Destiny.
Joey sat in the shade that the remains of the pyramid let through. He saw Atemu sitting a bit away and next to him stood Seth who watched Jōno. Joey wasn't sure what Jōno was still hanging around for but the way Jōno looked at Seth, Joey hoped that Seth would get over him really fast after all. Yugi was standing next to Joey and watched Atemu with a sad look while Seto was on Joey's other side and examined his duel disk with an upset look on his face that Joey couldn't understand.
"Is everything all right?" Joey asked him.
"I guess." Seto said. "Don't worry, I´ll get you home just like I´ve promised."
Joey watched him work for a moment until he heard "We´ll have to go soon, won't we?" Joey looked at the small spiky haired friend of his who had spoken with so much sadness in his voice.
"I guess we will." Joey said sounding a bit sad as well. "Don't you want to talk to Atemu before we go? You haven't even said a word to him. I was sure you wuld run to him and hug him the second we were all safe."
"No." Yugi said. "He doesn't even remember me and still is looking over here every now and then. You know, Seth said his other half was to help him in our time and I guess that would be me." Joey saw that Yugi was fighting back tears "It was so hard to watch him disappear, and I stll miss him so much every day that it hurts. I have to fight tears so often because I don't want to worry anyone, but it's really hard. I don't want to get too close to Atemu and then disappear on him. I don't want him to feel the same pain."
Joey stared at Yugi for a moment and then grabbed Kaiba's hand. "Come with me now." Once they were out of earshot from Yugi he asked "Solomon is here and he doesn't have a disk, how is that possible?"
"Yugi took him along, taking a big risk and to be honest I fear that it was too much of a risk." Seto said looking to the duel disk he was still holding in his hands.
"I have just about enough energy left on mine to take us both home, Yugi must have used up more to take his grandfather with him, I fear he doesn't have enough left."
"I have mine, can't you take Solomon?" Joey asked suddenly upset and looked at the energy level on his. He hadn't even thought about it before.
"No, you can't. Until I examine yours, which will need a lot of tools that I couldn't take with me, I won't know how you got here with a normal and on top of it broken duel disk. I didn't even take the time to examine the changes mine had gone under after the first trip, never mind Yugi's, now." Seto explained. "I don't know how to get you back with yours this way. You'll need to go with one of us."
"Can you get the energy from mine to one of the others?" Joey asked noticing that his one was strangely full.
"If you still have some left, sure it will help making the journey for Solomon and Yugi safer." Seto answered. "But why are you asking all of this?"
"Just hypothetically, if there is enough energy, could Yugi take two with him safely?" Joey asked.
"None of this is safe." Seto said "But yes, in theory he could take the risk of taking someone with him but there is always a risk."
"What risk?" Joey asked.
"I have no idea what will happen if the energy runs out." Seto answered honestly. "But why do you want to know this, Joey? If you're planning on going with them just to avoid going with me, then forget it. I won't let you take such a risk. I rather have Solomon go with me if I must."
"Nope that's fine. How much energy would you need because mine is nearly full." Joey said holding his up.
"Yugi's would need to be full at the very least." Seto answered looking worried as well as confused "I don't know how much he needs to reach that, neither do I know how much you still have on your's but considering how much I've lost and that he hadn't summoned much more than I had and the potential of a normal duel disk I guess that if you have more than three quarters full it should be sufficient."
"Great, wait here." Joey said and grabbed Solomon's hand who was sitting a bit closer to the Egyptians, probably hoping to overhear a bit more from them since it was his last chance to study this civilisation while it was still alive. "I need your help." Joey told him "I need to talk to Seth and most of all to Atemu, will you help me?"
"Sure, but why?" Solomon asked in surprise. But Joey just dragged him closer to the pharaoh, who was still sitting there with his puzzle.
"Hey pal." Joey said to Atemu waiting for Solomon to translate.
"He asked if he knows you apart from the fact that you materialised in his gardens?" Solomon said. "And he sounds a bit upset probably because you weren't very polite."
"Who cares about politeness? He'll get to know me the way I am and like me then, won't he?" Joey said. "And now tell him that I know all about the shadow games because we're from that time where he'll need to return and fight them again and well that fight has ended and we kicked butts together."
Joey watched Solomon sigh and was sure that he would change the formulation and be more polite in the translation.
"He want's to know if Yugi is himself in that time?" Solomon said.
"Tell him, nope. Yugi pieced the puzzle together and his sprit shared a body with him until he disappeared and left Yug behind." Joey said. "Oh and tell him that I'm pretty sure that Yugi helped him the most, so I guess that he is this other half Seth had talked about."
Joey watched Atemu´s face, looking over to Yugi in astonishment once Solomon had translated that for him and then said something that sounded sad.
"He said that he'll have to disappear again." Solomon translated "And I think that he is upset because he fears that it will hurt Yugi."
"Tell him that he's wrong again." Joey said. "We'll be disappearing from here and go back to our own time."
Once more Atemu looked sad after the translation. "He said it was only fair that Yugi will leave, since he would have to find a way to activate that magic that obviously had gone wrong."
"Who said it went wrong?" Joey asked. "Tell him, that I think it worked perfectly and that Seth was right and I did appear here because of it. I mean what if Atemu and Yugi deserve some sort of reward for everything they did for this world? I mean, Atemu, you were willing to disappear, you saved the world twice…well once yet but for us in our time it's twice...oh you get what I mean. And Yug helped you then and he came here and we helped you now too, right? So I think you and Yugi deserve to be together. And Kaiba just told me that it is a bit risky but that someone could come with us. The only thing I need to know before talking to Yugi is if everyone apart from him is willing to take that risk since Yugi definitely will and will only get down if someone takes that chance from him."
"I'll definitely let Atemu go with us, no matter what can happen. I believe that Seto hates failure enough to get us all home safely." Solomon said before even translating it all. Joey now saw not only Atemu's eyes widen but Seth's as well and hoped that Seth wouldn't want to come with them, too. After a short conversation with both Egyptians, Solomon said: "Atemu wants to come and since he first wanted to fix the puzzle, I told him to not bother with it since that's exactly the way Yugi got it and that he'll be able to fix it."
"Great, then you two tell Yugi. I´ll get Kaiba to prepare the disks, he'll need to get more energy on Yugi's or it won't work for sure. But I have enough on mine he thinks."
Joey walked with to Yugi with Atemu and Solomon, while Seth took the pieces of the puzzle and walked to Jōno and his sister. "He wanted me to tell you something." Solomon said to Joey while pointing at Seth. "He wants you to know that he'll never forgets you and will always love you but that he can see now that you belong into your own time and with Kaiba and he hopes that you'll be happy."
"Jeez, he's mushy." Joey mumbled with a slight blush, slightly wondering if in some different time there was some guy somewhere, who was in between a total jerk like Kaiba and a charming mushy guy like Seth but please with the same body and taste. If there was, he would definitely buy a ticket to that time.
"Yug, I need your disk for a moment. Seto needs to do something with it before we can go home." Joey said and waited for the smaller one to hand his purple looking disk over. And then walked over to Kaiba. He knew that Yugi had heared of his plan, by the time he heard Yugi was happily squeaking. Joey looked at them for a second, happy to see them hug.
"Atemu's coming with us." Joey simply said to Seto and handed him his disk.
"Why?" Seto asked.
"Because I say so and now get the energy from mine over to Yugi's." Joey simply said and handed him both.
Half an hour, and a lot of kissing from Atemu and Yugi, later Seto told Joey: "It will be really close. Yugi's is only nearly full and mine just more than half. From what was on Yugi's I guess even for us it will be much closer than I like. Can't we leave Atemu and get some from Yugi's to mine? It would be saver."
"No way," Joey said and took his own black one from Seto, He couldn't let Yugi down, not now. Without thinking he put the duel disk back on his arm and the next thing he noticed is that everything was black.
When Joey opened his eyes he looked at the ceiling of a way too nice looking place. And on top of it a pleasantly fresh place. Too fresh for where he should be, it should be much warmer but Joey's head felt sort of fussy and so he just turned around to sleep a bit longer. "Are you better?" He heard someone say. He knew the voice but wasn't sure from where.
"Shut it. I'm sleepy." Joey mumbled, his eyes closed once more.
"But you aren't hurt, are you?" The same voice asked worried.
"Why would I?" Joey asked. "I just had a funny dream."
"If you dreamed that you got that annoying pharoh back into our time after flirting with an even more annoying high priest, then you didn't dream." The same voice said and by the end of that sentence the words and the memory had gotten Joey's sleepy brain wide awake again.
"Kaiba!" He screamed and was suddenly sitting straight in bed looking around the huge room and noticing the spacious bed he was on. He saw Seto typing on his laptop that was on a desk in a corner of the room. "How the hell did I get here?"
"Through the door." Seto simply answered.
"Realy? I thought I flew through the window." Joey mumbled upset. "And now the whole story, what have I missed? Ya said I got Atemu back here so how is he and what about Yug and his grandpa? Did everything work out fine? You said it was risky with the energy we had."
"It would have been, and sort of still was." Seto said " But I found out where the energy on your disk was from."
Joey watched how Seto walked around the desk and over to the bed. He sat down close to Joey who moved a little bit away. Joey was a bit freaked about how things were between them now.
"Would you care to tell me the rest? And how long was I out?" Joey asked "Or do I need to go to Yug and ask him?"
"I doubt that you could walk five steps. You've only been out for 3 hours and I would have bet you would sleep for at least a day." Seto said.
"Wanna bet." Joey said. He did feel pretty weak but not nearly that weak. He got out of bed and had a feeling like someone filled his legs with jelly. But he definitely could go five steps and then some, he knew though that he probably would get in big trouble about half way to Yugi's place.
"I'm impressed." Seto said. "And now sit down and I'll tell you. Firstly because I still worry if you can make it all the way , secondly because I might disturb Atemu and Yugi, which I don't really care for but I know you do and thirdly, still need to prove to you that my brain didn't get deep fried."
"Then you better spill it and hurry up." Joey said and set down on a comforter in the corner.
"Why don't you sit here with me?" Seto asked clearly upset.
"Because I don't want you to try and distract me." Joey admitted with a blush.
"I would distract you?" Seto asked.
"Okay, Yugi's place it is." Joey said and stood up, still feeling like he had nothing but jelly in his legs but it was clearly getting a bit better.
But before Joey had even opened the bedroom door he felt a hand on his left upper arm and was spun around by it and Joey felt himself being pressed with his back against the door. Joey just wanted to tell Kaiba to piss off when his mouth was suddenly covered with Seto's. For a split second Joey wanted to stop Seto but the kiss was once again simply too good. It was like Joey's head had walked on without him leaving him to be unable to do anything other than enjoying Kaiba's hungry and wild kisses. Joey forgot all about the questions he had, while Seto happily used the fact that Joey was turning into goo under his capable lips and hands and soon after Joey was once more on Seto's bed where Seto quickly got rid of their clothing.
It took a few moments until a little voice in the back of Joey's head started to gently remind him that he was currently making out with the hated Kaiba and Joey actually managed to whisper "Wait.." between kisses.
Kaiba looked smug and mumbled "Why? You like it, don't you?" and then he continued seducing the helpless blond under him.
Much later when Joey's brain had returned and he lay tired in the other´s arms he mumbled "You're mean."
"Really? I never heard that one before." Kaiba said sounding much too amused for Joey's taste.
"You used the fact that I'm still fuzzy. After all I pased out for some reason and I was in a different time for over a month." Joey said.
"Right and that is the only reason it was so easy to seduce you, wasn't it?" Kaiba said with a smug smile.
"Just wait till I'm better, I swear you'll regret this." Joey tried to threaten but his tired voice and the way he was still cuddled up to his former rival made it a fruitless effort. "And now tell me what happened."
Seto looked at his blond lover with a smug smile and was happy to finally have him in his arms. "What do you remember?"
"I remember that you talked about the energy level and that it would be a risk to take Atemu and then I put that cool black disk back on and well everything went black." Joey said.
"Why did you put it back on, it was useless?" Seto asked.
"It isn't useless." Joey said "It is cool."
"It is scrab metal and in the bin." Seto said.
"How dare you? It's the only one I have, I could have charged it. I'm sure I would have found the charger at some point." Joey complained.
"And risk dying with the next malfunction and by the way whatever changed those three disks, it stopped, they´re all the way they were before. And here." Seto opened the drawer of his bedside table, and then threw the a black duel disk with red marks that was in there at Joey. Joey picked it up and stared. It was much better than the one he had seen in a shop. Much more and clearer detailed. He looked up at Seto, who said "I made that one for you, hoping you would like it and beg me to give you one, so I could get at least one date out of you." Seo grinned as he remembered how he had imagined that scene, Joey begging him for that disk and all the bad thoughts about what he could make Joey do in return. "But the duel disk was too detailed for mass production and they weren't nearly good enough to make YOU beg."
"This one is." Joey said. "And you're really giving this to me?"
"It was made for you." Seto smiled at him.
"Great, now we're not even kissing and you're still distracting me." Joey mumbled. "Will I ever find out how I got back here in once piece? Did Niu come back? Did he hit me on the head or something else? What was it? I never blacked out before."
"I believe that." Seto said. "You have more strength than anyone I ever knew."
"Seto, please just tell me what the hell happened." Joey was getting more and more curious by the second.
"Niu, who by the way was an accomplice of Bakura and told by the little devil that Atemu had to be killed but that Niu was free to kidnap and get some money for him before killing him, never returned, he probably died. And now to you, at first I thought you got a heat stroke because nothing touched you." Seto said and after seeing the shocked expression on Joey's face, he said: "The disk was recharging itself. And your breathing got weaker by the second. I took the disk off you and your condition got more stable again. I tried giving you that damnd disk back a bit later after you were getting better but only for a moment since the disk hardly had touched your arm and it was charging again. Somehow it got energy of you that's why it was nearly full. It charged itself up to that point. Getting slower, the further it was to be full. Since it was empty it took too much out of you and I guess that's why you fainted. But it also means that you summoned that monster with your own energy. And I hope you don't mind but since your one was once more nearly full I recharged both of the other completely before we left for home. You on my arms."
"If I have so much energy," Joey asked "Why did I always lose against you then?"
"Because you have no skills." Seto said with a smug smile.
"Oh, bite me." Joey said upset.
"Sure, just tell me where. But first, anything else you want to know? Or can I start distracting you again?" Seto asked with a wicked grin.
"Go ahead and distract me as much as you want to." Joey said with a wicked grin and stood up. "As long it is with food." And then he grabed Kaiba´s shirt, put it on and walked out of the room to find a kitchen. Leaving Seto behind who was happy that Joey at least didn't leave the mansion and Seto would make damn sure that Joey never would.
Authors note:
Thanks to sadistic-neko, Nagareboshi-Lover, mandapandabug, silvers-edge, sherabo and Angel-Belle for the reviews.
I thought a lot about the ending and like the other ideas better but I can't really make them work the way I want them to without having inconsistencies with earlier parts in this one and I don't want to rewrite everything so I kept the original ending the way I wanted it too and will use the other idea in another story. I will rewrite the dogsitter one next and put it in there.
I will still write an epilogue since there will otherwise be some questions open. Like how Atemu will cope in this time with the language and such. It is all written and will be up very soon.