the remarkable misfortunes of ryan ross

Chapter 6- Ryan's Remarkable Misfortunes

Terrifying. This was utterly, and unrelentingly terrifying.

Ryan was alone, cold, damp, with bars in front of him, and a single guard on the other side asleep at what looked to be a mixture between a podium and a desk.

Ryan was chained around the waist to the back wall of the stone cell. A single, tiny window, too far above his head for him to see out, lit the low arched ceiling in dim blue light.

Where had everybody else been taken? Surely they didn't have a single cell for each person? Had Brendon arranged for this? He hadn't done anything to deserve solitary confinement; although, he was very grateful to receive it.

Ryan had never been a particularly confident person. In general he was shy, and really didn't like people all that much. It was not that he didn't care about people; it was more that he felt nervous being around a lot of them at once, or at least a lot of new ones. Right now, everything around was new. New people, new places, new things. At least, in solitary confinement, most of the new people were gone...

"Um, excuse me, sir?" Ryan's timid voice was barely audible beneath his short stabbing breaths. "Um, I'm sorry to wake you up," and Ryan was telling the truth. He didn't want to upset the man because he didn't want to be hit anymore, especially not in his ribs which seemed to be the only place people wanted to hit him as of late.

The guard didn't budge; his head still down in his arms on the table in front of him.

"I – um, it really hurts to breathe. I'm afraid I'm going to stop being able to."

Each breath felt like it was crushing against the side of Ryan's ribcage; he didn't know what was wrong with him, but he did know that breathing was becoming unbearable.

The guard still did not move except for the steady rise and fall of his arched back.

"I guess you're still asleep?" Ryan mumbled more to himself than anyone else.

"No, unfortunately the noise from your jagged breath doesn't allow for comforts such as sleep." The Guard turned his head to face Ryan, still resting it in his arms, "but what do you want me to do about it? You shouldn't have pissed off the wrong people."

The guard started to put his face back into the crook of his elbow before Ryan stopped him.

"I was promised I could see a doctor!"

Ryan bit lightly on the tip of his tongue, edgy about angering the guard, a person he really needed on his side.

"Promised a doctor?" the guard laughed. "Of course, lets get a doctor who could be helping an upstanding citizen in dire need of his attention so that he can tend to the sniveling delinquent locked up in prison."

"I'm not a delinquent. My father couldn't pay his debts, but it wasn't his fault either."

Ryan felt something hard forming at the bottom of his throat. This wasn't fair; the prince had ordered them to let him see a doctor.

"I was PROMISED --"

"By whom? The Collector?"

"By the prince of England, Brendon Boyd Urie," Ryan tried to make it sound as impressive as he could, but the guard merely snickered.

"You expect me to believe that?" The guard sat up and started fumbling with the keys around his waist. "You expect me to believe that you and the prince have even laid eyes on one another?"

He swung the door open, and Ryan shut his eyes. This was it; he was going to get another punch in the ribs and that would be the end of everything... The pain would be too much; Ryan wouldn't be able to breathe, and he would die... but the blow never came.

Ryan slowly opened his eyes again and saw the stubbled face of the guard squatting mere inches in front of his own. The guard sighed, with a look of vague pity and clear disdain.

"I feel for you," the guard nodded, "I really do. You remind me of my son. He's a pretty, small framed, lad himself. He gets sick easy, doesn't have a lot of friends."

Ryan stared the man in the eyes, hoping to somehow silently convey everything he'd been through and gain enough sympathy to get to see a doctor.

"And much like you," the guard rolled on, "he lies. Now, I don't blame you for lying. You need medical attention, or you'll probably die... in a place like this."

Ryan clinched his eyes shut, of course the man thought he was a liar. Who would believe a boy like him had been randomly handed a reprieve by the prince of England.

"But you're even prettier than my son."

Ryan opened his eyes at the guard's words. Had his body not hurt so much he would have shivered.

"Pretty enough to be a girl. You do know what you are going to be used for, don't you?"

Ryan shook his head.

"It's rumors, all of it, so don't wash my mouth if it's all a lie, but the king is looking to present his sons with a particular kind of toy."

"A toy?" Ryan lowered his head in confusion. It was hard to process anything when all he could think about was pain.

"Yes, a toy. A living, breathing, plaything." The man let his words hang on the air for a moment before continuing, "You see, one of his sons, doesn't really like 'girls', and the other one, well he's a chronic asshole."

"A – How am I supposed to fix that?"

"You don't fix it; you serve the need." The guard tilted his head, enjoying Ryan's befuddled complexion. "You see, the French government needs to make a strategic alliance with England. The King would never give his first born, with a direct claim to the throne, over as a battering tool."

"I thought they were twins?"

"Brent came out first, very important if you're royalty." The man clicked his tongue against the top of his mouth as though to chide Ryan for his ignorance. "But since the king possesses a spare so close to the original heir, he plans to use Brendon as the sacrificial lamb in his alliance with France."

"An arranged marriage?" Ryan prompted.

"Exactly! Except if France found out about Brendon's more frivolous preferences it could be a disaster."

"Oh."

"So that is where you come in. One person, one toy, pretty enough to take his mind off of all the other boys he might fancy, serve his needs in secret, and after he has gotten over such youthful indiscretions, because the King is under the delusion that this is a phase he's going to somehow magically outgrow, then... you will be taken away." The guard shrugged as though all of this made perfect sense to Ryan, which, in no way, it did.

"And the other twin? Brent? Something like that? Why does he need my services if he isn't all that interested in boys?" Ryan's eyes darted around the guard's face for an answer.

"You really don't want to know." The guard sat back on his haunches. "But look, seeing as you are now aware of your likely purpose in this castle, and it's obvious from your disgustingly 'weak' and 'feminine' nature --"

"I am not weak and--"

"--that you prefer a particularly tabooed gender."

The guard turned his ear towards Ryan's silent response as if waiting for the boy to cry out in outrage, but there was nothing but silence to be heard.

"No protests? Well then, if that is the case, let's you and me make a deal." The guard leaned in close again, "You really DO remind me of my son, and I would be willing to go and fetch you a doctor, since you insist that the prince 'ordered one for you' ... "

Ryan cringed, "What do I have to do to persuade you?"

"Well, I'm not really like you and Brendon, I'd like to think that I am much more like Brent." The guard smiled opening a row of brown and black teeth. "I prefer the power. The control." He paused to listen to Ryan's strenuous breathing, "The humiliation."

"Please," Ryan begged; he wasn't above begging at this point.

"Suck on these." The man shoved two of his dirt, calloused fingers into Ryan's view. "Show me what a good job you plan on doing for Brendon, and then I'll decide if you are talented enough to keep around."

"I --" Ryan choked for a minute.

The fingers hung in front of his face, and he stared at the crusted digits, black grit under the nails, hair along the knuckles. He was a human being; he had to live with this shit for the rest of his life. It wasn't fair.

"-- am in a lot of pain." Ryan said it more to himself than the guard. Trying to talk himself into doing this; trying to reason as to why it was okay, and he could forget about it having happened later on. "Do you promise you'll let me see a doctor?"

"If you do as I say and make it entertaining, then yes." The words came out in a surprisingly benevolent tone for a man who was about to humiliate another person for quaint amusement.

Ryan leaned forward, closed his long lashes over his eyes, and touched the top of the grubby fingers to the flesh of his lips. He opened his mouth, and the guard felt part of his hand suddenly surrounded in soft warmth, sliding the tips of his fingers against the smooth services of the boy's tongue, his nails digging into the delicate rivets of the roof and clinking against Ryan's perfect teeth.

Ryan's mouth flooded with what tasted like poison; it was all black and strong enough to waft up into his nostrils. He hated it, but he did his best; he circled his tongue around the fingers, and tried to remember what things he had fantasized about doing to Spencer after that one time they had 'experimented' together.

Until the last couple of days, he'd always fantasized about sex as being something pleasant. He'd always thought of staring into the other person's eyes while feeling something wonderful and warm build up in his chest. He thought of how the other person would make him smile because he couldn't help it... but not this. He hadn't known these kind of sexual feelings existed at all, and he hated it.

He decided then and there that he fucking hated sex. Period. He wanted nothing to do with it, because nothing good came of it. It wasn't about feeling warm, or smiling. It wasn't about doing something WITH someone; it was about them doing something to you. It was about being used to satisfy other people. It was primal, belittling, hateful, and dirty.

Ryan wished he could scrub away his skin.

The man ran his other hand along Ryan's swanlike neck, pushing his thumb roughly into the boys Adam's apple. Ryan pulled back for a second at the pain.

"Suck it up," the guard ordered.

Ryan did as he was told and the man continued groping down to Ryan's side and then rested his hand against the tender spot on Ryan's ribcage that he had seen the boy favor so often since his arrival.

He pressed his fingers, ever so slightly, against the wound, and Ryan gasped over the man's digits as pain flashed its way through his body. The man cleared his throat threateningly and Ryan continued what he was doing. He felt the man jab even harder into his side, and he did everything he could not to bite down on the guard's fingers out of pure anguish.

"Gag yourself."

The man's voice grated over Ryan's ears and the boy paused for a moment but then forced the fingers far enough into his throat that he choked.

"Again."

Ryan did it again and retched hard, water pouring from his eyes and dripping down his nose. His side was in so much pain he couldn't actually see much more than blurred dots.

"I want you to reach down with your hands," The man ordered, "and make yourself hard while I do this to you.

"I --" Ryan pulled back for a second, "I don't think I can." Pain was swimming in waved lines across his vision.

"Try."

He lowered his hand to his groin, no longer sure if the water dripping from his nose was due to gagging or if it were from actual tears.

"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!?"

Suddenly, the man froze, his hands still on Ryan's side and in Ryan's mouth. A look of terror chiseled across the guard's face.

Ryan pulled off of the fingers, and was now actually crying from the blinding pain, and the feeling of utter powerlessness that seemed to cake like a layer of grime over his body.

"What the hell is this about?"

Ryan saw the guard hauled up and tossed away from him by thick arms, and after wiping the tears away, he was able to make out Zack, the big guard from outside the castle.

"He came onto me," the guard cowered against the side wall where his body had been flung. "It was mutual your majesty."

Majesty? Ryan knew he had recognized the voice.

"Brendon?" he muttered, dazed out of his mind but searching frantically around the room until he saw the other boy standing in the shadowed staircase just outside his cell.

"Don't address me so informally." The prince turned his attention back toward the guard. "I HAD come to see if he was receiving the doctorial care I had requested. Obviously, my presence was needed for other things --"

"Your majesty, I never meant --"

" -- such as to relieve you of your duties."

"Your majesty. I have a family. I have a son. Please."

"If I see your face in this palace again," Brendon slowly stalked towards the man's sprawled body, "I will personally request that your son be executed."

"But-but his son did not do anything wrong. It would be unjust and unbecoming of you to punish an innocent person. I get the feeling his son suffers enough," Ryan said between short cutting breaths, "your majesty." He added after a moment, remembering the prince's orders about formality.

Brendon's scowl now turned towards the guard. "Zack, take this man's money, shoes, and cap. Walk him to the palace gates and show him out. When you are finished, please summon a doctor."

"Yes, your majesty,"

Ryan noticed that despite using the formal title the guard did not bow to the prince as he left. He wondered why not.

Brendon stood in contemplation for a moment, letting his eyes follow Zack and the blubbering guard up the winding staircase; he then slowly turned his attention back towards Ryan. There was a slight smile across the prince's lips

Shit. Ryan prayed the guard hadn't been telling the truth about his new 'purpose' in the palace, and prayed that Brendon had not merely been jealous because he had caught the guard playing with his 'toy' before he had gotten a turn.

Ryan licked his lips, almost too afraid to ask, "What do you want?"