Retrograde Motion
Genres: Sci-Fi, Family
Summary: When it snows, just because he can't feel the cold, it doesn't mean it is no longer there. Two siblings pull a broken robot from a junkyard, and help him piece together his identity. / AU Standshipping Jonouchi x Rishid
A/N: Written for the YGO Fanfiction Contest, Season 9, Round Four, with the pairing of Standshipping (Rishid x Jonouchi). This is an AU that adapts and combines elements of canon with steampunk/gaslamp fantasy elements. Italicized scenes are flashbacks. I hope you enjoy!
Retrograde Motion
"You people with hearts," he said once, "have something to guide you, and need never do wrong; but I have no heart, and so I must be very careful." –The Tin Woodsman, from L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
They walk together down the long, narrow dirt road. Shizuka carries the basket in her arms, empty now. It will be full on the return journey.
Jonouchi Katsuya, her brother, has his arms free, bare from the shoulders down, gloves protecting his fingers and palms. He's long lost track of how many cuts and bruises he's gotten from too-sharp gears or mechanical parts, scavenged pieces of machines or tools left behind by someone who doesn't need or want them any longer. The heaviest pieces are his to handle.
Their walk is silent save for the intermittent chirping of birds and the occasional, low blast from the train running parallel off in the distance. Shizuka's steps are quicker, but his are longer, and together they make their way to the junkyard.
The land is mostly flat, but a few hills roll like green waves across the ground, and at the bottom of one the road ends, wrapping around a fence of twisted metal. Trucks and trains bring their scrap from all over the country, to rest here, far from any major cities, far from most people who would care to live near a junkyard.
Jonouchi and Shizuka know the manager, an aging, rotund man who won't be bothered if a few parts go missing here and there. They pick their way through the gate, stepping over screws and bolts, long implanted in the dirt by tire tracks or shoes. The piles of junk metal are huge and lopsided, with little order to their contents or bulk, toppling as the two siblings climb them, searching for parts usable enough to sell or amass into something new.
Shizuka stumbles on a particularly weak patch of sheet metal and goes falling, unearthing the inside of the metal mountain. Her basket, full of smaller pieces, tips over onto the ground.
"Hey! Look at that!" Jonouchi moves past her, digging with both hands. Coils of wire get tossed aside, making room to pull out the piece of dull, rusted steel. "Shizuka, take a look at this!"
"What is it?" She pulls herself to her feet, hair tangled up from the fall, her face streaked with grease from rubbing it with the back of her hand, after so much digging through machinery. Steadily this time she makes her way to her brother's side.
"I think it's an arm," he says. "The arm of a robot. And still intact! Imagine that." He pulls it, finding a portion still buried beneath the surface. "Give me a hand, sis—get it?"
She rolls her eyes, but clears some of the loose pieces of scrap away as Jonouchi pulls on the arm, dislodging it inch by inch.
"It shouldn't be this heavy. Steel is lightweight—what metal would weigh this much? Unless there's more…unless it's stuck to something…"
Shizuka can see the confusion on his face, and shifts more bolts to the side to make room, clattering across the pile of junk, sounding like metal rain. Jonouchi leans closer to the arm, studying it.
"There's more under here!" He pulls faster now, furiously trying to extricate the arm. "It's not just an arm—it's an entire robot."
The arm is connected to a shoulder, and before long they have pulled the entire thing free, an entire, fully-formed robot, with horrendous rust covering its chest and joints.
"Does it have a chip?" Shizuka asks. "We'll need to charge it. I wonder what it was for? Who would throw away a perfectly good robot?"
"It's good for us," Jonouchi says. "We can sell it. Come on, let's get it back home. We've done enough for the day."
He hefts the robot onto his back, finding the heavy weight now more unwelcome than ever. Shizuka had her basket, filled with smaller parts, a scarf knotted at the top to keep them from spilling, either from the wind or the motion of walking.
"You could always…drag it behind you?" She offers the suggestion hesitantly, already knowing how Jonouchi will react.
"I'm not going to treat our gear that poorly. You think I bang up my wrenches for fun, leave my half-finished projects out in the rain to rust and corrode?" The dead weight on his back isn't so hard to bear, and with its human shape it is easy enough to grasp an arm and shift the body over his left shoulder when his right gets tired of it. "What if an arm were to break off? I'll be fine. And if we come across a cart, we can always ask for a ride."
He pauses, staring straight ahead at the long, very empty expanse of road before them. Somewhere in the distance, a train whistle blasts. "And if not, it's only ten miles."
In the city, what he likes most is the view.
The family has the means and the authority to command an entire tower for their own use, a thick, gray structure of concrete, cold to the touch. Ensconced within it, there is no need or reason to go elsewhere but its endless mazes of rooms and corridors, dark stairways, and elevators that hum with a dull, mechanical buzz. There is no need to even look outside, not when it would only highlight the condition of the streets, piled with refuse and spilling waifs and strays from every corner.
"Rishid."
He looks up when called, watching the family patriarch standing in the doorway. He observes Rishid as he watches the streets, with an air of dissatisfaction known only to fathers whose children have failed them. "Fetch my son."
"Of course, master." He bows and moves out of the way as Nassor Ishtar walks past him, heading towards the large cabinets that line the opposite wall, opening a drawer and rifling through the papers there.
"You will bring him to my personal office. That is all."
Rishid bows again, even though Nassor's back is turned towards him, and leaves in search of Marik. Of course, he would not expect his adopted father to ever acknowledge him as such, but to hear it repeatedly—'fetch my son,' never 'fetch your brother.'
He finds Marik hunched in a closet under a stairwell, a half-read book spread across his lap. His brother has recently taken to finding increasingly creative hiding places, places he can truly be alone within a vast complex of servants and business associates to lesser members of the Ishtar clan. Above them, the sound of footsteps creaking on the stairs echoes softly through the floorboards.
"Your father wishes to see you." He seats himself beside Marik, leaning against the wall and trying to find a comfortable place. Marik, on the other hand, seems unbothered by it, and wraps an arm inside the book to mark his place.
"Do you know why?" he asks.
"No," he answers swiftly.
"My father has forbidden you from lying to me," Marik is quick to counter.
"Then yes," he says. "I apologize for disobeying my orders." His voice is far more monotone than mellifluous, but Marik seems to be able to distinguish the inflection behind each word. "Your birthday is approaching. Perhaps he wishes to speak to you about that?"
"It's only thirteen." He shrugs, swishing bone-colored hair behind each shoulder. "It's not that special of a year."
"No matter the issue, you should not keep him waiting. You know how your father likes that."
Marik stands, folding over a corner in one page of the book before handing it to Rishid. "Take this back to my room, would you?"
"Of course, brother," he answers.
"And you'll find Ishizu, and force her to eat dinner with us?"
"I shall ask her kindly." Rishid's face is as still as stone, but Marik catches the slight humor, as always.
"And you'll eat with us, too?" he asks.
"I do not eat." Rishid has lost count of the times he's had to remind his brother of that very fact. "I can always recharge myself as you eat, if it would make you feel more comfortable."
"That's not necessary." Marik's smile comes easily, and he waits for the sound of footsteps to fade away before cracking open the door and slipping outside, holding it for Rishid to follow. "I'll see you later."
They depart, each heading in opposite directions as Rishid makes his way towards Ishizu's chambers. Her door is closed but not locked, and he knocks once before entering to find his sister at her desk, sorting through letters.
"Are you planning on working through dinner again?"
She looks up, startled by his presence. "Rishid! I didn't hear you come in—please, make yourself comfortable."
He settles for standing against the wall, folding his arms behind his back. "If you can spare the time, Marik would be glad to have you join us for dinner."
"Then the time must be spared." She stands, straightening the stacks of envelopes and paper on her desk. He has known the two for almost his entire life, and while Marik is still young enough to be considered a child, Ishizu stands fully-grown, her head barely reaching his chin. There is a window in Ishizu's room, too, although the curtains are shut.
"Come on," she says, and he follows her dutifully to the door. "Lead the way to our brother."
For a full three days, the two work on the robot; Jonouchi works on the metal and wiring itself, while Shizuka cleans the casing, trying to get rid of whatever neglect the junkyard had imparted to it. There is a strange section of its arm, a place where the rust has crusted over, and as she cleans it and polishes it she learns quickly that it isn't metal at all.
"Katsuya," she says quietly, unsure what to do with this most recent revelation, "I think it's skin."
"That doesn't make any sense." He goes back to fixing the wiring at the neck, trying to salvage a broken receiver panel. The robot came to them with a great many injuries already sustained, most to the wiring and the circuitry; the rest had merely been done by time and oxidation.
"But see," and she points out the places, on the arms and chest and legs where the surface isn't metal at all, worn away to something different, something more human in construct, "I know it is. He doesn't bleed, but that's definitely scar tissue there, around the metal plates. And fingerprints! He has those too. What kind of manufacturer would give a robot fingerprints?"
"He?" Jonouchi studies the robot again, the smooth curve of one cheek, the wires in places visible beneath the skin. "I suppose, but we'll know for sure when I fix this port and re-calibrate the chip."
"He had one?"
"The drive itself was reduced to nothing, the chip crushed. Who knows what we'll get out of it. He may be good for labor, but I'm not holding much hope for advanced calculus, if that's what you're wondering."
"No, I wasn't." She continues working on the joints of his arm, making sure they are solid and the fingers will be movable and in working order for when the robot is charged. "How much do you think we'll get for him?"
"Not sure," he admits. "Enough. More than enough."
He locates the thin series of cords that stretch from the back of the robot's neck, and connect them to the outdated generator he keeps in the kitchen for just such tasks. The counters swarm with tiny robots, fixed-up appliances and egg timers that don't seem to know how to keep time, but Shizuka finds the chaos charming. With the robot spread out on their dining-room table, they hadn't even been able to eat a meal there, and had been taking their lunches and dinners from the rolling hill at the front of their house, legs tucked against the grass as they watched the clouds roll by.
"We'll let him charge, then start him up! There's a switch on his back—between the shoulderblades. See?" He points it out, and Shizuka studies the subtle changes her brother has made, from replacing some of the plating to sanding down the rough, exposed bolts stretching across his shoulders. His face had remained unchanging, with only a little work done to clean the surface, and the places where the blue surge of voltage had shown through where the wiring was visible through the skin had been patched.
"About time to wake him up, don't you think?" Jonouchi flips the switch, watching with unreserved anticipation as the body accepts the charge, muscles jerking as it seeks to follow through on the command, the command to wake brought about by the simple pressing of a button.
"He's been sleeping for too long," she agrees. "We'll see what kind of robot he is, what his specialties are. Hey, maybe he's one of those robots who build other robots?"
"I don't know," her brother says, his enthusiasm receding just as quickly. "I've never seen anything like this. I thought I knew machines, but I don't know a single thing about this one. I can't tell what its purpose is, who its makers are, or why it wound up in that junkyard. I wish I knew, but I don't."
"You won't have to wait long for answers." Shizuka leans forward as the robot's body jerks again, and one eye cracks open, blinking quickly against the bright lamps overhead.
Jonouchi has an outdated scanner in one hand, and brings it to the robot's side, checking the stability of the circuits, his bioelectromagnetism, and his body temperature. "All good so far," he says. "You there? Robot?"
He cracks open both eyes this time, struggling to take in the entire room. With a sudden movement, he sits up, swaying slightly in place as he presses his palms to the table, struggling again to maintain his balance and perception. They wait for him to speak, but Jonouchi's patience runs out in seconds.
"Hello? You there?" Jonouchi repeats himself, crossing both arms over his chest. "I swear, if the language data wasn't preserved…"
"Where am I?"
He speaks the words slowly, staring at the kitchen and the two of them as if he finds none of it familiar, yet has no knowledge of what familiar should even be. A second glance confirms that he is connected to a generator at least thirty years out of date, and when he tests the soreness in his arms he finds his skin has toughened, the metal casing polished and replaced in sections that had needed it.
"You're in the country." It is Shizuka who answers him. "I'm Jonouchi Shizuka, and this is my brother, Jonouchi Katsuya. What is your name?"
"Rishid." He remembers that enough, clearly, the simple confirmation of his existence shining like a beacon in the darkness.
"Do you know how you came to be in that junkyard?" she asks.
"…Junkyard?"
"We found you." And she fills in the gaps as best as she can. "You were a mess, but we brought you here and fixed you up. You'd been left there, and we don't know why."
"I have no recollection of this." Rishid stares at the generator, taking comfort from the dull hum of the motor. In his hand, Jonouchi's scanner blips blue, lines crossing the screen to tell him that nothing is wrong with him mechanically, save for one.
"Your chip drive is corrupted," Jonouchi says almost conversationally. "The edges are burned. It wasn't done delicately."
"I see." He tries to stand, sliding off the table to set his feet to the floor. A blanket had been stretched across his midsection, and he clutches it now, struggling to keep his footing.
"Still, it's incredible," Shizuka says. "A robot designed to resemble a human!"
Rishid leans against the table, using it for support. "More like a human designed to resemble a robot."
"What do you mean?" Jonouchi's face turns dark, the pieces all but putting themselves together in his head. "You're not a robot, are you? Not even close. But you're not human, either. What are you?"
"I wish I knew." Rishid sways again on his feet as he closes both eyes. "I remember myself as a child—I lived on the streets in the city. I remember…faces. Dark faces, like they are standing in a room without the benefit of a lamp. I cannot make them out. Then…nothing."
"Your memory was wiped," Jonouchi says. "The damage to the chip…someone did that to you, it was no accident. It's understandable that you can't remember. Heck, I have trouble remembering what I ate yesterday."
"I do not eat." The phrase comes, unbidden, and Shizuka smiles.
"One less mouth to feed, then. My brother eats for three, anyway."
As Rishid takes a step forward, his legs buckle and Jonouchi is there as fast as his own legs can move.
"Be careful," he says, and moves to support Rishid with an arm looped around his shoulders. "Your muscles aren't what they used to be. Let them catch up to the machine side of you. Rest. When you're fully charged, you can explore the house."
There is a window on the other side of the room, above the sink. Rishid can see just the barest glimpse of the world through it, the fields stretching on for miles without end and the bright blue of the sky.
It's not familiar, not in the slightest; he's sure he's never seen anything like it before, but that doesn't stop it from feeling like home.
The dinner is a long, formal affair, punctuated by decorations on the table, all of Marik's favorite foods, and cake for dessert. The gifts are just as formal and boring, devoid of personality and more for ceremony than anything else, as the heir to the clan. Nassor has yet to give his present, and Rishid has none to give for his brother.
"I told you," he says, as Marik corners him once again with a disappointed pout. "I will give you a gift, I just have not decided what it will be yet."
"Father said his gift to me will be my greatest inheritance," Marik states, with a reluctant glance at the high table, where Nassor still sat, talking with others in their clan. "He said he cannot give it to me yet, not until I am older. It's not fair. I want my gift now!"
"It would be wise not to anger Father." Ishizu approaches them, bending down to give her brother another one-armed hug. "Happy Birthday, brother."
"If I were as old as you, it would be enough for my inheritance," Marik continues. "How old are you, Rishid?"
"I do not know. I stopped counting since my…transformation. When I was adopted. But I imagine I was little older than you when it happened." He leaves it at that, and Ishizu turns towards Marik.
"You must thank the others for their gifts. Go!" She pushes him away, and he abides, joining a group of their Father's associates to thank them for the trouble of attending his celebration.
"Father does not seem happy tonight," Rishid says, for lack of wanting to comment on anything else.
"It is no wonder he does not like to celebrate Marik's birthday. In doing so, he is also celebrating Panya's death." Ishizu glances at the head of the table, her expression then so much like Marik's in accomplishing the same gesture. Rishid knows without being told that his face could never achieve that same expression.
"The matter of his inheritance…" It is too delicate to bring up outright, but Ishizu can bear to hear it. "I worry for Marik. I worry I am not a good enough brother, but I am not sure what more I can do."
"You do more than enough." Ishizu means every word, and speaks quickly when she sees Marik crossing the room to head back towards them. "That is your ultimate command, is it not? To be the perfect brother. And you are, Rishid. It's in your very nature."
"What a joke." It troubles him, almost as much as worrying over Marik does. "I have no such thing. Are you forgetting just what I am?"
"I could never forget," she says. "But I think sometimes, you are the one who forgets."
Shizuka is not as experienced a mechanic as her brother, but just by looking at the quality of the metal and the unfamiliar, unique workmanship, she knows that this robot is extremely valuable, and just as rare. The thought of selling Rishid now is too repellent, but he offered to help out around the house as they did, in payment for fixing him, and already they had more firewood than they knew what to do with, and he had helped her brother put new shingles on their roof the day before. He had learned every room of their house; where things belonged, what objects held meaning, which machine parts had been mislabeled, and which parts were to be sold at future markets.
He stands in the hallway as she approaches on slippered feet, the sound masked. Even still, he turns, with a look barely akin to embarrassment on his face. He had been looking at a photograph, the only one in the house.
"Who is that?" Rishid looks at the woman in the photo, framed in black wood, hanging on the wall out of the way of direct sunlight.
"Our mother," she says. "We do not have any photos of our father, or any of ourselves."
"The faces of my own mother and father are lost to me." His voice never wavers, the same monotone, but she can discern true emotion behind it. "I am remembering more every day—sometimes just flashes of memory, still moments captured like this photograph." He gestures towards it.
"How is that?" Shizuka asks. "My brother said your memory was gone…the chip had been damaged."
"I still have a brain," he says, as if to remind both her and himself. "It was merely modified to allow for my present condition."
"Tell me what you remember."
He tells her as they stand together in the hallway, the sunlight creeping across the floor as the sun moves lower in the sky. He tells Jonouchi as they work together on a personal transport machine of his own construction, building an engine out of spare parts.
"I was just a child," he says, "when I was taken from the streets by a powerful family, who promised me food and shelter if only I participated in an experiment of theirs. I learned later that I was one of many such children, but I was the first to have succeeded where the rest failed."
"What kind of experiment?" Jonouchi wants to know, while Shizuka asks him his age.
"I do not recall, not exactly," he tells them. "I could have been fifteen. The particular clan dealt in machinery, in production, in robotics. They sought to create a combination of both person and machine, a human being who had reached perfection in their eyes. They created me."
Shizuka does not cry for him, but her eyes shine with the promise of tears. "How could you stand it?"
Another memory comes to the forefront of his mind, a single image of his brother, running down the halls of their tower, reading a book in a cramped closet. "I was told my life's purpose was to serve as the perfect brother. It was the one order I could not fail—I wish I knew where he was. Even now, being separated from him like this, I have failed him."
Jonouchi's work room is a small barn-like structure adjacent to their house. He tightens a few loose screws with a wrench as he listens to Rishid talk.
"Those people have no concept of perfection." Jonouchi spreads his arms, gesturing towards the half-finished motorized bicycle. "Now, this, on the other hand…"
"In this state, it won't even run," Rishid says.
"It's not any less perfect if it doesn't." Jonouchi wipes the sweat from his forehead with the back of one arm. "And you're brainless to have thought the same person who turned you into that had your best interests at heart."
"I have a brain," he says again, resting his palm against the side of his head, still hairless, as if to prove a point. "It is functioning perfectly, you verified it."
"It's not the same as the one in my head, though, is it?" Jonouchi stands, tossing the wrench aside to clatter on a shelf against some other discarded tools. "So you have a brain. Do you have a heart?" He steps forward, and pokes Rishid in the chest with a finger.
"No," he answers.
"That's what I thought." He presses his hand against the left side of his chest; no heartbeat sounds back, none at all. "You can't understand. You don't have the necessary capacity. No matter what you may have started out as, you're not human. Not anymore. Not to me."
He has no answer for that, so he stands as Jonouchi leaves, the door slamming back into place behind him, and studies the half-finished bicycle, contemplating his idea of perfection.
Nassor summons him to his private office, a room without windows or comforts save the large, ornate desk that his adoptive father sits behind. He is not offered a chair himself, but while Nassor knows he prefers to stand, the lack of such an offer is telling.
"You wished to see me, Father?"
"Yes." He hardly looks up from his paperwork, spread out across the desk. One sheet, faced towards him, looks surprisingly familiar. The diagrams and computer readouts are his own records—medical records. "I wish to run additional tests on you."
"Tests have already been run." He links his arms behind his back, keeping his body relaxed enough that when he leans forward, just slightly, he can read the papers without drawing attention. "Were they not satisfactory?"
"That is why I require additional ones, Rishid." Nassor looks up then, grinning at him from beneath the hood that he hardly ever removed. He had removed it for the operation, he remembers—that face, staring down at him, telling him that if he succeeds, he can have everything he's ever dreamed of—he remembers that face, and that voice. He does not dream any longer, though. He is not sure if that is a good or bad thing.
"Of course, Father." He has no choice but to concede. "May I ask why you need these tests?"
"An experiment isn't successful if you can perform it only once. Duplication, Rishid. For a time, I considered you perfection—the perfect brother, the perfect son. But soon, you will be hardly more than inferior. Secondary."
"Secondary to…?"
"No matter." Nassor collects a few of the papers and binds them together, among them the upside-down one that Rishid has been reading. "Creating you was just an introduction to creating the real version, after all. I will do what is best for my clan. As do you, Rishid. You're so excellent at following orders."
"I will be the perfect brother, as you have commanded." The one true command, wired into his very being, is impossible to break. He shudders to think what other commands one might give someone like him. Protecting someone is one thing, but suppose he had been ordered to destroy…?
"With your permission, may I be excused?" He needs to be alone, to think, to plan. He needs to talk to his sister.
"You may. Tomorrow, early, you will return for those tests. Do not keep me waiting."
"I will not." Rishid bows, but Nassor hardly acknowledges him beyond a dismissing wave of his hand. "Tomorrow."
Overnight the snow falls with a sudden fierceness, blanketing the world in a coverlet of crisp, soft white. Shizuka squeals with happiness, throwing on some boots and a coat and runs outside, marking the ground with her footprints. She throws a snowball at the windows where Jonouchi and Rishid are working inside, splattering snow against the glass until their faces appear. She laughs and waves, running away to distance herself in case they decide to use the snow lining the steps or the windowsill to return the favor.
"It does not snow in the city." Inside, Rishid watches the scene with mild interest, the snow on the ground to the strands of icicles hanging from the roof. "The air is ruined, forever tainted by the weight of smoke. Can we go outside?"
"Sure." Jonouchi is not sure what is so special about the snow; it happens every year, seemingly deeper than before, and it makes walking to the markets or the junkyard difficult. It destroys their crops and weighs their roof down. It is beautiful to look at, he concedes, but so are many other things, like a well-oiled machine, or finding a piece from one device that fits another.
In the main hallway, he opens a closet door and pulls out two coats, handing one to Rishid and shoving his arms through the threadbare sleeves of the other. Outside, Shizuka was building a snow-man, hunting for sticks to serve as the arms.
He walks barely a half-dozen steps before his foot sinks to the ankle and snow invades his boot. Cursing, he shakes his boot free of it, trying to ignore the cold. Rishid continues ahead, to the other side of the house, stopping when he reaches the crest of the hill. Jonouchi makes his own way, gingerly stepping around snowdrifts until he stands beside him, sticking his hands in his pockets.
"So…does the snow, err, meet your expectations?"
"Yes." As far as he can see, in every direction, whiteness covers everything, swallowing up the color and painting it in its own image. It sparkles in places where it remains undisturbed, and as he bends down and gathers a handful of it the cold seems to bite his fingers instantly. If Jonouchi had to guess now, he would name Rishid's tone amused. "And more."
"That's good, I guess." He kicks the snow around his feet. "Are you still…recovering your memories? Do you have them all yet?"
"No." The cold is bracing, it helps him keep his head clear. "I do not know how I ended up in that junkyard. I do not know…so many things. You and Shizuka remind me so much of my adopted siblings from before. You share the same devotion to each other."
"Did I ever tell you I grew up in the city?" From the way Rishid looks at him—eyes only slightly wider, but it was enough—he figures he hasn't. "When Shizuka was still young, I brought her out here. It didn't matter if we never got any richer than we are now, at least she would have all of this." He gestured an arm out towards the large expanse of snow, towards where she sat drawing a face on the snowman with a branch.
"I want to stay here," Rishid says, the confirmation of his thoughts coming so suddenly, snowballing as he continues to talk. "I would like to stay here with you and your sister, indefinitely, if you'll have me. I could…be as devoted to you as I was towards my old family. It is all that I know."
"No it's not." Jonouchi glances at Rishid, wearing his coat, too tight across the shoulders but a good length in the sleeves. "You know about snow now, and you didn't then. There's room for you to know more. It doesn't have to be that way."
"Regardless, that is what I would like." Rishid turns, taking a few steps across the crisp snow to crisscross his footsteps from before. "I will give you time to think about it, but I keenly await your answer."
Jonouchi stands on the hilltop until his knees begin to cramp and the cold bites through his threadbare sleeves. All around him the snow shines, and as he turns to head inside he thinks that just because he can't feel the cold, it doesn't mean it is no longer there.
"Quickly, we haven't much time." Ishizu opens the box, testing the strength of it before deciding that it was more than up to the task. "Are you sure about this? There is no going back."
"There is no other option." His charge is running low, but Rishid's senses are not completely vacant. "It will be my gift to Marik. But you must not tell him—I cannot be found. It is unlikely, where I am going, but I will not take any chances."
"Thank you for doing this." Ishizu moves to envelop him in a hug, clenching her arms tight around him, brushing smooth metal with her fingertips. "You have been an incredible brother to myself and Marik. Thank you."
"I will miss you," he says.
Ishizu's eyes fill with tears, and she shakes her head sadly. "No, you won't."
He reaches a hand to his neck, to trace over the port there. "I will find a way to remember, then."
Her hands are shaking, and he takes them in his to reassure her. "I can do it myself," he says, "although I cannot reach the switch."
The brings a fresh wave of shaking, and he releases her hands to bring them to his neck, to find the port and crush it with his fingers, ignoring the pain that blooms in his head, cold as ice. He locates the chip and crushes that too, ripping out whatever wires he can reach. It is all he can do to remain on his feet for another second, dropping to his knees and then his elbows, resting against the floor.
"The switch, Ishizu."
She reaches for it, brushing his face gently with her other hand. She hesitates, hovering over the button. She cannot do it.
"Thank you."
It is more of a whisper, but it is enough to make Ishizu press the button with a finger, watching as he curls into himself, arms jerking as the last echoes of sensation leave them. He is heavy, but not unreasonably so, and she gets him into the box without much difficulty.
The address she scrawls on it is far away, far enough that no one will ever reach him, she hopes. And even if they do, they will have to move a mountain to do it.
The junkyard in the country receives the package, and finding nothing but a broken robot inside tosses it into the heap with the rest of the scrap.
Rishid sits alone, at what has become his seat at the dining-room table. His arms do not shake, but inside he feels like the bones are making up for it, trembling in a way that he didn't think was possible for him. He has left the lights off, preferring not to waste energy, but as one flicks on he looks up to see Jonouchi there, padding through the doorway.
"I thought I'd find you here," he says.
"I am not a difficult man to find."
Jonouchi tenses at man, but pulls out a chair and sits beside him. "I thought about what you said."
"And your answer?"
Rishid's hands still linger on the top of the table, palm side up, and Jonouchi snatches one of them in his own, turning it over and lacing his own fingers with it. The metal of Rishid's hand is cold, like snow.
"Do you feel that?" he asks. "The warmth of my skin. You don't have that."
"That is true." Arguing against it would be pointless. "I want a place in your family, Jonouchi. I would like to stay here, with you. Not having warm blood shouldn't even be a factor in your consideration."
"It's not just that." He releases Rishid's hand, choking on his own words, his bitter heart stuck in his throat. "I don't want to love you because you don't have a heart to love me back."
"That's not true." He doesn't know how to explain it, but there it is. "I have a heart."
"Not one here." He touches Rishid's chest again, feeling smooth metal where there would be flesh on his own body. "I don't believe that. I'm sorry."
He stands, pushing the chair back, hearing the sound as it slid across the floor echo in his ears. "I'm sorry," he says again.
He leaves the light on when he leaves, but Rishid wishes he had turned it off. He knows how and why he ended up in that junkyard, he knows that he saved his brother from this repeated fate.
He knows he has a heart, because he can feel it breaking.
End.
Notes:
1) Retrograde Motion is defined as "motion in the direction opposite to the movement of something else" (Wikipedia). I mean it here to refer to the two different storylines and how Rishid and Jonouchi's path diverges. Quote at the beginning is from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz; the character of the Tin Man was an inspiration for this story.
2) As there are no documented names for Marik and Ishizu's parents, I have given them the names of Nassor and Panya, which (supposedly) mean 'victor' and 'mouse' in Egyptian, respectively.
3) Thank you for reading! I would appreciate and value your reviews.
~Jess