{chapter five}


He’d opened his mouth to tell the kid off, but was stopped when fingers touched his hair. Inoue froze, his heart suddenly slamming in his chest as he felt the hand caress his hair, and when he saw the boy leaning in…

His eyes went wide. He was paralyzed even before their lips touched, and when they did, the redhead felt every muscle in his body tense and strain rigidly, and a shudder rang through him. Never… never had Master kissed him… it had been so many years since…

He couldn’t think. He couldn’t move. Just as he was about to attempt kissing back, the kid drew away, and Inoue was left stunned as though he’d been slapped across the face. And yet, his erection had been completely renewed.

Inoue was angry… he was enraged. He was horrified, enthralled and embarrassed.

With one swift movement he pushed the kid onto his back and ripped the legs apart, plunging deep into the tight body once more without warning. “Inoue!” he barked, squeezing the thighs hard enough to bruise as he rammed into the tight flesh. “It’s Inoue, and it’ll be the last name you cry out before you die!”



Reven groaned aloud with the sudden fierceness - with the renewed violation. But his thighs tightened around the man's hips and he tilted himself up instinctively to draw him further in.

Inoue...

He wondered if that was his true name. He wondered how many other people might know it.

He wondered what the look had been in the man's eyes when he kissed him. Just a light, stolen kiss...

A cry was forced out of him as Inoue thrust into him, leaning down over his body, stretched out on the bed. No compassion again - no care. But when he stared up into the half-lidded eyes, he saw something less than feral now, something that connected with him. Inoue was seeing Reven as he fucked the body - he'd spoken again, he'd given the smallest of gifts to him, his name.

Reven struggled to reach round the front of his belly, still being dragged back and forth on the bed. He clutched a hand round his aching cock, reawakened since he was breached again, responding shamelessly to the brush of Inoue's balls against his ass and the sweat from Inoue's torso trickling on to his own. He gritted his teeth and began to pump himself. He wouldn't last long.

Inoue was grunting as he moved in him, the climax a little more elusive this second time, his face more determined. Reven stared at the thick, rich mouth, seeing the flicker of Inoue's tongue behind the white teeth. He licked at his own lips, instinctively.



The kid was enjoying being taken. Enjoying his half-punishment. Inoue wanted to reach up and punch him in the mouth, but his hands were busy supporting him as he rammed into the tight ass harder and felt his climax approaching. He came with a low growl, and watched the boy’s seed sputter across his belly as he mewled.

When he was finished, he grabbed hold of Reven’s good arm and wrenched it against the bedpost, while grabbing a set of handcuffs off the night stand. He cuffed the wrist to the post so neither would be coming off any time soon, then stormed off towards the bathroom for a shower so he could get the riffraff stink off of him.

Inoue shuddered as he got in the shower, the water scalding hot. As he grabbed for the bar of soap, he paused, eyes widening. He realized suddenly exactly what he’d just done to the kid… Almost to the letter, he’d done to the boy what Master had done to Inoue during the first three days of their meeting… he’d chained a wounded minor to his bed and silently demanded he got out on his own or he’d die soon.

And then, when Inoue had escaped, he’d been gathered under Master’s wing and trained to become the walking death he was now. The redhead paled significantly, shuddering and grabbing the soap to scrub himself raw.



Reven's head was spinning again. He felt weak - he felt used. The bruises from Inoue's treatment were rising already on his pale skin, adding to the abuse he'd already suffered. And now his wrist ached from the cuff, fixed securely to the bedpost.
Why doesn't he kill me now? he thought. Fuck, what kind of man is he? He was totally confused. It didn't feel to Reven like deliberate torture - and he knew plenty about that. He knew about cutting and marking and the manic, spiraling laughter of sick men who liked to do that to him. But those days were gone now. He'd pulled himself out of that, and he wasn't anyone's plaything anymore. Besides, he couldn't see that this Inoue had any need for that. He had his work for his hobby...

Reven wriggled again at the cuff and growled with frustration. His wounds hurt, and he was stark naked, but he needed to get out of this now! He could hear the water running in a shower in another room. Maybe he could escape this apartment, take advantage of the assassin's satiation after the sex - use a distraction...

He huffed a bit, keeping as quiet as he could, moving as smoothly as his battered body would allow. He stretched his free hand to the bedside unit, dislodging a book on the top as he groped around. He held his breath, but no roaring retribution came from the bathroom. He dragged open the drawer and fumbled around. Fuck, he'd never known a place so bereft of personal items! There was another softback book there, he heard the rattle of a pill bottle. Nothing but rustling paper and envelopes that cut between his fingers when he grabbed for them too clumsily...

He clutched one, feeling the letter or whatever it was through the envelope. It was a bill or something... it was several sheets of thick paper, and they were pinned together with something. Reven's heart started to hammer and he realized what nonsense this all was, but he pulled the envelope carefully out on to his lap. I'm trapped here, he told himself, as he opened the flap and drew out the bill. He'll be back in here any second now..., as he carefully peeled the paperclip from the top corner of the papers... and then he'll kill me. The clip was free - his agile hand opened it out, half of him shaking with nerves and fear and the other half trying to concentrate. He'd done it before, you see, with even less than a paperclip. He could pick locks, he could open boxes, he could bypass security pads...

Cuffs should be no trouble at all. He reached shakily to his bound wrist, locating the lock.

Hopeless! his mind told him, scornfully. You're weak as a kitten. The lock will be something really sophisticated. You'll drop the clip and be as naked as you were before. He'll hear your stupid gasping and cone and slice you from ear to ear, like he did Lucas...

He gritted his teeth, and began to tease at the lock with the thin piece of twisted metal.



Inoue finished his shower and patted himself dry, then walked into the bedroom once more, reasonably calmed. His left eye twitched as the boy turned to him with a surprised and guilty expression, his hand still gripping the paperclip he had jammed into the handcuffs. Walking across the room with only the hair towel on, Inoue wrenched the kid's hand away from the cuffs and took the paper clip out of those damn little fingers, throwing it across the room. He then drew his hand away and backhanded the kid rather hard, a loud crack resounding in the room.

"I'll cut your fingers off if you persist with this death wish of yours," he growled, grabbing the kid by the throat and slamming his head against the headboard. "And if you even so much as think about kissing me again, I'm going to remove your teeth and tongue one at a time with a set of pliers, then I'm going to burn your lips off your face with a blowtorch and leave you locked in a closet until you starve to death, you hear me?"



Reven's head was reeling from the blows, and he could feel a thin trickle of blood down in amongst his hair from where he'd been slammed against the headboard. When the assassin let go of his throat he slumped down on the bed. He fought back the nausea again.

But Inoue wasn't actually killing him was he? He was ranting on in that deep, icy voice of his, about the hideous things he'd do to Reven if he caught him messing about again. Or that's what it sounded like - there was ringing in his ears and he couldn't hear too well. But what Reven couldn't understand was that if he was dead, what did any of that matter? Did that mean that Inoue wasn't going to kill him yet? Ever? But what the hell else would he do with him?

He realized that Inoue wanted an answer. "I hear you," he muttered. As well as he could with a split ear and a bruise on the back of his head the size of an egg. "Whatever. Will you uncuff me then?"



"Yes," Inoue said flatly. "Then I'll dress you, feed you, give you fifty bucks for the fuck and send you on your way. Is that what you're expecting?" He removed the towel from his hair and draped it over his head, rubbing the thick red mass of locks and growling. "You're here by my mercy and my mercy alone. You will never return to the life you had. Chances are I'm going to kill you before this night is out. I happened to fuck you and bandage you, but you seem to be reading a little much into this. Your status is less than that of a prisoner. You don't get to make requests, and you sure as fuck don't get to mouth off to me."

The redhead removed the towel and bent forward at the waist, stretching out relaxed muscles, then moving to his arms, stretching them out idly. "I tell you what," he said darkly, as he remembered Master's words. "If you can get out of those cuffs, I'll let you live through the night." He had no idea why he was saying it, but it was said.



Reven stared. Was the man mad? "What is it you want of me?" he almost pleaded. "If you're gonna do it, why don't you get on with it?" But there was no answer for him. Inoue's eyes were unreadable - his jaw set too firmly to suggest he had any interest in Reven's pathetic words. "What sort of life have you had, Inoue?" he whispered, his body curling back on the bed as he expected further blows. He just never learned when to shut up, did he? "Is this what happened to you?" Was this some kind of revenge - some kind of test? With me as the hapless victim? He watched as Inoue barely shrugged, then turned on his heel and left the room. He closed the door behind him.

Reven lay still for a while, listening for sounds in the apartment, sounds of life outside. That life he'd thrown aside, to follow this enigma of a man, this lunatic, this killer. He was as lunatic as Inoue, of course.

It made him think. Maybe the assassin was something more than a cold-blooded maniac. Maybe his code of honor allowed him to offer this chance to Reven - impossible though it was. Reven didn't bother checking the drawer again, or trying to find any other tool for the cuffs. He tugged experimentally at the bedpost, but it was firm. He tried for a while, bracing his feet against the post and tugging at it, until his arms ached at the joints and his legs were cramped with the strain. His wrist was rubbed raw with the chafing metal of the cuffs, and yet he'd not moved an inch of it.

Well, he thought, trying to catch his breath for another try. I have hours left till daybreak. Maybe the guy sleeps - maybe he's like some demon, and he's waiting for me outside that door. I can sit and wait for him to open it and kill me, staked out here like some sacrifice. Or I can try to get out, like he said.

He stared at the players in this sick little game. The bedpost - solid wood. The cuffs - strong metal, and locked. His wrist.

He flexed his sore hand, inside the cuff. His hand was slim, but still too broad to slip out of the cuff. He let his exhausted, confused mind wander where it liked. He needed to be able to fold his hand in, making it as slim as the wrist. Then it would just slide out, and off he'd go!

Go on, then, said his mind. Fucking thing seemed to have a life of its own, after the horrors and pain he'd suffered in the last few hours. He tried a trick he'd used when he was a kid - a way of drawing his mind in on himself. It had been useful when he was on the street - when he was being cut. When he had to prevent himself from crying, or protesting, or fighting. He breathed heavily and steadily - he let his thoughts clear to a bright, white, blank expanse.

He gripped his little finger, tested the strength of the bone. He bit hard on his lip, and shut his eyes. Then he snapped the finger back at the base until he heard it snap. And break.

The pain was sharp, and for a moment he lost his concentration. He focused on his memory of Inoue's knives. He saw Lucas's pathetic, handsome, pleading face. He saw the girls, butchered on the hotel carpet.

He reached for his ring finger, and bent that back too. This was a dream, surely? He'd wake up soon and find this was a sick little nightmare. But he was still awake, and in dreadful pain. It was getting more difficult to hold his nerve.

The middle finger was tough - it resisted for what seemed like a long time. He remembered with some hysteria that he rested the pool cue there. A tear ran down his cheek, but he wasn't crying deliberately.

The forefinger was the worst - the resonant pain from all the others numbed his hand, but as soon as he snapped it, the jagged spikes of pain ran all along his arm and into his chest. He felt his breath catch, as if it might stop altogether. He could hear sounds, and realized with horror it was his own sobbing. But he gripped the trapped hand, moving its limp, unnaturally bent digits, and he crushed it into a tube of flesh and mangled bone. He made it fit the same as the wrist - he made it narrower, and then he tugged at the cuff, pulling it off over the top. His mind was insane now, he thought, for he couldn't have spoken a word of sense. There was dribble down his chin, and white hot lights behind his eyes. He saw the cuff slide off, but his hand was both numb and in excruciating pain. He couldn't work out the conflict of that. Fucking weird, he thought. He saw his legs slide off the side of the bed, knowing he wanted to make a run for it now.

Stupid bastard, he told himself, almost cheerfully. You can't even see the door. You're stark bollock naked, and you've lost pints of blood. And you may never jerk yourself off with that hand again. Where the fuck do you think you're going like that?

His vision was blurred - his legs like water. He felt the vomit rising in his throat again, and he hadn't the energy to hold it back. His eyes rolled - there was a rasping at the back of his throat. His knees buckled and he hit the floor like a sack of vegetables, completely unconscious.



Inoue entered the room and watched as the boy broke his ring finger and worked his way down his hand, then broke his wrist to get the hand through the cuffs properly. His eyebrows arched slightly as the kid got up and made it a few steps before he collapsed and threw up all over himself.

The redhead rolled his eyes with an annoyed sigh. Reven had scored respect points for realizing that was his only way out and taking action immediately-- when it had happened to Inoue as a kid it had taken him a long time before he grew desperate and angry enough to do that to himself as well. But, the kid lost points for throwing up and passing out.

He picked up the limp body by the hair and dragged it across the floor, glad it was hardwood and easily cleaned. Dropping the body on the floor in the bathroom, he began to fill the large tub and sat on the edge, looking down at Reven and sighing again, the sigh rumbling into another growl. He remembered clearly the way Master would draw him into a large hot tub with him and bathe him when he couldn't do it himself. He remembered the immediate love and devotion he felt for the man because of moments like that amidst the mental and physical torture.

And he knew that he'd have to bathe this vile child in the same manner lest he drown.

Begrudgingly Inoue picked up the kid and carried him into the tub as he stepped into it, resting Reven on his lap and keeping his head propped on a scarred shoulder, out of the water. Silently he hoped the kid didn't wake during this as he dipped a washcloth in the water and wiped away the bile from the parted lips gently.


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[end chapter five]