Title: See You In Your Dreams
Ship: Nasch x Durbe
Chapter: One||Words: 806
Genre: Romance, Angst||Rated: G
Challenges: Diversity Writing, YGO soulmates, B11, 750-850 words; Zexal Week 2020, #7, Free Day
Notes: I did say I might write a Tomoshipping soulmate-in-dreams AU. So, here it is!
Summary: Soulmates meet one another in their dreams. That can be very useful, when Nasch has gone missing. Or can it?

Durbe kept his eyes closed. He didn't remember when he'd closed them; only that he'd gotten into his seldom-used bed, pulled the blanket over himself, and tried to sleep.

Barians didn't sleep like humans did. They didn't need it. But they could, if they chose to, and it could sometimes be a way to pass the time when nothing else would do.

Now Durbe chose to use sleep to find Nasch, and hopefully Merag as well. If he could just get to sleep. If the world would fade away and he would find himself somewhere else…

He wasn't sure of when it happened. Only that it did. He no longer lay in his bed in his quarters in the Barian's great castle. He walked beside an acid river, tiny hisses rising upward as the water splashed against scarlet rocks. He'd been here before, in the waking and the sleeping worlds.

Beside him there strode someone like him – someone that he'd not seen in too long. His hands reached for Nasch's and found Nasch's reaching for him.

"You're alive," he whispered, voice choking. How long had he searched How long had he hoped for even the faintest hint that his beloved king still lived somewhere?

Nasch had no mouth but there was a sense of a smile regardless. It wasn't a very happy smile. "I don't know."

Durbe tilted his head. "What do you mean?" He wanted to know where Nasch was, what had happened, everything.

"I don't know if I'm alive or not. I don't know where I am, Durbe. Except here with you." Nasch shook his head. "I don't even know how long I can do this. Something doesn't feel right. It's not like it was before when we did this."

When they met in their dreams. It had always been so, for as long as Durbe and Nasch both could remember. On those few occasions when they slept, they always dreamed, always walking together by this river, hand in hand in moments if they hadn't been before.

Durbe tightened his grip on Nasch's hands. "What happened? We've been looking for you since you and Merag both vanished. We even asked Vector." If he'd had a mouth his lips might have quirked. "He said he hadn't seen you."

"I couldn't say. I don't remember." Nasch shook his head and Durbe that look in his eyes. Nasch should never look this confused or upset. Ruling the Barians wasn't easy but he'd always done it so well. "I forget things, Durbe. I think when I'm awake – I won't even remember this."

Durbe's heart beat a touch faster. "Why not?" To have these fleeting few moments with Nasch – that was almost worse than having nothing at all. "Who did this to you?"

"I don't know." Nasch held onto Durbe's hands. "But I'll find you again, as soon as I can. I will come back to you."

Durbe's hands tightened on Nasch's as well. "I will find you. Nothing can stop that."

They did not kiss as humans would. But power flowed between the two of them and Durbe could feel every emotion within Nasch's heart, a connection so pure and so open that if he'd been awake and on his feet, he might well have fallen over from the beauty of it.

He sort of wanted to fall over anyway. His entire body shivered just from being so close to Nasch, not to mention the bittersweet knowledge that it could be centuries before they did this again. He didn't want to let Nasch go. He wanted to find a way to be with Nasch forever, as they thought they'd been as Barians.

Nasch slipped his hands out of Durbe's and resting them on Durbe's shoulders, right where Durbe's jewels were. If being touched before had been amazing, this was breathtaking, exhilarating, beyond the capability of words to express. A soft noise fell out of him and he leaned forward, breathing hard.

Barians didn't need to breathe anymore than they needed to sleep, but there were times when breathing simply was necessary, no matter what.

He would have done the same for Nasch, if he could have moved his hands. Instead, he circled them around Nasch's waist, and they leaned against one another, giving and receiving as they had before.

Durbe usually didn't mind waking up from the dreams he shared with Nasch. Often they continued where they left off. But to open his eyes and see that he was in alone in his bed – Durbe sighed and slowly sat up.

He's out there. She's out there. I will find them. He had no idea of how or when but he would find them – and whoever tried to take Nasch and Merag away from the Barian World would pay for it.

That was a dream that would come true.

The End

Notes: May visit this another day. But for now, Zexal week is over! I had fun!