fic :: Kurt/Puck "love the way you think (but hate the way you act)"
Title: love the way you think (but hate the way you act)
Pairing: Kurt Hummel/Noah Puckermann
Rating: PG 13
Summary: "Kurt: what makes me the jock soothsayer? " Mercedes gently nudges Kurt to cheer Puck up. (Set a little past the season finale but no real spoilers.)
Author's Notes: Written in fits and starts, with the loving help of openice and lire_casander (WHO BOTH RULE! ♥♥♥) As always, i own nothing I am just playing in other people's sand boxes. Title from Ben Harper's "Steal My Kisses"
Talent or not, Kurt was pretty sure that Rachel and Finn singing love songs to each other could be used to induce vomiting and as such could only bring himself to watch for short bursts of time. This left him blanking out on a lot of Glee club but with ample time to mentally coordinate outfits weeks in advance. (Note: he needed to finagle his dad into letting him have his 'surprise' Christmas fedora early or else his next Thursday was ruined.)
When he zoned back in (to where they were on the third verse of Always Be My Baby, oh joy) he caught sight of Mercedes giving him the stare down that still baffled him. He was pretty sure she forgot that just because he was gay it did not give him supernatural powers to understand woman glares... even the ones where she squinted and looked like she was concentrating really hard.
'What?' he mouthed.
She lifted up her cell phone and pointed it at him. He looked at where Mr. Schue was obviously not paying attention and shrugged. It was after school, what was he going to do? Take it away for a half an hour?
Mercedes: Look at Puck
Kurt did, even if he had to do an admittedly lame fake yawn as Puck was directly next to him. He looked like... Puck. Slouched and a little less pulled together then usual, but whatever… it was finals. Finals could make a dent in his beauty sleep if he let it. He looked back at Mercedes with the same look of 'I don't get you' and she rolled her eyes.
Mercedes: He looks like someone kicked his kitten.
Kurt: And?
Mercedes: And I don't like it.
He figured he would try and point out that she, in fact, didn’t seem to care much about him when she was pissed about the baby’s daddy drama.
Actually, Kurt had been pretty sure they all agreed upon not interfering in each other's life after what they called 'The Unmentionable Incident' but Mercedes didn't seem to care about that or any memo unless it suited her. She just kept glaring daggers at him, and even when he looked away he could feel her eyes on him.
Kurt: what makes me the jock soothsayer?
“Kurt?” Mr. Schue’s voice made him start and drop his phone to the ground with an embarrassing clatter.
He figured it was best to play it off as cool as he could. “Yes Mr. Schue?”
“Want to try that out?”
Well, crap. He leveled a glare back in Mercedes direction.
*
An hour later he finished the class with the pleasant buzz of one who got the solo he wanted. It hadn’t taken even a minute for him to get back on the same page as the group and Mr. Schue didn’t even seem annoyed that he was so obviously blanking out. He shrugged on his jacket and hummed the chorus.
“Hey,” Puck broke in from beside him and Kurt turned to see his phone being held out at him. “You dropped this.”
And the lack of colorful slur or even annoyance in his voice reminded him of Mercedes texts from earlier. Puck looked… deflated. Kurt apparently had taken too long because Puck shoved it at him. “… Thanks.”
Just a shoulder shrug and Puck was leaving again.
“WAIT!” The room was down to only a few of them and so it echoed loudly. Puck turned to him with a cocked eyebrow, which at least made him look more like himself. He grabbed his bag from at his feet and walked over to him, acutely aware of Santana tracking him. “Um… what’re you doing? Like right now?”
“Leaving, what does it look like I’m doing?”
He slowed down a little and hesitated just before he got into his personal space. Something in the back of his mind said Puck looked like a scared doe and all he could think was maybe he should stop watching TV with his dad… which come to think of it. “There’s a Deadliest Catch marathon tonight, which means I forfeit all rights to the TV for the night…”
“That show’s awesome,” Puck interjected.
“You’re kidding me.”
“Well, what I’ve seen. My mom doesn’t let me watch it at the house. She says it’s not Kosher.”
Kurt’s eyebrows furrowed. “Because crabs aren’t Kosher?”
Somehow they silently agreed to start walking out. “I’m pretty sure she just uses that as a go to threat. “
“Do you…” Kurt stopped. He had started off meaning to ask if he wanted to go to dinner somewhere or something, to get him out of his house. He hated that show and the idea of sitting in a room next to his dad and Puck and watching a show about crab fishing was on par with watching Rachel and Finn play with a puppy at an Enya concert. But… Puck was smiling… he made himself smile back. “Do you want to watch it with us?”
Puck’s face screwed up and Kurt thought that maybe he had just stepped over some sort of line. (Admittedly, inviting your former bully over to your house was probably a trope fitting of a Lifetime movie, but he guessed he already jumped that shark.) Before he could take it back, though, Puck shrugged. “Why not?”
“Oh,” he stopped in his tracks just before entering the parking lot. “Cool. Well. Do you want to just follow me in your car?”
He looked around and there were a few cars left, but none screamed ‘Puck!’ at him. (Though of all the people, his car doesn’t exactly speak of his inner awesome. It’s a little bland, to be honest, but if it’s good enough for Kanye…) “I’ll follow on my bike.”
“Bike?”
And then there was a car backing up and okay, how had it taken this long to realize that Noah Puckerman rode a freaking motorcycle to school? Sworn enemy or not, he probably missed who knows how many moments of hot guy posing on a crotch rocket and that was just lamentable. He looked down at the dark gravel of the parking lot and hoped that it was dark enough to hide any red on his cheeks.
(You are not a girl, Kurt.)
“Cool.”
*
To add guilt to embarrassment, his father looked so openly happy to have him watch the show. When Puck followed in closely behind him it was all that Kurt could do not to back out, but his dad didn’t seem bothered by the add on at all. Just smiled, shook Puck’s hand and offered to order pizza if they wanted. (And didn’t comment with something like, “Is he your friend?” like he had initially worried about.)
“Even I can tell there is no way that is going to work out well,” Kurt commented, watching in weird fascination as one of the guys on the Northwestern (the cute one, heaven help him if he ever knew his name) started to release a net that he was told not to.
Another guy came (who was also cute, even with his scruffy goatee) flashed on the screen to make a similar comment and Puck chuckled under his breath.
Kurt blinked. “What?”
“Nothing,” Puck didn’t look away from the screen but his dad did. His lip frowned on one side when Kurt looked at him, the kind of frown he got when Kurt talked about Glee or Prada, a mixture of confusion with a hint of curiosity. Kurt wondered if maybe his face was mimicking it, they shared DNA after all and he was seriously confused and morosely curious as to what he was missing.
The doorbell rang, assumedly the pizza and Kurt jumped to his feet grateful to get out of the room. “I’ll get it.”
The pizza guy was a kid from football, which really was a cherry on top of the weirdness sundae. He shoved his hand into his pocket to grab for his wallet and realized with a little bit of horror that he didn’t have cash on him. He weighed the chances that his dad would ask him questions about his sudden departure from the room… Just as he turned though he heard footsteps behind him.
“Hey your dad said you didn’t have cash,” Puck said, and leaned over his shoulder.
The pizza guy (Mike? James?) went wide eyed, hand froze mid air. Puck hesitated for all of three seconds before he seemed to square off his shoulders. He handed the twenty-dollar bill off and grabbed the box with his other hand.
“Yo Marx,” he said, voice so even it almost sounded dead. “See you in Geometry.”
Kurt had just enough time to back up a half a step before the door slammed in front of him. Really, this couldn’t bode well. Puck stood for a second, body warm against Kurt’s back and just lingering there and Kurt had to bite the inside of his mouth. This wasn’t how he had pictured his night going.
“Pu-“ he started, but was cut short by Puck abrupt lifting of the pizza box up and over Kurt’s head and retreating silently towards the kitchen.
His dad had obviously paused the episode they were watching (damn parentals figuring out DVRs) and had placed a few plates and some tall glasses on the island.
“Milk?” his dad asked, lifting the pizza box and sniffing. If he noticed the sudden awkward feeling that seemed to be choking Kurt entirely, his dad was good at ignoring it.
Kurt shook his head. “Water.”
“What about you Puck, water or milk?”
Puck looked at the box and shrugged, “Milk.”
“Kurt, grab some napkins,” his dad pointed towards the closet. “This next one’s a good one.”
He was the last one to get back to the room; the TV still muted and paused waiting for him. Kurt threw the napkins on the coffee table and didn’t point out that they really didn’t have to wait for him. His plate and water were there on a side table, the one still directly next to Puck, even if he had been debating on moving a little farther away to the other chair in the room.
When he sat down he could swear that Puck shifted a little, like … he wanted to be closer to him. Which was so absurd and stupid and he couldn’t even put the right string of indignation together. He would pull back and maybe hit him or something but… well. His dad was right there and for reasons unknown to Kurt, seemed to think this night was going well. He couldn’t take that away from him.
He took a tentative bite of his pizza (mushrooms? gross) and focused intently on the screen. Water, great. Near death. Flashes of red squirmy destined-to-die crabs… cheery.
Puck finished his pizza first, stupid tall football players and their fast metabolisms and huge mouths… wait. He wasn’t thinking about that last part at all. What he was thinking about was how Puck had placed his hand on the thigh next to Kurt’s and was … shifting it. Innocently, like maybe he was just really slowly trying to warm up his own thigh but not really at all. What he was doing was distracting the fuck out of Kurt’s already lacking attention for the TV.
When Puck squeezed and then relaxed his hand, thumb brushed up over the skin of Kurt’s thigh, while Kurt was in the middle of a bite thank you very much… well. Kurt swallowed wrong and started to take ragged chocking breaths. His eyes watered, but even once the food was out of his throat he couldn’t stop coughing. And Puck placed a hand on his back and patted a few times and handed him his glass of water and … that was it.
He took a few gulps of the water before he put it back down and pushed himself to a standing position. “Puck, can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Sure?”
He led the way to the stairs and took them three at a time before he got to the one place he considered private. Puck slammed the door and followed behind, but it gave Kurt just enough time to come up with something to say.
Unfortunately all he came up with was, “What are you doing Puck?”
Puck shrugged.
“That’s… that’s my dad out there. Who apparently likes you, for some odd reason. So if you are playing recon for some fun version of smear the queer or are trying to pull off a demented ‘She’s All That’ for the politically correct just… just. Stop. Okay? You win. I’ll go into school tomorrow and I’ll act all love sick and you can dump me at prom.”
He hadn’t realized that he had just let that all out in one breath until it was over and he had to inhale embarrassingly loud and then it took a minute to catch his breath. He could feel the adrenaline under his skin pumping too fast and too warm. Puck, in stark contrast, looked almost frozen where he stood.
“You know,” Puck said, still mostly motionless except for his left hand pumping into a fist and then relaxing. “You’re the one who asked me over.”
“You’re the one who said yes!” he said, probably a little louder than he should. He quieted down in the blind hope that his dad had fallen asleep in front of the TV or had switched to some sports game. “Plus, I don’t know if I should have to be the one to out you to yourself, but I’m not a girl and you’re straight.”
He got a smile in response, an honest to goodness smile and Kurt boggled at the new sensation of wanting to kill someone while also wanting to kiss them. It wasn’t funny. It wasn’t amusing.
“I think you’re the one who needed that reminder,” Puck moved forward a little and Kurt put his hands on his hips. “You went to the girls side for mash ups.”
Which, okay, was true but taken entirely out of context. “You guys wouldn’t listen to a word I said, and as much as it pains me to admit Rachel Berry has the strongest voice in our rag tag group of amateurs, Mercedes can hit notes that make you cry and Brittany can’t think but she can move.”
“All this observational skills and you can’t see that I’m a little more flexible than just straight,” Puck quirked an eyebrow. Kurt had missed if he moved again but he had to because he was right there in front of him and this whole thing seemed... weird.
He couldn’t really focus but he knew enough to at least try. “You put me in a trash can. Like… more than once. You called me gay.”
“Well,” Puck said, with that same cocky smile he used so many times while teasing him in the past. “You are gay.”
That… that wasn’t a point in Puck’s favor, if anything that was completely besides to point but Puck didn’t seem to care, he just leaned forward and kissed Kurt. Kissed him like he meant it.
It wasn’t his first kiss, but it was his first kiss that counted. The awkward hetero fumbles in the past had been excersises in futility, no matter how much he wanted them to work out he always ended up mentally counting out the ‘Mississippis’ it would take before he could pull away without too much awkwardness.
This was not the case with Puck.
This time he lost count before he started and when Puck pulled back a little he went with him completely unwilling to let it stop. He felt a tongue on his lip and actually moaned when he opened his mouth a little. And okay, it felt a little like a slug and for second he wanted to break apart but then it didn’t and he wouldn’t break it for all the suits at Prada. He put a hand up and brushed along the short stubbly hair above Puck’s ear and was just about to pull back for a breath when he heard the door above him swing open.
“Hey boys!” Kurt’s dad called down. “Either of you guys want the last piece of pizza?”
Even though there was no way his dad could see him Kurt jumped a foot up and backwards. “Um. Uh, no. I’m good. We’re… I’m good, Dad.”
“No thanks Mr. Hummel,” Puck said, eyes still on Kurt.
“Last chance” his dad called down but neither said anything. “Come up, After the Catch is on.”
Kurt cursed under his breath but knew it probably wasn’t worth the fight. “Be up in a second.”
He turned to check himself in one of his mirrors, was momentarily horrified at the plump pink of his lips and how flushed his cheeks were. There was no way his dad wasn’t going to notice that. He went to the sink and took out a towel, wetted it and tried to compose himself.
Puck barely looked phased in the least, the jerk. He just stared down at the ground and put his hands into his back pocket. For a second Kurt waited for a punch line, or maybe even just a punch but instead Puck just shrugged his shoulder and jerked his head towards the stairs.
When they got into the living room again Puck looked at Kurt’s dad and smiled, “It’s getting pretty late. I’m going to head home and get some homework done. Thanks for dinner, Mr. Hummel.”
“Are you sure?” his dad asked, jumping to his feet. Kurt wanted to ask the same thing but figured that would be a little too blatant.
“Yeah, my mom worries, you know?”
“Well we should do this again sometime,” his dad beamed and offered a hand for Puck to shake. “Always good to meet Kurt’s friends.”
If the moment was already a little awkward, that just put it over the edge. Puck blessedly ignored the stock embarrassment of parents and nodded. He turned to Kurt and smiled, which looked genuine even if it was a little closed off. “See you tomorrow.”
“See you.”
Kurt kind of wanted to run down to his room and do something over the top and overemotional but figured the day was already pretty maudlin without adding Counting Crows and ice cream. Instead he sat back down on the couch, much to his father’s surprise, and focused on the screen. The host was decent enough and the pretty boy from the earlier show was sitting off to the corner, so really it wasn’t that much of a hardship.
After a long beat of silence his dad offered up a quiet, “Puck’s nice.”
Actually he’s kind of a jerk, Kurt thought. A frustrating annoying backwards Jock jerk to be blunt. But… apparently a jerk I kind of like. How mortifying.
Instead he nodded and kept his eyes trained on the screen. “Yeah, he is.”
*
Kurt walked into Glee the next afternoon with a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach. He hadn’t really thought out the awkward factor of making out with a member of the group, not that it had even been an option up until the night before. He wondered how Finn and Rachel and Quinn and… well. Puck and Santana could all manage it. All he could think was the likelihood of this going horrible and him ending up as the Britney Spears to Puck’s K Fed (or, well, maybe the John Lennon to his Yoko Ono).
While he attempted to look nonchalant he over shot his chair and ended up almost knocking straight into Finn. The usual lurch this would have brought about was (mostly) gone which… well. Which was surprisingly nice. Finn did his overly apologetic doe eye thing and Rachel (who was next to him) looked annoyed and all Kurt could think was, ‘Get over yourself.’ It took strength not to pump his fist in the air a la a John Hughes film.
When he got up he turned around and almost met nose to chest with Puck. His heart skipped a beat. Puck wasn’t quite looking him in the eye, but rather at a weird point just over his shoulder. Shy was a new look on him, not that Kurt would complain. He held his breath and tried to get his thoughts into some semblance of order.
“So,” Puck said, slowly brushing a hand along the top of his Mohawk. “My mom’s having like ten old Jewish woman over to play mah johng.”
Kurt felt like he was missing something but he nodded like he got his line of thinking. “And?”
“Figured we could grab dinner or something…”
He opened his mouth to say something articulate and witty like “Are you asking me on a date?” but was cut off as Mr. Schue clapped his hands and brought the attention back to the front of the class. He looked Puck in the eyes and nodded at him before he took his seat, sure that if anyone actually cared to look he was blushing like a fire hydrant. (Thank everything the kids in Glee were usually too busy thinking about themselves to actually look around.)
Except Mercedes. Who had a grin on her face like a cat who caught the canary. His pocket vibrated and he almost didn’t want to pick it up.
Mercedes : Puck looks happy.
Puck was humming along to the chorus that Mr. Schue was demonstrating, his lips in a lazy half smile and his hand tapping the beat on his knee. (Which was just barely inconspicuously stretched close to Kurt’s.) He did look happy, relaxed and … well. Hot as hell. Kurt’s cheeks warmed considerably and he had to look away.
Kurt: I guess he does.
Mercedes So do you.
Kurt: Shut up.
*First time writing this pairing so con crit is welcome! (Well, it's always welcomed but um. Be brutal.)
Pairing: Kurt Hummel/Noah Puckermann
Rating: PG 13
Summary: "Kurt: what makes me the jock soothsayer? " Mercedes gently nudges Kurt to cheer Puck up. (Set a little past the season finale but no real spoilers.)
Author's Notes: Written in fits and starts, with the loving help of openice and lire_casander (WHO BOTH RULE! ♥♥♥) As always, i own nothing I am just playing in other people's sand boxes. Title from Ben Harper's "Steal My Kisses"
Talent or not, Kurt was pretty sure that Rachel and Finn singing love songs to each other could be used to induce vomiting and as such could only bring himself to watch for short bursts of time. This left him blanking out on a lot of Glee club but with ample time to mentally coordinate outfits weeks in advance. (Note: he needed to finagle his dad into letting him have his 'surprise' Christmas fedora early or else his next Thursday was ruined.)
When he zoned back in (to where they were on the third verse of Always Be My Baby, oh joy) he caught sight of Mercedes giving him the stare down that still baffled him. He was pretty sure she forgot that just because he was gay it did not give him supernatural powers to understand woman glares... even the ones where she squinted and looked like she was concentrating really hard.
'What?' he mouthed.
She lifted up her cell phone and pointed it at him. He looked at where Mr. Schue was obviously not paying attention and shrugged. It was after school, what was he going to do? Take it away for a half an hour?
Mercedes: Look at Puck
Kurt did, even if he had to do an admittedly lame fake yawn as Puck was directly next to him. He looked like... Puck. Slouched and a little less pulled together then usual, but whatever… it was finals. Finals could make a dent in his beauty sleep if he let it. He looked back at Mercedes with the same look of 'I don't get you' and she rolled her eyes.
Mercedes: He looks like someone kicked his kitten.
Kurt: And?
Mercedes: And I don't like it.
He figured he would try and point out that she, in fact, didn’t seem to care much about him when she was pissed about the baby’s daddy drama.
Actually, Kurt had been pretty sure they all agreed upon not interfering in each other's life after what they called 'The Unmentionable Incident' but Mercedes didn't seem to care about that or any memo unless it suited her. She just kept glaring daggers at him, and even when he looked away he could feel her eyes on him.
Kurt: what makes me the jock soothsayer?
“Kurt?” Mr. Schue’s voice made him start and drop his phone to the ground with an embarrassing clatter.
He figured it was best to play it off as cool as he could. “Yes Mr. Schue?”
“Want to try that out?”
Well, crap. He leveled a glare back in Mercedes direction.
*
An hour later he finished the class with the pleasant buzz of one who got the solo he wanted. It hadn’t taken even a minute for him to get back on the same page as the group and Mr. Schue didn’t even seem annoyed that he was so obviously blanking out. He shrugged on his jacket and hummed the chorus.
“Hey,” Puck broke in from beside him and Kurt turned to see his phone being held out at him. “You dropped this.”
And the lack of colorful slur or even annoyance in his voice reminded him of Mercedes texts from earlier. Puck looked… deflated. Kurt apparently had taken too long because Puck shoved it at him. “… Thanks.”
Just a shoulder shrug and Puck was leaving again.
“WAIT!” The room was down to only a few of them and so it echoed loudly. Puck turned to him with a cocked eyebrow, which at least made him look more like himself. He grabbed his bag from at his feet and walked over to him, acutely aware of Santana tracking him. “Um… what’re you doing? Like right now?”
“Leaving, what does it look like I’m doing?”
He slowed down a little and hesitated just before he got into his personal space. Something in the back of his mind said Puck looked like a scared doe and all he could think was maybe he should stop watching TV with his dad… which come to think of it. “There’s a Deadliest Catch marathon tonight, which means I forfeit all rights to the TV for the night…”
“That show’s awesome,” Puck interjected.
“You’re kidding me.”
“Well, what I’ve seen. My mom doesn’t let me watch it at the house. She says it’s not Kosher.”
Kurt’s eyebrows furrowed. “Because crabs aren’t Kosher?”
Somehow they silently agreed to start walking out. “I’m pretty sure she just uses that as a go to threat. “
“Do you…” Kurt stopped. He had started off meaning to ask if he wanted to go to dinner somewhere or something, to get him out of his house. He hated that show and the idea of sitting in a room next to his dad and Puck and watching a show about crab fishing was on par with watching Rachel and Finn play with a puppy at an Enya concert. But… Puck was smiling… he made himself smile back. “Do you want to watch it with us?”
Puck’s face screwed up and Kurt thought that maybe he had just stepped over some sort of line. (Admittedly, inviting your former bully over to your house was probably a trope fitting of a Lifetime movie, but he guessed he already jumped that shark.) Before he could take it back, though, Puck shrugged. “Why not?”
“Oh,” he stopped in his tracks just before entering the parking lot. “Cool. Well. Do you want to just follow me in your car?”
He looked around and there were a few cars left, but none screamed ‘Puck!’ at him. (Though of all the people, his car doesn’t exactly speak of his inner awesome. It’s a little bland, to be honest, but if it’s good enough for Kanye…) “I’ll follow on my bike.”
“Bike?”
And then there was a car backing up and okay, how had it taken this long to realize that Noah Puckerman rode a freaking motorcycle to school? Sworn enemy or not, he probably missed who knows how many moments of hot guy posing on a crotch rocket and that was just lamentable. He looked down at the dark gravel of the parking lot and hoped that it was dark enough to hide any red on his cheeks.
(You are not a girl, Kurt.)
“Cool.”
*
To add guilt to embarrassment, his father looked so openly happy to have him watch the show. When Puck followed in closely behind him it was all that Kurt could do not to back out, but his dad didn’t seem bothered by the add on at all. Just smiled, shook Puck’s hand and offered to order pizza if they wanted. (And didn’t comment with something like, “Is he your friend?” like he had initially worried about.)
“Even I can tell there is no way that is going to work out well,” Kurt commented, watching in weird fascination as one of the guys on the Northwestern (the cute one, heaven help him if he ever knew his name) started to release a net that he was told not to.
Another guy came (who was also cute, even with his scruffy goatee) flashed on the screen to make a similar comment and Puck chuckled under his breath.
Kurt blinked. “What?”
“Nothing,” Puck didn’t look away from the screen but his dad did. His lip frowned on one side when Kurt looked at him, the kind of frown he got when Kurt talked about Glee or Prada, a mixture of confusion with a hint of curiosity. Kurt wondered if maybe his face was mimicking it, they shared DNA after all and he was seriously confused and morosely curious as to what he was missing.
The doorbell rang, assumedly the pizza and Kurt jumped to his feet grateful to get out of the room. “I’ll get it.”
The pizza guy was a kid from football, which really was a cherry on top of the weirdness sundae. He shoved his hand into his pocket to grab for his wallet and realized with a little bit of horror that he didn’t have cash on him. He weighed the chances that his dad would ask him questions about his sudden departure from the room… Just as he turned though he heard footsteps behind him.
“Hey your dad said you didn’t have cash,” Puck said, and leaned over his shoulder.
The pizza guy (Mike? James?) went wide eyed, hand froze mid air. Puck hesitated for all of three seconds before he seemed to square off his shoulders. He handed the twenty-dollar bill off and grabbed the box with his other hand.
“Yo Marx,” he said, voice so even it almost sounded dead. “See you in Geometry.”
Kurt had just enough time to back up a half a step before the door slammed in front of him. Really, this couldn’t bode well. Puck stood for a second, body warm against Kurt’s back and just lingering there and Kurt had to bite the inside of his mouth. This wasn’t how he had pictured his night going.
“Pu-“ he started, but was cut short by Puck abrupt lifting of the pizza box up and over Kurt’s head and retreating silently towards the kitchen.
His dad had obviously paused the episode they were watching (damn parentals figuring out DVRs) and had placed a few plates and some tall glasses on the island.
“Milk?” his dad asked, lifting the pizza box and sniffing. If he noticed the sudden awkward feeling that seemed to be choking Kurt entirely, his dad was good at ignoring it.
Kurt shook his head. “Water.”
“What about you Puck, water or milk?”
Puck looked at the box and shrugged, “Milk.”
“Kurt, grab some napkins,” his dad pointed towards the closet. “This next one’s a good one.”
He was the last one to get back to the room; the TV still muted and paused waiting for him. Kurt threw the napkins on the coffee table and didn’t point out that they really didn’t have to wait for him. His plate and water were there on a side table, the one still directly next to Puck, even if he had been debating on moving a little farther away to the other chair in the room.
When he sat down he could swear that Puck shifted a little, like … he wanted to be closer to him. Which was so absurd and stupid and he couldn’t even put the right string of indignation together. He would pull back and maybe hit him or something but… well. His dad was right there and for reasons unknown to Kurt, seemed to think this night was going well. He couldn’t take that away from him.
He took a tentative bite of his pizza (mushrooms? gross) and focused intently on the screen. Water, great. Near death. Flashes of red squirmy destined-to-die crabs… cheery.
Puck finished his pizza first, stupid tall football players and their fast metabolisms and huge mouths… wait. He wasn’t thinking about that last part at all. What he was thinking about was how Puck had placed his hand on the thigh next to Kurt’s and was … shifting it. Innocently, like maybe he was just really slowly trying to warm up his own thigh but not really at all. What he was doing was distracting the fuck out of Kurt’s already lacking attention for the TV.
When Puck squeezed and then relaxed his hand, thumb brushed up over the skin of Kurt’s thigh, while Kurt was in the middle of a bite thank you very much… well. Kurt swallowed wrong and started to take ragged chocking breaths. His eyes watered, but even once the food was out of his throat he couldn’t stop coughing. And Puck placed a hand on his back and patted a few times and handed him his glass of water and … that was it.
He took a few gulps of the water before he put it back down and pushed himself to a standing position. “Puck, can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Sure?”
He led the way to the stairs and took them three at a time before he got to the one place he considered private. Puck slammed the door and followed behind, but it gave Kurt just enough time to come up with something to say.
Unfortunately all he came up with was, “What are you doing Puck?”
Puck shrugged.
“That’s… that’s my dad out there. Who apparently likes you, for some odd reason. So if you are playing recon for some fun version of smear the queer or are trying to pull off a demented ‘She’s All That’ for the politically correct just… just. Stop. Okay? You win. I’ll go into school tomorrow and I’ll act all love sick and you can dump me at prom.”
He hadn’t realized that he had just let that all out in one breath until it was over and he had to inhale embarrassingly loud and then it took a minute to catch his breath. He could feel the adrenaline under his skin pumping too fast and too warm. Puck, in stark contrast, looked almost frozen where he stood.
“You know,” Puck said, still mostly motionless except for his left hand pumping into a fist and then relaxing. “You’re the one who asked me over.”
“You’re the one who said yes!” he said, probably a little louder than he should. He quieted down in the blind hope that his dad had fallen asleep in front of the TV or had switched to some sports game. “Plus, I don’t know if I should have to be the one to out you to yourself, but I’m not a girl and you’re straight.”
He got a smile in response, an honest to goodness smile and Kurt boggled at the new sensation of wanting to kill someone while also wanting to kiss them. It wasn’t funny. It wasn’t amusing.
“I think you’re the one who needed that reminder,” Puck moved forward a little and Kurt put his hands on his hips. “You went to the girls side for mash ups.”
Which, okay, was true but taken entirely out of context. “You guys wouldn’t listen to a word I said, and as much as it pains me to admit Rachel Berry has the strongest voice in our rag tag group of amateurs, Mercedes can hit notes that make you cry and Brittany can’t think but she can move.”
“All this observational skills and you can’t see that I’m a little more flexible than just straight,” Puck quirked an eyebrow. Kurt had missed if he moved again but he had to because he was right there in front of him and this whole thing seemed... weird.
He couldn’t really focus but he knew enough to at least try. “You put me in a trash can. Like… more than once. You called me gay.”
“Well,” Puck said, with that same cocky smile he used so many times while teasing him in the past. “You are gay.”
That… that wasn’t a point in Puck’s favor, if anything that was completely besides to point but Puck didn’t seem to care, he just leaned forward and kissed Kurt. Kissed him like he meant it.
It wasn’t his first kiss, but it was his first kiss that counted. The awkward hetero fumbles in the past had been excersises in futility, no matter how much he wanted them to work out he always ended up mentally counting out the ‘Mississippis’ it would take before he could pull away without too much awkwardness.
This was not the case with Puck.
This time he lost count before he started and when Puck pulled back a little he went with him completely unwilling to let it stop. He felt a tongue on his lip and actually moaned when he opened his mouth a little. And okay, it felt a little like a slug and for second he wanted to break apart but then it didn’t and he wouldn’t break it for all the suits at Prada. He put a hand up and brushed along the short stubbly hair above Puck’s ear and was just about to pull back for a breath when he heard the door above him swing open.
“Hey boys!” Kurt’s dad called down. “Either of you guys want the last piece of pizza?”
Even though there was no way his dad could see him Kurt jumped a foot up and backwards. “Um. Uh, no. I’m good. We’re… I’m good, Dad.”
“No thanks Mr. Hummel,” Puck said, eyes still on Kurt.
“Last chance” his dad called down but neither said anything. “Come up, After the Catch is on.”
Kurt cursed under his breath but knew it probably wasn’t worth the fight. “Be up in a second.”
He turned to check himself in one of his mirrors, was momentarily horrified at the plump pink of his lips and how flushed his cheeks were. There was no way his dad wasn’t going to notice that. He went to the sink and took out a towel, wetted it and tried to compose himself.
Puck barely looked phased in the least, the jerk. He just stared down at the ground and put his hands into his back pocket. For a second Kurt waited for a punch line, or maybe even just a punch but instead Puck just shrugged his shoulder and jerked his head towards the stairs.
When they got into the living room again Puck looked at Kurt’s dad and smiled, “It’s getting pretty late. I’m going to head home and get some homework done. Thanks for dinner, Mr. Hummel.”
“Are you sure?” his dad asked, jumping to his feet. Kurt wanted to ask the same thing but figured that would be a little too blatant.
“Yeah, my mom worries, you know?”
“Well we should do this again sometime,” his dad beamed and offered a hand for Puck to shake. “Always good to meet Kurt’s friends.”
If the moment was already a little awkward, that just put it over the edge. Puck blessedly ignored the stock embarrassment of parents and nodded. He turned to Kurt and smiled, which looked genuine even if it was a little closed off. “See you tomorrow.”
“See you.”
Kurt kind of wanted to run down to his room and do something over the top and overemotional but figured the day was already pretty maudlin without adding Counting Crows and ice cream. Instead he sat back down on the couch, much to his father’s surprise, and focused on the screen. The host was decent enough and the pretty boy from the earlier show was sitting off to the corner, so really it wasn’t that much of a hardship.
After a long beat of silence his dad offered up a quiet, “Puck’s nice.”
Actually he’s kind of a jerk, Kurt thought. A frustrating annoying backwards Jock jerk to be blunt. But… apparently a jerk I kind of like. How mortifying.
Instead he nodded and kept his eyes trained on the screen. “Yeah, he is.”
*
Kurt walked into Glee the next afternoon with a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach. He hadn’t really thought out the awkward factor of making out with a member of the group, not that it had even been an option up until the night before. He wondered how Finn and Rachel and Quinn and… well. Puck and Santana could all manage it. All he could think was the likelihood of this going horrible and him ending up as the Britney Spears to Puck’s K Fed (or, well, maybe the John Lennon to his Yoko Ono).
While he attempted to look nonchalant he over shot his chair and ended up almost knocking straight into Finn. The usual lurch this would have brought about was (mostly) gone which… well. Which was surprisingly nice. Finn did his overly apologetic doe eye thing and Rachel (who was next to him) looked annoyed and all Kurt could think was, ‘Get over yourself.’ It took strength not to pump his fist in the air a la a John Hughes film.
When he got up he turned around and almost met nose to chest with Puck. His heart skipped a beat. Puck wasn’t quite looking him in the eye, but rather at a weird point just over his shoulder. Shy was a new look on him, not that Kurt would complain. He held his breath and tried to get his thoughts into some semblance of order.
“So,” Puck said, slowly brushing a hand along the top of his Mohawk. “My mom’s having like ten old Jewish woman over to play mah johng.”
Kurt felt like he was missing something but he nodded like he got his line of thinking. “And?”
“Figured we could grab dinner or something…”
He opened his mouth to say something articulate and witty like “Are you asking me on a date?” but was cut off as Mr. Schue clapped his hands and brought the attention back to the front of the class. He looked Puck in the eyes and nodded at him before he took his seat, sure that if anyone actually cared to look he was blushing like a fire hydrant. (Thank everything the kids in Glee were usually too busy thinking about themselves to actually look around.)
Except Mercedes. Who had a grin on her face like a cat who caught the canary. His pocket vibrated and he almost didn’t want to pick it up.
Mercedes : Puck looks happy.
Puck was humming along to the chorus that Mr. Schue was demonstrating, his lips in a lazy half smile and his hand tapping the beat on his knee. (Which was just barely inconspicuously stretched close to Kurt’s.) He did look happy, relaxed and … well. Hot as hell. Kurt’s cheeks warmed considerably and he had to look away.
Kurt: I guess he does.
Mercedes So do you.
Kurt: Shut up.
*First time writing this pairing so con crit is welcome! (Well, it's always welcomed but um. Be brutal.)