Borath: Here it is! The final chapter of Game Queen and Then Some. Even now I still hate the title. Nothing better struck me though so it stays.
Bakura: Over 300 reviews now-
Borath: -you have no idea how smug I feel being able to say that.
Bakura: -so I guess that trying to push for 400 is asking a bit much, neh?
Yami: Um… Yeah. Epilogue will be in the form of a new fic by a new author-
Borath: -who is not me.
Yami: Will you stop bloody interrupting! Anyway, Princess of Games is either
A) In production by the lovely person across the Atlantic who can watch Season 2 of Yu-Gi-Ph whilst I can't and will be posted sometime next year.
Or
B) Up now so go look for it.
Borath: Thank you so much for bearing with me through all of this and particularly to all of those who reviewed me. There are way too many of you to list (How smug am I to be able to say that? You couldn't comprehend :D) so I send a general 'thanks!' and hope to hear from you in other reviews for other fics (Hint hint).
Yami: On with the end! Yay!
Borath: Excuse crapness and go away if swearing offends you which it shouldn't anymore after the last 26 profanities-I mean chapters.
Chapter 27: ExplanationsIt had been almost three weeks now since they left Bakura and Yami in Egypt. When the plane had finally arrived minus its oldest passengers, Seto, Yugi and Ryou had rapidly become worried but as the Hikaris could still feel their Darks' presence's, there was no pressing need to fly back to Egypt.
Indeed, Seto refused to leave the hospital for the first week, Kiseki having needed specialist treatment before being released into his care. Mokuba had been thrilled at his new nephew, but was as concerned as all the others over the lack of the father's presence, apparently in the country.
Yugi spent much of his time at the Kaiba mansion, as did Ryou, deciding that it would be the first place that the yamis would go to when they did finally turn up. And, late one obscenely sunny morning, they were proved to be correct.
****
Light footsteps down the stairs behind him alerted Yugi of Seto's approach and he twisted in the chair to face the CEO with Ryou. "Did he keep it all down?"
Nodding with a thin, parental smile, Seto moved briefly into the kitchen to discard the empty bottle before joining the trio in the living room, dropping down beside his brother facing the two Hikaris. "He's sleeping now and so's Kiara. She's got her mobile playing so she'll be fine for a few hours."
Yugi nodded slightly with a slight smile of his own before fingering the Puzzle absently. "I'm sure Yami'll be back soon. Something's going on, I can tell; I've been feeling him stronger over the last few days."
Leaning forward in the seat, the tall brunette brought his fists to his temples. "I know Yugi. You've said that all week and all week we've been waiting with no sign. And I left him there with one of the few people he could seriously gut."
Ryou quirked a mildly surprised brow at Seto, smiling grimly to himself as he imagined all the things that his yami was likely doing to try and get under the former Pharaoh's skin. Opposite him, Mokuba brought a hand up to his brother's back and murmured comfort and reassurance. They were all worried but the trio around him were taking it the hardest.
All were jolted out of their musings by a sudden glow from the Ring, the metal glowing brightly and emitting a soft humming sound as all five prongs rose and pointed in the direction of the front door. Barely daring to believe, all four of the teens leapt to their feet and sprinted at it, Seto getting there first with his significantly longer strides and flinging it open.
Not seeing anything in the immediate vicinity of the house, he squinted slightly and gazed down the path, spotting two figures slowly making their way up the gravel, their shoulders brushing and voices loud.
"You erased their minds?! We've been stuck with each other for three damn weeks and you never told me?" Yami shouted in outrage, looking to the Tomb Raider at his side as he walked, not having looked up at the house yet. Exhaustion from their travels had taken a significant toll on his ability to move but not on his ability to yell. Reaching a hand up, he fingered the deep scratch that curved along his entire left cheekbone. The Puzzle had prevented infection from setting in but it still stung.
"Well what else were we going to do? Just let them walk away thinking, 'yeah. We just saved a guy's life after he gave birth.' Nothing strange about that, nope," Bakura shot back, his hands in his pockets as he walked. Tired and irritable, he wasn't overly excited about being surrounded by a horde of happy people, not that he wouldn't mind seeing his Hikari again after so long. "I did you a favor, loath as I am to admit it, by wiping their minds."
"No wonder Tetsuo said that you were misusing that Ring of yours."
"It's actually a little creepy that he could tell."
"Yami!"
"Bakura!"
Both spirits stopped in their tracks, apparently their minds having wandered from exactly where their feet had taken them. Grinning, Yami gratefully accepted the embrace that he instantly found himself in from both Yugi and Seto.
Bakura froze in surprise when he found Ryou's arms around his neck, bringing a hesitant hand up to the soft-spoken teen's shoulder for a moment before placing it there awkwardly. As soon as the sentiment was acknowledged he backed off though, glowering at his Light lightly even though there was a hint of a smile gracing his features.
"I'm so glad you're alright. And you Bakura I suppose. We were worried," Mokuba stated when everyone finally separated themselves from each other. A thought flashed across Yami's mind and he gripped Seto's arms anxiously. "Kiseki?"
"He's fine. Everyone's fine. Come on, you can meet him now. He's just eaten so he'll be sleeping but I think we can wake him up considering."
Trailing behind the pair whose arms were now intertwined with Yugi at Yami's side, Ryou glanced across Bakura's face and frowned slightly at the shiny-scar on the underside of his jaw. "Yami? What exactly happened when you two were gone?" Sniffing the air as an afterthought his nose crinkled. "And why do you smell of fish?"
The spirit made a long suffering sigh before nodding towards Yami who was now almost at the house in his haste to reach the rest of his family. "That is the short-arse's story as much as mine. It'll take a while to explain and I wanna use up Kaiba's water supply before I even open my mouth for an explanation."
Wisely doing nothing more than nod, Ryou continued walking silently wondering how much of this he actually wanted to hear.
****
It took three hours to get both yamis into the living room with everyone assembled to tell the tale of their obviously eventful return, and *not* because it took the group a while to get together; they arrived as soon as possible after receiving an excited phone-call from Yugi shouting that Yami was back… And Bakura was too…
No, it was the fact that it took an hour and a half for Yami to bond with Kiseki enough to actually put him down and let him sleep, something that the small child desperately wanted to do. Kiara had toddled in insane, hyperactive circles for an hour around her newly returned father and as a result had exhausted herself, but Yami wasn't going to be separated from her again without a fight.
Seto wouldn't let Bakura anywhere near the living room stinking of fish and sea water, even though Yami was in much the same state, so twenty minutes of scrubbing with boiling water and sweet smelling foam was in order for both of them. Neither complained; they were ecstatic to even be *near* a shower again.
With everyone sat on the numerous seats or throw-pillows, the two spirits stood before them all ready to be interrogated. After numerous exclamations of joy at their return //Or quiet statements of dismay that he was still alive concerning Bakura from the moron with suicidal tendencies who shall not be named// everyone settled down and waited for them to tell their tale. Apparently neither Yami nor Bakura were too eager to start.
It was Joey who had the guts to prompt them.
"What took you guys so long to get back here anyway?" Joey asked, voicing all of their curiosity.
The tension inside the room suddenly escalated very noticeably. No-one dared to breathe.
Yami and Bakura exchanged truly hateful looks before, as Yami has come to know him, 'the platinum-haired-bastard' began rather aggressively, "Well, if *genius* here hadn't lost the plane tickets-"
"I did not *lose* the plane tickets. That camel I rode *ate* the tickets and I for one wasn't going to wait around to get them *back*." Taking crimson eyes practically burning off of the Tomb Raider, Yami turned to address the group as a whole. "So then we decided to take a boat back."
"Except for that whole 'we had no money and Yami wouldn't let me steal' issue."
"So what did you do?" Yugi asked, sounding fully intrigued now.
Both yamis had the grace to look embarrassed. "Well, the Captain decided he liked us, well me because I saved him from Nimrod here who thought that if he hit him then he could steal the boat and drive us back home himself. Anyway, he gave us free passage in exchange for being on the entertainment list."
Bakura snorted loudly as he crossed his arms. "Yeah, and that went fan-fucking-tastic, didn't it?"
Eyes wide, Yami turned on the other viciously. "*You* were just so phenomenally crap at it that it all went to Hades within minutes! And we weren't so much as a fifteen-minute diversion as a twenty-four hour pitched battle in the dining room! It was awful!"
"Look! I was alright up until the Sword Swallowing!"
The group, it was obvious now, had been forgotten entirely.
"*That* was the first item!" Yami shouted back with venom before narrowing his eyes, his voice taking on a more patronizing tone as he continued. "And you're supposed to swallow the sword *yourself*-"
Bakura looked genuinely surprised. Yami continued despite it. "-Not skewer some innocent by-stander in the front row!"
"She was gagging for it! She had her mouth hanging wide open," the other spirit shot back in defense.
"She was in shock at how brightly your damn ring was glowing!"
"Well I was pretty pissed off! What did you expect!"
Shaking his head to dismiss that aspect of the argument, Yami swiftly moved on. "The Disappearing Rabbits were a nightmare because of you!"
Bakura blinked looking more exasperated now than angry. "They disappeared."
"Yeah because you threw them into the fucking *audience*!!"
"Hey! They re-appeared!"
"Yes, because they fucking threw them *back*!"
Bakura crossed his arms again now, a sly smile coming onto his features. "Well it was *you* who sawed the captain in half."
Yami flushed before turning away slightly, a hint of nervousness in his voice. "*He* was a volunteer."
Bakura was only too keen to correct that. "No-no, *he* was trying to stop the show."
"Whatever. The trick worked brilliantly though! We sawed him in half!"
"I think that the essence of the trick, Little Pharaoh, is in the 'joining back together again'."
Yami simply waved that bit of information off. "Details, details. It's the 'sawing in half' where the real drama lies, and we accomplished that with panache."
"No we bloody didn't! We were hacking away at him for hours!"
"Yes, I know, I know. It's just, well I'm not as good at the physical murdering-type stuff as you are. And the blood caused the chain-saw to pack up. I *told* you that we should have used the petrol one."
Bakura now looked a little distressed at that idea. "Petrol, is very, very dangerous on stage."
"Oh yes!" Yami cried, eyes widening as the memories continued. "As we found out, didn't we? When you crashed that motorcycle and sidecar you stole into the music stand during the Curtain of Death finale!"
Bakura's eyes dropped to his feet for a moment, his boots scuffing the ground and his hands shoved into his pockets. "Was a bloody good light show; lit up the sea for miles around."
"Yes, and then you had that brainy idea of sinking the ship to put out the fire."
"It worked. I kept making a hole until the water came in."
Yami frowned a little at that in confusion. "I thought you said that you fucked the boat to fill it with water?"
"I did."
"But then how-?"
"Look, I took this axe and hacked away until there was this bloody great big hole and then thought, 'yeah, *that's* fucked it'."
"So then the passengers chased us around the deck and hit us with the oars to prevent us from getting into the lifeboats," Yami continued, finally remembering their audience and turning back to the rest of the gang who all looked utterly bemused.
"Then we spent the next seven hours on the verge of pneumonia clinging to a single lifejacket between us until a fishing boat picked us up."
"You actually *shared* a lifejacket," Honda asked incredulously.
Yami and Bakura both snapped sharp eyes onto him with a mutual intensity before Yami spoke. "We will *die* before we go into details about *that*." They glanced at each other before shuddering slightly and taking a step back.
"Then we got dragged for a few miles in a net trying not to drown until one of the idiots on board noticed us and hauled us on board. Then we stuck with them until they dumped us on the coast and a little while after that we arrived here."
"Stinking of fish but welcome all the same," Seto spoke up affectionately, though it was obvious that that was directed at Yami rather than Bakura. Grinning, Yami walked over and dropped down into the taller teen's lap, curling up instantly in his arms and generally looking happy.
Bakura crossed his arms with a quirked brow before disappearing into the kitchen to see what food was in the house. He had been through quite and ordeal after all and a little compensation was in order! It had been Yami's fault that he had ended up stuck in Egypt in the first place anyway. There was no reason that he shouldn't pilfer some food and a *bit* of booze off of the Pharaoh's lover.
Foraging through the cupboards, he found a nice bottle of tequila hidden away in the back, pouring himself a shot before taking the bottle by the neck and returning to the group. Overall he decided that the last two years hadn't been that bad. Quite interesting actually. Lots of blackmailing opportunities in the future now and he knew to avoid any cursed springs like the plague.
And the tequila was good too. Not too bad a few years at all.
****
YVO
//Well, at the end of every little adventure, this one having been the insanity which is usually my *life*, there is some sort of moral. What have I learned over the last two years? Well, alcohol can lead to more than just pregnancy, curses should be taken *very* seriously no matter how absurd they are and breathing lessons are more useful than you'd think at certain times.
I've got a great life ahead of me now with two beautiful kids, a devoted lover, a flourishing Hikari, a house with a dueling arena inside which is just fantastic and all my male attributes back where they should be without a threat of disappearing on me again any time soon.
Next time though Seto is going in the spring and he can go through all this crap himself because I'll be damned if I have to go through labour again.//
End
Borath: Oh Holy Fuck I finished it! I did it! It's done! End! Fini! Um… I forget the rest but I did it!
Bakura: The ending is shite.
Borath: Sod you it's done.
Yami: Review and be glad this wasn't abandoned! It very nearly was on at least four occasions.
Borath: Thanks again to everyone who has been reading this and particularly to those of you who have been reviewing often. I hope you've enjoyed reading this.
Yami: For the oh-so-frickin-hilarious picture of me in female form send a request to [email protected] and you'll get a reply as soon as possible.
Borath: Thanks again!! Yay! It's done!
Bakura: Now she's free to torture me in other new and exciting ways. Fan-bloody-tastic.
Borath: Oh. For copy-right purposes I should say that most of the argument between Yami and Bakura was adapted from an onstage barney in the show 'Hooligan's Island' by the makers of Bottom, Adrian Edmonson and Rick Mayhall. They are funny and this is a bit of a tribute to them. It seemed appropriate so I hope you found it as amusing to read as I did to write!