Five Reasons That Kurt Hates Noah Puckerman
Title: Five Reasons That Kurt Hates Noah Puckerman
Author: amaXdear
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Puck/Kurt, various background OC’s, Finn, Santana, Brittany, Suzy Pepper
Warning: Mild swearing
Words: 3,041
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: Not mine
Author’s Notes: Written for the May Diva-Off challenge at Team Puck/Kurt.
Summary: It started out cute. Then there was some angst, and Puck became an asshole. It ended with an epiphany, and maybe even a little bit of love.
1. Kurt sat very straight in his plastic chair and raised his hand as high and straight as he could. Ms. Johnson looked over and held up one finger for him to wait. Kurt sighed, but he kept his hand up. He was very patient. Finally, she walked over to him, her heels clacking on the tile floor.
“What is it, Kurt?”
“Do we have to use just crayons on our clovers? Because I have some ribbon in my backpack that will go very nice around this edge.”
He indicated the top part of his green, construction paper three-leaf clover and looked seriously up at the woman, who let her red hair slide forward to conceal her amusement. She did that a lot, Kurt noticed, sucking her lip in to make her smile look smaller than it was.
“Sure,” she said brightly. “I don’t see why not.”
“Thank you,” Kurt said with his nicest smile. He went to the cubbies and pulled a spool of thick, lacy ribbon out of his denim backpack. He had taken it from Gram-Gram’s sewing kit when they visited her last week. She wouldn’t mind.
Four minutes later, Kurt stared at his clover with satisfaction. It was almost perfect, but it lacked a little pizzazz. He screwed up his mouth like Mom did when she was upset, and looked around. His eyes fell on a container of green glitter, and he lit up.
“Noah, could I use that glitter please?” he asked politely, leaning forward to talk to the boy was sitting at the table in front of him.
“Sure,” Noah said. He had just lost a front tooth, the first out of anyone in the class to have done so, and the air whistled through it when he spoke. “Just a sec.”
Noah flipped open half of the top, and Kurt was just about to call out a warning when Noah overturned the container and every speck of glitter fell onto his clover. The boys stared at it in horror.
“You’re supposed to use the other side,” Kurt wailed. “The one with the holes in it!”
“Oops,” Noah said apologetically.
“Now my clover is ruined, just because you were being stupid!”
Ms. Johnson heard him. Kurt had to stand in the corner, and Noah wasn’t punished at all. Kurt crossed his arms and glared. He had made his first lifelong enemy. He was sure of it.
2. Kurt stared at the stark black text against the white paper, gripping the strap of his satchel so hard that the leather bit into his hand. He turned on his heel and walked to the gym teacher’s office. He rapped on the door.
“Mr. Bernard--”
The stocky man spun his chair around with a sigh. He tapped a pencil on his jaw. Kurt stepped into the small room that was the gym office, looking around critically. Sports posters with inspirational messages were plastered all over the large yellow bricks, but even they couldn’t disguise the cramped area, the overflowing file cabinets, or the deflated man who was the room’s sole inhabitant.
“I thought you might show up, Kurt,” the gym teacher said in a voice like a tired leaf blower. “Listen. I know you really wanted to make the team--even though I’m still not sure why--and your try-out was decent for a kid whose never played in his life. But baseball’s a popular sport at this school, and I don’t like turning down 8th graders who think of this as their last run, you know? So I decided not to accept a lot of sixth graders.”
Kurt glared at him--stupid, tan/sunburned, balding man--and the teacher stared back with basset hound eyes.
“But Puck is on the list,” Kurt pointed out, the words coming out rapid-fire before he could pull them back. Bernard’s sickly, uneven eyebrows pulled together.
“Puck? Oh--Noah Puckerman, you mean? Noah had a great try-out. The kid’s a natural. That’s the way it goes, you know?” he chuckled. “Some people got gift, and others need to work hard for it.”
A greasy hand reached out and patted Kurt’s arm. He barely restrained from dodging it. Throat tight, he nodded. “Okay. Yes. Thank you.”
He walked out of the open door and slammed it behind him. For a moment, Kurt almost stalked immediately up the stairs and went to class--but then he leaned against the wall for a moment of rest. He could be late to study hall.
The quiet rumblings of feet above his head and the occasional shrieking laughs offended his senses, but he adamantly forced himself to ignore them. He took a deep breath, held it for a count of three, and released it in a count of four to calm his frazzled nerves and quick, heavily beating heart. It worked, after a moment, although the metronome timing allowed for brief pauses in between his breath, awkward moments where he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to breathe, scream, or cry.
No, he told himself firmly. No crying. Even if Kurt couldn’t bench press a kitten, he was strong enough not to cry over something as stupid as a damn baseball tryout. He didn’t even like baseball. Every time a ball came toward him, there was that little panicky moment of What if I can’t catch it and it bashes my teeth in? He hated stupid Bernard for seeing that moment, and using it as an excuse. So what if he couldn’t pitch like Noah Perfect Puckerman?
Why did Puck have to be the one sixth grader to be put on the varsity team? He didn’t have to do it. He played basketball and Park and Rec. football and Park and Rec. baseball, besides. He didn’t have to impress his father with yet another school sport. (Come to think of it, did Puck even have a father to impress? Kurt always accompanied his dad to Parent-Teacher conferences, and he always saw Mrs. Puckerman there, alone.)
He didn’t need to do this like Kurt needed to do this. He hadn’t meant to lie about try-outs to make his dad happy, only to come home and find a brand new glove on the coffee table. He hadn’t spent hours online trying to figure out what the hell he was doing. He hadn’t wasted two whole weekends practicing with his dad in the park. He hadn’t dealt with the looks and the stupid jokes, he hadn’t felt more alone than ever when all the jock friends clustered around each other the entire time, he hadn’t ran past the point where his lungs burst, he didn’t care.
“No.”
Kurt said it very firmly, out loud this time, and let out his breath in a sharp, commanding huff that effectively silenced any raging, miserable thoughts in his mind. He repeated his breathing exercises, and was just getting ready to move when the nasally late bell rang over his head. Only his clenched fists betrayed his tension as he walked past the team roster, where Puck and his loyal sidekick Finn were waiting.
“Awesome!” Puck crowed, giving his friend a high-five.
“That’s so cool, dude,” Finn gushed right back, patting him on the shoulder. Kurt hesitated briefly, but completed his stride before the two other boys even noticed his presence. He couldn’t bring himself to say congratulations.
3. Kurt was on top of the moon. He was taking dance classes, he was wearing designer threads he wouldn't have dreamed of owning two years ago, and he might actually have friends! It was only the first day, but three girls in class had taken a liking to him. Two of them even lived close by, and they had all walked home together. He felt a shiver of excitement, imagining what it would be like to go into William McKinley High School the next year and already have friends.
With a few deep breaths, Kurt smoothed the Gucci shirt over his leotard and entered the YWCA where he had lessons. He was halfway through the lobby when he looked up. What he saw there turned him to stone.
Noah Puckerman stood a scant three feet away, with his hand on the shoulder of a girl with dark hair and ballet clothes who couldn't be older than five. And Puck was talking to Kurt's friends. Santana, Brittany, and Suzy crowded around him. Puck had gotten his growth spurt early, and they looked up at him with eager admiration.
Kurt stared in horror, trying to convince himself that this wasn't happening. Puck turned and sneered at him over his shoulder.
“Hey, Kate,” he said breezily. No one in school knew Kurt's real name anymore. He was just Kate. If his dance friends noticed, they didn't react. “This is really gay, even for you.”
An ugly blush spread across Kurt's cheeks.
“I-- I, um--”
“You ladies know this kid?” Puck addressed the girls. They fell over themselves for the chance to talk to him.
“Yeah, he just started dance with us. We didn't know you knew Kurt,” Santana said breathlessly. One of the reasons that Kurt had been drawn to these girls was because they all went to the other middle school, and there was absolutely no reason for them to know anything embarrassing about him.
Kurt crossed his fingers for luck. If there was any possible way that Puck could be in a good mood, just this one day--maybe to look nice in front of the girl who must have been his sister?--then he would be set. Connection to one of the cutest boys in town could get him in with exactly the right crowd.
Of course that was too much to ask.
“Oh yeah, Kate and me go way back,” Puck said. “Like, preschool. Remember that, Kate, when you threw a tantrum because your dad made you take off that tiara before class?”
Damn him! How the hell did he remember that? The girls burst into giggles, and Kurt tried to smile weakly. He could survive that, right? Kids did cute things when they were young. Except Puck kept talking.
“No worries, though--the rules have relaxed over the years. The other day he wore the prettiest dress to school--”
“Sweater," Kurt said hoarsely, paralyzed with fear, his cheeks painted red. “It was a... sweater, just too big for me…”
It had been the exact right size. Sweaters were supposed to stop at the knee, that was the fashion.
Kurt stood there, with his face burning, as Puck regaled the girls with stories, each one more humiliating with the last. Some of them even managed to make Puck look mature, dreamy, and masculine in comparison. Finally, finally the little girl at his feet looked up and tugged on the bottom of his shirt.
“Noah, that's my class,” she whispered, and she pointed at a small group of young girls being herded into one of the classrooms.
“All right, go on,” Puck said, pushing her gently in the right direction. “Dad just dropped us off and he's going back wherever he came from, so Mom'll pick you up, okay?”
She nodded, and skipped over to join the other girls.
“We should probably go, too,” Suzy said regretfully. “It was so nice meeting you, though.”
Santana and Brittany echoed her mindlessly, and Puck smirked when he turned around. He shoved Kurt with his shoulder and he left. Kurt stared forward without seeing a single thing. His life was ruined. The girls turned to go to class, but he didn’t follow. One of them looked back.
“Kurt?” Brittany said softly. She was looking at him kindly, but he could see Santana and Suzy giggling behind their hands. “What’s up? Don’t you feel good?”
“No,” Kurt said, even softer. “No, not at all. I think I’m going home.”
4. “That was cute,” Puck said when Kurt left the chorus room. Kurt stared at him.
“What?”
“Your little unrequited love-fest in there,” Puck explained, jerking his head at the door. He was leaning against the wall with both his plain white t-shirt and ghastly over-shirt untucked, playing casual. There was tension in his neck and shoulders, though, and his sneer looked carefully arranged on his face. “With Finn.”
Finn’s name fell like a rock into a well--it landed heavily, but left ripples in the empty hallway. For a moment, Kurt could only gape, but he quickly regained composure.
“I have-- you have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He turned on his heel and started to walk away. Behind him, he heard the rustle of Puck’s clothing as the other boy stood straight, and called out, “It’s not going to work, you know.”
Kurt struggled with himself. Then he rounded on Puck, hating himself for doing it.
“What?”
“You and Finn,” Puck shrugged, strolling forward. “It’s obvious to anyone with eyes that you’re not meant to be, or whatever it is you’re thinking.”
Kurt opened his mouth, and closed it. He couldn’t think of anything to say, and unfortunately Puck seemed to take that as permission to say whatever the hell he wanted.
“First of all, the dude’s an idiot. He wouldn’t be able to keep up with you. A sweet idiot, maybe, but still an idiot. Secondly, Finn has people falling all over him wherever he goes, so he has way too many options to take a second look at someone like you, who he’s never considered in his life. Thirdly, like I said, he’s sweet. And whatever you are, Kurt, you are not sweet. Fourthly, you are all about games, manipulation, doing what it takes to get what you want, and if it doesn’t involve a ball bouncing around somewhere, Finn isn’t interested in games. Fifthly…”
Kurt wanted to yell at him, but he couldn’t make a sound. The rhythm of Puck’s voice, each word pounding against Kurt’s skull, was hypnotizing. He swallowed nervously. Puck was walking closer, his eyes locked on Kurt, and his final words were clipped short.
“He’s straight, dude.”
Everything else that Puck had said could be argued, except for that. Kurt nodded slowly, less in agreement than in acknowledgment that he understood Puck’s point, and he could shut the hell up. Kurt looked at the ground.
“Okay,” he said softly. “Okay. That’s-- thank you, for that. I just have one question.” He looked up. Puck was staring at him, and their eyes locked. It didn’t look like he was breathing, and his face was absolutely printer-paper blank. That blankness gave him away. It made it easier to spot the very faint lines around his eyes and his mouth.
Puck was angry and bitter, as he always was when Finn intruded on his life, and vindictive, but his eyebrows were pulled up slightly near his nose, and there was a slight twitch in the corner of his mouth. He was carefully monitoring Kurt’s reaction, and there was just a hint of soft compassion in his face.
Compassion. Puck wanted to make sure he was okay. Kurt loved irony, but this was just too much. He let out a shaky breath, and broke Puck’s stare. He looked over the other boy’s shoulder to get his bearings. When he looked back, his eyes were blazing with anger, and Puck stepped back automatically.
“What the fuck do you know about me and what I want?” There was a bite in his words that Kurt knew Puck had never heard before, and he decided that he liked it. The fierceness, the power of it, felt good on his tongue.
Puck was unable to come up with an answer. Kurt shoved past him and ran around the corner, going far enough that he knew Puck wouldn’t follow. He leaned against the wall and slid down.
By the time he touched the ground, Kurt was sobbing. He hid his face in his hands and cried as hard as he had ever cried, not because of what Puck had said, but because he was right. All of it, every last word. Kurt wasn’t in love anymore, and that hurt like hell.
5. Every year, the school paper interviewed nine or ten graduating seniors and collected the interviews in the only article that anyone ever read. Kurt wasn’t one of the favored seniors, but several Glee kids were: Santana, because she was also the head cheerleader, Rachel, because she loitered outside the paper’s office for two months, and, most importantly, Noah Puckerman.
In general, Noah had answered the questions with the rough flair that Kurt expected (“What’s the thing you’ll miss most about high school?” “Scaring freshman”). There was, however, one answer that offered a modicum of surprise. Kurt’s English teacher had handed out the papers in the last period of the day, and within five minutes everyone had located the unexpected sentence and zeroed in on Kurt’s reaction. He rolled his eyes, and turned the page to read the interview with the President of the Math Club.
When the bell rang, Noah was waiting outside the classroom. Kurt greeted him with a kiss on the cheek, ignoring the prying eyes, and wrapped his arms around his boyfriend’s neck.
“So,” he said casually.
“Yeah, babe?” Noah asked, trying to sound equally casual but grinning too much to pull it off.
“One of your long-term goals is to marry me?”
He shrugged. “Sure. Long-term because even I’m not enough of an idiot to marry some random guy I’ve only been dating for one year, seven months, and a week--”
“Six months,” Kurt corrected. “You can’t count the days of ‘you still owe me for the dumpster throwing’ and ‘you have no idea what a little bitch you were’ and ‘stop sexting Santana’ and ‘why are you such a drama queen’ and--”
“Hey! Trying to be sweet, here. Where was I? Oh, so… you know, six years down the road…”
Kurt kissed him soundly in the middle of the hallway, and when they stopped, Noah’s breath came out in a gasp.
“Five years, maybe. Three?”
Kurt laughed breathlessly and kissed him again, but it didn’t last long because he couldn’t help but laugh at something.
“I can’t believe you put that in the school paper!” Puck smirked, putting his hands on Kurt’s waist, and that smirk forced Kurt to continue. He touched their foreheads together. “You are such an overconfident smug inconsiderate bastard.”
“Fiancé,” Noah corrected.
“Fiancé,” Kurt agreed.
They kissed in the hall some more, but then Sue Sylvester yelled at them for blocking her way. Kurt grabbed Noah’s hand and dragged him to the Navigator to demonstrate the proper way to express gratitude when one’s boyfriend (sort of) proposes. He still hated Noah Puckerman--but not quite as much as he used to. In fact, he might even say they’re in love.
Author: amaXdear
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Puck/Kurt, various background OC’s, Finn, Santana, Brittany, Suzy Pepper
Warning: Mild swearing
Words: 3,041
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: Not mine
Author’s Notes: Written for the May Diva-Off challenge at Team Puck/Kurt.
Summary: It started out cute. Then there was some angst, and Puck became an asshole. It ended with an epiphany, and maybe even a little bit of love.
1. Kurt sat very straight in his plastic chair and raised his hand as high and straight as he could. Ms. Johnson looked over and held up one finger for him to wait. Kurt sighed, but he kept his hand up. He was very patient. Finally, she walked over to him, her heels clacking on the tile floor.
“What is it, Kurt?”
“Do we have to use just crayons on our clovers? Because I have some ribbon in my backpack that will go very nice around this edge.”
He indicated the top part of his green, construction paper three-leaf clover and looked seriously up at the woman, who let her red hair slide forward to conceal her amusement. She did that a lot, Kurt noticed, sucking her lip in to make her smile look smaller than it was.
“Sure,” she said brightly. “I don’t see why not.”
“Thank you,” Kurt said with his nicest smile. He went to the cubbies and pulled a spool of thick, lacy ribbon out of his denim backpack. He had taken it from Gram-Gram’s sewing kit when they visited her last week. She wouldn’t mind.
Four minutes later, Kurt stared at his clover with satisfaction. It was almost perfect, but it lacked a little pizzazz. He screwed up his mouth like Mom did when she was upset, and looked around. His eyes fell on a container of green glitter, and he lit up.
“Noah, could I use that glitter please?” he asked politely, leaning forward to talk to the boy was sitting at the table in front of him.
“Sure,” Noah said. He had just lost a front tooth, the first out of anyone in the class to have done so, and the air whistled through it when he spoke. “Just a sec.”
Noah flipped open half of the top, and Kurt was just about to call out a warning when Noah overturned the container and every speck of glitter fell onto his clover. The boys stared at it in horror.
“You’re supposed to use the other side,” Kurt wailed. “The one with the holes in it!”
“Oops,” Noah said apologetically.
“Now my clover is ruined, just because you were being stupid!”
Ms. Johnson heard him. Kurt had to stand in the corner, and Noah wasn’t punished at all. Kurt crossed his arms and glared. He had made his first lifelong enemy. He was sure of it.
2. Kurt stared at the stark black text against the white paper, gripping the strap of his satchel so hard that the leather bit into his hand. He turned on his heel and walked to the gym teacher’s office. He rapped on the door.
“Mr. Bernard--”
The stocky man spun his chair around with a sigh. He tapped a pencil on his jaw. Kurt stepped into the small room that was the gym office, looking around critically. Sports posters with inspirational messages were plastered all over the large yellow bricks, but even they couldn’t disguise the cramped area, the overflowing file cabinets, or the deflated man who was the room’s sole inhabitant.
“I thought you might show up, Kurt,” the gym teacher said in a voice like a tired leaf blower. “Listen. I know you really wanted to make the team--even though I’m still not sure why--and your try-out was decent for a kid whose never played in his life. But baseball’s a popular sport at this school, and I don’t like turning down 8th graders who think of this as their last run, you know? So I decided not to accept a lot of sixth graders.”
Kurt glared at him--stupid, tan/sunburned, balding man--and the teacher stared back with basset hound eyes.
“But Puck is on the list,” Kurt pointed out, the words coming out rapid-fire before he could pull them back. Bernard’s sickly, uneven eyebrows pulled together.
“Puck? Oh--Noah Puckerman, you mean? Noah had a great try-out. The kid’s a natural. That’s the way it goes, you know?” he chuckled. “Some people got gift, and others need to work hard for it.”
A greasy hand reached out and patted Kurt’s arm. He barely restrained from dodging it. Throat tight, he nodded. “Okay. Yes. Thank you.”
He walked out of the open door and slammed it behind him. For a moment, Kurt almost stalked immediately up the stairs and went to class--but then he leaned against the wall for a moment of rest. He could be late to study hall.
The quiet rumblings of feet above his head and the occasional shrieking laughs offended his senses, but he adamantly forced himself to ignore them. He took a deep breath, held it for a count of three, and released it in a count of four to calm his frazzled nerves and quick, heavily beating heart. It worked, after a moment, although the metronome timing allowed for brief pauses in between his breath, awkward moments where he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to breathe, scream, or cry.
No, he told himself firmly. No crying. Even if Kurt couldn’t bench press a kitten, he was strong enough not to cry over something as stupid as a damn baseball tryout. He didn’t even like baseball. Every time a ball came toward him, there was that little panicky moment of What if I can’t catch it and it bashes my teeth in? He hated stupid Bernard for seeing that moment, and using it as an excuse. So what if he couldn’t pitch like Noah Perfect Puckerman?
Why did Puck have to be the one sixth grader to be put on the varsity team? He didn’t have to do it. He played basketball and Park and Rec. football and Park and Rec. baseball, besides. He didn’t have to impress his father with yet another school sport. (Come to think of it, did Puck even have a father to impress? Kurt always accompanied his dad to Parent-Teacher conferences, and he always saw Mrs. Puckerman there, alone.)
He didn’t need to do this like Kurt needed to do this. He hadn’t meant to lie about try-outs to make his dad happy, only to come home and find a brand new glove on the coffee table. He hadn’t spent hours online trying to figure out what the hell he was doing. He hadn’t wasted two whole weekends practicing with his dad in the park. He hadn’t dealt with the looks and the stupid jokes, he hadn’t felt more alone than ever when all the jock friends clustered around each other the entire time, he hadn’t ran past the point where his lungs burst, he didn’t care.
“No.”
Kurt said it very firmly, out loud this time, and let out his breath in a sharp, commanding huff that effectively silenced any raging, miserable thoughts in his mind. He repeated his breathing exercises, and was just getting ready to move when the nasally late bell rang over his head. Only his clenched fists betrayed his tension as he walked past the team roster, where Puck and his loyal sidekick Finn were waiting.
“Awesome!” Puck crowed, giving his friend a high-five.
“That’s so cool, dude,” Finn gushed right back, patting him on the shoulder. Kurt hesitated briefly, but completed his stride before the two other boys even noticed his presence. He couldn’t bring himself to say congratulations.
3. Kurt was on top of the moon. He was taking dance classes, he was wearing designer threads he wouldn't have dreamed of owning two years ago, and he might actually have friends! It was only the first day, but three girls in class had taken a liking to him. Two of them even lived close by, and they had all walked home together. He felt a shiver of excitement, imagining what it would be like to go into William McKinley High School the next year and already have friends.
With a few deep breaths, Kurt smoothed the Gucci shirt over his leotard and entered the YWCA where he had lessons. He was halfway through the lobby when he looked up. What he saw there turned him to stone.
Noah Puckerman stood a scant three feet away, with his hand on the shoulder of a girl with dark hair and ballet clothes who couldn't be older than five. And Puck was talking to Kurt's friends. Santana, Brittany, and Suzy crowded around him. Puck had gotten his growth spurt early, and they looked up at him with eager admiration.
Kurt stared in horror, trying to convince himself that this wasn't happening. Puck turned and sneered at him over his shoulder.
“Hey, Kate,” he said breezily. No one in school knew Kurt's real name anymore. He was just Kate. If his dance friends noticed, they didn't react. “This is really gay, even for you.”
An ugly blush spread across Kurt's cheeks.
“I-- I, um--”
“You ladies know this kid?” Puck addressed the girls. They fell over themselves for the chance to talk to him.
“Yeah, he just started dance with us. We didn't know you knew Kurt,” Santana said breathlessly. One of the reasons that Kurt had been drawn to these girls was because they all went to the other middle school, and there was absolutely no reason for them to know anything embarrassing about him.
Kurt crossed his fingers for luck. If there was any possible way that Puck could be in a good mood, just this one day--maybe to look nice in front of the girl who must have been his sister?--then he would be set. Connection to one of the cutest boys in town could get him in with exactly the right crowd.
Of course that was too much to ask.
“Oh yeah, Kate and me go way back,” Puck said. “Like, preschool. Remember that, Kate, when you threw a tantrum because your dad made you take off that tiara before class?”
Damn him! How the hell did he remember that? The girls burst into giggles, and Kurt tried to smile weakly. He could survive that, right? Kids did cute things when they were young. Except Puck kept talking.
“No worries, though--the rules have relaxed over the years. The other day he wore the prettiest dress to school--”
“Sweater," Kurt said hoarsely, paralyzed with fear, his cheeks painted red. “It was a... sweater, just too big for me…”
It had been the exact right size. Sweaters were supposed to stop at the knee, that was the fashion.
Kurt stood there, with his face burning, as Puck regaled the girls with stories, each one more humiliating with the last. Some of them even managed to make Puck look mature, dreamy, and masculine in comparison. Finally, finally the little girl at his feet looked up and tugged on the bottom of his shirt.
“Noah, that's my class,” she whispered, and she pointed at a small group of young girls being herded into one of the classrooms.
“All right, go on,” Puck said, pushing her gently in the right direction. “Dad just dropped us off and he's going back wherever he came from, so Mom'll pick you up, okay?”
She nodded, and skipped over to join the other girls.
“We should probably go, too,” Suzy said regretfully. “It was so nice meeting you, though.”
Santana and Brittany echoed her mindlessly, and Puck smirked when he turned around. He shoved Kurt with his shoulder and he left. Kurt stared forward without seeing a single thing. His life was ruined. The girls turned to go to class, but he didn’t follow. One of them looked back.
“Kurt?” Brittany said softly. She was looking at him kindly, but he could see Santana and Suzy giggling behind their hands. “What’s up? Don’t you feel good?”
“No,” Kurt said, even softer. “No, not at all. I think I’m going home.”
4. “That was cute,” Puck said when Kurt left the chorus room. Kurt stared at him.
“What?”
“Your little unrequited love-fest in there,” Puck explained, jerking his head at the door. He was leaning against the wall with both his plain white t-shirt and ghastly over-shirt untucked, playing casual. There was tension in his neck and shoulders, though, and his sneer looked carefully arranged on his face. “With Finn.”
Finn’s name fell like a rock into a well--it landed heavily, but left ripples in the empty hallway. For a moment, Kurt could only gape, but he quickly regained composure.
“I have-- you have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He turned on his heel and started to walk away. Behind him, he heard the rustle of Puck’s clothing as the other boy stood straight, and called out, “It’s not going to work, you know.”
Kurt struggled with himself. Then he rounded on Puck, hating himself for doing it.
“What?”
“You and Finn,” Puck shrugged, strolling forward. “It’s obvious to anyone with eyes that you’re not meant to be, or whatever it is you’re thinking.”
Kurt opened his mouth, and closed it. He couldn’t think of anything to say, and unfortunately Puck seemed to take that as permission to say whatever the hell he wanted.
“First of all, the dude’s an idiot. He wouldn’t be able to keep up with you. A sweet idiot, maybe, but still an idiot. Secondly, Finn has people falling all over him wherever he goes, so he has way too many options to take a second look at someone like you, who he’s never considered in his life. Thirdly, like I said, he’s sweet. And whatever you are, Kurt, you are not sweet. Fourthly, you are all about games, manipulation, doing what it takes to get what you want, and if it doesn’t involve a ball bouncing around somewhere, Finn isn’t interested in games. Fifthly…”
Kurt wanted to yell at him, but he couldn’t make a sound. The rhythm of Puck’s voice, each word pounding against Kurt’s skull, was hypnotizing. He swallowed nervously. Puck was walking closer, his eyes locked on Kurt, and his final words were clipped short.
“He’s straight, dude.”
Everything else that Puck had said could be argued, except for that. Kurt nodded slowly, less in agreement than in acknowledgment that he understood Puck’s point, and he could shut the hell up. Kurt looked at the ground.
“Okay,” he said softly. “Okay. That’s-- thank you, for that. I just have one question.” He looked up. Puck was staring at him, and their eyes locked. It didn’t look like he was breathing, and his face was absolutely printer-paper blank. That blankness gave him away. It made it easier to spot the very faint lines around his eyes and his mouth.
Puck was angry and bitter, as he always was when Finn intruded on his life, and vindictive, but his eyebrows were pulled up slightly near his nose, and there was a slight twitch in the corner of his mouth. He was carefully monitoring Kurt’s reaction, and there was just a hint of soft compassion in his face.
Compassion. Puck wanted to make sure he was okay. Kurt loved irony, but this was just too much. He let out a shaky breath, and broke Puck’s stare. He looked over the other boy’s shoulder to get his bearings. When he looked back, his eyes were blazing with anger, and Puck stepped back automatically.
“What the fuck do you know about me and what I want?” There was a bite in his words that Kurt knew Puck had never heard before, and he decided that he liked it. The fierceness, the power of it, felt good on his tongue.
Puck was unable to come up with an answer. Kurt shoved past him and ran around the corner, going far enough that he knew Puck wouldn’t follow. He leaned against the wall and slid down.
By the time he touched the ground, Kurt was sobbing. He hid his face in his hands and cried as hard as he had ever cried, not because of what Puck had said, but because he was right. All of it, every last word. Kurt wasn’t in love anymore, and that hurt like hell.
5. Every year, the school paper interviewed nine or ten graduating seniors and collected the interviews in the only article that anyone ever read. Kurt wasn’t one of the favored seniors, but several Glee kids were: Santana, because she was also the head cheerleader, Rachel, because she loitered outside the paper’s office for two months, and, most importantly, Noah Puckerman.
In general, Noah had answered the questions with the rough flair that Kurt expected (“What’s the thing you’ll miss most about high school?” “Scaring freshman”). There was, however, one answer that offered a modicum of surprise. Kurt’s English teacher had handed out the papers in the last period of the day, and within five minutes everyone had located the unexpected sentence and zeroed in on Kurt’s reaction. He rolled his eyes, and turned the page to read the interview with the President of the Math Club.
When the bell rang, Noah was waiting outside the classroom. Kurt greeted him with a kiss on the cheek, ignoring the prying eyes, and wrapped his arms around his boyfriend’s neck.
“So,” he said casually.
“Yeah, babe?” Noah asked, trying to sound equally casual but grinning too much to pull it off.
“One of your long-term goals is to marry me?”
He shrugged. “Sure. Long-term because even I’m not enough of an idiot to marry some random guy I’ve only been dating for one year, seven months, and a week--”
“Six months,” Kurt corrected. “You can’t count the days of ‘you still owe me for the dumpster throwing’ and ‘you have no idea what a little bitch you were’ and ‘stop sexting Santana’ and ‘why are you such a drama queen’ and--”
“Hey! Trying to be sweet, here. Where was I? Oh, so… you know, six years down the road…”
Kurt kissed him soundly in the middle of the hallway, and when they stopped, Noah’s breath came out in a gasp.
“Five years, maybe. Three?”
Kurt laughed breathlessly and kissed him again, but it didn’t last long because he couldn’t help but laugh at something.
“I can’t believe you put that in the school paper!” Puck smirked, putting his hands on Kurt’s waist, and that smirk forced Kurt to continue. He touched their foreheads together. “You are such an overconfident smug inconsiderate bastard.”
“Fiancé,” Noah corrected.
“Fiancé,” Kurt agreed.
They kissed in the hall some more, but then Sue Sylvester yelled at them for blocking her way. Kurt grabbed Noah’s hand and dragged him to the Navigator to demonstrate the proper way to express gratitude when one’s boyfriend (sort of) proposes. He still hated Noah Puckerman--but not quite as much as he used to. In fact, he might even say they’re in love.