The Price: Alternate Ending

[eiahmon]

Title: The Price: Alternate Ending
Rating: R for Rape and M/M Slash. Don't like, don't read.
Disclaimer: Not mine, though I wouldn't mind borrowing Amnesiac!Xehanort for a while.
Summary: Exactly what it says on the tin. An alternate ending in which Ansem learns what Xehanort and Braig have been up to. Will he support Xehanort or condemn him?
A/N: Warning! Woobie!Xehanort ahead! XDDDD

Ansem walked quietly down the dark, silent hall of the castle, towards the halls that housed the apartments of his apprentices. It was unusual for him to visit their rooms so late at night; except for Ienzo, all of them were grown men and hardly in need of a bed check, and if Ienzo had a nightmare or was ill, he would go to Even. At one time, Ansem had checked on Xehanort every night, once his newest apprentice had been deemed well enough to move from a spare bedroom in Ansem's own chambers to his own apartments, but that had been long ago.

Yet it was worry and concern for Xehanort that saw the lord of Radiant Garden walking down the chilly halls so late at night. Earlier Ansem had gently confronted him about his change in behavior, about why he had become so tense and afraid of being alone, but Xehanort's answer had done nothing to ease his worry. Something was wrong with the boy, and he had tossed and turned in his own bed before he had opted to just go and check on him, even if it was to assure himself that the boy was alright. He was sure he would find Xehanort sleeping peacefully in his bed, perhaps with a book lying open on the covers where he had dropped it upon falling asleep and...

Wait. What was that?

Ansem paused for a moment and listened. Xehanort's rooms were still a bit down the hall, yet he could clearly hear voices coming from that direction, but they were indistinct, and no words could be understood. He walked closer and saw a sliver of silvery moonlight falling across the hall floor to touch the opposite wall; Xehanort's door was cracked open.

“...going to tell him!” The quiet snarl quickly caught Ansem's attention, and he quickened his steps, while a sinking feeling in his gut told him that he was about to find out what was wrong with his newest apprentice. A pained whimper fell on his ears as he neared the door, and he carefully pushed it open on silent hinges and stepped into Xehanort's small sitting room. Just beyond that was the partially open door to the bedroom, so he crept closer and peeked in.

There were two figures on the bed, one sitting upright with its back to them – Braig, he was able to recognize by the long black hair – the other lying on it's stomach, with its hands tied behind its back. The face was turned away from the door, but the long white hair told Ansem immediately that it was Xehanort lying there. Braig was between Xehanort's spread legs, and Ansem realized immediately what the sharpshooter was doing to the younger man as a muffled scream fell upon his ears.

“This is the price we agreed upon, Xehanort!” Braig snarled, and a hard thrust made Xehanort scream again “What the hell were you going to do? Back out? As if! You're just a little whore, and no one will care if they find out!”

Ansem had seen enough.

“Braig!” he snapped as he slammed the door open the rest of the way and strode into the room “Get off of him! What are you doing!”

Braig's head snapped up in shock, and his eyes widened in horrified realization as Ansem walked up to the bed, and he scrambled off of Xehanort as quickly as he could. Somewhere in the back of Ansem's mind, he felt a flicker of grim satisfaction at Braig's reaction, but he pushed it aside in favor of checking on Xehanort's condition.

The boy hadn't moved from where Braig had left him. His head was turned away from Ansem, and his eyes were squeezed tightly shut, with tears running down his bruised and battered face. A gag was bound tightly into his mouth, and reason for it became plain when Ansem looked down, past the night gown that was hiked up past Xehanort's waist, to the semen and blood – so much blood – that was smeared on his thighs and soaked into the sheets. He was shaking and trembling, from the pain Ansem supposed, and the sight made his aged heart ache for his surrogate son as he reached down and removed the gag and began to untie his wrists.

“My lord?” Ansem looked up from Xehanort's raw, bloodied wrists to see Dilan and Aeleus standing in the door “What's going on? What happened?”

“Dilan, detain Braig.” he ordered “Aeleus, I need you to carry Xehanort to the infirmary. I doubt that he can walk right now.”

“No,” Xehanort moaned, and Ansem soothed him and pulled his night gown down to cover him as Dilan dragged a protesting Braig out of the room and Aeleus walked up to bed. The two of them carefully turned Xehanort over onto his back, which elicited a cry of pain, and Aeleus gently gathered him into his arms and began to carry him from the room. Ansem followed close behind, and they encountered Even and Ienzo in the hall.

The pair looked at Xehanort crying softly in Aeleus' arms, and Ansem could see the wheels turning in their heads. Both of them were very intelligent, and the light quickly dawned in Even's eyes, and he looked at Xehanort in sympathy. A few seconds later, Ienzo also put the facts together, but thankfully, he did not seem to know exactly what Braig had done -

“Even, why is Xehanort bleeding from there?”

- but he was still far too observant not to notice that something was seriously wrong.

Even turned Ienzo away and began to walk him back to his room, while doing his best to fend off the child's persistent questions. Ansem thought that maybe they should have wrapped Xehanort in a blanket before taking him out of the room, but that thought was stricken suddenly from his mind when the boy's eyes rolled up in his head and he fainted in Aeleus' arms.

******

Xehanort groaned as bright morning sunlight pierced his eyelids, waking him. As he began to surface from the depths of sleep, he became aware of the pain he was in; his wrists hurt, his face hurt, his lower body was a riot of pain from waist to mid thighs. What the hell had Braig done to him? He groaned again; walking and sitting were going to be painful for quite a while, it seemed.

“Xehanort?” a voice, filled with concern and worry, fell on his ears, and the events of the previous night rushed back to him. Braig had found him in his room just after he had gone to bed, to “punish” him for nearly telling Master Ansem everything. Xehanort remembered being punched and slapped and thrown down onto his bed. He remembered pleading with Braig to stop, being tied and gagged, and the agony as Braig had violently raped him. And then – Xehanort felt his heart sink to the floor – Master Ansem had found them. Aeleus had carried him out of the room in full view of Even and Ienzo, after Dilan had dragged Braig out.

Everyone knew; the secret was out. Now everyone in the castle would know that he was Braig's little whore, and they would sneer at him, and laugh at him, and tell him that he had deserved what Braig had done, since you couldn't rape a whore, after all. Tears burned in his eyes, and his chest hitched.

“Xehanort,” came the voice again, and a small part of his mind that wasn't wrapped up in misery recognized it as Master Ansem's “You are safe, Xehanort. Braig will never lay his hands on you again.” A warm hand began to stroke his hair, while a second took his and gently squeezed it.

You don't understand! Xehanort wanted to wail, but he said nothing. It was better to enjoy the comfort that his surrogate father was giving him for a little longer, because eventually Braig would tell (If he hadn't already.) that Xehanort had been willing the entire time, and then kindness and concern would turn to disgust and revulsion.

Then came the question that he dreaded.

“How long has Braig been taking advantage of you?” Master Ansem asked. Xehanort cringed and didn't answer. Master Ansem sighed. “You needed stitches Xehanort, and the doctor told me of the old scars and tears that she found, so we know this was not the first time he hurt you. I need you to tell me what happened so I can make sure he never lays his hand on you or anyone else ever again.”

“Master Ansem?” Dilan's tenor came from the other side of the room, and Master Ansem squeezed his hand one more time before Xehanort felt his weight leave the bed. He heard the two whispering urgently, and his damnable curiosity compelled him to open his eyes and look.

He was lying in a bed in the infirmary; he remembered the room with its large windows, red stone walls, stone inlay floor, and beds with starched white sheets well from the two weeks he had spent confined to it after Master Ansem had taken him in. Dilan and Master Ansem were over in the doorway leading to the rest of the castle, whispering to each other, and once in a while Dilan would look back at Xehanort in nod in his direction. He knew then for sure what Dilan was talking about.

Braig had told.

Xehanort squeezed his eyes shut as Dilan left the room and Master Ansem returned to his bedside. A warm hand grasped his own again.

“Look at me, Xehanort. I need you to look at me.”

Xehanort warily cracked one brown eye open, expecting to see anger and disgust in his master's eyes, and he was surprised to see that the older man looked... sad?

“Oh Xehanort,” the older man sighed regretfully “Why didn't you tell me yesterday when I asked you?”

“I.. I... I....”

“Braig told Dilan that you were willing. Is this true?”

Xehanort closed his eyes again and nodded miserably. There was no denying it.

“Why did you let him do that to you?” A choked sob was Xehanort's reply, and he wanted to turn away and bury his face in the pillows to hide his shame, but the throbbing agony that was his lower body made that impossible. “Xehanort? Please talk to me.”

Crying in misery, Xehanort spilled everything to his master; about his suspicion that Braig knew him from before, the marksman's offer to tell him if he paid the price, that first violent coupling, the frequent sex afterwards, the small snippets of information that revealed very little, and Braig's late night visits to his rooms. He told how the information had gradually slowed and then stopped, yet the sex had only continued on more frequently, despite Xehanort's refusals. Finally, he told of how he had nearly told everything the previous day, but Braig had warned him with a look to keep silent and then related the story of the local woman to Aeleus, Dilan, and Even, and how they had jeered at the woman's claims of abuse.

“And then he came to you last night.” Master Ansem prompted gently, and Xehanort nodded.

“He said he was going to punish me for nearly telling.” he said through a fresh wave of tears “I tried to make him stop and leave me alone, but he just wouldn't. He said I was just a whore, and no one would care about what he did to me.”

Xehanort heard a sigh, and then Master Ansem let go of his hand and stood up from the bed. Xehanort felt his already heavy heart sink; he was being abandoned. What had he expected? He had allowed Braig to use him and now he was reaping the consequences. No one wanted to associate with a whore after all. He was going to have to leave Radiant Garden. The mere thought of leaving the only home he could remember made his heart wrench in agony, but he couldn't stay there anymore. He wouldn't be able -

Xehanort let out a startled yelp and his eyes flew open as he felt himself being gently scooped up into someone's arms.

“Master Ansem?”

“Shh.” the old man said as he settled down on the edge of the bed with Xehanort on his lap, holding him securely in arms that were apparently much stronger than they looked “I haven't done this since Even was a boy – though he'll strenuously deny it if you ask him – but you need this, so be still.”

Xehanort managed a watery chuckle of the picture of a child Even being cradled on Master Ansem's lap. “You're not disgusted with me? You're not going to throw me out?” he asked hesitantly as more tears trickled down his face. He hadn't cried like this since the weeks of torturous physical therapy he'd been forced to undergo once he'd been discharged from the infirmary, and then everyone around him had contributed his frequent crying to his memory loss screwing with his emotional control.

“Lords no, Xehanort!” the older man said vehemently “Nothing could make me reject you like that. I'm upset that you didn't trust me enough to come to me with your suspicions about Braig, but you simply made a bad decision that led you down a bad road. Braig should have never taken advantage of you in such a way, and when he ignored your refusals, he was committing rape.” Xehanort's eyes widened in sudden shock. Rape? It had never occurred to him that Braig had raped him, but he had said no multiple times, all of which had been ignored so, he supposed he had....

“Do you understand, Xehanort?” Master Ansem said gently “Sometimes I forget that your life essentially began two years ago, and that you don't know things that the rest of us do. What Braig did to you was wrong. You made a bad decision that allowed him to take advantage of you, but what happened to you is not your fault. Do you understand. It is not your fault.”

Xehanort buried his face in Master Ansem's hair and began to cry again, only it was relief instead of misery. His surrogate father didn't hate him, wasn't disgusted with him, and he wasn't to blame for what Braig had done to him. Master Ansem held him and murmured soothingly to him as he wailed, and once his crying had quieted to hiccups, he produced a cool damp cloth from somewhere and used it to carefully wash his face.

“Feeling better?” he asked quietly, and Xehanort nodded as he scrubbed at his eyes with the sleeve of his hospital gown “Ready to leave then? The doctor said you can go, but she wants you to rest for a few more days before you go back to the labs.” With that Master Ansem gently eased him off of his lap so he stood on the floor by the bed, and a second later, a robe was slipped over his shoulders.

“Can you walk?” Xehanort nodded again, and Master Ansem began to slowly lead him towards the infirmary doors. Despite the reassurance, Xehanort felt his heart drop as they neared the doors; Master Ansem didn't blame him, but what about the others? Braig had been part of their group for years, since they were children, and Xehanort was the newcomer that was favored by the castle's lord. What would they think of him?

Master Ansem pushed the doors open, and they stepped out to find Dilan, Aeleus, Even, and Ienzo waiting in the hall.

Ienzo ran up to him and wrapped his small arms around his waist. “Are you okay, Xehanort?”

“I'm alright, Ienzo.” he managed to say as he patted the boy's blue haired head. The child smiled up at him and ran back to Even, who simply nodded and smiled at him, and he could see no hint of reproach in the blond's vibrant green eyes.

“Are you sure that you're alright, Xehanort?” Aeleus asked as Dilan gave him a gentle squeeze on his shoulder, and Xehanort sagged with relief when he saw that they weren't angry or disgusted with him, and he managed a feeble smile as Aeleus picked him up and began to carry him down the hall, with Master Ansem, Dilan, Even, and Ienzo walking alongside like an honor guard.

To his surprise, and immense relief, he wasn't taken to his own apartments, instead he was taken to Master Ansem's rooms, where Aeleus gently laid him down on the bed in the spare bedroom where he had spent so much time recovering from his injuries two years before. Then he, along with Dilan, Even, and Ienzo, departed, and Master Ansem helped him change out of the hospital pajamas into his own nightclothes before he was tucked into bed. A never melting ice pack, made by Even, was placed on his bruised and swollen face, and Master Ansem sat down on the bed beside him until he fell asleep.

“Master Ansem?” he asked quietly as sleep tugged at his eyelids.

“Hmmm?”

“What happened to Braig?”

“He is in the prisons below the castle, and he'll stay there for quite a while. No one lays a hand on one of my children and gets by with it.”

“Not even one of your other children?”

“Not even one of them.” A hand gently smoothed his hair back from his face. “Go to sleep, Xehanort. Braig will never touch you again.'

Feeling safe and protected for the first time in months, Xehanort closed his eyes, sank into the mattress below him, and allowed the peace of sleep to wash over him.

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