title: I Carry Your Heart
rating: T
pairing: Puzzleshipping.
warnings: post-canon.
a/n: So I was writing these drabbles separately, but I began to realize that they sort of worked together to create a harmonious piece, that in their separateness there was a unifying strand, and I decided to work with that. What I ended up with, after some editing, is what you see here.
The song in the third section (which begins with we live in cities) is team by Lorde, and the poem referenced throughout the piece and then put in its whole text at the end is [i carry your heart with me(i carry it in] by e.e. cummings.
Lack of punctuation/capitalization at certain parts is stylisic and intentional.
Silent Magician, direct attack the player!
Yuugi's ears ring with the the finality of it; he could have never said those words, he could have spent the rest of his life in that tomb, never sentencing his Pharaoh to death. He can feel Atem's ancestors patting him on the back. Good job! Good job, child! You took such good care of our son! You brought him back to us!
It is a selfish thing- Yuugi wants to yell at them. I wanted him to stay, always to stay!
i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)i am never without it(anywhere i go you go, my dear)
-we live in cities / you'll never see onscreen - Atem was fifteen when he killed himself so that others could see the sun come up a few more times. He lived alone so long that the bones he didn't have splintered and ached. Yuugi feels bad because he never got to live a life that wasn't restless world saving; feels sorry for him. Today Yuugi Mutou counts blue crocuses in a field. It's only been a year so he finds himself sleepwalking sometimes through alleys and abandoned office buildings bathed in greenlight, and he knows he's looking for his other self. He just wishes his body wouldn't listen to his brain so much. not very pretty / but we show them how to run things - Cats are drawn to Yuugi now, black cats in particular. On the nights he can't sleep, he feeds them. They wrap their tails around his bony legs. He lived alone so long that the bones he didn't have splintered and ached. He duels Kaiba a year and a half later, just because he can, but he starts crying. He doesn't even miss Atem that much anymore (he is over it, he is over it, he is over it) so he has no idea why. The tears sting. Kaiba won't admit it but he understands. He knows what this is like, can only imagine. There is a hole where he was like an artery carved out. He hopes Atem can't see him be a little sad. - so there.
Yuugi plays games and plays with children and takes buses to different cities on random nights, Yuugi goes drinking with friends from the game dev company, Yuugi entertains at parties. Yuugi gets older and stops going to parties, he is still friends with Jounouchi, he is always friends with Jounouchi. Yuugi's life is never truly unhappy.
(There are nights when he wonders, when he is to die, if he shall be reunited-)
alternate universes.
—universe 1. atem tracing the word aibou into the sand over and over in a language he doesn't have to speak anymore, atem looking out over the windblown nile as he realizes that one hundred years have passed in a day and his aibou is not coming back to him. this, too, is a way of existence.
universe 2. a sunset backdrops the two boys on the bicycle, atem standing, peddling as fast as he can so yuugi can smell the roasted chestnuts on the wind. a song plays in yuugi's earbuds. they do not need words.
universe 3. atem spraypainting the word aibou under a bridge as the bass from the song blows out the speakers in the back of his truck. the boy bakura hangs out of the truck window. "the fuck you writing." he yells. atem has never met anyone named yuugi and he has never called anyone aibou, but he knows enough to do this.
universe 4. atem is a jellyfish and yuugi is a wave.
universe 5. "will we meet again?" whispers yuugi to no one as the tomb collapses.
they do.
Yuugi dies smiling.
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
- e.e. cummings [i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]