Tugger didn't return to the Junkyard. He didn't know if there was anything left for him there. He knew that they wouldn't understand his belief in Mistoffelees. No, they hated him for certain now. And Tugger did not hate Mistoffelees in the slightest.

So he wandered the streets half-drunk, slipping just barely away from screeching tires and slobbering dogs. But he couldn't hunt. Not with so much competition for food. Within weeks, his ribs were clear beneath his ragged fur.

And when he was flat on his back on some anonymous street, his eyelids twitching and his eyes misty, dragging in air and wheezing it out, Mistoffelees did come. Tugger smirked when he saw the familiar tuxedo figure looming over him.

"There you are," he said.

"You look like shit," Mistoffelees said bluntly. "You're an idiot, you know?"

"You wound me," Tugger said. He felt dizzy.

Mistoffelees bent down. "It's too late for us, you know," he said. He didn't sound remotely upset. Tugger wanted to scream at him. Not too late. Never too late.

"That's okay," he said instead. "I'll find some attractive queen to live the rest of my life with."

"You go do that," Mistoffelees said, awfully condescending.

"You can too," Tugger urged.

"No, I can't."

"A tom."

"Don't be stupid."

"Stupidity comes with the job, my dear," Tugger murmured, eyes slipping shut.

"Job?"

"Being a heartthrob, you know?"

Mistoffelees chuckled.

"Well, Tugger, I wish you well. Wherever you hope to go."

"Yes, you too."

"Okay then. Bye."

Tugger smiled. Mistoffelees stood up again, looked down at Tugger for another minute. Tugger's eyelids fluttered a little and his mouth fell slack. It was then, looking down upon the tom he'd wanted for a full year, that Mistoffelees relented. He fell to his knees, pulled Tugger up, kissed him, kissed him, kissed him. Wondered why Tugger wasn't kissing back.

They'd never win. And before Tugger's blind eyes, Mistoffelees fell to his knees and screamed.

Screamed, screamed, screamed himself awake.

It was no ordinary dream. Not with the way his head was pounding, claws gouging the fleabitten blankets he was wrapped in as sparks of magic faded from the skins of his eyes. This had never happened to him before, but he knew what it meant. It was a shadow of the future presenting itself to him.

Tugger would die, and all because of him.

Mistoffelees went back to the Junkyard, breaking all of the promises he'd made to himself again. He had to know where Tugger was, if he was safe or if he was already dead.

He could've cried in relief when he found the tom he was looking for curled up in his den, face tucked behind an arm. He didn't look too well, Mistoffelees noted. His fur was rumpled and unwashed, the den itself stinking of alcohol. He hadn't left the Junkyard, but if things kept going this way, it was an inevitability. Mistoffelees couldn't help but curse under his breath. How was he to fix this when all he was capable of doing these days was breaking things?

Tugger stirred and Mistoffelees was helpless, frozen in place, as Tugger moved his arm away from his face and looked straight into Mistoffelees' eyes.

"So you're back," he said simply.

"Don't leave the Junkyard," Mistoffelees said, voice terse. "Stay here, where it's safe."

"What does that even mean, Misto? And why do you think I want to leave?" Tugger laughed dully, but the laugh quickly turned into a cough. It was about a minute before he was fit to speak again. "It's not like everyone's pissing me off with all their accusations about you. And I totally enjoy being told I'm wrong, and no one believing me, when I say that you're still good at the core." Tugger hauled himself to his feet. "They won't come near me, because I'm a Mistoffelees sympathiser. What the fuck? How did they all become so prejudiced, so wrong, these people I love?"

"They're not wrong," Mistoffelees said, his voice little more than a breath. Tugger, meanwhile, didn't stop in his advance. "Believe them, please. I've become a monster."

Tugger was right in front of Mistoffelees now, and wasn't this becoming all-too-familiar, the warmth of Tugger's body and his honeyed gaze so close that Mistoffelees could see all the flecks of brown and yellow through his eyes? Tugger's hand rose, trembling, to hover by Mistoffelees' cheek. "I'm sorry," Tugger whispered. "But you just don't look like a monster to me. If there's one time I can choose to be right about my feelings, it's this. Bast, please. I don't even know, but I think I love you."

Mistoffelees flinched, feeling as though Tugger's words were punching into him. His eyelids shivered, but he couldn't break his gaze away from Tugger's, couldn't break this connection, not now. He was shaking all over, his thoughts simultaneously all over the place and flowing towards a simple conclusion.

Why didn't I realise it before? Mistoffelees thought wonderingly. Love is destruction. It's the breaking apart of the alignment of all the pieces of me into a whole new shape, a shape that fits into you. Love is,

"I'm sorry," Mistoffelees whispered,

it is disposing of my foolish pride as I admit to you all my sins and realise that you're still waiting for me, even now..

"Forgive me. Please…" He stepped into Tugger's arms and it was natural. He was intrinsically aware of the slow beating of his own heart, calm only in the way it could be after he killed. The magic was satisfied, satisfied with this, and was he an idiot?

"Nothing to forgive," Tugger breathed, resting his cheek on the top of Mistoffelees' head.

"Are you sure about this?" Mistoffelees asked, unable to help himself, though he still tucked himself closer to Tugger. "The Jellicles won't ever want me back, and-"

"I don't give a fuck," Tugger said. "Stop talking about them. We're going to make a new life away from all of this. I know what you want to say, that it's not that easy at all. True, but what else do we have left for us? We can… I don't know. Salvage whatever we can, scrape together a little home. It'll be enough, right?"

"You'd… leave the Jellicles to be with me?"

"I've been thinking about it all the time," Tugger said simply.

And after that, it was only right for Mistoffelees to tilt his head back and finally, finally, kiss Tugger properly. Tugger's lips were full and moist, moving gently, reverently over Mistoffelees' own lips. It was unexpectedly sweet, especially from the usually lustful tom, and Mistoffelees was overwhelmed with warmth.

Perhaps Mistoffelees was caught up in Tugger's optimism, but he was more than ready to try out this new life that Tugger had so easily proposed.

a/n: so, originally i ended the fic with tugger dying because i was super into writing bad endings at that stage of my life. but i'm basically a GIANT SAP these days so i wrote an ending full of cheese. first half is entirely from 2011, last half is all new (and all 3am incoherent blather! yay!) – so it's not exactly the most cohesive or fluid of my stories, but ah well. i'm basically putting all my fic writing time into 'scars like spiderwebs' right now.

hope you enjoyed this little fic!