Yugi had dreamed this dream before. In his dreams, he and Yami were separate people. He'd never known how this had happened, perhaps because he couldn't know. It just happened.

That was always the same. But as for everything else...sometimes, it was expected, just a dream in anticipation of their goal. Sometimes, it was a wild detour from the path they thought they needed...though to be fair, he'd come to expect that, too.

Sometimes, he knew the exact moment it happened. Sometimes, he didn't realize it until he saw Yami. And once, he didn't even notice. That is, it was only after he woke he realized, with a sort of intuition, that he'd been dreaming of a time when he was alone.

He didn't like to think back on that dream. In the others, even if he didn't know what happened, he was able to find his other self eventually. In that one...

But as for the others. He also had a variety of reactions to Yami's separation, though they were slightly more patterned. If he'd expected it, he was proud, yet serious--there was a purpose to the dream. In any situation, there was still a shock, but obviously more so if the separation was a surprise. When that happened, sometimes he screamed in excitement. Twice he'd been embarrassed that he'd been so happy he had to repeatedly rub his eyes to hide how happy he was.

Sometimes, he dreamed in action, and there was no time to react. The separation was somehow natural, and he and his other self continued to work as a perfect team, but this time with spirits and bodies in synchronization. Sometimes, the separation was jarring, and their happiness was tainted by the knowledge that something had gone wrong.

At least, though, he still had the knowledge. But that one dream--the one without Yami. To go on as if he had never existed--that was worse than good-bye.

After that, the thought haunted his other dreams. No matter the ending, he would wake up with the feeling of unease that exists when you suspect that, had you not awoken first, your dream would have become a nightmare.

And that was the feeling he woke to this morning. It was summer, and he tried to reconcile the fact that it was already warm enough for him to sweat with the chill that seemed to want to pass over him.

An arm shifted on top of him, and in spite of the extra heat, he relaxed slightly. Yami would never press Yugi about his dreams, but he could sense Yugi's anxiety. When that happened, Yugi would awaken to his other self 'sleeping' next to him to calm him--technically, spirits didn't need sleep, but Yami just copied Yugi's actions.

The intimacy had surprised Yugi at first. But lately, it'd happened so much that he'd had time to get used to it.

Yami could also usually sense when Yugi awakened, but for some reason he was still unmoving today. Yugi used the time to try to remember last night's dream. But it was one that slipped away as soon as you woke, leaving memory of the emotion but not the actions. The only thing Yugi could remember--and he sensed it more than he remembered--was an unusual spike of fear in the middle of the night. It was more disconcerting to remember the fear, but only that, than it was to know what terror had caused it.

Yami finally stirred, and Yugi was able to pull from under the weight of his arm. Something felt off to him, and as he covered a yawn, he turned around to greet his other self. And blinked as things began to click in his sleep-drugged brain.

Yami's appearance was not normal. Or rather, the abnormal thing was that Yami did look normal. It's true that, since Yami was a spirit, Yugi had grown accustomed to the quirks that having a conversation with one entailed. The faint transparency that camouflaged Yami with his surroundings. The distorted shadow that seemed to pass over objects as a consequence when he paced.

Currently, though, Yami was opaque. As in, flesh. And he assumed blood.

For a moment, Yugi just stood there, watching his other self, absorbing in an unreal wonder the slight differences in Yami's appearance that meant the world. The slight movement of his chest that meant he was breathing. The even rhythm of the breathing that meant he was actually asleep. Or the even bigger clue, the mused hair that came from being asleep. Even when he pretended for Yugi's sake, Yami never faked a less-than-perfect appearance.

It was like one of his dreams. In fact, the world was so surreal that Yugi felt almost convinced he was dreaming. But it wasn't like any of his other dreams. The one reaction he'd never had was doubt. And if it was a dream, it was the most detailed one he'd ever remembered.

Yugi pinched himself, and Yami was still right in front of his eyes.

So he pinched Yami.

"Wha--?"

Yugi took in the feeling of Yami's skin under his fingertips at the same time he experienced Yami waking up. After the initial pinch, Yami was fairly slow in coming out of his slumber. His eyes widened but immediately drooped again. Yugi felt both affection and amusement rising in him at the sight of Yami burying an intense yawn in his pillow. Of course, he supposed it was perfectly logical for someone to be tired after...whatever had just happened. However it happened.

Yami cast his eyes about the room blearily as if searching for an excuse not to fall back asleep, and when they landed on Yugi they focused. He looked both confused and uncomprehending.

In his dreams, there had been several times Yugi had not noticed his and Yami's separation right away. However, it had never happened that Yami hadn't. Yugi wondered how a person broke that sort of news.

Reality began to intrude upon his fog, and through his shock he felt his heart begin to flutter in excitement. He floundered for something to say, anything to clue Yami into the fact that something was amiss. With Yami's gaze still upon him, Yugi said the first thing that came to mind.

"Good morning!"

Not particularly original words. But comforting at the thought that it might now be possible to say them to this person for every morning to come.

"Good morning," Yami answered, but it seemed that, now that he had acknowledged that fact, he was ready to give up waking up. Maybe he wasn't a morning person. He was always alert when Yugi was getting ready for school, a perfect compliment to Yugi's apparent sleep-walking. But since he'd never had to wake up before, maybe this was the norm. Yugi liked that they had that in common.

"Sweet dreams?" Yugi asked. The air held the fragile hope of a morning after, one that didn't break even at Yami's careless answer.

"Didn't dream," he mumbled. As an afterthought, due to a still awakening thought process--"You?"

"I don't remember." And somehow, despite the nervous tension that the unknown brought, it mattered much less than it had earlier.

"Ah. That would make sense." Yami was still moving sleepily, as if he couldn't decide on throwing off the covers or curling underneath them. He paused, half-twisted in the sheet, and frowned, speaking his next words as if talking to himself. "Yes, that could be it, too."

Was it the face that suddenly looked as boyish as it was? The stature that finally appeared to match Yugi's? The state of undress instead of an unchanging uniform? What was it that was overriding Yugi's sympathy at Yami's annoyance and amusing him instead?

Yugi fidgeted near the doorway, his emotions telling him both to just watch contentedly and to do something. "I'm going to make breakfast." Again with the small talk. "You want pancakes?"

"I..." And a delicious thrill ran up Yugi's spine as Yami paused again, recognizing sensation and beginning to experience in full force the feelings that before now had slipped so easily into darkness. Something like his dream was bubbling in Yugi's chest as Yami raised his head slightly, peering at Yugi through a shock of bangs, as if as long as his vision was obscured he could delay the comprehension. With a dazed, almost-avoidant glance past his other self, he asked hesitantly,

"Aibou?"

The bubble burst. And in that moment, every feeling he felt was a piece of a dream coming true.

*