For Destruction, Ice.

Frost climbed onto the bed, and Jesse's eyes flew open. His eyes filled with fear, growing wide as the older man pulled him up onto his knees and shoved the phone at his face.

"What's your lock code?"

But even as he pushed the phone at Jesse, something was happening.

Frost turned the phone back to face him and found it'd unlocked itself. Facial recognition. Not the most brilliant security system ever devised.

He shoved Jesse back down on the bed and opened the boy's message history.

There was only one saved conversation, with the most recent text from Will. It read 'I know, I love you too, mate."

Frost frowned. He was sure those two weren't seeing each other anymore.

He flicked back through the conversation history and found a series of emotional pleas from Jesse asking Will to talk to him, to Skype with him, with Will politely declining. He checked the dates. The most recent message was nearly six months old.

How delightful. Jesse had saved this conversation all this time.

Frost started reading the texts aloud, first imitating Jesse, mocking him by lightening his voice.

"Can you please fucking text me back? I never said I didn't want to see you again."

He scrolled up. Will's response had come a full day later.

Frost added weight to his voice, imitating Will's smoker's rasp.

"Jess, I told you, this is for the best. You need to move on."

Frost glanced up at Jesse. "He calls you 'Jess'. Isn't that a girl's name?"

Jesse's head rolled towards him, true hate in his eyes now.

Frost went back to reading Jesse's response. "And if I don't want to move on?"

He laughed at how comically emotional the kid was, the sheer drama of it, then lowered his voice again, mimicking Will.

"That's up to you. But you should know that I have."

Jesse looked away and stared up at the ceiling. Frost could see the boy was close to tears again.

"What did he do?" Frost asked, genuinely curious. "Satisfy you too often? Stop you filling your head with junk?"

Jesse took a deep breath in, and his breath out was ragged.

"He sold me. To you. And everyone at Oscar's."

"You sold yourself," said Frost dismissively, scrolling through dozens of texts that said, essentially, the same thing.

Take me back.

No.

"No, he sold me. To pay back his debt to Oscar's. I didn't know he was getting paid. He never told me."

Frost's eyebrows shot up, and a slow smile spread across his face. He'd always liked Will. A true top in every sense of the word, even though he knew Will would take it from Byron occasionally. But someone he respected, despite the kid's age compared with his own. What Will lacked in years, he made up for in savvy and brutality.

If Jesse and Will had still been fucking, Frost might have thought twice about doing this to the boy. But he'd heard Will had left the country, and it was clear Jesse hadn't found anyone to take his place.

"Will," said Jesse loudly. "Help me, please." He started to sob. Calling out to a god that'd forsaken him.

The sheer desperation in his voice made Frost sigh deeply in satisfaction.

The phone in his hand vibrated. Frost fumbled with it, but the window closed, the phone shutting itself down.

Never mind. The pain in Jesse's voice was enough for now.

Frost got up and put the phone into the drawer with the scissors, then added the door keys, in case he fell asleep.

Jesse continued to sob as Frost came back to the bed and undid his restraints. He didn't need them for now.

He undid Jesse's wrists, content to use his superior weight and strength to keep the boy in check if he tried anything. But sobbing now as he was, Frost doubted there would be much fight left in him tonight.

He pulled Jesse back against his body and stroked his hair away from his ear so that he could speak to him.

Jesse's body shuddered as he sobbed into the bed, his face pressed against the pillow.

"Did he hold you like this?" Frost asked quietly, his voice low and soothing, one hand brushing down the boy's arm, over his childish blue dragon tattoo that Frost found oddly erotic.

"Did he tell you that you were the only one he wanted?" He smoothed Jesse's hair back further from his neck and kissed him.

"No," he breathed by the boy's ear. "He didn't, did he? Because it wasn't true."

He put his arms around Jesse and nuzzled against the boy's neck.

With a noise of pain in his throat, Jesse tried to squirm away from him, reaching desperately for the emptiness beyond the bed. But Frost increased his grip, holding the boy crushingly tight, squeezing the breath from him.

In the state he was in, it was easy to subdue him, and Jesse soon stopped struggling, his eyes squeezed shut, his face crumpled with agony. But to Frost's delight, the boy was getting hard.

"Look at you. Does it excite you to be this weak? You really are a hungry, needy little thing, aren't you?"

Jesse sobbed harder, trying to coil in on himself, and Frost felt the first stirrings of fresh life in his cock. As time had its way with him, he found he needed longer to recover than he had in his youth. But the pathetic sight of this skinny, vulnerable kid with his rock-hard dick, sobbing desperately into a musty bedspread, his fingers gripping and releasing it like a child kneading his mother's breast for comfort, created that familiar prickle deep inside him.

He kissed Jesse's neck again and stroked fingers across his back, soothing, soothing him, while he whispered cruelty into the boy's ear.

"Men like Will will always leave you, Jesse, once they see how weak you are. But not men like me, Men who find beauty in your weakness. And it is so very beautiful."

Jesse let out an agonised sob that felt as if it broke something inside him, and Frost smiled. He rested his cheek against Jesse's back, and listened to the boy die inside.

* * * * *

Will woke tangled in his sheets and reached for his phone as it buzzed again. Just after midday. Fuck, he'd slept in.

He unlocked his phone and checked the text. It was a voice message. From Jesse.

He pressed 'play', dreading what it would say. The message, tinny through his phone's speakers, was short.

'Help me, please.'

Will sighed. He'd thought that telling Jesse he'd changed his number would be the end of these kinds of messages.

Still, he listened to it again.

Hearing Jesse's voice, so full of misery, was like being punched in the stomach, even after all this time.

He played it again.

'Help me, please.'

He did a quick calculation. Back in London it'd be roughly 3 a.m. Seemed about the time Jesse would usually decide his life was shit and reach out. But why now? Will had told him he'd changed his number so that Jesse would give up trying to contact him, but he'd kept his old SIM in the second slot in his phone when he'd taken a local Australian number.

It'd been a while, but from time to time Jesse would still send Will messages, thinking they were going to a dead number, telling Will what was going on in his life, every failed tryst, every broken moment of his misery, using Will's number like a diary he didn't think anyone would read.

And Will would read these heartfelt explosions of emotion, that were the equivalent of Jesse making collages using his own torn-out insides, and get that sinking feeling of guilt in his gut. But he still held on to the SIM, and dutifully paid the roaming charges. And he never told Jesse he got his texts.

He knew it was cruel, to cut off all contact, but after the accident that had claimed Jesse's brother, Nate, Will had realised that even after a year apart, Jesse was waiting for him to come home. He wasn't moving on. Instead of finding someone to share his life with, he'd become ever more isolated, obsessed with Will's life. And Will couldn't tell him what his life contained. Who it contained. He knew it'd kill the guy.

So after gently trying to convince Jesse for months to find someone to be with, he grew ever more uncomfortable with having to lie. And after Nate disappeared, and Jesse no longer had his brother to support him, Will knew he had to force his ex to move on, or his life would grind to a stand-still. And so he did what Nate had always told him he should, and pulled himself away.

And it'd hurt, and it'd fucking killed him, and he'd worried constantly. Messaged Lucy every day, until she told him to fuck off, she wasn't with Jesse anymore, and if Will had broken him, it was his job to fix him. She never really had forgiven him for forcing her and Jesse apart.

And soon he had no way to even covertly make sure Jesse was okay as he withdrew from his friends and abandoned his social media accounts. No one saw him, even at a distance, in the clubs he'd loved. Didn't go to his friends' parties, didn't go to the pub. Just disappeared.

But Will knew he hadn't gone anywhere. The locator app told him that Jesse had moved back to Bristol, working mostly from his flat. He knew where Jesse shopped on the rare occasion he left the house, where he bought takeaways, knew his routine rarely varied.

And then realised he'd become as obsessed with Jesse as Jesse had been with him, and stopped checking the app so often. And soon the only time he checked it was when Jesse sent him his dead diary entries, slices of his flesh in digital form, pieces of his broken heart assembled into flat text.

Will screenshotted and kept every one of them on his phone, so that he could delete the texts themselves. But every word was seared into his brain, every angry, hurt, miserable word. And the guilt burnt him numb, so that in time he read the words the way he'd view a picture of a starving child in a country too far away. He cared. But it no longer connected with his soul. He just didn't have any more emotional energy to give to his most epic fuck up to date.

He moved on. Well. He found someone to fuck. Then someone else. Sometimes they fell in love with him, and sometimes he fell in love with them. But he was always looking for something they didn't have. A darkness in their eyes, some emotional intensity that was never there. And so he fell out of love and moved on, doing his job, living the dream. Absolutely over Jesse.

He played the message again. As much as this wasn't an unusual sentiment from Jesse, something about his ex lover's voice was different. He'd always had a tendency to sound miserable, but he'd never sobbed. He sounded lower than Will had ever heard him. Lower than when they'd first broken up.

He played the message again, with a growing sense that something wasn't right.

'Help me, please.'

He got out of bed and padded barefoot across his room and found a pair of headphones. He plugged them into the jack and listened again.

'Help me, please.'

Was that...? He thought could hear someone else breathing. There was no way in hell Jesse would have sent him that message with another guy in bed beside him. Surely.

Unless he was actually in trouble.

Will pulled up the 'Friend Locator' app on his phone. He knew he should have deleted Jesse's profile from it a long time ago, but it was something to look at when he was at a cafe, or waiting for someone to turn up. Or unable to sleep, in the early hours of the morning.

He'd never seen this location come up on the app before. Jesse was somewhere in East London and had been there for a couple of hours according to the timestamp. Prior to that, he'd been at some gay club.

After Nate had disappeared, Will knew his apartment had stayed empty, the lease being paid from somewhere. And from time to time, Jesse would travel up to London and stay there, either for work or a special occasion. Like... his birthday. It was Jesse's twenty-fourth birthday.

Fuck. How the fuck did I miss that?

Will pulled up the address in Street View. It belonged to some shitty apartment building.

He frowned at the phone, and the feeling of unease in his gut increased. He pulled up Jesse's number and hovered his thumb over the 'call' button.

If he did this and nothing was wrong, he'd undo a year of extreme self control. The second he spoke to Jesse it would all come flooding back. How good it felt to have Jesse's body against his, to plunge inside him. How hungry he was for Will's touch, how eager he was to please him. How fucking naive he was. What a mess he was. How much Will missed him.

And if he's in trouble—real trouble—and you call his phone... Will might put him in more danger.

And if it was just Jesse regretting a casual fuck, sending him another heartfelt Dear Diary? Did Will really want to put his sanity at risk again?

He listened to the message one more time.

'Help me, please.'

That breath in the background, too heavy to be female. Almost a sigh of pleasure... while Jesse cried.

Fuck it. He switched on his laptop, then pulled on a pair of pants while the password screen booted. There he paused getting dressed and started booking his flight. The quickest available flight from Sydney to Heathrow would take twenty-four hours. Add another five hours for check in and then customs back in London...

He checked the time. If he booked this flight, he needed to be at the airport in two hours.

He blew out a long breath. It was going to cost a fortune to fly at two hours' notice.

Should he call the cops? Should he call Jesse? He was so far away, if Jesse was in immediate danger, he'd never get to him in time.

He stood undecided while he tossed up what to do. He couldn't call 999 from Sydney, but there had to be a local number.

He rang the nearest police station in London as he found a t-shirt and pulled it on, and got no reply.

Fuck!

He thought hard. If he got someone else to call it in, they'd need to say exactly what he told them to. There was only one person he trusted to do that.

He dialled Lucy's number.

"Hello? Will? What the fuck, it's fucking three in the morning!"

"Listen, Luce, please listen. Jesse's in trouble—"

"Oh, what a fucking surprise!"

"No, Lucy, listen." Will forced himself to stay calm. "I need you to call nine-nine-nine right now and say he's hurt and needs an ambulance."

"What?"

He heard bed sheets rustle as she sat up. Heard a voice in the background ask her what was going on, and her impatient reply to be quiet.

"I don't know what's happened, but he sent me a voice message. I don't want to call him back in case he's in real trouble and calling his phone lets someone else know I've got his message. This is very important Lucy. You have to tell them to send the police as well as an ambulance. Tell them he's taken something and he may be violent. You have to tell them he might be violent or they won't send the cops. Tell them he's taken pills. Okay?"

"Has he?" she said, her voice hitching. "Has he really?"

"I don't know," said Will. "I just know I'm over twenty-four hours away, and I don't want anyone getting hurt. Can you call them now?"

"Okay," she said. "I'll call you back right after."

"I'll text you the address details now."

He ended the call and texted her a screenshot of the address. There was no way of knowing exactly what level Jesse was on or which apartment he was in, but if they knocked on doors they'd find him. Will hoped they'd find him.

Lucy rang him back a short time later. "They're on their way," she said. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "What if they're too late?"

Will closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. Let it out again.

"He'll be okay Lucy. Look, I'm going to get on a plane and come home. I'll book a flexi ticket, and if I hear everything's fine in the next five hours I'll defer it to Christmas. But I don't want to waste any more time."

"Okay," she said, tears in her voice. "I'll let you know once I hear he's okay."

Will went back to booking his ticket, the knot in his gut growing tighter by the minute.

* * * * *

Jesse had stopped sobbing. In fact, Frost suspected he was asleep. He lay still in Frost's arms, his cheek pressed to the pillow, his breathing deep and even. Given the night he'd had, it didn't surprise Frost that he'd reached his limit.

He lay there, soaking up Jesse's heat, enjoying the feel of the boy's slim body against him. In this quiet moment, he wondered how long he should let him rest. The boy had spirit, and Frost had concerns about how physical he'd get once the drugs passed through his system.

Jesse stirred and let out a sigh, and Frost stroked fingers down the boy's arm, while he considered his options.

Voices in the corridor.

Frost froze and listened intently. Voices, and knocking on doors.

He got out of bed and looked around wildly. Jesse woke and looked around. His eyes grew wide as he realised where he was.

"Shut it!" Frost warned him, and crouched to pull things from his bag on the floor.

Jesse stilled, listening. Heard the voices. Knew what they meant.

"Help me!" he shouted. Or tried to shout. His throat was raw, and his voice was a harsh whisper.

Frost jumped onto the bed and pushed the boy flat, shoved his face against the pillow.

"I will suffocate you to death if you don't shut the fuck up."

He took his hand off the back of Jesse's head, and got off the bed again, collecting what he needed.

Jesse rolled off the bed, staggering, still not in command of his body.

"Help," he rasped, too weak to be heard. He made it to the door and slammed his hand flat against it. "Help me!"

Frost hooked an arm around the boy's neck and hauled him away from the door, propelling him back to the bed. He pushed tape across Jesse's mouth, then flipped him over and taped his hands together. He did the same with Jesse's ankles, then turned the boy back over. He slapped him hard, while Jesse tried desperately to make sounds with an unwilling throat.

"You have two choices. Keep this up, and when they've gone, I will cut that finger off. Or shut the fuck up and keep your finger another day. Your choice."

The voices and the knocking grew irrevocably closer until finally a knock came at his door.

The apartment was listed as empty. There was no reason for him to be there. If he didn't open the door and they wanted to come in, they needed to get the key from the slumlord, who was always out of the country and unreachable.

Frost stayed silent, readying his story if they managed to get the door open.

Who the hell had tipped them off? One of his neighbours? Impossible. There was never anyone in the corridor on the rare occasion he came and went, and there was another empty apartment between him and his nearest neighbour. The only way they'd hear anything is if they were in the hallway right outside his door during a confrontation, and Jesse hadn't had a chance to make any noise.

The knocking continued.

"Police, open this door."

For a moment the knocking stopped, and he imagined the officers debating whether or not to try and breach the lock.

A voice, muffled, called close to the door.

"Jesse? Jesse are you in there? Do you need help? We just want to talk to you and make sure you're all right. Can you open the door?"

Frost stayed still, his heart thudding against his ribcage. How? How?

He'd had possession of the boy's phone since they reached the apartment. No one had seen them come in. Had someone at the club seen them leave together?

Byron.

The voices and the knocking moved away, and Frost let out a sigh of relief. He patted Jesse's chest.

"Don't worry, we're safe."

Jesse just looked at him with tortured eyes.

That had been far too close for Frost's liking. He strode over to his jacket and took out his cellphone and dialled Byron.

The phone rang half a dozen times before the other man answered.

"What?"

"You fucking little cocksucker," growled Frost. "Did you tell the police Jesse was here at my apartment? What the fuck were you thinking?"