Binding Circles

Title: Binding Circles
Part: 5/?
Author: Shamise
Genre: Fantasy, Romance
Pairings: Puzzleshipping, aka- YYxY
Disclaimer: I dont own Yu-gi-oh.
'Thoughts'
"Speech"


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Slowly, Yuugi’s mind began to rise to consciousness. His body shifted restlessly against something smooth and hard, trying to gain a more comfortable position so that he could go back to sleep. Patches of light breached the thin layer of his eyelids, providing further discomfort and ultimately forcing him into wakefulness.

Four of the five senses of the body gave him a hazy image of where he was. Salt water could be heard and felt as it lapped against something nearby and a small breeze drifted through his hair. He was laying on a smooth surface that had random groves that gave it the feel of a water worn stone, and it was comfortably warm and dry which meant that the sun was well into the sky already. Something rustled in the wind, and Yuugi’s subconscious declared it to be some kind of tree.

Waking up to these stimuli wasn’t something he hadn’t done before. There had been many time where Yuugi had spent the night camped out on the rocks in his cove after a late night swim. He would always wake up to a frustrated Grandpa who would rant on about the possible side effects that never happened. So, when Yuugi cracked open his eyes this time he didn’t make a big deal out of the surrounding rocks and the lapping water that was only a few feet away

His mind crawled out of the sleepy haze that had fallen over him, absently running over that crazy dream he had. He remembered the sense of helplessness that had flowed over him as the really strange version of a merman had restrained him. The whole scenario was like an extremely weird cross between ‘The little Mermaid’ and some horror flick. ‘I’ve got to stop watching those late night movies on the sci-fi channel.’ He thought as he pulled himself up, sitting cross-legged on the smooth rock.

Yuugi’s back arched as he stretched, curling his hands above his head before going to run the sleep out of his eyes. A faint jingle and brush of cool metal against his left forearm caused him to glance confusedly at said appendage.

‘What on earth…’

His once blurry vision focused on the thin, golden wristlet that adorned his pale wrist. Three small rubies were encrusted on the metal, evenly spaced between each other. If the sun wasn’t so high in the sky Yuugi would have said that they shone with there own light. Twisting his wrist around to get a view of the rest of the strange ornament, his eyes caught sight of some writing engraved in between two rubies. At first, Yuugi thought the word meant something in another language, but a strange intuition made him think of it as a title or a name. The actual writing was unfamiliar to him, the language not being in his vocabulary, yet for some unknown reason he could easily read the name. Without really knowing what he was doing, he began to sound out the strange characters.

‘Aa…ti? No, that’s an e. Hmm, A-te…mmu. Atemu.’

“Atemu.” Yuugi whispered, testing the name on his tongue. It sent a shiver down his spine, and caused goose bumps to speckle his flesh. He couldn’t help but feel as if he had just called something to him…

‘Why does this thing look so familiar?’ Yuugi pondered in an attempt to ignore the strange feeling that swept over him. ‘I don’t remember buying it…and I know that Anzu didn’t get it for me. Wait a minute-’ Pieces of his dream flashed back to him, clouding his inner eye with scenes of that strange creature and that very same bracelet. ‘It can’t be the same one.’ Yuugi futilely tried to assure himself. ‘I could have found it in Grandpa’s old stuff and hit my head while diving. Yes, it’s a possibility.’ A very slim one although. Yuugi hadn’t misjudged distance in a long time, and he still couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe his dream…wasn’t really a dream.

His eyes quickly flinted from the entrancing gold to his surroundings; his entire being was hoping to find himself to be in his cove. A hard lump settled in his stomach when realization struck home. The rock walls encasing the area were not similar to the ones in his cove. They stood tall like a fortress and their surface was smooth like the small stones he would find in tide pools, leading Yuugi to believe that this area was indeed submerged in water on a periodical basis. The flat outcropping that he sat on was right up against the water’s edge, and off to one side it angled shallowly into the water. The edge opposite where the water meet the stone was connected to a perpendicular wall of similarly smooth stone, and a lone palm tree sprang from a singular crack in the stone’s surface.

‘Where on earth am I?’ His inabilities to recognize his surroundings proved that this cove wasn’t anywhere near the coast on which he grew up, for he had investigated every crook and cranny of space over his lifespan of 16 years. A dull sort of panic filled his bowels as he tried to reason his presence here. On one hand, he could hypothesize that he had hit his head somewhere and washed up here during a tide. On the other hand, he could admit that his dream was real and that that creature had dragged him here after almost drowning him. Neither of these theories were very desirable, one of them dealing a blow to his pride as a diver and the other questioning his sense of reality.

Plop

Yuugi’s head spun around in such a sudden reaction that he was sure that he heard the vertebrae pop. Raising a hand to soothe the resulting ache, he scanned that waters warily for the source of the noise. ‘…It was probably just a fish…’ He tried to assure himself, even going so far to scold his imagination for flashing the image of that creature before his inner eye.

Splash

Scared violet eyes jumped across the rippling surface of the water. ‘It’s just a fish…just a…fish.’ A really, really big fish by the looks of the shadow that glided under the rippling liquid. ‘Well…there go my plans of swimming away.’ Not that he had actually decided to do such a thing. He wasn’t so stupid or desperate to tread in unknown waters…not yet, anyway.

Yuugi scooted back, trying to get as far away from the water’s edge as he could. He barely made it two feet before his back hit the perpendicular rock face. He could make a break for that palm tree, but unfortunately for him it was over by where the ledge angled off into the water.

Plop, splash

His vision was fasted onto the continually rippling water. The dark shadow of the fish centered in on one point as it rose to the surface. Yuugi’s heart beat wildly in his chest, and a strange itch settled in his left arm, tingling through his veins like static electricity. He flattened himself against the rock face as a foreign creature revealed itself, oval head rising out of the water. A startled scream ripped through his throat before his imagination settled down. The creature before him wasn’t some mythical being bent on eating him.

It was a human being like himself.

“D-don’t do that!” Yuugi exclaimed, his hand moving to still his pounding heart. His other hand flew into the air to emphasize his point. He pointedly ignored the strange bracelet that jangled around his wrist, and he didn’t catch how the other human’s eyes light up at the sight of it.

This new human looked to be the same age as Yuugi, give or take a few years, and he waded in the water with a half confused half amused expression on his angular features. Ebony black hair laid dripping around his shoulders, some of it drifting in the water, and a dampened maroon outlined the teen’s hair. Streaks of highlighted blond weaved the dark color, and similarly colored bangs had a drooping, jagged shape. The teen’s eyes weren’t as large as Yuugi’s and held an extremely interesting shade of red-violet; it was almost like there was a base color of gold under a stunning layer of deep violet with streaks of crimson interlacing both colors.

‘Gorgeous,’ was the only word he could think of to describe what he was seeing. The fact that the teen was male didn’t seen to deter his appraising thoughts, and he had the grace enough to blush in embarrassment when he realized that he had been staring. His body relaxed against the rock face, relieved to a certain degree that his imagined fear wasn’t a reality.

“You scared the living daylights out of me.” Yuugi said before his head could catch up with his mouth. He couldn’t help but notice the dark shadow that drifted where the teen’s legs should be. ‘He’s probably wearing black swimming trunks.’ Yuugi’s ears grew hot as he blushed at the images that popped up in his head. He pouted when he saw the amusement in the other teen’s eyes, and he was sure that his face was beet red.

“Umm…do you know where we are?” Yuugi asked in a half attempt to distract him from his own strange thoughts, and Yuugi’s mind wandered back to the strangeness of his surroundings.

The other teen looked confused for a second before understanding dawned on his face. A mischievous smirk pulled at his lips, and nodded once. Yuugi gave a short sigh of relief, at least now he wouldn’t be marooned here. A one-sided awkward silence followed, with Yuugi waiting for the other teen to get the hint to tell him where they were, and the other teen staring comfortably at his adorable little mate.

“So…” His mate’s voice started. Such a beautiful voice! “Are you going to tell me where we are?” The teen toned down on the smirk that was dying to grow bigger, he didn’t want to scare away his mate, but he also didn’t want to lie to him. So, he settled with an act that should lower suspicion.

Yuugi watched as the other teen shook his head. ‘No? Why not?!’ The red-eyed teen had lifted a hand out of the water and was rubbing the skin of his throat, and he was looking at Yuugi with an imploring expression. ‘What?...He has a sore throat?’ An epiphany stuck Yuugi, as he pondered why the teen couldn’t speak.

“You’re a mute?”

The red-eyed teen nodded his head in answer, a wide smile on his face. Yuugi once again found himself blushing. He quickly adverted his eyes from the gorgeous teen, and stared at the lone palm tree that graced the cove. “Oh” Yuugi had to admire the intelligence he just used, and his cheeks flushed a brighter red.

Yuugi was just about to reword his question and ask his companion if he could show him how to get to the mainland, when quite unexpectantly the red-eyed teen ducked his head under the water before resurfacing seconds later. ‘He’s probably tired from swimming so long. Gah, I can’t believe that I hadn’t thought about that earlier.’ He scolded himself as he began to fix his error. “Why don’t you come out of the water?” He blushed when thoughts of seeing the teen’s whole body entered his train of thought, and berated himself for acting like a girl. He had been quite sure that he was bi, so the attraction to the same sex wasn’t completely new, though he still felt like he shouldn’t think like that. “I m-mean, you must be tired from wading there this whole time; and t-there’s plenty of room up here.” Curse his infernal stuttering!

The other teen didn’t seem to be annoyed by Yuugi’s rushed sentences. If anything, he looked to be amused and affection glinted in his ruby orbs. Yuugi was partially confused when the teen gave him a look that said ‘are you sure’. Maybe he was shy? Yuugi mentally snorted at himself, the teen didn’t act like he even new the meaning of the word. He nodded his consent anyway, and the other teen smiled brightly and swam towards him.

‘The other teen.’ It just now occurred to him that he didn’t even know this strangers name. Yuugi felt embarrassed at his lack of manners and sought to correct his error.

“So, what’s your name? Mine’s Yuugi by the way.” It sent shivers down his spine as he could see the other teen roll the name over in his head, mentally tasting it. Yuugi was surprised that his face hadn’t exploded yet. The other teen had made it to the ledge by the time Yuugi was done talking, and after contemplating how to answer the teen’s question, gestured for him to come closer. Yuugi came, even though he was completely confused when the teen took his left wrist into his larger hand. He fingered the delicate bracelet, rubbing his thumb across its smooth surface. Yuugi couldn’t help but notice that the other seemed triumphant about something, and a strange feeling settled in the pit of his stomach.

The red-eyed teen gestured to the name engraved on the shiny metal, his expression meaningful as he tried to convey his message wordlessly. It took a few seconds for Yuugi to catch on, but he did eventually.

“Atemu?” Yuugi said questioningly. “Is that your name?” The newly dubbed ‘Atemu’ nodded his head; a bright smile (not a smirk) like his features and Yuugi found himself blushing again. ‘…Wait a minute.’ It couldn’t be a coincidence that this stranger’s name and the name written on this bracelet matched. That strange feeling he had just a few minutes ago came back with a conviction. Did this teen put the bracelet on him? That could explain why he had a matching one around his right wrist. Yuugi hesitated in asking, he didn’t know if Atemu would be able to answer or if he would actually want to.

Yuugi scooted back as Atemu braced his muscular arms on the edge of the rock, preparing to lift his body from the water’s confines. When the other’s waistband didn’t immediately come into view, Yuugi blushed and assumed that Atemu wore low-riding shorts. However, his skin color changed from scarlet to a terrified pale within a span of two seconds.

Black tentacles rose lazily from the water, trying to gain purchase on the slick stone. Atemu seemed to be oblivious to his dangerous predicament, for he continued to lift himself up to the ledge, completely ignoring what could be his certain death. Yuugi did not think as he reacted to the tentacles presence. He immediately reached for the oblivious Atemu, wrapping his right hand around the other’s arm and struggled vainly to pull the larger teen out of harms way. However, when he got close to the edge a couple of the black tentacles reached for him.

What happened next was like a horror movie come to life.

In order to evade the groping appendages, he had leaned back with his right hand still gripping Atemu’s arm. Suddenly, Atemu had grabbed Yuugi’s left wrist with his right and a vibrant tingling shoot through his body like a completed circuit. The bracelets glowed simultaneously and golden lines drew themselves onto their respective arm. Yuugi had the strange sensation of time slowing down and all sound being muffled by cotton. An unreadable triumphant expression bloomed on Atemu’s face as he vaulted over the edge, and a cold horror seized Yuugi as he caught sight of what exactly the tentacles were attached to.

The incredibly gorgeous Atemu had half the body of an octopus.