Of course he hadn’t been allowed to ride shotgun. What was he thinking? Instead the cuffs were back, and Laurence squirmed to try not to squeeze them any tighter than they already were while the seatbelt held him fast in the back of the car.

Mikey was reliant on GPS, at least, which suggested Freddy wasn’t constantly in Mikey’s head. Maybe it was strenuous, or maybe Freddy had other shit to get on with. Laurence had no way of knowing.

He rested his face against the cold, damp glass of the window and tried to pay attention to the world as it glided smoothly by. It was way more green than he was used to. Taller, too. London was all stone and brick and trees and grass. Laurence came from a world of adobe and sand, sea and palms.

They couldn’t be further apart.

What the hell did Quentin see in him? Just look at where he came from. This was one of the richest cities in the world. These buildings were hundreds of years old, and so were most of the trees Mikey drove them past.

Laurence felt like he could barely afford to even look at this place.

He had nothing to offer a man like Quentin. Nothing. He was common as dirt, and just as poor. He wasn’t cultured, he didn’t have a clue what operas were about, couldn’t care less about ballet or art unless it featured naked people - or at least people dressed so flimsily that they were as good as nude.

Oh, and he was a fucking junkie.

He’d sucked cock for a hit. More than once. He’d stolen from his mom’s purse. He’d been into rehab already knowing that it would fail, and when he came out he went right back to Mikey.

He was a liar and a whore, an addict and a loser, and Quentin deserved better.

But right now you’re all he’s got.

Laurence’s eyelids fluttered and he turned his eyes toward the back of Mikey’s head without removing his face from the window. The cold from outside seeped through his face and gave him something to cling to other than the gnawing desperation.

“When’d you meet Freddy?” he rasped.

Mikey glanced to him in the rearview mirror, then shrugged. “A few months back. He was in San Diego, but you know that. I got told some rich dude at this fancy hotel wanted to buy, so I went. The rest, as they say, is history.”

Laurence inhaled. “You’re lying.”

“No, I’m skimping on the details,” Mikey countered. “There’s a difference.” He stopped at traffic lights, and their red glow refracted across the rain on the street. “Look, Bambi-”

“You can call me Laurence,” he snarled.

“Whatever. Laurence. I’m sorry. I know that doesn’t mean anything to you, but I am.” Mikey shook his head, and his shoulders dropped an inch.

Laurence peeled his face away from the window and eyed the door handle, then turned his back to it so that he could try and tug on it with his fingers. He pulled and pulled, but the door didn’t open.

“Child lock,” Mikey said without any satisfaction. “I did things to you, Laurence, and I’m sorry. We were young and dumb and we thought we knew everything, but we didn’t know shit. I…” He hesitated, then pulled away as the lights went from amber to green. “I used you. Without your consent. I don’t expect you to ever forgive me, and I don’t deserve it even if you did, but I’m sorry. I’m… I’m not that guy any more.”

Laurence lunged forward, but the seatbelt locked, and the force of it threw him back against his handcuffs.

He heard a click.

Damn it, one of the fuckers had ratcheted just a little bit tighter, hadn’t it? Couldn’t Freddy afford safer cuffs?

“Then what kinda guy are you today? The kind who still pushes smack on someone he used to be friends with, but it’s okay now because he’s doing it for someone else instead of for cash?”

Mikey shrugged as he pulled a left turn. “Yes. That’s me, Laurence. A sidekick. A tool. A plaything. But you know what? He treats me better than anyone else ever has. And he’s not-” He cut himself off and pulled up alongside a curb in a fancy-looking street. He turned and glanced to Laurence, then tossed some keys at him.

They landed on the leather by Laurence’s thigh. A pair of handcuff keys on the same ring as a hefty brass door key.

“Number thirty two,” Mikey said.

Laurence eyed the keys, then twisted away from them to pick them up. He wriggled and bucked as he tried to get one of the handcuff keys lined up with the lock on his left wrist by touch alone. “You’re seriously gonna let me go there myself? With the key?”

Mikey shrugged. “Frederick knows what he’s doing.” Then he tossed the tin onto the back seat, too. “You’re gonna want this.”

“I doubt it.” Laurence gasped in frustration as the key bumped out of the lock and he had to start over. “Fuck’s sake, Mikey, at least help me out here!”

“No.”

He ground his teeth and slotted the key into the lock.

“You know Quentin would leave you in the end, right?” Mikey turned to face him again. “People like you and me, Laurence, we’re not meant for this life. All this fancy shit. Old money, jet-setting, men who are way too good for us. You and me, we were born in the gutter, and we’ll die there.”

Laurence’s throat closed up. He couldn’t swallow, couldn’t speak, couldn’t argue.

Because it was all true.

Heat flushed his neck, his cheeks, his ears. His vision blurred, and his eyes itched. His breath quickened.

Damn it, I am NOT going to cry in front of him!

“Fuck you.” He meant to sound like he meant it, but it dripped out of him without any venom.

The cuff snapped free, and Laurence dragged his arms in front of himself, ignoring the protest from his shoulders. Once he could see what he was doing, unlocking the other one was easy, and he threw them between the front seats, where they clattered into the passenger footwell.

He thumbed the seatbelt and shoved it aside. His fist closed around the keys.

Mikey pressed a button by his side, and the doors unlocked. “See you around,” he said.

“Yeah,” Laurence spat. “You better fucking hope not.”

He kicked the door open and stepped out into the rain.

But not before he’d grabbed the tin.

* * *

He ran up the steps and jammed the key into a brass lock, then shouldered the door open.

“Quen? Baby, are you here?”

Laurence shoved the door shut with a slam so hard that that it made the brass knocker on the outside bang.

Freddy had said Quentin was still unconscious, which meant Freddy had some way of knowing. And since Freddy couldn’t read Quentin’s mind, he had some other means of checking in on his twin. The laptop had gone dead, but that didn’t mean this place wasn’t wired up in other ways.

He had to assume that there was no way of getting any privacy while in this house.

Laurence closed his eyes a moment and inhaled. It was child’s play to pick out Quentin’s scent, so familiar to him, and he chased it through the hallway and into a small room toward the back of the house.

The room had been utterly wrecked. The windows which looked out onto a lush, green garden were all shattered, and rain poured in through the openings. Furniture lay in splintered ruins. The walls were gouged as though the claws of some giant monster had dragged through them. The laptop was smashed to pieces and scattered throughout the mess.

And in the center of it all, Quentin lay, immobile.

Laurence stuffed the tin into his pocket and picked through the mess.

He should leave. He should run away from here, but he couldn’t.

Quentin’s eyes were closed. Laurence struggled to remember whether that was a good sign or bad. Did it mean he’d gone from a blackout to asleep, or was he still in shutdown?

“Baby?” He whispered it as he fell to his knees by Quentin’s side.

Run! Run now!

He grit his teeth so hard his jaw hurt, and he grabbed Quentin’s hand.

What would be better? For Quentin to stay like this, where Freddy couldn’t hurt him any more? Where he was beyond even the duke’s reach?

Maybe.

The pain was unbearable, and the only escape from it was in a tin in his pocket.

Pressing against his thigh.

Singing pick me! Pick me!

“Goddess,” he hiccuped, “please. Please.” He didn’t know what he wanted or how the Goddess could help. All he wanted was for Quentin to be better, to be safe.

He dragged Quentin into his lap and cradled him there, sifting fingers through silken hair which bore the faint scent of oud wood and amber. “Quen,” he whispered. “Please. I can’t do this. I need you. Please don’t leave me, baby. Forgive me, but I can’t.”

Part of him hoped Quentin wouldn’t regain consciousness.

That this was it for them both.

Because otherwise it wasn’t over yet.