Title: Yearning for Love 3/?
Author: Yami no Kaiba
Series: Yugioh
Rating: R
Pairing: Yami/Seto (Seto’s name in Egypt is Set), Set/Osirus (one-sided), and Yugi/Jounouchi

Summary: The pharaoh’s Shadow Realm deck held all the Blue Eyes White Dragon cards, and there’s a myth that a god’s soul had been sealed into one of those cards. Yami decides to see if this is true.
Disclaimer: If I got money off of these stories, I wouldn’t be posting them on the net. I don’t own the characters, because if I did, Seto and Yami would be making out almost every episode.
WARNING: Graphic scenes (i.e. gore), suicide attempt, yaoi (duh), extreme lime almost lemon content, etc.

Note: Amazingly enough, some of you, are still confused! Yeah. Ok, here’s my idea behind mortals, immortals, and gods. Gods are top notch, impervious to almost any attack but a few high-class secret magic spells, but when wounded it takes so long (thousands of years) to heal they usually die before that happens. Mortals are humans and immortals are human bodies that house the spirit of the god and don’t die unless violently killed (i.e. no diseases or old age for them), they can’t pull from their god powers, but they still have the slow healing problem. Immortals have the chance to become gods again until they die, and no one in the story really knows what happens to the god’s soul when that happens. Oh yeah, and before anyone asks, the healing problem resists healing magic.

*---*---*---*---*

Yami awoke to the knocking of his servants against the door. Blinking, he worried about the lack of light and the source of heat on tip of him. Reaching out with both hands, he came in contact with warm flesh and a leathery material that stirred at his touch. The leather seemed to retract at his touch and the young pharaoh winced as the light from the morning sun invaded the darkness. What had sounded like soft knocks before were now frantic poundings in the unmuffled air.

A shift of weight in the warmth and a shock of brown hair followed rapidly by sapphire blue rimmed with the pinkness of irritated eyes peered into his own ruby orbs. "Morning," came the shy greeting from the youth. Yami paused briefly with a blush rising on his cheeks. After all, Yami had never woken with a naked boy sprawled out on him before. And warm, definitely sexy looking boy. Ack!

More banging came from the door and startled Yami out of his embarrassment. He glanced towards the window and cursed. The sun was higher than it usually was when he woke up. He turned back to the still naked boy.

"Could you get off and hide for a bit? I need to be dressed, and go to the morning audiences."

The boy drew back and clambered off. Wings folded back and tail swishing lightly through the air, he smiled. "I don’t even know your name."

"It’s Yami," he said as he started his trek towards the door.

"Mine’s Set," the naked boy said. Yami gasped, whirling around. This was the God of Chaos and Destruction?! "Not what you were expecting, huh? Don’t label me by what you heard. Know that any being, mortal, immortal, or god, unless insane, always has a reason for what they do." With that, the immortal started muttering something under his breath and before Yami’s eyes he faded and disappeared.

"What the-?!" The brush of phantom fingers against Yami’s forearm caused him to jerk back and the sound of a boy’s chuckling filled his hearing.

"Don’t worry," Yami thought he heard someone whisper in his ear. "It’s but an illusion. Although you can’t see me, I’m still here, as you could tell if you just looked down."

Yami looked, and sure enough the morning light cast a shadow that looked as if it would belong to Set on the ground. It seemed to turn and go and merge with one of the shadows already in the room. "I suggest you let your slaves in now before you’re any latter. Also, if you could manage to procure me some clothes, I’d by very much obliged."

*---*---Yami’s POV---*---*

The morning audiences are finally over and since I started the day so late I’m skipping lunch and going straight to the meetings with the military officers today. I’m between looking forward to it and dreading it, because Jounouchi will be there.

Jounouchi is the Captain of the Palace Guards and he’s also been my crush since I started noticing those kind of things. He can’t be mine though, since my twin brother Yugi has already laid claim.

A movement out of the corner of my eye catches my attention, but when I look towards the pillars, nothing’s there. Shrugging it off as a flicker of the torch light in this indoor corridor, I continue on my way. As my escort and I pass through one of the shadows, I feel something brush up against my arm. I start to snap at the guard on that side but notice that he’s to far away to have done it. Confused, I continue on my way only to feel it again, only this time it’s followed by the sound of repressed chuckling. I checked the facial expressions of my guards. They seemed to be nervous, apparently they heard it as well. A suspicion of what was going on entered my mind.

When it happened again I snapped my hand out and grabbed for whatever was doing it. My hand met the feel of silk though there was nothing there. However, the emphatic curse that was suddenly said confirmed my guess.

"Guards, report to Jounouchi and tell him I’ll be a little late, and I’ll be bringing another person. You’re all dismissed."

I watched silently as the guards started walking away, one dragging an apparent newbie who had opened his mouth to protest. Once they turned around the corner, I myself dragged my captive out into one of the more lighted areas. As expected, even though nothing but air met my sight when I looked ahead, there was a shadow of a tall humanoid form on the floor with wings and a tail. "Reveal yourself, Set," I commanded in my most high-and-mighty voice.

There was a shimmer in the air as there would be with a heat wave and with no more prelude there was Set in front of me, wearing a deep purple robe skirt and a black collar/cowl combination, leaving his torso and arms bare except for the white, magic locked wristbands. "Why are you here, and do I even want to know where you got the clothes?"

There seemed to be a brief, small mischievous smile on his face. If it was there is questionable as it disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. "I’ve been locked away for the Creator knows how long, and you actually expect me to stay in one place? As for the clothes, I nicked them from the palace tailors. Couldn’t get a shirt though, would have screwed with the wings too much."

"That couldn’t take to long, so what have-" the sudden evil smirk Set did was enough to give me pause and think it over. "Never mind, I probably don’t want to know."

*---*---Set’s POV---*---*

I grinned as I threw another fireball to burn the incoming arrow to ash and cinders. It seemed an assassin had decided to try and take advantage of the fact that there were no guards around the young pharaoh. They were either desperate or crazy since they hadn’t stopped yet, even though we could hear guards coming down the hall.

Another arrow and fireball later, I can see the guards turn around a pillar from the corner of my eye and I’m momentarily shocked. The person leading the charge was that blonde haired foreigner I had bumped into by accident on my way back from the palace tailors. Thank the Creator I had been invisible at the time, and also that my wings and tail are hidden by an illusion right now, or that guard unit might be attacking me instead of trying to go after the assassin.

Half an hour later we’re finally all at the meeting rooms and it seems the assassin got away. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted, but right now I have to figure a way to exit this room fast before the steady erosion of my mental walls succeed in fully collapsing my defenses. Three or four people I could handle, but this was way to much.

Yami ended up introducing me as Seto, a foreign mage here on travel, who had been passing by when the assassin had attacked. Oddly enough, every one except for the Captain of the Guard seemed to buy it.

Jounouchi, as I remember Yami calling him, ended up being a source of amusement throughout the meeting. Except for when he did his own little debriefing, he glared suspiciously at me the whole time. I glared right back for the first five minutes before I got really bored and took in the rest of the room. There has to be a way to get away from this...

My eyes end up on Yami though and for some reason I can’t take my gaze away. He maybe a little on the short side, but there’s something about him that’s alluring. I can’t put my finger on it, but it maybe his strong supportive personality, the way he seems to view almost everything as a game instead of something to be taken seriously, or even perhaps the way he had seemed to be able to make me feel all warm last night. Plus it was a major bonus he wasn’t a soreness to the eyes. From what I had seen, the other had a class A body, with what seemed to be wild hair barely tamed with gorgeous bright ruby eyes and seemingly soft pale skin that just begged to be kissed.

[Gah! Wrong things to think about! That’s what you thought about Siri and look where that got you! Forced to be immortal and locked in a card for who knows how long!]

[... But he doesn’t ignore me like Siri did. In fact, it felt kind of like Yami liked me. Could Yami eventually even love me, if given time? It is possible, given from the observations I’ve made of mortals prior to the ‘incident’.]

I’m snapped out of my inner thoughts as the screechiest voice I’ve ever had the unfortunate honor of hearing grated on my nerves and demanded I pay attention to the conversation going on. "There seems to be an increase in Christian heathens coming from the Sinai Peninsula. Though most of them seem to be passive, there’s been a few of them crucifying some of our priests. If you’ll remember from my last report, Pharaoh Yami, you still have to appoint a new High Priest for the temple in the city, as the previous one was killed in route on his way home from inspecting one of the smaller temples up that way."

[Christian? What are those?]

"About that," Yami speaks up, shifting position in his chair so he’s now propping his head on folded hands attached to arms that have their elbows firmly planted on the table. "As you’ve all heard already, it seems I owe this mage here a favor for saving my life," Yami nodded his head in my direction, a playful light in his eyes as I look at him, startled. "Tell me, Seto, do you know much about the Egyptian Religion?"

I end up glaring at him, he knows what I am and yet he goes and asks a stupid question like that? I snorted. "Yes, probably even something’s you don’t, Pharaoh." Well, that certainly got an interesting response out of everyone. Yami’s advisors were staring at me like I had dropped my illusion or something. Although that weird blonde one, Jounouchi, just narrowed his eyes more, as if something wasn’t adding up and he couldn’t put his finger on it. But then again, what do I care about him?

Their emotions were beginning to rub my shield the wrong way, so I finally snapped, "You don’t believe me?" I looked each in the eye threateningly, trying for my best soul-chilling stare. Most of them looked away, though Jounouchi just gave as good as he got. Pfft, silly mortal.

"They are surprised, is all, Seto. They did not think a foreigner such as yourself would know our language, let alone our religion," Yami replied with an amused tone.

I sneered at that. Creator, their emotions were really annoying me. "I would have expected seasoned veterans never to assume such things about an unknown factor, Pharaoh."

Yami’s eyes were sparkling and the military advisors were, some of them, blushing red from embarrassment. "Yes, I think you’ll do nicely as the new High Priest."

I glared at him in a slight fury after that. Me, a High Priest? Making offerings and being a pitiful servant to my family? Grrr... If it wasn’t for the Pharaoh’s word being law, I would have refused in a heart beat.

Yami nodded in the direction of the next advisor, giving him permission to give his report. It was pretty short, just saying that there was a seeming increase of monsters in his area, coming from the Shadow Realm, and no one knew why.

[Well, since I’m the new ‘High Priest’, I might as well tell them why that is.] So I snorted to gain their attention. "One of you said earlier that one of your High Priests was dead and no one had taken his place, correct?" The one that had made the reference nodded, eyes sharply fixed on me. "Well, there’s your problem."

"How so?" Yami asked, leaning backwards in his chair. Jounouchi was staring at me again, but this time his eyes were holding a calculating look, as if my next words were going to make some monumental difference in his opinion of me.

"Your High Priests do more than just useless prayers and rituals, you know. The High Priests actually keep the natural portals between the Shadow Realm and Earth closed with a fraction of their life energy. At their initiation ritual, a large number of portals are tied to them. When one dies, the others can manage the ones the dead one had claim to for a short time, long enough for a new priest to become a High Priest. However, like I said they can only do this for a short time since the gates weren’t theirs and it takes four times as much life energy to keep one of those gates closed then their own."

"So basically my High Priests are draining themselves into exhaustion and they haven’t told me?" Yami’s eyes hardened. Set just shrugged.

"They might not have known about it. The only reason I know is [Siri told me] because I managed to get hold of a scroll off of a trader in my wonderings that said he had bought it off of a retired Temple Robber."

"Well then, we’re just going to have to get you initiated soon, then. If there’s nothing else?" No one took the move to speak. "Well then, that will be all."

[Thank the Creator! I’m finally getting away from these mortals!]

--To be Continued.