Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds
A Break That Would Make It Okay
By Lucky_Ladybug
Notes: The characters are not mine and the story is. This is post-Crash Town arc, World Championship 2011 Over the Nexus video game verse. Radley is rougher around the edges, but still an inherently good person. I don't know why I didn't think of writing this fix before. Writing an essay that I posted on AO3 made me think about the game in new ways. I hate that in this game, Radley is arrested. It mars an otherwise incredible game. I'm using prompt #8, Giving Up, from the abandoned 5Ds_100 writing comm on Livejournal.
Radley silently took his empty food tray and placed it with the others before sullenly going back to his room on his own. He hadn't even bothered to wait for the guard. Instead he just lay down on the rocky mattress and stared off at the wall, as he did every day. One blended into the next; they were all the same.
After a moment he heard footsteps approach and the guard was there, checking on him. "You're sure one of our most cooperative prisoners," he remarked.
Radley just gave a faint shrug. "I do what's expected of me."
"They said you were really spunky, but I've never seen that," the guard said. "You don't even try to take over the prison like Tanner and some of the other old flunkies did! You'll duel and trash-talk a bit if someone wants to duel you, but otherwise you act more like you've just gone and given up. Not like I care, though. You make my job much easier!" He locked the door and moved on.
Radley sighed to himself. The guard was right; he had given up. Why wouldn't he have? After fighting Malcolm for years, trying to stop him from taking over completely, Crash Town was finally free—but he had been blamed for the chaos and dragged off to the Facility along with Malcolm and Lawton. No one had spoken up for him or even come to see him. Everyone he had trusted had just left him to rot. If no one cared about him, why should he bother caring about anything anymore? What was there to even live for?
"I wanna go home, but that's not going to happen," he whispered. He reached up, gripping the stone wall with the tips of his fingers and then letting them slide down it. "I should just give up completely. It's pointless to strive so hard. All it does is get you hurt. Everything I've ever done just blows up in my face."
He smirked a bit to himself. At least his face was actually unmarred. With Rex Goodwin's death, there had come prison reform. No one was marked or tracked anymore, and the guards didn't torture the prisoners. Thank goodness for small favors. Radley was just vain enough to still care that his physical appearance had not been altered.
He let his hand drop back to the bed. He must still have some will to live or he wouldn't still be eating. But at this point, he honestly couldn't imagine why he even still cared. He was all alone, and that had always been his worst phobia.
"Everyone I ever trusted turned on me in the end," he bitterly muttered. "My family, my girlfriend, my friends . . . my bodyguard. . . ."
Was he really that unlovable? Sure, he was rough around the edges, but he hadn't started out that way. He had been happy and friendly and all too naive, trusting over and over and being hurt every time. Finally in disgust and sorrow he had wised up to protect his heart. At least, he had thought he had. But no, he was still being hurt. This time was perhaps even worse than before. He had thought the Bunch would stand by him through everything. He had thought Kalin would be a loyal bodyguard. But they were all still free, and happy to have him out of their lives. He hadn't made any difference at all.
Did his life have any point to it whatsoever? Maybe it would be nice, he had reflected at times, to have an It's a Wonderful Life experience and find out some good had come of it. The only problem was, with his luck he'd find out everyone would have been better off without him. If that was the truth, maybe he would rather not know it. At least when he only wondered, there was always the odd chance that he was wrong. That was a nice chance.
It was a slim chance, though. He had always been an outcast. If even the other outcasts didn't want him, what hope was there that anyone did?
"Why . . . am I still alive?" he whispered. "Why do I even still want to be? I don't want to live out the rest of my life in here."
He had never even had a fair trial. Or any trial at all. In some ways, even with the reform, Sector Security was still strongarming everyone too much and assuming too much control and power. Radley might have spoke out against that once. But now he was just too tired and too sad. Fighting back against evil power had never worked for him. He was considered a vigilante at best, and at worst, well . . . he was just dismissed as being just as bad as the evil power. He had always been misunderstood and reviled, so that was nothing new. He wouldn't even care, if it wasn't for being abandoned in here. His life meant nothing to his friends, so why should it mean anything to him?
They were the only ones who had seen the true him in years. To most he was just another biker punk, rude and short-tempered. He didn't even have much of a temper anymore, and he wasn't sure if he had any bite left either. Nothing had happened that was worth snarling at. The prisoners left him alone for the most part, although any who had bothered him had gotten a taste of his nastier side. But nothing of the kind had happened for a while. He had been told that they could always tell when someone was on his way out, and they tended to leave those people alone.
He didn't want any attention from them anyway.
What he wouldn't give to have a little genuine kindness! There was none to be found in here.
He had always been torn on what he thought about kindness in prisons. On the one hand, the actual criminals no doubt didn't deserve it. But on the other hand, what about people like him who really shouldn't have to be there? And . . . well, it sounded stupidly naive to even think it, but . . . what if in some cases kindness actually could soften some of the criminals' hearts? He just didn't know. Right now he wasn't sure he cared. He just . . . wished he could experience real kindness again. It had been so long. . . .
The door opened again. "You've got a visitor."
Radley looked over his shoulder, stunned. He had never had a visitor. Who would actually come to him?
He froze to see Kalin coming into the cell. Kalin . . . his ex-employee, his former bodyguard. . . . He had rejected every attempt Radley had made to be friends, until finally Radley had given up in hurt and bitterness and spurned Kalin instead. Kalin hadn't cared what happened to Radley. Why was he here now?
"What do you want, Kessler?" Radley asked. He was on a first-name basis with just about everyone. Addressing Kalin otherwise should show how deeply Kalin had cut him.
From the way Kalin flinched, he got the message. But he waited until the door was shut and they were alone. Then he approached the bed. "I wanted to see how you're doing," he said. ". . . The guards told me you're not well."
Radley gave a dry laugh. "I'm eating. I'm sleeping. My body's normal; I'm not sick."
"You're going through the motions. They said you're physically fine, but emotionally dead inside," Kalin said. "I've been there; I know what that's like. I can see you still have some fight left, unlike I did when I came here."
Radley rolled onto his back and looked at Kalin. "Why do you care?" he retorted.
"I should have cared all along," Kalin sadly admitted.
"Yeah, well, it's too late now," Radley said. Crocodile tears wouldn't fool him, not after everything Kalin had done to wound him when he had only tried to reach out and include Kalin as one of them. And after months of bottling up so much pain, he suddenly had a real outlet and it was all spilling out. "You rejected me every time and now I don't care anymore or believe this is real. You punk. You really thought you were something, huh?" He sneered. "And I guess now you are. The whole town loves you for beating Lawton and Malcolm, but me, I'm just forgotten even after fighting for the town for years. You came to Crash Town to duel and get rich, but you were too good for the likes of me."
A sick look began to spread across Kalin's face during Radley's tirade. ". . . No, that isn't what I thought," Kalin insisted when Radley finished. "I came to Crash Town to die. I thought . . . you were too good for the likes of me."
Radley stared at him, at a loss for words now. "W-What?"
Kalin went over and knelt by the bedside. "I was in the Facility once, and I falsely believed my best friend had sent me here. I let anger and vengeance take over my heart and the evil of the Dark Signers consumed me. I tried to destroy my friend and the entire world." His voice caught in his throat. "When I finally came back to myself, all I wanted was to die. I heard about the duels in Crash Town and I thought maybe I could get sent to the mines and suffer to my death. I joined you so that I'd end up with Malcolm if I lost."
Radley just stared at him. "You mean you were using the fate of the whole town for your own personal kamikaze mission?!" he cried.
Kalin bowed his head. "I was too badly damaged to even think in terms like that, but you're right. I wanted penance for my sins, but I only created more. I was selfish and twisted. What I could have caused to the town . . . what I did cause for you . . . it's unforgivable."
"I . . ." Radley shook his head and looked away. This was not at all what he had ever thought he would hear. He wasn't even sure how to react. Kalin's past was so ugly and twisted . . . and full of pain. Radley could recognize that and even appreciate it, especially after being stranded here. The loneliness, the longing . . . it grated on him as it must have on Kalin. If he lost himself as Kalin did, he couldn't honestly say he wouldn't agree to just about anything to get out. And this realization, that Kalin had been mentally ill when he had hurt Radley so much, did cast a different light on it. Now Kalin seemed so different, so sincere. In spite of himself, Radley was almost ready to believe him. But then something else occurred to him and he turned back.
"If you're really telling the truth, why didn't you speak up for me?" he demanded. "Why did you just let them take me away?! Why . . . did you and everybody else just leave me here? You had to have got in a better shape to beat Lawton, so you weren't drowning in despair then!"
The pain in Radley's voice and eyes pierced Kalin's soul. Now he looked away.
". . . I blamed you at first," he said. "It's true that I thought you were too good for me, but . . . I thought I was the lowest of the low. I still thought you were low too, just not as bad as me. But . . . after you were gone, the Bunch kept asking about you and where your body was. They didn't know you were arrested. They thought you were dead. Malcolm had sworn open war on you, and Lawton had bragged that he had just gunned you down in the street."
Radley frowned, reaching to finger the scar under his shirt. Lawton had indeed gunned him down right in the street, after the Bunch had all scattered to hide from him and the Crew in terror. Radley had just wanted to get away too; he hadn't tried to retaliate when Malcolm had made his declaration of open war on him. But Lawton had caught him.
The memories of that encounter still haunted him every day. He had never felt such terror. Of course, that was what Lawton delighted in. It hadn't been enough to beat Radley unfairly at Duel Monsters with a one-turn kill and enough effect damage made real to make him feel like passing out; Lawton had wanted something far more permanent.
"Just look at you," he sneered as Radley fell to his knees, clutching his stomach. "You're all washed-up, abandoned by everyone and left to face me all alone."
"You're just a dirty punk like your brother," Radley hissed.
"You thought you could protect this town from both of us," Lawton went on. "Well, you couldn't! And now you're going to pay the price this hand has dealt you." He took out a real gun and pointed it at Radley's head.
Radley stared at him. When he had first come here and seen Malcolm's handiwork, he had known his death might be the end result of trying to push back against the cruelty. But he had tried anyway, and now he was facing his fate. He wasn't ready to die. . . .
At the last moment Lawton jerked the gun down and fired into Radley's chest. "Let's make it a slow, lingering death, shall we?" he sneered. "You can spend all your last moments thinking on how you're all alone with no one to save you, even after all you did to try to save them. No one cares about you; you're just part of the problem here in town. And now you're eliminated."
Radley gasped, blood rising in his throat. He fell forward to the ground as crimson oozed out around him into the dirt.
Lawton kicked him in the side. "And that's what happens to anyone who defies me," he said.
Radley had passed out still bleeding into the dirt, believing that was the end. He had awakened in the prison hospital, all alone, and honestly wondered if death would have been better. The doctor had told him he really had been dead when he had been found, but somehow, inexplicably, he had revived. Maybe that sounded like him once upon a time, but after all he had been through, he could hardly comprehend himself clawing his way back to life. Maybe he had just wanted to defy Lawton again. When he had healed enough, he had been moved into a cell. But although his body had mended, his spirit never had.
No one cares about you. Every day Lawton's words had been affirmed more and more. Radley had withdrawn deeper and deeper into himself, just wanting to be free of the Facility yet wondering what there even was to live for outside of it. He could not stand to be alone, to have everyone leave him, and that heartbreak was showing more and more in his eyes as he and Kalin interacted.
"Didn't anyone know I survived?" he said at last. "Didn't anyone think to ask Sector Security when there wasn't a body?!"
". . . I asked," Kalin said.
Radley gaped at Kalin in disbelief. ". . . So you knew all along? And you just let the Bunch think I was dead?! What the hell, Kalin! How could you . . . !"
"I thought they were better off without you," Kalin said. "But no, for a long time I didn't call at all. I was busy repairing the town and looking after the kids and I honestly thought you were dead too. I saw no point in calling. But the Bunch kept at it, demanding to know what happened and wanting to rebury you here if you'd been put somewhere else. When I finally called and found out you were alive, I considered not telling them. I thought it was better than them trying to get you out and bringing you back to be a bad influence again." He looked down. "But they were heartbroken and I finally listened to everything they were trying to tell me. When they realized I didn't know much of anything about you, they told me how you'd brought them all together, taking them out of their miserable home lives and even adopting the ones who weren't of legal age yet. They told me you were fighting to save the town. And they told me you never abused your miners."
"No, I didn't," Radley said. "The only reason I had mine wear collars was to track them and make sure they didn't get hurt or fall into Malcolm's hands. I never shocked any of them!"
"And the more I realized that, and everything else, the more I knew I've been making more horrible mistakes," Kalin said. He shook his head and his voice trembled. "I was so blind. After I suffered in the Facility, how could I have decided to just abandon you here? I am so sorry. . . ."
Radley regarded him warily. Did he really mean it? Could he really believe it? "At least it's not like it was when you were in here," he said at last.
"No, it's not, but that doesn't make it right." Kalin heaved a sigh. "I finally told the Bunch the truth, that you're alive and in here. I don't know if they'll ever forgive me for even considering holding back, and especially for not listening to them for so long. I don't think I'll forgive me either."
Radley still wasn't sure what to make of that himself, so he decided to focus on something else. ". . . So where are they now?" he asked. "Why aren't they here too?!"
"They all came with me," Kalin said. "They're telling everything to the warden right now. He's still hearing it, but he told me to come back and get you out. You're free, Radley."
Radley kept staring at him. He slowly sat up, looking from him to the door. "Free?!"
The way he looked like an abused puppy who couldn't quite believe someone was actually showing him real kindness broke Kalin's heart. He had felt like that himself after being in the Facility and being broken. How had he not seen Radley's goodness underneath the facade? How had he thought Radley deserved to be here as much as Lawton and Malcolm did?
"If you still have enough fight left to come out and come home." Kalin shook his head. "I am so sorry, Radley. I'm sure you'll never forgive me either, and I deserve that. But the Bunch honestly didn't know, so please don't hold it against them. They insisted we come save you as soon as they knew you were alive."
Radley got off the bed and went over to the door. It opened in his hand.
"I've been staying in Crash Town, but it's your town, Radley," Kalin said as he came up beside him. "I'll leave."
Radley just kept staring at the door, dumbfounded. He barely processed Kalin's words at first, but finally he realized. He frowned, pondering them. Should he agree? Did he want to? Crash Town had always been a town for the outcasts. Why should Kalin go, especially if he wanted to stay? And especially when he had finally shown Radley some sincere kindness?
Finally he said, "Nah, you don't havta do that."
Kalin stared again. "What?!"
Radley frowned. He really meant it, even after everything. Was he a fool? Or was he just good at granting second chances, as the Bunch had always told him he was? He was outwardly rough, but they had known they always had a home where he was.
He looked back over his shoulder. "I'm not used to people actually wanting to fix their mistakes. You didn't have to tell the Bunch the truth or come with them to help me. You're different, Kalin. I wouldn't be free if not for you. You should stay."
Kalin perked up a bit. "Really?"
"Yeah." Radley stepped into the hall, still overwhelmed. Right now, this didn't even feel real. He could really walk out all the doors and no one would stop him. . . . He could really go home. . . .
He was still loved. Life was still worth living.
"How?" Kalin whispered. "How can you offer forgiveness just like that? You were hurting so badly. I saw that when I came in. . . . And the doctor told me you were dead, like I'd thought, but you came back and you've been here all alone since then. How could you possibly feel good towards me at all?!"
". . . I don't know," Radley said. "Maybe I'm just crazy. But . . . like I said, I'm used to people not caring if they mess up and hurt me. They never come back when they do. For you to do all this, I feel like you really mean it. And honestly, that's all I ever wanted."
Kalin swallowed hard. "I'm going to do my best to be a good friend. You deserve to have that."
"Thanks," Radley said softly. His rough exterior had fallen away and he felt like a vulnerable kid again. But . . . he wasn't afraid. He felt comfortable here with Kalin, strange as that was. Maybe . . . maybe Kalin actually would be a loyal friend now.
". . . Did you . . . really not feel anything for me when you thought Lawton gunned me down?" he couldn't help asking.
Kalin hesitated. ". . . When we heard the news, and we saw your blood on the ground, I said 'Poor fool.' I thought you'd died trying so hard to protect the dyne fortune. I never thought you were sincere when you tried to reach out to me, but . . . yes, I was sad that you were dead, especially just being gunned down like a dog. I thought you'd lived a pointless life and died pointlessly as well."
Radley sighed in resignation. "I'm glad I meant something to you . . . I guess."
"It's only been in the last few hours that I've really started to realize anything about who you really are," Kalin said. "I just feel sick about how I acted now." His voice broke. "If I'd only called sooner . . . and listened to the Bunch sooner. . . ."
"Well . . . at least you finally did," Radley said. He couldn't deny it still hurt. But he wanted to move past all of that now.
"You always just wanted the town to be safe, didn't you?" Kalin said sadly.
". . . I'm not a plaster saint. I like money. And I felt like the mine was . . . well, mine. But . . . yeah, I hated how Malcolm operated and what he was trying to do to the place. I wanted him out." Radley gave a tired sigh. "But I know things got out of hand and some of the guys started acting like urban gang members trying to swing the townsfolk to our side. Scotch especially, he made the people uncomfortable. But he's a good guy. He never meant to do anything out of sorts or wrong. He was just trying to help."
Kalin nodded. "Sector Security let most of the Bunch and some of Malcolm's Crew stay in town because they were misguided and not bad. It should have been all of the Bunch. There's a hospital in town. That's where you should have been taken." He looked sorrowfully at the other man. "You should have been with us through all of your recovery and never in the Facility at all."
"I wish I had been," Radley said. "But . . ." He smiled. "I'm going home now, right?"
"Yes," Kalin smiled back, but then wavered. "There was no excuse for what I did. I wasn't willing to give the Bunch the proper attention and comfort they needed from me. I just thought they should get over you, so I didn't want to listen to them talk about you or even call about getting your body back. And for you to be willing to give me the time of day is more than I deserve."
"You came back for me when you realized you'd made a mistake," Radley said. "I hope that maybe we can really be friends." He slowly held out a hand.
Kalin reached and took it, gripping tightly. "I . . ." His voice caught in his throat. "I'd like that."
"And . . . I'm not so rough anymore," Radley said. "Maybe that will help."
"That never should have made a difference," Kalin said. "I understand you better now. I'm starting to know who you are under that cliché biker attitude."
"I mostly put that up as a front to not be hurt so much," Radley said. "It didn't work, though."
"So . . . what's your real personality?" Kalin couldn't help wondering.
Radley smirked. "Would you believe . . . gentle and kind and philosophical?"
Kalin smirked a bit too. "I think I can."
"Radley!"
Radley looked up at the joyous cry. All of the Bunch were running at him at once. They surrounded him, hugging him close and exclaiming in unabashed happiness.
"Radley! Radley, you're okay!" Scotch did not want to let go. "All this time we thought . . ." He shook his head.
"Did you guys really think I'd go down that easy?" Radley countered. He laughed, hugging his dear friends.
"You must have thought everybody abandoned you!" Scotch said.
". . . I did," Radley admitted. "I was ready to give up on everything. But you came for me. All of you came. Thank you . . . so much." He looked to Kalin. His words were meant for him too.
Kalin smiled, coming a bit closer. This was right. Radley would come home. And maybe . . . maybe there would be a new future for all of them there.
Ending Notes: This was an interesting experience. It was hard to write for this Radley when he's more of a punk. But after he's in the Facility, he seems sad unless you ask him to duel. Then he's very spunky again. So I went with that. It was also interesting and very different trying to show how Kalin might have handled things if abandoning Radley in the mines wasn't an issue (which it isn't in the game verse), especially given Radley's game personality. I really dislike how the game seemed to portray Lawton as not as bad as the anime and Radley arguably worse in some ways. Knowing me, I had to have my hurt/comfort, and Malcolm literally declaring open war on Radley when he takes over (with Radley not retaliating, but just trying to get away) made that a perfect set-up to both get my hurt/comfort and have Lawton as a complete creep again.