Lovely Bastards (BxB) (MxM)

Chapter 9 - Let's Make a Deal

The first thing Kit noticed when he blinked open crusty eyes to see pale sunlight filtering in through the blinders, was that he was not in a hospital. 

That was...somewhat surprising. 

Then he noticed his splitting, pounding headache, nausea, parched swollen throat, cracked dry lips. 

It had been a while since he was this hung over.

He closed his eyes again and drew a shaky breath in through his nose. Odd scents came with it, potent and confusing, increasing his vertigo. 

Chief among them were orange and ginger. 

"I tried to just chop them up together, instead of using the mixer..." a soft voice called out to him from the other side of the combined kitchen/living room.

Kit's eyes snapped up and he winced, watching Charlie walk over to him with a glass of juice and a piece of dry toast.

That's new. 

Wait. What had happened last night? Why was he feeling this okay - like shit, but lucid enough, not sick as a dog?

A heavy drinker like Charlie might have built up a high tolerance to hangovers, but someone like Kit ought to be trashed after what he'd just put his body through. 

A memory rose before his eyes of a pale hand wiping his face with a towel, of Charlie's pleasant voice asking, Why?

Wait, wait. What had...what had he said? What the Hell had he told him? How much?

Shit. 

Too much, that was how much. He wasn't sure but...surely not everything. If he'd told him everything, his uncle would not be offering Kit orange juice right now.

Avoiding Charlie's eyes, he reached out an unsteady hand to grip the cool glass, brushing the blond's slender fingers by mistake.

He could remember those fingers curling around his shoulders and cradling his head, rocking him like a child.

Damn it. Eighteen and out. Remember that.

Once he graduated high school and turned eighteen, he would never have to see Charlie again. Never have to look at him and remember someone else. 

Just get a job and a room somewhere, take care of himself, mind his own business. Alone. 

Smiling a brittle smile down, Charlie crouched in front of him.

"Hey."

Kit frowned up at him, sluggishly realising that he was still on his back, weak and distracted. 

"Kit. You were right. I...have a problem."

That made him look sharply up, cut through the taste of death in his dry mouth and the rolling waves of nausea. The pain in his head seemed to be subsiding already, which seemed highly improbable, and what was Charlie saying? 

"How about...we make a deal?" 

Charles walked towards the door closing behind her.

"N-No... No! Kitty!"

"Nooo!!!" he screamed, thrashing, as his mother wrestled him to the ground.

He fought, wailing - trying to reach the door and then just trying to get free. She pinned his body to the floor, straddling him, pinning his arms by his head.

"No! No, I want my sister back! Where is she?! Let me go - let me go!!! Kitty!"

"Your sister is never coming back!" his mother snarled, her red face inches away from his tear-streaked one as he fought against her painful, bruising grip.