Charles pulled back, breathless. He was flushed, heart pounding from his sprint and from the nerves. Before the other man could say anything, he opened his mouth and forged on.

I have to put everything out in the open. Amos said I have to tell him what I want, clearly. It's up to me now.

He had known Hunter since college, and in all that time, he had been nothing but controlling and condescending. Demanding and demeaning.

And Charles had thought that he wanted that. That he deserved that - but he didn't.

I didn't.

He wanted someone who was gentle and encouraging. Who smiled when he saw him, who asked what he wanted, who took the power he offered and held it gently. With care and consideration.

Who he could trust.

I want Amos.

"I want to have dinner with you," he repeated. 

He paused to catch his breath and Amos watched him, waiting.

"I - I want - " Darn, he was blushing again.

"I want you. I want to - to try and quit drinking, I want to become a good guardian, and I want you. 

"I know you said you didn't date customers or alcoholics. I know I ran away again and again, even after you warned me. And despite that - despite that - I want you to give me another chance. I want to go to dinner with you!

"Even if it's too late and I don't deserve you trusting me again... I wanted to tell you this. I just wanted you to know."

He was shivering, but his eyes were fixed on Amos's dark ones, and his voice was firm.

"I have to go to Kit's school now but - that's all I wanted to say."

"You want a date?"

"Y-yes. A proper date."

"You want a boyfriend?"

"A - " He had to stop and clear his throat, searching his eyes, shaken. "Is t-that on the table?"

"Ask me, baby. Ask me for what you want." His voice, so deep and smoky...how Charles had missed that voice.

Ask me for what you want.

"You don't have to decide now."

Amos pulled him into a tender, passionate kiss. He drew back to look at him, eyes searching Charles's hazel ones, while the younger man gazed up at him, vaguely aware that he was wearing the kind of dazed, adoring expression commonly found on the covers of vintage romance novels...

"Do you really have to go?"

"...Huh? Oh - yes. Yes, I do."

"Will you come back later? Tonight?"

Charles smiled, radiant. "Yes!"

"Then I'll be waiting."

"Maybe we should get my hair cut first," Kit said. "Stop somewhere on the way."

They were driving to the school now and if the boy noticed how flushed his uncle was and how ruddy his lips were, he kept it to himself. 

Charles glanced at him. "Why?"

"I look younger with it short. Might help a little, depending."

"On...?"

"How soft they are."

"I think you look fine. They are the ones that should be worrying."

Kit grunted, drumming his fingers on the car seat. 

"...You went to see Amos, I mean - Mr. Devereux?"

"How did you know?"

Kit paused. "I can...uh, smell him on you. Can sort of recognize some scents now. Though most are still all jumbled and confusing. But it's the same as in the hospital, when I was waiting with him, mixed with yours..."

He glanced sideways at the other man, gauging his reaction. 

"I'm still waiting for you to freak out. About the, I mean - "

"I...I am freaked out." His voice trembled and he made a visible effort to control it. "Just...trying to - to believe it's real..."

Kit set his jaw and narrowed his eyes. "You want me to show you? Remind you it's real?"

"I don't..." He closed his eyes briefly, but said nothing as they pulled in and parked behind the school. They made no move to get out, sitting still, Charles's hands still on the steering wheel and Kit's resting in his lap. 

"Yes," the blond whispered. "Show me."

Without a word, Kit turned to face him, his big eyes catching his uncle's, holding them. A heartbeat passed and then something shifted in them and they - moved - 

- Changed, whites disappearing as the irises grew and pupils bled into them, intensifying into yellow-green, unnaturally bright.

Charles opened his mouth, then closed it. Kit shook his head like a dog and blinked, his eyes shifting back to normal. 

"What? What was that you were just thinking?"

"Nothing. Just, um - If you can do your eyes, can you also...your ears?"

"My ea - did you just ask me to - ?"

"I wasn't going to! I just think it would look cute..."

Kit laughed, loud and abrupt in the enclosed space, sounding punched out of him. "I think I look cute enough already," he said, wiping at the corner of one eye.

He must have been worried about how I'd react.

"Tough, now that would be better. In fact, I should just start walking around with claws all the time. Would be damn useful when dealing with certain people..."

"I do feel uncomfortable not understanding. How it works, what's true or imaginary - "

"Yeah. I get it."

"It makes me so anxious, Kit. Don't think I'm - I'm over it. I'm trying to be but really I'm just so overwhelmed I can't deal with it right now and so this seems - I - "

"It's okay, breathe, one thing at a time. Slowly."

"And that's also why I so rarely hang out with people, because social interactions are really complex and many-layered and I'm useless unless I'm, um - "

"Really drunk?"

"...Yes. I get flustered, and overthink everything. Like right now..."

"I bet images of yesterday are swirling 'round your head like crazy, and you're trying to connect them to everything you know about reality, and you're failing but you can't forget or ignore it 'cause you know it's real, and it's stressing you out."

"How do you know that?"

"'Cause I've felt that way, Charlie. It's new to me too, and I've spent months thinking I might be losing my mind. It's been shit, for real." He looked down.

"I'm accepting it now. But it could take you some time - longer than me, maybe. And you've had a trauma. That's okay. I'm here. Just...let's take it a bit at a time."

They were parked at the end of the empty lot - classes had already started and everyone was inside. 

"Could you..." the blond closed his eyes briefly, steeling himself. "Could you hand me the bottle from the glovebox?"

Kit didn't say anything, just took it out, uncorked it, and handed it over. There were only a few swallows left in there, by the looks of it. 

It made sense that Charlie, stressed, nervous, and anxious, would fall back to this. This was not the time to go cold turkey - maybe once they found a new place to live he could try that. 

Maybe he'll succeed in getting sober, and maybe he won't - either way, I bet it won't be easy.

There was an old postcard lying there in the glovebox, underneath the bottle. But the scrawled on side was facing up, and even though Kit thought he might recognise the spiky handwriting, he didn't pick it up. 

"I'll handle this," Charlie told Kit, as they headed into the principal's office. "Please, leave it to me."

His gold-rimmed glasses flashed in the afternoon light pouring in through the windows and he looked determined instead of flustered, no sign of hesitation in his body language. 

After observing his uncle, Kit felt certain that the hesitant way he spoke sometimes was more a sign of his nerves than the cause of it. 

People that stuttered knew what they wanted to say but had trouble getting the words out - Charlie's thoughts seemed to sort of freeze over when he got flustered, so that he couldn't think of what to say or how to say it...

Right now, he looked anything but insecure. Kit had never seen him so in his element. 

Academics, he thought, must be his scene. 

Science and facts, schools and laws. Charlie believed Kit's school was in the wrong. And he looked ready to let them know it.

But after they were let into the principal's office, sat down, and got the initial pleasantries out of the way, it became even clearer that this was an old, small school - nothing modern or progressive about it. 

The headmaster sat stern and imposing on the other side of the broad desk, and talked at them.

Grimly, he told Charlie the same things he had confronted Kit with - that he had been swamped with reports of the boy seducing teachers and students, fighting, being absent and disruptive, and that they seemed plausible considering his history from previous schools. 

His uncle argued, calmly and eloquently, that the parents had no evidence, that Kit denied any involvement, that his past could not be held against him and these were only empty claims - that the faculty should look into who was behind the allegations instead. 

But the principal wasn't having it.  "And finally, he assaulted a student, unprovoked, in the corridor right outside my own office." 

"It was self-defence," Kit shot in, while Charlie threw him a warning glance. "Tyson threw the first punch, and he's more'n twice my size."

"Callaghan, the other students have told me that you started - "

I did.

"No-one was looking our way when he grabbed me. He hit me in the stomach, and I nearly fainted." 

Okay, reel it in, that's a bit much. "They only saw me hitting him back."

It had been a crowd, exited and jostling - half the school, at least, had been gathered to see him come out of that office. Their memories would all be a bit different, easy to confuse, the teen figured. Besides, Tyson was a bully. Kit was a troublemaker and everyone knew it, but he was small and looked cute...which counted for more than you'd think. And he aimed to wring every bit of use out of his looks that he could, if it came down to that. 

The principal turned back to Charlie, dismissing Kit. 

"After this young man was suspended, he instantly started a fight with three other students, unprovoked. We have grounds for expulsion. He needs help - clearly, there is something wrong with him - "

Charlie leaned forward and drew himself up, looking down his nose at the older man with a look that could peel paint. 

"There is nothing wrong with my nephew."

Charles was shaking now, but for once he didn't feel any fear. Only anger.

"There is nothing wrong with my nephew!" he hissed and God it felt good. It felt a long time coming. His timidity was long forgotten - how dare this insect speak about Kit that way?

"Do you hear me?!"

He fixed the principal with an icy stare, forging on, refusing to be deterred. 

"A teacher? I would consider that statutory rape - I should be the one accusing you of misconduct, not you accusing him!

"You will not put a single blot on his permanent record over this, regardless of what you think he has done. Or I swear to God I will take you to court over this - and I will go straight to the press."

"Damn, Charlie," Kit muttered under his breath.

"He's transferring with full grades and no mention of this, none whatsoever! And if you so much as consider further disciplinary measures then we will take legal action against the school - immediately!"

The chemist proceeded to give the principal a dressing down that left the older man purple in the face, and Kit gaping. 

"We've tried to be reasonable - you have not."

Snatching up his leather satchel, he stood up abruptly.

"How you've handled this is a disgrace."

The teen rushed after him when he stalked from the office, shoving the door open in front of him with gusto.

"Charlie!" he called, trotting to keep up, half delighted and half aghast.

"What was that?! You were like - !"

"I - I don't know - !"

"You were awesome! I've never seen you like that - damn! Did you see the look on his face? It was priceless. Damn." He sounded a little awestruck.

Damn was right. Charles could barely believe it himself, and he was shaking so badly now he doubted he would be able to get behind the wheel and drive right away.

"I didn't say a thing that wasn't true," he managed.

Wheeling around, he faced his nephew, gripping his shoulders.

"I'll back you up, okay? From now on. If they want to hurt you, they'll have go through me. Like you said when we faced Hunter. You and me." 

Kit swallowed, his laughter fading into a small smile. "Yeah. I've - uh - got your back too, Charlie."

"I know. I'd trust you with my life."

"Don't say that." 

"It's the truth." 

"Well, you were awesome in there. That was great."

As they walked out, a bell rang and students started spilling out of classrooms, milling around them. Outside, on their way back around to the parking lot, near the bike shed where he used to smoke with Oliver - that's where Kit spotted them.

Oliver, Tyson, and Corey.