All Right Now

Disclaimer: I don’t own this series nor do I profit from this.

Hey, y\'all.

Things in the AnK fandom tend to be from one specific point of view, and so I felt challenged to enter another. I hope everyone here has, at the very least, a reaction to the words entered here. By all means let me know what you think, and enjoy!

\"All Right Now\"

Riki coughed, felt blood splatter from his mouth, and did not care; at least he could breathe again. His chest heaved as breath was sucked in through his throat, and he was so grateful and relieved at the sensation that Riki felt himself silently praying in thanks. Quickly, he cut himself off in disgust, but it was too late to take the prayer back, or to deny the fact that for some reason or other he still felt glad to be alive.
Iason had punished him again. Punishments had become rarer and rarer these days, almost three years into Riki’s enslavement to him, as Riki’s strength to resist had shrunk. But tonight, because of a look of pity on his slaves face, Iason had hurt him as badly as he could.
Riki had resisted his “master” quite often when Iason first enslaved him. He had bit whatever part of Iason the blonde had tried to insert into him, had lashed out with the chains placed on his wrists. He had held his legs determinedly together whenever his master had come for him and stared with all the hatred he felt pouring from his eyes. But it was no good. Rikin’t n’t even a slave, but instead a Pet, a living sex doll to be used as Iason saw fit. He had no rights, and no life, and Iason always pried his legs open in the end.
And so he had stopped resisting and started begging. He begged Iason to set him free, first face to face and then on bended knee, and finally he begged crying and sobbing in desperation. Oh, the self-loathing! That he, Riki the Dark, leader of the most feared gang in the Slam had come to this, to a begging, sobbing wreck of a boy. Iason greatly enjoyed this self-loathing, of course. It meant that he had greater control over his pet, and so the rape was always more vicious when Riki begged, with Iason having much more energy fed by his love of Riki’s humiliation. Riki had heard Iason telling his “furniture” slave Katze about how Riki was breaking very nicely. The Blondie sounded so proud and so smug that Riki had vomited right there on the rug, sickened that his misery brought such pleasure to another.
Katze had yelled at him for soiling the rug and told him to start being more grateful for the luxury he lived in. “Honestly, how could anyone not be thrilled to get out of that horrible slum you lived in?”
Riki had considered murdering Katze, or at least beating him badly, but Katze was Iason’s exclusive furniture, and did important work for the Blondie. Riki thought of what punishment he would receive if he got in the way of Iason’s work, and then threw up again. He mostly stopped begging after that day, except for overwhelming moments of agony when he couldn’t help it.
Katze had pulled him aside after a good two years of this and, with deep irritation in his voice, told Riki to stop being so selfish. Didn’t he realize what Iason had given up for him, how much Iason cared for him? Iason was breaking the law to keep Riki as a pet; Riki was a mongrel, a lower life form, and an adult one at that. This was against so many laws, and it was costing Iason so much respect, but he kept Riki anyway because for some “unfathomable reason” he loved Riki despite it all and wanted to keep him.
Riki did hit Katze then, breaking the other mans nose, and realized how good it made him feel. “Don’t you know who I am?” He had hissed at the startled and now cowering man on the floor.
“You’re no one here,” Katze said, perhaps not as cowed as Riki thought. “You’re no one, and yet he keeps you—”
“I don’t care!” Riki had cried, almost howled, and realized that he meant it. “I was important, I was big and powerful, but I don’t care now if I become nothing! I grew up free, with other free men, and maybe we didn’t have many choices in life but we could do whatever we wanted with what we had! I don’t care if I’m nobody there, as long as I don’t have to stay here and be less than a dog!”
Katze looked shocked. The idea that someone would actually choose a life in poverty over a life spread out on silk sheets had never occurred to the black market dealer. Riki felt real contempt for the other man as he had walked away. Katze would always be a slave. No matter how much outward freedom Iason gave him, it was still freedom that was given by a higher up, and that could be revoked at any time. He was so bound up and brainwashed that he didn’t even have a clue that anyone could live any other way. Riki felt contemptuous, and then he felt pity for the first time in his life, and he made sure never to speak too badly to Katze again. The other man was too pitiful and small, and it would be bullying to point it out.
Riki had been a bully before, but if living in this place had taught him anything, it was just how terrible being bullied really was.
But once he had opened that can of worms he realized that Iason, too, was a pitiable victim. All the power Iason had, and he was indeed a powerful man, came from Jupiter, the great computer that ran their whole world. Iason answered to her, and was completely under her control, and did not have any more ability to understand freedom than Katze did.
This time when he looked at Iason he saw a little boy, a child with nothing, not even a sense of self. He began to realize that Iason’s holding onto Riki was his rebellion against a system he secretly hated. Iason didn’t know that, though. He didn’t even realize that he hated his world, and the other Blondies, and Jupiter, and the system that kept him as much a slave as Riki, because to realize that, to consciously acknowledge it would lead to madness. Iason was chained up, and he had to pretend that he wasn’t, or his pride would force him to fight those chains.
And so he kept a mongrel pet instead, a tiny rebellion that didn’t have anything to do with his work but let him feel like a big man, a boss of at least his own decisions.
It was more than that, though. Katze had told Riki that Iason had not rebelled at all before Riki had come into his life. He had been perfect, the very example of perfection which other Blondies were “encouraged” (re: required) to follow and emulate. Some feeling for Riki had indeed triggered Iason’s sense of self, and Iason simply could not go back to being “Jupiter’s Perfect Iason” again. His life as he knew it was over.
Riki wondered if Iason hated him for that, for the feelings that he, Iason, was never supposed to have felt and that he couldn’t stop. What were those feelings? Lust? Independence? Or love?
Iason was indeed a small man, one without the courage to truly rebel and be his own man, who was too scared to leave his silk sheets and fake power and designer clothing and gourmet dinners. And Riki began to feel such pity that it almost overwhelmed him.
Iason felt the pity aimed his way, and Riki had never seen his master so enraged. He had beaten Riki until two ribs cracked and one eye was swollen completely shut before bringing in three pet trainers to rape him until he couldn’t even scream anymore, and then chained him in what was euphemistically known as a “stress position,” keeping Riki from even the comfort of unconsciousness. And despite all of that, despite all his misery, Riki had still said a prayer of thanks when he had been able to breathe.
Riki chuckled, but stopped immediately because it hurt his head.

It was almost a full day before Iason let him out of the stress position, and Riki felt himself whimper in a humiliating sort of way from the agony in his limbs. Without a word, Riki had been handed into a doctor’s care and been allowed to fall unconscious at last.
He woke up to feel…nothing. He was naked, and he groaned at that, and wondered what Iason was going to do to him now. And he found out quickly enough, for Iason entered the room not a moment after he had awoken, and walked over to his Pet, and removed his pet ring.
Riki gaped openmouthed. That ring kept track of him. It was the outward sign of his slavery, and more importantly, a tracker; with it off, Iason could not find him. Well, not by computer anyway.
“Go,” Iason told him, and it took Riki a long time to realize that the Blondie was serious. He was being given his freedom, at least temporarily. Iason was giving him a year to himself—but after that year was up, he would be collected again. Riki ran away from that obsessive gaze and the cruelty in it.
Riki knew how this worked. He would have a year of liberty, and that would make returning to slavery that much more awful after having tasted freedom once more. He would truly break, then.
Riki knew he had to leave, to get as far away as he could in the year that he had. But it seemed he was no bigger, no more courageous, than his master. He had no idea what lay outside of Tanagura. Where there other cities where people lived free? Or was there nothing more than this? If there was nothing more, he would only incite Iason’s wrath for attempting to run away and the thought so terrified him that Riki found himself running as fast as he could towards familiar comfort instead of possible freedom.
He found Guy riding with Bison in familiar formation, ahead of the pack and leading so well that Riki was almost jealous. And when Riki let Guy see his grinning face, his expression born of joy at seeing the person closest to him in the whole world, he began to feel happy again.
Guy walked over to him, shocked, and then hugged Riki so tightly it aggravated the smaller mans ribs. Riki did not care. He hugged his best, most cherished friend to him, the friend who would never take him against his will or humiliate him for fun. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew that this could not last, that Iason would come for him again and crush what was left of his spirit. But for now, for this instant Riki was respected and loved and truly happy, and let himself believe that everything might just be all right.

The End