Return Ticket To Stockholm

Someone said that Ryo feels more like a real person than a fictional character. That's big, you guys. I'm humbled. :,)

In other news, the person formerly known as Hugazombie seems to have deleted their profile. I'd like to take a moment to say that their reviews -sadly gone now- were what kept me going through the first two or three chapters; they were very positive and encouraging and also my only reviews at the time. :P So hey, you, if you're still reading this: I hope all is well on your end.

I'm a bit bugged that my chapters are so inconsistent in length throughout the story. On the other hand, I guess I don't need to apologize for a 7400-word chapter, eh? So here it is.

Enjoy!

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You'll See The World In A Different Light

Black, round, glossy    ...thing.





At first he thought nothing of it, knew that it was just the camera; went through a brief period of being disoriented and upset when he remembered that he was supposed to be at home; calmed down a little once the rest of his memories caught up with him.



So, this place again, eh? It was disquieting to be here, no lie, but he was still riding on the tail end of his overdose and found that he could cope- and in any case, it wasn't like he was calm at home, either. 'Peaceful' wasn't something that happened to him anymore. Not that he'd ever been the mellow type, not exactly zen; he'd always tended to care and argue about everything from politics to climate change to the proper extent of animal rights, like when that extremist group had set up a stand outside of, of-  whoa, that train of thought had gone off the tracks a little, hadn't it? In any case, he just really hoped... he didn't think they had any reason to kidnap him again, hoped they hadn't found something to hold against him after all, but couldn't stop the nagging doubt.



There were voices in the distance, muffled and unintelligible but coming closer, and he craned his neck to see how that was possible.





The door was open.





Just open, just like that, showed a stretch of wall and part of another door, and what the fuck was it open for? It told him everything he needed to know about his status here, this time around, but he hated it nonetheless, feared it, feared the world beyond- like his mice when he'd been a kid; the cage had been knocked over and come apart and the poor things had crawled around on the spilled bedding, freaking out every time they encountered carpet. He was like that, now. Man or mouse? I know the answer to that one.



Tail's on the wrong side, though, he thought and immediately groaned. Jesus, Ryo. Some comedian you are.



The voices, or their owners, seemed to have stopped; there was some banging and a door being closed, and then they seemed to fade away again. Straining his ears, Ryo tried to determine whether he knew them, but the sounds were too faint to really tell.





He was on the couch, flat on his back, and he vaguely remembered collapsing on it and being determined not to move again for a long time. Which apparently he hadn't- but then, he hadn't just been asleep, he'd been high as fuck; because he wasn't functional without his liquid crutch anymore. Because he didn't have it in him to even go to a a fucking store without a meltdown. He'd wanted his life back badly, but given the chance he'd failed miserably- had come apart to the point that even his old captors had noticed and taken pity on him. That was a whole new level of failure. Rubbing his face with a sigh, Ryo wondered just how pathetic you had to be to make mobsters feel sorry for you. A new low point. And he didn't know how to get out of it any time soon.





As he shifted, he noticed that he really needed to take a leak, hardly surprising given that he'd slept all through the night, easily twelve hours, probably more- and he remembered thinking he'd sooner piss in a cup than go in that bathroom, but the problem was that he didn't have a cup and he wouldn't have known what to do with it afterwards anyway.



Come on. You did it before, you can do it now. Are you man or mou- actually, we answered that, didn't we.



Wincing -apparently not moving all night left you a little stiff, who'd have thought?!- Ryo got up and padded over to the bathroom, wondering if he'd taken his shoes off or if someone else had done that for him. He honestly couldn't remember. Now, his jacket- he was pretty sure he'd taken that off on the elevator or something. But the shoes...?



Hitting the light switch, he braced himself; blinked at what would surely be a white, sterile hell... and turned out not to be. What the-?



Two of the light bulbs had been replaced by colored ones, he realized when he looked up- one green, one blue, and they left the room looking like... well, like an aquarium done in pastels. And either the surprise had snapped him out of the dread or the colors made a difference, the point was that something really helped.



Why would anyone bother? It had to have been Blainn, certainly wasn't one of the Suits who would care enough, and Brennan didn't seem the type, either. But even though the redhead had always been the nicest of any of them, this seemed a little excessive, even for him.



...In any case it meant Ryo was able to use the bathroom, and right then that was all that mattered.









Blainn was sprawled on the couch when he came out, looking tired and weary as if he'd been out and about all night again, but upbeat nonetheless.



"That work for ya?" He pointed towards the bathroom.



"Yeah, it does." As he fell into the chair, Ryo wondered if he should ask about it and decided not to. "Thanks."



"No worries." Stretching, the guy yawned.





Aside from a TV screen mounted on the wall that looked like it had always been there, nothing had changed- not the room, not the hallway, not the redhead lazing on the couch, and yet everything was different. Before, he'd been a prisoner here, wanting nothing more than to go home- and now he had his freedom back and didn't know what to do with it, almost wished for someone to tell him what he could and couldn't do.



Only almost, though.





"Hey, um-" how to ask this? "...I can go home, right?"



"You can, yeah." The sceptical look that came with it made Ryo cringe. "You think that's gonna work any better for you now?"



Yeah, well. If he was honest- no, it wasn't going to work out at all, was it? "I just..."



"Nobody's keepin' you, no."





Right, well, that was certainly good to hear- it meant more than just being able to walk out; also meant not being threatened in the meantime. And that, well, that was one hell of a thought to wrap his mind around... to be here and not expect to die at any moment. He wasn't sure he could keep that fear out entirely; although he'd had a whole month to get used to the thought that he would live, being here was a bit of a challenge in that regard. But at least he could remind himself, right? Brennan wasn't trying to kill him anymore, for whatever reason. Last night -or afternoon, really, it had been kind of early, hadn't it?- the man hadn't bothered him, had laughed even.



At him, probably. Ryo realized with a little cringe that he'd said some pretty stupid things- maybe that was to be expected, doped up like that, but still... oh, man. Determined to face the full extent of his embarrassment, he set off to filter through his memories.





"Hey," he said after a while, "what's wrong with the 521 to Rosedale? Something out that way I ought to know about?" He thought about that. "Or rather, not know about?"



"Jus'... not the sort of crew you wanna fall in with, I think. An' I thought maybe you had."



That was sad enough to make him laugh. "I haven't left the house, man."



The redhead only nodded.



"Why would you care, anyway?"



"If you leave here an' go straight to the, uh, competition? Yeah, the boss would wanna know."





Jesus, they were everywhere, apparently. At least that explained why Blainn had followed him- and since the guy had found him and dragged him out of there, Ryo wasn't going to complain. Hell, he was almost grateful to the man in the convenience store for ratting him out. So in any case the redhead was here, was relaxed and in no rush, so...





"Hey, um... you know how Brennan said I could have answers?"



"Yeah?"



"Well. Um. I never got any."



"Yeah, well, he weren't here before you left. We figured you'd rather go home than stick around an' wait for 'im to get back." The raised eyebrow was accompanied by a little snort. "Don't tell me I got that backwards."



"No! No." Oh, God, no. If it came down to freedom or answers, he'd choose to be oblivious for the rest of his life... it was just that there was a chance he could have both. "But, uh, can I have answers now?"



"Like what?"



"Like, what was the point of it all?"



"When you were here?"



"Yeah."



"The... eh, well. The boss needed to know what you knew, like."



"Yeah, I know that. That's pretty much the only thing I know, and it doesn't explain anything. If he wanted to know what I knew how come nobody tried to find out from me?" Frustrated by his host of unanswered questions, Ryo threw his legs over one armrest and slumped in the chair. "And why were you here?"



"But tha's jus' it." Blainn gave a half-hearted shrug, as if it was obvious. "I was here... to find out from you."



Wha-? "Can you be a little less cryptic for once and just tell me what the fuck was going on?" Well, he was certainly feeling bold. Bless benzos. "You said there was a plan. Can I just know what it was?!"



"Alright, alright." Sitting up properly, the guy rubbed his forehead as if to wake the right memories. "See, the thing is... talk was, somebody'd been planted recently. An' then the boss is on this back road that nobody ever uses an'... an' all of a sudden there's you, with perfect timing." He was completely serious now. "Bit much of a coincidence. So he took you along to find out if it was."



So that was- they hadn't been near as surprised as he'd thought, not near as surprised as he had been, emerging from that back alley. More alarmed than startled. They had searched him to see if he was bugged. ...And that was probably what Blainn had meant by him being in strange places, too.



"An' he figured... see, if you were a civvie, then all he needed to do was get you good an' scared an' we'd find out whatever we wanted."



"A 'civvie'?"



"Civilian."



"What, like you're the fucking military?!"



"...did you wanna hear about this or not?"



God, yes, he did. Mouth zipped.



"So the boss kept you on your toes... an' I was babysittin' you to see if you had anything interestin' to say."



"And that took you four weeks?"



"Nah. Took me half a day to have you figured out." Another shrug.  "The boss is a lil' more leery... took him a couple days to be convinced."



"But what..." Ryo's mind was spinning. "Why the hell was I here for a month, then?"







"Something came up."



The voice behind him was calm, smooth; it made his stomach twist in fear and apprehension and other, stranger things he had no name for. Glancing over the back of the chair, he saw Brennan leaning in the door and noticed he was wearing new jeans, black ones that fit him way too well. Because obviously, the guy's appearance was important right now. Fucking hell, Ryo.



"That mole he mentioned? Talk was he had bleach-blond hair and went by the name of Taylor. You see the problem."



Boy, did he ever.



"So when we couldn't find him... we were starting to think that, maybe, we already had him."



So, he- what, he'd nearly died over a stupid coincidence, that was what it boiled down to, wasn't it?! Admittedly a pretty big coincidence, but random chance nonetheless. Jesus fuck...!



"Did you find him? Is that what that proof was about?"



Brennan's mouth twisted into a crooked grin, one that looked mirthfully ruthless and sent a chill down Ryo's spine even though he knew it wasn't him in the line of fire. "Turns out his hair is dyed." The guy scoffed. "And his eyes are blue, but of course you don't know if he's wearing contacts until you've checked for yourself."



Ryo didn't like the sound of that- it seemed like a thinly veiled euphemism for something awful, and given that this was a guy who'd just been outed as a cop... he shuddered again as he tried to chase the images from his mind. "What happened to him?"



"Nothing that a stiff drink or three won't fix." The man seemed amused now, possibly because Ryo was so easily disturbed, or maybe he'd found the encounter with this other guy entertaining.  "As a matter of fact, he's now aware that word is out about him... so I suppose I even did him a favor."



"You just let him go?!" As much as Ryo wanted that to be true, it was hard to believe.



"He's investigating prostitution. I don't meddle in that. As long as he stays out of my business, what do I care?"



"No, that's great..." he certainly wasn't going to argue, he just didn't understand. "I just... surely someone, I mean-"



"Someone would have been very happy if I'd kept the guy and handed him over? One of his targets, maybe?"



"...yeah."



"Oh, I'm sure." Brennan wasn't grinning now. "But if they want him, let them catch him. I'm nobody's delivery boy. This isn't some epic battle between Good and Evil where the bad guys all stick together, you know." He scoffed. "Or the good guys, for that matter."



For a little while there was silence as Ryo mulled it all over. They had- and he- and then- ...and just how shitty could life get?



"So it was just bad luck all around, then?" He couldn't believe it. Someone, up there, must be laughing his ass off.



"I don't know about 'all around'. I'd say bad luck for you, mostly. ...But yes, the plan was to know what to do with you -and, ideally, do nothing with you but throw you out- in no more than a week." Brennan straightened with a shrug. "As I said- things don't always turn out the way we want."







The man had left long before Ryo could think of anything to say- or, indeed, stop staring at the spot where he had been.









"Hey," a scratchy voice finally broke the silence, "I'ma go down for a smoke. Wanna come?"



Leave this room? Hoo boy. Was that really a good idea? There were windows everywhere, what if he looked in on something? But in the end, Blainn had no reason to screw him over, hardly seemed to be looking for an excuse to shoot him after all, and Ryo decided to trust that the guy wouldn't be bringing him along if he couldn't see it. Look at you, stepping off the bedding, he thought as he put his jacket on. Only with someone holding your hand... but hey.





The elevator was operated with a key, he noticed, and that helped make sense of his memories from the previous day. There was no way he could use it by himself, which was reassuring in a sense- maybe his door was open because he couldn't actually go anywhere important.



"Is there a fire exit?"



"Yeah, but it's locked. It unlocks automatically if the fire alarm is goin'. Won't do you no good otherwise."



"Oh, good."



Blainn only shook his head, grinning.









It was nice outside. No breeze made it down between the buildings today, and the small trees -no more than ten feet in height- stood motionless and naked in the weak near-November sunshine. As he made his way over to one of the benches, Ryo found that the entire ground floor, or what looked to be the ground floor from his perspective, had deserted hallways running along the windows- so, no insights. He relaxed a little.



"Rye." Blainn had sat down on the bench, next to him, and was eyeing him with a serious expression. "I'ma put you on these. Yeah?" There was a pill bottle in his hand, half full with tablets of unknown nature.



Ryo stared at it as the guy set it down on the bench between them. More medication? Oh, great, not like he had just fucked this up big time. "What is it?"



"Antidepressan's."



Oh? "But... I'm not depressed." 'Depressed' was, like, crying and being really gloomy, right?



"I'll take your word for it," the guy said, fishing for a lighter. "But it ain't jus' for depression, it helps against anxiety, too. An' it'll help weanin' you off the benzo."



Oh, God, he could probably use help with that. What a mess.



"So, question," Blainn said as he pulled a beat-up pack of cigarettes out of his jacket. "Did you start, say, takin' that shit in the mornin' jus' to get through the day?"



"Pre-emptively, you mean? No." He'd thought about it, sure- all the time. But in the end he'd never done it, because he couldn't afford to. Because he needed to be stingy. "Only for actual panic attacks."



"Oh, good." The redhead lit his cigarette before he continued. "Maybe it won't be so bad then."



Wow- finally, something he'd done right, something where circumstances had worked in his favor for once. Hard to believe. "Hey, um. Can I bum one off you?"



"Didn't know you smoke," Blainn said, but held the pack out to him.



"I don't," he said, taking one. "Miss it sometimes."





They were silent for a moment, each lost in his own thoughts, and Ryo reveled in the feeling the cigarette gave him. Not that he had any intentions of reviving the habit, but he definitely remembered why he had picked up smoking in the first place. It mellowed him, brought him a tiny bit closer to being at ease- something he found so hard to achieve these days, what with his life falling apart before his very eyes and him not having the slightest clue how to get it back in order.





"So what happens now?" he asked eventually.



"With what, you? I'm keepin' you here for now."



"Wait, what?" He nearly lost his mellow, then. "You said I could leave!"



"Yeah, I don't mean lockin' you up, like. Jus' keepin' an eye on you while we get you off one thing and on to another. I have a feelin' you won't go see a doctor for that."



There was truth in that- and while he was embarrassed to be so lost; to be so obviously lost, to boot; Ryo knew that this was the help he needed... offered in a way that was feasible for him. Here, he didn't have to explain himself, didn't have to tell anyone anything. Hell, if there was one thing these people didn't do, it was asking him questions.



"What about my apartment? I need to pay r-"



"We'll pack your shit up an' put it in storage."





Move out? It was the logical way to go, of course- but, while he wouldn't exactly be moving in here... he sort of would. At least for now. How long did it take to 'get off one thing and on to another'? And what was going to happen afterwards? They might eventually throw him out, and then he'd be homeless. ...So, nothing that wasn't going to happen to you anyway.

That was the thing that settled it, in the end: the fact that at home, he was going nowhere but down. He'd hit a dead end, and at least here that dead end didn't involve sleeping in shelters.



He pulled his feet up on the bench and nodded.





"Good. So- half a one of these per day. Until I say to take more."



"What's that supposed to do?"



"Ease you in."



That sounded immensely reasonable- more reasonable than anything he had done in the last month. "How come you know so much about this stuff?" he asked as he watched the guy blow a smoke ring and envied him that skill- it was something he'd always tried and never managed.



"Need to know my merchandise, don't I?" Blainn flicked the ash off his cigarette before he brought it back up for one last lungful.



"You sell meds? ...For Brennan?"



"Nah, this is my own lil' racket."



This didn't entirely make sense to Ryo- wasn't this stuff legal? What the hell? "...I didn't know there was a market for this."



"Meh." Dropping the butt, the redhead ground it out with the heel of his boot. "Antidepressan's, not as much- you got a good chance gettin' them from your doctor. But benzos, see... a lot of people won't find nobody who'll prescribe 'em benzos. Cuz they have a history of addiction, or cuz they've been takin' it too long an' the Doc won't risk it. Yeah, there's a market."





...or you could be so overwhelmed by the mere idea of talking to anyone that you'd go to the guy who just sold you the stuff, no questions asked. God. He would have been their best customer, Ryo realized, if he'd known where and how to find someone like that.





"...and you're helping them out."



Blainn snorted as he eyed the contents of his pack; seemed to shrug and took out another one. "I ain't doin' them a favor, Rye. I'm makin' a profit, not doin' charity."



"I bet your customers feel differently." I would have been so grateful.



"Ha, yeah. Some of 'em..." For a moment, there was only the clicking of the lighter. "Some of 'em take a bit of a shine to me. I mean, I look all nice an' respectable an' shit, an' they end up thinkin' I'm this sweet kid. Middle class housewives are the worst, man. Talkin' 'bout how I could be their son." He laughed. "They sit there in their nice lil' townhouses an' cry on about how their mortgage gives 'em the jitters an' they can't sleep at night."



"So you're their savior."



"Get a grip, Rye. They're junkies, an' I'm their dealer."

 

 

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"He's not here, is he." It wasn't really a question, more rhetorical than anything, possibly offered on the off chance that Blainn was in the bathroom.



Ryo looked up from the book he'd been reading, a ridiculously trashy pulp novel about aliens; badly written and just about all he felt like processing right now- it was that or classic literature, the kind you read and discussed to death in highschool.



He shook his head and was a little disgusted with himself. Sure, he was intimidated as all get-out, and Brennan never made any attempt to seem approachable, either- but surely a simple 'no' wasn't mind-blowingly difficult? Surely he could speak? Nooo, here he was, fucking mute.



Okay, so this was the first time he was alone with the guy in quite a while, and the last time had been... under very different circumstances, to say the least- but Brennan was just standing in the door, not threatening in any way but for his very existence. Nothing so much as hinted that being alone with the guy was something to be freaked out by, except, of course, his memories: and they 'hinted' much in the same way that large, flashy neon signs might count as a polite suggestion.



"Okay."



As the man pulled out his phone and dialled, Ryo couldn't stop watching him- couldn't look away from those hands that had touched him so many times, and wondered if they would do it again. And if it would be different.





"Hey. Where the fuck are you?" The smooth voice drifted back as he walked away. "..right. When you're done with that..."





Brennan hadn't looked back, hadn't even so much as given him a second glance. It was a relief, in a sense, because the guy's attention had always spooked him, even when it wasn't aggressive... but at the same time...



...he felt strangely unwanted.





Shaking his head, he put the book away and looked for a different one. Blainn had dumped a whole load of his own books on him- and Ryo never would have taken him to be the kind to read a lot, but apparently he did, and apparently he liked a balanced mix of both ends of the spectrum. Truffels and junk food, so to speak. Something in the middle would have been nice, but since he wasn't big into watching TV anymore it was nice to have them at all.





Picking one from the intellectual camp, he tried to focus on the book and not think about the weird, jumbled feelings Brennan's presence had stirred in him.







 

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"So, you're up, huh?" Blainn had stuck his head in, probably because the light was still on at three in the morning.



"Yeah... can't sleep." Ryo set his book down, honest-to-God drivel again because right now -as braindead as he was- it had to be the junk food. It wasn't that he wasn't tired, that was the thing: just that sleep didn't want to come.



"Yeah." The redhead came over and fell into the chair, looking like he could pass out any moment. "How's it goin' otherwise? Panic attacks?"



"Getting less. Been really sick to my stomach here recently, though." That had bothered him for several days now, just like the insomnia. The last time he'd seen Blainn it had only just started, so he hadn't thought anything of it and hadn't brought it up- but now he was starting to think he'd caught something. Even if he didn't know how.



"Get used to it. Might take a couple weeks."



Ohhh. "Are those side effects?"



"Yeah."



"Huh. Insomnia? I thought it would... I don't know, make me drowsy or something."



"Yeah, if I were givin' you sedatives. Which I ain't."



"Right." The guy was bound to know his shit, wasn't he? "I guess I'll live, then."



What Ryo didn't say was how often his tired, drifting thoughts wandered to Brennan in those sleepless hours- scared thoughts at times, strangely attracted ones at other times, like a moth lured in by a flame. He didn't understand what he felt, much less why, so he kept his mouth shut.



As Blainn excused himself -or said something crude about needing his beauty sleep, anyway- and left, Ryo tried to go back to his book and found that he couldn't focus on it. What was it that had him thinking about Brennan all the time? The guy came in sometimes, looking for Blainn, and although he never even came close to Ryo his eyes said that he remembered him, and everything that entailed, quite clearly. Whenever that happened Ryo's thoughts buzzed around the guy for the rest of the day- and he might not have minded it so much, except for the fact that it set him on edge, scared him senseless, and yet he couldn't stay away from it.



To his shame, many -if not most- of his thoughts were somehow sexual; a lot of them memories but also some hypothetical ones that he refused to call fantasies. For one, because it was too embarrassing a thought, but also because he didn't actually get off on them, because he scared himself with them at least as much as he liked them... and it didn't count as a fantasy if it left you nervous as fuck, right? But at the same time, he did like them. The thing was that the man had always tried to make it good for him, maybe only for the sake of the resulting noises, but still good. What had been so wrong, so disturbing about it was that he hadn't had a choice.





Maybe if he had a choice-





Maybe if he got to have a say in things-









-maybe it wouldn't freak him out anymore.









 

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It was weird to think that his apartment had been cleared out in his absence, maybe already gone to someone else. Home had ceased to exist while he wasn't looking.



According to the TV, that had to have been over two weeks ago, and he chose to believe it because he had no other way of keeping track of time and the days kind of began to all run together when all you did was read and play video games and stay up all night, trying not to think about certain people. He slept randomly, whenever sleep would find him -which, for some reason, was never in the small hours- and held on to the fact that Blainn kept telling him it would pass.



In a way, he was doing okay here; certainly no worse than he had at home. The panic attacks were down from pretty much daily to only once every couple of days, and he'd even gotten used to the idea of not expecting to die. For the most part, anyway. And maybe it was the medication that helped with it, but if so, he wasn't going to complain; hell, he was grateful for the stuff.



Rooting through the desk, where he kept Blainn's books, he heard the door open and wondered why the guy would be coming back after he'd just said he was leaving the house.





"I was asked to give you this."







That... wasn't Blainn. Straightening, slowly turning around, Ryo stared at the man standing in the door, casually holding out a book- the sequel to one of those stupid alien novels, one that Blainn had promised to bring over as soon as he was finished with it. Why the hell would he ask Brennan to bring it? Honestly, it could have waited another day! ...but even as he tensed, he couldn't look away.





Eventually, when he made no move to walk over and take it, Brennan came in, came over, and set the book down on the desk- close enough for Ryo to smell the faint scent of cologne or aftershave. Close enough to touch the guy.



So he did.



The knit sweater was coarse under his fingers as they slid up the sleeve, hesitant but desperately determined, and across Brennan's chest as the guy turned to face him. He seemed vaguely surprised and made no move to return the touch, and Ryo wondered if the guy didn't like it this way. He knew by now that the man wasn't a sadist, wasn't looking to cause pain, but maybe he still liked having that sort of power... maybe he enjoyed knowing that people submitted to him out of fear.



Fear, though, Ryo thought and almost laughed, even as his fingers trailed on aimlessly -vaguely downwards-, fear, hell, he wasn't going to run out any time soon. He was wondering if he should mention that but wasn't sure what he hoped to achieve with it -'hey, no worries, still scared as ever. Sexy, huh?'- when he looked down and noticed a definite bulge in the guy's pants. So... whatever the issue was, this wasn't it.



Brennan finally reacted when he touched it, that bulge; responded to the curious fingers by grabbing Ryo's shoulders and seemed to be about to push him away.





"No, no, let me," he breathed, urgently. "Let me call the shots for once." Let me be something other than the victim.





The man's hands maintained their grip on his shoulders but didn't stop him when his own touch got more confident, only tensed slightly when he, emboldened, unbuttoned Brennan's pants and eventually slipped a hand inside.



He'd never touched the guy before, Ryo realized- and now that he did, now that his fingers found the man's dick, it turned out to be no more than that: a nice one, thick and straight, but still only human. He wasn't sure what he had expected; it wasn't going to up and bite him, obviously; but stupid though it seemed somehow it was still a relief to see for himself that Brennan was in fact human- warm to the touch, breathing, responsive.



A sharp little intake of breath spurred him on, encouraged him to lean in until their bodies touched, and when that met no resistance either he reached down with his other hand and undid his own jeans, too.



He flinched when his erection met Brennan's, from apprehension as much as the actual touch- but God, it felt so good, too. Before he knew it, he was masturbating both of them together, grinding against Brennan as he did so, and with half a mind he was thrilled to notice that he wasn't the only one whose breath was getting a little erratic. He could do things to the guy, had an effect on him, didn't have to be passive, and- unngghhh fuck he was definitely getting somewhere. When his knees started to buckle, the grip on his shoulders tightened and held him upright, and it, God, it was nice to know th-



-and then he forgot where he was going with that, and it was just his hand and his dick and the other presence between them until he came, his forehead pressed against the rough fabric of the guy's sweater; came all over his hand and himself and over Brennan as well, who still held him and kept him from stumbling.



Who was still hard, too. Hadn't come.





Oh, shit. As Ryo came to and started thinking again, his anxiety shot through the roof. What was going to happen now? Would the guy just take over and demand to get his, too- would it just go back to how it always had been, with Brennan in charge and him on the receiving end? He wasn't sure he could handle that, wasn't sure he could handle sleeping with the guy, now that he thought about it. Shit.



He let himself be steered the few steps towards the couch, complied when Brennan made him sit down, and slumped somewhat in post-orgasmic weariness even as his heart did a few funny little things in distress. Stupid. Why, exactly, had he done this? It had made sense, somehow, but it certainly didn't now. He hadn't thought this through at all, hadn't wasted a single thought on what exactly he was getting himself into. Brennan would see this as an invitation, and he could hardly blame the guy for it.



When the guy handed him the box of tissues that had been sitting on the desk, unused, for weeks, he set about cleaning himself off and kept his eyes on the task at hand- unsure of what was to come, but expecting the worst.





"If you don't need me anymore...?"





Ryo's eyes shot up to find that the man had somehow maneuvered himself back into his pants and straightened his clothes, and even though things seemed a little... tight, right now, he looked perfectly calm.





Well, that made one of them- he certainly wasn't. "No, uh, of course," he said, falling over the words in his alarm. "Sure."



Looking at him just a moment longer than what Ryo found entirely comfortable, Brennan finally made his way to the door. "Have a good day, Mr. Tailor," he said and slipped out.









Ryo was still slumped on the couch, torn between the frantic thoughts going haywire in his head and the blissful, boneless laziness that came in the wake of an orgasm, when the door opened again and Blainn came in, unsubtle as always.



"Hey, did, uh- I finished that book. You know."



"I thought you were going to be gone all day," Ryo responded, still too lazy to move.



"Yeah, had to come back. Forgot somethin'."



"One of your knives?"



"Ha. Close." The guy grinned as Ryo rolled his eyes. "Anyway, the book, I asked the boss to bring it but I'm back now, ain't I? Was he here?"



"Yeah."





Blainn's eyes narrowed as he took in the scene displayed in front of him- the way Ryo was sprawled out on the couch, disheveled and lethargic -the tissue box, the bunched up wads of paper next to it. At least he'd buttoned his pants back up, eh? It was painfully obvious even so.







"You sure that was a good idea?"



Ryo shrugged. "You mean for my sanity?"



"Yeah." The guy climbed up on the sill, opened the window and lit a cigarette. That was new. Was he that bothered?



"Dunno. I feel okay."



"You should hate 'im, Rye. Not fuck 'im. That ain't healthy."





Maybe. It would have made sense to hate Brennan, wouldn't it? After... everything? But he didn't. He was scared of him, but he didn't hate him.



"Do you?"



"Huh?"



"Do you hate him?"



"No, Rye. Tha's different."  Blainn was smiling, but it was a small smile and pretty serious.



"Why? Leaving is not an option, and you can't refuse him. And you don't even like dick. Why should you not hate him?"



"Cuz I'm not you." He fell silent for a moment, but just as Ryo wanted to demand further explanation, he continued. "We live in different worlds, Rye, you an' me. If you can't pay your debt back, wha' happens?"



He went along with it, assuming the guy was going somewhere with this. "You keep owing it, or something gets repossessed, I guess. Get foreclosed or something."



"Yeah. You pay your debt with money, an' with things. In my world, you pay with limbs an' lives."



It sounded almost poetic, gruesome as it was. "Okay, your world, my world. What's your point?"



"Shit, Rye, you really this clueless?"



"I'm not clueless. I just can't tell what the truth is, anymore."



Blainn didn't respond to this, just looked out and took a drag from his cigarette occasionally. Finally, he nodded.



"Rye, you keep thinkin' you oughta be grateful or somethin'. For someone like me, that'd be true. For someone like you, it ain't." He flicked the cigarette butt out the window and closed it- about time, too; it was definitely getting a bit cold. "He made my life better, Rye. He made yours worse." Turning around, he stared at Ryo intently enough to make him a little uncomfortable. "So he din't treat you as bad as he possibly could've. In your world, that ain't somethin' to be grateful for, tha's something you can expect. An' if you wanna go back to your kinda people, you need to start thinkin' like 'em again."





Oh, God, the guy had a point. He certainly couldn't go back to his old simple black-and-white life, not as long as he kept going around thinking that deep down mobsters were nice guys. But he kept thinking it, even now there was a voice in his head that kept trying to argue that Brennan wasn't that bad. Just now he hadn't pushed for anything even though he had to have been horny as fuck; even though Ryo had gotten his. That was pretty decent, wasn't it? But at the same time, the guy had fucked his life up pretty thoroughly.

It was so hard to find the truth in all of this. Not even the truth of what had happened and why, but what it meant. What he thought of it, and what he should be thinking.





Just then, the door opened again and the subject of their conversation stuck his head in. Damn, today sure was busy, wasn't it?



"I heard you were back already." Brennan's voice was level as always, impossible to read- appealing in its smoothness and scary in its ambiguity.



"Yeah, forgot somethin'. Headin' out in five." A half-shrug. "Maybe ten."



"Stop by before you go. I need you to..." the man's gaze flickered to Ryo- "do something else while you're out."



"Will do."



Even as Brennan nodded, his eyes lingered for a moment, and Ryo bit his lip and looked away. He wasn't embarrassed -a little awkward, maybe-, he was... well, what? It was so hard to tell anymore. Spooked, as always. Drawn in, too- after things had gone comparatively well, more drawn in than spooked, even.



And not sorry.





As the man left, Ryo looked up and found Blainn watching him, seeing right through him again; as he did; and disapproving of what he saw. After the conversation they'd just had, Ryo wasn't surprised -and at least, for once, he had a pretty good idea of what the look on the guy's face meant- but it was... well, he had a hard time regretting it and a hard time feeling sorry for his lack of regret, to boot.





"Yeah, yeah... don't bother," he finally grunted. "Leave me alone. I'm confused. You even said so yourself."



"Right, let me clear a couple things up for ya, then. Lettin' me bring you back here was the first nice thing he's ever done for you." The redhead's eyes narrowed as Ryo opened his mouth in protest. "Name one thing."



Well... he gave me head.



But, Ryo had to admit, the whole sex thing hadn't so much been about doing him a favor as about Brennan getting his rocks off, right?



"He let me live."



"Rye, we been over this. You can't go around bein' grateful to every fucker jus' for not killin' you."



"He sent you to get me medication that time?!"



A tiny pause. "I gueeeesss." The guy didn't seem convinced. "Tha' alone ain't enough reason to like 'im."



"Does he know you talk about him like that?"



"Look, Rye- the boss ain't nice. He ain't secretly a sweetheart. An' he don't need me to pretend tha' he is." Shifting on the sill, Blainn worked his hands under his legs, right where the vents were. "He's a good boss, 'specially for other not nice people. Like me."



"Now, hold o-"



"I ain't one of the good guys, man."



"But you- you're- you helped me out. All the time!"



"I was supposed to, Rye."





...supposed to? A lot of things fell into place as Ryo realized what that meant. Blainn didn't seem the type to just hand out favors left and right, yet he had been decent from the start... and that explained it. Answers: even if you get them, you might not like them.





"So- that disaster with the video game, are you saying that was for show?!"



"Well," the redhead said, caught off-guard. "I- No. Not that."



"Speaking of," Ryo was distracted as a memory bubbled up, "why did you do that? I mean, what did you tell Brennan? You can tell me now, right?"



"Well." There was a little pause as Blainn thought about it. "Did you, like, feel grateful an' shit?"



"...Yeah?"



"An' did it actually make you any less scared?"



"Fuck no." Not with everything that had happened because of it.



"There."



It had tied him closer to the guy, he realized. If that had been planned... that was one magnificent display of manipulation.



"That's why you did that?" Well, he sure felt a little stupid.



"Tha's why I thought I could get away with it."



He stared at Blainn until the guy rolled his eyes and looked away.



"Fine. I was pretty sure I had you figured out, an' I sorta felt bad, alright? Don't read too much into it."



"What about the lightbulbs?!" he pointed out. "Bringing me back here? Putting me on medication? You're still helping me now!"



 "Yeah, well- Ah, fuck. Alright. I am." There was something hard in Blainn's stare, something steely and slightly unnerving. "But tha's cuz I like you, not cuz I have a heart o' gold. You think I go home an' cry after I break someone's legs? Shit."  He snorted. "You're polite an' quiet an' you know when to shut up. You're- fuck, you're just such a doll, right? So I helped you out. Cuz I felt like it."



"If you feel like helping people, what does that make you?"



"It don't make me an angel, Rye." Staring at him, the guy seemed to mull something over. "You ever looked up Stockholm Syndrome?"



Why would he look up Brennan's problems?  "Uh, no."



"Mhm."

 

 

___________________





 

The next time Blainn came -around midnight this time- he brought a print out of some website or other.





    ...the term Stockholm Syndrome refers to a psychological phenomenon that sometimes occurs in a captive or hostage situation ...  in which hostages express empathy and understanding towards their captors ...  essentially misinterpret a lack of abuse as an act of kindness.

This wasn't about Brennan, Ryo realized.





It was about him.



 

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Right, well, so I hope Ryo's decision to stay there sort of makes sense- if that sense seems really twisted and wrong, that's okay. If it doesn't seem to make sense at all, let me know and I'll try to make his reasons more obvious. Thanks!