Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Steaming ❯ Steaming ( Chapter 1 )

Disclaimer: I don't own them.

AN: Oneshot time. Yami/Yugi rambling musingness. No one else can save me now but you...

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I don't like it in here.

It's too cold and too empty and too miserable and too vast for even a chosen mortal to comprehend.

But I'm here. Waiting.

He'll run back to me soon. He always does.

He wanders the corridors and searches in darkness but never finds anything but the shadows that slip like sand through his fingertips and memories tattered and frayed by desert winds of long-ago summertimes and nevers.

He'll try and hunt down the past - but what past is there to find?

He doesn't know, and the yearning aches in his eyes. A creature so restless as he cannot bear the unknown - and yet such is his very soul.

He hates it.

Sometimes he hates himself.

Sometimes he'll rant and scream and slam his fists onto unfeeling stone and sob until his throat is raw and his flesh is torn and bleeding. He can't understand why he does what he does, why he doesn't know what he doesn't, and he can't understand just why things are the way they are.

The fearless Game King bows before no challenger save himself.

He's the one thing he can't conquer, and it drives him mad. The shadows and echoing stillness that hide the deep well of his power wear away at him, eat him from the inside, and it's all I can do to soothe the ache, never mind to seal the hurt.

All the things I'll never do...

I give him me, why isn't that enough? Why can't he let it go? Maybe I'm being selfish and greedy, but damn it, what about me? I've tried to give him everything... but I have nothing to give except me.

Me?

What am I but a pale reflection of him?

He says it isn't true. When we stand in front of the mirror, though... he'll sift his hands through my hair and press his lips to my cheek, and those are the times when I fear for us the most. He calls me his aibou and holds me and breathes his promises over my skin - but I look at us and wonder, who are we?

Soulmates? Partners? I would take him to my bed if I had the courage... but would that be right?

What is right? If the light is entangled in darkness and the darkness clings to light for a broken salvation, what is right? If the world tries to shred your soul for the sake of eternity, how do you choose your path?

And if that path is shared, whose dreams do you follow? Are your dreams even different? Searching the skies for your star - when that star lives within the darkness? Within yourself?

When he stares over my shoulder and the puzzle weighs down my chest like something beyond human comprehension...

He holds me so tight my ribs hurt, but I can't breathe and I don't want to. Would it be easier to die than to live like this? At least we would be together... or would we?

I can't let him go now. And he refuses to even contemplate it. These days, he won't even let me go save when he drowns in himself - and even then, I'm still there.

He touches me more than anyone I've ever known, even my grandfather, even my mother. Even Anzu.

Never anyone else. He avoids human contact - can't stand a friendly hand on his shoulder or a shy touch on his skin. But me?

He'll stare at me with hungry eyes and draw breathlessly close and caress my hair and body and pull me down beside him when we're safe and alone together. In those moments after school and before dinner, I do my homework, sprawled out over my bed with a drowsy-eyed pharaoh tucked into my side.

And in the shadows of midnight, we lie tangled together, as quiet and uncertain as children. Any passerby might take us for lovers - would it be so bad if we were? I'm the only thing he's ever cared for... but would he even know how to love me?

He can't even understand himself, so how can he understand me?

He doesn't understand why I cry for him. He's caught up in his own misery - and can't seem to realize that the light hurts just as much as the darkness.

I cry for us.

And he weeps in my arms for our loss. He clings to me - I'm the only thing he knows is true and real. I'm the only one who knows his secrets and the endless winding corridors of his soul... and I'm the only one who can make him smile.

I love him. I don't know why, I don't know how, I don't know if it's right or wrong or sick or horrible or perfect. I don't know anything.

But I love him.

And I think, if he knew how, he would love me too.

But we don't know anything!

He's screaming in the darkness now, pelting down the endless corridors without sound or motion or light, frantic because he needs me and I need him and we're both slowly choking on ignorance and confusion and agony so bright it borders on bliss.

He rushes through a doorway and leaps down a staircase and crashes into my arms in a rush of madness and darkness and heat.

It's cold here.

The shadows are swirling in agitated awareness around us, but I can't care about that. I hate it, I hate it and I love it and I don't know what to do.

He doesn't know what to do.

And we sit in the silence together, his hands tangled in my hair and my arms wound tight around him, his breath soft and ragged over my skin.

And we can't stop crying.

I hate this.

I love him.

He slides his hands beneath my jacket and pushes me to the ground, pins me down with the weight and heat of him, but all he wants is to touch me, to feel me, to make sure I'm alive and all his no matter what.

I love him.

He's sobbing against my skin, and I'm soaking his clothes with my tears, and we can't even care.

We're the prisoners of a past we can't remember, and a future we don't understand. All we have is the present - and it's slipping away too fast. There's nothing to hold on to except each other now...

It's not enough.

It's too much.

God, I just don't understand...

I kiss his hair and his thick eyelashes and just maybe, just maybe I'll kiss the soft curve of his mouth... except I'm crying too hard to see past my tears.

I'm just his present...

But shouldn't that be enough?

I don't understand... but he doesn't either.

/I love you,/ I whisper, and I know he knows it's true. All the things we can never hide from each other...

He shivers and presses tighter against me, rubbing his cheek against my own, slick and salty with our shared tears. His soft bangs tickle my skin, but I can't smile. //...I need you,// he breathes, and brushes his lips against my neck. //Need you...//

God... /I know./

I know.

And even though we're together... even though nothing can tear us apart... the darkness still longs for the return of its favorite son... and the light still tears at my soul.

No! I won't live without him! I won't!

//I'll destroy the world to stay with you,// he whispers, and cups my chin in his hand, his eyes so dark and so strange...

I lean up and kiss his lips to silence him, because I don't want to hear, I don't want to think about it, because it's the only thing that I know is true.

And when he moans and slides his tongue into my mouth and whispers a choked plea in words I can't understand but understand so well...

I know that I would never stop him.

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AN: ...so what is salvation? And what is love?

Feedback: mjalta@yahoo.com

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