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.

"You father is never coming back. All you have is your mother now."

"I want my sister! Bring her back! Let me go!!!"

He screamed and fought and she let him, trapping his small body with ease.

Charles had never felt as helpless as he did for the first time in the moment when he finally had to stop fighting, when his trembling muscles cramped and relaxed and his screams faded into silence.

When she was still holding him down.

"Now then," she said, blowing damp tresses out of her face and staring down at him, still pinned to the scuffed linoleum beneath her.

"You listen to me, Charles."

He jerked his head away from her and she slapped him hard across the cheek, then grabbed his chin and forced him to face her.

"Listen to me! If you just do as I say, everything will be alright."

Her cold blue eyes bored into his and Charles tried to flinch away, but he had nowhere to go. He was exhausted.

"Just do exactly as I say. No-one cares about you, but I do. I love you. And you don't have to be frightened - you don't ever have to be afraid, if you just do what I say."

She smiled at him, and there were tears in her eyes.

"I had to send her away so you would be safe. Everything will be okay. I'll look after you - I love you so much. Just - don't ask after them any more. No more questions. Just obey. Promise me."

He was crying harder now, sobbing, tears and snot running down his face, down the back of his throat, his cheek and wrists red and smarting.

Still, his mother gripped his chin with pale, thin fingers, short sharp nails digging into the skin there, forcing him to look at her.

"Promise me!"

Charles hiccuped. "I-I p-promise..." he whispered.

He wanted his toy elephant, dropped on the floor and kicked out of reach, over by the wall. He wanted to put his thumb in his mouth, which he hadn't done in years and years.

"I-I'll be good... Don't cry mommy, don't... please, I.. I promise."

"I love you. Only I do. Your father and your sister are gone. But I will always be here, always love you, always know what's best for you. You just have to listen to me, Charles. Just listen to me."

She squeezed him so hard that tears sprung into his eyes. He was so scared, and confused, and this was his mother. What if she was right?

"I-I..love you too..."

And she had seemed to love him. When she hugged him and kissed him, apologized and made his favourite dinner. 

When she saved up money to be able to buy his school things new and asked him questions about his day, tell me everything. 

And Charles had listened. He had obeyed. Had gone to school and then come straight home (and called her from the landline - she was waiting) because,

"It's dangerous there - don't linger at school."

"Those boys are no good, I don't want you to play with them anymore."

"Your teacher told me you are good at science, so I think you should major in that."

"That girl is a hussy - I better not see you talking to her in the future, Charles. Stay here, where it's safe."

It wasn't until he was in college and she died suddenly in a car crash - all alone, suddenly - that he ever did something reckless. 

When he was invited to that party - probably out of pity - he felt so lost, so alone, with no-one to guide him - that he went, just because they asked.

He drank what they offered and the more he drank the less anxious he felt. And when he woke up in Hunter's bed the next morning that was fine, because somebody had seen him, touched him, told him he was good.

Eventually he made - that mistake - and Hunter saved him, Hunter directed him.

Charles followed, and that seemed so much easier than finding a path forward on his own.

What if I - no, I can't, it's too much, I don't know - 

What if he chose the wrong one?

It was so much easier when Hunter decided for him. He couldn't be trusted to look after himself. 

"A deal?" His nephew cocked one eyebrow, tone sceptical.

"I'll admit I have a problem. If you'll - agree to fight it with me. We can - we can get the better of this."

"What are you talking about?"

"We could fight it, you know...together."

"You're a fool, Charlie."

Kit eyes roamed over his face - the way he bit his cheek and his wide, anxious eyes.

"And too soft-hearted by far."

"We could beat it - you could, you're young - "

"You're not that much older! How long have you had it - how long have you known?"

"Three years..."

"So you were what, twenty-one? I was thirteen when I knew. So don't tell me how young I am. Don't you try. I'm old enough."

"But it's dangerous, what you're doing, sleeping around, drinking like that - "

"As if you don't! Don't even talk to me about drinking, and at least I'm usually sober when I get fucked, whereas you - " 

Kit sat up, looking pale and angry and as if he was about to stand up - but thought the better of it. Instead he put the untouched glass down on the coffee table and balled his hands into fists. 

Charlie held up his empty palms.

"Okay, okay. How about this? You said your...problem was - sex, so you don't need to drink like you did last night, correct?"

Kit looked at him suspiciously.

"And I...drink, but I don't have to, ehm, go home with anyone. Like you said, it's bad to mix those two. So, how about...we make a deal?"

"A deal." Kit didn't hide his suspicion.

Charlie swallowed.

"If you stop drinking... I'll stop sleeping around. How does that sound?"

"You will?"

"I promise."

"Hadn't pegged you for someone with a lot of self-control."

"That, I don't think I have to take from you, actually."

He held his breath as his nephew thought it over, eyes narrowed. 

Slowly, the young man stuck out his hand in front of him, hazel eyes still fixed on his uncle's. Charles let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding.

Kit thought he would die from his addiction in his 30's like Kitty. He had said that maybe he wanted to.

Well, that also meant that maybe he didn't want to, right?

He might just think it was inevitable, something he had to make peace with.

Charles would have to shape up. He had to become a better uncle - better person. They way that he had relied on Kit needed to change.

He had to change.

Holding his breath, Charles shifted so that his left hand was hidden behind his body, and crossed his fingers behind his back.   

It should be possible to cut down on his casual flings at the bar. Hunter was a different story. 

But Kit didn't ever have to find out about Hunter. What he didn't know wouldn't hurt him... The important thing was, at least wouldn't be drinking like that again.

"Cross your heart and hope to die?"

"Stick a needle in my eye."

They shook on it.

Next to the table, Kit moved his own left hand just out of view, first two fingers discreetly entwined.