Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Urgency of Life ❯ falling 8.0 ( Chapter 8 )

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

The Urgency of Life

A Seto/Joey fanfic by subaruxkamui4ever

Do not cry, my children. I will not make you suffer that much. This is almost over, and then the pain will end....maybe....unless I write another story right after this, which I might do. Because I was thinking while I was supposed to be working, about Seto and Joey, and I realized that when this is over, my life will be this empty shell. Kinda like Seto, heh heh........(that is not funny, I’m sorry!) A lot of people took a stab in the dark, trying to guess the question in question (HA!), and no one got it. I was impressed, however, at the incredible variety of endings that sounded feasible to me, as well as great potential for newer and sadder stories. And some of them, I have to say, were very tempting, such as Seto asking Joey to marry him before they died, which was SO ROMANTIC that almost died, and then I wanted to delete Seto’s real question, for a moment. Another time, another story, because the tension between them only grows, and I thank the powers that be. But it was so romantic, I just.......can’t............breathe.........aaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH HHHHHHH!

Here begins the end.

He pushed me and I am falling......still. He is falling...somewhere else.......and it all seems to fly by.............

He pushed me, and I am falling…no. No, that’s not what happened. He touched me, and I fell. I fell into this dream. It’s so strange. This sort of thought, that I am aware of.... I know I’m asleep. He put me here. Because he is gone, and he will return to me soon. I hope that he wants to ask me for what I so deeply desire to give him.

I hope he knows the depths of what I hold inside, a place for him that waits eternally.

I hope that he feels the same regret that I feel. We never became complete together.

We felt the same way about each other. Why did we do nothing?

Did I imagine it all? Was it always just me?

Would I ever find out.....? Not if I kept falling. Falling, down, down, away from the answers, away from him, away from the us that never came to be. It was so sad. We were followed relentlessly by each of our own downfalls, and yet were preoccupied with that of the other. Reaching to each other in the dark and feeling nothing, yet refusing to simply turn on the light above. How simple things were, now that they had come to a close. How foolish we both were.

Now that I was inside, looking outwards at he and I, I saw every chance, every moment that we could have said ‘let’s stop this’, and just look at the way we were, it would have made all the difference. I wondered if he felt the regret I felt, in those memories that we shared.

And how badly I hoped, hoped to all I was and he as well, I sent my hope to Seto, as he had asked me to, and I hoped that he would receive it well.

And my final hope was the last thing I would have thought it would be, if I had been asked when Life stretched out endlessly before he and I, before these last days fell through our fingers and were carried off by the gusts of rebirth. But the experience of looking at death through the face of the one I loved most had brought me to a painfully basic and emotionless reality, a world without color or sound, but represented the core of my existence. Thought was effortless and almost tangible here, and the thought that came to me before any other was unexpected, to say the least. But I knew it as I had all along, if I had been more able to see the truth beyond all reason.

I hoped for life. And it plagued my sleep with dreams of moments we shared, caught up in the passion of life, spending time freely in all honesty, the best and most treasured moments of our connected hours.

It was a hope based on nothing. A hope somehow born from the absence of hope. I carried it nonetheless, it was my pure intention for he and I to have lived a part of our time as we both wished we had. We were lost, and there were so many hidden exits we had stumbled upon along the way, but were blinded in the shadows of one another’s sorrow.

It was not too late. It was never too late. There was always hope, and I held it within me.

My dying wish.

My dying gift to him alone.

The hope born from the two of us. But there had never been a two of us, and the hope had yet to be conceived, and I was falling as well...........

I wouldn’t wake for a thing…

Into another dream. A dream of thoughts and feelings from another lifetime…

..... I closed my eyes and said it with my voice. “I’m in love with him.” It sounded gorgeous, and I loved the way the words felt on my tongue. I decided, a long time ago, that this feeling would have to be enough. He would never feel for me the way I do for him......

(I felt this once, it was so long now…this person was not the real me.)

“Seto, will you please escort Joey to the nurse?”

(I remember that, I was so scared. If the teacher had chosen someone else, I wonder...)

“Get in the car. Now.”

(Seto. Shocked at what he had learned, the moment he knew.)

....Seto laughed quietly next to me. “I take it you like it, then? Well, that’s good, because this is where you stay from now on. So close your mouth.” He spoke with his usual rude and commanding tone, but underneath it there was a hint of something that told me he wore a smile

(He kidnapped me. I remember feeling so excited and so terrified. I didn’t know how different everything would be. I died that day, the old me. I sound so different, so young, as if I’ve aged a thousand years since then.)

“I don’t really know why you’ve been doing them. And I can’t fully explain why I need you to stop. But?I don’t want you to die. And you are dying. Very slowly, yes, but killing yourself slowly is a very selfish thing to do. I can see you dying, right here. Every time you use, you die a little bit more. Watching you today made me realize that” He began to act upset, not with anger, but with helplessness, a concept he did not fully understand. This was a situation he had no control over, and he did not know how he could seize that control….

(I wonder if that was the other. After Seto spoke his mind and realized his helplessness. Perhaps he wasn’t acting upset, maybe he was gone for a moment. It didn’t matter at all. Seto was able to be himself fully without fear now.)

We were exceptionally compatible with each other, especially when it came to playing house, which amazes me to this day why we didn’t see it sooner. Our life in his house was happy. Happy may not seem like a very expressive word to describe the rightness I felt being next to him at all times, but it was a feeling I had been searching for. And this was the only place I was ever able to find it, so I give it the proper credit it deserves. He and I were happy....

(We never said a word. I would put regret from my mind, but still I saw where we fell short in fear.)

I was able to see more of the way things really were, between Seto and I. I could now see that his soul and mine were more than coincidentally similar. It was like finding a person whose fingerprints were the same as yours. However, the both of us only owned small bits and unfinished pieces of the same whole, which could only be created by a unified effort from the two of us, together. He owned the other piece of me...

(I was empty still. The knowledge was new then, and promising, but was left unused and collected dust in the absence of our shared desire to move higher together as one. Instead we followed the path that was flat and smooth, with no hills or rocky places, and ended where we started out from. Traveling farther and farther together, but leveled at a permanent altitude and unable to climb even a foot higher, winding farther still until the end was revealed as the beginning, and we now saw our path would never take us anywhere. Here my hope was found.)

I looked like a drug addict. I was hideous. No wonder I hadn’t been able to catch Seto’s eye on my own. I had tried up until now to push the idea to the back of my head, but there wasn’t anything to hide behind now. Seto was intense to look at. He certainly wasn’t handsome, but he wasn’t pretty either. He was lost somewhere between the two, not favoring masculine nor feminine features, instead embodying both. The most attractive features from both sexes were perfectly balanced into a single person, and the end result was breathtaking. And impossible to tear my eyes from.....

(I was so lost. And I hurt him and me both. I remembered, though, these memories were so very important me, and I would never stop remembering. No matter what.)

Feeling an unquestionable trust in him, I melted myself further into the body beneath my own, completely relaxing every muscle in my body, until I could no longer feel where he ended and I began. I hadn’t ever done anything like that before, but with him, it was a moment that I realized I had been searching for, not even fully aware of it.

(I thought back, to all moments we owned, we had never once even kissed. I wish that I had, looking back I saw that he was obvious in his returned feelings for me. It wasn’t that way at the time...or perhaps we were afraid of it. So busy trying to save one another that neither of us rescued anyone, and instead fell together.)

I believed in him. I believed that he would find a way to rescue me from myself, a hope that had never died, once I found it inside me. It was there, and it was nearly gone, but the returning fire of my soul filled the glow of the flames, all that there was, illuminating everything with a brilliant light and it was hopeful, and I had never been...

(And I hoped that he could rescue himself as well. I would give him all the hope I had in me. But I could interfere no more, and I slept, lost in these times that were so beautiful and shined so bright in the shadows ever abundant in his absence. They were all around me and inside me, blinding extensions of our soul that was still sadly in two, and all the attraction and desire in the world couldn’t force us to accept one another and complete ourselves as one.)

I was not tired any longer. But I wouldn’t wake for anything. Anything, save the echoing footsteps that would bring him back, for good and ever. Until that very moment, I would be feeding the place inside that waited for him, filling it with the hope that he had asked me to hold strong. The closest place in the world, reserved for him alone and the many faceted flames that I held inside, reflecting my whirlwind of feelings that were ever present and constantly burning. They were equal in purity and intensity, existing only to be given up when he came to exchange them with his own, if ever it was to happen. I grew lonely from dreaming, and retired into the stillness of our room, listening with infinite patience. And the silence was heavy, holding my eyes closed, slowing my breath, casting it’s spell, to be broken only with the harsh and frozen touch of his skin, signaling his final return, calling me back from our memories.

falling…and he caught my eye, I watched him fall closer…….and not as quickly….slower…

Seto stood as still as he could, and made no noise at all. He was frozen, stiffly upright and tense, staring at the door before him. The door to our room. I lay inside, knowing nothing of the world outside, living out my days in dreams. But he was here now, and he could bring me back, which was his first intention. However, he would first have to open the door….

One hand on the doorknob, and one clenched in a fist of tension, he slowly bent forward until his pale forehead rested against the door, closing his eyes and willing himself to walk inside. It had been done countless times before, with or without me inside, and up until that point it hadn’t been an issue. But he feared that it would be the last time, and he was afraid, as well as nervous as all hell. At least he was still alive, and felt very well, considering the circumstances. It had taken him nearly three days to tie up all the loose ends of his life and work, so many useless papers to sign, papers that would no doubt be filed away forever, yet he had been forced to waste what little time he had shuffling through each and every one of them. It was unavoidable, and he wanted to make sure I would be safe, even if he might not be around to personally see to it. Since every possible outcome of this day stretched infinitely in all directions, he had taken many precautions, allowing for every foreseeable future. His aim, however, was directed at a single end, the destiny he felt was best for the both of us. It shook him deep, where his feelings took root within, knowing he would have to show me every inch of his existence, and he was so afraid of rejection. But it made absolutely no difference whatsoever. Seto was firm, he would not back away. There was nothing and nowhere to back into. His short time closed in all around him, but he felt no pressure and no fear from its approach, it moved nothing as of yet and Seto had a promise to keep. The only priority was his time spent with me now. He had made sure of that, there was nothing that demanded his attention but his starving and slowly dying heart, and me. But his heart, in the end, was my responsibility.

Seto was overcome suddenly with a giddiness that was like that of an anxious young boy confessing for the first time his affection for another. It wasn’t all that far from the truth. Adrenaline rushing through him like a drug, he pushed open the door with a burst of excitement at the promise of seeing me after what seemed like forever, and stepped into the light of day.

falling… but I feel his fall…..so near to me as I fall as well….fall at the same speed…..so slowly

He was close now. I felt him as he drew nearer with each second, pausing for a few moments when he was very nearly upon me. I felt as though Seto were afraid of something, and he remained still for a while longer. Then all at once, a rushing motion swept around my mind where it lay dormant in my soul, and I felt him in a way I never had. He hadn’t been noticeable, only my knowledge of how he felt had shown him to me, but this…. This was a person who was not afraid of himself, and accepted what he did, what he would do now. Confident in the things he felt, and felt so strongly that I thought I could see the soul that owned them approach as though I watched every physical step with wide and open eyes. He entered the room at last, sealing my fate in his determined will to have it finally, what he wanted. Not just the answer, but first the confession, to have it off of him at last, hung in the air between them and finally lifted from his soul already heavy with its own weight. Finally, he could live this out, what he had gone over and over in his mind for what was a short time, but so much more to Seto in the repetition of his desires acted out at last. Coming into the room, his face was already fixated on the bed I then slept in, asleep but still nearly trembling in anticipation, I missed him so much and now he was so close, it was strengthened to the point of madness.

Seto, looking for long moments into my face that was so rested from the state I had remained in, stricken for a moment before forcing his body to approach our bedside, planning on bringing me back. He knelt beside the bed where I had remained since the moment he left, and noticed this fact for the first time, hoping that I was still all right, and not lost or suffering inside. I looked so much better than I ever had, and he realized that there was no drug that could be in my system for this long. The natural cleansing of my body, accompanied by the long and healing rest my body had taken in the time he had passed outside, had dramatically shifted my appearance. I still looked just as I always had as Joey, but the restorative measures had lifted the look of unnatural craving that was usually swimming beneath the surface of my features, and the inescapable pallor of eternal nausea and malnutrition was nowhere to be seen. He found, for the first time, that my skin was not pale at all, it was actually bright, so much that it shone through in tiny rays of sunlight that filtered through and matched my hair that fell onto my face. My features were relaxed and expressionless in rest, no longer oppressed and hidden beneath the overcast clouds of addiction.

This is the sight of me through Seto’s eyes, told through him because I was sleeping in the moments that he felt and thought this about me, and was unable to wake me at first because he simply wouldn’t. He was rather enjoying the view from above, and he took the image into his mind in the deepest and most detailed reflection of that moment, I seemed more alive than anyone Seto had seen before, more alive than he had ever been himself. He did not find me to be more attractive now that I was sober, but he found that the sight of my new state lifted a haze from his mind that had been gripping him with a constant worry. He hadn’t been aware of how alike I was to the actual feeling that Seto could recognize as my presence without a doubt. The feelings that he felt from inside me, the flames that were gold and orange and burning, they burned brighter than the sunlight that shone in through the window behind Seto, laying itself quietly across my face and form, leaving Seto in a shadowy darkness all his own. There was nothing about the two of them that was not a fierce opposite, Seto considered thoughtfully as he wondered if he should stop staring at some point and get on with it. But he was already on with it, in a way. He wouldn’t stop himself from taking what he wanted ever again, and whether he suffered or achieved ecstasy he would not deny another feeling he ever had. They were more precious than he had realized.

“And just as strong as his are”, Seto thoughts came alive as he saw and felt the intensity with which I cried out to him with my affection and desire, never spoken aloud but screaming incessantly in a silent and overwhelming voice that was more audible to Seto than he let on. Or at least, until now. Still kneeling beside me, he set his face with determination and leaned slightly over, reaching out over the bed to me and turning my head so I faced him, unseeing. One of his hands slipped under the sunny bangs that fell in my closed eyes, pulling them over and off of my face. The other hand rested on my cheek, and with the skin on his fingertips he could feel the traces of a healing scab, and he shut his eyes momentarily, how did he feel about this….? Listening to the true feelings inside him was a concept that required a bit of effort on his part, having happily and spitefully walked all over his conscience it for the last seventeen years, crushing it down until it no longer tried to come back. Now that he wanted for it, it happily and spitefully remained crushed, refusing to offer up free information and forcing Seto to retrieve his own feelings by himself.

He followed the trail of injury up and down slowly, taking in the memory and emotions underneath with the tip of his finger, drawing them in and testing his own feelings against them in contrast. He wasn’t hurt, or angry….he was sad, but that wasn’t the one that pushed up above the others…..he felt as if I had done this for a few reasons that were, in light of the mindset he had found me in, somewhat unnoticed by me, and instead projected on to other, more intensely felt reasons that might chase me into a corner like this. He decided that he felt undecided, at least until I revealed myself, but he still held a deep suspicion. He guessed that I had decided that I wasn’t good enough for him to return his affection openly, and instead of growing dissatisfied with the relationship that never progressed, I became dissatisfied with myself. Holding it inside me was too much, and he supposed that I then had to express my unnoticed feelings in some way, resulting in a desired game that I wanted Seto to play with me, played alone on myself. Seto smirked at my seemingly innocent face, as pure as the light it emitted, or at least, appearing that way. He knew better, and his smug and satisfied grin would have gotten something thrown at it, had I been there to defend myself. With that sort of information about the nature of the games I wanted him to play, Seto could cause a lot of trouble….

……….are we still falling….I see you and you see me but the darkness……..is still and silent…

I felt him so near to me, I knew he would come back. Why wasn’t he waking me up? Did he know how? I didn’t even fully understand, I just knew that it would be him alone that could do it. Beside me, he was silent and still, I waited because I had to, but I would have thrown myself into him if I could have. Then, I felt something that seemed like it was in a faraway place, so distant from where I really was. The touch was his without a doubt, it was cloudy and dark, and frozen from within, and I saw the small and stormy rainclouds that followed Seto indefinitely, hanging directly over his head alone and raining on his parade, time and time again. I laughed in my mind, he was such an overdramatic priss that it seemed to extend into his very presence, pettiness and eternal dissatisfaction drizzling behind him, leaving a misty trail that was impossibly difficult and rude. I couldn’t even physically see him and his attitude was making me laugh, and I noticed that I could not laugh aloud, or use my voice at all. Nothing at all was under my possession, I could not move nor speak. I wanted to wake soon.

I wondered what he was doing over there. Was he staring at me? I thought I felt his eyes on me, an unmistakable chill that grazed my face and neck. The longer he held me in his gaze, the less transparent his emotions became, and they began to take the form of thoughts in my mind, echoing in a language I now understood. He saw the way I felt about him, he took it and gave it form, making it somehow more real with his and my belief in it at once. I was fighting against the patience I trapped myself under, I wanted out. I needed to know what he was doing, so still and quiet beside me, but causing me to react so intensely and I called his name as loud as I could, casting it away, waiting for a return. His mind heard me, I felt him withdraw in a panic, probably thinking he’d lost it at last. But then he realized it was my voice that sought him out, stirring him from his thoughts and begging him to release me from my dream.

Seto, upon realizing that the voice belonged to me and not, well…..something else, had been startled back into reality, and saw that I had not moved at all. What he had though was my waking realization had actually been my desperate and lonely cry to help me come back. He hadn’t known that it was something he had to do, and he remembered that I had decided to sleep in his absence, and wouldn’t wake until his return. Seto came into motion, the hand on my face moved down, slipping off and down my neck, reached my shoulder and closed around it, while his other hand mirrored it on the opposite shoulder. He shook me slightly, once and then again, stirring absolutely no movement from my body whatsoever, dead weight in his hands. He suddenly froze for a silent second, then leaned his ear to my lips and held all thoughts and functions where they stood, counting in his mind. ….After a few moments he fell back into place on the floor, sighing an outpouring of relief. What if I’d been gone, all that time, he thought, and then became angry with the thought, frowning down at it in superiority, and standing up in huffy sort of way that only he could do without appearing immature. Climbing over the mattress, he made his way to where I slept and leaned back to sit on his feet, his hands still on the bed before him, offering support. With the leverage of his arms, he bent his head down and closer, to look at my face in detail, watching for signs of life. I still seemed to be in quite deep, and he considered his options carefully. What suspicious recipe for my awakening could call for Seto as the main ingredient and manage to not result in an effectively compromising and experimental situation? He vaguely sensed that he had stumbled into a very strange and slightly promising turn of events, if he laid his cards correctly.

He tried again, this time using his voice along with the original plan of jostling me, and combined the two at once. Which I am now glad was never successful, because it would have been a really irritating way to wake up, even though it was Seto Kaiba doing the jostling. At any rate, he saw the futility and quit for good, now stacking up the remaining options. In all honesty, there wasn’t much else he could see as being more effective than what had already failed. Underneath the surface of the pooling reality, I heard and felt everything that happened to my body, as though it were far above me, just beyond the ripples that spread outwards infinitely, struck into motion from the vibrations caused by Seto’s attempts to pull me out. There wasn’t any way that I could rise to the surface on my own, he would have to reach in and pull me out. I had been drowning for too long now, and had lost my sense of how it felt to live in a place where Time was a constant factor, as well as Motion, here there was only thought, and the navigation through memories and feelings was directed by will. Willing my eyes to open would not work, physical motion required a number of factors that I didn’t remember how to uncover or trigger. So I remained as before, and Seto remained puzzled. He figured that if I could call him so that he could hear me, then it must be easy for me to hear him, which was mostly true, although it wasn’t easy I was listening. It came through a filter, a translator of sorts, that carried his thoughts and feelings into my mind and passed by in a symbolic phrase, so deep in my mind that I was beyond the concept of communication and language, there was no need here. I understood all that happened, seeing Seto and a mix of many things all together at once, the strongest being Failure, and then shortly after it Worry, Fear, Anger, Desire, and finally, Hope. He was very difficult to sort out into any sort of order, but I understood that he was having trouble finding me. But I still couldn’t do a thing for him. I didn’t know what to do either.

Seto, not being one to give up, remained calm and assessed the problem as it was. If I could hear him, maybe he could talk to me and….The idea led to nothing, there wasn’t anything to be accomplished by the two of us having a nice conversation. He was still leaning forward on his arms, and he felt them start to tremble with the strain. Leaning backwards off of them, he sat upright momentarily before collapsing sideways, now lying alongside me so that we were still faced to each other, sharing a common pillow. A moment such as this was Seto’s weakness, as I was asleep and couldn’t do a thing, he was free to stare or speak or whatever he felt like doing, to my dismay or liking. So close were our faces, I could very nearly feel his breath in my mind, and I did respond to that. The breath that I felt was at that same moment tingling my face, the skin on it The remembrance of cold along with the picture of Seto did flick a small switch inside, and I pieced them together and felt….a sensation on my face…my cheek. Which rang a bell in response to the word cheek, I remembered having one of those….

My face was as close to his as he would allow, for the moment. He just stared, wondering what it was that held me down inside, trying to imagine what it must be like for me, thinking about how I was feeling, if I was scared…. It must be like drowning, he concluded, and it was indeed just like drowning, only falling into an easier and less painful place. But a place that I wasn’t meant to live in, only reflect and regret, and then return to the place where I did belong. Not immediately, but after a minute or so of Seto and I lying close like that, faces not far apart, he saw a brief but real movement dash across my features, struggling to break free. He blinked and tensed at once, but he didn’t do anything yet, fearing he would stop doing whatever it was that he had finally gotten right. Thinking fast, racking his mind, back and forth, he saw only the distance between them as the differential factor since before. Anything was worth a shot, and he raised himself up on one arm and shifted closer still, much closer than before but not yet closing the space completely. Sorting himself out, he realigned his body to mine, so that we were in the same position lying on opposite sides, facing each other like a reflection would. A reflection from a mirror that was very, very close. Seto’s head fell on the same pillow as before, the same pillow as me, and lining up our faces, he became still again, watching and waiting. He wasn’t sure if it had been the contact or just the roughness of the shaking that had elicited nothing, so he was hesitant to touch me as of yet, instead opting to wait at least the same amount of time as before. Whatever it was, he knew that it was only effective if prolonged for at least a minute, if not longer, so he counted the seconds, ceasing to even blink. The intensity of the distance between us, along with the feel of that air on my skin frozen from being inside him, it was stronger this time, and it was frightening in its suddenness and its severity, the surface above me rippled and shook, splashing and breaking its stability, and the cloudy darkness cleared for a moment, enough so that I could see a second’s worth of Seto. He was surprisingly close to me, I noticed, and I saw the room behind him, and the shock on his features, which I wasn’t able to see spread because the vision was covered once more with the darkness.

Seto had gasped aloud and then caught it in his throat and he nearly laughed out loud, he was winning again, and winning felt so good. The sharp corners of his mouth pointed upwards in razor thin triumph, he now knew the strategic chain reaction that would claim instant and infinite victory, stealing me away from my dreams, while in the same moment, giving me up to his own. He had already won this game, all he had to do was execute his final stroke, destroying the darkness and rescuing my mind, and he lost all fear in the excitement of victory, it was his, and now I was as well. He played his hand at once, it was the only solution left, and he had the victory even before he called out his final attack. What had caused my eyes to flash open momentarily was a tactic he had tried out because nothing else had worked. He leaned in to my face with his, and cast his eyes so he could still see mine, holding the distance between us motionless, which was really not more than an inch and a half. We breathed in the same air. Seto was patient, not having a problem with the situation, except that I was so close, but still asleep and couldn’t agree or disagree with anything. It wouldn’t be right….would it? Holding his ground, he pushed the impulse away, finding it unfitting to his purpose. He was not here to sneak around the relationship, in fact, he was hoping to tell me that, if I ever woke up. Then I had that moment of sight, which was a response to everything he had ever wanted my response from, and Seto was instantly mad with the terribly fortunate double victory, and savored the moment, before finishing me off. In one fluid moment, he gracefully closed the remaining space between his form and mine, skating across the distance until we not only met in the motion, but he found himself slightly above as well, and he waited for just a moment, knowing I couldn’t stop him. Taking it all in, he lost his triumphant look and took on another, a strange one that didn’t fit around his features as well as the others. It hadn’t been used as much, and it felt as strange at it looked, as he felt nothing of the victory and was shocked inside, but far too busy in the moment to acknowledge. He wished that I had been awake, my look would surely reflect his, and he would recognize on my face an expression that was unfamiliar on his own. But I wouldn’t come back until he came to get me, and with that final thought, he descended into the same closeness as before, waiting and watching my eyes for the second to strike. After a short while that was painfully longer to Seto, my reflex to his close proximity struck, and my eyes opened, the way was clear.

He jumped, and in my mind I saw the surface above me illuminated with the glimpse of Seto and light, and with it, almost in the same breath, the ripples that calmly spread around the separation froze, and then shattered, sending a chain of destruction in every direction, showering the darkness with the splinters. And the emptiness above was no longer calm and weightless, it forced gravity upon me. I was drawn outside of myself in a rushing motion that was a shock to my dormant mind, and I returned to my body in a blind panic. I found the familiarity immediately, and all in one second I remembered everything, and almost forgot about the way it felt in my mind right then and there. The only thing that I found to be unfamiliar was what I was doing, evidently had been doing, was still doing, regardless of familiarity or not. Coming back into the realm of touch and taste, I found my body under a physical assault that I had not been able to connect to until just that moment, when all of it came together at once in a recognizable and tangible place and time. Seto had done what I needed, he had woken me from my dreams, and done so by way of a kiss. A kiss that I had returned, been returning, and found myself completely helpless to not return still. But it broke apart, slowly he drew back for just a few centimeters, to see if I was really awake and there. Just far enough to see my open eyes, wide and full of surprise, and underneath it, the first part of a smile.

“Joey?” No one moved at all. No one wanted to. Finally, the ring of avoidance had been broken, and although it had been unavoidable, it was still appreciated by the both of us. Feeling nearly an inch of lonely space as miles that stood between my lips and his, I spoke in return, and the movement of my words caused a dangerous stirring. “You’re here…will you stay here until the end…?” As I spoke, I felt a slight touch, once and then twice, signaling the accidental brushing of my mouth against his in the innocent motion of speaking, resulting in a less than innocent consequence involving both participating parties. Still, neither one of us dared to move, no one was willing to break the moment, the highly anticipated closeness that we were sharing and still thought might not be real. Seto answered after a few seconds, his eyes filled with fear and confidence, somehow able to feel both instantaneously. “I refuse to be anywhere else. Will you help me finish this?” I nodded with a slight smile. I would do anything he asked. He was glad for it, and released some of the nervousness that tensed his body, which I realized right then was on mine, directly on mine, and with the realization I blinked at him, becoming nervously tense myself. I had no further time to react, however, before the empty space was filled, neither one of us admitting to responsibility but were both to blame for it. We met in the middle once again, only this time I was awake and aware, and desperately willing. The inevitable and terrible future that was upon us would have to be patient for a moment.

AN: I couldn’t do it. I’m so weak! Actually, I just wasn’t aware that all this gooey crap would happen, and I realized that I had a lot of pages on my hands, so why not post this? There’s not much left to happen and I knew the final events would take some time, so I did all the building in this chapter so I could just jump into the end next. And after everything goes down (when the shit hits the fan, as you might say) and it’s all over, there will be a short last chapter epilogue kinda thingy, so don’t run out after the next chapter, because the end will be more sad than it should be, everyone will be in the moment and whatnot, and know how emotional these boys can get….