TITLE: Gambling My Freedom Away

CHAPTER: Five

BY: Simply Kim

GENRE: Yaoi (Angst/Humor/AU)

CAST: Guys from Weiß and Schwarz... Oh yeah, and maybe the Crashers too if needed... heh, I really don't know...

DISCLAIMERS: The series I'm referring to do not belong to me… ^_^ only the weird story does.

NOTES: (~) is for the telepathic link, (~*~) is for Crawford's visions, (/ /) are for character thoughts.

CHAPTER 5: Plunge into Darkness

He was crying.

He did not know why, but he was.

Tears were flowing freely down his pallid cheeks, a tiny stream that somehow managed to get away from the wide river and were redirected towards his pale lips.

He was aching... a deep ache that did not only resonate in the surface, but also bone-deep. His left cheek was swollen, the bruises purple underneath the glaring chandelier lights. The corners of his trembling mouth were cracked, old cuts reopening under staining pressure. His neck was riddled with blue marks - bruises again - those that he knew would not fade away for a long time. The damage was severe - barbaric even... and it extended way down his chest, tracing an indefinite pattern to his stomach. Slender purple fingerprints decorated his lower body, concentrated on his flanks.

He was lying down again on the soft and sinfully comfortable bed. The white sheets mimicking snow as they rumpled around him... So pure... so untainted... Seemingly untouched in their brilliance.

The pristine spread, he knew, would soon end up bloody again the minute he gets up - if he ever gets up.

He was bound to the head of the bed with steel cuffs.

He was in pain.

He was crying.

He did not know why, but he was...

It has always been like this. It wasn't as if the cruelty was his first...

He should've been used to this by now...

He shouldn't be crying...

He's strong.

He's strong...

Isn't he?

* * *

I shouldn't have done it...

He sat on his swivel chair, staring at his personalized crystal paperweight.

But he was fighting me off... and - yeah right. It's not as if you've been so gentle to him other times before... he always ends up that way...

Bound.

Helpless.

Pitiful.

Broken.

He shivered slightly at the thought of his new acquisition with eyes empty, lips forever turned down at the corners in unhappiness, features blank and seemingly unfeeling... reacting solely on his every whim.

It was frightening.

He shook his head to clear away the haunting imagery.

Closing his eyes, he felt a sudden ache deep in his gut.

He did not know why but it was there...

Hurting...

Probably more than any pain he had ever established in another's body.

Why should he care?

He was his slave, so technically, he should be doing whatever he wanted with him, and he should do whatever he bid him to. It's that simple...

He's not sorry for what he has done...

He wasn't...

Was he?

* * *

Nagi could not concentrate.

His cheeks heated up when he felt a rush of embarrassment as he remembered Birman whacking him on the head with a harisen. The blow of the paper fan was so strong that he actually stumbled forward and had to grip something just to avoid knocking Ken over.

Ch'!

That bargirl is sooo EVIL!

He sighed, shaking his head slightly as he polished the counter, rubbing on a stubborn dried lemon juice stain. Maybe he should just tell Crawford-san that the counter is slightly damaged, so it wouldn't come out of any of their paychecks the minute the impairment is spotted during monthly inspections. Heh, Crawford-san wanted everything perfect after all!

Crawford-san...

He couldn't sleep much last night. Sheer terror had replaced his sleepiness as pained and shamed cries echoed throughout the whole mansion.

He lived in one of the smaller rooms, a favor from Crawford-san when the older man found him sleeping in front of the black wrought-iron gates the day he turned nine.

It hadn't been such a bad idea then, and the Crawford-san had become his ideal person... Heck, the older man even fought for his stay in the house with his own father!

<FLASHBACK>

"TAKE THAT PIECE OF WORTHLESS TRASH AWAY FROM MY SIGHT!" Screeched Thomas Crawford, Bradley Crawford's father, as he shoved a dirty Nagi away from him.

Crawford glared icily at his father, snatching the kid and putting his arm around the child's shoulder in a show of protection.

"No."

"What did you say?" His father shot back angrily.

But Crawford remained calm.

Glaring golden browns bored into the old man's dark soul.

"He's not going away." He enunciated more carefully, his eyes glittering in a twisted sort of amusement as his father boxed him on the head for his impudence. He did not even wince as the blow landed. Nagi did not know if it was because the blow wasn't that painful, or the bespectacled man he's holding on to was used to the abuse.

Crawford straightened and raked a hand through his unruly hair.

"Nagi will stay, dad, even if you say you don't want him."

Nagi's eyes widened in awe.

Someone actually cared for him!

The senior was about to say something when golden browns slipped away from his, and the owner turned, looking down at the little boy looking up adoringly at him.

"Nagi will always stay."

<END FLASHBACK>

He thought then that everything was perfect about him, and for Nagi, he was a God.

That changed when he heard the frustrated moans for the first time.

The next day, the sheets would be stained with blood - right smack in the middle of pristine sheets. He knew Crawford-san liked white sheets on his bed, and was the only one who used the silken kind... so it was not hard to guess that the sheets were from his room...

It became a habit... a habit that did not end even after the Crawford Senior died in a freak car accident.

He had thought then that the old and impossibly EVIL man that was Crawford-san's father forced him to do those... things.

He had thought wrong.

The routine continued, and slowly, his adoration slipped with it... until all that was left was that impersonal respect due to someone older.

And then, the first night last week...

Nagi shook his head, trying to make himself forget...

But he couldn't...

He couldn't.

He thought it was just his imagination when he heard the sound that had been suspiciously absent for six months now...

<FLASHBACK>

"Ah... peace at last! No Ken-kun to bother me! YAY!" He mused happily, plopping tiredly on his soft bed. "Ah, alone at last! Hahaha! I have to get some sleep..."

"Aaah..."

He suddenly shot up from his position.

WHAT IN SEVEN HELLS WAS THAT?

He strained to hear the queer sounds...

"Aaah..."

His eyes widened. DON'T TELL ME...

"Aaah... Yamete... Onegai, Crawford-san... Yamete!"

The words finally convinced him.

Someone was suffering again.

<END FLASHBACK>

Nagi cringed at the memory.

The pain was evident then, the suffering cry reverberating throughout the area, making him wince.

Nagi rubbed the stain again, finally giving up with a frustrated sigh when it was too obvious that the lemon stain wouldn't be such a good boy as to just stay away from the marble finish. Great, he could just see it in the headlines next month.

"LEMON STAIN EATS AWAY PRICEY MARBLE COUNTER.

NAOE NAGI, CONVICTED OF BEING THE LATEST ATTACK'S MASTERMIND"

Great. Not only that would happen, he would likely be denied his paycheck too.

Sheesh.

"Oi, Nagi, are you alright?" A scratchy, yet amazingly soothing voice asked.

He looked up to see a single golden eye trained curiously at him. He smiled up to the older man.

"Ah, Farfarello-san... I'm fine... just a little ticked off..." he replied, grinning sheepishly.

Farfarello raised a brow in amusement. "Ticked off by what, Birman knocking you almost unconscious with her paper fan, or not knocking Ken down?"

Nagi blushed.

"Oi, Farfarello-san, I was not ticked off by that! I'm glad that I didn't knock Ken-kun down! It's good that I didn't, or else, he would bang himself up falling headfirst into the tall bucket of grimy water!" Nagi protested.

Farfarello just let out a teasing smile. "Yeah. Right. Tell me that when you're not being too obvious."

Nagi knitted his brow in annoyance. "EH? What do you mean by THAT?"

Farfarello let out a whoosh of breath and turned, walking towards the other direction, studying his fingernails as if they were the best things to look at in the whole blessed world.

He shook his head for the umpteenth time, spacing out a bit as memories of last night filtered into him - AGAIN. He did not know why he was so disturbed. God knows that he was trying to forget what he had been hearing this week... but he just couldn't.

He tilted his face up, His eyes staring blankly at the dawn that was breaking over the dark horizon outside the casino window.

Who is it Crawford-san?

Who is it now?

Is the new one going to end up the same as the others?

The dirty rag he had been gripping a while ago now fell down the newly mopped floor.

He closed his eyes in memory.

Please... stop this Crawford-san...

Onegai...

* * *

Ah. Fujimiya Ran.

Farfarello watched the redhead walk slowly towards their cleaning group. He noted the bruises on his face. He wondered if the long-sleeved black turtleneck he wore covered others of the same kind...

His eyes narrowed in contemplation.

There's something seriously wrong with this guy...

* * *

"Ah, Ran, genki desu ka?" Ken asked, peering worriedly at the seemingly paler boy whose coloring was rivaling Crawford's bedsheets. "You look as if someone gutted you!"

Ran looked at him with empty eyes and gave him a small smile. "Ah, genki desu, Hidaka-san..."

"Oi, stop that!" Ken chuckled and waved his hand dismissively at the recent recruit. "You're making me feel like an old chap! Plain Ken would be A - Okay!"

Ran's smile widened a bit and he nodded. "Ah, Ken-ken."

Nagi stopped polishing the counter. Farfarello stopped practicing his bartending skills, Birman paused mid-step, her hands full of wine bottles... and Ken...

Ken stood there, stunned, his mouth opened, looking much like looking at a human being for the first time.

Nagi was the first to recover. "NYAHAHAHAHAHA!" He guffawed. "KEN-KEN! NYAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Birman was stooping down to place the bottles on the floor first before finally collapsing in gales of laughter. "Ran-kun... Ahahahaha!" She tinkled merrily. "That's a good one!"

Farfarello shook his head and smirked, his golden gaze on an embarrassed Ken. He lifted his brows and waggled them for added effect. "Ken-Ken."

Ken cried out in mortification and lunged at Ran.

Ran chuckled softly before shifting aside at the last possible moment, enabling Ken to dive headfirst into the tall bucket of dirty water standing behind him.

Laughter was echoing throughout the whole place as Ken gurgled, his arms waving frantically, trying to grab onto something he could gain leverage on and pull himself up. Fortunately for him, Ran harbors deep compassion towards anyone, and, as a result, pulled him mercifully out of the bucket.

As Ken gasped for breath, Ran's amethyst eyes softened. Without thinking, he placed a hand on the wet and mucky brown head. "Gomen." He murmured quietly, smile on his face was gone, replaced with and expression that neither Ken - nor anyone in the room could place.

Startled, Ken stared at him, finding such a devastated soul in him that it made him want to protect...

He smiled instead, as if showing Ran that he was fine, and he did not have to worry much, or say sorry.

Then, the doors opened and footsteps were heard, stopping at close range.

Ken turned his head and grinned as he saw the familiar figure looking at them with an amused expression in his eyes and a pleased smile. "Ah, Shachoo!"

"Seems like you're all having fun... care if I join?"

There was a slight movement next to him, and inwardly, he wondered about it...

It was only Crawford-san! Why did Ran-kun take a hasty step back?

* * *

It was involuntary... the step he took...

It was a thoughtless action of defense... to have free movement if ever someone attacks... or maybe an act just to put more distance between him and -

...To put more distance between him and Crawford.

He closed his eyes wearily and took a deep breath.

No one must know...

It was part of the deal...

No one must know...

It was what he wished for...

No one must know.

Then, he opened them again, the amethyst gems glittering with something akin to amusement... amusement... forced amusement...

No one must know.

He gave the best smile he could muster, hoping it was enough...

"Ah, Ohayo gozaimasu, Crawford-san." He greeted in simulated respectfulness.

He averted his eyes quickly as golden browns encountered them.

"Good morning to you too... Fujimiya-san."

That's right... pretend...

No one must know.

* * *

Fake.

It was the only way Crawford could perfectly describe whatever it was Ran was showing.

Fake.

He closed his eyes momentarily and took a deep breath.

He tried to catch Ran's eyes... but they were averted...

He wanted to see those eyes... just to know how he felt... if he was in pain...

If he was in pain like he was.

* * * * * * * *

TBC

* * * * * * * *

A/N: Sorry for the LOOOONG delay guys... never expected this term to be so tough! Well, guess I should be off to type the next chapter! Hopefully I could finish it sometime this week or early the next... Reviews everyone! ^_____^