LEGAL DRUG (GOHOU DRUG) FANFIC

Title: Sanguine

Written By: RinoaDestiny (Ann Koo)

Author's Note: A change of tense that felt right and warnings about some rather uncomfortable descriptions when it comes to Rikuo's ordeal (Squick factor). It's only going to get darker from here.

CHAPTER 11

Saiga-san surprises him one night, his expressionless face staring down at him when Kazahaya opens the door. Before he can ask "why", the man beats him to it. "Come downstairs and meet me in the store. Kakei's asleep but we need to talk." The other's brow furrows darkly. "Make sure you lock the door behind you. It'll take a while."

Feeling strange, Kazahaya pulls his jacket off the chair, slips into it, and follows the towering monolith down the steps. His boss's partner blends well into the shadows but he can hear each footfall, hard and heavy as they descend. Rounding the corner, they reach the roller door that partially obscures the storefront and Saiga-san lifts it just enough so that both of them duck inside. Light from the street lamps outside eerily bring the highlights of glass jars, aluminum cans, and plastic bins to a dull shine. What was welcome and warm in the day suddenly appears alien, as if Green Drugstore underwent a shady transformation.

He shivers.

"Here's why I needed to talk to you, kid," the older man says, removing a small envelope from his coat pocket. It's brown and enclosed with thread, as if the documents inside were classified or official. He takes it, aware of the consternation churning his gut. "I don't think we're going to be able to keep Rikuo's ordeal a secret. It's already circulating in the criminal underworld, unfortunately."

Biting his lip, he unravels the thread and dumps the contents out onto the nearest plexiglass table. Glossy paper reflects the dim light and as his eyes adjust, he sees color and shapes. Baffled, he reaches for the nearest portable lamp and flicks it on. Saiga-san's hand clamps down on his shoulder even as his fingers cover his mouth, desperately holding back his scream. The colors are no longer colors and the shapes are no longer shapes but agony and cruelty is frozen in each frame and the photographs are like spoils of war.

"How?" he asks, barely able to past the tight lump in his throat.

"Standard procedure for blackmail, I should think," Saiga answers, his tone dry, "and a good way to make sure that everyone knows what was done to him and what he looks like. I'm afraid, though, that photographs aren't the end of it. I wouldn't put it beyond them to videotape it so that Rikuo has no way of fighting back. This, you understand, makes his recovery harder. It also makes it harder for us to stay here, to hide him."

He doesn't say anything because he can't. Tears prick his eyes as he stares at the atrocities caught on paper, stunned by the brazenness of the release. Rikuo unconscious in one, his wrists bound across his back. Another one is too horrifying for him to look at for long, but the silent scream contorting the younger psychic's face lingers, twisted and broken. There are men in the pictures – other men, older and bigger – and he can't see their faces. He picks up one, trembling as he does, and hopes, even though he feels ill, that a memory will come to him. He needs to know their faces, their features in order to match names to a person.

Nothing happens. Perhaps, he shouldn't have expected it.

Rikuo's eyes are shut in the picture, cruelly remembered on ink and paper as surely as the faceless man on top of him. His mouth is open, screaming and soundless and Kazahaya drops the photograph back into the stack, unable to look at it any further. His stomach wrenches, bringing up bile, and the wastebasket is shoved into his arms just as he loses his dinner. Saiga-san hands him paper towels to wipe his chin and a cup of water to rinse his mouth, and he does so, shaken by what he's seen. "Rikuo," he gasps, tears streaming down his face. "How? How is he…?"

"They're one step ahead of us by doing this." Saiga picks the discarded glossies, indiscriminately shuffles them, and slides them back into the envelope; his expression flat. "They've effectively caught him in a bind. They're making sure that if the same happens to him, and he escapes, that these photographs will be widely distributed to corrupt police and authorities. He'll have nowhere to run, and no one to help him. Even more unfortunate is that these pictures will find their way into pornographers' hands, making him an easy target."

Kazahaya lets that comment slide, not wanting it clarified. He stares at the table, as if the pictures are still there, tainted and vile. Swallowing hard, the realization hits him even as his mind protests. "Saiga-san, how many men were in those pictures?"

"It varies. They could all be the same or different. It's hard to tell when they've censored the faces. Whatever Toshiya and his men are, they're professionals. They know how to cover their tracks. This leak was deliberate; with their clout, they can pull all the strings to find him and we would be none the wiser."

"Rikuo, he…"

"It's only been a week since he's taken food, isn't it?" The man standing beside him sighs. "With this out in the open, he'll have more to worry about than that. I don't think these pictures even show half of what was inflicted upon him."

Not even half? How could that not be all of what he saw, spread upon the plexiglass – image after image of Rikuo bound, kicked, unconscious, pushed, shoved, bleeding, and broken? Of men, naked and clothed, bodies pressed to Rikuo's while in the pictures, the younger man screamed in helpless anguish? Of the terrible poses they put him in, or the sickening fact that while the bastards' faces were blurred, many bloody details weren't? Or that Rikuo was so torn apart by them that they had to show it, like a disgusting calling card?

He shudders. He couldn't believe that wasn't even half. He doesn't want to believe it. "Saiga-san, what are we going to do? If he knows about this –"

"I think he'll know, kid. All of these were taken during his torture. He'd know, to some extent, what they'll do with it. There's word that they want to apprehend him because his abilities have run amuck. The psychic underworld is alert to that because he poses a threat. It's a clever cover-up for the fact that Toshiya and his low-lifes simply want a rape toy and that to them, Rikuo's theirs. I found it tonight while tracking down some of those names. Toshiya's group is all behind it."

"How…?" His voice shakes, unbearably so. "How are we to protect him from this?"

"I don't think we can, besides burning these and hoping that no one throws them in his face. I do know that this organization is funded by someone else. Making all of these photographs and possibly videotapes for blackmail costs money. There's someone else pulling all of the strings behind them, and whoever they are, they have no qualms about a boy being nearly beaten and raped to death. We have to be careful. I'm letting you know first so that you'll be more vigilant around Rikuo."

"Kakei-san will know about this?"

The dark shades elevate a bit, so that he could see shadows beneath the frames. "He'll probably have the same reaction as you, if not a bit tougher. The boss might be able to stomach these but I'm not sure." Saiga's tone inflects, inward and quieter. "I couldn't, to be honest."

It comforts him somewhat to know that the older, taller male shared his feelings. Switching the lamp off, letting the eerie darkness fall upon them, Kazahaya crosses his arms and focuses on the idly standing mop and bucket tucked behind the latest shipments. He looks over the multiple jars, the gleaming ceramic of certain gift boxes, the plastic bottles of lotion and moisturizers, and turns to gaze out at the view beyond the roller door. The lights are yellow and harsh, breaking the darkness, and the street is empty of people, cars, and animals. It is silent and in that silence, Rikuo's screams careen into his thoughts, indelibly merged with the sight of his torn body writhing beneath other bodies, only to be ripped and violated all over again until blood is on the floor and his friend lays a pale skeleton.

"No," he says, still feeling odd and detached. "No, I'm sure most people can't."

He thinks back to those pictures, to those two-dozen photographs colored with the darkest of brutality and pain, and begins to catalogue what he can. He does it for Rikuo, he firmly tells himself, in spite of the shivers. His memory is good, even if his logic comes slow. In one of them, there were sixteen legs, precisely eight pairs, and eight men besides the one torturing Rikuo. In another one, he sees the torsos of five men but like Saiga-san said, he couldn't figure out if they were a separate group or Toshiya's original lackeys. If Toshiya wasn't in those pictures, his sum would round to ten men total responsible for assaulting Rikuo.

Either way, the number had to be higher.

Nausea sweeps over him but he refuses the wastebasket this time. The air is sharp and cold and he breathes it in, clearing out his lungs. His head throbs, the back of his eye feels heavy and he reaches into his pocket for the bottle of aspirin. Saiga-san gratefully takes the two he offers him and they both down it without a sound. Towards the back where the break room is, he hears the slight rustling of sheets. He wonders what Kakei-san would say or do when the pictures are laid before him; at how the man who mothered them would respond when Rikuo's rape was evident before his eyes.

In the news, he's heard of mothers hunting down their child's abuser. He's heard of the time they've served for murder. He knows, without a doubt, that Kakei-san would kill Toshiya and anyone else who's bludgeoned, starved, and forced themselves on Rikuo. Saiga-san wouldn't be any different. For Rikuo to have a chance – any chance at all of recovering – the bastard Toshiya and his men had to die.

It was only appropriate, even if death was too good for them.

"Saiga-san, you said something about hiding him?"

The other man shifts. "It'll be difficult to, now that they know his face. We need another safe haven, just in case their search takes them here. Rikuo also left a psychic signature, which can be traceable if anyone noticed. An overflow of power like that doesn't escape the psychic underworld."

"I've never heard you talk so much before," Kazahaya blurts out, craning his neck to look the man full in the shades. "At least not so seriously and without joking."

"Consider me the informant. Besides," Saiga replies, his voice without nuance, "it's not a good time to play those tricks or say those jokes. If invading your personal space was enough to get you agitated, you can imagine the effect it'll have on Rikuo. The jokes aren't appropriate, not after what he's suffered. You've noticed, haven't you, how little he speaks?"

"He told me some things. I thought he told me everything that Toshiya and they did to him, but…" Blood, ropes, restraints, pain in inexplicable forms, hands on wrists and ankles, and bodies ravaging the younger psychic's, breaking him as readily as his telekinesis spilled out, violent and uncontrolled. It wasn't even half of the torture. "I think he just wants to forget."

"They won't let him. Not with these circulating around."

"What should we do?"

"Pack a bag as soon as you can, just in case I get word of their search coming here. Kakei and I will find ways to defuse this situation around here without showing our hand. But if I knock on your door and tell you we must go, grab your bag, help Rikuo, and leave. This is one place we can't afford to let them find, especially with us in it."

"This isn't about to end, is it?" he asks fearfully. "It's more than just Rikuo."

"The only thing I know is that they want him back. I'm not sure how he got involved with them or how Tsukiko's involved in all this. I don't know why the people funding them are looking the other way or hell-bent on pursuing a young man they nearly killed. There's something that he's not able or willing to tell us; something that we can't push him to tell us, and something that this organization knows that'll be troublesome for us. The only thing we can do is stay low and watch. You, boy, keep your eyes on Rikuo at all times. You never know with these people."

"You don't think they'll kidnap him, do you?"

"Who's to say they didn't drag him off the streets? He's not exactly a stranger in the underworld, criminal or psychic. The worst they can do if he's unguarded is to rape and murder him in his bed, where you think he's safe. It's not the first time crimes like that have happened, and they have a better reason than most to ensure that he's dead."

"Rikuo's not sure if he's going to get better."

"If he knows about what the organization on Toshiya's half has done, he'll truly believe that. You realize, don't you, that he might stop talking to you altogether once he knows? They've sealed his lips for good, barred any means of aid he might get, and shamed him all at once by sending these photographs out. He might regress, might want nothing to do with you, and refuse to let you help him. The nightmares might get worse and we'll all be back to day one."

"I've already promised him I'll be with him no matter what."

"Let's hope my hypothesis stays one and isn't tested." The sarcasm in Saiga-san's tone is thick, but it's more internal than directed at him. The black shape that is their informant and his boss's right-hand man moves, circling around the plexiglass table; one hand is secured in his pocket. Kazahaya knows the packet of pictures is in there, poisonous to Rikuo's recovery and utterly repugnant to him. He doesn't understand why they were ever taken – for blackmail, according to Saiga-san – when all of the contents reeked of perversion.

"You have your key, right?"

Fumbling in his pocket, he feels the cool press of metal against his fingertips and nods. "Are you going to sleep, Saiga-san?"

"I don't know," he hears before the other man shuffles away toward the back. "Can you sleep, knowing that these are out there?"

A good question. His answer mirrors the one spoken beforehand. "I don't know."

"Well, you need to be up there with him and I'll break the bad news to the boss before you two are awake. If you hear any disturbance in the morning, it's probably him breaking something or cursing murder on their heads. Hopefully, you'll get some rest."

"I hope so."

"Good night, kid." Black coalesces with black and only the crisp sounds of Saiga's footfalls remind him that the man once stood next to him. He stands there for a minute, still remotely aware of how awkward the night was. Then, because he did belong upstairs with Rikuo – with the person he saw so viciously manhandled in those stills – and there was nowhere else to go, his footsteps turn towards home and outside.

The street is still silent, with a deadly calm that's tangible, as if Saiga-san's news pricks his skin with paranoia. The mantra was true: for every step one takes, sometimes one is forced to go two steps back. This wasn't two steps back, though. This was a shove, sprawling everything backwards and ruining whatever progress they've made. His breath condenses in the winter wind and he's angry. Angry that Rikuo's rape and torture was shown so explicitly, as if the younger man was only good for that. Angry that the men in the pictures did such things to his roommate, so that there were still scars and memories that didn't fade. Angry that Toshiya used such a tactic to close off all options to Rikuo. Angry that if they found him that Rikuo would be subjected to all of that again and possibly die from the wounds he received.

Kazahaya is also sad. Sad that Rikuo's life fell so far down that recovery was difficult. Sad that Rikuo's face was so twisted in the photographs that he was nearly unrecognizable. Sad that the abuse was that violent and that all of the blood was his friend's. Sad that despite what the pictures showed, Rikuo did fight back but couldn't win. Sad that the younger man's ordeal – his suffering, his body, his rights – were coldly given to criminals, who probably liked seeing such things. Sad that if Toshiya did find Rikuo again, Rikuo would probably die from the injuries the other man would inflict.

He's so upset and so depressed – his emotions so conflicted – by what he saw that prudishness never enters his mind. What the images revealed provoked horror rather than embarrassment or a flippant knee-jerk reaction. It's his second time and he realizes that he only blushes whenever the innuendo strikes home with him. Rikuo's nakedness or the bile-inducing images does the reverse, because he knows the circumstances behind them. There, his childish responses aren't appropriate; ultimately, because violence was what led them to all of this.

He's growing up fast. He has to, for Rikuo's sake.

It's why when he opens the door, closes it, and kicks off his shoes that he heads straight for their shared room. It's why when Rikuo cries out in his sleep, Tsukiko's name hanging in the air, that he sits on his bed and pays attention. It's also why when the other male screams that he goes over and holds his hand, waiting for the nightmare to pass. The screams remind him too much of savagery and suffering, of violation and denied consent, of Toshiya's leering face in Rikuo's own, and of how that first incident bloodied Rikuo's life and stained the gloss of those pictures with shame and red.

It's also why he doesn't get any sleep, for Rikuo's world is one agonizingly terrible chain of events that change from morning to night, from minute to minute, from hour to hour, and the moans and screams never stop. He sits there, waiting, and when Rikuo finally falls unconscious, the boy's hair is soaked with sweat. Kazahaya falls backward onto his own bed, still clothed, and tries to doze off.

He can't because Rikuo's still in his mind trapped in celluloid. Rikuo's enemies form walls and the steel walls enclose him, and both sets of walls – flesh and metal – bar him from escape. There are other walls, too but these walls crush Rikuo and forcibly break him until Rikuo's walls are down. It's only when Rikuo is helpless that the human wall moves, so that others wither away his defenses. The steel walls don't move; mockingly so, even when blood smears on them and the walls of flesh watch as a seventeen-year-old boy collapses, green eyes glassy with pain.

Rikuo's hair is seized and as the walls watch, gray and cold, Rikuo bleeds. On the glossy paper, there's no sound but the walls might've been deaf. Rikuo's screams are ignored and his friend is taken while the room and the people stand immobile. Knowing what kinds of men they are, he thinks they smile and not kindly. Rikuo is used and abandoned, vulnerable in that circle of assailants, and his face is wet with tears. In the photographs, he's scarred and losing muscle; his arms and legs barely support him by the looks of it, and no one cares.

Kazahaya closes his eyes, wanting to sleep but he can't.

No one cares and Rikuo, not yet eighteen, is left to fend for himself but has no strength left. The human wall breaks again and the dark-haired boy is pinned down by a wall of flesh. The attack is longer this time, more violent and Rikuo's fingers flail bloodlessly as his wrists go numb. It's a single incident, strung together by many images and it's the only conclusion he can draw. Rikuo's facing his assailant but his eyes are shut and he's screaming again. The sound becomes nothing, and he can't hear it when stuck in pulp, binder, and gloss. The walls of steel stare back gray and in the pictures, Rikuo's badly hurt and the man continues injuring him. It's not a memory he'll like to experience because it's always worse when emotions are involved.

He rolls over on his left side, scrunching his eyes closed but sleep evades him. Saiga-san's words spin in his head and the images tumble out, grotesque in all their graphic detail.

There's blood and there's more blood as Rikuo's struggle becomes futile, as his fingers slacken and fall. It disturbs him that the photographer caught that detail, as well as the others. The faceless man is callous to Rikuo's agony, to the way how Rikuo's nearly insensible. A sheathed knife hangs off the man's belt – an oddity, that. When the incident closes with the last shot, Rikuo's lying spread-eagled, covered in blood; his head lolls to the side and his fingers flatten out.

Kazahaya punches his pillow, pulls it over his head, and damns the brown envelope.

Rikuo tries to crawl away in another picture but a kick intercepts him and slams straight into his gut. The young man curls, hands clutching his stomach. He doesn't know if this violence takes place before or after the vicious rape but Rikuo's incapable of standing. There's red all over the floor and Rikuo's legs are slick with it. Another man with jeans kicks him right in the backside and Rikuo buckles weakly, retching.

It isn't the first or last of the pictures that proudly, if not exploitatively, show how ill-treated the young captive is. He can't forget many of them; it's almost like if they're burned into his mind, similar to when he receives a memory from his empathy. He still hasn't forgotten Rikuo's encounter with Toshiya, or the way how the glass shards ripped across Rikuo's back. Yoshiro is strangely absent from most of this and he wonders, while furious at his mind's inability to shut down and sleep, where the man went.

Finally calling it quits, he rolls over, plants his feet on the floor, and rakes his fingers through his matted hair. That's when he hears a bump below him, like sound falling into a well, and a distant clank confirms his guess. Kakei-san had been shown the contents of the envelope and was obviously raging in a mood that would well suit his alter ego. He listens for a while, tracks the bang of something heavy against the wall, and wonders how Saiga-san is holding up.

Both of them, undoubtedly, didn't get any sleep.

Kazahaya shakes his head – the damn images don't leave – glances once at Rikuo, who's mercifully unaware and hauls his ass over to the closet. Grabbing a relatively huge travel bag, he starts throwing socks, underwear, shirts, pants, and anything he thinks is useful into it. Better to prepare now when he has nothing else to do than to wait until he's too tired to think and the warning's upon them. Slamming the bag down, he throws a few towels in for good measure. He almost wants a knife to go with it.

Mainly, he wants Toshiya dead.