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“I can make up for muscle with other stuff. Like!” Pepper jumped up and snagged the minivan’s handle. She dangled for a moment before her weight dragged the hatch down and she could shove it closed (with all her football-sized weight). 

The Grey leaned on the hatch.

“Knowing how to park.” She shooed Drake away from the back and made for the driver’s side. “And drive!” (She wrenched the door open and beamed at them from the other side of the van.) “I could be your getaway driver! Don’t got one of those I bet!”

“Yeah, yeah.” Drake snickered and rolled their eyes, “You’re hired.” 

They clambered into her van, closing the door behind them quickly and shoving their cold fingers against the heat vents. Now reheated, they slumped back against the passenger seat with a sigh and started peeling their gloves off, dropping them on the ground, making themselves comfortable. 

Pepper squatted low and blew Drake a kiss with one mittened hand.

“Not nearly enough, love.”

She winked and held out a hand to help drag them to their feet (not her forte, one needing more than dry spaghetti for muscle, but points for trying), then shuffled through the snow to the back of the van. As she walked, spaghetti legs viciously kicked snow up and out of their way. 

“Noooow, I know you left somethin’ out on the phone.” She spun and slammed her hands on the back of the van. “Whatcha got in here?”

“At least three bodies. And a pony.” Drake said after pulling themselves up. They’d considered just yanking Pepper into the snow with them, but that seemed counter productive to their goal of being rescued. And it’d be mean. Pepper was too fun sized. They could probably heft her like a football. 

They waddled through the snow alongside her, yanking the door open and whooping when a wave of smell smacked into them. It was unpleasant. 

Pepper wasn’t the physically strongest, or necessarily the calmest, and sometimes her memory played tricks on her, but she was a damn good driver and was in the lucky position where she could tell her partner to shut the shop for a snowstorm.

Sal had slid from the van to the Maroa LGBT Center with a kiss and a wink, and Pepper had waited for them to get inside before checking her phone, taking stock of what needed to get where, putting her location on, just to be safe, and heading off. 

The first day of snow wasn’t terrible. It wasn’t much driving, either, and much of the downtime ended up filled with what paperwork she needed to catch up on (and the additional chat with everyone else—all safe and warm, good, good).

One didn’t really need excitement during this kind of weather, but here it was anyway.

Pepper parked in the clear-ish driveway and flicked her flashlight on, shining it across the lawn. Oof… She shuffled her way through the accumulating snow and knocked a quick tune on the other van’s window, tugging her scarf down from around her face.

“Drake honey, now’s not the best time for driving lessons,” she said once the fledgling was in sight, and winked. “C’mon, let’s boogie before this shit gets too bad.

“… How bad is it?”

A very cold but otherwise unbothered looking Drake appeared in the window when she knocked, rolling it down just enough for them to poke their head outside so they could stick their tongue out and blow a raspberry.

“Oh, it’s bad.” They said, kicking their door open. “I can’t get this sucker to move.”

They gracelessly flopped out of their car, one foot managing to get caught in the door and sending them sprawling into the snow. A small cloud of disturbed snow completely enveloped them, flakes caught in their eyelashes and standing out in contrast against the dark coat wrapped around their shoulders. They didn’t seem to mind, at least if the smile still plastered on their face was anything to go by.

“Piece of fuckin-” Drake muttered to themselves, kicking the general area where the tires of their van should have been. A low thump was all they got in return, along with a sheet of snow sliding off the top of the van and further burying the wheels. “Ah, shit.”

Stupid snow. Stupid van. They wrenched the passenger door open just enough to slip inside, running over the situation in their head for the umpteenth time. What were their challenges here? 

Challenge 1: Drake’s van was real fuckin stuck. They knew how to drive in snow, thought they were pretty good at it actually, but apparently they had no idea how to park in snow given the fact that they’d somehow managed to find the singular patch of grass that had absolutely zero traction to offer. It didn’t help that the job took longer than they’d planned for, giving the still raging blizzard plenty of time to bury the van while they slaved away. 

Challenge 2: They currently had four industrial trash bags full of... gunk was the kindest way they could phrase it. And it smelled bad. No way in hell was Drake gonna let that sit in their van until the snow melted. They also couldn’t just load it into the back of a Fuber. 

Challenge 3: They were cold. 

Their teeth chattered as they scrolled through their contacts, hoping they could find someone who owed them a favor, maybe someone they could blackmail into helping. They were well into the T names when they were struck with realization, scrolling back up to the Ps and quickly calling their hopeful savior.