Good Boy

by chickenshithypocrite

Freddie Trumper is only a pawn... Trigger warning for rape, physical, mental and emotional abuse/trauma, psychological torture, brainwashing, imprisonment. Pairings are Freddie/Anatoly and noncon Molokov/Freddie. Told in three parts.

1. Part 1

Bangkok, 1980

Dusit Thani Hotel

"Who was that?"

"Freddie, you are being ridiculous-"

"I'm being ridiculous. I'm being fucking ridiculous?! Check a mirror, asshole."

The Russian scowled across the room at his second; the bags beneath his eyes looked particularly racoonish in the dim light, dark in his pale face. He could pull the sunshine act out of his ass all day long, but Freddie would know better every time. "I do not have to deal with this right now. Leave- I am on the phone." With the curtains drawn and the room all a wreck, long shadows cast over his thin features, he almost looked intimidating… almost.

Not to Freddie, in any case.

"What, I'm not allowed to ask questions now? I'm not putting up with this shit," he spat, advancing on him with his fists curled. He wasn't even really all that mad. He was just being Freddie, which, as much as he hated to tell himself that, meant that he would be fine in twenty minutes.

He wasn't going to hit him, anyways – there was a time when he might have, early in their relationship or before. Before he'd forfeited his goddamn title to the bastard, and all for the sake of begging Walter for a favor.

A pretty damn big favor, if he was honest, but still.

He's still not sure how they got him out, only that Walter had connections and they'd been on a plane to the States within the week, hardly able to keep their hands from one another. And he still wasn't sure how pictures of it hadn't ended up all over the front page of the Times.

(It was one of those unfortunate little side effects of his time with Florence: he hated to be alone, needed the touch, needed to know he was there, that someone was there- but that wasn't important right now. Now he was pissed, just for the next twenty minutes and he didn't have the time or the patience for nostalgia.)

(They had their whole lives to be sappy like that.)

(He just wants to yell. He's going to fucking yell.)

Unfortunately for Freddie, he wasn't any more intimidating than his (fiancé) (friend) (lover?). Anatoly raised on skeptical eyebrow, hand still covering the warm plastic mouthpiece, not even pretending to cower.

He had never indulged Freddie like Florence had.

"What exactly are you putting up with?" he said quietly, exasperated, and his accent wasn't quite as thick as it used to be; despite himself Freddie liked the fact that he'd left a mark on him besides the purple string of bruises that had faded a week ago, from his ear to his collarbone.

"Are you fucking kidding me? Are you fucking kidding me?" He can't help it, he's a firework, a human explosive miswired a thousand times by parents who never wanted to look inside his head and see the damage. Florence had been so good at that. She was a fucking genius – she knew how to move them around without disconnecting anything, without grazing the nerves. He missed Florence.

He refused to think that Anatoly might miss Svetlana that way. Svetlana was a bitch – Florence had only been called one.

"You're not going back. Fuck you."

Fuck him for thinking he could just leave Freddie. Fuck him.

Anatoly's face darkens and for a moment Freddie remembers that he's a Russian – the Russian – he is another person, sometimes, the person he was before, and Freddie knows next to nothing about that person. "No, I am not- but I do not see how that is your decision to make."

"Don't give me that bullshit," he snarls, mostly out of desperation. If he lost Anatoly now then what was the point of the past year? What was he going to do – go back home to an empty apartment and sit down with no one to help him back up? No chess, no Florence – no Anatoly. Nothing. He'd be damned if he was going to let this mudak, his bitch, take everything from him and just leave like the rest of them. "What about me? You didn't leave for her, you-"

Then he is human again, and his dark eyes lighten with anxiety. His children he had said before, moaned about all night long after he'd seen Molokov's sinister smile in his direction. They had his children.

"I cannot let them threaten my family, Freddie."

"Like you give a shit about them!"

He fumbled for some breakable object, anything, and hurled it with what felt like venom searing in his heart, the vein in his forehead throbbing – the picture frame on their nightstand shattered against the opposite wall. Anatoly was silent, casting his eyes at the glittering fragments on the hotel carpet, white like Freddie used to be, like everything he could so easily leave and just disappear into the nowhere he came out of in the first place.

Finally, he sighed, closed his eyes and brought the phone back to his ear. He turned away to murmur in low, stressed tones the Russian word for goodbye. Freddie knew it, knew the familiar, foreign syllables by heart. There are words in his vocabulary that stand out like scars made by those tiny shards, blood red and irreparable, too intricate to ever fix with the blunt tools of time. Hello, goodbye, good night, I love you.

Teb'ya lublyu, Freddie.

"Freddie, she is no threat to you…" he said, glancing up at him wearily as he set the phone back on the receiver, and Freddie sneered. He could taste Svetlana on the air between them, again, like always lately.

She tasted bitter.

"If it's so easy to say then why don't you prove it?" This couldn't be happening. Freddie could feel his throat constricting in anticipation, even as he sat beside him, reaching desperately for an anchor. Anatoly curled his fingers around his absently and relief washed powerful and irrational through him.

He couldn't just leave, not without Freddie. He had to know he couldn't just leave-

"The Soviets want the title." Anatoly pursed his lips, seemingly unaware of the churning indignation in Freddie's gut. "They will have no other reason to…"

"You can't just throw the match!" He was aware that he sounded utterly disgusted. Anatoly cast him an irate expression, scowling again, but he wasn't done. "You're better than that. You're the goddamn champion, for good reason-"

"You might have been playing," Anatoly interrupts, angrily. He was starting to redden with frustration, something that Freddie was normally proud of. "If you had not forfeited, who is to say you would not be the champion now?"

It stung, as it was meant to. He scrambled to defend himself, flush spreading down his neck. His hand tightened near-painfully around the Russian's. "You'd still be trapped in that communist hellhole if it weren't for me-"

"And my family would not be in danger, Freddie- I cannot just leave them like this!"

"You can't just leave me like this! You're playing like a novice. Get your shit together – I know you're better than this. You're better than me."

It was almost pleading – Freddie hated to beg, but he knew what buttons he had to push. Even stubborn as a mule, Anatoly swayed like a flower in the wind to Freddie's manipulations, every time. Some chess master he was.

"Well I am glad you can admit it," is all he could say but it's choked, and there was alarm in his eyes that made Freddie's chest tight with morbid satisfaction.

"You aren't letting the reds walk all over you," he continued while he still had his attention, aware that he was twisting the knife from the way Anatoly's expression twisted with it, just the barest twitch. Anatoly may have been a better chess player, but Freddie would always beat him at poker.

"I am only taking precautions. My wife will-" Anatoly attempted again, but it was no use reasoning with Freddie when he was like this.

"She's not your wife," he hissed, his eyes narrowing to slits, and before Anatoly could even find the words to try and placate him he had yanked his hand away with a dangerous look in his eye.

"She's not even your wife, they're barely even your fucking kids. Tell me-" he bit out, grim satisfaction ripping into his chest and up through his lungs, metallic like blood, at the devastated sight of his expression.

"How often do you honestly see them? How many of their birthday parties have you been to?" No response. He tried harder. "You're not their fucking father-"

He watched in slow motion as, in the space of a moment, it backfired. "I have to go," Anatoly spat, and as he whirled from the room the door slammed behind him with a vibration that sounded distinctly like goodbye.

Freddie's hand stung with the speed of his withdrawal, brows furrowed and jaw set in a scowl. He didn't have to ask what was so urgent. It had been in the papers all week, this impending disaster.

My wife, come to Bangkok?

Everyone had been so certain that he was the nutjob and he could hardly make an argument there – but watching his partner come undone at the seams, he had to wonder if insanity loved company as much as misery obviously did.

With a heavy sigh he shut his eyes and turned over, faceplanting into the pillow and curling up around it. A frustrated scream was building hot and silent in his chest.

There was no use in throwing anything else; they would only have to pay for it when they left.

(If they left.)

God dammit. He missed Florence.

Anatoly wasn't back until late that night, until well after Freddie had given up on his coming back and had dozed off, hanging half off the side of the bed. He woke him with a whisper, faint and amused, and crawled up beneath the covers with him in the darkness.

It always went like this, with them. The words were forgotten by dawn, sucked away and swallowed with slow, deep kisses at midnight.

"Teb'ya lublyu," he murmured, moaned, grabbed his shoulder for anything to hold onto as Freddie sucked furiously at his pulse point.

Mine, mine, you are fucking mine.

"Love you," he mumbles instead, under his breath, and tastes the smile sweet on his lower lip. "I love you."

Don't leave me.

He said that he wouldn't, but words had never meant much before. Not with Florence, not with his mother, his father. Not even really with Walter, who always said he talked too much. Why should they mean anything now?

Anatoly threw an arm over him and drew him in, right to his chest where it was warm and safe and Svetlana was only a word that meant nothing – didn't exist, didn't have to mean a goddamn thing to Freddie Trumper.

The bitterness crept back in the morning.

He left with barely a peck, one eye on the door until he was through it and halfway down the stairs, into the lobby.

"She's here," is all he had said, and somehow Freddie had found it in him to bite his tongue and merely glower at the wall as he nodded in reluctant acknowledgement.

It had been coming for a week, maybe more, but it still seemed so fast and not fair, and he wants to tell everyone he sees on his way to get coffee from the breakfast being hosted in the lobby that he hates that stupid Russian and his whole family. They're all the same, all the reds. Never trust a Russian.

There was little for him to do in Bangkok – years ago he might have gone out for a drink, played chess with himself, or perhaps even put on an easy smirk and placed himself where anyone might find him in the crowd, soaking up the attention. Now, he left only for his coffee and returned to lock the door and curl up on the bed, and tried not to imagine Anatoly at the airport embracing the woman he hadn't seen in over a year now, almost two.

She was blonde and beautiful or so the pictures in his wallet had said. Their children, too. What could he possibly offer in comparison?

Sometimes he wondered why the fuck Anatoly would give up the life he'd had for an asshole like him; but, then again, it was Russia they were talking about…

He wasn't sure what he expected – for Anatoly to appear with blondie in tow, two little ducklings trailing behind, or for Anatoly not to come back at all. If he left him here, stranded and lonely, it would only be what the cynic in him had expected.

Either way it made him so anxious that his hands shook, pacing and pacing around the little room, around pieces of shattered glass that he knew neither of them would touch or talk about or even call room service to clean up. It was too real, too vivid – they didn't want to know that there was something so deadly between them. It could sever the tether, Freddie thought to himself, those thin slivers shining between threads – could make them strangers in an instant; neither of them wanted that, of course.

Codependency is 'unhealthy', but who honestly gives a shit?

He ended up clutching the pillow to his chest and breathing, deeply, just breathing and not thinking at all. Not about Anatoly and not about Florence and not about the bitch Svetlana, and her stupid blonde hair, and her eyes and her children that Anatoly liked to call his. He didn't remember ever being anyone's child but Florence's.

Perhaps this is how his father felt about him. Nobody wanted a child that had overstayed their welcome.

Some time later there was a sharp knock at the door.

To be very honest, Freddie wasn't used to having callers. He never had been, and especially since Anatoly – the moment his home was emptied of Florence, they had no visitors. None Walter and his 'friends', who came periodically to check that yes, the scandal was still alive and well, and no, neither of them had any regrets that they wanted to air like dirty laundry on international television.

Walter hadn't really spoken to him in a while. Freddie sullenly refused to wonder if it was his own fault.

Abrasive, they called him. Maybe he'd be less abrasive if people would just leave him the fuck alone when he asked them to.

Anatoly was no fonder of the press than Freddie (especially once he was in the West, and they had poison ink to spare for him, the papers in Italy and America and possibly in Russia – but they didn't talk about Russia, didn't even dare to think the word) nor had he ever been very sociable. They'd hidden away for a year, emerging from their perch on the twelfth floor in Manhattan only for chess and occasionally coffee. It suited Freddie just fine.

There was a pain in his side where he'd slept on it funny and, groaning under his breath, he rolled over to try and rub it away. He saw no good reason to sit up – it was probably just another fledgling journalist looking for their big break, begging for a picture or an autograph or some quote for their article on the championship.

On how Sergievsky was even more fucked in the head than his predecessor.

Well. Freddie wasn't about to tell them he wasn't.

But it wasn't any of their goddamn business.

"Can't you just fuck off?" he started to groan in response to the next flurry of raps, clutching the pillow tightly to his chest, but he stiffened at the meek sound of her voice.

"Hello? It's-"

"Florence?" He sat up so fast that his neck cracked, staring at the patterned wood. Florence. Florence Florence Florence-

He'd spent so long forgetting everything, Florence included – still, he was up, on his feet at the door opening it up for Florence who stood on the other side in jeans and a t-shirt, so different than he remembered, exactly the same. Looking at her was like looking at a portrait of the past, altered and faded with age – she wasn't wearing makeup, not even her favorite shade of maroon polish on her nails. She was Florence, but she wasn't.

Florence knew him. She did not. Although, she seemed to think she might; her knuckles were white where they clenched her purse, anxiety underlying her expression.

Faintly, he repeated it. "Florence."

"Ah- Freddie."

She offered an awkward sort of smile, raising her hand and waving her fingers. What do you want? But no, that's rude – he grits his teeth at her voice in his head. Now it echoes outwards, destroying the silence of the hall, disrupting the low buzz of his mind. "I wasn't… expecting you."

There was a long, awkward pause. Freddie couldn't seem to arrange the words jumbled in his head into a proper sentence. Finally –

"What are you doing here?" he asked, too-sharply, voice only vaguely uneven. Nice poker face. For the first time in a year he was faced with his problems, the source of them all, all compressed into this woman-shaped space.

No. Florence was no woman. She was better than them. A mystery, still, but a whole lot fucking better than that stupid blonde bitch Anatoly was pining after. Florence. "Florence, what the hell are you doing here?"

"I was told this was An- Mr. Sergievsky's room." She certainly didn't look like she was about to explain where she got that information, glancing past him and into the unlit room. She looked so much older than she was, the shadows under her eyes so much more prominent without the shadows over them.

He wondered if she'd slept recently. He wondered if he'd look the same, worse, without Anatoly to keep him stable and satisfied.

(Mostly satisfied.)

Stepping into her line of vision, he shifted uncomfortably, mouth thinning into a line. "You woke me up." Never mind why he was here when the room was booked with Anatoly's name, practically infamous now. Place the blame on her, make sure she knows that you're the boss – all those things he'd learned by example, all those things he'd done to her that he couldn't ever seem to stop.

"… The next match isn't until tomorrow."

Right. Chess. That's why they were here – for chess.

(Not for Svetlana. Not for anything to do with her. When they left, she would, too.)

(For chess.)

"I know. I'm here to see you. Not him." Not like in Merano, the furtive looks, the way she'd said his name. He wondered if he'd ever get over that.

Not likely.

(He wondered if he'd ever stop wanting to brush that stray hair from her face, roll his eyes, smirk, lean into her hand as she patted his cheek in return - )

(Less likely.)

She didn't touch him now, although he was sure she must want to, just peered at him like she was seeing him for the first time. (He wondered if he looked any different, now, to her.) (He wondered a lot of things.) "Freddie… I've missed you."

He can imagine the gentle way she'd place her hand on his arm but she didn't dare, not now, not after a whole year, a year and a half without a word. (He wondered if she had ever wanted to call; if she'd forgotten his number yet.)

"I'm trying to sleep," he tries, but it's weak and he grimaces, ducking his head. "Why did you come here, if you were looking for me?"

"I thought that he might know where I could find you - can I come in?" (Always so polite, Florence, you're such a Brit, Florence.) He took a breath and stepped aside reluctantly, nodding.

She seemed to deflate with relief, nodding in return, in understanding, as she slipped past him and into the dim room.

(She'd always just understood him with barely a fucking look; he wondered, ached to know if she could still do that crazy little trick where she read his mind, fixed everything with a wave of her manicured fingernails.)

(Florence.)

But Florence was a woman, even if she was an exceptional woman. He couldn't trust her to save his life (though she had, so many times) and he couldn't let her back in, and this was already a mistake and Anatoly wouldn't like it at all –

He wasn't sure he liked it, either…

"It's late. I'm sorry," she began, eyes cast curiously on the clothing trail trickling from the open suitcase half-underneath the bed. He'd given up his all-white attire, in recent months, except for his favorite pair of pants; it was hard to tell, now, that they belonged to him.

They'd had shocking success keeping news of their love affair out of the papers – the story went that Freddie had seduced the Russian with talk of freedom in the West, not with his lips and hands and touch and tongue.

Walter had helped with that, of course, but it was only a matter of time.

"Don't be," he said instead, letting loose a dormant sigh of resignation. There was little room to sit; he offered her the cold edge of the bed where Anatoly had been sitting just an hour ago, awkwardly: "I don't have coffee or anything-"

"There's a first for everything," she murmured, with a secret smile that would have been a laugh two years ago if they were in their living room instead of this tacky hotel room with the glass swept under the bed and the blinds closed – he reached to correct that now, afraid to be alone with her like this, cornered.

Merano lingered between them like dirty air. Freddie swallowed, refused to look at her. "There might be some downstairs, if you…"

"Forget it," she said, patting his hand. There was intent somewhere buried in her eyes, just out of reach – she meant to be discreet, but Florence had never been able to keep things from him. "Maybe we should go to your room?"

"Ah – no, that's – alright. It's… Actually –" He cleared his throat, daring to glance up with an awkward knot twisted in his gut. "This is my room."

Florence made him feel thirteen – like she was his babysitter, his first crush, his aunt, the mother he never had doting on him, all rolled into one; his first erection and his first love and his first friend. For the first time since they'd arrived in Bangkok he felt warm instead of just sticky.

I love you, I love you, words he hadn't been able to say in too-long and they'd rolled around in his skull until the walls were worn to the breaking point. It meant so many things – so many more things than she probably thought.

I love you; not like Anatoly, not like anything, anyone else. Just… like Florence.

I love you.

(She's going to find out, sometime. Might as well be now.)

Not that he was going to tell her – but she was a smart girl, right? She could figure it out on her own. She had more tact than Freddie, might even leave without saying a word about it. (But what was she there for?)

"Is there a reason you wanted to see me?" Freddie raised an eyebrow, watching already as her eyebrows furrowed at the queen sized bed beneath them, fingers smoothing carefully over the patterned comforter.

One bed, two people… Something wasn't going to add up, eventually. He rushed to cover it up, already cursing himself. You could have just lied! Jesus! You're worse than he is! "I'm exhausted."

No, don't leave me, don't leave, don't leave-

All of this, and he'd been the one to leave her stranded in Merano after a petty fight; a stupid, petty fight that he'd tried so hard to regret.

You wanna lose your only friend? No, please, don't leave-

So he'd left instead. (Somehow, it made a lot of sense back then…)

"I haven't been able to get a hold of you." She looked almost sheepish, looking up from beneath her lashes with a hesitant smile. Their gazes grazed one another and it stung – Freddie snapped his head away, coughed into his fist.

"I didn't change my number. Or my address." Why didn't you come back? You always come back. Don't look, don't look – he met her eyes again, searching for some answer, and was met with overwhelming pity.

"I'm sorry, Freddie. I didn't think… I wasn't sure-" She paused, wrinkling her nose and softly sighing. "You seemed happy. In the interviews. I watched… all of them."

"So why are you here?" He didn't mean to sound accusatory except he did, frowning. "You really shouldn't be here."

"Officially? I'm here to see the tournament." She smiled wryly, tapping her nails on her thighs and shrugging her shoulders as she looked back to her lap. "I suppose I thought I'd run into you eventually…" She trailed off, searching in the thread count of her pants for something else to say to him. "How is he doing?"

Right. Right. Anatoly. Chess.

(This was all beginning to feel a bit surreal…)

"Fine," he muttered tersely, beginning to lose an edge of that nostalgic fondness for her. What time was it? He'd been gone for hours now, just gone like Freddie wasn't back here waiting for him –

But right now he had Florence. Right. He had to worry about Florence first, and then about Anatoly and that woman.

She didn't look very convinced, but then Florence had always been able to see right through his bullshit. (and let go of it, too)

(God, he'd appreciated Florence.)

(He still appreciated her now, didn't want to let her leave, but at the same time he desperately needed her to – before he forgot what he wanted again, or who he was, or whatever had happened that had ended with Anatoly in his bed and Florence cast off somewhere unknown where he couldn't reach her and wasn't sure that he wanted to until right now when he knew that he certainly did, he fucking missed her, needed her. Florence-)

"I wanted to apologize," she admitted, with her back straight and her eyes fixed on him intently. "For what I said, back there. I'm sorry. I – well, I regret it."

Not as much as me.

"… I'm sorry." It's such a half-assed apology and he deserved to be smacked for it, but he wasn't about to design anything more elaborate. He pulled a face and she looked like she wanted to laugh; biting her lip, she reached out at last to fix his hair.

"Well thank you for that," she murmured, lips curving again into an amused smile. The touch of her fingertips was almost too warm, and Freddie felt his breath hitch. Things seemed to thaw between them, dangerously warm and watery in a way that could carry him away. He leant into her hand, sighing deeply and relaxing for what felt like the first time in months.

No, no – Anatoly would be back soon…

"You should probably go. It's getting dark." The words were forced, insincere. Impersonal. She frowned as she nodded, the rejection immediately setting in, and he didn't want to see it, didn't want to know what he was doing. (again) (what he was always doing to people)

(Who were other people, anyways – people who weren't Anatoly?)

"Would you mind if I came back? I was hoping…" She trailed off, checking to be sure he was following what she was saying. He pretended that he wasn't, his heart strangling him, beating so hard he was sure that Anatoly would hear it all the way at the embassy and come back to check he hadn't died…

If he even cares.

(Sometimes his pessimism gets the best of him.)

(Most of the time.)

"I don't know if he'd – um." He still couldn't manage a simple sentence. God dammit, Florence. "No, I – that would be – fine."

Freddie sometimes forgot that he was an adult, and then how to act like it; as Florence stood and smiled he stood beside her, and when her palm slid along his arm in a gentle motion like she was reclaiming him he stood stock still and stared at her, trying so desperately to find what he'd lost in her, some piece of himself that was missing. She'd absorbed it so thoroughly by now, but he was sure if she'd let him he could fish it back out – he just wasn't sure he'd want it back, by that point, half-digested by the acids in her affection, the kiss she placed on his cheek, entirely too close to his mouth.

Fuck.

Like a live wire he stumbled away, grabbing for the nightstand for support. "Oh –" Florence caught the frame just as it fell – it was by no means repaired, the glass long-gone and probably never to be replaced. It was the picture that she was interested in, though, forgetting him momentarily as she squinted at it in shafts of the late afternoon sun.

Double fuck.

He barely remembered taking that picture – they had been at the New Year's celebration just minutes before, and someone had had a camera (possibly Jack, he thinks it must have been Jack because he remembers that they'd done shots at his house afterward and ended up piled in bed and – well.) and snapped a picture and told them to kiss, for New Year's, and Freddie had said fuck it and he'd turned and grabbed his face and kissed him because he was a little tipsy and a little high on life, and on New York and Anatoly, and it was his favorite picture, Jesus, the only one he probably had of them, of those moments before their lips had touch, two grins preserved forever in a broken frame.

Now Florence was staring at it like it all made some bizarre sort of sense, her gaze slowly sliding back to the floor where his boxers (she wouldn't recognize them) lie alongside Anatoly's, a tube of lube carelessly lying out on top of the pile.

(Not that they'd had time to use it, really, but that was Svetlana's fault.)

(Everything was Svetlana's fault, in Freddie's world.)

"This is your room," she commented, slowly and deliberately, as though he hadn't just said that. He swallowed, shrugged. There was no meeting her eyes now.

"He booked it." Of course he did, he was the champion.

He wasn't bitter about that, either. Nope.

"You both…" She glanced at the bed one more time, not uneasily but with some similar emotion – disappointment, perhaps, looking back to Freddie with her lips pulled into a tight smile. You sleep together. "Oh, Freddie."

Oh, Florence.

"Yeah, yeah." He exhaled like a grumpy old man, swatting her away when she tried to touch him again. It was hard to swallow. He could barely think through the buzzing in his brain. So she knows. Whatever. She knows…

"You were right."

"Was I?"

She took him by the wrist – so carefully, like she was afraid to break him. He was glad that someone could see how close he was to snapping these days, even if it was Florence and even if she was going to disappear into the city again, another city. This time it would be her choice, at least, but somehow that didn't seem comforting. She gave a breathless noise like a laugh, and her eyes hurt to look at. "I'm so proud of you, Freddie."

He bristled. "For what?"

For fucking around with a guy? Finally?

(Like he hadn't done that before?)

He couldn't get more honest than that. Fucking around with the guy that she had it bad for last year, that Russian dude.

Fucking the Russian. My God.

What the hell had become of his life? He should never have left Florence in that – that pretentious city in Italy.

"You know what I mean." Her smile was so warm it burned him; he didn't know what about it hurt, only that he wishes he still knew her so that he could fall into her arms and bury his face in her neck, and cry for everything that was happening and he could feel would happen soon. About Anatoly, and Svetlana, and how much he missed her. Florence. "I'm happy for you, sweetie."

But –

"I'm sorry," is all he could think to say, in return, just staring at her warily, anxiously. Perhaps he was right – perhaps she still could read his mind, if he just let her know that it was okay.

If she could, she didn't say a word – just wrapped her arms around him tightly and squeezed, and pretended that there weren't a few tears caught in her throat.

"Don't be. I'll call," she promised as she pulled away, kissing his cheek again. He shook his head, shoving his hands into his pockets so she couldn't see them shaking.

Don't leave, don't leave, not until I'm sure he's staying.

What the hell was wrong with him, anyways? Florence was just a woman he hadn't seen in nearly two years, who he would never have been able to love, anyways. I love you I love you. Just a woman, distractible and nagging and controlling and Florence. I love you. Just a woman…

Maybe if he told himself that enough he'd actually believe it.

(There is no drowning out the chant in his head.)

(I love you, come back to me.)

"Wait –" But he didn't know what to say, what would make her stay with him. Helpless, he reaches for her again, giving himself over to that child of a man he used to be for her. (He's still that man, exactly the same – it's just, he's queer now.) (Probably. Not… not definitely…) (But that doesn't have to be a problem, does it?)

"Florence, I'll – call. Okay?"

She blinked in pleasant surprise, a smile slowly spreading on her face again. (God, he hopes she isn't going to think he's trying to get her back.) (Not that way. Had they ever been that way?)

"Of course. I'll give you my number – hold on."

She took a card from her purse – was she carrying that when she got here? It's floral and it's hideous, but what does he expect from her, honestly – and searched for a pen as well, seeming unaware of the tension flexing between them with each silent moment. Freddie felt like a live wire again, a ticking bomb, but he didn't know exactly how to ask her to fix him, or if she even could anymore.

She handed it to him without ceremony, but her hand lingered there and her eyes met his again, and he wanted to cry.

"I really have missed you, Freddie," she said, as though any of this were her fault anymore.

He wants to say I've moved on and maybe, we'll see, because it would be so much easier to say than please don't leave me again and what if he doesn't love me like you do?

Anatoly was not Florence; maybe that was part of his problem.

Maybe Anatoly could still be in love with that she-devil he calls his wife, Freddie's personal demon; maybe Freddie could still go back to how things were, maybe they both could. But then he would have to give it up, again, the way he'd defined himself, and his life, and those midnight kisses and touches and Anatoly's fading accent and he doesn't think that he could do that, not ever, felt like a traitor for thinking it at all.

"I'll call," he repeated near-desperately, and his arms around her must have been bone-crushingly strong, but Florence would never complain. She knew, had always known, how Freddie worked; how he had to love her so much to make up for all of the people who had never bothered to love him and all of the people he could have loved but didn't dare to and all of the things he felt that he didn't know how to say, especially this, especially I love you and please love me, too. He felt her nails groove into his back, half-heartedly keeping him there.

When he released her, the card still clutched in his hand leaving inky stains in the sweat of his palm, Anatoly stood blinking in the doorway.

"Miss Vassy?" he asked, polite as ever, and she lit up like a Christmas tree in red and pink, nodding and sticking out a hand. He took it easily, shifting his gaze only briefly to Freddie who couldn't comprehend the sight of these people in the same room, the connection of their hand so close to him.

"It's good to see you," he smiled, and Florence backed toward the door with a nervous smile. Freddie couldn't even bring himself to wave goodbye to her.

"You, as well. Don't lose that," she said, nodding to the scrap of paper in his hand. Anatoly's eyes were drawn there like two dark magnets, questioning, and Freddie shoved it abruptly into his pocket. He hoped absently that the ink wouldn't smear.

"You do not have to leave –" Anatoly started to protest. They ignored him.

"I'll call you. When we get home." We. She nodded again and he imagined he saw that disappointment infiltrate her gaze as she turned away; the door closed quietly in her wake, nothing like Anatoly's exits, always loud, always dramatic.

"I see that you have kept yourself entertained?"

Don't look so amused. Bastard. He nearly pouted, crossing his arms defensively. Svetlana slid back into his mind like a viper, heavy and toxic, darkening his day.

"She came looking for you, looking for me." No, that didn't make sense. He grimaced and shook his head, trying again. "She- it's no big deal."

He tried not to think about the fact that Anatoly was never quite as jealous as he was, or at all. He tried not to think about the niggling possibility that ate holes in his mind for rational thoughts to escape through that told him Anatoly just didn't care.

Don't leave me.

"I didn't say it was," Anatoly shrugged, smiling widely as he offered him his open arms. "A hug would be wonderful, if you are giving them out. I have had a long day."

That's cheesy. "Is your wife here?" Smooth.

It was so hard not to sound accusing when he wanted to tear his hair out just thinking about it; Anatoly wasn't helping with the pained way he smiled at him. He could smell the foreboding news far before it reached him and the Florence-shaped space left behind was gaping, sucking like a black hole – reminding him that everything could go back to exactly as it had been before.

Don't kid yourself.

Anatoly eyed him carefully, approaching like he would a wild dog, hands on his shoulders, keeping him at arm's length. "Freddie." He began, like everything he said was one deep breath before the plunge. "We need to talk."

He was going to send everything they'd worked for to hell; he was going to give everything up and Freddie didn't have a fucking say, when did he ever have a fucking say? He grabbed him back, clutched him tightly and dug his short nails into his skin like a frightened cat clung to its master.

(He had a cat once, a long time ago; it had always been so terrified of gravity, of something so inevitable that Freddie had scoffed and called it stupid, and invited it inside his shabby little first floor apartment in Brooklyn and fed it scraps of everything he ate even when it was nothing.)

(Cats got along with Freddie like nobody else, perhaps because they had the same priorities.)

"No. No. You're not leaving." He didn't think he'd ever be able to breathe again, eyes darting desperately over his face. The pity glowing like dying embers in his eyes was positively sickening.

Don't you love me?

"I love you. You said – you promised. You fucking promised."

"I met with Svetlana." He said it like a death sentence, and Freddie imagined plucking that platinum blonde Barbie head right off her shoulders and tossing it over a cliff, far away from the two of them.

"And? So what? So what, it doesn't mean anything! Nothing's changed-"

"They are threatening my children, Freddie," he snapped, quickly losing patience with him, with himself. If Freddie were completely honest, he knew that Anatoly wasn't nearly as eager to skip away from their relationship (whatever they were calling it, now) as he was painting him. "I have responsibilities."

"You had children before! They're bluffing." He shook his head, so far from caring that he sounded desperate, crazy, that he wanted to laugh at the irony. Now he was crazy, right. Well. He was going to drag him down with him. He wasn't leaving, he wasn't fucking leaving. Didn't he know that wasn't an option? Didn't he know Freddie would drown if he did? "You're the one who left them."

"I am not going to risk my children's lives. Or Svetlana's. I am sorry, Freddie, I did not – I did not anticipate this."

There was something so broken in the way he spoke and he knew. He fucking knew. "What the hell am I supposed to do, then?" he snapped, voice wavering like his vocal chords were strung so tightly with emotion that they might snap at any moment. The pieces of him had never quite lined up, and Anatoly was only going to shove them further apart, make it impossible. "What am I supposed to do? You're what, just going to up and leave me here? In Bangkok? The tournament's not even over!"

"They will not let me keep my title, anyways." It was obvious he tried to smile but there was no hope for it – no hope, no hope. You're pathetic.

He could hardly breathe, hardly even look at him his heart was pounding so frantically. "What am I supposed to do? Just – just – go back home? Just go back and sit there? I can't do that – I'll come with you!"

Even Anatoly couldn't help but stare at him, almost pityingly. There was no trace of consideration, not even for a moment. "You wouldn't."

"I would! Swear on my life, I would." Freddie wondered where his anger had gone, and if it was anywhere nearby, if he could possibly get it back. He wanted to wrap himself up in it like he always did, like what usually came so easily – but the lump in his throat is making it difficult to so much as look at him, let alone hit him. "I'm coming with you."

"Freddie, you are being ridiculous." Worried exasperation etched itself temporarily over the heartbreak lurking beneath the surface of his expression.

Of course, he hadn't been with Svetlana all this time. He'd been by himself. Mourning.

"You will be fine. You will go home – and you can call Florence. I will call –"

"Fuck you," was all he could manage to say, and then, "Fuck yourself." as he shoved him out of the way, hands searing where they'd touched him. He was halfway out the door, down the hall, down the stairs, ignoring his pleas, ignoring his increasingly urgent calls behind him. There was an incessant throbbing between his eyes – he couldn't tell if he was going to cry or bleed or scream or die, just drop dead right there in the lobby.

He might as well.

"Freddie! Freddie, where are you going?! Freddie!"

Fuck him. Fuck him. He didn't need Anatoly-fucking-Sergievsky – except he really, really did, with an intensity that made bile burn in the back of his throat.

But fuck him. He was going to find the embassy if it was the last goddamn thing he ever did.

Why not sell the soul that he probably didn't have, anyways?

He hadn't even noticed the scrap of paper fluttering to the floor…

Bangkok, after dark

Downtown

The streets were golden but Freddie saw in nothing but red as he tore through them, past drunkards and partygoers and prostitutes and tourists like him, fans even; no one dared to stop him in the middle of his rampage, and they were lucky. Freddie's fists were clenched and ready to connect with the first face that came close enough to his.

He wanted to kill him, and kill all of them, and most of all he hated himself because he could have had everything he needed (besides those kisses-touches-Russian words he'd never be able to pronounce, and Anatoly Sergievsky and his stupid curly hair, and his stupid accent, and his stupid everything, so fucking stupid, traitor, commie bastard-)

He hadn't called Anatoly a communist in almost a year. (something that he would be proud of, if it weren't a lie)

Don't leave me, don't you dare leave me!

Why didn't anyone ever listen to him? Why was he disposable? Why was he second? At least with Florence he had always come first, even to her, and fuck if he wasn't an idiot for saying "seeya!" and letting her leave him again, just walk right out of his life when she'd wanted to kiss him so badly he could see it in her face. He could have done it, he could have brought the madness to an end and put the world back on its axis and Florence would have made him cocoa and sat with him on the couch and let him tell her for hours about the Russian and their years apart, and everything-

Freddie'd show him, he'd show them – he'd go do it himself, then, if Anatoly wouldn't let him come along. He'd get a fucking visa all on his own, go apply for citizenship. He'd go red if he had to – fuck it, why not? Why not?

He had nothing left otherwise.

The idea of going to Russia hasn't fully sunken in yet. He hadn't thought it through at all, hadn't considered any of the consequences – Florence might be able to calm him now, if only she were around. If only anyone were.

He's blinded by angry tears by the time the blood trail begins to cool and he's left stranded, lost – this wasn't a part of Bangkok he'd ever seen on a tour guide. It certainly wasn't the embassy. Not that he knew where that was, anyways.

He hadn't thought this through, had he?

(When did he ever?)

(For someone who played chess for a living, he didn't have much of a predilection for foresight.)

Still, he was Freddie Trumper and he liked to think no one had forgotten his name quite yet. At least not while it was still tacked onto Anatoly's, even as a side note – but everything about him right now, from his bloodshot, streaming eyes to his disheveled appearance probably screamed addict! and prostitute! more so than lost! Help me!

Fine, then. He would just have to find his way back himself.

Anatoly would call him an idiot. Florence would tell him to just ask for directions, Freddie. There – they had something in common, after all, besides being the only two people in the world who had ever given Freddie Trumper the time of day.

"God dammit." He cursed, looking around in desperation for any of those golden crowds, those vibrant camera flashes and lanterns and damn it, damn it. How much time did he have, had Anatoly said? A week? Less, probably. How long did it take, exactly, to get a visa – was it even possible? He was relatively certain, now, that Walter wasn't going to do shit for him. He was just a name drop now, not even a huge one except on the circuit where they still remembered his trailblazing days.

But what did he do anymore, really? Sleep with Russians, feel the insanity slowly creeping up on him? He hadn't played a game of chess in weeks.

It was funny because he hadn't felt so sane in years, and he was still off his rocker.

And to top it all off, at some innocuous point on his walk Freddie noticed – well, he chose to notice, actually, when it became so apparent that he couldn't ignore it anymore – that he was being followed.

There was only one man at first, a stranger in navy blue loping along on the other side of the street. Freddie forced his paranoia down and continued walking, searching for a glowing sign to light the way – the Holiday Inn, perhaps, or even a Burger King, anything. Anything. He hadn't been really afraid of the dark in years but Florence had kept a seashell-shaped nightlight in their bathroom for the nights he woke gasping in terror and had to curl up on the mat beside the tub to calm down, washed in the ocean-blue light like Florence's soothing voice. He got that same gut-wrenching feeling now, as one man became two and then four. Ahead, behind, beside –

They were boxing him in.

This would never have happened if you'd behaved like a civil human fucking being.

Still, it was possible… possible, not probable, that he was simply being paranoid.

Just to be certain he made a sharp turn, heart pounding, into the nearest alley and prepared to sprint.

Three feet in, he skidded to a stop, stammering profanity like a plea to God. Dead end. Good going, Trumper.

"It is rather late to be out walking alone, is it not, Mr. Trumper?"

Freddie spun so fast on his heel he went stumbling back into the brick, rough and cold against his back. Alexander Molokov, as well-dressed and cordial as ever, stood blocking the mouth of the alley. Seven men formed a semicircle behind him, dressed all in navy uniforms. They stared back at him with mirror-image smirks and scoffs.

God dammit.

He supposed that his connection with Anatoly would do him no good here, but he could try. When in doubt, bluff. Come on, put that poker face to good use.

"Maybe. Seems like you've got a lot more friends than you need." Keep it bland as possible; his throat tightened, his nerve endings seared with anticipation. This was it – he was going to die here, and it was all his own goddamn fault. (Unless it was Anatoly's fault, in which case, he felt even worse.) "I was just getting back to my room."

"Ah, yes. You are a little far from the Dusit Thani."

Pleasantly, Molokov strode toward him, all glinting teeth and diplomatic attitude, neglecting (on purpose, Freddie was sure – that fuck) to mention how he knew where they were staying. He wondered blankly how long he could possibly keep up the charade. "In fact – I was just asking my dear comrade Petrovich here if you might appreciate an escort back."

"I'll be fine, really." His back was already to the wall, and there was no place to run; he regrets giving up on his gym membership now, although he'd never actually used it anyways. He'd never had many illusions about why Molokov kept men the size of these monstrosities at his side at all times. Florence called him paranoid; he called it practical.

Expect the worst, and he'd never be disappointed. He sure as hell wasn't disappointed in his own predictions now.

"Do not be ridiculous." The darker man flashed a shark-like grin and Freddie felt the prickle of frost in his veins – he bristled, as though intimidation were even plausible. "We would not want you to get lost… I am sure Anatoly Sergievsky would be beside himself with worry."

"I was supposed to meet him…" He began, but Molokov only shook his head in amusement, motioning for his cronies to close in around him. He began to pace around him in slow, even strides, like a metronome. Circling, circling… It would have been calming had he not been sure he was going to be brutally murdered.

Fucking politicians. Why can't they just leave me alone?

"Here is the deal, Trumper." Abruptly, the façade was over – when Molokov's eyes met his again they were shards of dark glass, and he felt his heart stutter. "Anatoly Sergievsky must come home. He is a security threat."

"There is no deal. I don't control him." Scowling, Freddie jutted his chin out, fists clenching at his sides stubbornly. Hell if he was going to be intimidated like this. "He's not my property."

"Really?" Molokov smirked, cocking his head in mock curiosity. "That is not the – what is it? Word on the street."

The thrill of anxiety it sent through him was slightly ridiculous, in the circumstances. News of their affair getting out was the least of his problems, but the idea that Molokov knew about it just seemed dirty – he wrinkled his nose, tensing defensively. "It's none of your goddamn business."

"Is that a confession?" Blandly, his expression mildly curious, mildly amused, he continued in his circling, scrutinizing Freddie from every angle – a hand shot from nowhere to jerk him away from the wall and suddenly he had nothing to lean on, staggering and whirling around, finding a solid wall of well-dressed men with thick brows, dark hair, darker eyes boring into him.

Jesus, he's going to kill me and hide the body.

"No. Fuck off, leave me- leave him alone."

Don't say us. Don't say us.

Freddie's gaze flitted nervously from man to man; their uniformity was almost as astounding as it was creepy. In the tense silence, they looked to Molokov for orders; he wondered if he'd had a promotion, recently, or if perhaps he was more important than he had initially thought. Neither option made him feel any better.

Anatoly was going to kill him if Molokov didn't.

"Perhaps I can make it clearer to you – I am not asking you to accompany us. That is an order."

"I don't take orders from communists," he spat, twisting towards the voice. He heard the whistling a fraction of a second too late.

Something heavy met the side of his head, then perhaps a club or the meaty hand of one of Molokov's men – whatever it was, Freddie could say nothing more, choking and crumpling to the ground in a heap.

"Tie him. I will get the car," he heard Molokov order crisply, distantly, as the blackness edged in around him. He was hardly aware of the hands grabbing him and hauling him upright – he was nowhere, and the last sound he heard was the smooth motor of the Russians' vehicle purr as it carried him away.

Bangkok

Location unknown

He awoke, groggy and aching, in total darkness. His arms screamed with the first attempt at movement, twisted behind him at the most painful angle.

As far as he could tell, this was not a hotel room. This wasn't even a cage, or a prison – more like a dungeon, but that might just be his imagination running away with him. Still, it was a reasonable assumption. The air was cool and almost damp with the familiar humidity – they were still in Bangkok, (thank fuck) or so he assumed – and no matter how he squinted, no image appeared in the dark slate of the room before him.

It was several long moments before he remembered it, really remembered; the lump on the side of his head throbbed in time with his pulse and he was almost glad that he couldn't reach up and feel for blood, afraid that he might find it slathered over his fingertips, crusted into his hair. (Now was, of course, the time to be worrying about his hair.) (What else did he have to do? He couldn't very well escape like this.) There was the distant sound of metal clanging, like a door, and he thought that he could hear the steady breaths of a nearby officer, one of Molokov's henchmen posted to watch over him until he woke.

He wondered how they were supposed to watch him in a fucking abyss and then, absurdly, which of them it was.

Perhaps it was Petrov-whateverthefuck again, Molokov's pet; or perhaps the other, the one with the thin nose whose eye Freddie had caught as he was going down. That one had looked at him like he wanted to eat him and Freddie shuddered to think that he'd been left with a cannibal.

(They were Russians, not savages, but sometimes Freddie liked to pretend they were one and the same.)

(Just for fun.)

Anatoly wasn't anywhere to be seen, nor coming to the rescue, not even close; he could be halfway to Russia now and Freddie would have been too late to catch him, to even attempt to follow. Had he even gone looking for him yet? Probably…

Did he really have any chance of finding him, though?

Probably not.

That was fine by Freddie. He tried to look at it that way, as stay away from my boyfriend rather than hopeless, rather than you're a stupid fuck who got themselves kidnapped, you're thirty fucking two! and you're going to die, and it's your own fucking fault.

If he didn't live to see Anatoly again, at least he wouldn't have to live without him.

It was a morbidly comforting thought; he began to relax, squinting his eyes uselessly, licking dry lips – when was the last time he'd had something to drink? All he can remember is that damned coffee he had yesterday – or today – when was it, even? Where was he?

"Thank you, comrade, you are dismissed."

Molokov was, as always, chillingly polite upon entering the scene; although Freddie couldn't see him he could plaster the correct grin onto his face in his imagination, the one that made him look more like one of those frightening deep-sea predators than a real person. If he peeled away the layers of diplomacy and formal clothing he suspected that was what he'd find. He strained his ears and, too loudly, heard those steps approaching him.

The lights flickered on; it took him several minutes to adjust as it flooded the room, cheap fluorescence. It was a wide space, abandoned – it looked as though it might have once been a warehouse or perhaps a makeshift parking garage.

This was definitely on the outskirts of the city – or, at least, nowhere near the cameras. Millions of chess fans weren't paying to see a desolate wasteland like this, or to learn about Thailand's lively child-trafficking culture. (Freddie wondered vaguely, irrationally if that was what he'd stumbled into before shaking the thought from his head.)

Of course they were in the slums. No one would think to look for him here.

The man departed swiftly, before Freddie even had a chance to take a hard look at his face and memorize him for later. They all blurred together in a mob of dark hair and suits and thick, difficult accents. He'd thought Anatoly's was bad, two weeks ago, but Molokov's was unquestionably worse.

(Maybe that had something to do with the fact that Freddie was starting to remember that he hated this guy – for a good reason, now, but not so much back then.)

It was a good thing that he'd never have to be able to fake one. He was a Bronx kid through and through.

"Trumper."

Freddie sneered at the sound of his own name being pried from him, so garbled that he might as well just let him have it. He had never liked his father's name, anyways. Molokov merely smiled at him, as though this were any normal day – a drink at a restaurant, discussing their new terms. Freddie was supposed to be the negotiator, now, wasn't he?

Speaking of a drink.

He licked his lips again, convulsively, and curled his lip like a growling dog as he was approached. There was something demeaning about being forced to remain seated while a man shorter than him stood over him like he was deciding his fate. Freddie didn't like to think that anyone decided his fate besides himself, and even then, he had to admit that it wasn't very often a conscious choice. "Untie me."

"Now, what makes you think that I would want to do that?" Alexander's eyes glittered like a beetle's. Freddie shifted uncomfortably, hissing as the rope cut into his arm. He couldn't be certain, but it felt like he was bleeding.

Fucker.

"I don't care what you want!" Gnashing his teeth, he jerked against the bonds again – fuck. "Fuck." Yeah, definitely bleeding. "You're not going to get anything out of this, you know. He was going back anyways."

"It is always best to have a bargaining chip. We have to be certain." Bland, Molokov circles around him again, the motion becoming eerily familiar. "You are not the first, you know."

"What the fuck does that mean?" Stung, he fought to stay still, his arms throbbing – they'd soon go numb behind him but he was too preoccupied to care. "I'm not your pawn. You can't just –"

"Do you really believe that Anatoly would have had no other lovers, before you?" He chuckled and it was the most horrid, unwelcome sound Freddie had ever heard. He felt his stomach lurch, sick with the realization he could feel looming on the horizon. Don't fucking listen to him, don't –

Anatoly had never wanted to talk about before and Freddie had been fine with that, great even – he didn't want to share his sorry past, anyways, and he didn't want to think of Florence when it still hurt so much, and somehow it had slipped his mind that Anatoly had a 'before', too, and it was longer than his, and probably worse, if it had included Molokov –

"He has had as many women as he has ever wanted. I was surprised," he commented, his gaze prickling at Freddie's skin; he looked him up and down, circling around behind him. "To see the latest."

He paused, lips curving into a cruel smile. "But I am sure it is only a fluke. You are an anomaly."

It strikes an ugly chord that he'd buried in his chest some time ago but still lit up like an exposed nerve, years surging forward to echo: the slam of the door, the pieces of his childhood chess set scattered about the room, the board lying broken on the floor –

"I'm not his whore," he snarled, and jerked against the rope again.

There's only a split second between the last syllable leaving his throat and the pain exploding in his right temple. A choked grunt is forced from his chest. His eyes are watering when he manages to look up again, glaring as much as he can.

"You have no fucking right –"

"I do not think you are in any position to be criticizing me, Trumper."

The Russian's teeth gleamed and Freddie was, somehow, too proud to shrink back into his seat as was his first instinct. His footsteps disappeared behind him again – he was fairly certain, now, that he was just doing it to disconcert him. (It was working.) "This is the only thing you are worth to me, you know. I could just as easily kill you, otherwise."

"I'm not scared of you."

Baring his teeth like a cornered animal, Freddie lurched, the chair legs slamming back on the floor after a moment of crazy tilting. He stomped his foot, shaking his head furiously. "Let me go! I swear to God–!"

"You swear what?" Molokov was steadfastly amused; he'd made it very clear that he had no intentions of letting him go, at least for now, but Freddie couldn't help the surge of panic that made his brain feel hot and his fingertips feel cold. Adrenaline was making him dizzy: the only coherent word left in his mind was escape, and just behind that, Tolya.

There was a door on every wall, but only one was labelled in unlit neon, 'EXIT'. He wondered if that was even the exit – probably not, if Molokov had put him here to deliberately confuse him.

"You cannot hurt me, Trumper. Do not delude yourself."

He opened his mouth to rebut, his chest now tight with anxiety, and couldn't find the words. In a panic, he spit the first thing he could think of. "Try me."

He didn't like the way that Molokov's lips curved, his teeth unnervingly white against the dark of his face. It struck him as sadistic. The fluorescence did funny things… or, maybe, he actually was the devil. Freddie wouldn't be surprised.

"You ought to watch your mouth."

Anatoly was going to be so fucking mad at him if he got himself killed. He snarled, panic beginning to constrict his lungs. "Watch your fucking mouth. My government will have you dead in a fucking hour if you touch me –"

Blood welled in his mouth before he even felt the pain explode against his jaw, head snapping to the side with a hiss; the shape of Molokov's palm glowed puffy on his cheek, throbbing. He spit blindly at him, eyes streaming.

"God damn it," he heard himself groan; he kicked out wildly, trying to catch him in the shin where he knew it would hurt the most, but he was already circling around him again, voice echoing from behind him with a sinister undertone.

"Your government has yet to even begin searching for you, Trumper, so if I were you, I would shut my mouth."

He found that he was trembling, the sharp copper taste in his mouth nauseating. There was nothing to do but breathe, raggedly, and spit onto the floor. Crimson droplets spattered the front of his jeans. He stared down at them, trying to regain some semblance of balance. His ears were still ringing from the force of the blow.

Somehow he managed to find the mettle to force another sentence between his teeth, keeping his eyes squeezed tightly shut as he said it – just in case.

"Make me, asshole."

Sometimes, he questioned whether or not he actually was suicidal.

Molokov clucked his tongue and rested his hands on his shoulders, squeezing with mock affection as he leans down to his ear from behind. Freddie tensed, expecting another blow. "You do not want me to do that."

"I want you to let me go. Now." He swallowed and it was more audible that he liked. The silence was allowed to go on for far longer than he was comfortable with – again, he suspected it was intentional.

It wasn't as though it was difficult to tell that he'd been unsettled already.

"I think," Molokov said after a long moment, voice echoing faintly from the far walls above the buzz of the overhead lights. "That perhaps it is time you are taught a lesson."

No, no, no no no. No lessons. "Don't touch me," Freddie growled, rather uselessly – Molokov almost seemed to humor him for a moment, pulling away and releasing his shoulders as he straightened up – Freddie took a deep breath to steady himself only to have the panic spiral around his lungs, crushing them with the distinct sound of a zipper being pulled.

"What are you doing."

He went still, eyes flying open, staring at the far wall. His voice was strangely uneven; he wasn't sure how to fix it, hardly noticed, actually. He imagined Molokov's deadly grin again and felt the tingle of gooseflesh as it rippled down both of his arms.

There's no answer, only the sound of his soft steps echoing off the cement; he sees the dark of his shoes and his eyes snap shut again, afraid to look. No. No. No.

This can't be fucking happening.

A little more urgent, now, his voice near-cracking. "What – what are you doing?"

He could feel his presence as he stopped and stood before him, too close, and told himself very firmly (very angrily) (fuck you, fuck you, he's just a fucking chess second) that he wasn't afraid of Alexander Molokov.

No. Nothing to be afraid of.

As it turned out there were a lot of things to be afraid of when you were tied to a chair in an abandoned parking garage. Nearly everything, actually.

(And everyone.)

"Open your eyes."

The cordial tone had evaporated from his voice once more, just like it had in the alley, leaving it crisp and cold; Freddie felt his fingers on his chin and gnashed his teeth as it was jerked up. He refused to comply, kicking out at him again; Molokov twisted his fingers suddenly in his hair, short as it was, and yanked it upwards. Freddie yelped.

"Mother fucker!"

He tried to twist away, thrashing, the metal chair legs scraping horribly against the cement and echoing through the empty room. Tears of pain pricked at his eyes; he could kill him, he could fucking kill this bastard. Molokov leant down again to speak directly into his ear; Freddie could swear he felt the ghost of his smirk against his earlobe.

"You will cooperate. Now," and he pulled back, and Freddie had no choice but to look, and he felt his stomach lurch at the sight of the dark head of his cock as he pulled it from his pants with a quick stroke. "We will begin."

"What the fuck is wrong with you? What's wrong with you?" Thrashing again, Freddie howled, dimly aware that he probably looked far from sane.

Reporters would have a fucking field day.

"Don't touch me, don't fucking touch me you commie piece of shit, I'm going to have you shot-"

"Watch your mouth," Molokov snapped, and jerked his head down by the roots of his hair to level his mouth with his protruding member. Musk filled his mouth as he choked on his breath, gagging already.

"Get off of me!"

"There are plenty of other ways I could occupy your mouth, Trumper. I suggest you do as you are told."

He can't get enough air in his lungs – his chest is heaving, in panic more than indignation now, more than anger. It overrides everything and he clamps his mouth shut instinctively, every muscle tensed and trembling. As though that would stop him.

Anatoly wouldn't think he'd cheated on him, would he?

With Molokov?

No, that was ridiculous.

But Anatoly couldn't save him, either. Was he even looking? Don't leave me, please don't leave me. What if he thought that Freddie had done the leaving?

Molokov forced his head down and pressed his cock to his lips; he could sex already, just from the strength of the scent. Was he – ugh. Sick bastard, getting off on this. He was excited, to say the least. Freddie drew his lips back and bared his teeth in warning, staring almost uncomprehendingly.

"You have permission to open your mouth now," Molokov murmured, smooth and sickly sweet like every nightmare Freddie ever had when he was young and vulnerable and his mother had dragged a string of strange men through the house like a pedophile parade.

No, don't think about that.

His mother would have slept with Molokov, if she'd had the chance.

He sucked at his cheeks and glared up at him defiantly, jerking his head back far enough to spit blood against the hard flesh. "Fuck you."

Eyes flashing, the Russian twisted his mouth into a frankly terrifying grin and reached into his suit jacket. Freddie's eyes followed his wrist warily, his heart still seizing. "That was not very wise of you, Frederick."

"Don't call me that," he snapped back, because why the hell not. "Fuck you. Don't fucking touch me. Don't touch me."

What else can he possibly do?

Except, he was beginning to realize that there were a lot of things that this Molokov might do – and, at least for now, he was at his mercy.

Well fuck that.

"I will touch you as I please." Alexander cocked his head, a slow, easy smirk spreading across his face like oil – Freddie could vomit, wanted to. Anything to get the sickening taste of blood and fear and salt out of his mouth. The grip on his hair slackened for a moment and, in a horribly pseudo-affectionate motion, those cold fingers smoothed through his hair, petting it down against his scalp. His skin crawled at the contact.

"I will do whatever I want with you. No one will stop me."

Freddie opened his mouth once more, filling his lungs for a scream that never came as his eyes filled with the reflection of the light off of the metal revolver held so casually in Molokov's hand. He withdrew it slowly, the dark of his eyes deepening as he savored the twisted expression of fear on his captive's face.

"Open your mouth, Frederick," he taunted quietly, so quietly, so softly that Freddie couldn't even distract himself by listening for an echo, a repeat that wouldn't come. He didn't need an echo – didn't need to hear it more than once to feel a chilling understanding quiver in the depths of his gut.

"Make me," he said again, though the oxygen had already been sucked from his lungs and left him wheezing. He was sure that he would suffocate if his heart beat one more time, but it kept on thumping, so hard that his ribs ached with the strain of keeping it contained.

The metal was colder than his fingers, by far – though Freddie wouldn't believe that Molokov was any more human than the weapon he held against his temple, pressing oh-so-gently, as if to say 'I could do it.'

With his finger resting on the trigger, Freddie believed it.

"Open up." He pictured that smirk, again (didn't think he'd ever stop picturing it, now, even years from now, even if the very thought ended up splattered the color of tomato paste on the floor an instant from this one) and, with his eyes fallen shut, let his lips part with shaky reluctance.

His gag reflex, which he hadn't seen in months, returned with a vengeance as he felt the barest weight of him bitter on his tongue. Molokov's fingers were tight in his hair again, jerking him forward, forcing the length into his slack mouth.

"I am sure that Anatoly would love to see you like this," he commented from above. Freddie couldn't even muster murderous thoughts, too horrified with the whole situation – his head throbbed with what felt like an impending aneurysm, clotting with too many gory possibilities. He suddenly regretted his savvy for extrapolation; Molokov just kept talking, keeping the gun pressed casually against the bare, tender skin on the side of his skull.

"How does it feel, Trumper?" He purred, and it was so loud in his ears, somehow managing not to be washed away by the roar of adrenaline making his throat convulse against the salted head of him as it nudged there. Would serve him right, he thought desperately as he gagged, weakly trying to back off and stopped almost immediately by a cold pressure against his temple. He could have sworn he heard his index finger tighten, just a fraction, around the trigger; everything was buzzing. Molokov's voice was low, rough with smug, sneering arousal. "To eat your words."

Make me, he'd said, make me.

Jesus Christ, he was going to be sick.

Why couldn't he keep his fucking mouth shut? Why couldn't he have stopped and asked for directions? Why couldn't he just have a rational conversation, like a normal human being – like an adult?

He could imagine Anatoly watching this – fuck, for all he knew he was, maybe they had cameras, maybe they'd taken him hostage, too, who fucking knew anymore – and the way Molokov's cock must look sliding between his trembling lips, the way his eyes have watered over and he wasn't crying, he wasn't, he wasn't, but it had to look like it with his face contorted and streaked with tears and there was nothing he could possibly do to look dignified right now, but Jesus, it bothered him.

He sure as fuck wanted to cry, but Molokov didn't have to know that. He wasn't going to give him the satisfaction.

When he finally snapped out of his horrified reverie the thrusts were sharper, more erratic – he couldn't breathe and Molokov was dragging him off of his cock by the roots of his hair, leaving him to gasp and sob and generally humiliate himself as he fisted himself a centimeter from his face, panting, "Mouth open, Frederick."

No matter what he called him, Freddie felt violated. Every pore, every nerve in his body felt violated now, mouth full of so much salt. His lips hung parted on command, the mouth of the gun caressing his cheek. The chair rattled with the force of his shaking.

He was expecting the first sticky shot that hit his throat but it didn't stop him from choking on it, coughing horridly and spitting and shutting his eyes. It was fortunate, because the next spurt gummed his eyelashes, down his cheek. He groaned, struggling weakly. "Fucker." His voice was hoarse, but it was there, and he felt a distant glow of satisfaction even as come smeared his lips and, worse, shot into his hair.

God, he wasn't going to be able to explain this when he got back. If he got back.

If there was a 'we', anymore…

Molokov swiped a thumb over his lower lip, murmuring condescendingly. "Good boy." Bile rose in his throat again, angry and nauseous. Fuck you. Fuck all of you.

The Russian straightened up and tucked the gun back into his jacket with a smirk caught on his face like a thorn. Freddie would be willing to tear himself apart to tug it out and deflate him like a balloon. He gritted his teeth against the bloody aftertaste the kiss of the metal left on his temple, a thousand angry retorts buzzing up his throat, a kicked nest of bees.

Oh, he's going to see him hang one day.

Amused with the livid expression on his face, Molokov stepped back and let his eyes roam his face – presumably, to appreciate the view. He smirked at the way the muscle in his cheek twitched in helpless aggravation. "Depraved is a good look on you."

Freddie bit on his tongue so hard that his mouth flooded with blood again, nostrils flaring. Temper, temper.

"You are a fast learner? Wonderful!" Flashing another shark-like grin, the other man met his eyes and clapped his hands together once in sinister satisfaction, a universal gesture – down to business. "Well. Now that you know your place –"

"Rot in hell," Freddie muttered under his breath, swallowing convulsively at the lingering traces of spunk in the back of his throat.

" – I will be leaving you." He paused to catalogue his response, apparently deeming it appropriate. Freddie imagined smashing his skull against the concrete floor. "Only for a short time. I have business to attend to."

Freddie snarled as that hand rested on his head again, ruffling his hair like a child. He couldn't bring himself to kick – his stomach roiled with disgust, with shame. What would Anatoly think? (He couldn't think of Florence, wouldn't dare even imagine her expression at the sight of him now.) ("I've missed you.") (Not like this.)

Molokov smiled, and suddenly he was all diplomacy again, nodding his head as he stepped away and patted the gun in his pocket, watching the color again drain from Freddie's face as his eyes followed the motion.

"Do not miss me too much."

On his way out the door labelled 'EXIT' – so, that was the one, or else he really was fucking with him – he brushed his hand against the wall, and left Freddie to listen to the echoes in darkness.

Everything was slow. Quiet.

Freddie's heart seemed to beat once every hour. He licked at the inside of his mouth, wincing at the dryness. (Was anyone going to bother to feed and water him, or would they just let him wither away?) (No, not as long as he was useful.)

To his knowledge, only one of Molokov's men had returned to stand watch over him in the endless stretch of nothing. One set of footsteps, each echoing deafeningly alongside the obnoxious sounds of his breathing, come to stand some distance to the side of him.

He wondered if the mystery man had any idea where he was going, and if so, what the fuck were the commies feeding their agents that gave them night vision?

Anatoly had yet to come and rescue him.

Freddie was glad, somehow; he wasn't keen on becoming the helpless princess in his own twisted fairytale.

Molokov did make an excellent villain, though.

It felt like it had been hours and his stomach hadn't even begun to settle – there was a low buzzing, and he couldn't decide whether or not it was just in his head. Maybe it was the sound of his thoughts bouncing around inside his skull, or the bees still caught in his throat. I'll make that bastard pay.

There had to be some way out of this, but he couldn't fucking think.

All he had in his arsenal was time.

Time to think.

Time to berate himself, over and over. Time to make him sick all over again over his own goddamn stupidity – time to think about Anatoly's frustrated face as he left, time to think about Florence's card stowed away in his pocket where he couldn't reach it –

Concentrate.

The silence stretched on and his mind was an empty, open road; periodically clearing his throat, he shifted as much as he could, moving his arms to try and force the circulation back into them. The rope scraped against his skin. It hurt, but it was warm, and he was alive.

He would just have to content himself with that, for now.

There were about three seconds of thrashing and chaos before Freddie realized that he was awake – more than that, he was on the ground.

How he'd managed to fall asleep upright and covered in Molokov's come, he had no fucking idea. He looked around wildly and found that it was no lighter than it had been when he'd fallen asleep – in fact, it almost seemed darker. His legs were leaden; his elbow connected with somebody's nose, the heel of his sneaker on somebody's shin. Russian curses bounce off of the walls, merging with his own vicious verbal assault.

"Don't touch me, don't fucking touch me –" he snarled, and there were definitely multiple men pinning him down now, and they were all much stronger than him, and Jesus Christ he had to piss.

How long had he been here?

It felt like nighttime, but then, that was probably only because it was dark.

He grunted as his head met the floor with a crack, his struggling brought to a sudden halt. He was helpless to resist, grunting as he was rolled onto his front, arms jerked so hard behind his back that he howled. "Get off! Get off, get off of me, I swear to God!"

Cold circles of metal snapped audibly around his wrists. Somebody stomped on his ankle and he kicked the opposite foot angrily as pain shot down through his heel, up through his tibia. He heard a muffled grunt in return, a Russian obscenity that sounded vaguely familiar (he'd probably heard it at least once, in bed or bent over the couch, or on the table, or in a bathroom stall somewhere) and feels a flare of ugly triumph color his cheeks.

"Comrades. That is enough."

Molokov's cordial tones rang like steel through the cacophony and almost all at once the noise stopped; they are left for a moment to listen to the ragged sounds of their own breathing, his men and Freddie who had found himself with his face in the gritty dust, his ankle throbbing in agony, his arms again rendered useless.

Fuck, I'll have 'em all killed.

Revenge, however, was apparently a long way off. Molokov was kind or cruel enough to flip the switch by the exit door and Freddie's eyes screamed at the unnatural brightness; he squeezed them shut, not nearly quickly enough. Bright spots danced behind his eyelids like fluorescent demons.

Fitting, if he were going with his earlier Alexander-Molokov-is-actually-Satan theory.

Something told him that Anatoly might agree. Something told him that anyone who had ever had extended contact with that man would agree.

Fuck. Anatoly.

What time is it what day is it-

"Let me go," he demanded, and without even opening his eyes he knew that Molokov's beetle eyes were glinting with dangerous anticipation. He snorted as he drew closer, leisurely, seemingly unperturbed by the volume of his footfalls in the otherwise silent space.

"I thought we had gone over this." He shook his head and reached into his jacket, so fucking casually. Freddie's heart stopped all over again. The Russian sighed in contentment, waving his free hand as the gun peeked from beneath the heavy fabric. (He must be sweating his fucking balls off.) "Bring him. I have set up another room."

How many fucking rooms did he have? This whole building? This whole fucking city?

Everyone in the goddamn world was working for the reds.

Paranoid my ass.

He hissed explosively, dragged upward by his wrists at what he's certain is the most deliberately painful angle, his eyes watering. "I said get off!"

Whichever one of them it was holding him, he wasn't responsive; Freddie felt an absurd sense of betrayal, and then wondered if it was the same one he'd kicked in the crotch.

Whoops.

Like he needed to be making friends with Russians, anyway.

"This way." Molokov sounded bored and it made him tense, heels sliding along the floor as he was shoved toward the door on the far right. He glanced over and found him standing there, observing with a neutral, if vaguely amused, expression; he curled his lip, anger surging up through his throat again with a growl.

"I would suggest that you keep your mouth shut now, or I will reconsider allowing you to speak with your friend."

There wasn't any chance of keeping the hope from burning plain to see on his face, but it didn't mean he was any less suspicious. "What are you – hey, fucking quit it, will you?" The man whose hands were wrapped around his biceps wasn't fazed; he shoved him the final feet toward the door and through it, leaving Freddie to stumble blindly into a dilapidated hallway.

"Jesus Christ," he spat, twisting in his grip to face Molokov a little more desperately. "Is he here? Where is he? Let me go."

"I do not see what would possibly compel me to do that." The Russian examined his cuticles with bland disinterest; he must be lapping this up, the sick bastard.

(Freddie does not think about the taste of him now stale in his mouth.)

(He'd never get rid of it – it's under his tongue and between his teeth and stuck in his throat like glass and he needs a fucking glass of water, and he needs to piss, god dammit.)

"You are currently a very valuable piece in the game, Trumper. I should think you would understand that."

The way he said it made them seem almost like accomplices and Freddie's chest tightened with another helpless stammer of anger, heart beating out a rhythm of war. I'll see you fucking hang.

He pulled at the cuffs, huffing a sharp breath.

"What the fuck do you know about chess," he sneered; it made him feel better for a moment, if nothing else.

"Some of us play board games." Molokov smirked and patted his cheek as he brushed past, leading the way. "Others live in the real world." The hall sloped gently upward and lead to what once must have been a glass door; it had been boarded up, but Molokov twisted the knob easily and stepped aside with the same superior smugness to gesture them in.

"The value of a pawn is the same either way."

"I'm not your fucking pawn."

"A pawn does not choose its allegiance, Frederick."

"Stop calling me that." Florence's angular visage flashed again to the front of his mind, and the disapproving looks she used to give him, when he left his empty coffee mugs around the house or when she found him holed up in the bathroom with a pack of cigarettes. Frederick Trumper.

What are you, my mother? Get outta here, Florence.

He hadn't had a cigarette in years, but he could use one about now.

Molokov offered no snarky reply and a vicious, pathetic sense of victory thrilled through him before they stopped; he stumbled and looked around, stomach plummeting as he realized where they must be.

The floor was decorated with broken glass, the tile peeling; the desk was coated in dust, papers scattered everywhere, files and forms, names he couldn't read. Through the cracked and broken shards of glass still left in the ceiling, he realized that he had been right – it was pitch dark, the dead of night, presumably. There were dozens of chairs upturned in the lobby, lying at crazy angles amongst tattered coffee table magazines. He glimpsed what must be an aged and long-unused stretcher peeking from a hall to his right –

An image of a mental asylum flashed through his mind and he cringed despite himself.

Jesus. I hate hospitals.

"You will say exactly as I tell you, and you will have two minutes," Molokov told him idly, already dialing into what must be an old payphone. Freddie could hardly believe that anything here worked, even the lights – it must have been abandoned years ago. Even the vandals and the street rats had had enough of it by now.

The words filtered through to him a few moments later and his painful excitement was reignited with an ache in his stomach. He licked his lips, refused to ask for anything but Anatoly. "Where are we?"

"Ah, yes, Anatoly."

The Russian smiled and Freddie lurched against the hands holding him in place, a frustrated hiss escaping him. "Let me go," he snapped, twisting to snarl at his captor; it was the man with the thin nose, a thick eyebrow rising as he looked at him. He didn't look any more impressed than Molokov.

"Quit your squirming," he muttered, jerking him roughly back into place by his shoulders. The child in him wanted to stomp his foot.

"Yes, he is right here. Safe and sound, I assure you." The deadly tone had crept softly back into Molokov's voice while he wasn't listening; his imagination spiraled away from his grasp, hearing Anatoly's tight, frantic voice in the forefront of his mind – he wasn't sure it was entirely his imagination. He clenched his fists behind his back, and the cuffs dug into his tendons.

"Of course, of course. You know what we want." Humming, Alexander leant against the wall, his thumb stuck into his pocket. Casual. Like any of this was fucking okay. He continued, pleasantly. "He is quite eager to speak with you, if you have a moment to spare."

Stomach churning, Freddie strained again against his captor and was allowed to stumble to Molokov's side, nearly panting. "Give me that," he grunted, twisting his arms uselessly. Molokov smelled entirely too clean, like aftershave. Freddie wondered if it was necessary; maybe people could actually smell evil.

(Not that the bastard needed any help in that department.)

The older man held the phone out, against his ear. "Speak," he told him, flashing those too-bright teeth of his. At this proximity again Freddie could vomit, involuntarily reminded of the taste in his mouth; he held fast to his sanity, though, as Anatoly's voice flooded his ear, sharp with anxiety, just as he'd imagined it.

"Freddie, Freddie." He sounded winded with relief. Freddie couldn't blame him – he was dizzy, too, although that might have been the dehydration. "Freddie. Are you hurt? What has he done to you?"

"Fine, I'm fine – Jesus," he said, smiling shakily, wishing that he could clutch the plastic tightly in his fists just for something to hang onto. He felt Molokov's eyes burn against his cheek like a match held just too close (enough to singe the hairs), and had half a mind to kick him in the shin. Again. "What day is it?"

"Sunday."

Three days, nearly. Anatoly sounded exhausted. Freddie wondered how long he'd been unconscious, the first time and the second. The lump on his head had been the least of his worries since he'd woken up here. "Where are you?"

"No fucking idea." He grimaced at his own honesty.

"You are frightened," Molokov murmured, soft and low, watching him with glinting eyes. Freddie ignored him; he felt his lips twist in disgust.

"He has not hurt you? I will not let him hurt you. God, Freddie." Too late. He wondered if he was crying. He sounded like he had been, tired and hoarse. Swallowing, the guilt beginning to eat at his stomach, he opened his mouth to reply – apologize, maybe, for once in his life.

Molokov pulled the phone from his ear abruptly.

"You are frightened," he said again, covering the receiver with his hand. Freddie stared for a long moment without comprehension; when it finally dawned on him (God, he's tired) he narrowed his eyes, sneering.

"Fat chance."

Shrugging, Molokov brought the phone back to his own ear and continued on as if nothing had happened. "He is alive, as you can hear."

"That wasn't two minutes," Freddie protested, panic ripping into his chest like a loudly, his heart hammering again in alarm. He felt as though something had been physically ripped away from him, the brief protection of Anatoly's voice stripped back again to expose the raw nerve beneath. God dammit, he'd fucked it up again –

Every fucking time.

"Christov. Quiet him."Molokov held a finger to his lips; immediately, the man behind him planted a heavy hand over his mouth.

"Ah, nothing," he said with a wide smile, slightly louder. Freddie thrashed his head from side to side, "Continue. What are you willing to give us in exchange?"

"Mmmph." The sound that escapes between the Russian's (Christov's?) fingers is as furious as it is pathetic. Freddie struggles violently against the metal around his wrists, twisting and kicking. Another man – whose name he didn't know nor care to (they don't need names, fuck them) (I'm not your fucking pawn) – grabbed him by the shoulders and slammed him into the near wall, hard enough that he choked, spit flying as the hand was removed from his mouth. "Fuck you –"

"Excellent," Molokov raised his voice, presumably for Freddie's benefit, and he must have been beaming or he was doing a damn good job of sounding like it. Asshole. "I will meet you outside of the embassy at quarter to seven. Do not forget to bring your passport – you will be needing it."

He set the phone back in its place, and Freddie exhaled angrily, his face mashed into the wall with a hand on the back of his head, turned to the side to watch him helplessly. The Russian turned to him on his heel, diplomacy fading into deadly silence. He narrowed his eyes, but his smile remained.

"You are very disobedient, Trumper." Freddie searched fruitlessly for some scrap of humanity left in his expression – fucking communists, they're not human, none of them – and found only frigid half-anger. He shivered involuntarily, abruptly reminded of his aching bladder. "Perhaps another lesson is in order."

"Call back, let me talk to him," he groaned. (He didn't plead, he wouldn't.) He had his pride. Anything to avoid thinking of what other punishments Molokov might think up for him.

Punishment? He's the one in the wrong!

"I need to talk to him-"

A horrifying smile unfurled on Molokov's face, almost mad – but then again, Freddie had always thought he looked a little bit off. Guess I was right.

"Ah, but think of it as practice!"

"What the hell does that mean?" He felt as though he'd already said that once tonight. (Probably.) (It was hard to remember anything clearly since the alley, but that could be the concussion.)

"Anatoly Sergievsky will be coming home, with an escort of course." Molokov cocked his head, watching his face in mild amusement. "You will not be speaking with him again."

He would really, really love to pretend to be nonchalant but it was impossible with the rate that the panic was rippling through him, exploding at the base of his skull and filling up his lungs.

"No," he heard himself say, almost hoarsely. (he hadn't had anything to drink in days, days, what the hell?) "No. He can't go back. I'm not – I'm not letting you do this-"

"Very noble, Trumper." The way his lips curved did not seem in the least congratulatory; instead he was amused, smirking and reaching to clap him on the shoulder. "Who is to say that he does not want to return to his home and his family? You are no compensation. I am sure he will be much happier."

"You don't want him, you want his goddamn title! He would have given it to you anyways!" He bared his teeth, beginning to feel feral; he wondered if this was how Anatoly had felt and suddenly found himself dizzy with a violent whirlwind of empathy.

No wonder he'd run from Russia like a dog from a cage.

Molokov was shaking his head, beginning his infernal circling again. Freddie felt his eyes on him from every side, his chest constricting with blind anger. It was impossible to twist and follow him; instead he stood, hunched, and endured the burning on the back of his neck.

"You do not know that you are naïve, do you?" Freddie wanted to rip the chords from his throat and choke the vibrations – his hands twitched, twisted behind him, but he was stubbornly silent.

It was time for another approach, one that he had never been successful with.

Ignore him.

"There is more than one way to win a game, Frederick. The title is inconsequential."

Not going to happen.

He felt the sweat gather on his brow and clamped his mouth shut tighter, biting on his cheek. Molokov paused before him, leaning in to examine his expression with amusement.

Get out of my face.

"Anatoly does not belong in the West. I am sure you have seen this firsthand."

Against his better judgment he allowed the wave to strike him, flooding his mouth, his nose, with memory – Anatoly pressing him against the stall door the first time they had gone out to see a movie together; Anatoly's hand in his, thin and cool, trembling with excitement on the plane ride to New York; the flustered way he'd waved his hands as he stumbled, pushed, off the curb and his accent thickening dramatically as he'd yelled over the blare of traffic, and Freddie had smirked; Anatoly wearing t-shirts in the winter, laughing at him, "It's not cold until it's ten below." and "Celsius, Freddie."

And Molokov stood watching him with that knowing expression that made Freddie's knees weak with sickly, dizzy anger.

He refused to ask that bastard for anything. I'm fine.

Florence had made him soup when he was sick and he had secretly loved it, had stayed in bed an extra day every time just because he liked the warmth and dragged Florence in with him, curling around her, exhaling.

He blinked, hard. Damn it. Concentrate.

There wasn't any time left for useless memories, not now.

"Now, as for your punishment…" Molokov grinned suddenly and Freddie's heart nearly plummeted straight into his empty stomach. "Comrades. Escort our friend here back to his room."

A couple of hours didn't sound like such a long time.

Freddie was mutinous by the time he found himself blinded, shoved into the back of what must be the car. He couldn't remember the trip here but he imagined that it had been nearly identical to this one.

He also imagined that the car was black, possibly with a red interior. He wasn't sure why that was important, but then, he couldn't think very far past the throbbing of his bladder in this position.

"I have to piss," he said, loudly. There couldn't possibly be more than three other people in the car. His hands remained cuffed behind him, wrists twisting restless and raw. There was no response; the radio was turned on low, and he could hear the buzz before the words. It probably wasn't anything he could understand, anyways.

Wriggling, he bared his teeth against a building groan – "I said, I have to fucking piss." He kicked out blindly and heard the thunk and skid of his sneaker screeching against the window. The vehicle jerked to a halt, nearly throwing him to the floor. He couldn't help the whine that escaped as he fell forward, the buckle digging into his lower abdomen, panic worming through his vein at the possibility that he might actually lose it –

Well, fuck Molokov. He deserved to have his upholstery ruined.

The night had been so much longer than he had expected, and not once had he asked for food. Molokov had brought a bottle of water, at one point, only to pour half of it onto his face. (His lap was dry now, thankfully, but probably not for long at this rate.)

He refused to think about his 'punishment.' He refused to think about anything but Anatoly. (and the way the piss is already halfway through his urethra, burning as he clamps desperately down on it)

Some guilty part of him was relieved to feel the end of his imprisonment approaching with every smooth-gliding second.

Don't leave me don't leave me don't leave me.

Anatoly would be waiting at the end of this ride and Freddie would get to go home, and everything would be okay. (As okay as things ever were, as okay as they'd been before this, better, he'd make it better.) Molokov couldn't touch him.

He had to have told Walter about this. Florence. Somebody.

They'd get him out.

Molokov couldn't fucking touch him.

I swear I'll see you fucking hang.

"I said –"

"For God's sake, Trumper." Molokov sighed, sounding horribly bored with him; it drove him mad, the way the Russian's moods would swing. He was interested, attentive, cruel; then he was aloof, leaving Freddie in the darkness with only his thoughts. Worse than a fucking woman. He didn't know which of them he preferred, only that he could still taste him in his mouth.

What if Anatoly did as well? What if he asked questions – Molokov was a persuasive man. It was probably in his job description.

(Did they have job descriptions for psychopaths like him? Or was he simply taking liberties?)

(Probably a little of both.)

(Fucking communists.)

He was always sure that if Florence could hear what he was thinking, he would have been smacked many more times than he actually had been. (A total of one incident back in Merano, which he had to admit he had deserved.)

"I'm not a dog! You can't just tie me up and expect me to piss myself!" He snapped, glaring in the general direction of the rearview mirror. His wrists were going to be bleeding or broken by the time he got those damn cuffs off. "Stop the car!"

"It is not my job to preserve your dignity." The fact that he was answering at all must have meant they were close – Freddie had belatedly begun to realize that he favored uncomfortable silence, utilized it. Well. Not anymore. Freddie wasn't going to let him.

If there was one thing he knew how to do it was make a motherfucking scene.

"It's not your job to kidnap me either!" Well, probably not. But it was also probably well within his boundaries. Walter had some shady little tricks up his sleeve, too.

(Freddie is eternally glad he'd decided not to go to law school.)

How Florence had done it he had no fucking idea. She had even less patience with politics than he did.

The car was gliding to a slow stop, and Freddie braced himself to be manhandled again. Molokov had merely snorted at him; the sounds of the car doors opening and shutting, the hum of the engine, were background noise to the increased volume of the humming in his veins. Tolya Tolya Tolya.

It had hardly sounded like Anatoly had any kind of handle on the situation over the phone, but somehow Freddie still found it in him to believe that he would pull the answer out of his ass. Anything was better than trepidation.

(When exactly had he become an optimist?)

There's a line between optimism and denial, sweetheart. You just crossed it.

Large hands dragged him out in a bruising grip around his biceps – Petrovich, he thought abstractly, because he was the stronger one, wasn't he? Not that there weren't at least half a dozen others – and deposited him on the concrete, leaving him to stumble wildly, blindly. He felt a sharp pang in his gut, clamping down again on his bladder, gritting out, "Will you just let me piss?"

This was so fucking humiliating. Never mind that that was the point.

Where is he?

His thighs are beginning to cramp with the effort of keeping it under control – when he did regain his balance he immediately rocked back on his heels, nostrils flared. He took a calming breath. "God damn it, let me–"

"Fine, fine," Molokov sighed somewhere to his left, evidently with greater things to worry about right now than his captive. "Go. Comrade Petrovich will escort you." Freddie almost found it in him to be offended, but not before he was being hauled by the same meaty pair of hands into a cool, close space – presumably an alley.

He twisted his head this way and that, raising and lowering his eyebrows in a desperate attempt to loosen the blindfold. The man behind him (Petrovich?) smacked him across the back of the head and jerked his zipper down so hard he was surprised that it hadn't broken off, and he nearly lost it. A strangled noise escaping him, his knees trembling. "Ah–ghh-!"

"Be quiet and do your business," the man growled, too-close to his ear. He dug blunt nails into his skin – and Freddie found, to his horror, that he couldn't do it.

For the love of all that's fucking holy –!

Jesus Christ, he was going to humiliate himself – he coughs, half-concentrating on the act and growing more agitated by the moment. "Yaknow, if I could use my hands for a second –"

"Trumper."

He felt his name breathed in utter loathing against the back of his neck, stiffening when he felt a hand roughly invading the opening of his pants. He stomped back on his foot immediately, cringing when he realized (belatedly, painfully) that he was wearing steel-toed boots.

"God dammit," he groaned, face flooding with color, shaking his head; his whole body was trembling but there was no way he could do this with his forehead against the brick and his arms pulled behind him like he was some kind of criminal, cock hanging limply, twitching with the strain. "Forget it, just – just let me see him."

All he was going to be able to think about was his fucking bladder now. Wonderful.

Petrovich was evidently just as unamused, the sneer practically radiating from his face and into Freddie's mind. "Fine. Come."

He was no more gentle putting him away than he had been taking him out and Freddie trembled again, the pressure of his zipper being yanked back up causing his control to slip just for a moment – a spurt escaped, hot and painful against the front of his boxers.

"Shit."

White pants. He had to be wearing fucking white pants.

He took a deep, shaky breath and nearly missed Anatoly's slow-boiling voice as they emerged from the alley, back into the early morning sun. "… Where, I want to know where he is!"

Anatoly was damn near hysterical by the time Freddie was in earshot; flushed hot and hopeful, he strained against his bonds. "Tolya?" He stumbled as Petrovich gave him a shove, legs too shaky to hold him up. Molokov's hand – it was growing all too familiar – rested lightly on his back, supporting him casually. The gesture must have caught Anatoly's gaze, and without a moment's notice he exploded.

"What the hell have you done to him? Freddie." He sounded anguished. Probably looked it, too. Freddie shook his head frantically again; the cloth held, tight as ever, rough against his skin. Could use some moisturizer.

He was aware that he was a wreck, but he'd deal with that later – when he wasn't doing the pee dance in front of several armed Soviet agents.

"Ah-ah." Molokov's shark-like smile made its return; Freddie recognized it in his voice and tensed, gritting his teeth against the chill of it. He shifted again on the balls of his feet, taking a deep breath. Just hold on a few more minutes… "Hand it over, and I will release him."

"You said that you wouldn't hurt him."

"I promised him alive. I can still retract that statement. Now, for the paperwork…"

"Let me speak with him," Anatoly pleaded, an anxious undertone in his voice that made helpless anger well up in Freddie's gut. He jerked his wrists, twisting the metal furiously.

"Let me go, asshole." He spat in what he imagined to be Molokov's general direction, curling his lip. Another spurt escaped him; he seemed to shrivel, his voice cracking under the stress. "Damn it."

"What, what is it?" In an instant Anatoly's voice was joined by his face, the knot behind his head yanked free. He stumbled toward him, heart expanding to fill his throat, unable to say anything for the first moment as Anatoly caught him with gentle hands that slid up to cup his neck, down along his ribs as if checking for breaks. He found a bruise and Freddie leant away from it with a hiss, shuddering again in rapidly escalating deprivation.

"N-ahh, n-othing, I – oh, fuck." He shut his eyes, shut him out because this was it, really, he wasn't going to be able to –

Je-sus…

Anatoly crushed him into a hug, anxiously trying to coax the words from him, and Freddie choked as he felt his bladder give. Angry tears stung his eyes. The wetness of it seemed to sear his thighs on the way down, staining his pants, filling his sneakers – it was audible, to him at least, so he just stayed very still and very tense about the shoulders and hoped that Anatoly would say nothing. He could probably feel the stain of his blush against his neck, anyways, if he couldn't feel his piss wetting his legs.

He tensed, for half a second, before pressing his lips to his temple reassuringly. Long fingers stroked agonizingly gently through his hair; he felt rather than saw Anatoly's deathly glare as he levied it at Molokov. "You will let him go. Now."

"I have fulfilled my end of the bargain." Freddie wanted to light a match and burn that voice from the air, along with the tang of his loss of control. He imagined Molokov spreading his arms, that insidious smile on his face. He curled his fingers into Anatoly's shirt and pretended that Molokov had never existed, twisting his wrists restlessly behind him. "It is time that you do the same, comrade."

"I am not your comrade," Anatoly seethed, fiercely wrapping his arms around his lover's waist. Freddie was glad; there was really very little else to hold onto and though he felt them, a million retorts that rose like ghosts with a vengeance deep in his chest, he found that the breeze that cooled his damp legs took his voice with it. "I am here. Do what you will with me – but let him go, first."

"I do not think so."

He sounded almost sorry and Freddie wondered vaguely if he could manage to fake the expression as well. I'll see you fucking hang. He exhaled, the buzzing returning to the base of his skull – angry, anxious. "If you will just take a moment to step inside of this building?"

"Freddie," he said in his ear, and Freddie clenched his hands into fists, braced himself for it. Don't leave me don't leave me – "If I go, they will leave you alone."

"I want to go with you." It was supposed to be a demand. He tried again, the desperate edge to his voice wobbling. This wasn't how he'd seen it happening in his mind, this wasn't what he'd planned for – now all of the maneuvers he had floating in his brain were worthless.

(Only a pawn, only a pawn you're only a pawn-)

(What did that make Anatoly, then? What did that make Molokov?)

"I'm going with you," he said again, but Anatoly was already kissing him and he couldn't even bring himself to jerk his head away, stock still with that leaden weight filling his stomach and lining his capillary walls with concrete, sticking them shut.

"I will be right back," he promised. "We can talk then. Alright?"

No. Not alright. Freddie hated the smile he felt against his lips. He hated everything. He hated Molokov, whom he was certain was sticking around to keep an eye on him while Anatoly signed away his soul. He'd only just gotten it back, it seemed…

"No," he said out loud, but his voice bounced pathetically back from the brick as Anatoly's back disappeared inside the embassy building. The door swung heavily shut behind him.

"Now." The scrape of his shoes against the gravel was the only warning that Freddie received before he felt a hand wrap into the collar of his shirt from behind, yanking him roughly to the side. He stumbled right into the arms of the bulkier man – Petrovich, he assumed, the one who had taken him into the alley. Why do I care what their names are, anyway? "It seems that you have had an accident."

Flushing, Freddie narrowed his eyes and spat, shaking, "Whose fault is that?"

Molokov quirked his lips and tilted his head, examining him in eternal amusement. "Just do not get my seats wet, or I will have to punish you when we get back."

"Wait–"

No, no, that's not right – that's not what you said! Alarm blasted through the gum in his veins like fire. He turned his scandalized face toward Molokov, looked desperately past him for Anatoly's face, for Florence, for anyone.

"I do not have time to wait for you, Trumper." He motioned to his men almost lazily as he turned on his heel and waltzed toward the entrance.

"Make sure he is secure. I will be out momentarily."

"You said you were letting me go! You fucking liar, I'll kill you, I'll-!"

The gaping mouth of the open car door, sleek and black and windows tinted, stretched wider as it swallowed him. He went sprawling across the leather seat and directly onto one of the buckles with a grunt, nearly choking on the scent of his own piss as it filled the closed space, soaked into the seat beneath him.

Molokov was going to fucking kill him.

Not if I kill him first.

The door slammed shut behind him, separating him from the Soviets for the first time in what seemed like his entire life, trapped here with metal cuffs digging into his wrist bones so sharply his eyes watered. He twisted, doggedly searching for any sign of Anatoly, and took deep breaths.

He won't let them do this.

Don't leave me, don't leave me.

Through the glass he saw Anatoly emerge, saw him turn to Molokov in fury. His voice was blurry, as though he were hearing it from underwater. "Where is he? You bastard, you said you would let him go! Let him go!"

"I will let him go as soon as the paperwork is cleared, comrade. Rest assured." Molokov's teeth must have been gleaming. Freddie could tell, just from his tone of voice. "He is safe in my hands. Now, if you would, Christov here is willing to escort you back to your room for the time being."

He felt like he was trapped on the inside of a television screen – he kicked out, helpless and unable to even sit up in his position. "Let me out!"

No amount of screaming was going to make up for this.

I'll see you fucking hang, I swear to God.

Anatoly shrugged the man's hand off in annoyance, taking a step toward the car. "Freddie?" He whipped his head toward Molokov, who looked about as innocent as he was tall. "You can't do this. He does not belong to you – I have already told De Courcey that you have him."

"Oh, I am aware." Molokov shrugged. "I will deal with De Courcey."

"I am not leaving until you let him go." Anatoly's face was probably pale, but Freddie couldn't see it any longer. He fell back to the seat with a muffled curse, the circulation returning to his arms.

"You will do exactly as I say," Molokov said, even and casual. "You know the consequences."

"Freddie–" Anatoly turned his urgent voice back on the car. Freddie felt it reverberate through his bones, wondered what he had wasted away into. He was dizzy, his stomach growling, nearly drowning out the Russian's words. "Freddie, I love you. Freddie."

And then his voice faded, by increments and grunts, and evidently he was struggling but there was no help for it and Freddie listened as he was dragged away, and buried his face in the seat, and pretended that he hadn't given up just for a moment.

The driver side door clicked open. He didn't look up, just mumbled, "You're not letting me go."

"No," Molokov said simply, twisting the key in the ignition. "Did you think that I would?"

"No." Freddie lied sullenly, smoothly.

Trusting Russians. Look what Anatoly had done to him. He sneered and thought of Walter, then Florence. He didn't think of Anatoly, couldn't, yet. How many people knew where he was?

"I did not think so." The car glided smoothly again through the streets of Bangkok. Freddie closed his eyes and thought of anything else. Let Molokov think that it was over; as if Freddie Trumper wouldn't get what he wanted in the end.

Let them take him back, then. Let them taunt him, tease him, degrade him. It wasn't anything new.

I'll kill you.

He wasn't done yet.

It was all-out war the second he was pulled out of the car.

They put him back in the chair, of course, as soon as they managed to drag him back into that infernal building – he didn't go willingly, or easily.

He kicked and screamed and wrestled and he was sure that he'd just knocked someone's tooth clean out of their mouth when he's rolled over, tugged into a sitting position, and before he could even begin thrashing again someone swung something heavy – is that a gun? – at his face.

It collided with a crack! and Freddie howled like a dying animal, blood filling his mouth. He kicked wildly, blindly, at his assailant and they caught his ankles in hands like huge vices. He felt hands at his armpits, yanking him up, shoving him back down.

Molokov's voice echoed impassively from somewhere behind him. Freddie imagined him standing off to the side, watching his men subdue Freddie like they would a snapping dog. "You are going to end up making things very difficult for yourself, Trumper."

If it's supposed to be foreboding, Freddie hasn't yet gotten the memo.

"I hope for your sake that the seat of my car is in pristine condition."

"Fuck yourself," he spat, aimlessly. A mouthful of blood splattered the floor. He pulled his teeth back and prepared to spit again, Anatoly still buzzing in his veins.

Revenge revenge revenge – the ropes tighten around him and he arches against them, gnashing his teeth. "Augh!"

"Watch your mouth, Trumper."

He had barely an instant of anticipation before something harder and heavier connected with the back of his head, and in an instant everything was dark.