asked her gently, his gaze soft upon her.
She blinked. “I never really thought about it before. But yeah, actually, I think I started to love
dancing when I used to dance with her. I
stood on her shoes when I was little enough.”
She laughed to herself and shook her head. “Grandma taught me how to waltz that way.”
“Waltz?” Yami looked curious.
She nodded, grinning. “It’s a kind of dance,” she explained. “It came from
“But doesn’t dancing with a
partner usually require touching?” Yami asked dryly. He may have been an ancient Pharaoh but there
were some things that were obvious
enough about the modern world.
Téa laughed. “Well, obviously, but this one required it
more than what was usual. Especially for
way back then,” she clarified. “Anyway,
I’m done mixing my ingredients, so you can come help me cut them if you like.” She reached into a box and began pulling out
an assortment of objects, which were made of thin strips of tin that were
formed into different shapes. Curiosity
got the better of Yami as he stood and made his way to the counter, picking up
one of the shapes and examining it. It
looked like a star.
“These are cookie cutters,”
Téa told him, holding up another one shaped a bit like a pine tree. “You roll out your dough, like this…and then
press the sharper edge of the cutter into it.
Like this.” She demonstrated for
him, removing the cutter and carefully lifting the perfectly tree-shaped chunk
of dough onto her hand. “There. See?
Nothing to it.”
“I see.” Despite himself, Yami was rather impressed at
the simple yet ingenious designs of the cutters. As Pharaoh, he’d had impressive feasts laid
before him at his dinner table every night, prepared by the finest cooks and
bakers in Egypt with the most expensive and delectable ingredients. But he’d never seen anything quite like this
before.
Téa gave Yami a bright smile,
her earlier unease long forgotten—much to the Spirit’s relief—and proceeded to
roll out more of the dough, snatching a bite or two every now and again. Noticing the look of faint disgust that Yami
gave her upon catching her in such an act, she grinned at him and held out a
small chunk. “Want a taste?” she asked
innocently.
“It’s…raw,” he replied with
apparent distaste.
“Of course. That’s half the fun of it,” she told him
cheerfully. “Go ahead and taste it. It won’t kill you.”
He hesitantly accepted the
sticky dough ball and eyed it warily for a moment, before slowly bringing it to
his lips. The sweet smell of sugar
assaulted his nose, making it twitch, before he placed the dough into his
mouth. He chewed for a moment before
swallowing, his face impassive, while Téa looked on curiously.
“Well?” she asked after a
moment.
“It was…fairly good,” he
replied indifferently.
She raised an eyebrow at
him. “Only fairly good?” she asked, obviously amused. About what, he couldn’t begin to fathom. He merely shrugged, and she giggled a little
and continued to cut out shapes. “I
guess you’re not a raw-cookie-dough kind of a guy,” she concluded. “The one time I actually let Yugi and Joey
and Tristan come over here to help, I could hardly keep their hands out of the
bowl enough to have cookies to actually bake!”
“Yugi willingly eats it raw?” Yami
looked disturbed at that, and she laughed again.
“Trust me. When they’re baked I’m sure you’ll like them
much better,” she assured him, placing two gingerbread men (or rather,
sugar-cookie men) onto the already-full tray.
“Okay. That’s all for this
batch. Let them bake for twenty minutes
and then we can cut out more. I usually
make two or three dozen at a time. They’re
my Christmas gift to my friends and family,” she explained. She opened the oven door, sending a wave of
heat into the kitchen, and carefully slid the trays inside before closing it
again and adjusting a small dial. “Well,
that’s all for now.”
“What else is
there to do?” Yami asked.
“Well, while
these bake we can put up some Christmas decorations,” Téa replied. She gestured at him to follow her into the
hallway, where she then paused before a door and opened it, revealing a small,
rather cluttered closet. “Hmmm…now where
did Mom shove that thing…?” she muttered to herself, sticking her head in to
rummage around. Yami eyed the
precariously balanced items on the overflowing shelves, prepared to leap
forward and yank Téa back out of harm’s way should anything fall. After another few moments, Téa’s head popped
back out of the closet and she eyed it with a dark frown. “Hmmm…now I coulda
sworn I saw Mom put it in here last year…”
Her eyes
traveled the length of the closet and rose upward, toward the topmost shelf…and
there she could just see a bit of sparkling tinsel hanging out over the top of
a beaten-up old box. “Ah-hah!” she
crowed triumphantly, pointing at it.
Then her shoulders slumped.
“Leave it to Mom to pack it all
the way to the top,” she grumbled to herself, standing on her toes to reach up
as far as she could. Her fingers brushed
the box, and she managed to slide it forward an inch or two in order to get a
better grip on it before she carefully began to lower it from the shelf,
grasping it by the bottom.
“Uh…Téa…would
you like some help?” Yami asked nervously, seeing the box beginning to tip over
just a little too far…
“No, I got it,”
Téa replied, her voice muffled. “Thanks
anyway, Yamiii-yikes!” She uttered a short yelp as the box, its back
half still caught on the shelf, abruptly tipped the entire way over, sending
its contents spilling out onto her head in a shower of glittering tinsel and
homemade decorations. The storage box
itself landed upside-down over Téa’s head, the impact causing her to lose her
balance and fall over, landing quite comically on her rear end among the
litter.
Yami stared at
her worriedly as he knelt beside her and lifted the box from her head. Mortified blue eyes stared back at him
through wisps of soft hair and several strands of garland; her face was scarlet
with embarrassment. “Are you injured?”
he asked softly, attempting to keep the smile from his face at the utterly
hilarious sight she made. Inside his
soul room, Yugi was practically howling with laughter and Yami scolded him
silently, very glad that Téa couldn’t hear the younger version of himself
laughing like such a hyena. Yugi calmed
enough to apologize, but the grin never left his face. It was a rare thing to see Téa—who was
usually so very graceful—make such a klutz out of herself.
“Only my
pride,” Téa was muttering as she glared at the floor, too embarrassed to meet
the Spirit’s worried gaze. She irritably
brushed the garland from her head and stood, resisting the urge to shake off
Yami’s helping hand. She could see the
faint amusement lingering in his eyes, and was extremely grateful that he had
more tact than to tease her or make any snide comments. She cleared her throat and took a deep
breath, regaining her composure. “That
could have gone better,” she mumbled, looking in dismay at the boxes and
decorations strewn all around her. “Oh
dear. I’m sure I heard something break,”
she added worriedly, stooping to pick up a small box, opening it hesitantly as
though afraid of what she’d find.
It was as she’d
feared; the box had contained several glass Christmas ornaments, most of which
were broken now. Still…she supposed that
with some patience, and a lot of
glue, she’d be able to repair them enough to be useable yet. Luckily, they were fairly new, and not the
antiques that her mother kept safely within her own bedroom. She’d never get out of it alive if she’d
managed to break any of those.
Yami was
opening another box, holding up the broken wing of what had once been an
angel. “They can be fixed?” he asked
doubtfully, shifting through the broken pieces.
“Yeah…assuming
we can find which pieces belong to what,” Téa replied, pursing her lips
thoughtfully. “Well, I’ll take care of
that later. Right now I guess I’d better
clean up this mess.” She tipped the box
upright and began to pick up the tinsel garland, sorting it out carefully
before placing it back in the box. Most
of these were tree decorations, she realized, and as her family hadn’t gotten
their tree set up yet, they wouldn’t do much good. She set aside a light set, to hang later on
around the front windows, and a pile of garland to tape around the door.
“What is
this?” Yami had noticed a strange object
clinging stubbornly to Téa’s hair, and now he reached out to pluck what looked
like some kind of a velvety, plastic plant (that had obviously seen better
days) from the soft, brown strands. The
end of the plant was tied with a bedraggled red bow with a hook to hang it from
somewhere, and several of its leaves were missing. To his surprise, when Téa glanced at it, her
eyes widened and her cheeks began to turn red again.
“It’s…erm…nothing,” she muttered, snatching it from his hand
again. “Just…um…just some old
decoration. I don’t even know why my mom
keeps that decrepit old thing. We never
actually use it anymore. It used to belong to my grandma, so maybe
that’s why she keeps hanging onto it.
Sentimental value and all that…”
Yami was more
than a little curious now. It was a
simple enough explanation, but from the way Téa was acting, he could tell that
there was a bit more to it than what she was admitting to. He sent a curious inquiry to Yugi, who
stirred to look at the plant in Téa’s hand through Yami’s eyes. <<It’s
mistletoe!>> came the delighted reply a moment later. <<I
can’t believe Téa actually has mistletoe in her house. It looks like it’s been well-used, too.>> The boy’s voice turned slyly smug, thus
increasing the Spirit’s curiosity even more.
And what does this…mistletoe…do, exactly?
Yami asked curiously. Téa seems rather…disturbed about it.
Yugi laughed
slyly. <<You’re supposed to hang it from the ceiling or a doorjamb or some place
like that. Then, as tradition goes,
whenever somebody steps beneath it, whoever is next to them has to kiss
them. You said it was caught in her
hair? No wonder Téa’s embarrassed!>>
Kiss them? Yami raised an eyebrow as he glanced at Téa’s
glowing face. She studiously avoided his
eyes as she put the decoration back into the box, burying it quite thoroughly
beneath the piles of garland. Several
strands of golden tinsel were still caught in her hair, entwined with the brown
strands and glittering brightly, and that combined with her rather becoming
blush suddenly made Yami’s heart lurch strangely. Yugi immediately picked up on the Spirit’s
strange feelings—well, it was his own
body, after all—and his eyes widened with surprise before a slow, delighted
smile crept over his face. Was it
possible that Yami was beginning to feel the stirrings of a crush toward his
long-time friend? He sincerely hoped
so. He’d had a crush on Téa himself, for
as long as he could remember, but had never had the courage to act on it. He’d never thought he stood a chance with the
girl, after all, being as short as he was and all. But if Yami were to feel the same…and if Téa
were to fall for him in return (which Yugi suspected she was close to doing
already, if the look on her face was any indication), then it would be almost
like him getting the girl of his
dreams. After all, he and Yami were
nearly the same person.
At the very least, he wanted
Yami to be happy more than anything, and Téa had a gift for making those around
her as happy as they’d ever been. If
Yugi himself couldn’t have Téa as anything more than a friend…then he wanted
Yami to have her above all else. They
were good for each other. He knew it in
his heart. Still…as both of them
obviously weren’t planning on making any kind of moves on the other for quite
some time, it was clearly up to him to help things along. <<So?>>
he questioned with wry innocence.
<<What are you waiting for,
Yami? Go ahead and kiss her! Come on!
You know you want to.>>
Yami, who had not been expecting this kind of
encouragement so suddenly from his other half, nearly choked in shock and
abruptly began to cough. This seemed to
snap Téa from her trance-like state, and she blinked and suddenly rose to her
feet. “I…uh…better check on the
cookies. To make sure they aren’t
burning,” she mumbled, hurrying past the surprised Spirit and back to the
kitchen. It had only been ten minutes;
the cookies were far from being burned, but she thought it best not to mention
that. What had that expression been on Yami’s face a moment ago? Shock?
He’d been quiet for a few moments there; it was obvious he’d been
speaking to Yugi, probably asking him what that decoration really was, which would explain the shock quite nicely if Yugi had
disclosed the time-honored tradition behind the mistletoe…
Téa moaned and covered her
face with her hands, not sure whether to laugh or beat her head against the
counter. And it had been stuck in her hair?
Oh, she wasn’t ever going to
be able to look Yami in the eye ever again, was she? A quiet step alerted her to Yami’s presence,
and she looked up to smile at him weakly, keeping her eyes firmly trained on
his collar. “So…um…just what did Yugi
tell you about the mistletoe?” she questioned, as innocently as she knew how.
“He explained its…tradition,”
Yami replied carefully, seating himself at a stool beside the counter.
Téa laughed dryly. “Thought so.”
She shrugged. “It belonged to
Grandma. Apparently, it’s how she met my
grandfather. She was at a Christmas
party and he’d been trying to get her attention all night. She basically ignored him though. But somehow, some mistletoe wound up stuck in
her hair—she used to swear up and down that the friend she’d gone to the party
with had put it there when she wasn’t looking—and Grandpa used it to his
advantage.” She smiled wryly. “He waited until he caught her alone, told
her ‘it’s tradition!’, and then proceeded to give her—Now how did she put this?—her
‘very first passionate kiss’. I guess
she kept the decoration as a memory. She
hung it every Christmas in her house, even after Grandpa died, up until the
year she died.”
Yami regarded Téa through
gentle eyes, smiling a little as she related the story. “It sounds like a rather romantic thing for
him to have done,” he told her when she’d finished. “Determination is a good quality for someone
to have.”
Téa laughed loudly, her blue
eyes sparkling mischievously. “Yeah, but
she didn’t think so at the time. As soon
as he let her go, she slapped him across the face and stormed out. He didn’t give up on her then, either, but it
was another two months before she finally relented and allowed him to court
her.”
This caused Yami to chuckle as
well, his face lighting in that smile that Téa so loved to see. Feeling suddenly flushed, she cleared her
throat and turned away, excusing herself to check on the cookies. There was still five minutes left on the
clock, but already they had browned to a crispy, golden-brown color, and the
smell of Christmas filled the air around them.
“Ummmm…” she breathed, inhaling deeply with
closed eyes. “I love this smell. I’ll never forget it. If I could bottle this smell and sell it, I bet
I’d make a fortune!”
She opened her eyes and turned
her head to smile at Yami, and was startled to realize that he’d knelt right
beside her, his face only inches from her own.
Dark blue clashed with warm, intense violet, and time seemed to freeze
for a long, long moment. They poised there,
balancing on the brink of something delicate and ethereal, before Yami slowly
blinked, thus breaking the trance. Téa
started breathing again, rising shakily to her feet and commanding her heart to
still its erratic pounding. She slid on
an oven mitt and carefully pulled the hot trays from the oven, using a spatula
to slide the perfectly-baked cookies from the sheets and onto the paper
bags—which she’d earlier cut and spread across the table—to cool.
“Um…we’ll let the trays cool a
little before putting more dough on them,” she said, still feeling a little
jittery from her earlier close encounter.
Good grief, the chores had barely begun!
If it was going to be like this all
day, she’d be a royal mess of nerves by the time Yami finally left! She needed to do something to distract
herself from the overwhelmingly enthralling presence of the former king. It was becoming quite obvious to her that she
was fast developing a huge crush on
the Spirit, which could in turn lead to something far more dangerous if she
wasn’t careful; namely, real love. Yami
was a spirit, who’d been locked away for thousands of years by himself in an
ancient, magical puzzle, without human contact of any kind. Did he even know what love was anymore? And even if he did, could someone like him
really be attracted to someone like her?
He’d no doubt had an entire harem of beautiful women at his
disposal. She knew she wasn’t ugly, but
she certainly wasn’t anything like the exotic beauties he was probably used
to. Or maybe he was as obsessed with the
Game back then as he was now, and had no eye for women then, either. Besides, he
was sharing Yugi’s body. Yugi had been her friend since…since
forever! How could she use him that way
just to be with Yami? It wouldn’t be right.
It was true, she did care for Yugi…a lot. More than she’d ever let on before, and it
didn’t matter to her that he was so much shorter than her, not to mention a
little younger. He was kind, and
intelligent, and he genuinely cared about her.
But since Yugi had never shown her any interest of that sort, she’d just sort of made herself forget about her little
crush on him. His friendship meant more
to her than that, anyway, and she wasn’t about to throw it away just because
he’d never asked her out on a date.
The cookie sheets had cooled
sufficiently by now and she began to roll out more dough, aware of the Spirit’s
eyes resting on her in silent contemplation.
She gave him a brief smile as she handed him a cutter, then began to cut
shapes of her own in the soft dough and arrange them carefully on the
tray. Yami was being disconcertingly
quiet. This wasn’t anything new; he was always quiet. But today his silence seemed more foreboding
than usual. She wished to high heaven
that she could read his mind and know what he was thinking. Was he regretting ever coming here in the
first place?
The silence stretched on, and
finally, when she couldn’t take it anymore, Téa made her way over to the
stereo, flipped through some cassette tapes, popped one into the player, and
hit play. Immediately the sounds of Bing
Crosby’s crooning voice filled the air with his rendition of White Christmas,
and she began to relax a little more. “Gotta hand it to Bing,” she stated with forced cheer. “The man can definitely croon a tune.”
“Are you going to teach me to
dance the Waltz now?” Yami’s voice was
amused, even as Téa turned a startled gaze on him. She laughed nervously, rubbing the back of
her neck.
“Well…uh…this isn’t really a
waltz-y kind of a song,” she replied sheepishly, taking the trays to slide them
into the oven. “It’s more of a
slow-dance kind of a song,” she added, mumbling to herself.
“Teach me to slow-dance then?”
Yami offered, crossing his arms casually as he half-leaned, half-sat against
the kitchen counter. In his head, Yugi
was cheering him on, and he hushed the impish little boy with some amusement.
Téa’s lips twitched in a
slight smile. “Uh…Yami, you’re sitting
in flour,” she stated blandly, eyeing the counter pointedly.
Yami immediately jumped up,
straining to peer over his shoulder so he could assess the damage done to his
black pants, turning in a half-circle as he did so. Téa giggled a little upon seeing that the
seat of his pants was entirely white.
“You might want to brush yourself off before going out,” she advised
him, hiding her smile behind her hand.
He beat futilely at his rear,
sending up puffs of white, but did little to succeed in removing the
flour. Téa couldn’t help but laugh some
more. “I-I’d offer to help you brush
off, but…um…considering where I’d be hitting…”
She trailed off at his mortified expression, her grin stretching from
ear to ear by then. “Hold on,” she
relented, grabbing a dishtowel and winding it into a snake-like whip. “Okay, hold still now,” she chirped,
advancing toward him.
His eyes widened in alarm as
he began to back away. “Just what do you
intend to do with that?” he demanded suspiciously.
She gazed at him
innocently. “Whatever do you mean? I’m just going to help you dust off. Can’t have you getting flour all over my
house, now can I?”
“I can manage on my own,” he
told her stiffly, keeping the table well between him and the towel.
She laughed again and snapped
the towel playfully at him. “What’s the
matter? Afraid I’ll bite?” she teased,
thoroughly enjoying this abrupt change in atmosphere.
“Téa,” he began pleadingly,
laughing a little himself. “Please. Just put the towel down.”
She smirked at him. “Oh, fine, you big baby,” she pouted, tossing
the towel into the sink. “All this fuss
over a little towel. Hard to believe you
can stand up against all those scary duel monsters and yet you can’t even face
off against little ol’ me.”
He looked insulted for a
moment, then shrugged and grinned. “The
duel monsters are fairly predictable,” he replied, “whereas I am quickly
discovering that you, my dear, are anything but.”
She stared at him in
surprise. “What’s that supposed to
mean?” she demanded, feeling a little mystified. She wasn’t certain whether or not she should
be insulted. Instead of replying, Yami
merely made his way over to her and held out his hands to her a bit awkwardly.
“Go ahead, Téa,” he whispered
to her fondly. “Teach me to dance. Show me why you love it so much.”
Well, there went her
thrice-cursed heart again, attempting to pound its way right through her
throat. She swallowed it back down to
where it belonged and hesitantly accepted his hands. Warm, strong fingers closed over her own and
pulled her closer to him, and she bit her lip anxiously. Okay, what was she supposed to do again?
Dancing. You’re teaching
him to slow dance. Just…show him how
it’s done and then get back to doing something normal, she told herself firmly. “Okay…uh…well, it’s fairly simple,” she
explained a bit nervously.
“Just…uh…okay, basically, you put your arms around my waist and
I…um…mine go around your neck. Like
this.” She slipped her arms shyly around
Yami’s neck, keeping her eyes trained on his mouth…okay, okay. Bad place to be staring at the moment…She
dropped her gaze to his chin.
There. Much safer.
Yami’s arms slid around her
waist in a loose, comfortable embrace as he waited patiently for her to
continue. As soon as she found her voice
again, she did so. “Now…um…we just kinda…start moving in a slow circle and try not to step on
each other’s feet.” A small smile lifted
the corner of her mouth before fading again.
“See? Nothing to it,” she
finished on a whisper. She knew her face
had to be glowing like Rudolph’s nose by then, but there wasn’t much she could
do about that. Yami probably thought she
was a complete moron for making too much of a simple situation, but she just
couldn’t help herself. She’d never
actually danced with a man before, and the fact that it was Yami who was
sharing it with her made it all the more significant. She was definitely falling, and falling hard,
and there was little she could—or wanted to—do to put a stop to it.
They moved silently together
in a circle in the middle of the kitchen floor, not daring to look at each
other and doing a pretty good job of avoiding each other’s toes. Yami was experiencing his own strange
emotions about his current situation, the topmost being that he was greatly
enjoying himself. He could feel Yugi’s smug grin in the back of his mind, and had to smile
at the boy’s obvious satisfaction. It
looked like his vessel’s plan had worked out even better than he’d hoped. Yami lowered his gentle gaze to Téa’s head,
which had lowered to rest against his shoulder, and his eyes widened briefly as
a flash of pale green caught his eye, tangled deep in the strands of her
hair. Was that…?
The beeper went off then,
alerting both of them that the cookies were finished baking—Had they really
been dancing that long?—and Téa jumped slightly in his arms before raising her
head to look at the oven. “Oh. Guess I’d better pull them out.” She sounded disappointed, and Yami’s arms
held her tighter for a moment before letting her go. She ducked past him, her head bowed shyly,
and opened the door to pull the finished cookies from the oven. Luckily she’d set the timer for five minutes
less that time, so once again the cookies had turned out perfectly.
They were silent as they
prepared more of the cookies for baking, and then Téa began to mix a batch of
white icing. She filled a pair of
plastic sandwich bags with the sugary concoction, tied off the open end, cut
the corner tip off each one, and proceeded to show Yami how to squeeze it out
onto the finished cookies, outlining each one in pure white. After a few failed tries, Yami eventually got
it right and they worked silently until the two batches were finished. Téa rearranged them to make room for the third
and fourth batch, then leaned back in her chair. “Almost done,” she announced, stretching her
arms above her head to work the kinks out of her neck. She took one of the cookies from the paper
sheets, snapped it in half, and handed one part to him. “Here.
Have a taste,” she offered.
He took it slowly. “Are you sure? These are for your gifts, after all.”
“What’s the fun of making them
if you can’t sneak in a couple ahead of time?” she asked with a smile. “Besides, you’ve been really helpful today,
and I appreciate that. You’ve definitely
earned a taste.” Her eyebrow rose in
challenge. “Unless you’re afraid I
poisoned it or something,” she finished with a smirk.
Yami bit into the cookie
delicately and chewed, his expression slowly clearing to one of delight. “This is absolutely delicious,” he
stated. “I can understand now why
they’re so popular.” In his head, Yugi
whined playfully about not being able to get a taste.
Téa looked satisfied as she
took a bite out of her half. “Told ya,” she replied smugly.
“Grandma’s cookies are the best.”
“You’re the one that made them,
Téa,” he told her softly. “They’re your cookies now.”
Téa blushed at that, squirming
a little. “Well, if you want to get
technical about it, you helped today so I guess they’re our cookies now,” she mumbled, tracing her finger around a drop of
icing on the table.
Yami smiled slowly. Our cookies.
He really liked the sound of that.
Yugi snickered in his mind, and he sighed inwardly. He loved his vessel like a brother, but really.
Yugi, do you mind…?
<<Sorry! Sorry! Don’t mind me! I’ll just be sitting in here, contemplating
the meaning of life or something. You
won’t even know I’m here!>> Yugi replied impishly. Then, with poorly-feigned innocence, he
added, <<By the way, you did notice what was in her hair, didn’t you…?>>
Yugi!
<<I’m going! I’m going!>> With another smug laugh, the connection was
closed off.
It took pretty much the
remainder of the day for the cookies to be baked, then decorated, and finally
arranged on pretty ceramic plates, wrapped with colored cellophane paper, and
tied with white silk ribbons. They
placed them in the pantry on an empty shelf, then began to clean up the
kitchen. Téa insisted that she could
clean up herself, but Yami wouldn’t hear of it.
It was a bit amusing to see the King of Games wearing an apron and
washing dishes, and Téa wished heartily for a camera to capture the moment, but
settled for engraving it into her memory instead. This had turned out to be one of the best
days of her life, and she was now sincerely glad that she’d allowed Yugi to
talk her into allowing the Spirit to help, ulterior motive or no.
The last thing they did was to
string the lights around the window, only to find out that a bulb had burnt
out, thus rendering the entire strand useless, when Téa tried to turn it on. Yami suggested putting up another string
instead, but Téa insisted that they still looked pretty even if they weren’t
turned on, and to let it go for now.
She’d check them when she finally got the tree set up. Secretly, she thought it was a great excuse
to get him to come over again, but of course she wasn’t about to admit that.
It had grown dark by the time
Yami suggested that he’d best be getting back to the game store, before Yugi’s grandfather began to worry about him. Hiding her disappointment, Téa agreed—her
mother would be home from work soon and she needed to cook dinner—and offered
him one of her old coats (that had belonged to her father) to wear on the way
home, since the temperature had no doubt dropped with the setting of the sun. Yet another excuse for him to come back, she
thought slyly.
He stopped at the front door
and turned to regard her seriously, taking her hand in his. “Thank you for allowing me to be here today,”
he told her quietly. “I enjoyed it
greatly.”
“So did I,” she replied with a
bright smile. “And I appreciated the
help. It made the time go by
faster.” She wrinkled her nose adorably. “I don’t know that you actually learned
anything useful about Christmas though,” she added.
“Oh, but I did,” he replied
sincerely, his eyes shining down at her.
“I learned that it’s about spending time with those you care for,
friends and family, wanting to make them happy.
It’s a wonderful reason to celebrate.”
His smile was as gentle as his eyes, and she looked away in a sudden fit
of bashfulness, causing it to widen. “I
also learned something else,” he added a bit playfully. “Something rather interesting, I might add.”
“The dancing?” she guessed
wryly.
“Well…there’s that. I enjoyed that very much, by the way,” he
added, liking the way her face lit up briefly at the compliment. His hand reached out to her hair, and her
face came up with a sharp jerk, surprise written all over her features at the
feel of his fingers twining themselves in the soft strands. After a moment, he pulled away and brought
his hand down before her eyes. She
blinked to focus them on what he was holding between his fingers, and her eyes
widened when she recognized it to be one of the missing leaves of the sprig of
mistletoe they’d earlier found.
“Oh my,” she squeaked. “It…uh…must’ve gotten stuck there, huh?” She looked at him uncertainly, not quite sure
what to say. He didn’t say anything,
merely regarded her though softly glowing eyes.
She gave a nervous half-laugh, scratching at her head self-consciously. “D-don’t worry. I won’t make you follow tradition or anything
like that,” she continued hurriedly. “I
mean, it wouldn’t really be…” She was
cut off abruptly as gentle fingers pressed against her lips, and she slowly
raised her eyes to meet those of the Spirit, and found herself being engulfed
in deep, enigmatic pools of emotion.
“I am Pharaoh, the son of
Ra. My upbringing was steeped in
tradition,” he told her softly, tucking the leaf back into her hair. “So…who am I to be the one to break it?”
Téa’s eyes widened in wonder
as she felt her face being tilted upward, his strong fingers curling under her
chin and into her hair as he drew closer to her, ever-so-close, until she felt
his breath upon her lips, and finally the heady press of warm, soft flesh
against them.
She simply melted into his
arms. She couldn’t help herself. His kiss was so tender, so gentle; his lips
were like soft velvet as they caressed her mouth for long, slow moments. It was all there. Yugi’s inherent
gentleness mingled thoroughly with Yami’s dark passion. Her first crush and her second. Two separate entities who might really have
been the same person. It was as though
they were both kissing her at once, and maybe they were. She didn’t pretend to understand the way
their bond worked, nor did she pretend to care.
All she knew was that this was one moment she didn’t want to end for a
long, long time.
But all things must come to
pass, and this was no exception. When
she felt as though she was on the verge of literally swooning into his arms,
Yami slowly lifted his mouth from hers, his eyes lidded as he gazed intently at
her. “By all that’s holy, Téa…” he
murmured with a bit of wonder, slowly touching her lips, and then his own, while
keeping his other arm firmly wrapped around her waist.
Téa wondered dazedly if she’d
be able to stand on her own. But that
was okay, since Yami didn’t appear to be inclined to release her any time
soon. She sought to speak, and realized
she had no idea what to say in a situation like this. “Um…wow,” was all she could manage to get
out. Then, finding her voice, she added
shyly, “M-maybe you should have done that sooner…”
He brushed his lips across the
corner of her mouth before lowering his head to nuzzle at her neck, pressing
soft kisses to the sensitive flesh under her jaw. “If I’d known that you wanted me to, I would
have,” he admitted. A small grin touched
his lips. “If I’d known what it would be
like, I would have whether you wanted me to or not,” he whispered in her ear.
She closed her eyes
again. “And risk getting slapped?” she
asked, only half-teasing. The way he was
nuzzling at her ear was most distracting, especially when he took the lobe between
his teeth to nibble at it softly. Her
fingers tightened on his biceps, betraying just how much she was enjoying that.
“A kiss like that is worth any
number of slaps,” he replied roughly, never halting in his torture of her
ear. “In fact, I think I want to do it
again.” He moved to taste her lips
again, but her hand on his mouth stilled him.
He regarded her with slightly-wounded eyes, but her smile was so gentle
that he couldn’t be hurt.
“As much as I want you to kiss
me again…if you do that, like you just did…I don’t think you’ll be leaving here
tonight, and…as tempting as that
thought is, I don’t think either of us are ready for a step like that,” she
murmured. She blushed darkly as his
knowing gaze met hers, eyes turned to deep violet with desire. She could feel—pressed as close to him as she
was—that at least one of them was very ready to take that next step, but
she didn’t think it tactful to call attention to the hard, warm bulge that was
pressed so intimately against her lower belly.
It was a bit disturbing and exciting, to say the least, to know beyond
doubt that he desired her that
much. So much for her doubts about the
Spirit ever finding her attractive…
“Th-this
is too new a-and too special to just throw ourselves into it,” she continued,
fighting desperately to ignore the warm pressure against her stomach. If he noticed at all, he either didn’t
care…or he wanted her to feel the
evidence of his desire. She wouldn’t put
it beyond him. The King of Games did
whatever was necessary to win his challenge, after all. “I don’t want to ruin everything between us
like that. And…there is the matter of Yugi. I-it’s his body. We can’t just use him like that. I’d never want to hurt him like that in any
way, because I really do care for
him. A lot.”
That seemed to have the
desired effect, but only slightly. His
gaze became a little less intense in the face of this observation. Truthfully, Yami had the feeling that Yugi
knew exactly what was going on at the moment, and better yet, had absolutely no
objections to it. It wouldn’t have
surprised him if Yugi was even able to feel everything that Yami was currently
feeling, despite the closed connection between their souls. But Téa was right. Until he knew for certain, he’d never dream
of taking advantage of his vessel’s body to fulfill his own desires…as painful as that desire happened to be at
the moment. He was well aware that his
tight-fitting jeans were a more than little too
tight at the moment, and he was aware that Téa knew of it, too. She seemed more intrigued than scared, however,
so who was he to be embarrassed about what was only a natural reaction to their
passionate moment? Still…
He sighed, held her tight to
him for a moment as he gently pressed his hips against her—making her blush
deepen even more—and then reluctantly stepped away from her. She couldn’t quite keep her eyes from
straying downward, to the very noticeable bulge in the front of his pants,
before she jerked them back up again to meet his tender, amused gaze. “There will be other times,” he told her, his
voice as deep and enigmatic as his eyes had ever been. One hand reached out to caress her face
softly. “Other chances,” he finished in
a whisper, and his voice was filled with promise, making her heart lurch like
crazy.
He swung the old trench coat
around his shoulders and belted it securely before opening the door. He stepped outside into the chilly night, his
overheated breath immediately frosting the air in a great cloud of white, and
turned to cast one last, longing glance back at the young woman who had come to
mean so much to him in such a short amount of time. “I’ll see you soon, Téa,” he murmured, bowing
to her slightly before turning to trot briskly away into the night. “Very soon…”
Within his mind, Yugi
wholeheartedly agreed.
End.
Disclaimers: I do not own any of the characters of YuGiOh. I am merely
borrowing them to write this little fanfic. Now that it’s finished, they’ll be put back
just the way I found them. Thank you.