A/N: A few more ought to wrap this up, I think. Let me know: should I archive it as one large fic after it's done? Would that make it easier to read. Review and then answer. Loveles.

Summary: She was a different sort of person when they were in the dark together. She was his greatest distraction now.

Grown

Tea stood between two people, figuratively speaking. She knew they wanted one another. She knew they were meant to be together. But she was who she was and she was lonely, so she let Yugi kiss her and she kissed him back. It felt good. It felt right. But it also felt like a punishment, so she didn't let it continue long. He apologized and she let it slide. She knew the pain in his heart. They'd been friends for too long for her not to see it.

But she let him take her to bed. And that was the final straw, really.

She wasn't in love with Yugi. She never had been. And she never thought she would be. He'd always been a rock for her. A person to hold onto and lean against when the winds and struggles of the rest of her life because too strong. When the heart ache became a hurricane and her arms could not bear the weight of the burdens she carried. He was there to help. And she liked that. But it felt wrong to sleep with Yugi. And it felt right. She was confused.

So she went to Atem.

She didn't expect him to be with someone, but he was. And she knew that it was the same thing with Yugi. And they silently acknowledged their positions. He the user. She the used. A young man rolled over on the bed, flushed with some feeling unknown to Tea. She assumed it was pleasure.

"This is stupid," she hissed as they stood in the hall way.

"You kissed him. You're sleeping with him."

"I know that," she snapped. "But I don't want to."

"You realize just how ridiculous you sound right now, don't you?" She couldn't look at him then, instead choosing the fiddle with the staples on an RA board in the hall. "He's something else, isn't he?"

"He's wonderful," she whispered. "He feels...I don't know. It feels so bizarre. Like I want this. But I know I shouldn't be allowed to have it."

"Why the hell not?" She looked at him then and smiled sadly.

"Because he belongs with you." Atem shook his head and laughed painfully.

"You're so full of shit. I'm going back."

"Wait!" And he froze at those words. Because she said them so much like he did. With so much longing and hurt. "Please. We can fix this."

"I...I'm sorry. But not now." He went back inside and locked the door. She heard indiscreet whispers and soft laughter. She left before she heard anything else.

- - - - - - - -

Yugi wasn't sure what he was doing. Nothing about being with Tea was right in any way whatsoever. They weren't open about it. No one knew about the twisted love triangle Yugi had inadvertently created. He know that he shouldered much of the blame for the current situation. That Atem could be sensitive and prideful. But he had been tired at the time of playing anymore games. He didn't want that. It frustrated him. So he slept with Tea and it felt a little better. The guilt weighed heavier each day, but the carnal feeling made him a bit more pleasant to be around. And Tea was wonderful.

She always looked like she didn't want to, right before. That look in her eyes that almost made him stop. But he would avert his gaze and instead bite along her neck, run his hands over her skin. Drag his palms down her side and feel the shivers in her back. She would whisper that it wasn't right sometimes, but she would always open for him. Each time. And he almost hated her for it. If it didn't feel so good. And afterward, they would lay there together. Sometimes he'd hold her. Sometimes she'd leave. If he was in her room, he'd leave. Or he'd stay. It all depended. She became a sort of crutch for him, and he her. On a bad day, they would find one another, hunt the other down and force themselves back into sheets and shadows and sharp breaths. He loved the idea of her, but he didn't love her.

And, really, she was alright with that.

Atem and Yugi avoided one another like the plague. Second semester, Yugi dropped a class they were in together before Atem even saw him. Really, he felt terrible. Like somehow, most of this was his doing. But he was getting on with everything. Feeling better. Finally moving away from it. He saw Atem with some boy and he was only broken about it for a moment. He was walking with Tea, headed to dinner. She saw what he saw, too, and pretended not to, opting instead to comment on the new flowers by the fountain at the student union. He pretended to be interested. They ate. They had sex. He stayed the night and woke to her clinging to his side and thought that, maybe, he could wake up like this forever. He could settle for this. Not her. She was beyond him and deserved more. But he could settle for someone who wasn't Atem. And Atem, slowly, began to feel the same way.

Yugi knew that things were beginning to mend the day they waved at one another, many months later during their sophomore year. And things didn't feel old and tense. They stopped to chat sometimes. Yugi would walk with Tea and Atem with someone as well. They didn't have to pretend that things hadn't happened. Could sometimes laugh about it. About how much they'd grown in such a short time.

Life could be funny that way.