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“Rest now, Chuuya.”
Chuuya opened his eyes. The land in front of his nose was churned up and torn. Fingers of a low mist crept over the ground, slipping into divets and clinging onto shaded forms. A tangle of dark hair draped artfully around a pale, sleeping face.
The scene in front of him receded. Centimeter by centimeter, meter by meter, Chuuya distantly felt himself sliding along the ground, further and further away.
*
Chuuya opened his eyes. He was on his side, curled up, the hard ground digging into his ribs. His vision was bleary, and he blinked wearily. The fuzzy stripes in front of his face refused to clear up. With great effort, he leveraged one hand up to swipe across his face, and banged hard into something unyielding. Wha-? It took Chuuya a moment to get his hand moving again, groping at the thing in front of him. His fingers curled around something thick and vertical, with the smoothness of metal…bars? His sluggish thoughts stopped along with his halted movement for several long moments. With the smallest of motions, he tilted his head slightly, following the line of metal with his eyes until it met with a solid ceiling mere feet above his head. Chuuya’s heart leapt and started to chug laggardly.
What – ?
Chuuya’s fingers weakly tightened, his strength paltry, and he peered out through the bars of his cage. Light beamed down around him, a harsh cone that obfuscated anything in the darkness beyond it. His eyes tracked around the large room he felt he was in, but could make out nothing outside the boundary of light.
Damn it! They had taken him when he was at his weakest. That was supposed to be insider information, who had found out!?
A wet cough wracked out of him, clenching his lungs and chest painfully. He turned his head to the side and spat out a globlet of blood. His breath hissed as he tried to stifle another bout, and he held his body tensely until the urge to hack up whatever was in his lungs subsided. He deflated against the barred floor of the cage, one arm wrapped around his aching ribs that stabbed into him with every too-deep inhale.
Chuuya’s eyes flicked from side to side unseeingly as he tried to remember anything after he’d collapsed. His memory was always so patchy after Corruption. He squeezed his eyes shut. Brief images flickered behind his eyelids – the impression of a warm hand around his wrist, Dazai’s face above him with his arm outstretched giving orders and…nothing else. It had to have been a planned assault, to use the opportunity created when Corruption weakened him…had some enemy used his battle tonight as a means to an end?! Chuuya would have cursed aloud if he could trust that the sharp exhale of air wouldn’t send him into a fit. Had they swam blind like fishes into a net?
Chuuya tried to string his thoughts together as he shivered, sweat beading on his skin. He was shaking so hard his knees were knocking against the bars of his cage – one leg tucked up, the other pressed against the steel, too close, too narrow to stretch out. He’d lost a shoe on that foot, and the cold buried through his tattered sock. He wrapped his arms around himself, trying to keep warm without squeezing his chest hard enough to hurt. He wished he had a blanket, or even a rug to protect his skin from the chill bars burning their way into his skin.
What was he thinking?
Oh yeah.
If he could figure out why he’d been captured, he might be able to figure out who. Or from who, why. Chuuya huffed, pressing his palms into his eyes. If only he were Dazai, he’d already know, probably have ten stories to antagonize his captors and three plans to get out.
Another hacking cough convulsed through Chuuya’s body, and he spat another mouthful of blood through the bars onto the cement. His throat felt raw.
Chuuya clenched his fist as ideas flitted through his head. If it was him they wanted…his body, his Ability…he couldn’t deny the possibility of experimentation, no matter how his conscious mind wanted to retreat from that thought, no matter how his stomach clenched painfully and his heart wanted to tear itself out of his chest and hide. But if it was the government who’d recaptured him, he would have already been processed and in some kind of tank or pod. Not sitting out like so much throwaway cargo. So not the government. Chuuya didn’t know whether that thought should reassure him or fill him with dread. Some kind of black market then? Trading in Abilities, or Ability Users? But would they have had the resources to take him from the combined forces of the Port Mafia and the Armed Detective Agency? Chuuya whined. His head pounded. He let his forehead roll against the metal bars. It was cold against his too-hot skin. He shivered. He couldn’t do anything about the past. He needed to take stock of his condition and figure out what he needed to do to get out of here.
Internal bleeding was a given. He shakily wiped sticky blood from his chin. He was already beginning to tremble from the extreme muscle fatigue that always followed Corruption. That and the inability to maintain his core temperature after such an exertion of energy would make the next twenty-four hours, and more, hell. He’d usually be wrapped and bundled up in blankets for this, and even that annoying Dazai would give him a reprieve until he didn’t think he’d fall apart. Chuuya curled ever so slightly in on himself, the only comfort he could get in this steel cage. But then his arm squeezed his ribs in just the wrong place, and a flash of pain seared through his side. A small gasp escaped his lips. It turned into a few short hacks that he tried to control, before trailing off with a slight whimper. Chuuya’s eyes scrunched shut against the body-wide ache, the throbbing in his ribs like embers waiting to flare up. He’d let himself rest – just a little, just a bit. He bit back another whimper as a second tremor wracked through his body. Just…take stock of what he could feel right now: the cooling trail of blood leaking from his nose and down his chin. Another smeared across his forehead, from a wound that pounded dully into his head. The drying blood caught and pulled at his skin when his brows furrowed. Tiny pinpricks of smarting and stinging skin littered his awareness where the bars kept him pent in. Cuts, bruises, scrapes…his ankle hammered like someone was striking an iron to it. And now that he was aware of it, he wished he wasn’t. Chuuya’s fingers clutched weakly onto the bars in front of him, something to feel, something that wasn’t his body.
An indeterminate amount of time passed. Chuuya was sure he’d passed out because how could he not. He was exhausted. But it hardly felt like he’d rested, with the omnipresent steel cage intruding even in his unconscious mind. Chuuya’s eyelids fluttered open to the same empty room. Nobody had come by. How long would they leave such a high-profile prisoner on their own? He couldn’t shake the harrowing feeling creeping through his brain, the anxiety of not knowing who. He felt hot, and he opened his mouth to lick his lips and swallow dryly. The fever was probably starting to set in. He needed to take stock of his injuries before he was too far gone. Slowly, Chuuya rotated so that he was on his back, bars digging in uncomfortably. Moving was a marathon in itself – every muscle ached, trembling with weakness. With small movements, he inched himself up, sitting, hunched over, his head tucked in against the top of the tiny cage. Taking a breath to prepare himself for the pain, Chuuya gingerly pressed his palm to his ribs. When he slid over the right spot, his breath stuttered and he curled forward with a pitiful cry. His hands shook and he grabbed the bars below him to ground himself. The pain slowly ebbed, but continued to pound in time with his heart. Probably a broken rib. Gritting his teeth, he forced his hands to move to his next major injury.
He slumped against the side of the cage as he reached down toward his ankle. Chuuya’s fingers brushed against the tender skin, already swelling above the dip of his dress shoe, and he winced. Holding his breath, he raised his leg and tried to move his foot.
“Shit!”
Chuuya breathed through his teeth, electric pain radiating up and down his leg as he clutched it with both hands. “Nggggg….Fuck!” Small whimpers escaped with each exhale. “Goddamnit.” He was never this vocal about his injuries before, but somehow, in his tiny cage, in the dark, he felt more alone, more vulnerable, more weak, and he hated it. When the pain spasms subsided, Chuuya was breathing heavily as he sagged against the bars. Sweat trickled down his brow, leaving tracks in the grime caked on his skin from his fight. Through teary eyes, he saw heavy mottling on his arms as he crossed them across his chest defensively, on his legs where the fabric of his pants was torn through. He wouldn’t be surprised if the bruises littered his body.
His breath stung as he breathed, his ankle throbbed, and he hurt so much. It was hard to breathe, sitting up hunched over like this. And the weariness was hitting him hard again – he could barely keep his eyes open. He kept trying to blink, focus, but his vision was swimming and his body was just so hot. It felt like he’d drunk too much wine, so sloshed that he was falling asleep. But it wasn’t safe, he wasn’t safe, not in the infirmary where he should be, and he doesn’t know – doesn’t know who or where or why. Doesn’t know what’s going to happen. All he could see was his tattered body, shadowed by the roof of the cage, the black bars, the harsh light beyond, and nothing else.
Chuuya slumped, slowly, letting himself slide back down to lay curled on his uninjured side. It was a waiting game – waiting to find out just who captured him so he can show these assholes just what trouble they’d bought. Waiting to get stronger (if he doesn’t get weaker first). His eyes slipped shut as he finally gave into his exhaustion.
.
Chuuya groans awake, and thrashes. He’s too hot, and he claws at his torn clothing. He registers a distant cry as his leg thumps into the bars of his prison. He’s still alone in this dark world.
.
Chuuya wakes and lies there, shivering where his bare skin is pressed against the cold bars of his cage, and the cement under them. His shirt is torn half off, wrapped around his arms and pinning them to his sides. He doesn’t have the strength to move anyway.
.
Chuuya wakes and dry air parches his tongue, rasps past steel bars and down his throat. He tries to swallow that dryness and it catches, making him cough. Pain stabs through him with each hack, making him gasp and yelp on the inhale. He lies twisted, eyes scrunched, praying that the claws sinking into his lungs and his tender insides will ease up. No one comes to offer aid, or to gloat at his agony.
.
Chuuya wakes and hunger gnaws away at his stomach. His muscles spasm and cramp as gravity comes back to ravage his body in return for desecrating its laws. Bars under its force press in on him on all sides, an ironic reminder of how he’d held it confined in his fist.
How long had he lain there, alone? Hours at least? A day? With nobody to come in to check on their precious cargo? Was he precious? Normally he’d be out for a full day before waking, but the animal-fear and anxiety kept pressing on his mind, intruding on his subconscious, clawing him awake.
Chuuya bites back a curse. He knows – knows he could break out, if only he had access to his Ability, if only he wasn’t this weak mess. He wants to believe that if he waits just a little, he’ll bring the roof down on these bastards. But he’d only be kidding himself. The reality is he’ll be out of commission for several days. Days that they wouldn’t even have to use drugs to keep him contained and docile. Just the standard metal bars of a cage. Even that was a laugh. They could leave him unchained on the cement floor and he wouldn’t be able to move an inch. As much as he hated to admit it, only Dazai had the key to his cage now.
Time crept slowly. Bars and light blurred in Chuuya’s vision. The light swayed, and bent in his view. He blinked. The slight shadow of the cage cast by the overhead light wobbled slowly, back and forth. As minute as it was, Chuuya hadn’t been cognizant of the swaying in the wide, featureless cement room, until this moment.
A ship.
He was on a ship, in the ocean, somewhere.
Chuuya’s breath hitches. He sees legs detach themselves from the shadow and walk, soft heel-toe clicks across the edge of the light, hollow on the cement floor. A door grates opens and gnashes shuts. Chuuya shivers.
And waits.