Title: Unforgiven
Author: Nina/TechnicolorNina
Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Pairing/Characters: Kaiba/Mafia, with some azureshipping (Kaiba/Anzu) as background.
Word Count: 5 332
Story Rating: M/R for violence, adult language, and sexual situations.
Story Summary: Kaiba would do anything for the Blue-Eyes - including making deals he really shouldn't. When the Mafia gets involved, how does he seal the deal?
Warnings: Violence! Sex! And lots of plot!
Notes: Nah. Written by request.
Feedback: There may be something out there that's better than a review containing concrit, but if there is, I haven't found it yet. So if you have two minutes and you wouldn't mind? Please? Arigatou. (And concrit is cool. Flames are not.)
Special Thanks/Dedications: For a nonny mouse requester. Also, special thanks to dictionary-dot-com for the definition used below.
Forgive: v. tr.
To excuse for a fault or an offense; pardon. To renounce anger or resentment against. To absolve from payment of (a debt, for example)."So as I understand it, this deal will consist of two thousand American dollars and one favour, to be put to use as I see most fit." The heavyset man steepled his pudgy dark fingers over his desk. The second figure – tall, and spare, and pale even in the chancy light of a single overhead bulb – held up a finger and crossed one leg over the other in a manner that was almost casual. "I won't kill anybody." It was worth even that, but he wanted his ass completely covered. "If you're looking for a suicide mission, I'm not your man. My brother stays out of it. No using him as a pawn, no deciding you want to call in on him instead. And one favour's all you get. After that, we never talk again. I do what you want, you burn my contact information, we go our separate ways. I stay quiet, you forget I exist." "Understood. I can accept those terms. We'll call when we want you – assuming you have the money now." And if you don't, those eyes threatened – but in a veiled way, a gentlemanly way – then you won't walk out of this room alive. "Of course I have it." And out of a well-stitched wallet came a group of bills, withdrawn two and three at a time from two dozen different banks over the course of a month. Pudgy dark fingers touched long, pale ones, shuffled, counted, marked. A small black case was pulled from inside a desk drawer. "Then this is yours. Congratulations." He opened the case. He wasn't one to be taken. Light glinted off a card protector. He tilted the case to see the card inside clearly. "You're ready to swear this is genuine?" "One of only four in the world," the olive-skinned man agreed. "The fellow who delivered it had to be taught manners to hand it over." Real, then. No fool would risk their life to hold onto a counterfeit. He gave a single curt nod and got to his feet, slipping the case into his pocket. "We'll be in touch when we want you, Mr. Kaiba."
Six Years Later
The ringing of the phone was more than annoying; it was out of place. Surely it couldn't be morning already. He opened a single eye and glanced at his alarm. Then he glared – still with only one eye – at the phone. Even Mokuba wasn't allowed to call him at one in the morning unless it was an absolute emergency, and he'd been home when Mokuba had gone to bed.
The phone stopped ringing.
Then it started again.
Kaiba grabbed the phone, recriminations and verbal assaults already sitting on the tip of his tongue. Then he heard the voice on the other end.
It took a lot to scare Kaiba Seto. Something of greater magnitude than, say, free-falling six stories into a body of water full of rocks, or trying to rescue his brother from a complete maniac, or flying alone over the Pacific Ocean.
What he heard definitely fit that bill.
A low growl first – "Say something."
And then Anzu's voice, bewildered and trembling – "S-Seto?"
He cast an automatic glance at the other side of the bed. No Anzu, no tumbled covers, no half-shed pajamas. She'd never gotten home from work. Kaiba swung his legs over the side of the bed.
"Where are you?"
"I – I'm not entirely sure. I got picked up outside the club when I left and oh, god, Seto, this man has a gun – "
A mostly-buried memory surfaced in his mind like a body uncovered by a storm. "Put him on."
Anzu whimpered. The room suddenly felt far too cold. He'd seen Anzu go through the kinds of crises that would have left lesser women wailing, and she'd rarely so much as shed a tear. She was nothing if not tough.
The low voice came onto the line. "Mr. Kaiba."
Kaiba tried to swallow and heard a click in his throat. "This is he."
"I assumed. You know who this is, I assume."
Yes. Yes, he did. Six years was not enough to forget that voice. "Yeah."
"You seem to have misplaced something. I think perhaps you ought to . . . discuss terms for picking it up."
"Anzu isn't an it," he said, unable to stop himself. "And we had an agreement. No pawns, remember?"
"On the contrary, Mr. Kaiba, the agreement was that your brother would not be a pawn. I remember the terms of our agreement very well." A brief pause. "You have ten minutes to exit your home. From the front, Mr. Kaiba. Someone will be waiting for you. I would advise you to not be late."
The phone went dead. Kaiba stared at it. Then he reached for his jeans and pulled them on. He hadn't bothered with pajamas before bed, preferring the marginal relief nudity provided from the current heat wave.
Eight minutes saw him out the door, fully dressed and with the memory of Mokuba's sleeping forehead still printed on his lips. He wasn't stupid; he knew he might be leaving the house for the last time. Twenty-one knew things fifteen hadn't even dreamed of.
The car was there. He slid into the backseat without being told. He already knew his part in this.
The windows were heavily tinted. He wasn't surprised.
The first thing he saw when his door was opened was a gun. The next was Anzu. Her eyes were wide and terrified. He thought she might have been crying.
"Seto!"
Someone tried to grab her arm to hold her back, and missed. He hugged her only briefly. He might not survive this, but he was going to give her every chance to get out alive.
The deep-voiced man appeared in Kaiba's peripheral vision. "Mr. Kaiba."
Kaiba released Anzu's waist. "Claudio."
"You know why you're here."
"I have a general idea."
Anzu looked back and forth between the pair. Her lower lip trembled. "Seto? What's going on?"
Claudio – if that was really his name – chuckled. Kaiba felt both a dry chill down his spine and a distinct desire to wrap his fingers around the man's throat and just throttle him. Then he remembered the gun somewhere behind his back, and the urge subsided. Claudio beckoned him forward, through a dark door. "You may as well bring the girl."
Kaiba didn't move. Claudio paused in the doorway and turned.
"I think perhaps you've a bit of explaining to do, don't you?"
Anzu's hand crept into his, small and cold and terrified. Kaiba led her through the doorway, hoping he wasn't leading her into some kind of trap that would end with both of them tossed into the Pacific. Body disposal made easy.
The room was halfway around the room from the one he'd done his trading in, and yet it appeared almost exactly the same. Claudio seated himself behind the desk and motioned to the chairs in front. Kaiba considered staying on his feet, and then decided they'd be best served if he cooperated. This was a situation he couldn't even pretend to be in control of. Claudio's eyes flicked to Anzu, and Kaiba felt a momentary grudging respect for the man. Most men performed a full-body eye-crawl the first time they met Anzu, and sometimes even Kaiba's protective glares couldn't stop them. Claudio's eyes never left Anzu's face.
"You may or may not be aware that I conducted a transaction with your – fiancé, yes?" He waited for Anzu's response. There was a tense pause, and then Anzu drew a deep breath and nodded. Claudio's returning nod was gentle, almost fatherly. "I thought so. You may or may not be aware, then, that I conducted business with your fiancé several years ago. That business was conducted the old-fashioned way, Miss Mazaki – a handshake deal between two men of the world. It consisted – " he paused, opened a desk drawer. From it he withdrew a slim manila folder. Inside was the index card on which Kaiba had written his name and address and phone number, sitting right on top of a thin sheaf of papers. Kaiba fought the urge to groan. Stupid? No. Idiotic. More - insane. In a magnitude previously unimaginable.
Claudio flicked through a few papers and found another card. This one had a note jotted on it. He took it out of the file, held it up, cleared his throat, and read. "This business, then, consisted of a trade of a single item, to be delivered in such condition as we found it, in exchange for two thousand American dollars and a single favour, not to include discipline of any of our colleagues or associates, nor any mention or involvement of his single surviving family member – his brother." Claudio leaned back in his office chair. "These things happen frequently in the business world, Miss Mazaki. Men exchange goods for publicity, favourable treatment for a promotion, charitable contributions for reputation. This business is no different, save that the favours being traded are more tangible than those included in, shall we say, more usual business channels."
Anzu nodded again, her hands locked tightly together in her lap. Claudio smiled at her. "I knew you'd understand. You seem more intelligent than most of the women I deal with." He folded his hands on his desk, the familiar gesture that had gotten Kaiba into this mess six years before. "You will understand, then, when I tell you that the item your fiancé purchased from me was purchased on a trial basis. On loan, as it were. Now you've fallen into a fairer bit of fortune than many women, but I'm sure you've taken out a loan or two in your time, Miss Mazaki, am I correct?"
Another of those pinched, frightened nods – she'd taken out a loan for classes before they'd started dating. Kaiba knew the danger of taking Anzu's hand and took it anyway. She squeezed his fingers. Her own were so cold he was almost surprised they weren't blue.
"And so you can tell me what collateral is."
A nod. The gentle smile began to fade from Claudio's face.
"That was a request for information, Miss Mazaki."
Anzu opened her mouth. Kaiba heard the "it's" that came out, but he seriously doubted Claudio would have. Anzu was too frightened to do more than whisper. Claudio reached behind himself. Kaiba's legs tensed, ready to get between them if Claudio's hand should return with a gun. Instead he heard the unmistakable sound of a small refrigerator being opened, and then a miniature bottle of water was placed on the desk, as close to Anzu as Claudio could reach. Anzu took it with a shaking hand and opened it. She took a sip, capped it, and took a deep breath. In spite of everything, Kaiba found himself proud of her. Tough. Scared, but not folding up and assuming the position.
"Collateral is something you hold up against a loan – something the bank can take if you're not able to repay the money – kind of an insurance policy they'll be able to make good on the loan. Like jewelry, or a coin collection." Like the antique sapphire ring she'd gotten from her grandmother and used as collateral to fund her classes, Kaiba thought. The only big fight they'd ever had involving money had revolved around that ring, and had ended with her grudgingly accepting ¥2000 for groceries so she could make her loan payment on time. Claudio nodded.
"Excellent! Correct. Now you understand that this deal is a bit out of the ordinary. The item involved is incredibly rare even for myself, and I pride myself as a bit of a connoisseur in rare items, Miss Mazaki. You will also understand, I'm sure, that the collateral involved in any loan must be increased with the value of the loan. Your grandmother's ring, for example, would not cover the purchase of the Mona Lisa, were it for sale."
Anzu's head jerked up, and Kaiba saw sheer terror in her eyes for the first time. Claudio chuckled at her. The urge to strangle him was stronger than ever. Think of the gun, Kaiba reminded himself. He thought of that gun planted between Anzu's shoulderblades, thought of it aimed at Mokuba's heart, and forced himself to sit back. It was a .38. He'd owned a .38. He knew what size the entrance hole would be, and the size of the exit hole, as well. Or perhaps "exit crater" would be more accurate. Claudio chuckled at the pair of them.
"A matter of public record, Miss Mazaki, nothing more. You oughtn't to have allowed yourself to be affianced to a living legend if you'd rather such things be private. It's well known you financed your own education, and the means with which you must have done it. Your personal jewelry is as safe in this room as if it were in a strongbox at Lloyd's of London. But to return to our discussion – the amount of collateral in exchange for a rare item."
"I'm your collateral, aren't I?" Anzu asked, her voice dropped again to a hoarse whisper. "I'm your insurance policy."
"Nothing so crude," Claudio said. He had the nerve to sound mildly offended, even shocked. "But to a mind not attuned to business, it may be the clearest analogy, yes." His eyes cut to Kaiba. "Miss Mazaki will remain in this room. You will pay your debt as a man of honour, Mr. Kaiba. You will return to this room. You will retrieve your – collateral, as it were - and leave, and I will burn your information, as promised."
Kaiba swallowed. He must not let his voice tremble. Above all else, his voice must remain firm. "I see."
"It's good for Miss Mazaki that you understand," Claudio agreed. He motioned to a door that led deeper into the building – a door that was blatantly not behind him. "You will go through that door. You will meet my son. It's to him your debt will be paid. We are family, after all."
"The terms I set – "
"Will be honoured, I assure you, Mr. Kaiba," Claudio interrupted. "I shall remain here with your lovely fiancée. And may I be the first to congratulate you on an excellent choice."
Kaiba considered pointing out that he'd been engaged for nearly six months, and that the first congratulations had been offered by Anzu's parents. He decided against it.
Claudio's eyes were heavy on his back all the way to the door, and then through it. There was indeed a young Italian man waiting on the other side of the door – unmistakable. His skin was even darker than his father's, his hair and eyes both an inky black. Kaiba vaguely remembered him from his visit to one of the shadier New York bars six years ago. He was what now, twenty-two? Twenty-three? No older, surely. He held out a hand Kaiba did not want to take, and took anyway.
"Seto."
"Kaiba," he corrected absently. Then there was a gun barrel pressed against his shoulder.
"Seto," the other insisted. "You're in no position to make demands." There was a pause, and when Kaiba did not respond, the gun was withdrawn. The dark-skinned youth used the barrel to gesture down the hall. "With me."
Kaiba bit his tongue and followed. He was waved down two separate hallways and then into a room devoid of furniture, save for a ladderback chair and a television screen that looked like something from the wonkier class of 1960's science fiction movies.
"I am Antonio."
Kaiba nodded absently. He was more focused on the television screen. It was turned off, and it frightened him.
"What's with the TV?"
Antonio smiled a smile Kaiba found incredibly frightening. "Here! I will show you." And he touched the button to turn on the screen.
As soon as he had, Kaiba wished he hadn't. The screen now afforded him a view of Anzu's face, and part of her fingers. She was holding some kind of handheld device that was projecting her image onto the screen in the bare room. The picture came into focus, and her eyes widened.
"Seto!"
Kaiba felt his stomach drop, as though he'd just done a free-fall from the top of a very tall roller-coaster. If anything happened to him in here, Anzu would see it.
"Now you have instructions you must to receive, yes?" Antonio was trying to speak Japanese instead of English, and it was going rather poorly.
"I'm fluent in English, you know."
The gun barrel tapped his neck – just a reminder that he was not the master of this situation. When Antonio spoke again, however, it was in English.
"I'm giving you instructions, you motherfucker. Did you understand that?"
Kaiba could see worry and anger warring in Anzu's eyes. There was an audio link, then.
Then he heard his instructions, and forgot about the audio link.
"Hell no!"
Antonio raised a single eyebrow. Kaiba had enough time to realise his counterpart's eyebrows were plucked, and then he heard a cry from the video screen. He turned around and saw Anzu from the waist up, now; the device had been snatched from her fingers, her hands cuffed. They wouldn't touch her, of course; this was part of his payment.
Knowing that a few rooms away, his fiancée had to watch.
Kaiba took a breath. "Leave her out of it. She didn't have anything to do with this."
"You have an order, Seto."
"I didn't agree to this."
"Neither did you disagree to it. Now hurry the fuck up. Unless you'd like to find out how many pieces of a person can be shot off before they give up and die."
Kaiba imagined Anzu with a walker – no dancing for a girl who had only a foot and a half – and pulled off the T-shirt he'd grabbed on his way out the door. It drifted to the floor, the slogan on the back almost perfectly readable. Goodbye, virgin alarm! said the C-3PO ripoff on the back. Indeed. Yes. He reached for the jeans zip and stopped.
"You can't tell me you've never worked one of these before, motherfucker."
Kaiba pulled the zip with fingers he had to will to not tremble. Antonio put his hands on Kaiba's shoulders and shoved. Kaiba hit the floor on all fours. He heard a gasp from the video screen and resisted the urge to turn around.
"You can't make me do this with that thing turned on." The fiction of not forcing him at all was long abandoned. He heard a click and another cry and swiveled from hands and knees directly onto his behind. Anzu's arms had been pulled above her head, and there was a gun pressed directly into her left palm, the trigger at half-cock.
"Don't!"
"Then you better get on with it, shouldn't you?"
Turning his back on the video screen before Anzu was released was not the hardest thing Kaiba had ever done – couldn't possibly be – but it at the very least ranked quite highly on the scale. He got back to his knees. Antonio started laughing. Kaiba stared at him.
"Look at yourself! King of your world, reduced to kneeling for your life."
Kaiba closed his eyes. He could not even pretend to himself that he was with someone else, anyone else, and he cursed Claudio as only a Kaiba could curse for having not had any daughters. Then he could at least have pretended to himself that this was some weird fantasy of Anzu's he was indulging in affectionate exchange for something else.
I'm sorry, Anzu, he thought, as he reached for the waistband of Antonio's jeans. I should have -
He cut off the train of thought as the jeans hit the ground with an unmusical jingle of wallet chain. The cry he heard this time was low and miserable, and he sat back.
"No."
He could feel the eyebrow arching above him. "No?"
"I won't make her watch this."
A gunshot and a scream. Kaiba whirled. One of his hands picked up a splinter, and he picked it out without even thinking about it. Anzu's hands were pressed to her face. Her eyes peered out between curled fingers that were, oh thank god, still whole.
"Next one goes into her wrist. Last warning."
Kaiba inched forward. He saw the chair and thought he understood now what it was for. Antonio sat and spread his legs. Kaiba had a moment to marvel at how sick a family would be that would gift their son with something like this and then watch from some distant room, and then he shut down his mind. Later – if there was a later – he and Anzu would find a way to wall this off and pretend it had never happened, please god.
The cock in his mouth was disgusting, throbbing and veiny. He tried to remember a few special nights spent with Anzu, a bottle of wine, and Mokuba at a friend's for the night. Anzu was fantastic at this. It was something to do with the tongue. He heard a satisfied sigh from somewhere above him and hoped it was a good sign. The last thing he wanted was for Anzu to first see him sucking off some guy, then have his brains blown out. And then, worse and worse, she would have to tell Mokuba. He tasted something even worse than dead skin, spicy and distinctly organic, and vowed that if he got out of this alive, he would never ask Anzu for a blowjob again. Ever. Not unless one of their lives depended on it.
The chair was shoved back. Kaiba took a deep breath.
"Hands on the chair."
"Huh?"
"Hands on the motherfucking chair, asshole."
Kaiba considered objecting and then thought of Anzu's hands pressed against her face. He thought of a reality where one of those hands was so much red raw meat wearing a bloody engagement ring, and put his hands on the chair. Antonio chuckled. It was not a pleasant sound. Then there was a gun pressed against the base of Kaiba's neck. He tensed.
"Are you fucking with me, asshole?"
"You told me to – "
There was a blinding pain in his right hip. He rubbed at the place he'd been kicked and stared up in blind confusion.
"Get up."
Kaiba got to his feet, still disoriented. A rough pair of hands grabbed his belt, and he was left standing in a rapidly-falling pair of jeans. He grabbed the waistband. The rough hands grabbed behind his hands and yanked, and he was left standing in nothing and wishing he'd worn something to bed.
"Now. Put your motherfucking hands on the motherfucking chair."
Kaiba suddenly realised where this was going and wondered how badly they would hurt Anzu if he said no – and how badly he would be hurt if he went ahead. He was a little hazy on the specifics, but he knew how the mechanics worked. He heard a low moan from behind him – a distinctly feminine moan – and put his hands on the chair.
He bit his lip and squeezed his eyes shut as something pushed in where it didn't belong. He heard a cry he knew could only belong to Anzu and wondered if maybe the audio link was only one-way after all – if she thought he was willingly letting himself be –
Something else that didn't belong replaced the smaller something that didn't belong. Kaiba clenched his teeth.
Think of the Blue-Eyes. Think of what you can call yours when this is over.
But the only blue eyes he could think of weren't the ones on the card.
He tried to make his mind blank, to not think about the gun that was probably being held on his back even now, to not think about what this must look like to the girl on the other side of the video link, to not think about what was happening just south of his waist and why it would be happening when he didn't want this, would never have asked for this –
A dry chuckle in his ear, a hand that was not his own in a place only Anzu had ever touched, and he could no longer deny that there was at the very least a decided physical reaction to what was happening in a place he had never been touched at all. He wondered, in a very vague kind of way, how he could be blushing when he was also –
The chair moved under his hands as a pair of hips slammed against him from behind, and then he was on his knees again on the floor. He threw his hands out to keep himself from landing face-first on the boards and heard the dry chuckle again.
"On hands and knees . . . it's no less than where you belong. Get dressed."
Kaiba turned around, winced, and shifted his weight. He was surprised he wasn't bleeding, really. Or maybe he was, and he simply hadn't realised it yet. He looked at the video screen.
He wasn't entirely sure, because Anzu was turned away, but he thought there were tears on her face. Suddenly he wanted nothing more than to lay his head in her lap and sleep. This hadn't been her fault. He could have at least tried to bargain with them to keep her from having to watch.
Getting back into his jeans was a great deal harder than it had been only an hour earlier. He hadn't been dealing with rubbery legs and a laughing Mafioso then. Not to mention it was much easier to put on jeans when he was capable of actually sitting down. He tugged on his shirt, the cheesy slogan on the back reduced to a cheap and bitter joke. Tomorrow he'd throw it out.
Anzu would not look at him when he entered the room. Her hand in his was limp. He squeezed it – a secret I love you - and waited for the returning squeeze - love you, too. There was none.
"There will be a car outside the door for the pair of you," he heard Claudio saying. It might as well have been a broadcast from Hong Kong. Kaiba could almost hear the echo. "But first – "
Kaiba was ready to call off – you can have the motherfucking card, just let me out of here – when Claudio picked up the first piece of paper in the file. Kaiba knew what it was – a description of the card for which he'd foolishly thought he'd trade anything. The paper was balled up and thrown into a metal dustbin. Following was a photocopy of the one card he'd been in possession of when he'd made his ill-thought deal. Next, the letter he'd written, requesting information – or better, the card itself. Then the card with the terms of their agreement written on it. Claudio pulled out a silver lighter and held up the last card, the one with Kaiba's address and phone number.
"I, like you, am a man of my word, Mr. Kaiba," he said, and touched the lighter to the edge of the card. Fire flared and caught at once. Kaiba watched numbly as Claudio dropped the card into the bin, then tore the folder and allowed it to fall on top of the fire flaming inside. "You may go."
Kaiba remained silent as he followed Anzu into the car. He wondered if the chauffeur knew who he was really working for. Anzu looked down at her hands, clasped neatly between her knees. She was playing with her engagement ring.
He continued to pay only absent attention as the car drove through the silent late-night streets of Domino. His mind was still in the small bare room, thinking of what had happened there. Still trying to sort out his reaction. Still trying to determine why pain and humiliation had left him – he cut off the thought.
Anzu left the door open. Kaiba could see her getting ready to run up the stairs, to pound down the hallway and into the bedroom. He had to do something, anything, before she could put that space between them, and so he reached for her wrist.
Anzu stopped and stared at him. Kaiba was shocked and angry to find himself ready to fall on his knees for a third time that night and beg her to fix things. He did not require help to fix things; he was a man, halfway to being a parent already, and it was his job to remedy the shitpile they'd landed in. He dropped his eyes, then tugged gently on her wrist. Anzu followed him first up the stairs, then down the hallway and into his office.
What he wanted was sitting on the corner of his desk. He picked it up, shuffled through it. Anzu stared at him, anger beginning to show in her eyes. He knew what she must be thinking – that he'd brought her in here to gloat, or that once again she'd been relegated to second place. He found what he was looking for and put it in her hand.
"Here."
Anzu looked down at the card, perplexed. "What's this for?"
Kaiba put his hands on the desk, an old and absent gesture, then drew them back. He took a breath and tried to meet Anzu's eyes.
"When I was fifteen, I was out of my mind. I was obsessed with something I thought I couldn't live without. And I was wrong." He took another breath. "This is what we bought tonight. I want you to have it."
Anzu looked down at the card again. "What am I supposed to do with it?"
Kaiba shrugged. "Keep it. Burn it. Do whatever you want with it. I don't care." Which was anything but true – he cared, he cared a lot – but he found he cared less now about a piece of waxed cardboard than he did about what his obsession could have caused. Anzu tried to push the card back into his hand. He shook his head and pulled away. Eventually he might let her give it back, if she chose to. Right now he wanted nothing to do with it.
Anzu tucked the second Blue-Eyes White Dragon into the pocket of her work uniform and touched his shoulder. "You have work tomorrow."
"Mmm."
"You should go to bed."
"Soon. I want a shower first. Don't wait up."
Anzu hesitated. Kaiba gestured toward the door.
"Go on. Your night's probably been a lot harder than mine." Which depended entirely on the definition of "hard," because the last two hours had certainly been that, but Anzu was the one who'd worked an eight-hour shift and then been kidnapped by the Mafia. Sometimes he wondered if she'd ever believe him when he said she didn't have to work if she didn't want to. If she'd been home in bed, where she belonged, this might never have happened.
Anzu let her hand drop from his shoulder. "Don't stay up too late, okay?"
"I won't."
Anzu squeezed his fingertips and made herself gone. Kaiba walked to the french windows and opened them, then stepped out onto the balcony. He looked down and thought of how completely simple it would be to lean too far over the railing - a simple loss of balance when the wind gusted – a broken neck on impact with the water – a last deep breath – and then hello, darkness, my old friend. The perfect accident.
The wind ruffled his hair. He thought again of dark hands in places they didn't belong, of strange sensations that should have been painful and hadn't been, of hot breath on the back of his neck, and he shivered.
He would never have asked for it. He would never have wanted it.
Would he?