Quin blinked. “Of course.”
“I can’t take your word for it.”
“What?” Quin squinted at Kit. More memories came flooding back; the indistinct images and snatches of conversation seemed at once very close, but stubbornly out of reach.
“Is that you, Lawrence?” The tremor in Kit’s voice betrayed his show of aloofness.
“It’sQuin. It’s me, baby boy. I promise.”
“I—” Kit broke off. His skin had paled to the point that it appeared grey, and he’d wrapped his arms around himself.
Quin ached to go to Kit, to hold him in his arms instead. But when he pulled on the chains, the metal links clanked together, loud and jarring in the silent room.
Kit took a few hurried steps backwards, huddling against the wall. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Did he hurt you?” Quin asked. He tried to recall the sequence of events, but it was like trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces missing.
“He hurt you more,” came Kit’s quiet, devastating response.
“I’m sorry. So, so sorry. You understand I would never do that to you, right?” The parts Quin remembered—fractured as they were—horrified him. “Christ, Kit, I’d realised your creator was bad, but I hadn’t known just how bad.”
Kit made a distressed little noise that tore at Quin’s heart. “I didn’t want you to find out.”
Quin swallowed against the lump in his throat. Lawrence’s thoughts in his head were malformed, but the echoes remained. Bile rose as he remembered what Lawrence had been planning to do to Kit with Quin’s body.
“He was a monster,” Quin said.
“Is,” Kit corrected bitterly. “He’s not gone.”
Quin had spent only scant moments under Lawrence’s control. Knowing Kit had spent so long with someone as twisted as his creator made Quin want to scream until he was hoarse. Unfairness didn’t cover it. Kit had gone through far worse than anyone deserved, but for it to happen to his boy filled him with a rage he rarely felt.
Quin looked down at himself, trying to see if there was anything physically different to mark himself as taken over by Lawrence. “Is he… still inside me?” He grimaced. “Ugh, phrasing.”
Kit approached again, this time close enough to touch. Quin didn’t dare breathe as Kit slid one hand onto the bed, near to Quin’s face. “It’s you, isn’t it?”
“It’s me, baby.”
Kit still didn’t look fully convinced, but his hand came up to hold Quin’s face. His touch was feather-light, but Quin revelledin it. After a few moments, Kit nodded. “Your eyes are your own.”
Before Quin could respond, Kit was on top of him, bending down to place his ear to Quin’s chest. “Your heartbeat is speeding up.”
Quin hummed in agreement. “That would be because you’re lying on me.”
Kit gave Quin a tentative smile, then squeezed Quin hard enough that he struggled to inhale.
“Bit tight, baby.”
Kit loosened his hold, but only a little.
Quin let Kit do what he wanted. He had no say in the matter. But the ache in his arms soon became too insistent to ignore. “Are you going to free me from these chains?”
Kit lifted his head. “Eventually.”
“I’m losing circulation.”
Kit looked down at Quin, contemplative. “Letting you go is risky.”
“Baby, we can try bondage another time, but right now, my fingers are going numb.”
