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A heart beats beneath his palm.
It is his (not his?)—it’s the only one he’s ever had. It’s right here where he can feel it (but it’s not here—where is it? where is it?)
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The Other Yuugi frowns.
Something is wrong. There’s a deep-rooted sense of incorrectness that he can’t ignore, but he can’t put his finger on what exactly it is. Scattered ideas clutter his mind, confusing thoughts that should otherwise lead him toward an answer: this is his heart (it’s Yuugi’s—but isn’t he Yuugi?); it’s fine and healthy (it’s off, something’s off, not his, not there); he doesn’t have to watch it (pure heart, clean heart, perfectly fine on its own); he can let this body rest (absolve him of his crimes; don’t speak ill of him, please).
It’s too light. Too faint. The beat of it is off—he can tell it is (it is, it is)—but it’s steady, isn’t it? (No. Something is missing.)
(He doesn’t know what.)
Thump. Thump. Thump.
It should be heavier. He can barely feel it.
(A heavy heart doesn’t weigh well (a feather, a lighter, a puddle, a scale) but this is wrong. This is worse. He needs to feel it properly. He needs to know he’s alive.)
(Where is it?)
Mou hitori no boku? Yuugi’s sleepy voice trickles into the Other Yuugi’s awareness. What’s wrong? Why are you… A yawn echoes inside his head. Why are you awake…?
The Other Yuugi’s concentration narrows in on his partner’s presence as he exits his soul room and enters the hallway that separates it from the Other Yuugi’s own. Letting their body fall back onto the bed, the Other Yuugi steps into the hallway behind him.
Yuugi stands dead-still, one hand pressed flat to the Other Yuugi’s door. As the Other Yuugi walks up behind him, his bare feet softly tapping against the cold stone floor, Yuugi whirls to face him. “Ah! Mou hitori no boku!” He blushes a soft pink and snatches his hand back from the Other Yuugi’s door. “Sorry, I—um, the veins—I never noticed they have a pulse—?”
The Other Yuugi brings a hand up to his partner’s chest. He distantly registers Yuugi’s eyes widening as he backs him against the door, but he can’t get himself to focus on it—all that matters right now is the heartbeat now thudding against his palm like a playful pet butting up into its owner’s affectionate touch. It’s full. It’s free. It’s all he is and all he’s experienced. It’s right here.
He presses the heel of his palm into Yuugi’s sternum and threads his fingers along the grooves of his ribs. They fit so nicely, so naturally. Thump, thump, thump through Aibou’s ribcage, between two layers of skin, up the Other Yuugi’s bones, and down past his own ribs, thump, thump, thump feeding him memories of a life he didn’t live. Thump, thump, thump. A clean beat. A clean heart.
Yuugi’s breath catches, and a tiny, strangled sound squeaks out of his throat.
The Other Yuugi’s head snaps up. His partner stares back at him, trying desperately to focus through glazed eyes and lightly fluttering lashes. Behind him, the veins of the Other Yuugi’s door creep in toward him, wriggling within the confines of their metal skin. Those already connected to the eye behind Yuugi’s head throb so harshly it looks like they’re going to burst.
Warm fingers close around the hand pinning Yuugi to the door. They wrap around the Other Yuugi’s wrist, and he mirrors their touch around Yuugi’s forearm. “Let’s…get you away from that,” he says.
Yuugi’s eyes fall half-mast. His whole body suddenly relaxes, except for that firm hold on the Other Yuugi’s hand and wrist. Carefully, the Other Yuugi tries to pull him away from the door, only to meet resistance. He tugs at him again, dumbfounded. Yuugi’s grip on his wrist tightens.
“Aibou?” He attempts to keep his voice level, but he’s sure Yuugi can feel his building fear despite his efforts. “Maybe you should let go of me?”
It’s too hopeful of a request. The Other Yuugi knows he hadn’t been pinning him hard enough to stop Yuugi from pulling away, and Yuugi keeping his hand there shouldn’t do anything to change that. But if it isn’t that, then something else has gone horribly wrong—and if the Other Yuugi’s being completely honest, he is far too distracted by the call of the heartbeat his partner keeps securely under his palm to figure out what it is.
Thankfully—or unthankfully, all things considered—he doesn’t have to put much effort into it, because only a second later he notices the iron-dark veins crawling under the skin of Yuugi’s cheeks.
Panic shoots through the Other Yuugi. He tugs on his partner’s arm, trying to look at the back of his head, but Yuugi doesn’t budge even a centimeter away from the door, and he can’t see what’s going on with his hair in the way. He lets go of his arm and tries to part it to get a better view. As he does, his skin brushes against the heady pulse thrumming through the metal veins.
He goes still. That thump, thump, thump drags him in like the rush of rapids promising cool, crisp water against a parched throat, like a dying animal’s final, desperate cry promising fresh meat for a lone vulture. Want and desperation swell in his still chest. He presses his forehead into the cool metal, allowing that pulse to push through him—
Yuugi’s free hand closes around the collar of the Other Yuugi’s shirt. He drags him away, back so they’re standing face-to-face again. The Other Yuugi flinches. Dread pools deep in his core. The dark veins have spread across Yuugi’s face and started down his neck, tunneling beneath his skin, thick and dark and invasive. The Other Yuugi shudders, repulsed. His partner, looking less dazed than before, remains uncannily calm.
“Aibou—!” The Other Yuugi clenches his teeth and shakes his head to stop himself from yelling, but what else is there to do? “I’m so sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I don’t know what’s going on—but I’ll find a way to stop this, just hang in there, give me a minute, I’ll—” The Other Yuugi swallows down a dry sob. He tries to think of something he can actually do, anything, and comes up short. The gnawing helplessness consuming him abruptly gives way to rage. “I promise I will destroy whatever is doing this to you.”
Yuugi smiles—a small, shaky thing that betrays his own terror. “Please don’t do that to yourself,” he whispers.
The Other Yuugi freezes.
Yuugi lets out a little raspy laugh. “Why do you look so surprised, mou hitori no boku? It’s your soul room, isn’t it…? So it’s either you or the Puzzle causing this, and whether you destroyed yourself or the Puzzle, it would hurt you either way, wouldn’t it?” The Other Yuugi tries to step back, but Yuugi’s grip on his collar tightens, and he already has his hand trapped firmly against his ribs. “Calm down. It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay!” The Other Yuugi yells, but he doesn’t resist when his partner drags him back in, closer than before. Pressed nearly nose-to-nose, he can see in detail the thin growth of metal branching off, moving through the upper layers of skin and sinking deeper. Thick veins like the ones on the door plunge down his throat, beneath his shirt, out of view. They look almost like roots—only roots don’t throb, or dig through fragile skin, or curl cruelly around delicate collarbones like they’re just an obstacle in the way of their goal. Yuugi winces and lets out a long, drawn out groan, screwing his eyes shut.
The Other Yuugi scowls, barely restraining himself from snarling. He brushes his knuckles along the bulging iron veins in Yuugi’s neck, gentle as he can, and Yuugi groans again. The pulse through the door quickens into a harsh, heavy beat.
“Why is this happening?” the Other Yuugi whispers.
Yuugi cracks his eyes open. “Why…?” He glances down at the Other Yuugi’s chest and up again. “Isn’t it obvious?”
The Other Yuugi shakes his head, growing frantic. “I didn’t mean to do this to you! And I certainly didn’t ask the Millennium Puzzle to do this to you!”
Yuugi smiles, just slightly. “But you came here for my heart, didn’t you?” His hand trails down the Other Yuugi’s arm and interlocks their fingers. “My memories. All that I’ve experienced. You need it, don’t you?”
“I already have your memories!”
“Do you? All of them?” Yuugi squeezes his hand. “Or were you just borrowing them whenever what you have comes up short?”
“No! I haven’t—I wasn’t—!”
Yuugi laughs. “You don’t have to defend yourself, mou hitori no boku…”
“But it’s hurting you!”
“It’s not that bad, actually,” Yuugi says, as if his voice isn’t tight with pain. “It was only really when they…got to my heart…” He winces and squeezes his eyes shut once again. The Other Yuugi tightens his grip on his hand. Yuugi opens one eye and forces a smile. “They’re just big and cold and…I don’t think anything big and cold growing inside you would feel nice for anyone.” He looks off to the side. “Unless you’re into that. But I don’t think I’m into that?” He narrows his eyes. “No, I could definitely get into that. Maybe we should try that later…”
“I’m much more concerned about now, Aibou!”
Yuugi looks back at him with wide eyes and a weirdly bronze-red blush. “Right! Sorry!” He scuffs his foot against the floor and winces at the feel of rough stone against his bare heel. “I’m sorry. I’m really okay. And this is what you wanted, isn’t it?”
“No! Yes?” The Other Yuugi shakes his head. “I definitely don’t want you stuck to my soul room door!”
Yuugi frowns. “Really? But…you put me here.” He glances down at the hand still pressed to his heart. “You didn’t want me here?”
“I wanted…” He trails off, unable to come up with anything reasonable to say. Telling him he just wanted to hear his heartbeat because their body’s wasn’t good enough sounds ridiculous, and he’s pretty sure it isn’t entirely true. The Other Yuugi presses their joined hands to his forehead. “I didn’t mean to do this.”
“It’s fine, mou hitori no boku, really.” Yuugi smiles ruefully. “Besides, I’m more concerned about you.”
“Me?” The Other Yuugi lowers their hands. “Why would you be concerned about—”
Sharp pain stabs through the Other Yuugi’s palm and shoots up his arm. He cries out and tries to pull away from where he cradles Yuugi’s ribs, but he’s still held fast, and it makes another spike of pain shoot up to his elbow. Yuugi casts his heavy-lidded gaze down, finally letting go of that wrist. “Sorry.”
Those dark iron veins infesting his partner’s soul crawl up the Other Yuugi’s forearm and slither into his bloodstream. Yuugi traces the cold, dense lines with a light touch, smiling softly. He squeezes their still-intertwined hands.
The Other Yuugi is left speechless. Now that Yuugi isn’t holding his wrist, he tries to pull his hand away again, but it still doesn’t budge. Another shock of pain stabs up his arm. He sucks in a sharp breath.
The iron veins dig deeper.
(Iron veins. Iron?)
Something clicks in the Other Yuugi’s head, though he can’t quite remember, can’t place what it actually means. “Iron isn’t lighter than a feather.”
“No. It’s not,” Yuugi murmurs, far too knowing.
The Other Yuugi wracks his mind—wracks his partner’s mind, not his (not yet)—and another piece falls into place. “But how? You haven’t committed any crime!”
“Yes. I have.”
It hits the Other Yuugi all at once—that confusion he’d felt, thinking this was his heart but knowing it wasn’t. It’s the only heart he has. All his actions have been branded into this pure heart he so craved, so adored, staining it irreparably.
“Hey.” Yuugi’s thumb brushes across the Other Yuugi’s cheek as if wiping away tears, even though the Other Yuugi is pretty sure they’re dry. “Don’t look like that, mou hitori no boku. You didn’t know.“
“I’ve doomed you,” the Other Yuugi whispers.
“I doomed myself back when I decided to solve the Puzzle. And I wouldn’t take back that decision for anything.”
“No! Don’t say that!” the Other Yuugi snaps. “Solving a Puzzle is hardly a crime! This isn’t your fault. I won’t let you blame yourself for my—”
Yuugi presses his fingers to the Other Yuugi’s lips. The Other Yuugi looks down at them, affronted. Yuugi giggles. He slides his hand down the Other Yuugi’s neck and over his arm, taking his free wrist in his grasp. “Do we have to fight right now? Shouldn’t this be a happy moment?”
“How is this a happy moment?”
“I’m sharing myself with you. Properly. Nothing borrowed, nothing written over.” Yuugi peeks up at him shyly. “Does that not make you happy?”
The Other Yuugi flounders for anything good to say to that. Ultimately, he ends up shrugging and leaning forward to rest his forehead against his partner’s.
“I’m happy,” Yuugi whispers.
The amount of iron webbed through Yuugi’s face makes his skin look gray. The Other Yuugi shakes his head minutely. “This is hurting you.”
“Not anymore.”
The Other Yuugi closes his eyes and tries not to think about it, but that just brings the freezing pain infecting his soul into sharper focus. It spreads through his shoulder, slinking closer and closer to his heart. He swallows hard.
Yuugi’s fingertips brush over the Other Yuugi’s chest. The Other Yuugi cracks his eyes open. Inverse to the Other Yuugi, the veins have grown up through Yuugi’s wrist, rapidly moving over the back of his hand, reaching for his fingertips.
The Other Yuugi tenses, barely able to brace himself before a deep, biting agony sinks into his core. He groans. It’s cold, relentless. A chip of ice between his lungs. A winter chill found home inside his chest. Frozen bones. Frozen viscera. Frozen blood. A shudder runs through him.
Yuugi holds him, hands a cool, gentle touch at the Other Yuugi’s elbows, stroking his thumbs in a grounding rhythm across his skin. The Other Yuugi’s senses have narrowed to that horrible cold at the center of his being, drowning out his partner’s words, but the soothing tone of his voice still manages to reach him.
“Aibou…” he murmurs.
“You’re okay,” Aibou says. He sounds so far away. Where is he? Right—there, here—under his palm, caressing his arms. Don’t lose him. “Just breathe. Just feel it.”
The Other Yuugi follows his words, too caught up in him and the cold iron becoming his veins to even think of disobeying. Aibou holds him. Aibou stays.
Ba-thump. Ba-thump. Ba-thump.
A heart beats in his ears. It’s a heavy sound, a heavy weight behind his ribs, but it’s there. It’s his.
Ba-thump. Ba-thump. Ba-thump.
Aibou slides his hands up around the Other Yuugi’s shoulders. Needle pinpricks poke through the skin under Aibou’s palms, weaving deeper into him. The Other Yuugi leans in and presses his face into the crook of his partner’s neck.
Ba-thump. Ba-thump. Ba-thump.
“There you are,” Yuugi whispers.
Cold seeps in from all around him, from everywhere the two of them touch. The longer they stand here embracing each other, the less he’s sure where his own body begins and his partner’s ends.
Yuugi (of puzzles and wishes) smiles faintly, in awe of it all. “Look at us…”
Yuugi (of darkness and games) presses closer, face still hidden, held in place by metal threads. “I…don’t think I can?”
Laugher echoes off the walls, drowning out the deafening pulse of their heartbeat. They fall to the floor in a tangle of limbs and iron, holding each other tighter and relishing in the cold lines growing through each other’s skin. Heavy hearts weigh them down, damning in their judgement—but for now it doesn’t matter.
Yuugi (of leather and studs) nuzzles his nose into the other’s hair, and Yuugi (of silver and gold) tries his best to lean into the movement. “You worry too much, mou hitori no boku.”
“I hadn’t meant to taint you.”
“You haven’t tainted anything.” Yuugi (of forgiveness and friendship) grins. “Unless I’ve tainted you, too?”
Yuugi (of judgement and penalty) scoffs. “I don’t think you ever could.”
“Then I see no problem.”
Yuugi (of hope and impossibility) rolls onto his back. He looks over at the door they’d just been trapped against. It still pulses, strong, but calmer. More stable. Its veins creep like vines across the floor beneath them, past them, and circle his door on the opposite side of the hallway. Yuugi (of vengeance and fate), watching through his eyes, sighs in amusement, in resignation, in bliss.
There is no need to worry. There is time to live, to learn to navigate the push and pull between them, to fill this life with less damning experiences than murder and betrayal and hate.
It won’t save them, of course. It’s too late now. But when they die and their heavy heart is inevitably devoured by Ammut, at least their restless souls will wander together.