fic: Just my imagination, once again
Title: Just my imagination, once again
Rating: PG-13
Characters/pairings: Puck/Kurt, appearances by pretty much everybody else
Genre: fluff, romance, some angst, some humour, little bit of everything, really
Spoilers: Let’s say Seasons 1 and 2, I think I completely disregarded Season 3
Warnings: none
Summary: Puck’s always had a vivid imagination, but it turns out it can’t begin to compete with reality.
Word count: 4200ish
Author’s note: This is for chyldofeternity, a leftover prompt from the Fic I Didn’t Write game way back when. Title borrowed from The Rolling Stones.
Noah sits in the hospital waiting room, his feet swinging pretty high off the ground and his dinosaur colouring book open on his lap. He selects a crayon carefully and pretends he can’t hear his mom screaming on the other side of the wall. He really doesn’t get why anybody even has babies if it’s really so bad. Miss Carole comes by a few times to check on him, and asks him questions about his dinosaurs. She doesn’t look at him like he’s crazy when he tells her the green brontosaurus and the blue t-rex are friends because they’re both so tall which is pretty cool of her, especially since his dad just told him to shut up when Noah tried telling him the story he made up about the red pterodactyl and the purple triceratops.
Noah likes to make up stories, and not just about the dinosaurs in his colouring book. Like, there’s a man sitting across from him in the waiting room. He’s old, like nana, and Noah pretends that the man is actually here to look after all the babies being born and make sure they all get sent home with the right moms. His only job is to make sure that none of the babies get switched, and since that’s all he has to do, he’s really really good at it. Although Noah wouldn’t mind if the old man swapped his baby sister for a baby brother. Noah isn’t really sure what he’s supposed to do with a baby sister. Girls play dress up and tea party and Barbies and Noah likes dinosaurs and pirates and Legos.
But Kurt in his class likes tea parties and he’s a boy, so maybe it’s okay. Except a lot of the other boys pick on Kurt because he doesn’t like to play cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians or tag during recess and the girls won’t let him jump rope or draw sidewalk chalk with them because he’s a boy so he has cooties, so Kurt mostly sits on the swings by himself. Noah likes Kurt’s bowties and his hair that always looks like he’s going somewhere fancy. It’s easy to imagine Kurt playing tea party. Noah thinks maybe he wouldn’t mind playing tea party if it were with Kurt, although he’s not sure why his stomach does funny loops when he thinks about it.
He’s wondering if Kurt has real food or pretend food at his tea parties when he hears a cry from the hospital room that isn’t his mom. He slides his colouring book and his crayons back into his backpack, because Nana said they could go home after his sister was born. He can’t help thinking that his dad probably was supposed to be here. He decides not to imagine where his dad is.
* * *
Puck is awake, listening to his parents argue and wishing he were somewhere else when his bedroom door opens.
“Noey?” Bekah asks. She’s clutching the stuffed t-rex he picked out for her before she was born and he was still hoping she’d be a little brother.
“C’mere.” Puck sighs, and his four-year-old sister runs across the carpeted floor as fast as she can. She jumps onto his bed, still afraid of monsters reaching out and grabbing her feet. She burrows next to him under the covers, and Puck feels her flinch when one of their parents throws something (maybe a plate; he hears it shatter).
Puck can’t help laughing a little when he realises Bekah is still wearing her leotard and tutu from playing dress up earlier. Technically they’d been playing Angelina Ballerina, but Bekah’s since abandoned her mouse ears. Puck would never admit to playing dress up with his sister (especially dressing up as ballet-dancing mice), but what his friends don’t know won’t hurt them, and somebody has to keep an eye on Bekah while their dad is around.
This is the first time he’s been back in a couple years, and things aren’t exactly running smoothly. His parents fight about money and Dad’s drinking and Mom’s job almost constantly, which means that Bekah’s been sleeping in Puck’s room for almost two weeks now. Puck wishes his dad would just go back to wherever he’d come from this time and actually stay gone, like he keeps threatening to. He’s starting to think their lives are a lot simpler without him around. Puck imagines that his dad has a second family somewhere else, maybe near Cleveland or down in Kentucky. Of all of the things Puck’s imagination conjures up, this one actually seems almost possible.
Bekah is already asleep beside him with her thumb in her mouth. He closes his eyes and tries to block out the escalating sounds of his parents fighting. Normally when he can’t sleep, all he has to do is think of the rest of the world sleeping soundly in their beds. It’s a relaxing thought, but it hasn’t been helping him sleep at all in the weeks since his dad’s been back.
For some reason, his thoughts turn to Kurt Hummel (his stomach does the loopy thing it always does when he thinks about Kurt), who’s probably asleep on the other side of town. Puck knows where Kurt lives because the last time he and a couple of the guys from Little Loop football stayed over at Finn’s, they snuck out and TPed Kurt’s house. Puck still feels pretty guilty about that. He’s been in the same class as Kurt since the first grade and he doesn’t have a problem with him but Dave told everybody Kurt’s a homo so the other guys have it out for him. Puck wants to stand up for Kurt, to tell his so-called friends to stop being such idiots, but they’d want to know why he cares, and Puck is too afraid to admit that. The last thing he wants is for them all to start TPing his house.
For a second, Puck lets himself imagine being the guy who does stand up for Kurt. He’d tell Finn to shut his face and make Karofsky stop knocking Kurt’s books out of his hands in the hallway between classes. And Kurt would smile at Puck really wide, the way Puck’s only seen him smile a few times before. And maybe they’d start sitting together at lunch. Kurt always has a deck of cards with him, so he can play Solitaire at recess; maybe Puck could teach him how to play Spit since it’s kinda like Solitaire only faster. And way more fun. And for two people.
Eventually, after inventing a pretty awesome friendship with Kurt in his head, Puck manages to fall asleep, but not before he hears the front door slam and the rumbling of his dad’s car starting in the driveway.
* * *
Freshman year, Puck stops daydreaming about Kurt. Well, he has to force himself to stop, but it’s almost the same thing. His mom finally admits that his dad is probably never coming back, and they move from the house she was killing herself to make payments on to an apartment near McKinley. He joins football because it’s cooler than admitting he wants to join the jazz band (not that he particularly loves jazz, but he does love music and jazz band is really the only option McKinley offers). He pretends he’s interested in the Cheerios, with their swishing ponytails and their hips swaying in short skirts. He goes so far as to sleep with Quinn Fabray. The fact that she happens to be Finn’s girlfriend…well, Puck feels like a dick, but nobody’s throwing him in any dumpsters. He sleeps with Santana too, but he can’t ever shake the feeling that neither of them is really into it. Santana looks at him most times like she wishes he were somebody else and Puck wonders if he’s imagining things when he see the way she looks at Brittany.
Puck met Britt on the first day of school, when she’d sat down next to him in homeroom, smiled brightly and told him he smelled like grapefruit and a day at the beach. Brittany may not be the brightest crayon in the box, but Puck genuinely likes her. He’s slept with her too, although he wishes he hadn’t. Her eyes are innocent and she laughs like someone who has nothing to hide.
Sophomore year, they have English and European History together, which is awesome because Britt always asks the sort of questions that derail the whole lesson and leave whatever teacher so confused that they usually forget about assigning homework or collecting essays. For all of Britt’s dumb questions, though, there’s something a little bit unnerving at how much she sees. Her big blue eyes are always watching, and even if Puck isn’t sure how much she remembers versus how much she immediately forgets in favour of trying to touch Jacob Ben Israel’s hair, he still can’t help wondering how much she knows. No one takes her seriously, which is exactly why Puck suspects there’s so much more to her than the dumb blonde who will sleep with anything in a football uniform (and Santana).
Puck joins the glee club when he finds out Quinn is pregnant. It’s not his only reason, but it’s a pretty important one. He knows that baby is his, and it kills him a little more every day that she pretends it isn’t.
When Puck walks through the door to the choir room that first day, Britt is already sitting there, her pinkie linked with Santana’s. Britt gives him her usual wide smile, and looks between him and Kurt, who’s sitting in the back row. The knowing expression on her face makes his heart drop into his stomach. Puck takes a seat in the back as Mr. Schue starts talking about some solo, and he can practically feel the tension rolling off Kurt. He glances over and finds Kurt giving him a cold stare, and Puck knows he deserves that, considering the number of times he’s thrown Kurt in the dumpster now.
Quinn’s glaring at him too, and Puck wonders if he’s crazy for joining this stupid club. Probably.
* * *
Beth is the one exception to Puck’s vivid imagination. His brain can’t fill in the blanks. He doesn’t imagine what she looks like, or what her first words are, or how her first steps go. He won’t imagine her first day of school, or the day she graduates from high school or her wedding. It hurts too much to try to imagine her life, knowing he’s going to miss all of it. He wanted to keep her. He thinks he could have done it. Yeah, his life would have been a struggle, living paycheck-to-paycheck, probably waiting tables and bagging groceries. He’d be the Lima Loser everybody expects him to be, except he’d have his daughter.
The night he tries to steal the ATM, he’s wasted. Drinking doesn’t totally get rid of the pain, but it takes the edge off a little bit. It helps him from walking around feeling like his heart is gonna explode from missing his daughter so much. He doesn’t know how Quinn does it, pretending like she never even existed.
Juvie sucks. He’s not a little guy, but he’s new, and he gets the shit kicked out of him by guys who’ve been there a lot longer than he has. Nobody visits him, not his mom or his nana or any of his supposed friends. He lets himself think about Kurt again, and he thinks it’s the only thing that keeps him sane.
The way he thinks about Kurt…it’s not the same as it was a few years ago. Those thoughts had been innocent, for the most part. Back then all he wanted was to hold Kurt’s hand. Now he wants to peel away all of Kurt’s layers, strip him bare, touch every inch of him, taste him. He’d almost cracked when Kurt’s dad was in the hospital. He’d looked so incredibly broken, more destroyed than any of the bullies at McKinley had ever accomplished, and it’s not foreign territory for Puck, wanting to put Kurt back together.
When he gets out of juvie, everything is different. Quinn is dating that golden retriever, Sam, Finn’s mom and Kurt’s dad are getting married, and Kurt looks worse, not better. When Kurt transfers to Dalton, it feels like a missed opportunity.
After Puck trashes Figgins’ office, Ms Pillsbury starts meeting with him once a week. Puck feels bad for Ms P, with the way she’s always re-organising her pamphlets and sanitising her desk. He figures it’s gotta suck, living like that, so the life she has in his head is easier. He likes to imagine her getting home from work and kicking her shoes off, not caring where they land and maybe leaving the dishes in the sink for awhile after she makes dinner. Just little things, since he doesn’t know much about her personal life except that she used to be engaged to Coach Tanaka and that she and Schue are always going back and forth. The Ms P in his imagination doesn’t have crazy boyfriend drama like that, because she’s really nice and she doesn’t deserve to be as stressed out as she always is.
As guidance counsellors go, she isn’t gonna be winning awards anytime soon, but Puck doesn’t mind talking to her. She’s the first person he tells about Kurt.
“He was so good at Regionals.” He tells Ms P. “I cried during his solo.” He’s still taking shit about that from Lauren and Santana, but whatever.
“Kurt is an excellent performer,” Ms P agrees.
“Yeah. But that wasn’t why I cried. I’m not totally lame.” Puck runs his hand over his mohawk. He sort of wishes he hadn’t let it grow back in, because he really isn’t that guy anymore. “Do you have a person in the back of your mind, like the one person you’d do anything to be with, if only you were brave enough or whatever?”
“That’s a little personal, Noah.” She scolds, but Puck’s not an idiot. He knows she’s thinking about Schue, and she knows he knows.
“Whatever, you don’t have to answer. I’m just saying, Kurt’s that person for me. I’m pretty sure I’ve been into him since I was like eight. And when he got up and sang that solo with what’s-his-face with the eyebrows, I just knew I lost my chance.”
Ms P looks really sad, and Puck figures she’s thinking about Mr. Schue and Ms Holliday. He wants to tell her to just hang in there, because it’s obvious to him that Ms Holliday isn’t going to stick around. She’s totally one of those people who keep rocks as pets, or whatever, because she’s too freaked about committing to any kind of living thing. His dad is the same way, so Puck’s pretty good at spotting the signs now. But telling Ms P not to worry about Ms Holliday is probably too personal, so he tells her to have a nice day and heads to his next class. (Calc. Which he’s totally keeping on the down low, because admitting to liking math now that Artie explained it to him is way worse than joining glee club.)
* * *
Puck totally doesn’t buy Karofsky’s whole rehabilitation thing. He isn’t sure if watching him hold hands with Santana makes him want to vomit or cry. Because he knows exactly what Santana’s doing. He’s been doing it himself for years.
For the most part, Karofsky is only on Puck’s radar because of Kurt. Yeah, he and Karofsky have played football together for years, and yeah, Karofsky is usually there when the team gets together to do stupid shit, but Puck probably wouldn’t pay him any attention except that Dave made it his mission to terrorise Kurt. For a while, Puck pictures a really shitty home life, like maybe Dave’s got a dad like Puck did, before his decided to take off permanently. Because Puck remembers what it’s like, getting slapped around by his dad, and he could maybe understand why Karofsky needs an outlet for that. Doesn’t mean he’s ever gonna forgive the bastard for driving Kurt out of McKinley though.
He certainly isn’t grateful to Karofsky for bringing Kurt back, because if he weren’t such a miserable excuse for a human being in the first place, Kurt never would have left. He keeps a close eye on Dave, though, just in case, and it takes him until prom to figure out that Dave’s been hiding the same thing Puck has. At least it explains why Santana is suddenly his go-to girl.
Prom, as far as Puck is concerned, is pure torture. For the first time since giving Beth up, Puck bloodies his knuckles punching the mirror in the bathroom because he hates the coward staring back at him. Kurt wants a boyfriend like Blaine, who will come to his rescue in front of an entire high school, not a boy like Puck, who only ever has the balls to tell him he loves him inside his fantasies.
* * *
Three weeks into their senior year, Puck happens to be using the library as a shortcut between the gym and the cafeteria when he spots Kurt sitting alone at a table playing Solitaire. Puck feels like he’s in middle school again, wishing he knew how to bridge the distance between the person he is and the person he knows he could be.
But he isn’t twelve anymore, and although he’s got no problem imagining the consequences of choosing Kurt over his reputation, he’s not sure he really cares anymore. So he changes direction, not really caring about skipping lunch, and slides into the seat opposite Kurt.
“Can I help you?” Kurt arches an eyebrow at him, and Puck arches one back, just because he can. Kurt’s lips twitch like he’s fighting a smile, and Puck counts it as a victory.
“Why’re you skipping lunch?”
“I could ask you the same.”
“Uh, it’s mystery meatloaf day. Last time I ate that I nearly died.”
Kurt snorts a laugh, “I doubt it was that bad.”
“Clearly you’ve never eaten mystery meatloaf then.”
“Well, no. The warning’s in the name, isn’t it? I generally don’t like my food to be a mystery.” Kurt says dryly, moving a five of clubs onto a six of hearts.
“Do you know how to play Spit?” Puck asks.
“Yeah.”
“Want to?”
Kurt looks a little startled, but he recovers after a second, and he gathers up his cards, shuffling them expertly before he starts to deal them out.
* * *
It becomes their thing. They eat their lunches in the library and play cards and talk. It’s the friendship Puck used to imagine when he was twelve, only so much better because it’s real.
The day after Kurt and Blaine break up they eat in silence and don’t play cards but Kurt thanks him after the bell rings because apparently Puck just sitting there helped somehow. He’s not used to being the kind of person who makes things better instead of worse.
They work on their college applications together and Kurt doesn’t even laugh when Puck confesses he wants to be a music teacher. A good one, not a shitty one like Schue. He proofreads Puck’s admissions essays, the one about Beth and the one about juvie and doesn’t ask nosy questions, just hands Puck his own essays about growing up gay with his blue-collar dad which is surprisingly funny and his mom dying which totally doesn’t make Puck cry (it totally does).
People give Puck shit about going gay all of a sudden and he wants to laugh in their faces and tell them he’s been in love with Kurt since he was eight. But he really thinks Kurt should probably be the first one to hear that so he just flips them off instead, which is almost as satisfying.
Before he goes to sleep he imagines what it would be like to kiss Kurt and wishes he could find out for real.
* * *
Puck gets rejected from two of the schools he applied to and waitlisted at two more, but he gets into Kent State and they want to give him a partial scholarship and Puck thinks they’re crazy but it’s not like he’s going to say no. When he calls Kurt to tell him, the other boy drives straight to the apartment to take him for celebratory waffles.
“I’m proud of you,” Kurt grins while Puck fills each of the little squares on his waffle with maple syrup.
“Gee thanks,” Puck laughs.
“I mean it, Puck.”
Kurt got into pretty much everywhere he applied (and Puck’s not surprised, his essays were kick ass) including a couple places in Ohio, but Puck knows he’s probably gonna pick one of the ones in New York. He’s trying not to think about it too hard.
Kurt nods at the elderly couple seated a few booths away. “What about them?”
Puck didn’t mean to tell Kurt about how he imagines stuff. It just sort of happened one day, and now Kurt likes to quiz him about pretty much everybody they see. Puck watches the couple for a second before deciding.
“They’ve been together for a long time. Since they were kids. They grew up next door to each other and everybody always teased them about getting married and they hated it but they fell in love anyway.”
Kurt smiles. “I like that one.”
“I thought you might.”
“What about me?” Kurt asks, his cheeks going a little bit pink.
“You’re exactly where I wanted you to be when I was twelve.” Puck says quickly before he can think about it too much.
Kurt looks surprised. “Really?”
“Yeah. When all those guys in middle school were giving you shit, I wanted to sit down with you at lunch and play cards and tell them all to fuck off. But I was pretty spineless. Not like you.”
“You weren’t spineless.” Kurt frowns. “You were twelve.”
“So were you and you had no problem being yourself.”
Kurt shrugs and looks a little sad. “I didn’t have much of a choice.”
“I’m still pretty spineless.” Puck says, the words completely bypassing his brain/mouth filter.
“How so?” Kurt frowns, and Puck knows he’s not going to let him get away with being evasive.
“Because I’ve wanted to kiss you since then too.”
Kurt laughs, not at him or anything. It’s just a nervous reaction, but things get awkward fast and Puck doesn’t know if he should take it back or if he should just lean across the table and kiss Kurt now that it’s all out in the open.
They finish their waffles in heavy silence.
“Jesus, I’m sorry,” Puck says. “I didn’t mean to spring that on you, it just sort of happened. I don’t, like, expect anything.” He snaps his mouth closed before he can ramble any more, because who knows what the fuck else he’d start saying.
“You don’t have to apologise,” Kurt says, before sliding out of the booth and going to pay for their waffles.
Puck goes outside and leans against the Nav, kicking himself because he’s pretty sure he just fucked everything up.
Instead of climbing in the car and driving him home, though, Kurt stops on the sidewalk in front of Puck and just looks at him for a second.
“You’re not screwing with me?” Kurt asks.
“No. I wouldn’t.”
Kurt nods. “Just checking.”
That hits Puck like a punch to the gut, because how much does it suck that Kurt has to check that somebody’s being serious about wanting to kiss him? It sucks even worse because Puck knows he’s part of the reason. He’s the dumbass who stood idly by in middle school and actively bullied him all of freshman and most of sophomore year and Jesus no wonder Kurt doesn't want to kiss him.
Kurt levels him with a look that Puck is pretty sure means I know what you’re thinking and stop it, because it’s the same look he got every time Puck said he wasn’t going to get into college.
“Are you going to kiss me or not?” Kurt asks, stepping a little closer into Puck’s personal space.
“What?” Puck asks sort of dumbly, but Kurt just closes the distance between them, his lips warm and soft on Puck’s. And yeah, Puck never really imagined their first kiss happening in the Waffle House parking lot or Kurt being the one to actually seal the deal, but he’s not going to complain because Kurt is a fucking fantastic kisser and he tastes like coffee and butter and maple syrup. One of Kurt’s hands tangles into Puck’s mohawk, pulling his hair a little and Puck groans and grabs Kurt’s hips, pulling him closer.
They startle apart at the sound of a wolf whistle, and Puck turns to see the elderly couple grinning at them.
“Have a nice night, boys,” the woman calls, and Kurt buries his face against Puck’s chest, his shoulders shaking with laughter.
Puck keeps his hands on Kurt’s hips because he’s waited for this for a long time and he’s not about to let go anytime soon.
“So,” Kurt looks up, smirking. “Good as you imagined?”
Puck grins, “Nope. Better. Way better.”