Kumori: Oh Ra, somebody shoot me...Oh, and Merry Christmas.

Kagayami: Yes, my host is still sick...she's all phlegmy and her throat is killing her and she has very little voice!

Kumori: But it's not stopping me! This fiction shall be finished!

Kagayami: And so we present to you...The Twelve Days of Yugi...COMPLETED!

Day Twelve (dun, dun, duuuuuuun)

It was Christmas.

And being Christmas, Yugi did Christmassy things.

He opened his presents with Yami and his Grandfather. He ate a fine lunch in the same company, and then invited over his many friends, who proceeded to open more presents with him and eat more fine food.

It was a good Christmas.

But Yugi was getting more and more antsy, jittery, nervous. Soon he had dropped out of conversation and simply sat, wringing his hands, glancing now and again in the direction of the door.

"Okay, no one else is going to say this, so I might as well do it. Yugi, would you calm the hell down?!" Bakura rolled his eyes and ignored the sound thump as Ryou whacked him in the chest.

Yugi blushed softly, light pink dusting his cheeks. "I'm sorry...it's just...what if he doesn't show? I mean, it's going on ten o'clock...or what if he's what I thought he would be in the first place...some weird fan, some old stalker? What if-"

"Yugi."

The little duellist's tirade stopped mid-sentence as he glance at his yami.

"What did I tell you before?"

There were ten very confused expressions as Anzu squealed at Yami's statement.

Yugi smiled and nodded. "Okay..."

And the party continued. They sipped eggnog, played games (all of which were won by either Yami or Yugi), and chatted as friends do. It was warm, and Yugi smiled as he realized he could turn off the heat in his house completely, and it would probably still be warm, simply from the love in the room.

"More eggnog, anybody, while I'm up?" he asked, stretching in a rather cat-like way and grabbing his own glass.

Seeing no one answer in the positive, he headed to the kitchen with his own glass, and filled it again (hoping that Bakura and Marik hadn't found time to sneak in and spike it).

Knock, knock.

He froze, and was glad he hadn't picked up his glass from the counter, because he was sure he wouldn't have dropped it.

There was silence, and the sound of a door opening, and more silence, and he wondered distantly if he could get everybody to shut up by knocking on a door all the time.

"...Yugi?"

He recognized the voice as Ryou's.

"You better come in here...there's someone to see you."

And Yugi, suddenly, weighed far more than he should hae, because he found it increasingly difficult to move his legs.

He was torn between running in full speed and running away full speed.

Amythest eyes glanced at the doorway leading back to his living room, and his heart jumped into his throat, and his lungs shrunk to half their capacity, and he wanted to melt into a puddle of Yugi goo.

"...you'll still have all of us...and you'll still have me."

The corners of the tri-colour-haired duellist's mouth quirked in a tiny smile and his lungs grew just a little.

With a deep breath (that ended in a sort of nervous twitter), he stepped into the living room.

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It was dark.

Or, at least, darker than it had been.

The lights had been dimmed, the light from the hallway completely extinguished, just enough to create a deep shadow where the living room met the door to the hall.

A shadow that, when Yugi looked closer, contained a single silhouette, leaning against the doorframe.

Yugi opened his mouth, then snapped it shut again. What did someone say to a person who had done so much for them, a person they'd never even met?

He cleared his throat and stepped further into the room. "...Eternal?"

The silhouette nodded.

Yugi gulped. Eternal was definately a man...he could tell by the broad shoulders. And he wasn't tall...but he wasn't short. From the neck up, Yugi couldn't make out any details, the darkness too strong, but he could tell that this man was lean, muscled, athletic.

Hesitantly, stomach overflowing with butterflies, Yugi backed up until he met the wall behind him, and laid one hand on the light switch. "Can I...?"

The silhouette nodded again.

And Yugi flicked his wrist quickly, like ripping off a band-aid, light returning to its normal level. And there, in the doorway, with a small smirk on his lips, was...

...Yami?

Yugi blinked, did a double take, then narrowed his eyes. "Yami! That's not funny!" he huffed, crossing his arms, "I thought he was really here!"

The smirk fell the tiniest bit, and Yami stepped, finally, away from the doorway and further toward his host. "He is, Yugi. He's...me."

And Yugi's jaw dropped.

He searched his yami's eyes frantically for any sign that he was lying, any sign that this was a joke.

But he found none.

"Yami...I-"

"Yugi," his darkness cut him off, voice quieter than normal, almost nervous (which scared Yugi, because Yami was never nervous), "I know that you were expecting someone else, and I understand if this isn't what you want, but I had to tell you because...because it kills me having to see you and love you and not be able to tell you. I just..."

He trailed off and, for the first time in Yugi's memory, dropped his eyes to the floor.

And Yugi knew, without a doubt, what he had to do, what he had to say, what he wanted for the rest of his life.

"Yami."

The King of Games flinched.

"Yami, look at me."

Slowly, as if frightened of his light, the Pharaoh shifted his gaze, and deep crimson met bright purple. "Yugi, please don't think you have to-"

"No, Yami," Yugi interrupted him, a finality in his tone that usually belonged to the Pharaoh, "You've had twelve days to say what you wanted to say, and now it's my turn."

Yami's jaw clicked closed.

"Yami, you're the reason for everything. You brought friends into my life, you saved me when I thought I couldn't be saved. You brought me happiness beyond what I could have expected..."

He took a deep breath, willing the tears he could feel in his throat not to fall.

"We've shared everything Yami. Everything. I don't know why you didn't think to share this with me sooner, because...because..." he gulped again, "Because it would have saved me a lot of grief trying to hide it from you, you idiot!"

Yami cocked his head to the side, a trait that Yugi had a sneaking suspicion he'd picked up from him, but that the small duellist found absolutely endearing.

"Yami, I've loved everything about the last twelve days, but I didn't need anyone to tell me how good I am. What I need is someone to show me...by loving me. And if you had just come out and said it a long time ago, that would have been enough."

And Yugi stepped closer, slowly closing the gap between his yami and himself. "But I'm not complaining. It's happened now, hasn't it? And I suppose we'll have a hell of a story to tell people when they ask how we got together..."

The smirk was back again, full force, and Yugi thought that if he could make Yami smile like that forever, he could die happy.

"Yugi, you know this was supposed to be me confessing to you."

Yugi grinned, "Well you kind of botched that up, didn't you?

There was that smirk again. Yugi really wanted to melt into a pile of Yugi goo, now. "Not quite yet. Because I think I'm going to be the first one to say it."

Yugi was the one to tilt his head this time. "Say what?"

Yami leaned in, close enough to wrap his arms around Yugi's waist, close enough for his breath to ghost across Yugi's lips when he spoke. "I love you."

And Yugi, reverting to his natural uke type, blushed magnificently. "I love you, too."

When Yami glanced up, Yugi's blush intensified three-fold, because he had a feeling what his dark was looking at.

"Keep this little gift…you'll need it in exactly twelve days."

The mistletoe.

It had, until then, been tucked into his bedside table.

But, upon following Yami's gaze, he found it neatly tied above their heads.

Shyly, he brought his arms to rest upon his look-a-like's shoulders, feeling the grasp on his waist tighten. Once again, their eyes met, each shining with love and adoration, held back for so long.

And when their lips brushed, softly, carefully, gently as a firt kiss should be, Yugi's heart didn't speed up or slow down or stop as it usually did. Instead, it stayed exactly the same, in tandem with Yami's heart, pulsing with the love that threatened to drown Yugi.

And the little hikari didn't mind at all.

They moved together, as one, tasting each other, savouring the flavour they were sure they wouldn't be able to get enough of. Yugi was floating, drifting, clutching to Yami for dear life, marvelling at the warmth of Yami's arms around him, looking forward to many more embraces such as this one.

There were eleven pairs of hands clapping, eleven lips whistling, eleven hearts melting at the sight before them.

But as far as Yugi was concerned, the only thing that mattered in the whole world, were the hands in the small of his back, lips on his own, and the heart he could feel beating against his chest.

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my stalker true love gave to me:

All my dreams come true

Eleven snow-white roses

Ten words of romance

Nine singing children

Eight strings of lights

Seven mushy poems

Six fun-filled albums

Five stunning hours

Four tins of cocoa

Three lighted candles

Two helpful letters

And a sprig of mistletoe.

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Kumori: There! All done!

Kagayami: Happy holidays everyone! We hope you enjoyed the midless fluff!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!