Loving the positive response, guys— you guys are amazing! (I hated Crystal too. I don't even like writing bigots.)


1: Phone Home (Lil Wayne)

"I thought it went pretty well, all things considering...," Kurt confided in Ryan seriously later that evening, his eyes roaming carelessly over his boyfriend's backside as he bent over a half-packed suitcase. Ryan laughed and shook his head, neatly filling his luggage with folded clothes.

"The reporter bitch? Yeah, everything would've gone perfectly, if we hadn't been called fags in front of dozens of people, at a very special event in my life. Go figure." Kurt winced.

"But you're not bitter at all, are you?" he asked facetiously, rolling his eyes in Ryan's direction, who was diligently sorting hats onto the bedspread. "Please tell me you aren't taking all your hats. My house is relatively large, but even it won't fit all of those."

Ryan shook his head, chuckling. "I'm only going to take a few... which one goes better with my new Armani suit, the dark cerulean newsboy, or the midnight blue fedora?" He held up the two hats seriously, looking back and forth between the two with a loving look on his face. Kurt shook his head again, amused.

"The... fedora," Kurt decided, though honestly, they both just look blue to him. (And that was saying something, considering his eye for fashion.) Ryan's obsession with having the perfect hat never ceased to amaze him. Kurt had, on occasion, worn a hat to compliment a fabulous outfit, but he didn't have four thousand of them. Maybe that was an exaggeration, but not by much.

Ryan bit his lip, shaking his head. "Can't I bring both?"

"Nope." Kurt reached over and snatched the newsboy cap away from his boyfriend, hiding it behind his back. "Pack the fedora, before I hide this so well that you'll never see it again." Ryan paled, throwing up his hands in defeat.

"Alright! You win! Just please don't keep him hostage!" He dropped the fedora into his suitcase and lunged for Kurt, his fingers making contact with his ribcage and tickling ferociously. "Come on, give it!"

Kurt relented, doubling over in laughter as he handed the precious hat back to its owner. "You can be so silly, Ryan," he laughed, reaching up to flatted his mussed hair. "Now finish up packing, we have to go to bed early if we're going to catch our eight a.m. flight."

"Can't I finish packing in the morning?" Ryan practically whined, his voice taking on a nasally quality that made Kurt wince. "There are so many ways we could be better using our time." Kurt slapped Ryan's arm playfully, shaking his head and pointing to the mess of unpacked necessities laid out on the bed.

"You're the one who left this to the last minute. You can't just ship your clothes to Lima after you— it doesn't work like that. Not in Ohio, anyway."

The shrill, out-of-date music of Beyoncé filled the room with Kurt's once-favourite song. He grabbed for his cell phone, which was spinning around on Ryan's desk because of its vibrating. Ryan rolled his eyes as Kurt flipped open the phone, putting it to his ear with a grin.

"Hi, dad," he greeted with a huge smile. His smiled faded when he realised Ryan was just sitting on the edge of his bed, instead of packing. He waved his arms about and mouthed, "Get moving, Ryan," while Burt Hummel talked to him from Ohio.

"Hey, son. Are you all packed? You said you had an early flight, so I was just calling to remind you..." the older Hummel said, his voice its usual rough tone, but somehow also managing to sound fatherly and concerned. It talent he had developed after years of dealing with Kurt.

"...to bring my best suit and tie," Kurt finished, already knowing what his father was calling to say. Burt Hummel had always been extremely predictable. "I know, dad. I'm taking my role of Best Man very seriously." Burt sighed in relief, and Kurt could picture him running a hand over his balding head in that way he did when he was stressed. Having to deal with all these wedding plans was hard on him.

"Well, that's good. How is, er, Ryan? Did the premiere thing go well?"

Burt had never been one to keep up with the goings-on in his son's life, but since they now lived in different states, he had made a point to listen to Kurt telling him the events of his life when they talked on the phone. While he was still not entirely sure he was comfortable with Kurt practically living with a boy he'd never met (Kurt had confessed once that he rarely slept in his own dorm room anymore, which worried Burt to know end), he tried to be supportive.

"Well, I was on live television for about three seconds," Kurt boasted, purposely censuring the part that happened afterward. "And the movie itself was fantastic. Ryan's just finishing up packing now, since he had a busy schedule the last few days."

"That's great, kiddo." Kurt couldn't help but notice he sounded exhausted.

"How're you, dad? You sound tired," he said honestly, glaring daggers at Ryan, who was playing with various hats and articles of sparkly clothing rather than packing them. He pointed to the suitcase and then drew his finger across his throat— the universal movement for do it, or die. Ryan rolled his eyes but began to thrust his clothes into the case anyway, making a show of how hard he was working. Kurt almost giggled, but held it in because his dad was talking.

"Well, Carole has gone into wedding over-drive... apparently her and Hudson didn't have a 'proper' wedding— with all the flowers and guests and stuff— so she's making it a really big deal. She wants me to be involved in every decision, but she doesn't want me to touch anything— like she asks me which sample of napkin I prefer, and I'll just pick one, and then she gets mad and goes with the other one anyway. I don't understand women at all sometimes."

Kurt did chuckle then, shaking his head and leaning against Ryan's desk. "I don't either. I guess I'm lucky that I prefer men."

There was a little awkward silence, in which his father was probably groaning internally and blushing like crazy as he always did when Kurt casually mentioned his orientation. Kurt took the opportunity to take a dress shirt out of Ryan's hands and replace it with a different one (orange was totally not Ryan's colour, and it would totally clash with everything Kurt had packed to wear).

"Anyway," Kurt started up again, tossing the horrid shirt into the bottom drawer of Ryan's dresser, hiding it under several other, much nicer shirts so that it (hopefully) would never see the light of day again, "We'll be there around lunch time, so make sure you're there to let us in. I lost my key within the first week of living here, and I am not going to sit outside on the porch for an hour waiting for you or Carole to come home."

"I'll be home. Don't worry; I already planned for Lowell and Puckerman to take the day's shift, so I won't even have to go to the garage tomorrow. It's not often that I get to see you anymore. And you ya think I'm going to waste an opportunity to interrogate your boyfriend?"

"You wouldn't!" Kurt protested, suddenly fearful of the idea that Burt might try to do the whole disapproving father asking nosy questions thing again.

"Don't worry, Kurt, I'm keeping my shotgun on the mantle this time. I promise."

"You'd better," Kurt warned, his voice steely, "Or I won't ever bring my significant other home to Lima again. And then you'll be sorry, because you'll have no idea what's going on in my life, or if I'm dating some creep."

Burt laughed, his voice crackling over the speakers. "Whatever you say, son. Listen, I gotta go, the game is on and—"

"I understand. You have fun. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?" He paused, then added a quiet, "I love you."

"I love you too, buddy," his father chuckled knowingly, probably shaking his head, "Get some sleep, okay? Early flight 'n all."

"I will. Bye, dad."

Ryan looked up from his luggage and made a grand gesture to his boyfriend, waving his arm over it like the girls on The Price is Right. "Ta-da!" he said, a grin on his face. "All done packing! Told you I could've done it in the morning."

Kurt rolled his eyes and pushed his boyfriend onto the bed and sat on his knees, reaching out to tickle him. "I hate it when you're right, you know that?" Ryan laughed and pried the assaulting fingers from his stomach, glaring Kurt down.

"Nah, you know you love it." He leaned up and kissed the look of indignation from Kurt's face before the smaller man could make a retort. "Almost as much as you love me." Kurt pulled away, breaking the kiss and laughing.

"You don't yourself very high on my list of priorities, then, do you?" he asked, reaching over and plucking a stray unpacked hat from the bedspread beside them, "I love you more than I love Marc Jacobs."

Ryan's eyes went wide. "Wow. That's a lot." Kurt rolled his eyes and shoved the hat onto Ryan's head.

"Duh. You're going to freaking Ohio for me, so that I can see my dad get married. You're the best boyfriend I could've asked for." Ryan leaned in for another kiss, savouring the cuteness of the moment and giving the moment a special place in his memory.

"Yeah, well, you're even better," Ryan countered, lazily reaching over and doing up the zipper of his suitcase, pushing it off the bed once it was sealed. "Besides, we only have a couple hours left to ourselves..." Kurt chuckled and leaned in to give his boyfriend another kiss.

"We can sleep on the plane anyway, right?"

"Definitely."