Will’s hands were burning. Someone had set them on fire, and they were burning. The skin was melting like the bad guys at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and pretty soon they would disintegrate. He’d never be able to draw another straight line, and there went his engineering career, and his father would be so pissed.

He could see it now, the old man’s face livid purple with rage, his big hands coming up in fists and smashing into his nose. God, that hurt, but he could still breathe, so it wasn’t broken, wasn’t that how it went? Then the other fist into his gut so the breath shot out his mouth, and then the blows coming fast and furious, punctuated with screaming. His or someone’s, with foul words he’d never heard his father say before coming from his father’s mouth.

“No,” he moaned, and something cool touched his forehead.

A soft voice said, “It’s okay, Will. It’s okay.”

He opened his eyes to bright whiteness and confusion. After a moment, he recognized the voice. That was Quinn—they’d been roommates for the last couple of months, his freshman year at college.

Quinn was a music major and also a freshman. Will remembered his father’s disdain for him and his complaint that Will should have had his own room and not have to share with a “fairy-assed colored boy”—but Will was on a scholarship and didn’t have anything to say in the arrangements. The scholarship required he live on campus for the first year, despite his family living in the area—another thing that annoyed his father—and the college gave him no choice as to roommates.

He’d done what his father had told him, though, and kept to himself, watching with envious eyes as Quinn made friends with everyone on the floor while Will quietly rejected any overtures of friendship toward himself. It had been so hard—Quinn was witty and outgoing and so damn, damn beautiful, with his tawny skin and bright dark eyes and silky brown curls, soft, loose, and tipped with gold. He’d never seen hair like that on a guy before, and he wondered if Quinn’s mixed race was the source or if he colored it that way.

Those pretty eyes weren’t so bright now; they were dull with worry and fatigue.

“Quinn?” It hurt to talk; his head felt stuffy and his throat was sore. And God, his head ached—hell, everything ached.

“Shh. It’s okay. You’re gonna be fine.” Quinn reached out and touched his forehead again, his hand cool against Will’s burning skin. “You’re in the hospital—you passed out at the church last night. Do you remember?”

Will remembered being at the church, remembered Quinn’s worried face and the other, older guy, and talk of calling his parents—shit! He struggled to sit up, panicking that any minute his father was going to come through that door and he would be so pissed . . .

Quinn pushed him back down embarrassingly easily. “Hey, don’t go anywhere!”

“My parents! Did they call my parents?”

“No, bud.” The word had a faint accent Will couldn’t place. Will hadn’t noticed Quinn having an accent. “We didn’t. You freaked out when Bennigan mentioned parents, so we didn’t. We brought you here instead. Do you remember that?”

Will shook his head, but the movement only made it hurt worse. He heard a whining noise and realized it was him. “I just remember the church.”

Quinn gently cupped his cheek and said again, “Shh, it’s okay. Can you tell me what happened? You wouldn’t let us call the police, either.”

“I fell,” he said dully. He sort of remembered saying that before.

“Right,” Quinn said, and his voice was flat. It didn’t sound right; Quinn’s voice was part of what was beautiful about him, so lively and expressive. Quinn MacLachlan didn’t do flat. “You fell multiple times on your face, gave yourself a mild concussion, and banged up your own damn ribs.”

Well, that explained why it hurt to move. “Oh,” he said.

“Will.”

He opened his eyes again—when had he closed them?—and looked up into Quinn’s face. The shards of anger he saw in Quinn’s eyes faded and were replaced by concern. “Did your father do this to you?”

He didn’t answer. He couldn’t.

“Shit,” Quinn said. He smoothed the hair back from Will’s forehead. “How did you get back here? Did you even make it home?”

“Yeah,” Will said, leaning into the caress like a cat seeking petting fingers. “It— He— I—I walked back. I didn’t have any money for a cab or a bus or anything. Just my duffel bag. I didn’t need any money over break because one of the guys from my church goes here and gave me a lift home.”

“Didn’t you have your ATM card or anything?”

“I don’t have one. Dad . . .” He didn’t finish, but Quinn nodded as if he knew what he was going to say. “I have a checkbook, but there wasn’t anything open.”

“It’s okay—wait a minute. You walked back? I thought you lived in Airport Heights.”

“I do. I did. Yeah.”

“That’s got to be ten miles from here. You walked the whole way? Through those neighborhoods?”

Will sighed and didn’t answer.

“Oh. Well, good thing you were smart enough to figure I was at rehearsal.”

“I didn’t. It was just . . . open. Warm. I was cold and tired.”

“Fuck. Will . . .”

“I just want to go home,” Will said plaintively.

“But I thought—”

“No, not there. Home. The dorm. Can we just go home now?”

Quinn’s eyes were bright again, but it seemed to be from the wetness in them. “Sure, bebe,” he said in a husky voice not at all like his usual smooth tenor. “We’ll go home.”

The dorm building was mostly empty and quiet, with the majority of its tenants gone home for the holidays. It had once been an apartment building, built back in the late eighteen hundreds, until the university had bought and renovated it into dorm rooms and suites in the fifties. They’d renovated it again in the nineties, so it was fairly modern and comfortable. Will was grateful no one was around to watch as he limped up the couple of steps into the big old building, through the heavy oak door, and into the narrow, tiled vestibule.

Quinn and Will, as freshmen, were relegated to a double room with bathroom facilities shared by the whole floor. Well, Quinn was, Will thought miserably. He probably wouldn’t be able to continue here, since his scholarship came from his parents’ church, and would be cut off as soon as his father had a chance to talk to his pastor.

But for now, the place was still home, still a refuge, and his cafeteria card was good until the twenty-third, at least, so he could eat for another week. That was something.

Quinn had been quiet on the short drive from the hospital to the dorm. The grad student, Bennigan, who had been conducting the rehearsal the night before, had picked them up there and dropped them at the door. He and Quinn had been exchanging wordless glances the whole ride home. Will thought maybe they were trying to figure out why he didn’t want to go to the police, or maybe Bennigan knew that his dad had given him the bruises and was wondering why he didn’t want to press charges.

The whole idea made him sick; he didn’t want to even see his father again, let alone face off with him in court. Besides, it had been his fault, the whole thing. He’d been stupid to go to that club he’d found on the internet, stupid to use a fake ID to get in there, stupid to go with the cute guy who’d picked him up, stupid to hang around outside afterward when the fight had started. Stupid to get caught on camera with the guy’s arm around his waist and his nose nuzzling Will’s neck.

But it had felt so good. He’d felt like he was really being himself for the first time in his life.

It felt good until his father had thrown the picture he’d printed out from some online news source in Will’s face and started screaming at him about being a faggot. Will had just stood there, dumbfounded and wordless, until his father started hitting him.

He’d just taken it because what else could he do? It was his father.

Later, after he’d thrown Will bodily out onto the icy sidewalk, hurled his duffel bag after him, and told him never to darken his door again? Well, he was still Will’s father.

Will had put some snow on his nose to stop the bleeding, but it had been really cold on his bare hands. He’d wrapped the scarf his mother had made for him last Christmas around his ears and face, and pulled the duffel’s strap over his head and pushed it onto his back so that he could shove his hands into his jeans pockets to try to keep them warm while he walked back to the dorm. To the only place he’d ever felt comfortable. To the only place that had ever felt like home. To the place that pretty soon wouldn’t be home any longer.

He wasn’t sure what he was going to do then. He was eighteen, so no child welfare agency was going to do anything for him, but he had no degree, no experience, no skills in anything but drafting and math. He had no money, no place to live, no references, not even a cell phone—that had been another thing his father had determined wasn’t necessary.

Quinn pushed the door to their room open and guided him gently in. “There, we’re home. You’re good?”

Will nodded numbly. Quinn put the duffel on Will’s bed and opened it, unpacking for him. Over his shoulder, he said, “I’ve got to be here until after the performance Christmas Eve, but my family’s coming to that and taking me home. You’ll come with us, then come back with me in January . . .”

Will shook his head. “I won’t be back in January. The scholarship was through my parents’ church, and as soon as my father tells them I’m gay, they’ll cancel it. I don’t have the money to stay.”

Quinn said in a funny voice, “You’re gay?”

Oh, fuck. Will sat down on his desk chair and studied the floor. So much for Quinn being nice to him. “I won’t stay,” he said dully. “Just let me sleep here tonight, and I’ll leave in the morning. If it really bugs you that much, I can crash on the couch in the common room . . .”

“Shit!”

Will blinked and looked up at Quinn, who was standing there staring at him, one of Will’s shirts in his hand.

“Is that what this is all about? Your old man found out you were gay and beat the shit out of you?”

“There were pictures from some fight at Panjandrum,” Will muttered. “I was there.”

Quinn dropped the shirt on the bed and slid onto his knees in front of Will, taking his gauze-wrapped hands gently. They hadn’t been badly frostbitten—the hospital had coated them with some ointment and wrapped them in gauze to protect them, but they were still painful. “That’s a hate crime, Will. He could do serious time for . . .”

Will pulled his hands away. “No,” he said. “That’s my dad.”

“Some kind of dad,” Quinn spat. “Keeps you on a short leash, then beats the shit out of you when you try and do something fun? Because you happen to be something other than what he wants? Jesus Christ, Will.”

Blinking, Will drew back a little from Quinn’s rage. He hadn’t seen Quinn furious. Occasionally he’d been annoyed at someone, but then he’d expressed it with a couple of “Fucks!” before going on to some new subject. Will had never seen this cold, fierce rage before. “I’m sorry,” he said anxiously, tucking his hands under his arms.

“Oh, bud, I’m not mad at you.” Quinn stood up, went to his own desk, and pulled up something on his computer. “Okay, so we need to regroup. The schedule holds through New Year’s—you’ll come home with me after the performance Christmas Eve. The admissions department is still open through the twenty-third, so we can head over there Monday and see what we can find out about alternative funding for you so you can finish out the year and maybe get back in next year. You’re in engineering—I bet you can find all sorts of scholarships. And we’ll stop at the campus LGBTQ center, too—they might have some leads on grants and loans and stuff. We’ll come back early, right after New Year’s, and start working on some other leads. Can you sing?”

“Like a frog,” Will admitted, dazed.

“Okay, no music scholarships, unless you play an instrument—No? Too bad—I know of a couple of good ones . . . Okay. Any other hobbies, interests, anything?”

Will shook his head. He couldn’t talk; something was filling his throat and pushing hard at the back of his nose. When he opened his mouth, a sob came out, and he was crying again. “Why are you being so nice to me?” he wept.

“Jesus, Will!” Quinn was back on his knees, his hands on Will’s legs. “I’m just being decent—I’m not doing anything worth crying about. Oh, crap.” He reached out and pulled Will gently to him, holding him around his shoulders while Will wept on his. “Shh, bebe, it’s okay,” Quinn crooned over and over again, softly, like a mother calming her frightened child.

Will felt stupid, but it was the best thing he’d ever experienced: Quinn’s long, strong arms around him; Quinn’s shoulder solid and steady beneath him; and Quinn’s beautiful voice soft in his ear. Quinn even smelled good, like laundry soap and peppermints. Will hung on a few minutes after he’d finished crying, just because he didn’t want to ever move.

And then he did, shifting back just a little, and Quinn shifted too, so that they both were looking in each other’s eyes. Then Quinn murmured, “Shit,” so softly, and kissed him.