Author's Notes: Chapter 7! I really enjoyed writing this one for reasons you will probably figure out. There will also be more defined Prideshipping than I had previously anticipated and I hope this doesn't chase anyone away. As I said before the two main shippings will still be death and thief/citron so no worries. Reviews are appreciated. Seriously, they keep me writing quickly and therefore updating quickly. So even if you don't want to get in depth just let me know you like it. I appreciate reviews of any kind. Okay okay I will let you go onto the story. That is if your still reading this. If you are you get a cookie. -hands you a cookie- Now enjoy the story!

Unreal Truths

Chapter 7: Secrets

Seto's POV

I looked at my computer wearily; it had been an extremely long day.

I had been through several different meetings today, each one testing my patience a little more than the last.

Rubbing my eyes I blinked a few times before turning back to the screen.

"You're killing yourself Seto."

I froze, my fingers hovering just above the keyboard. I had to be hallucinating. Mokuba was right; these late nights were wreaking havoc on my body.

I shook it off and began typing up a financial report that I would need for a meeting next week.

"Seto, please go to bed."

I stopped my typing again and looked around the dark room but didn't see anyone, and I certainly didn't see him.

I straightened my shoulders and narrowed my eyes, "I am not going to listen to some sick figment of my imagination.

I swear to God I heard a sigh.

Rubbing my temples I closed my eyes and took a small break from staring at the bright screen in the dimly lit room.

"Would it help if I said I wasn't a figment of your imagination?"

My eyes shot open and I looked around frantically, the voice sounded much closer that time.

"You are because he's not here anymore. Your just part of an overactive imagination coupled with too many late nights on the job and not enough food."

"There is a way to fix that you know."

I nearly jumped out of my chair when the translucent form of Atem appeared on my desk.

Okay I had officially lost it.

"What the hell? Okay, that coffee had to be laced with something. Somebody is getting fired tomorrow." I picked up my cup of coffee and sniffed it suspiciously.

Atem chuckled and leaned forward on my desk, "Come on now Seto. Let's be reasonable here."

I shook my head, "I am not reasoning with a hallucination."

He smirked, "I should hope not, or else I would be concerned about your mental stability Seto."

"You're the hallucination Yami." I groaned, "This is so not happening."

I shut the lid on my laptop and walked over to the door to my office.

"Where are you going Seto? To bed I hope." I could almost see the annoyingly smug smirk on his face.

I grumbled and put my hand on the door handle, "Okay I get it. My brain is trying to tell me I need sleep and the only way it thought it could get through to me was to project a hallucination in the form of my former lover to tell me to be healthier. I get it now, so you can go away."

"You and I both know that's not true, though I wouldn't expect you to admit it to yourself yet." Atem's voice caused shivers to travel down my spine and I couldn't fight back the shudder it caused.

"You're not real damnit." I bit my lip to fight the watering feeling in my eyes, "You left, moved on, whatever they call it now. The real Atem is in the spirit world with all his old buddies."

"Correction, I was in the spirit world with all my 'old buddies', as you put it, but now I am here Seto…with you."

I turned to see him still perched on my desk. He looked the same as he had in the past, save for his modern clothing and transparent appearance. "How?"

He shrugged, "To be honest I don't know." He slid off the desk and moved towards me. "It all started when Yugi got the millennium puzzle back and I found that I could visit him in his dreams."

I blinked; Yugi had that obnoxious trinket back? "Since when?"

Yami stopped a few feet in front of me and looked up into my eyes, "Since a few weeks ago when it inexplicably showed up in his room."

I let that thought roll around in my head a bit, "I see. How are you here then? I don't have any of those blasted items."

Atem shrugged again with a graceful roll of his shoulders, "I don't know. I just know that I have gotten stronger over the weeks and that I am now able to appear in this form for extended periods of time before having to return to the spirit realm."

I found myself fighting internally. This couldn't be real; it had to be a hallucination or something right? I looked at Atem who was still standing in front of me with a patient look in his eyes.

"I don't expect you to believe me yet Seto, but I just had to see you and make sure you're okay. Though, you don't look very okay." He reached his hand out and made to grab mine but it went right through.

I swallowed hard, "I'm fine."

"You think I am a hallucination brought on by little to no sleep or food. You know damn well that you're pushing yourself way too far."

I held back a scoff, "You're beginning to sound like Mokuba now Yami."

He sighed, "I'm just saying, please take it easy. I want to see you again but I don't want it to be in the spirit realm."

I sighed, "I'm going to bed now."

"Thank you Seto."

I nodded stiffly and turned to leave, "If you're not just some vivid creation of my mind, and I still believe it's possible, will you visit again?"

"Of course I will."

I allowed a slight smile at that, "Okay Yami, goodnight."

"Goodnight Seto. Ana uħibbuk."

I paused when he made in the switch in languages but I couldn't wipe the genuine smile from my face as I replied.

"I love you too Yami."

Ryou's POV

I sighed heavily and looked around Marik's room in boredom. I had awoken to Bakura roughly grabbing me off the floor and shoving me onto the bed and demanding my car keys. I told him where they were and he left, slamming and locking the door on his way out.

So now I was stuck here in Marik's room with nothing to do. That's not to say that there was nothing of interest in his room, but I didn't feel it would be appropriate to invade his privacy by snooping through his things.

I glanced around the room again. Marik kept his room plain and very clean. I don't think I had ever seen it dirty.

My eyes wandered over to the open closet door and spotted a toppled over box. It was then I recognized it as the box that Marik kept his sketchbooks in. I eased myself off the bed and walked over to the box and picked it up.

Marik already showed me his sketchbooks, so it was okay if I wanted to go through them again right? It was only fair since I gave him unlimited access to my monster world room.

I gently carried the box back to the bed where I set it down beside me and opened it up.

I pulled each sketchbook out one by one and went through each page much slower now that I had time to spare. I still couldn't get over the shock of how well Marik drew. I couldn't even trace that well.

I got to the last one and flicked to the last pages. I felt my eyes widen in shock.

Marik had drawn me.

It was so well done that I felt almost as if I was looking into a mirror.

I gently touched the paper, being extra careful so I did not smudge the carefully done shading.

I was both amazed and honored at the same time that Marik would consider me enough of a friend to draw me along with Ishizu and Odion.

He had drawn several portraits of me, each one having me smiling brightly with a lively look on my face.

My smile had grown by the time I reached the end of the sketchbook and I closed it slowly. I would have to tell Marik how much I appreciated him drawing me and say how wonderful they were. I had to convince him to try selling some of his art; there was no way he would fail at bringing in a small income that way.

I was just about ready to put the books back when I noticed a smaller one that had escaped my attention earlier.

It was about half the size of the others and was a deep colored blue with small white swirls intertwining with each other on its cover.

I reached in slowly and picked it up. Why hadn't Marik showed me this one with the others? I thought for a moment that it could be a new one, since his others were almost completely full. That thought vanished though when I saw the thorough wear on the cover and spine. If anything, this was the oldest of all the books.

I brushed my hand across the cover, thinking twice about whether or not I should look at it. After all, Marik had chosen to keep it hidden from me when he got the others out the first time.

I chewed on my lip a bit before deciding to look through this one as well. It wasn't like Marik would ever find out anyways. Plus, it was a sketchbook; there couldn't be anything bad in a sketchbook right?

I was proven wrong on the first page.

I had to blink several times to make sure I was seeing things correctly. At first I thought they were more sketches of me until I looked more closely.

It wasn't me, it was Bakura.

I could tell by the way his hair shot up in spiky formations and how cold and hard his face and eyes were. Was that what I really looked like when Bakura had been in control? How could Yugi-tachi not notice such a drastic change in my appearance?

I swallowed hard as I went to the next page; there was no turning back now.

The book was filled with a ton of sketches of Bakura. Marik had drawn him doing all sorts of different things, most of them relatively normal, which surprised me. Bakura didn't strike me as normal at all.

I did find a few more fitting Bakura sketches though. Ones with him holding knives or other instruments of torture became more frequent as I got further into the book. Now this was more like the Bakura I knew and loathed.

There were so many pictures of Bakura that it threw me off guard. Marik had told me that he and Bakura had been partners during Battle City and that the Egyptian teen even harbored feelings for the spirit, but this still completely shocked me.

Looking at the Bakura sketches was haunting. It was like I was looking at my sinister twin brother.

I found out, though, that the sketches of Bakura were the least disturbing thing in Marik's secret book.

He also had written things that were both worrisome and disturbing. Haunting poetry about emptiness and darkness along with scary sketches of himself being consumed by darkness. He wrote about shadows claiming his soul and leaving an empty shell to the world.

I was really starting to get worried about Marik's well being.

Other pages were filled with nothing but one word, 'empty', repeated over and over again until the entire page had been filled up completely.

It was now that I was beginning to feel a little afraid of Marik.

I had no idea that he was feeling this sort of thing inside, not the way he bounced around my apartment, chattering away about anything and everything he could think of.

Was Marik really that unstable that he felt the urge to draw and write such disturbing things? What if he snapped again like everyone said he did in Battle City? That couldn't happen though could it? His dark half had already returned with his own body along with a strange fascination with my hair.

I wrinkled my nose and turned the page again and saw that we were back to sketches of Bakura.

These drawings of him were different than the others but equally as shocking.

This time Marik had included himself in the pictures alongside Bakura, and they were…kissing.

I couldn't seem to wrap my mind around what I was seeing.

There were several pages dedicated to this sort of thing. There were ones of Marik and Bakura kissing or them holding each other and looking into one another's eyes with soft looks. There was even one with them lying in bed together, holding each other closely and lovingly.

I was in shock; this was so completely different than the disturbing things on the previous pages that I almost wondered if it was even the same person drawing. Of course I knew it was still Marik's work, but it threw me off guard to see such a drastic change in art.

The last picture in the book was one of Bakura, alone and shirtless, gazing out at the viewer with a look filled with lust and longing.

I felt frozen under his gaze; it was just so damn realistic. I could almost hear Bakura laughing in my head and taunting me about admiring his body. I growled to myself, no not his body mine!

I slammed the sketchbook shut and glared heavily at the cover. I was completely shaken up and felt a bit afraid as well. I really thought I had known Marik, but this little blue book had changed all of that.

I shakily put all the sketchbooks back into the box and carefully placed it back in the closet before making my way back to the bed. What was I going to do about this? I couldn't go up to Marik and say 'Hey Marik, I was snooping through your things and I found you secret sketchbook. Some of the things in there really worried me and I think that maybe you should see a therapist about the whole 'shadows claiming your soul' thing. Kay thanks!'

I ran my fingers through my hair as best I could with my wrists bound together. I was at a complete loss as to what I should do. I really didn't want to come home one day and find Marik dead on my floor or covered in blood because he had completely lost it. Though I guess that wasn't really a concern now that we were constantly being watched by our crazy alter egos.

I groaned in frustration and wondered what was going to happen now.

My best friend was completely crazy and love sick over the insane spirit of an Egyptian tomb robber who took over my body against my will from time to time. Oh and even better was that said tomb robber was now back from whatever pit the pharaoh cast him into and with his own body to boot! I laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation.

It was only a matter of time before I lost my sanity too.

And I will be damned if at the moment I wasn't looking forward to it.