You Look Back (I'll Look Forward) [2/3] - Glee - Kurt/Puck

[toestastegood]

Part One

Kurt had to be honest: Liz was a great cook, and this was a huge improvement from the meals that he and his dad used to share. It didn't come out of a can, for starters. That alone made it remarkable in this house.

"I can give you the recipe before you head home," Liz promised in response to Kurt's compliment. "It's very simple to make. Anyone could do it, really."

"She's being modest," Burt said, pausing his laden fork half-way to his mouth. "She does that a lot."

"It's honesty, not modesty," Liz said, with a pink fire flared all over her face. She only caught Burt's gaze for a second or two before she looked down, smiling in a way she was trying to hide.

Looking at the softness in his dad's eyes as he looked at her, Kurt couldn't help but smile too.

The moment was interrupted by a heavy hammering on their front door. They had a buzzer, but the knocking was heavy enough to penetrate the whole house, as if it was going to knock the door itself down. "Who the hell..." Burt muttered. He placed his cutlery down with great reluctance before he stood up to answer the door, leaving the room with an air of heavy suspicion. Kurt thought that it took a visitor with unusual courage to come while the Hummels were mid-meal.

He and Liz made no attempt at continuing their conversation, both of them openly trying to listen in on his dad's conversation at the door. Very little was exchanged at all before Burt returned, his concerned gaze on Kurt.

"It's for you," he said. "Some guy."

There were very few people who could realistically come calling on him, so Kurt was beyond nervous as he stood from his seat and headed towards the front door.

"If there's any trouble, just yell," his dad said as he passed him.

Kurt offered a tight smile that he hoped was calming, because he really doubted that anything too bad was going to happen - and he kinda wondered what exactly his dad planned on doing if he did have to yell for help. He could handle himself.

He would have liked to say it was a surprise to find Puck there on his doorstep, but it wasn't, not at all. Felt kind of inevitable, in its own way. Anticipation struck at the core of his body as he wondered what Puck was here for, exactly.

He stepped outside and closed the door behind himself. He didn't think he wanted Dad and Liz to be able to hear this. "Hey," he said, aloof as he could manage, while he held out against the urge to check his hair to make sure it was perfect. "What's wrong?"

That something was 'wrong' was an easy enough deduction to make. The strong set of Puck's shoulders and the tensing of his muscles testified to that.

The sharp punch to Kurt's jaw that came seconds later was also a clue.

The blow seemed to come from nowhere, a phantom burst of pain with enough force to send Kurt stumbling backwards for a step or two. It felt like an iron dropped from a great height, and Kurt's hand moved to defensively shield the area from any further blows.

Puck didn't take another single step towards him. He stayed where he was, and for that Kurt was grateful.

"You told my friends I was gay?" Puck yelled, at a volume Kurt knew would alert the neighbours.

He didn't care, cupping his sore jaw. "You hit me," he said, because - yeah - he was kinda stuck on that, too much so to discuss any further accusations.

"You told them I was gay," Puck repeated.

He made a start as if he was going to step forward, going to hit him again, so Kurt took a step backwards and held out his hand between them. "I didn't tell them anything. I didn't even meet them. And even if I had, what makes you think you can come around to people's houses and attack them? Are you insane?"

"Greg asked me this morning how long I'd been doing guys. What the hell?"

Kurt couldn't believe this was happening - as if he didn't have enough on his plate with his dad and Liz without having to handle Puck's own little closeted crisis as well. "I don't even know who 'Greg' is."

"My roommate. He saw you this morning, asshole."

"Well, sorry. I wasn't aware that I was supposed to be hiding. I'm not ashamed of myself." His jaw was throbbing terribly and across the street he could see his dad's neighbours watching through the window. He might not have been ashamed of himself, but right now he wanted nothing more than to go and hide indoors - but he wouldn't do that. He wouldn't allow himself to retreat and let Puck think that he had won. "Don't get me dragged into this, Puck. I didn't do anything. I was making you breakfast, god."

Now he was left wondering why on Earth he had thought that would be a good idea. He'd felt great this morning; he'd wanted to do something nice. Eggs were usually a nice thing, and they didn't usually lead to accidentally outing people and getting punched in the face. He prodded at the painful patch on his jaw, sparking new stabs of pain. There would be a bruise there tomorrow, he knew, big and ugly.

"I'm not even gay," Puck said. "I screw women. I like women."

Kurt rolled his eyes; he couldn't do this. He wasn't designed to be sensitive and careful with someone moments after they had hit him. Maybe if it had been someone else he would have been able to be more gentle. He would have wanted to be, in fact. "Well, I have to say, you seemed to like last night fine enough as well."

There didn't have to be a cut-and-dry label for it. For Kurt, it was all about the men, but he'd never understood the need for everyone to be so absolute about such things.

"That's not - that's different. I've never done that before." Puck shifted from foot to foot as if he was unable to keep himself still, a being in perpetual motion. Maybe he was worried that if he stopped moving he would have to actually think about his actions. Kurt imagined that for someone like Puck that would be the most terrifying thing in the world. "I'm not like that. It was just- It was you, alright. You were there, and I... Fuck. I hate this."

Kurt shook his head. "Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?" he asked. He was probably expected to; it would have been the good thing to do. If he was kinder, or gentler, maybe he would have been able to take Puck by the hand and quietly lead him through this minefield, but he wasn't like that. He didn't know how to be. "You know, last night I was actually stupid enough to think that you'd changed. You haven't. You're still the Lima loser who goes around throwing people into dumpsters."

Maybe not literally, but right now Kurt had that same feeling he did when he had to walk around school stinking of garbage. He took a step backwards and ignored Puck's attempts at arguing against himself.

"You should leave," he said. "Don't come back here; leave, and tell Greg I was staying over because I got locked out of my house. Lie. You're probably good at that."

It was so easy to meet Puck's gaze and appear perfectly unaffected by any of the words and blows thrown against him. He tried to remember that he had been through so much worse, that his sexuality and his happy acceptance of it had brought so many pained experiences to himself and his dad. This felt different. He could remember last night so clearly, and it had been good. For the first time in a long while, he had had the opportunity to truly enjoy himself with another human being, no strings attached.

Getting punched in the face? That felt like a fairly major string, it had to be said.

He stood on his doorstep and watched to make sure that Puck really did leave, retreating back to his car with nothing more than an unreadable expression thrown over his shoulder. Kurt couldn't understand what was going through Puck's brain right now, but he told himself that he didn't want to. Puck didn't mean anything to him, and he didn't want to understand.

The bruise on his face would be far easier to cope with if he could convince himself that it had been placed there by a monster, nothing more complicated than that.

*

Finishing their dinner was hideously awkward, as Kurt deflected his dad's questions about what exactly had gone on out there. He could tell that his dad had half a mind to call the police, and for one punch Kurt couldn't see the point. His only regret was that he hadn't hit Puck back: he might have lacked the strength to beat someone around twice his size up, but he should have at least given it a go.

If dinner was awkward, however, helping his dad to load the dishwasher afterwards was definitely a lot worse.

"So who was that?" his dad asked.

Kurt focused on arranging the cutlery inside the machine, not wanting to have to have this conversation. "He used to be in glee club," he said. He imagined that his dad already knew as much; he'd come along to as many of their performances as he could manage to, and he'd always clapped enthusiastically along. He would probably have recognised Puck when he first answered the door.

"Is he the friend you were visiting last night?"

The question was too easy, too casual. Kurt hoped he wasn't blushing.

"Yeah, that was him. Puck." Kurt swallowed. He didn't want to think about last night, and he definitely didn't want to talk about it with his dad. "It's nothing, Dad. Just a misunderstanding."

"I could hear you kids yelling," he answered. Kurt didn't even remember exactly what had been said, his mind doing its best to blur the details already. When he thought about it, his heart started to pound with pointless anger. "Do you need me to do anything?"

Kurt frowned for a moment, before he quirked a disbelieving smile. "Are you trying to offer to beat him up for me?" he asked, unsure if he could be getting that implication right. They weren't little kids any more. His dad couldn't go to talk with Puck's mom and get this all sorted out like civilised adults.

There really was very little about this that was civilised.

His dad shrugged. "Just letting you know that I'm here if you need help."

Kurt nodded. "Thanks. He's fine, I think. I doubt he'll be coming back, anyway."

He hoped not, in any case. He truly didn't have enough patience to be accused of ruining someone's life twice in a row. It was only enjoyable when he had done it on purpose.

He and his dad finished up in the kitchen. Next door, he could hear the sound of the television and knew that meant that Liz was watching a medical drama of some kind. She seemed to be a little bit addicted.

"Listen, Kurt, I've got to talk to you for real. Want to go for walk?"

Kurt didn't think that he had gone 'walking' with his dad since he was a kid. They had gone hiking once, and within half an hour he had twisted his ankle in a rabbit hole. His dad had been unhappily forced to carry him all the way back to their car after that.

He looked out of the window at the rapidly dimming evening sky. "Now?" he asked.

"Yeah, now, 'less you're busy. Just a stroll around the block."

A stroll. Kurt had entered some strange sort of alternate universe, hadn't he? He didn't like it, not one bit.

"Sure," he chirped, so filled with fake enthusiasm that he sounded like a cartoon character. "I'll grab my coat."

It wasn't too cold outside, and the street lamps glowed orange against the night sky. He and his dad walked slowly side-by-side, hands shoved into pockets. They exchanged casual chit-chat, his dad collecting details about Kurt's life in New York that probably meant nothing to him at all. Kurt stared at the cracked sidewalk as they moved. There was dead grass in the gardens they passed and the occasional half-hearted flower. Kurt wasn't entirely sure why anyone really bothered.

"Dad," he said cautiously, after they had been walking nowhere for fifteen minutes and he was already running out of nice, clean stories he could tell about his real life. "We're walking. I don't mean to be blunt, but I assume there's a reason to this beyond getting me to tell you the adventures of my clumsy co-workers."

His dad looked up at him for a second, then down again, readjusting the position of his cap. "Who are you kidding, Kurt? You always mean to be blunt."

He looked up again and they smiled at each other. "I got that from you, you know," Kurt said. They went about it in very different ways, but Hummels cut straight to the point - usually, anyway.

"You're right. I got something I want to talk to you about."

The silence that followed was far from comfortable, but Kurt allowed it to stand, knowing that his dad needed to have time to think and plan his words out. Ugly butterflies fluttered in his stomach in the meantime. Serious, family talks couldn't mean anything good.

"You like Liz, right?" his dad said eventually.

Some of the tension that Kurt had been starting to feel lapsed instantly: if this was going to be nothing more than yet another conversation to reassure his dad that he didn't think he was dancing on his mom's grave, then it wasn't going to be anything nearly as bad as he had expected. No one had died or was dying, there were no major crises, and his dad was happy. This was a good conversation.

"Of course, Dad. I've told you this before. She's great for you." Kurt couldn't exactly imagine trying to live with her all the time, knowing that her obsessively tidy habits would drive him up the wall, but they worked as a couple. He'd never thought he would ever be able to say that, but now he could.

"You don't feel upset by it?"

"I'll admit, I was a brat when I first found out," Kurt said. He got the impression that that was something of an understatement, but it was the most he would allow. "She makes you happy. Mom would want that."

"Yeah..." his dad agreed. They were quiet for a moment, both of them, trying to imagine exactly what she would have said in this situation. Something wise, Kurt thought. Something sweet and kind and perfect. "Thing is, there's something I was thinking of, and I just- I wanted to tell you first. You deserve to know."

Those butterflies were kicking off again.

"Liz and I have been seeing each other a while, and I love having her around the house." His dad took a heaving breath and let it out slowly. Kurt's heart was beating fast, too fast. "I think I'm going to ask her to marry me, Kurt. I wanted to tell you in person, not over the phone, so I waited 'til you were coming back. What d'you think?"

Kurt wasn't thinking much of anything: his mind had simply stalled. "You're going to marry her?" he asked, in the faint hope that he had misheard.

Yet his dad nodded. "I love her."

God.

God.

Kurt closed his eyes, but that did nothing more than make the pain in his jaw more apparent and put him at risk of wandering off of the pavement. "Okay," he forced himself to say. He had to be okay with this; it wasn't right to be selfish. He only wished that his dad had told him over the phone, so that he could throw a proper fit without anyone seeing. Now, he had to pretend that he was a grown-up because he didn't want to hurt his feelings. "That's really great. When are you going to ask her?"

"This weekend." That was way too soon. "It's our anniversary."

"Oh." This warranted more of a response than that, but Kurt didn't think that he was physically or mentally capable of providing one. His brain wanted to shut down altogether.

It shouldn't have affected him, not like this. He had been perfectly fine with his dad dating Liz, and with her moving in with him. This was just one more step, and it was more symbolic than anything else. It shouldn't have meant anything to him.

But if his dad got a new wife, where did that leave his mom? What would she be, other than his 'first wife'? Kurt hated the thought of her being only one in a line of many. In this case, 'many' would be 'two', but that was still more than enough.

"Kurt, I know this must be quite a shock," his dad said.

That was one big understatement, but Kurt forced a smile anyway. His eyes were irrationally bleary. "No, no. You love her. Of course it's not a shock!"

His smile was brittle and his dad looked uncertain, but through a deceptive force of will Kurt made himself act as if everything was alright. It was easy enough to fake; he had spent most of his teenage life faking one emotion or another, after all. Covering up heart-break was more than within his repertoire, it was his expertise.

He asked questions about how his dad was going to pop the question and he gave advice and he allowed this to be turned into a giddy bonding session. It was easier to be enthusiastic than it was to confront any real emotions - and, hey, his dad was willing to play along. If they were both going to act out an elaborate mime of being alright, Kurt didn't want to be the one to break the illusion.

He could fake happiness; he felt like he had been doing as much all of his life.

*

The bruise on his jaw bloomed overnight until it hurt to open his mouth even a little. It became a horrible mish-mash of colour, a dark purple that aspired to be black. It looked ugly, and Kurt could tell from the second he looked into the mirror that no amount of well-applied make-up was going to be enough to cover it up.

At least he didn't have to return to work for another week; that would at least give it time to heal a little, until it was slightly less brash and in-your-face. Staring in his mirror, he gingerly applied moisturiser to that patch, even though he knew it would do very little to help it to heal. That didn't matter. Doing something at least made him feel better psychologically, and that was more than enough for him.

His dad was already at work by the time he was fully dressed and wandering to the kitchen, and Liz was in her nursing uniform, about to head out as well.

"Oh, honey, that looks nasty," she hissed sympathetically when she caught sight of him. "I wish you would've let Burt call the cops. We shouldn't let that guy go around attacking people like that."

"It's fine," Kurt said, although it wasn't. It really wasn't. "He's stuck in high school, that's all."

Maybe never leaving this town made it impossible for Puck to leave school behind too. He was trapped. It wasn't enough to make Kurt feel sorry for him, but it was at least enough to get him to feel as if he could see where that kind of insane behaviour was coming from. Some people were never going to change. Saying that the best years of your life took place in high school really wasn't a good thing at all.

"You be careful," Liz said, squeezing his shoulder on the way out the front door. She had her hair tied back again, and it made her look at least ten years younger than she really was.

The door closed behind her and Kurt was left standing in his childhood home, completely alone. He looked around the room with a crawling sense of empty nostalgia: it all felt distant, now, as if it was no longer his. He was a visitor and nothing more, just passing through. His dad had kept his bedroom for him even though he could probably have done with the space, but Kurt didn't feel like it was his, not any more. The place that had belonged to him when he was a teenager was gone.

It made him shiver to stand there alone, so he grabbed his things, placed a hat on his head at the exact right angle, and headed out the door without bothering to stop for breakfast. He could pick something up on the way.

Of course, 'on the way' was possibly being a little too precise. He had nowhere to go and nowhere to be. His time in Lima was aimless. He had returned to visit his dad, but life didn't stop for everybody else just because he had dropped by. His dad still needed to go to work, and even if he didn't Kurt didn't think it would be a good idea to spend every single hour with each other. The awkward silence that would fall might end up sparking the apocalypse.

He took his car and drove into town, not really knowing where else to go. He toyed with the idea of paying a visit to the school, but soon decided against that particular option. Maybe if Mercedes had been with him it would have sounded fun, but by himself it just sounded sad. Leaving that place in his dusty memories was probably a really good idea.

He could tell, already, that before the week was out he would have to lower himself to drastic measures in order to keep his mind occupied. He might even have to start shopping in the pitiful range of locations that Lima's High Street could offer. He would certainly have to shower the second he got back home if he really did have to take such desperate measures.

By the time he made it into town he was starting to feel the urge for a hit of caffeine, so he smiled when he caught sight of a Starbucks. Lima definitely hadn't had anything so corporate the last time he'd been here, so he was glad to see some little sign of civilisation in the midst of all this mess.

It wasn't busy at all when he entered; there was no queue at the counter and only a couple of the tables were filled. There was a set of women with children in strollers, a couple who looked like they were having a casual date, and someone in their mid-twenties hunched over a laptop. Other than that, it was empty. Compared to the places that Kurt usually visited, this was a ghost town. He almost expected to find out that there had been a bomb scare in the last two minutes and all the sane people had left.

He pushed away his homesick thoughts of New York and headed towards the counter instead, longing for something sickly sweet and calorie-laden.

When the barista turned around, however, all thoughts of what he wanted to drink fled from his mind.

"Puck?" he said, sounding as fully scandalised as he felt.

Puck was leaning with his hands flat on the counter in a way that he probably didn't mean to look threatening. It didn't really matter how he meant it to look. With unnecessary muscles and a permanent scowl on his face, it was probably impossible for Puck to look anything other than homicidal. Clad in his green apron, Puck looked as if he had mugged an actual employee and stolen his clothes. Kurt had to discreetly look around to make sure that there were no unconscious bodies hidden right out of view.

"What do you want?" Puck said.

Charming customer service, it had to be said.

"I thought you had your own business?" Kurt said. He had thought that Puck seemed really young for that kind of thing, but considering he'd had his pseudo-hooker pool-cleaning enterprise while they were all slumming it at school it hadn't seemed too far fetched.

"Yeah, well," Puck said, and he shrugged. "I lied."

"I can see that." Kurt raised an eyebrow. "You didn't have to, you know."

Puck shook his head. "Yeah, you're off living all fancy in New York, and I'm supposed to tell you I'm working here?"

"It's the truth. There's nothing shameful about it." God knows, he had taken enough jobs like this to last him a lifetime while he was trying to make his way through college without being a burden upon his dad's already stretched finances. They'd made it, but only just.

"Whatever," Puck muttered. He looked at the customers at the tables around the coffee shop as if he was hunting for something to do that might distract him from Kurt. There was nothing. Everyone there looked as if they were settled in for a good, long while. Eventually, his gaze had to swing back to Kurt, and when it did his eyes lingered on the bruise he had left behind on Kurt's face. "Did I do that?"

When Puck's eyes were on the mark, Kurt felt more aware of it than he had even last night, trying to get to sleep without resting that side of his face on his pillow. He wanted to hide it from view, but wouldn't allow himself to do so: he hoped that a mark like that made Puck feel guilty as hell.

"I don't make a habit of getting punched by homophobic assholes," Kurt stated. "Yes, you did that."

"I'm not..." Puck trailed off and seemed to think better of trying to defend himself before he had even finished doing so. "Sorry. I shouldn't have done that."

"Y'think?" Kurt said. It was hard to have a response that was anything more than laughing in Puck's face.

"I didn't go there to hit you. I mean, I didn't mean to. It just kinda happened."

"That doesn't make it much better."

"Yeah, well, I'm saying it wasn't on purpose."

"You're saying you're a douche with self-control issues rather than a fore-planning malicious jerk. Fantastic."

"I'm not saying that. God." Puck at least didn't look as if he wanted to hit him again, but Kurt remained glad for the counter that separated them. He didn't trust Puck to be anywhere near him. "I didn't come over there wanting to hit you. Greg was asking me stuff and I had to get out of there, so I came looking for you. But I was mad, and when I saw you, and your dad, and your perfect little life..."

"You decided that punching me was the obvious way of solving all of your personal problems. This explanation isn't helping your case at all, Puck," Kurt said. He had already given up on getting served here; he would go somewhere else. The drink he managed to get his hands on in the end wouldn't have that same, satisfying taste of uniformity and corporate recipes, but it would be free of troublesome conversations and guilt trips.

"Wait, don't go," Puck said as Kurt started to walk away from the counter, but it was too late. Kurt had already decided on getting out of there, unwilling to argue with him any more. There wasn't any point in it, and he had no investment here. One night of awesome sex wasn't enough to cause him to spend this much time stressing about it and worrying about what was going on in Puck's life now. He didn't want to think about it at all: he had his dad and Liz and their upcoming engagement to worry about.

On his list of things to worry about, he wanted to shove Puck right at the bottom - so he tuned the sound of his voice out and left the coffee shop, intent on putting this whole mess as far out of his mind as he could possibly manage.

*

"How was your day?" Liz asked that evening. "Did you get up to anything exciting?"

"Not really," Kurt answered. By that he meant 'not at all'. He had wandered the streets of Lima for a while, but it had felt like walking into a movie-style flashback. He'd come home in a hurry, logged onto his computer, and spent most of his time surfing around Facebook or writing up an entry for his blog. "How was work?"

"The usual. My feet are aching."

She let out a long sigh and shifted where she was sitting, wriggling her toes. His dad wasn't back yet, so it was just the two of them. He had expected it to feel more awkward than it did, but it really was fine. Sometimes it was all too easy to forget just how well he got on with her when he wasn't allowing his own angst and worries to weigh him down.

She gave a huge yawn and covered it with her mouth. "I'm so sorry, Kurt. I must seem like such an old fuddy-duddy."

"You should see me after a day at work at the magazine," Kurt said. "I crash out the second I get home. It does terrible things to my body clock."

It was like living with perpetual jet-lag, and he didn't suppose that it would get better any time soon. It was worth it, though. This experience was worth all of the blows to his physical and mental health. He needed it, the first step on the ladder that would take him into the world he wanted to belong to.

"It makes you happy, doesn't it?" Liz said with a smile, watching him. "I can see it on your face."

"It's better than I could have imagined. Ever." He had spent years day-dreaming about what life would be like once he finally started to push and shove his way into the career he wanted, but he'd never thought it would make him feel so alive. "I feel like I've finally found a place where I really fit in."

It was like glee club but on a grander scale; it was an even better fit. He loved the bitchy politics and the open-faced criticisms that could be passed between them all. Every day was like walking into the office ready for his ego to take a battering, and he didn't care. It felt good, in its own way.

"You deserve that, Kurt. You really do."

He wished that she wouldn't be so nice to him. It was easier to try and distance himself from her and remain true to his mother's distant memory if he allowed himself to think of her as a truly wicked potential step-mother.

God, step-mother, he thought in open alarm. That wasn't a nice term at all.

He looked up as he heard the sound of the front door opening, his dad finally getting home. It was late, later than usual. Must have been a hard day at work: maybe tomorrow Kurt would volunteer to come and help out. It had been a long time since he had worked with his hands and longer still since he had worked with a car, but he figured that there would be something there that he could do, even if it was just sweeping the floor. It would keep him busy, and it would keep him out of Starbucks.

Part Three