Lovely Bastards (BxB) (MxM)

Chapter 8 - There is a Curse on Our Family

Kit didn't even twitch when the light hit him, legs tangled in vomit-stained blankets, still in his clothes.

Charles swallowed. What did he do? He'd never taken care of anyone...

Should he just leave? Steeling himself, he took a deep breath.

No. 

He had to - he wanted to - help. 

There was one thing that always helped sober him up when he was this drunk. Swallowing, Charles took ahold of the blanket, and started dragging him towards the bathroom. 

It never occurred to him to call 911. 

Take care of your own, his mother had taught him. Don't involve strangers. And Kit was just drunk, right? He would be okay...he had to be okay. 

He knew very well that the body converted ethanol into acetaldehyde (a poison with a close chemical composition to formaldehyde) and then into acetic acid radicals (a combined form of the acetic acid you'd find in vinegar), both of them harmful in large quantities, if the body couldn't break them down fast enough. 

But ambulance, police, social services...Charles shied away at the very thought. Teenagers got drunk sometimes, he told himself. They...passed out as if dead...

His nephew came to when the water hit him, groaning and moving groggily. 

"What the... " he croaked. "No...leave me alone."

"I can't." Charles bit his lip. "Not while you're like this. We need to get you cleaned up - then you can sleep it off."

The teenager grumbled under his breath but collapsed back against the rough stone tiles, letting his uncle crouch before him and run the warm water over his face and hair. 

Charles tried to wash the puke out of his curls without using shampoo - their clothes were already wet enough. His own socks were soaked and Kit's T-shirt was plastered to his chest. Even under the shower hose, he was shivering. 

Turning off the water, Charles dropped a big, fluffy towel on top of him. 

Kit barely stirred, making no move to dry off, water dripping from the ends of his hair.

"Okay," his uncle sighed, grabbing another towel and the only robe he owned - a worn, checkered flannel that was way to big for him, much less for the much shorter youth. 

(It was embarrassing really, but it had belonged to his father - Kit's grandfather - and been one of the few things his mother hadn't thrown away after he disappeared.)

Tossing the towel and robe on the couch, he bent to pick Kit up, hauling him up under his armpits.

Charles was not particularly strong - he saw himself as a science nerd and never worked out - but Kit was so slight that he could lift him with relative ease, hauling him up by crouching, wrapping his arms around his torso underneath his armpits, and then slowly straightening his knees. 

Should he put him to bed?

No, the whole thing was covered in sick. And not his own bed - too creepy.

He really shouldn't be this light.

"Why are you so skinny?" he muttered, dragging him like an ungainly bundle over to the couch where he himself had woken up that same morning and nearly stumbling into it, half-falling so that they both ended up mostly on the cushions, Kit still in his arms.

He clambered up to a seated position and found his nephew across his lap - stirring and turning to bury his face in Charles's soft jumper.

"Your sister," he mumbled, curling in on himself, still clearly drunk.