Author: Junko the Lost
Title: Rising From the Ash
Chapter Title: Home is where the heart is . . .
Summary: After the events of Yu-Gi-Oh! have come to pass, Atem finds himself sinking into depression. Who can save him from his self-enforced despair?
Warnings: Shounen-Ai
AN: Welcome again. Today I do believe will read the story in the backyard. Please follow me around to the back. To your right is the Plot Bunny Pen, be careful not to get your hands or feet too close, they have a tendency to bite. If you'll take a seat in a circle, we can begin the story.
Review Responses:
Andromeda Island: Of course they'll get together, I'm not completely evil wink
I-love-bakura1489: They'll get to together don't worry
shadows of chaos61: Yes, that is a great image grins
Seto drove, letting the wind sift through his tousled brown hair. Ice blue eyes seemed to be calculating, deciding. Judging by Atem's letter, he knew where he was headed.
Home.
But to Atem, home was Egypt. Home was the hot sands of the Egyptian desert and the cool waters of the gentle Nile. Home was the land of pyramids and Pharaohs and tombs and mummies. But most of all, home was three thousand years ago, which meant, if nothing else, Atem wouldn't be able to get home by conventional means.
Swiftly, he opened his cell phone and dialed Yuugi's number.
"Moshi moshi," Yuugi's voice rang out on the other end of the phone.
"Mouto-san, Atem has run off," he declared voice tight with worry as cool blue eyes searched empty streets.
"What?" Yuugi questioned, obviously shocked.
"He said something about going home," Seto informed him. Yuugi didn't reply for a moment.
"The museum exhibit, he'll take a bus downtown to the museum," the young-sounding voice replied decisively.
"What is he looking for?"
"Exactly what he said, a way home," with that, Yuugi's voice was cut off the other line and Seto was left with the quiet in his car and the burning cold of the air to keep him company.
Going by Yuugi's assessment, he started driving towards the nearest bus stop. Sure enough, Atem was huddled inside the plastic barrier that offered little protection from the elements. His hands were trying to warm cold flesh as he was huddled around himself.
Seto stopped in front of the bus stop, but Atem seemed too preoccupied to notice. He was mumbling under his breath nonstop.
Seto got out of the car and walked up to Atem. Tear tracks covered his face and his lips were tinted the faintest shade of blue.
"Atem," he whispered. Atem looked up, and his murmurings stopped.
"What do you want, Kaiba-san?" he questioned, almost angrily, but Seto heard the edge of weariness that softened the words.
"I thought I told you to call me Seto," Seto answered, kneeling down in front of Atem and wrapping Atem's figure in his arms. Atem was at first reluctant, but eventually he succumbed to the warmth.
"I thought I told you not to come looking for me," Atem replied, yawning slightly.
"I thought you might need the help," Seto replied, taking Atem into his arms and carrying him bridal style, set him in the back of the convertible. Slowly, he put the top up and turned the heat on high. When he looked into the back seat, Atem was fast asleep.
He opened his phone again.
"Call off the search," he told his security officer. "Call Mokuba and tell him that I'm going to be away on a trip for a while and he is to stay with one of the maids, whoever is available, preferably Tsuki-san, he likes her. Call Mouto-san and tell him that I found his other half."
"If I may be so bold, Kaiba-san, where are you going?" the man inquired.
"Home."
Atem's Dream
I awakened to the scent of fresh bread and sand. The heat of the sun awakened me and alerted me that the day was well underway. I sat up, and I recognized the bed as my own, not as the futon I'd been sleeping on at Yuugi's house.
I stood up, and that was when I realized it was a dream. Were I really back in Ancient Egypt, there'd be two or more slaves ready to help bathe me and prepare me for my morning ritual.
I leaned my head out the window of my room and breathed deep the smells I thought I'd long forgotten. The world smelled of sand and heat and dryness, and underneath I could smell the bread the cooks were making downstairs, the honey that made it sweet, the onions and garlic that added flavor to our foods.
I opened my eyes and looked at the sun, the almighty personification of Ra. The sun had never seemed so bright in Japan, so utterly all seeing, all knowing. In Japan it was obscured by high skyscrapers and seemed dim in comparison to the electric light humanity had created.
A falcon swooped down from the sky and I held out my arm as it settled, its feathers ruffled.
"Hello, Horus," I greeted the bird, but it looked at me in confusion, and I realized I'd spoken to it in Japanese. "Hello, Horus," I tried again, this time in Egyptian.
"Hello, Atem," the bird replied. I was not shocked, many times before Horus had visited me in my dreams to give me advice, never in the modern world, but many times back in Egypt.
"I am lost," I admitted, unafraid. Horus would not judge me.
"You are mortal, of course you are lost," he replied, and his voice held some of the distaste for humans he'd expressed on other occasions.
"I do not feel mortal. I am living the second of two life spans, one which I have done nothing to deserve." Horus clucked, annoyed.
"Done nothing, HA!" he laughed. "You saved the world many times over. You helped all who asked of you help. You learned to love," at that he surveyed me with one amber eye. "If anything, you deserve the worship befitting that of the gods of old." I smiled.
"I would almost appreciate dying and rising into the Afterlife, into my place in the Egyptian pantheon."
"Unfortunately, that is not possible. You, Atem, are the link of the old world, carried into the new. Where, now, is the confident ruler who fought for Egypt as if nothing could matter more? Where is the fearless duelist who refused to lose to anyone, and fought for his friends without dread of the unknown? Where is the small boy, barely old enough to understand that he would one day be Pharaoh, who said that nothing would stop him from protecting all he cared for?"
"That person died, Horus, along with Egypt," I said, shaking my head.
"Nonsense," Horus said, "Egypt is alive and well. Have you seen it lately?" He laughed. "Changed, but still very much alive. The gods are alive as well, and just because we were first worshipped in Egypt, does that mean we exclude the rest of the world from our grace?" He ruffled his feathers. "You cannot give up now, Atem. Your life in the modern world has hardly begun. You think the world stops turning just because you fulfilled your destiny. Poppycock! You have much more to accomplish, believe me."
With that, he flew back into the sky, into the sunlight to merge with Ra.
End Dream
Atem sat up in an unusual bed, in an unusual room. It appeared to be a small hotel room. Looking around, he spotted Seto also in bed, sleeping soundly.
He got out of bed and made his way to the window. Outside, it was too dark to see anything but the slightly tinted sky in the distance declaring that the sun would rise in a short while. It was too warm out for them to still be in Japan, he decided.
Gasping as the first rays of sunlight lit upon the land, he realized where they were. The orange rays slid along the Nile, highlighting its twisting gentle form. For the first time in three thousand years, he watched an Egyptian sunrise.
Atem finally understood what Horus wished to tell him. Just because he was of the past, did not mean he could not grow into the present. And if this was the beautiful way Egypt had grown in three thousand years, he wasn't sure he wanted to leave.
"Has my Pharaoh awakened already?" a voice came from behind him. He turned to see Seto, smiling at him.
"Y-you brought me here?" Atem asked, deliriously happy.
"You said you wanted to go home," Seto replied, as if it was the most simple thing in the world.
"B-but, what about your work back in Japan, isn't this taking you away from that, and Mokuba?" Atem asked.
"Mokuba's staying with one of our old maids, albeit she wasn't very happy, but she likes Mokuba. And work can wait, I haven't taken a day off in what seems like forever." He came to stand by Atem and look out the window as well. "You never told me how beautiful it was."
"I didn't remember how beautiful it was. My memories are all vague. I remembered it was beautiful, but I didn't remember how it was beautiful."
Seto nodded, as if he understood.
"In Japan, it felt as if a piece of my soul was missing, and coming here, I've found it," Atem said, and he couldn't stop the tears from leaking out. Seto wrapped him into his arms as Atem mumbled something along the lines of 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.'
"Sssssh," Seto soothed, rubbing Atem's back in gentle circles. "What are you sorry about?"
"I-I was so rude to you. I-I just felt so lost. I didn't know what to do. I'm living in a world I know nothing about."
"You bear a crown that holds no significance?" Seto asked, making a reference to Atem's letter. Atem nodded, continuing to cry. "Listen, there's nothing to be sorry for. You felt lost, we all feel lost sometimes."
"B-but I feel so stupid now." Seto laughed.
"That's part of living too. As mortals, we are stupid. One of the harder facts of life to accept." Atem laughed, and Seto smiled. "You're beautiful when you smile," he said, and gently laid a kiss on Atem's lips.
Seto pulled, away, grinning, and went over to the bed. Gently, from on top of the bed-side table, he picked up a bouquet of a dozen perfect lotus flowers.
He walked over and handed them to Atem, who took them, tears streaming down his face.
"A woman was selling them as we were going to our hotel. I saw them, and their perfection, their beauty reminded me of you."
"Lotuses are sacred to Egypt," Atem said, more to himself than to anyone else, while tears were still streaming down his cheeks. Seto rubbed a tear away with his thumb.
"I hope these are tears of happiness," he said, and Atem smiled.
Softly, Seto once again leaned in to kiss Atem. Their tongues met and danced in the heat of passion as the rays of the Egyptian sun poured in around them.
Before Atem's eyes closed in passion, he thought he saw the unmistakable wings of Horus out the window.
Indeed, out the window, Horus perched in a lotus tree outside the window. Next to him sat Bastet in cat form, cleaning herself luxuriously.
"Told you," Bastet said, sticking out her tongue. Horus rolled his eyes indignantly.
"How was I supposed to know it was easier to cheer him up with a kiss and some lotus blossoms than with a good speech?"
End Chapter 4
I hope you enjoyed this chapter. There should be one more chapter and an epilogue, or just an epilogue, depending on what I feel like writing. Please leave a review and I would be much obliged. Be careful of the plot bunnies and my Yami on your way out.