Kit knew his own handiwork. Those were the first gifts he’d ever given his beloved. For this stranger to dare -

“Kit?”

Was it possible? Kit shook his head and dragged the impostor under the bleachers. “If you don’t tell me who you are right now-“

“It’s me. Josh.” A small look and a trembling lip that were too familiar. A hiccup. “Sasha sent me. It is you, right? Kit?”

Oh god. “Sweetheart.”

Kit wrapped the suddenly sobbing teen up in a hug and rubbed Josh’s back as he let the tears flow. Josh had always been a bit of a crybaby.

When the tears died down, Kit pulled Josh into his lap. “Can you tell me what happened? There’s no magic here, how did you even bring my gifts?”

“Sasha,” that familiar hiccup, “she worked a spell. You got cursed, put into a story. This is my third story trying to find you and I can’t believe I actually did it.”

“Put into a story?”

Josh nodded. “Someone put a curse on the bed that pulled you into one of those fiction stories. The thing is, if you’re in the story you can change bits of it. And if you don’t play the story out the right way then you don’t get to ‘happily ever after’ and the story never ends so the curse stays in place forever and in the real world you’re basically just sleeping for the rest of time and -“

“Shhhh,” Kit soothed. “Easy. What kind of story am I in?”

Josh scrunched his nose up in distaste. “Romance, of all things. Some confusing story about finding love in a world where magic doesn’t exist. I think you’re the main character, so you need to find this girl and take her out on dates and stuff. She’s going to start by asking you to pretend to be her boyfriend to get this stalker guy to back off and then-“

Kit interrupted the boring plot line by giving Josh a fierce, desperate kiss.

He couldn’t help it! The days since they’d met had been too long, and Kit didn’t really care that they were in a world without magic or that their bodies weren’t quite right. His cute little kitten was in his lap and Kit wanted to pounce on that tempting morsel. They tumbled a bit beneath the bleachers until Josh was laying on his back and Kit was kneeling over him, still touching and smiling and panting.

It took a moment for Kit to take in the fact that Josh was laying on their bed, in their room, and was his normal adorable self.

“What happened,” Josh almost pouted as he looked around. “The story-“

“Didn’t matter,” Kit laughed. “It was a curse, not a spell. And what breaks all curses?”

Josh blushed red from the tips of his ears as far down as Kit could see. “A kiss?”

“True love’s kiss,” Kit corrected, landing a small peck of a kiss on Josh’s nose. “My mate. Shall I see how far down that blush goes?”

“Kit!” Josh almost yelped.

Kit buried his smile in Josh’s collar, using his face to nudge aside Josh’s shirt. “Is your belly red? What about your legs? Hmmm… do feet blush?”

Kit was going to have fun finding out. Exploring his mate was an excellent celebration of returning. And when they were done…

When the sun rose Kit would hunt down the rebel that dared separate him from Josh for even a moment. But first, he had a meal before him and Kit was starving.