Forever Caged

Disclaimer: I don't own Ai No Kusabi nor do I make any money from this fanfic. However, I do own all the original peeps I've chosen to invade the AnK world.


Rating: NC-17


Pairings: Iason/Riki, Raoul/Katze, original characters and novel character pairings.


Parts: 99 of  ?



~~**Forever Caged**~~




“Hello?” Niko looked around the empty office. When he did not get a response, Niko leaned over the reception’s desk and tried to see if he could catch a glimpse of a nurse, or someone. Entering the section for staff only, Niko peeked around the corner, and still found no one. “Excuse me? I am in need of assistance,” he called out again.





Rolling his eyes when it became clear everyone had decided to go on lunch all at the same time, Niko ventured toward one of the exam rooms in the back. He knew what he needed to heal the bruise on his face, so there wasn’t any real need to wait for a doctor. But, even as his anger gave him courage, his heart still thundered in his chest for the liberties he was taking. Because if the Elite in charge caught him… Well, he could only hope Gabriel came a after him to save him from another Elite’s wrath.





Opening the first door to his left slowly, Niko stepped inside when it saw that the room was empty. “I guess everyone did leave…” Still, Niko felt as if someone was watching him, but no matter how many times he looked over his shoulder no one was there. He would have felt better if there were cameras in the exam rooms, but to protect Elite privacy the back rooms did not have recording devices.





“Hey, kid, you alive over there?”





Placing one foot in front of the other, Niko ignored his instincts to turn around, chiding himself for feeling so paranoid; as if there was anything other than his perverted Elite to worry about in Eos. Thankfully, nothing in the room was locked. Why would they need too? Who would be foolish enough to steal anything from this place… Well, except for him and he wasn’t actually stealing anything. Rummaging through one of the drawers, Niko pulled out a tube of cream that would conceal his discolored flesh as well as heal his bruises.





A cold breeze brushed this cheek as he moved to leave. Turning, Niko’s eyes roamed the room and landed on scrape marks on the polished floor. Kneeling, Niko ran his fingertips along the gouges. He remembered this. No long before Gabriel took him as his pet; he came to get an examination and saw some strange person disappear into this room.





“Dude, seriously. You still breathin’ over there?”





Closer to the ground the cold breeze came drifting to him faster. Narrowing his eyes, Niko leaned closer to the wall. There was a gap, just enough of an opening that his fingernails could slip in, and where the air was blowing out from. Excitement overruling caution, Niko strained to open the mysterious passage until he could squeeze both hands through, and then his body. The fake wall groaned as it slid outward. Amazed, Niko inched his way inside on all fours. “Wow,” he whispered, and grinned as his whispered echoed down the darkened secret passageway.





“You are an amusing child… How unfortunate for you to be the one to have discovered this secret.”





“How unfortunate for you…” Yes… He remembered now.





Backing out and standing slowly, Niko shook so badly his teeth rattled.





“Won’t you turn around?”





Niko didn’t have to turn around to know who was behind him, but he did. There was no way he could disobey that voice. “I won’t tell. I promise I won’t say a word,” he mumbled, staring at his feet.





“Boy, unfortunate doesn’t describe the mess we’re in.”





“And I believe you, child, I know you will not…” Niko flinched as a glowing hand lifted his chin up. Jupiter, the goddess matriarch, golden translucent form floated a few inches away from him. “However, Gabriel will know something is wrong the moment he sees you, little Niko. My son is already in tuned to your emotions, thus the reason why he has not followed you. He is giving you time to calm the anger in your heart. He loves you.”





Niko whimpered as Jupiter’s form changed from warm sunshine, to cold steel and her silvery touch painful. “No… Sir Gabriel d-doesn’t—“





“If you fear my son will feel my wrath for his relationship with you, you need not worry, child.” Jupiter smile did nothing to lift the coldness shining in her eyes. “I approve. You would have met your fate by my hands from the moment he gazed at you with longing, if I did not.”





“You approve of our relationship,” Niko said, not denying Gabriel and his romantic involvement with one another, “but you’re not going to let me go, are you?”





Niko held his breath as Jupiter leaned closer, his pale face reflected in her mirror-like eyes.





“No,” she finally replied.





“What are you going to do to me?” Niko asked.





“I will not be doing anything,” Jupiter said. “However, I will not stop what will be done to you either.”





“What could we possibly do to you? Wake up, kid!”





If not you, then who? A blast of frigid air blast across his back, and Niko heard steps echoing closer from behind him as—Screaming, Niko’s eyes shot open as his body tried to twist away from what hurt him with no success. Choking on his own cries, Niko shook with pain. His panting breaths clouded in white puffs, telling his brain the temperature of the room, but did nothing to stop the never ending fire burning across his chest.





Niko didn’t know how long he lay there before he stopped screaming, and could think beyond the agony to realize he was chained to a metal table. Probably the same one he woke up on to see Sir Landon hovering above him.





“Shut-up, kid! If they hear you, they might come down and start poking at you again!”





Niko bit his lip until his mouth filled with the taste of copper, trying to steam the flow of groans from escaping. His vision grew blurry, and warm trails slid from his eyes to chill as it ended in his hair.





“Just keep breathing, kid. Don’t think about the pain.”





But the pain was the only thing he could think about; from the tips of his toes, to the back of his eyeballs, every inch of him hurt. And his chest…It was as if someone had held his upper body over a stove. Niko looked around for something to concentrate on, to help him take his mind off what Sir Landon might have done to him… But the depressing interior of the cave he was in only added to his panic. Water leaked from the rocky ceiling, and each glacier drip upon him only ripped cries of torment from him. It felt as if every droplet was acid against his skin.





“Breathe, kid. Just breathe.”





Shaking uncontrollably, Niko struggled to turn his head, the pain draining all of his strength. His eyes squinting in dark, barely making out two dark figures chained against the damp stone walls. “Who are you?” Niko’s voice cracked.





“Name’s Julius,” one of the strangers announced, with the voice Niko recognized as the one who had been talking to him. “My brooding prison-mate here… Well, he’s not much for talking so I don’t know his name.”





There wasn’t much light in the cave. The only thing Niko could see was that both men might have had dark hair and eyes. He was too far away to be sure. “How long—“ Niko winced, his voice painfully breaking, cutting off his question.





“How long you been passed out on the slab? Or how long have Silent Bob and I been prisoners of doctor nut-bag?” Julius said, his friendly tone easing a bit of Niko’s distress. Niko smiled, feeling his lips split and not caring about the small bit of pain that came with it. The little wound was nothing compared to what the rest of him felt like.





“Well,” Julius said, “I was walkin’ down slum avenue lookin’ for a target, when I got jumped from behind. When I woke up, I was chained to a table—like you are now—and some white-haired freak was stickin’ me with needles. Don’t know Bob’s story, but I’m guessing his story isn’t dissimilar to mine.”





Niko looked over to Bob, and then just as quickly looked away. As dark as it was Niko could see the fire burning in the other man’s eyes, felt his anger as if it were alive and snarling its rage at its situation. Everything about the quiet stranger screamed danger, and Niko didn’t know whether to be scared or relieved to be in the same room as the man.





“I know where Bob comes from,” Julius said, drawing Niko’s attention away from the wild animal in the room, “but you don’t look like a mongrel to me. Where did the nut-ball steal you from?”





“What makes you think I’m not a mongrel?” Niko struggled to say, his words choppy and laced with pain he could not hide.





Julius laughed, a strange sound considering where they were. “You look too soft to be one of us.”





Niko’s groaned when he chuckled. As much as he wanted to deny Julius’s statement, he couldn’t. He might have been born a mongrel, and viewed as a mongrel by his Blondie and by Riki and the gang, but he was anything but one. He didn’t have the street smarts, survival instincts, or worldly wisdom like a true mongrel did. “I’m a pet to an Elite Blondie,” Niko finally said softly.





Julius whistled. “Seriously? Damn, that’s great! He likes you, right? Please tell me you’re his favorite, and he’ll come looking for you?”





“What does it matter if his Blondie does come looking for him?” the other mongrel growled. “Look at him. He won’t last much longer if he can’t take a little bit of pain. And even if he did, that Platinum won’t let him live.”





“Way ta kill the hope in the room,” Julius muttered. “He lived past all the tested, the same as we did. The doc won’t kill him—“





“Then you’re the stupid one,” Bob sneered. “If he is some Blondie’s pet, and his master does come looking for him, why would that other Elite take the risk of keeping him around? Face it. He’s more fucked than we are. The only chance he has is if he gets his ass up and escapes.”





Niko turned his head and stared up at the leaking ceiling when Julius grimly looked at him with pity, telling him that Bob spoke the truth. “I can’t die here,” Niko whispered. “I haven’t even told him I love him back yet…”





Building up his courage, Niko took a deep breath and silently applauded when only a low groan of pain escaped his lips as he slowly sat up. The chains around his wrists rattled as his hands shook with excursion— from trying to keep his body from keeling over the side of the table. But victory was short lived when Niko finally looked down. “Oh, God.” He gagged.  Patches of skin was missing from his left peck down to his navel, as if someone had removed it with a potato peeler. The other half of his chest was a mass of stitches, some five inches long and still oozed blood between the wires. Niko could only imagine what the lower part of his body looked like, hidden beneath the red stained sheet covering him.





Black dots hindered his sight as Niko tried to come to grips with what he was seeing, but the loud sound of someone’s panting breaths made it hard to think pass his mutilated body, until he felt himself falling. Before succumbing to blessed darkness, Niko whispered Gabriel’s name mournfully.

oOoOoOo




Rubbing his chest, Gabriel checked the GPS in Niko’s pet ring again, and for the hundredth time stared at the blinking dot signaling Niko’s whereabouts. But, even though he saw that Niko was at the infirmary, Gabriel couldn’t shake the dread that had taken grip of his heart. More than three hours had past since Niko had stormed out of the apartment, and with every second that went by, Gabriel fought his natural instinct to go down and retrieve his pouting mongrel.





“How long does an examination take?!” Gabriel growled, pacing back and forth. He had already called twice, and been told by the receptionist that Niko was being treated by the doctor, but that had been over an hour ago. Knowing Niko, his little troublemaker was probably loitering in the waiting room killing time just to annoy him.





Could his injuries been more than what they seemed to be? Gabriel halted in his tracks at that thought. Had Niko been pretending to be angry at him to hide how much pain he was truly in? Gabriel shook his head. No. If Niko’s life was in jeopardy he would have been immediately informed, and he hadn’t left the apartment so he wouldn’t have missed it if someone called him.





Still…





“Did we receive any calls that I was not informed of?” Gabriel asked his ex-love dolls, and Niko’s new pet guard dogs. The two girls looked up at him, and for the first time to Gabriel’s surprise, answered.





“No, Master Lazen,” one of the females said, clearly, and with a tone and gaze that showed more than just a bit of intelligence. “Mimi and I have been on alert, watching the phone just incase the mute button had been pressed.”





“Niko has been gone for a long time,” the other female timidly whispered. “May I be allowed to go and retrieve him?”





“And when she says I, she means we,” the bolder of the two pets said, glaring at the other girl.





Gabriel didn’t know what was more amusing. The fact that the two females he’d had in his household for nearly three years were finally speaking in front of him, or that they ignored him and began arguing over who would bring Niko back home. Commanding the girls to stop their bickering, Gabriel ordered the girls to stay in the apartment and left to brag Niko home himself. Ten minutes later, however, Gabriel was not laughing.





The infirmary had been empty of all staff, and from the last entry the Ruby physician, Michael Ozent, wrote, the office had been vacant hours before Niko came. Annoyed, Gabriel called out Niko’s name, his irritation quickly turning to anger when his little troublemaker did not make his presence known. All but kicking down every door to find where Niko could be hiding, Gabriel paused when something on the floor of one of the exam rooms caught his eye.





Kneeling, Gabriel’s hand shook as he picked up Niko’s pet bracelet, and then crushed the circlet in his fist. Rage unlike anything he felt before filled him as he thought of the one person who would be able to remove Niko’s tag, and knew he’d have to get pass Orphe to get his hands on him. “This little game of yours has gone far enough, Niko,” Gabriel growled. And when he got his hands on his little mongrel, he’d paddle that fine little ass of Niko’s until his stubborn lover couldn’t walk, let alone pull a stunt like this every again.





TBC…