Title: Heralds
Summary: The first letter he'd gotten from Atem in an entire year, and Atem wasn't even the one who wrote it. Blindshipping/Puzzleshipping in Ancient Egypt, whichever you would prefer.
Disclaimer: Don't own.
It wasn't his handwriting.
Numb, Yuugi let the parchment that had previously been buoyed by hope and love and maybe even desperation all to the floor in one lazy, uncaring spiral.
The first letter he'd gotten from Atem in a year - a year! - and it wasn't even in his own handwriting.
Someone else had put words down on this paper, then. Someone else had folded it, sealed it, sent it. Someone else had to cut time out of their day to write a letter for a Pharaoh who just didn't have the time.
Someone else had to care.
And so Yuugi didn't.
He didn't read the fakefakefake words that had been hastily scrawled on. Didn't bother. Atem didn't, why should he. Simple as that; everyone would understand. He stalked out of his too-empty bedchambers, heart sloshing in something that felt like misery.
What made everything worse was the fact that, no matter how right he was, no matter how much that stupid letter deserved to live the rest of its life unread, he'd come back to the monster that wasn't hiding underneath his bed, but sitting on top of it, splayed out and content to wait for its prey to come crawling to it. He'd find it again, relive the nightmare. He'd read the Radammned letter about a million times regardless of what it said, cry, and store it somewhere safe. It didn't matter that his Kingwasn't the one who'd written it. What mattered was that Atem had cared enough to have someone else keep in touch. And who was he to scorn that?
He was like a dog, in that respect. A blind dog, one who trailed after vauge noises, begging for affection and help, and, once it had been given some, was pathetically and utterly loyal for life, to the point of stupidity. It completely belied the persona expected of a Pharaoh's lover.
But Atem had once told him that he enjoyed, cherished, loved the way Yuugi loved him.
And that was good enough. Close enough to dull the sting of his injured pride, at least. To give him a pseudo-purpose that he could faux-smile about, weave majestic and heart-breaking lies about.
It was his own fault anyway, for pouring out his heart to him almost every week. No - not even to him. To some random war-communication screening agent who couldn't care less.
Couldn't care less. The phrase sprung up a lot, lately. Maybe it was sign. Something telling him that he shouldn't care so much over something that meant so little.
(... but it still wasn't his handwriting.)
"Next letter, it will be," he told himself, for he needed something to keep him going, keep him sane.
It's funny, the paradox - Atem's driving him crazy, but when Yuugi searches for sanity, he only sees him. Will only ever pick him. Because there's never been anyone else. Never been anyone, anything but Atem, and the heralds that his letters are.
(... even if they're not in his handwriting.)
A/N: Review~!
This is your Soul, signing out~