For Keeps

32. Those old promises.

{Jon}

Jon awoke to the sound of Kurt singing in the shower at the top of his lungs. He squinted at the heavy hotel curtains where it was evidently not yet sunrise, and then checked the time on his phone: 7:30 AM. What on earth was his partner doing awake? Rolling on his face, he buried his head in the pillows and spread his arms and legs in a starfish across the entire bed.

He'd just dozed off again when the bed bounced and Kurt clambered over his body. "Jon--Jon--Jon," he sang softly, hugging Jon's shoulders and rubbing his scruffy cheek against Jon's. "Time to wake up!"

The smell of his lip gloss made Jon crack one eye open, a tiny bit interested. "Why?" His voice was rough with sleep. "There's hours 'til check out, Visser. Sleepin' in. Breakfast in bed. These don't sound tempting to you?"

Kurt chortled, poking his ribs through the blankets. "Nope. One more trail to conquer. There's a Kissing Point I want to find with you. Come on--come on!"

Jon made a grumbling noise, getting his knees under him, fighting to free himself from the weight of the duvet and Kurt's body. "What the actual eff. I work today. I was planning to sleep."

Undeterred, Kurt scrambled off the bed, almost dancing with excitement. "You can sleep in the car. We have one more day in the mountains Jon--we're not spending it in a hotel room. Let's go, let's go!"

Struggling out of bed, Jon started to laugh. "I swear it's like being with a small child with you sometimes. Okay, I'm up."

It was obvious that while he'd been snoozing, Kurt had packed the room and laid out Jon's clothes. His partner's sparkling eyes made Jon suspicious he had some plan up his sleeve. "Kissing Point? Are you making this up?"

"No no no," Kurt said, laughing, his eyes wide and innocent. "It's real. The SkyTram leaves in twenty minutes and I want to be on the first ride up."

The Jasper SkyTram was a carriage on a zip line that travelled up to the top of Whistlers' Mountain, where there were trails along the ridge line, as well as an obligatory gift shop and restaurant. Jon and Kurt were the only two passengers on the squeaky pleather benches so early in the morning, and as they swayed up the side of the mountain, beams of the rising sun hit the carriage windows, nearly blinding them.

Jon leaned back sleepily against Kurt, and Kurt tucked an arm around his chest. "Mountains are just so big," Jon said. "Feels like we're in God's big house."

Kurt was quiet, but Jon felt his ribs expand under his head in a contented sigh.

"I think that's why it works for me to come here," Jon said, cracking a yawn. "Like in God's house I can put all the shit down I've been carrying. And They'll take care of it."

Kurt hummed. "An' then it's safe for you to cry," he said.

"Yeah," Jon said, leaning his head back and closing his eyes. He felt so completely peaceful after all the crying he'd done the day before, and in Kurt's arms he didn't feel exposed, like he needed to get his shit back together and lock it down to return to work. He was okay just how he was, open for feelings to come and go in his body. At the end of the day, he was coming home to Kurt and his partner had such a generous amount of room for Jon's big feelings alongside his own.

The only big feeling Jon had to handle with care now was his anger, and he'd been kicking that into the heavy bag in his basement long enough to be pretty sure he could manage that in a way that wasn't going to alarm Kurt's sensitive heart.

The SkyTram carried them above the treeline; when they disembarked onto the slope, the mountainside was bare and littered with pebbles and stones, blown clean of snow. The sky brought all the colour and drama, flags of clouds glowing pink before the sun broke the horizon and they faded to a fluffy white.