Disclaimer: I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit. All forms of feedback eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.
Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh GX
Title: Home At Last
Character: Johan, Gem Beasts, Juudai, Yubel
Word Count: 1,000||Status: One-shot
Genre: Family, Friendship||Rated: PG
Notes: This takes place shortly after the end of episode 156
Challenge: Diversity Challenge: section B, #13: write a fic of exactly 1,000 words.
Summary: [one-shot, Diversity Challenge, Johan, Gem Beasts, Juudai, Yubel] After Juudai's fusion with Yubel, Johan still waits for his family to come home.
Johan didn't want to leave Duel Academia. There were plenty of reasons for that, most of which circled around Juudai and the fact he hadn't yet made his way back from wherever he'd gone off to after whatever it was he'd done with Yubel. Shou hadn't been very clear on it, and Johan couldn't figure out if that was because he felt the story was more properly Juudai's to tell or if he didn't know himself. Or some combination of the two; events had been tumbling over one another so much in those last moments that figuring it all out would've taken weeks, if not months.
But the word had come; they had only another couple of days before he, Jim, and O'Brien would have to leave to return to their own academies. Something about wanting to recover from this 'traumatic events'.
I guess they were traumatic, really. He didn't know what else would cover a weird variation on zombies, nearly dying to send everyone home, being possessed by a twisted Duel spirit, having one's soul shoved out of one's body and into one's newly acquired ace card, and then having to sit and recover while one's best friend fought said twisted Duel spirit in order to save the universe at large.
But he didn't feel like he needed to recover. He didn't have nightmares about it. He suspected some of the others did, and he hoped they could find a way to handle it.
But none of the mystical events even felt like anything other than an ordinary day to him, and he didn't know why. Even though until now, he'd never had any experience like that before. It felt like he should have. Like saving the world and other people with his dueling was something that he should have experience with.
Johan's fingers brushed by the deck holder on his belt and he tried not to sigh. He wanted to talk to the Gem Beasts about the way he was feeling, but…
Well, that was another reason he didn't want to leave Duel Academia, and it still circled around Juudai's lack of returning. Juudai still had his deck. His family.
His breath caught in his throat as another thought he'd been trying to avoid swirled around in his mind. If Juudai and Yubel were off somewhere together, then that meant his family was with them. Was with Yubel. The being who'd made them into the Advanced Gem Beasts, a twisted mockery of their true beauty and strength…
He'll keep them safe. He trusted Juudai. If Juudai chose to go somewhere with Yubel, then Yubel could be trusted as well. And he knew that Juudai was with Yubel; the few words that Shou had dropped on what Juudai told him, and what Manjoume and the others had heard in that odd place they were in, whispered to that effect.
He didn't want to think on it too much, but what Yubel told him as well convinced him of it. He couldn't shake that voice echoing in the back of his mind, demanding why he dared to think that he could ever come between two souls as meant for one another as Yubel and Juudai were, how dare he think that he could interfere in a love that lasted beyond all time and space…
His protests at the time had fallen on deaf ears. He'd tried to convince Yubel that he'd never wanted to steal Juudai away. He'd just found a friend like he'd never had in his entire life.
For all the attention Yubel paid, he might well have said nothing at all.
Johan shook his head and started to get up. He wanted to do something else, but he didn't know what. Sitting around here on the beach wasn't it, though.
A far too familiar sound chirped through the night air, and his head snapped up. He'd always had good night vision, but he still couldn't quite believe his eyes when something small and purple and with a gleaming gemstone in her tail shot forward, running up his legs, around his torso, and settling on his shoulder.
"R…Ruby?" Johan reached up to touch the spirit, hardly daring to. He could feel the faint sensation that always met his fingers when he touched one of his partners. Ruby Carbuncle sat on his shoulder.
"Hey, Johan." Two words, but in a voice as familiar to him as his own heartbeat, and Juudai came toward him, strolling down the path as if they'd planned to meet here.
He looked different. Not much, but a few changes to his clothes. A more mature set to his shoulders. Confidence that Juudai had never had before, at least not that Johan remembered seeing.
There were other changes, but Johan couldn't seem to catalogue them all in his head, not right now. Not when his attention focused on what Juudai held out to him.
Slowly, with great reverence and tears prickling the corners of his eyes, Johan picked up his deck. He fanned through it, wanting, needing to see everyone there, and each time his eyes fell on a Gem Beast card, that spirit whispered a warm hello in his mind. He rubbed at his eyes, holding the deck closer.
"Thanks," he said, the word seeming weak and unable to convey everything that he wanted it to. "Juudai, I…" He didn't even know everything he wanted to say, but Juudai only smiled at him.
"It's all right. Glad to see you again."
Johan wanted to ask so much. He wanted to ask about Yubel. He could feel the other's presence, like a cool, almost curious regard, different from the burning hatred from before. But now didn't seem the time. They could talk about it another day.
"Yeah. Same here." He wiped at his eyes again, and if Juudai noticed, he said nothing at all about it, and Johan was grateful for that.
He didn't put his deck away. He couldn't. His family was home. Finally.
The End