title: Consulo
pairing: Jou x Yami Yuugi [Jou x Anzu, Jou x Yuugi]
rating: M
summary: You can't move when you don't want to. Can't say goodbye when you are not ready. Can't let go when its all you've got.
notes: This isn't what I want it to be, because I ran out of time. There was a lot more to it, but deadlines must be met and life gets in the way so this is it. It came out a lot more cliche-y too. -.- but ahhhh well. Please ignore all the major spelling errors, I didn't have enough time to edit them.
--
They say when you die, the last thing you see is what you wanted most life.
Jou couldn't say that was what he saw. He just saw the gate that Pharaoh had walked through, and just like the last time, every other sound that surrounded him was gone. Just Atemu's (that's his name now, not Pharaoh, not Yami, not Yuugi's other, he was seperate now.)
Separate and walking out of their lives for good.
Jou never got to say good bye.
--
Yuugi had asked once how they were meant to go back now. Jou said he didn't know, that this was the end and they had to keep walking. That's what the Pharaoh wanted, Yuugi. He kept going, even after death, he'd kept going.
So Jou kept it together, when they couldn't. It was what the Pharaoh would have wanted. But privately he wondered what anyone would think of them? They were quiet and apart more then they had ever been. But Yuugi had not shrunk back, he knew his Aibou would never stand for anything less then full attention to life. Anzu loved a little less loudly, but more proudly. Kaiba lost some his cold edge. Honda kept his eyes more directed on his goals.
It was all different, but no one else could tell. They existed in a bubble. Never really going backwards or forwards. But just going.
--
"Yuugi, it's been almost a year, what are we doing?"
"I don't know Jou. It's getting easier I think."
"Do you ever think you hear him?"
"Sometimes, Jou, sometimes."
"Good, cause I do to."
..
"Your lying Yuugi."
"What?"
"This isn't getting easier, for any of us."
--
It was the sixth day of may, for apparently being 'spring' Jou still needed a jacket this early in the morning. His in between job as a package boy meant before dawn rises if he wanted to get a lunch break before late afternoon. In the false dawn light he scratched his head, sipping his hot coffee and wondered if it was this cold on desert mornings in Egypt.
I should ask the Pharaoh.
He shook his head. Two years, and still...
Still nothing to show for himself. He didn't know what he wanted. Yuugi had striven forward, becoming world reknowed in Egyptology, knowing the history with the most uncanny precision.
We've been there. Jou muttered to himself. We've been there.
--
It had been a late night and it was the middle of the summer now. He'd pulled off his shirt and wandered around his apartment. He was a little bit drunk and a little bit tired, had had a couple of beers with the guys at work. He sat in front of his television and wondered if it was the same for his father? Was this how it started for him?
Yeah he supposed it was, but it was different for him. Different for Jou, because the Pharaoh taught him that hiding from fears was worse then facing them...
He'd just settled into a doze when there was a knock at the door.
Groaning, he moved to the door and felt his breath caught.
Yuugi had grown.
"Yuugi, its been a long time..." He cast his eyes down.. it was too much. No doubt Yuugi did it without knowing or understanding, but he had become.
"Yeah Jou, it has."
Jou stepped back, eyes flicking to the body -- upup -- the shoulders that were now broad -- the soft curve of his neck. He didn't look any further.
"Can I get you anything?" the wind moved behind him as he strode into the living room.
He'd gone Jou, stop believing it. Stop it.
"Just water is fine."
Jou went to the fridge and pulled out a bottle and threw it to Yuugi without -- again -- looking at him.
"Jou is there something wrong?"
"No Yuugi there's nothing wrong..."
He went to take a seat on his couch and Yuugi followed.
They entered into a idle banter, talking about old things -- how Yuugi had been doing, how Jou had been keeping, how Serenity had taken to her new job.
After a while of normal topics they stopped, "Jou are you sure there is nothing wrong?"
Jounichi paused. To tell the truth? To tell of the bad dreams, and how much deju vu started to cause so much pain that he wasn't sure if he could keep this up much longer.
No, no he couldn't, to anyone else, but not to Yuugi, not the one person that would really understand.
"Nah Yuugi, just having a bad day. It's just a bad day."
--
The months rolled by, with Yuugi back in town things adjusted to a new rhythm. He began to see the old gang a bit more -- the quiet isolation apart from a night down in the pub with Honda every few weeks and dinners with his sisters ended.
He hadn't realised how far he'd let everyone go -- he was Jounichi Katsuya, always having a good time. Loud. Boisterous. Fun.
Unresolved grief did funny things to people.
Not that he realised what it was -- he thought it was just growing up.
Instead it was Anzu.
They sat there at a party Yuugi was throwing, with people he did know and others he didn't. Always game to meet new people, especially if they were friends with Yuugi,. he did his best to mingle. But it felt flat after awhile. Still he continued, making jokes with Honda as he always had and outwardly he knew he looked no different, and it almost felt the same.
Untill that quiet tap on his shoulder. He turned to see Anzu. Older now, a woman. He'd seen her briefly across the room and promised himself he would talk to her when he knew he didn't have the guts. She smiled and asked to speak to him for a minute alone. He nodded, put down his drink as she took his hand and led him to Yuugi's bathroom. He sat down on the edge of Yuugi's bathtub and looked at her, questioning what she was up to.
After she finished locking the door, she sat down beside him.
"How long Jou?"
"What?"
"How long have you been stuck like this?"
He looked away. Did she know?
"Stuck like what?"
"The same thing I am."
He looked at her again, he couldn't see anything different.
"No Jou, not that -- your still waiting for him to come back, aren't you?"
Jou paused. Yes, she did know.
"It's not that -- It's -- It's -- " he mumbled.
Her hand touched his face. "It's to hard, I know it is."
They looked at each other then, really and truly. It wasn't some cliche, because he didn't see in her eyes the same pain that was in his. There wasn't some breathless moment when it all came together like a story book romances. They weren't in love with each other and they never could be. Not totally.
So when he kissed her, it wasn't passion filled. It was slow and painfull. Because it wasn't whom either of them wanted.
When they got back to his apartment, he felt no urgency till as she lay naked and her chest heaving with force at which they were moving he didn't feel it till her body arched sharply up and his name -- Atemu, Atemu. His name, his name -- he felt that grief, the slowly corrupting grief just... go.
Finally, he said goodbye.
--
afterahardday