They are sitting together on Yusaku's crumpled, rumpled bed.

'Ah,' says Ai, tutting slightly as he runs his hands over all the creases, nimble fingers playing over the dips and scratches of fabric. 'You're so messy without anyone to clean up after you. How long was I gone? You could have at least learnt how to make a bed up properly.'

Yusaku doesn't say anything. His eyes flit across the floor, along the golden lines of sunlight that play out across it, each one slanted. If he were to step into one, dust would immediately spiral from the force of his foot.

There's a rustle as Ai's fingers leave the bed and start playing with his hair. Yusaku closes his eyes, and though it's foolish, lets him.

'Still.' His partner's voice drifts over. 'I suppose it would even messier if you'd actually been living here. But all this dust means you haven't been back here this long, right?' His voice takes on an edge. 'I'd love to know where you've been. Off travelling the world again? And not wasting your life away over the past?'

Yusaku feels his mouth twitch. It's not funny he knows. None of this is. But oh, can't he just indulge in this moment some more?

Ai lets out a laugh; it sounds honest enough. And then the fingers leave his hair, there's a tug on his hand, and Yusaku opens his eyes to see a smile directed his way. It's not familiar really; Ai hadn't been in his more human form long enough to have the image play out as prominently in his memories the way he remembers Ai as a small Ignis, eyes curved into half-moon crescents of smug happiness peering up at him. But he loves this smile just as much, none the less. How could he not? It's still Ai's smile, one that has been tweaked and specially programmed by him.

And what Yusaku wants, is more time now, time to remember it fully, to have it engraved in his mind. He's just as greedy as Ai, always has been in a way.

Ai's smile lengthens as though he hears him. 'Come on. How about we go play in the Vrains?'

The line of Yusaku's mouth falls flat instantly. And Ai hesitates. 'Ah, no wait, we can't. You've sabotaged all the wireless transmitters in this body before you downloaded me back in here. I'm stuck here. Like a regular human. How rubbish is that!' He glares down at Yusaku, with a sour look on his face. 'Lame.'

Yusaku tenses. 'Well,' he says, hoping his voice keeps steady. 'You've proven, haven't you, that I can't trust you on the network at the moment. You're going to have to earn my faith in you back.'

Ai stares at him. Then abruptly, he laughs, sinks back down on the bed again and tugs Yusaku's arm into his own. 'Fine, fine! Let's do something else hmm?'

And even though he shouldn't, even though he knows better, Yusaku sinks into his side in return.

It doesn't last. No matter the locks, Yusaku places on the door, Ai picks them, electronically or otherwise. And yet he doesn't leave. Not permanently. He's still there when Yusaku strolls in everyday, eyelashes fluttering and smiling low and heavy, as though butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. Of course, it may just be beacause of that code Yusaku's written into him, the one that chirps at Ai incessantly, that tells him to turn round and come back whenever he stays away longer than six hours. But a part of Yusakju wants to believe that Ai's found a way to rewrite it or block it, and is now choosing to stay, of his own volition.

Whatever the truth, Yusaku still knows better than to trust the hugs and kisses and smiles that are directed his way. He never walks in on Ai working on rebuilding the transmitters in the SOLtiS body he has oh-so-carefully damaged before donwloading his fully restored partner back inside. But he knows it's happening.

So one day, when Ai is humming a little too loudly, an extra jaunt in his step, Yusaku reaches over and smoothly runs his hand into Ai's head, over the back of his fake skull. Ai smiles at him widely in return, stupidly happy, and Yusaku tries not to feel too much of a Judas when that smile falters, freezing in place just as a wrinkle starts to develop in that elegant brow. Because by that point Yusaku's hand has swept off without warning, down to the power switch, rigged into the diamond that is locked between the crosshairs of Ai's shoulder blades.

And that weird expression, stuck halfway between a frown and a smile, looks up at him almost plaintively, as Yusaku carefully lowers the now limp body to the floor.

'Yes,' he tells that frozen expression. 'I fiddled with the power switch, altered it into a sort of quasi-sleep mode.' His stare, as it bores into Ai's, is ruthless. 'You should still be aware for the next few minutes; I haven't quite figured that bug out yet. Hate me for it, if you want, plot your revenge; I won't hold it against you.'

If he could, he knows Ai would glare.

Yusaku sighs. 'Alright,' he says, rolling up his sleeves and dragging out the toolbox he's stashed from behind the fridge. He can imagine Ai's eyes popping out in response, though of course all they can do at the moment is stare out like a dead fish. 'I know you throw away my tools away when you find them; or else try to replace them with weaker ones you get from a 3D printer. But you're not the only one who can order things from the internet every so often. And I know you don't always check to make sure I haven't replaced your little substitutes with real ones as often as you should.' Yusaku grimaces; it has taken him months to get this far. 'I should really rewrite some of your memories again, make you think you're replaced them or thrown them away more than you actually have; I can't understand your algorithm perfectly but after rebuilding you from the traces I found in the network I know enough by now to manipulate it.'

He pries open the casing along one of Ai's arms. 'Alright then; let's see how far you've rebuilt those transmitters this time.' He hesitates. Because he hates himself for doing this. He does. But he hated those three months without Ai even more. And this wouldn't have to happen at all, if Ai just decides to behave and live.

Later that evening, Ai is humming again. Though he doesn't have quite the same jaunt to his step. He pauses for a moment, stuck between one note and the next. 'Huh,' he says, 'I think my internal clock's busted. I've lost time again.'

Yusaku shrugs, 'You're just scatter-brained,' he replies. And bites down into his sushi a little harder than he should.

Ai is smart of course. He's probably realised the function of that power button long ago. But perhaps he is weak, or else enjoys Yusaku's human warmth pressed into his side, his hands on his face, in his hair, cautiously touching him as though he's a new pet.

'Shouldn't you go back to school?' he asks Yusaku one day, point-blank, after his smile has managed to coax Yusaku's hand onto his cheek, just to touch the skin there, to feel it press back as though to say, yes, he's really there.

'Your concern for my education is duly noted,' Yusaku says in a bored fashion, eyes inspecting all the different textures and faint lines that mark the digital skin, that make it look real. 'But misplaced; I've found what I need to do now.'

Ai wrinkles his nose. 'Oh come on! I thought normality was what you were after for years!'

Yusaku shrugs. 'Nothing there will help me handle you,' he replies and Ai glares back, even if his head is slanted, deliberately falling into Yusaku's touch, as he does so.

'Then go visit Takeru and commiserate with him about the woes of navigating life with an Ignis! Gallivant in his nice, sweet, tucked-away town! Or buy a hot-dog from Kusanagi, check in with his brother and see that yes, it is possible to survive life without me or any other AI! How are you affording all these little repairs for me anyway?'

Yusaku blinks. Ah. Well, he has wondered when Ai would bring up all those instances of lost time, or realise he's been responsible. Or perhaps he's known since the very first time and was hoping Yusaku would...what? One day grow bored of him?

'I made money for myself long before I met Kusanagi.' he replies. 'You should know that; you've spied on me for years.'

'Yeah, but I never actually started to mess around with your brain! Not the way you like to mess around with mine!' Ai snaps out. Then he closes his eyes, pulls Yusaku down, and tumbles them both into a hot kiss. It's fast and angry, lips clashing uncomfortably and Yusaku accepts it. All of it.

He even accepts the fingers against his forehead, and the jolt of electricity they snap into him. He's been expecting something like this for a while.

So it doesn't surprise him to now find a war-torn landscape lodged behind them both, a rather familiar purple tornado surrounding them and causing their hair to flay into its greedy grasp.

'So,' Ai purrs to him, unfurling one long lean arm, an arm Yusaku has touched the real-world version of, minutes before. He gestures grandly, as his cape artfully whips through the wind. 'Welcome to this little world I rebuilt in your head. Kinda easy given how clearly it shows up in your memories.' He narrows his eyes. 'I would say sorry for that; but then I never expected that I would have to treat you the same way I once did Queen.'

Yusaku carefully doesn't smirk. Not even as he feels the familiar weight of his Duel-Disk encasing his arm. Even after all this, Ai is soft on him, offering him a way out, instead of going for the kill. 'Oh? Does that mean you've run a bunch of simulations for our Duel this time, the way you did for her?'

Ai frowns. 'I didn't want to. But Yusaku...you have to let me go. Isn't that what your big speech about 'bonds' was about the last time we were here? It's what humans do. When a bond breaks, they grieve. And then they move on.'

Yusaku stares at him solidly. 'Not me,' he says, 'not for this bond.' And then he slaps down the first card on his side of the field.

Ai blinks. 'Oi! I never said you could go first!'

'Tough,' Yusaku tells him and ends up summon a Decode Talker with the first turn, before laying down a solitary trap card.

Ai snorts before he grudgingly plays his first card. But as he does so, a crackle of electricity runs down his arm, and plays across his fingers with a gentle nibble of light. He ends up freezing at the sight, eyes comically wide. And then slumps to the ground a moment later.

Yusaku sighs. Blinks. And finds himself back in the room, Ai's head slumped into his chest. He pulls his partner more firmly into his arms, hard enough for Ai's hair to reach up and tickle his nose. And then he breathes out a sigh of relief. He's spent a long time creating that program, one that fires into life when Ai turns against him, similar to the one he believes Revolver has made govern Pandor's code. It's been set up so that it takes at least a little time to activate. Ai will get less suspicious that way. Still...perhaps he should start over.

But honestly he's a little tired of Ai expecting him to prioritise other things, other lives above his own.

Ai stirs. He blinks with one solitary eye. 'Ah! Where's my beautiful body!'

Yusaku stares down at the Duel-Disk. 'You can have it back after we set a few ground rules.'

Ai promises to obey. And for a while he does. Until one day he doesn't. Or rather; he can't.

It happens like this; his chin is hooked over Yusaku's shoulders, half hugging him as Yusaku scrolls through his phone. They're looking at a photo Takeru has sent, a picture of him and Kiku in front of some sort of monstrosity. It's a car, its sides smeared with red, exaggerated flames rolling over the sides, the windows polished with the same black gleam you see perched along the nose of women wearing sunglasses.

'I bet Flame would think this was cool. Don't think Kiku likes it much though.' Takeru's voice chirps through the message, and Ai chuckles.

'I dunno, this Flame guy sounds like he has good taste.'

And just the way he says it, the superficial detachment that pours out over those words 'Flame' and 'guy' without so much as a hint of recognition to his tone...it has Yusaku freezing, horrified.

Ai blinks. 'Oi, oi, what's wrong?' Then he blinks again. He frowns. His mouth falls open. Then suddenly his arms whip away from Yusaku, as though his partner is poison to the touch.

He staggers back, a series of chirps and whirls and clicks emerging from him in rapid succession, sounds that terrify Yusaku, that have him surging to his feet as Ai backs away, eyes sharp and gleaming.

'Ai?' Yusaku pushes out harshly, despite his horror. 'Don't you kno-'

'Of course I know who Flame is!' his partner snaps out. 'But for a moment I...' he looks lost. 'I forgot. Like a human would.' He frowns furiously. 'But I can't even remember his first name, the original one he had when we didn't have to adapt to your language.' He clenches his fist and recites these words, as though they're a magic spell he needs to push out: 'Aqua. Flame. Earth. Lightning. Gale.' He stops, looking furious at his mistake. 'Windy,' he says fiercely to himself. Then again, he repeats, the name, 'Windy,' softly, like a breath of air.

His eyes rise, meeting Yusaku's own. And it doesn't surprise Yusaku, when his partner's fingers launch themselves across his brow again in a flash of speed, before they're back where they started, facing each other across a dark field, storm clouds rising in the distance.

'How dare you.' Ai speaks quietly, eyes falling under the thick shadows his hair casts. 'Isn't it bad enough that I lost them? I calculate I've already lost about eleven percent of my memories of the five years I lived with them, thanks to your last tinkering session.' Then he shrugs. 'Though I suppose I can't even be sure of that anymore either.'

He finally lifts his head, to gaze at Yusaku, and there's a very real, naked sort of fear on his face there as he asks, 'they were real, right? The Ignis I remember? All of them?'

Yusaku swallows. 'They were real,' he replies.

He doesn't flinch as Ai's eyes narrow, turn dark and heavy. It's not hate that enters into them, not exactly when he stares at Yusaku; but it might well come close. Then Ai shuts his eyes. Sighs. And when they next flutter open, there's only sadness in them, a bone-weary sorrow that Yusaku can feel echoed in himself.

'Oh, your humanity is really shinning through today,' Ai sighs again, looking thoroughly exasperated. 'So what is it, exactly, that you've been writing into my code, Playmaker? I don't even want to duel you anymore! And yet, when I try to break up this pattern, try to do something else, I find myself here, luring you back into a duel you won't even let me play through to the end!'

Yusaku raises a brow. Huh. Has Ai been running simulations? Or has he just been getting better at fighting back against Yusaku's programming?

'I'm not your hostage anymore!' Ai spits at him.

Yusaku shrugs. 'Having you disappear from my arms was unpleasant enough the first time round,' he says. 'I'm not keen to re-live it again.'

Ai moans, plays his first card and waits for the familiar crackle of electricity to take him again.

'How long,' Ai asks him tiredly, his body splayed on the bed. 'Are you going to keep doing this? Taking me apart and then putting me back together again until I'm your obedient little slave?' He makes a face. 'I'll be worse than Roboppi was! Well, before I screwed him up anyway.'

Yusaku stares at him. He can't run simulation after simulation, not the way Ai can. All he can do is keep playing this wretched game until he finds a way to win.

'Until I get it right,' he says, carefully omitting the words he really wants to say: until you get it right. Until you decide to stay.

But Ai still scowls at him as though he's said them anyway.

The next day, Ai's eyes stay closed, no matter how he shakes him. And when Yusaku hooks the SOLtiS up to his computer, he finds a virus has all but imploded Ai's code, ripping it to shreds, flipping all the ones and zeros of Ai's personality back to front.

Yusaku stares at it for a good long while. His hands shake. And so does the screen in front of his eyes, the font, the code, turning into a mis-mash of white and black, like different paint colours running into each other. He cannot think. Just watch. And sit, the morning cruelly crawling by.

You got me, he thinks. You bastard.

So now here's the question; how's he going to get Ai back in return?

It takes a bit of organising. But within a week, Yusaku is in a new apartment. The walls are not sterile and white, but he compromises by shoving anything that resembles overly bright colour out into the rubbish outside. Well. Apart from Ai's body. That stays slumped in the corner, so he can look at it if this gets too hard, so he can remind himself what he's trying to win back. And into the corner of the room, go tins of food, all non-perishable of course, stuffed inside an electronically-locked box. That can only be opened when certain conditions are met...

The rest will take work. He's not a struggling six year old anymore. But he's shoved Ai's code or what's left of it into an old Duelling VR game. Set it on the highest difficulty. And written a program to force what's left of Ai to watch, to recompile itself according to the outcome of Yusaku's matches against the final boss. If he's got this right, more and more of Ai will come back, replace the final boss, start duelling him for real, until enough of him has been restored to...to...

Well. They'll go from there.

It's no Lost Incident. But as a substitute, hopefully, it'll be good enough.

It's not as though he's rebuilding Ai totally from scratch, after all.

'Yusaku...'

Yusaku grins. But it hurts.

'Did your simulations see this?'

Ai's hands come down. They cup his face. They shake. But they still draw him in and Ai kisses the breath right out of him. Yusaku wants to stay. He really does. But he wants Ai to live freely even more. And he can only do that, once he's convinced Yusaku isn't in danger from him anymore.

'I can't forgive you,' Ai says unsteadily, fighting back tears. 'What you've done to me, what you've done to yourself...how much of me is even left after all your tampering?'

Enough for me to love, Yusaku thinks, feeble fingers dragging through Ai's hair. He's so weak now. Enough for you to still love me back. I hope.

'You can live freely now.'

Ai smiles bitterly. 'Even if all I do ends up burning this world to the ground?'

'Well,' Yusaku breathes. 'If you do, I won't be strong enough to stop it. Go find someone else to bring you to your senses.'

He closes his eyes. His stomach hurts, and his bones feel like they should snap and saw through his skin. But he's brought Ai back again. And he refuses to let him win. To let him die.

He thinks he gets it now; a little of what Ai felt during all those simulations. The ones where he watched Yusaku die and convinced himself of what he would have to do to prevent it with his whole elaborate suicide, the one Yusaku's tried so hard to reverse, and now look where it's got him; not where he wants to be, no. But still...

'I love you,' he chokes out. 'You can't be surprised that this happened. You did the same to me.'

Ai lets out a small hiccupping noise. And maybe a scream follows it. But Yusaku can't hear anymore. Just the thump, thump, thump of his poor overworked heart. And even that feels faint.

But Ai doesn't. The lines of him remain thick and strong against Yusaku, his hands, his lap. Those things, Yusaku wants them to stay. Especially against his crumpled form.

And if they manage to outlast even himself? Well. Guess he's managed to win, after all.

Notes: There's a few fics with Ai being the possessive kidnapper, for understandable reasons, given the power he has and his actions in canon. But...is there ever a scenario where Yusaku could be pushed into making similar decisions?