roneal | (no subject)

(no subject)

The market is, objectively speaking, a miserable place. Precious few of the merchandise are happy to be there, nude and bound and collared - sometimes even caged - free for every prospective customer to examine. Few of the customers are happy either. Prices are high, and the press of so many bodies create a stifling atmosphere.

All in all, it is exactly what Jade had expected. He strolls leisurely through the market, not particularly bothered by what is going on around him. It was one of the reasons he had been chosen for this assignment. Today is his first day at the market; he's meant to speak with the vendors, make connections, and walk away with a cheap but handy acquisition.

He's working on the last part now. It's surprisingly difficult to find someone useful and docile, but still with some spirit left - he does not trust the older slaves who are complacent with the system.

It's during his second time looping through the market that someone catches his eye - for all the wrong reasons. He stops, stares at the familiar figure in front of him, an uncharacteristically surprised expression flashing over his face.

Then he's smiling again. He's still unsure if this is a good turn of events, but perhaps he could use this to his advantage.

"My my, I didn't expect to see you here."

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Tranquilizers. Those were the drugs Shinjirou had been taking. Lapsing back into old habits already? Jade almost asks, but now is hardly the time for that.

"Not exactly." He sits up as well, casual and relaxed despite his good posture. "But I have some sleeping pills and painkillers."

The pain must be extreme for Shinjirou to resort to this. Despite himself, Jade finds that he's feeling a bit of sympathy. "Would that help?"

"Sleeping pills." Pain is okay. Reeling isn't, and while sleep isn't exactly control, knocking himself out will work just as well. He just needs to calm down before he can do anything stupid. That's all.

Massaging his temples with one hand and holding his bruised rib with the other, he pushes toward the edge of the bed. "Would help." Legs dangling onto the floor, he clears his throat. It'd be better to get away from Jade and wait for the pills a safe distance away. Maybe use that short time alone to sneak the suppressants down his throat, just to be safe. Heavy as his limbs feel, he can't make himself get up.

He's seen Shinjirou in pain before, and something about his behaviour now strikes him as odd. It doesn't take very long to sort out his intuition into a more logical, more concrete thought: Usually Shinjirou is desperate for affection even as he tries to hide away - this time, he seems entirely preoccupied with hiding.

Are you alright is a useless question considering the circumstances. Maybe the best course of action would be to let Shinjirou hide away as he so clearly wants to do, but still, Jade hesitates. It's such a big change that he wonders if he's read him wrong.

"You can stay on my bed, you know," he suggests, expression neutral. "It's probably best if you don't move around too much."

He's used to getting sent to bed, his own bed. Frowning, he pulls his legs back onto the sheets, picking at the scabs streaked across his knees. The blood is wet and cool to the touch. He flicks the dead skin off before it can get stuck again. It's relaxing and, thankfully, all the distraction has his cock deflating as fast as it had stiffened.

"... you sure?" The urge to take the rare chance and just roll up right there beside Jade is strong. As long as he keeps his eyes closed, not having to see the world more saturated than it should be, he can even convince himself that it's the best choice. When he opens his eyes, he yearns for the turmoil to stop, gaze wandering over to his pillow. Asking for that would be childish, but more importantly, risky.

"I wouldn't offer otherwise." He could say something harsher, but he's trying to patch Shinjirou together again, not continue tearing him down. "On one condition."

For once, he doesn't make Shinjirou guess. "I'd appreciate it if you stop reopening your wounds. I'd rather not have any more blood on my sheets."

That's a sensible request. Looking down at the mess he's made of his knees, Shinjirou raises his hands and hugs himself. Stupid. Just wait for the sleeping pills, he tells himself, sliding back and lying down again. The world is a bit less blurry and headache-inducing in this position. His pulse slows down as he fixates a random spot on the ceiling. No more moving around for the next few hours.

"Thank you, Jade."

He takes a few seconds to make sure Shinjirou is alright (or as alright as he can be, considering the circumstances), before he leaves with the cup. When he returns, it's with the promised pills and some warm water. Well, "pills"; they're actually placebo pills, they don't do anything. Shinjirou should be tired enough to fall asleep on his own.

"Here." There's nothing out of the ordinary in the way Jade proffers the items. As far as he's concerned, he's doing Shinjirou some good, and even if his ploy doesn't work, there won't be any harm done.

Shinjirou trusts Jade, he realizes. These pills could be drugs of whatever kind, but he sits up, pops them in between his lips and pours the warm water into his mouth to wash them down. Blinking, he stretches his worn out limbs. Hopefully they'll knock him out fast. He knows the sharp intake of breath isn't a good sign, and the thrumming of his fingers on the mattress an even worse one.

"Thanks," he repeats, more a drawl than a proper word. Sleep. Just sleep. He closes his eyes and waits for the pounding in his head to stop and for the cold energy to subside.

Setting the glass down on the nightstand, Jade stretches himself out on the bed as well. There are still things he could be doing - compiling notes of the deals made tonight, laying out Shinjirou's dirtied things, taking a shower - but all of that can wait. He's mentally worn out, his conscience whispering uneasily, and the last thing he wants to do is leave Shinjirou alone. In his state, he won't be able to cry out for help if something goes wrong (unlikely as that is).

What he expects is to calm down, for his bones to become too heavy to move even his little finger. None of that happens. He rubs his eyes, groaning. There's moments where he thinks the pills are finally taking effect, where he's numb from head to toes -- those moments never last long, and then it's all vibrant colors and everything jittering. His limbs jerk from time to time, involuntarily at first, then because he can't make himself stay still.

He doesn't want to bother Jade, though he begins to wonder if he shouldn't have downed the pills without asking to see the package. When he closes his eyes, he can see, almost feel the spray of blood on his face. A young woman impaled on a spear. Shinjirou sits up, ignores the stabbing pain in his chest; he deserves that. He doesn't check whether Jade's already asleep before he pulls his knees up and wraps his arms around them.

When Shinjirou first begins to shift around, Jade thinks he's having a bad dream. But it just keeps going, and Jade decides he must be awake, maybe struggling to get into a comfortable position.

But no. His unease grows, sharpening and solidifying into a burst of concern when Shinjirou suddenly jerks up. Carefully, Jade pulls himself up as well, until he's half-sitting and half-lying down, maintaining his usual unconcerned air.

"Is everything alright?"

"No." It's not the right time for lies. He doesn't know how to explain what's wrong without giving too much away that he wants to keep from Jade, but he doesn't feel like playing pretend either. Raising his head, he glances at the door. The frame starts tipping to its side, like a mouth opened wide in a scream.

He swallows around the razor blades in his throat. "I'm ... seeing things."

"Hallucinations?" That shouldn't be possible. And Shinjirou is being surprisingly calm about this - well, not calm, exactly, but calmer than Jade would have thought. Not to mention, he's also unusually cognisant of the situation.

But whatever he's hiding, seeing things is a serious issue. Jade isn't accusatory, or sharp, or anything but carefully neutral when he asks: "Has this sort of thing happened before?"

"Not like this." Not this extreme. He's had nightmares before that followed him after waking up, but he's not slept a second yet and still, whether he looks at Jade or keeps his eyes closed ... it's always the same. Shinjirou pushes his hair back, groaning. "Sorry."

He's really not worth the money, is he. When he tries to focus on Jade, his face just melts and turns into that of her. Narrowing his eyes doesn't change that. "My fault for forgetting what I did to her. All night. Didn't think about her."

He doesn't say anything comforting like it's understandable, you had plenty of other things on your mind tonight.

"Her?" He's still outwardly calm, but he can't deny the excitement that pulses through him. This is it, he thinks. If he plays his cards right, he'll be able to discover exactly what it is that makes Shinjirou crave guidance and control so much.

There's an element of curiosity in Jade's excitement, too; nothing in the records he had dug up had mentioned anything like this.

He nods once before hiding his face again, pressed into his arms. "I'm doing it all wrong." And hasn't he known that all along? The real punishment is remembering. What would she care that he lets strangers fuck him, hit him. That got nothing to do with her. She wouldn't care about the stabbing pain in his chest, the bruises, or his sore throat.

"How can I do it right?" Just once. He'd like that. Do something right. He shakes his head. Like he's ever going to manage that. "Fuck."

He had been hoping Shinjirou would tell him more about 'her', but it seems the conversation has shifted away from that topic. Jade isn't about to redirect it - not blatantly, at least.

"That depends on what 'it' is," he responds, although he has a few ideas. Atonement. Restraint. Not forgetting the crime.

He should know. He's intimately familiar with that sort of thing himself.

"What do dead people want?" Shinjirou doesn't expect an answer. How could anyone know the answer to that, after all. Jade isn't dead; no one he could ask is and how would someone that's alive know that.

Carefully sitting back, wiping at his face with one hand, he dares to take another look at Jade. No, he still looks more like her. "I won't do it again. You'd, you wouldn't let me. Right?"

Murder.

So that's it.

The same crime he had committed - and very different at the same time, he thinks. Shinjirou is dealing with it in a way that had took Jade ten years to learn. Neither of them are normal people, exactly, but Shinjirou is more human by far.

Still, now isn't the time to become lost in his thoughts. Jade looks at Shinjirou, steady and unflinching.

"I won't." There are no guarantees in life, but this is as close as it comes. He'll kill him before it comes to that. Sometimes, dangerous dogs just have to be put down, and maybe Shinjirou will even be grateful for it.

But for now, he still has need of Shinjirou. Besides, he's been doing a fine job of restraining himself so far.

Jade sounds so sure of himself. That he's going to succeed and that nothing bad is ever going to happen. Shinjirou almost believes him. Weariness settles over him heavy as a boulder. He could sleep now, with Jade beside him.

He laughs. "How?" New marks left by his own nails paint five red lines on each leg.

"How would you stop it?" Me, should have said me, he thinks. Anger boils in his stomach. If it were that easy, Aki would have done something. She would still be alive. Tasting bile, he sits up straight. "You don't know what you're talking about."

It. What a strange turn of phrase - or perhaps Shinjirou is referring to the situation rather than himself. It's the little details that are important, though, so Jade doesn't put it out of his mind even if it seems insignificant.

And Shinjirou seems so confident that he's a threat, a confidence that speaks of something deeper than faith in his physical strength.

"If I tell you my methods, I'd lose the advantage of surprise." But that won't be enough to placate Shinjirou, not with how riled up he's getting. The air of the room had changed - tension crackles around them, the despondency draining out of Shinjirou to be replaced by something more dangerous.

Jade is intrigued.

"Still, if you think I should be better informed..." He trails off. Maybe it's a bad idea to make Shinjirou speak so much, with his throat the way it is, but he'll never have an opportunity like this again.

"No." That wouldn't change a thing. So what if he told Jade in detail what he is capable of -- maybe Jade would get rid of him or have his next guest be a shrink. Shinjirou pets the blanket as if it were a pet, staring at his hands as they smooth out all the little crinkles.

"You think you're going to tell me no and then I'll be good but that's not how it works." He's stopped by coughing attack for a while and the blanket has to suffer from his hands crumpling it up again. Like a face distorted by shock and pain. "That's not enough."

He doesn't want to attack anyone, least of all someone he's convinced won't be able to defend himself when he loses control. "Shit I wish that'd be enough." It's been so far, but does that mean anything? What if Jade finds the suppressants, what if for some reason he won't be able to take them anymore? That's the only thing that works, drugs.

That's not what he had been planning, but Jade isn't going to correct him. Hopefully, he'll never have to, even if for a brief moment he finds himself wishing otherwise. But that sort of thinking is wrong, and one he quashes immediately.

"There's no reason for it not to be enough." He has little patience for defeatism, but... In this particular instance, he feels little desire to turn away and leave Shinjirou be, as he would have done to anyone else. Perhaps because he needs to protect his investment. "It's been adequate so far, hasn't it? You simply need to convince yourself."

"How?" Counting to ten, taking deep breaths. He's doing all that, he's doing it right now, but that doesn't make him believe it could be that easy. Tell yourself you won't freak out and you won't? That can't be right.

And if he's only been adequate so far, with a lot of effort, then it's stupid to think there's a lot of room for improvement. "I could have killed so many people tonight." He shifts, scoots away and out of Jade's immediate grasp. Without Strega's help, he'd be the most useless, most awful purchase ever made.

"But you didn't." He gives Shinjirou his space, even when all he wants to do is to keep prodding at him, until he discovers exactly what's wrong. But he doesn't, and while that isn't perfect, it's enough. It has to be enough for Shinjirou as well.

Jade has to admit, he doesn't entirely understand how Shinjirou's mind works. He must have a purpose of some sort, if he's still clinging onto life. But he can't discern what it is. Unless he's simply too cowardly to end it?

"Why not?" He persists. "What had changed between then and now?"