Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Beating Hearts are Overrated ❯ Ein ( Chapter 1 )

Disclaimer: This is an original work. The characters and the story are mine.

 

 

Dedication: To Lauren, without whom (even if she doesn't know it) this story could not have existed.

 

 

A/N: Just to be clear, this story will involve male relations in addition to the weirdness. Anything sexual will likely be more suggestive than explicit, but if this particular breed of romance just doesn't mesh with your sensibilities, this is your place to make a quick, dignified exit.

 

 

xXx

 

 

"Silence is...golden.   Duct tape is...silver."

 

 

xXx

 

 

He must have passed out. Very rude of him, seeing as he hadn't paid for that last drink. Would the bartender keep him at his stool until he woke, or kick him out at closing with the other drunks?

 

 

Sho slowly cracked a gritty eyelid, hoping his first sight of the morning would not be a pissy bartender. When he was met with only darkness, he opened both eyes fully. Over
the pounding headache his hangover was bestowing upon him, he felt the pressure of fabric against his eyes. A blindfold, then? Lovely. Hopefully there was a naked girl within a five-foot radius to accompany it. Bondage was definitely the less alarming of the possible scenarios.

 

Could he take it off? Ah. No. He gave his wrists another experimental jerk before deciding that whoever had tied them behind his back knew their knots. A little too well, in fact. He determined from the sluggish pressure in his fingers that his circulation was at least partially cut off.

 

Now to move... It seemed his ankles were bound as well. He was curled on his side. When he stopped to really absorb his surroundings, he became aware of steady motion. On a hunch he rolled over and tried to extend his body fully. Not even close. He could feel the scratchiness of polyester fiber against his skin. A car trunk, then.

 

Aside from his raging hangover, he wasn't in any pain. A date-rape drug would explain passing out at the bar, but he didn't feel like anything had been shoved... there. It would have been humiliating, to say the least. Girls and pretty boys got raped. He was a man. He was tall and broad-shouldered and… manly. No, rape had to be out. 

 

 

Kidnapping? Teenage girls and children. Right? He barely had any money, same for the family. He didn't owe anybody, and he didn't have any enemies that he knew of. He had heard of people being kidnapped for prostitution rings - but again, that was for women, pretty boys, children. Who the hell kidnapped a man? He was just two inches shy of six feet! Tall people, tall men, did not get themselves kidnapped.

 

With his frustration growing by the second, he lashed out, his knees slamming against a wall with a dull thunk. A very loud thunk. Loud enough, apparently, for the driver to hear. He hadn't thought about it until he felt the car sputter and stop, but a person had put him here. The same person who was now opening the trunk.

 

Shit.

A rush of cool air welcomed him when the ceiling of his prison was lifted. It felt like night, but he had no way of being sure. He hadn't even realized it was hot in the trunk. Probably running out of oxygen, then. Just how long had he been in there? How far away from home was he by now?

 

Indifferent hands jerked him up and out, their movements nothing but cool precision. They felt... elegant. Almost delicate, like lace made from steel. A woman? Taking a chance, he slammed himself into the body owning those hands.

 

And found himself better acquainted with the car in which he had been traveling, the side of his head soundly bludgeoned against a taillight. Even in this the hands were calm, economy of motion in flesh. They did not seem to hold anger so much as a perceived action-reaction. 

Then they were dragging him up, half pushing-half carrying him forward as he could not walk. So now I get thrown into a ditch and shot, right?

Still dazed from his hangover and the recent assault to his skull, he almost didn't register the quiet opening of a door. He was most certainly aware, however, when he was released into a well-padded seat. Attempting to surge upward, he was met with a bored fist to the temple. Then the door slammed shut inches from his face. Heels - heels!? - clicked over pavement as his abductor walked around the car. The door opened, closed. There was the expensive rustle of silky fabric over leather just before the engine purred to life.

At another time, the prospect of time spent with a very rich woman in a very nice (most likely Italian) sports car would have been more than enticing. At present, Sho was confused as hell. And by now, way too pissed off to be afraid.

"I don't suppose asking you to let me out would do me any good."

There was a long pause, stretched thin with irritation. Just as he had resigned himself to the silence, he was answered.

The voice was certainly masculine, low and without inflection. This provided some small comfort. That it at least took a man to stuff him into the trunk of a car was perversely reassuring. 

"No, I don't suppose it would."

Sho tried surging forward experimentally. His hands were still low behind his back, making the belt snug. With a frustrated grunt, he slumped back in his seat.

He still could not see, but he heard the asphalt give way to something softer, and then some material which crunched beneath the tires like gravel.

He felt something ripple through his body like an icy wave. He shivered, and wondered how he could possibly be dry.

A pause. The engine was still purring quietly, but they had stopped. For whatever reason.

"You know," he said amicably, wondering when his bravado would give way to hysteria "I feel like I should know your name before whatever is going to happen happens. It would be kinda shitty, if you kill me and I don't even know what to call you."

Again, the voice was flat, even cold. The man, whoever he was, spoke as though answering the question was the most tedious chore imaginable. But he did answer.

"My name is Naomi."

And then the blindfold was gone.

 

 

xXx

 

 

The first thing he noticed was the pair of hands tucking away the blindfold, their movements as precise and emotionless as he remembered. They really were delicate things, all slim, tapered fingers and immaculate nails. The nails were short for a woman, he decided - but long for a man.

 

If his captor was really a man. He was having his doubts.

"So is this some new crime wave? Trannies gone psycho?"

He thought he saw the man/woman/person's eyes flicker. It could have just been an idle blink, however - and either way, it wasn't the reaction he was hoping for. In the movies killers always babbled, spilled motives and helpful tidbits in every direction. His silent driver, he decided, was far creepier than any amount of psychobabble could ever be.

He was jerked out of his reverie by slender fingers threading through his hair to cup the back of his skull with terrifying gentleness. They stilled for a moment, and it was long enough to send a tremor down his spine. The digits were icy - far too cold for what he now knew to be a balmy summer night.

Then his face was slammed into the dashboard. He felt his nose break, felt the blood gush over his mouth and chin.

That maddening voice was back, its flatness laced with chilly amusement. It seemed to fill the entire car, press down upon him. It slid mercilessly in through his pores as he righted himself. He breathed heavily through his mouth, trying for all he was worth not to choke on the blood.

"You're not very bright, are you?"

The hands returned. From the corners of unfocused eyes he saw the slender figure leaning over and twisting in its seat for easier access. They fluttered over the bridge of his nose, frozen fingertips lightly seeking the break. He flinched reflexively. One distracted hand closed about his throat. It slammed him back in the seat, kept him firmly pressed against the headrest. The other hand continued as if it had encountered no obstruction.

It came to rest at the source of the pain, the touch of fingertips so light as to almost be hovering. He was reminded incongruously of a hummingbird. The thought was banished when the fingers tightened, sending another wave of hot pain crashing through his skull, making his eyes roll back in his head.

Naomi snapped the broken bone into place with all the emotion most people invested in striking a match.

A scream clawed its way from his throat, closer to a roar than any sound he had ever heard generated by a human being. Even as he felt it ripping at his lungs, some detached part of him was relieved to note that at least he still sounded like a man, no matter what his circumstances might be.

He didn't hear Naomi get out of the car, didn't feel the hands - those damn hands - that unbuckled him, cut him loose, and wrested him from the car with numb efficiency.

He did see the streetlights. Humming fluorescent white from the confines of wrought iron poles that towered and twisted above his head. He saw a dingy brick apartment building, the violent purple of the bricks made all the more surreal by the mausoleum sitting calmly at its side on the crowded street. He looked upward, and saw a sky streaked with burgundy and indigo, densely packed with silver stars like glitter spilled over velvet.

He forgot Naomi for an instant, forgot his situation entirely. He was swallowed up by the feeling of strangeness. Even the air tasted different. It wasn't just a place he had never been before - it was a place at odds with the world. He could feel the wrongness of it in his very bones, and it made him tremble.

 

 

Sho could have spent years frozen amid his surreal surroundings, but a soft sound made him turn sharply. That alone was striking - there was no other noise save the faint humming of the lamps. There were no insects, no traffic, no human voices.

 

 

Only the soft, wet sound behind him, amplified in the near-silence. The sudden movement set his head to throbbing once more, but even with his eyesight wavering dangerously he could distinguish Naomi licking a fingertip. His vision cleared even as Naomi became aware of the scrutiny. The kittenish tongue instantly retracted, but Sho did not miss the sanguine smear on pale skin.

 

 

That was his blood moistening Naomi's mouth. Even as revulsion turned his stomach, base instincts told him to flee. But the coldly hysterical part of his mind quashed the screaming desire to survive. Where was there to run?

 

 

Naomi almost wiped his sullied fingers of his clothing. Then he seemed to consider the quality of the heavy black silk from which his jacket and slacks were tailored. After a moment's deliberation, he wiped the stain onto Sho's shirt.

 

 

In those few efficient moments, Sho let himself examine the cause of his current situation. Naomi could not only have easily passed himself off as a woman, but the sort of woman capable of stopping traffic. He was of an average height, and every inch of him appeared as delicate as his pianist's hands. Were it not for the unceasing aches Naomi had caused him, Sho never would have believed the man to be any stronger than a child.

 

 

The amber head lifted from its concentrated incline. The cold fingers released his shirt and allowed the fabric to fall against his stomach. The icy skin made brief contact, but Sho's urge to flinch was sluggish. By the time he jerked, his collar was firmly captured and tugged as Naomi strode forward.

 

 

His captor led him straight toward the mausoleum.

 

 

It was at the last foot that Sho dug his heels in, earning a glance both stoic and irritated from over Naomi's dark shoulder.

 

 

He no longer had any illusions of a long life, however. And damned if he was going to take this meekly. His voice did shake slightly, but the tremor was almost hidden by thick, acid sweet sarcasm.

 

 

“You know that vampires aren't real, right?”

 

 

Naomi went completely still for half a moment. It was not the lack of motion he was accustomed to seeing in a body at rest. Rather, for that fraction of a second it seemed the man was carved from cold marble.

 

 

It was gone so quickly that Sho could not be sure he had seen it. The faintest of sardonic grins tugged at the corners of Naomi's mouth with deadly humor. His dry tone was perfectly steady, mocking Sho's unease.

 

 

“And I'm sure you know that human beings are inherently idiotic.”

 

 

Naomi released his collar to dig his nails deep into Sho's jugular. He pulled the enormous door open single-handedly and dragged Sho in behind him.

 

 

The shadow of a smirk remained, as if he found immense amusement in some private joke.

 

 

xXx

 

 

A/N: If you didn't like this, I'm sorry for my own deficiencies. If you enjoyed it, I can only beg you to tell me. I have little to no faith in my writing in most moments, as much as I adore the process. I also adore constructive criticism.

 

 

With that said: Leijhana tu'sai to all readers and reviewers!