its 5am and i love you. in 2 years im going to love you. 5 months ago i loved you. 5 years, 2 days and 6 minuets i will love you. when im 70 years old and sitting on my porch in a big white house on a lake, i will love you. i just hope you are there for all the time i will love you

Sam sighs, winces to himself and tightens his grip on the piece of paper in his hand. There are tearstains and wet, smeared marks here and there, and he's not even ashamed to admit that they're his own. It's not like he expected it to be any easier. He bites his full lower lip for a fraction of a second, closes his eyes as he thinks.

He sighs, shuffles himself absently on his bed in a desperate attempt to settle himself, and smoothes out the paper with his fingers. It remains crinkled (a fact which infuriates him despite everything else on his mind) against his pillows and he frowns. He wipes at his eyes forcefully with his fingers.

He's leaving in four hours for Tennessee. He doesn't want to go –doesn't want to leave the only place that ever even remotely felt like 'home' to him. As much as he loves his home state, it's not 'home' –not now, in any case. He doesn't even miss it.

He sucks in a breath and flattens the paper again, writes his name messily at the bottom and folds it in half, squeezes it into a slightly-too-small envelope, blinking ferociously to stop the tears. He writes a name on the closed envelope in the neatest cursive he can manage (which is still dishevelled in what he hopes is an endearing way), tucks it into his pocket and heads outside.

He hesitates for a moment outside the motel door, and wonders whether this is such a good idea. He looks at the family car –stuffed full of almost everything they have left- and knows it's too early in the day to drive it. The shuttering noise it makes when it starts is bad enough at a reasonable hour, let alone at half past five in the morning.

So he walks.

His destination is a good fifteen minutes across town, but he detours to the store and picks up a few breakfast bars that happen to be on offer for everyone to eat on the journey. He also leaves with a bunch of flowers that he had no conscious intention of purchasing in the first place.

It's six fifteen when he arrives at his destination, flowers wrapped in a plastic bag the store had been gracious enough to give him for free. He swallows, realizing that it's still far too early to go knocking on people's doors unannounced, so he circles around the house and finds the one window that opens into the basement. It's cracked open, luckily, but it's not enough for him to fit through. He kneels, pushes the window open wide (it creaks ominously and he winces) and leans in carefully, ducks through the frame and drops the flowers and the letter on the vanity table below. The plastic crinkles as it hits the wood. The recipient shuffles in their sleep and rolls over. Sam hesitates for a moment, just to survey them and take in everything about them for one last time before he shimmies out of the window and pulls it closed again.

He jogs back home, in a desperate attempt to make himself tired so he can at least get an hour's rest before his mother wakes everyone up to get them ready to leave. It feels like he's barely thrown himself down under the sheets when his mother's shaking him awake, when it's actually just past eight fifteen.

"Sammy, one of your friends is here to see you." Her voice is hushed, quiet –Stacy and Stevie must still be asleep. "I think they want to say goodbye."

Sam goes stumbling gracelessly to the door, tugging his shirt onto his shoulders as he trips into the doorway, looking up to see the figure of one Kurt Hummel squinting into the morning glow of the sun.

"Is this yours?" Kurt asks quietly, holding up the letter Sam had deposited through his window less than three hours earlier. Sam swallows.

"I mean, you're the only Sam I know." Kurt says with a soft smirk, taking a step towards the blonde.

"Kurt, I-" Sam starts, rubbing at the back of his neck absently as he thinks. Kurt cuts him off quickly.

"Why now, Sam?" Kurt looks up at the blonde, and Sam looks back at him through his bangs. "You're leaving in, what, an hour? Why now?"

His voice is wet. Sam swallows, glances at him with damp eyes.

"Because I couldn't leave you like that." Sam says eventually, and Kurt steps impossibly closer and draws him into a hug.

"You stupid boy." Kurt says into the blonde's shoulder. "You stupid, stupid boy."

Sam nuzzles against Kurt's barely styled hair and mutters, 'I know'.

Kurt pulls away from him for a fraction of a second to glare at the sky as a few spots of rain start to fall. Sam smiles at him, his eyes still sad as he takes in Kurt's eyes and the smooth curve of his cheeks.

"I'll call." Sam says softly, tugging Kurt back into his grasp.

"You'd better." Kurt laughs wetly against Sam's rain-dampened neck. The blonde smiles. Kurt looks up through his bangs (now starting to stick to his forehead) and the blonde presses a kiss to the top of the smaller boy's forehead.

Kurt pulls away quickly and Sam cocks his head.

Kurt mutters an 'I love you' against Sam's mouth as he presses their lips together, and the blonde smoothes his fingers down the gentle curve of Kurt's back as he sighs into the kiss.

Sam's mother has to prise them apart when it hits nine am, and Kurt stands on the porch of the motel and watches as he helps pack what remains of their belongings into the trunk of the car.

"Kurt," Sam says as he steps back from the car after securing Stacy inside, "come here."

The brunette steps towards him, squinting against the brighter sunlight and surveys the blonde with a quizzical expression. Sam kisses him once on the forehead.

"I meant it," he says, taking Kurt's hand in his own, "when I said I would love you. No matter how much distance is between us. I'll wait for you."

Kurt looks up at him, takes in the ferocious green in the other boy's eyes and nods.

"I will love you, too."