Fic: If It's the Last Thing We Do
Title: If It’s the Last Thing We Do
Fandom: Glee
Characters: Kurt, Puck
Genre: Friendship
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Spoilers: Though 3x22 “Goodbye”
Word Count: 3,384
Summary: Gotta get out of this town.
Disclaimer: It is now more obvious than ever that I do not own Glee.
Author’s Note: Because that finale was startlingly akin to being punched in the face. Repeatedly.
This is a companion to Proof and Circumstance, but can stand alone. (And I ran out of feelings toward the end of it so I’m not sure how that went. Gosh I need to work on my big bang…)
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Kurt didn’t know what he was doing when he showed up at Puck’s door. He was pretty sure he’d actually blacked out, because he didn’t remember a moment of the drive over. He only came to after he’d knocked on the door, watching his hand come back to his side and listening to the sound echo in his brain (which he shouldn’t have, because knocks weren’t the sort of things that echoed, so that probably wasn’t a good sign).
Since he didn’t remember coming here, he couldn’t really say what his motivation was, but he could certainly guess. He would guess that it was because he didn’t have anywhere else to go.
Home wasn’t an option right now; Dad was still trying to decide whether to be sad about it all or relieved that he wasn’t leaving, Finn was packing his things and printing out the route to some army recruitment center - the army - and Carole was busy trying to talk him out of it without sounding unsupportive. Sam was spread too thin to be much help with any of it. The rest of their friends were headed off to brighter futures, colleges all over the country, or planning their perfect senior year at McKinley.
Blaine was excited. He’d mourned with Kurt for all of ten minutes and then, with an encouraging “You can always apply again next year,” he’d begun smiling and talking about how nice it would be to spend this last year in Lima and then leave the state together. It was probably meant to make him feel better. Silver lining and all that. Kurt had excused himself before he could throw up on Blaine’s coffee table.
Rachel… Rachel was headed off to New York, as of this afternoon. Not that he would be able to talk to her about this even if she were still around. How would that sort of conversation even go?
So he was here, instead.
It took him until the moment Puck opened the door and stopped, staring at him in confusion, for Kurt to realize that it hadn’t just been the process of elimination that brought him here. No, it was because, of all of their friends, Puck was the only other one who wanted so desperately to get the hell out of this damn town, but couldn’t.
And maybe it was also a little bit because Puck had been the one to find him right after graduation, to distract him from his dark thoughts and jam the cap back on his head and remind him that day was real.
Mostly, Kurt thought, it was because Puck still looked confused, but he opened the door all the way and, when Kurt didn’t come inside (he’d forgotten how his legs worked, apparently), moved forward onto the front step and pulled the door shut behind him. “What’s up?” Puck asked, and Kurt remembered that they’d seen each other only an hour ago at the train station and that he should probably explain why he was there.
When he opened his mouth, though, all that came out was, “I was wrong.”
Puck’s eyebrows furrowed together and his mouth hung just barely open, and Kurt really wasn’t doing a good job at dispelling the confusion. “Um, what?”
“I was wrong,” he repeated, no more useful than the first time, and he wasn’t even sure all the words were coming out the way they were supposed to. “I didn’t make it out.” That seemed to be all his body had the energy for, because he slumped a moment later, and he wasn’t exactly falling over, but he wasn’t standing upright anymore either. When a pair of strong arms closed around him, Kurt let himself go, falling into the embrace and releasing all the tears that he had to keep a hold on around his family, his boyfriend, everyone else. But not Puck.
Not Puck, because Puck wouldn’t judge him for it or try to help before he was ready to hear that, because he knew that Puck would just hold onto him until he was done.
He and Puck had developed an odd habit of finding each other at the lowest points of their lives. They’d been in this position before, only with Puck’s head dropped onto his shoulder and both of them crumpled to the floor outside a hospital room in the maternity ward, and then Puck had returned the favor when he’d found Kurt hyperventilating over a forgotten locker combination during that week he’d lived in an empty house. It happened from time to time, and they’d never made a point of talking about it, just took the comfort because it came without judgment.
That was exactly what Kurt needed right now, so he clung to Puck’s arms and sobbed into his shoulder on his front lawn, in broad daylight, until his breath was steady and the world felt a little bit less like it was ending.
When Kurt had been quiet for a minute or two, Puck loosened his arms and pulled back slowly, as if he was afraid that any sudden movements might set Kurt off again, and then reached back to open his front door. A gentle shove finally got Kurt’s feet working again, at least enough for him to follow Puck into the living room and slump down onto the couch. Puck took a seat a couple feet away, just close enough that Kurt could feel the shift in the cushions.
“So, what’s wrong? Is it, y’know, your dad or something?”
Kurt shook his head. He’d needed that over-dramatic moment, just that one, because even though he knew logically that this didn’t mean the end, it kind of felt like it. It was suffocating, the thought that he might never escape this town, that he might hang around these familiar streets for the rest of his life. His breath hitched at the idea of never being anything.
Now that he was done, though, he felt a little silly.
“It’s not my dad. He’s fine; everyone’s fine. Well, Finn’s going to get himself killed, but at least he’ll do it outside of Ohio.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Kurt saw Puck’s jaw clench, and he remembered that Puck hadn’t really spoken to Finn since he’d dropped that particular bombshell. “Right.” He paused, and just when Kurt was starting to feel selfish - because why was he complaining about his plans falling through when that was happening - Puck spoke up again. “So what is it, then?”
Kurt swallowed hard against the tangle of words that had been caught in his throat for a while now, ever since he’d opened that letter. This was why he’d come over, he reminded himself. “I’m stuck.” His voice caught on the word. “I really think I got stuck.”
Puck’s fingered tapped out a restless pattern against the arm of the sofa. “Okay, then. Uh, stuck with what?”
“With this whole town!” Puck’s family probably wasn’t home, right? They would have noticed this by now. “I’m stuck here. I didn’t get into NYADA.” He shot a glance at Puck, the first time he’d looked since they’d sat down.
It was funny, how wide Puck’s eyes got for a minute there. Kurt assumed he should take that as a compliment. “Seriously? How?”
“I don’t know, Puck. I just got a letter telling me no; they didn’t say why.”
Puck’s eyes stayed fixed to the wall. “Yeah, but Rachel got in, right? Figured if she made it, you had to, ‘cause you actually finished your audition.”
“Guess not.” Kurt squeezed the edge of the couch cushion until his fingers were white. God; he’d come over here to talk, right? To say all the crap he couldn’t before because there was always a reason not to with everyone else. Now he was here, and he desperately wanted this conversation to end. “Shouldn’t the fact that only she left have tipped you off, anyway?”
“I thought she was doing her usual crazy and leaving way early, and you’d just go later. You didn’t say anything. I just figured…” Puck shrugged. He still wasn’t looking at Kurt. “You could still go, though, couldn’t you? There’s other stuff in New York besides the one school.”
Kurt shook his head. Maybe it was just the leftover emotion from the last couple of days, or maybe it was something that would stick with him, but New York felt dirty. It wasn’t the bright, shining city of hope it’d always been before; it was just another place where he would never be good enough.
It was probably a temporary thing; he’d loved the city too long to give up on it forever. That didn’t mean no part of his thought process was true, though. He already knew how it would go if he moved to the city with nothing but his own dreams. There were hundreds of Rachel Berrys in New York. Kurt couldn’t even compete with one of them.
“New York is basically the only thing you’ve talked about all year,” Puck said slowly, and Kurt bristled at how much it sounded like an accusation.
“I don’t have a plan. What the hell am I supposed to do when I get there?”
Puck slumped back, bouncing against the cushions. “Plans aren’t worth shit, Kurt. Hell, I had one. Look where that got me.” He snorted. “But I always figured I’d end up here, anyway.”
Kurt turned to face him. “You sounded so hopeful when we were graduating,” he said softly.
“Yeah, well.” Puck looked back at him, finally, though the look in his eyes was not reassuring. “That was a good day. This is real life.”
“You could still-”
“Na, I couldn’t. 500 bucks wasn’t gonna do me that much good even when I had that much, I checked the apartment listings, and now I’m starting from zero. I know how it works; every year you don’t get out, it’s that much easier to stay.”
The same thought had been turning over in Kurt’s mind for the last couple of days, too. That was what it was to get stuck.
“Who woulda thought we would be the ones who didn’t get out?” Puck said. Kurt ignored the shiver than ran through his frame at the words. “It’s a weird combination. I mean, me, sure, that was a given. But you should’ve… You don’t fit here.”
“That doesn’t seem to matter much.” He didn’t seem to fit anywhere else, anyway. “Besides, you don’t fit here, either.”
Puck gave a short laugh and turned back to the wall. “You kidding? I’m like, the definition of a Lima Loser.”
“Oh yeah? How many Lima Losers do you know who painted whore lips on themselves to sing KISS in the school auditorium?”
“Whatever.”
Well, that hadn’t gone over how he’d hoped. He could have kept going, he supposed, but he doubted Puck would want to hear it any more than he’d wanted to hear Rachel telling him that he was ‘meant for something special.’ It didn’t really mean as much when all evidence seemed to point to the contrary.
“At least you got your boy here,” Puck offered. Kurt’s stomach squirmed at how much it reminded him of Blaine’s speech, even though he knew Puck was probably trying to be comforting. “You’ve got an extra year with him now. Plus he’ll give you a reason to try getting out again.”
Kurt was bad at holding back his feelings even at the best of times - which this was definitely not - and his head fell back against the couch with a frustrated sigh.
“It’ll totally work, Kurt. He’s applying to college and stuff this year, so you have a reason to do it too, and then you both go to New York next year and-”
“I had a fight with Blaine.”
“Um.” Puck blinked. “What, like ten minutes ago? Because he looked totally fine earlier.”
“No, I had a fight. He didn’t. I don’t think he actually knows that it happened.” Because Blaine was the sort of person who needed big gestures. He gave them back, true, but he’d never recognize a fight that was anything less than yelling and heated accusations and dramatic songs with back-up dancers pointing angrily at the second party. It made communication… frustrating. “This hasn’t been a great week for us, has it?”
Puck laughed again, and it sounded so much healthier this time around that Kurt had to smile with him. “This’d be a bad time to mention that I sprained my ankle yesterday then, right? Had to get it wrapped and everything.”
“Terrible.”
“Y’know, if we’d been moping like this a week ago, we coulda just sung about it in Glee.”
It was a testament to just how ingrained the instinct had become in his mind that Kurt was already cataloguing options. “Hmm, true. We could go for something depressing or turn the other way and do hopeful perseverance. What do you think? I mean, Mr. Schuester would probably appreciate the second option, but the first feels more honest.” He cocked his head to the side, staring more intently at Puck. “And I’m just now realizing we made it through three whole years of Glee without ever doing a duet. Weird.”
“Dude, seriously?” Puck lifted his eyes to the ceiling, lips moving like he was running through months in his head. “…Huh. Thought Schue’d matched us in every pairing there was; so how’d we miss that one? I mean, I did a song with Beiste, but not you? ‘Cause, she’s awesome, but she’s not even in Glee.”
“You did a song with Coach Beiste?” Kurt asked, briefly sidetracked. “What did you sing?”
“Um.” Puck mumbled something.
“What?”
“Taylor Swift.”
“Oh my God, Puck.” Kurt was having a hard time speaking properly through his smile.
“Shut up. You don’t get to make fun of me for doing a girl song when you do them all the time.”
“It’s true, I do. On the other hand, I have never done Taylor Swift.”
Puck scowled at him. Kurt just kept smiling. “Whatever. Anyway, we’d totally sing something upbeat and awesome. We’re badasses, man. We get shit done. We don’t just whine about how much life sucks.”
“So why are we?”
“Geez, dude. Harsh. I dunno, ‘cause we get to have like a day of feeling sorry for ourselves before we move on?”
“No, I’m serious.” Kurt sat up straight, almost at the edge of the couch and twisted around to face Puck directly. “You were right the first time; we can’t take one setback and back off. If we do that, we never deserved to get anywhere in the first place.”
“Yeah? So what? Determination is cool, but you gotta have more than that.”
“Like what?”
“Like, cash?” Puck raised an eyebrow at him. “I don’t even have enough money to get to LA, forget about once I’m there.”
“Yes, well, and I have no idea what I’m going to do with my life. And you were the one telling me that wasn’t enough reason to keep me here.” His eyes widened. “Oh. Oh. Puck…”
“What?” Puck was still watching him warily. “You’re getting really weird right now.”
Kurt just grinned at him. “You have a plan. You’ve been thinking about LA and looking into apartments and figuring out what you’re going to do when you get there. And I… I’ve been saving up since I was nine.” Since he was old enough to understand what all the sideways glances meant, really. “And there are colleges in LA, good colleges. And Hollywood.”
“What.”
“Oh, come on, Puck. We’ve each got what the other one needs. It’s easier and cheaper to move to a new city if you’re not doing it alone. You said we were a weird pair to get left here. Well, what if we’re a good pair to leave?”
“What if you’re fucking delusional?” Kurt glanced over to find Puck glaring at him, and he felt his enthusiasm start to leak away at that look.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re like in love with New York-”
“Not really.” Not right now. Right now, he wouldn’t mind being all the way across the country from New York. Which, actually, was exactly where Los Angeles was. “I’m allowed to change my plans. And moving somewhere doesn’t mean I have to live there for the rest of my life.” Maybe New York would be a better option in a few years or so.
“-and I am not going to just mooch off of you because I was dumb enough to graduate high school with nothing in my bank account.” Puck pushed himself off of the couch on a sharp note, towering over Kurt and staring down with hard eyes.
“You’re not. Puck, that’s not what I’m talking about.”
“Really? ‘Cause that’s what it sounds like. I can do this shit on my own, okay?”
Kurt shot to his feet. “I’m not talking about charity, I’m talking about help. Which I kinda need from you, too, because I’m pretty sure I’ve never even seen a picture of LA.”
“I’m gonna end up owing you and-”
“So we’ll keep a record and you can pay me back! Jesus, Puckerman, you’re acting like a child.”
Puck snorted and rolled his eyes. “And you think this is a sign that we could live together without ripping each other’s heads off?”
“Well, we survived when you were having so many Halo marathons with Finn last summer that you practically lived at our house. I’m sure we could manage.”
“And your boy? You think he’d be happy about you moving all the way to California to share an apartment with a guy who’s not your brother?”
Setting his jaw, Kurt crossed his arms. “I don’t particularly care how he would feel about that. He knew I was planning to move away and he should trust me enough that a roommate wouldn’t be an issue. And he doesn’t get to dictate my future, anyway.”
Puck fell silent, staring up at the ceiling.
“Getting harder to come up with a counterargument, isn’t it?” Kurt let his muscles unclench, now that the yelling had stopped.
“This is a stupid plan.”
“Yes it is.”
“And we should do it.”
“Yes we should.”
“Okay. Just so we’re on the same page with that.”
“I’m aware that this is not a perfect solution. It’s just…” He sighed. “I can’t get stuck here. We are not going to get stuck here. So we’ll leave. God, we need to leave today, before we figure out how crazy this is.”
Puck laughed suddenly, rubbing a hand over the back of his head. “Right. Let’s, uh… give ourselves a few days to pack and stuff, yeah?"
“This week, then,” Kurt agreed, nodding to himself and running through lists in his head. “We have a week, and then we are leaving. And if you’re not ready, then so help me God, Puckerman, I will knock you out and drag you into my car because we are way too good for this town.”
“Cool.” Puck paused, glancing around the room for a moment like he expected someone else to be there. “Okay, that was… you were crying into my shirt like fifteen minutes ago. Is this for real?”
“I think so?” It felt a little like it wasn’t, but Kurt could only assume that the room would stop tilting in a moment, and they would still be headed to California.
“Alright, good.” He grinned, and Kurt smiled back at him, and this felt like one of those moments when they should be hugging or something. But Kurt wasn’t the best at physical comforts like that, and they rarely touched when they weren’t mired in raw emotion.
Just when Kurt was wondering how long it would take to get used to regular contact (because they probably wouldn’t be able to afford a very large apartment in LA, and that would not lend itself to personal space), Puck swung a hand forward and clapped him on the shoulder, squeezing once before he let it fall. It was a start.
Staring at the hand that had just been on his shoulder, Kurt remembered something. “One more thing, before we go.”
“What’s that?”
“We have to get Finn.”
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Author’s Note Version 2.0: Originally the idea to go to LA together was going to be Puck’s, but I got up to a certain point and realized he still had some self-esteem issues and wouldn’t want to do anything that sounded like asking for money; on the other hand, Kurt was perfectly in place after getting comfort and a bit of a reality check. They’re gonna work on that stuff with each other. Y’know, in Los Angeles.
I’m pretty damn sure I’m not watching Season 4, so goodbye, Glee! This is what I can only assume will happen! (They set it up so well, leaving both their futures uncertain like that…) I feel like there’s some metaphor to be made here about Kurt finding a new dream in LA, but my brain just keeps wanting to make Tangled references.