Fic: Getting Out
Title: Getting Out
Fandom: Glee
Characters (Pairings): Puck, Kurt, Finn, Blaine, Carole, Burt; (Kurt/Blaine)
Genre: Friendship
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Spoilers: Through Season 3
Word Count: 3,368
Series: The Chain
Summary: ‘They gave themselves a week to get out of Lima. They made it in four days.’
Disclaimer: I don’t own Glee. Also, as an additional “disclaimer” of sorts, I want to say that I have nothing against the army as an entity or a career choice; it’s just not right for everyone.
Author’s Note: Part three of the LA verse, which shall from here on out be known as ‘Roads Coated in Lead.’ (It’s a vague reference that makes total sense in my mind, okay?)
This verse will focus mostly on Kurt and Puck, with Finn as a secondary character, and some appearances from the rest of the ensemble. Klaine for now, endgame is Puckurt. Just so y’all know.
---------------------------------------------------
They gave themselves a week to get out of Lima. They made it in four days.
Everything seemed to work out so well, and everything that didn’t, they pretty much ignored until it went away. Which meant they were pretty much ignoring almost everyone they knew, be it their parents (“I just want to be sure you’ve thought this through.”), Quinn (“This isn’t what I meant; some half-assed plan that isn’t even-”), Mercedes (“You know I’d love to have you in LA with me, but…”), or Rachel (“But what about New York?”), who reprimanded them almost as thoroughly over the phone as she would’ve been able to in person.
‘Thank God we decided this in the summer,’ Puck thought. At least they wouldn’t have to be subjected to some themed lesson of the week about compromising on your dreams or anything like that. If Rachel hadn’t told him, Schue wouldn’t have even known they were leaving until after it happened; as it was, all he could do was give them sad eyes and ‘inspirational’ quotes that really just left Puck more determined to go. They were getting out; couldn’t people see that instead of focusing on the destination?
Los Angeles was fucking awesome, really. He got that New York was too, but LA seemed more his speed, and if Kurt was on board, well… Who was he to argue?
And Kurt had been verbally demolishing anyone who tried to argue with him about this. It was systematic and deadly and Puck wasn’t going anywhere near it, except to offer him a thumbs up when it was over. He was hanging out in Finn’s room (“Just stay a couple more days, bro; we can all leave at the same time and save people a bunch of extra goodbyes.”) when the whole thing went down with the boyfriend, and that had been one of those times to just sit quietly and pretend he didn’t exist.
Kurt came by afterward, flopping down onto Finn’s bed just as the door slammed shut on the level below, signaling Blaine’s exit. “Dating is hard,” he moaned, and then, “Sorry,” at the look on Finn’s face. Rachel was still in New York, for the rest of the week. Her dads were treating it like a vacation to keep her mind off the broken engagement, apparently. They might even leave before she got back.
Actually, that was probably a good idea, assuming their talk with Finn went as well as they were hoping.
Finn seemed to pick himself up pretty quickly and waved off Kurt’s apology. “You’ll work it out. You’re, y’know. You guys are good. Solid.”
“Why does he even care so much?” Puck asked, sliding himself up a little on the floor from the cramped position he’d been stuck in for the last ten minutes (the natural response to yelling in the next room was either to freeze up or to intervene, and as he’d already said, yeah, not getting in the middle of that) and getting his elbows back on the bed, just a few inches from Kurt’s knee. “I mean, it’s not that different from going to New York, is it? Sucks that he’s got another year here, yeah. But you were always gonna leave.”
“Apparently, the few days in between New York Plans and Los Angeles Plans were long enough that he’d adapted to the idea of having me in Lima until he was ready to leave, too.” Kurt scowled a little, and Puck bit his lip lightly, wondering whether there was much danger of Kurt going off on him next, if he asked the wrong questions. “But he’s been weird about it all year, really.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Kurt sighed. “This isn’t the first time we’ve argued about it. I don’t think he’s ever been totally comfortable with me leaving.” Heaving another, even more dramatic sigh, Kurt pushed himself up until he was sitting, legs dangling over the edge of the bed and leaving Finn more room to stretch out from the headboard.
One of Kurt’s legs knocked lightly against Puck’s arm and Kurt blinked in surprise, then looked down and opened his mouth as if to apologize, but Puck just gave the leg a mostly-gentle poke and settled back down to a position where Kurt’s leg lay nearly straight against his side. Like he cared if Kurt’s foot touched him. With all Kurt’s crazy products and whatever, it was probably cleaner than Puck’s head.
“What’s his deal then?” Puck asked as Kurt closed his mouth and relaxed (which was good, because then it was less likely he’d get mad at them for asking questions).
Finn nodded, speaking up from his position a little farther away at the head of the bed. He was tall enough that his head went over the frame and leaned right against the wall. “Yeah, really. What’s wrong with just letting you leave? It’s not like he can keep you here.”
At his tone, Puck thought briefly that maybe this was a bad conversation to be having around Finn, but then discarded that thought. Finn was a grown-ass man. Teenager. Whatever. He could decide what conversations he wanted to be a part of all by himself.
“I think it’s more that he wishes he could leave too.” Kurt shrugged. “I mean, didn’t we all, when we were Juniors? And he’s not even supposed to be that far back.”
“Huh?”
Kurt glanced over at Finn to answer. “He had to repeat a year, sort of. Um. Health reasons.”
Puck nodded; he got that. One of his cousins had to take her freshman year all over again because she got a really bad case of pneumonia and something else halfway through and was out the rest of the year. He’d maybe been a little worried that was gonna happen to Finn, too, when the guy got mono, because that could get pretty bad sometimes, right? But Finn was back on his feet in like two weeks.
Oh, and Kurt was still talking.
“-but it’s not really that so much as other things.” Kurt starting listing them off on his fingers. “He came to McKinley to be with me, now I’m leaving. He’s worried about the long distance, even though I’ve told him we’ll be fine as long as we both have Skype on our computers. He gets jealous and, well, Los Angeles will have too many other options for him to feel secure…”
Even if Puck could pick out like four different problems from that list alone, Blaine came by again the next day, and apparently they’d either worked it out or ignored it for a while longer, because they were just as stupidly sweet as usual.
-
“What’re we doing about cars?” Puck asked one day, sitting in front of a half-full suitcase in Kurt’s room. Apparently he rated just high enough on Kurt’s trust-scale to be allowed to place items in the bag as Kurt handed them to him.
Kurt poked his head out of the closet. “Do you have a car? I feel like I should know this.” The rest of him followed closely after, carrying a small pile of shirts to the bed.
“Na, I haven’t had one in almost two years.” Not since he’d wrecked his ma’s car and she’d taken his as a replacement. Fair enough, he supposed, but he hadn’t managed to get together enough money to get a new one since.
Humming thoughtfully, Kurt began picking up individual shirts and placing them in strategic locations on the bed. He had three piles there, each bigger than the last. “Well, I’ve got mine, obviously, so I guess we’ll drive down in that one. You might want to try finding something in LA, though. They don’t have nearly as nice a public transportation system as New York City does, and I think you’ll need it.”
“What about Finn?”
“Right.” Kurt paused in his work, hand on his hip as he considered something dark blue. “We should talk to him soon.”
“We should,” Puck agreed. “But assuming… Well. Cars?”
Kurt rolled his eyes. “He had one. He sold it because he ‘won’t need it when he’s staying at the Army base, duh.’” Scoffing, Kurt put the blue something in the largest of the piles. “Duh,” he repeated lightly, though his eyes were more concerned.
“So that’s one car between two of us, hopefully three of us.”
“Yes, but like I said, you should think about trying to find something, especially if you’re going to go with the pool cleaning plan.” Kurt placed the last of the items down on a pile and rounded him. “Those houses are likely to be all over the place, and you’ll need some way to get there. One car isn’t going to be enough. We might be able to pull off two cars even with three people, though.”
“Yeah?”
One of the piles started to tip, but Kurt’s hand shot out to right it before Puck could even warn him. “Well, the problem is that we don’t really know where we’re each going to be going, really, so it’s just hard to tell how many cars we’ll need.” He frowned at the clothes on the bed. “We have one car now. We’ll take that down, see about you getting one for yourself. See how that works. Do what we can.”
Puck nodded, then stared as Kurt picked up the smallest of the three piles, tucking his arms securely under the stack and handing it to Puck. “I thought… You’re taking these?”
“An apartment is going to have less closet space, you know. I’m cutting down.” He pointed to medium-sized pile still lying on his bed. “I’m getting rid of those. The others are going to stay here for now. I’ll probably bring some more of them out for the winter, when we know how much space we have. I can reassess over Thanksgiving, because I’m absolutely certain my dad will have me coming home for that.”
“One of his terms for you leaving?” Puck suggested, but he didn’t really think he was right until Kurt nodded.
“I think he got used to me staying too fast, too. He’s…” Kurt tsked softly. “He has conditions. Thanksgiving is one of them.”
“Right.” Ma probably wouldn’t mind Puck coming home sometimes, either, but she’d made no demands. He still wasn’t sure what he was going to do about that, but until he got a car of his own, he’d probably be following Kurt wherever he went. “So we’ll be fine, for now. We’ll worry about cars when we get there.”
Kurt grinned. “Two, three boys and their luggage all in one car. That’ll be fun.”
Another thing Puck wasn’t sure about how he was going to get that car he probably needed. After all, he was barely getting to Los Angeles in the first place, and that was with a lot of help from Kurt. And Puck was very certain that he didn’t want to be in debt to Kurt any longer than he had to.
-
The next day, because they were just about done packing and done with decision-making (whatever they could do from states away), and already halfway through the week they’d given themselves, they talked to Finn.
“Hey, Finn, you wanna come in here a minute?”
Finn walked toward Kurt’s room, hesitating for a moment at the doorway and grinning at them both.
“What?”
“I dunno,” he said, pushing off the door-frame and into the room, “you just look, like… Did you know I think of you as ‘you guys,’ now?”
“O…kay?” Kurt shot Puck a questioning look, but Puck just shrugged. How was he supposed to know what the hell went through Finn’s brain? Shouldn’t that be Kurt? Didn’t they get some kind of brothers’ bonus when their parents married? “Anyway. We wanted to talk to you.”
“’Bout what?”
“About…” Kurt paused, and when he started again it was careful, like he was trying not to set off a bomb. “About the army, Finn.”
It didn’t work. Instantly, Finn’s eyebrows furrowed and his voice rose. “Yeah, Mom and Burt wanted to talk about that, too. I don’t get why you guys can’t just let me do what I want to do. I’m not stopping you from going to LA!”
Kurt rushed to smooth it over, speaking gently but insistently, and he sounded like Puck thought he would when talking to an injured animal. Which was weird, but maybe kinda necessary for the first minute or so. Finn really did look pissed. “Look, it’s not that we don’t want you to join…” It was exactly that. “But we’re just concerned maybe you’re doing it for the wrong reasons.”
“Oh yeah? So you think you know my reasons?” Finn fumed.
“Well… We know what you told us. Your dad, right? And Rachel.”
“Yeah.” Finn nodded slowly. “And like. This is something good I can do with my life, okay? I can be good at this. Useful.”
“But you can be useful at other things, too,” Kurt said, a little desperately. “Things that can’t kill you, or… You’re going to leave different than you go in.”
Finn frowned. “Isn’t that the point?”
“Not for you,” Kurt said quietly. “Some people need that direction. You don’t. And you’re doing it for certain people, not for everyone.”
That one made Finn look a little guilty, even though it took Puck a minute longer to get it. When he did (army commercials talked about joining for the good of the country, Finn was doing it for a memory), he wondered whether Kurt and Finn maybe did have some kind of psychic-brother thing, because Finn understood that awfully fast.
And then it was time for Puck to join in. “Look, you can’t do this for your dad, okay? You can’t. The army’s what messed him up so bad, remember? He wouldn’t want that to happen to you too.” When Finn opened his mouth, Puck went straight for the guilt. “What if you get married. Rachel, or somebody else, whoever. You wanna leave them to go off and fight? Leave another kid like you without a dad?”
“That’s not fair,” Finn said, but he sat down at Kurt’s desk chair and looked a little less ready to bolt. “That is not fair.”
Kurt took over once again, now that Finn was calmer. “Finn, we’re worried about you, and we don’t want you to go, okay? Maybe that’s terrible and we shouldn’t get a say, but we don’t want you to do it. There are other ways to make your dad proud.”
“But… Rachel,” Finn tried weakly.
“Yeah, about that.” Puck cleared his throat. “You want to get away from her, right? Farther than just New York to Lima?”
Finn shrugged heavily.
“So come with us.” Puck ignored the way Finn’s head shot up and continued. “Los Angeles is about as far away from New York as you can get. In the states, at least.”
“I, um.”
“We’re leaving tomorrow,” Kurt said firmly. Puck glanced at him sideways, because they hadn’t decided on that, but Kurt’s eyes told him the story. If Finn changed his mind and came with them, that would be a pretty sudden decision. They didn’t want to give him time to change his mind back.
Puck turned back to Finn, nodding. “Tomorrow.”
-
They didn’t get as dramatic a goodbye as Rachel did. Thank God.
They’d already talked to everyone else in Glee Club already, the ones who supported them and the ones who really didn’t, and it was simpler just to leave it at that. Kurt already had Mercedes’ information for when she would come to the city weeks later. Puck said goodbye to his ma and sister before he walked over to the Hudmels’ house, empty-handed because they’d packed up the night before, squeezing everything they could into the back of Kurt’s big-but-not-big-enough car.
He took his time on the walk, mostly because it was hot out and Kurt might kill him if he was sweaty and smelly for the car ride, but also because he wasn’t sure when he’d be coming back here.
‘Wow. Let that one sink in for a minute.’
Maybe he should’ve taken even a little longer than he did, because he kinda-sorta walked in on what looked like a really intimate moment between Kurt and Blaine, who’d been see-sawing back and forth between loving and fighting the last couple of days but were apparently back to the love part. ‘Good,’ Puck thought, even though he was still a little annoyed at Blaine’s attitude about it all.
They were standing just to the side of the Navigator, hidden from the street and the house and apparently not caring about the neighbors, and there was less than an inch of space between them. Kurt had his hands up, cradling Blaine’s face, and he was saying something that Puck couldn’t hear even though he was only ten feet away.
When they leaned in to kiss, Puck looked away.
He walked up to the front door, on the other side of the car, and knocked. “Hey.” He grinned when Finn opened the door and edged his way inside, figuring he could buy Kurt at least a couple minutes, even if they really did have to get going. “What’s up?”
“Our parents are freaking out.” Finn was smiling about it, though, so it must not have been too bad. “But they’re, like, really glad I’m going with you. Or they will be, when they figure it out.”
“We’re pretty glad too, man.”
Puck stood awkwardly to the side while Finn got goodbye hugs and an honest-to-God sandwich his mom had made for his lunch. Wow, she must’ve really been feeling this thing. Kurt came in a few minutes later and made his own round of goodbyes, his hand in Blaine’s but for the seconds it took to get his own hugs and run up to his room for the directions he’d printed out and then almost left behind.
“Ready?”
Puck started at the sound. He’d sunk into the wall over the past fifteen minutes, because this wasn’t his deal, and he was surprised to be interrupted. “Yeah, let’s go.”
Before he could get out of the house, Carole intercepted him and wrapped her arms around him tight, because nostalgia and emotion from childhood friendships died hard. “I couldn’t decide which of you I was supposed to say this to,” she said when she pulled back, staring at each of them in turn. “So. All of you boys take care of each other, okay?”
They all nodded solemnly through that and the rest of the standard instructions - “Don’t go out after dark by yourselves, make sure you’re not paying too much for the apartment,” ect. - even the ones they might not follow, and Kurt patted his dad on the arm when he asked, for what sounded like it could easily be the hundredth time, whether they had a plan.
And then they were piled into the car, Kurt and Puck in the front seat while Finn squeezed onto the end of the middle row, next to a bag of his clothes and Puck’s guitar, waving goodbye.
It didn’t really sink in until they’d been driving for at least twenty minutes, on the highway and past the signs that pointed them in familiar directions, now looking at markers that told them how far they were from bigger cities. When they did get it, it was obvious, because it hit them all at once and that included Kurt, who was driving.
Kurt pulled over to the side of the road suddenly, but no one complained, except one jerk who honked his horn as he sped past. Puck glanced over at him, gripping the wheel and looking like he was trying not to hyperventilate. Puck could totally sympathize.
“We’re leaving,” Kurt said slowly.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah,” Finn repeated from the backseat, sounding vague and not altogether there.
“Good, okay.” Kurt nodded. “Just wanted to be sure.”
He put the car into drive and pulled back onto highway 75.
Fandom: Glee
Characters (Pairings): Puck, Kurt, Finn, Blaine, Carole, Burt; (Kurt/Blaine)
Genre: Friendship
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Spoilers: Through Season 3
Word Count: 3,368
Series: The Chain
Summary: ‘They gave themselves a week to get out of Lima. They made it in four days.’
Disclaimer: I don’t own Glee. Also, as an additional “disclaimer” of sorts, I want to say that I have nothing against the army as an entity or a career choice; it’s just not right for everyone.
Author’s Note: Part three of the LA verse, which shall from here on out be known as ‘Roads Coated in Lead.’ (It’s a vague reference that makes total sense in my mind, okay?)
This verse will focus mostly on Kurt and Puck, with Finn as a secondary character, and some appearances from the rest of the ensemble. Klaine for now, endgame is Puckurt. Just so y’all know.
---------------------------------------------------
They gave themselves a week to get out of Lima. They made it in four days.
Everything seemed to work out so well, and everything that didn’t, they pretty much ignored until it went away. Which meant they were pretty much ignoring almost everyone they knew, be it their parents (“I just want to be sure you’ve thought this through.”), Quinn (“This isn’t what I meant; some half-assed plan that isn’t even-”), Mercedes (“You know I’d love to have you in LA with me, but…”), or Rachel (“But what about New York?”), who reprimanded them almost as thoroughly over the phone as she would’ve been able to in person.
‘Thank God we decided this in the summer,’ Puck thought. At least they wouldn’t have to be subjected to some themed lesson of the week about compromising on your dreams or anything like that. If Rachel hadn’t told him, Schue wouldn’t have even known they were leaving until after it happened; as it was, all he could do was give them sad eyes and ‘inspirational’ quotes that really just left Puck more determined to go. They were getting out; couldn’t people see that instead of focusing on the destination?
Los Angeles was fucking awesome, really. He got that New York was too, but LA seemed more his speed, and if Kurt was on board, well… Who was he to argue?
And Kurt had been verbally demolishing anyone who tried to argue with him about this. It was systematic and deadly and Puck wasn’t going anywhere near it, except to offer him a thumbs up when it was over. He was hanging out in Finn’s room (“Just stay a couple more days, bro; we can all leave at the same time and save people a bunch of extra goodbyes.”) when the whole thing went down with the boyfriend, and that had been one of those times to just sit quietly and pretend he didn’t exist.
Kurt came by afterward, flopping down onto Finn’s bed just as the door slammed shut on the level below, signaling Blaine’s exit. “Dating is hard,” he moaned, and then, “Sorry,” at the look on Finn’s face. Rachel was still in New York, for the rest of the week. Her dads were treating it like a vacation to keep her mind off the broken engagement, apparently. They might even leave before she got back.
Actually, that was probably a good idea, assuming their talk with Finn went as well as they were hoping.
Finn seemed to pick himself up pretty quickly and waved off Kurt’s apology. “You’ll work it out. You’re, y’know. You guys are good. Solid.”
“Why does he even care so much?” Puck asked, sliding himself up a little on the floor from the cramped position he’d been stuck in for the last ten minutes (the natural response to yelling in the next room was either to freeze up or to intervene, and as he’d already said, yeah, not getting in the middle of that) and getting his elbows back on the bed, just a few inches from Kurt’s knee. “I mean, it’s not that different from going to New York, is it? Sucks that he’s got another year here, yeah. But you were always gonna leave.”
“Apparently, the few days in between New York Plans and Los Angeles Plans were long enough that he’d adapted to the idea of having me in Lima until he was ready to leave, too.” Kurt scowled a little, and Puck bit his lip lightly, wondering whether there was much danger of Kurt going off on him next, if he asked the wrong questions. “But he’s been weird about it all year, really.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Kurt sighed. “This isn’t the first time we’ve argued about it. I don’t think he’s ever been totally comfortable with me leaving.” Heaving another, even more dramatic sigh, Kurt pushed himself up until he was sitting, legs dangling over the edge of the bed and leaving Finn more room to stretch out from the headboard.
One of Kurt’s legs knocked lightly against Puck’s arm and Kurt blinked in surprise, then looked down and opened his mouth as if to apologize, but Puck just gave the leg a mostly-gentle poke and settled back down to a position where Kurt’s leg lay nearly straight against his side. Like he cared if Kurt’s foot touched him. With all Kurt’s crazy products and whatever, it was probably cleaner than Puck’s head.
“What’s his deal then?” Puck asked as Kurt closed his mouth and relaxed (which was good, because then it was less likely he’d get mad at them for asking questions).
Finn nodded, speaking up from his position a little farther away at the head of the bed. He was tall enough that his head went over the frame and leaned right against the wall. “Yeah, really. What’s wrong with just letting you leave? It’s not like he can keep you here.”
At his tone, Puck thought briefly that maybe this was a bad conversation to be having around Finn, but then discarded that thought. Finn was a grown-ass man. Teenager. Whatever. He could decide what conversations he wanted to be a part of all by himself.
“I think it’s more that he wishes he could leave too.” Kurt shrugged. “I mean, didn’t we all, when we were Juniors? And he’s not even supposed to be that far back.”
“Huh?”
Kurt glanced over at Finn to answer. “He had to repeat a year, sort of. Um. Health reasons.”
Puck nodded; he got that. One of his cousins had to take her freshman year all over again because she got a really bad case of pneumonia and something else halfway through and was out the rest of the year. He’d maybe been a little worried that was gonna happen to Finn, too, when the guy got mono, because that could get pretty bad sometimes, right? But Finn was back on his feet in like two weeks.
Oh, and Kurt was still talking.
“-but it’s not really that so much as other things.” Kurt starting listing them off on his fingers. “He came to McKinley to be with me, now I’m leaving. He’s worried about the long distance, even though I’ve told him we’ll be fine as long as we both have Skype on our computers. He gets jealous and, well, Los Angeles will have too many other options for him to feel secure…”
Even if Puck could pick out like four different problems from that list alone, Blaine came by again the next day, and apparently they’d either worked it out or ignored it for a while longer, because they were just as stupidly sweet as usual.
-
“What’re we doing about cars?” Puck asked one day, sitting in front of a half-full suitcase in Kurt’s room. Apparently he rated just high enough on Kurt’s trust-scale to be allowed to place items in the bag as Kurt handed them to him.
Kurt poked his head out of the closet. “Do you have a car? I feel like I should know this.” The rest of him followed closely after, carrying a small pile of shirts to the bed.
“Na, I haven’t had one in almost two years.” Not since he’d wrecked his ma’s car and she’d taken his as a replacement. Fair enough, he supposed, but he hadn’t managed to get together enough money to get a new one since.
Humming thoughtfully, Kurt began picking up individual shirts and placing them in strategic locations on the bed. He had three piles there, each bigger than the last. “Well, I’ve got mine, obviously, so I guess we’ll drive down in that one. You might want to try finding something in LA, though. They don’t have nearly as nice a public transportation system as New York City does, and I think you’ll need it.”
“What about Finn?”
“Right.” Kurt paused in his work, hand on his hip as he considered something dark blue. “We should talk to him soon.”
“We should,” Puck agreed. “But assuming… Well. Cars?”
Kurt rolled his eyes. “He had one. He sold it because he ‘won’t need it when he’s staying at the Army base, duh.’” Scoffing, Kurt put the blue something in the largest of the piles. “Duh,” he repeated lightly, though his eyes were more concerned.
“So that’s one car between two of us, hopefully three of us.”
“Yes, but like I said, you should think about trying to find something, especially if you’re going to go with the pool cleaning plan.” Kurt placed the last of the items down on a pile and rounded him. “Those houses are likely to be all over the place, and you’ll need some way to get there. One car isn’t going to be enough. We might be able to pull off two cars even with three people, though.”
“Yeah?”
One of the piles started to tip, but Kurt’s hand shot out to right it before Puck could even warn him. “Well, the problem is that we don’t really know where we’re each going to be going, really, so it’s just hard to tell how many cars we’ll need.” He frowned at the clothes on the bed. “We have one car now. We’ll take that down, see about you getting one for yourself. See how that works. Do what we can.”
Puck nodded, then stared as Kurt picked up the smallest of the three piles, tucking his arms securely under the stack and handing it to Puck. “I thought… You’re taking these?”
“An apartment is going to have less closet space, you know. I’m cutting down.” He pointed to medium-sized pile still lying on his bed. “I’m getting rid of those. The others are going to stay here for now. I’ll probably bring some more of them out for the winter, when we know how much space we have. I can reassess over Thanksgiving, because I’m absolutely certain my dad will have me coming home for that.”
“One of his terms for you leaving?” Puck suggested, but he didn’t really think he was right until Kurt nodded.
“I think he got used to me staying too fast, too. He’s…” Kurt tsked softly. “He has conditions. Thanksgiving is one of them.”
“Right.” Ma probably wouldn’t mind Puck coming home sometimes, either, but she’d made no demands. He still wasn’t sure what he was going to do about that, but until he got a car of his own, he’d probably be following Kurt wherever he went. “So we’ll be fine, for now. We’ll worry about cars when we get there.”
Kurt grinned. “Two, three boys and their luggage all in one car. That’ll be fun.”
Another thing Puck wasn’t sure about how he was going to get that car he probably needed. After all, he was barely getting to Los Angeles in the first place, and that was with a lot of help from Kurt. And Puck was very certain that he didn’t want to be in debt to Kurt any longer than he had to.
-
The next day, because they were just about done packing and done with decision-making (whatever they could do from states away), and already halfway through the week they’d given themselves, they talked to Finn.
“Hey, Finn, you wanna come in here a minute?”
Finn walked toward Kurt’s room, hesitating for a moment at the doorway and grinning at them both.
“What?”
“I dunno,” he said, pushing off the door-frame and into the room, “you just look, like… Did you know I think of you as ‘you guys,’ now?”
“O…kay?” Kurt shot Puck a questioning look, but Puck just shrugged. How was he supposed to know what the hell went through Finn’s brain? Shouldn’t that be Kurt? Didn’t they get some kind of brothers’ bonus when their parents married? “Anyway. We wanted to talk to you.”
“’Bout what?”
“About…” Kurt paused, and when he started again it was careful, like he was trying not to set off a bomb. “About the army, Finn.”
It didn’t work. Instantly, Finn’s eyebrows furrowed and his voice rose. “Yeah, Mom and Burt wanted to talk about that, too. I don’t get why you guys can’t just let me do what I want to do. I’m not stopping you from going to LA!”
Kurt rushed to smooth it over, speaking gently but insistently, and he sounded like Puck thought he would when talking to an injured animal. Which was weird, but maybe kinda necessary for the first minute or so. Finn really did look pissed. “Look, it’s not that we don’t want you to join…” It was exactly that. “But we’re just concerned maybe you’re doing it for the wrong reasons.”
“Oh yeah? So you think you know my reasons?” Finn fumed.
“Well… We know what you told us. Your dad, right? And Rachel.”
“Yeah.” Finn nodded slowly. “And like. This is something good I can do with my life, okay? I can be good at this. Useful.”
“But you can be useful at other things, too,” Kurt said, a little desperately. “Things that can’t kill you, or… You’re going to leave different than you go in.”
Finn frowned. “Isn’t that the point?”
“Not for you,” Kurt said quietly. “Some people need that direction. You don’t. And you’re doing it for certain people, not for everyone.”
That one made Finn look a little guilty, even though it took Puck a minute longer to get it. When he did (army commercials talked about joining for the good of the country, Finn was doing it for a memory), he wondered whether Kurt and Finn maybe did have some kind of psychic-brother thing, because Finn understood that awfully fast.
And then it was time for Puck to join in. “Look, you can’t do this for your dad, okay? You can’t. The army’s what messed him up so bad, remember? He wouldn’t want that to happen to you too.” When Finn opened his mouth, Puck went straight for the guilt. “What if you get married. Rachel, or somebody else, whoever. You wanna leave them to go off and fight? Leave another kid like you without a dad?”
“That’s not fair,” Finn said, but he sat down at Kurt’s desk chair and looked a little less ready to bolt. “That is not fair.”
Kurt took over once again, now that Finn was calmer. “Finn, we’re worried about you, and we don’t want you to go, okay? Maybe that’s terrible and we shouldn’t get a say, but we don’t want you to do it. There are other ways to make your dad proud.”
“But… Rachel,” Finn tried weakly.
“Yeah, about that.” Puck cleared his throat. “You want to get away from her, right? Farther than just New York to Lima?”
Finn shrugged heavily.
“So come with us.” Puck ignored the way Finn’s head shot up and continued. “Los Angeles is about as far away from New York as you can get. In the states, at least.”
“I, um.”
“We’re leaving tomorrow,” Kurt said firmly. Puck glanced at him sideways, because they hadn’t decided on that, but Kurt’s eyes told him the story. If Finn changed his mind and came with them, that would be a pretty sudden decision. They didn’t want to give him time to change his mind back.
Puck turned back to Finn, nodding. “Tomorrow.”
-
They didn’t get as dramatic a goodbye as Rachel did. Thank God.
They’d already talked to everyone else in Glee Club already, the ones who supported them and the ones who really didn’t, and it was simpler just to leave it at that. Kurt already had Mercedes’ information for when she would come to the city weeks later. Puck said goodbye to his ma and sister before he walked over to the Hudmels’ house, empty-handed because they’d packed up the night before, squeezing everything they could into the back of Kurt’s big-but-not-big-enough car.
He took his time on the walk, mostly because it was hot out and Kurt might kill him if he was sweaty and smelly for the car ride, but also because he wasn’t sure when he’d be coming back here.
‘Wow. Let that one sink in for a minute.’
Maybe he should’ve taken even a little longer than he did, because he kinda-sorta walked in on what looked like a really intimate moment between Kurt and Blaine, who’d been see-sawing back and forth between loving and fighting the last couple of days but were apparently back to the love part. ‘Good,’ Puck thought, even though he was still a little annoyed at Blaine’s attitude about it all.
They were standing just to the side of the Navigator, hidden from the street and the house and apparently not caring about the neighbors, and there was less than an inch of space between them. Kurt had his hands up, cradling Blaine’s face, and he was saying something that Puck couldn’t hear even though he was only ten feet away.
When they leaned in to kiss, Puck looked away.
He walked up to the front door, on the other side of the car, and knocked. “Hey.” He grinned when Finn opened the door and edged his way inside, figuring he could buy Kurt at least a couple minutes, even if they really did have to get going. “What’s up?”
“Our parents are freaking out.” Finn was smiling about it, though, so it must not have been too bad. “But they’re, like, really glad I’m going with you. Or they will be, when they figure it out.”
“We’re pretty glad too, man.”
Puck stood awkwardly to the side while Finn got goodbye hugs and an honest-to-God sandwich his mom had made for his lunch. Wow, she must’ve really been feeling this thing. Kurt came in a few minutes later and made his own round of goodbyes, his hand in Blaine’s but for the seconds it took to get his own hugs and run up to his room for the directions he’d printed out and then almost left behind.
“Ready?”
Puck started at the sound. He’d sunk into the wall over the past fifteen minutes, because this wasn’t his deal, and he was surprised to be interrupted. “Yeah, let’s go.”
Before he could get out of the house, Carole intercepted him and wrapped her arms around him tight, because nostalgia and emotion from childhood friendships died hard. “I couldn’t decide which of you I was supposed to say this to,” she said when she pulled back, staring at each of them in turn. “So. All of you boys take care of each other, okay?”
They all nodded solemnly through that and the rest of the standard instructions - “Don’t go out after dark by yourselves, make sure you’re not paying too much for the apartment,” ect. - even the ones they might not follow, and Kurt patted his dad on the arm when he asked, for what sounded like it could easily be the hundredth time, whether they had a plan.
And then they were piled into the car, Kurt and Puck in the front seat while Finn squeezed onto the end of the middle row, next to a bag of his clothes and Puck’s guitar, waving goodbye.
It didn’t really sink in until they’d been driving for at least twenty minutes, on the highway and past the signs that pointed them in familiar directions, now looking at markers that told them how far they were from bigger cities. When they did get it, it was obvious, because it hit them all at once and that included Kurt, who was driving.
Kurt pulled over to the side of the road suddenly, but no one complained, except one jerk who honked his horn as he sped past. Puck glanced over at him, gripping the wheel and looking like he was trying not to hyperventilate. Puck could totally sympathize.
“We’re leaving,” Kurt said slowly.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah,” Finn repeated from the backseat, sounding vague and not altogether there.
“Good, okay.” Kurt nodded. “Just wanted to be sure.”
He put the car into drive and pulled back onto highway 75.