A/N: Day 4: Soulmate AU

Snap.

"— I know you."

His response was not given to Atem, but rather, to a gravel road dusted with snow. Yugi stared blankly down, eyes unseeing. The vertigo was still there, but his stomach turned for a different reason. He did not feel ill, he felt empty. Unfinished. Torn. He looked around briefly at the expanse before letting out a curse.

It was dark, the half moon and a handful of stars peeking through a partially cloudy night were the only sources of light. On either side of the road were fields of what looked like wheat — or maybe tall grass? — Yugi was unsure. It was too dark to tell. What he could tell was that the road forked not several meters away. Despite the bifurcation, there was nothing to indicate where either route lead. He clutched his arms and suppressed a shiver.

Arms… Yugi remembered, as he slowly rotated his hand to expose the inside of his wrist. Even though it was dark, the mark was still there. Faint, but definitely there.

Atem.

A soulmate? What was he saying? The word soulmate was commonly used back home, often used in jokes or in the context of the a particularily amazing bowl of ramen. However, the way Atem had used it… he had never heard the word 'soulmate' used so reverently before. So believed before. The way Atem had uttered that word had shaken him to his core and spurred on a thousand questions in it's wake. He started to shake, but not because of the cold.

This was madness. Absolute madness. Some cruel trick played on him by some sick force. Could this really be reality? Maybe this is some sort of a nervous breakdown. A hallucination. That's right. This had to be a hallucination. His feelings were not real. Atem was not real. None of this was real. It could not be! If it was, then this was the most vicious trick the universe could ever play. Tossing him into situations in worlds he was ill-equipped to handle. The events toying with his emotions with a reckless abandon, pulling the strings on his heart like some sadistic puppeteer. Giving a glimmer of hope, only to leave him confused, hurt and alone.

His head pounded as he stared at the gravel. It's all happening again. Why am I going through this?

His questions were quickly quelled as Yugi became aware of the bitter wind. The cold seemed to become more potent, cutting right through his skin to bone. He pulled his arms even tighter against his chest as he braced himself. Just when he thought it could not get any colder, a flare of heat crashed into him. Before his eyes, a red flame rose at the intersection between the two roads. From within came a person.

"Now who are you?"

A young man with unkempt black hair straightened his tie and adjusted his cuffs. His white three piece suit, despite having just passed through a wall of flames looked as pristine and crisp as if it was brand new. The man himself, though, was not new to Yugi at all. Even though he appeared fully grown, there was no doubt that it was Mokuba Kaiba standing in front of him.

Yugi shook his head in irritation. Once again, his mind was playing tricks on him, making him see people that are not really there. Using faces familiar to him, contorting them to give him hope then only to take it away at the worst possible moment. None of this is real. So then, why fear it? As this revelation took hold, Yugi chose to glower quietly at the new arrival.

"Silence is not a nice way to greet someone."

"Well, you don't exist so why would I try to greet you?"

A scoff. "I did not expect that. But ok, I will play along. I don't exist?"

"Yeah, you don't." Yugi murmured as he rubbed at his temples. "I'm being tormented and you're just the latest thing that's trying to break me."

"'Tormented'? I don't think you are. I'd know if you were being tormented."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"All in due time. But first… wait, where are you going?"

Yugi had turned around and set off down the road away from 'Mokuba'. He needed to get out of here. He needed to figure out a way to break out of this hallucination or nightmare or dimension or whatever it was. He had not even made it three steps before a second wall of flame, much stronger that the first, appeared in front of him. He recoiled back from the heat, blinking away the white spot in his vision from the intense light. He spun back around to 'Mokuba'.

"Please let me go."

"No, I won't."

It the blink of an eye, Mokuba appeared right in front of him. He shot him what could only be described as a shit eating grin. "You're strange."

"Strange?"

"Yeah. Usually people have to do the whole ridiculous song and dance to get my attention, but not you. I felt a weird disturbance at my crossroads and I just had to come check it out."

Yugi stared in confusion. None of those words made any sense.

"You see, being a crossroads demon is not an easy job. It's all 'grant me this' and 'I want that' and 'help me beat the pharaoh at this stupid card game'. Every time I'm pulled here, it's always because somebody wants something. But you… you don't want anything from me."

Yugi swallowed hard. A demon? No, no, no, not again. Not another thing that's going to try to kill me. A chill ran down his spine.

"It's just a hallucination. He can't hurt you." Yugi reminded himself with a whisper as he backed away slowly. The long legs of demon Mokuba Kaiba diminished any progress he made in an instant.

"I don't know why you keep sticking on that hallucination explanation. I'm as real as you are, just a little… different, that's all."

Mokuba's eyes began to glow like coal embers. Yugi shivered, due to the cold or the spectacle of the burning eyes he had no clue.

"Hmmm, but you're definitely different too. And I think I've got it now, why you're so peculiar…" The embers because inquisitive. "Is because you're not of this world."

"Not of this world?" Yugi murmured, a swell of panic rising.

"No, you're not at all. Your soul signature is all wrong. I've never seen anything like it before!" Mokuba announced, reaching out to place a hand on Yugi's forehead. "Oh wow, yeah. Tell me, what other things have you seen?"

Yugi blinked. "I, uh, was in a place with dragons. And then a place that looked like my college but it was not. I kept running into people I know but they don't know me. Or they knew me and I don't really know them, at least, now how they were in that moment."

"How often do your surroundings change? And how?"

"They've changed a few times now, and every time this thing on my wrist glows."

"Hmm, and you're sure it's not this thing's doing?" An eyebrow raised as his hand fell to point at the device on Yugi's wrist.

"Honestly, I know it has to be… but dragons and demons… they can't exist."

"Now I can't speak for dragons, but I think that scale in your backpack sure does. And I definitely exist, much to the chagrin of organized religion."

"How did you know about the scale?"

"You've really got to stop lying to yourself, Yugi Muto." Mokuba's tone shifted suddenly. "This is reality, and you had better start realizing this before it's too late."

"Too late?" Yugi echoed.

"Yes. You're being sent to all of these dimensions for a reason."

"And what is the reason?"

"How would I know?" Mokuba shrugged. "Here, let me see it."

Yugi held out his wrist tentatively, the obsidian band a void in the night. The demon came around, inspecting it from multiple different angles. A snap of his fingers ignited a small fireball to serve as a torch. "It's unlike anything I've ever seen before… where did you get this?"

"I don't know. It was in my mailbox one day… and now here I am." Yugi said almost bitterly.

"This thing gives off weird energy. It's similar to the energy given off by greater demons when they use their abilities… ahh, yes! It can warp spacetime! You have been dimension hopping this entire time. And this thing here is why. Someone has put a lot of time and effort into that device, so whomever gave you it did so for a reason."

Yugi looked down at his wrist. Who would do such a thing? And why?

"But now that you've seen the light, it's time to get back down to business. You might as well tell me what you want and we can see if we can work out a trade, you strange tiny traveller."

"I don't want anything." Yugi murmured, his eyes still on the device.

"Hmmm, you should never lie to a demon. We don't take well to that sort of thing."

Yugi looked up. His anger had faded, and its stead, weariness had set in. "I… I want to go home."

"Do I look like a miracle worker? The only dimensions I have access to is here and hell. So unless your pale ass is from hell, you're out of luck."

Yugi grimaced. He expected that answer, but still the reality still stung. Besides, even if this demon was able to take him back, the price he would have had to pay surely would have been too steep. It was better if he did not make a deal with this demon at all. "Then there's nothing I want."

"Nothing? There's got to be something. There's clearly something bothering you. You know, other than the obvious."

Yugi remained silent, eyes on the ground.

"Oh, oh… I think I know what it is now."

Yugi stiffened, but still, he did not talk.

"How did I miss it? It's as clear as day! You'repining."

"I'm… I'm not. I shouldn't have to put up with this…" Yugi sighed in exasperation.

Demon Mokuba cleared his throat as he adjusted his tie. With a sly smirk, he started to sing. "No chance, no way. I won't say it no, no…."

Yugi just stared on dumbfounded.

"What, you don't know that one? What sort of pathetic dimension are you from? Oh never mind. What I'm really getting at is that mark."

A hand quickly grabbed his wrist, but despite his recoil, the grip remained firmly in place. "It looks like a variant of a soulmate mark." Demon Mokuba smiled wide in glee, his teeth sickeningly sharp.

Yugi looked up incredulously. "How did you know that?"

"Humans have them here too, they are just a bit different." Mokuba narrowed his eyes. "Now where is your soulmate?"

Yugi winced as the question reignited the ringing of Atem's final words in his mind anew like some sort of a sick taunt. I've found you. I've found you. As much as that he wanted to dismiss this whole soulmate business as some ridiculous romantic notion indicating that love life is entirely decided by fate and not of your own choosing, he could not help but feel something resonate as those words barraged him over and over. With all of the versions of Atem he had met so far, Yugi had felt something. A pull. A magnetism. A warmth. It was undeniable. He had simultaneously become a safe house and a mad house for his soul.

"Ah, is that why you were muttering and being a real grump earlier? Were you taken away from your precious partner?"

"Keep him out of this." Yugi warned.

"Oh, don't you worry! I'm not going to hurt him. I'm just curious. Why aren't you together with a white picket fence and matching his and his mugs yet?"

"He's not… I'm not… ah, I don't even know what to think anymore!"

"What to think?"

"He's my roommate, and yeah we are close. He's really, really great but I've never… I never thought he…"

The demon leaned back in the air, reclining as if sitting in a chair. "Are you just realizing all of this right now?"

"Yeah." A quiet confession, more for his own benefit than anything else.

"You know what you need to do, right?" Mokuba kicked off his atmospheric chair to float towards Yugi.

"Are you really about to give me relationship advice?"

"Don't worry, it's on the house. It's not every day someone has an actually interesting existential crisis in the middle of nowhere Kansas."

Yugi snorted but did not interrupt further.

"It's simple. Just tell him how you feel."

Simple. Right. Everything about this was simple. Yugi derisively remarked to himself. Beyond the usual vulnerability of these sorts of conversations, which was terrifying in of itself, there was an even larger hurdle that he'd have to jump. Namely, being the whole stuck in another dimension without a sure fire way of getting home. So simple. "Easier said than done."

"You know what I meant, when you get home and all that." Mokuba said with a dismissive wave.

Silence hung between the man and the demon. Yugi began to shiver with renewed vigor as he waited for the inevitable continuation of this uncomfortable conversation to begin. More than he needed relationship advice, he needed to figure out a way to get out of this predicament and go someplace warm before he lost fingers and toes to frostbite.

"Alright. If that is all, I really need to go." Yugi said through now chattering teeth. "Can you at least point me in the right direction for the nearest town? Or will that cost me my soul too?"

"Ha. Ha. Very funny. The nearest town is 50 miles in, ah, that direction." The demon pointed down none of the three gravel roads, but rather through the field to Yugi's right. "Alright, I like you, you tiny, adorable yet really quite grumpy man."

Yugi suppressed the urge to start walking right into that field.

"And I feel for your plight. What can I say, I'm a hopeless romantic." Mokuba said with a cocky shrug befitting of a Kaiba. "I will bring you to the nearest motel so you have a snowball's chance in hell of surviving the night. You need to go get 'em, boy!"

His embarrassed blush grew, starting to warm his cheeks. Soon the rest of his body joined in the warmth. A hand on his shoulder made him jump, skin warming in a wave under the touch. Before he could register what was happening, he was standing in front of a tiny motel with a neon sign advertising the 'Lodge Cliff Motel' at the end of the parking lot.

"There. Now try not to die. I've become invested in this story."

Without another word, the demon vanished in a puff of smoke. Yugi shrugged the backpack onto his shoulders and made his way to the dilapidated inn. He thanked his lucky stars that he still had his wallet tucked away in his now dry jeans in his backpack. He paid for one night's accommodations and after taking a very long warm shower, he got ready for bed. As he crossed by the small desk in the corner, Yugi grabbed the small motel notepad and tucked it into his bag beside the pencil from the call center. With a small sigh, he got into bed.

He pulled the covers up under his chin and gazed at the retro-style bedside clock, the red numbers illuminating the blanket in front of him. 2:14 am. He quickly lost the battle against his heavy eyelids, lulled by exhaustion into a dream of dragons, drinks and dial up telephones.