Hey beautifuls, nothing got done on your surprise this week because I've been having exams and work disasters with state funding regulations but plenty of FP got written (and a few projects for later) so it wasn't a complete waste.
Chapter 10: Waiting for Godot
"I don't understand," Yami frowned, laying his mug back onto the table as he tried to hush his voice in the coffee shop. "I thought Atlantis was destroyed in the second life when the Watchers were dragged out to do their duty?"
"It was," Yugi nodded solemnly, turning over the red pendent in his palm with a delighted focus as he spoke. "Sort of."
Yami was still burning from last night's hunt when Yugi had asked him to meet at that same café they'd meet in weeks ago now. Worse still was the state of his yo-yoed heart in all this when he caught the red pendent round Yugi's neck. It seemed the Lance of Lazarus, Jenzar's Lance, had found a way to take on a physical form on this side of the Veil as well to better protect the Faen. Atemu told Yami they could never do anything like that with the magic they had right now. Worse, much worse, was the knowledge that it was now clear as day that not only was Jenzar alive but he still loved Atreyu and would love Yami's Yugi upon sight.
He steadied himself harshly.
"See," Yugi explained carefully, "when we destroyed Atlantis we didn't tear up the whole place. We left the Grand Library intact."
"Grand Library?"
"The Watchers watch everything right?" He supposed. "Well everything that's ever happened in the course of the Universe, ever, is recorded in the Grand Library of Atlantis."
"Okay," he murmured, "but then who's Dartz? I thought the Watchers answered to the Leviathan."
"He's the Watchers' King, the last King of Atlantis," Yugi explained with a chuckling scoff. "Not a charming guy really but what do you expect? He ruled Atlantis, kept order in the city, and now he manages the Grand Library while the rest of the Watchers gather info across the universe. He doesn't have a physical form on the Natural World side of the Veil as far as I know."
"And Timaeus?"
"He's a Guardian. There's three of them." The Faen rattled off knowingly still twisting the pendent in his fingers as he utterly ignored his own drink. "They guard the Library and Dartz. When we stormed Atlantis Jenzar and Amar defeated them so we could drag Dartz out of the city. We only let them back into the Library, what was left of Atlantis, after he conceded to make the rest of the Watchers get off their asses. So now Timaeus and his brothers guard Dartz on the Supernatural side of the Veil."
"We're not going there yet though are we?" Yami murmured. "You said you wanted to go somewhere else first last night?"
"Yeah," Yugi nodded carefully, "I just think… I think if Jenzar lost the Lance then he must've been attacked. There's no other way I can picture him letting go of it and if Jenzar was hurt bad I think…"
"You think you know where he'd go to fix up?" Yami finished.
"Yeah," Yugi sighed solemnly, "if he's anywhere. I think he'll be in Sanctuary."
"Sanctuary?" The author baulked. "The Faen city? I thought you couldn't go back till doomsday?"
"We hid the City in a pocket dimension when we left," the smaller conferred, "but when we locked up Sanctuary it was only to protect it. We figured if anything ever happened Faens and their Champions might need somewhere to hide in an emergency. Some Faens still go there in-between lifetimes when they have to switch from one planet to reincarnation on another because it takes so long to transition."
"But then why haven't you checked there yet?" He frowned.
"The Watchers wouldn't know where to find it to check and none of the other Faens would have time even if I had permission to break protocol and talk to them." Yugi shrugged sheepishly. "Besides I… Jenzar and I made a pact that we'd be the first ones out of Sanctuary and the last ones back in."
"So you've never been back since the second life." Yami finished.
"Yeah," Yugi muttered quietly, "I didn't figure Jenzar would run off there unless something bad happened, unless he absolutely needed to, and I haven't had any proof of that till now. It sounds so fucking stupid but I didn't want to go there myself without a damn good reason because of pride after we made that promise."
"A little," Yami shrugged, "but if the Watchers know everything how come they don't already know where Jenzar is?"
"They probably do." The Faen groaned. "They just don't pay attention and if they notice something big they don't tell anyone else unless they're made to. They aren't supposed to interfere. They're only helping us now, searching the Veil and searching their Library no doubt, because they've been ordered to by the Leviathan. The Gate Keeper and Third Star probably convinced it to help for the sake of maintaining order. If Champions just go missing shits going to get bad everywhere unless we know why. For all we know the Seers have some new weapon."
"But Jenzar's got to be alive, doesn't he?" Yami sighed despite himself. "Cause the Lance still works."
"Yeah," Yugi whispered, clearly torn to smile or not. "He's alive somewhere."
"And he still loves you." It hurt just to say it and it hurt Yami to think he could be so selfish not to be happy for Yugi.
"Yeah," the Faen murmured unable to meet his eye.
"Why aren't you happy then?" Yami found himself asking however stupid he knew it was to do so. He was baiting for trouble here.
"I don't know." Yugi twisted clutching the pendent in his hand viciously. "I was last night."
"Don't you love him anymore?"
Why did he say that? Atemu cursed foully at the back of Yami's mind and he felt so horridly nasty when Yugi cringed and leant back in his seat, teeth scrapping tightly over his bottom lip.
"You don't have to, you know." Yami dug deeper however his mind screamed at him to shut up. "You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to still love him the same after all this time-"
"Yami just," Yugi snapped weakly, ice tearing through Yami's gut already. "Don't."
"I think I get to." He hissed. "You made me fall in love with you-"
"Yeah well I feel just fucking stellar about that, don't I?" The Faen shot back tightly, both fists curled on the table. "I'm sorry. I am. Trust me."
Yami bit the inside of his cheek.
The closer they crept to Jenzar the more he dug his heels in. He knew it was wrong to be mad at Yugi, no, not exactly… It was fine to be mad at Yugi but it didn't help when Yami loved him still so fucking much. When Yami wanted him so much hurting him didn't help. Atemu too, noble and proud, was ashamed of them when Yami found it easy to be so spiteful after resolving to be sportsman like about Jenzar. What had he expected? It was low to snap at Yugi like this especially when Yugi's life had been so wrought apart by Yami's books. Neither of them were in the right, true, but lashing out wasn't helping.
Yugi groaned burying his face in his hands, shoulders shaking, and Yami could see clearly how he bit his own lip wretchedly.
"I'm sorry." He moaned slapping his hands back down against his lap as he turned to Yami, eyes wrought, and desperately miserable. "Yami I… I am really sorry. Look, if it would be easier, you don't ha-"
"No!" He nearly shrieked before managing himself. "I don't want to not be part of your life. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that."
"It's my fault. I kind of deserve it." Yugi sighed tipping back his drink finally. "I'll figure this out. It'll be alright somehow."
"You ever…" Yami laughed dryly. "You ever think it won't be okay? You ever think there's something you can't do or you can't fix?"
"Every other second." The smaller answered bluntly.
Yugi's eyes burnt with intensity Yami couldn't mimic. As a matter of due course there were a multitude of things about Yugi that Yami could never mimic. Atreyu blew Atemu out of the water when they hunted and likewise Yugi beat him. It was a childish word 'beat', naïve, and immediately Yami cursed himself gratingly-
"Don't," Yugi groaned exasperatedly, "don't!"
"What?" He blinked.
"You're comparing yourself to Jenzar again." He snapped knowingly. "Don't. You don't have to be Jenzar, I don't expect you to be, I like you. You know that right?"
"Well it's sort of hard not to." He grumbled belligerently. "Man was a saint."
"Oh no, he wasn't," Yugi scoffed. "Yami, listen, Jenzar's not some herculean superman like you seem to think he is. I can't even count how many times we've been monstrous to each other or how many times he's been too soft or too slow to action. I'm not perfect, neither is he, neither should you be. I don't compare the two of you."
"Seriously?" Yami grunted. "Not even a little?"
"You can love your mother and your father without loving one of them less." The smaller countered sharply. "Seriously, I don't juxtapose the two of you in my head. There's no point."
Yami was, evidently, unconvinced.
"Hey," the young man sighed testily as he attempted to illustrate himself. "Do you know what my favourite smell is? Not just in this lifetime but all up?"
"I don't know," Yami shrugged, but he guessed at it in his mind's eye as he twirled his cup on the hard wood of the table.
"It's not books, it's not you and it's not Jenzar. Both of you smell great, mind you, but I don't like either of you more than the other." Yugi cut firmly. "My favourite smell is Morphis. I remember how he smelt the first time I held him in the second life. I didn't even want kids that life time but Jenzar did and then I had Morphis in my arms and he was perfect. His smell is my favourite memory. I would've killed Jenzar to keep that little boy safe. I'd kill you for him. I'd kill Amar or Cobalt or Joey or Ryou for Morphis. You and Jenzar would forgive me, I just know it, I know you'd get it. That's why I like you. It's got nothing to do with who you are and aren't like."
"Then why can't we just…?"
"Cause that's why I love Jenzar," he finished simply, "he understands every thought in my head. He knows I'm a selfish, stubborn, bastard and he still loves me. I know he wouldn't give up on me if I went missing. He's always been there. I've always known he'd come get me. I'm not going to give up on him. I mean, come on, would I really be the kind of person you'd give a damn about if I gave up on him now? Would you ever trust me not to just dump you? He trusts me to be there when we find him. I owe him at least that much effort."
Something clicked together inside Yami's spiteful mind. The Faen had a way to weave spell binding nets of words. Yugi knew how to mend, how to heal, how to soothe him. Yugi was too, undeniably, right.
"You're a honey Yami." He smiled. "Someone is going to snap you up and never ever let you go. They're probably looking for you right now. You should be proud of yourself. It might not be me this time but if I'd met you first, in the first life, Jenzar would've had one hell of a fight on his hands. No one muddles me like this. It probably doesn't help but I'm not going to promise you something I can't. I just need you to understand it's not that you're not incredible. You're amazing."
"I can barely hunt." He rued in a pitiful wave of self-loathing perhaps only because he knew Yugi would prop him up. "I couldn't ever protect you. Jenzar can protect you."
"You do know every Champion is riddled with insecurity and self-doubt?" He chuckled. "Every Faen hates themself half the time too. That's why we're the best. We don't settle. No one else could come close to kicking as much ass as you do. When people think they suck they give up but when Reapers think they suck they push on. That's why I know you're one of the best and, whenever you remember it, I promise there will be a whole world of people from your past lives who probably adored you and there will be ass kicking's you'll have dealt you can't even imagine yet. I used to think I was useless."
"I'm sorry," Yami sighed forcing himself to smile, for the multiplicity of types of stupid he'd exhibited this morning.
"It's okay," Yugi muttered, dragging Yami's hands between his viciously tight fingers. Yugi's fingers were so very unyielding. "You're allowed to think I'm an asshole some days and you're allowed to act like a prick every now and again. It's how this works."
"We'll find Jenzar." He promised, squeezing, giving himself up to facing that future at least.
It came with a sense of selflessness and justice, the idea of putting his greed to one side to pursue what was, stereotypically, the truer side of love. Helping Yugi find someone greater than himself was probably the best a good man could do for someone they loved whether that person be fairy or not. Yami was, he knew, weighted down by that human greed to have the princess for himself and his own happy ending but that wasn't always how it worked.
"We'll deal with it." Yami mumbled to himself firmly tearing an odd, surprised, little smile from Yugi's features as the Faen clasped his hands. "Whatever happens we'll handle it somehow."
"Definitely." Yugi agreed in that ever assured way.
"So I get to see Sanctuary?" He plucked gently his smile strengthening.
"You're going to love it. You big fat romantic you."
Atemu had never walked out the front door of the Hive. He didn't even know the Hive had a front door until Atreyu was unlocking it and forcing it open with the help of Atemu and four or five armed guards who promptly locked them out.
The Hive was set, Atemu discovered, amongst a vast desert with two blazing suns burning directly above the towering anthill like earthen structures of the Hive which was 'Reaper HQ' as Yami put it. The sand stretched, rolled, in all directions across the endless horizon which darkened in gradients to pitch blankness the further away the unbroken view spanned from the two central suns hung frozen over the Hive.
Atreyu grasped his hand tightly in his own pale palm and led them out further into that darkness. The sky tinged indigo, colouring like a blush overhead and Atemu felt dreadfully exposed to beasts in this overpowering vastness. What hid under the sand of his supernatural pocket dimension where the Hive was hidden? More defences against enemies? Atemu remembered the Seer uprising which had been the focus of Yami's second book and the great man eating salt worms seething amongst the Seer armies who tried to siege the Hive. Were any of them left out in this lonely wilderness? They had helped the Reapers then but could they tell the difference, truly, between a Reaper and Seer?
"How far do we stray?" He supposed quietly under the current of wind whipping at them.
"Till we see the first evening star," Atreyu answered, eyes set upon the heavens which darkened more and more with every step they took from the Hive.
"The Evening Star…." Atemu murmured casting his upward.
One foot, then the other, over and over as he craned his neck till his temples ached from watching the slowing tinging sky.
"There!" He called throwing his index finger up to a lone glittering bulb marring the sky with a kind of naïve catcher's joy.
"Home." Atreyu whispered pressing his hand to his chest. His fingers strayed idly over his clavicle as he held Atemu's star in his vision, brushing the pendent which was Jenzar's hidden Lance of Lazarus hanging a heavy red teardrop on his bare skin, to draw out his own Veil's Needle into being. "Ready?"
Atemu glanced, catching Atreyu's smile before the Faen tightened his grip simultaneously up Atemu's hand and the tiny needle glowing in his own palm.
The burning light faded.
Atemu was sure he'd been hit but the rush of a wave, feet finding solidity after being ripped from the security of the sand with the same suction of a plug from a bathtub. He exhaled, crushing Atreyu's hand in his and heard the Faen sigh as Atemu stumbled back into his stance.
"My God!"
Atemu gasped unsure where was best to settle his eyes. The grand hallway they had found themselves in was a mammoth construction. The gothic curves of a brilliant white church dominated the shape of the space moonlight twinkling through the sparkling stain glass windows, larger and taller than a man, which stretched to the fine pinpoint of the arched ceiling. It took his fumbling eyes half a second to adjust to the light and realize that the trees he believed to be painted, sculpted, round the pillars were real trees, heavy with blooming boughs of cherry blossoms or wishing stones, which swept down onto the bare morning grass under his boots.
The door way groaned and Atemu managed to steal a glimpse over his shoulder in time to catch the view. The desert miles and miles below them, the Hive in the far distance with its suns, as the doors of the Sanctuary clicked shut like the lid of an elfin box. Atreyu cooed and Atemu's heart leapt with a similar vein of glorious amusement.
"That Evening Star is the front door?" He guessed delightedly.
"Yes," Atreyu cooed gently, "beautiful trick isn't it?"
"It's glorious." He sighed sweeping his irises back over the chapel-esque grand entrance. "Do you need a Faen's Needle to enter?"
"No," the fairy explained with limits, "its' a little more complex than that. Third Star had to make sure every Champion and their Faen could come and go on their lonesome should the worst occur."
"I see," Atemu breathed, mildly overcome by the grandeur.
He should have expected it. What else, what other city but one like this could close and entrap a race of fairies like the Faens? What else would they call home but something so beautiful? It occurred to Atemu what Amar had told him not so long ago. Hadn't he said that the Faens and their Champions had built Sanctuary themselves with Third Star the Faen supervisor? He couldn't picture typical construction for this living hall.
Atreyu's hand slipped from his as the Faen coiled tightly in anticipation and creeping onward began the tentative search into the empty city.
They had barely reached the opposing end of the grand entry hall when Atemu paused, boot squelching, and glanced down. There, beneath his feet in the moonlight, was a sickeningly dark stain marring the plush grass. Kneeling Atemu ran his fingers over the puddle rubbing the sticky substance between his fingers.
He had barely touched the substance when he caught a flash, a vision, on the back of his lids:
'Trey sweetheart- No darli- Yes! Always! Yes!- I love you so much-' The voice was richly melodic, ever loving and carried broken images Atemu saw in that instant before he recoiled onto his back away from the stain which where equally majestic. Holding, kissing, crying… snapshots from a flickering camera reel.
"Atreyu!" He cried stupidly as his back hit the ground and twisting the taunt Faen was on his knees in the grass instantly.
Atreyu felt the patch, utterly focused upon it as Atemu heaved from the shock of the vision that had sprung upon him like an electric current. He inhaled, quaking, as Atreyu frowned darkly.
"Blood?" He murmured uncertainly. "How could that be? Jenzar's astral body shouldn't have been able to bleed even if…"
"I saw something." Atemu revealed haphazardly. "I'm sure I saw memories when I touched it."
"Memories?" Atreyu whispered expression contorting darkly as he knelt. "This must be some kind of essence of Jenzar then… But how…? I've never seen anything like it."
"I'm sure it was memories I saw." He repeated vapidly.
"I'm sure you must've." Atreyu assured offering his palm to help Atmeu to his feet. "You look shaken."
"This is bad isn't it?" Atemu concluded bile twisting in his stomach.
Atreyu could manage little else but a scant nod as he tugged at Atemu's hand and pushed on to the door at the far end of the entry hall. There too, splattered across the handle, was what looked at least to be blood and pushing the door gently Atreyu opened the way into the greater part of Sanctuary.
The city was just as magnificent. Half fairy tale castle mashed, stitched, to an enchanted forest which gave it a living, breathing, presence. The city of the Faens gave Atemu an odd mingle of sensations as they followed the sparse trail of blood through its grand complexes and courtyards. He was sure the Faens were still somewhere out of sight watching them, he was sure he could still hear laughing and whispering on the wind through the eaves. He was reminded too of a sleeping castle from a story: the books lying discarded by the bubbling fountain gave the impression that the occupants of Sanctuary were all sleeping or else had just left while the piles of untouched blossoms which had fallen onto the paths pilled over millenniums held an eerily unkempt note about the place. The moon here loomed over head from every window and above every courtyard like a great watching eye and Atemu somehow knew it was the throne of Third Star mother of all Faens.
Atemu thought for a moment that he'd dreamt of a place like this once but knew better…
"The Sacred Chamber," Atreyu whispered as they followed another drip-drab of old blood, pursuing some gruesome bread crumb trail as they came to the great crystal door.
"Sacred Chamber?" Atemu replied.
"Third Star was here," the Faen explained his hand frozen over the crystal uncertainly. "I don't know if she still is."
"But the blood leads here."
"That's true." Atreyu inhaled deeply and before Atemu could make to comfort him the Faen seemed to have decided to gather his courage and push the door open onto the chamber.
Atemu was briskly behind him but winded quickly by the splendour of this private paradise. The Sacred chamber seemed to be the inside of a white, level less, spire shooting up to the moon filled almost entirely with a consuming tree which shoot up so far out of view its leaves hid its height and its branches pushed at the girdling walls of the tower round it. Heavenly light seemed to beam down through it throwing bright, night light like, patches of light upon the grass that here too sat under their feet rather than paving stones. Moon stones hung from the evergreen leaves and pilled against the walls and by the stump were centuries of pink blossoms stacked upon each other.
The blossoms, delicate and sweetly perfumed, made the horrific sight all the more apparent as Atemu came to a lurching halt beside a quaking Atreyu.
"Oh God…" he heaved sickly. "What is that?"
It was primordial, savage, the nest of blood and dirt dug out in the blossoms by the base of the tree. Something had curled there for quite some time given the rotten look which hang dankly over the accursed spot and whatever it was had gone leaving this tangled mess of skin, decaying blood and gelling blossoms.
"Sweet gods…" Atreyu shook sickened.
"Atreyu Damestaire."
The pair of them pivoted at the whisper Atemu's firm back bumping into Atreyu's as they pressed in together instinctively covering their tails with each other. They'd been fighting together long enough to establish some unspoken reactions by now.
"Oh my own Angel-Heart…"
Atemu heard it more clearly this time, the gentle effeminate whispering which lapped the pungent forest air.
"Th-third Star?" Atreyu whispered disbelievingly then, softly, "Mother?"
"My own Faen."
Atreyu exhaled thickly fingers grasping viciously at both of Atemu's hands as they remained stuck back to back in anxious uncertainty.
"You're still here?" The Faen murmured awed.
"I never left Darling."
The voice consoled and frozen to silence Yami, cowering behind Atemu's face, was reminded so intently of his own mother it was disconcerting.
"Mother what happened here?" Atreyu demanded weakly. "Was Jenzar…?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know?" He attempted to fathom.
"I let something into Sanctuary. It was… I can't be sure. It thought it was Jenzar but it was somehow not. It was some strange mangled force."
Some thing? Atemu reeled anxiously.
"Where is it now?" Atreyu whispered, fingers shaking within Atemu's own.
"It left. Recently."
"Where? In what form?"
"I tried to heal it, gave it strength, but it was incomplete. I don't know where it went."
"When did it leave?" Atreyu pressed.
"Forty? Thirty years ago? Very recently."
"You're sure it wasn't Jenzar?"
"Perhaps a piece of what was once him."
It alluded darkly.
"I have never seen anything like it."
"What could have happened?" Atreyu murmured horribly over Atemu's shoulder, gasping round the lump in his throat, perfect little nails digging into the back of Atemu's palms. "Oh gods my Jenzar…"
"I'm so sorry sweetheart."
"Yugi!" Yami hollered hoarsely fist pounding against the front door. "Yugi let me in!"
He was still panting, sweat soaked, from the effort of dragging himself from his cosy bed to rush to Yugi's little house after waking from the hunt. He couldn't erase the mangled nest of blossoms and blood from the lids of his eyes. He couldn't go back to sleep until he'd seen the Faen who refused to answer his phone. Yugi, Atreyu, what they had seen tonight…
"Yugi please! Come on!"
"Shut up!" Called a gruff neighbour somewhere down the quiet and exasperated street as Yami's shouting stirred up two or so yappy dogs sleeping in their back yards.
The locks fumbled as Yami felt the chill of the breeze on the small of his underclothed back. He'd barely bothered to get dressed, had he remembered his keys? Had he locked his own front door? Yugi's door parted at the seam and forgetting the line of salt Yami pushed his way in.
Yami kicked the door shut behind him, arms hooking round what he assumed was Yugi and immediately the young man's arms locked round his neck in a vice grip.
He sobbed.
No, more than that, Yugi screamedinto his chest. Crying himself hoarse with dreadful sounds as Yami's back hit the front door and he squeezed the smaller into him till the Faen could almost disappear in his arms.
"Oh Yugi…" He whimpered holding a whirlpool by the tail as he cradled the Faen's body and slipped down off his feet till he was cross legged in the carpet with Yugi sobbing in his lap. "Oh Yugi, it's okay, it's okay…"
"No it's not!" He hissed tightly, hiccupping, over his own syllables. "It's not okay!"
Yugi's nails dug into the small of his back and Yami could feel the heat gathering against his neck as the little creature grieved.
"He's never coming back!" Yugi mourned desperately. "Jenz! My Jenz!"
Yami couldn't take it but he forced himself to hold to some kind of stability. Atemu, that core part of Yami's foundations, propped him up as best he could so he could stand to hold the Faen. Yugi fell into mumbling, crying out, a child calling for their mother or else, worse, someone who might never ever come home. Yami had a sense he was holding all of Yugi right now to his Atreyu core.
"The Watchers have something," Yami compelled, "they found the Lance of Lazarus somewhere recently. It still works. It still reacts to you!Whatever was at Sanctuary, whatever Third Star saw, part of Jenzar is alive somewhere and we'll find him."
That didn't seem to help. Yugi was lost in a rift, a sub-reality, inside his head where he'd forced himself to face a dire reality that to the Faen was more dreadful than Jenzar not loving him, worse than the Champion being lost somewhere, the idea that somehow something had destroyed Jenzar as Yugi knew him and in-effect killed an immortal soul. Yami realized that idea must've never been something intimate for the Faen to transpire with. Their souls were eternal and relatively indestructible so to think someone or something had gotten the best of Jenzar Fraveous in some new and horror filled way was difficult to conceptualise.
For Yugi, for Atreyu, it must've seemed like the end of the world. To imagine a Jenzar that had been destroyed while loving him or had become something else perhaps now that would never love him the same way again…
Yami squeezed pressing his lips to the top of Yugi's head desperately.
He didn't know how to help.
He kissed the tip of Yugi's temple, fingers carding through his hair, arm round his waist as Yugi cleaved to him desperately. The child was inconsolable. Atreyu's steely will not to cry had been shattered and Yugi now was letting loose centuries of bitter loneliness nearly shrieking. Part of him had been amputated.
Atreyu's magic was seeping out of Yugi in crushing waves till the whole house seemed to shake with agony. Atreyu's pain hit the heavy hung air of contentment in the home and sent it hissing back in the process awakening every nerve in Yami's body as he tried to stop Yugi from shaking. The pain was tugging at the seams of the house, poisoning the atmosphere, and Yami could appreciate why it was best that Yugi kept himself so positive. It was parasitic almost, acidic, strangling till Yami was sure this pain would devour him. If this was what happened to the world when Yugi was upset, well, thank lord Yami hadn't been trying to trick him or knowingly publishing the books…
Yami was driven, starved by his desire to help and fumbling at stroking Yugi's hair and rubbing his back planted a procession of kisses along his forehead. He tumbled like fool to kissing warm, plush, cheeks and the backs of hot, seeping, eyelids round the tears.
He wanted to kiss Yugi, like in the garden, and magically heal all his aching wounds of the heart by fixing the Faen's star on someone new but that would cure more of his own problems than Yugi's. Besides that the Lance of Lazarus, Jenzar's lance, hanging as a pendent round Yugi's neck had pained Timaeus for keeping it from Atreyu. What would the lance do to Yami if he brushed it while kissing Yugi? What would Jenzar's heart's mirror, which might be all that was left of him, do to some usurper trying to seduce his Faen? Yami had resolved not to touch it unless forced to because he still feared what it would reveal about he and Jenzar.
"Come on," he urged, s squeezing Yugi to him. "Let's go lie down. You've got to be exhausted."
"Yeah, right," Yugi croaked sharply. He dripped sarcasm. "I want to sleep. Especially now I know that next time I go hunting the Seers might make sure I never wake up again."
Yami slept in the guest room when he finally coerced Yugi, sour faced and weeping, to lay down under the embroidered tapestry like sheets of his own bed for what was left of the night. He didn't want to risk sharing Yugi's bed. To invite Yugi into his was right enough but to take the same advantage when Yugi was hardly able to consent to anything was corrupt and Yami was sure he'd receive retribution for it from the man who truly belonged in that bed beside the living star Atreyu.
The musky, submerged, atmosphere of the house had returned by the morning. Sun filtered through the lace curtains of the spare room like light into a fish tank and the chaos had abated somewhat even if Yami's muscles still ached. He wished he'd kissed Yugi but he knew things would only have been worse.
Yami was Atemu now, he felt hardly any different now when he was asleep and when he was awake. It was bizarre but empowering. The two sides of his life had enfolded into one flowing whole that jumped from hunting as Atemu on the supernatural side of the Veil to fighting on the natural side as Yami. Two names but both of them equally just himself in his own mind and apparently in Yugi's eyes. He could carry Atemu's guarded, warrior, morality and strength with him into consciousness now and that helped him stand. If he gave himself the excuse of not being Atemu, of being just human, would he have been able to withhold himself from kissing Yugi last night? Atemu would've been able to hold off from kissing Atreyu either way after all.
He could feel Atemu's seriousness in his casual gait as he dressed. His life was now thoroughly less mundane. Getting dressed had a heaviness he associated with soldiers preparing for battle. He supposed every day was a battle now: Seers and monsters were after he and Yugi and their friends on both sides of the Veil now. Every day, awake or asleep, he could be attacked and every day, awake or asleep, he had a duty to take on as a proud member of the Reaper Core. It was so powerful to have this pride, this place, but so terrifying in its implications.
What about the book? The third book in his series? Yami had forgotten all about it in lieu of more important issues: Seers, Jenzar, Yugi, life and death. Shit that mattered in the grand scheme and not just his life. Could Yami really get away with writing another book? He grunted, shrugging it off, to his own surprise he hardly cared about the books or the money or the conventions anymore. He had liked them but he had a readiness to let them go which felt practical.
He didn't care if he never wrote another page anymore now he and Atemu were clearly one and the same. He had friends to protect, a Veil to protect, and he would take that over all the money in the world. This was satisfaction. This was living. This was what he had been deep inside and always wanted to be as a man. This was something Egyptian in its arcane quality. This was something his old fashioned father would've been proud of.
There was no sadness in the thought of giving up the pen for the sword. Really there wasn't much in the thought at all. Yami carried it with Atemu's practicality and ancient chivalry: the books put them in danger so writing them was stupid and impractical. Who cared if he was never famous again? That was insignificant and just the freedom of knowing that was lifting.
It didn't change the big issue however which was still Jenzar.
Natural rivals in their love for Yugi-Atreyu or not Yami still, childishly, wanted to see Jenzar and meet him. He wanted to hear Jenzar's voice and speak with him and understand him. He wanted to see this great mystery which had so captured the hearts of the people Atemu knew: Atreyu, Amar, Morphis, Seviticus, Denn-Elec, Vegas, Cobalt, Timaeus… Both sides of Yami, himself and Atemu, wanted to be able to hold their head high when they met Jenzar even if they didn't want to surrender Yugi to him.
Yugi loved him too though. Yami was sure of it. Atreyu loved Atemu. Yugi loved Yami. Both sides were there in complicit combination. Even if Yugi didn't want to love Yami as much as he did, even if he hadn't planned it, Yugi did love him and that was something Yami wished he could feel more assured about fighting for. It was beautiful, bittersweet, in its painful simplicity of emotion and complexity of situation.
Was there someone else Yami had loved this much? In all the lifetimes he couldn't remember yet was there someone like Yugi he was truly aching for? Just like Yami was some substitution for Jenzar was Yugi filling the gap left by someone else? He ached, surged, to remember more about himself. Maybe that was how he made this eventual letting go of Yugi less painful. Maybe that was how fate would fix all of this up. Maybe once Yami remembered what type of Reaper Specialist he was he'd remember lifetimes with his own friends and allies and lovers. Maybe he'd remember a lover very much like Yugi-Atreyu but totally unconnected and free. Maybe there was someone waiting for him just like Atreyu was waiting for Jenzar and he had found Atreyu because both of them were longing for the same type of love.
As beautiful a notion as that was Yami couldn't let go yet of an imagined future with Yugi. He didn't want to let go of Yugi. He loved him, right now, for exactly what he was and Yami would've done anything to know he could rightfully call Yugi his.
If he was a lesser man he would've taken it, taken Yugi and dismissed all notions of Jenzar. Fuck Jenzar. Atemu assured him though, at the foundations of his heart, that Yami was not a lesser man. He was a Reaper. Reapers' had honour. Reapers were noble in their dealings with each other. Yami would be noble till the fat lady sung.
The more Yami thought about it the more he thought he could, ironically, write a great third book. He could write something of a higher calibre than the first two with his refreshed and reverent new understanding. It would be less flippant.
He could see the blurb: Atemu falls madly in love with Atreyu as he helps in the frantic search to reunite him with Jenzar Fraveous. Magic stumbles more into his everyday life in the process and Atemu has to establish what is more important to him. He meets a beautiful young man who keeps him going as he struggles with his feelings and then Atemu would let Atreyu go to be with Jenzar as was only natural. He'd let the rightful thing happen and in doing so remember all his past lives, unleash his full potential finally, and realize his charming young man was some lost true love.
Of course that happy ending depended on Yugi and Atreyu being separate entities but in fiction those sort of things were a given to ensure a happy ending. Yami was learning that the fantastical didn't always promise you happy anything out here in the real fight.
The real fight? Yami had to laugh at his own narration as he finished straightening himself. Was it selfish egotism that he found it satisfying to be part of this? Was it childish to admit his inner child was rapt with this all being real? Who cared! The man in him was chained by romance.
Yugi had one leg swinging from the dappled love seat, the other curled foot under its knee, as he leant towards the plasma with a little plastic controller in hand. The music was soft, volume low, but Yami couldn't hear any gun shots from the screen as he slunk round into the lounge to take a seat beside the dishevelled Faen.
He found himself being very careful as he leant his elbows into his knees. The bags under Yugi's eyes hadn't gotten any better, they still looked bloodshot from weeping, and as undeniable as his focus was on the video game was Yami sure Yugi was acutely aware of everything in the room. The Faen's magic was pulled taunt in this room from stress and Yami found himself realizing how much better he was getting at sensing it clearly. He must've been improving his skills under pressure.
"You okay?" He murmured. For the first time in their relationship he felt like the Prince Charming trying to soothe the Princess in need of rescue. Yugi must've hated the role reversal but he made no impression of it as Yami regarded his features.
"No," he croaked hoarsely, "but I'll live."
There was a kind of apathetic death, a shell shock, in Yugi's voice that had coupled with the Faen's steely determination to fight on till the bitter end.
"You sleep?" Yami babied matronly. It was his turn to look after Yugi, just this once, which was a rare privilege he was sure no one had stolen since Yugi was a small child in this lifetime.
"Not really," he confessed, "my insomnia's back in full force. I just can't stop thinking about it."
"Bout what?" He mumbled.
Yugi sighed, controller in hand, and refused to ease the stiffness of his back into the embrace of the cushions. He seemed frozen in stiffness to keep himself all together. Why had Yami ever wanted to protect Yugi or to save him? To see Atreyu, indomitable Atreyu, this withered was decimating and painful.
"The black void." Yugi mumbled as a preface. "I… I haven't been scared of dying since the second life time. That was the first real time I died. I was so scared. I didn't know if it would work, if I'd come back, or if I'd just cease to be and spend forever in nothingness. I didn't want there to be nothing. To be forgotten. I didn't want it to be over. I was so scared I wouldn't be reincarnated, I wouldn't find Jenzar next time, or something would go wrong or he wouldn't remember me or love me or… I don't even know.
I haven't been scared of death ever since. I've forgotten what it feels like. I've been so sure I'd always be reborn. It drove me nuts last life because I just wanted nothingness because every time I wake up again I still can't find Jenzar. Now… now maybe the Seers have finally figured out how to destroy us and I can't… it's horrible. I can't stop thinking about it. About there being nothing or that maybe I'll really never see the people I love again or that I'll stop existing…I just…"
Yugi cracked, inhaled, chocked round half a sob and bit his lip. His eyes pressed shut and inhaling curtly through his nose he shook as he tried to wrench himself back from crying.
"I'm so fucking scared." He choked voice misconstrued by the tears that still wanted to fight their way out. "I've never been this scared. No one's ever been able to take my immortality away from me before. I hate this, I hate feeling helpless and weak and fucking stupid. I hate crying! I hate not being able to talk right! I should've known! I should've done something! I should've felt he was in trouble!"
It dripped, not with self-loathing, but that same warrior's stubbornness Atemu shared. Yugi was chastising himself for not being stronger, for not holding it together and valiantly saving the day. Capable Atreyu felt like he'd failed. Apparently even Faens felt like that sometime.
"We'll get em." Yami assured firmly even if he didn't know who 'they' were. "We'll find Jenzar, we'll get him back and we'll kick whichever nasty mother fucker thinks he can get away with this."
Maybe he shouldn't have sworn so much but somehow it seemed to carry the appropriate weight.
"I will." Yugi spat. He wasn't angry at Yami, wasn't excluding, no it seemed more as if Yugi was hauling himself up with that castle-storming imagery of vengeance. He was fighting to pull himself together and grab onto what was left to hope for. "I swear to God I'll make them suffer for making me feel like this. No one does this to me. No one gets away with this. I'll show them what four billion years of experience feels like. I'll find them if I have to scour every inch of the universe. No one does this. No one takes my Champion. No one."
Vengeance, vicious raw hatred, seeped from Atreyu as Yugi used it to soothe himself. The shaking, the tears, the wounds Yami couldn't see seemed to evaporate under a cool rush of the tide and Atreyu, Yugi, woke up somehow to himself and was normal again. A princess freed from a broken spell.
"Mother fuckers' better have friends in high places." Yugi warned. "I'm going to slaughter them. I'll show them a Faen core. I'll show them why we're the best. I'll show them why we're still here. I'll show them why no one fucks with us. I'll show them why we get called in to fix up everyone else's messes. I'll show them why Atlantis doesn't exist anymore."
Every word tightened round the room, sucked air from Yami and replaced it with strength as Yugi fell more back together with every syllable. The words were a spell binding vow. This was a covenant, a promise, and Yami had no doubt Yugi would see it through. Somehow this wasn't frightening. This was the Atreyu that never, ever, gave in. This was the Atreyu that kicked God-fearing ass.
Yugi was burning, core compounding with raw energy, and it rippled through the air. Yami could've supped at it. It was fire, spirit, which was reconstructing the bravery back into the disillusioned Faen. Maybe Amar was right that Atreyu was unstable without Jenzar, maybe that did make him more dangerous and sharp, but Yami wasn't worried for himself. Oh no, Yami pitied whatever thing had taken or destroyed Jenzar because Yugi would find it. Just like Yugi had found Yami, just like Yugi had found a new heart-breaking way to make Yami pay for his books, he would find whatever had taken Jenzar.
No wonder Jenzar loved him. Yami felt the bloodlust, not as guiltily as he should have perhaps, and appreciated that furious tempest or calm, nurturing, tide Atreyu was beautiful. Fairy or monster Yugi was beautiful.
Hell hath no fury like a Faen scorned eh?
1 "Waiting for Godot" is an old, obscure, little play they love teaching in English classes about two men who are waiting endlessly for a third man called Godot to arrive (he never does and both men confess they barely know Godot themselves). In Literature Godot is called an 'absent character' that is a character we never see but who acts in the story and who we know about only through others.
2 The Lance of Lazarus: I know the smart cookies out there are wondering- 'Wait, if magic works differently in the real world then how did the Lance take a physical form?' well my geniuses Yugi will answer that when Yami thinks to ask but I do have an answer for you. I will cover my plot holes babies.
3 When Yami is comparing himself to Yugi and Yugi calls him out for comparing himself to Jenzar that's not a typo it's just that Yugi can't actually read minds (I know, I was surprised too) so he made a guess/assumption. I know I do that on occasion...
4 Yugi's gonna kick all our asses.
5 Apologies if I didn't reply to many PMs this week beautiful (especially you Teenie love) just finished exams but now I'm on vacation so bother me all you like.
As always hope you enjoyed!