Eventually, whenever I experiment with a new ship, I reach a point where their dynamic gets comfortable. It starts flowing seamlessly, and I stop having to think much at all about how they would interact.

I think this little blanket section is when I reached that point with Slumbershipping.

.

Ryo found himself focusing on a little blue patch on the rainbow blanket. "Sometimes," he said, "I wonder what Amane might have done when I got hold of the Millennium Ring. I wonder what the spirit would have done." He sighed. "A part of me is glad that she wasn't . . . around. The spirit might have tried to hurt her. But there's another part of me that's convinced he wouldn't have been able to."

"From the sound of it," Noa said, nodding again, "she was a tenacious one. I think you make a decent point." He hummed low in his throat. "I think," he said eventually, "I heard from someone . . . I guess it must have been Yugi. Car accident?"

Ryo nodded. "On the way home from a local concert."

Noa stared at the blanket sitting between them. "Sometimes," he said, "I think about going back in time and strangling Henry Ford with piano wire." At Ryo's questioning look, Noa added: "I . . . the first time, anyway . . . died in a car accident."

"Oh." Ryo's face fell. "I'm . . . sorry."

"It's fine." Noa flashed a grin. "I got better."

Ryo snorted laughter. "I'm glad you did."

Noa shook his head. "What I wonder is why, of all the people who've ever died, over all the generations of humankind, it was me who got salvaged. Why am I the one who happened to have a father with enough money, audacity, and . . . lunacy to see it done. And then to have the man he adopted to replace me be the one with the vision to go even higher."

Ryo reached out and put a hand on Noa's. "You aren't the first beneficiary of a miracle," he said, "and you won't be the last. Whatever reason there is for why you lived . . . I'm glad for it."

Noa looked down at their hands, held over the rainbow blanket like they were giving an oath, and he smiled again.

"From what I've heard Kisara talk about," he said eventually, "I guess there has to be an afterlife, which . . . I guess means your mother and your sister are still around. In some capacity or other. Do you think they're watching out for you?"

Ryo didn't say I think they guided me to you, but he thought it.

What he eventually did say was: "I like to think so."

Noa looked up at the ceiling. "If you're listening," he said, "and worrying, it's okay. I'm keeping an eye on this idiot." He smirked at Ryo's little squawk of indignation. "Before you argue," he said, without looking at Ryo, "need I remind you what Aniki's electrician said about the wiring she walked in on? You want to talk about miracles, how about the fact that this place hasn't gone up in flames?"

"I'll have you know," Ryo said, trying and failing to sound affronted, "that I've survived plenty of house fires."

"I'm going to do you a favor," Noa said, "and pretend that's impressive. Good job."

Ryo shoved Noa playfully. "Don't patronize me, rich boy."

Noa glared. "I'll patronize whomever I please."

"Not under my roof, you won't."

"Your roof, is it? Your name's on the lease?"

"You don't know it isn't."

Noa frowned as he took this in. "I suppose, to check, I'd have to talk to your landlord. And since I'd rather bite off my tongue and eat it than talk to a landlord, I guess you win this round, Gadget."

Ryo giggled.