Title: Currents
Author: Risa
Rating: T for Shonen-ai
Summary: Yugi has a secret, and if it is going to be as such no longer, it will be by his will. Puzzleshipping. First YamiXYugi attempt. Better than the summary, I think.
Additional: Um, it contains spoilers on Yami's true name, and the end of the series. This is un-beta'd. I love reading slash/Yaoi, but I'm terrible at writing it, so forgive me. Forgive me for making it... rambling, and for the vague aspect.
Currents
It was secret. Such a precious secret, and all his to keep safe.
The place he kept that secret held another, this one far older, and far more difficult.
The new secret was rather simple, really. Though Atem had walked through the portal, and into the afterlife he was destined for, he had returned.
Not in corporeal form. Not visibly. Not even truly, in a sense.
He visited Yuugi in his dreams.
Dreams, Yuugi reasoned, were places where everything was possible; it was, well, a dream. The embodiment of ones desires, fears, worries, hopes.
It was in this way that the secrets were rather similar, or rather, each tied in with the other.
His Yami hadn't told him not to tell, Yuugi was being selfish, and was doing it without caring. After all, Atem had chosen to visit him in his dreams, not the others.
And that was, in a way, his second secret.
Over their time together, the adoration had grown to affection, and gradually, love.
But Atem didn't know. Couldn't know. And sometimes, when he was awake, he regretted being who he was, an obscenely petit teen with outrageous hair and wide, child-like eyes.
He would rather sit on the shore, allowing the waves to move about him, than brave the currents. The currents were hidden, dangerous, unpredictable.
The currents were life. The shore was dreams.
And now, the winds were high and dangerous on the shore, no place was safe for his little secret. For Atem walked his dreams, just as surely as he'd walked his life.
Every night, he slept. He dreamed. He lived. For now his dreams were his life, the wind had become the currents, and his whole world had become an ocean.
That night, he was going to allow the currents to take him.
The secret was no longer safe, the secret he kept from Atem, the love he kept from Atem.
He would rather tell his secret, than have Atem discover it. For Atem was curious, and sometimes, even when he did not sleep, he could feel the presence in the back of his mind, walking, searching.
Every step he took took him a little closer to the secret.
It was his secret, and it would cease to be so by his choice.
Yuugi was nervous, but Joey had told him once that meant his body was ready. He was nervous beyond all belief, and truly, he expected sleep to come with much difficulty. However, there were many things he had expected, and a great amount of them had not come to pass. This was no exception.
When he opened his eyes, he was not lying on his bed, but upon the softest sand. The sky stretched out over him, an impossibly perfect shade of blue, clear of clouds. The scents were… blurred, surreal. Scents were never right in dreams, unless it was his. Atem's.
There was the faint, bizarre scent of salt, and he realised, as water brushed his fingertips, he lay upon the shore.
Ironic.
He sat up, and gazed our across the endless expanse of blue.
"Yuugi."
Always warm. The voice. It was always warm, welcoming, friendly. Friendly.
Would it still be as such once this secret was out?
Would it even be there at all?
"Atem," Yuugi greeted, the usual, childish smile breaking over his lips. "You're back."
The other, a carbon copy, albeit with deliberate mistakes, smiled softly. The crimson eyes, so much more enthralling than his amethyst eyes could ever be. Seductive, charismatic, an enigma. Everything Yuugi wasn't.
He always confirmed the fact, always greeted him with 'you're back', as though he was reminding himself. Truly, he was in some ways.
"You want to say something?" Atem asked.
In the dream, Atem always knew what he was thinking, to some degree. Just the vague feelings, nothing that could expose his secret, though if he was willing, Yuugi was certain it could be.
Yuugi smiled uncertainly.
"Atem… Yami," Yuugi slipped back from the formal name.
Atem was his true name, but Yami was the familiar one.
"Will you always return?" he blurted, unsure of how to phrase his true meaning.
Atem looked puzzled. "What do you mean?"
"No matter what, you'll come back and visit… like this?" Yuugi asked.
"Of course, hikari."
"No matter what," Yuugi pressed, eyes searching for any doubt in the others eyes.
Yuugi barely noticed they were sitting together in the sea foam, Atem having sat beside him to listen. The water wasn't wet, nor cold, but now it was beginning to swell around them, the currents tugging ominously.
"No matter what."
There was a certain promise in his voice, utter certainty.
"You'll always be my friend?" Yuugi forced the words out.
Atem was looking worried now, his eyes piercing. What was wrong with his Hikari?
"Always."
Atem didn't move as Yuugi leant forwards, placing his hands lightly on the almost identical shoulders. His eyes met Atem's uncertainly, but found only concern there.
His lips were hairs-breadth from Atem's ear, and the words seemed to flow more simply when he couldn't see the other's face.
The secret, as though the closeness was a key to the floodgates, was pouring from him, the water swelling higher, now reaching their shoulder-blades.
And he fell back, eyes kept up, meeting Atem's through sheer force of will.
He saw only blankness, utter lifelessness, cold. Dead.
Atem gazed back at him, but it was as though a veil had fallen over his eyes.
It was several heart-wrenching minutes before Atem spoke.
"I…"
Yuugi could hear his heart cracking.
"I can't keep my promise, Yuugi."
Yuugi was sure his heart was filled with burning water, for there were tears threatening his eyes.
"I… cannot…"
Atem was struggling, his eyes still frozen.
"I cannot be your friend any longer."
The currents were beginning to become dangerous, threatening to sweep him away. Yuugi was sure it was only the weight of his heart, however cracked and weeping, that kept him there. His lead-like heart.
Atem reached out, almost curious, and took a single tear upon his finger tip. He examined it.
"We cannot cry, you know," he said quietly, voice emotionless. "The darkness, I mean."
Yuugi nodded dumbly, lifelessly.
"I cannot be… only your friend," Atem murmured. "Yuugi… you… cannot offer me this, and allow me to take it."
Yuugi nodded again, surprised, in some part of his mind, that he wasn't screaming in pain and crying like a fool.
"It… isn't fair," Atem continued, leaning forwards, miraculously unaffected by the water. "Because you love a dream, an insubstantial dream. Your heart will break if you continue."
It breaks already, Yami, he thought dully.
"It would be selfish," Atem mused, fingers tracing the wet path of the tears. "It would be very selfish of me to take this, your offer."
What was Atem saying? It was all so blurry. Why was he touching his face like that?
The fingers, gentle against Yuugi's cheek, brushed along the soft jaw-line.
"But… I am a Pharaoh," Atem was speaking more to himself than Yuugi by then, his voice distant. "And we are raised to be selfish."
Atem leaned forwards, cupping the almost feminine chin.
The waves crashed around them, but neither noticed.
Through the fog of his world, Yuugi felt it, the brush of breathless breaths, light and sweet on his skin.
And as Atem let the words flow, the ocean calmed around them.
(A/N: What'd ya think? Please review, I'm not sure of this...)
(Risa)