Title: Heaven's Not Enough (title borrowed from a song on "Wolf's Rain" soundtrack 2)
Author: Dragoness of Fire
Rating: R
Pairing: Atemu x Seto or vice versa (my fics tend to sway either way or both in the same story)
Spoilers: ancient Egypt arc references
Warnings: speakings of death
Disclaimer: I don't own Yugioh or its characters.
Summary: Reminiscense, nostalgia, longing...when lovers are separated indefinitely, how strong can either really be?
Status: complete
To what end does torment end and peace begin? Is happiness a forsaken entity for me? I have pridefully touted that I make my own destiny. The future is mine to control, dominate, and command as I see fit. So why is it that I'm still suffering? I've never willingly asked for such. If I am in control of my own destiny, then why do I continuously sail down this path? Deny my past and screw my future. Is that what it is? Am I being punished for my stringent refusal to accept a belief in magic, reincarnation, and other unprovable fallacies? And yet, I pass many a day thinking of you. You're a quandry. I cannot define you any more than I can define the memories or dreams that haunt my inner being. At first I was longing for you as a rival...my only challenge. No other will suffice. We're in a league all our own. I cannot even pick up a Duel Monsters card without thinking of you now. I do not even want to see a duel disk nor an advertisement of the game. It all just brings forth these emotions I wish to suppress...forever I suppose. Yet, I refuse to retire from the game or its concept. My very company exists on it, thrives, succeeds, feeds upon it. Mokuba's happiness arrives from its very foundation. No, I cannot deny the game which has brought Mokuba and I forward out of the stinking rot hole of our childhood past and gives us ample future to build upon. But something's missing. Despite my walls, fortifications, and guards...something seeps within the confines of my heart and festers in its emptiness. So what have you done Atemu? Why have you caused me more pain and suffering? You broke through my inner being like my Blue Eyes blasts through inferior beasts. You knew exactly how to break through to me despite my best efforts at preventing such. As you slowly gained my trust, I willingly lowered barriers and allowed you access. I was actually beginning to believe that you and that whelp, Yugi were indeed two separate beings. I sensed it all along, but you tell me, how I'm supposed to believe in ghosts, especially 3000 year old ones that claim I once existed back then as well? Don't get me wrong, Yugi is a decent, respectable duelist, but it is you whom I felt my complete challenge. There was something beyond our duels. Did you feel it? Was it seduction? Love? Regardless of whatever emotion can be attributed to it, it was something I only felt when around you...never any other.
I wanted to walk away from that ceremonial duel, not because I had foresaw a victor, but because I couldn't accept the possibility of you leaving once again. After all that effort you put forth to get me to believe in you and other concepts I once considered 'hocus pocus', that you would actually walk away from it all without reaping the benefits of your work. You had your memories back and apparently when you succeeded in that, I too, had memories come rushing forward in my own mind. Yes, though I never openly admitted it, I too, remembered the past. Honestly it was a bit graphic and far-fetched, but it flowed, sequentially like a story. I had to rule out them being dreams as dreams do not follow episodically nor repeat in exact recollections. Only memories do such.
To say "kissing cousins" is an understatement. Yes, I am very familiar with ancient Egyptian culture. Since the game Duel Monsters had a foundation from such, I had little choice but to learn the intricacies of that 'has been' lifestyle. Incest was all too common in the upper ranks of its society. But little did I know this 'nameless pharaoh' that everyone in your little modern 'cheer group' was mentioning was my once lover, best friend, and uttermost rival. The latter part was fully understandable. The former two...baffling and a cause for me to deny any chance of past existence.
Yet the memories continuously ebb and flow like the mighty Nile herself. I remember the feel of your flesh, the warmth of your silken member, the heated lushness of your mouth. Rapture, ecstasy, and orgasmic fury don't even come close to describing the heights we attained. Pharaoh and High Priest, High Priest and Pharaoh...it didn't matter did it? Our souls matched as perfectly as our bodies. We duelled in ways we could never speak aloud...to this day. Perhaps that was a 'magic' you were trying to convince me to see? When your memories came back to you, did you remember 'us?'
I often try to think about your position. Your life was no better than mine has ever been. I complain of torment and suffering, but you had to endure it as much if not moreso than I. I cannot say I had to endure death, not once, but twice. I cannot say that my soul's been trapped in an oblivious, indefinite darkness for thousands of years...denied an afterlife despite a heoric self sacrafice to save thousands of other innocent lives. Perhaps this is why I accepted and allowed you to depart to the afterlife, why I couldn't physically restrain you from going. I could have you know. Neither Yugi nor that dog, Jounouchi could have restrained me. Yet, I could not bring myself to deny you something you deserved and had earned a thousand times over.
And yet I am tormented and suffering twice over to this day thanks to you. I ruled after you as pharaoh. I'm sure you knew that after the second coming of your memories. It was I who created that stone tablet that Ishizu had displayed. I remember this now. I ruled justly, but I lacked the charisma and life you had breathed into your rule. I felt like a puppet...merely doing as I was expected to do. Eventually when my calling to the afterlife came forth, I met it with anticipation. I hoped to see you once again. That we could be together for all of eternity in immortal bliss. But that was not to be was it? You were not in the afterlife. Your soul was in limbo somewhere still upon the mortal plane in the busted up shards of the Millenum Puzzle. I had protected that item with my life and those of my subjects. Did you know that? While I did not know where your soul had gone after sealing Zork, I sensed the need to cherish and protect those pieces of the Puzzle. I forbade anyone, including myself to attempt to piece it back together again. We simply had to get by with six items rather than seven. The Millenium Rod and my Blue Eyes were symbols of my rulership.
You had the proper burial as befitting of one of the greatest pharaohs to ever grace our nation with your presence. That crafty old man, Shimon had indeed instructed the workers of your tomb construction to continue with the original plans even if you or he died prematurely. Which both of you did I might add. I did not hasten the construction. There was little need. When you sealed Zork, you simply ceased to exist. Your body and soul disappeared from us. There was no corpse for us to perform any ceremonies upon. But, for the benefit of the people, we went through all ceremonial processes regardless...even a mock embalming ceremony. The sarcophagus within your tomb rests empty however aside from some of your belongings and jewelry. Probably is to this day unless that blonde-haired scruff of a tomb keeper removed some of it as I believe he may have. All this is knowledge you probably never knew and I bestow it upon you now...as proof that I now accept who I was and that my existence apparently did span the tests of time.
Too little too late is probably an obvious understatement correct? In the brief time you existed in this 'modern' world, I spent it in denial didn't I? I was too busy fighting the acceptance of all this to realize that I might lose you a second time. And I did. You walked through that lighted door to the afterlife in your full pharaonic glory...as I remembered you before. Your gold shimmered and your cape whisped through the air at me one last time before those doors shut and collapsed permanently. If that gang of cheerleaders and their roadies had not been present, I would have collapsed onto my knees in despair and tears. Did you know that? Probably not. I would have allowed that building to collapse upon me and crush my mortal body. Bet you didn't know that either. But, thoughts of Mokuba rushed into me and I knew I had to live...for him. So, naturally, I was one of the first to escape that sand invaded trap. I could not be selfish...not yet. My time to leave this world will come...eventually. And when it does, I hope that you will be there to greet me and we can finish where we had left off thousands of years ago. If my happiness will only come in my death, then so be it. But until then, I will allow myself this substandard life in exchange for Mokuba's happiness and well being. Know this Atemu...I will love no other. You branded your name upon my heart and staked its claim. It is not mine to give as it is already yours. And so, I will lead a solitary existence in this mortal world...never lonely, but always longing. Perhaps it is a fitting homage to all the suffering you had to endure alone. Allow me to partake in my small version of it? Only then will I fully understand how much we truly need one another.
A small piece of me hopes that if you can read this from where ever you are right now, you will understand that you are sorely missed...even in this modern world...and even by this stubborn, king of denial. And if you haven't noticed, this is written in the ancient script. I do not know how much Japanese you recall from Yugi and the gang, but if their IQ's are any hint, I would gather you know very little. But I do know, after your flawless chant to summon Ra, that our native, now ancient language is very natural for you. I even devised this special software program so that I could write this in the ancient scripts. Aren't you special for me to actually take time away from running my company just to accomodate you, eventhough you are dead, deceased, in the afterlife, not here anymore, whatever else you wish to define it as?
Now, I really do have a company to run. So, if you'll excuse me, I will get on with my present life. Until we meet again, I leave you with an inscription that I neglected to add to your ancient tombstone:
Beer in the morning, beer in the afternoon and beer at night. A little wine thrown in for good measure. And after a hard day of labor for the pharaoh, time and energy left for a bit of hanky-panky.
I drink to you my cousin, friend...and lover.
"Seto" Kaiba, master of all things dragon.
I am bending the very foundations between death and life by adding my little 'entry' here, but your software program makes it so easy to do. Must be a little magic thrown in it don't you think? I do not wish to 'steal your thunder' as the above is well versed and thought so I will keep my response simple here.
I am actually at a loss for words. I wish you had come forward before, though as fate would have had it, the outcome would have remained the same. I was destined to be here. And here I will wait. There is a strange paradox that I wil l not go into here, but it casts doubt upon my assumption and your presumption of existences. When the time comes for your arrival here, we will see what results. If alterations do occur, I'll not say anymore on this matter. So I left you with a little food for thought eh? How typical of me isn't it? You sure left me with plenty to ponder for the rest of your living years.
I am not at liberty to say anything about what the afterlife is, what it is like, and so forth. Nor do I wish to waste space here. But after reading your script above, you have filled me with a sense of longing as well. And let it be known that I do remember "us" from the past. I didn't initially, but once I gathered my memories back, that warming surge of us together coursed through my very essence. I never revealed any of it to Yugi. I could not corrupt his unusually innocent mind with such. He's not as innocent as he shows however...but nowhere near as knowledgeable or as daring as we were in our romps of rapture.
And for the record Kaiba...I can speak Japanese quite well though my ancient Egyptian dialect would mess up many a delicate emphasis or accent thus giving possible insult to the language. Yugi and yes, even Jounouchi are smarter than you think. They may not be book smart, but they are...as the modern term goes, "street smart." I think much can be said for that type of education...perhaps moreso than any book or higher education. We know that well from ancient times right Seto?
I must go now...it takes much effort and risk to cross over like this...even if it is just 'script'. I thank you with all my heart for even the fleeting time you took to remember me and bestow me with knowledge of yourself and else. And yes, you do have a brother to support and company to run. I'll not take up more of your time with my senseless rambling. Know that there is now and always will be a place in my heart for you dearest Seto. But don't rush your death on my account. I'm not going anywhere. I'll be here when the time comes.
As for that saying Seto, when upon your arrival here...I challenge you to a drinking duel. He who is capable of 'rising to the occasion' after will be deemed victor. I doubt you'll get that hefty prong of yours up after several tankards of fine egyptian beer. I predict an 'easy' win for myself.
Until then mighty dragon king...a story of our 'beings.'
Then Set said to Horus: "Come, let us have a feast day at my house." And Horus said to him: "I will, I will." Now when evening had come, a bed was prepared for them, and they lay down together. At night, Set let his member become stiff, and he inserted it between the thighs of Horus. And Horus placed his hand between his thighs and caught the semen of Set.
- Story of Horus and Set
Horny yet Seto? I hope you will be well versed upon your arrival here and I do not mean in words. You'll need it!
Best of life and heart,
Atemu