Cygen

Mercutio fumbled
toward wakefulness and, God, he was floating. His head was swimming with the
vaguely familiar sensation of being heavily drugged, and he was getting around
to wondering just what the hell had happened. Something very bad had happened
recently, he remembered that much… humans. He was…somewhere he didn’t know. Not
in the warehouse. Not with the pack.

And his body was
tacitly assuring him that this was perfectly ok, because he was laid out on
something soft and dry and gloriously clean, wrapped up in it. The stuff that
was making his head swim was also stilling the soul-wrenching pain of whatever
had been done to him. It was warm here, and it smelled so fucking nice. He
pressed his face down into whatever it was he was laying on and just breathed
deep, taking in the scent of clean. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d
smelled something so clean, when he'd been this warm. It felt so good…

He’d been
captured.

Ohgodohgodohgod…but
where was he now? Not Valhalla’s playground, that was
certain. Way too nice to be anything of their making… but there wasn't any
sense to it. He'd figured on dying there in that building. Maybe they'd sold
him when they were through? He opened his eyes to flickering light across the
ceiling, trying to figure out what had happened.

There was dull, unfocused pain in
his head, aching in all his limbs, the cool wrongness of a recently-healed
injuries in half a dozen places…he’d had cellular regenerators used on him
before, back when his master…did this sort of thing to him.

Somebody
had taken the time and effort to at least start putting him back together,
which could possibly be viewed as a good thing… the thought of a violent death
had never much appealed to him. But if somebody… some HUMAN…was footing the
cash to buy drugs for him, to have his most-certainly-broken leg regenerated,
to have him laid out like a piece of jewelry in a pretty box…. That meant that
somebody had at least a semi-permanent interest in him.

Fuck. Somebody OWNED him.

Judging
by his surroundings, somebody pretty well-off owned him. Score another on the
nervousness charts; he never did like rich people.

There was
talking somewhere nearby, but it didn’t sound like people. More like the
blaring of a holocube. He turned on his side,
clenching his teeth at the aching that intensified all over and saw… well, an
unexpected scene at best.

There was
a holocube roughly in the center of the room, playing
some show he didn’t bother to attempt to identify. A couch was pulled up
against the far wall, and an unknown man was sitting half-reclined on it, his
head resting against the overstuffed arm. Lochinvar was laying sprawled half
beside and half on top of him, his head laying in the stranger’s lap, a look of
smug satisfaction plastered on his sleep-mellowed features. So Loch
had somehow pulled some kind of strings somewhere and bailed him out of the vikings’
collective hands. Which meant that the human was presumably Lochinvar’s shiny
new master…

He stared
at the two of them for a long moment, and something inside him hurt, in an
entirely different way than the sting of his lingering wounds. God, his master
had never fucking cuddled him like that. Maybe Lochinvar wasn’t reprogrammed…
some deep part of him could understand why somebody would give up freedom
for…for…that. Even the illusion of caring definitely held a lot of appeal.

A sudden
noise made him tense, snapping his head in its direction, and he was greeted
with the sight of a woman dressed in sweatpants and a T-shirt walking into the
room with a large bowl of…popcorn. It smelled damned inviting, reminding him of
how long it had been since his last meal. She raised her eyebrows at him, then
smiled, an attempt to look friendly and disarming that was completely aborted
by the eerie lighting.

“Have a
nice nap?” she asked, coming closer and laying the bowl down on a low table
opposite the holocube.

“Where am
I?” Mercutio demanded softly, narrowing his eyes at her.

“class=SpellE>Nate’s place. Ergo Lochinvar’s place, by association. My
name is Iris, and yours is Mercutio. Pleased to meet you,” she replied
smoothly, sitting cross-legged on the floor between him and the cube, leaving
her back-lit.

“So…” He
began, letting his guard down a bare notch, “Who’m I
licensed to now?”

“A
building down on 2nd and Vine. My club,” She replied, pushing a handful of
narrow braids away from her face. There was something about her eyes… the way
she was looking at him.

"Didn't
know you could do that. Figured it had to be people…" he replied, looking
away, drawing his knees up and huddling against the corner where the arm met
the back of the sofa. He couldn't ever remember talking to a human.

"Loch
was of the opinion that you'd freak out at that."

"He
was right. So, should I be asking who I’m GONNA be licensed to, or do you just
plan to sell me off at auction?” he spat, opening his eyes again to glare at
her.

“Yeah,
Loch was right about your attitude,” Iris said casually, yawning. “In case you
care, you’ve been out since we dragged you in here last night, which was more
than twenty-four hours ago. We’ve been arguing what to do about you since then,
and we decided pretty much unanimously that we ought to wait for you to wake up
so you could throw your two cents in.”

“Like
that’s really gonna make a difference in the outcome? What I want is pretty
useless. I have no pack, I’m code yellow…

"Blue,"
she interrupted. "Registered you while you were sleeping. Vikings would
have killed you."

"…and
I’m being hunted by the vikings. And, oh yeah, I’ve been captured by the same
humans who reprogrammed my best friend into thinking that he actually enjoys
being a fucktoy to some rich uptown asshole.”

“Well,
don’t we have a healthy attitude. Bitch all you want, but give Nate a break.
I’ve known him since we were both kids. He doesn’t DO the ‘fucktoy’ thing. He
doesn’t even sleep around. To my knowledge, he's never had the guts to dump
someone, even when he was stuck in a really shitty relationship. He’s more
needy and clingy, really, and it takes him months to get over a breakup. He’s
sort of latched onto your buddy like an overtly affectionate leech, and I don’t
think he intends to let go any time soon – so step off that. Oh, and I hate to
have to break it to you, but Loch is definitely liking
the situation.”

“Yeah. I
guess maybe he is.” Mercutio said, begrudgingly, glancing back at Lochinvar.
Again, it hurt.

“You
hungry?” The woman, Iris, asked.

“Well,
yeah,” Mercutio answered. He hadn’t eaten since well before his whole rescue
attempt…hell, probably not for about four days now.

style='mso-spacerun:yes'> “Wanna join me in the kitchen? We can talk,
let those two sleep, have something to eat… I’m thinking something more
substantial than popcorn.”

Hell,
he’d have been happy with popcorn…

He should
have been entertaining plans of escape…but the offer of food was too good to
pass up. Besides, escape would be somewhat harder now that somebody was paying
active attention to him, right?