Xanadu - Part Three of Five

[sonora_coneja]

Pairing: Hannibal/Face
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: violence, slavery, mentions of child abuse
Summary: Part Three of Five for fill for this prompt over at the kink meme

I’m considering doing my final research paper this year on human trafficking and have been doing some looking things up tonight. And it’s hard to sift through everything, but a scenario took place in my head one night and hasn’t left since, so I have to request it.

I want something that hurt. That is brutal and may be hard to write and I’d like even harder to read it. So if anyone can take this on, you’ll be amazing.

We all know that Face was an orphan and there are some lovely fics where things have happened to him before he joined Hannibal’s unit. Things to make him street-savvy. Here’s my catch: Hannibal’s team is sent on a mission to break up a supposed human trafficking ring. When they get there they can immediately try to break it up or have to go undercover to get the sex-slaves out. Either way, I want Hannibal to walk in on something happening to a young blonde slave. And to not know what to do or how to save him, but to eventually do so. (If there’s an inclusion of Hannibal secretly going to Face and gaining his trust and promising to get him out, I’ll be blown away.) And then give him a place to call home. I’d love an aftermath of Hannibal and his unit trying to embrace Face and help him find a new life, which can or doesn’t have to be in the army. Just with Hannibal, please. With a bunch of hard ordeals along the way.

Anyone??

The tension brewing between Decker and Hannibal comes to a head at the worst possible time for Face, as his owner’s prepping him to be sold to somebody much, much worse than herself. Time running out, Hannibal’s determined to save the boy, no matter what the cost.




It wasn’t without a flutter of trepidation that Hannibal watched the car, their ride, pull away from the curb. It wasn’t the smell in the alley that was making him nervous, not the fact that Rose had once again brought Face along nor the way that their escort for this little adventure was armed.

None of that.

All of that was to be expected.

It was the little box taped under his clothes that had him worried.

“I’m not wearing a fucking wire,” Hannibal had growled.

Decker had scooted up straight in his chair, pulling out of what had to be an intentionally casual drape of limbs to an upright anger, which was almost certainly real. “We don’t have surveillance in this place,” the captain had shot back, low and level. “So you’re wearing a fucking wire.”

“Is that regulation?” the major asked, looking over at the wiretap guy, who was tapping a finger on the top of the small, slender device in question. He got a shrug in response. “Fuck your wire. What if I get patted down?”

“Fuck you, Smith,” Decker snapped. “I don’t trust you.”

So now there he was, walking into a dark space, with a piece of equipment that would probably get him killed where he stood, should it be discovered.

Hannibal sent a silent prayer to the universe that this was going to work.

The Ranger officer knew what his men thought about him, knew how they were sometimes right about him, but legendary intuition be damned. All those could fail at any moment, and often did. He only could work with what he had at hand. Plans were only ever as good as that. What he had. How he knew it, processed it, used it. And there were a hundred things about this situation Hannibal didn’t understand. It was a shit deal. No two ways about that.

He tried not to think about that. Or the weight tucked along the waistband of his pants as Brian Park, flawlessly arrogant in that Pacific Rim kind of way, led them down a long hall of naked concrete, the back maintenance corridor of this half-condemned apartment building. If Decker had turned up anything more on this guy, he hadn’t told Hannibal.

“We, as you may have already guessed, usually rely on the foster care system. Big cities, Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta, Chicago...” he was saying now.

Rose laid a hand on Hannibal’s arm, threading through his elbow and twining his hand with his as if they were old lovers. It may have been the Ranger’s imagination, but he could have sworn her skin was clammy, cold, like a dead thing. “They always have a certain number of runaways every year. Nobody notices if a few go missing, here and there. We have contacts who pass us photographs, you know, taking the cute ones...”

“Are you just in Seoul?” Hannibal asked, trying not to look over at Face, who was openly collared again, still barefoot, and hadn’t once tried to smile at him today. Something was going on there, he knew. Something worse. “Anywhere else?”

“I was thinking of putting a franchise in down at Osan,” the madam said with a wave of her free hand.

“But it’s trickier, in a city without a logical amount of Western presence,” Park replied. “That’s an important factor here.”

“The illusion appeal, right? You don’t think you’re buying a woman?” Hannibal supplied, and Park nodded.

“It’s very popular in China,” the Korean-American said. “The market there for women, exclusive women, is quite lively in Shanghai and Beijing...”

The three of them continued to talk details, and Rose’s hand on his, the picture that was slowly emerging of this pan-Pacific slave trade, the theft of these children, how they were shipped over here on freighters, cleaned up and fed but sedated until they learned to come to heel, nothing addictive, I assure you major, and we’ll ensure your choice is clean before you collect him. Face was unnervingly silent as bare feet padded softly along behind them.

They hit the stairs and gained a floor or two, before Park led them out again and into a small, richly furnished apartment. Gaudy, in that faux Victorian way that Asia seemed so goddamn enamored with, Hannibal thought, and relaxed a little, when he saw the guard stayed outside.

Face curled up at, folding into himself, and stared at nothing, as Park and Hannibal both took seats on low little couches.

As Rose went for an interior door.

The Irishwoman brought the boys in herself, naked, saying a little about where they were from and a few things about how this one liked baseball, another played the violin, like introductions at fucking summer camp. Five, six, Hannibal wasn’t sure. He was trying not to pay attention to it, and after the first, he slipped into autopilot, numb to the whole goddamn thing.

It seemed an eternity until they were done, until Park shook his hand and left him with Rose to agree on a choice and a price, and Rose assured him they could leave that for later, and she sheparded the last boy back wherever he’d come from, and he and Face were alone.

Hannibal’s heart nearly stopped when the kid knelt up, sliding over on his knees, right in front of him, those soft, strong hand stroking up the back of Hannibal’s calves. “Madam said you’d want this slave to...”

The major felt a flush of shame, his traitorous cock, even now, twitching under the fine fabric of his tailored suit pants as those hands crept upward and inward. He took a deep inhale, and leaned down, pushing Face back lightly on the shoulder. He was wired, he was under a fucking microscope, he had to get the phrasing on this exactly right. “No kid,” he said gently. “Not right now.”

A hand touched his groin then, light, barely there. And Hannibal knew what the kid was looking for, that he was measuring the level of interest, and there was nothing. Nothing there.

Not until that hand was laid there, anyway.

Rubbing, stroking, working, and Hannibal couldn’t help the way he was getting hard under those skillful ministrations. The thought of this boy, something about him, utterly intoxicating. And they were alone, almost alone, alone as this kid was ever going to get, and something in the back of Hannibal’s mind was telling him that Face wasn’t doing this just because he had to. There was something in that beautiful head, hidden deep but surfacing now, something that wanted.

Wanted loyalty

Wanted love.

Wanted him.

And yet...

"Face, stop," he said, biting the inside of his cheek, tasting blood.

“This is what you wanted, isn’t it, sir?” Face asked, confusion leaking into his voice. “Sir, you do want one of them, don’t you?”

“A far second choice from you, kid,” Hannibal murmured, hoping that wasn’t too obvious on the tape. But at least it wasn’t recording the way he laid a hand on that fine face, lifted it up to meet his own. “None compare. But you don’t have to.”

“Sir, I...” and those eyes snapped up to meet his. “But... but, this slave...madam gave orders, sir...”

So, with a shaking hand, hating himself for allowing this, hating himself for knowing it was necessary. For the fact that it all fit into the goddamn Plan. Even if he could have just faked it, like he’d attempted to tell himself was the way it could be.

But the major had to work with was on hand.

And what was on hand was a psychotic madam and a conflicted teenager and a captain who had an inexplicable grudge against all of this and a hundred other unpredictable factors, and Hannibal had to make it all work together. Understand and execute.

No matter how messy it was going to get.

“I’ll tell her you did it,” Hannibal said loudly, clearly, putting a finger to his lips in warning to Face.

Those blue eyes blinked once, like he understood, and unzipped him slowly. Enough, Hannibal knew, that the sound wouldn’t register on the tape.

Hannibal took a deep breath, and held it in, stifling his first little moan as that scorching hot mouth took him in.

Silent.

All of it, silent.

+++++

But Decker still threw the whole thing at him the next morning.

Exactly as Hannibal had predicted the man would.

“Motherfucker! What on god’s green fucking earth were you thinking?!” the enraged captain yelled, throwing a chair across that week’s tiny hotel room and the wiretap guy jumped a little. “You let some underage boy fucking blow you, major! That is not how we do things in this business...”

Hannibal bit the end off his cigar and spit it away, purposely missing the trash can in the corner. Please let this work, he thought, and stared at the thick roll of tobacco in his fingers, deliberately not looking at Decker. Had to ensure he was nice and pissed off. Which, really, after the chair, didn’t seem like an issue.

“He’s eighteen, Derick. The madam’s a pedaphile, that’s why she’s getting rid of him now, he’s too old for her,” and this, Hannibal was reasonably sure, was the truth. It was the only thing that made any sense. Especially after what they’d seen on some of the surveillance tapes. “And he did not blow me.”

“Sir,” and that was the sergeant, piping up at exactly the right time. “Captain, the evidence on the tape isn’t conclusive of anything. If Major Smith is saying he didn’t do it, he didn’t...”

“You’re off the case, major,” Decker said flatly.

“You don’t have the authority...”

“You think my boss reports to the installation commander, sir?”

Hannibal stared evenly at the younger officer for a moment, and pushed out of his seat, collecting his jacket, biting down on the end of his unlit cigar. “I’m not going to sit around here and listen to somebody I outrank imply I’m a rapist...”

“Would you like me to turn those into formal charges, sir?”

“You’ve got no proof, you piece of shit,” he laughed back, and slammed the door behind him, walking fast to the elevators and out the lobby into the muggy afternoon. Only when Hannibal was a few blocks away, well on his way to the subway station and the subway line that would take him home, to his books and the files he’d had the sergeant appropriate for him and a few moments’ peace, only then did the Ranger start breathing again.

Phase one of the Plan complete.

And when he showed up at the Xanadu that night?

That the start of phase two.

+++++

“How’s it going, sergeant?”

“Just fine, sir. Got you on surveillance down there the last two nights. Rather conspicuously, actually.”

“Is Decker going for it?”

“He’s not a happy man right now, Hannibal, if that’s what you’re asking. And you were right, he’s been completely focused on you the last week or two. Doesn’t even give a shit about the larger case, says we need to go after the patrons, leave the club to the Korean authori...”

He closed his eyes. That suspicion had been nagging at him. “You get his case notes?”

“I’ll have them over to you today.”

“Good.”

Hannibal was leaning up against the wall in his little apartment, the phone cradle in hand and the cord half warpped around his wrist. He had his BDUs on. Thirty minutes to get to work, on his way out the door when the phone had rung, and he was going to be late now. But there was no way the major was hanging up on this.

“You think you can really lure him in?”

“Like a fly to shit.”

The wiretap guy laughed, but the major felt more than slightly bad about it. Decker’s file had been enlightening.

One sister, it said, deceased, ten years ago, age sixteen. Overdose. Suicide. A couple of calls back to the police department in Decker’s hometown made that a little clearer. Their uncle had gone to jail the year before. He’d plead guilty to the charges, but she was the one who’d paid for it. At least, Hannibal tried to tell himself, Decker’s heart was in the right place. That was something.

Whether or not it was going to be enough was an entirely different story.

“Look, Hannibal, the reason why I’m calling is something rather disturbing I pulled off the bug in the office this morning. Might be your chance to spring this. Something’s going down tonight, but I can’t quite...”

There was a knock at the door, and Hannibal shifted the cradle around, freeing his right hand and pinching the receiver against his shoulder, reaching over for it. He paused, taking a quite look through the peephole at who the hell would be over at his place this goddamn early.

Oh.

Shit.

“Hannibal?” the sergeant on the other end asked, concerned. “Hannibal? Everything okay?”

“Imgoingtohavetocallyouback,” he said, everything coming out in one word, and somehow the phone slipped back into the cradle, and the cradle onto the floor, and his hand on the knob and opening before Hannibal really registered any of it.

A pair of blue eyes met his.

Open, honest, burning blue eyes, rimmed and slightly puffed, the remnants of banished tears. And there was an underlying anger under all of that, an emotion he’d yet to see there, one so intense that Hannibal actually had to take a step back.

For Face.

The kid slid right in to the vacated space between the jamb and Hannibal’s body. There was a big black envelop in his hand and it took Hannibal a moment to realize that hand was shaking.

Anger and fear, Hannibal told himself, but when he looked again, it was all gone. Hidden away again, under another layer, that subservient one the kid was forced to wear, but everything was kind of blending, mixing together. And Hannibal asked himself again just how far down that went, what it would take to remove it. Strip it away like paint. Find the beautiful human being underneath the slave. “What is it, Face?”

And he's really not sure what to do with the answer.

“Did you mean it?”

It was flat and unemotional. Not angry. Not sad. Not the absence of emotion, nothing like that. The suppression of emotion, like a lid had been jammed down onto something boiling and dangerous.

Where the hell had this come from? And the Ranger had to ask himself again, who was this kid, what was he capable of? What was really going on in there? “What do you mean, did I mean it?”

The envelop was offered. “Did. You. Mean. It?” The kid’s eyes finally dropped, like they were supposed to be, and Hannibal realized he’d been holding his breath. “About that... about... this slave... me having a choice in things. About you giving me a choice in things?”

The major nodded, trying to stay calm himself. Wouldn’t do to react to the kid right now, not with all of... whatever it was, bubbling right under the surface. “Yeah, I mean that.”

Face kicked the still-open door shut behind him, sneaker flat on the wood, and held out the envelop, a little higher, a little more obvious, this time. Totally silent. Head down.

Hannibal took it, turned it over. Good paper, rich, smooth, folded, not glued, sealed with a big round red ball of wax. A chop, the major realized, and squinted at the characters as he ripped into it. Somehow, it looked familiar.

But the single sheet of white paper, handlettered, inside?

That didn’t make any sense at all.

“This is... is this an invitation, kid?”

“Tomorrow night,” Face said, like he was trying to sound happy about it and just couldn’t manage. “That’s when you aren’t going to mean it any more.”

“What do you...” Hannibal took a closer look at it. “Is this... is this...”

“My new master,” and that beautiful face twisted up, just a little bit, “wants me to be the main attraction for the night. Him... taking delivery.”

The implications of it all didn’t hit him at once. Not for a few minutes. And then, oh god, then... Ranger’s hands started crumpling the cursed thing automatically. He wasn’t even aware of it until Face yanked it away and smoothed it down again against a wall, moving into the apartment a little further to lay it down on Hannibal’s table.

“He’s throwing a party?”

Those eyes were growing wet, the words beginning to fight themselves. “Yeah... a party.”

Hannibal cast a desperate glance over to the table, to the hateful piece of paper. “That madam of yours send you here with this?”

“Yeah.”

“She didn’t think you’d run?”

Face spread his hands in supplication. “Where the fuck am I supposed to go, major? I don’t have a passport, a birth certificate, a driver’s license... fuck, sir, I don’t exist.”

“You exist, Face,” Hannibal said, his heartbeat pounding in his ears. “You exist, kid.”

The young man shook his head slowly. “Not alone I don’t. My life, it’s isn’t...I have to go. I'm worthless otherwise.”

“You’re not worthless, Face. You’re so much more valuable than you realize...”

“Five hundred thousand, US,” he laughed, a hollow, terrible sound. “I’m worth exactly half a million.”

“Who the fuck is it, who’s buying you?”

Face shrugged. “I don’t know his name. Probably won’t. But... you gotta realize, sir, madam’s been easy on me. Master’s not going...” Face paused, and an unacknowledged tear slid down his cheek. “I’ve been...I’ve survived madam, never let her fucking break me... but this guy... she sold me to him for a reason. I just know it. There’s not going to be anything left, major, I’m... I’m not going to survive this.”

Hannibal already didn’t know what to say. Every cell in his body was screaming at him to grab the kid, take him to base, lock him up in the general’s house, let the man’s wife bake this kid cookies. Protect that unbroken core, protect what Face had been protecting of himself.

Keep safe what was so precious.

And go kill that heinous bitch who’d done this to him.

But yet, he wasn't sure if the kid would accept that. If he'd understand it. If he was capable.

“It’s... it’s not going to be good, sir. Not for me. Not...”

Hannibal forced himself to stay quiet, let the boy talk.

“I want you... I want you to do it. First. Before him. Sir, I want to choose. I want you to fuck me.”

And the floor fell out of the world.

“Face, that’s not what I...”

Face took a step forward, and another, laying both hands on either side of Hannibal’s BDU blouse, right over the top pockets. He could feel the heat off that body, and smell the scent of this young man, and oh, oh how he wanted the boy.

But not like this.

Never like this.

“Please, major. I know you want me. The way you look at me, the way you kissed me...”

“Face, kid, I...”

Those hands dug in, grabbing handfuls of uniform, and Face stood up a little on his toes, bringing their mouths close. “Nobody ever kissed me before, major. Not even madam. Never. But you did. You did.” There was a kind of awe in that voice that made Hannibal’s stomach turn over. “I’d rather... I want to know what it feels like, what that feels like, before I can’t... before I can’t... feel it anymore...”

Hannibal pulled the kid in close, wrapping him up in a hug, falling back against the wall, Face falling with him. “Oh, Face...” he said, heart breaking, cradling that head to his shoulder, young hands pulling tighter on him. “Face, baby, I can’t, I can’t...”

“I need you to. I need you to,” Face replied in a small voice. “I trust you...”

“Why?” Hannibal felt himself starting to tear up now, the very thought of this boy, thinking well of a man that, for all he knew, was trying to buy a sex slave, was encouraging prostitution on his own garrison, a criminal. A terrible definition of good. “I’m not a good man, Face.”

“You are,” he said, absolute faith ringing in those two little words. “You are, sir.”

“I’m not.”

“You are. You’re not like anybody I’ve ever met before...”

“Face...” and Hannibal sighed, letting that fine hair slide between his fingers again. “Face, I couldn’t...”

“You promised me, sir.” Murmured against his chest. “Sir, you promised.”

“That isn’t a choice, kid. I promised you a choice, not a forced surrender to a different man,” Hannibal growled.

Face pushed back a little, eyes wide, like he was trying to figure out the angle, what Hannibal was trying to do here. “Just fuck me, sir, please. It’s okay, that’s enough, it’ll be enough, I want you...”

“Listen, kid,” Hannibal murmured. “I’ll be there too. I’ll get you there. It’s not going to happen. I swear it, Face. I’m going to keep you safe. I’ll keep you out of the dark. But I’m not going to take you like this...”

“Why not?”

“You deserve so much better than me, baby,” he sighed.

And then the kid surged upwards in his arms, locking their mouths together in a swift, desperate, messy, perfect kiss that knocked all the air from Hannibal’s lungs as the kid ground against him, the taste of him, the feel of him, overwhelming, completely overwhelming, his legs buckling, the wall holding him up...

“I wish it could have been you, sir,” Face whispered against his lips, so close they were still touching. “We could have slept together every night. I’d have done anything you wanted. Made you so happy...”

“Face...”

But that warm body was gone, that boy was gone, over by the door, opening it, closing it, and when Hannibal finally got over there, the kid was sprinting down the hall, already at the stairs, gone, before he could stop it.

A born runner, Hannibal thought, and collapsed into the jamb.

What the fuck was he supposed to do? A wall of static was assailing his senses, trying to scale the walls of his mind and consume it. But he needed to think right now. Had to. If he was going to keep his promise to Face.

Stick to the plan, John, he told himself, glancing back over his shoulder at the goddamn invitation. There’s clarity in the plan. And this was the plan. Here it was. That party. That party.

Get Decker to come after him. Land the bastard square in the middle of something he couldn’t ignore, something that couldn’t be denied by even the most cynical Korean official. Remind him of the big picture. Get Decker back on the case, on course, where he needed to be. Evidence found. Arrests made. Extradition orders drafted. Those kids saved.

But still.

“He’s not going to touch you, kid,” Hannibal whispered down the empty hall, and went back. Picked the phone off the floor. Dialed a number.

That sergeant answered.

+++++

“So,” Hannibal said, sitting down, laying the invitation on the desk, fingers clasped around his knee. “Face’s big day today.”

One perfectly manicured hand picked up the white paper, tapped it thoughtfully against the wood. “I should have thought that clear, Major,” she said easily. “It’s Face’s big day.”

“Your little boy, all grown up?”

She smiled. “I knew you’d want to be there to see it. Face’s new master throws some of the best parties in the country. It’s a thing of beauty, watching him take a boy apart.”

Hannibal swallowed his disgust and nodded. “I thought you had Face trained.”

“Oh, he’s a sweet boy, but he needs a strong hand,” the mada said, echoing her words from the surveillance tapes, and stood, going over to that sideboard and pouring something expensive and amber into two cut-crystal tumblers. “I’m sure he’ll be grateful, all the trouble I’ve gone through to find him just the right man.”

“Are you sure he’s the right man?” Hannibal asked. He hated having to do this. He hated it. Killing her would be doing the world a service. But this was what he needed. Decker watching this. Catching Decker’s attention. Bringing Decker to something he wouldn’t be able to ignore. Catch all the right people. Blow this thing apart.

Save Face.

“Are you going to suggest yourself again, Major Smith?” the madam laughed, and the ice cubes in the glass jingled in perverse melody as he handed him the glass. She smoothed the edge of her skirt as she sat down.

Neither one of them drank.

“Your warehouse stock isn’t bad, but I’d prefer the kid.”

“Decided that when he came over to drop off this?” she queried, and fanned herself a little with Hannibal’s invitation. “Or the first time you set eyes on him?” Hannibal didn’t say anything, seething inside, and she laughed again. “Everyone wants him, major. I told you as much that first night. He’s got an allure I’ve never seen before. He is...” her eyes got misty. “He is...”

“Exquisite?” Hannibal supplied, and she nodded.

“Yes, exquisite. That describes my boy quite well. Exquisite...” and she sighed a little. “They grow up so fast, don’t they?”

“Age doesn’t really bother me,” Hannibal said. “And if it’s money you’re worried about, I do a little better than you probably think I do...”

“It’s not about the money,” she replied, rattling the ice again, running a finger around the wet rim of the glass, setting the crystal to singing. “Not with Face. Not him.”

“Then why sell him at all?”

“You have to put a high price on something you love. Like selling a puppy. The more a person has to pay, the more they value what they’re buying. And Face is a very valuable boy.”

“You love him?” Hannibal didn’t need to fake the incredulity in his voice on that one.

She huffed, but nodded. Like she was reaching for just the right words. “Oh, he’s come a long way from where I found him, like I’ve found so many others. Lost, alone, loveless. I gave him a home,” and the Irish madam shrugged. “It’s only fair I pass him along to another who’s going to take care of him in the same way I have. My boy deserves only the best.”

“And I’m not the best?”

“Major, I’m sure you’re a man capable of deep cruelty. I never fail to be amazed what comes out in you... repressed, shall we say, military men. But Face... Face has this inexplicable fondness for you...so I of course can’t let him go to you.”

“Then why have him deliver my invitation?”

“Because he’s utterly infatuated with you, dear major. He has this insane little hope that you’ll be the one to take him, claim him, own him to his very soul. I know, it’s silly, isn’t it? But I can see it in his eyes when you walk in the room...”

Hannibal forced a laugh. “You know, I’ve done nothing to encourage that.”

“Oh, I know. If you’d wanted him, you would have taken him at your apartment. But I did check him upon his return. Nothing. So thank you for that.”

Hannibal waved it away, concealing his growing unease, and she smiled a little broader.

"He’s been holding out on me, I just know it,” she continued, still rotating her glass, tilting it up on end and running the edge along the surface of her desk. “And it’s so disappointing. I give him everything he needs. But everything’s seemed to center down on you, since you showed up.”

“Ridiculous,” Hannibal agreed, and felt that sickness starting up in the pit of his stomach again. This wasn’t the way this was supposed to go. Get in, get enough on camera for Decker to get suspicious, get out. This was bad. This was very, very bad... “So, you wanted...”

“Wanted him to see you one more time. Dream a little. Concentrate all that...longing in him that makes it impossible for him to lead the life he should lead. But when he sees you there, tonight, watching on while he’s taken for the very first time...” and she holds up her glass. “A toast to you, major, for helping me finally break my boy.”

And the Ranger damn near dropped the glass. But somehow, amazingly, he raised it to hers, crystal clinking gently, and they both drank deeply, Hannibal watching her the whole time.

Motherfucker.

She was right. Being there, not keeping his word, standing by while Face was split open without thought or consideration to his own pleasure, his own innocence... it would destroy what was left of the boy.

And he couldn’t allow that to happen.

So he smirked and nodded and said, “it’s been too long since I’ve been to a decent party.”

“Best in Korea,” she assured. “And I’ll have something young and blonde and fresh, special for you, major, if you’d like.”

“I’d like that,” he said, and rose with a little head-bow. “It’s good scotch, Rose, but I really must be getting in to work.”

“Of course, of course,” the Irishwoman replied, smiling. “I’ll see you tonight then? Do you know how to get there?”

“Already looked up directions, ma’am,” he said and turned, resisting the urge to run. He managed to keep it at a steady pace.

Even it Hannibal didn’t make it far.

He threw up in the alleyway, a few yards down from the Xanadu, his stomach churning violently, everything in him roaring in protest. Save the boy, save the boy, savetheboy. It filled his ears. He could hear nothing else. Just the overwhelming need to stop this, to bring it all to an end, to tear this place down around that woman’s ears, to put a bullet in her brain.

Nothing else.

Not even the man, coming up behind him. Not until the gun was in his back and he was thrown, face-first, into the ground, the puddle of his own vomit.

“Don’t you fucking move,” Decker growled.

That’s when Hannibal heard the handcuffs snick open.

And all sense fled the world entirely.

In any confrontation, Hannibal knew, the difference between living and dying was sometimes a fraction of second. A hairsbreath of hesitation could get you killed.

Hannibal knew this.

Apparently, so did Decker.

So, what happened next contained absolutely no thought at all.

The Ranger in Hannibal roaring awake at the first touch of steel to skin, the lanky major kicked out and wrapped around, capturing Decker’s arm against his body and wrenching over, as hard as he could. But Decker just dropped his weight, hard, angular, digging in with a foot around Hannibal’s, and managed to stop the other man momentarily from getting his back to the pitted alley asphalt.

The second handcuff snicked into place, twisting Hannibal’s hand up at a cruel angle, too tight.

Cutting in.

That earned a backwards slap, up with one of his bound arms, which missed, and now Hannibal was jerking for all he was worth, not a matter of weight, but a matter of leverage, and he couldn’t quite, didn’t quite have it, and then...

Decker jerked up a little bit, thighs squeezing down, and that’s when Hannibal felt the gun on the edge of his spine.

“Stop fucking squirming, major, or I’m going to slap you with resisting arrest,” the junior officer snapped, and grabbed the chain between the handcuffs, yanking hard. “You fucking understand me?”

“Arrested? For what?”

“You’re fucking off this case, Smith!”

“You don’t have the goddamn authority to remove me, Decker!.”

“Whatever the general told you? Fuck that, this is a 501st case and we don’t report...”

“Decker, listen to me, there’s a party tonight I need to be at...”

“Yeah, I bet you do, you motherfucker...” he snorted as he jerked them both upright, and started hauling him forward

“Listen to me, captain! You’re blowing our chance to pin this bitch and figure out who the players are here in Seoul...”

That only got him a derisive laugh. “I’m arresting you,” Decker hissed, pure hatred in his voice as they neared the end of the alley, out towards some car or wherever the fuck Decker was taking him, “for solicitation, for sodomy...”

Sodomy.

It echoed, and he went limp, a hot rush of shame going right through him at that single word, remembering that first little moment, remembering the way the boy had looked, every soft angle of that young body, those blue, blue eyes, lips pressed against his fly, the heat of that mouth, sucking him down, caramel coming away in his fingers, the way he’d collapsed in a heap at Hannibal’s feet...

... that heartbeat against his chest fingers grasping against his biceps, lips soft against his own, needing, needing something that would never come, that was too distant to even hope for...

I want to know what it feels like...sir, you promised...

"for human trafficking, for very, very literal rape of a minor, you motherfucker..."

...you promised...

And everything just broke apart in his head.

Before he even knew what he was doing, and heedless of this bastard’s Beretta, Hannibal was driving back with a swift elbow, knocking a pained grunt loose from the captain and threw them both around, snagging his legs around Decker’s and throwing them both to the ground.

Hard.

It hurt.

A lot.

He heard the sickening crunch of bone snapping, a low strangled screamed and when he looked down, somehow, he’d gotten both his legs around the captain’s neck, wrenching up with hips and thighs.

Decker squirmed, and Hannibal brought every millimeter of his six-foot-four frame into play, slamming the other man’s body down into the ground, digging in a heel as far as he dared.

“Smith, you motherfuc...”

Hannibal scooted up into a sitting position, feeling blood dripping from his wrists and not caring one fucking bit. “Look, Decker, we both want the same thing here. We both want these kids out of here. Come on, we need to stop this thing tonight. I know what happened to her, Derick, do you really want to stand by and let that happen agai...”

“Fuck you,” Decker gasped, lost in his anger. “I did my homework on you, Smith. People talk, even in the Rangers. You’re a fucking... faggot, aren’t you? You what, decide this was your... your chance to screw some kid without anybody knowing?”

And then the cold realization hit him, hit him hard. There was no help here. No help at all. His plan was totally fucked to hell. But yet... getting out of this, anything he did now, was likely to cost him his career, his life, everything he loved...

“Thought you could fucking get away with... with it? I’ve got your number, you son of a bitch...”

I trust you...

So he didn’t have choice, Hannibal knew. Some things were more important than his career.

Some things were worth his life.

“I’m sorry about this, captain,” the Ranger said then, almost sorrowfully to the struggling man in his legs.

Decker seemed to know what was coming and tried to scratch out one more insult as Hannibal let his legs tighten down.

Thank god, the words were lost.

Tighten and hold, Hannibal told himself, flexing hard as he dared, waiting for that one moment when that body went lax and the muscles fell apart and limbs flopped. He let go and rolled himself over, pawing through the unconscious man’s pockets until he found the handcuff key, and painfully, fingers slippery with his own blood, got the things off.

Hannibal didn’t have time to worry about the torn skin, or the mess he was making all over himself, all over Decker. Fuck, who knew what kind of back-up Decker was going to have, what might be coming next... but he paused.

Staring at his wallet, at a pen, and he ripped both loose, finding a number of Korean business cards and clicked the pen open, scrawling the night’s address on the white paper and then smudging it all with a bloody fingerprint as he tucked it into Decker’s shirt pocket, hoping like hell that maybe the man would come to his senses, that maybe he could get some back-up, if only to fucking arrest him again. He’d get Face there, he would, he promised...

But the counter-intell officer stirred and Hannibal shoved the gun, scattered a few feet away on the alley floor, in the waistband of his pants, and took off as fast as he dared.

Down the foul little alley.

Towards tonight.

Towards Face.

+++++

Hannibal pulled the cuffs of his shirt down a little further on his wrists as he threw won into the pay phone down the street from the house where he was headed. The international district. Six blocks from the Embassy. Jesus wept. Why the fuck did people think they could come to Asia and do whatever the fuck they wanted?

But not with his boy.

He couldn’t risk that.

So had to take the chance.

Had to take a breath before his fingers would work the keys.

He almost hangs up after the sixth ring, but then, right in the middle of the seventh, there’s the voice. The one he wants to hear.

“Hello?”

“Sergeant, do not hang up...”

“Hannibal...” and the Ranger can almost hear the sigh in the other man’s voice. “Do you have any idea how much fucking trouble you’re in? Decker’s got a general arrest order out on you with the Seoul Metro Police and Yongsan’s... was this part of your plan, sir?”

There was a bit of a plea in that, like the sergeant needed to know that this was all intentional, that beating the shit out of the man’s boss in an alley behind a juicy bar was totally genius in some magical way.

And no, of course it fucking wasn’t. Pissing Decker off? Yeah, that had been intentional. But pissing him off to the point that the man tried to arrest him before the appropriate time? No, no... Hannibal cursed himself for miscalculating so damn badly on this whole fucking thing. If it wasn’t for Face...

His grip tightened down around the receiver. “Yeah, sergeant. Get your captain to follow me here.”

“He’s pissing blood right now, sir. Literally as well as figuratively.”

“Did he...”

“He wants to stick with another week or so of surveillance, just so we’ve got the case nailed...”

Hannibal leaned forward, letting his forehead hit the front of the bright phone box and smashed his hand against the side. “Don’t fucking tell me that!”

“Major, sir, I don’t know what to tell you, he’s a bulldog about...”

He took another deep breath and pushed back a little bit, focusing. Acutely aware of everything. The failing humidity. The taste of pollution and chili in the air. The sting along his wrists of barely-scabbed skin. The stretch of his tailored black suit stretching across the black silk shirt, sliding against his back, and what a pain in the ass it had been today, trying to get back in his apartment to grab the fucking thing and avoid Decker’s goons...

No. No. This was ad-libbing. This was ad-libbing all the way. Maybe it had been ad-libbing all along.

But who fucking cared? It was going to be Face here who paid the price.

“Look,” he said, as forcefully as he could, “tell him this. Tell him you were helping me...”

“Sir, no, you’ve got no idea what he’s going to do to me if...”

“Shut up and listen to me, sergeant. Tell him you’ve been working with me. Tell him everything. And then tell him exactly what I’m going to have to tell you right now, because I am dead fucking serious about this.”

There was a pause, Hannibal’s fingers tightening to bloodless white around the edge of the box. A long pause. And then...

“Okay, sir, what is it?”

“I am exactly five minutes away from a sex party thrown by somebody very high up at the American embassy who’s celebrating the purchase of an underage sex slave. In exactly five minutes I’m going to be going through the door at this place. If you aren’t here to arrest me before this fucker takes ownership of the kid, I am going to be bound by my oath as an officer to stop it.”

“Stop... stop it, sir?”

“Remind Decker I’ve got his gun. He’s got the damn address,” Hannibal growled, and slammed the phone back into place.

He let himself lean for a moment, just a moment, on the edge of the little phone booth. But he had to get going, and it seemed like only a moment before he was down the street and at the gate of the large Korean-style mansion and his name was being checked off a list and he was inside.

And Hannibal’s skin started to crawl.

Hannibal pushed his way into the bowels of the house, feeling his stolen pistol heavy in the shoulder holster he’d managed to grab out of his apartment earlier, when he’d gotten his suit. His heart was pounding in his ears, and the sights that greeted him in here, well, he wasn’t sure if the way his heart skipped up was arousal or disgust.

It was unlike anything he’d ever encountered before.

Lights dim, electronic ambient music soft in the background in the open plan of the ground floor, the entire space was a seething mass of skin and sweat, mostly naked girls and boys in various bits of jewelry and straps and leather, most white, some he recognized from the Xanadu and the warehouse and a few he couldn’t place. New arrivals, maybe. Still just dancing, or writhing, or whatever you’d call it. Hannibal wasn’t sure, really. He felt sick. Nobody had gotten to the main event yet, probably waiting for their host.

Face’s buyer.

But he didn’t see the kid.

One of the girls from the club brushed by Hannibal then, everything on display, but her eyes were clear as she looked up into his. “He’s upstairs, getting ready,” she murmured, and her hand was the last thing that left his chest. “But he’ll be...over there.”

The major followed the plane of her hand. And a cold wave, painful and harsh, washed over him.

In the middle of it all was a huge silver chain, gleaming down from the ceiling, a set of handcuffs at the end, a little raised platform below it, all of it set up so if you hooked a person up by their wrists, their feet just might touch the ground.

“He’s still waiting for you,” she told him, blinking up at him, and then she was gone.

He watched her go, wishing he knew her name, wishing he could tell her... but there was nothing to be said. He couldn’t say anything. So he just walked towards the fucking thing instead, drawn in, feeling a stab of terror. This was here for Face, for his Face. This was where it was going to happen. This was where...

“A lovely set-up, isn’t it, major?” Rose said, a little off to the side but coming over, like they were old friends. She looked amazing, Hannibal thought, all black leather and smooth limbs, something that belonged in a place like this, innocent and predatory. “They’ll be bringing Face out in a little while. Won’t he be gorgeous?” she asked, stepping up on the platform and running her own slender hands through the sliver loops of the handcuffs, leaning forward with a smile. “Just imagine it, major. That boy, hanging here, all eyes on him as he’s taken for the first time, as he learns the joys of a man’s touch, as he’s finally made to surrender, to give over and lose himself...”

Hannibal swallowed hard, telling himself Decker was going to get here in time. Telling himself it didn’t matter anyway, that he’d save the kid. No matter what it was going to cost him personally. No matter what it already had. “I’m sure it will be a sight to behold.”

“Won’t it?” she said happily, and her hips swayed on her way back down. Hannibal tugged the sleeve of his black shirt down again and held out a hand, automatic and necessarily polite, to help her down. She giggled, actually giggled, and slipped her arm into his. “Come on, big boy, let’s get you a drink, shall we?”

The music continued, seeming to smooth out all the painful minutes into one long flow. Hannibal sipped slowly at the glass of champagne Rose pushed into his hand, watching the crowd, not listening to her prattle on, watching everything heating up, but the sex hadn’t started not. Not until the sign was given, he thought, not until...

“There he is! Oh, look at the boy!” Rose exclaimed by the edge of the stage, proud as a mother on her son’s graduation day. “Isn’t he beautiful?”

Hannibal looked up.

Felt his heart nearly stop.

Because the only thing he could think of was that yeah, yeah, even naked, even collared and leased and following, more defeated than Hannibal had ever seen him, even in the midst of all this filth, even like this, even in the horror of what could come, even coming towards a future Hannibal would not allow, yeah, the kid was beautiful.

Most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

Across the room, almost as if Face could hear him, somehow finding him, those gorgeous eyes lifted and locked with his even as the crowd fell silent with expectation. Face was staring at him, expression pleading, helpless, under the studiously submissive facade. No anger right now. No defiance. The barest remnant of hope, dying even now as it flared up again. Just fear. Just a fear that Hannibal could feel in his gut, tearing through him.

The major couldn’t breath, couldn’t move. The gun under his jacket was heavy, at hand, so easy, just shoot the bitch at his elbow and scatter the crowd and get his boy, get him out of here. This was his chance, this was the only chance, unless Decker got that stick out of his ass and actually...

But then Rose squeezed his arm and held it back and leaned up on tiptoes, murmuring, “thank you for helping me with him, major.”

Right before she kissed him full on the mouth.

And the last of the light in those blue eyes was extinguished when she finally let him go.

As they started stringing Face up, metal clicking into place, louder, more final, than anything he'd ever heard in his life.

Rose slipped away from Hannibal then, thank fucking god, and sensually made her way, on those impossible pumps of hers, up to the top of the low platform, right next to Face. A manicured hand stroked down his belly, slow and sensual, to cup his balls, squeezing with what must have been excruciating force.

The kid cried out.

Her lips were by his ear, then, whispering something meant only for Face, and he closed his eyes as she pulled away.

“It’s time,” she announced to the now quiet, now still room. “Is there with us tonight a master worthy of my lad?”

“There is, woman!”

It thundered from the back, from a small area that Hannibal instantly assessed as possessing the stairs, and there was the buyer, the man from the office, from earlier. Impeccable. Tall. Imposing.

A naked blade in hand, glinting in the low light, and the major could see it in his eyes. That was man who’d killed before. And loved it.

His hand was under his jacket, going for his gun, thumbing the safety down even as he slipped the thing loose from its holster, and another three seconds would see that motherfucker dead, the bitch on the platform, anybody else in the room who wasn’t Face, didn’t matter, fucking anyone... as that man strode confidently to the center of the room.

God of this little world.

Well, fuck h...

A hand grabbed his elbow.

“Sir, stop.”

It was a whisper, impossibly low, almost too quiet to hear, and it was nothing short of a miracle, Hannibal would realize later, that he didn’t just rip the offender’s throat out and go for the primary kill.

“Sir, please...”

The sergeant.

Hannibal took a deep, shuddering breath, snicked the safety back up and slowly, slowly, moved his hand back down, to fist at his side. But his eyes were locked on Face. Face’s eyes, soft and vacant, were locked on nothing. The boy was trying to hide himself, bury it all so he wouldn’t feel the pain, the last bulwark of his defenses. But if this happened, if that goddamn buyer had his way, if that knife touched skin, Hannibal knew the kid would never be able to find his way back up to the surface.

He’d be lost.

“Can’t wait,” Hannibal murmured back.

“Have to. Decker’s given orders...the surveillance, the exchange of money, sir, this is some kind of contract agreement. Can’t charge them if it’s not carried out...”

The crowd all collectively took a step back as the buyer gained the platform, moving to stand right nexr Rose, almost blocking Hannibal’s view of Face. And not that, not now...

I trust you...

“Is this the best you can offer me?”

“He’s a diamond in the rough. Your hand will shape him. You and you alone will decide what he becomes.”

The expectation from the crowd, so loud it was almost deafening, the scream of Rose’s curling smile, the shine of light on the Marine fighting knife...why a Marine knife? Why that?

You promised me, sir, you promised...

Hannibal’s hand shot back up and the sergeant grabbed it again.

“Sir, no...”

“And does he know, what he is to become?”

Formalized, almost ritualized, the Ranger in him said even as it screamed for blood. What the fuck was this?

“Your slave,” Face said, quiet, ringing, eyes closed. “No-one else’s. Never... never to be touched by any man but you. Taking any touch you favor me... favor me with...”

“You accept this, boy?”

I won’t survive this...

“...yes, master...”

A coin was produced, large, shining, gold. Hannibal was close enough to catch, as it was laid in Rose’s greedy palm, through the flash off the surface, the figure of an eagle. A blue star.

A military coin.

A one-star's coin.

Hannibal recognized that look, that haircut, that man, thought he’d looked familiar before and now it clicked. It all clicked horrifically in to place.

The US Navy Attaché. From the Embassy. A fucking O-7. Rear Admiral.

A fellow officer.

Running the tip of an issued knife along the soft skin of a teenage boy’s neck.

Those blue eyes, catching his, one last breath before the dive he’ll never surface from...

And that, right there, tipped Hannibal completely over the edge. Past anger, past fury, past hate, down into that killing state where the world pulled down into a perfect, blinding hot kind of clarity.

No force in the world could stop him now.

The gun practically flew out, into his hand, muzzle flashing and chamber singing out, once, twice, two shots bursting bone, hollow-points shattering into soft gray tissue, death far, far too instantaneous.

The body of the admiral hit the floor.

A dozen police sirens wailed awake outside the high walls.

And chaos erupted.

Hannibal was locked on, those instincts completely taking over and he had Rose literally in his sights, the shocked look on the Irish madam’s face as he started to depress the trigger for a third time almost...

But he was tackled from behind, dragged to the ground with enough force that gun slipped complete from his grasp, skittering away into the screaming, seething mass of humanity swirling above them, as if in some other world he couldn’t quite reach.

There was weight on him, and he lashed out, hard, catching bone on his pinkie and feeling a vessel erupt beneath the surface of his skin, a tearing pain, and he had the bastard who’d taken him down flat instantly.

Oh.

“What the ever-loving fuck do you think you’re doing, sergeant?”

There was a thick ribbon of blood already pouring from the half-senseless man’s temple, and Hannibal didn’t fucking care. “Asked... asked for our help, Hannibal. Gotta take it. They were going to be here, you gotta trust...”

“It’d be too late,” he growled, and hauled them both up, his height easily catching him a view of the milieu around them, of the room, of the black-garbed Korean SWAT swarming in like fucking ninjas... of the empty chain swinging above the platform.

Of the insane stiletto pumps discarded beneath it.

“Fuck,” he breathed, and dropped the sergeant on the platform, grabbing the knife from the dead man’s hand, taking off across the room towards the place where the stairs had to be, shoving and pushing and clearing a path, heedless of anything else, sound fading out beneath the pound of his own blood in his ears, a cold and certain dread washing over him as he tore through the crowd to reach wherever Rose was taking Face.

He took the stairs four at a time, vaulting up on the house’s second floor with no effort at all. A hallway, twisting, full of doors, and it was a distinct possibility, that little voice in the back of his head was whispering to him, trying to keep him alive at a time when he really, really did not give a shit about his own personal safety, that Rose could have his gun, that she could be dead already, that Face could be...

He kicked in four different doors before he had his answer.

There she was, standing, swaying a little, dress torn, hair wild, facing Hannibal but the gun pointed with a dead-steady hand at Face, balled up in the corner of the bare little space. Red and blue light was flashing through the windows, diffused into the rot of that muggy Seoul night, the only sounds the ones from downstairs, and Hannibal rotated the blade behind his back.

Away from the fighting grip he had it in.

He wasn’t sure if he could still do this. If he could aim this thing. But...

“Major,” the Irishwoman said, as calmly as if they were snug and sound back in her office right now, “so glad you could join us. I want you to be here, to see this.”

“See what, Rose?”

“See what you’ve done. See what you’ve made me do. Have to do. To poor, sweet Face here.”

That fear tried to fight up through the blanket of purpose, like pain through morphine, and he willed himself silent. Ready.

“Put the gun down, Rose. You don’t want to hurt him...”

“I have to,” she said, bitterness in her words creeping to tears. “I have to. His life... the police are going to take him away and tell him he needs therapy and lock him in a little padded room, where nobody at all will love him.”

“This... that wasn’t love, Rose,” Hannibal said, trying to get a read on the kid. Finding nothing. “This isn’t love.”

“There’s nothing for him in this world now!” she screamed, and whirled around on a bare foot, stocking ripped to the mid-calf, right over to Face, who scrunched himself even further back. The gun, Hannibal saw, was trained on himself now, one handed, and she leaned Face’s head against her. “Tell him, baby boy. Tell him what I’ve done for you. Tell him you love me...”

Hannibal could hear boots on the stairs. He didn’t know what the fuck he was going to do. Everything seemed to be slowing down. Everything was going impossibly fast.

His fingers slipped up the blade to the end. The balance was wrong. The heft was bad. Not made for this. And it cut into the sensitive pads, blood flowing, too much blood, slippery...

Face took a fast inhale, like he was coming back to himself, and looked very deliberately up at her in the darkness. “Fuck you, you shriveled, bitter, disgusting cunt.”

She screamed and the gun came around, smashed the kid square on the jaw and then dragged up in her fevered, crazed hand. “Disobedience will not be tolera...”

But whatever she was going to say stayed lodged in her throat forever.

Held down in her lungs.

By five inches of dully shining US military steel that suddenly seemed to grow from her back.

As he rushed over, Hannibal could hear the boil of heart blood frothing up, hot, pressurized, fucking taste it in the air, all familiar things, dirty, wet, personal, the way knife kills always were.

What wasn’t familiar, though, was the way the kid willingly caught her dying body, how gently he laid her down, holding her hand as she gurgled her way through two more breaths, wordless.

All of them wordless.

Face kissed her cheek, shut her eyes, dragging down the lids with slippery fingers, and there was nothing but anguish in him as Hannibal settled his own suit jacket carefully around those heaving shoulders.

“She loved me,” he said mournfully, watching her body go limp. “She did, sir, I know she did.”

“It’s okay,” Hannibal said helplessly, those boots loud, immediate, right there but thankfully not coming in. He looked up, and there was Decker, face swollen but the fury... still there, the fury, but his sidearm was holstered. “It’s okay, Face.”

“It’s not my name,” the kid whispered, still holding her hand. “I don’t remember what my name was. She wouldn’t let me use it. Face, the same goddamn nickname from school. She just wanted to call me that once she learned it. I don’t have a name, I don’t have a fucking name, she took that away... took that away...”

He rubbed the kid’s back, holding on, feeling the first tremors of shock beginning to set in. Decker was still standing by, clearly itching to get in, and Hannibal held up a hand against that.

“Then leave her here, kid. Leave everything here. Everything you don’t want,” he murmured. “I want to get you of here. Let me take you out of here...”

“She’s gone?”

“She’s gone. I’m so sorry it happened like this.”

“And... and you... you actually...it’s my choice, now, my choice?”

“For the rest of your life, kid. Your life. Nobody else’s.”

Face dipped his head, then up, throat muscles flexing against the thick, unforgiving leather of the collar, and his trembling fingers left her already-cooling body, tearing at the heavy buckle until the thing came off his neck, laying across his hand, as dead as the corpse between them.

He didn't tip it off quite yet.

The boy met Hannibal’s eyes first, and they weren’t defeated, weren’t crushed. A vast sorrow, uncertainty, a tinge of fear. But mostly?

Mostly...

...wonder.

“...you...”

Hannibal couldn’t look at any of the grisly scene anymore, and Decker was starting to fume over his shoulder, and so he stood, pulling Face up with him, wrapping an arm around him to keep him from falling, wishing he could do something about the kid’s nakedness as he led him from that place of death.

Face clung to him, bare feet sliding red trails over the dark wood of the floors, Hannibal's own clothes utterly ruined, the two of them staying close, passing through the gates, holding on, even as paramedics rushed to inspect them both and Decker rushed up behind and a thousand things came at his boy that he wouldn't let hurt him. Not this one. Not ever again.

Face clung to him. Face seemed okay with all that.

And the collar was left behind.

Continue to Part Four