Into Sunday

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One more Saturday, one more week, one more night with that little gold crucifix stuffed in the nightstand, drawer closed, jostling for space with a Gideon bible and years worth of dust in the corners. One more night illegally spent in a motel room they hadn't paid for, but damn it if there was anywhere else to go, not with Xavier at the Institute and Freddy always home at the boardinghouse, even on Saturday nights, when everyone else could be gotten rid of, and Todd wouldn't do this in an alleyway, damned if he would.

They'd meet at the park, in the amphitheatre the community played Shakespeare at every summer, that little dent in the ground, and when Kurt arrived Todd would already be sitting there, listening to crickets in the long grass by the creek, sometimes smoking that long, endless chain of Camel cigarettes that made him reek of tobacco and yellowed his fingers, not to mention his teeth, and sent long, twirling bands of smoke up into the sky, twisting gracefully on summer air. Todd would grin, and wasn't that a grin? That kind of grin he saw so rarely, the one that said all was right with the world and he was really happy, if just for a moment. Todd grinned like that so little.

He'd sit down next to him and sometimes they'd talk, and Todd would laugh sometimes, and that made it seem almost worth all the hell they were causing themselves. Though sometimes he would remember not to laugh with him, not when Amanda was still going with him at school, not when Amanda was the one his parents wanted to meet when they came to visit, not when Amanda was the one he knew sometimes looked through bridal magazines at the bookstore with her friends, carrying on a little girl's lifelong fascination with that day (one she'd never even implied might be with him, but one he thought might be, just the same.) And usually, always, in fact, he'd reach out and touch Todd's arm, and they'd disappear with a flash, leaving the amphitheatre deserted in the cool night air.

They'd reappear in Housekeeping on the Holiday Inn, a room that was always quiet and closed this time of night, and sneak out into the hallway, listening at doors for voices, or snoring, or breathing, and they'd get into them the same way they got into the motel itself.

In the dark on muffling carpet, Todd would kiss him first. Todd always kissed him first, touching the side of his face carefully, fingers barely touching the corner of his jaw, almost like they were a real couple, almost. And, because it was alright in the dark, Kurt kissed him back, but his hands went behind his own neck, finding the tiny clasp on the necklace his mother had given him, the cross that had been his grandfather's, the gold cross that had survived economic depression and wars and revolution, and for this time and this time only Kurt pulled it off his neck, as if somehow, it's absence disclaimed his actions before the Lord.

Just once, when the street lamp had come in under the curtains, light enough to see by, Kurt had seen Todd's expression while the boy waited patiently for him to dispose of the cross, a dull expression, a hurt, resigned expression, as if accepting that maybe Kurt had right to be ashamed. Ashamed to do the things he did to Todd, when Amanda still stood at the forefront. Ashamed to adore the dip of Todd's belly, the scar on his shoulder, the bones of his hip. Ashamed to have sunk so low as to seek comfort in HIM.

Kurt would come back and put his arms around Todd, and kiss him again, and Todd would be everywhere, adoring a tail only because it was Kurt's tail, worshipping fur just because it was HIS fur, with the fervency of someone who believes they'll never get another chance to do it. And he'd kiss all the things that Kurt found ugly, and, on the bed, show him just how much he adored them.

Saturday night, the very end of it, anyway, would be spent in his own bed, cross back around his neck and Todd out somewhere in the night, smoking or sleeping or whatever Todd did when they were finished. And Sunday morning he'd be up again, washed and dressed and off to church he'd go, usually with Amanda, watching her fingers telling the beads, telling himself he loved those fingers because they were her fingers, because she was here with him, because she sang soprano hymns on bright Sunday mornings in the daylight, and because she was soft, and beautiful, and she loved him.

And after church, he would stay, and go on his knees, and beg forgiveness.

One more week. One more Saturday. One more night.

On and on, until something broke.

Oh please god, don't let it be him.