Author’s Note: Don’t perform the acts described in this chapter unless you have a very good idea of what you’re doing and of the safety risks. Make sure to use all proper equipment. Remember—this is fiction. It is not meant as a guide for any act described herein.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Jeff didn’t know how long he stayed in bed, staring blankly at the ceiling, but by the time Austin came in, the sky outside was already beginning to burn with the reddish hues of sunset. His felt drained and tired, his cheeks stained with dried tears. It was difficult to stop thinking of his parents—to stop wondering what they were doing instead of thinking of him, searching for him. Because if they were, surely it would be on the news—right?

Austin looked at the younger man, feeling uncomfortable from his very obvious grief, but Jeff barely acknowledged his presence in the room at all, seeming completely lost in the sorrow that had consumed him.

Austin felt torn. He wanted to badly to be able to tell Jeff that Kenny’s words had been lies, but he very well knew what the consequences to that would be. Austin eyed the younger man with sympathy; it was not long ago that he had been pure, innocent, and untainted. The thought made Austin sick to his stomach. Austin knew that he deserved the treatment he got, but Jeff didn’t.

Trying to decide how to best handle the situation, Austin quickly realized that there was nothing he could do to make the other boy feel better. It would probably be best if he just left Jeff alone to deal with it in his own way. He didn’t know what else to do, at any rate, so he turned toward his computer, preparing to do just that. However, he was halted in his action as Jeff’s voice suddenly broke through his consciousness.

“Austin—tell me about your family,” Jeff intoned suddenly, his voice sounding oddly dull. Austin stared at the boy for a few seconds, seeing how fragile and frail he looked there on the bed. Austin knew what had prompted Jeff’s words; he felt abandoned by his own family and was searching desperately for some anodyne for his pain. The blond man sighed, taking a seat on his own bed.

“Where do you want me to start?” Austin inquired reluctantly, feeling unable to deny the boy this small thing after all he had been put through. The fact that Jeff had no idea how serious a thing he was asking did flutter though Austin’s mind, though. Jeff simply shrugged tiredly in response to the question.

“I don’t know. Anywhere you want.”

Austin mulled over his choices, wondering if he really wanted to open up to Jeff, and wondering how much he should edit for the other boy if he did. But Jeff’s eyes had this hopeful little glaze in them, something Austin was hard-pressed to resist.

“Well, let’s see…” Austin trailed off, unsure of whether his own story would help or hinder Jeff at that moment. After a brief pause, he spoke again. “My dad left my mom a few months after I was born. I don’t remember him at all, to tell you the truth. My mom raised me all by herself, though she did have a little help from my grandmother. My mom had good intentions and everything, but she also had…problems.” Austin took another deep breath.

“I was five the first time I found her passed out on the floor of the bathroom. She’d overdosed on some type of pill or another.”

Austin paused again, waiting to hear if Jeff had any reaction to his words, since he couldn’t make himself look the other man in the eyes. But when none was apparent, Austin finally made himself look up, seeing the brown-haired boy staring in rapt fascination of Austin’s tale. After a long silence, Jeff began speaking again, feeling numb to it all after having told the story so many times. It was almost as if he was telling the story of someone else’s life, except for the fact that he could still see his mother sprawled across the bathroom tile, could still feel everything, however dimly. But he’d made himself forget the feelings associated with his past a long time before.

“I went to stay with my grandmother while my mom was in rehab,” Austin finally continued. “When she got out, I went back to live with her, but she hadn’t really gotten better. I found her in the bathtub when I was eight. She had slit her wrists.”

Jeff’s gasp was audible, but Austin ignored it. Now that he had begun telling the story, it had all come back, and the words seemed to be rushing out of his mouth in a flood. It was almost as if he had no control over it.

“I went back to live with my grandmother after my mom died. She was pretty rich, and that was where I first developed an interest in computers. She spoiled me, actually. But my grandmother was sick, and she died three years later. My only other surviving relative was my uncle—my mom’s brother—but he had never really gotten along with our family. My grandmother still had him in her will, though, and since I was still underage, she put him in charge of all of her money until I was eighteen and could legally inherit my share. I lived with him for awhile, but I knew that he really didn’t want me. That became readily apparent when he took all my grandmother’s money and disappeared. It seems that he wanted it all for himself.

“I was basically left with no one and no money, and I was only twelve years old, so I ended up getting thrown into foster care. I never really got placed with a family.”

Austin stopped there, shifting uncomfortably. The story felt strangely truncated to Jeff, who had, at some point, sat up, feeling transfixed by Austin’s retelling. He felt like it had been cut off at an odd place. If nothing else, the story had been something to distract Jeff from his own feelings. Jeff waited a few long moments to see if Austin intended on continuing with the story, but it soon became evident that Austin had no intention to do so.

“Do I get to hear the rest of the story?” Jeff queried. Austin felt a perverse urge to laugh at the obvious anticipation in the younger man’s voice. Austin shook his head sadly.

“I think that’s enough story time for one day. Trust me when I saw that you don’t want to hear the other half of ‘the Austin Jenkins story,’” he replied, his tone slightly bitter. Jeff frowned.

“Sorry,” he apologized, looking away contritely. After a second, he looked back up. “Can I ask how you paid to go to MIT?”

Austin’s gaze turned dark. “No,” he said firmly, his voice sounding harsher than Jeff had ever heard it sound. Immediately chastened, Jeff returned his gaze to his own hands.

“Sorry,” he apologized again. After he had spoken, the room fell silent again, and Austin was almost sure that Jeff was done speaking. But after a few long, tense moments, Jeff spoke again.

“My family loves me. Or, at least, I thought they did,” Jeff said, a deep vein of melancholy in his voice. He took a deep breath. “But you’d think that they’d have noticed that I was gone. And…cared.”

Austin looked down. He wanted nothing more than to tell Jeff the truth about the news report, and he cursed Kenny silently once again for being so cruel. Sighing, he got up and sat at the edge of Jeff’s bed, sliding his arm around the younger man’s shoulders.

Jeff sucked in a breath, and seconds later, he was unable to stop himself from choking out a sob. Thinking about his parents, about how little they seemed to be affected by his disappearance, was infinitely painful. Sadly, Austin tightened his arm around the distraught boy, and Jeff sobbed again, cursing quietly to himself. He had thought that he had already run out of tears.

When Austin looked up a few moments later, he saw a familiar figure leaning against the doorframe. Nigel raised an eyebrow at the scene in front of him, green eyes twinkling in amusement. Austin tried not to glare at the older man as he silently indicated that Austin should leave.

Jeff took attention when Austin began extricating himself from the younger man’s body seconds later. He looked up, his eyes widening a little as he spotted Nigel there, and he frantically tried to wipe away his tears, not wanting his captor to witness any more of his weaknesses than he already had. Nigel shook his head, moving to take Austin’s vacated place.

“Shh, Kitten,” Nigel chastised softly at Jeff’s embarrassment, wrapping an arm around Jeff’s body. Jeff stiffened at the touch, but Nigel ignored that fact, pulling Jeff’s body to his. When he began gently petting the younger man’s hair, Jeff couldn’t control his body’s reaction, couldn’t stop himself from beginning to cry again.

Standing across the room, Austin shook his head to himself, feeling disgusted by the way that Nigel was taking advantage of Jeff’s weakness. Worse than the physical torture was the emotional; he knew perfectly how to manipulate people’s emotions to get what he wanted. It made Austin sick to his stomach.

Nigel glanced over Jeff’s shoulder at Austin, giving him a meaningful glance. Feeling slightly disgruntled, Austin followed the unspoken command and exited the room, leaving the two alone.

Feeling accomplished, Nigel tightened his arm around Jeff’s body, smiling sadistically to himself as Jeff suddenly clung to him, sitting half in his lap as he sobbed chokingly into the crook of his captor’s shoulder. Nigel stroked Jeff’s hair gently as the younger man cried.

“It’s all right, Kitten,” Nigel breathed purposefully into Jeff’s ear. “We’ll take care of you. We won’t abandon you.”

Jeff pulled away, his face red and tear-stained, his hazel eyes wide and hopeful. Nigel held back the urge to grin at the desperation in Jeff’s gaze, a desperation that he had fully anticipated.

“Go to sleep. You’ll feel better when you wake up,” Nigel promised, guiding Jeff’s body down to the bed. Unable to find the strength to argue, Jeff nodded numbly, lying down on the mattress as Nigel pulled the covers over him. He felt Nigel sitting on the edge of the bed still as he slipped into slumber.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

When Nigel came into the kitchen ten minutes later, he had such a large grin on his face that Kenny immediately took notice. He leaned the stool he was sitting on back slightly, raising an eyebrow at his friend. “You look happy,” he stated dryly, giving the other man a pointed look.

Austin, who was at the counter helping Kathryn cut vegetables, tried to mask his disgusted look. He knew very when why Nigel was so ecstatic.

“We’ve got him,” Nigel stated simply, a feral smile on his face. At Kenny’s questioning look, he elaborated. “He’s desperate, he’s afraid, and he thinks everyone else has abandoned him. Soon, we’ll have complete control over him.”

Austin, unable to remain silent any longer, snapped, “So now he can be your willing and emotionally damaged sex slave.”

Kenny shot a threatening look in the younger man’s direction. “Which means he can be like you,” he retorted with a glare in Austin’s direction. The blond man flushed red in embarrassment at the comment, averting his gaze quickly.

Ignoring the conversation the other two were having, Nigel spoke to Kenny again. “Don’t touch him tonight,” he commanded with a certain authority. “He needs some time alone tonight.”

Kenny nodded absently, eyes still locked on Austin. “That won’t be a problem,” he promised, eyes looking slightly sinister. “I think someone else needs a reminder of his place here.”

Austin’s eyes widened at Kenny’s words, but that time, he was wise enough not to speak again. He lowered his gaze contritely. “Go up to my bedroom and wait for me there,” Kenny ordered. Austin nodded without speaking, exiting the kitchen quickly. Kenny grinned softly to himself, tipping his stool back again to a very slight angle.

“Aren’t you going to follow him?” Kathryn demanded after a minute, throwing her hands up in exasperation. Kenny shrugged nonchalantly.

“In a little while,” Kenny replied slowly. “Anticipation is half the fun. It’ll give him time to think about things.” He grinned and glanced at his friend, and Nigel just raised an eyebrow at him.

Kathryn snorted in disgust. “You know, you’re not just hurting these boys physically,” she commented. “You’re damaging them psychologically. They’ll be scarred for life.”

Kenny chuckled, clearly unimpressed by Kathryn’s assessment of the situation. “Thank you, Doctor Blake,” he drawled, mocking her. Kathryn glared at him, but Kenny just rolled his eyes in response.

“Excuse me while I go psychologically damage my boy,” Kenny said sarcastically before standing and leaving the room with one last glance at his friend’s wife, whom he had never gotten along with.

Kenny made his way up the stairs slowly, grinning to himself with the expectation of what was to come as he ascended. He made his way down the familiar corridor, making sure to take his time in order to give Austin those precious extra seconds to stew in the realization of his insubordination and the fear of what was to come. Finally, he reached his bedroom and opened the door, listening to it creak on its hinges.

He spotted Austin immediately within the room, sitting at the edge of the bed and looking nervous. It wasn’t that Austin didn’t know what to expect from Kenny—it was that he did, and that was what made him uneasy. Kenny was capable of some of the most despicable acts; what Austin didn’t know was how depraved it would be this time, and how much pleasure he, himself, would be allowed to glean from it.

When Kenny walked in, he did nothing to acknowledge Austin’s presence. Instead, he walked over to the dresser, fumbling around through the contents of one of the drawers purposefully. The tension in the room was palpable, Austin’s anticipation flooding the room. The blond man shifted uncomfortably, waiting impatiently for Kenny to do something.

It was at least two minutes later when Kenny finally turned, his eyes twinkling with sinister excitement. Austin looked down at what was in the man’s hands, and was surprised by the fact that it was only two simple pairs of leather restraints, one for his wrists and one for his ankles, something much more moderate that Austin would have expected when considering the other man’s mood at that moment. Yet the look in Kenny’s eyes quickly alerted Austin to the fact that the restraints were not nearly all that Kenny had planned for that night.

“Undress,” Kenny commanded simply, and Austin found himself complying with the other man’s wishes much without thought, so used to obeying was he. He placed his clothing down onto a chair, standing naked in the middle of the room and waiting for further instructions. When they got into one of these situations, Austin seemed to always fall into a state in which he forgot himself, in which he obeyed any command without thinking. It was something he had been schooled to do, but it had begun happening before he was even aware of it.

Austin tried not to look down at his body, where there were still reddened gouges across his chest form his time with Nigel the day before. Kenny smirked at the sight before him; the small, pale body of the boy in front of him, delicate ivory skin marred only by numerous scars and cuts, most of which had been inflicted by Kenny himself, or at least in his presence. Kenny found the sight beautiful.

“Lie down.”

Again, Austin followed the direction thoughtlessly, stretching out across the bed. He could deduce what Kenny wanted pretty quickly—and half of living with Kenny and Nigel was trying to figure out what they wanted before they did, so obeying would be that much easier—so he splayed his limbs out in opposite corners of the bed. He wasn’t surprised when Kenny began affixing his wrists to the headboard with the leather shackles he had pulled from the drawer. Austin didn’t protest when the other man took his ankles as well and attached them to the footboard, running his hand over the lacerations on the younger man’s chest and reveling in the resulting hiss.

It was only then that Kenny moved to the chest in the corner of the room, sliding the top open and rustling around for a moment until he located a smaller metal box, which he pulled out and set atop the chest of drawers. Austin recognized the box and gulped, though he felt his cock twitch slightly in anticipation.

When Kenny threw a look over his shoulder, he seemed to notice it as well and grinned. “Impatient, are we?” he inquired sarcastically, earning a slight glare from Austin. But the older man let it go this time, didn’t let Austin’s reaction faze him. Instead, he turned his attention back to the box he had removed.

When he opened the lid of the metal box, his smile only grew, and Austin could see the taut anticipation in the other man’s muscles. What he extracted from the box a moment later was a familiar device; a plastic box, with knobs atop it and wires stemming from it, attached to two small circlets and also a butt plug.

Austin felt himself tensing as well as Kenny first began applying conductive gel around the younger man’s balls, during which Austin couldn’t keep himself from gasping slightly, arching into the other man’s touch as much as his bindings would let him. Then, Kenny began lubricating Austin’s entrance almost gently, in stark contrast to what the blond man knew was to come. It wasn’t long before Kenny slid the butt plug in instead, the end where the wires were attached standing outside his body. Kenny then fastened the other half of the device around his balls—two straps with small electrodes around the insides.

Austin could tell that the older man was getting off on this, could already see the growing bulge in his pants. Yet Austin also knew that this was just the beginning; Kenny’s arousal was merely from the anticipation of what was to come.

Finally, Kenny came to stand just next to the bed, running his hand lightly over the neatly-trimmed thatch of hair above Austin’s groin, where his half-hard length rested. With a grin, Kenny looked down at the other man. “Are you ready?” he asked, never losing eye contact with the younger man. Austin took a breath, steeling himself, for he knew that an answer of ‘no’ could lead to even worse consequences than a response in the affirmative. Finally, he nodded his head.

Kenny turned the device on suddenly, waiting a few seconds before slowly turning one of the knobs. Kenny was very experienced with it, knew exactly which knob to turn in order to produce each sort of stimulation, knew how much pleasure or pain could come from turning any one of the knobs. Austin felt its effects immediately, could feel a low, thrumming sensation of electricity running through his balls and his ass simultaneously.

It was just a little prickle at first, a tiny bit of stimulation that was a little bit of pleasure and no pain whatsoever. Austin couldn’t pull his eyes away from Kenny’s lust-darkened orbs, so dark already that they now appeared almost black. Kenny was watching him with an almost morbid fascination, gaze completely fixated on the expanse of pale skin before him.

He continued turning the knob, slowly so that Austin could feel every change in sensation. Austin had undergone such treatment before, and it could always be a mixed blessing. Sometimes, the sizzle of electricity through some of his most sensitive parts could be only pleasurable—and with the lower amounts of sensation it was—but when Kenny was feeling sadistic, he could turn the knobs until Austin was screaming and writhing, until he felt like he’d rather die than go through another second of it. Yet Kenny knew what he was doing, knew that too much of it could permanently harm the younger man, and as he’d said before, he didn’t want a ‘broken toy.’

The slowly rising strength of the current was immediately noticeable to Austin; the constant, unfaltering amount of sensation was what was most torturous, because Austin felt as if he had nearly no time to react to the sensation before being bombarded with more. Yet at this point, the feeling was only pleasurable; Austin couldn’t stop himself from moaning and writhing under the onslaught of stimulation, which only seemed to urge Kenny to continue.

Another slight turn of the dial and Austin could feel the muscles around his entrance begin to contract involuntarily form the jolts of electricity, the butt plug moving slightly within him with each spasm. His cock was starting to react as well to the electricity running through his balls as it slowly began to twitch and spasm with each shock, beginning to harden. Austin groaned deeply, turning his head to the side and managing to bury his face in his arm to muffle the sound.

Suddenly, Austin felt the butt plug being forced further into his ass, coming to rest right against his prostate as a harsh jolt of electricity ran through it. Austin couldn’t help but throw his head back and scream at the intensity of the sensation, something between pleasure and pain that was so muddled that the difference was completely incomprehensible. Austin didn’t notice that he’d raised his body as far off the bed as it could go against his bonds until he felt himself collapse back into the mattress, the electricity continuing to shock him, though with nowhere near the intensity it had been a moment before.

He raised his head after a moment to look at Kenny. The older man’s gaze was harsh with anger and Austin fought the urge to drop his eyes again. “Don’t try to muffle the sound,” Kenny scolded, running his hand again across the group of partially-healed cuts on the other man’s chest. “I want to hear you scream.”

Austin nodded, feeling himself reddening in embarrassment at the request. Yet Austin knew that he should have known, that he shouldn’t have tried to muffle a single sound out of his mouth, because it wasn’t the actual electricity that Kenny got off on, but rather the expression of pain and pleasure from the other person involved. Nor was it the bondage that got either Kenny or Nigel off, but rather, it was the control it gave them over another human being.

Once Kenny seemed sure that the younger man had understood his message, he turned his attention back to the familiar knobs, turning one and watching as Austin’s sphincter continued contracting around the butt plug, this time more pronouncedly than before. His cock continued to twitch, and it had already come to full hardness, almost involuntarily on Austin’s part. Austin had begun whimpering, and Kenny could tell that the sensation was quickly turning more painful than pleasurable. Grinning, he turned the knob further.

Austin’s body stretched against his bonds again as the blond man let out another scream, this one seeming to express almost intemperate pain. Yet the grin couldn’t leave Kenny’s face when he could see that the other man was still hard, almost achingly so, and already beginning to leak a bit of fluid. Almost cruelly, Kenny turned down the amount of stimulation very suddenly, and Austin’s body fell back to the bed, the other man breathing hard.

“Fuck,” Austin breathed out quietly, his voice already beginning to become raw from screaming. Tears were running down his cheeks, his honey-brown eyes pleading silently for Kenny to stop, to leave him alone. In an attempt to placate the boy slightly, Kenny maneuvered his way onto the bed, the material of his pants tightening around his hardened length in a way that was almost painful. He ignored it for a moment, sliding up the mattress to place an almost absurdly tender peck on one of Austin’s cheeks, kissing away his tears. He repeated the movement to the other cheek, brushing a piece of sweaty hair away from the younger man’s forehead.

“You’re so beautiful like this,” he informed the other man softly. Austin was torn between being angry at the other man for the comment and feeling very touched by what was Kenny’s own unique form of affection, or at least as close as he ever came to it. But before he could decide, the moment was already broken, and Kenny had returned to the control box, stopping only for a moment to unzip his pants in order to relieve the pressure a little.

It was only another moment before Kenny turned the knob back up just as quickly as he had turned it down, and the sudden, unexpected surge of electricity caused Austin to scream again, to thrash against the cuffs holding him. He could feel his inner muscles contracting almost violently, the formerly mild hum of electricity turning painful—creating a feeling somewhere between stinging and burning; it was neither, however, but instead a sensation that defied explanation.

And Kenny didn’t let up this time, didn’t turn the dial down. Instead, he turned it up, and Austin couldn’t stop screaming, seemed completely incapable of it, but the pressure in his balls was building, and he could feel dimly through the pain how amazingly close to orgasm he was, and Kenny had barely even touched him since he had attached the devices to Austin’s body. Kenny seemed to sense this, seemed to know it inherently, and just as Austin felt himself begin to release, Kenny turned the dial up again, and Austin was screaming even louder, and his orgasm seemed to last forever, his cock weeping infinitely, making him feel as if his entire being was suddenly seeping out through it.

When he came down from the euphoric rush, Kenny had turned down the electricity, though Austin could still feel it slithering through his oversensitive cock and ass, and that was almost more painful, because his body didn’t feel as if it could take anymore sensation, however mild. One of the first things Austin noticed after that was that Kenny had pulled his own cock out of his pants, and it looked almost painfully hard as he had been himself moments before, and veins stood starkly out against the dark skin.

Kenny ran a hand gently across Austin’s chest. “Let me turn it up again,” Kenny said, and there was a tiny, almost undetectable note of pleading in his voice. “Just for ten seconds.”

Sensing the other man’s almost-desperation, Austin nodded mutely, and suddenly he was overtaken by the buzzing of electricity again. Due to the increased sensitivity of his skin caused by his orgasm, it took much less sensation to cause Austin to scream and writhe again. Dimly, through tear-blurred eyes, Austin could see the older man’s cock twitch, could see the moment he, too, began to cum, thick streams of whitish liquid shooting from the tip of his cock, and neither had he touched his own cock.

Austin sighed in relief when Kenny turned the device off, and once again Austin was filled with blessed blankness in the place of overwhelming sensation. Kenny took time to clean both of them off before removing the devices from Austin’s body, place them back in the box and then in the chest in the corner. He then unfastened both Austin’s wrists and his ankles, and Austin forced himself to sit up on the mattress gingerly, massaging his sore wrists and trying to ignore the faint but all too noticeable burn between his legs. Kenny collapsed to the bed next to Austin, taking a deep breath.

Austin watched the older man out of the corner of his eye as he began to rub his other wrist. Feeling was quick to return fully to his formerly bound limbs, though Austin had to flex his ankles and his shoulders a couple of times before they returned to feeling normal. Kenny grabbed his jacket off the floor, fishing absently for his cigarettes before lighting one and putting it to his lips. He inhaled deeply and let out a long exhale before holding out his pack to Austin, offering him one. Shrugging, Austin grabbed a cigarette out of the pack and allowed Kenny to light it for him, taking a drag himself.

“I’m surprised you aren’t in the mood for something harder,” Austin commented idly, allowing the cigarette to calm him. He didn’t smoke often, but there were times when it just seemed necessary, and this definitely qualified. Kenny merely shrugged at his comment.

“I got some good Coke, and some E, but I’m saving it up for a special occasion,” Kenny replied, and Austin didn’t think to marvel over how quickly the dynamic could change between himself and these other men, because he had stopped questioning it years before. Instead, he merely laughed at the ridiculousness of Kenny’s response. “Hey—wouldn’t want to get addicted, would I? You know what Nigel would think of that.”

“Yes, I do,” Austin agreed, before slipping gingerly off the bed and stubbing out his cigarette. “I assume I’m allowed to go.”

Kenny laughed sardonically. “Sure you don’t want to ‘cuddle?’” he inquired with a snort, seemingly mortified by his own joke. Austin rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, because that’s exactly what I was thinking about,” he breathed out, bending over with a hiss of pain to pick up his discarded clothing. It was with some work and a considerable amount of pain that Austin even managed to get his boxers on, so he didn’t even bother putting on his pants. He walked out of the bedroom a few moments later in just his boxers and a t-shirt, limping slightly as he made his way across the hall to the bedroom he shared with Jeff.

When he opened the door, he was surprised to find a pair of wide, hazel eyes staring worriedly at him, Jeff sitting up on his bed with his gaze locked on the door. Lacking the energy to try and interact with the other boy without prodding, Austin simply crossed the room and collapsed onto his own bed, sighing in relief. Yet lying down almost seemed to make it worse, because once he stopped moving the pain seemed to intensify, seemed to be easier to focus on. Yet at the same time, it wasn’t even near the most painful he had endured, just…uncomfortable. Austin felt drained.

Austin was almost sure that Jeff wasn’t going to speak at all when a moment later, the younger boy’s voice penetrated his consciousness. “Are you okay?” he asked, his voice soft. “I…erm…I heard you screaming.”

Austin cursed, rolling over in bed. “You shouldn’t have been able to hear that,” he commented, locking eyes with the other boy after a moment. “The walls are soundproofed.”

Jeff nodded, recalling. “I know. Kenny told me, remember?” he said, sounding almost as if he was unsure he even had the right to speak about this. “That’s why I looked out when I heard it. I guess you guys left the door ajar.”

Austin sighed, realizing that he’d been so fatigued that he hadn’t even noticed that fact when he had exited the room. “I’m fine,” he answered after a moment, making a note to himself to make sure the door was closed next time, even though Kenny had been the last one to enter the room. He knew that even that small an oversight could cause him to incur the wrath of Nigel or Kenny on one of their worse days.

Jeff bit his lip, looking nervous and uncomfortable. “What did he do to you?” he asked after another long pause. Austin took a deep breath.

“Nothing I didn’t ask for, and nothing I couldn’t handle,” he replied evasively, giving Jeff a look that signaled that he wasn’t going to elaborate. Jeff nodded slowly, the hidden meaning behind the look setting in.

“Are you…hurt anywhere, or is there anything I can do to help?” Jeff ventured after a moment. Austin exhaled patiently.

“I wouldn’t mind a bowl of soup,” Austin said jokingly, raising an eyebrow at the other boy. Jeff smiled nervously, averting his gaze.

“Well…if you’re not joking, I’m sure I could make you something, if there are enough ingredients in the house,” Jeff offered. Austin raised his eyebrow again.

“You can cook?”

Jeff shrugged. “I can do a lot of things,” he said cryptically, standing up and offering a hand to the blond man. “Now do you think you can make it downstairs? I’m going to need someone to show me where everything is.”