Fic: Can't be Found, Ryan/Jon, R.

[emmuzka]

I noticed that I have written something like fifteen little fics for the anon_lovefest. I might as well post them in here, since yay! author pride! I will be posting in something like every couple of days. I'll advice you to read the warnings in this one.

Fic: Can't be Found
Author: Emmuzka
Genre and pairing: PATD, Ryan/Jon
Raiting: R
Warnings: AU, slavery, non-con, beastiality
Original prompt: Dark fantasy
Disclaimer: Not true in any way.
Summary: Ryan wants to learn all there is, even the shameful smudges of the kingdom.



"Be careful, my friend." Spencer's eyes follow constantly the flow of the night market. Surely there wouldn't be anything that his lord would be interested in buying?

"You, my friend, are overly cautious." Ryan couldn't stop himself from checking his money pouch. Still there.

Spencer raises an eyebrow at his nervous gesture. "You keep doing that, it suits what you are tonight." You are what your robes, your horse and your servant marked you to be, nothing less or more. Today Ryan was a young noble, first time in a big city with only one servant as his company, looking for illegal amusements and willing to pay for them.

Spencer isn't there for amusement, and he sure hoped that his ward wasn't, either. But Ryan wants to learn all there is, even the shameful smudges of the kingdom.

A gold coin grants them entrance to a cellar where usually only known customers are welcomed. Tonight many non-humans are on display. Ryan tries not to wrinkle his nose to the smell of otherworldly and magic, and show his distaste.

They continue their walk from cage to cage, not stopping to wonder the creatures or listen the sellers' stories. There is nothing intriguing, only unpleasant things.

"Seen enough, my lord?"

"Soon, Spencer."

In the corner there is a larger, a more permanent looking sale stand, with mostly humans in the cages. How did humans make him feel this uneasy? Ryan smells the air again. Magic. Torches.

Selling people is illegal, and selling people with magical powers is even more so. But for the right price and in the right circles, anything is up for sale, and owning a Torch is like owning art, a weapon, a prized speed runner, a sex toy, anything you wanted.

The salesman noticed them right when they stopped in front of the cages.

"You looking something particular, young sir?"

Spencer pushes Ryan forwards. He cooked this mess, not it was all his.

"No, just looking. Or, actually." Spencer looks at Ryan sharply. What now? "I'm wondering which one of these is the most powerful?"

Spencer settles again. That would be something that a young lord with too much money and freedom would ask, the biggest and the shiniest of every thing.

"This one, sir." The seller points at the tiniest of cages, where a furry, dirty something lays. "He is completely human, I assure you."

"He is… He is kept as a dog?" Ryan feels restrained, he knows that he sounds disgusted, and he doesn't even really know why.

"Yes, its more convenient. Their aura is undetectable in an animal form. And this one, this glows!" The man kicks the cage as a gesture, like kicking a sturdy furniture at carpenters. "Easier to handle, takes less room and food, easy to breed if wanted and they can't talk back! " The man laughs at his own joke.

"B-breed? With what?"

Shit! Spencer has to try and fix Ryan's faux de pas. "We need to see its true form, the animal packs its aura so well that we could be buying anything."

"Of course." The seller is thankfully suitably distracted by Spencer's notion that they would actually be negotiating for a deal now. The man takes the animal out of the cage by its neck and makes a gesture. Simple magic, it seems like, but Ryan doesn't feel a thing. The magic must work only for one owner at a time.

The dog changes into a man, huddled on the ground and barely conscious. His skin is pale white for the lack of sunlight but his hair and his beard stubble is dark. The seller is already talking about the price, but Ryan doesn't listen. This man in the floor in front of him, there is something about him. Now that he is in a human form, Ryan can see his aura without even trying, a faint blue glimmer around him. The aura doesn't settle, but seems to slowly drain somewhere.

"He is bleeding. You didn't tell us that he was wounded."

"No, no, it's not wounded! I just keep the access open. I have been draining it for as long as I have had it. He is that powerful."

Ryan can't help but to keep looking the man. The dark man doesn't raise his gaze. "Spencer?"

"Yes?" Spencer tries to not gnaw his teeth together. He knows well that Ryan means, he just doesn't want to do it.

"Spencer, settle the price." Ryan wants to bring him home.

Spencer negotiates the price with the seller, probably too high, but it doesn't matter. Before counting the coins, Spencer asks his only question about the ownership.

"How your owner's mark will be removed?"

The seller is left to answer his hands already waiting for his gold. "After the sale, all my ties to the creature will be broken, so you'll just forge your mark to where mine was."

They don't waste their time after the sale, but continue straight out of the cellar, from the neighborhood, from the city, and to the woods surrounding the city. The man, wrapped only in Ryan's cloak, follows them wordlessly and stops only when they reach their horses.

"Ryan, no yet." Ryan settles back from mounting his horse and looks back at Spencer.

"What? My horse can carry both me and him."

"No, that's not it. He must be marked, you can't get him through the castle gates like that, he smells of his previous owner!"

"What is this? What kind of owner's mark does he have?"

Now that he can see the owner's mark on the man, like a dirty stain. Ryan wants to scratch it away until there is nothing left and forge his own mark... No, there will never be another owner's mark in this man. "I don't want to mark him as mine, he will be his own again if I can help it. He didn't deserve this!"

"He can not left unmarked. Don't you see it? Under the owners seal, there is nothing. He is broken and he can't be fixed. If you wipe his seal away, he will die. If you'll do nothing, the current seal degenerates and turns so fragile so that anyone can push their mark on them."

Damn, damn. "So, what I do, then?"

"You fuck him."

Damn, DAMN "Shit FUCK!"

Suddenly their silent man startles and then where was a man, is now a dog, huddled in the cloak.

Ryan steps towards the dog, but then thinks better to slow down. "He can do that by himself? Why would he do that?"

"He has probably spent more time as a dog than as a human being for years, so reverting back into an animal must be more of an instinct than a skill for him now." An instinct in a more than one way; a dog doesn't remember, doesn't feel humiliation, despair, disgust or hate.

Ryan turns back to face the dog. "C'mon, uh, doggie. Time to change back again." The owner's morphing order probably wouldn't work since the previous owner's seal was still in place.

The dog sniffles and settles down. Then it transforms back to the man.

With Ryan kneeling down, he is on the same level with the man. "What is your name?" Ryan is suddenly ashamed. How hadn’t he thought to ask the man's name before this?

"Jon."

"Jon..." Ryan doesn't want to ask, doesn't want to order.

Jon looks down. "I would rather be a dog when you do it."

"What! No!"

Jon flinches back. Ryan has raised his arm, like for a strike.

Ryan doesn't understand. "What kind of a person-! You filthy-!"

"Ryan, stop it!" Spencer orders hastily. "Or he will revert again."

Ryan tries to make his rapidly beating heart slow down. "No, you may not do that! I order you!"

"Okay." No hope of Jon looking at him.

Ryan places Jon on his arms and knees to ground, only the cape keeping them away from the mud and twigs. Ryan lowers his trousers and strokes his length quickly. Jon is so pretty, maybe later they could do something, or... something. But not now. Ryan spits on his fingers and slowly prods Jon's hole, placing his other hand on Jon's waist. Ryan can hear Jon's quiet grunts and his own harsh breathing. He can't feel Jon relaxing, but this has to do, he is not getting any more ready when there is nothing but spit to use, anyway. He pushes slowly in. Jon makes a sound, almost a non-human sound, and tries to crawl forward, away from the intrusion, but Ryan stops him.

"Be still, damnit!" Ryan can feel it when is he fully inside, can feel it when he destroys the old, murky owner's seal and starts to weave his own in its place. He pulls back only to push in again, in a one long stroke. Jon makes a sound again and suddenly Ryan isn't keeping a strong grip of a pale skin but a brown, short fur.

Ryan makes a startled, frightened sound. That is not a human in a dog's body that he is holding, but a stupid, mindless dog.

"Ryan!" One word, but he knows what Spencer means. He can't stop now.

Ryan continues thrusting, continues weaving his seal, as quickly as he can. He keeps his eyes shut but presses his face to the warm back of the dog when he finally releases, and the seal is done.

The dog whimpers and scrambles away as soon as he lets it go, not understanding what is happening. Ryan falls to his side and uselessly tries to paw his trousers up.

"Spence, don't let him go!"

Ryan's order jolts Spencer back to action and he scrambles after the dog.

Spencer comes back when Ryan has got his bearings back. Maybe he even waited a little before shoving himself, Ryan doesn't know. Spencer has taken off his long belt and is now using it as a leash. Spencer looks like he has no idea if catching Jon-the-dog had been a good thing or not.

Spencer pushes the leash to Ryan, who takes it, feeling helpless. "It wasn't his fault, it was just too much to him so he did it, accidentally."

"I know. Doesn't mean that I'll have to like it."

Ryan turns back to face the Jon-the-dog. "Okay, Jon, time to turn to human again."

"No, hey." Spencer touches his arm to stop his magic. "Let's wait a moment longer, Ryan. We only have two horses and a third man could stir questions. He is highly illegal goods, no matter who purchased him. A dog is easier to carry to the castle with none the wiser. And what do a few moments more matter?"

It's already a morning when they ride back to the castle, Ryan with an inconspicuous brown dog with him. Ryan is already making plans for Jon. When he forged his seal to Jon, he left one thread undone. He left a tiny sliver of nothing behind, and that tiny amount of nothing can kill no-one. Ryan thinks that if he checks later, maybe, just maybe, Jon has filled the empty place on his own. And Ryan will find a way to slowly, a fraction of a hair at a time, wind his seal away and let Jon mend his soul.