genetic memory

Oneshot

He crawls out of the amniotic fluid. It's not that, per se , but the composition - a salty mixture of electrolytes, lipids, proteins, and everything else he needed while in the womb-like test tube where he was born and raised - is similar enough to warrant that name.

Otome stares at him. Her eyes already spell disappointment. That's a new record, his memory whispers. Usually it takes a few days to determine his fate.

Every Amemura is perfect. Every Ramuda is flawed. It seems he is a Ramuda.

"Again?" She says to someone, as he struggles to get up, learning to walk as if he were a newborn fawn.

"It's a problem with this batch. The next one should behave better."

It's almost as if Ramuda isn't in the room, rising himself up, dressing in clothes given to him - childish, as if to remind him with every move that he was born into this world yesterday-, given candy that tastes like medicine to swallow. It gives him a momentary burst of energy, neurons firing and locking themselves into place. The genetic memories passed from one Ramuda to another to another to another in one long chain to teach them how to be perfect from the get go.

There is no point in wasting time training a failure.

It's practical. It allows the Party to simply send him into the world, stepping over the still warm corpse of his predecessor, uncaring, unfeeling.

Ramudas are resilient. They survive, except until they don't, a fragile balance he has to learn to walk now.

They send him off with barely a spoken word. It's so easy to wander into his not-his address and use the set of keys in his not-his jacket to enter. The place feels familiar, exactly like he would have decorated it, if he had the chance to.

Ramuda sits down, looks at his planner. He writes down his death day, picks up the project he'd left half completed on the table, and keeps working on it, as if nothing had happened.

Ramuda learns quickly about hate: he knows of the way Jakurai knocks on the door, and every feeling blooms on his chest at once.

He eats his candy, and it goes away: calm, placid, smiling. Ramuda opens the door, looks up, smiles.

The good doctor knows without knowing; that much is clear in his eyes, analyzing every movement of this familiar stranger that Ramuda is.

He comes in without asking. Ramuda lets it happen. Jakurai sits on the couch, roots around his bag, and Ramuda knows that he'll be prodded and poked a little. Just enough, though, to make sure he is healthy.

Ramuda, through his many incarnations, still isn't sure how much Jakurai works with the Party or not. Part of him also doesn't want to know.

Jakurai measures his heartbeats, makes humming noises at the result of his too low temperature, checks his amygdala with a stick. Ramuda sits in silence: as soon as he leaves, they'll go back to enmity. This hours-long truce is nice, he'll admit as much. Jakurai's fingers feel cool on his bare skin, and the touch is a comfort he had not expected.

Even though all Ramudas share memories, he supposes that not all memories are shared, but the reaction it leaves behind is definitely something this body remembers.

When he's done with his impromptu exam, Jakurai holds Ramuda's chin up, stares into his eyes.

"You're him, aren't you?"

"Of course I'm me." He drawls, and Jakurai sighs, weary. "Who else was I supposed to be?"

He bites his lower lip, and it almost takes Ramuda out. Almost. He kisses him, softly, for a second only, and Jakurai steps back: the picture of coldness.

When he leaves, Ramuda blinks, amused, locked in position; he already feels like himself once more.