Title: Two AM

Rating: PG-13

For: sexual references and Smoking!Angst!Todd

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It occurred to Todd, somewhere between snubbing out his third cigarette and lighting up his fourth, that there was something wrong. It wasn't an unusual feeling; Todd usually felt that there was something wrong, especially within the little sphere of his habitation, more especially, within himself. And it didn't make any sense, because finally, for once in his life, something was going so very right.

It was night out, creeping towards morning, and Todd was sitting at a table by the window, in a room that was becoming murky with cigarette smoke. A glass ashtray sat in the middle of the table, collecting butts and bottle caps, and catching the pink and green neon light of the sign outside that stared in through the window and turned everything alien shades. This wasn't his room; it was just A Room, where outside somewhere a dog was barking and inside, Kurt was snoring, quietly. He was twisted up on the bed, tangled in the sheets with his hair going every direction, head nowhere near the pillows, and the end of his tail twitching, twitching. His fur held the smell of him. Tonight he'd smell like sweat and sex and Todd; tomorrow he'd smell like stale cigarettes, and nights ill spent in a motel room. His fur was still damp, his mouth was still darkened. He'd been used and abused to the limit of his tolerance, and damned if he hadn't loved it.

Though that was a dangerous word, wasn't it, dangerous to use for him, because Todd could say that he loved Kurt, could say that he adored him, needed him, that Kurt ran through his bloodstream, had invaded his mind, had stolen his soul and his heart and whatever was inside there instead was too big, far too big; it choked him, sometimes, that thing where his heart should be. And he could say that Kurt could have his heart, and his soul, and anything else he asked for. He'd give him bones, if he wanted them, femur and ribs and vertebra and clavicle. If Kurt asked him to he'd gut himself out, hollow his skin, give him everything. Everything.

And his reward would be a smile, and a laugh, and Kurt would babble something in German, something that may or may not be "I love you," but Todd would never know because Todd couldn't bring himself to look it up, to borrow one of those German to English phrase books at the library and go through until he found the meaning of it. He couldn't. Because he didn't know.

And damned if the idea didn't terrify him. When Kurt kissed him that way, when Kurt pushed him down against the mattress, ran fingers over his ribs, over old scars Todd hated but Kurt insisted on touching, insisted on mapping and placing kisses over. When Kurt slept beside him on his shoulder (until morning now, now that they were old enough), when Kurt got down on his hands and knees in the shower and did things no one had ever done to Todd before, that had always been exclusively his to give… He was afraid. He loved him so much, was afraid he might go mad if (when) he leaves him, was afraid it was all just a joke, still waiting somehow for the punchline to hit and garrote him there on the motel floor. He was afraid Kurt would find somebody better. Someone normal, someone who didn't have scars on the backs of his thighs, someone he could move in with, someone who didn't panic whenever Kurt tried to be on top because damned if he could let anyone do that again, not when it still hurt sometimes, not when he still had nightmares sometimes, though it had been ten years since the fact.

One day, and he knew this to be true, Kurt would look at him, and he would see him, and he'd realize what an awful mess he was, what a nasty, loathsome creature he was. He'd ask himself why he'd ever wanted him, why he'd ever let Todd do the things he did to him, in dark, stale motel rooms in the middle of the night. Maybe dealing with Todd would finally get to be too much for him. There would be one too many arguments, one too many nights when Kurt came on too strong and Todd couldn't get an erection because of it, one day too long of trying to hold Todd together when Todd couldn't do it, a day too long of Todd needing him so much more than he needed Todd.

It was wrong. It was all wrong.

Sometimes he almost wished Kurt would hate him. With hate, you always know where you stand. There's never a day when they wake up into a bright, April morning and suddenly STOP hating you. You always know why, and you always know how much, and when they want to tell you that they hate you they say it to you in English, because they want you to understand, they want you to feel it, and they don't want you to ever forget it.

Hate was as strong as love, after all. Sometimes, they were almost the same thing.

The clock said 2:19. The ember hit the filter and Todd snubbed the cigarette out in the ashtray. He made no pretense of waiting this time; he opened the paperboard box and took out another cigarette, stuck it in his lips, and lit it with the little blue and silver Zippo lighter Kurt had given him last year on his birthday. He was past the point of tasting it. It went in, and out, as easily as the air. He tossed the lighter back on the table, where it clattered and skid and came to rest against the heavy glass ashtray. He heard a breath from the bed. A first breath, a waking breath. Kurt opened his eyes and blinked at the dark, lifting his head blearily to look around the room. Todd watched him. He squinted at Todd's silhouette at the window, outlined with pink and green neon from the sign outside. Kurt mumbled something. Thick, muddled, and German.

"Go back to sleep." Todd said softly, around his cigarette. Kurt blinked and snuffed, like a dog, reaching across the bed to the space Todd should be occupying, but wasn't. Kurt didn't wake up well. Todd knew this fact, embraced it, used it. The boy propped himself up on his elbow.

"You, too." He mumbled.

Todd shook his head. "Naw. I'm fine right here, dawg. Just go back to sleep."

Kurt frowned, narrowing his eyes in a muggy attempt at thought. He grumbled something, then, with a great feat of effort considering what time it was, and crawled down the side of the bed, clumsily balancing himself with his tail. He lumbered across the few feet of space between him and the table, sat down at Todd's feet, and dropped his heavy head against Todd's knees. After a moment, his eyes slipped shut again. Todd ran his fingers absently through Kurt's hair, smoothing the night time tangles back into order. Kurt began to make a vague rumbling sound, a sound he only made when he was nearly asleep, or had been very well taken care of in the bed. Todd supposed he could call it a purr. The corner of his mouth twitched up into an almost smile, though it hurt a little to do it. "Damn, dawg." He mumbled, running his fingers lightly down Kurt's face, brushing his lips with his thumb. "Why'd you make me love you so much?"

Kurt opened an eye to a slit, barely there.

"L've vou too." He slurred.

Todd blinked at him, but Kurt's eyes slid shut again and the purring went on, drowsily. Only for a little while. And then he was asleep again.

Todd leaned back in the chair, and watched him. And smoked.