*Trigger warning: conversation about hospitals, cancer and death. I promise, lovelies, this lonnnnng night is going to come to an end and the sun rises in Chapter 29--read somewhere safe and push through!*

{Kurt}

Jon slowly unfolded as Kurt drove. His partner set his boots on the floor and hugged his chest. At a stop light, Kurt used one hand to quickly pull up a playlist on his phone and connect it with the car speaker system. It was an acoustic mix of Christmas carols he thought Jon would like because they were mostly about the Christian origin of the holiday: God coming as a baby into the dark of the world.

Which was what Douglas had been reading about the day before, Kurt realized. The people walking in darkness have seen a great light. His galloping heart gradually slowed to a more normal pace.

"You still hungry love?" he asked as he pulled into a 24-hour Tim Horton's drive through.

Jon nodded wordlessly, and Kurt leaned out the window, letting in a chilly blast of air as he ordered two coffees and juice and water bottles and two egg and bacon English muffins, without the muffins. He had to repeat this twice to a very confused and probably sleepy staff person. "Just throw the eggs and bacon on top of each other in a box," Kurt said, exasperated. "And give us a fork. Unless you have a gluten free bread option in there I don't know about."

When he had finally sorted this out and pulled forward to the payment window, Kurt nudged Jon's arm, chuckling. "I thought I was a high maintenance gay."

Jon's laugh was soft but Kurt was relieved to hear it. It felt like they were shaking off the fear of the previous hour, like waking up from a nightmare. Once he had a coffee warm in his hand and they were on the freeway out of the city, Kurt felt entirely normal.

"Okay, plans," Kurt said. "Our check-in isn't 'til noon and we'll be in Jasper way before then. Anything you want to do, White?"

"We could hike the loop around Annette Lake?" Jon's eyes just touched his face as he unpacked the bag of food. "It's beautiful up there. And there's a restaurant at the end."

"I even wore my reasonable boots," Kurt said. "Sure love, let's do that. I have us booked in for all sorts of fabulous things this afternoon: mud facials and massages and mani-pedis."

Jon flashed Kurt a small smile, eating eggs in big bites out of the box. "Sounds gay," he said. "I'm in."

Kurt laughed, rubbing the back of Jon's neck with his free hand. His fingers found a hell of a lot of tension there still, and the tiny hairs on the back of Jon's neck prickled under his touch.

Jon shivered involuntarily, taking a long swig of juice. "Mm. I think I forgot to eat yesterday, except communion and some carrot sticks. God, I'm starving."

Kurt sighed to himself. Seriously, he cared about Jon so much it hurt and he wished Jon was half as good to his body as Kurt would have been.

The highway was dark and empty, stars pricking the night sky above their headlights rolling over the asphalt and endless snowy ditches. There were stories he'd been hoping to hear from his partner today, in the privacy of their car with nowhere they needed to be. "Jon can you--tell me your Judah stories?" he asked. "The ones your parents don't tell on your birthday. It's okay if you cry today, right?"

Jon made a dry noise, leaning against the door with his arms hugged around his body. "I don't remember, Visser. I told you, I was six."

"You told me you remember the scary shit," Kurt said softly.

It was quiet a moment. Jon tucked his chin in, frowning and Kurt reached out to touch his shoulder, worried that he'd pushed too far. Jon drew in a breath. "I never tell those stories. I don't...I don't know how to start."

"What was it like in the hospital?"

Jon turned his face aside. "Boring. Judah got to eat all the popsicles. Except grape--he hated grape. If the nurse brought a grape popsicle he split it with me."

"Sounds like a typical selfish older brother," Kurt said lightly.

Jon's laugh was short. "That's not how I remember him." He blinked at himself. Clearly he remembered something. "I remember feeling like I didn't recognize him." His voice was quiet and unsteady. "Every day he looked less like my brother and acted less like my brother until it--went in." He pushed his hands against his stomach. "And I got it. That he was dying. My brother wasn't coming back. He was going to be this sick person I couldn't wrestle with or even hug without bruising and then." Jon lifted his hand, opening it like he was releasing a tiny bird.

Jon crossed his arms tight, exhaling. "I hated going. Judah was gone already. The person in that bed wasn't my brother." His face crumpled in the dim light of the dash. "I wouldn't hug him. The last time. God I hope he didn't remember that--he was so out of it. It makes me sick thinking that on his last night maybe he laid there and thought of how his little brother wouldn't even touch him."

Jon's hands covered his face, and he made a noise like he was swallowing on throwing up. "There's shit I just wish I could go back and do over, you know? And that's right up there. Top of the list of things I hate myself for."

Kurt reached across, clasping Jon's shoulder and rubbing the muscle bunched there. He blinked his eyes clear of tears to see to drive.

Jon took a deep breath. "I just--have to tell myself--I didn't know what I know now. And it's okay that I was scared. Right?" His too-bright eyes found Kurt's face. "Is it okay that I was scared?"

Kurt nodded, his mouth smiling while tears slipped over his cheeks. "Yeah it's okay. You were just a kid."

Jon sighed, pushing his hands against his chest. "Okay."

"You remember the last time you hugged?" Kurt asked.

Jon put his eyes on the dark horizon, thinking. "I didn't, like, think to myself 'This is the last time I'm going to hug my brother because next week he's gonna die in the hospital.'" He made a dry noise. "So, no." He paused. "Maybe the closest thing--is the last time we wrestled. And I won." He bit the corner of his mouth. "I pinned Judah and wrapped my arms around his shoulders and...he wasn't stronger than me. And we laughed." Emotion rippled over Jon's face. "Because I was stronger."

Jon was silent for some time, before turning his face partially towards Kurt. "I haven't thought of that memory in years, Visser," he said in a low voice. "So thank you for that."

Kurt found his hand, swallowing on his tight throat. "You haven't cried yet," he said.

Jon lifted his shoulders. "Sometimes I can't. I feel the tears all burning in here." He touched his chest. "--and they just burn a hole in me until."

He stopped, and Kurt squeezed his hand. "You can tell me, love."

Jon sighed, tapping two fingers on his bicep. "Until I bleed," he said. "Which I'm not doing this year so. I'm hoping you can work your magic, Kurt, and coax the tears outta my body."

Kurt shrugged a shoulder up to dry his cheek. So far he'd only managed to cry himself.

Jon was playing with his hand, his boots tucked up on the dash again, spreading Kurt's fingers over his knee and rubbing the chipped polish on his fingernails. "I'm pretty sure I--got broken actually. Like it makes sense to me. Why I don't cry. And why this road trip usually works for me." His eyes snagged on lights ahead. "There's a gas station--let's get some snacks."

When Kurt arrived at the till with an armful of chips and salted nuts and Skittles, Jon was scanning the wall of cigarettes with his hands in his pockets. "Do you mind if I smoke in the car?" he asked, and Kurt glanced at him, surprised.

"Uh--it's still pretty much your car," Kurt said. "Are you starting a new habit on me, White?"

Jon's eyebrows lifted, his mouth half-smiling like he thought Kurt was joking. "No. Old habit. I left my pack in the van. Number Sevens," he said to the dude at the till.

"Huh." Kurt unloaded his snack haul, recalling the number of times he'd caught a whiff of cigarettes in the entryway, or the laundry pile. "Here I thought I was smelling Douglas."

Jon scooped the pack off the counter, unzipping the cellophane and flicking out a cigarette to set on his lips before making the pack disappear into his jacket. He darted Kurt a look, still smiling, but his eyes were worried. "No, you're probably smelling me. If anything, Cary smells like weed. Way better at mellowing him out."

Jon fished a lighter out of his pocket and paused just outside the store to light up, the tiny flame glowing pink-red in the shelter of his hood, in contrast to the stark black of the winter night and the blue-white of the gas bar fluorescents. Tipping his face up, Jon sucked a third of the cigarette back, his face relaxing as he exhaled. "Cigarettes are my one guilt free pleasure--legal drugs I can buy at my corner store." He offered Kurt the smoke and Kurt shook his head, amused by this whole situation.

"Wrecks my voice," he said.

A worried wrinkle appeared in his partner's forehead. "I didn't mean to keep this a secret from you, Kurt. You seriously didn't know I smoke?"

Kurt shook his head.

Jon exhaled, rubbing the heel of his hand into his eye, the cigarette balanced between the tips of two fingers. "I think I'm not good at being an open person."

Kurt burst out laughing, then covered his mouth when Jon shot him a wounded look. "I mean--you might be a master of understatement. Who's to say?"

Jon tucked his arms close to his puffy jacket, flicking the smoke beside his leg while he held Kurt's eyes. "I am trying." His voice was small. "You know I'm trying, right?"

Kurt leaned in, wrapping his arm around Jon's shoulders in a side hug. "Yeah I know that, Jon." It had come home to him some time ago the rare privilege it was to be the man Jon partnered. Kurt had spent a good couple of years chasing fame, chasing crowds, and what he couldn't have imagined was how satisfying it would be to have complete, exclusive access to just one person. No one else in the world got to open all of Jon's secrets and hold them in his hands--just Kurt. That gift of trust made him a little giddy, and also reached down to his guts and held him steady on Jon in a way a crowd full of anonymous faces never had.

Dancing a little with cold as he rapidly finished the smoke, Jon seemed determined to tell Kurt everything he'd missed now. "I started smoking when I was fifteen. Mom hates the smell. And I don't need another all-consuming addiction, obviously. So I keep it to a minimum. Like a couple a week."

Kurt shrugged, rummaging in his snack sack for the Skittles. "It's your guilt-free pleasure. I get it, love. I actually don't mind the smell." This close to Jon, the fragrance of tobacco and fire overwhelmed the stink of gasoline in the parking lot. "Reminds me of cuddling with the dude bros at an after-party."

Jon's shoulder leaned into his body, and he glanced at Kurt, blowing smoke out of the side of his mouth, away from Kurt's face. "Cuddling with the dude bros?"

"Oh my god straight dudes love to cuddle," Kurt said. He rubbed his face in Jon's hoodie. "And now you smell like my favourite thing about football."

Jon was still, his eyebrows lifted, arrested in the motion of butting out his cigarette. "I feel like I just need to take a moment. And savour being compared to a straight, football player dude bro. This has literally never happened to me."

Kurt laughed, and then nudged his face into Jon's hood. As it turned out, nicotine in Jon's mouth was a taste he would be happy to acquire.

*So Jon is and always has been one of those characters with a mind of his own. I find him to be an unreliable narrator--he is so private that things are going on with him for a while before even I know it. This scene is a great example: we're going along on this road trip and Kurt is buying Skittles and suddenly Jon is buying smokes. And I'm like...wait, how long have you been smoking, Jon?

And the answer that I find out as I write is: this whole time.

I mean, I love a character with a life of their own... even if he also frustrates the h*ll out of me. The guy just cannot take the easy road.

But I guess if he did there would be no story! Jon walked out of my pen 15 years ago and made himself a main character in a story that was supposed to be just Cary's. He's still holding my attention in his quiet, remarkable way. There's just something about him...

Do you have a favourite character out of the cast of For Us? What do you love about them? What frustrates you?

Thanks for the reads and votes, lovelies, see you Saturday!*

2168 words.