Stoicshipping (Priest Seto x Seto Kaiba)
"I'll wait for you to come back."
Seto awoke irritably. What time was it...three thirty in the morning? He should still be asleep. Work didn't start until six; he needed to get his rest while he could.
But as he turned over and tried to go back to sleep, he found that it was impossible. Instead, he found himself looking up at the blank ceiling, his thoughts wandering into places that he didn't want to visit.
His parents. The accident. The orphanage. Chess. Gozaburo. The mansion. His old, too big room in that mansion. The bloody knife hidden under the mattress in that room. The sliding door where he had left his shoes...and the balcony on the third floor of the mansion. Where he tried to end it all, once.
He didn't allow himself to swear, even under his breath. That would be admitting that the memories were getting to him.
"I'll do whatever I must to be at your side again, my friend."
And then there were the dreams. Ever since Battle City, he hadn't stopped having them. When he had heard Yugi was going to Egypt, they had grown more vivid, almost more urgent. They were unnerving, though he would never admit it to anyone.
He would be walking down long, stone corridors, the ceiling so high above him that it was lost in shadow. The walls on either side of him were carved in Egyptian hieroglyphs, interspersed with paintings.
And then he would come into a chamber, where he would see a boy sitting on a tall throne – he could never remember what the boy looked like when he woke up, but he always knew that he was oddly familiar. Beside him would be a taller boy, and no matter how many times he dreamed it, his dream-self was always shocked at what he saw. It was like looking into a mirror, albeit a mirror that tanned his skin and dressed him in the clothing of ancient Egypt.
Then he would see his mirror self with the familiar boy again. There would be other people around them, people that were smiling, comfortable around each other. He would see his mirror self in an archive of scrolls with an older man in a hood, who was explaining something about economics to him. Then an argument between his mirror self and a man with a pendant like a ring, which seemed about to end in blows. But then both of them calmed down, forgave each other, and tried to come to a conclusion in a more civilized way, because they were friends despite the friction between them. And he would pass through more and more scenes, seeing his mirror self with other people, and with the familiar boy again. Over and over.
And there was always something...nostalgic, almost jealous...like he was longing for this place, these people. During the dream, he wanted nothing more than to be there in place of his mirror self, standing with those people that he almost knew, next to the boy that was so familiar. Because he had been waiting so long to see that boy again. Waiting to see his friend again.
"No matter how many lives I must live, I will wait for you."
It was stupid. So stupid.
But as he lay in his bed, staring up at the ceiling, he suddenly found himself wishing he were anywhere but here. Wishing he could have lived any life but this one, this hell that he was always living in. Always alone, always tormented by the memories of things that had been taken from him. What was the point of his existence? All he did, all he ever did was work. What was even important to him anymore? Had he ever known? His mirror self certainly seemed to know.
He rolled out of bed. Quietly, so that Mokuba wouldn't hear him from the room next door, he slipped into the bathroom and closed the door behind him.
He stared at himself in the mirror, trying to come to terms with what he saw there. He was only sixteen. What was he doing with himself? What was he doing with his life? Who was he? Why on earth was he choosing now to ask these stupid metaphysical questions?
For a moment, he caught the flicker of movement in the corner of the mirror.
Maybe he was dreaming right now, because he wasn't surprised when he saw his mirror self appear in the mirror beside him.
"Come on," he said. "What the hell do you think you're doing with yourself? Everyone else is here. They're all waiting on you. Stop being so selfish."
And then he was gone.
Seto stared at his own blue eyes for a long, long moment. Maybe...
Maybe he would go to Egypt. He was looking...looking for them. He must have been a lot more tired than he thought, because he wasn't irritated with himself for thinking about the dream, for thinking about the people in it. Maybe he would look for them.
Maybe they really were waiting on him.
A/N: Nothing like a late night philosophical/metaphysical thought process, huh? :D I like following Seto's thought process, his memories, and his back story. It's so much fun to see what's going on up there. Although this pairing was extremely difficult to work with, because I feel that Seto and Priest Seto are pretty much the exact same person when you get right down to it...they have slightly different personalities, but that has to do with the way they grew up. Still, technically speaking, Seto is the direct reincarnation of Priest Seto, so there's very little difference. Next up is Stifleshipping (Yami no Marik x Noa).
