CHAPTER 9: THE BEACH EPISODE CLICHÉ

THE BEACH EPISODE CLICHÉ: When things get too tense for your heroes (and their rivals), it's time for a trip to the beach! What kind of spoil-sport would deny Pokémon's Misty and James their moment of glory in a bikini contest? Curious what Batman and the Joker would wear to a surfing contest? Wonder no more! The 1966 camp classic television show, "Batman," has the answer: swimming trunks over their regular costumes.

Metaphorically speaking, a Beach Episode doesn't even need a beach. The comic book X-Men celebrate preventing a demonic invasion by going to the mall. In between fighting Daleks and saving the universe, the Doctor and Donna chill out at a 1920's house party, solving murder mysteries with Agatha Christie. Even Frodo and Sam take five on the stairs of Cirith Ungol to retell their favorite stories. Sometimes, it's hard to decide who needs a break more – the characters or their audience.

MORAL: As "Avatar, the Last Airbender," demonstrated, taking a vacation from your ongoing quest for world domination can lead to surprising epiphanies.

BASEBALL NOTE: A closer is a reliever (a relief pitcher) who comes in for the last inning of a baseball game to try to hold on to a lead so their team can win, in which case they record a "Save."

Atem raised a hand to his forehead, suddenly dizzy. He groaned, recognizing the warning signs. Another world was approaching. He shuddered, remembering the last one. Kaiba wrapped an arm around him, as if his hold could offer protection. Atem smiled even though they both knew it was a hollow gesture, that all they could do was hope to be reunited back in limbo.

Atem blinked, momentarily blinded by the bright, artificial lights of the baseball stadium. He stared at the crowded stands. Why was he on a little hill in the middle of a stadium? Where was his duel disk? His opponent? Why did he feel different – more muscled, older? He took a stumbling step backwards, then righted himself, as his memories flooded back. He was where he belonged: on the mound as one of the premier pitchers in Japan's major leagues. He was pitching in a game that could send his team to the championship series if they held onto their one run lead. The inning was over, his teammates were already heading off the field. Atem shook his head, relieved his monetary brain freeze had passed before his teammates had noticed. He took off his mitt and ran to join them. He made it back to the dugout and slid into place on the bench next to Jounouchi. Mokuba was at the end of the bench, taking off his catcher's gear.

"Eight innings of shut-out ball! There's a reason you're the King of Diamonds! I see another Eiji Sawamura award in your future!" Jounouchi yelled. "Now all we have to do is wait for Mr. Big Shot to break a few bats and notch another save, and we get a shot at the Championship. Glad someone remembered to wake our resident prima donna so he could warm up for the final inning!"

Seto's penchant for dozing through the early innings was almost as well publicized as his 153 kilometer per hour cutter, his glee in breaking the opposing team's bats, his league best 1.38 Earned Run Average, and his ferocious complaints that only a prejudice against relievers had kept him from winning the Sawamura award for pitching for the past three years.

Atem agreed with the last point. Seto was his equal in every way; together they were unbeatable. He smiled to himself, remembering asking Seto how he could sleep while his teammates were playing for their lives.

Seto had answered: "I never sleep when you're pitching. Otherwise, calling baseball a team sport is an illusion. It's a battle between the pitcher and batter and everyone else is there for show. I want to see the fear in the opposing batter's eyes, the defeated slump in his shoulders as he approaches my domain, wondering if I'll settle for striking him out or splinter his bat, shattering his ego like cheap glass. I've watched you pitch, the way you command the mound. Don't lie, you've felt the same rush, the same thrill of power and control, knowing your fate is in your own hands."

Atem sighed, wondering for the umpteenth time, how Seto could attract and repel him in equal measure. Seto's rant was everything he knew he should object to… and everything he secretly agreed with.

"Earth to Atem," Jounouchi said, waving a hand in front of Atem's face. "You zoning out thinking of him again?"

"I'm just glad he's on our team," Honda said. "He could be out there breaking our bats instead!"

Jounouchi pulled out a pack of bubble gum and popped a piece in his mouth before offering it to Atem and Honda.

"Another present from your fans?" Honda asked.

Jounouchi nodded. He had quit using chewing tobacco recently and fans had taken to sending him gum as encouragement.

Atem chewed on the gum for a moment. "What flavor is this?"

Jounouchi blew a bubble until it popped. "Pineapple."

"Artificially flavored," Honda noted.

"Who cares? It still tastes like pineapple," Jounouchi argued.

"Kind of," Honda said with a grin.

Mokuba went up to the plate to start the inning. They cheered as Mokuba got on first base. Atem noticed that Seto, as was his habit, had stopped warming up to watch his brother.

"Now if the next batters bring him home, we'll have an insurance run!" Jounouchi said.

"Who needs one with Seto coming up?" Honda asked.

"You know, at first I thought they only got the kid to keep Mr. High and Mighty happy, but he's a good player in his own right," Jounouchi admitted.

They watched as the inning progressed. Mokuba stole second, but the rally needed to bring him home never materialized.

The stands hushed and then roared as Seto strode to the mound to the strains of "Enter the Sandman."

"There are eight others of us out here," Jounouchi grumbled to himself as he walked across the field to take up his position at third base.

Seto glared at the batter as if his opponent was merely a stand in for some older, more intractable demon he needed to defeat. Atem went to the top step of the dugout to watch. There was something feral about the way Seto pitched, the way he coiled into himself during the wind-up, the explosive release of the ball, the way it seemed to blur as it struck home.

It was breath-taking.

Two batters up and down. Seto's death-glare never left the plate. The third batter managed to get a piece of a couple of pitches, managed to last long enough for Seto to miss the plate, drawing a full count. Seto glanced at the dugout. Atem raised an eyebrow in challenge and gave Seto a thumbs up. Seto grinned, then bore down. The last strike came in over the plate with bat splintering force. Mokuba picked up the ball and reflexively tagged the stunned batter who was looking at the broken bat handle still in his hands.

Atem raced from the dugout as the rest of the team charged the mound in celebration. Mokuba reached Seto first and jumped into his arms. Seto held Mokuba aloft as if he was a trophy. He set Mokuba down and instinctively turned to face the dugout just as Atem slammed into him.

They staggered back into limbo, propelled by the force of Atem's embrace. Kaiba lifted Atem up. Atem grabbed Kaiba's hair and kissed him. They swayed unsteadily. Atem wrapped his legs around Kaiba's hips, struggling to get closer still. He briefly wrenched his mouth from Kaiba's to attack his neck, before returning to smash their lips together. Kaiba opened his mouth to welcome him back, trying to swallow him whole.

Atem yanked up Kaiba's shirt, needing to fondle living skin and muscles. And yet, no matter how frantically his hands moved over Kaiba's chest and torso, something was escaping his grasp. Their desire was fever hot, but fleeting; they were building a fire that couldn't ignite in limbo's chilly confines.

Frustrated and moved by an impulse he didn't understand, a need to mark Kaiba as his, however temporarily, Atem suddenly bit down on Kaiba's lip. Kaiba moaned into his mouth.

The coppery taste of Kaiba's blood shocked Atem almost as much as it excited him. But just as when Kaiba had sliced himself, the small cut healed instantly.

Atem lifted his face from Kaiba's. "I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me."

"I'm fine. Pain is real the way nothing else here is." Kaiba quickly swept an arm out to take in the flower clouds. They'd grown thick and fluffy, as inviting as a bed. His incautious gesture toppled them backwards. Flowers, as blood red as Atem's eyes, rose to meet them. Their petals held a bell at their center, a golden heart surrounded by an even deeper red. "Even here, I can believe this is happening, if I'm bleeding for it."

Atem kissed him more gently this time. "The gods must have thought we needed a break."

Kaiba snorted. "So, they sent us to a baseball game? What's next? The beach?"

Atem laughed, then lifted his head and shook it. "Even you must have noticed how these worlds match our moods, showing us the decisions we could have made – and the ones we avoided. Each world is like a signpost on a road, measuring how far we've come, pointing the way we need to go."

Kaiba grunted. He had noticed. He'd just thought the notion too fanciful to pursue. He frowned. "That doesn't mean it's the gods doing us a favor though," he objected. "Maybe we're the ones steering the ship, we're just doing it blind."

"What do you mean?"

Kaiba paused again. Atem could almost see him turning the puzzle pieces over in his mind, fitting them into place.

Kaiba sat up suddenly and shouted, "I've been going about this all wrong!"

Atem sat up as well. His mouth dropped open. "Who are you and what have you done with Seto Kaiba?"

"What? I'm telling you I was wrong!"

"That's not news. You're wrong a lot. But your admitting it is unprecedented."

Kaiba snorted. "Can you shut up and listen? This is important! There was a pineapple on the counter in that last world! And just now… I tasted pineapple on your tongue."

Atem's eyes widened. "Jounouchi gave me pineapple bubble gum in the dugout."

Kaiba's face was a comical mask of horror. "He would."

"Now, who's getting distracted?"

Kaiba rolled his eyes. "I've been trying to create a pineapple. It's been in my mind and then it shows up in two worlds in a row. Don't you get it? I've been running in the wrong direction. You were right about how this place works."

Atem smirked. "Another first."

"You were partly right," Kaiba corrected. "This isn't some field trip organized by the gods for our benefit. This place is interacting with our brainwaves, magnified by our Duel Disks. Our own thoughts and emotions are determining where we go next. Think about it! We talk about choices and their consequences and end up revisiting Death-T."

Atem wanted to say, "I told you there was a connection," but Kaiba looked so excited, so hopeful… so happy. Atem decided he'd rather help Kaiba track down leads, instead. "I point out that our choices aren't made in a vacuum and we go to worlds where one difference changes everything."

Kaiba was vibrating with excitement. "Yes! We've been the ones in the driver's seat all along. All we have to do is learn to navigate. The trick isn't to create a pineapple in here…"

"We need to go to the pineapple instead?"

"Exactly! But not just any old pineapple. I need to find my pineapple. The pineapple I could call up in my sleep, the pineapple at the center of my soul."

"Mokuba."

Kaiba nodded. "There are absolutes, fixed points on a changing map that hold true no matter what else shifts around us. Choice is more than opportunity or even the sum of its consequences. Our choices define us and Mokuba will always be at the center of that equation, the equals sign that holds everything else in balance, no matter how much it threatens to spin out of control."

"The keystone of your heart," Atem said.

Kaiba gestured wildly. "I believe in my bond with Mokuba. I trust it to see us home. I don't need to create a doorway. It's already here. Even if we can't see it, it exists."

"Just like friendship," Atem put in.

Kaiba exhaled loudly and continued as if Atem hadn't spoken. "I need to steer to Mokuba. My Mokuba. If we can harness our joint energy, it'll lead us home." Kaiba opened his Duel Disk.

To Kaiba, the question, "Do you want to go back?" was a simple one. It admitted only one answer. Each world was a roadblock thrown in his way. For Atem, they were the road. With each world he gained another puzzle piece of who he could be. Ancient Egypt's pharaoh. Yugi's "Other Me." They were just two among multitudes now, each containing a kernel of truth, waiting to be picked apart and reassembled to finally form a complete picture. Kaiba saw speed bumps; Atem treasured each clue.

"Seto?" Atem asked.

Kaiba lifted his head from his study of the exposed guts of his duel disk. "Yeah?"

"All the other worlds we've seen, all those other versions of yourself…"

Kaiba finished his thought. "Do I feel a kinship with them? Feel like they're me?"

"Yeah."

Kaiba shrugged. "Sometimes. Like that world where I won Death-T, or the one where I dragged you back only to watch you die, or the one where you lost the Ceremonial Duel and I lost everything else, even Mokuba, because I was too stubborn and selfish to let go of something I was never going to hold in my hands. I look at those assholes and go, 'Yup, that's me.'" Kaiba shrugged again. "Pick any choice you want. I made them all. I own them all." Kaiba closed the Duel Disk, stared at it for a moment, then put it back on his arm. "But I can be something more than those guys. I believe that with all my heart. That's why I'm going to aim for my last glimpse of Mokuba, the moment before we left. After that, your decisions are your own. You'll make the right one, and I'll respect it, no matter how much it hurts. I promise."

Kaiba pulled Atem into his arms again as they sat in silence, waiting for the next pineapple hunt to begin.

.

Thanks to Bnomiko for betaing this chapter!

AUTHOR'S NOTE: What's a collection of AUs that doesn't include one that comes out of left field? I admit to a bit of self-indulgence, here. We were chatting on the prideshipping Dark Side of Dimensions (18+) discord server about what positions each of the cast of Yu-Gi-Oh! would play on a baseball team. I loved the idea of Mokuba as a catcher to Seto's pitcher, mainly because although the pitcher is the showier position, it is usually the catcher who signals the pitcher what to throw. Also, a shut-out game is sometimes described as a game of catch between the pitcher and the catcher. I also liked the idea of Atem as an ace starting pitcher (the pitcher who starts a game) and Kaiba as his team's closer.

And I really liked the idea that having a relaxing world and coming out of it kissing each other, leads Kaiba to some new realizations. As always, it's up for debate who's right here, Atem or Kaiba – or whether some combination of the two hits closer to home.

BASEBALL NOTE: Mariano Rivera is the all-time best closer in the history of US baseball. He is the only player to be inducted into the Hall of Fame by unanimous vote. I borrowed his season best ERA (how many earned runs he gave up per 9 innings pitched), his entrance song, "Enter the Sandman," (chosen because he put batters to sleep), his 95 mph cut fastball, which cuts inwards on batters, landing on the smallest and weakest part of the bat, occasionally shattering it. He was also known for sleeping through the early innings of a game. Although he won multiple awards for his relief work, he never won a Cy Young Award.

In terms of personality, it would be harder to two people more opposite than the New York Yankees' Mariano Rivera and Seto Kaiba. Rivera stressed the need for humility, the ability to try your hardest and then let your losses go, and most of all the need to help others, saying on his retirement, "I want to be remembered as a player that was there for others."

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.