Warnings: Serious AU, attempted rape
Pairings: SeijixTouma (SagexRowen)

Disclaimers: I don't own them and I think everybody knows that...

This fic is dedicated to Kyoki! This is yours, hon, like it or not. I'll try and hand Seiji and Touma to you on a lubricated silver platter, but we'll have to wait and see. ^-^
 

/flashbacks/
‘thoughts’

*************

Chapter 2

*************
 

“What the? That’s not a girl!” Yelled the large man.

“No, really?” Barked another.

“But it’s a royal litter, so…You must be…” A disgusting smile. “The prince.”

“But we’re supposed to kidnap the princess!”

The man with the knife rolled his eyes. “Big mouth…Now we’ll *have* to kill him.” Touma thought he didn’t sound all too disappointed. “But we can still have fun.” Another disgusting smile and appraising eyes raked over what of Touma he could see through the window. “He’s pretty enough for a girl.”

“Heh, shoulda married *him* off instead! Heh heh!” Another dark glare sent in big-mouth’s direction, and he looked down, submissively not saying another word. Without turning around, Touma’s attacker pulled the door of the litter clean off the hinges. Turning to face him, he reached in his empty hand.

‘Okay, think fast! They are armed, so I can’t attack head on. They outnumber me, so I can’t just try and wing it. And I’m wearing the worlds longest and heaviest robe, so I can’t expect to outrun them either. This is just great!’

The meaty hand wrapped around Touma’s wrist as he brought it up to his face, expecting to shield a blow to his face. The strong man had no problem flinging Touma outside, and his resistance amounted to nothing more than a tighter grip on his arm. He struggled as more eyes raked over his slim frame, wrapped in expensive blue silks and gray and white spotted furs. He shook his blue hair out of his deeper blue eyes and shot a glare at his attacker.

“How dare you-“ The back of a hand colliding with his face ended his speech very abruptly. His head whipped back from the force and he landed on his stomach in the snow. He looked darkly over his shoulder at the impudent fool. His cheek was already turning purple. He opened his mouth to speak again but only a scream came out as three men pinned his legs and arms. The attacker, by now obviously the leader, straddled Touma’s waist, licking his lips.

“No, prettier than a girl…”

He leaned down and ran his tongue across Touma’s bruised cheek, his rancid breath causing Touma to shudder. The leader’s weight pushed him deep into the snow, but not deep enough that he couldn’t feel his large erection grind against his hip. Touma felt bile and another scream rise to his throat.

He kicked his legs suddenly, throwing off one of the men, and used his free leg to kick the leader in the back of the head. He was outnumbered and out armed, but he was not outclassed. The leader growled as he pitched forward and smothered Touma in his sweaty vest. Touma groaned and kicked the man holding his other leg, and used both to kick the man holding his arms square in the face. He landed on his back, unmoving.

The leader lifted himself onto his elbows and drew the large knife again, pressing it very firmly against his neck. Touma froze, and the leader struck him another hard blow across his cheek. Touma bit back another cry, tasting blood in his mouth. He was struck again, on his other cheek and Touma could not suppress a cry this time. The blows came down again and again until the edges of his world turned gray and fuzzy.

Taking his lack of movement as submission, the leader thrust his large hands underneath Touma’s robes and tunics, rubbing thick, cold fingers across his abdomen. Touma shuddered again at the cold and revulsion as the hand started a southern journey, tearing cloth and pulling skin as he went. With a feral growl, he tore Touma’s blue pants off and hiked his knees over his shoulders.

His hands now free, he opened the front of his pants.

“We’ll see if he’s better than a girl…”
 

************
 

Seiji rubbed his temples, trying to fight off another headache. He and his entourage had ridden for over nine hours, but the extreme cold, biting wind, and damn un-navigable woods keeping them guessing how far they were actually getting. Seiji was trained as an expert hunter and guide through the woods of his homeland. He could read the ground, find the scent, see the clues of passage that no other being in all of Korin, aside from his father, could. Which was why he had a migraine.

They’d passed that tree three times.

“Sir, I think we should set up-“

“Dear God, yes let’s set up camp!” Seiji found an energy reserve to leap from his horse and unload his things. He’d been just about to suggest that they stop before it got any darker or he grew more intimate with any trees, but he always managed to hold his tongue just long enough to not have to reveal his true feelings.

He’d always been adept at hiding what he felt. He had to. Being a prince, any complaints or comments that anyone else could make made him seem spoiled. So he brooded, as everyone delighted in saying. He could care less. He was tired, his head hurt, and his subordinates were incompetent and had failed to report in.

‘How hard is it to navigate through a stinking dead, deserted forest?’ He coughed and pinked, then continued to set his things comfortably around his tent. If he was going to be away from home, he could at least make this breezy, ugly tan tent feel a little more cheerful. He just wanted the warm sensation of familiarity, not so much the plush comforts of palace life.

‘Still…an indoor bathroom would be nice…’
 

************
 

Deep in the warm, fuzzy tunnel of nothingness in Touma’s mind, he acknowledged a painful tearing sensation. He couldn’t pinpoint the location, and couldn’t force himself to care. He was warm and everything was peaceful. But that damn tearing was getting worse, and the somehow reassuring cold was replaced with an unsettling warmth. He could pinpoint it now, yes, between his legs. Why would it be warm down there? He wasn’t thinking of anything particularly pleasant…The tearing was getting worse. Dammit, he didn’t want to open his eyes, but maybe if he did, what ever it was doing whatever it was doing would stop.

Slowly, so as not to snap himself completely awake, Touma’s lids peeled apart over his unfocused eyes. He squinted in the light as he saw a dark form looming over him. That’s where the warmth was coming from. His eyes focused, and with his eyesight, his memory returned. That’s where the unsettling feeling came from.

A weak whimper sounded low in his throat without his brain’s permission, alerting his attacker that he was awake.

“Hm, couldn’t miss this experience, huh baby?”

Touma shuddered as he identified the tearing sensation. This…’man’…had his fingers inside of him. The sheer abnormality, the newness of this caused sobriety to bodyslam Touma and he became enraged that someone would do this to him. His eyes narrowed again, his view of his attacker turning red.

“You’re so tight, baby, gotta make sure you aren’t *too* tight for me.”

His entire vision went red and his blood rushed in his ears like a tidal wave, and Touma planted both the heels of his hands into the man’s thick jaw. The man spluttered out blood as he fell backwards and rolled over, cradling his lower face.

Touma lifted his robes, disgusted to find his pants in several small heaps around him, and started in a direction. He heard muffled screaming and yelling as the slumbering men around were alerted to his escape. Touma realized he must have been out longer than he thought. Many men were groggy from sleep which gave him an advantage as he dodged clumsy hands and ran as his assailants stumbled, but his disadvantage was that not all the men were there. Some must have been sent to guard the area.

Touma yelled and turned sharply as a sword whistled over his head from one of said men hiding behind a tree. He ran toward the setting sun, jumping over fallen trunks and shielding his face from wayward branches. He tripped over roots hidden by snow, and his face was sliced by blackberry bush vines. Touma ran until he thought the cold air in his lungs would solidify into ice, then tripped over another root and fell into a breathless heap at the base of a tree.

He looked over his shoulder and saw red. Blood. Cloth. Touma started heaving as he realized the roots he tripped over were the mangled bodies of men. Probably his servants. Nothing came up and the lurching motion of his stomach was making him feel like passing out. The sound of crunching snow back up the way he came and the smell of dead bodies finally hitting him caused Touma to leap to his feet despite the pain in his body and heart.

He prayed help lie ahead. He knew if he couldn’t find it in the next half hour at most, he was going to collapse and not get up, and they would find him, and his life would end.

‘I wouldn’t even get to hear how Tah’s wedding went.’