Like a Most Exquisite Bird
An Ai no Kusabi fan fiction by Erie Dragon
There was something there… that he could no longer stand.
Iason was fast asleep. His long, blonde hair pooled about him like a glowing halo, shimmering in the moonlight and looking like something cruelly beautiful against the dark red of the silk sheets. Riki rose from the bed, the many long welts on his back, rear and thighs coming angrily to life as he attempted to move his completely immobile muscles.
He hadn't been able to take it. Just one of the hundreds of days he spent, sitting, agonizing, looking out the window for a glimpse of the world he had once loved. He didn't belong to anyone. He wasn't property. He was a proud being and he always would be.
And Iason, for all the intimacy and beauty and pleasure he was, was the bane of his existence. So he had fought back.
Blind with rage, Iason had done him in worse than ever before, to any creature, pet or otherwise. He had continued on for so long, angry, tired, unable to understand why his pet could not accept his place, that it took him at least five slaps of the whip before he realized Riki was no longer crying out his agony. The smaller mongrel was kneeling on the cold metal stand, his hands cuffed to a bar overhead, his entire body limp and held only by his wrists. His fingers were already beginning to turn an odd, bluish color.
Iason had been too fueled with fury to respond immediately; however, when Riki's breathing became more erratic, the Blondie immediately detached him from the cuffs. He hefted the mongrel into his arms and walked into the bedroom, where he laid him on the bed and watched as color returned to Riki's face and he began to inhale and exhale normally.
He had beaten the almost boyish, dark-skinned pet to unconsciousness. Too overwhelmed by both his physical and emotional pain, Riki had just given up--and Iason knew it. Eyes squinting with tears that would never be shed, he lifted the poor creature into his arms and sat, knowing he had finally gone too far.
His fears were confirmed when Riki opened his eyes and his first reaction was to scream.
He screamed and screamed, falling out of the surprised Blondie's arms and off the bed, where the floor contacting with all his bloody wounds made his cries agonized. Iason immediately retrieved him and only succeeded in holding him by encasing Riki's fists in his own hands. The mongrel stopped, then, and slowly raised his eyes to meet Iason's--they were wide, the deep brown of them polluted by fear, with fierce red lines all over the whites. He knew the look of a dog that had been beaten one too many times.
Iason spoke to him, reassured him, tried to love him, and received no response. Riki could only stare at him for a few moments and then close his eyes, his body going limp with sleep despite the fact Iason was still talking to him, trying in vain to get his attention even if only to make sure he was still alive.
That night, Iason had fallen asleep with moisture on his eyelashes and Riki gathered up in his long arms.
Riki knew it wouldn't be long before his movements awoke the very attentive Iason, but his wounds were such that he couldn't move much faster than a limping walk anyway. He went through the open door of the bedroom and out into the great room, where he paused to look around with complete apathy at all the grandeur he had once somewhat appreciated.
With a mindless step, without a care to his walk or a thought in his mind, Riki went out onto the balcony and came up against the fence that had kept him so long from doing just this. Slowly, with sad movements resulting from practice with such wounds, he crawled up onto the ledge and came to his feet with the aid of mostly unharmed knees.
The door opened.
Iason had thought he would find Riki out on the balcony, having a smoke, or looking out over the city. He would turn to Iason and smile, smile that forgiving smile and all would be well with them again--Iason would apologize for how carried away he had gotten, and Riki would apologize for disobeying, and they would be lovers again.
He did not expect to find his beloved, wild, dark-haired mongrel to be standing on the ledge, arms wide like the most beautiful and exquisite bird, and his eyes gray with the haze of someone who had lost everything. All Iason could utter was, "Oh, my Riki…"
And then, he was gone.