Chapter Text
Keith was no stranger to horror.
It was part of the job description, really. When he'd first started his position as an agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, he'd been filled with a fiery passion; an eagerness to prove himself and help those that couldn't help themselves. He'd faced down mobsters, gangs, psychopaths, drug lords. Nothing scared him. Nothing beat him. He was somewhat of a prodigy, really. As soon as he'd reached the minimum age requirement of 23 years he'd filled his application and was sent to training within the week.
That was more than two years ago. He'd done nothing but improve, nothing but grow stronger and deadlier. He was good at what he did, and he'd been around the block at least a couple times. Washing blood out of his clothes was more common than rare, and up until now he thought he'd about seen it all.
This, though. This was a whole new kind of horror.
"Kogane, are you alright?" came Agent Brooks' voice from behind him. He suddenly realized he'd stopped in his mad dash, standing completely frozen in the basement doorway. The room, upon first glance, was empty. There was no movement, just stacks of crates piled six-feet high. If he didn't know better, he'd have found nothing suspicious about the baren space.
But no. Their intel was good and he had a sinking feeling he knew exactly what kind of things they used this "storage space" for.
"I'm fine," Keith finally said, and all at once his hesitation was gone. He was one of the best. He refused to let a simple case weaken him, regardless of the despair he felt at knowing what had happened here. What would have continued to happen, had they not received their anonymous tip. A stroke of pure luck, nothing more. Fate certainly was cruel.
Without another moment of hesitation, he strode towards the crate closest to him. The sound of Brooks' camera shutter was a familiar comfort, and he grabbed a discarded crowbar before squatting down to hack at the crate. It gave after a brief moment of resistance, and his stomach immediately rolled at what he found.
Somehow they'd managed to cram a fully grown MAN into the crate, naked body twisted awkwardly. He was tied into a curled fetal position by a thick leather binding, wrapping around his chest, thighs, arms, and neck. Red and irritated skin peeked out from beneath the bindings, and the rest of his naked frame was covered in cuts, scabs, dirt, blood, bruises, and probably more that he didn't want to know about.
"Oh fuck," Keith breathed, heart dropping into his stomach. Belatedly, he realized that the man was awake, piercing blue eyes glinting in the dim lighting of the basement. Brown hair framed a thin face, long and matted and only adding to the gaunt frailty of the man's figure. He had a gag in his mouth-- a ball gag, his brain provided helpfully. It dug into raw looking skin and chapped lips, and Keith finally forced himself to look back into the poor thing's eyes. He expected to find relief. Exhaustion. Joy.
He really wasn't expecting terror.
"Hey, hey, don't be scared. It's ok. You're ok now," he blurt out, trying to sound reassuring. He'd been trained for this, goddammit. "I'm Agent Keith Kogane, and I'm with the FBI. We're going to get you out of here." He flashed his badge along with his introduction, not missing the way the man's eyes caught on the metal and couldn't seem to look away. Then suddenly he was crying, tears filling his eyes rapidly and pouring over broken skin. His sobs were muffled by the gag, and Keith gently laid a hand down on his shoulder to comfort him as he cried. He glanced briefly around the rest of the room, not really sure what to do as the victim sobbed. Agents and paramedics were flitting among crates, cutting through the bindings and pulling weak, broken looking figures out of their prisons. There looked to be at least twenty victims.
That was simply too many people hurt on his watch.
Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a paramedic marching towards him, expression grim. He turned back to the victim, squeezing his shoulder gently.
"Hey, my friend here is going to help you out, ok? She's a trained paramedic. We'll get you out of there, don't worry."
Keith wasn't sure if the man had heard him. He was still sobbing against the wall of the crate, body shaking violently beneath his grip. Keith pressed his lips together, taking a step back as the paramedic bent down in his place.
"Hello," the woman said, voice soothing. "I'm going to cut these bindings now, ok?"
Keith turned away, stomach tight and bordering on naseous. Somehow this was getting to him more than any blood or gore ever had. Maybe it was the air of suffering that hung thick and heavy. Maybe it was the fact that these people were real, and feeling, and not dead.
Maybe it was the look of haunted blue eyes looking up at him with nothing but terror.
"Keith!" came a familiar voice. He turned, eyes automatically finding Shiro in the crowd. Thank goodness. He could use something familiar right now.
"What is it?" Keith asked, jogging to where Shiro was unloading some smaller crates. A cursory glance revealed them to be filled with all kinds of incriminating objects. Sex toys, his brain provided again, and he really needed to figure out where it was getting its sources because he had no idea how he'd recognize half the stuff in these crates. He'd messed around, sure, but this all looked to be much more intense than a dildo.
"I'm going to take this stuff up to the van as evidence," Shiro said, surveying the crates grimly. "If we're lucky, we can maybe even find some DNA samples. Those three men we arrested couldn't have raped twenty individuals single-handedly."
Keith grimaced. No, he supposed not.
"The van has a large supply of blankets for the victims," Shiro continued, tugging the lid off of a fifth crate. Handcuffs, Keith noted with disgust. "Head up and grab some, we can start distributing them until the ambulances arrive."
"Sure thing," Keith replied, glancing over the room's occupants one more time before heading up to grab the blankets.
It took longer than expected, simply because he wasn't sure which van he was supposed to go to. It was at least ten minutes before he was stumbling down the basement stairs, arms laden with thick blankets. He set them down on an empty crate, then grabbed a few and got to work.
He'd just handed out his last one when he spotted Shiro across the room, squatting next to a huddled figure. It took him a moment, but he recognized him as the man he'd found earlier. Shiro laid a hand on the man's shoulder, and Keith was surprised to see him flinch away. He had done the same thing not fifteen minutes earlier, and the man hadn't flinched away in the slightest.
Shiro looked surprised as well, an expression of... something crossing his face so fleetingly Keith wasn't even able to decipher what it meant. Keith paused at that, deciding to observe whatever came next, but in that moment Shiro looked up and made eye contact with him from across the room. He smiled, an expression tinged with sadness, then turned back to the man to say something. Keith watched him stand up to his full height, giving the man a last fleeting look before coming to stand where Keith was.
"I don't think he likes me much," Shiro said quietly, gesturing back to where the victim sat huddled in a large blanket. Keith frowned.
"Why not?"
"Not sure, but he didn't seem comfortable with me being there. You ought to try. He might like you better."
Keith frowned, looking back towards where the man sat, huddled and broken.
"You know I'm not good at these things."
Shiro shrugged. "You don't have to talk to him. Just thought it might help to have someone there for him."
Keith hesitated for a moment, then walked across the room until he reached the spot where the victim was sitting.
"Hello again," he said, trying to be quiet so as not to startle him. The man looked up, jerky and panicked, but calmed when he saw who had approached him. Keith lowered himself to the concrete floor, leaving a safe distance between them. The man's legs were tucked up to his chest, and his hands gripped his knees tightly. The blanket was hardly doing anything to protect his modesty, so Keith made sure to maintain eye contact.
"Um," the man started, then stopped. He glanced up at Keith, then looked away quickly. "I wanted to say thank you. For saving me. Us."
Keith smiled, the gesture twisted with grief. "Of course. I'm sorry we didn't get here sooner."
"S'fine," the man shrugged, a smile coming to rest on his lips. It looked wrong there, as if it had once fit his face but didn't quite belong anymore. "Not your fault."
"Maybe not, but I'm still sorry," Keith insisted. The man didn't reply. Keith studied him for a moment, heart breaking. Who was this man? How did he get here? What horrors had he seen?
"What's your name?" Keith asked gently. The man looked up, seemingly startled, then returned his gaze to the concrete underneath them.
"Lance," he whispered, and Keith pretended not to see the shimmer of tears on his cheeks.
"Lance, you don't have to be afraid anymore. I promise," Keith said, voice heavy with the weight of that promise. Lance looked up again and nodded, lips quirking up into a bare skeleton of a smile.
Keith returned it, trying to exude an aura of calm and comfort instead of the rage and grief he felt like a storm in his blood.
"We'll get you some clothes, money, whatever you need to get back on your feet. Do you have anywhere to go back to?" Keith asked. Lance's expression turned to longing.
"Cuba," he said. "I'm from Cuba. All my family's there."
"Cuba?" Keith repeated, surprised. That was far away. Not that human trafficking circles never spread that far, but this had been a fairly small, localized ring. The furthest victims were abducted from neighboring states, not countries.
Lance seemed to sense his surprise.
"I was here when they got me. In the US." he clarified. "I was a student at the Galaxy Garrison. My family... They probably think I'm dead," he trailed off, face screwing into grief once again. Keith reached out a hand without thinking, placing it gently on Lance's shoulder. He didn't flinch.
"We're going to figure this out, Lance. Don't worry. You'll be home before you know it."
"Thank you," Lance whispered, curling tighter into the blanket. Keith smiled, giving Lance one last long look before standing, making his way back to the waiting vans upstairs.
*
Later that night in the safety of his and Shiro’s apartment, Keith found himself unable to stop replaying the events of the day in his mind. His thoughts lingered especially long on the victim he met, Lance. He couldn’t imagine what the poor thing must have been feeling. Stolen away, kidnapped and tortured and abused for months. It’s sick, and he scowled down at the ramen sitting on the kitchen table in front of him
“Something wrong?” Shiro asked, voice deceptively casual. Keith glanced up at him, trying to put a cap on his glare. Shiro, of course, seemed unaffected by his prickly nature. He lay stretched on their sofa, idly flipping through a magazine, and Keith almost envied his ability to remain calm and cool after stressful missions like what they experienced today.
“Just thinking,” Keith replied shortly.
“About the bust today?”
“Yeah,” Keith said, sighing. “I just… can’t even imagine what those people must be going through.”
Shiro hummed sympathetically, flipping another page.
“Lance especially seems to have gone through a lot,” Keith continued, frowning. Shiro glanced up at that.
“Lance?”
“Yeah, he’s the one you made me talk to,” Keith clarified. “He’s Cuban. Only came here to attend the Galaxy Garrison.”
Shiro gave a small “ah” of understanding, his expression contemplative. “Are they sending him back to Cuba, then?”
Keith shrugged. “I assume so. He said he wants to go back there, so…” he trailed off. Shiro didn’t reply outside of an absent hum, and he seemingly refocused on the magazine in front of him. Keith noticed, however, that Shiro didn’t turn a page for a long stretch of time.
“Have you already packed?” Shiro suddenly asked. Keith blinked at the sudden topic change.
“For Japan? Yeah,” he replied. Shiro nodded his appreciation, shooting Keith a smile.
Shiro was, of course, referring to their upcoming move. The Japanese government had reached out to them three months ago and offered them positions in the Public Security Intelligence Agency. “Offered” being a loose term, as they had more accurately begged the two agents to join their ranks. Shiro was born in Japan anyways, so the decision for him was easy. And Keith… well, his home was with Shiro, so if Shiro was going to Japan then he would go as well.
Keith had learned Japanese during his stay with the Shirogane family as a foster child. He considered himself to be decent at the language, definitely good enough to get himself into trouble. Their flight to Japan was in a week, and Keith was simultaneously excited and terrified. It would be interesting to see the differences between the two organizations and cultures, and he knew he’d have to find a way to catch on quickly in order to prove his competence. At least he’d have Shiro to help him out.
“Well, I’m pooped,” Shiro said, throwing his magazine down onto the coffee table. “Don’t stay up too late.”
“Sure, dad,” Keith replied with an eye roll. Shiro chuckled, ruffling his hair before padding down the hallway to his bedroom.
Keith sat at the table for a while longer, organizing his erratic thoughts, before finally heading to his own bedroom. With luck, a little sleep would help clear his mind.
Keith’s last thoughts before succumbing to unconsciousness were images of blue eyes and stripes of blood.