Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Eidolon ❯ An Unstable Relief ( Chapter 2 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

A Seto/Joey fanfic by Katsuya Kaiba

AN: This story is doomed to sadness. Can you see it, in the distance? I can. But still, it will be fun while it lasts. I think that phrase pretty much sums up my entire writing career. But I don’t think the rating for this story will ever go above PG-13, except to allow for bloody things and such. I highly doubt that any lemons will be in our midst, although you never know. I may get brave someday, although the limey flavor of that one chapter in The Urgency of Life is about as far as I have ever gotten. I fear the lemon, for I may never do it justice. But if it seems relevant, then I may have no choice. Enough banter. More story.

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Seto had not been home last night, and the fear that consumed my mind at that conclusion was swift and overpowering. I simply stood in silence, not quite knowing what to do next, until without any warning a voice arose from behind me, and I became motionless in disbelief.

“Joey!”

I screamed and turned to face him. Seto Kaiba was alive and well, and stood before me. I was so relieved at the sight of him that I felt my body threaten go limp under my own weight. I leapt into his arms and leaned against his steady form as he supported me in an embrace that spoke endlessly. He didn’t say anything right away, seeing my startled panic and then sudden relief at the sight of him. Instead he silently offered what I so desperately needed right then, Seto himself. I needed to feel him above me and all around me as I did right then, solid and real, and living, just as he had been before that terrible nightmare. Could it have really been just an insignificant dream?

“Seto, I was so scared. I...I had an awful dream, and...you weren’t there when I woke up ...” As I tried to explain my panic and irrational fear, I realized that I still had no idea how he had managed to escape me until just now. I forgot my shakily spoken explanation and pulled away from his embrace just far enough to see into his gaze, which was fixated upon my troubled countenance.

“Seto? Where have you been all this time? Did you just get home? I know that you haven’t been to bed tonight....I was so scared when I woke up, alone...” I gave him a fearful look of worry that I hoped would convey the intense feeling of loneliness that had taken me in Seto’s absence, along with the added burden of the graphic and inexplicable visions I had experienced in the dead of night. He drew his arms closer together, pushing me slowly but firmly back into his supporting hold, and I relaxed myself into him once again, instantly forgetting that I had been alone at all. Thinking back, I supposed that it really didn’t matter anymore, now that Seto was here with me. Perhaps he had worked all night and had just walked in the door. Whatever it had been, it was over now, and he was here with me. I didn’t care about anything else. We stood there for quite awhile, he giving me support as I tried to shake the nagging feeling that worriedly stirred inside my heart, as if I had forgotten something so very important. But Seto could feel my unrest, and he spoke, trying to shake the fear that had latched into my heart.

“Don’t worry , Joey. Nothing can keep us apart, not now. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to chase away your nightmares, but I’m here now...and it was only a silly dream, nothing more. I know you and I will be together forever, and no dream of yours will be able to take you away from me”. Feeling his honest and guileless words as they sunk deeply into my mind, and then even deeper, until they had calmed me completely. I tightened my hold around his waist for a moment and hugged him as forcefully as I could before releasing him, and together we slowly made our way towards the kitchen, with me in the lead. Seto always knew just what to say to me.

Even after living each day with him for over two years now, Seto still manages to amaze me every time he freely expresses such affectionate words to me, even though he only does it when we are together and in private. Before he and I became a couple, I would never in a thousand lifetimes have believed that Seto was capable of speaking to anyone the way he had moments ago, and even now after we have been a pair for quite some time, the Seto of old feels like a distant and long forgotten memory, or a friend that has passed on and is not missed at all. I hated the former Seto and was so glad to be rid of him, even though I now knew that his actions had been driven by the real Seto’s misunderstood and repeatedly ignored feelings towards me. The Seto Kaiba underneath it all was the one that I loved so much, and secretly I knew that I wished to spend the rest of my remaining days with him and no other. I never wanted our shared sensation of limitless expression to come to an end, not ever, not even in the face of death. I wanted us to be this way forever, and never before had I felt any doubt in the two of us or our future until that very morning.

There was an unidentified and very unwelcome feeling that faintly cried out from within my heart, an unmitigated sadness and a sense of hopelessness that hadn’t been there yesterday. I knew without question that I had never felt this way before, and yet I sensed them inside my heart as if they had always been there, without even knowing the reasons why I felt such things. The only reason I had was that damn dream. The unsolicited emptiness that had been left inside me, that residual silent and solemn taste in the air....I felt as if it was just something that I needed to forget before I could allow my mind to fully remember. From what I could still recall of the vision, the known pattern of events that had eventually led to Seto’s final death scene, and all of the accompanying emotions that I now carried inside me felt frighteningly familiar in a way, a new breed of familiarity that hid in the dark corners of my mind and waited patiently, revealing itself solely through indecipherable nightmares.

It was almost as though I had already experienced that dream previously. But I knew for certain that it could not be so.

Abandoning my worries and ignoring the last traces of sadness , I turned my full attention to Seto as we came to the kitchen. He met my eyes when I finally faced him, searching my gaze for the reason behind my silence. I tugged at Seto’s sleeve and gave him a genuine smile that instantly reassured his uneasy and questioning stare, and his stiffened posture lost some of it’s tension. My grin broadened as I remembered that Seto had worked until the morning, and as the question formed in my head, my discerning smile alerted Seto to my formulating plan. He answered me before I had a chance to ask.

“No, I am not going to work today, so yes, you can waste all our time as you see fit. But Joey... I feel a bit strange this morning, but it’s no doubt due to lack of sleep. Do you mind if I take a nap?”

“Not at all,” I replied, and followed in his footsteps as he and I both climbed the staircase silently, and upon entering together I immediately headed for our bed, while Seto continued toward the closet on the far end of the room to change. I decided that perhaps a nap might be beneficial for the both of us, as the restless sleep I had gotten last night had left me far more weary than I had been when my head first hit the pillow. Seto climbed in beside me moments afterward and slid sleepily under the covers, lying on his side in order to face me, and I followed his lead and rolled over to lie where I could see him as well. We both fell immediately.

I had a dream that morning, but it was not the same as before. This dream was even less comprehensible, and it left me with a noiseless and foreboding shadow of a doubt. A doubt that I found in my heart, and was directed at the possibility of a tomorrow.
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