Queer as Tachi – Chapter 93
For all the hype surrounding something as interesting and unique as a total lunar eclipse, Yugi thought to himself that the phenomenon in practice was rather un-astounding. He stood beneath the skylight in his room waiting for midnight, watching the pearly face of the full moon slowly become stained gray and then red with the shadow of the earth engulfing it. For a while, he couldn’t even understand how enlightened ancient peoples could have feared it, because it didn’t really disappear. The eerie reddish-brown tinge to the disc of the moon at totality was a little disconcerting, but nothing near the end of the world. Even his own apprehensions about the ritual began to look silly in the light of the eclipse. Yugi stood gazing at it for a while, and then turned his attention to the clock instead, knowing that midnight was very close at hand. He knelt beneath the glass panes protecting him from the night’s chill, beneath a sky turned black by shadow, and allowed himself a little smile of relief that he was going to get to face his kind, wise, protective lover in a matter of minutes. His worries had been assuaged, given time and patient reassurance from everyone more knowledgeable about magic than he, and now he was only looking forward to the passage of the ritual and Yami’s expected appearance, after which there would be snuggling and kissing and all other good things. Yugi could hardly wait. The clock ticked over, and the incantation began.
As Yugi recited the spell, everything seemed as normal as every other month he performed this routine. But upon the last line, at the point at which he usually expected to feel the pulse of power from the Millennium Puzzle, the unexpected welled up from inside to prove his fears justified all along. The building swell of power felt ten times as strong as he was used to, and it didn’t just thunderclap out and dissipate as the spell drew the spirit from the Puzzle and poured it into corporeal form. Rather, it continued to radiate outward for a few seconds longer and seemed to escape beyond the bedroom, but neither Yugi nor his awakening partner saw or sensed it. Yugi was knocked completely on his back from the initial burst of magical power, unconscious. The instant he took his first breath, Yami rushed from his place to pick Yugi up, his heart racing with fear; it shouldn’t have come to this, they were supposedly ready for the ritual. As the minutes ticked by and the young one showed no sign of responding to his presence and urgent calls, Yami’s initial twinge of fear grew and deepened into a cold chill throughout his chest. Something was wrong – unusually so – but he was at a loss as to how to handle it. He had no power to touch Yugi and make him instantly awake, and speaking his name wasn’t getting through to him. All Yami could do was gather his partner in his arms and pick him up off the floor, turning and settling him onto the bed to rest while he took a step back to try to think. Yugi had left pajamas out for him, as per their routine, so Yami quickly fumbled to put them on, figuring that once he was decent, he wouldn’t be distracted and could think what to do for Yugi, to help him. By that time, however, Yugi was beginning to stir, and even as Yami fell to his knees beside the bed and clasped his hands, willing him to awaken, he blinked his eyes open and groaned a little. The pharaoh caught his breath in relief, and brought one of Yugi’s hands to his lips to kiss his knuckles in a small gesture of happiness to see the light brimming in those violet eyes. Yugi glanced around, and his brow knit in confusion. “Yami?” he murmured weakly. “How did I get here? I don’t remember getting into bed…”
Yami gazed at him with concerned eyes. “When I awoke, you were out cold,” he quietly explained, trying to keep his voice even and patient. “Our precautions before the ritual seem to have had no effect on you at all, tonight. Something went wrong.”
Yugi blinked at him, disturbed. It shouldn’t have knocked him out, he had done everything to prepare as they had learned to do so the jolt of energy from the ritual wouldn’t hurt him – he had a big dinner first and then enjoyed a two-hour nap, not to mention snacking on a couple of cookies a short time ago for the sugar boost. “It didn’t work at all?” he breathed worriedly. “Wait, how long was I out?”
“Not too long…a couple of minutes.” His lover glanced down at himself. “Long enough for me to get dressed.”
“Oh…” Yugi definitely looked worried now, though he remained lying there to regain his strength. “Do you think…it might have been…?”
“I don’t know,” Yami answered honestly, pushing himself to his feet and glancing up. The moon had just barely begun to reappear, a small silver sliver at the edge of the reddish disk standing out against the blackened sky. “I couldn’t say for sure, Yugi. Everything felt normal from my end, and I saw nothing out of the ordinary here, except that you had been knocked out like you used to be.” He returned fretful eyes to his young love’s face. “Are you all right?”
Yugi sighed long as he propped himself up on his elbows and slowly struggled to a seat. “I think so. I feel a little groggy, but…nothing really strange.” He placed a hand on the Puzzle to steady it, the chain clinking a little against its gilded edges as it settled into a nice fold of his lap. “I’ll be okay. It’s just like before…nothing really serious.”
“All the same…” Yami eased himself to a seat on the bed beside Yugi, reaching to comb back his bangs from his face. “You’re worn out. We should go to bed, and let you get some sleep.” A tease of a smile lit his eyes. “We’ll worry about doing all the fun things with each other in the morning.”
Yugi returned his faint smile and leaned against him, nuzzling him a little to show his agreement with the idea. The pharaoh helped him up and gave him extremely attentive (and highly unnecessary) assistance getting into his pajamas, and then it was time to snuggle into bed. Yugi collapsed onto his partner and wrapped his arms snugly around him, seeking not only the heat from his body but the solidity of his form, the assurance that he was real and alive and not about to be taken away from him for conducting the sacred ritual in the middle of an eclipse. Yami held him securely, letting him nestle his head into the crook of his shoulder, so he in turn could rest his cheek on the top of Yugi’s head and breathe in his scent as they both closed their eyes and settled down in search of sleep. Sleep was not to save them, though.
While in his temporary body, Yami did not dream when he slept, or if he did, it vanished from his memory the instant he opened his eyes. Tonight was different. Not long after reaching a deep state of slumber, his unconscious mind tumbled headlong into a vividly dark world that tapped into what few memories he had gained since Yugi solved the Puzzle and set him free. However it started, the dream took him down the one path he was afraid to tread, revisiting a moment in time he wished had never happened. It was hard to see through the fog, though everything seemed lit with an eerie greenish light that he couldn’t find the source of. Yami kept his hands stretched out before him as he groped his way through the half-light, blinking at the thick waves of darkness washing through him, his head throbbing, his breath coming short as though from exertion. He couldn’t discern where he was, but he knew it wasn’t the Puzzle and guessed that it wasn’t any of the normal places he expected to find himself through Yugi’s experiences. That was when his heart tested and discovered that he couldn’t feel Yugi. In that instant, he completely forgot about the embodiment ritual, about the temporary disconnection from his partner that he had slowly gotten used to. All he could feel was the emptiness in his soul and the shock of fear that something had happened to Yugi. As if on cue, that very moment someone beyond him, outside the fog, began to laugh wickedly – a deep, self-satisfied cackle of victory. Gritting his teeth, Yami thrashed his arms in a vain attempt to cast the fog aside and began to run, hardly thinking, just reacting. The voice and the green light had to come from somewhere, and he was going to find them, in the chance they might lead him to Yugi. His footfalls echoed into the distance in that strange way that signified he was not anywhere natural or corporeal, and the more he ran, the more the voice laughed at him. It said nothing, but it kept bursting through with occasional gusts of derisive laughter, as if it could see and sense everything he was doing and feeling and knew it was all futile. Yami tried to ignore it and just kept running, clenching his hands into fists. It wasn’t until he stopped to reconnoiter, thinking himself close to the edge of the fog, when he realized there was no Puzzle around his neck. Its weight would have been beating against his chest all this time, but there was nothing. He clutched wildly at the empty space in front of him, and then gave a small growl upon seeing that he was even more lost than usual. The deep voice laughed again, and this time, it was joined by a second one, higher, and even more confident. Yami froze; he knew those voices, even though both had been banished from his existence long ago. The second one swelled in and took over until it was the only laughing voice, clearly pleased with itself and nearly hysterical at seeing the pharaoh’s plight. Quivering with anger, Yami raised his head and shouted at the sky, “Where is Yugi? What have you done to him?”
The voice simmered down to a mere sinister chuckle, but did not answer him. Even more sure now who it belonged to, Yami fought a rising panic and darted off again, thinking he had his bearings enough now to search out the green light that bathed this entire mystical realm with its dim, sickly glow. His head and chest were both pounding, now, and it felt as though his forehead burned with a fever or something. He simply put his head down and ran, vaguely heartened when the fog dissipated from around him and left him free and clear to run toward the pillar of green light he could now see in the near distance. It stretched endlessly up into the sky like a lone escape tunnel, but whether or not it was there to save him, he wouldn’t know until he reached it. Some part of his soul had a grave misgiving, telling him he should be running away from it, not toward it, but the desperate need to find Yugi and make sure he was all right overrode any voice of reason. All Yami could see was the pillar of light, until he was within a few mere steps of it, at which point his eyes and head seemed to clear and he skidded to a stop. It wasn’t just empty light and himself alone in this crazy world, there was someone standing within the light. Yugi. Yami faltered because he didn’t expect it, but seeing that it was Yugi after all, standing still with his head down and his eyes closed, the Puzzle around his neck, reawakened his courage and sent him dashing the last few steps to him. “Yugi!” he cried out. “There you are! I’ve found you! Are you all right?”
He reached for Yugi, but at the last moment, his hand and then whole body smacked into something hard that stopped him short. He heard a ring like that of striking a glass and felt the vibration through his body. He caught himself and shook his head free of the cobwebs so he could take another look at the situation. There was something between him and Yugi, something invisible, and he had blundered straight into it. Yugi slowly began to lift his head, and that was when Yami finally saw that he was not, in fact, all right. His forehead was beaded with sweat, and his eyes, when they opened, glimmered as though with pain. He was standing limp, hands at his sides, and could hardly gather himself to face his partner. Yami stretched out his hand until it finally met the surface which had repelled him – the light itself. Yugi was trapped inside the pillar, separated from him by nothing more than the green light. Yami caught his breath in an angry gasp, and then lunged at it, pounding his fists against it, making it ring again. “Let him go! He’s not the one you want! Yugi!” Yami turned his attention to Yugi, who managed to place a hand on the barrier opposite his partner’s hands as if seeking him. “Please, Yugi! You have to fight it. Stay strong. I’ll get you out, I will set you free!”
“Yami,” Yugi gasped in a hoarse whisper. “Hurry. It…it hurts…Yami…”
“What?” The pharaoh’s eyes flew wide. He leaned his weight fully on the barrier, to no avail. “What do you mean, Yugi?”
Yugi placed both hands on the barrier now, directly opposite Yami’s, trying to push through to him. “I didn’t know it was going to hurt. I wanted to save you but…it hurts. They’re hurting me! Yami!” He gave a sudden gasp and recoiled away, his hands clutching at his chest instead. He crouched there panting for a moment, trembling, whimpering a little.
Yami resumed pounding on the glasslike surface preventing him from rescuing Yugi. “Let him go! This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be!”
Yugi suddenly let out a scream, throwing his head up and back. The light surrounding him began to intensify, and with it, the obvious sense of pain that he was going through. Yami threw himself at the barrier, trying to force himself through it by sheer will, but it resisted him with the effortlessness of a thought. He could only stand there and watch as Yugi curled his arms around himself and shook uncontrollably, gasping in pain. Pressed up so close to him, Yami was able to look down and see for himself what he had feared all along, ever since recognizing the laughing voices. Around Yugi’s feet, defining the edges of the barrier that held him, was a ring of ancient symbols. It generated the light, and it now began to glow vividly, increasing in intensity. Yami heard himself yell in defiance, but the sound was torn away from him and cast off into the darkness beyond. Yugi could not even hear him now, he was so tightly gripped with pain that he couldn’t recognize anything. Yami placed his hands flat on the barrier and pushed, trying to push inside, all the while telling himself that he had to do it, that he was the only one with the power to save Yugi, that he needed to get in there and trade his soul for Yugi’s. The Seal of Oricalcos wasn’t just stealing his soul this time, it was torturing him. Draining his soul was destroying him right before his loving partner’s eyes. Yami continued to call out to him, hoping that if he heard his name, Yugi might be able to respond, but Yugi was lost in a haze of terror and pain, eyes squeezed shut, screaming into the sky. Yami clawed at the Seal’s barrier until blood ran down his hands to his arms, screaming back at Yugi, trying to reach him, trying to will his soul to seep through the mystical barrier where corporeal form could not pass. Don’t leave me, he thought to Yugi, since his voice was having no effect and kept getting stolen from him by lack of breath. Yugi! I need you! Don’t go! Please! I love you! I’ll save you! I promise you, I’ll save you! Yugi…
Yami awoke sharply with the cry on his lips, the screams of torture still echoing through his head even as he opened his eyes and noticed that he was not in that dark netherspace after all. It took a few moments for the nightmare to fade enough for him to realize that he was perfectly safe, that he was in Yugi’s room, Yugi’s bed, and it was most likely that had all been a dream. But the sense of absence in his soul remained, and he looked quickly around to see whether Yugi had indeed been taken from him after all. No, thankfully, Yugi was lying beside him in the bed, but from the looks of things, he, too, was caught in the throes of a dark dream. He was curled up on his side away from Yami, trembling, with tears running down his face from beneath closed eyes. Disturbed, Yami sat up and immediately moved to wake him, not wanting him to suffer a moment longer as he had. He took Yugi gently by the shoulders and shook him, and then resorted to patting his cheeks, softly but urgently calling, “Yugi! Yugi, wake up!”
Yugi came to with a little yelp, panting for breath, his eyes wide and unseeing. After a moment he blinked and focused, and then threw himself sobbing into Yami’s arms. Yami caught him up and held him, cooing softly to him to comfort him and assure him that it was just a dream. He sat up and gathered Yugi into his lap, stroking his hair and whispering soothingly to him until his sobs began to subside and words came instead. “I’m so glad you’re safe,” he breathed between sniffles. “Yami…it was so awful. It was horrible. I thought…I thought I lost you. It was so…real…”
“Shh,” the pharaoh encouraged, “it’s all right. It was only a dream. You’re all right, I’m all right…none if it happened…”
Yugi swallowed hard and buried his face in his partner’s chest, mumbling from folds of his tear-wet pajamas. “It was a nightmare,” he realized. “I haven’t had one that bad for…for a long time.”
Yami continued to caress a hand over the top of his head, though he himself was still a bit rattled and wishing for some comfort in turn. “Can you tell me about it?” he murmured sympathetically.
As much as he didn’t want to relive any of it, Yugi began to think that perhaps if he shared it, Yami would better be able to put his fears to rest. He pillowed his head on his partner’s leg and took a deep, shuddering breath before beginning. “I can’t remember all of it…now…it’s starting to fade, but…I dreamed that everyone who ever had it out for us all came for us at the same time. Pegasus, the evil Marik, Dartz…they were all after us. After me. They came while you were out of the Puzzle, like this, and they held me down and took the Puzzle away from me so it would destroy you and I could never restore your spirit again.” His entire body gave a trembling twitch as if in pain, and he sucked in his breath sharply. “I watched you vanish right before my eyes,” he continued in a hushed whisper, his eyes filling with tears again, “but it wasn’t like…when the ritual is over and you go back to the Puzzle. You were going away, into nothingness, and you were reaching for me…calling out to me…and I couldn’t grab you and keep you because they were holding me back. They tore you away from me and I couldn’t stop them.” He pressed his face into Yami’s knee to give himself a moment to collect his composure and quiet his ragged breathing, and then he continued in a low, morose tone. “All my friends were next, one by one. I can’t even remember which enemy did what to which of my friends, but in the end…I was alone…they made it so I was totally alone and had no power to save myself, when they decided to come for me last.” His hand clenched on the hem of Yami’s pajama shirt. “That was when you woke me up, just in time. I was so alone, it was dark and cold and I knew all of them were coming for me, but I didn’t have anyone to save me. They even destroyed Kaiba. Everyone. It was so scary…”
“Yugi…” The pharaoh didn’t want to ask him to share any more details than that, it must have been a long, involved nightmare that wasn’t worth revisiting. He shifted himself in order to pick Yugi up and continue to hold him while he laid back down beside him, wrapping his frightened love in strong, safe arms. “It’s all right, it was just a bad dream. They didn’t get me, I’m right here,” he murmured soothingly.
Yugi clung to him and squeezed him for reassurance. “I know,” he breathed, “I just…can’t help it. It brought up the one thing I’m terrified of – losing you. It doesn’t matter whether it’s some kind of freaky supernatural thing or some perfectly normal, dumb accident, I’m afraid something is going to happen to you while you’re out of the Puzzle, and I’d lose you. I don’t want to lose you, ever. Not like that.”
A flicker of discomfort passed through Yami’s eyes, hearing that. The thoughts and fears Yugi spoke aloud echoed his all too keenly – for that had been the theme of his nightmare as well. He nestled Yugi comfortably in his arms and pressed his lips softly to the top of his head, seeking comfort of his own through Yugi’s need to hold onto him. “Strange,” he said quietly. “In some essence, you and I had nearly the same dream…”
Yugi lifted his head and blinked his eyes clear. “Yami…?” He raised a hand to touch his partner’s face, when Yami looked away rather than respond. “Did you have a bad dream, too?”
Yami closed his eyes, surrendering to the inevitable. “Yes,” he breathed defeatedly. “I don’t usually dream, or at least I don’t remember dreaming…but this one isn’t going away.”
His young love continued to stroke his cheek. “Tell me about it?” he asked timidly.
Taking a deep breath, Yami resigned himself to dredging up the dark memories again, and told him as much as he could remember. Some of it was becoming indistinct, but he remembered the worst part, and his voice shook a little as he spoke of watching his beloved Yugi being tortured by the Seal ripping his soul out of him. Yugi’s eyes watered all over again as he listened, and at the end of it, he threw his arms around his partner to return to him all of the comfort and love he had given so far. Yami smiled gratefully at his closeness and affection. “It’s all right,” he assured. “It was a horrid dream, but still just a dream. I’m here with you, and that means we’re both safe. Nothing like that will ever happen to us in reality.”
“No, I guess not,” Yugi mused. “Marik’s dark side is gone, Dartz is gone, the Seal doesn’t exist anymore. None of those things can come back to haunt us, except in the memories we can’t let go of.”
“Which is, I’m sure, where these nightmares came from.” Yami sweetly kissed Yugi on the forehead and wrapped him up in warmth. “It does seem odd that both of us should dream the same kind of dream at the same time…but I know such things have been on my mind. Perhaps not consciously, but they’ve come up a few times lately.”
“It is really weird,” Yugi acknowledged. His mind immediately went to accuse the eclipse, but doing so made him feel foolish, so he didn’t say it out loud. Instead, he snuggled into his partner’s embrace and closed his eyes. “But you’re here with me, you’re okay. I don’t have to worry. All I need is you.”
“Try to sleep,” Yami encouraged. “You’re even more tired now, you need your rest.”
Yugi fully agreed, though some part of him remained apprehensive as he rolled over and tried to find a comfortable spot on the pillow, while Yami’s arms came around him from behind and snuggled him securely, their bodies curving together. He closed his eyes and eventually drifted off, but no sooner had he entered a deeper state of sleep and the dream started again, the exact same sequence as last time. It had just gotten to the point where Yugi’s enemies wrestled the Puzzle away from him and destroyed Yami’s spirit when Yugi forced himself to wake up, not wanting to see the rest of it all over again. He found Yami hovering over him, worry creasing his brow, but apart from a few shaky breaths, Yugi assured him that he was all right and just wanted to get some sleep. It never happened. Every time he tried to go back to sleep, once he passed dozing and began to dream, the same nightmare came to him, over and over, until he became too scared to sleep. He had gotten better at waking himself out of it before seeing the heart-rending vision of Yami’s destruction, but it was leaving him exhausted and more than a little freaked out. He wasn’t getting much sleep at all, and every time he cried out or jerked awake, Yami was awake with him, holding him, cuddling him, nuzzling him to try to make it all better. In the end, Yugi settled for simply lying awake with his head in Yami’s lap, wide-eyed and upset, while the pharaoh sat with his back against the wall absently stroking his frightened lover’s hair. The night passed in agony, each wishing he could sleep but knowing it would be futile and merely willing the dawn to hurry up and get there so they could get up and get moving, and try to forget about it. They had each other, but as each hour ticked by with no expectation that Yugi could sleep in peace, it didn’t seem to be enough.
All across Domino and all around the world, the energy which leaked from the strict confines of the embodiment ritual found a means of expression deep in the souls of those with some kind of spiritual connection, however old or faint, to shadow magic, Millennium Items, and the mystical Seal which shared some qualities with the ancient Egyptian magic. No one was seriously or permanently damaged, physically, mentally, or spiritually, by the slip in containment and the stray shadow magic that infiltrated their slumbering minds, but each one was awakened sooner or later by a terrifying nightmare. In a small flat near to the university, two young men sleeping together in the same bed had eerily similar horrible dreams, though one suffered more than the other. Marik was able to wake himself somewhat easily from his unsettling dream, and laid awake for a few minutes blinking at the ceiling while he tried to shrug aside the dark feelings stirred up and wondered where they had come from. He dreamed that he was angry, seethingly angry over nothing, and as he stalked through his dream world hunting a target, he held the Rod and drew the knife from inside its shaft to do something about the anger roiling through his head. It felt like a residual echo from his former days, a part of him that had been destroyed but still left a scar somewhere deep inside him. He had nothing in his life, now, to be so angry about, and no one that he wanted to use that knife on. He shook it off and took a deep breath, but before he could go back to sleep, he decided to steal a glance at his slumbering lover, for Ryo always looked so cute asleep and the mere sight of his sweet innocence was enough to reassure Marik’s heart. But Bakura was himself caught in the merciless grip of a far worse nightmare, and the grimace on his usually fair face showed it too plainly. Disturbed, Marik rolled over and propped himself up on an elbow, reaching to pat his partner’s cheeks gingerly to try and wake him. It didn’t work at all, forcing him to resort to calling his name with increasing volume, and then sitting up and shaking him hard. Ryo came to with a cry, and after taking a quick breath like a drowning man, he grabbed for the arms connected to the hands on his shoulders and used them to pull himself up. “M-Marik?” he stammered weakly.
“It’s okay, it’s just me,” Marik encouraged. “Are you all right? You looked like you were…”
Ryo’s face suddenly dissolved into tears, and he collapsed into his love’s arms. “Oh Marik, it was awful,” he whimpered. “I thought…I thought I would never have a dream like that again…why did it have to happen? Why now?”
Marik blinked at him, surprised and disquieted. “What do you mean? Ryo…” He smoothed his hand over his partner’s hair, cradling him against his chest. “What kind of a dream was it? Was it that bad?”
Bakura trembled against him, but gulped a few deep breaths to steel himself to speak. “It’s been so long since I had a nightmare like that,” he said in a whimpering hush. “I thought they were behind me, I thought my head was finally clearing. I dreamed…I dreamed the spirit of the Ring had a body of his own, just like the pharaoh…” He blinked teary eyes up at Marik’s concerned face and cuddled closer to him. “I don’t know how he got it, I don’t know if he finally figured out the secrets of the ritual, or what, but…he was in his own body, not mine, and he was…he was…” His face contorted with the effort of restraining a sob of terror at whatever memory flickered across his mind just then. “He was going around killing everyone I care about…”
“What?” Marik’s arms tightened instinctively, hugging his partner close. “Ryo!”
“He came for you first,” Ryo murmured morosely, lowering his eyes ashamedly. “I tried to stop him, but he was too strong. He killed you right before me, and told me the police would blame me because everybody knows gay lover’s quarrels always end like that. Then he went after Yugi and the pharaoh. I was too late to stop him, he outran me and they were…they were gone. One by one, he went after everyone I know, everyone I consider a friend.” Tears ran down his cheeks in slow order, but the more he spoke, the steadier his meek voice became. “I couldn’t do a thing to stop him, he was stronger than I, he threw me off as though I weighed no more than a feather every time I…I tried grabbing him or restraining him. He just laughed that wicked, horrible laugh of his at me and told me I was his, and this was the way he would prove it. He said that he had complete control over my life, and I had gotten weak – that being with you made me soft and allowed him to come right back in and take me for himself, I had no strength to resist him. And now that he had a body…” His eyes squeezed shut, and he shuddered. “I don’t want to know how much worse it would have gotten if you hadn’t woken me up…”
He couldn’t say anything more, as tears overcame him and reduced him to crying in Marik’s arms. Marik willingly held him and let him get it out, understanding how something so dark could be so painful to him even if it was just a dream. For Ryo, he had come to understand, there was no such thing as “just” a dream. He spoken of times in the past when he would come to in a strange place, missing hours or even days of his life and having no idea what the spirit of the Ring had done with his body in the meantime, or who he might have hurt. Such things hadn’t happened to him for a long time, not with Marik in his life, and after sharing long talks about it in their early days together they figured it was behind him. A nightmare of this magnitude brought it all rushing back as though it were really happening to him again. Marik let him cry out his fear without saying a word, just holding him and combing a hand through his hair until Ryo began to quiet to mere sniffles. At that point, Marik gently pressed his lips to the top of his partner’s head and spoke in a soothing murmur. “You’ve been working yourself too hard,” he fretted, “you’ve been under so much stress. It’s no surprise you’d have a dream like that. It’s a sign that you need some time to relax.” He shifted Ryo in his arms so he could raise a hand to his face and stroke his pale cheek, getting him to look up into his eyes. “I know you’re close to exams, but if you make yourself sick with all that extra work and stress, you’ll never make it to the tests, and then you’ll just feel even worse. I tell you what…” He smiled faintly. “People get nasty colds in the winter all the time. I say you should call your professors in the morning and tell them you’re sick, and I’ll call into work and tell them the same. We’ll sleep in a little longer, and spend the rest of the day with each other.” He glanced briefly to the window on the far side of the bedroom, through which pearly white light was pouring from above now that the eclipse was well over. He knew they had the opportunity to go out with Yugi and Yami both, but after invoking the spirit of the Ring through a nightmare like that, he knew he had to choose his words carefully. “Maybe I’ll give Yugi a call, we can see about hanging out with him. No work, no stress. Just a day to recover yourself and feel better so you can handle those evil exams.” A mischievous light awakened in his eyes. “And it’s not a suggestion, it’s an order. I demand that you call in sick and waste half a day in bed.”
Ryo sniffled cutely and simply blinked up at him. “O-okay. If…if you think it’ll help.”
“I do.” Marik bent his head and kissed his wet cheeks. “I can’t erase that nightmare from your mind, but I can try to help you put it behind you. You can see that the spirit didn’t get me, I’m safe. If we hang out with Yugi, you can see that he’s fine, too, the spirit didn’t get out and hurt any of us.” He eased his lover back down into the bedding and tucked him in, hovering protectively over him, though his eyes grew serious. “To tell you the truth, I wasn’t having such a good dream, either, but…nothing as bad as yours. With pasts like ours, we shouldn’t be surprised that they might bubble up once in a while and remind us that we’re not as strong as we’d like to think we are.”
Bakura gazed at him with wide, solemn eyes that saw deeply into him. “It has been so easy to delude myself into thinking you had rescued me from the darkness, that I was safe now. You’ve been so good to me, Marik.”
“Trust me, I’m not done yet.” Marik stretched out beside him and gathered him into a protective embrace, intending to settle down with him so they could both try to rest. “The road is a lot longer and harder than it looks, but we’ll make it. I’ll be with you the whole way. This isn’t a setback, it’s barely a bump in the road. He may try to haunt your dreams, but he’s still completely impotent.” He shifted his head to regard the Millennium Ring, which was now hanging on the corner of the mirror above the bureau, a rather irreverent and forgotten place. “He can’t take you over, all he can do is watch and grumble. You don’t belong to him, don’t ever let him convince you of that.” He nuzzled his way through Ryo’s thick, silky silver hair and pressed adoring kisses to his temple and behind his ear. “You belong to you, and whatever you’ve chosen to share with me, I accept willingly and with love. He can never promise you that.”
Purring weakly, Ryo rolled over in his arms to face him, curling up against him. “I won’t forget. I just want to sleep, now, and forget that dream. Just promise me that if it comes again…”
“I’ll wake you up before it gets bad,” Marik vowed. “I’m right here, I’ll stay close to you all night.”
Ryo closed his eyes with a soft, relived sigh as he pillowed his head on his lover’s shoulder. “How bad was your dream?”
“Just…odd. Dark, kind of unsettling. But nothing I wish to dwell on, either.” Marik sank fully down into the bedding, feeling sleep beginning to creep back up on him. “I’ll take care of you, you take care of me. Deal?”
“Mhm,” Ryo sighed. “And we’ll call in sick in the morning.”
Marik vaguely nodded his agreement to the plan, closing his eyes. It bothered him that such a violent and specific dream should attack Ryo like that, considering how much it touched on his own fears of what might happen if they underestimated the spirit of the Ring. Perhaps this was a better, less painful wake-up call that he needed to remain on his guard than having the actual spirit rear his wicked head when least expected and cause someone to get hurt. Marik had no regard for his own safety, only Ryo’s, and resolved that this would be the last reminder of the spirit for a while if he had anything to say about it. Just as he was drifting off, he heard one parting murmur from his lover, made in the absent state of being near sleep himself. “I wish I hadn’t looked at the eclipse. It made me feel kind of creepy. Oh well. What’s done is done…” He breathed a sigh, and Marik peeped his eyes open long enough to note that Ryo had fallen asleep. Even with his hair disheveled and the tracks of tears on his cheeks, he looked so adorable in slumber that it made Marik smile peacefully to himself. As long as the dreams didn’t come back, they were safe now.
Across the city, walled safely in the confines of the Kaiba estate, there were others whose subconscious minds were laid bare and vulnerable to stray wisps of mystical energy. Alastair had come over very late, after working overtime, and found a partner who had just finished some extra work of his own and was in need of a good distraction, leading to the red-haired young man spending the night there again. Kaiba didn’t even know about the eclipse until after it was over, when Alastair happened to pass by the bedroom windows and noted that it was past totality already, just before they collapsed into bed and fell asleep. It didn’t make a whit of difference to his life, and naturally it would never enter his mind that it might remotely be connected to him or the dream which plagued him shortly after sinking into deepest slumber. He rarely recalled dreams, they tended to disappear instantly upon waking as if his consciousness knew that dreaming was the time during sleep when his body rested and repaired and it was no longer needed. This one, though…this one was different. This one was about Egypt.
Considering that the only times he remembered seeing such clear, vivid images of Egypt involved some freaky incident with the so-called pharaoh, having them pop up when he was supposed to be enjoying a nice night’s rest was even more irritating. But even as his mind considered this, he lost control of the lucidity and was dragged unwillingly into a world not of his choosing, a world which seemed disturbingly familiar and yet wholly strange at the same time. He knew it was Egypt without being told so, without landmarks like pyramids or Sphinxes to point the way. He wasn’t outside himself looking down, he was there, inside that world, clad in gold armbands and a skirty thing and sandals with the Millennium Rod in his belt, but he had full awareness of himself as Seto Kaiba, CEO and ruler of the gaming business. Something nagged at him from inside, telling him to go somewhere, and then he was running, trying to reach some destination that his inner soul demanded he find. It was somewhat satisfying to see peasants bow fully down to the ground before him, but he didn’t have time to appreciate their reverence, he had somewhere to be. Through the streets, through a pillared gate, along a wide avenue lined with statues of animal-headed gods, his dream forced him to run in search of something it wouldn’t reveal to him. Shortly, he was climbing a path into the cliffs beyond the palatial city, passing artifacts and evidence of past rituals conducted that he didn’t recognize but didn’t consider unusual either. It was as though his modern mind had been transported into a past life – but he was dreaming, and so never had the capacity to analyze it and come to conclusions as his quick-witted brain would want to do if it were conscious. Kaiba simply ran, expecting that he would find the reason his heart cringed within his chest at the end of this path. As the dream progressed, the skies above him grew darker, the air more tense and tinged with the acrid taste of smoke and blood. He burst through another arched gate to come out to a hidden temple at the top of the hill, a stone-paved courtyard populated with several cadres of priests in white robes and shaved heads. They appeared to be in the middle of some ritual, though Kaiba could not begin to fathom what kind. Torchlight flickered on the carved surfaces of giant stone tablets standing on either side of the courtyard, making the monster shapes on their forward faces leap and quiver as though alive. The priests parted to let him through, and he felt himself straighten up and put on a stern frown as he strode arrogantly through their midst, inwardly thinking he needed to find whoever was in charge here and demand to know what hell he was doing there. At the front of the temple stood an altar raised on a dais, surmounted by a huge statue of a jackal whose jet-inlayed eyes glared down on the rows and rows of linen-wrapped priests. Kaiba took the steps to the dais two at a time with his long legs and stared down the priests in funny hats standing there apparently expecting him. Before he could open his mouth to speak, even to ask who the hell they thought they were, one of them stepped forward. “Master Seto,” he addressed Kaiba, “we have brought you a sacrifice.”
Kaiba boggled at him, ready to snap a correction at him for addressing him by his first name, when a struggling figure was dragged out from behind a pillar and positioned in front of him, forced to his knees by guards in gold collars. The slender young man raised his head, but Kaiba knew him even before storm-gray eyes lifted and focused a defiant glare at him. The sight of Alastair there in that past setting made even less sense than any of it, rendering Kaiba speechless. The priests around him prattled on as if he had given his approval, barking orders and shuffling around the dais to prepare their sacrifice. He couldn’t comprehend their intention until one of them called for the prisoner to be brought to the stone, at which Kaiba turned to see the huge carving of the Blue Eyes White Dragon which he had seen in waking visions before. The guards yanked Alastair to his feet and pushed him over to it, where they began to chain him against the stone, his back resting against the dragon’s body and its toothy head poised just over his shoulder. Alastair struggled a little but said nothing, testing the limits of the chains wrapped around his arms and legs before turning a resigned but angry gaze back to the priests, back to Kaiba specifically. Seto couldn’t be sure Alastair was part of this mixed-up past world or another holdover from his, he looked perfectly normal except that he had been stripped to the waist and wrapped only in a linen loincloth of some kind. It was then, seeing him there, hearing the priests behind chattering to “Master Seto,” seeing that the dark stain on the dais beneath the stone tablet was blood, that Kaiba finally understood what they were going to do. The look in Alastair’s eyes became so heartbreakingly desperate that Kaiba tried to cry out in protest, tried to tell them no, this was not his will, but no sound came from his throat. He tried to reach for Alastair, but some fool-headed priest mistakenly thought he was reaching for something else and held out the Millennium Rod to him, which was suddenly not in his belt where it had been before. Gritting his teeth, Kaiba took the Rod and nearly clouted the nearest servant across the head with it, but his arm froze just like his voice had. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, he could only stand there staring incredulously at Alastair’s chained figure, meeting the brave but regretful look in his eyes. Kaiba didn’t want this, any of this, and tried to say so, but he only gaped mutely and shook with the rage at not being able to control his own voice or the arm holding the Rod out. No, no, this isn’t right, he told himself. This isn’t normal, this is all wrong! Alastair shouldn’t be here! I shouldn’t be here! I won’t let them do this, I have to stop them… But his arm would only move to position the Rod pointing to Alastair, who briefly flinched before regaining his resolve and staring it down. The Eye on its head began to glow, then the light spread to Alastair’s body, surrounding him and gleaming on his pale, bare skin. He screamed, only once, and the sound cut through Kaiba’s soul. He closed his eyes and fought against the paralyzing power controlling his arm, finally able to wrench it away and point the Rod somewhere else just long enough for Alastair’s screams in his ears to vanish. This is crazy! he raged inside. I’m done with this! I’m going back – you hear me? I’m putting an end to this now!
Alastair’s nightmare was almost identical to the one he had had a week before, only this time, the consequences were much worse. This time, not only was the plane crashing and he was being plucked safely out of it by the KaibaCorp helicopter that seemed willing to rescue him but not Kaiba, he had to watch in mute horror as the Seal of Oricalcos surrounded his rival, trapping him in its circle and ripping his soul from his body. Alastair clung to the rescue ladder and screamed into the void until his head pounded and his throat felt dry, knowing even more than before that it was useless, that no matter how much he cried for Kaiba to jump and catch his hand, there was no way he would be able to. Not with his soul torn out and shredded, leaving only a lifeless shell crumpled there on the floor of the plane, shrouded in the big white coat. Once again, as before, the helicopter accelerated, whisking Alastair away to safety so that his last glimpse of Kaiba was that of his limp, dormant body disappearing into the clouds, on its way to destruction. Alastair awoke from this dream with a start, fighting against the sheets wrapped around his legs so he could sit up. He sat there panting for a moment, clutching his head in his hands, and then noticed that Kaiba was not in the bed next to him where he had fallen asleep. Glancing up, Alastair found him across the room, standing at the windows, staring out into the moonlit night with his arms folded over his chest. He had thrown a bathrobe loosely over his pajama pants and bare torso, though the room was not very cold even in the deep of night. He must have heard Alastair’s violent start, for he glanced over his shoulder just then. “Something wrong?” he murmured.
Alastair was rather surprised to see him awake and over there in such an introspective pose, but he shrugged off the question with a shake of his head. “No, nothing. I…sorry if I woke you up.”
“You didn’t.” Kaiba returned his gaze to the windows for a moment, but there was nothing out there to really see, so he huffed a sigh and turned slowly around. He stared at Alastair in silence, his face concealed by shadows, until the other man shrank away from him and laid back down on his side, gathering the pillow to him. At that, Kaiba softly added, “You okay?”
“I told you, it’s nothing,” Alastair murmured sullenly, stuffing the pillow under his head with an emphasis born of irritation. The same dream twice in one week, both times after a marvelous night in his lover’s bed – it was enough to piss him off and make him withdraw into himself.
Kaiba stalked back towards the bed, his bare feet noiseless on the plush carpet. He crept up so silently that Alastair’s shoulders gave a little jerk when his voice broke in much closer to him than before. “You had a nightmare,” he observed blankly.
Alastair got over his startlement and sank back into the bedding, the muscles across his shoulders and back relaxing. “It was just a stupid dream,” he grumbled into his pillow. “I want to forget it.”
“A stupid dream that freaked you out,” Kaiba noted in the same low, unhappy tone.
His partner heaved a long sigh but didn’t want to talk about it, and so didn’t elaborate for him. Instead, he shifted his head just enough to shoot a wary look over his shoulder. “What are you doing out of bed at this hour, if I didn’t wake you up?”
Kaiba breathed a similar, heavy sigh and turned to take off his bathrobe and leave it draped over the comfy chair in the corner of the room. “Like you say,” he murmured darkly, “it’s nothing.”
Alastair’s brow twitched as he considered his companion’s choice of words, and finally rolled over enough to look at him squarely over his shoulder. “What, did you have a nightmare too?”
Kaiba gave a small, uncomfortable grunt as he pulled back the sheet and slid back into bed. Truthfully, he had managed to wake himself out of the disturbing, unpleasant dream and gotten up so as not to wake Alastair beside him, instead going over to the window to try to clear his head and sort out whether any of the details of the dream he could still remember were worth clinging to. He knew it was about Egypt, and about Alastair, and it invoked a deep fear that he guarded within himself to such a degree as to leave him a little unsettled. At least until he heard Alastair’s thrashing and sudden gasp of awareness as he shot awake from his own nightmare. Staring out the window hadn’t made the fading memories of the dream vanish entirely, but it soothed Kaiba’s nerves enough that he considered himself able to crawl back into bed. He sat there a moment longer while Alastair flopped onto his back, the necklace he usually wore thudding against his throat as if to punctuate his wordless statement. “I guess you’re right,” Kaiba said to him under his breath. “It was just a stupid dream.”
“We both had one at the same time,” Alastair noted. “Weird.” He shifted his eyes away. “I’m glad you can just turn yours off and go back to sleep. That’s the second time I’ve had that same dream.”
“You had the same dream?” Kaiba looked down at him, his brow knitted in confusion. “Was it the same one you had a week ago?”
“Mostly,” Alastair admitted, glancing warily up at him through his shaggy bangs. “This one was a little…darker.”
Seto studied him for a moment. His voice remained low and a little raw as he spoke. “You want to tell me about it?”
“Not really, no.” Alastair sighed and pulled the sheets up around his chest, beginning to feel a little chilled. “You wouldn’t want to listen to me whine about it anyway.”
“Try me.” Kaiba sat beside him with his weight on one hand, gazing down at him. “I never remember my dreams. Sometimes I think I don’t have any at all. I don’t know why this one stuck with me.”
“I wish I could forget this one,” Alastair said sulkily. “Once was bad enough. Twice is ridiculous. I’m sure it means something,” he added in irritation, beginning to work himself up to the ability to talk about it, “but I don’t want to have to deal with it. That part of me is gone, dead, I hate having it dredged up again. I atoned for my mistakes.” He looked away, his voice growing soft and bitter. “I won’t repeat them, I don’t need some stupid nightmare coming in and accusing me like I would.”
Kaiba eyed him, perplexed. “What are you talking about?”
Alastair refused to look at him, but he answered reluctantly. “I dreamed about our duel on your plane, and watching you go down…watching your soul get taken instead of mine. They rescued me but left you to die, and I couldn’t save you. I tried,” he added remorsefully. “But I couldn’t do anything. It’s like…I’m being punished for something I didn’t do, and wouldn’t do, now. I don’t want to lose you and I won’t rewind my life to that point so I can win instead of lose, so why would I dream about it as if that happened? Stupid…” He grimaced and turned away, clenching his jaw to try to hold his composure in check.
“It’s just a dream,” Kaiba said heavily from behind him. “It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just your subconscious mind recalling old memories, nothing more.”
His partner took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I wish I could be so flippant about it,” he complained. “You don’t know how it felt. It was really vivid…I could feel everything, even my throat getting sore from yelling into the wind. Besides…” The volume of his voice dropped even more, but Kaiba heard every word in the stillness of his bedroom. “…it got one thing right. It played on my deepest fear. It made me really think I was losing you, and helpless to prevent it. That’s the one thing in the whole damn world that I’m afraid of.”
Kaiba listened without reacting, even though he knew exactly what Alastair was speaking about. It seemed to be his innermost fear as well, judging by the eerily similar theme to his own dream, but he wasn’t ready yet to admit it to himself, let alone his partner. He knew there was nothing he could do to make it better, he couldn’t prevent Alastair’s subconscious from messing with him and no amount of cuddling and sweet nothings could stop either of them from clinging to their awkward fears. Yet, he reached out and laid his hand on his lover’s arm, gently kneading the taut muscles with his thumb. “It’s all in your head,” he said plainly. “The more you think about it, the more it’s going to come up when you least expect it.”
Alastair glanced briefly at the hand on his arm, accepting its presence. “Denial works so well for you, does it?” he muttered sourly.
“It’s not denial,” Kaiba sniffed. “It’s the truth. You can either dwell on it and let it eat away at you, or forget about it and move on. It’s your choice.” He withdrew his caress and made to lie down, gathering the sheet in his fist. “I didn’t exactly have a happy dream either, but I’m going to forget about it and go back to sleep. I’d suggest you do the same.”
Alastair remained on his side, closing his eyes tightly to fight against the sudden rush of bitterness in his throat. He never expected Kaiba to go all fluffy and try to cuddle him and tell him it would be all right, but he could have used at least a little comfort just then, rather than the usual unfeeling straightforwardness. Kaiba may have had a point, but he went about making it in just the wrong way. But then, just when Alastair figured he was going to have to get up and leave rather than spend the rest of the night in bed with a partner who didn’t care, that hand came back, rubbing his arm for a moment before tugging on him to get him to roll over and face the source of his irritation. Kaiba lay propped up on one elbow, gazing with a shadow of concern in his eyes. “Look,” he said flatly, “I wasn’t trying to be harsh. I just don’t know what you want me to do. I can’t fight your dream. I can’t even fight my own. All I could do was wake myself up and try to forget about it.”
Alastair lay on his back blinking up at him, understanding at last why he had been over by the window. “I want to forget about it, too,” he breathed, “but…a little comfort would feel nice.”
“You’re in my bed,” Kaiba noted. “What’s stopping you?”
Alastair heaved an exasperated sigh, staring up at the ceiling. Kaiba was completely missing the point, as usual. But he only had a moment to complain to himself about it, for Seto stretched himself out beside him then, tucking one arm under his neck and draping the other over his waist, essentially taking him into his arms. Alastair gave another sigh, a more resigned one this time, and rolled over to meet him halfway, curling up against him. They relaxed together, reveling in the closeness and the warm, tender touch of their bodies against each other, before Alastair murmured one more query. “What did you dream about? Will you tell me?”
“It was stupid,” Kaiba muttered.
“Even so…”
Sighing, Seto gave in. “It was weird,” he stated. “You were in it.”
“Oh?” Alastair lifted his head and raised an eyebrow. “Was that what made it so disturbing?”
Kaiba gave him an annoyed look. “No. That…it took place in Egypt. Ancient Egypt. It didn’t make any sense for you to be there.” He sighed again and slumped against his partner, resting his head so it leaned against Alastair’s and allowed him to breathe his lover’s scent. “Next time that happens I’d rather dream of you in some Egyptian slave-boy outfit instead. That’d be a much more interesting dream.”
Alastair let out a huge snort as he tried to contain his laughter. “Pervert,” he sniffed accusingly.
“Go to sleep,” Kaiba demanded in return, tightening his arms around his partner to keep him close. It seemed to be exactly what Alastair wanted, for he sank into Kaiba and nuzzled his neck, draping his arms around him in turn and settling down. No further word passed between them, and very soon after, both were able to find what had been denied to them earlier – an uninterrupted night’s sleep.
Across the globe, there were others who were also plagued by disturbing nightmares of loss, though they would never be in a position to share that fact with anyone, least of all Yugi and Yami. While those two lay awake in Yugi’s bed, cursing the darkness, at whichever point sleep found them Valon, Pegasus, and Ishizu each experienced an unpleasant dream, though of them only Ishizu’s approached the supreme terror and grief that the dreamers in Domino seemed vulnerable to. Perhaps it had to do with whether or not they had someone so special to them that losing them was the worst torture imaginable. There was one more who awoke in the night from a nightmare, but she managed to escape the worst of it and not disturb her partner’s slumber in the process. Joey could sleep through an earthquake, as he had bragged once, so when Mai stirred and blinked herself awake out of a dark, jumbled dream full of exaggerated monsters from her past, all she could do was give herself a few minutes to catch her breath and think about it. Nightmares exactly like it had bothered her before, they were in fact the reason she had been drawn into Dartz’s service in the first place. But she had long ago put them behind her, and it had been years since one woke her in a cold sweat like this. Being with Joey had warded off the old memories and phantom pain, up until this random night. Mai wriggled out from under the blankets and padded off to the bathroom for a drink of water, and to check herself in the mirror. Though disheveled and haggard as anyone would be in the middle of the night, she was heartened to see that the anger, fear, and loneliness which used to accompany those nightmares wasn’t there in her eyes. She was, in fact, different now. Older, wiser, stronger. And loved, loved deeply. She glanced down at her hand resting on the edge of the sink, and the sparkling diamond set in her engagement ring, and breathed deeply in relief. From there, it was easy for her to sneak back into the bedroom and slink under the covers, curling up against Joey’s warm body. He never woke up, but some part of him responded to her closeness, making him flop over and gather her into his arms so he could slump against her. Mai smiled to herself and let him pillow his cheek on her shoulder, stroking his hair until the motion soothed her back to sleep. After all, she had already experienced the nightmare of losing the one person she loved in reality. Compared to that, no dream could scare her quite the same.