Lovely Bastards (BxB) (MxM)

Chapter 24 - Sweet Sixteen

The day Kitty died, something was off when Kit came home from school.  

He had turned his keys in the lock quietly, paused inside the door, held his breath, scanned the hallway for signs, listening like he always did.

Then his eyes snagged on a faint, dusty footprint on the threshold to the living room.

Everything seemed to sharpen around Kit at once as his emergency responses kicked in and he shifted his bag to his back, tucking the keys away silently and squaring his shoulders, mouth pressing into a thin line.

Murmuring voices - that could be Kitty dreaming, could be the TV - but sand from shoes - he hadn't left that - and a new smell in the air, a sour tinge. 

...Stale alcohol?

Should he get a weapon? Most could be taken away and used against you, and he didn't have time - one more second and she might -  

Kit brought up his phone and punched in 911, ready to press call if it came to that. 

And then he heard a laugh that wasn't hers - low and rough - and he balled his hands into fists, stalking through the doorway without hesitation, shoulders squared, eyes shooting daggers.

"Get out," he hissed.

There was only one man there and he might have been one of her old friends. He was young but looked old, wearing baggy washed-out clothes, his skin loose and wrinkled as if it had been wrung out and hung to dry on his bones. The look on his face was slack surprise. 

"Get the fuck out."

Striding forward, Kit grabbed the guy's arm, hauled him up before his surprise could fade, and dragged him bodily from the room, shoving him though the front door and aiming a kick at him so that he reared back.  

He slammed the door shut and locked it despite his mother's shrill protests. 

How had she even managed to let him in?

"You - you have no right to treat my friends like that - " she spit at him, coughing, as he strode back into the room. 

"Give it," he shot at her instead of replying.

"What?"

"Give me whatever he left you, give it!"

He grabbed her wrists (fuck, that would bruise, she bruised so easily now, but this was more important) and pried her fingers open.

Nothing.

"I don't - "

He dragged the blankets off her, shook them out, pushed her to the side to rifle through them.

"See, there's nothing - "

Got on his knees and pulled out a plastic freezer bag, rolled up around something and tied with a rubber band, from underneath the mattress where she must have hurried to tuck it away. Not a great hiding place, but then again he had only been out of the room for about ten seconds.

Kit held it up in front of her. Raised an eyebrow cooly, but inside he was fuming.

She grabbed for it and he snatched it away, snarling.

"Give it - please, Kit!"

"Fuck! No!"

Kit felt so tired, isolated and alone. They had no friends. No relatives. No money. Kitty couldn't leave her bed anymore without help and she was getting worse every day.

Sometimes, Kit longed for it to end - then spent day living in fear, wishing for more time with her, any time at all.

It had been so far gone when they found it that surgery and radiation wasn't an option, only chemo was. But she couldn't afforded it at first, couldn't  have afforded it at all if he hadn't  -