Author's Notes: I hope I'm not posting too fast for everyone. Once again, thanks for the support. It's just that I like to get these chapters up shortly after I write them so that I don't forget. It also keeps me motivated to write.

This chapter, like the story, is named after a song. If you can name the artist, you'll have found the first Easter Egg in the story.

Someone hoped that this would have Riku's Point of View...I hope they're satisfied!

Chapter 4

"Man in the Box"

Two scents. Two he could place. Blood and sex. It clouded his head and drove him insane. His liquids and Ansem's were dried onto his skin, and fresh welts from hot wax littered his torso. He could barely keep his wits together to talk to Tidus, let alone go out to play tomorrow. Irritated by the blond's phone call now, he tore through the house, stomped upstairs to the hallway shower, and shoved the door shut behind him. He practically ripped open the transluscent glass door to the shower, and he stepped in without bothering to undress. There were no clothes to speak of. Without shutting the door, he grabbed the faucet control for cold water and turned it all the way over, then pulled up the tab to turn on the showerhead.

He wrenched his eyes shut and hissed when the ice-cold water pellets hit his skin, making him feel like a branding iron under a waterfall. He could swear he was sweating steam, and he didn't give a shit if he were. That's all he had to give: steam.

For fifteen agonizing minutes he stood still under that chilly spray, feeling the pain and sin wash down the drain. The abuse of the past several hours blurred together in his mind and soon became nothing but another memory. Once that happened, it was buried forever, only to be dug up when the time called for enduring such pain once again. It faded. And Riku picked up his face, eyes opening, lucid, loose, and feeling dream-like. He carefully scraped and chipped the dried wax off his skin, gentle in the places the burns were worst, and then he picked up the bottle of body wash on the shower's corner shelf and squeezed some into his palm. He rubbed his hands together under the water, lathering it up, and then trailed his hands over his beaten skin, uncaking the dried blood and sex that covered him and washing it away. On the outside, he made himself clean, but he was still as filthy, broken and twisted as ever, and he accepted this, even embraced it. This had become his life. He was used to it.

When his body was cleaned, he washed his hair out, then rinsed clean and turned the shower off. Riku was very gentle towelling off, not wanting to make the welts and bleeding worse. He sat on the toilet, the towel around his waist, staring down at the linoleum floor. Now that he had calmed down, Tidus' words ran rampant through his thoughts.

"It'll be good for you.

"I'm just concerned...

"Please come play, Riku?

"You don't even have to participate. Just sit and watch..."

Riku blinked, rewinding and then playing forward again. "Sit...and watch..." he murmured.

Riku opened the bathroom door and stepped quietly out into the hallway, walking into his "Good Boy Room," and stared out the window that had such shitty, puke-green curtains. Peeling them back, he stared outside at the cul-de-sac, illuminated by street lights lining the sidewalk. He closed his eyes and imagined Sunday morning, filled with daylight, his chance to play outside, to be a boy, a teenager. To be free.

Suddenly, it didn't seem like such a bad idea. God, he wanted to get the hell out of here! Anything to escape the pain! Anything...

Fuck, he moaned, distressed, Some wishful thinking there, Riku.

Yet despite knowing it was wishful, his mind still plotted, the fires of rebellion and hatred rekindling: a tiny flame hidden deep within him, one that only rarely ever got out. How could he do it? He could sneak out and go see Tidus at the pool—no, no. That was suicide. Ansem would rip him a new asshole. Could he ask for permission? No...Riku bit down on a stubby thumbnail. That would just delay the inevitable. He would be walking like a duck after Monday evening. God, this was like running circles! There was no way he could win! Everywhere he turned it took him in the same direction. Nowhere to hide. Nowhere to run. He had options, and they all had the same end: Pain. He was boxed in. Grrr... Riku grunted and went over his options. Jump out the window. Ask for permission. Jump. Ask. Jump. Ask. But why would I ask when he would just fuck me on Monday?

A thought dawned on him.

Unless...

He thought it over. Yes...yes...that just might work!

Riku grinned deviously, the life returning to his eyes for as long as he was in that room.

It would be extra painful. But it would be worth it.

Ansem was clicking away a messsage into his computer. A message to a message board. As his hazel-colored eyes scanned his writing, choosing his words carefully, the news droned on in his ears in the background, as he relaxed on his bed.

"...Once again, he is the pinnacle of tabloid attentions. Not only is he keeping twenty—count them, twenty—children in his house, but there have been reports that the popular male model has been furthering his career by..."

He heard a knock on his door. Ansem didn't even look up. "The door is open, Lovely." he called.

Riku stepped into the room, naked. The towel dropped in front of the door behind him.

Ansem broke his gaze with the computer and stared into his foster son's glazed blue eyes. Riku stared back at him. For many minutes, they remained like that. Ansem cocked his head impatiently.

"Is there something you want?"

"Yes." Riku said silently. "I want to play."

Author's Notes: Hmmmm, and with that last sentence I'll leave you all to your filthy minds. Remember to leave me some love!