Archives: Sure, but please ask first! ^_^

DISCLAIMER: All featured Tekken characters are the property of Namco and not the authors.

Notes: Constructive criticism is welcomed!

Warnings: Eventual lemon parts, language & violence.

It was a low-ceilinged, massive place, lit by vinelike cords that occasionally sprouted a naked, yellowish bulb. There were no windows, simply stacks of boxes and crates and, near one wall, a poker table with a couple of folding metal chairs. And on that wall itself was Hwoarang, his wrists fastened to it by means of thick metal shackles that kept him seated on the ground, an arm stretched in either side. Bryan was seated at the table, his ankles crossed and boots propped atop it. His chair was tilted back on its hind legs as he uninterestedly perused a newspaper. His face was hidden behind it.

It wasn't dried tears that crusted Hwoarang's eyes shut, but rather the fear of the ramifications that opening them might bring. A sharp pain in the skull. A vision of leering, suited Mishima men in bad suits. Or -- God forbid -- Jin lying face down. Jin bleeding. Hwoarang didn't want to see any of this, and that is why his eyes remained shut minutes after he'd regained consciousness, and when they began to flutter they did so reluctantly. The lashes rose and light struggling at his binds made them, and he looked to his wrists before he looked around, looked at Bryan Fury.

Fury, during that span of time, flipped to the next page. The rustling of the newspaper seemed to echo for miles, and the particularly dim lighting was steady and pervasive, like mold, or the smell of death.

"You didn't get one word in the paper," he noted casually in mechanically flawless Korean, chewing lightly on a toothpick. Maybe a new one; maybe the same one. He folded the paper down enough to look at Hwoarang. His shades were, perhaps unfortunately, among the items on the table.

"But it's not like anyone cares you're missing, right?"

"You must. You took me, fuck if I know why." He stared as hard as he could at the stark whiteness of the criminal's hair, trying with all his remaining will to block out the pain of the concussion at the back of his skull. Bringing his knees up -- a stretch, because he was gonna spring at the first opening -- Hwoarang pursed his lips and spit a sourness off to the side of him, and then he asked in a measured tone, " .. where's Jin?"

"Dunno. Not here." With a little 'tfthh,' he spat that toothpick onto the table by his snakeskinned leg. After a moment his thin lips curled into a wolfish smile.

"Shoulda seem him fall. Like a sack of bricks." Folding the paper into quarters he tossed it onto the table and stretched his arms behind his head.

"If you hurt him -- I swear .. !" Hwoarang spat through grinding front teeth. "I'm gonna rip your balls off!" The Korean began jerking at his constraints, testing the metal that only became more lacerating with each movement, cutting into his skin. The rage of disempowerment drove him to stomp his bare feet on the floor furiously, soiling the blue gi he wore further.

"You're gon-na rip-my balls-off," Fury echoed slowly. And then he set his chair down and began to rise from it, with equal slowness. All this slowness; like the viper eyeing its mouse before the strike. He came closer, his boots sounding lowly against the smooth, cold grey-blue concrete; just out of Hwoarang's range. He bent forward.

"You, little girl, aren't gonna do nothin' but die."

"Die? What for?" The adolescent's large eyes were weighted with the speed of his thoughts on his possibilities. When his mouth curled in a nasty sneer, he curled his fingers into his palms to form fists.

" .. gotta tie people up to beat 'em now? That what you do? Have a little dignity, for chrissakes."

"Y'know... I'm not a dumb guy. They did me good; I got a fucking pentium seventeen in here," he said lowly as he tap-tap-tapped his temple with a finger, "but I'm a little -- CRAZY."

As he spoke the last word he faked a lunge at Hwoarang with a fist, before settling back in a crouch. Still that smile, like it was plastered to his face, or sewn on there.

"So you might wanna watch yourself. Jussa suggestion, me to you."

The memory of one fist's capability rendered Hwoarang's flinch from the fake an entire repulse of the body, his face turned away with a violence that plastered the profile in orange silk. His chest heaved just a bit, skin slightly hollowing at the collarbone. When he spoke again, it was sans sneer and teasing and bait.

"What do you want? You went through all that trouble to kill me? What for?"

"What trouble," he felt inclined to ask first. His thin lips stretched into the semblance of a smile. "Your girlfriend's got a little ... problem, doesn't she," he asked. He reached forward, wanting to touch Hwoarang's soft-looking hair.

"The only problem Jin's got is you, you fucking nut. And it looks like -- " The transient desire was denied; Hwoarang's visage shifted subtly so his eyes could ravage the stern face of his captor if his legs couldn't. They took in position and distance so the latter might be possible in a few seconds. " .. his problem's become my problem."

"YOU KNOW," Fury barked, before rejoining much calmer, almost purring, "...I didn't shackle your legs for a reason." He leaned in slowly, his voice dropping an octave. Hwoarang's epithets rolled past his immune ears, but when one denied Fury something, one was playing with Snake Eye fire. "Because I want you to give me one reason, one fucking reason, to pick one of your legs and crush every bone in it, one at a time, for your toes to your hip."

Now was time for a swallow of consideration, and the curve of Hwoarang's adam's apple shivered as he did so. He let his lengthy weapons rest where they were, and relied on the spears of his irises. Somehow he knew they were thrusting at a gaze already dead.

" .. like you did my hand? You sick fuck. You need to get another hobby, 'cause stalking and torturing people from the tourney who can take your ass is a poor pastime."

Bryan looked at Hwoarang as though unable to place him, or as though seeing him for the first time. A hand snaked forward, cupping Hwoarang's face with a thumb pressed against one cheek, his palm under his chin and his four meaty fingers against the opposite cheek. He turned the Korean's face to the side so that he could press his own against it, brushing his nose just under Hwoarang's ear as he smelled him.

"You hot little pussy," he breathed in something between a grunt and a moan. "If I wasn't dead I'd fuck you till you were shitting blood and still you'd be begging for more.." Bryan smelled like tobacco and antiseptic and dry, lingering death.

Outrage was probably what Fury wanted -- some anger to fuel that sick amusement he must have gotten from this entire spectacle. Hwoarang felt it; his tendons went tight with it, and his flesh went hot with it, and he jerked his bindings again. But he staved down nausea and masked a voice that wanted to shout with anger in a murmur of mild indignance.

"You have better options than this, you perverted fuck. Try viagra?"

That grip on Hwoarang's face grew tighter. ...And tighter ... and tighter...

Fury jerked himself roughly off of the boy with something of a scowl, rising to his feet. His fingers were twitching.

"Wanna kill you so bad..." he muttered, mostly to himself. "But I can't. Gotta wait."

"Wait .. ?" Feigning an excited scan about, Hwoarang scoffed, " .. who else's coming to the party?" /Where is Jin .. / He examined his cell of captivity more closely, breathing in the dampness and stale and scent of death and expelling in loathing quickly.

"Weeeell, I'm countin' on your girlfriend." Bryan turned and went back to the table to reclaim his toothpick. It was on the table next to an ashtray and a large silver lighter. There were no cigarettes in sight and the ashtray was clean.

"Figured she'd be here by now. Maybe she forgot about you."

"He won't come." /Please don't come./ " .. he'll send his army of men in here with uzis and shit. You better grab a kevlar vest or something, because they'll probably napalm your stinking ass!" If Jin's 'problem' could make it so, Hwoarang yelled so he could be heard and heeded. The thought put him in mind of the fact and the first creases of apprehension appeared in his smooth face. He never wanted to see Jin like that again, but it seemed like never wasn't a promise.

Oddly enough, Fury was very calm. He turned the paper with his fingers to skim the headlines again.

"Nah. He'll be coming on his own. I figured this'd be enough for that little problem of his to start acting up again... The one with the wings and the thirst for blood. It's like stealing the egg out from under the momma bird."

"You're fucking with something you shouldn't be, Fury .. !" Hwoarang's legs were flat out before him, and then they were bent upward, and then they were stretched out again.

"Whine whine whine..." he said atop Hwoarang's words as he reached for his shades.

Hwoarang looked around in a mild panic.

With his shades in place, Bryan's shoulders seemed to relax a little. Reaching for the lighter he somehow managed to wedge it into a pocket. It was probably easy to wear pants that tight when one didn't have to worry about circulation. Or ever taking them off, for that matter. For a very long minute he simply watched Hwoarang; or at least, his face was turned in that direction. His eyes were impossible to make out behind their black shielding.

"...had hair like that too," he realized distantly, the thought fading into voice midway and ending similarly. His inspection continued for a moment more, and then with a blank and apathetic face, Bryan turned and started to walk away.

He wasn't in any mood right now to receive whatever asking might inspire the pallid fiend to give him, so Hwoarang only growled at the impotence of his present coil and squeezed his eyes shut. Jin would be here soon if Fury hadn't killed him -- and that was a good thing at least, Jin being alive. Hwoarang'd knocked the demon out before; he could probably do it again. And whatever Jin was would knock the animation that kept the inhuman Bryan Fury living so monstrously. It was worth the risk, wasn't it?

The distance between them reduced Bryan's voice to a metallic echo, layered and slow to die: "Wouldn't recommend you sleep much. Rats around. They get hungry; might think you're dead."

The hinges of a door moaned under obvious weight, and a second later the door's slam shut boomed throughout the huge room. It faded away, and all was silent again. For now.

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