Two hours later, nearing eleven o'clock, Ivan helped Corbin into the house. Neither had spoken much on the drive home, though Ivan wanted to say plenty.

"You want to go lie down?"

Corbin shook his head, not looking at him. "Sh-sh-shower. I need...I can still..." He drew himself closer to Ivan, seeking his protection. He was shaking. Ivan picked him up bridal style and carried him into their master bath. Corbin shucked his clothing, turned on the water as hot as he could, and stepped inside. Ivan stepped into the bedroom to gather him some clothes. As he reapproached the bathroom he heard quiet sobs, and reached in to shut the water. Corbin's skin was red from scalding water and scrubbing. Ivan grabbed a towel and, draping it over Corbin, lifted him from the tub. Corbin did not protest. He did not say a word when Ivan laid him down on the bed.

 "Corbin, come on, baby, let's get you dressed. It's been...I don't know what it's been..." Ivan picked up a T-shirt and once he got the shirt on him, he moved to the pants. "Cory, I'm gonna put on your pajama pants, alright." Ivan touched his arm. Corbin looked at him briefly before his eyes flickered away again. Ivan sighed slightly, trying his best to hold himself together. Carefully and while talking to him the whole time, Ivan got the pants on him without incident. He took a deep breath. Awkwardly he stood by the bed. He didn't know what he should do. He didn't want to frighten him further by crawling in next to him. He wasn't about to leave him alone either.

"Corbin, help me out. Do you want me to come to bed with you, or if you want I can set up the cot next to the bed here. I just...I don't know what to do. And I don't want to make things worse by scaring you."

Corbin held out his arms to him in silent gesture and Ivan went to him with no more hesitation. 

"You came for me." Ivan would have missed it had Corbin's face not been pressed so close to his ear. 

"I told you I wasn't going to leave you to the wolves. I'm sorry I didn't get there sooner, baby."

Corbin shook his head as he began to sob. He cried for over an hour before he finally began to settle. "How can you stand to touch me now? Now that you know what I am. What I've always been. What I was always taught to be. How can you stand me? How can you look at me the same?"

Ivan sat up, his weight propped up against his elbow. He padded away the tracks of tears on Corbin's face. "Because I love you, Corbin. I've always told you that whatever it is in your past wouldn't make me turn away from you. And it won't."

"But when they...today...when they...I got hard. Th-they made m-m-me c-c-come. How can you not feel like I betrayed you? How can you not be disgusted with me?" Corbin hid his face against Ivan's chest. 

Ivan wrapped his arms around him once again. "Because I love you, baby. And what they did wasn't your fault. Not when you were a kid. Not today. Your body doesn't understand your mind doesn't want it. It responds only to the stimuli of it. It's natural. It doesn't mean you wanted it. It doesn't mean you liked it. It certainly doesn't mean that I think you did me wrong."

Corbin couldn't answer through his silent wails as he clutched onto Ivan as if for dear life. 

"Corbin..." He paused. He couldn't tell him yet. "I love you," he said instead. "And I'll do whatever it takes to prove to you that I'm not going anywhere. That I love you just as much right now as I did this morning when we woke up. Baby, I'm not going to leave you. And one day, baby, one day you'll tell me about it all. And I'll listen undivided. And I'll love you. No matter what, I love you."

"I love you, too, Ivan. I need you. I can't do this alone. I can't relive this alone. I'm scared, Ivan, I'm so scared. Help me, baby, please, help me." 

Ivan held him closer still, tightening his grip as tight as he could without hurting his bruised ribs. "I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere, Cory."

"Promise?"

"God, Corbin, I swear, baby, I swear. I'm right here."

It was two days later that Ivan approached Corbin. He could no longer keep it to himself. "Cor...I need to talk to you. I can't in good conscience keep it from you anymore."

"Wh-what is it?" They had been watching television after dinner. The last two days had been emotionally driven with frequent breakdowns on Corbin's part, the events of him being taken still heavy on his mind. 

Ivan turned his face toward him, shut off the T.V. and leaned forward, bracing himself on his knees, lacing his fingers together. "A few days before you were taken...I was doing some digging into the past of each of the victims. The trails were thin, but eventually I was able to connect each of them and you to one man. I was looking at a mug shot of him from the 80's and it struck me...so I did more digging and discovered that Alister Martin had three children. Two from the same woman and one from a different woman. Sean Mathew Martin. Devon Elizabeth Martin. Marcus Jacob Franklin. I found out everything. From your fingerprints I discovered that when you were twenty you changed your identity. When...when you wouldn't tell me...I had to know what I was up against because Goddamn it I had to do something to protect you. I had to be prepared even if you didn't know."

Corbin didn't say anything for a moment before, "Go on, Ivan." His voice was soft, quiet. 

"Sam had a couple guys following us. Devon's mug shot came up along with your father's. When she entered the restaurant, they put a tracking device on the car. I knew who she was. I knew she wasn't your wife. That's how I found you. Cory...Devon's dead." 

Ivan looked to his right at the sound Corbin made, his eyes watering along with Corbin's as he continued to tell him what happened that day. "When Sam and I entered the bedroom your father was...on top of you...Devon... she was trying get him away from you. He grabbed her when we came in and he...had a gun to her head." Juno jumped between them on the couch, resting her head on Corbin's lap. "I told him to let her go but he just...fired...then we fired. I'm so sorry, Cor." Corbin didn't say anything, he didn't move, he didn't blink. "Corbin..." Ivan reached out a tentative hand, stopping short when Corbin pulled away with a whimper. 

"Please don't touch me right now, Ivan." He saw he saw he saw he saw he saw oh God he saw Corbin's breathing became irratic as panic began to set in. It was one thing to know. It was a whole different other thing to see. "Y-you...you saw...you saw h-h-h-h-him...you saw him...you saw...you saw what I am..." Corbin dragged his eyes upward to Ivan's. He'd never before seen such a look of despair on anyone's face. 

"Corbin, baby, no. 'What you are', my love, no." Ivan wanted so badly to reach for him but refrained, clasping his hands tighter to each other. 

"How do you still love me, Ivan? I was raised to be a whore. When I was nine, Devon was eleven, and Marc was fourteen, my father put this on us." His hand covered his hip where the tattoo-brand lay hidden under his clothes. "I was groomed from infancy, Ivan...until you it was all I ever knew. By...by the time I was seven I slept with more people than most in a lifetime. I was traded. I was sold for days at a time...or rented, I guess..." Corbin wiped his face and shook his head, his eyes lowering in shame. "How can you love someone like that? How can you look at me and not think I'm as fucking filthy as I am?"

Ivan watched him squirm for a moment, his own eyes spilling over. He sniffled.

"Juno, get down." She did and Ivan scooted over. Taking Corbin's hands in his, he kissed each of his palms. Corbin had screwed his eyes shut as relentless sobs shook his frame. "Because...you know what I see when I look at you? Hm?" Corbin opened his eyes and shook his head. "I see you. I see how your smile lights up your face. How it lights up my whole world. I see the spark in you when you talk about something you're passionate about. I see how beautiful you are, inside and outside. I see the man I fell in love with." The look on Corbin's face Ivan felt in his very soul. "Your past, horrible as it was, my love, isn't who you are. Your name isn't who you are."

"Who am I, Ivan? What am I?" Corbin's voice was heavy with emotion, wavering as he spoke through his tears. 

"You are an amazing person. You're intelligent, and witty. You make my life better by being in it. You make me always strive to be a better person. You've taught me so much over the years and you don't even know. You're my whole world. My everything. It may not seem like much to some people, but I hope you understand. I've never met anyone who's laughter lifts my spirits so much. Someone who makes me smile even if I want to scream. I don't care about your past. I mean...I do...but not like that. I care because you're still in so much pain...I've always seen it in your eyes." 

Corbin broke eye contact but Ivan brought his gaze back to him with a soft finger under his chin. "And I've wanted nothing more these last damn near four years than to make it all disappear. I just want you to be happy. And feel like you're just as safe and loved and wanted and needed, Corbin, as you are." Corbin dropped his head on his knees, having curled up earlier in the conversation. "I love you, Cory. I told you that won't change. I'm not going to go anywhere." Ivan was silent after this, allowing Corbin to absorb all he'd just been told. 

Suddenly, Corbin shot from his position into Ivan's arms. Ivan pulled him securely into his lap, his arms winding around him as Corbin finally came completely undone. 

"I love you, Ivan. I love you so much. I'm sorry I couldn't ever tell you, I'm sorry. Don't leave me, baby, please don't leave me. I need you." His chest heaved as the words poured forth from brain to mouth to ears. He screamed and wailed, cried and released twenty-six years worth of despair. Ivan held him long after the tears finally dried. 

After so long a silence Ivan thought he must have fallen asleep, Corbin spoke. "I guess it's time then, isn't it? To finally tell you who I was before I finally escaped. Before I met you and you saved my life..."

Ivan reaffirmed his hold around Corbin, shifting to where Corbin was looking him in the eye. Cupping Corbin's cheek Ivan thumbed away freshly fallen tears. "You don't have to tell me anything, my love." 

He nodded. "Yes, I do." He sat up, though he kept as much physical contact as he could. Nervously he began playing with Ivan's fingers, running his fingertips along Ivan's palm. "Ivan...my father ran a...black market s-se-sex r-ring. My mother...sh-she, um, sh-she was one of his..."girls." That's what he called them. Mine and Devon's mother...was his favorite. She was ten when he...he bought her. Eleven when she had my sister. Thirteen when she had me." As he spoke he did not look up to Ivan's face, keeping his vision trained solely on Ivan's hands. 

"What happened to her?" Ivan asked gently. He was watching Corbin closely, regarding his face, each frown that appeared along his brow, each pause that caused him to suck in his lower lip and gnaw on it before he took a deep breath to begin again. 

"She-she-she tri-tried t-to st-stop-stop him f-f-from...when Devon was four and I was two he tried to rent us both out to this man...he k-k-killed her." Corbin squeezed his eyes shut and took a shaky breath. 

Tentatively he began recalling aloud the night he watched his mother be murdered by his father. "He came to get me one night when I was six. He did that sometimes. And-and-and I tr-tried fighting back because I didn't want to, Ivan. I didn't like it. I never liked it, Ivan!" Corbin brought his fists up, landing them against Ivan's chest with a force that surprised Ivan. He did not try and stop him immediately but eventually did catch his fists. 

"Baby, baby, easy. Corbin, stop!" Corbin's eyes were wide and wild and tear-stained red. Ivan placed both hands against Corbin's cheek, holding his gaze. "You're not there, baby. Corbin..." Corbin's eyes focused on Ivan's face and he nodded before Ivan pulled him to his chest. "Breathe, sweet baby, breathe. Corbin, look at me." He did. "Breathe." Once he'd settled down Ivan thumbed away newly fallen tears. "Corbin, my love, you don't have to rush yourself into this."

Corbin's silent sobs broke Ivan's heart. Collapsing forward he gripped handfuls of Ivan's shirt, gasping for breath. When he calmed down he tried again. "When I tried to fight back that night he showed me...he showed me exactly what happened if I resisted his..."teachings"." Corbin pressed his face against Ivan's chest; the sound of his heartbeat calming him enough to continue speaking. 

Sean heard the footsteps long before they appeared in his bedroom doorway. The footsteps belonged to his father. He knew without looking. 

"Sean," he bellowed, making the child whimper. "Up. Knees."

Never before had he ever dared to disobey his father. But he didn't move. There was nothing more from his father. Not another demand. Just as the thought crossed his mind that he'd be left alone tonight, he yelped as he suddenly was ripped from his bed. He didn't see the fist before it connected with his ribs. Not enough to break, but enough to color his sides black and blue. He had no chance of getting away. When his father's fist contacted his cheek he fell to the floor. Violently he was forced back onto his bed, his face against the blanket, his toes just off the floor.

"He was...so violent that night. He wasn't usually. Violent. Not...not like that. He..." Corbin paused, his fists and eyes squeezed as tightly shut as he could manage. He tried to control his breathing through the sobs that escaped him. "Most of the time...he tried to make it as painless as he could. But that night...he wanted it to hurt. Then he dragged me into the living room, my sister, too...threw us on the floor..."

"Mommy," Devon said, her voice small. Sean looked to her, wanting to hide from what he was about to witness. He dare'nt move. Then a boy came into view; Sean knew immediately he was the boy only several years younger. As the boy began hesitantly stepping toward the stranger his mother snatched him up and began moving backward and away from the group.

"He killed her. F-f-for trying to-to-to protect meh-me. He made me watch...he made me watch her die."

Alister Martin said something that wasn't heard, as the video was only visual, not audio. The girl holding the small child shook her head emphatically, reaffirming her grip around the boy. Sean watched in unmitigated horror as his father snatched him from his mother's arms, throwing him haphazardly to the floor behind him. Then like a tiger pouncing its prey, he lunged at her, his fist connecting with her temple. 

"He beat her until there was nothing left. There was so much blood. Then the man took us anyway."

Corbin dragged his eyes up to Ivan's face. "I didn't dare defy him again until I ran away..."

Ivan brought his hand up to gently delete the tears gathered against Corbin's face. Corbin jumped, flinching away with a small whimper. "Baby, I would never hit you."

Corbin nodded as he discovered he did in fact have more tears to cry. "I know. I know you wouldn't. I'm sorry."

Ivan frowned slightly and licked his lips. "Baby, no. Please don't apologize. You have nothing to be sorry for, my love."

Corbin chewed on his bottom lip. "But don't I? My whole life I have to be sorry for. Except the last three years. My life didn't really begin until you came into it. You've done more for me than you'll ever know." He toyed with Ivan's shirt as he spoke. 

"It wasn't your fault, Cory. In that sense you have nothing to be sorry for." Ivan told him gently. Corbin merely shook his head. "Corbin, look at me." He did. "Do you think it's your fault? Honestly. I won't be disappointed or upset by any answer you give me."

Corbin looked at him with uncertain questioning plastered across his features. Silent rain drops slipping from his eyes. "How isn't it my fault?"

"Oh, baby...how is it? You were just a baby. You were fed terror every minute of every day, conditioned to be exactly what he wanted you to be. That's his fault, sweet baby, not yours."

Corbin's sobs became more prominent with those words. "No one has ever told me it wasn't my fault. Devon...we always thought it was our fault. We used to talk about it sometimes...we never knew why it was our fault but that it must have been...because if it wasn't because we were bad, then why would he do that to us?"

Ivan knuckled the moister from Corbin's cheeks. "Because he was a terrible man. A sick, twisted monster...and you and her both were caught in the middle. You two were innocent victims. But you're not a victim now. And together we'll get through all the bad stuff and heal, my sweet."

"Together? You..." He took a shaky breath as his eyes continued raining. He pursed his lips together, wiped his face and tried again. "You're not going to...leave?"

Up unto this point Ivan had been able to remain dry eyed for the most part, but the question broke his heart in more ways than one.

  "Baby..." He pulled Corbin close to his chest, his arms wrapped ever so securely around him. Ivan hugged him tightly, his own shoulders shaking at the weight of Corbin's fears and his past. The fact that Corbin didn't think, even after everything from the last few days, Ivan wouldn't stay, felt like a stab straight to his soul. But he wasn't upset with Corbin. They held each other as they released the stress of the past. Both distant and recent. When Ivan was able to speak again he held Corbin's face in his hands, ever so gently his fingertips catching tears along his cheeks. "Corbin, I love you. In the last three years have you doubted that?"

He shook his head. "I doubted you'd love me after you found out...I was scared...I am scared."

"I love you, Cory. Your past doesn't change that fact. Please, Corbin, believe me. I'm right here, baby, and I'm not going anywhere."

Corbin sniffled and nodded, wiped his eyes and took a deep breath. "Can we please go to bed? Can you hold me, Ivan?"

They stood, each moving slowly from emotional anguish and mental exhaustion. "Hey." Ivan pulled at Corbin's hand; the other man turned back to face him, his expression tired and long. Ivan tugged him forward and he came willingly to him. "I really do love you, Corbin."

Corbin nodded as his eyes welled up at the earnestness in his voice.  "I love you too, Ivan. I really do. I'm sorry I get scared. It isn't you I doubt. Not really. I doubt me. That I'm good enough..."

Ivan smoothed a hand through his long hair, comforting. "Hush now, baby. Please don't be sorry. I'm not angry. I'm not upset with you. Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me even what you did. I know it was difficult, to say the least. And I'm proud of you."

Corbin frowned and looked away. "Thank you." It was the barest of whispers. "I love you, Ivan. Thank you for loving me. You're the only one who ever really has..."

"Come on. Let's go to bed." They remained hand in hand and made their way into the bedroom.