Yugi could not see anything. Then he realized that his eyes were closed, and he opened them slowly, as they were very heavy.

A welcome and familiar sight greeted him, that of an open window spilling moonbeams across his floor.

He was back home, in Domino.

A light weight pinned him down, and when Yugi managed to bring himself back to reality he realized that Yami had passed out on top of him.

Yami stirred and groaned, blinking in the darkness. He sat up quickly, realizing that he was crushing the youth. Yugi sat up too, and the two exchanged a long and silent look.

"Wow..." Yugi whispered, finally breaking the silence.

"Now do you understand?" Yami asked softly, his eyes shining. "What I meant about the dragons?"

Yugi frowned, thinking.

"No... " He answered, a bit confused. "Your question was to whether or not all dragons are born evil, or if they simply have no choice. But from what I've seen, the answer should be obvious..."

Yami swallowed hard and looked away, hot tears spilling down his face. "You missed the point." He whispered, his voice cracking slightly. Yugi reached to wipe the tears away, leaving his hand cupped to Yami's face.

"What point am I missing?" He asked softly, perplexed. "The Black King was evil. Slifer was not. It was all a matter of circumstance, and of choice. The Black King could have been good, if he had chosen to be. But he didn't..."

"Could he have?" Yami echoed, not looking at Yugi. "Or was he fated to be the dark and evil creature that he was? Did he honestly chose this path, or was it thrust upon him because there must be a villain in every story?"

"No, I don't think..." Yugi began, then he stopped, a new thought coming to him.

"This isn't about the dragons... is it." He whispered, and Yami's wince showed him that his guess was on the mark.

"No." He admitted slowly, softly. "No, it's not."

Yugi tried again. "Well, if it had been you out there..."

"It was me, Yugi." Yami finally admitted, turning to face him as more tears spilled across his cheeks. "I was the Black King."

"What?" Yugi breathed, not understanding.

"I was the Black King." Yami repeated bitterly. "That great and all consuming darkness was born from my soul. I found out when..." he stopped, intending to use a real life example but switching instead to one from the story in order to leave old wounds untouched.

"When I was trapped in the stone with the Black King for so many long years, he and I gradually lost sight of who we were. Of where I ended and he began. We became as one, he and I. And we never really separated again. I was lost to the darkness. I had no choice."

"But you weren't!" Yugi argued. "That was you inside of the stone, separate from the Black King."

"Yes, that was me too. A small part of me, the untainted part that was all that was left of what I once had been. And look how much good came from that." He muttered sarcastically. "The 'good' part of me was weak, frail. He could not help you, and in the end he even aided your enemy. How is that any different with me? I... I..." He stopped, fighting to hold back the tears that were steadily spilling from his eyes. Yugi's own eyes began to swim with shared pain, and he reached across the bed and drew Yami in for a desperate embrace.

For the first time in his life, Yami did not have any more strength to fight the inner doubts and the fears that had plagued him for so long. For the first time, he let himself cry, and he did not care that Yugi was watching. He did not want to have to be the strong one all of the time.

Yugi rocked him softly back and forth, his arms around his shoulders as he cried. His head was spinning from all he had heard. Yami, evil? There was no way. He had trouble even following that line of logic, it just did not make any sense.

Well, it makes sense to him, somehow. Yugi thought to himself as Yami choked his way past another sob. He was so unused to lowering the barriers around his soul, this must be just as painful to him as his supposed corruption by the darkness, if not more.

But Yugi knew it was necessary, a needed pain in the healing process.

The minutes slipped by slowly, and Yami eventually ran out of tears to cry. He reduced himself to small, quivering breaths every few minutes. The front of Yugi's shirt was soaked through.

"Yami?" Yugi asked softly, but he did not respond. He tried again, more firmly this time, and he received a small sort of grunt to indicate that he was listening.

"Yami, listen to me." Yugi commanded, and Yami reluctantly raised his teary eyes to meet his partner's own warm gaze.

"It was not your fault." He said simply. "None of it is. Nothing that has happened to me has ever been your fault." He stopped and tried to smile. "Whether in the story or not."

"Yes it has." Yami argued softly, sounding so tired. "Duelist Kingdom was my fault. If it was not for the Millennium Items you would never have had to go through that."

"If not me, than someone else." Yugi answered him, without missing a beat. This time he did smile, looking Yami right in the eyes.

"I would rather bear the burden then give it to someone less prepared. And really, who was better prepared to handle that then us?"

"Battle City then." Yami pressed, refusing to give ground. "Marik was only in it because he wanted me, and wanted to hurt those close to me."

"That's not true. He was also a Rare Hunter, remember? The promise of the Items was great, but if he had never known about the Puzzle's whereabouts he still would have wreaked havoc with his underground black market."

"But it was because of his lust for the power of the items that his darker side was born." Yami sighed.

"True." Yugi conceded, but his tone gave Yami the distinct impression that that one minor fact held little weight in his eyes.

"But you cannot be held responsible for the desires of another man's heart. We paid the price for his actions, not yours." Yugi asserted firmly, tired of Yami's unending stream of self-pity. He needed to snap out of this!

Yami opened his mouth once more. "But what of-" He was stopped when Yugi covered his mouth with his hand.

"Don't even think about bringing that up." Yugi said, his voice firm and his stance uncompromising. "You and I both know that what happened there was a mistake, and that the incident is, or should be, fully behind us."

Yami stopped, deflated. He could find no more arguments to stack against Yugi's unending stream of reassurances. Silently, his eyes still shining, he held out his arms. Yugi released his mouth and hugged him again, as tightly as he could.

After a long, long moment, (during which Yugi could feel Yami's shoulders ease from their tense posture,) Yami spoke.

"Why must you always be so optimistic when all I want is to wallow in my own guilt?" Yami asked sarcastically. Yugi smiled.

"I guess that's just who I am. I have to make you see how much of an idiot you sound like when you start blaming yourself like that."

"Ouch." Yami winced, drawing back. "I guess I deserved that."

"Darn right." Yugi chuckled. "And if you ever do that again I'll surely do worse!"

They both laughed, caught up in the seriousness of Yugi's joking tone.

"Seriously Yami, you ever start thinking like that, you've got to tell me." Yugi pleaded, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Otherwise the feelings will just fester within you until you completely give in to them. And then we'll have to do this all over again!"

Yami smiled a little wistfully.

"I know." He sighed. "Believe me, I know. I was never very good at opening up and sharing feelings though. Why do you think I went to all the trouble of the dream instead of just telling you what was on my mind?"

"Well, I've got to admit, the dream was pretty awesome." Yugi looked out his window as a thought suddenly crossed his mind.

"I didn't know you could do that." He tilted his head a bit to the side, thinking about something.

"Hey... that dream I had last week, the one about 'kidnapping' Mokuba for the day... that wasn't you, was it?"

Yami tried to hold his poker face, but the corners of his lips trembled ever so slightly.

"I knew it!" Yugi crowed, pushing Yami over. "And here I thought I ate something funny before bed. What did you want, to see Kaiba in a raging fit without actually having to get near him?"

"Something like that." Yami smirked. "I was testing to see if it actually worked. I whispered that you had invited Mokuba over for the day and ticked Kaiba off in your ear when you were sleeping." Yami grinned. "And you smiled, too."

Yugi pulled a face. "That's creepy, that you can influence dreams like that."

"Sometimes I can't." Yami shrugged, righting himself. "I think I can only show you what you want to see. Except for tonight, but that was because I used a little extra magic to make the dream more real. I've been nice to Kaiba though, I keep giving him dreams that he beats me in Duel Monsters when I'm bored."

"Yami..." Yugi sighed, hopelessly shaking his head. "You love to torture him, don't you?"

"Not really." Yami defended himself. "I just like to fluff up his ego and marvel at how he can still fit his head through the door."

Yami snorted, and Yugi couldn't help but share in the mirth. They fell silent then, thinking about the night's events and what they had learned. Yami fell silent and pensive once more, and Yugi patted him on the shoulder to give him some added strength.

"Just remember. Everyone is given a choice. Good or bad, righteous or evil. It's up to you, it's up to me, it's up to all of us. We cannot have our paths chosen for us."

Yami squared his shoulders a bit, taking a deep breath and staring straight ahead. "Right." He said firmly.

Yugi was happy that Yami had been able to realize what a foolish notion he had been entertaining all this time. But he couldn't resist adding, just to see how convinced Yami actually was: "But if we weren't allowed to choose our destinies, I have to admit you'd make one heck of a villain."

Yami laughed, a true, honest, and self-forgiving laugh. A wicked gleam leapt into his eyes.

"Oh I would, would I?" He growled mockingly, and Yugi suddenly realized that he need not have bothered pressing the notion. Yami was definitely back to his old self, and all Yugi had done was set himself up for a fall with that little verbal jab.

And fall he did, right back into his pillows as Yami practically pounced on him and started to tickle his sides.

"I have been practicing my torturing techniques." He smirked over Yugi's gasps of laughter. "And I know all of your weak spots too."

He grinned a positively evil grin as he reached to one of said 'weak spots', half-turning in his seat to grab at Yugi's toes.

Yugi snorted in barely suppressed laughter as he tried to keep his feet out of Yami's reach. But with Yami sitting on his knees there wasn't much he could do in the way of evasive maneuvering. He opted instead to use the distraction to sit up and tickle Yami's sides instead.

"Hey!" Yami gasped, falling backwards in surprise. It really wasn't fair, but Yami was twice as ticklish as Yugi was, the only problem was that it was so hard to get close enough to tickle him!

They collapsed side by side on the bed, laughing and gasping for breath. Soon enough they calmed, and soon after a chorus of yawns ensued.

"I don't even want to know what time it is." Yugi mumbled, reaching down to pull the blanket over them.

"Oh well, it's the weekend anyway, we can sleep in." Yami sighed contentedly, pulling the covers up to his chin and fluffing his pillow.

Yugi gave a murmur of agreement, settling in and yawning again. Then, on a whim, he turned and gave Yami one last hug.

"Goodnight, my dragon." He sighed, his head on Yami's shoulder. Yami paused for a moment, surprised, before he gently wrapped his arms around his brother and hugged him in return.

"Good night... my little prince."

A.N. So, was there a point to all of this?

You tell me. :)

Good night!