For Kosherrainbow
Recipient's LJ Name: kosherrainbow
Title: Anytime
Pairing: Noah Puckerman/Dave Karofsky
Length: 3482
Warnings: swearing, mentions of a homophobic parent
Summary: Anytime you need a friend, someone you can trust...”
March 2012
When he opens the door, there is somebody sitting in the waiting room, and Puck feels his sister plaster herself to his back as she tries to hide herself. Didn’t his mother tell him other people wouldn’t be in the waiting room, that there was a gap between the Doctor’s appointments for patient confidentiality? Miri tugs on the back of Puck’s jacket in order to pull him back into the hallway, and he reaches back to grasp her hands. “Stop it. C’mon.”
Puck’s voice causes the man to look up, despite the non-existent sound of the door opening. Puck recognizes the man but for a few brief moments, he has trouble placing him. It’s not until the man gives them a quick smile and nods his head that Puck realizes he’s looking at Dave Karofsky’s father.
He steps further into the room, pulling his sister along. He knows that if he lets go of her, she’ll flee from the building and he’ll never get her back in for her therapy appointment. He doesn’t want to deal with his mother’s reaction if happened. Once was more than enough.
The receptionist apologizes when he checks his sister in for her appointment, explaining that the schedule has fallen behind with her eyes giving a fleeting glance in Mr. Karofsky’s direction. Puck can fill in the blanks.
Another fifteen minutes pass before the door that leads back to the doctor’s office opens, with Dave Karofsky stepping out while being followed closely by Doctor Wood. Puck hasn’t seen Dave up close since he transferred schools and sure - he knows about what happened to him thanks to the gossip chain that runs rampant through McKinley- but he’s still not prepared to see this skittish version of Dave Karofsky.
He wants to say something to him. To tell Dave some vital piece of knowledge that will be so profound and change Dave’s life. Because honestly, at this moment, Dave looks like Miri does on the really bad days and nobody, absolutely nobody should have to look that way. But he doesn’t get a chance, instead Doctor Wood notices them there and sends them back to wait in her office.
He knows where the Karofskys’ live - been there more than once throughout the years of being Dave’s teammate on various teams. So he waits a few days until he drives over there after school.
Mr. Karofsky answers the door and stands there staring as he finds Puck on his front porch. He gives Mr. Karofsky his best smile, the one he normally saves for his Nana or his probation officer, and asks to see Dave.
Mr. Karofsky leads him down a hall towards the back of the house to Dave’s room, and Puck can’t help but notice that it’s different room to the cool converted attic room that Dave used to sleep in. He files that bit of information away for another time.
“David, you have company.” Mr. Karofsky says as he knocks on the bedroom door.
Shuffling sounds from inside the room, and then the door opens. Dave takes one look at Puck standing there beside his father, and his mouth drops open in surprise. “Puckerman? What are you doing here?”
“Was in the neighborhood, thought I’d come see how you were doing.”
It’s well after nine o’clock before Puck leaves. Once Dave realized that Puck wasn’t there to harass him, he relaxed enough for them to talk. Dave apologized to Puck for all the times he was an asshole. Puck laughed then did the same.
Dave walks him to the door when he’s leaving. As they pass by the living room, Puck can see Mrs. Karofsky sitting on the sofa in front of the television. A blind man would see the way that Dave’s entire body tenses at the sight of his mother, but Dave says nothing. At the front door, Puck tells Dave he’ll come back again in a few days if Dave wants him too, and Dave quietly says that he would.
As the door is closing behind him, Mrs. Karofsky screams and asks if her house is going to be over-run with faggots like that Hummel kid and whores like Puckerman. Puck starts to push his way back into the house and give that woman an earful, but Dave shakes his head and closes the door in Puck’s face.
Puck finally drives home, pissed off and even more determined that he’s going back to see Dave.
End of May 2012
Puck waves at Mr. Karofsky as he pulls into the Karofsky driveway as Mr. Karofsky is pulling out of it. Its just past seven in the morning and normally Puck wouldn’t be awake this early on a Saturday, but he’s got things to do and first on the schedule is picking Dave up. He pulls up close to the house and presses down on the horn. One long, loud blast of the horn followed by a few short ones.
He sees the curtain move in the room that he knows that Dave’s mother sleeps in, and smirks as he presses down on the horn again. Sure enough, he sees her face appear at the window. He can’t hear whatever she’s screaming at him but he’s sure its nothing good. The woman doesn’t like him, and that’s just fine. He doesn’t like that harpy either.
Dave comes running out of the house and towards Puck’s car. Puck waits until Dave’s in the car before he takes his hands off of the horn. With a smirk and a wave towards Dave’s mother, he drives away.
“She’s never going to like you if you keep doing shit like that.” Dave says.
“Ask me if I care.”
“My neighbors probably want to murder you.” Dave laughs.
“They’ll deal or they won’t. Not like they can do anything about it.”
“My dad honked when he left too.”
“So everyone was already awake before I honked, damn. I’ll have to show up earlier next time. Get there before your dad can leave.”
“Puck!”
An hour and a half later, they arrive in Toledo, following the directions that Dave got from the University of Toledo’s website. They slowly make their way to campus. They’re in no rush, this isn’t an official visit so they don’t have any appointments or the like. This is just the two of them, checking out the area that they’ll be moving to mid-August. Both are glad to have a friend to share this experience with.
First week of November 2012
Puck is laying on the bed staring at the ceiling when the dorm room door is flung open, and Dave stomps into the room before slamming the door behind him.
“Bad day at the office?”
“Don’t. Don’t make a joke right now, Puck.” Dave throws his backpack onto the floor and collapses face down on his bed.
It’s the tone of Dave’s voice that has Puck on his feet, and walking across the room to sit on the edge of Dave’s bed.
“Alright, no joking. Talk to me, what’s going on?”
Dave says something but due to his face being burrowed into a pillow, it takes Puck a few moments to decipher that Dave’s been talking to his mother again. Puck only manages to make out the words, “Fucking harpy” and “not going home.”
“I can’t understand you when you’re chewing on the pillow, dude.” Puck says as he pokes Dave in the ribs. “You need to like roll over and talk to me.”
Dave rolls to his side and looks up to Puck. “My Dad called while I was in class and left me a message asking me to call him back. I called back and she answered. First thing she asked was if I was cured of my sin yet! She didn’t even say hello. Then before I could answer her, she informed me that my dad was packing to go on some business trip and that he’d be gone the week of Thanksgiving. Oh! And while she had me on the phone, she wanted to let me know not to bother coming home for break. I’m not welcome in her home.”
Puck would love to drive to Lima right now so that he could find Dave’s mother and punch her in the face, but he knows there’s no use in it. As loving and supportive as Paul Karofsky is to Dave, Lila Karofsky is not. Dave spends as much time away from home as possible, but Puck knows that Dave had been looking forward to going home for the winter holiday break.
“Call again later and find out where your Dad is going to be, join him on his trip or something. Might be nice for the two of you to spend some time without her making things miserable for everyone.”
“If he wanted me on his trip, he would have asked.”
“Hey, he might. He called and told you to call him back. That’s probably what he called for.”
“Doubt it.”
“You don’t know until you ask him.”
“Yeah, until I ask him and then find out that he’s finally decided that he doesn’t want anything to do with me either.”
“Shove over, dude.” Puck pushes at Dave until there’s room enough on the bed for Puck to lay down beside him. “Your Mom sucks, Dave, and not in a good way. You know this already. Just like you know that your Dad loves you and that he’s not going to turn his back on you. He’s got to go away for work, fine. She doesn’t want you to come home, even better because you don’t need to be around her. So, you’ll talk to your Dad later, find out what he called for, and see if he had something planned for the two of you.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“Then you’re all mine for the break and you’ll come home with me. Mom and Nana will try to fatten you up, Miri will try and steal you to be her big brother.”
A small smile briefly crossed Dave’s face, “Thanks Puck.”
“Anytime.”
First week of December 2012
Dave is sitting at Puck’s desk in front of the his laptop and typing wildly when Puck returns to the room after a long day of classes.
“Are you watching porn on my laptop? Why didn’t you wait for me?” Puck drops his backpack and coat on the floor and begins to shake his hips at Dave, hoping to make Dave laugh at his antics.
Instead Dave turns four different shades of red as he turns away from the computer’s screen. “Shut up! I’ve been chatting with your Mom for the last ten minutes waiting for your worthless hide to get back so she can talk to you.”
Puck rubs his hands over his face. He just knows he’s going to get an earful from his mother now. Dave finally laughs at him as he moves away so that Puck can sit down.
Ten minutes later, Puck’s considering knocking his laptop off the desk so that he doesn’t have to listen to his mother any longer, but he knows that if he did that, she’d just call his cell phone. She nags him about his grades and wonders if he’s eating right or not. Is he studying hard or is he out running wild. And why can’t he be a nice young man like Dave? Dave’s so polite and always calling her ma’am and asking how she is. On and on it goes, as if she hadn’t just seen him at Thanksgiving and had given him this same lecture in person. But no, she babbles from one topic to another with Puck tuning out most of what she says until he hears the words “trip” and “Hanukkah” fall from his mother’s lips.
He knows he should be happy for his mother, the woman deserves something good for all she’s had to deal with through the years, but a small part of Puck just wants to sulk over the fact that his mother is going to be spending three weeks in California, and that she’s taking Miri with her. It,s work related, so its not like his mother is going there to have fun without him, but it still pisses him off. She prefers for him to not stay home alone during the winter break, and suggests that he go stay with his Nana. Doesn’t that just sound like a barrel of fun. He’d rather be alone than to be staying with his Nana, in her condo at the retirement village.
Later, when he’s almost asleep he hears Dave whisper, “I’m sorry.” Puck just stares out into the dark room and starts to plan. He knows things are worse at Dave’s house, he knows that Dave’s dad has told him that he’s welcome to come home for break, and he knows that Dave’s mom has already told him not to. Dave’s planning on going, but he’s also planning on being at the house as little as possible.
Two days before winter break - December 2012
Puck’s waiting for Dave outside after his last class for the day. Dave’s first reaction is to think that something is wrong with his Dad. His stomach clenches and he thinks he might be sick, but then he notices that Puck’s smiling at him, and Puck wouldn’t be smiling like that if something was wrong.
They fall into step as they leave the building and walk across the campus quad towards their dorm building.
“Can you blow off your classes tomorrow?”
“I guess so, why?”
“Do you trust me?”
“Are you going to be pissed off if I say no? Because normally I’d say yes, but the fact that you’re asking makes me want to say no.”
Puck just laughs as he throws his arm across Dave’s shoulders. “I’m hurt, seriously hurt.”
Puck wakes Dave up early the next morning by pulling all the covers off of him, and dragging them across the room so that Dave can’t just grab them and burrow back beneath them to fall asleep again.
“Get up and get dressed.” Puck demand once Dave is sitting up and blinking.
“What the hell, Puck?”
“Places to go, people to do. Get moving, you’ve got twenty minutes to get dressed before I just drag you out of here in your boxers.”
Puck rushes Dave out of the dorms and out into Puck’s old car. Dave wonders why Puck could be in such a hurry to get back to Lima, and he’s surprised when they get to the highway that Puck heads North on I-75 instead.
“Not that it matters, but where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise, we’re going to go have some fun.”
“Is this where I’m supposed to trust you?”
“Yeah.”
Dave sits silently in the passenger seat until he sees the sign welcoming them to Michigan. “Not to question you and your surprise, but seeing how we just entered another state, should I be calling my Dad to tell him I’ll be late getting home tomorrow?” He asks.
“He’s not expecting you, I already called him. He said to tell you to have fun and he’ll talk to you later.”
Puck rolls through a drive-thru in Monroe, before they change roads from I-75 onto I-275, and get some breakfast with Puck telling Dave save room for ‘the biggest damn lunch you’ve ever had.’ They’re on US-23 between Ann Arbor and Flint, almost to the junction to rejoin I-75, when the snow begins to fall in earnest. It’s not enough that Dave’s concerned about the roads, but it’s definitely more snow than he’s seen in a long time.
There is a line of people standing outside of the restaurant Puck stops at for lunch and Dave suggests that maybe they should go someplace else. Puck just smiles and shakes his head, herding Dave into the line. “Trust me, you’re going to like this place.”
It takes almost a half hour before they’re seated and so far Dave isn’t impressed. It doesn’t seem like anything special to him, until waitress walks by loaded down with platters, not plates, and Dave watches with wide eyes as she places serves them to a neighboring table.
There seems to be an omelet that takes up the entire platter, a mound of something in a basket that Dave thinks might be bacon, and another platter of hash browns. Dave’s expecting all of this to be shared by the three people sitting at the table, but no, the waitress is placing it all in front of one person and then she proceeds to serve the other two people just as much food. Puck kicks him under the table and he hands him one of the paper menus. Dave skims the menu and only one thing jumps out at him over and over; the words “served with a pound of bacon.”
It’s been just over two hours since they left the restaurant and an hour since Puck got off of the main highway, and onto the smaller state highway. There is definitely more snow falling from the sky which only makes Dave feel more antsy. With the few stops they’ve made since leaving Toledo this morning, they’ve been in the car for almost six hours. Dave thinks he’s done well to not nag at Puck about where they are going.
When Dave spots a sign on the side of the road that reads ‘Elk Crossing’ and Dave can’t help himself any longer. “Elk? Where the hell are you taking me?” Puck’s reply is just a grin. Dave has to stop himself from reaching over and smacking that grin off of Puck’s face.
“We’re almost there now, help me watch the signs for County Highway 489.”
It’s another ten minutes before Dave spots the sign they’re looking for and once Puck makes the turn he pulls on the side of the road, he pulls his cell phone from his pocket and dials someone. Dave can tell that whoever Puck is speaking to is female, but he can’t hear well enough to tell who it is. Puck finally finishes talking, and toss the phone to Dave.
“Somebody wants to say hello to you.”
Dave brings the phone to his ear, “Hello?”
He’s surprised to hear Brittany’s voice. “Hi Dave! Puck says you’re coming to spend break with me. I can’t wait to see you again.”
Dave speaks with Brittany until she suddenly announces that she has to hang up so that she can meet them. Before Dave can even reply, she’s disconnected the call. Dave turns off the phone and drops it into his lap. “You’ve brought me to Michigan to see Brittany?”
“Her grandmother has a place up here, and the summer before sophomore year, she invited a bunch of us up. It’s a pretty nice set up, not far from a lake and it’s real quiet. When I talked to Brittany last time she said she was going to be up here for winter break. I called Brit last week and asked her if we could come up. So, here we are”
December 31st, 2012
Dave sits on the floor in front of the fireplace hoping that the heat of the fire will thaw out the bricks of ice that are currently impersonating his feet. Puck’s sprawled on the rug next to him, eyes shut and his face wind-burned from where he’d ridden on the snowmobile without the face guard down on his helmet. He can hear Brittany in the distance talking to her grandmother about the deer they’d seen earlier on the trail.
He stretches his leg out to push Puck’s hip, causing Puck to open his eyes and look over to Dave. “What?”
“Thanks for this.” Dave says, making a gesture with his hands that’s meant to encompass the room, the trip, their friendship. He doesn’t have words to express how much it all means to him.
Puck sits up and for the space of a few heartbeats, they just stare at each other. Then Puck is pulling him close to brush their mouths together before saying “Anytime.”
--- End ---
Title: Anytime
Pairing: Noah Puckerman/Dave Karofsky
Length: 3482
Warnings: swearing, mentions of a homophobic parent
Summary: Anytime you need a friend, someone you can trust...”
March 2012
When he opens the door, there is somebody sitting in the waiting room, and Puck feels his sister plaster herself to his back as she tries to hide herself. Didn’t his mother tell him other people wouldn’t be in the waiting room, that there was a gap between the Doctor’s appointments for patient confidentiality? Miri tugs on the back of Puck’s jacket in order to pull him back into the hallway, and he reaches back to grasp her hands. “Stop it. C’mon.”
Puck’s voice causes the man to look up, despite the non-existent sound of the door opening. Puck recognizes the man but for a few brief moments, he has trouble placing him. It’s not until the man gives them a quick smile and nods his head that Puck realizes he’s looking at Dave Karofsky’s father.
He steps further into the room, pulling his sister along. He knows that if he lets go of her, she’ll flee from the building and he’ll never get her back in for her therapy appointment. He doesn’t want to deal with his mother’s reaction if happened. Once was more than enough.
The receptionist apologizes when he checks his sister in for her appointment, explaining that the schedule has fallen behind with her eyes giving a fleeting glance in Mr. Karofsky’s direction. Puck can fill in the blanks.
Another fifteen minutes pass before the door that leads back to the doctor’s office opens, with Dave Karofsky stepping out while being followed closely by Doctor Wood. Puck hasn’t seen Dave up close since he transferred schools and sure - he knows about what happened to him thanks to the gossip chain that runs rampant through McKinley- but he’s still not prepared to see this skittish version of Dave Karofsky.
He wants to say something to him. To tell Dave some vital piece of knowledge that will be so profound and change Dave’s life. Because honestly, at this moment, Dave looks like Miri does on the really bad days and nobody, absolutely nobody should have to look that way. But he doesn’t get a chance, instead Doctor Wood notices them there and sends them back to wait in her office.
He knows where the Karofskys’ live - been there more than once throughout the years of being Dave’s teammate on various teams. So he waits a few days until he drives over there after school.
Mr. Karofsky answers the door and stands there staring as he finds Puck on his front porch. He gives Mr. Karofsky his best smile, the one he normally saves for his Nana or his probation officer, and asks to see Dave.
Mr. Karofsky leads him down a hall towards the back of the house to Dave’s room, and Puck can’t help but notice that it’s different room to the cool converted attic room that Dave used to sleep in. He files that bit of information away for another time.
“David, you have company.” Mr. Karofsky says as he knocks on the bedroom door.
Shuffling sounds from inside the room, and then the door opens. Dave takes one look at Puck standing there beside his father, and his mouth drops open in surprise. “Puckerman? What are you doing here?”
“Was in the neighborhood, thought I’d come see how you were doing.”
It’s well after nine o’clock before Puck leaves. Once Dave realized that Puck wasn’t there to harass him, he relaxed enough for them to talk. Dave apologized to Puck for all the times he was an asshole. Puck laughed then did the same.
Dave walks him to the door when he’s leaving. As they pass by the living room, Puck can see Mrs. Karofsky sitting on the sofa in front of the television. A blind man would see the way that Dave’s entire body tenses at the sight of his mother, but Dave says nothing. At the front door, Puck tells Dave he’ll come back again in a few days if Dave wants him too, and Dave quietly says that he would.
As the door is closing behind him, Mrs. Karofsky screams and asks if her house is going to be over-run with faggots like that Hummel kid and whores like Puckerman. Puck starts to push his way back into the house and give that woman an earful, but Dave shakes his head and closes the door in Puck’s face.
Puck finally drives home, pissed off and even more determined that he’s going back to see Dave.
End of May 2012
Puck waves at Mr. Karofsky as he pulls into the Karofsky driveway as Mr. Karofsky is pulling out of it. Its just past seven in the morning and normally Puck wouldn’t be awake this early on a Saturday, but he’s got things to do and first on the schedule is picking Dave up. He pulls up close to the house and presses down on the horn. One long, loud blast of the horn followed by a few short ones.
He sees the curtain move in the room that he knows that Dave’s mother sleeps in, and smirks as he presses down on the horn again. Sure enough, he sees her face appear at the window. He can’t hear whatever she’s screaming at him but he’s sure its nothing good. The woman doesn’t like him, and that’s just fine. He doesn’t like that harpy either.
Dave comes running out of the house and towards Puck’s car. Puck waits until Dave’s in the car before he takes his hands off of the horn. With a smirk and a wave towards Dave’s mother, he drives away.
“She’s never going to like you if you keep doing shit like that.” Dave says.
“Ask me if I care.”
“My neighbors probably want to murder you.” Dave laughs.
“They’ll deal or they won’t. Not like they can do anything about it.”
“My dad honked when he left too.”
“So everyone was already awake before I honked, damn. I’ll have to show up earlier next time. Get there before your dad can leave.”
“Puck!”
An hour and a half later, they arrive in Toledo, following the directions that Dave got from the University of Toledo’s website. They slowly make their way to campus. They’re in no rush, this isn’t an official visit so they don’t have any appointments or the like. This is just the two of them, checking out the area that they’ll be moving to mid-August. Both are glad to have a friend to share this experience with.
First week of November 2012
Puck is laying on the bed staring at the ceiling when the dorm room door is flung open, and Dave stomps into the room before slamming the door behind him.
“Bad day at the office?”
“Don’t. Don’t make a joke right now, Puck.” Dave throws his backpack onto the floor and collapses face down on his bed.
It’s the tone of Dave’s voice that has Puck on his feet, and walking across the room to sit on the edge of Dave’s bed.
“Alright, no joking. Talk to me, what’s going on?”
Dave says something but due to his face being burrowed into a pillow, it takes Puck a few moments to decipher that Dave’s been talking to his mother again. Puck only manages to make out the words, “Fucking harpy” and “not going home.”
“I can’t understand you when you’re chewing on the pillow, dude.” Puck says as he pokes Dave in the ribs. “You need to like roll over and talk to me.”
Dave rolls to his side and looks up to Puck. “My Dad called while I was in class and left me a message asking me to call him back. I called back and she answered. First thing she asked was if I was cured of my sin yet! She didn’t even say hello. Then before I could answer her, she informed me that my dad was packing to go on some business trip and that he’d be gone the week of Thanksgiving. Oh! And while she had me on the phone, she wanted to let me know not to bother coming home for break. I’m not welcome in her home.”
Puck would love to drive to Lima right now so that he could find Dave’s mother and punch her in the face, but he knows there’s no use in it. As loving and supportive as Paul Karofsky is to Dave, Lila Karofsky is not. Dave spends as much time away from home as possible, but Puck knows that Dave had been looking forward to going home for the winter holiday break.
“Call again later and find out where your Dad is going to be, join him on his trip or something. Might be nice for the two of you to spend some time without her making things miserable for everyone.”
“If he wanted me on his trip, he would have asked.”
“Hey, he might. He called and told you to call him back. That’s probably what he called for.”
“Doubt it.”
“You don’t know until you ask him.”
“Yeah, until I ask him and then find out that he’s finally decided that he doesn’t want anything to do with me either.”
“Shove over, dude.” Puck pushes at Dave until there’s room enough on the bed for Puck to lay down beside him. “Your Mom sucks, Dave, and not in a good way. You know this already. Just like you know that your Dad loves you and that he’s not going to turn his back on you. He’s got to go away for work, fine. She doesn’t want you to come home, even better because you don’t need to be around her. So, you’ll talk to your Dad later, find out what he called for, and see if he had something planned for the two of you.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“Then you’re all mine for the break and you’ll come home with me. Mom and Nana will try to fatten you up, Miri will try and steal you to be her big brother.”
A small smile briefly crossed Dave’s face, “Thanks Puck.”
“Anytime.”
First week of December 2012
Dave is sitting at Puck’s desk in front of the his laptop and typing wildly when Puck returns to the room after a long day of classes.
“Are you watching porn on my laptop? Why didn’t you wait for me?” Puck drops his backpack and coat on the floor and begins to shake his hips at Dave, hoping to make Dave laugh at his antics.
Instead Dave turns four different shades of red as he turns away from the computer’s screen. “Shut up! I’ve been chatting with your Mom for the last ten minutes waiting for your worthless hide to get back so she can talk to you.”
Puck rubs his hands over his face. He just knows he’s going to get an earful from his mother now. Dave finally laughs at him as he moves away so that Puck can sit down.
Ten minutes later, Puck’s considering knocking his laptop off the desk so that he doesn’t have to listen to his mother any longer, but he knows that if he did that, she’d just call his cell phone. She nags him about his grades and wonders if he’s eating right or not. Is he studying hard or is he out running wild. And why can’t he be a nice young man like Dave? Dave’s so polite and always calling her ma’am and asking how she is. On and on it goes, as if she hadn’t just seen him at Thanksgiving and had given him this same lecture in person. But no, she babbles from one topic to another with Puck tuning out most of what she says until he hears the words “trip” and “Hanukkah” fall from his mother’s lips.
He knows he should be happy for his mother, the woman deserves something good for all she’s had to deal with through the years, but a small part of Puck just wants to sulk over the fact that his mother is going to be spending three weeks in California, and that she’s taking Miri with her. It,s work related, so its not like his mother is going there to have fun without him, but it still pisses him off. She prefers for him to not stay home alone during the winter break, and suggests that he go stay with his Nana. Doesn’t that just sound like a barrel of fun. He’d rather be alone than to be staying with his Nana, in her condo at the retirement village.
Later, when he’s almost asleep he hears Dave whisper, “I’m sorry.” Puck just stares out into the dark room and starts to plan. He knows things are worse at Dave’s house, he knows that Dave’s dad has told him that he’s welcome to come home for break, and he knows that Dave’s mom has already told him not to. Dave’s planning on going, but he’s also planning on being at the house as little as possible.
Two days before winter break - December 2012
Puck’s waiting for Dave outside after his last class for the day. Dave’s first reaction is to think that something is wrong with his Dad. His stomach clenches and he thinks he might be sick, but then he notices that Puck’s smiling at him, and Puck wouldn’t be smiling like that if something was wrong.
They fall into step as they leave the building and walk across the campus quad towards their dorm building.
“Can you blow off your classes tomorrow?”
“I guess so, why?”
“Do you trust me?”
“Are you going to be pissed off if I say no? Because normally I’d say yes, but the fact that you’re asking makes me want to say no.”
Puck just laughs as he throws his arm across Dave’s shoulders. “I’m hurt, seriously hurt.”
Puck wakes Dave up early the next morning by pulling all the covers off of him, and dragging them across the room so that Dave can’t just grab them and burrow back beneath them to fall asleep again.
“Get up and get dressed.” Puck demand once Dave is sitting up and blinking.
“What the hell, Puck?”
“Places to go, people to do. Get moving, you’ve got twenty minutes to get dressed before I just drag you out of here in your boxers.”
Puck rushes Dave out of the dorms and out into Puck’s old car. Dave wonders why Puck could be in such a hurry to get back to Lima, and he’s surprised when they get to the highway that Puck heads North on I-75 instead.
“Not that it matters, but where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise, we’re going to go have some fun.”
“Is this where I’m supposed to trust you?”
“Yeah.”
Dave sits silently in the passenger seat until he sees the sign welcoming them to Michigan. “Not to question you and your surprise, but seeing how we just entered another state, should I be calling my Dad to tell him I’ll be late getting home tomorrow?” He asks.
“He’s not expecting you, I already called him. He said to tell you to have fun and he’ll talk to you later.”
Puck rolls through a drive-thru in Monroe, before they change roads from I-75 onto I-275, and get some breakfast with Puck telling Dave save room for ‘the biggest damn lunch you’ve ever had.’ They’re on US-23 between Ann Arbor and Flint, almost to the junction to rejoin I-75, when the snow begins to fall in earnest. It’s not enough that Dave’s concerned about the roads, but it’s definitely more snow than he’s seen in a long time.
There is a line of people standing outside of the restaurant Puck stops at for lunch and Dave suggests that maybe they should go someplace else. Puck just smiles and shakes his head, herding Dave into the line. “Trust me, you’re going to like this place.”
It takes almost a half hour before they’re seated and so far Dave isn’t impressed. It doesn’t seem like anything special to him, until waitress walks by loaded down with platters, not plates, and Dave watches with wide eyes as she places serves them to a neighboring table.
There seems to be an omelet that takes up the entire platter, a mound of something in a basket that Dave thinks might be bacon, and another platter of hash browns. Dave’s expecting all of this to be shared by the three people sitting at the table, but no, the waitress is placing it all in front of one person and then she proceeds to serve the other two people just as much food. Puck kicks him under the table and he hands him one of the paper menus. Dave skims the menu and only one thing jumps out at him over and over; the words “served with a pound of bacon.”
It’s been just over two hours since they left the restaurant and an hour since Puck got off of the main highway, and onto the smaller state highway. There is definitely more snow falling from the sky which only makes Dave feel more antsy. With the few stops they’ve made since leaving Toledo this morning, they’ve been in the car for almost six hours. Dave thinks he’s done well to not nag at Puck about where they are going.
When Dave spots a sign on the side of the road that reads ‘Elk Crossing’ and Dave can’t help himself any longer. “Elk? Where the hell are you taking me?” Puck’s reply is just a grin. Dave has to stop himself from reaching over and smacking that grin off of Puck’s face.
“We’re almost there now, help me watch the signs for County Highway 489.”
It’s another ten minutes before Dave spots the sign they’re looking for and once Puck makes the turn he pulls on the side of the road, he pulls his cell phone from his pocket and dials someone. Dave can tell that whoever Puck is speaking to is female, but he can’t hear well enough to tell who it is. Puck finally finishes talking, and toss the phone to Dave.
“Somebody wants to say hello to you.”
Dave brings the phone to his ear, “Hello?”
He’s surprised to hear Brittany’s voice. “Hi Dave! Puck says you’re coming to spend break with me. I can’t wait to see you again.”
Dave speaks with Brittany until she suddenly announces that she has to hang up so that she can meet them. Before Dave can even reply, she’s disconnected the call. Dave turns off the phone and drops it into his lap. “You’ve brought me to Michigan to see Brittany?”
“Her grandmother has a place up here, and the summer before sophomore year, she invited a bunch of us up. It’s a pretty nice set up, not far from a lake and it’s real quiet. When I talked to Brittany last time she said she was going to be up here for winter break. I called Brit last week and asked her if we could come up. So, here we are”
December 31st, 2012
Dave sits on the floor in front of the fireplace hoping that the heat of the fire will thaw out the bricks of ice that are currently impersonating his feet. Puck’s sprawled on the rug next to him, eyes shut and his face wind-burned from where he’d ridden on the snowmobile without the face guard down on his helmet. He can hear Brittany in the distance talking to her grandmother about the deer they’d seen earlier on the trail.
He stretches his leg out to push Puck’s hip, causing Puck to open his eyes and look over to Dave. “What?”
“Thanks for this.” Dave says, making a gesture with his hands that’s meant to encompass the room, the trip, their friendship. He doesn’t have words to express how much it all means to him.
Puck sits up and for the space of a few heartbeats, they just stare at each other. Then Puck is pulling him close to brush their mouths together before saying “Anytime.”
--- End ---