Today (Mid-Morning)

In the car, Theo looped his finger beneath the paper wristband and tugged on it, watching how the edges cut into his skin. Abel slid into the driver's seat with a big exhale, then reached over his shoulder for his seatbelt while reminding Theo to fasten his. Someone was waiting for them to pull out, their blinker on to stake their claim to the spot because it had gotten crowded while they were wandering around petting the animals.

Once they were back on smooth highway, the asphalt stretching for miles in long, sweeping curves ahead of them, Abel relaxed into his seat and threw a glance Theo's way.

"Are you excited to see your aunt?"

Theo abandoned fiddling with the paper wristband and shrugged. "I guess."

"You weren't close? When was the last time you saw her?"

"I don't really remember." Theo waved his hands on either side of his head. "Most of my childhood was a blur. My parents had me on a lot of medications. But I think maybe sometime in middle school? She didn't get along with my dad."

"You were on medications that young?" A little crease appeared between Abel's brows as he checked over his shoulder before turning on his blinker to pass the car in front of them. "What kind of stuff? If you need to be taking something, we should try to get you back on it."

"No, I'm not on anything anymore. I stopped taking that shit back in college." Theo assured him. "I just...my parents made me see a lot of psychologists when I was younger, and they put me on all kinds of anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds and whatnot. Anti-psychotics 'cause I was a psychotic kid."

Not much had changed there. He waited for Abel to tell him that he should probably get on that shit again. Because he was always talking about demons and having fits where he forgot where he was or who he was or what he had been doing moments before. Even Ken told him he was crazy twenty-four-seven. Despite saying he did not need his medications when Theo had first asked for money to go see a psychiatrist so he could get his prescription refilled the first time that his parent's insurance had stopped working.

But Abel did not say anything along those lines. Instead, he said, "You were in college? I didn't know that."

"Yeah, well..."

Five years ago

College was not really what Theo had expected. Not that he really knew what to expect, but he thought it would at least be freeing or something. He kept his grades up all through high school, did his best on all the entrance exams, and wrote all the stupid letters to the colleges his mom helped him pick out. All so he could come here, live in a dorm, stress over assignments, eat three times a day, and stay in his room 24/7.

His roommate was a ghost, which was maybe a blessing or maybe not. The friends he made in his classes last semester did not last over the winter break, probably because he never was active in the group chats or went out with them. It was a lot like high school, except even more lonely.

Which was why he ended up at a frat house on a Friday night. He'd seen the crazy college parties in movies – hand-painted Greek letters over the door, beer pong on the front lawn, people getting up on the tables and mooning the crowd. Not exactly his scene, but he was determined to make lasting friendships this semester and that meant accepting invitations to go out and hang out with people.

Although the people he had come with were nowhere to be found in the living room, where a bunch of girls were squealing while some people pulled the guy whose ass was hanging out down from the table. Theo went to take another drink from his beer and realized it was empty. About all he had been doing was drinking a beer and then getting a refill, just for something to do with his hands. Maybe he should go outside. Maybe Jamie and the girl he kept forgetting the name of had gone outside to watch the beer pong.

Just as he was about to head for the keg again, a hand slid along the small of his back and stopped him. "You need another drink?"

"Uh," Theo blinked at the fresh, full cup that appeared in front of him, still frothing with bubbles. He took it and handed his empty cup to the guy. "Thanks?"

"Sure thing." The boy tossed the empty cup toward the trash bag hanging open where it was tied to the stair banister. It landed right on target, and the boy punched his fist in the air. "Score!"

Theo looked up at the cut of his jaw—sharp and masculine. He had a strong neck and shoulders like a football player or somebody who took arm day very seriously. And he was much, much bigger than Theo, which made his face heat up. He took a sip of the cold beer.

"Haven't seen you around," the boy grinned down, showing off straight white teeth and twinkling eyes. His hand was still pressed to the small of Theo's back. "You a freshman?"

"Yeah. Theo." He smiled back shyly and took another couple of gulps from the beer.

"Cute. I'm Johnny." His head tilted like he was considering something, then his eyes brightened. "You wanna play beer pong with me? I need a partner."

Theo's heart dropped to his heels, and he looked down at the floor. Of course, if he came to a frat party like this to make friends, he would need to partake in the activities going on instead of just standing by the wall and drinking beer after beer. Not that they were doing much for him. They must have gotten a keg of some pretty weak-ass shit because he didn't usually drink, and he was hardly feeling a thing. He took another large swig of the beer.

"I'm not really good with...balls." He smacked a hand over his mouth and giggled, eyes flying to Johnny's to see his reaction. His eyebrows were lifted, but he just looked amused. Maybe Theo was a little drunk. "I mean, like...my hand-eye coordination is not the best, so sports..."

He flapped his hand around, hoping Johnny would get the message.

"Well," Johnny sounded amused, lips curving into a smirk, "the point is kind of to be terrible at it anyway. The more terrible, the more fun."

"Yeah, but I'm sooo terrible." Theo gestured widely with his hands, splashing the beer over his wrist. This was impressive because it was only half-full, which meant he had basically dumped it out. He frowned at his hands and used the fingers not soaked in beer to rub his eyes. The floor suddenly felt less steady.

"Man, you are already smashed anyway," Johnny laughed, "You alright?"

"Fine," Theo tried to lean back against the wall, but he was not actually standing that close to it, so he ended up just doing a sudden trust fall with Johnny instead. He cursed and wrapped both arms around Theo to stop him from falling onto his ass. The beer tumbled to the floor.

"Woah," Johnny chuckled as he got him upright, keeping two hands on his arms to steady him. The room spun over his shoulders, so Theo shut his eyes, but that made things worse, so he opened them again. Johnny was looking down rather than at his face, which made him curious to see what was going on, except when he looked down, he ended up doing it with his entire body and his head knocked into Johnny's chest.

"Woah," he breathed against the guy's shirt. He smelled like aftershave and sweat, and Theo should probably not lean on him like this. In fact, he really should go home if he was going to be this much of a messy drunk.

"Maybe you need to lay down, cutie." Johnny shifted him so that he was under one of his arms and began steering him toward the steps, which were only a couple of feet away and a single flight but seemed to Theo like a whole journey he did not want to embark on. Upstairs looked dark and shadowy, unlike the bright party around them.

"No, I..." he tried to dig his heels in. "I think I should just, um, go home."

He sucked in a breath, feeling as though squeezing those words out that wrung his lungs of all the oxygen. He was so terribly dizzy. And not putting up a very good fight against this guy.

"I don't know if it's a good idea to let you go home like this," Johnny tried to get him to lift his foot onto the first step. The lip hanging over the edge kept catching Theo's toes because his depth perception had flown out the window. His brow furrowed in concentration, and while he was totally focused on lifting his foot, Johnny leaned in and breathed across his ear, "Let me take care of you."

Theo shivered. All the nervous excitement he felt at having a hot guy touch him and call him cute and seem interested in him at a frat party of all places shifted into a heavy sense of dread. He tried to shove Johnny away.

"No, I really think..."

"Stop trying to run away." Johnny wrangled him pretty easily, wrapping a hand around his wrist and lifting his arm as though he was going to duck under it and put Theo right over his shoulder to carry him upstairs.

What happened next occurred so quickly that the room spun and Theo could not recall exactly how it happened. But he ended up a couple of feet away from Johnny with a forearm across his chest, back flush against someone's torso. The person's other hand was on Johnny's wrist, twisting his arm into an uncomfortable position that made his entire face scrunch up in pain.

"What the fuck, man?" Johnny snarled, yanking his hand away. "I thought I told you not to come inside the house. Deal out back."

The shoulder behind Theo shrugged. "Had to take a dump."

It was a deep voice, vibrating against Theo's spine and sending a shiver down it. But unlike the shiver of fear that coursed through his body when Johnny's words had been close to him, this one was pleasant. This man sounded confident and suave, and he had just saved Theo from being hauled up into the dark depths of the bedrooms upstairs like a sack of potatoes.

Johnny kept trying to protest, but the guy just walked away, taking Theo with him. Outside, the beer pong table sat abandoned, someone was throwing up over the curb, and a couple of people stood smoking and watching them. Theo looked up at the man, whose arm was still a comforting weight against his unsteady chest, tracing his eyes over his features. 

He was average-looking, to be honest, with some type of Asian heritage that gave him monolid eyes and a smooth complexion. He had gorgeous silky black hair that was swept into a bun at the back of his skull. When his gaze turned to meet Theo's, it was sharp and black.

He realized he'd seen him earlier by the keg the last time he went to grab a beer. Had probably offered him a shy, awkward smile as they skirted around around each other and other stumbly drunk party-goers. Theo wondered if he had been watching him since then, given that he had noticed his plight. The flattering notion warmed his cheeks. 

"Thank you," he breathed out.

"Sure thing, kid." He smiled. His teeth were not perfectly straight like Johnny the football star's had been. "You said you wanted to go home? I'll take you. This party is dry as hell anyway."

"Oh, that's..." Theo could not make this guy do that. What a horrific inconvenience it would be. No way. "That's okay."

"Uh-huh. You're going to walk home like this by yourself?" The guy let go of him and stepped away, leaving Theo bereft and swaying. "Because you sure as shit aren't driving, and I don't believe for a second you can walk without stumbling into a bush or the street."

Theo actually was about to tumble over until the guy put a hand on his arm to steady him. He grumbled. "How do you know I was going to walk?"

"Let's see," the guy tapped his chin, "you are at a frat party on campus. You're obviously a freshman. And freshmen are required to live in the dorms, which are within walking distance."

"What gave it away?" Theo glared. "That I'm a freshman? Is it 'cause I can't hold my liquor? I'm not normally like this, you know."

He wasn't normally drinking at parties, period.

"Gullible." The guy's eyes flashed with something that Theo could not decipher. Then he patted Theo's arm. "You look young, like a little baby."

Theo squawked and tried to shove him away, but the guy just pulled him closer in a snuggly embrace and began walking him down the sidewalk. Thank goodness he was strong because Theo kept tripping over his own feet and the concrete below him, which seemed to undulate and shift even though he knew that was not possible.

The music from the party faded into the soft buzz of streetlights looming above them. They were on the safe-walk route of campus, with plenty of light keeping the dark night shadows at bay. Every so often, there was an emergency button on the side of the walkway. Theo rested his head on the guy's shoulder and peered up at his jaw, letting him steer them.

"Thank you," he said again, "I'm Theo, by the way. What's your name?"

The guy smiled down at him. "I'm Ken."

Today (Mid-morning)

"Theo?"

He hummed and looked away from the golden field sweeping by the car to find Abel watching him expectantly with one eye still on the road. "Sorry, what?"

"I asked what you were going to school for?" He repeated. "It's okay if you don't want to talk about stuff though. I'm just curious about you."

Abel was so sweet to be curious about something like that. Some part of Theo that was in the far distant past before he became a shell of a person, a shadow himself. It didn't really matter what he had gone to school for. And he could not even remember himself. A type of business major because his mom wanted him to get a better job than the one his father had.

"Doesn't matter," he shrugged, "because I failed out anyway."

"Oh," Abel shifted in the seat, dropping his hands so that only his thumbs rested on the bottom curve of the steering wheel to hold it steady. "I guess you aren't interested in going back then?"

"No, not really," Theo said honestly. Maybe Abel would like that. He was probably trying to think of what the hell he was going to do with Theo once they got his ID. His mother certainly had been adamant about getting answers about what the plan was for after this trip. Abel said he was going to move out of her place and figure it out from there. What did figuring it out mean?

Would Abel want him to get a job? He'd never had a real one of those. He was not sure if he wanted one. But he knew better than to think Abel would want him around just to be a waste of space. He had to make himself useful somehow. Bring money in somehow. But the only thing he was good at was sex.

He fiddled with the paper wristband, suspended in a state of indecision for a few moments before leaning across the center console and shoving his head under Abel's forearm.

"Hey, what are you..." Abel protested but did not try to shove Theo away as he popped the button of his fly and eased down the zipper. Instead, he lifted his arms so that his hands were resting on top of the steering wheel, giving Theo plenty of space. His head thumped back against the seat, and he let out a sigh. "Fuck, Theo."

He hummed and shoved Abel's boxers out of the way, pressing a sloppy kiss to the warm skin of his navel, then taking him into his mouth to lick him to hardness.

"Guess you don't want to talk about it." Abel blew out a long, shaky breath, then threaded his fingers through the brittle, faded-blue tufts of Theo's hair. "That's alright."

Five years ago

Ken had an entire apartment to himself, which Theo, who lived in the dorms or in his childhood bedroom thus far in life, thought was the epitome of attractiveness. He had a beautiful wooden headboard above his large queen-sized mattress, steel gray blackout curtains, a neat, organized little bathroom without any clutter, and his own single-serve coffee pot with a whole different assortment of little cup flavors to choose from. He seemed like a real adult who had his life together.

Theo brought two cups of coffee from the kitchen into the living room, where Ken was folding up the blankets he had used to sleep on the couch with. It had been disconcerting to wake up a few minutes ago, alone in a strange bed with few memories of the night before. Theo hardly ever got blackout drunk, so it was terrifying that he barely remembered Ken taking him from the party, let alone how they ended up in the apartment.

This was more like what he expected college to be like, although there had not been an awkward sequence where he woke up in bed, saw the hottie sleeping next to him, and tiptoed out to avoid the morning-after conversation. Instead, he stumbled out of the strange, empty bedroom in a mild panic and flipped on the overhead lights in the living room, which woke Ken up suddenly. He'd sat up fully dressed from a dead sleep on the couch, hair sticking in every direction and pillow creases on his cheek, mumbling about where the fire was.

This led to Theo stammering through an apology about how he could not really remember the night before, to which Ken had responded by telling him to relax, pointing out the coffee machine, and inviting him to stay for breakfast. But Theo had been too nervous about not remembering anything from the night before to eat, so while he fetched the coffee, Ken cleared off the couch so they could sit and have the morning-after conversation.

"Let me guess," Ken said, twisting his coffee mug to fit his fingers through the handle. "You never do this."

Theo chuckled at himself and curled over his own coffee cup, one leg up on the couch cushion so that he could face Ken. "No, I don't."

"Some guy was trying to haul you up the stairs at that frat house even though you said you wanted to go home, so I stepped in and tried to walk you home. But you flipped your lid about the RA potentially finding out that you had drunk so much or something, and so I just brought you here."

"The RA?" Theo frowned, looking up at him. "I honestly don't think I've ever even interacted with my RA."

Ken shrugged. "I have no idea what you were on about. All I know is that you suddenly did not want to go to the dorms."

"Oh," Theo nodded and looked down, then in a small voice, "Thank you for bringing me here. I'm so sorry for the inconvenience."

"No inconvenience." Ken dismissed.

"You slept on the couch!" Theo insisted. "I kicked you out of your bed."

"Well, then..." Ken put a hand over Theo's where they were cupped around his mug. Theo's heart thumped in his chest, and his face warmed at the warm touch. He had not actually touched anyone since coming to college. He did not know anyone well enough to hug or anything else, not that he had ever been a big hugger in the first place.

The guy last night had been the first person he had physical contact with in ages. And then Ken, after that. It felt good, but almost too good. The zing of pleasure it sent through him was immediately followed by a wave of guilt that he should not be so desperate for attention like that.

Ken still had not finished his sentence, leaving a moment of silence hanging in the air while they both stared at his hand on Theo. Then he continued, "Promise me you won't be the idiot freshman who goes to frat parties alone anymore. I know you're a guy, but..."

"I didn't go alone!" Theo protested, looking up to meet his eyes. "I was with friends."

"Where were they?" Ken's eyes hardened. "I didn't see anybody with you the whole night, and they weren't there when you literally needed someone to support you back home."

"Well, I...I just don't know them very well." Theo stumbled over his words to defend them because it had not been their fault he was a stick in the mud. But he did not really want to explain to Ken that last night, he was so far out of his depth because he had been desperate to connect with those people by going out with them. He just wasn't meant to do that, though. He attracted trouble. "They wanted to go out and play beer pong and stuff, and I just wanted to stay inside, so we kind of did our own thing."

"Uh-huh." Ken pressed his lips together and said nothing else, so Theo slid one of his hands from beneath his hold and gently smacked him on the arm in response– emboldened by the casual way that Ken touched him. For a second, he thought Ken was going to get mad, but he just lifted his brows and said, "I still think they were shitty friends for inviting you out and then ditching you."

"Who said they invited me out?" Theo grumbled. Ken once again did not answer verbally, instead looking him up and down with raised eyebrows, which made his cheeks burn. "Whatever."

"If you want to go to a real party with people who are having actual fun, not just showing off their pasty asses and sticking their tongues down each other's throats in dark corners, I could take you to one."

"Oh, um." Theo ducked his head again. Then Ken would find out exactly why his friends had ditched him. And then he would ditch him, just like everyone else always did in the end. Plus, Theo did not really know him. Ken was obviously older than most college kids and had his own apartment, which meant this would probably be a grown-up party. And Theo was just a little nineteen-year-old kid. "I don't know."

"Come on." The hand on his moved to brush a lock of hair out of his face so that Ken could duck down and make eye contact. "I won't leave you hanging like they did. It's tonight, so you could hang out here until it's time to go. I wouldn't mind getting to know you a little better."

Theo dissolved into a flushing, stammering mess while his brain lagged. He stared at Ken, frozen, while the man cupped the side of his head and brushed his thumb back and forth across his temple. And the way he was looking at him was like something out of a movie: a child looking at their parent like they hung the moon, an awe-struck lover looking at their partner, a parent looking at their child like they are the whole world. Like maybe he really was interested in Theo and maybe really did want to get to know him.

All his flustered little brain could come up with was, "Do you like boys?"

He really did not want to misunderstand.

Ken grinned. "I like you."

It was horrible. Butterflies exploded in Theo's belly, and he twisted to the side to press his face into the back of the couch so he could hide his mirroring smile from Ken, who just kept stroking his hair. He chuckled a little.

"Did I break you?"

"No," Theo mumbled into the couch, his words muffled, "I'm just feeling a little dizzy and sick from last night."

"Aw." Ken scratched his nails at the base of Theo's skull, which made shivers tumble down his spine. "I've been a bad host. Let me get you some pain meds and make some breakfast so you aren't drinking that coffee on an empty stomach."

Theo kept his face pressed into the couch until the cushions in front of him lifted as Ken stood up. He listened to him putter around in the kitchen and turned his face to the side to look around. A big TV was sitting on a long, thin table, with a couple of gaming consoles and cases of games and movies on the shelves below it. On the coffee table between the couch and the TV was a stack of plain corkboard coasters. Theo picked one up and set his coffee cup on it. He wondered what an adult who had coffee coasters had been doing at a frat party last night.

Ken came back into the room, shaking a white bottle of pills. He dumped two of them, regular little red ibuprofens, into Theo's hand and gave him a glass of water.

"Best to hydrate lots after you drank too much," he advised.

"What were you doing at the party last night?" Theo asked as he walked back into the kitchen. Then realized it might be rude to ask like that and tacked on, "Were you there with friends?"

Ken chuckled and looked over at him as he lifted the pan to spread a pat of butter around it. The rich aroma and satisfying sizzle of melting butter joined the mellow scent of coffee in the air.

"I wasn't there for the party, kid," he said. "I was there selling to the people going to the party."

"Selling?" Theo furrowed his brow. Then, it smoothed out in realization. "Oh! Drugs?"

"Yeah." Ken sent him an amused smile. He cracked a couple of eggs into the pan. Theo bobbed his head, trying to seem cool even though he was internally shaking apart. He should definitely not go to the grown-up party tonight with a drug dealer that he met last night while blackout drunk. His mother would be furious.

But then Ken brought him a plate of scrambled eggs with a piece of buttered toast and a handful of blueberries on the side. Not only could he cook, but he was apparently health-conscious enough to include fruit in his breakfast—like a real adult.

"Here you go, kid."

Theo pouted, "I'm not a kid."

"Oh, you don't like it when I call you that?" Ken sat down beside him with his own plate and grabbed a coaster to put his coffee mug on. Then he leaned across the space between them and murmured very close to Theo's ear and murmured, "What would you prefer? Sweetheart, babydoll, cutie pie?"

Theo flushed from his head to his toes. "I just...I meant I don't have much experience with drugs or anything, but I'm not just some kid."

There were a lot of things he did not have experience with, actually, but if he was ever going to learn about them and become suave and confident like Ken, he would have to start somewhere. So, when Ken leaned back and asked if he wanted to smoke, he said yes.

"It'll help if you are feeling nauseous from last night, too," Ken told him as he brought out a bong and began packing it. "Have you ever used a bubbler?"

Theo had never smoked marijuana. He mutely shook his head. Theo shifted to face him and put his lips to the mouth at the end of the long glass neck. "You are going to inhale just like this," he demonstrated, and the sound of gently rolling bubbles filled the air, "and then when I tell you to inhale the smoke. Do it. Then hold your breath until I tell you, okay?"

Theo nodded. When Ken held the bong out toward him, he steadied it and put his lips where Ken's had just been. Another thrill coursed through him as he watched Ken's fingers strike the lighter. The smoke burned as he inhaled it, but he held it in with determination until Ken told him to exhale. He gave into the urge to cough, which had simmered in his lungs the whole time. Ken patted his back, then turned and took his own hit.

Heaviness spread through Theo's limbs. It was not like the heaviness last night that made the room spin and his thoughts sink into a black muck as though the shadows had oozed into his brain. This was accompanied by a strange lightness that made his heart flutter and his thoughts feel like butterflies flitting around his head. He giggled at the breakfast that Ken made him.

"I cannot believe you made me, like, a real breakfast," he gasped.

"No?" Ken chuckled. "You surprised a guy like me can cook? Just wait until you taste it."

Theo did. "Yummy. Thank you."

Ken was still laughing at him, but he did not mind because it was not mean. Or at least, Theo did not think it seemed mean. He thought about the man's hands smoothly handling the lighter and the bowl, his deep voice guiding him when and how to breathe. He took another bite of the eggs and chewed thoughtfully. Thinking tickled his brain while he was high like this, a sensation that he decided he greatly enjoyed.

"So, what is the party tonight going to be like?" he asked.

A/N: A little bit of background about how Theo met Ken.  

Also a reminder that Theo is not a reliable narrator and events from his perspective are not always as they seem. He remembers Ken as a guy who whisked him away from trouble, but that may not actually be the case. Hopefully I left enough hints for you all to pick up on that!