Omi woke up and felt warm all over. Though the blankets weren’t thick, there was nothing so comfortable as having been tucked in by someone who loved you… It wasn’t his own bed. He was sleeping in Aya’s. Instantly, Omi remembered Aya tenderly taking him from his deep depression in the scalding shower and tenderly tucking him into bed. Omi hadn’t been grateful then. He had actually snapped at Aya in his fit of self-loathing and grief. He felt bad about it now, though. Somehow, it was only as he was slowly waking up that he realized how hurt Aya had looked. Omi was seized with guilt as he realized how selfish he had been earlier that night. Aya was only doing the best he could, trying to help. There was nothing more he could have done. It was still dark out and as the exhausted boy felt his lids grow heavy and sleep begin to reclaim him, he promised himself that he would apologize the next day. Aya had been right before. It was something they had to work out together. Omi suddenly heard a thump and a rustle at the foot of the bed and glanced up. Through groggy, slitted eyes he saw the silhouette of a tall slim body and the moonlight from the open window illuminated the trace of his red hair. “Oh, it’s you, Aya-kun…” Omi sighed in relief. /Of course it’s Aya, baka!/ Omi chided himself, /It *is* his room after all. It was probably a little sound he made coming in that woke me up in the first place./ Knowing that Aya was there, Omi suddenly felt even more warm and safe, like someone was watching over him. He snuggled down deeper, curling up until his nose touched the blankets and mumbled sleepily, “Please don’t make me go, Aya… I’m so comfortable.” /I hope you know I love you Aya…/ Inside Omi was desperately wishing that Aya would crawl under the covers with him and sleep that way. Omi was sure he could sleep for an eternity between his exhaustion and the comfort of Aya’s body against his. /Mmm… Your bed smells like you, Aya-kun./ Aya said nothing, but stayed on the far side of the room, fiddling with something in his hands. “I’m sorry about earlier, Aya,” Omi whispered softly in the dark. He could only barely make out the bare outline of the redhead in the dark. “Please don’t be mad at me. Say something, Aya.” The redhead came around the bed behind Omi’s turned back and he gracefully glided into the bed. Omi relaxed his whole body at the feel of Aya’s body so near to his. He could feel the assassin’s cool hand gently run up the smoothness of his boyish shoulder. “I’m not mad,” came the airy whispered reply, “Why should I be?” “Well, because--!” Omi began. “Shhh… No words…” the voice replied again. It sounded strange now, foreign. The arm on Omi’s shoulder gripped him tighter, almost painfully. As Omi whirled around, he heard the voice one more time, the German accent thick now, “No words, Omi-lein. Just pain.” Omi felt the rush of adrenaline and fear simultaneously with the needle stabbing into his arm. He meant to cry out, but somehow the blackness engulfed him before he could even struggle. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ken and Yohji came back from their mission at 6 AM. They felt horrible, and looked it, too. Blood spattered on their assassin gear, exhausted, and hungry, they dragged themselves through the door on the way to warm beds and hot showers. The food could wait. They were speaking in low voices, too tired to talk about much other than how tired they were. They were being quiet enough not to disturb the others sleeping in their rooms, but for some reason, Aya was on the couch and began to stir at the sound of their entrance. Ken finished pulling off his grimy shoes and whispered to Aya, “Hey, why are you sleeping there? How is Omi doing?” “He fell asleep in my bed,” Aya explained, giving them a look that dared them to make a rude comment about it. Aya stretched his shoulders and rose. Even after just four hours of sleep, it was impressive how quickly Aya could get up. “I’ll go check on him.” Ken nodded and turned to where Yohji had been standing. The older assassin was gone. “The bastard!!” Ken exclaimed in irritation and ran to the bathroom where Yohji had cleverly got into the shower first. When he got to the bathroom, the door was already locked and the water running… Ken gave a little whine of frustration but didn’t yell at Yohji through the door, lest he wake Omi. He had just walked to his room to change out of his wet and bloody clothes when he heard a loud gasp come from Aya’s room. “What is it, Aya?” Ken called through his bedroom door, stepping out of his pants. There was a light scuffling sound from the far side of Aya’s room, but no reply. Muttering a curse to himself, Ken strode out of the room in his briefs and peered into Aya’s bedroom. No one was there. The bed had been slept in, but there was no sign of Omi, save for a single drop of blood on the blue sheets. There was no sign of Aya, either, but the light curtains of his window were fluttering in the breeze. /Did Omi open the window and climb out?/ Ken wondered to himself. When he got to the window, however, he realized that it was still closed. A large hole had been cut out of the window with a glass-cutter; a circle large enough for a man to fit through. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Omi’s eyes opened just a crack and the world was blurry and dark. He had lost all sensation in his right arm starting at the shoulder. The cold from the cement floor he was lying on was slowly draining what remained of his body heat along the right side of his leg. His jaw ached terribly, his head swam, and he was assailed with the painful need to urinate. /Where am I…?/ Omi tried to roll over to get a better look, but was bound tightly by plastic binders around his wrists and ankles which were then looped together by a short length of nylon cording. Lying on his side with his legs and arms twisted behind his back, it was no wonder the circulation had been cut off in his arm. He stretched and struggled to see how tight the bindings were. They had been fastened with expert hands which knew how to tie a person up with no hope for escape. Omi inched across the floor on his side a little bit. His progress was slow, painful as well because the plastic binders on his wrists and bare ankles cut into his skin if he pulled against them too hard. When had his shoes been taken off? From the depths of his aching head, the memories came back to the youth slowly. He had been in Aya’s bed… Drugged unconscious by the redheaded Schwarz man… He had been naked at the time of his abduction, probably stolen from the room wrapped up in a sheet… But had Aya noticed his disappearance? Maybe he was coming to save him right now… Omi looked down at what he had been dressed in now. Barefoot, wearing only black sweatpants and a pajama shirt with English writing on it. Both were close in size, but just a little too tight on him. Slightly smaller, abducted by Schwarz… They had to be Nagi’s clothes. Was Nagi behind the kidnapping all along? There was no way for Omi to know, so he forced himself not to think about if for too long. Curious about the awful throbbing at the corners of his jaw, Omi wondered if he had been punched by someone. But that made no sense because he hadn’t had a chance to struggle and he had only regained consciousness a moment ago… Omi searched the inside of his mouth with his tongue and found that the cyanide capsule in his back molar had been pried out. Every member of Weiß had one put in when he first joined. Bit down on at the right angle, death would be swift. It had been put there in case a member was captured with no hope of rescue. Killing oneself with a concealed cyanide capsule would be a relief compared to the prospect of a lifetime of torture. Omi didn’t groan at the pain from having his jaws forced open and the capsule extracted, but pressed his cheek to the cold cement floor to numb the pain. He didn’t let his tongue linger on his hollow tooth. It was too eerie. Worst of all, it meant that torture would be the order of the day. Apparently, Schwarz had it in mind to find out the locations and identities of the other Weiß members, without letting Omi even have the option of killing himself rather than telling. The prospects looked grim. To ease his painful tingling in the arm that had fallen asleep, Omi awkwardly rolled himself on to his other side and immediately gasped at the cold against his skin. At least his shoulder was slowly feeling better, but now both sides of his body felt frigid. The room looked like a basement, but there was nothing inside in the darkness besides a video camera in the corner. It had a red light blinking, recording. The thing was duct-taped to a tripod and was aimed right at him. Presumably so his captors could keep an eye on him. Omi lay flopped on his side for a while, just staring back at the lens of the camera which was staring at him emotionlessly. Feeling his anger and indignation rising, Omi began the painfully slow progress of inching on his side towards the camera. By the time he got there, he looked right into the lens, mouthed out the words of what he thought his captor could do with himself, then kicked the tripod over. It was hard to kick with his legs twisted back behind his back. It was even harder when every time he kicked out with his legs, it jerked his wrists along with them and the plastic binders cut deeper in his skin. With nothing else to do, Omi continued the process of kicking the camera into the corner with the lens facing the wall, then continued to kick it, hoping the device would be destroyed in the process. No one came to stop him, and when Omi was getting tired and sore from his awkward attempts to destroy the machine, he lay on his side again, staring at nothing. The boy massaged his fingers behind his back, trying to keep them warm, to return the feeling to them. All the while, he tried to ignore the ache in his jaw, the dryness of his mouth, and worse than all, the feeling that his bladder was filled to capacity. Half an hour later, he was yelling at the top of his voice, for help to come or for his captors to acknowledge him, but no one came. ~~~~~~~~~~~ Aya opened his violet eyes and his back was a mess of muscle spasms and pain. He could feel the exact contact point where the stun gun had been pressed into his back. It had sent enough volts of electricity through his body to render him unconscious, but not before it made his body dance and spasm upright. He had heard himself involuntarily make an inhuman groan as the currents seized him, felt the shock flow through him in eddies from the tips of his feet to the tips of his hair, all spreading outward from that place in his back which burned. He had been chasing the white-haired Schwarz member whose name he did not know, following him for blocks. He could see that the madman held a precious cargo over his shoulder. Even though he couldn’t see the face or hair of the boy he loved, Aya knew that it was Omi wrapped up in a blue sheet that was bobbing over the white-haired man’s shoulder as he fled. The body was so limp, he had to be unconscious. The extra weight would slow the kidnapper down soon enough. Aya charged after him at full speed, still dressed in his assassin’s gear that he had not taken off, his hand on the hilt of the katana he was aching to draw and shove through the chest of the one who had taken his Omi from safety. He had been close. So close, he could have almost reached out and touched the blue bundled up figure of Omi that had been bouncing over the Schwarz man’s shoulder, but Aya had been set up, ambushed. A second Schwarz had stepped out from an alleyway at his side and pressed the stun gun into his back and held it there, watching as Aya jittered like a marionette on strings, until his mind gave him peace by rendering him unconscious. He had flopped forward then, without grace, to the concrete sidewalk, a little drool running from the corner of his mouth, with no one to bear witness. It might have been a slight consolation had he known it, but Aya was unconscious and unaware that he was reunited with Omi for a brief while. The two bodies had been thrown into the back of the car together while the Schwarz men sped away into the dark. The residual pain Aya felt now from the electricity was nothing compared to the initial shock, but the ache in his back insured that it was never very far from his mind. He was so used to ignoring all his pain to focus on a more important goal (usually involving his sister) it was easy for Aya to disregard the pain in his head, his jaw, his back, and immediately look around for who to unleash his wrath upon. When his eyes found Schuldip sitting back in a folding chair watching him, the first words out of Aya’s mouth were, “You. I’ll kill you.” Schuldip laughed the way he always did when he was enjoying himself immensely. He crossed his legs nonchalantly and said simply, “That may not be the best idea considering I am the only one who knows the location of… A certain “buried treasure” shall we say?” “Where is Omi?” Aya demanded bluntly. He longed to stand up and threaten the German man, but his hands and feet were tied to a metal folding chair. “He’s underground someplace safe where you’d never find him,” Schu said, as casually as if he were telling Aya about which brand of coffee he liked best. “What have you done with him?” Aya demanded, his voice trembling with rage. He was well aware of how beautiful Omi was, that Schuldip struck him as the type who might have done something unspeakable to him… The way that Nagi already had. Schuldip laughed harder at that in his grating mocking voice which made Aya quake with rage. Schu shook his head as his laughter subsided, but the smug smile never left his lips. “Please, Aya,” he said, using Aya’s name without having to ask for it, “Don’t assume I’m like you. Unlike you and Nagi, I don’t go for little boys. That’s disgusting.” Aya relaxed inwardly, his fears regarding rape of Omi or himself subsiding. Schu stood up walked the few paces to where Aya was tied to a chair and leaned in close to whisper into his ear, “I’m not the type who would lust after boys. I only like *men*…” “What do you want?” Aya demanded without changing his stony expression. “I want what every man wants,” Schu responded enigmatically, “Besides money, that is.” “Omi has nothing to do with this. Let him go.” Aya’s voice cut like ice. “I don’t think I will,” Schu replied shortly, his smile fading and being replaced with stern irritation at being ordered what to do. “I think I’ll do whatever the hell I feel like and you’ll be an obedient dog and go along with it.” Aya set his jaw. “If you think I’m going to tell you a think about the organization or members of Weiß, you’re sorely mistaken. I’m not saying a thing, so you may as well release Omi and myself at once to save yourself the time.” Schu’s smile returned. “Oh, please!” he chuckled, “If the destruction of Weiß was Schwarz’s goal, you all would be long gone already. We have more information on your team members than you probably know about each other, which is more than you could say about us. So don’t get cocky and presume to know what we want. I’ll release you in due time. And not before.” Aya’s mind raced inside, but he simply stared forward, unwilling to succumb to Schu’s attempts to upset him. Schu put his loathsome hand on Fujimiya’s shoulder and rested his lips on the back of Aya’s head. He took a deep breath in through his nose which was buried in Aya’s cherry-red tresses, smelling his hair. He exhaled in a satisfied sigh of approval and Aya pressed his knees together in a gesture he hoped would go unnoticed. “There, there, Aya,” Schu whispered soothingly, “You don’t have to hide it. I know you’re a virgin, not even touched, so you don’t have to pretend like it doesn’t scare the piss out of you. That’s what’s most attractive.” Aya wondered if it was the terror or the virginity that Schuldip spoke of which appealed to him. Aya was no longer able to hold on to his own denial that Schuldip wanted anything other than his body. Even though he kept his face as expressionless as ever, it was impossible to lie to his guts. They twisted into knots in fear of the unknown of what was to come. Schuldip walked away from Aya for a moment to pick up something from the ground which was beyond Aya’s peripheral vision. When he returned, he was holding Aya’s katana in hand clumsily. To take the edge off his own fear and apprehension, Aya let himself roll his eyes at the way Schu handled the sword with the clumsiness of an amateur who had never used one before. “Stupid thing,” Schu was commenting, pulling the sheath off the sword instead of pulling the sword from the sheath. “Now I’m gonna use this sword to cut your ropes,” Schu explained, dropping the sheath carelessly to the floor and approaching Aya’s back where the ropes held him. “Once the ropes are off, you’re just going to sit there until I tell you otherwise. Then, when I tell you to, you are going to take off your clothes. Do you understand me so far?” Aya grit his teeth into the closest approximation of a smile he could form. “And just what the hell makes you think I’m going to go along with any of that?” he asked, valiantly keeping the quaver out of his voice. Schu looked less happy now and more grimly intent on Aya’s obedience. “Because of you decide *not* to do as I say, I will take this very sword and cut Omi’s pretty little face with it. And your Beloved will recognize that sword, and he will know that you have failed him. That you would rather let *him* pay the price than to take it like a man, yourself. He will know that it may as well be you cutting him up. And if he doesn’t realize this, I will be sure to tell him.” “You sick fuck,” Aya whispered accusingly. “Yes,” Schu agreed, “But I’ll take Farfarello’s method for the time being, and say that this world owes it to me and this is no fault of my own.” Schuldip cut through the ropes and Aya lowered his head, desperately trying to think of a way to buy himself more time. ~~~~~~~ On the other side of the city, somewhere underground, Omi was lost in desperation. He pressed his knees and thighs together tightly, squirming, desperately trying to think of anything other than his dire need to urinate. The numbness in his cold body was long forgotten. He had no idea how many hours he had been held here, but he had long since given up shouting for help or at least attention from his captors. His throat was hoarse and dry, his thirst an ironic mockery of his even more pressing need. Omi knew he couldn’t restrain himself forever, but the fear and shame of the thought of doing anything else drove him to keep holding out “just a little bit longer”. There was a painful knot in his middle and it got to the point where Omi couldn’t even let himself move. Hands behind his back, he couldn’t even get his pants open. He would have gladly missed a chance to escape if one of his abductors would just come down for a moment and cut the binders on his hands for a minute. Maybe it had been unwise to break the surveillance camera after all. But something told him, that whether he was being watched or not, no one would have come to his aid. With a final desperate groan, Omi tried to get to his knees, failed. Felt the hot wetness run down his legs, darkening the material of his sweatpants. His body shuddered in shame and release, unable to appreciate the warmth which saved him momentarily from the coldness of the floor and the room. Soon the wetness would just make him colder there, but Omi didn’t care about that. Ashamed and alone, he started to cry silently. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Aya set his jaw in refusal. “How do I know that Omi is even alive? Is he all right?” he asked with concern. “I assure you, he is fine. And I will release you both without incident if you play along for the time being. That is more than fair I think you’ll agree,” Schu replied. It wasn’t fair by any stretch of the imagination. “I want to see him,” Aya said submissively, trying to lose the edge of demand out of the voice in hopes of appeasing Schuldip. “Let me talk with him so I know he’s okay first. Let him go and I’ll do whatever the hell you want.” Schu shook his head. “Omi’s hands are tied so he couldn’t use a phone even if there was one where he is, and I’m not about to let you go see him, so you’ll have to be satisfied with this.” At first, Aya didn’t know what Schu was talking about, but a moment later, his mind was flooded with images and words from Omi’s thoughts. Schuldip was reading Omi’s mind (wherever he was) and putting them directly into Aya’s conscience… Omi was utterly humiliated. He was cold, alone, dark, and wet. His body shivered in shame and fear, and he had given up. His thoughts were far from rescue, far from love, far from Aya. All he knew and was feeling was the coldness, the isolation, and the undeniable shame of being reduced to animal instinct and despair. Aya gasped as his thoughts were returned to his own. “Teme--! What have you done to OMI?” he demanded. Schuldip shrugged in complete apathy. “Absolutely nothing,” he replied truthfully. Ignoring his earlier instructions, Aya jumped to his feet and grabbed Schuldip by the lapels of his jacket and jerked him forward. “You--! I’ll kill you for mistreating Omi!” Schuldip frowned. “I don’t THINK so,” he said stiffly, pulling himself from Aya’s grasp, “And if you so much as *touch* me without my express permission again, Omi is dead.” Aya let go and took a step back. “I can read your mind, so you may as well stop thinking about killing me now and escaping. Even if I’m dead, there is someone keeping an eye on me. Even if I’m not there to kill Omi personally for your rebellion, I’ll just have Farfarello do it for me, understand?” Aya set his jaw, said nothing. “Good. Since this is just a warning, I will let you off the hook and I will only break Omi’s hand.” “NO!” Aya protested immediately, then said more quietly, “Don’t.” “That didn’t sound much like an apology to me…” Schu said smugly. “Please,” Aya said quickly, hating every moment he had to kiss up to the malicious German, “Don’t break Omi’s hand.” “I think we both know you can do better than that,” Schu said, unimpressed. Aya closed his eyes to steel himself for the degradation, and dropped to his knees in an act of ultimate humility. Bringing his hands in front of his face, Aya dropped to the ground, touching his forehead to the floor in a fully deferent bow. “Forgive me,” he said with the intensity that matched his desire to keep Omi safe, “Please don’t hurt Omi for my insolence.” Schuldip was jovial again and he laughed at the spectacle of the proudest man he knew become reduced to a bowing servant. “Now there’s a nice site to see,” he commented with a smile, “They say that love makes a man as strong as a lion and as weak as a kitten. Is that true, Aya-chan?” He threw his head back at this and laughed again. Aya said nothing, but remained where and how he was. “Go ahead and stand up,” Schuldip said with a dismissive wave of his hand, removing his green coat, “Start taking your clothes off.” Aya didn’t lift his eyes as he did what he was told. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ In the dark that was the basement, Omi heard faint footsteps, then a click at the door. He stopped pulling at the binders on his wrists for a moment and froze at the sound. Someone tentatively creaked the door open, but didn’t step through. Whoever it was couldn’t see because his eyes were not acclimated to the dark as Omi’s were after so long. Despite being back-lit, Omi could tell by the silhouette that it was Nagi even before he heard the whispered voice, “Hello?” ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Aya kept his face as cold and emotionless as stone as he stood naked in front of Schuldip. “All right,” he said blankly, “Go ahead and get it over with.” Besides the removal of his jacket, Schuldip was still fully clothed. He smiled at Aya sadistically and took particular pleasure in the way that the virgin tried to hide the fearful trembling in his knees. “I’m sorry, Aya,” Schu said slowly, drawing it out, reveling in every moment Aya’s heart pounded in apprehension which never showed on his face. “Things aren’t as simple as that.” /So, he gets off on hurting people, too,/ Aya thought to himself, /I knew he would turn out to be the sadistic kind. Well, that doesn’t matter. It’s better that it happens to me than to Omi. I can take the pain./ Schu shook his head. “I know what you’re thinking and you’ve got me all wrong. I don’t want to hurt you, Aya. Just the opposite. I want it to be so good you beg me for more.” Aya scowled. /Not damn likely./ “Why are you doing this?” he demanded. “There’s a question I’ve been asked before,” Schuldip said, bemused, “But since I like you, you’ll be the first one I bother answering…” Aya sat down on the cold metal of the folding chair as Schuldip spoke. “Being able to read emotions and transmit them telepathically makes sex an unbelievable experience. Did you know that?” Aya said nothing, but sat on the chair, covering himself as best he could. “You can feel your partner’s ecstasy as you make love to her, you can project your own arousal into her mind, and then you get it back two-fold as you can feel her arousal from feeling your own excitement… If you can read minds, you know just how fast she wants you to go and when, where to put your hands and just what to do with them. Sex becomes the ultimate experience as your pleasure combines and increases exponentially. When you finally come, it’s like you’re so high you could touch heaven itself…” Schuldip spoke passionately as one who knows from experience exactly what he’s talking about. Speaking to Aya directly, using his telepathy to show the assassin a tiny suggestion of what he was talking about… He noticed with a slight smile that Aya’s flaccidity had hardened slightly at the imagery. “Sounds pretty nice, doesn’t it?” Schuldip asked. Aya said nothing. “Well, you’d be surprised just how damn boring that can get! Knowing exactly what to do takes all the guesswork out of it, and all the life as well. Pretty soon whether you bed with hookers or virgins, they all bore you to death with that same old response every time. None of them giving a fuck about you, and you couldn’t give a fuck about them if you tried. So you turn to something darker to get your thrills. Hurting people while you do it. But in the end, physical pain has the same result as physical pleasure. Stale. Predictable. Pretty soon you can’t even maintain a hard-on with this boring stimulation… So then what is left?” Aya didn’t want to contemplate what the answer could be, that was worse than pain, worse than pleasure. “Psychological,” Schu said pointing to his temple, “It’s all up here. Make someone able to resist, but unwilling to do so. Make them question their conviction, their lovers. That’s the only way. And that is why I enjoy men so much more than women these days. They aren’t used to being abused in that way. I want to make a proud man humble, I want to see your pretty mouth moan for me when someone else is the only one on your mind until now…” Aya shook his head at the perversity of it all. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” “If that is true, then you will know soon enough. Even you, though you’re obviously not afraid of sleeping with a boy, never planned on being on the receiving end of things. You are terrified of having this be the way you lose that precious virginity you longed to share with Omi. Think that’s a pretty bad thing to do? Well, TOO FUCKING BAD!!! I wasn’t given the choice ten years ago, and you’re not now!” Provoked, Schuldip seized Aya by the wrists and threw him to the floor. Aya couldn’t fight back for fear that Omi would pay the price, so he remained on his hands and knees until the impassioned Schwarz member crouched at his side and entangled his fingers in Aya’s hair, jerking him towards his whispering lips. “So listen now, bitch. This is the way we’re going to play it. I’m gonna do whatever the hell I want to you and however the hell I want to do it. If I have something to give you, you’re going to take it. If I do something to you, you’re going to thank me for it. If you have anything negative to say about it, instead you’re going to beg me for more and tell me how good it makes you feel. If you *don’t* do all of what I’m saying right now, then I’m going to do it to Omi every night for a month. And since I don’t get my kicks off of kids that young, I might just have to revert back to my predilection for S&M while I’m handling dear Omi, understand?” Aya swallowed, his mouth gone dry. “UNDERSTAND?” the question came again. “H- hai,” Aya choked out, nodding. The captive didn’t protest as he was pushed back onto his hands and knees. His breath came in shallow, frightened gasps, his heard pounding fast in icy apprehension. He let his captor position him how he wanted, prying his knees wide apart, lifting his backside shamelessly high in the air, his head down low against the ground until the long trails of hair over his ears brushed the ground. Exposed, vulnerable, Aya waited.Reading Room?