BASEBALL NOTE: In baseball, the catcher is the one to signal to the pitcher what type of pitch he should throw, although the pitcher can to shake off his signs and make his own choices.
CHAPTER 4: THE COIN FLIP CLICHÉ
THE COIN FLIP CLICHÉ: An omnipotent, eternal being snaps his fingers and Star Trek's Captain Picard either saves or ends the universe. Another coin flip and the Klingons are either friends or foes. Is the Enterprise on a voyage of scientific exploration or is it a wartime vessel that hums with the tension of impending battle; one whose crew is quicker to anger, slower to reflect? But are the characters really that different, or is it simply that their circumstances have changed? Is Spock any less logical and determined in an evil bizarro universe or is he simply using his logic and determination for worse ends?
To what extent are we captains of our destiny – and when are we stowaways on the ship?
MORAL: Like a snake devouring its own tail, nature and nurture chase each other endlessly. Are we destined to be who we are? Or does the repeated layering of circumstance and choice acquire the patina of fate?
Seto glanced around the kitchen. His dad's usual place at the small table was empty. Seto looked at his mom. "Dad left for work already?"
His mother nodded. "He wanted to make sure he could get out early enough to make it to your game tonight."
"To see me win, you mean," Seto boasted.
His mother sighed. "Just try your best and have fun."
"My best? No problem! One no-hitter coming up! Just for you."
His mother shook her head and slipped his breakfast bowl onto the table in front of him.
"Brain food," she said with a smile.
"I don't need it, then!" Seto crowed.
Seto eyed his bowl. Little blue dragons chased each other around the lip. When he finished breakfast, a larger dragon would be lying in wait at the bottom of the bowl. It had been his favorite for as long as he could remember.
"This childish thing, again," Seto mumbled.
"Okay," his mom agreed. "I'll throw it out and get you a proper adult bowl."
Seto's head shot up.
His mother laughed. "Gotcha." She scrunched up her face in a fake pout and wagged a finger in his direction. "Don't be in such a hurry to grow up."
"It tastes good," he admitted, starting to eat.
Mokuba stumbled into the room, rubbing his eyes. He plopped down in the chair across from Seto. Their mother slid a bowl under his nose as well.
"I like dragons," Mokuba said, shoveling food into his mouth.
Their mother pointed to her fluffy dragon slippers. "You're never too old for dragons." She smoothed Mokuba's hair. "You forgot to brush your hair again."
Mokuba pouted. "It pulls."
"It wouldn't pull if you brushed it every day," she pointed out as she collected their plates. "Go brush it before you're late for school."
Mokuba groaned and left the room.
Seto grinned. "We're never late. And I'm not messing up my perfect record for this puppy!"
"Hey!" Mokuba called out from the bathroom where he was swiping at his hair.
"Stop calling him a puppy," his mother said automatically.
Mokuba left the bathroom, stuck out his tongue at his brother, then grinned.
They both collected their books. Seto walked over to his mother, bent down and kissed the top of her head. He smirked. Being bigger than her was a triumph that never faded.
She looked up at him; her lips twisted into a knowing smile. "Growing taller than me was pretty much inevitable. It's not the surprise plot twist you seem to think it is." She bent down to kiss Mokuba.
Seto nudged Mokuba out of the door. "Goodbye, Mini Mommy," he called out as they left the house.
"Come home safe… and don't call me Mini Mommy!" she yelled after him. She waved goodbye and shut the door.
Mokuba giggled. "Do you think I'll get bigger than her too?"
Seto ruffled his brother's hair. "Didn't you hear her say it's inevitable? That means it's sure to happen."
They caught up to Yugi and Anzu at the corner. "I have to drop my brother off," Seto said. "You don't have to come. It might make you late." His warning was routine.
Yugi shrugged it off just as easily. "You're never late."
"Are you excited about tonight's game?" Anzu asked.
"The coach is a jerk!" Mokuba piped up.
Seto smiled down at him. "He doesn't think I can throw my fastball all game. I don't see why not. My arm's strong enough and no one can hit it anyway."
"He's trying to make you into a well-rounded player," Anzu scolded.
Seto rolled his eyes. "Please. I get that enough from him. What's the point of throwing a second-best pitch?"
"What if your first one doesn't work?" Yugi pointed out. He ignored Seto's outraged expression.
Seto opened his mouth to argue.
Yugi seemed to grow a little taller. Even his hair stood up straighter. His voice deepened as he said, "It's good strategy to have a back-up plan. You know this. You just don't want to admit it."
Seto scowled. "Another prefecture heard from." It was better than admitting Yugi – and his not-quite-imaginary friend – were right.
"I… we… only have your interests at heart," the Other Yugi said earnestly.
"Forget it," Seto mumbled, before the Other Yugi thanked him again. It hadn't been much. He'd seen Jounouchi and Honda pushing Yugi around. Given Yugi's nonexistent height, Yugi had reminded him of Mokuba and he'd reacted. It didn't take much to figure out that they'd taken the Puzzle piece or where it had ended up. Seto shrugged to himself. And then Yugi had ended up making friends with them all.
They reached Mokuba's school. Seto pushed his brother towards the building with a promise to pick him up in time for the game.
"If you need to, we can get him for you," Anzu said.
Seto shrugged. "I'd rather go myself."
She shook her head. "You'd rather do everything yourself." She smiled. "You're a really good brother though."
Seto looked down and bit his lip. He'd never told anyone this before. But even though Seto couldn't figure out how it had happened or why, Yugi and Anzu were his friends. He knew all kinds of shit about them. "My mom almost died when Mokuba was born. No one would tell me anything, so I snuck in to see her. My aunt was supposed to be watching me in the visitor's area but she wasn't paying attention. Everyone tried to make me leave, but my mom said I could stay. That's when she told me that me and Mokuba were a team, that as long as we had each other, we had everything we needed."
Anzu smiled at him. Yugi touched his arm. Before the silence got too awkward, Jounouchi crashed into them. Honda was following as usual.
"I told you meeting Yugi before school each day was a good idea. You haven't been late once since I suggested it," Honda boasted.
"So, if I graduate, it's all thanks to you?"
Honda laughed. "That's a big if!" He and Jounouchi punched each other, stopping only when Bakura joined them.
Seto rolled his eyes. He liked Yugi and Anzu. He didn't understand why they needed all these extra people around… why Mokuba loved going to his classmates' houses, why his mother cooed every time Seto went to the arcade as part of a herd, as if that mattered more than getting the highest score. He didn't understand why people like his parents, and even Yugi, kept stressing balance and unity when sometimes you learned more from watching the way things fell apart. Seto shrugged inwardly. At least it was easy to ignore Bakura and Honda was quiet. Honda was a good catcher too. He let Seto call his own pitches, and if he had a suggestion, it was usually worth listening to, as much as Seto hated letting anyone else call the shots.
Jounouchi grabbed Seto's arm, scattering his thoughts. "Team supreme tonight, guys! Gotta keep the golden arm loose."
Seto yanked his arm free. "My dad might show up tonight." Everyone stared. Seto rarely volunteered information. Seto shrugged. "If he can make it."
"Great!" said Honda. "You remember the last time mine came?"
Jounouchi swallowed down a splash of anger at Seto and Honda for having parents who showed up to their games – and who wouldn't make a scene when they did. He picked up a bit of loose concrete and threw it. It was disloyal, thinking that way. It was his job to make his dad proud, not the other way around. He grinned and threw an arm around Honda. "Would I forget the day you called a shut-out? Don't remember who pitched. Some asshole who got lucky."
Seto smirked. "Forget about a shut-out. This arm's scheduled to throw a no-hitter. You won't need to worry about messing up at first base. No one's coming near it."
Jounouchi backed away from Seto, mouth open in horror. "What's wrong with you? Are you trying to jinx us?"
Seto sighed. Loudly. "Try not to be more of a dumbass than you can help. There's no such thing as jinxes."
Seto raised his hand to his head, suddenly dizzy. He stumbled forward and leaned against a lamp post, ignoring the confused babble streaming from his friends. His last thought was that he wasn't going to let anything mess up tonight's game. Then, his world – his friends, his home and his parents – disappeared.
Kaiba fell forward, landing on all fours amid the flowers. He drew in a breath, barely registering the small spiky weed-like flowers determinedly poking their yellow heads up in welcome. He was back in limbo, caught somewhere between relief and regret.
Atem was there as well, no longer merely Yugi's fiercer other self.
Kaiba got to his feet. "You look better this way."
"Kaiba… that world… what we saw…" Atem's gaze was soft. He didn't know how to finish the sentence.
"What?" Kaiba's eyes narrowed. "Don't look so concerned. We have more important things to think about."
"Like what?"
Kaiba looked at the chronometer on his Duel Disk. He sank to his knees, hands clenched at his side for a moment before he jumped up and raised his fists to the sky in triumph. The yellow flowers turned to white puffs that blew away in the sudden breeze, as if throwing confetti in the air in celebration. "The timer registered a break in the duel! Do you realize what this means?"
"The gods are giving us a second chance!"
"Who cares about that! Alternative dimensions exist! We just proved the many-worlds interpretation is true! We're one step closer to figuring out what's going on!" Kaiba paced in a circle as if he was back in his office or computer lab. "I ate breakfast there. I haven't been hungry or thirsty here. Haven't had to piss either. You?"
"That's probably just as well."
"Not the point."
Atem shook his head. "I was never really hungry when I was part of Yugi, either. I just ate or drank whenever he did."
"That sounds like being in a coma."
"It was nothing of the kind!" Atem huffed indignantly.
Kaiba looked down and paced again. "Good point. I wasn't aware of hunger or thirst when I was in a coma, but I would have died if someone hadn't been keeping me hydrated and pumping me full of nutrients." He frowned. He'd been helpless and Mokuba had had a front row seat for it all. Was Mokuba standing in a pyramid right now, staring at an open door and an empty spot? Kaiba shook his head, refocusing on the problem on hand. "My working theory is that we're in a place where the ordinary rules of science don't entirely apply, possibly a junction point between alternative realities." He paced in a circle then stopped and put his hands on Atem's shoulders. "Don't you get it? If we can travel to other dimensions, we can find our way back to our own! I need to find a power source and understand the navigational system better, but we're on our way."
"Where?"
"Home, of course. Don't you want to get back?"
Atem put his hands on his hips. "First, tell me where 'home' is."
"Domino, of course."
"That's your answer. I rushed into one decision, then got pushed into another. Now, I'm taking my time."
"That's just an excuse for doing nothing!"
"Action was always my answer and I'm sick of it! I died of it! There's more going on than navigational systems or dimensional theories. I'm not the person I would have been if I'd lived and stayed dead in my own time, if I'd never met Yugi… or you. Call it destiny or circumstance or what you will, but it's a player here as well. It's hubris to ignore that. And hubris is always punished."
"By who?" Kaiba asked. "Look around. You see anybody but us?"
It suddenly occurred to Atem that through all of this, Kaiba had been enough. This world felt complete with just the two of them, as if the uncertainty of this place and everything they'd been thrown into and out of had somehow been repaid with moments of peace and companionship… moments when this world seemed a haven as well as a prison.
Atem smiled, willing to continue the argument, willing after – or because of everything – to stir Kaiba up just to enjoy the show.
"How do you know that our world is the original one?" Atem asked with false politeness. "Maybe our world is the alternate one to everyone else."
Kaiba ginned and touched two fingers to his forehead in salute. "You're right. That was very Earth-centric of me."
Atem smiled back. He'd matched Kaiba at his own game.
"Why does this metaphysical shit always happen when I'm around you?" Kaiba grumbled, still smiling.
"Maybe you need to question reality more."
"Oh, believe me, I question it every day."
"I like watching you try to find answers," Atem admitted.
"What else am I supposed to do? Look up at the sky and shout: 'If this is some kind of game, can you please explain the rules so we can win and get the hell out of here?'"
"How do you know you won't get an answer?" Atem asked, grinning.
A silver star above them grew in size then elongated until the Blue Eyes White Dragon was hovering overhead. "How indeed?" she replied.
If it had been any other creature, Kaiba would have snorted in disbelief. Instead, he asked, "Are you really my dragon?"
"I'm many things." Kisara seemed to grow, to bleed out of her boundaries. Her silver scales darkened to gold. She disappeared in a swirl of stardust, only to reemerge as the goddess Horakhty. Atem remembered her from the Memory World.
"Would you rather I looked like this?" she asked.
"Goddess…," Atem breathed.
"No," Kaiba snapped just as quickly.
"Or this?" Horakhty folded in on herself until she was a small, brown furry ball, familiar from all their duels.
"Kuriboh!" Atem cheered.
"Definitely not!" Kaiba growled.
She laughed and returned to her dragon form.
Kaiba breathed a sigh of relief. "First things first. Are we alive?"
"Are we dead?" Atem asked at the same time.
She shimmered and turned back into Horakhty. "Which do you want to be?"
Kaiba scowled. "Alive, of course. How about telling us something useful? What's the deal with all these worlds we keep popping in and out of?"
"Chaos calls for order, a void for creation." She glanced at Kaiba and her smile turned malicious. "You believe in power, in controlling your fate."
"Yes. I'm getting home and you can't stop me."
"So arrogant to assume you know what my aim is. So sure you know where you're going, as if 'home' is just a point on a map."
Kaiba crossed his arms in front of him and rolled his eyes. "Yeah. That's how maps work."
"I don't understand," Atem interrupted.
Horakhty turned to Atem. "You asked for choice. Here are infinite ones."
"Are all these worlds real, then?" Atem asked.
"As real as yours. We are gods of creation, little pharaoh. We sing and with each song, a new world springs into being."
Atem's eyes widened. "You said this was my chance to learn about choice. Does that mean if I get back…"
"You will have an open door and a free choice. So we have decided and so we will abide. You are favored beyond measure, little pharaoh."
"What are all these worlds? Could we end up stuck in one forever?" Atem shuddered, thinking of the world where Kaiba had died. "Is that within our choice as well?"
"Does a flower choose to look to the sky, choose to draw warmth from its embrace? Does a flower decide what soil it needs? Or does it simply thrive in the ground that will nourish it best?"
"That makes no sense!" Kaiba burst out.
"Is that a more palatable way of admitting it's beyond your understanding?" Her voice softened. "Were any of your questions the ones you truly want to ask?"
Kaiba shook his head, then paused and looked down, suddenly seeing his parents dying again as their world blinked out of existence. "What happens to each world after we leave?" he mumbled.
"Nothing. Did you think your presence was necessary for life to exist? Dimensions are the domain of the gods. Each world goes on spinning as the gods have ordained. For you, however, each world you leave becomes a dream, a song that's never sung."
With the finality of a teacher saying "Class dismissed," Horakhty disappeared.
Kaiba scowled at the sky. "Great. More mystical bullshit."
Atem raised an eyebrow. "You wanted answers," he reminded Kaiba, smugly. "And now that you've got them, all you can do is bleat 'mystical bullshit.'"
Kaiba snorted. "I have no idea what just happened. But that can wait. When I have more of an idea what this place is, then I'll be able to categorize the manifestation we just witnessed."
"Manifestation?"
"You're talking to someone who built a multi-billion dollar corporation on tricking the senses. You can smell my holograms. You get bruised when they toss you around. Under the right circumstances, they can kill. I know how fine the line between perception and reality is, how they copy and betray each other like a father and son. And I've never forgotten a lesson learned."
"You're unbelievable. How can you refuse to see the truth when she was standing right in front of you?"
"Whose truth? There's always been people ready to sell me their version of reality… the orphanage's truth that me and Mokuba were as disposable as a litter of stray puppies… Gozaburo's truth that my soul is a weapon made to be exploited… I'm done with everyone else's truths. From here on out, I'm living by my own."
"Maybe that's the chance we're being given here… to make our own identity… to decide our own reality." Atem paused. "I think Horakhty meant that we could have remained in any of those worlds, if they had been the right one for us."
"Assuming, of course, that she wasn't a phenomenon produced by the electrical impulses in our own brains. We know the brain produces electrical energy… I've been working on harnessing it for my current project…" Kaiba grunted softly. "We've barely scratched the surface of this world. We have no idea what it is – or what it can do. Everything she said was either inconclusive, stuff we already know… or things we want to hear."
"Like that your parents are alive somewhere?" Atem asked, his voice soft.
Kaiba nodded.
"Do you wish you could have stayed there?"
"No." Kaiba gave a bark of laughter. "That makes me a son of a bitch, doesn't it? Tossing them aside a second time."
"A second time?"
"I forgot about them, pushed them to the back of my mind." Kaiba shrugged. "They were irrelevant, unnecessary to mine and Mokuba's survival." He suddenly turned on Atem, angry now. "You think you have the proof of everything you ever thought about me, don't you? I must be an asshole, rejecting a world where my parents are alive, where the most I had to deal with was an upcoming high school baseball game and sticking it to my coach. Where I had friends," Kaiba said, turning the last word into a sneer.
"But…" Atem said quietly.
Kaiba looked away, briefly. "But he wasn't me. I mean, he was a good person, maybe he was a better brother, a better son. But becoming him would mean erasing the person I am."
"That person was born out of pain."
"Yes, and I'd change that if I could. But I'm not deleting myself to do it. You saw me rebuild my soul from the inside out," Kaiba said. It was hard to tell if he was pleading or attacking. "I deliberately made myself into the guy you met at Duelists Kingdom, the guy who frustrates you and makes you mad, the guy you were ready to push off a tower. That's who I am. Anything less would be a loss."
"I know. I've always known." Atem drew in a breath. "I understand."
Atem held out his hands, shoulders high, palms outward, fingers pointing towards the sky. Kaiba stared at them as though a message was written on Atem's empty palms. Kaiba reached out slowly, almost experimentally, and matched Atem, laying his hands, from fingertips to the heels of his palms against Atem's, completing the circuit.
The formlessness of the space around them, its silence, made Kaiba that much more sharply aware of how his hands tingled everywhere they touched Atem's, of how they rested against each other in places, of the slight pocket of air at the center of their palms, as if their world had shrunk to their joined hands. Kaiba's fingers trembled slightly, his breathing quickened. It was more than a reminder that touch could be a pleasant thing; it was a joining, the kind of communion usually reserved for his rival and his cards.
Atem sighed. His breath whistled slightly in the silence as he repeated, "I understand."
"Do you?" Kaiba murmured, his voice husky.
Slowly, his eyes still fixed on Kaiba's face, Atem shifted his fingers, so they were no longer aligned. He slid his fingers between Kaiba's, bent them downwards until they rested on the backs of Kaiba's knuckles, caging his hands.
Atem stood, still as a statue, afraid to shatter the soap bubble delicacy of the moment. Then, he raised an eyebrow in challenge. Kaiba bent his fingers in response, completing the binding with the finality of a key turning in its lock, as if their hands had been newly created to fit together. By imperceptible steps, they'd moved closer, now standing face to face, their chests almost touching, their hands a barrier and a bridge.
Without thought, as he'd done so many things, Kaiba's thumbs moved up and down, stroking the back of Atem's hands. A current, as soft as an inhaled breath, ebbed and flowed between them.
Atem's answering sigh was a summer's breeze. He followed Kaiba, gentle stroke for gentle stroke, as if their coupled hands held the tide and shore in their grasp.
"I think so," Atem whispered. "I want to."
Atem paused, then spoke into the silence between them, into the softness of the flowers whose white spores still swirled around them like snow. "You once said that the past is a single set of footprints. But I couldn't see mine; they'd been written in sand, erased by thousands of years of desert winds. And I couldn't move forwards until I'd seen the man who'd made them. I was willing to risk everything for a glimpse. Now, I wonder… is who I was, who I am?" Atem shook his head. "It's hard to make sense in this place. I was so sure leaving was the right choice, that it was my only choice."
"And now?" Kaiba asked, a note of hope in his voice, alien in this empty space. The sudden rush of water, from the city fountain, from the flowing river in the background sounded clear as the notes of a flute, drowning out the silence. The sky lightened as Kaiba waited for Atem's answer.
"Now I wonder if I was only marching in place to the beat of everyone else's expectations."
Atem gently slipped one hand out of Kaiba's hold, grasping the other one more securely. He looked down at his hand. He flexed it experimentally, as if testing out who it belonged to. It wasn't Yugi's hand. It was darker, the fingers longer and more tapered, the skin rougher.
"This is mine," Atem said, almost defiantly. He flushed. "That must seem like a stupidly obvious remark."
Atem waited for Kaiba to roll his eyes or snort.
Kaiba grunted softly; it was his 'I'm listening' rumble. He recaptured Atem's hand; his own had been lonely in their brief time apart. "What's it like?"
"It's nice… being in my own skin… knowing it's mine. It's new. Different." Atem chuckled. "I could get used to it." Somehow joining his hands with Kaiba's had made them even more indisputably his. And yet, they were no longer the hands of a boy king bred to war. The calluses on his fingers and palms had once formed to accommodate a weapon's grip. They were softening with disuse. His smile turned wistful. "Now, I just have to get to know the person they belong to."
He moved forward, almost trapping their hands between their bodies. He leaned up to look at Kaiba, unsure what he was searching for… acceptance… comfort… connection… a new turn to the intimacy that had always existed between them, had run through their rivalry, their duelists' bond.
Kaiba bent his head downwards, drawn by Atem's eyes, feeling an impulse to drown in their blood wine beauty, needing to prove the softness of Atem's lips.
A tremor shook them slightly apart, even as their hands clung together, as though they could avoid being swept into another world, another reality, by the tightness of their grip. As if, as long as they held on to each other, they could defeat anything that sought to tear them apart, whether their enemies were the gods or a cold and uncaring universe. They held on, knowing it was futile, that all they had to hang on to, in the end, was the hope of coming out of it together… the hope of limbo.
"At least, it's a new data point," Kaiba said.
Atem smiled, and nodded. It was time to let go and give in to hope.
.
Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter. Separating my Setos from my Kaibas is clearly going to be an ongoing task. More seriously, thank you for your continued support and friendship!
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: Thanks to Cinesra for looking over the fringe science in the next few chapters. I freely admit it's difficult writing an alternative worlds story without having ever taken a Physics course, and I needed someone to make sure Kaiba didn't sound like a total science illiterate, and Cinesra kindly volunteered. I'm trying not to require a suspension of disbelief that stretchers further than Yu-Gi-Oh! And The Dark Side of Dimensions does.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: In the first chapter, Kaiba defines choice in terms of living with the consequences of the choices you make. Atem expands that definition, pointing out that choices aren't made in isolation, that our circumstances and experiences influence the choices we make. One thing I was really excited to write was a glimpse of who Seto could have been if his parents had lived. I really wanted to show a Seto who was less extreme, because his circumstances were less extreme, but who also seemed like he could have become the Seto Kaiba we know. I could see Kaiba shutting the door on his early childhood and never looking back, so I also wanted to show him struggling with both the acknowledgement of the might have beens in his life while also seeing that going into that life would be an act of self-erasure of the person he is now.
I love the line from Romeo and Juliet: "For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch. And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss." I wanted to write something that took a simple gesture like holding hands and explored the intimacy of it.
Stay safe everyone!
SOCIAL MEDIA NOTE: I am on Tumblr, Dreamwidth and Pillowfort as Nenya85. Come check me out there!
To paraphrase Louise Rosenblatt, "A story's just ink on the page until a reader comes along to give it life." This is my way of saying that I'd really like to hear what you think. Please comment.