Day 071: Monday 26th November, 2012
We Were Never Here (South Dakota)

"How about Armageddon?"

"We'd definitely hit your Bruce Willis kink."

"Blaine, Bruce Willis being hot is not a kink. It's Bruce Willis being hot."



Kurt was flying.

Not literally, of course—he wasn't even driving fast enough to get a speeding ticket—but his mood was so light that it felt like he was barely touching the ground. He had Poppiholla playing on repeat to soundtrack his journey along US-16A, and was grinning like a buffoon as he passed a sign that read, Mt. Rushmore, EXIT 2 MILES. Although it was cold, it was a beautiful and clear day with only a few scattered clouds darkening the horizon to his left, and as he drove, he was surrounded by trees and hilly peaks that rolled and undulated as far as he could see on either side of the curving highway.

And everything was capped with a blanket of pure white snow.

Still exhausted from an almost solid eight hours of driving the previous day, Blaine was napping in the bedroom. Looking at it on a map, the route was a fairly straightforward one, but the post-Thanksgiving traffic had been hell—Kurt had never heard Blaine curse so much outside of the bedroom. To top it all off, Blaine had risen at dawn to warm the R.V.'s engine before heading out to clear off the thick layer of snow that had settled over her during the night.

Kurt pulled into the left lane as he passed the half-mile exit sign, and followed the road beneath an arching, wooden-framed bridge. His smile stretched from ear to ear; Mount Rushmore was one of the great American monuments he'd always wanted to see, and he couldn't believe that he was finally getting to do it. If Blaine wasn't already up by the time they arrived, Kurt resolved to kiss him awake.

Passing through the saloon-fronted stores of a small strip mall in Keystone, Kurt could tell that he was getting close. Around thirty minutes earlier, he'd opened his blog app and set up a new video post, and now he brought his phone out of sleep, adjusted its angle in the cup holder so that it was tilted to capture his profile, and hit the red button to begin recording.

"Good afternoon!" he called brightly, pushing his sunglasses further up his nose and inclining his head slightly more toward the phone. "Followers, friends... I'm actually not sure what I'm supposed to call you guys... It's day seventy-one and this latest exciting video diary is coming to you from South Dakota, where it's cold, clear, and beautiful—and the best part? There's snow everywhere.

"I'm usually stationary, I know, but today I thought it might be fun for you to witness what I'm sure is going to be a ridiculously over-the-top reaction when I first see Mount Rushmore," Kurt continued. He paused momentarily as he drove through a tunnel carved out of rock, and continued, "I've wanted to see it ever since I was, oh... Seven, maybe? So this is—this is big, for me.

"I'm just..." he trailed off, shaking his head and smiling to himself a little. "You know, I think there are times in every friendship, every relationship, where you have to kind of just sit back and let everything go but what you have. And right now, that's what I'm trying to do. Because if what happens on the road trip stays on the road trip, then doesn't it kind of follow that whatever happens should be amazing? I think—"

Kurt's thought was cut abruptly short as he passed a line of snow-capped trees and, for the first time, glimpsed Mount Rushmore. It stood proud and majestic, the faces of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln overlooking the sprawl of the Black Hills, and Kurt felt as if the breath had been stolen from his body.

"Oh my god," he whispered.

He took the remaining turns of the road silently and as quickly as he could, and within what seemed like a mere clutch of breath-held moments, he was pulling the R.V. to a stop in the visitors' parking lot, as close as he could get. Slumped back against his seat, he did nothing but smile for a full minute. The cinematographer in him wanted to examine every tiny detail, search out every flaw and imperfection in the time-weathered rock, and celebrate them all.

"Are you freaking out?"

Blaine's voice was a sleepy sort of wry, startling Kurt out of his reverie. He glanced up to find Blaine standing by his side, knuckles brushing his arm as he took in the spectacle for himself. Forgetting all about the ongoing recording, he reached up to pull Blaine down for a sound kiss, unable to help smiling and giggling a little against his lips.

"You're freaking out," Blaine sing-songed, bunching the cuffs of his hoodie in his hands and stretching up onto his toes.

He drew Kurt's gaze like he was the sun to Kurt's moon, and in turn moved around him as if he were caught in Kurt's gravity. Only a red blinking light in Kurt's periphery distracted him, and he hastily stopped the recording, inwardly cursing himself for using the instant capture feature that would upload straight to his blog. He hadn't exactly intended to be caught on camera making out with his—with Blaine.

"Come on," Kurt said, getting to his feet and tugging on Blaine's sleeve. "You need boots, a jacket, and gloves. It's below freezing out there, and I want a closer look."

It wasn't long before they were both bundled up in winter gear, walking arm in arm through the eerily silent, empty parking lot and beneath the square stone archway onto Grand View Terrace.

Their boots crunched through the snow, and Kurt could feel a sense of giddy delight building inside him—winter was his season, and snow was his favorite. More so than any horribly commercialized holiday, there was something about snow that carried with it a sense of magic; there was no peaceful quiet like that of when snow was falling, and it left in its wake a ground reflecting so much light that, as a young child, Kurt had sometimes wondered if he was walking on the sky.

"Well... I guess it is a Monday at the end of November," Blaine commented, gesturing back to the parking lot as they passed between pillars adorned with the state flags. "Although wouldn't you think that people would take advantage of this particular holiday to be all patriotic?"

"I think most people just want to get home and away from obnoxious family members," Kurt replied blithely.

"Like Great-Aunt Mildred?"

"She made me eat sprouts, Blaine. They taste like farts."

"Oh, I'm well aware. Don't you remember Sproutgate 2005? I didn't talk to Cooper for almost a month," Blaine said, shuddering in a way that Kurt knew had nothing to do with the cold. He stopped himself from going on to say that Cooper might have actually noticed Blaine's silent treatment if they were in the habit of speaking more frequently than every six weeks.

They came to a stop before the low wall overlooking the amphitheater, and as Kurt stood gazing up at the mountain towering above him, he caught sight of Blaine brushing snow from one end of a stone bench. He closed the distance between them and took the seat Blaine offered with an exaggerated, gentlemanly bow. Before he could move to clear a space next to him, he found himself with a lapful of Blaine: a warm, grounding weight and an arm curled around his shoulders like it was nothing.

Maybe it was nothing.

"Are you still freaking out?" Blaine asked, glancing up at the mountain and then down at Kurt. It always struck him how oddly nice it was to have to tip his head back in order to meet Blaine's gaze.

"I was never freaking out."

"You were freaking out a little bit."

"Fine, I was freaking out," Kurt conceded. After a moment, he added, "Thank you."

"For what?" Blaine asked, brow furrowed.

"For bringing me along," Kurt said. "I mean, who knows when I would've gotten to see this otherwise?"

"I told you, I wouldn't have left without you," Blaine said quietly, his thumb burrowing beneath Kurt's scarf and rubbing the skin at the nape of his neck. The moment hung between them, and Kurt could tell that they were both wondering the same thing: What if we hadn't left Maine? What would we be right now?

To break the silence, Kurt returned his gaze to the mountain and said, "I'd love to shoot here. Wouldn't you?"

"Set the scene for me," Blaine said.

Two best friends on a road trip, Kurt thought. Sitting in this very spot and feeling like right now, right at this moment, they're exactly where they're meant to be.

"Post-apocalypse," he finally replied, and Blaine's eyes widened a little. An idea occurred to him, and as surreptitiously as he could, he moved his hand behind him and slowly began collecting snow. "I wanna see it filthy and neglected, the entire place in ruins. The terrace back there is all overgrown, and the whole place is covered in snow, like it is now. I'd want to really juxtapose the innocence against the horror, you know?"

"Go on," Blaine said, nodding.

"And there are two guys—"

"Naturally."

"—all bruised up, guns slung across their backs, looking like they've never seen snow before," Kurt said, looking out over the wall and seeing powdery puffs of it falling from the boughs of trees up on the hill.

"What happens next?" Blaine prompted.

"They're standing at the wall, shoulders slumped because it's cold and they're exhausted and haven't found shelter yet," Kurt continued, nudging Blaine off so that he could stand up. They crossed to the wall together, Kurt's snowball packed tight in his gloved hand. He put a few paces between them, knowing he was about to begin World War Three. "It's quiet—all they can hear is the wind howling through the trees, and that's when a song begins to play. Barely there to begin with, but getting louder—and then one of the guys grins at the other..."

"And then what?"

"Duck and cover!" Kurt yelled at the top of his voice, turning and hurling the snowball toward Blaine. It exploded against the front of his dark pea coat, leaving a splatter of white on Blaine's chest and a comically shocked expression on his face. "What, like you really weren't expecting that?"

Blaine brushed himself off and drew his shoulders back. "Battle stations, Hummel. Because you're going down."

"May the best man win!" Kurt called over his shoulder as he took off across the terrace, running for what little cover that the Avenue of Flags could provide him. Snowball fights were no laughing matter between him and Blaine—the last one they'd had, back in their second year of college, had gone on for nearly an hour before Blaine had finally given up and grudgingly conceded victory.

He ducked behind the third pillar along the avenue and crouched down, rapidly taking handfuls of snow and packing them as tightly as he could. He had a title to defend, and he wasn't going to give it up quietly.

"Incoming!" Blaine called, and Kurt glanced past the corner of the pillar just in time to see Blaine leaping through the air and throwing a snowball at him mid-jump.

It missed him by a few inches and Kurt hid himself behind the pillar once more, grinning with his back to the stone. "Seriously, Blaine, did you learn nothing from Night at the Museum 2?"

No response came, and aside from the brief sound of Blaine's boots crunching past him through the snow, it was silent. Kurt gathered a snowball in each hand and cautiously peeked out from behind the pillar, but Blaine was nowhere to be seen. Silently congratulating himself on having the forethought not to wear his other jacket, which was dry clean only, he stepped fully out from between the pillars and waited.

"Come on, Anderson!" he called. "I'm not gonna wait around all day while you get up the courage to face me!"

A snowball hit the side of his thigh as Blaine darted, quick as a flash, between two pillars to Kurt's right. He swore under his breath and followed, but Blaine had already run out into the open space of the avenue. With a quick smirk down at the pile of snowballs Blaine had left behind, he lobbed the ones he held at Blaine—both hitting him square on the shoulder—and gathered up three more.

"You sounded exactly like your dad just then, you know!" Blaine declared as he scurried off toward Kurt's original hiding spot.

"Yeah, and look how his snowball fight with your dad ended up! Epic Hummel Smackdown!" Kurt shot back, dogging Blaine's footsteps and following him back out onto the terrace. As soon as he'd stopped zigzagging, Kurt took two of his three shots, landing one on his back and the other on his calf.

Blaine turned around to throw one back, and it hit Kurt smack on the jaw. He hissed and staggered backward—the snowball had been packed tight and it stung like a bitch. Blaine was by his side almost immediately.

"Fuck, are you okay?" he asked, gloved hands cupping Kurt's face and tilting it upward so he could see.

"You never learn," Kurt reprimanded him, taking his remaining snowball and crushing it into Blaine's hair. He laughed at Blaine's grim expression, pressed a firm kiss to his mouth and took off again.

He didn't get far, however, before Blaine grabbed him around the waist and tackled him to the ground, landing on top of him in the snow and saying with a smirk, "Yield, Hummel."

"Never," he said, softening his voice and his gaze. He'd lost enough fights in the past through Blaine employing dirty tactics that, if this was about to end, he was going to get the parting shot. Slowly, he slid his wrists from Blaine's loose grip to twine their fingers together. The cold was seeping into his hair and through his clothes, and as he looked past Blaine hovering above him, he saw that the sky had turned an ominous shade of gray.

When Blaine twisted around to see what he was looking at, Kurt took the opportunity to hook his leg around Blaine's hips and roll them over, hands still clasped together. Blaine's lips were cold, but warmed Kurt nonetheless when he leaned down for a slow kiss. "Yield, Anderson," he whispered, his breath coming out in a bloom of white.

"Fine, keep your stupid title," Blaine grumbled, shivering, but there was a quirk at the corner of his mouth that betrayed him. "Can we get up, now? I'm freezing. And it's starting to snow."

By the time they'd gotten to their feet and finished brushing themselves off, it was already coming down in fat, heavy flakes, and Kurt was looking forward to getting inside and feeling his hands burn as they warmed up. But just for a second, he looked at Blaine in his pea coat with snow settling into his curls, and remembered him in a short-sleeved t-shirt, standing on a wall in Florida and kissing him like his life depended on it.

"I'm freezing," Blaine repeated, his shoulders up by his ears and hands buried in his pockets.

"Let's stay here for a second," Kurt said, quickly unbuttoning his coat and wrapping it around them both.

"Okay, Bridget," Blaine said wryly, pushing his arms beneath the thick wool of Kurt's coat and squeezing his waist.

"Actually, this would make me Mark," Kurt corrected him with a grin. He glanced around, watching the snow settling around them. Their tracks were already beginning to disappear. "Listen."

"I don't hear anything."

"Exactly. Isn't this perfect?"

Blaine ducked his head, kissed Kurt's jaw where it still stung, and hummed in agreement.

The moment was broken by Kurt's phone chiming with a new email, and he kept one arm wrapped around Blaine as he drew it out of his pocket and read the message over Blaine's shoulder.

So that's the infamous Blaine? He looks like a keeper, but if you're really more for enjoying the moment, set a few aside to listen to this. –F.

Kurt immediately tapped open the accompanying YouTube link, excited and frustrated in equal measure at the ongoing mystery of just who F was, and what they were trying to accomplish. There was a tinge of embarrassment that he could feel coloring his cheeks, like he'd been caught on camera doing something far more risqu� than kissing, but as Coldplay's Life In Technicolor II began to play, it's uplifting introduction swept away all vestiges of anything other than simple happiness.

"Another one from Marcie?" Blaine asked, and Kurt nodded as he unwrapped Blaine from his embrace. He didn't like lying, but if he told the truth he would have to tell all of it, and there was no way he could stomach revealing the one place he had left to go when he could no longer make sense of himself.

"Let's go," he said, and took Blaine's hand.

As they made their way across the terrace toward the Avenue of Flags, he glanced toward the pillar he'd hidden behind—his snowballs were already buried. The snow was falling in thick sheets, catching in his eyelashes, and he spared only one glance backward. The footprints they'd left by the wall were almost filled in, and the bench was covered again.

"Almost looks like we were never here," Blaine said quietly.

"It does," Kurt agreed, wondering once again, What if we weren't?



Distance: 9,713 miles