Fic: And Yet

[splinteredstar]

So, it is a traditional gift giving season. And since I don't always have addresses for people, I have written them things instead. Like this, for instance.

For: nenya85 , who needs to stop getting sick.
Title: And Yet

Yuugiou, post manga. Pieces of the Millennium Puzzle start showing up in Kaiba's life. He does not miss his rival, and yet.

He finds the first piece at the bottom of his briefcase.

It clunks out of his briefcase as he empties it at the end of the day. The piece tumbles out on top of contracts, coming to rest on one of Mokuba’s sketches of the new BEWD jet. It’s been two years since he’s seen it last, and it was whole then, but he still recognizes it. He hasn’t forgotten the shape or the color of it, the burn of the sand in his eyes or the shuddering thud of that damned door shutting in his face.

Seto Kaiba does not believe in destiny, and stopped putting weight in the promises of anyone other than Mokuba years ago. Around the same time he last saw this.

He doesn’t think too much about it, doesn’t waste any time trying to decide. Really, there’s no decision to make. He just picks up the golden puzzle piece and tucks it into his pocket.

He’s still no good at throwing away the past.

~

Another piece shows up the next day.

His lockbox of rare cards alerts him to a sudden, miniscule change in weight. He frowns, checking the video feed on his phone. No one has access but Mokuba and himself. Then he frowns deeper, and excuses himself from his meeting to check in person.

His rooms are empty, and no intruders have shown up on the video feed. He unlocks his lockbox and almost, almost reaches out to touch the gold gleaming on top of his untouched stack of cards. His fingers clench, his nostrils flare as he breathes out, and he is not hesitating.

The lockbox was never opened. He checked, and checks again quickly. The puzzle piece appeared between one frame of the video and the next.

He reaches again, picks it up. The gold feels faintly warm in his hand, and when he pulls out the first piece the two fit together easily.

“Niisama?” He turns. Mokuba stands there waiting, expectant. “What’s going on?” He’s almost touched. Mokuba has the same access as him, gets all of the same alerts, and Mokuba still asks him.

Kaiba holds the pieces up as explanation, and then says, finally, “I don’t know yet.”

Mokuba blinks, and then narrows storm-grey eyes. He looks like he had on the way back from Egypt: concerned, and angry. They both had remained silent on the plane, and hadn’t spoken of it since, but he remembers the way Mokuba had hovered around him after. Mokuba has that look on his face now, looking him over like a doctor with an unstable patient.

This is not insanity, and this is not obsession. Kaiba is intimately familiar with both, enough to know this is not either.

But he is not, quite, sure what it is.

Mokuba asks now what he did not ask on the plane. “What will you do now?” Mokuba meets his eyes without hesitation. It’s comforting.

He rubs the gold almost unconsciously, and then stops. Indecision is weakness, and yet. “I haven’t decided yet.”

Mokuba nods. The trust is warmer than the gold. “Tell me when you do.”

There’s nothing more to be done. Kaiba nods back, and slips the puzzle pieces into his pocket.

~

The next piece shows up in his sock drawer, layered in between socks that he distinctly remembers folding cleanly just the day before. He rolls his eyes at it.

If something - someone - is trying to send him a message, they’re being bloody stupid about it. He acknowledges that there are Powers Man Knows Not in the universe – he’s stubborn, but not blind – but that doesn’t mean he has to humor them. He is not afraid. He does not bother being confused.

He is instead quietly, deeply furious. He has not forgotten any of it. He hoards memories, tucked away inside of himself, a dragon who sleeps on a pile of corpses. His rival had branded him with this gold, twisted himself through Kaiba’s soul. Then the bastard ripped himself out like none of it had ever mattered.

He has not forgotten, and he has never known how to move on, but he was at least learning how to ignore it. Then chunks of memory started showing up, solid and corporal and impossible to dismiss, impossible to interpret. He feels like he is being mocked, or tested. He is not sure which, or which would be worse.

He nevertheless collects them like he has collected everything that matters. He finds them covered in dust behind an old desk, drenched in slime at the bottom of a dredged lake. No one else seems to find any, or even notice them until he picks them up.

Kaiba slides each new piece together easily, and carries them in his pocket. He does not ask himself why. It is a puzzle, so he will solve it.

~

One day, a dozen puzzle pieces later, Yuugi-tatchi show up unexpectedly. Mokuba has invited them over, apparently, having mended bridges that Kaiba cannot. When he comes down to find them camped out on his favorite sofa, Mokuba meets his stare evenly, glances at his pocket, then at Yuugi, and then back at his brother.

Kaiba stares back. Message received, though not necessarily appreciated. Mokuba only smirks, and Kaiba rolls his eyes and starts to walk past.

“Hey, dragonbreath, when’s the next tournament?” The mutt yells out, laughing. Kaiba turns to the group, ignoring the clink of metal in his pocket.

“You’ll find out with the press release, and get your feet off of my sofa before you have to pay for it.” Kaiba smirks deliberately. “It would take you a while.”

The banter is familiar, almost comfortable, and then he makes the mistake of meeting Yuugi’s eyes. Those bright purple eyes see the truth in all things and all people, and Kaiba breaks the contact a moment too late. He knows better than to think he will be lucky, but slips past them anyway to his study. At least he can have privacy.

They do not call him back to join them. However, a few minutes later, the door slides open again. He glances up from an unimportant circuit diagram.

“Yuugi.” He acknowledges and looks down again, as if to go back to his work. Yuugi’s eyes slip through any disguise, into the heart. Holding them too long is risky.

“Seto.” Silence for a moment. Kaiba sketches in a possible change to the circuit, and then scratches it out. “So, what’s going on?”

Pretense abandoned, Kaiba turns and meets those purple eyes again. Wordlessly, he pulls the half-completed puzzle out of his pocket and holds it up.

Yuugi stops breathing for a long moment, and steps closer, reaching. Kaiba allows him to take it. Yuugi’s hands are still scarred, he knows, old burns from trying to assemble the puzzle in a burning building. The gold may be carved into both of them, but Yuugi fought for it.

He looks away briefly, and ignore the shaking breaths he hears. He has just enough respect for this man. A minute later, counted off in heartbeats and ragged exhales, Yuugi swallows thickly. “Where did you… I thought it was sealed. In Egypt.”

It should not surprise him that Yuugi has no answers. “The pieces show up, seemingly at random.” He gestures to the clump of pieces. “Those are all the ones I’ve found.” The ‘so far’ is unspoken, even in his mind.

Yuugi stares down at the puzzle for a long moment, turning it over and over in his hands. Then he looks up, and Kaiba does not know what he sees in those eyes.

“By the time he he…left,” Kaiba snarls at the turn of phrase. “We had shared everything. Every thought had been expressed. Everything we could have said to each other, we had.” Kaiba now recognizes that look of quiet determination and remembers that this is the man who quietly reordered the world more than once. “Maybe…he still has something to say, to you.”

A dozen reactions war inside of his throat, and the one that makes it out is, “He’d better.”

Yuugi laughs, smiling, and then the world gently tilts on its axis again as Yuugi offers the half-finished puzzle back to him.

He meets bright purple eyes and his fingers clench on the desk. A trick? Impossible. Yuugi does not spin tricks, not when it matters. What Yuugi wants, he keeps. Kaiba unclenches his fingers and takes the puzzle silently, the gold warm against his hands. He nods, once. Yuugi smiles, and returns to his friends without another word.

That night, the eye piece is resting on his pillow. It is not the final piece, but he’s getting closer.

Seto Kaiba does not believe in fate, and he only grudgingly acknowledges second chances.

And yet, he does acknowledge them.