{Jon}

The faint, insistent buzz of Kurt's phone brought Jon awake, and the other man muttered some choice words as he shut it up. His boyfriend snuggled up to Jon's body, pushing his shoulder to roll him over. "15 minutes to spoon you before nine o' clock," he said in a voice thick with sleep, as he wrapped an arm around Jon. "An' then I'm going back to sleep."

Sighing happily, Jon fit himself into the warm curve of Kurt's body. He gradually came alert, blinking at the red walls of their tent as Kurt's breathing smoothed and slowed against his back. He went over the list of schoolwork he needed to do today. The work load next week as he pushed to finish was going to be intense and he'd planned to get out ahead of it on his day off. Everything he needed to do could be done from home, right? He just wanted a day in his house with his boyfriend close by; even a boring homework day was better together.

He was well into his second last assignment when Kurt jogged down the stairs, and slid on his sock feet up to the coffee maker. He sloshed the liquid in the bottom, making a face. "You drinking day-old coffee again, White?"

Jon glanced up from his laptop screen, widening his eyes innocently as he slurped his re-warmed coffee.

Kurt made an inarticulate noise of horror. "Gah--stop. Just--" He snatched the mug out of Jon's fingers. "I'm fixing this."

Jon smirked. That had worked perfectly.

He set his laptop aside when Kurt joined him at the table, gratefully taking a freshly brewed pour over and burying his face in the mug. "Visser, you're a godsend." He brushed his fingers over Kurt's arm, enjoying the freshly showered smell of him. "What's your plan for the day?"

Kurt sipped his coffee, scrolling on his phone. "I've been missing my Grandma Visser. I'm gonna try one of these raisin cookie recipes and see if I can get it to taste like hers." He moved his mouth back and forth, thinking. "I wonder if I can just sub your rice flour in for wheat. I'd hate for you to miss out. I better check some food blogs and see what they say about baking gluten free."

Jon laughed quietly. "I'm sorry I know nothing about this and I'm completely high maintenance."

Kurt narrowed his eyes in a smile at him. "I enjoy my partner not having head-splitting migraines every other weekend."

Jon exhaled. "Me too." He hadn't had a migraine since he'd cut out gluten completely in October. It was too soon to tell if this drastic change in his eating habits was making the difference, but he was grateful. He touched Kurt's hand, and the other man turned his palm to weave their fingers together as he read on his phone. Partner. The word touched him right to his heart. Jon couldn't keep from smiling all morning.

{Kurt}

By mid-afternoon Kurt was covered in gluten-free flour and two batches of rock-hard cookies were in the trash. He hovered over his third attempt as it baked, finally pulling it out of the oven with a thoughtful hum. He scooped one off the pan, blowing on it and taking a warm chewy bite. His eyebrows flicked up. "Love, try this." He tapped Jon's shoulder and the other man rapidly finished typing his sentence, then glanced up, his eyes smiling. "Open up," Kurt said, and Jon obliged, taking a big bite of cookie.

Kurt was delighted by the brush of Jon's lips on his fingers and the way Jon's eyes lit up. "I love that," Jon said, gingerly taking the rest of the crumbly cookie out of Kurt's fingers to eat it.

Kurt did a happy dance. "Grandma Visser and gluten free flour mix for the win!" he said triumphantly.

"More coffee an' more cookies?" Jon asked hopefully. "I'm almost done here, one more paragraph and the bibliography left."

At coffee break, Jon tasted like sugar and oats and Kurt could have kissed him for the rest of the afternoon if Jon's phone hadn't buzzed against his hip. Jon pulled away reluctantly. "Sorry love; I should've made this quiet."

"I thought you were just extra happy to see me," Kurt said, chuckling.

"It's Cary," Jon said, swiping his screen to pick up. He leaned back against Kurt's body with the phone on his ear, and Kurt wrapped his arm around his chest, idly kissing Jon's neck and fingering the hem of Jon's shirt.

"Mm-hm?" Jon said, laughing softly as Kurt's fingers traced a line from his belly button to the curve of his ribs. "Sure we can." Kurt felt Jon stretch, pushing up on his body as he breathed in. "Yup gotta go," Jon said and tossed the phone on the table. "Family dinner at mom and dad's tonight," he said breathlessly, and tipped his face up to Kurt's.

Having more interesting things to do with his afternoon than play with make up, Kurt didn't leave himself a lot of time to get ready for White family dinner. He'd never been to Jon's parents' house and found himself getting wound up with nerves a little as he sorted through his closet. He would rather have stood up in front of a thousand people to sing a solo unaccompanied than spend the evening in close quarters with Jon's pastor dad. Not that their previous suppers with Pete and Mel hadn't been pleasant and uneventful, it just felt a lot less safe to him to be in their house instead of the home he shared with Jon.

This was probably the perfect time to debut the swishy floral skirt he'd found thrifting. He layered it with torn skinny jeans and a silky long-sleeved top with a sheer back. Kurt's mouth curled in a mischievous smile, checking himself out. Queer boho punk--no question this ensemble was going to make an impression. He was putting pearls in his ears when Jon emerged from their tent, rubbing sleep out of his eyes and yawning. His partner tipped his head, his eyes narrowing in a smile behind him in the mirror.

"That's new and pretty," Jon said. "What do you want me to wear with?"

Kurt's smile deepened. God he loved that man. "How dapper do you want to be tonight, love?"

Jon tucked his chin over Kurt's shoulder, hugging him briefly from behind. "Outrageously dapper," he said. "Have you been shopping for me again?"

Kurt laughed. "Maybe. Dressing you is my new favorite thing."

It was Jon's turn to laugh when Kurt flashed the loud pink and purple flower-printed button up shirt from his closet. "Wow, possibly I spoke too soon."

Kurt looked critically between the shirt and Jon. "I thought your cashmere sweater might tone it down on you. With your cuffed jeans? Just enough or too much?"

Jon shrugged his bare shoulders, already pulling his skinny jeans back on. "I trust you, Visser. I figured you'd make me wear color eventually."

Kurt smirked. "You were right. If we can't go out somewhere in style, we're going to make a splash at your parents." And when he'd tied the espresso-brown polka dot bow tie above Jon's floral shirt they both agreed: just right.

On their way out, Kurt slung the skates he'd unearthed and sharpened that afternoon into the trunk of his car, just in case, and handed the keys to Jon. "Take me home to meet the parents, Jon White. I'm sure they're going to be thrilled."

"I'm sure they are," Jon said, unironically and Kurt chuckled at his faith. Jon's breath puffed out of his mouth as he paused in the driver's seat with his fingers on the keys. "Just...be patient with my mom today, okay? She's a little..." His mouth pressed a moment. "...Scattered. This time of year."

"Of course," Kurt said. "I love your mom."

Pulling out into the snowy street, Jon gave him a quick, wry glance. "You don't love my dad?"

Kurt smoothed his skirt and folded his hands in his colorful lap. "I'm not convinced he loves me," he said lightly. "His son is a hell of a lot more queer with me hanging around."

"Everyone better get used to it," Jon said, soft and fierce, touching his fingers to the open collar of his puffy jacket. "Because I fucking love this bow tie."

Kurt laughed. Turning on the radio, he scanned until he found smooth, jazzy Christmas music for their winter drive.

A few minutes later, Jon said, "I'm not more queer with you hanging around, Kurt. I've always been this queer. It's a word I don't usually use but...this just feels like me. I never knew how to be in the world the way I feel on the inside. You...see me. You're not dressing me up queer. You're dressing me like me."

Jon's eyes smiled at him, green-gold in the pale evening light. "And maybe it's not obvious to you because I'm usually all..." he waved his hand over his body, "...you know, keeping my queer bits tucked in tight, but my dad loves queer me. He's been questioning my decision to go back in the closet pretty much from day one. This bow-tie is really not going to surprise him. I mean...I marched in a Pride parade in short-shorts and a rainbow tie-dye shirt, like, cut up to here." Jon put his hand at his chest, and Kurt almost choked on his tongue picturing this on his boyfriend.

"And it was hideous, Visser," Jon added, laughing. "You have style. I thank God for you every time I open my closet now."

Kurt chuckled, his cheeks warming at the compliment. "You're making me blush, White. Um, do you still have those shorts?"

Jon threw back his head in a laugh. "We can look in my closet at my folks. You never know--my mom kept everything. Maybe you'll get lucky, Visser."

The White family side entry way was cluttered with girls shoes, and Kurt added his size 13 suede wedge boots to the collection. Following Jon, he padded up the hall in his stockings, glancing through each doorway. Every room was a different jewel box assortment of colors, like maybe Bea had a hand in picking the paint chips and couldn't limit herself to one same color on all four walls. Combined with stacks of books, knitting, or empty pottery mugs on every surface, and family photos and children's art work on most of the walls, Jon's childhood home felt like a crowded, fascinating jumble sale to Kurt. He would have liked to comb through every bookshelf and touch all the things.

Bea bounced up, her mop of curls barely tamed by a pony tail on top of her head like Mary-Lou Who. "Yay, it's the gays!" She hugged Jon, and Kurt leaned down to air-kiss both her cheeks, which made her giggle. "I'm helping Cary make The Light Circus and it's amazing."

"Is mom up?" Jon asked Bea, which Kurt thought was an odd question at five o' clock in the afternoon.

"I think so?" Bea said. "I heard the shower. Dad's on the way back from the mission--he's picking up Indian take out."

Under a brassy chandelier hung with rhinestone tear drops, the dining table was covered with drawings, and Cary was pouring over each page, scribbling in a detail here and there. He glanced up, smiling in his bushy beard when they entered. "Good, you're here. No one's done dishes all day and there's no plates for supper."

Jon rolled his eyes. "I did not get dressed up to do dishes," he grumbled and Kurt laughed quietly behind him.

"We were story boarding," Cary protested. "We were in a creative flow. No time for dishes!"

Jon took an apron off a hook in the kitchen, moving around the crammed space with the ease of familiarity.

Kurt pulled up, dismayed; tall stacks of crusted plates and cereal bowls and sauce pans covered the table and counter. "He wasn't joking about the dishes," he said.

Jon shook his head, carefully laying his sweater aside on a chair and tying the apron over his flowered shirt. "Dishes before supper; dishes after supper," he said drily. "That's my glamorous job around here." He gestured into the hall. "My room is there, first on the left if you want to hang out and wait in the Jon cave."

"Oh I definitely do," Kurt said, grinning. He nudged open the door off the hall with the 'Construction zone - keep out' sign on the front and stepped into teen-aged Jon's bedroom. His eyes widened; Jon's mom really had kept everything. Teen-aged Jon could have just stepped out for a second; his bed was still rumpled and half-made. A cluttered collection of Jui Jitsu trophies and comic books lined the top of the headboard. Proudly displayed in the center of the wall was a hand-painted poster, a rainbow with "As I have loved you...love one another" curving in the colorful beams.

Turning slowly, Kurt took in the printed Ruth Bader Ginsberg quote ("The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.") and a poster of Toby Maguire in an attractively tight black Spidey suit. The mirror over Jon's chipped dresser was so littered with photos that he could barely see his own reflection.

Jon and Cary standing back to back, smirking, in grad tuxes and sunglasses.

Jon and a startlingly non-tattooed Cary on a beach, digging a trench as deep as their waists with Bea grinning on top of the pile of sand with her shovel and bucket.

Jon glaring at the camera with a group of kids from Eastglen High in Churchill square, holding signs that said 'Aid not Arms for Afghanistan.'

A whole series of photos of Jon and kids from Eastglen at what must have been multiple Pride parades over the years, all glued to the mirror amid glittery rainbow stickers.

Jon and his dad at a Pride parade.

Holding his breath, Kurt leaned closer to this photo. Pete looked exactly the same as he did now, bearded and squinting as he smiled in the June sunlight, rainbow letters proclaiming across his chest 'FREE DAD HUGS.' His arm was wrapped around Jon's pale, slender waist, indeed bare to his chest in an awful homemade tie-dyed crop top. Kurt snorted, then pressed his fingers against his burning nose. Jon's laugh in the photo was so un-self-conscious, his arm slung around his dad's shoulders.

Stretching on Jon's bed and lifting a comic off the stack, Kurt lost track of time. When Jon peeked in the door, his boyfriend's face lit up and he came all the way inside, pulling the door shut behind him.

"Kurt Visser's in my bed," he whispered, grinning.

Kurt smiled back. "Uh-huh?"

Jon climbed over him, wedging himself into the space between Kurt and the wall and hugging his arm over Kurt's chest. "I don't think you realize how much I daydreamed about this."

Kurt's smile widened. "Uh-huh?" he said, glancing at Jon's soft lips.

"Did you find us yet?" Jon asked.

Bemused, Kurt shook his head. Jon put his head back on the pillow, running his fingers along the underside of the shelf of the headboard. Peeling a photo free, he showed it to Kurt.

Kurt blinked. He'd forgotten how skinny Jon had been, how big his eyes had looked in his peaked face that summer, even when he was smiling and relaxed like in this picture. If he'd known then what he knew now from journeying with addict friends in AA it would have been obvious to him Jon had a problem. "When did we take that?" he asked.

Jon unfolded the photo; a very pretty Japanese-Canadian girl was on the other side of Kurt, one arm wrapped around his neck for the selfie, her other hand pulling Jon's shirt to bring him in closer to them both.

"Rescued it from Kadee's trash can," Jon said. "After she broke up with you."

In the photo, Kurt's hair was even longer than his hair was now, flopping over one narrowed blue eye and touching his shoulders. Abruptly, Kurt remembered the day his dad took him to get it cut, just before his last high school football season opened. Kurt had just managed to keep it together in the barber's chair, watching his hair fall to the linoleum floor in chunks while the clippers buzzed, digging into his scalp. In the car on the way home he had wrapped his hands over his shorn head, unable to stop his crying while his father simmered with disapproval beside him.

Kurt dropped his eyes to Jon's face, his ears hot. His boyfriend touched the smudged paper with his thumb, biting his lip.

"I...thought of you. A lot," Jon said softly. "I hoped you were on your way to something good, something that would make you happy." Jon's throat moved as he swallowed. "Knowing your family, I was afraid you that weren't. I...didn't pray a lot in high school either. But I prayed for you."

"Put that away, would you, White?" Kurt asked quietly. "That kid is hard for me to look at."

Quickly, Jon tossed it back on the shelf, checking Kurt's face. "I thought you looked happy."

"I do look happy," Kurt drawled. "I have no clue the shit that's coming next and next and next." He sat up, rubbing the heel of his hand into his eye. "I got a hundred fucking regrets between then and now."

Trying to shake that off, he flashed Jon a smile. "I could get lost in your room, White. You were a badass in high school."

Jon snorted. "I was an angry asshole in high school." Sitting up, he hooked his chin over Kurt's bowed shoulder and pressed his hand over Kurt's heart as he looked around the room. "I guess I was at least trying to get out of my own head."

Kurt nudged his face next to Jon's, breathing the comforting smell of him. Jon's fingers stroked his cheek and his lips found his. Kurt kissed him slowly, like he could go back over every year that he'd missed and kiss Jon in all of them.

When Kurt drew away, Jon made a soft sound, sucking on his lower lip and looking at him with lidded eyes. "Waited to do that. With you. In this bed. A long time, Kurt Visser," he said, low.

Kurt bumped his forehead against his. "Ta-dah," he said huskily. "Here I am."

Jon stroked his fingers through Kurt's hair on the back of his neck, his mouth curving. "The real thing is even better than my daydreams."

Kurt shivered; he hadn't expected Jon's family home to so thoroughly trigger his own family shit. None of the years layered on Jon's mirror had been great for him. It felt like his chest was wide open and they hadn't even started dinner yet.

"Hey," Jon said softly, tapping his fingers against Kurt's heart, his forehead wrinkling. "Love. I'm never leaving you. You know that, right? All that shit--yours and mine--is just how we got here." Rubbing his palm over the silky fabric of his top, Jon narrowed his eyes in a smile for him. "This is us now."

Taking a deep breath, Kurt hugged him tight; the weight of Jon's familiar, muscular shoulders squeezing him back reassured him that that was true--this was his real life now and it wasn't going anywhere.

*I had an unreasonable amount of fun creating Jon's high school bedroom for this scene! He and Cary lived in this house for Grades 11 and 12, and probably a gap year after that.

That's 2008-2010: gay marriage was 3 years legal in Canada (the Canadian United church had been recognizing same-sex unions since 2000), the war in Afghanistan was a thing, the Pope apologized to Canadian Indigenous people for the abuses that happened in Catholic residential schools, Tobey Maguire was Spiderman, Green Day's frontman was out as 'bi'.

I tried to hint at bits of that history and Jon's passion for social justice without side-lining the forward movement of this scene. It's a little fluffy but you should be gathering a bit of the drama to come. Don't worry, their commitment to each other for the long haul is real and not going anywhere, but that doesn't mean there isn't stuff they need to sort out like everyone else...

Anything you learned about Jon from this visit to his family home that surprised you, or that you loved? Is the flowered shirt and bow tie look a keeper? ;) As usual, I'm grateful for you reads, votes and comments! Be well today lovelies, you are loved.*

3469 words.