Ritya Fiction

[Freyja Smoke]

a/n - Okay, so I was up late the night before a busy day while I was STILL trying to get over this cold, but... but... the idea was THERE, dammit, it'd been there for days and now that it was finally coagulating into something TYPE-ABLE I could hardly just let it go, right?

Right?

Meh. I dun care. It's done, it flows... okay, I guess, but this is coming from an exhausted sick person.


Summary: Late-night drabble on what Ritya's thoughts boil down to during his "stay" at Midnight. All mis-characterizations (and grammar/spelling errors) I apologize for in advance, and urge you to send me corrections on how your character would act (read: Celeste and Kaz). ^^

Warnings: PG-13
Few, actually. Mention of sex, torture, revenge and violence, but nothing's actually depicted. There might be swearing.




At the End
By k-chan

It was dark, and Ritya hurt again.

He shouldn?t have done it. He?d been stupid again, stupid and arrogant. Mistress didn?t like his arrogance. He knew it annoyed her, and it wasn?t smart to annoy Mistress, the same way it wasn?t smart to tear apart a hornet?s nest with bare hands. The resulting fury came from all sides, buzzing and stinging again and again and again, all over and everywhere until all that was left was blinding, searing pain. Pain that leaked into his blood and poisoned his body and fused with his muscles and bones so he ached long after it had ended, after he?d healed.

Upsetting Mistress was the dumbest thing a person could do, and yet Ritya couldn?t stop himself from doing it.

Perhaps it was something in his gut, something secret still buried deep inside that wouldn?t let him give in. Whatever it was, it wasn?t his survival instincts, because at this rate it was going to get him killed. Mistress had long since convinced him that his rebelliousness was pointless; Ritya no longer thought about escaping, only staying alive. Staying alive and pleasing Mistress, which wasn?t hard if he tried. Mistress?s desires weren?t all that complicated, really. She never played head games or tricked him or made him guess what it was she wanted. She always told him what she wanted, made it sweet and obvious, and all Ritya ever had to do to make her happy was do it without complaint.

The doing, he had down. ?Without complaint? was a painful work in progress.

Why did he do it? Why did he fight? Why did he continue to listen to that voice in his gut, the one that told him to hesitate or curl his lip or ? worst of all ? mutter something under his breath while completing his task? She never hurt him, otherwise. If he was good, she made bloodletting pleasurable, just like she had promised to do back before Ritya had become her property. And it wasn?t as though her demands consumed all of his time. Every day he had hours on end to wander at leisure. Midnight was not so bad a place to live. Luxury was at his feet. So why did he fight this? Why did he try to cling to some semblance of his formal self, when it would be so much smarter, so much easier, so much less painful to just? let go?

Because somewhere deep in his core, where the voices still whispered, he knew that he couldn?t forget. Couldn?t forget his emotions, couldn?t forget himself. If he forgot himself, he would forget his hatred, and if he forgot that? he?d forget that he still had to kill Akahebi Kazuo.

Ritya had cried once since coming to Midnight, and that was all. Crying was weak and pointless, and made him hideous, besides, which was another thing that upset Mistress, for some reason. Crying had never gotten Ritya anywhere good, even before he?d become Mistress?s pet. It hadn?t made people like him, it hadn?t brought his parents back? and it hadn?t made what Kaz had done to him any less real. Ritya never cried unless there was something to cry about, and even then he tried not to. Always, always, he?d always had to be strong first, strong for himself and strong for his sister. While he was busy crying, time slipped by, time he could have spent making things better, making himself better. Crying made him weak, and to hold his tears in was one of those parts of himself that he still refused to let go of. It was what made him him.

But that first day at Midnight, when Mistress had told him solemnly who had kidnapped him, drugged him, beaten him, sold him into this cycle of pain and endless despair? for that one night, he?d made an exception, and cried until his heart and body had ceased to feel.

Ritya hadn?t been that close to his parents. He had loved them, surely, but he had always made them nervous. They had never known what to do with him, never known what to make of his prideful streak that resulted in cuts and stitches on a weekly basis. Not even Soleil, the sister who loved him unconditionally despite his smoking, his drinking and his hobby of sneaking out at night to hang out with gang members downtown, had really known what to do with him except stay by his side. Ritya had never felt accepted, felt understood, felt seen for more than he appeared until he had come to the Guilds. Sure, Dom had shot him, Ebere had put a knife to his throat and Kazuo had mocked him until Ritya was red in the face and fuming, but afterwards they had all taken him in and pushed him to be better. Each of them, in their own way, had told him that they believed in him, in his ability to be more than a sarcastic, short-tempered idiot with a cigarette addiction and tendency to break the law. They had pushed him to be someone who could stand up for himself and the people he cared about. They had pushed him to be something.

Each of them, in his or her own way, had looked at Ritya?s prideful streak, and then given him something to be proud of.

If it had been Dom to betray him, Ritya wouldn?t have held a grudge. He?d have been mad as hell and hoped someone?d take a bullet to the bastard, but his need for revenge wouldn?t have been fueled. Had it been Ebere to sell him into here, he would have been upset, but similarly not quite felt betrayed. It would have been cruel, but it wouldn?t have been personal. Kazuo? Ritya still didn?t know why it was different. Maybe it was how the Japanese Hunter had always teased Ritya, messed with him, made those lewd comments with a wink and a smile. Maybe it was how he?d listened to Ritya, responded to him, made him feel as though the older, better Hunter really cared. Maybe it was? how he?d pretended to actually want Ritya.

Maybe it was how he?d acted as though he loved him.

Kazuo had not loved Ritya. Ritya had known it then, he knew it now, and he knew it wouldn?t change at all in the future. Kazuo didn?t love anyone, or at least not the people he slept with. Ritya could have been okay with that. Sex had never been recreational for him, not to the extent that it was for Akahebi, but it had felt good inside and out in a way he wouldn?t have minded repeating for a while. That Kazuo had wanted him at all had been flattery enough to push Ritya the last inch towards giving in. That Kazuo had wanted him? that Kazuo had wanted him? It had made him feel special. Kazuo slept with a lot of people, but he didn?t sleep with just anyone. The people he coaxed into bed were all ? for lack of a better word ? beautiful. Ritya didn?t see himself as beautiful, never had, but for those few hours spent sweating and writhing beneath Kazuo?s hands? he?d felt beautiful.

For the first time in his life, he?d felt like someone who mattered, someone who wasn?t just there to waste space and die.

He?d felt like he had a chance at love, at life, at a future, even if it wasn?t with Kazuo. Jenny Talbot was crossing Ritya?s mind an awful lot these days, or at least she had prior to this whole mess, and he didn?t quite object to the wistful daydreams about maybe dating her. Ritya liked Jenny. She made him laugh. She didn?t make him feel stupid. She didn?t flinch or run away when he was in a bad mood. As for her family, well? Sabine hadn?t grown on him, per se, but he didn?t irritate Ritya enough that joining the Talbot family would automatically be a thing to regret. Not that Ritya planned to marry Jenny, or sleep with her, or think of her that way at all, for that matter, not if she didn?t want him to. He?d be perfectly fine remaining her friend. Just? if the opportunity arose that she wouldn?t mind? Ritya wouldn?t object.

Except it didn?t look like any of that was going to happen now, because he?d been betrayed and sold into a Hell from which there was no escape.

Why had this happened to him? When had his life begun moving down the path leading to here, without him even noticing? If he had noticed, could he have made it stop? Was it something he could have controlled, or had he been destined to become Mistress?s pet since that night when she?d left him bloodless and cold on the street? What if he had never made friends with Kazuo? What if he had turned down Ebere?s training? Heck, what if he?d just never mouthed off at Dom? Had that bullet been the start of it? Would not getting shot have kept this from happening?

Could he have changed it if he?d tried?

Ritya was going to live. Not just survive, but live. He was going to hold onto that part of himself that still whispered at his core, even if it got him in trouble, even if it earned him pain. He was going to remember himself, where he came from, how he?d gotten here, and why. Lying on this bed, encased in darkness, molten with pain and dreading another fearful day to come, Ritya knew he would always wake up and remind himself why he would stay alive.

Ritya was stupid, he was arrogant, he was short-tempered and he had a prideful streak a mile long. He didn?t always say the right thing and he didn?t always catch what was going on, but for once in his life he was sure of one thing without a single doubt.

Somewhere deep in his core, where the voices still whispered, he knew that he couldn?t forget. Couldn?t forget his emotions, couldn?t forget himself. If he forgot himself, he would forget his hatred, and if he forgot that?

He?d forget that he still had to kill Akahebi Kazuo.



~ Owari

[Charles Hawthorne]

Hmm. Interesting.

Before I go on, I'd just like to say that I really liked it.

C?leste is OOC, and if she'd actually been activly training him for long enough that he always refered to her as 'Mistress,' even in his thoughts, then he wouldn't have had that much sense of self left, no matter how much he wanted revenge. He also wouldn't be scared of her at that point - he would love her. Openly. Ardently. She would be the only thing in any world that mattered in the slightest, to dissapoint her would be to die, to please her would be Heaven.

Now then, if this all were about 300-250 years ago, she would actually be characterized more or less perfectly. She worked a lot with pain in the early days and her temper was... fairly short. Not anymore tho! She also wouldn't normally explode like that at a pet, and if he was out and about in the public eye again, she probably wouldn't need to. She might hurt him, but it wouldn't be because she was mad. She only rarely really looses her temper nowadays(whichisagoodthingfortheworldatlarge....) - signs of defiance probably wouldn't do it, she would just take it as a sign that she had more work to do.

HOWEVER, you can't change the way that you wrote her so that she would be IC for the present or you would have no plot. After all, he wouldn't be... Ritya anymore. He would be an extension of his Mistress - what she wanted him to do, say and think is exactly what would happen. Really, the only thing that I could think of that would make it all work is to reset it to the point where she's breaking him instead of when (from the sound of things) he's been her pet for quite some time. If you dunwanna, I am ok with her staying this way. Like I said, I like the way it's written

...Or, for the easy solution where everyone stays more or less IC, you could just do an AU thing so that it was young!C?leste who owned Ritya! Somehow. ;p

On a different note, I really like how you described her fury. Like, a lot. That is exactly how it is, if you take into account that the hornets go for every weak point that you (and possibly all those that you love, it depends on how mad she is) possess. Well, for the current C?leste. Her younger version would be content with just lots and lots of pain.

Ebere would also like me to say that she is flattered that he likes her that much, dissapointed that he thinks that she does not love him (you know, in her own way...) and downright angry that he would even think of her selling him into Midnight, even if it was entirly and hypothetically only how he would feel about it. That such a thing could even come close to crossing his mind has her glaring at the world in general.

... Hmm. Maybe she'll end up telling him what happened to her, when/if he asks her why she's so psyco about vampires. Or maybe before. She's not a real open person, but she really does like Ritya. He's almost kinda in a way a surgate cub.

0_o

Ebere would be a baaaaad mom.

...

And great, now you've gotten me thinking about Ebere and stories from Midnight at the same time, so now I have to write about how she escaped. *sigh*

[Samuel Croft]

^_^ Wow... thanks. I didn't think I'd get such... wordy reviews. I'm glad I did, however, and I appreciate the specific feedback on what you liked and why.

Muchly thanks to blue for the lengthy explantion of tweaks I can make to put Celeste more IC. That was my biggest concern writing this at all, not having much of an idea what it'd be like for Ritya once he was in her clutches and locked up at Midnight. Like you said, if I'm to keep it current with the timeline, the best I can do is push the timing back to when she's still breaking him, and he's only been there for a bit. I'll discuss this more with you to get a better idea; how quickly she'd go about it, what methods would she use, what kinds of things could he do to make her angry and thus earn himself pain... ect. Thanks for the crit; my biggest pet peeve in fanfiction is bad characterization, which I why I usually avoid writing it. I'm glad that at least in this case, I have the creator around to correct me. ^^

Bex: ^^ Awww, thankies. You know how much I :heart: your stuff, it really makes me all gooey inside to hear that you like something I ground out at 1am while I was sick. (Er... it's Friday and I'll take care of myself this weekend, I promise? :ph34r: ) Ritya doesn't cry often, although I do believe that this upcoming plottage makes it possible that it will happen. Writing this also helped me a lot, in understanding where he's coming from and how he feels about certain things. (It also FINALLY explains to me why he'd sleep with Kaz in the first place, b/c in the beginning I was like, "Why would you do that, you're not gay!!" And he's really not. ... I cannot believe I have a female-inclined male character. Whenever did this happen?)  And finally, yes, Ritya has developed a bit of a... possibly-romantic-fondness of Jenny, but so far only in my head. He says not to let her become lesbian, b/c that kind of kills his chances for dating her. (However, if she did become a lesbian anyway... He sighs and says he'll march with her in the parade. Might even help her find a girlfriend.)


So thanks so much for the reviews, it makes a tired sick person grin like a loon. ^^