Title: Come Over
Theme: 29 – Day
Summary: Time can't always heal everything.
Rating: T
Genre: Angst/Romance
Notes: Post-canon.

It wasn't even a very good bar, to be honest. The alcohol was apparently only decent, the prices neither cheap nor outrageous, and the crowd was never that bad. Still, the place had an odd feeling, a lonely sort of change in the air that you could feel when you walked in. This was a place where the bachelors went, the people who didn't have anywhere else to go went. The people whose hearts had just been broken and were looking, always looking, to soothe the pain, or the feeling, or whatever else that was not wanted. Sure, you could find another place, a less expensive place, where the bartender might actually care about your problems, or at least pretend to, and the tables never had a speck of dust… but Yugi didn't; he never did.

Because really, this bar had a spectacular view. Atem could appreciate that.

The large, open balcony that took up the back of the room currently informed its occupants that it was dusk. The clouds were yellow against a thick sheet of orange sky that illuminated against the water of the harbor outside. A slight breeze, barely noticeable under normal circumstances but more than enough to chill you if the right person had just done the wrong thing, blew through the room and did not move his hair when it passed through.

Yugi was sitting at a stool, naturally, and looked as if he was trying to get himself drunk – which would never work, because it was a universally-known fact that that man and liquor did not mix. Though he had to give his partner credit for trying.

According the records of his tracks, Yugi hadn't made any, and was still living quite comfortably in Domino with his aging grandfather, one Solomon Mutou, and holding a steady income while working for Seto Kaiba. He had a great life. It was one Atem might have envisioned for himself, not too long ago. But time did not agree, and things had changed. People had changed. Yugi had changed.

Atem knew this, and knew it well. But he didn't stop himself from approaching the figure at the counter.

"Sir. Would you like another cosmopolitan?" At Yugi's polite shake of the head, the bartender moved away to speak with another customer, turning his back and leaving the air filled with silence and thoughts.

"I didn't think you would ever be the type to drink alone in a bar with only a glass of alcohol for company," Atem commented quietly, though still firm, as he sat two seats away. In the corner of his senses, something paused, hesitating, waiting for him to finish to resume.

"People are always assuming things about me," Yugi said with a chuckle, then raised tired eyes to look at the newcomer. "You sound as if you know me. Should I recognize you, then?"

He could feel his hand pausing, almost freezing, and he thought his answer through carefully before replying. "That depends on if you want to."

Yugi sighed. "I'm sorry. I'm not really in the mood for omniscient, mysterious strangers. If you're here to steal my soul or beat me up for the god cards, you'll have to get in line, or at least wait until tomorrow, when I'll be awake enough to attempt to fight back."

Atem smiled, closing his eyes. "Nothing that exciting. I just wanted to say hello."

"'Hello,' then." Yugi gave him an odd look. "…You do look familiar. What's your name?"

"I have gone by many names."

"Again, no mystery, please," Yugi asked, mildly annoyed, and Atem laughed.

"I apologize, partner. You deserve specifications, and unfortunately, I am in no position to be giving any."

It took a minute for Yugi's head to rise, very slowly, to squint at the pharaoh in the dim light. His gaze was calculating, putting two and two together to get a four that wasn't possible. "Yami…?"

"I had to say goodbye."

"I… I see." Yugi's fingers were pale around the stem of the glass on the counter, eyes hopeful and staring into his own. "And you're not just… a figment of my imagination?"

"No, partner. I am not." Atem took a seat next to him, placing a hand that couldn't be felt on Yugi's cheek. "You should not be here."

"I don't do this often," Yugi replied, protesting with no force. "I just needed it tonight."

"You should still be home," Atem said, smiling. "Take care of yourself, please. We have gone through too much for you not to make sure you are safe at the end of the day."

The sun was shining its last edges of light into the bar, and soon it would be dark, but neither minded nor noticed that its position on the horizon was not changing.

"Yami, I…"

"There is no need to apologize, partner. I do not blame you, and you should not blame yourself." He placed a hand on Yugi's knee, stroking the skin through fabric – Still wearing those leather pants, he noticed with bittersweet satisfaction – and for a moment, he could fool himself that this would last. Just for a moment. But it was enough.

"You'll have to go soon, right?"

"Yes. I do not believe I will be returning again."

Yugi nodded, relatively calm in acceptance, and closed his eyes.

Atem placed a kiss to Yugi's forehead. "Do not forget yourself, partner. I know it has been years and I understand that it must be hard… but you need to make yourself happy. Please do not remove yourself because of me. You deserve so much more."

Yugi was silent, and Atem drew back, drinking in one last of his partner look for memory's sake. He looked very tired, very saddened. And satisfied. It was not enough for his own happiness, but for now, it would do.

"I need to move on," a twenty-four-year-old Yugi murmured to himself, letting go of the glass to reach out and touch the corner of nonexistent lips. It was something he'd wanted to do for years, and even if he could not feel a thing, nothing more than a whisper of smoke, he wanted to be able to say that he did. That he had his pharaoh all to himself for one minute, two minutes, as much time as he could. "I need to accept this and move on…"

Atem watched him quietly. "It has been years, partner. Time can't always heal everything."

Yugi's eyes slowly met his again. "I know. And I don't… want it to."

Atem's soft smile was fading before his eyes, into the background and out of existence. "Don't ever change the way you are." And after a moment, as the hands disappeared, the warm maroon eyes and the dark hair and the familiar, comforting presence, all leaving him again, "I've never loved anyone more."

The vision vanished, the speed of time resumed its course, and as Yugi Mutou stood and walked from the bar near the harbor with slow and consistent steps, the sun dipped below the horizon, wavering for a minute, before disappearing and ending the day, just as it had forever, and just as it always would.

Words: 1196
Notes: This took me ages. I think it was hard just because it was the first one and I'm trying to get into the groove of writing a bunch of scenes that won't be related to each other all in one story… eh, I like a challenge, and LiveJournal is good at offering them, so I took it. I hope you'll enjoy these with me.