[I do not own Teen Titans or any characters mentioned in this story. I also do not own Benny's Breakfast House, that belongs to ConColor44. I'm finally finished writing it! This is a pretty long chapter compared to my others, but it's worth it because my baby finally has a steady love interest. Trigger warning for physical and verbal abuse. Not written out but implied that it happened in the past. Enjoy!]
After everything that had happened, Kyd was pretty upset. He didn't go to work or come out of his apartment at all for the next three days, and despite him being her best friend, Angel was almost afraid to talk to Kyd because of how he was being. He didn't eat, he didn't sleep, he just layed in bed and slaved over book upon book to distract himself.
Finally on the fourth day, Kyd decided to actually go out. He decided to drive to Benny's to pick Angel up since she opted to walk to work despite how terrible the weather was starting to get.
Kyd was driving down the road when it started to all out downpour, and he was starting to get the smallest bit worried. Finally, he came to a spot where he could just see a huge line of cars that never ended. He groaned in frustration before he smacked his head on the steering wheel, causing it to erupt in noise. Soon, there was a loud knocking on his window.
"What." He spat venomously at the drenched police officer outside of his car.
"Sorry son, but there's a hurricane headed here really quick. We're gonna need you to clear out of your car and head into one of the buildings here, find some shelter." The cop said in an unbearable southern accent. Wykkyd groaned even louder before he kicked open the car door, just barely missing the officer, and stormed towards the hidden portal unbeknownst to the cop. He was going to murder Angel when he found her.
When Kyd did make it into the thankfully warmer and drier diner, it seemed like everyone had simply disappeared. No Angel, no Kitten, just left on warm lighting and the soft buzz of a broken radio in the back.
"Kyd!" Came a surprised voice, which inevitably made Kyd nearly jump out of his skin.
"It's good to see you! I...I-I feel like I haven't seen you in forever man." Red-X said warmly as he approached Kyd and held his hand out for him to shake in greeting.
"I don't see why you would miss me, you've never even approached me to talk before this." Kyd replied bluntly, letting Red's hand hang awkwardly in the air as he laughed nervously.
"If you're looking for Angel, she's spending the night with Kitten since her apartment isn't too far from here." Red said as he continued picking up random plates and bowls from the empty booths. Kyd inwardly groaned at his irresponsible friend who was probably going to go missing when Kyd found her.
"You should stay here for the night. That's what I'm doing. From what Angel's told me you guys' apartment is pretty high up, it's dangerous with how bad the weather is getting." Red-X called from where he was while Kyd continued to walk towards the door.
"I'll take my chances." Kyd bit back over his shoulder. Kyd was almost to the door. He was just about to step out when-
"You're not alone." Came the strong voice of the boy who was staring at Kyd from behind like he'd grown two heads. Kyd slowly turned around halfway to glare at him, silently demanding further explanation.
"Y-you think you're alone...with the heartbreak. But...you're not. You don't have to go through everything alone. Other people know what it's like too." Said X in a wavering voice, growing meek under Wykkyd's very deadly glare. Kyd nearly teleported at lightning speed, centimeters from Red's face as he glared darkly.
"And what do you know of heartbreak, X? How could you, the average American Boy behind the cash register, possibly relate to what I'm going through?" Spat Kyd right in Red's face, Red completely unawares to the fact that Kyd actually had to stretch the smallest bit to match X's height. Upon Red's nervous stuttering, Kyd got out of his face and made a dramatic show of telling him off as he always did.
"You couldn't! You could never know what I'm going through because you've glided through life with everything handed to you on a silver, white privileged platter. You've at least known what it's like to be loved by any one person. A) you're white, B) you're straight, and C) you're pretty. You haven't had to claw your way out of literal hell, only for the world to spit in your face over and over and over again despite your intentions!" Kyd yelled in a dangerously happy voice. Red-X just sat there and let him talk, visible seeing changes in Kyd's demeanor now that he actually had someone to yell at.
"Fight back! Yell at me! Do something! Tell me I don't have the right to yell at you and that I'm worth nothing and- and-" Kyd screamed as tears started running down his cheeks. Red was up in an instant, now embracing Wykkyd and sitting them both down on the floor so he could properly cry into Red's shoulder.
"You're not worthless." Red said in a small voice after a few minutes of Kyd being inconsistent between crying and punching at Red-X's chest.
"Please, stay. Truth is, I'm worried about you. I feel like if you're left by yourself for a lot longer you'll end up getting hurt. Just until the storm clears up, please?" He said in a soft voice that surprised even Red himself.
Kyd nodded his head grudgingly as he wiped his sleeve over his face.
Red started to softly grab Kyd's hand, leading him to stand up and follow Red to the kitchen where Kyd jumped up and sat on the counter. Red followed suit, grimacing when he hit his head on a cabinet.
"So," Began X, finally breaking the solid silence between the two boys.
"Angel tells me you're good with relationship advice. I...I mean, I thought I was straight. But then this...this guy has the nerve to just waltz into my life like some asshole and turn everything I thought I knew about attraction completely upside down and I...I don't really know what to do anym-" X ranted, though he was stopped short by Kyd holding his hand up.
"Lovely story, but sorry. I've called off relationships of any kind for a while." Kyd said tiredly, emotionally drained for the next week at the least.
"Look, I'm sorry but I just can't right now Malth-" Began Kyd with a hand rubbing circles into his temples.
"Jason." Red X corrected quietly.
"Jason?" Kyd questioned as he tilted his head in a curious manner.
"Jason. Jason Todd. I...I go by Maltheus Gregory because, well, Jason Todd died six years ago. It's a thrilling epic but, long story short, Jason Todd isn't supposed to exist anymore. So, to stay undercover, I go by Maltheus." Jason explained morbidly.
"Um, Elliot. Okay but, why are you telling me this?" came Kyd's response followed by silence.
"I trust you." Jason answered simply with a serious, burning stare that seemed to dig down into Kyd's soul. There was a quiet silence between the two once again before Jason finally decided to break it.
"What kind of music do you like?" he said suddenly.
In about an hour, the two were lying down on their backs on a floor to a room that Kyd didn't even know existed. It was some break room that Kitten, Angel, and X had filled with random things to do. It was beautiful, it was warm and welcoming, with a faint dust of orangish yellow lighting from the christmas lights hanging by the ceiling.
The two were staring at the ceiling, upside down compared to each other as the sound of terrible pop music flooded the room with their hearty laughter. Turns out, Jason Todd wasn't the worst person possible to get stuck with during a storm, and little did Kyd know, but Jason was pretty sure that if Kyd giggled like that one more time he was going to scream out of sexual frustration. There was a comfortable silence in the room before X finally said something that changed the mood completely.
"Why do you throw yourself away all the time?" X asked with a concerned frown, feeling slightly guilty for being able to take away Kyd's smile so fast. When met with deafening silence, he continued.
"Why do you let all these guys I've seen you flirt with in the cafe, all these people Angel says you've been with, think you care about them? Why do you let them think it's okay to treat you like trash even though you're the one letting them have the privilege to talk to you?" followed by more silence and the slight drag of Kyd picking at the grain of the floor.
"Every single guy you've been with in there, I've seen them love you and then hurt you and then leave you and they don't care, and neither do you. They don't deserve you, they don't deserve your smile or your laugh or your twisted humor, they've done nothing to earn it."
"That day you walked in here to pick Angel up, I fell in love with you Wykkyd. That stupid smirk you always have, the way you walk like you own everyone and everything in the room, I love your snarky humor and your sarcasm and your sass and I...I love you and I just want to know what they're doing that I'm not. What do I have to do to earn you? What do I have to do to make you love me?" Jason demanded with a wavering voice, scared of his own emotions as they bubbled up through his throat like rising sickness, bringing tears with them.
Silence. Deadly, deafening silence that left both parties feeling numb with a heavy weight atop their chests.
"Someone hurt you, Kyd. Someone hurt you really bad. I can see it in the way you hold yourself and I just-" Red said after a long period. He reached over and grabbed Kyd's hand softly, causing him to finally turn and look at X.
"-I just want to make you see what I see." Jason said quietly.
Kyd closed his eyes and turned back toward the ceiling before he finally spoke.
"...Do you know what love is like in hell? Because it's even worse than it sounds." Said Kyd in a gravelly voice.
"It isn't even 'love'. Two demons find each other when they need someone, whether that be because they're breaking down from no moral support, they're simply lustful, greedy, or in need of an offspring to carry on their name. The two demons stay together for however long they need to be considered independent again, and then they rip each other apart from the inside out. The weakest or the most kind hearted either dies or is left a hollow shell of themselves, and the stronger one walks away with everything it needs." Wykkyd explained in a tone that was void of any heart or emotion. He described a scene that Jason felt horrified of.
"I fell in love with a monster that I'd fooled myself into thinking was a prince. He was the very first person I'd ever met outside of hell, he was the one that showed me to the academy. He was like me; he came from a terrible, hellish place outside of Earth and he was looking to better himself somehow. I trusted him, and he used my naiveness and my trust against me over and over again. He made me think that the world was out to get me, he made me a weapon that he could command anytime he thought it'd be fun to watch." Kyd explained further, staring up at the ceiling hatefully as if he was looking right into the eyes of his betrayer.
"He took everything from me. My hope, my earnings, my...innocence. Everyday he would hurt me, be it verbally or physically - usually both. And I thought it was okay because where I'd come from, that was normal. He could've very well killed me like how I thought it was supposed to be, but instead he demanded I stay alive so that he could toy with me and break me over and over again, every single day. The worst part was that I loved him. I loved him with every inch of my heart like he was the very oxygen I breathed. I knew it was wrong but I loved him anyway, and if I were to come face to face with him today, I wouldn't have the strength to do anything to him. I couldn't face him again without breaking down. I throw myself away because it's the only way to numb the pain of everything that's happened. When I let those other guys hurt me, it's the closest I come to feeling in love again." Wykkyd finished, letting one dry tear roll down his chalky face. Even more silence, the steady breathing of the two pretty screwed up males being the only sound besides the quiet radio.
"That's not love, Elliot. That's abuse. That's brainwashing. I know it hurts to even think about letting someone get close to you again, I know you're scared that someone's going to really hurt you again but...I just...I love you, really love you. That in itself took me a long time to admit. I want to show you what real love is." Jason explained before he gave Kyd's hand a reassuring squeeze.
"I want to make you feel like you were never meant to be anything but loved." he finished finally.
"How do I know you mean that?" Kyd said doubtfully, letting all of his emotions come out on full display for once.
"Because if I didn't, I wouldn't go through all of the trouble of paying a cop thirty bucks, bribing both Angel and Kitten to disappear for a night, and setting up the perfect setting just to spend a couple of hours alone with you." Came Jason's reply, desperately hoping that comment didn't get him punched in the face.
"I...I think I love you too." Kyd said finally before he got up from where he was lying and opted instead to lay next to Jason, cuddling into his chest. By Mephistopheles - he'd forgotten how much he'd missed genuine, real physical contact with someone you cared about.
Jason shakily moved one of his arms from where they were positioned behind his head to cradle Kyd's waist and bring them closer, nervous as ever of the whole situation and blushing like a pre-teen.
"Y'know, I've never been with a boy before." Jason said nervously as a honeydew blush stayed permanently blossoming on his cheeks. Elliot smiled to himself in his catlike position at the way he could feel Jason's chest rising with every nervous laugh and deep breath, blushing the smallest bit himself.
"So...that means you've never been kissed by one, I presume?" Kyd asked as he uncurled himself just slightly to get centimeters from Jason's face. Jason slowly grew redder and redder with every passing second, nearly fainting at the way Elliot looked when the lights from the ceiling circled around him like a halo. He shook his head a simple no, white and black hair flying wildly around his skin.
Kyd chuckled mischievously as he leaned over and placed a sweet kiss to Jason's lips. The kiss was unlike any Kyd had ever had, and it was just so Jason. It was soft and kind and sweet, not pushy or lustful, just full of unspoken worship and love. Jason slowly turned on his side and pulled Kyd even closer to him, letting their body temperatures mingle with each other.
When the pair pulled away, they just stayed in the same position, holding on to each other like they were lifelines. Jason had never seen Kyd with such an adoring expression before. They just held on to each other whispering 'I love you' in hushed awe, like it was a new development.
When the storm had finally died down, Angel and Kitten found the two with sleepy smiles that look almost painful as they were cuddled together asleep in the other's arms.
[I don't know why I like this couple so much? I really just wanted to try my hand at a new ship. Kudos to HaveYouBeenAlumnus for (sort of?) guessing who Kyd ends up with. Also, do not mistake my Jason Todd for DC's Jason Todd because, if you haven't noticed, DC has a lovely habit of taking amazing characters and raking them through the mud for no real reason /glares in the direction of Jericho's media/. They also keep his personality and sexuality relatively inconsistent in their comics so :/. Read and review! And please tell me what you think of this couple and how well I portrayed them!]
