Solus Rex
Genres: Horror, Romance
Summary: The operation is a success – the new organ within him is growing stronger with each heartbeat. The new blood strengthens his body and clears his mind. And it is taking over. / Bananashipping, Honda x Marik
A/N: Written for the YGO Fanfiction Contest, Season 8, Round Eight. This time, the pairing is Bananashipping (Honda x Marik), although the story also contains a good bit of the newly-named pairing of Artichokeshipping (Honda x Dark Marik). This is an AU, with no magical Items, reincarnation, or card games whatsoever. Instead, you'll see a slightly different take on the darker side of Marik's personality…
Scenes in italics are flashbacks. Genre is horror; don't take that lightly, as there are some pretty gory scenes in this. I am also taking some liberties with medical processes and procedures with this story. For much of the story when I say "Marik," I am referring to Marik Ishtar as we know him, and when I use the pronoun "he" (for Marik) I am referring to the dark personality. Enjoy!
Solus Rex
The grip of Honda's motorcycle is made of leather, as are the black gloves he wears that connect his fingers to the throttle. The sound of the wind rushing past his ears is all he can hear in the vacuum of his helmet—he hates to wear it because it crushes his hair, although he knows it'll likely save his life one day, so he wears it faithfully regardless—and he is thankful for the polarization of the visor as he turns the corner on a street facing East, facing the rising sun, loose from its cover by the thick, gray clouds stretched across the sky.
Honda himself doesn't really know why he continues to ride his motorcycle to school each and every day. At first it is for the intimidation factor, as the circles he traveled with possessed worse compulsions than motorcycles and fast travel, but his current friends only see the bike as an extension of his person, like Anzu's ballet shoes. Gas is expensive for someone without a job, and parking is usually a hassle, and while he lives too far to walk, taking the bus is always an option.
Marik's motorcycle is already there, resting casually in the visitor parking section. Honda knows that Marik does it on purpose, even though he'll claim amnesty as a new student. What a laugh—he would have gotten away with that excuse three months ago, but not now. Honda takes up a whole parking space underneath the shade of a tree—the other drivers will be mad, but he doesn't really care—and checks his watch. He's early, for once, and he has the light traffic to blame for it. If it weren't for the forecast of rain, this would be a good time for a race.
Marik would tell him that any time is good for a race.
Honda figures he only says that because Marik keeps losing them.
Just two days earlier, it is a weekend and Honda and Marik spend their time racing through the streets on the outskirts of town; two-lane highways across deep hills that aren't used by the casual travelers, only by those with a destination in mind like truckers or those for whatever reason feel like driving over the back roads that stretch for hours until they reach the next town.
It feels good to be so relaxed, so reckless, for a change. Nothing else matters but the road and the tires that all but fly over it and the thrill from the combination of both speed and the danger. There are others too, of course—lots of people race on these roads, and Honda learns to recognize them by their bright yellow jackets or red motorcycles, distinctive yet wholly unknown to them both. Marik complains that it isn't fair since Honda had grown up on these roads and knows them far better than he ever could—an excuse and a lie, clearly, and a pretty poor one at that.
Marik had been involved in the street racing culture of Cairo, he says—Honda has no idea how much of what Marik says is true and what is completely made-up, but as most of it borders on speculation he can only nod along, held to Marik's words by curiosity and interest—as Marik continues with a grin, telling Honda just how much it had cost to transport his motorcycle with him on his exchange program in Domino. Honda jokes back about the conversion rate between the yen and the Egyptian pound, and something about his motorcycle not being worth much if that was all it had cost him, and Marik mutters something about finally winning this one.
Marik is always angry when he loses.
Honda notices it just then, with a strange sense of confusion brought on by an incomplete and unaware understanding—Marik always seems to be angry about something.
Honda thinks about letting him win, but he knows that Marik would be able to tell the difference. He is startlingly perceptive like that.
Later, Honda wishes that he had lost the race—perhaps things would have followed differently if he had. Marik has already lost so much. Too much, in fact, and there is nothing Honda can do that can change that.
"Race with me," Marik asks. He leans against the faded, chipped brick of the building's walls, hands stuffed in his pockets. Honda doesn't stop as he walks past, and Marik quickly falls into place beside him as they walk across the large, paved sidewalk connecting the school buildings to the parking lot.
"I can't," he replies. The bell signaling the end of the school day rings, and Honda remembers with a grin how Jonouchi had recorded it the day before and set it as his ringtone, and then had Honda surreptitiously call him every fifteen minutes throughout their last class, making everyone think that school really was over—one of their better pranks, he thinks proudly.
"You can't, or you don't want to?" The question is posed innocently enough, and Honda sighs as he adjusts the strap on his book-bag. "Don't want to. Look at this weather—it's going to get ugly. I don't want to be out in this."
"Come on—it's as good as admitting defeat if you won't race with me," Marik persists. "Don't tell me you're afraid of losing!"
"Hardly." Honda waves to Jonouchi and Shizuka as they pass, and he turns back to Marik. "You shouldn't go out in weather like this—the roads are always bad when it rains."
"Spoilsport. Well, I'm going on my own, then," Marik says. "You can catch up later, if you like."
Honda doesn't walk five feet before the first raindrop hits his nose.
It is when he stands before the window overlooking the sink in the kitchen, a glass of water half-way to his mouth, that Honda decides that he should never have let Marik go off alone. He takes a quick drink and reaches the phone in his pocket, dialing Marik's number. It goes straight to voicemail.
A rusted metal awning hangs over the window, and the sound of the raindrops hitting it with merciless precision is loud, even indoors. He can see the rain stretching like a canopy over the world before him, dark clouds both comforting in their monochrome color and menacing in their presence.
He tugs on a jacket and his helmet, knowing that it really doesn't matter what he's wearing—he'll be soaked in a matter of minutes, at this rate. He can't help but worry—it's in his nature. He feels it in his stomach; that feeling that something is out of the ordinary. No matter how fast he drives, he can't outrun the rain.
As Honda pushes himself to drive faster, even over the slick asphalt, he wonders if this is what Marik feels like as he drives over the roads at the edge of town. His fingers are shaking from the adrenaline and the stinging cold of the rain, but he tightens them with firm resolution around the grip of the motorcycle as he takes one right turn and then a left, merging around the few cars on the roads.
He comes to a stop at a red light, and reaches once more for his cell-phone. There is still no answer on the other side, and he quickly puts it away as the raindrops hit the black plastic. The light changes, and he continues on.
He doesn't know how much time has passed, but he can hear the sirens before he sees the ambulance hurtling up the road behind him, overtaking him on the road within seconds. It disappears around the curve of the road, red lights flashing brightly even in the dim light, the siren growing softer and lower as it is lost in the distance.
He pauses for only a moment before increasing his own speed. Sure, the likelihood of Marik getting in an accident was the same as anyone else. It just couldn't be.
Numb to everything else, he continues on. A half-dozen curves and hills later and no more than two miles, and Honda once again hears and sees the ambulance, red lights still flashing, siren still loudly cutting through the silence in the air and in his mind. He sees the truck, a semi-trailer, sprawled on the side of the road with a huge dent in the side of the cargo unit. His eyes are drawn to the smashed motorcycle beneath it, twisted metal and wheels looking so different with the glare from the red lights of the ambulance.
He recognizes it instantly and stops his own bike, leaping off it and running the distance to the open doors of the ambulance, chest heaving from the effort and shock. Two men—medics, policemen, he doesn't know—stand by the doors, and Honda barely gets a flash of the inside before one is closed.
"Hey listen, I—" The first medic pauses, finally noticing Honda. "Just who are you?"
"The motorcycle—" Honda wheezes, barely able to speak before gulping in more mouthfuls of air. If anything, the rain is even harder here. "Marik Ishtar! Where is he? What's happened to him?"
The second medic hands the clipboard in his hands to the first, who takes it around to the driver's side of the ambulance and gets in. The second medic closes the last door and turns to Honda with an apologetic look before speaking.
"Listen, kid—you a friend of his?" At Honda's nod, he continues. "He's in bad shape. Really bad—he was pinned underneath the motorcycle. We've got to get him to the hospital, and quickly."
"Let me ride with you," Honda insists. "I told him not to come out here—I told him—I told him—"
"He's not conscious." The medic glances at the rain-spotted paper on the clipboard before tucking it to his chest, making his way to the passenger door as Honda follows. "And trust me—you don't want to see this."
Honda stumbles off, finding a trio of police officers talking to the truck driver. He barely catches the end of their conversation.
"—lucky you weren't hurt, you know, and—"
"Hey!" Honda interrupts. "Marik Ishtar—what's happened to him? Someone tell me!"
He suddenly finds himself feeling that much more focused at the loss of the wash of red that had once covered the scene before him at the absence of the ambulance. The police officers begin to ask him some questions. They are simple: who he was, how he knew Marik—"we go to school together"—how he had even come to be there in the first place—"He told me he was going to be out here…I told him not to go, but he wouldn't listen, and I thought that I should come if there was even the slightest chance that something could go wrong."
"His phone was broken. Can you give us any information about his next of kin?"
Honda stands, unwilling to answer for a moment at the thought of what that might mean. Of course they would want to alert his family that he had been involved in an…accident…but it often meant, too, that they were already considering the likelihood that he would…die.
"He has a sister and an adopted brother, living in Egypt," Honda offers. "I don't know their names or how to reach them. Sorry."
"Egypt?" The first policeman winces. "Well, we'll try to get a hold of them. Why don't you head on home, and—"
"What hospital?" Honda asks. "If his family can't be there with him, I'll be there."
"Domino General," he replies. "They've got the most advanced unit for…cardiovascular health."
Honda heads back to his motorcycle and finds his helmet in the grass by the side of the road where he'd thrown it earlier. He snaps it back on, trying with all his might not to look back at the dented and smashed motorcycle and not to imagine how Marik would have looked amidst the wreckage.
He has green lights all the way. He doesn't think he could have handled any more red.
Honda is shown into a smaller waiting room after a few minutes of waiting in the main waiting room. It's more of a hallway, really—a few clusters of families or individuals, waiting anxiously outside a set of double doors with circular, darkened windows, seeming so out-of-place against the stark, scrubbed white of the rest of the room, from the floor to the walls, the ceiling, and the uniforms worn by the doctors and nurses he sees hurrying from one place to another. Yet through it all, he never sees anyone go in or come out from the surgery ward. He checks his watch again, even though there is a clock on the wall opposite his chair.
Someone further down the hallway starts to cry. Honda wishes he had a book or something to read besides the stack of hospital pamphlets he has pointedly ignored at the reception desk, even though the emptiness and lethargy gives him time to think, although he's been trying to avoid that. Thinking in a hospital isn't a good thing for those like him, waiting on the results of what could be a life-or-death moment. They won't tell him much because he isn't a direct relative, they say, although he knows that Marik's heart was all but completely crushed, and he's getting a heart transplant.
A heart transplant.
The dread that Honda feels is nothing compared to what he felt earlier while watching the rain fall through his kitchen window. Those three words are about the least calming or comforting ones he can think of, and while he tries to stay optimistic it is difficult with the noise of pens scratching across paper or the quiet sobs of others around him.
There is only one singular thing that Honda is aware of, and it is that he is the only one who is here for Marik. Honda realizes just how little he actually knows Marik; he knows nothing about where he lives, who his family is—other than that they are on the other end of the globe, probably still unaware of what has even happened to him. The only things they have in common are motorcycles.
So Honda sits in the uncomfortable plastic chair, drumming his fingers on his knees for lack of anything better to do with them, waiting for the moment that a doctor returns from the fateful double-doors with the eventual, hopeful news.
"The operation was a success," the doctor tells him. "The heart has stabilized, and Marik Ishtar is in recovery. In a few moments, we can let you in to see him, although he won't be conscious for another couple of hours at least."
The first day that Marik and Honda meet is like any other. School progresses normally—he has a quiz in Biology, and he's pretty sure he's passed it, if barely—and he first doesn't even notice that there's a new student at Domino High, since they have no classes together.
Like any other day, Honda drives his motorcycle to and from school. Upon arriving, he notices instantly a machine he has never seen before lingering on the sidewalk near the bike rack, as though its owner had no idea where to park it. It's a deep, shiny black with bits of red in the detailing, and Honda wonders just who it belongs to. Not a teacher, certainly—they all seem to drive the same kind of beat-up tan or green station wagon—and Honda knows by looking at it that it's a pretty nice bike, and not a domestic model.
He asks his friends if they know who it belongs to at lunch. Anzu blinks at him, stating that she thought that it was Honda's own motorcycle, and asks why he pays such attention to that sort of thing. Ryuuji makes a joke—"sure, you all notice the motorcycle, but does anyone care when I come to school in a helicopter?"
It is Jonouchi who points with a fork towards a table at the far end, where a few students cluster silently before their lunches. "I think it's him. The new guy—he's some exchange student."
"What's his name?" Honda asks.
"I dunno, Marik something?" Jonouchi says, this time through a mouthful of sandwich. "He's in my math class—he's from Egypt, he talks kinda funny."
Honda snorts. "Yeah, like you're one to talk. Chew your food, Earl of Sandwich."
"Hey, if I'm from Sandwich, you're from…" he pauses, glancing at the food in-front of Honda. "…popcorn? Nah, that sounds lame." He swallows and takes another oversize bite.
After school lets out, Honda approaches Marik by the bike racks. "Hey! Marik, right?"
"Yes. Marik Ishtar," he says. The ensuing, awkward silence reminds Honda that it's his responsibility to keep up the conversation.
"Nice bike." He jabs a thumb towards his, resting in a spot against the fence at the end of the parking lot. "That's mine. It's a Suzuki. What model is yours? How fast can it go?"
"Pretty fast," he acknowledges with a grin. "But I haven't been able to find anywhere in town where I can drive fast enough to really test it out."
Honda matches Marik's grin with one of his own. "I know the perfect place. I can show you, if you want."
"That would be great."
Honda notices Marik's voice—probably every bit as smooth as the engine. Honda isn't the type to take on a charity case—he'd leave something like that to someone like Yuugi—but at the moment he can't help but feel like he's found a new friend in this new student, even if they have nothing further in common beyond this.
"Then follow me, if you can."
Honda watches Marik crack open one eye, and while he knows with some measure of relief that he's finally awake, his vision doesn't focus on anything in particular, with a hazy sort of indistinct awareness of their surroundings. The fluorescent lighting in these rooms is harsh and bright, and it's still dark outside—his room is lucky enough to have two windows, although the blinds are half-way down. The room is sparsely furnished, although the medical devices seem to propagate from every corner—Honda spots a defibrillator alongside the monitoring machine and a low cabinet.
"He's still heavily sedated from the pain," says the nurse who accompanied Honda into the room. "I'd be surprised if he doesn't fully regain consciousness for another few hours. He needs to sleep and recover—it's a small miracle that he's still alive."
The nurse checks his vitals from a machine that Marik is hooked up to, blinking with numbers and lines that Honda can't even begin to understand their purpose. She annotates some more notes on a clipboard before slipping it back into place in a slot in the bed near Marik's feet.
"I've got a half-dozen patients to administer medication to, so I'll be back to check on the both of you in a bit," the nurse tells him. "You're lucky." She smiles. "Your friend is a fighter."
Honda swallows thickly, the silence that much more profound after the nurse has left him alone. Marik is once again motionless, his eyes closed, and with difficult reluctance Honda allows himself to fully observe Marik's condition.
It must have been gruesome, he reflects, looking at how nearly every inch of Marik's body is covered in white gauze or bandages, with the exception of some spots on his arms, hands, and around his eyes and forehead. From his neck to where the sheet is tucked in around his chest all Honda can see are the snow-white strips of gauze, thickly padded around his chest. Honda's eyes are drawn to the left side of his body, wondering if it feels any different to him to have a different heart beating where the old one once was.
He wonders what has happened to the old one. Crushed, they said. It paints a colorful mental image for Honda—how the valves must have contracted, trying in vain to support the extinguishing life of its host. How his body must have been covered in blood, red instead of white, and how the effect must have been compounded under the harsh glare of the siren lights.
Honda wonders what might have happened if he had been with Marik all along. Would it have been he, pinned underneath a semi, watching his own blood run from his body? Would he have been there to watch Marik suffer? Most of all, Honda wonders what Marik will think, once he regains consciousness and can realize just what has happened to him.
Honda wants to be there when he wakes, to be able to see for himself. To be able to provide what comfort he can, or what comfort Marik might need.
He doesn't feel pity; he doesn't even feel sad. He just feels empty inside; hollow, like it was his own heart that had stopped beating and lay dead inside his chest.
The lights are bright. It hurts to breathe.
Marik struggles with consciousness, as though something is trying to drag him back into a state of semi-oblivious recovery. He can't move his arms—or maybe he can, he just can't feel anything. He imagines that his fingers are twitching, because that is what he is trying to instruct his mind to do. The bright lights are not helping his eyes to focus, although the only place he knows with lights like that is his school, and he knows he can't be there. For the first time, he wonders where he is, and why he can't remember it.
"He's awake."
"Finally—took him long enough."
Marik can barely distinguish the two voices, although they look like vague multicolored blurs before his eyes. Slowly, things begin to come into focus, and he sees Honda and a woman in a white coat. The woman isn't very pretty. Honda looks tired.
Marik tries once again to move his arms. He can see now that he is in a plain, square room, in bed. Why is he in bed?
There is a sharp pain in his right arm when he tries to move it, and his back and neck shudder with pain as he tries to move his head to look at his arms. Instead, he decides to move his arms into his field of vision. Honda and the woman continue to watch him; Marik wonders why. Has he done something wrong?
The effort it takes is considerable, but Marik finally raises his left hand enough to be able to see his fingertips. They look bruised, and on a second glance he notices the bandages on the back of his hand. The bandages travel up his arms, and he turns them to see the bruises and burns. He glances at his other arm, looking in silent confusion at the IV that connects him to a series of bags hanging on a rack by the side of the bed.
A hospital—that much clicks into place, and the fire in his upper body returns as Marik struggles to continue to examine his body. He is able to drop his chin down and his eyes widen as he finally sees what has become of the rest of him.
He is bandaged so tightly that his chest hardly expands with each breath—he inhales sharply and exhales deeply to prove it, and continues to breathe quickly and harshly in an attempt to clear and focus his mind, but all it does is make everything seem that much more hazy and unclear. He can't even see so much as an inch of his own skin—everything is covered in bandages. He can see just the barest rust-colored stain near the edge of one, and his vision is drawn back up to the concerned faces above him swimming back out of focus.
"He's in shock. Heart rate is elevated—"
"Hang in there, Marik."
His name—he recognizes that much. He only just remembers it—the accident, the shuddering impact—but it is enough to overwhelm him with the barest of details, and he wishes that he could hear Honda's voice and see his face more clearly. At the moment, it is the only lifeline he has. Something is fading.
It hurts to breathe. The lights are bright. The darkness returns.
When he opens his eyes again it is like he is once again seeing for the first time. Everything is sharper—the daylight streaming in from between the blinds, the smell of a small bouquet of flowers in a vase on a table by his bed, the sounds of the machines around him keeping time with their rhythmic and constant beeping.
Honda is sitting in a chair against the wall on the other side of the room, wearily rubbing his temples.
"I'm touched, you know," Marik says, "that you'd ruin your perfect school attendance for me." He manages a weak laugh, and his chest twinges with the effort.
"Just shut up and get better already," Honda replies.
Marik glances around the room again. "Did you put the flowers here?"
"The nurse did." He responds just a little too quickly. "How are you feeling?"
"I don't know," Marik says slowly. "It's strange, but I don't feel much of anything. I'm a little tired. Happy."
Honda looks at Marik, confused. "Did you just say happy?"
"Did I? I suppose I meant that I'm happy to be alive." He glances once more at the bandages covering his chest. "I'm sure you know more about what's happened to me than I do. So, what's the diagnosis?"
"Assorted cuts and bruises. A couple broken ribs. A heart transplant." Honda delivers the news in an increasing order of severity, watching Marik's reaction.
"I see," he says.
"I'll be here as long as I can," Honda continues. "I want you to know that you have someone else to support you through all of this. You don't have to be alone."
"But I'm not," Marik says, his mouth curving into as much of a grin as it can manage. "And thank you. You're a true friend, Hiroto Honda."
"Uh, thanks." Honda leans back in his chair, only slightly less uncomfortable than the ones in the waiting room, and does his best to hold back a yawn. He can barely keep his eyes open, but it seems to him as though Marik is having the exact opposite trouble, turning as much as he can in his narrow bed to observe his condition and injuries from all angles.
"Are you going to be okay? I need to go back to my house and get some sleep—I'm meeting a friend later to get my homework from today. I'll bring over some of my books for you."
"I'm fine," Marik assures him. The statement would be far more believable if to Honda he didn't physically look as far removed from 'fine' as a person could get. "I've got all these doctors taking care of me. They did a good job with my heart, right? Relax, Honda—I'm going to be just fine."
After so many hours of waiting, Honda's coat is completely dry. He stuffs his arms into the sleeves, stifling another yawn. "If you say so."
"What records we have managed to obtain indicate that your sister is Ishizu Ishtar, and she works for the Egyptian Government, correct?" The nurse stands poised by Marik's bedside, a ballpoint pen in one hand hovering over another clipboard in her other.
"That's right." Marik tries to stretch his legs, but they still feel as heavy as lead.
"Her phone number?" she asks. Marik gives it.
"We will notify her for you. I'm sure your family must be worried about you," she says with a smile.
"My…family?" He pauses, staring once more at his hands. "What are you talking about? I have no family."
Her smile falters. "Your sister and your adopted brother. You just told us about them."
Marik relaxes. "Yeah, of course I did. Ishizu and Rishid. Phone calls to Egypt are so expensive, you know? I haven't heard from them in a long time—I'm sure this won't be the news they're expecting to hear."
The nurse stared at him for a couple of seconds before shaking her head, looking back down at her clipboard. "Strange..." she muttered.
"What's strange?" he asks.
"Nothing," she says smoothly. "I just thought I heard something strange." She laughs.
He joins her. "Happens to me all the time."
"We'll want to change your bandages sometime tomorrow," she continues. "You'll probably be here a while, so is there anything I can do to make things more comfortable for you?"
"I am fine," he insists. "There is nothing I need that I don't already have."
It's very interesting, he considers, how the heart is the center of a human being. Literally, of course, the conclusion is unmistakable, but figuratively, it is a strange connection that he is only just beginning to understand.
The mind controls thought, of course, while the heart controls life—one can have life without thought, he muses, thinking about the countless number of people living pointless, monotonous lives. One cannot have thought without life, however, and it is here that his understanding excels.
The heart controls the rest of the body. It is what keeps it alive or kills it, depending on its proper functioning or lack thereof. He can feel it, the heartbeat that is so intrinsic to his being. It is almost like music to his ears.
If the heart is life, then he has just begun his—the new heart in this old body, beating with the steady rhythm of a drum. It is calling him home.
He gives his arms another glance, turning them over to observe them fully, inclining his head to get a better view. He cannot see what is below the bandages, and it irks him. Whatever wounds are there are beginning to itch. He supposes this state of vulnerability is the only downside to owning this body—it is weak and short of breath, easy to tire, but he supposes anyone would be in this state. He is glad there are no mirrors in this room; he does not think he would like the unvarnished truth laid out before him when it is so much easier to use his eyes to observe himself. He likes what he sees, and he likes owning the knowledge that he is in control. He owns his heart now, and to some degree he owns his mind.
Thought and life with every heartbeat. Like a seesaw or a pendulum, it swings up and returns down. Once he has tasted the top, it is impossible to submerge himself in the recesses of the bloodstream again. Life is only half of the equation, and his has been restarted, beating for survival and dominance.
He marks his time by significance: the addition of new bags of blood or medication to his IV drip, each thudding heartbeat, Honda's visits. In the first, he is forced to submerge himself. In the second, he finds strength.
In the third, he is connected to the only face and name he can place beyond his own. Marik's lips speak words that he pays no attention to, but his ears are open to the name Hiroto Honda, just as they are open to Honda's words when he says, "Hang in there, Marik."
It is a simple conclusion to draw. His name must be Marik. The one named Honda must desire his victory.
Marik will do his best not to disappoint.
"Marik, what have you done?"
Marik doesn't remember how he got out of bed, but there he is, standing in the center of the room on wobbly legs. His nurse is there, staring at him with an expression of horror and shock.
His glance travels from her face to the pile of school-books resting on his bedside table underneath the flower vase, and finally down to the floor where a small pile of blood-streaked gauze rests near his feet. One piece dangles from his left arm, and at first he is pleased to be able to gaze upon his flesh in this condition instead of the white-bandaged apparition that he has become.
He pauses, confused again.
"I…don't remember," Marik says, stumbling to sit back on his bed. His legs and arms are both shaking, but he can't draw his eyes away from it.
Looking past the scrapes and bruises, his skin is perfect. Perhaps these blemishes even add to the perfection, he thinks, and without thought almost reaches towards the dangling strand of gauze to tug it away from his skin. First the arms, and then the chest—he so wishes to see what his chest looks like underneath all of the bandages—
"Marik!" The nurse is by his side, helping lift his feet back into bed. Pain shoots up Marik's body from the pressure on his ribs, but it barely registers beyond a slight wince.
"You're pale," she remarks. "Are you having any problems with your medication?" She frowns. "I'll go grab some more bandages—you shouldn't remove them on your own. Let me handle this, otherwise you'll get infections."
She clicks her tongue. "When you recover, then you can take the bandages off. That's still a few weeks away. Let me do my job. Your job is just to sit here and recover, okay?"
"Of course," Marik replies.
He is sorrowed by the last glimpse of his broken skin before it is once again covered up by white gauze. The image is retained in his memory—it is one of the strongest that he possesses. He will not forget this.
Honda tries to spend some of each day with Marik—he knows that no one else has been by to see him, according to the nurses, who have also told him that Marik's family won't be able to make it for some time. It is the least he can do, then.
Marik is mumbling something when he enters, and Honda is pleased to see that Marik has one of his school-books open, running a finger slowly down Honda's notes in the margins.
"I had a quiz today in that class," Honda says. "You're lucky that you got to miss it." He pauses. "All things considered, you know."
Honda sits down in the chair that seems to wait for him. He pulls it a couple feet closer to the bed. "How are you?"
Marik lifts his chin to meet Honda's eyes with his own, and Honda is struck by the strange seriousness and disparity in them. "The real question, Honda, is: how are you?"
"I'm fine. I can't stay for long today, though." He isn't disconcerted by the question, and shrugs off the strange inflection in Marik's voice. Perhaps his throat was just sore or he was getting a cold.
"Have you driven your motorcycle at all since…?" Marik asks, and at the slightly sad shake of Honda's head a pleading, pitying expression grows on Marik's face.
"Come on, you've got to," Marik insists. "Don't you wish I'd rather be out there instead of locked up in here? This bed has wheels—there's a pretty good hill on the street out front. What I wouldn't give to be out for once."
"What are you reading about?" Honda asks.
He taps the left page with one thumb. "War. It's such an interesting concept, isn't it? The thought that out there, right now, people are probably hurting each other for some nationalistic sake."
Puzzled, Honda glances at the upside-down page, where a section on the wars of Feudal Japan lay opposite a few pictures of weapons and more writing on the advancements of the time in warfare and weaponry.
"Of course it is better to be on the winning side," he continues. "Wouldn't you agree?"
He doesn't wait for Honda's response. "It's astounding, how easily the body can be destroyed. How weak our bodies are—how easily they can bend or break."
"Marik." Honda is by his side in an instant, one hand lightly brushing the top of one gauze-covered arm. Marik wishes for one moment that he could know what that would feel like on his bare skin—on the bandages it feels heavy and impersonal.
"This is about your accident, isn't it?" he says. "Of course our bodies are weak—disease, war, you name it. Look at how many people die every day around the world. But our bodies are also strong—look at what you overcame. You're a survivor, Marik."
"I…am, aren't I?" His voice is soft but confident, and Honda withdraws his hand, missing the disappointed frown that lasts for only a second on Marik's face.
"Of course you are," he replies.
"Honda…" Marik is unsure of how to say it—unsure, because he does not even know exactly what it is that he is trying to explain. He knows only one thing, and it is what he tells Honda—that there is something terribly, terribly wrong.
"I need to tell someone, and I don't know what to do. There are times—whole hours—where I can't remember what happened or what I did. Something's happening to me."
"Marik, it's called your medication," Honda says with a chuckle. "You probably just fell asleep or something. It's probably a side effect of something you're on. Don't let it bother you so much."
"Bother me?" Marik's voice is soft, yet rushed and frantic. "It's like there are these huge holes in my memory. It's like my mind isn't my own anymore. It's like I'm being told what to do by a voice that isn't mine."
"Marik," Honda tries again. "You're fine. You're going to be fine—you told me so yourself, yesterday."
Marik pauses. "Did I?"
"Listen, I have to go now," Honda says, standing up and moving towards the door. "For real—are you going to be okay?"
Marik is silent for a moment, but he reaches out an arm and grabs onto the edge of Honda's jacket sleeve. "Don't leave—I don't want to be alone again. Don't leave me alone with him."
"With who? Marik—you're scaring me."
His look is suddenly deeply apologetic. "I'm truly sorry," he says. "I don't mean to scare you."
"Get some sleep, Marik," Honda tells him. "I'll be back tomorrow."
Marik tosses and turns in his narrow hospital bed all night—he knows it is night because there is no light; not even from the harsh fluorescents, and he has asked that the blinds be lowered and twisted closed to block out all of the light, for it is raining again and even the sound is grating and irritating to them.
I scare Honda, Marik thinks, and I scare myself.
That feeling of heaviness is slowly leaving his limbs, and he feels much more alert than before.
"It's simple, really, what is happening," he says aloud. The air-conditioning unit in the room starts to hum, and its low rumble almost drowns out the steady beeping of the machines he is still connected to. He crosses his arms.
"Your heart is dead," he continues. "It died on the operating table. It is mine that lives within our chest—you've had your turn. It's mine, now."
Marik blinks; he could have sworn he heard something. Voices, perhaps—he's met the night attendants and the security guard that makes the rounds each hour. That must be who it is.
"Some of our goals are the same, you know, although some differ by too great a margin."
I desire survival, Marik thinks to himself. Whatever this is, I can overcome it, just like I've overcome anything else. It is like a race to the finish line—there is only first place—
"—This body desires Honda, as do I—I saw him first, you know. I adore competition, because I always win. It is much better to be on the side of the winners—"
Marik struggles to raise his left hand once more, and the fingers stretch and contract together, touching his palm and then straightening out as he examines them. They repeat the action; he doesn't remember telling them to do so.
"I wonder what he thinks of me. I know how you regard me, foolish one, heart-less. Your fear is understandable—imagine how it feels to die?"
Marik's gaze rests on the bag of blood resting on the hanger by his bed, and the tubes that connect it to him and him to the machines. The body needs blood to survive, doesn't it? And for blood, one needs a heart—
"Put two and two together, dear foolish one, and you just might make five—"
It's the new blood running through my veins—it's not my blood, Marik thinks. It's his—I don't know myself anymore.
"—Bravo, heart-less."
Marik hears the sound of applause, and looks down to see his own hands clapping together softly. Marik clenches his fingers and hears the knuckles crack.
"That wasn't very kind of you, heart-less," he says. "Go to sleep. We just might see Honda when we wake up."
What's…happening to me…? How do I stop the blood from spreading? How do I…regain control…?
"Give in. You can't win. Give up. Surrender to me."
Marik feels his mouth turn up in a grin as he reaches one hand to his face to feel the tears leaking out of his eyes. The pain in his ribs is reduced to a slow burn, but he feels the pain spike as he coughs, his throat tight and dry. Marik reaches for the cup of water the nurse had left on his bedside table—the cup is empty.
"I am Marik, and this is my body," he says. "Get out."
Marik remembers what they euphemistically call "the accident." Is it an accident, then, that the rain makes the roads slippery and treacherous, and his front wheel happened to turn and skid in the slightest of puddles? That the headlights of the on-coming truck all but blind him as it turns around the corner—as they both turn around the same corner, and his turn is far too wide.
It's in his vision, up-close to his face as soon as he can blink, and his whole body jerks with the force of the impact as the front of his motorcycle smashes into the side of the truck, the back wheel already pulled far to the right in the momentum of the collision. The sound of twisting, wrenching metal fills his ears. He's never heard anything so horrific. He doesn't even have time to think.
His mind is blessedly blank until he realizes he's lying on his back and something heavy is pressing on-top of him, something very cold yet it feels like his chest is on fire. He can't breathe but he can see so clearly, and as he inclines his head forward he can barely believe what he is seeing is his own body.
His jacket is shredded in places, and patched damp with something darker than rain. The motorcycle lies in pieces—some of them, bits of glass or sharp metal, are likely wedged in his arms or body. He doesn't look beyond his chest.
Time ceases to have any meaning for him as he watches his own blood run from his chest and over the side, dripping warmly and sliding in little tracks across the pavement. He doesn't know how much blood is inside of the human body; he doesn't know how much he has left to lose. It looks like a lot to him.
The pain starts to recede, but he knows with some primal instinct that his body is only preparing him for death. He can't feel his fingers or toes, and soon his entire body feels relaxed and calm while his mind continues frantically not to lose consciousness. Marik doesn't know what to do, but he knows that beyond anything else he wants to live. He wants the blood to return back to his body and for his heart to continue to beat like nothing has ever happened.
"Rise and shine, sleepyhead." Honda drops his book-bag onto one of the chairs and moves towards the window, raising one of the blinds. "What are you doing sleeping at this hour? It's almost six! And it's so dark in here, too."
"Honda…" Marik's voice is softer than usual, and Honda instantly draws another chair closer to the bed.
"What is it?" Honda asks. "How are you feeling?"
"Better than I have in days, actually," he replies with a grin. "They're taking me off of some of this medicine tomorrow. I can't wait to go home."
"Good, then." Honda's own smile is thin and stiff. "The nurses told me that your family is coming to get you tomorrow. They're taking you home with them."
"You sound unhappier than I," he says. "And this is impossible. I call no one my family."
"What?" Honda watches him again, and Marik hates to see that odd combination of confusion and hurt flash for a moment in his eyes. What did he say to make Honda so upset?
"No—no, I didn't mean it." He tries to reassure Honda, reaching out with nearly-healed hands to rest his fingertips against Honda's arm. He vaguely remembers Honda doing something similar for him, many days ago. His fingers and hands tingle painfully, and he wonders why that is.
"My arms…are asleep," he mutters, wincing at the sharp and sudden pain whenever he tries to move them.
"Of course, you were sitting on them when I came in," Honda says. "It's no wonder your circulation is so poor right now." He reaches for one of Marik's hands and takes it in his, slowly rubbing Marik's skin to try and bring back some of the circulation. "Don't worry," he continues. "You'll feel better when all the blood comes back to them—"
"Honda?" Marik interrupts.
"Hmm?" Honda's fingers halt over the tops of Marik's palms. He turns his hands to grasp Honda's in turn.
"Thank you for being here with me," he says. "You've been here every day, and really," he pauses, "I think you are far more a part of my family than anyone Egypt may have sent for me."
Honda's confusion over Marik's odd words last for only a moment, but he leans closer and presses his lips against Marik's forehead. "I wish you didn't have to go home."
Honda's lips feel warmer than fire against his skin. "Going home is a wonderful thing," he says. "My home is wherever you are, of course. My heart belongs to me, but you are welcome to take whatever else of me you like, Hiroto Honda."
Honda's grip on Marik's hands tightens, and Marik squeezes back. "I need you, Honda."
Honda leans in closer, and the beeps from the machine to his left start to increase in tempo. Honda draws back and laughs, a pleased smile on his face. "Your heartbeat gives you away, Marik."
"It beats for the both of us," he says openly.
Honda leans closer again and the beeping spikes. He looks at Marik, then sighs and leans back in his chair. "I can't—I shouldn't. I wouldn't want to stress your heart, Marik," he jokes.
"You can't, or you don't want to?" The question is posed innocently enough, and Honda remembers those same words; the last time the question was asked, Honda refused him and Marik all but lost his heart. Not again.
"Oh, believe me—I want to." Quickly, Honda closes the space between them and kisses Marik, lingering just long enough to hear the crescendo of beeps spike from the machine connecting Marik to a tangible representation of life.
He breaks it just as quickly, and Marik wonders with a kind of subtle delirium if it actually ever happened at all, or if it was just his imagination.
"You should probably get some rest," Honda says. "You have a big day tomorrow."
He stifles a yawn. "I'm so tired," Marik says. He offers Honda a grin. "I need to sleep to regain my strength."
"Go to sleep, then. I'll be here tomorrow, of course."
"Stay with me until I fall asleep?" Marik asks.
"Sure." Honda sits back and watches Marik's eyes close. It's the least he can do, after all.
When he opens his eyes again it is with an immediate sense of clarity and awareness of the world around him—the beeping of the machines, the fading color on the dying flowers in the vase by his shoulder. It's a wonderful feeling. He is not quite ready to give that up.
He swings his legs over the side of the bed—the sensation is glorifying. There is no resistance in his heavy limbs. The nurse had been by earlier; the hanger and its accoutrements are missing from the room.
A nurse leads Honda into the room. How strange, he thinks, that he always seems to be awake at just the right moments? The look on Honda's face, however, freezes him in place.
The nurse taps a pen against the edge of the clipboard in her hands. "Ishizu Ishtar and Rishid Ishtar are downstairs, filling out paperwork," she says. "They'll be here in a few moments."
"I'll go get them," Honda volunteers. The nurse shrugs and leaves the room.
"Wait," Marik says. "Honda, wait for me."
"It'll only be a moment," Honda tells him, before following the nurse out of the room.
He walks the now-familiar path down a series of long hallways before they reach the waiting room to see a tall, tanned man and woman standing before the counter. She is filling out paperwork, he standing silently beside her. Honda suddenly doesn't know what to say to these two people who look nothing like Marik beyond the hue of their skin, yet carry themselves in much the same way—he knows without a shadow of a doubt that these are Marik's relatives.
Two doctors rush down the hall in the opposite direction as Honda approaches Ishizu and Rishid. While their posture and demeanor make them look older from a distance, it strikes Honda that they can't be that much more than a few years older than he is—they must be so worried about their brother.
"Hello," he says. "I'm Honda—I'm a friend of Marik's."
"It's nice to meet you," replies Ishizu. The two formally introduce themselves, and the conversation pauses while Ishizu returns to her paperwork, the sound of the pen scratching across the paper replacing the exchange of words and voices.
"How is Marik?" asks Rishid as Ishizu dashes her name across the bottom of the page. It is done—Marik has been formally released into the care of his siblings. Honda tries not to think about the very real possibility that Marik could be returning to Egypt with them in the near future, when he has just—when they have just—
"He's recovering," Honda says. That doesn't seem to be enough to fully explain it. "There are times, though, where seems almost…out of control. I think it's his medication—it's messing with his mind or something, making him think there are holes in his memory." Honda shrugs. "It's probably just how he's dealing with the accident. They took him off the medication today. He'll be fine."
"Let's go see him, then," Ishizu says. "We have not seen our brother in quite some time. I'm sure he will be missing us."
They walk back down the white hallway with its daunting ribbon of fluorescent lights, and turn the corner to see a group of doctors and aides, banging with fists and clutching the unyielding doorknob.
"—locked it from the inside—"
Ishizu joins them in a second and the others are right behind her; Honda doesn't need to tell her that this is Marik's room, and that something once again has gone horribly wrong. They can both feel it in the panic in the air.
Honda checks the door handle; true to everyone's experience, it refuses to turn. He presses his fingertips lightly against the door, then moves a few paces back.
"Everyone, stand back." Honda nods at Rishid, and the two stand together, tensing in preparation. There is no signal; the two simply work in simultaneous assistance as they rush at the door, breaking the lock as the door opens with a well-placed kick.
Rishid looks unruffled but Honda's right foot stings with the brief pain from the impact as he rushes into the room. A doctor all but runs into him as Honda stops, abruptly.
Marik is lying on the floor, eyes open, mouth clenched tightly. Honda realizes it the same instant that everyone else comes to the same conclusion—Marik's body is lying on the floor. His hands clasp the paddles of the defibrillator, and Honda steps over a small, broken vase and a cluster of dead flowers to reach Marik's body.
The machine is silent, a flat line running across the length of the screen.
"His heart…" Ishizu speaks first.
"It's stopped," finishes one of the doctors.
"Then we can re-start it." Honda's voice is determined, and the doctors rush around him quickly, checking his pulse and removing and re-charging the defibrillator. One begins chest compressions.
Honda cannot see Marik through the crush of white-coats gathered around his body, but he can hear the dull whine of the machine and the brisk jolt of the electrical connection. Honda's eyes search the room—the doctors, the inactive line on the machine, Ishizu's face. He wonders if he wears the same expression she does.
He hears it again—the sound of the defibrillator connecting—and he is filled with a hope so strong that it threatens to overcome him completely as one of the doctors shouts, "his pulse! It's faint, but it's present—"
The machine beeps back to life the same time that Marik does, and Honda can't keep the wide grin from his face. It is almost enough to make him forget about what Marik has done, and why.
His eyes are blinking and soon Ishizu, Rishid, and Honda are allowed to crouch by his side as the doctors continue to monitor his pulse and vitals.
"Marik!" Honda and Ishizu both call out his name, but his eyes are drawn to Honda.
"What…happened?" His voice is understandably thin, but Honda smiles just in hearing it.
"For a moment, you died. You gave us all quite a scare."
Even with the dizzy haze clouding his eyes, he still manages to look apologetic. "I'm truly sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."
"Why did you do it?" One of the doctors has pressed forward. "Why did you try and stop your heart?"
His brow furrows first in confusion, then concentration, and finally settles in contentment. "I don't know," he answers, almost carelessly. "It doesn't really matter, does it?"
He coughs in pain as the team of doctors move to transfer him from the floor back to his hospital bed.
"How can it not matter?" Honda asks.
"Because I'm still here," he says. "Because I'm free. Because I won."
End.
Notes:
1) "Solus Rex" is a condition in chess where one side (usually black) has only the King piece remaining.
2) An extra reminder that throughout the story (from the "operation" onwards) when I use the pronoun "he" (for Marik), I am referring to the dark personality.
3) Medical liberties. Yes, the ending would most likely not have happened—but that's what fiction is for! =D And if the only problem you have in a story about a transplanted organ taking over the body is a movie!science (think Mission: Impossible!) resuscitation, then there isn't much I can do to help you xD
4) Thank you for reading. Your reviews would be valued and appreciated! =D
~Jess