Gift for pancakespin!
Recipient's LJ Name: pancakespin
Title: The Trip
Pairing: Kurt Hummel/Dave Karofsky
Length: 3730
Warnings:none
Summary: Some times a simple trip becomes something more complicated.
Kurt was standing at the side of the bed and staring into the suitcase when Dave walked into their bedroom. "Weather report says there's another storm coming down out of the Maritimes."
"I saw that earlier, it won't hit until long after our flight has taken off. I keep on thinking that I've forgotten to pack something."
Dave sat down next to the suitcase and began poking his way through it. "I can't imagine what you could have forgotten, Kurt. It looks like you've got more here than we could possibly need. Wouldn’t we be better off just taking as much as we can in as carry-on and not taking any luggage that will have to be checked?"
"I doesn't hurt to be prepared, David. You never know what could happen."
"We're flying to Ohio, not going on a trip around the world, Kurt."
"One day you'll be glad that I'm the one doing all our packing."
“I’m sure I will.”
Two hours later Kurt deems their packing complete and Dave takes all of their luggage out to the car so that they wouldn't have to worry about it in the morning.
**
Most of Lansdale County is still asleep as Dave drives them towards Windsor Locks, and the airport early the next morning. There’s a definite bite of winter in the air and they’re both thankful to get into the warmth of the airport. Dave can’t help but notice that despite their flight still showing as on-time, there are a lot of delays and cancellations on the flight boards. He hopes that this means they’ll reach their destination without any hassles, unlike the other flights.
They have been in the air for almost an hour before the pilot announces that they are being redirected and grounded in Albany, New York to wait out the storm. Many of the surrounding passengers grumble about this, Kurt included. Dave doesn’t say a word. He’s not the best flier during good weather and the turbulence of the last twenty minutes has him contemplating the air-sick bags. He’ll be happy to be back on solid ground. Maybe they can find a quiet spot in the airport in Albany where he can sit long enough to have his stomach settle down once more.
The flight boards in Albany are filled with cancellations. There were no flights leaving in the near future and even if there was, they probably wouldn’t be on the same plane as before. Which means that they’d be going on without their luggage. It's suggested that they settle in, and that hopefully the weather will clear enough that they can continue on their way the next day.
Kurt is on the phone with someone of the situation and to be honest, Dave doesn’t really care who he’s talking to, all that matters to Dave at the moment is finding a bathroom. He leaves Kurt sitting in one of the uncomfortable chairs with their carry-on bags and dashes off. Ten minutes later he returns to the same spot and finds it empty. No Kurt, no bags, nothing.
He’s contemplating having Kurt paged, but he knows that would go over as well as it used to when he’d lose his mother in the grocery store when he was a small child. He can picture Kurt making the same pinched expression that his mother used to, so he sits down to wait. Kurt knows that this is where Dave would return to, so it stands to reason that this is where Kurt will return to find Dave.
Soon enough, Kurt comes rushing over, dragging their bags and talking quickly about them leaving. Dave looks quickly up to the flight boards and sees yip, it's still full of cancellations.
“Kurt?”
“I rented us a car. If we drive straight through we should get there late tonight.”
“You’ve got to be joking, there’s a storm. They’re canceling flights, we can’t just drive.”
“Sure we can, it's not too bad here yet. If we leave now we can stay ahead of the storm.”
“But Kurt...”
Kurt puts his hands on his hips and glares at Dave with one eyebrow raised. Dave knows that look. It's the same look that landed him living in Lansdale County, Connecticut in Kurt’s dream home. The home that Dave often, though well out of Kurt’s hearing, called ‘the money pit.’ Dave takes their bags from Kurt and follows him through the airport, and out into the swirling snow to the car Kurt’s apparently rented.
**
Dave isn’t surprised to find that Kurt’s rented them a large SUV, but he is pleased to see that it is equipped with four wheel drive and a GPS. It's more room than they need, but they’re going to be driving for over twelve hours, so they might as well do it comfortably. They fill the gas tank just outside of Albany, Kurt raiding the small store attached to the gas station for snacks and drinks.
It takes them three hours to get from Albany to Syracuse, and another two hours before they enter the city limits of Rochester. The roads are progressively getting worse as more snow falls, but they’re traveling the main highway and one good thing about being on the toll road is the plow trucks out removing snow as much as they can, along with spreading the salt-sand mixture to keep the ice from forming on the road. After Rochester the next major town they drive through is Buffalo and though the snow is getting heavier, Kurt insists that they don’t need to stop. It takes them just under three hours to cross into Pennsylvania and pass through Erie.
It takes them another hour to cross the border into Ohio and Dave has had trouble seeing the road in front of them through the snow many times since Erie. He should have thought when they left Albany to take a more Southern route, instead of the one that the GPS said was quicker. He knows that he should have insisted that they take another route, but Kurt had insisted they take the “shorter” route. This route has been taking them right along Lake Ontario and towards Lake Erie, which means lake effect snow. Since Kurt was also insisting on driving the first leg of the trip and had insisted on taking the shorter route, Dave had gone along with it.
Dave looks across the SUV at Kurt, who has a white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel and is obviously straining to see through the snow. Dave can barely read the sign for the upcoming exit through the snow clinging to it, but he sees enough to make out the words “Route 534” and “2 miles.”
“Kurt, get off at the next exit. We can get something to eat, and maybe the snow will ease up while we’re eating.”
“I’m fine, we don’t need to stop.”
“Kurt, quit being stubborn. We don’t need to have an accident, just take the exit. We’ll eat and then I’ll drive.”
The exit has a two small gas stations, a Motel 6, a larger truck stop with an attached restaurant and a few fast food restaurants. That Kurt pulls into the truck stop doesn’t surprise Dave, as Kurt had shown Dave back when they were first dating in college, often times the best food could be found in a simple truck stop restaurant. Generous quantities for a good price coupled with what was usually outstanding coffee.
Kurt had pulled Dave into his first truck stop dining experience while they were travelling to Lima one holiday break. Kurt had spent the meal chattering away about the various truck stops he’d gone to with his Father when he was younger. As years have past, Kurt will still gravitate towards a truck stop if they are taking a long road trip.
Kurt leads Dave to a seat the counter all the while telling Dave that it’ll be quicker if they sit there instead of a table. Dave doesn’t believe that for a second, but he humors Kurt all the same. Before Dave can even look at the menu, Kurt’s ordering two cups of coffee and a couple slices of pie from the waitress that comes to take their order.
“No Kurt.” Dave says as he plucks another menu from the holder behind the napkin dispenser. “We’re going to eat a meal and sit here for awhile to see if this snow will ease up.”
“But David,” Kurt begins only to have Dave interrupt him.
“Seriously, Kurt. No, I could barely see the front end of the car and I know you couldn’t either. So you need to quit acting like this. If we don’t make it tonight, we don’t make it tonight. But I’d rather be late than wind up in an accident and I think everyone else will feel the same way.”
“Where you boys heading?” The waitress asks startling Dave slightly since he’d forgotten that the woman was standing there.
“Mason, its just north of Cincinnati.”
“What on Earth are you boys doing up here then?” She asks as she pours them each a cup of coffee. “There’s no way you’re going to make it there tonight, we got word about ten minutes ago that there’s a big 20 car pileup just up the highway near Mentor and the State Police have the highway shut down. If this snow keeps up much longer there’ll be a snow emergency declared and all the roads will be shut down.”
Kurt pushes out of his chair and walks out of the restaurant. Dave watches him go for a moment before turning back to the waitress. “Sorry about that, he’s a little stressed out today.”
“Don’t worry about it, honey.” The woman tells him. “Look over the menu and I’ll be back in a few minutes.” She turns away and then stops, “And honey, if I was you, I’d be seeing if I could find a hotel room or something, if they do shut the highway down, the rooms will go quick and I’m sure you know as well as I do that you don’t need to be sleeping outside in no car in this kind of weather.”
“You wouldn’t happen to know the number for that Motel 6 across the road, would you?” Dave asks.
The woman smiles as she scribbles down something on a slip of paper before handing it to Dave. “Pay phones are back by the bathrooms if you need one.”
Dave tucks the paper into his shirt pocket and thanks her.
Kurt returns to the counter a few minutes later and sits down next to Dave. “I called Quinn and let her know not to look for us tonight.”
Dave hands Kurt the menu, “It can’t be helped Kurt and you know it. It looks like we’re going to be stuck here at least overnight and I’ve got the number for that motel we saw when we got off the highway. I’m going to go call and get us a room, then we’re going to have something to eat and order a few things we can take with us for later. If the waitress comes before I’m back order me a hot turkey sandwich with...”
“With potatoes, extra gravy and open-faced.”
“Brat.”
“Your brat though.”
Dave leans in and kisses Kurt quickly, not caring about the other people around them. If they have a problem with Kurt or Dave and have the balls to say something about it, then Dave doesn’t have any problem with telling them how it is. After he came out and then later when he and Kurt first got together, he swore to himself that he’d never hide his relationship from anyone ever again.
“I’m just going to step out of here to where it’s more quiet. I won’t be long.”
The waitress had been right and shortly after they’d been served their meals, a snow emergency had been declared with all roads closed to everything except emergency vehicles. Dave and Kurt paid for their food and with their carryout orders in hand, left to drive across to the road to the motel room Dave had got for them.
**
The room was small, but clean, and after Dave turned up the room’s thermostat it was soon toasty warm. It contained a queen sized bed, a desk and one chair, a low dresser with a small television bolted to the top of it, and what Kurt declared was the world’s smallest bathroom. Kurt deposited the containers of food from the truck stop on the desk while Dave dropped their two carry-on bags onto the foot of the bed.
“You want to call Quinn again and let her know where we are?” Dave asked as he toed off his shoes.
“Maybe later. I think I need to lay down for awhile. I can still see the snow when I close my eyes and I still feel like I’m sitting in the moving car.”
“I’m going to go see if I can find a vending machine and get us something to drink. You rest.”
Kurt sat on the bed and bent to remove his shoes. He had stretched out on the bed and had his head on the pillow before Dave even had his shoes on again. As Dave left the room, he could hear Kurt’s soft snores.
It continued to snow for the rest of the night, but neither noticed as they took advantage of the queen sized bed in the hotel room. In the morning when Kurt slid out of Dave’s arms and looked outside of their hotel room, he was not pleased to find that their rental vehicle was nothing but a mound of snow. He closed the curtains and crawled back into bed with Dave, sliding his now cold feet on Dave’s warm legs causing him to wake with a jerk.
“Hey!” Dave exclaimed, pulling his legs away from the blocks of ice masquerading as Kurt’s feet. “What have I told you about putting those things on me when I’m sleeping?”
“That if I do it again you’ll spank me.” Kurt slid across the bed and pressed his body close to Dave’s.
“You think you’re funny, but you’re not. Why were you up anyway?”
“Wanted to see if we could leave yet and well, going solely by the way it looks outside, we’re not leaving any time in the near future.”
“That your expert opinion or something?”
“The SUV is buried, but if you really want to know, then you need to get dressed and go down to the desk and pay for another night.”
“And why do I need to be the one to do that?” Dave laughed as he rolled over, pining Kurt to the bed. “You’re the one that got up and had to see how bad it snowed overnight. You should go.”
“Nope. You booked the room, you have to go.”
“How is that fair? If I did it already, shouldn’t this be your turn?”
Kurt laid there looking up at Dave with a smile on his face. “If you go, I’ll make it worth your while when you get back.”
“I could say the same to you,” Dave said with a smile of his own on his face.
“If you go, I won’t make you call Quinn and tell her that we’re not going to make it again today.”
“I’m not afraid of Quinn.” Dave slid off of Kurt and got up from the bed, reaching for the clothing he’d tossed onto a chair the day before.
“Want me to tell her that for you when I call?”
Dressed Dave shoved his feet into his shoes and walked to the door to the room, “Bite me.”
“Just as soon as you get back, see if they’ve got a continental breakfast or something while you’re in the lobby. I’d kill for some coffee.” Kurt called out as Dave left.
There wasn’t much to do in the room other than watch the television, sleep or have sex. But neither man could any of that as a hardship. In fact if it wasn’t for the fact that they were supposed to be somewhere else and that they were snowed in somewhere in northeastern Ohio, then it might have been a nice vacation.
**
For the second morning, Kurt woke up and checked outside the window of their hotel room. There was still a mound of snow covering their rented SUV, but it didn’t appear to be any deeper than the night before. Dave was still a large, snoring lump in the center of the hotel bed so Kurt quietly dressed and ventured out of the room and to the lobby.
The young woman behind the check-in desk looked up tiredly and upon seeing Kurt stood up straighter and smiled at him. “Good morning Sir,” She greeted him. “The coffee is fresh and there’s some cereal, milk and fruit also.”
“Thank you, any word on if the roads will be cleared today?”
“I saw some of the county road trucks drive by about an hour ago, so hopefully that means that they’re out plowing the roads now. If that’s the case it shouldn’t be long before the ban is lifted. "
She sounded so hopeful that Kurt wondered if she’d been trapped here by the weather just as they had been. He decided that if the roads were closed to non-emergency vehicles, then she must have been here just as long as he and Dave had been.
“That’s good to hear, check out time is when?” Kurt asked her as he prepared a cup of coffee for himself and then another for Dave.
“It's eleven, Sir, but in light of the weather, I think we can overlook that.”
“Thanks. I’ll just take these back to the room then.”
Dave’s awake and watching the television when Kurt returns to the room. “Wondered where you were when I woke up and saw that you were gone.”
Kurt looks at Dave sitting on the foot of the bed in his boxers and rolls his eyes, “I can see how concerned you were that I was missing.” He gives Dave one of the paper cups of coffee before sitting down beside him.
“I looked outside and saw that the SUV was still out there buried, so I figured you couldn’t have gone too far.”
“Went up to the lobby to see if there was any word about the road conditions, and to get some coffee from the breakfast bar.”
“No danish? I brought you a danish yesterday.”
“You brought me a day-old, dry, crumbly thing that you claimed was a danish and I told you must have been a doorstop or something. Choices this morning were some sad looking fruit and those little boxes of cereal and cartons of milk. I would have brought you the cereal if they’d had any that you would have eaten.”
“Well, I guess either we raid that vending machine down the hall again or one of us is going to have to try to venture outside and across the road to the truck stop again.”
“Unless you want to wait, the desk clerk said she saw the road crew out plowing the road earlier. We might be able to leave soon.”
“You still want to try to make it down to Puck and Quinn’s, or should just go to Cleveland and get a flight home and call this trip a wash?”
Kurt looked down at his coffee cup as if he expected the answers to be found within it. “I promised Bethy I’d be there for her recital and we told Quinn that we’d be there for the baby’s christening. Neither of us have to be back to work again until next week. I say we keep going.”
“Alright then, I’m going to get dressed then go dig out the SUV. When I come back in, we can shower, pack and if the roads are clear we’ll go.”
“I’ll call Quinn.”
“Yes, you call Quinn.”
**
It was after eight in the evening when Dave parked the SUV in front of the house where Puck and Quinn lived. Before he or Kurt could exit the vehicle, the front door opened and Beth came running out and towards them, followed closely by Puck carrying what was obviously her coat, yelling for the young girl to come back and put the coat on. Kurt stepped out of the SUV and was almost knocked down when Beth flung herself at him, “Uncle Kurt! Did you bring me a present?”
“Beth!” Puck scolded her, as he finally caught up to her and pulled her away from Kurt’s legs long enough to wrestle her into her coat. “What did your mother tell you about demanding presents from people?”
Beth rolled her eyes at her father and before turning away from him to face Kurt again, “She said that it was rude, but I don’t know why, every one else has brought me something.”
“Sorry Bethy, but unless our luggage got her without us, I don’t have a present for you this time.” Kurt told her.
“Fine.” She sighed, turning away from Kurt. “I’m going back inside now then.”
“Hey!” Dave called out to her as he walked around the SUV and joined Kurt and Puck on the sidewalk, “Don’t I get a hello, Bethy?”
“Did you bring me a present?” Beth asked without turning around.
“Beth!” Puck scolded once more.
“Whatever, I’m going inside.”
The three men watched her walk into the house before Dave turned to face Puck, “Gee, just think how much fun she’ll be when she’s in her teens and lucky you, you’ve gone and got two daughters now.”
“Shut up Karofsky and get in the house. I can’t wait to hear about your trip here.”
Title: The Trip
Pairing: Kurt Hummel/Dave Karofsky
Length: 3730
Warnings:none
Summary: Some times a simple trip becomes something more complicated.
Kurt was standing at the side of the bed and staring into the suitcase when Dave walked into their bedroom. "Weather report says there's another storm coming down out of the Maritimes."
"I saw that earlier, it won't hit until long after our flight has taken off. I keep on thinking that I've forgotten to pack something."
Dave sat down next to the suitcase and began poking his way through it. "I can't imagine what you could have forgotten, Kurt. It looks like you've got more here than we could possibly need. Wouldn’t we be better off just taking as much as we can in as carry-on and not taking any luggage that will have to be checked?"
"I doesn't hurt to be prepared, David. You never know what could happen."
"We're flying to Ohio, not going on a trip around the world, Kurt."
"One day you'll be glad that I'm the one doing all our packing."
“I’m sure I will.”
Two hours later Kurt deems their packing complete and Dave takes all of their luggage out to the car so that they wouldn't have to worry about it in the morning.
**
Most of Lansdale County is still asleep as Dave drives them towards Windsor Locks, and the airport early the next morning. There’s a definite bite of winter in the air and they’re both thankful to get into the warmth of the airport. Dave can’t help but notice that despite their flight still showing as on-time, there are a lot of delays and cancellations on the flight boards. He hopes that this means they’ll reach their destination without any hassles, unlike the other flights.
They have been in the air for almost an hour before the pilot announces that they are being redirected and grounded in Albany, New York to wait out the storm. Many of the surrounding passengers grumble about this, Kurt included. Dave doesn’t say a word. He’s not the best flier during good weather and the turbulence of the last twenty minutes has him contemplating the air-sick bags. He’ll be happy to be back on solid ground. Maybe they can find a quiet spot in the airport in Albany where he can sit long enough to have his stomach settle down once more.
The flight boards in Albany are filled with cancellations. There were no flights leaving in the near future and even if there was, they probably wouldn’t be on the same plane as before. Which means that they’d be going on without their luggage. It's suggested that they settle in, and that hopefully the weather will clear enough that they can continue on their way the next day.
Kurt is on the phone with someone of the situation and to be honest, Dave doesn’t really care who he’s talking to, all that matters to Dave at the moment is finding a bathroom. He leaves Kurt sitting in one of the uncomfortable chairs with their carry-on bags and dashes off. Ten minutes later he returns to the same spot and finds it empty. No Kurt, no bags, nothing.
He’s contemplating having Kurt paged, but he knows that would go over as well as it used to when he’d lose his mother in the grocery store when he was a small child. He can picture Kurt making the same pinched expression that his mother used to, so he sits down to wait. Kurt knows that this is where Dave would return to, so it stands to reason that this is where Kurt will return to find Dave.
Soon enough, Kurt comes rushing over, dragging their bags and talking quickly about them leaving. Dave looks quickly up to the flight boards and sees yip, it's still full of cancellations.
“Kurt?”
“I rented us a car. If we drive straight through we should get there late tonight.”
“You’ve got to be joking, there’s a storm. They’re canceling flights, we can’t just drive.”
“Sure we can, it's not too bad here yet. If we leave now we can stay ahead of the storm.”
“But Kurt...”
Kurt puts his hands on his hips and glares at Dave with one eyebrow raised. Dave knows that look. It's the same look that landed him living in Lansdale County, Connecticut in Kurt’s dream home. The home that Dave often, though well out of Kurt’s hearing, called ‘the money pit.’ Dave takes their bags from Kurt and follows him through the airport, and out into the swirling snow to the car Kurt’s apparently rented.
**
Dave isn’t surprised to find that Kurt’s rented them a large SUV, but he is pleased to see that it is equipped with four wheel drive and a GPS. It's more room than they need, but they’re going to be driving for over twelve hours, so they might as well do it comfortably. They fill the gas tank just outside of Albany, Kurt raiding the small store attached to the gas station for snacks and drinks.
It takes them three hours to get from Albany to Syracuse, and another two hours before they enter the city limits of Rochester. The roads are progressively getting worse as more snow falls, but they’re traveling the main highway and one good thing about being on the toll road is the plow trucks out removing snow as much as they can, along with spreading the salt-sand mixture to keep the ice from forming on the road. After Rochester the next major town they drive through is Buffalo and though the snow is getting heavier, Kurt insists that they don’t need to stop. It takes them just under three hours to cross into Pennsylvania and pass through Erie.
It takes them another hour to cross the border into Ohio and Dave has had trouble seeing the road in front of them through the snow many times since Erie. He should have thought when they left Albany to take a more Southern route, instead of the one that the GPS said was quicker. He knows that he should have insisted that they take another route, but Kurt had insisted they take the “shorter” route. This route has been taking them right along Lake Ontario and towards Lake Erie, which means lake effect snow. Since Kurt was also insisting on driving the first leg of the trip and had insisted on taking the shorter route, Dave had gone along with it.
Dave looks across the SUV at Kurt, who has a white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel and is obviously straining to see through the snow. Dave can barely read the sign for the upcoming exit through the snow clinging to it, but he sees enough to make out the words “Route 534” and “2 miles.”
“Kurt, get off at the next exit. We can get something to eat, and maybe the snow will ease up while we’re eating.”
“I’m fine, we don’t need to stop.”
“Kurt, quit being stubborn. We don’t need to have an accident, just take the exit. We’ll eat and then I’ll drive.”
The exit has a two small gas stations, a Motel 6, a larger truck stop with an attached restaurant and a few fast food restaurants. That Kurt pulls into the truck stop doesn’t surprise Dave, as Kurt had shown Dave back when they were first dating in college, often times the best food could be found in a simple truck stop restaurant. Generous quantities for a good price coupled with what was usually outstanding coffee.
Kurt had pulled Dave into his first truck stop dining experience while they were travelling to Lima one holiday break. Kurt had spent the meal chattering away about the various truck stops he’d gone to with his Father when he was younger. As years have past, Kurt will still gravitate towards a truck stop if they are taking a long road trip.
Kurt leads Dave to a seat the counter all the while telling Dave that it’ll be quicker if they sit there instead of a table. Dave doesn’t believe that for a second, but he humors Kurt all the same. Before Dave can even look at the menu, Kurt’s ordering two cups of coffee and a couple slices of pie from the waitress that comes to take their order.
“No Kurt.” Dave says as he plucks another menu from the holder behind the napkin dispenser. “We’re going to eat a meal and sit here for awhile to see if this snow will ease up.”
“But David,” Kurt begins only to have Dave interrupt him.
“Seriously, Kurt. No, I could barely see the front end of the car and I know you couldn’t either. So you need to quit acting like this. If we don’t make it tonight, we don’t make it tonight. But I’d rather be late than wind up in an accident and I think everyone else will feel the same way.”
“Where you boys heading?” The waitress asks startling Dave slightly since he’d forgotten that the woman was standing there.
“Mason, its just north of Cincinnati.”
“What on Earth are you boys doing up here then?” She asks as she pours them each a cup of coffee. “There’s no way you’re going to make it there tonight, we got word about ten minutes ago that there’s a big 20 car pileup just up the highway near Mentor and the State Police have the highway shut down. If this snow keeps up much longer there’ll be a snow emergency declared and all the roads will be shut down.”
Kurt pushes out of his chair and walks out of the restaurant. Dave watches him go for a moment before turning back to the waitress. “Sorry about that, he’s a little stressed out today.”
“Don’t worry about it, honey.” The woman tells him. “Look over the menu and I’ll be back in a few minutes.” She turns away and then stops, “And honey, if I was you, I’d be seeing if I could find a hotel room or something, if they do shut the highway down, the rooms will go quick and I’m sure you know as well as I do that you don’t need to be sleeping outside in no car in this kind of weather.”
“You wouldn’t happen to know the number for that Motel 6 across the road, would you?” Dave asks.
The woman smiles as she scribbles down something on a slip of paper before handing it to Dave. “Pay phones are back by the bathrooms if you need one.”
Dave tucks the paper into his shirt pocket and thanks her.
Kurt returns to the counter a few minutes later and sits down next to Dave. “I called Quinn and let her know not to look for us tonight.”
Dave hands Kurt the menu, “It can’t be helped Kurt and you know it. It looks like we’re going to be stuck here at least overnight and I’ve got the number for that motel we saw when we got off the highway. I’m going to go call and get us a room, then we’re going to have something to eat and order a few things we can take with us for later. If the waitress comes before I’m back order me a hot turkey sandwich with...”
“With potatoes, extra gravy and open-faced.”
“Brat.”
“Your brat though.”
Dave leans in and kisses Kurt quickly, not caring about the other people around them. If they have a problem with Kurt or Dave and have the balls to say something about it, then Dave doesn’t have any problem with telling them how it is. After he came out and then later when he and Kurt first got together, he swore to himself that he’d never hide his relationship from anyone ever again.
“I’m just going to step out of here to where it’s more quiet. I won’t be long.”
The waitress had been right and shortly after they’d been served their meals, a snow emergency had been declared with all roads closed to everything except emergency vehicles. Dave and Kurt paid for their food and with their carryout orders in hand, left to drive across to the road to the motel room Dave had got for them.
**
The room was small, but clean, and after Dave turned up the room’s thermostat it was soon toasty warm. It contained a queen sized bed, a desk and one chair, a low dresser with a small television bolted to the top of it, and what Kurt declared was the world’s smallest bathroom. Kurt deposited the containers of food from the truck stop on the desk while Dave dropped their two carry-on bags onto the foot of the bed.
“You want to call Quinn again and let her know where we are?” Dave asked as he toed off his shoes.
“Maybe later. I think I need to lay down for awhile. I can still see the snow when I close my eyes and I still feel like I’m sitting in the moving car.”
“I’m going to go see if I can find a vending machine and get us something to drink. You rest.”
Kurt sat on the bed and bent to remove his shoes. He had stretched out on the bed and had his head on the pillow before Dave even had his shoes on again. As Dave left the room, he could hear Kurt’s soft snores.
It continued to snow for the rest of the night, but neither noticed as they took advantage of the queen sized bed in the hotel room. In the morning when Kurt slid out of Dave’s arms and looked outside of their hotel room, he was not pleased to find that their rental vehicle was nothing but a mound of snow. He closed the curtains and crawled back into bed with Dave, sliding his now cold feet on Dave’s warm legs causing him to wake with a jerk.
“Hey!” Dave exclaimed, pulling his legs away from the blocks of ice masquerading as Kurt’s feet. “What have I told you about putting those things on me when I’m sleeping?”
“That if I do it again you’ll spank me.” Kurt slid across the bed and pressed his body close to Dave’s.
“You think you’re funny, but you’re not. Why were you up anyway?”
“Wanted to see if we could leave yet and well, going solely by the way it looks outside, we’re not leaving any time in the near future.”
“That your expert opinion or something?”
“The SUV is buried, but if you really want to know, then you need to get dressed and go down to the desk and pay for another night.”
“And why do I need to be the one to do that?” Dave laughed as he rolled over, pining Kurt to the bed. “You’re the one that got up and had to see how bad it snowed overnight. You should go.”
“Nope. You booked the room, you have to go.”
“How is that fair? If I did it already, shouldn’t this be your turn?”
Kurt laid there looking up at Dave with a smile on his face. “If you go, I’ll make it worth your while when you get back.”
“I could say the same to you,” Dave said with a smile of his own on his face.
“If you go, I won’t make you call Quinn and tell her that we’re not going to make it again today.”
“I’m not afraid of Quinn.” Dave slid off of Kurt and got up from the bed, reaching for the clothing he’d tossed onto a chair the day before.
“Want me to tell her that for you when I call?”
Dressed Dave shoved his feet into his shoes and walked to the door to the room, “Bite me.”
“Just as soon as you get back, see if they’ve got a continental breakfast or something while you’re in the lobby. I’d kill for some coffee.” Kurt called out as Dave left.
There wasn’t much to do in the room other than watch the television, sleep or have sex. But neither man could any of that as a hardship. In fact if it wasn’t for the fact that they were supposed to be somewhere else and that they were snowed in somewhere in northeastern Ohio, then it might have been a nice vacation.
**
For the second morning, Kurt woke up and checked outside the window of their hotel room. There was still a mound of snow covering their rented SUV, but it didn’t appear to be any deeper than the night before. Dave was still a large, snoring lump in the center of the hotel bed so Kurt quietly dressed and ventured out of the room and to the lobby.
The young woman behind the check-in desk looked up tiredly and upon seeing Kurt stood up straighter and smiled at him. “Good morning Sir,” She greeted him. “The coffee is fresh and there’s some cereal, milk and fruit also.”
“Thank you, any word on if the roads will be cleared today?”
“I saw some of the county road trucks drive by about an hour ago, so hopefully that means that they’re out plowing the roads now. If that’s the case it shouldn’t be long before the ban is lifted. "
She sounded so hopeful that Kurt wondered if she’d been trapped here by the weather just as they had been. He decided that if the roads were closed to non-emergency vehicles, then she must have been here just as long as he and Dave had been.
“That’s good to hear, check out time is when?” Kurt asked her as he prepared a cup of coffee for himself and then another for Dave.
“It's eleven, Sir, but in light of the weather, I think we can overlook that.”
“Thanks. I’ll just take these back to the room then.”
Dave’s awake and watching the television when Kurt returns to the room. “Wondered where you were when I woke up and saw that you were gone.”
Kurt looks at Dave sitting on the foot of the bed in his boxers and rolls his eyes, “I can see how concerned you were that I was missing.” He gives Dave one of the paper cups of coffee before sitting down beside him.
“I looked outside and saw that the SUV was still out there buried, so I figured you couldn’t have gone too far.”
“Went up to the lobby to see if there was any word about the road conditions, and to get some coffee from the breakfast bar.”
“No danish? I brought you a danish yesterday.”
“You brought me a day-old, dry, crumbly thing that you claimed was a danish and I told you must have been a doorstop or something. Choices this morning were some sad looking fruit and those little boxes of cereal and cartons of milk. I would have brought you the cereal if they’d had any that you would have eaten.”
“Well, I guess either we raid that vending machine down the hall again or one of us is going to have to try to venture outside and across the road to the truck stop again.”
“Unless you want to wait, the desk clerk said she saw the road crew out plowing the road earlier. We might be able to leave soon.”
“You still want to try to make it down to Puck and Quinn’s, or should just go to Cleveland and get a flight home and call this trip a wash?”
Kurt looked down at his coffee cup as if he expected the answers to be found within it. “I promised Bethy I’d be there for her recital and we told Quinn that we’d be there for the baby’s christening. Neither of us have to be back to work again until next week. I say we keep going.”
“Alright then, I’m going to get dressed then go dig out the SUV. When I come back in, we can shower, pack and if the roads are clear we’ll go.”
“I’ll call Quinn.”
“Yes, you call Quinn.”
**
It was after eight in the evening when Dave parked the SUV in front of the house where Puck and Quinn lived. Before he or Kurt could exit the vehicle, the front door opened and Beth came running out and towards them, followed closely by Puck carrying what was obviously her coat, yelling for the young girl to come back and put the coat on. Kurt stepped out of the SUV and was almost knocked down when Beth flung herself at him, “Uncle Kurt! Did you bring me a present?”
“Beth!” Puck scolded her, as he finally caught up to her and pulled her away from Kurt’s legs long enough to wrestle her into her coat. “What did your mother tell you about demanding presents from people?”
Beth rolled her eyes at her father and before turning away from him to face Kurt again, “She said that it was rude, but I don’t know why, every one else has brought me something.”
“Sorry Bethy, but unless our luggage got her without us, I don’t have a present for you this time.” Kurt told her.
“Fine.” She sighed, turning away from Kurt. “I’m going back inside now then.”
“Hey!” Dave called out to her as he walked around the SUV and joined Kurt and Puck on the sidewalk, “Don’t I get a hello, Bethy?”
“Did you bring me a present?” Beth asked without turning around.
“Beth!” Puck scolded once more.
“Whatever, I’m going inside.”
The three men watched her walk into the house before Dave turned to face Puck, “Gee, just think how much fun she’ll be when she’s in her teens and lucky you, you’ve gone and got two daughters now.”
“Shut up Karofsky and get in the house. I can’t wait to hear about your trip here.”