Fic: Sweet Child O' Mine (13b/13, FINAL)
Media: Fic
Title: Sweet Child O’ Mine (13b/13, FINAL)
Author: likethedirection
Friendship/Pairings: Kurt+Puck, canon pairings as of 2x22
Spoilers: To be safe, we’ll say everything through Season 2?
Rating: PG-13+
Summary: Puck comes to Kurt for help, and Kurt figures it can’t hurt to do a friend a favor. Unfortunately, everything is more complicated when there’s a baby involved.
Previous Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6a | 6b | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10a | 10b | 11a | 11b | 12a | 12b | 13a
~*~
Four days, nine attempts (eight failures) at playlist-planning, and one quiet conversation on which Kurt absolutely hadn’t been eavesdropping later, Saturday came.
“Shotty!”
“Wha--dude, no, I’m the tallest one, I barely even fit in the back seat!”
“I don’t make the rules, glee-otch!”
“You sat up there last weekend! Kurt, dude, tell him I--”
“Don’t bring me into this. I am starting the car. I hope one or both of you are inside it when I drive away in ten, nine, eight--”
“Puck, dude, come on!”
“--six, five, oh my God, really?”
“The rules of shotgun are simple and finite, yo.”
“--thr...Puck, did you just reference Legally Blonde?”
“No.”
"Sooo, I'm just gonna--"
"Whoa, hell no, dude! He who calls shotty, gets shotty!"
"...Two one. Ta-ta."
"Wha--whoa!"
"Okay, okay, I'll sit in back, stop the car!"
"I warned you. Noah, get in and move your seat up for Legs McFrankenteen. Finn, your pouting privileges are officially revoked. If we get halfway there and I need to separate you two, one of you may end up on the side of the road. Decide now that you're not going to give me any reason for that person to be you."
"Geez, fine. Can I at least put some tunes on, Mom?"
"Yes, but my car, my music. You break it, you walk. Everywhere. Forever."
"Yeah, yeah...aw, sweet! This is my jam, yo."
"Did we bring snacks?”
"It's a two-hour drive, Finn."
"...So did we?"
"Hold on to your eardrums, kids. Crankin' it."
Two hours and a whole lot of backup-singing later, Kurt pulled into the studio parking lot with a faint ringing in his ears and a new appreciation for every responsible adult who had ever endeavored to take small children on a road trip.
-
The Playlist was the product of Kurt and Puck more or less living at each other’s houses for the last week, occasionally with a Finn thrown in, going through every song they had sung to Beth over the summer, adding the ones they’d each thought about but not tried, growing the list even more when they included potentially-appropriate songs they’d done in glee club in the past, and then crossing out the no-goes and arguing about the maybes and starring the winners of each round of narrow-down. It was all Kurt could do to keep up with Puck now; there was something driven and a little manic about how Puck jumped in, how quick he was to bounce back after they’d crumpled up yet another attempt and how hard he would push back if he didn’t agree.
“It’s got to be perfect,” he’d said at one point, and Kurt the Perfectionist could work with that.
“Oh, it will be.”
It was worth their hard work, though, when Kurt had printed out the carefully-formatted and embellished final product, and both of them had looked it over and exchanged grins that said, This is it.
It was even more worth it now, as they worked their way down the list, Kurt stepping into the booth with Puck here and there to duet or accompany on the piano, but mostly sitting curled up with Blaine and hearing their playlist come to life.
Much debate had gone down on Puck’s futon about whether anyone other than Puck should be featured, and ultimately they had compromised on including three bonus tracks at the end. For the first of them, Kurt was the one stepping up to the microphone while Puck got settled with his guitar.
It hadn’t been a decision anyone had discussed, the idea of saying something to Beth about who they were and the songs they would be singing, but it seemed to make sense, giving Beth some context for all these other voices. Kurt had spent a good long while at his desk trying to write something out, but in the end had just scrapped it. The summer had taught him that he could wing it pretty well when he put his mind to it.
“Bonjour, ma petite,” he began, smiling. “I’m who you hopefully still know as Uncle Kurt. This is the first song I ever sang to you on my own, to help you go to sleep.” Interestingly, it was Puck who had insisted on this song, with a surprising amount of fervor. “It’s a song my mom used to sing to me, and it really helps me feel better when I’m worried about something, or when I can’t sleep. I hope it can make you feel better sometimes, too.” He started to lift his hand to signal Puck to start, but paused. “This is your dad on the guitar, by the way.”
He signaled Puck then, and Puck rolled his eyes to ineffectively hide his pleased grin as he started to strum.
The Warblers and Finn applauded once he’d finished and they’d stopped recording, and Kurt stayed in the booth, moving to the piano. Puck got up, slung his guitar around to his back, and clapped Finn on the shoulder as they swapped places.
Finn didn’t approach the microphone right away, taking in the booth and the sound equipment and the glass, looking not a little bit intimidated.
“Finn,” Kurt said softly, and Finn turned wide eyes on him. Kurt smiled back. “You know how to do this.” He wiggled his fingers over the piano keys, just like he had two years ago in the auditorium, back when he was so thrilled to be bonding with The Hot Quarterback Who Was Nice to Him. “We both do.”
Finn let out his breath, the side of his mouth turning up. His shoulders started to relax. “Yeah. Yeah, we do.”
He stepped up to the microphone, adjusted it from Kurt-height to Giant Rumblebuffin-height, took a deep breath, and nodded for Trent to start recording.
“Hey, Beth,” he said once he’d determined the best distance from the microphone. “I’m Finn. I’m your uncle Kurt’s brother, so I guess that makes me your uncle, too. But for a little while, I thought I was going to be your dad. And I was going to sing this song to you, but I never got the chance.” He swallowed hard, glanced at Kurt, and went on at Kurt’s encouraging nod. “I’ve got the chance now. And even though it turned out I’m not your dad-which is cool, I mean, your dad’s a great guy-I can still be your uncle, and I can always be your friend. And I want you to know that if you’re feeling sad, or mad, or really happy, or weird, or…anything, you can always talk to me, and I’ll always listen.”
He hesitated, seeming to consider saying more, then closed his mouth with a satisfied nod. He looked to Kurt, and Kurt started to play.
It was nice. It felt like they were finally finishing a conversation that had spent two years hanging in the air.
They weren’t three seconds past the end of the recording when Finn turned to Kurt and crushed him in a hug. “Thanks, dude.”
Kurt returned the hug, the perfect outlet for the rush of fondness that song always made him feel for Finn. “Thank you.”
Their last guest artist had arrived at mid-afternoon, and she had sat quietly on her own at first, just watching. Kurt had glanced over a few times, relieved when his third glance landed on Wes sitting down at a respectful proximity, talking quietly to her with the kind smile that occasionally appeared when he wasn’t in Warbler High Council Mode, and on her tentatively smiling back.
Now, she was getting up from her and Wes’s quiet-corner and making her way to the recording booth, where Kurt waited at the piano and Puck was already setting back up with his guitar, Finn settling at the trapset. She hesitated at the door.
Kurt didn’t blame her. “Are you okay?”
She looked at him, measured and carefully blank. “Ask me after.”
Once at the microphone, she pulled a piece of paper from her pocket and unfolded it. She swallowed, cleared her throat, and gave the signal to Trent.
“Hi, Beth,” she said, a little too soft before she noticed and corrected. “I’m not the mom that you know, but I carried you in my belly.”
Where before there had been a general susurrus of quiet chatter outside of the recording area, now it was silent. A glance told Kurt that this was partly because Wes was ushering the rest of the Warblers out to the break room. Wes looked briefly to Quinn in the booth, and Kurt followed his gaze just in time to see Quinn mouth back, Thank you.
“There are so many things I want you to know,” she said, her eyes back on her letter. “But the most important thing is this: you were always, always wanted, Beth, since the day you were born, and you were always, always loved. The first time I held you, I’d never seen anything more beautiful. And giving you to your mom, letting her adopt you, was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
For some reason she looked to Puck then, but his eyes stayed steadily off to the side. “But I did it,” she went on, “because you deserve everything good in the world, and I knew I couldn’t give that to you. More than anything, I want you to know that. That you deserve everything good, because you’re perfect to us, your dad and me.” Puck’s eyes lifted, but stayed angled away. “And that even if you don’t see me, and even if you don’t see your dad every day, we still love you. We’re all part of each other, just like your mom is a part of you.” Her shoulders seemed to lighten, her chin rising. “When you hear this song, I hope you’ll remember that.”
She nodded, looking straight ahead, and they began.
Kurt and Puck had grappled with this song’s place on the playlist. They agreed that it would be good to have it, especially since they’d never gotten to sing it for glee club, but no matter where they put it, it just didn’t feel right. It was at the end of glee club on Friday, as he’d watched Puck watch Quinn sitting alone, that it had struck Kurt as clearly as if it had been whispered in his ear.
“I know what’s wrong with ‘Without You,’” he’d said as soon as he and Puck had taken over his living room couch with notebooks and sheet music and guitar accessories that afternoon. To Puck’s lifted eyebrow, he’d said, “You’ve been singing it with the wrong partner.”
Not that he would ever deny that he and Puck sounded fabulous on this song. But it wasn’t his. Here, it felt right.
Quinn didn’t stay long after she’d finished. It was just long enough for her to hand Puck the letter she’d read before her song, quietly asking if he’d include it in the CD case for Beth, and for him to nod and take it. Long enough for Finn to read her the way he could read just about everyone, and say, “Hey, come here,” and for her to sink into his hug like she’d been waiting for it. (Kurt didn’t blame her for that, either-his stepbrother gave excellent hugs.)
Before going back to the parking lot, Quinn approached Kurt by choice, without anger or tears, for the first time in…wow, a long time. She tilted her head at him, studying him, and he returned the favor.
“Noah said it was your idea,” she said after a moment. “The CD, the studio. Me.”
Kurt, unlike Finn, was not a natural at reading people, and he utterly failed to guess where he stood with her now. “Yes, well.”
“I didn’t give you any reason to want to do anything for me,” she said. “Kind of the opposite. So I don’t know why you decided to anyway, but.” Her voice softened. “Thank you.”
Kurt nodded, coming up blank for what to say, and she added, “And I’m sorry I slapped you. I’m working with Miss Pillsbury on finding some more mature ways to deal with anger. And…other things.”
“Good,” Kurt said, because it was. “I mean, congratulations on your upper body strength, but I am going to have to vote for Not Slapping Kurt as well.”
Her face stretched into something between a smile and a grimace. “I’m sorry.”
“I know.” Something occurring to him, he said, “You told me to ask you after, and I never did.” He glanced up, fairly certain he knew the answer, but he asked anyway. “Are you okay?”
Just a little bit, she smiled.
“Right now,” she said, “I think I am.”
-
Quinn’s song had been the last, so after she had gone, the Warblers cheerfully kidnapped Kurt, Puck and Finn to Nick and Jeff’s dorm room for pizza and a celebratory showing of Avenue Q. When word made it around that Puck and Finn had never seen it before (as it was one of many unofficial rites of passage at Dalton, Kurt knew it far better than he had ever thought he would know a musical featuring naughty puppets, hallucination-bears, and Gary Coleman), he just sat back and enjoyed how wary the two of them started looking when the Warblers all exchanged knowing smirks.
“Wait,” Puck said skeptically as they started into the first act, “so it’s a puppet show?”
“Trust me,” Kurt said.
Finn shifted nervously on his floor-pillow. “Uh, you should probably know the Muppets scared the crap out of me when I was a kid…”
Kurt patted his shoulder. “Just trust me.”
By a couple of songs in, they both seemed entertained and pretty on-board, but when Kate Monster started bubbling about teaching a class on her own, Kurt came so close to laughing and giving them all away that Blaine pinched him. Kurt remembered this part from when the rest of the Warblers had done it to him at his first Avenue Q showing, and they all found just how high his voice could go when he was surprised. Ah, memories.
The sounds Finn and Puck made when the rest of the room simultaneously shouted, “For porn!” were possibly the best things that had ever happened.
It was a good place to be, curled up under Blaine’s arm, quoting some of the best lines with the Warblers while Puck and Finn laughed so hard that at a few points he worried for the structural integrity of their diaphragms, but Kurt had a feeling that he wasn’t going to last very long. The closure of having the recording done, the final release of tension, seemed to have sapped what was left of the adrenaline-energy he’d been running on for what felt like months now, and cuddling up with Blaine was a dangerous thing to do if he had any hope of staying awake.
He lasted as long as he could before nodding off to Christmas Eve crooning about hate and love, lulled by Blaine’s palm rubbing slow and warm against his back, listening to Finn chatting with Jeff and Nick and to Puck huffing a laugh, and feeling good.
He felt really, really good.
-
He drifted in and out a few times, but didn’t quite make it back to consciousness until Blaine shifted out from under him (to Kurt’s mostly-asleep dismay) with a kiss to his forehead (okay, Kurt forgave him). There was a shift, a muffled, “I’ve got him,” and then he was leaning against a different shoulder and there was an arm keeping him from slithering all the way to the floor, and the world started smelling an awful lot like pepperoni and Finn’s body wash.
He blinked the sleep from his eyes, making a questioning sound that he couldn’t quite manage to turn into coherence, and Finn patted his arm. “You can keep sleeping,” he said, his voice low under the dwindling conversations going on in the room. “He just needed the bathroom.”
Kurt grunted something to the negative, rubbing his eyes. “Hnn. No, s’okay. I’m up.”
“You sure?”
Goodness, Finn’s shoulder was comfy. “…Mm-mm.”
Finn huffed a laugh and gave him a squeeze, and then something suspiciously like an elbow was resting on his free shoulder and Puck’s voice was suddenly in his ear, even lower than Finn’s. “Dude, thought you said you and these guys weren’t tight.”
Kurt finally opened his eyes and sleepily panned around the Warbler-filled dorm room, getting a smile here and there when David or Jeff or Trent caught him looking.
“I was wrong.”
“No shit. You’ve gotta fix your priorities, dude. If I was at a freaking sleep-over school with this many chicks in uniforms who had boners for me, you’d have to drag me out of there with a fucking crane or a bunch of zombies or something.”
“That sounded better in your head. I’m sure of it.”
“Just saying, dude.”
“I’m perfectly happy in my healthy, monogamous relationship, thank you.” Kurt lifted his head a little from Finn’s shoulder to glance at the clock and smiled when Blaine came back in, yawning into his hand. “Speaking of which.”
Blaine stopped in front of them, chuckling as he looked between Puck and Finn. “I’m not getting him back now, am I?”
“Not my fault,” Kurt said immediately, lifting a finger for emphasis. “A cuddle-cheater I am not.”
Puck snorted. “Yeah, right. You should have seen him with the chicks in glee--ow. Dude.”
“It’s not my fault you all adore me.” Kurt looked up at Blaine, removing his elbow from Puck’s ribs. “Turning in?”
“I think so. It’s pretty late. You going to stay up?”
Kurt held out grabby-hands in reply, and Blaine huffed a laugh and obediently pulled him to his feet. Wrapping an arm around him, Blaine called to the room, “It’s been real, gentlemen--”
“--But we must bid you adieu,” Kurt finished with a sleepy flourish, because he would never pass up the opportunity for a flourish, and he was met with a few normal-person good-nights and a few knowing grins, and a wolf-whistle that was definitely Puck. Kurt pointed at him. “No.”
“Yeah, you guys can come up whenever you want,” Blaine said in Puck and Finn’s direction. “Sleeping only. Cross our hearts.”
Puck rolled his eyes. “Psh, dudes, seriously. We’re not gonna do you like that. We’ll stay up,” he said, automatically punching Finn in the arm when he frowned and opened his mouth. Puck nodded magnanimously toward the door. “Go get your gay on.”
Blaine’s mouth dropped open, and Kurt rolled his eyes. “You’re talking, and all I’m hearing is a little voice in my head saying, ‘Duct tape, duct tape, needs more duct tape.’”
Puck held his hands up. “Whoa, whatever you guys do with duct tape is your business. Just put a tie under it or something, that shit chafes.”
“Uhh…” Finn finally managed at the same time as Blaine’s, “Wow.”
With effort, Kurt pried his palm off of his forehead, opened his mouth, closed it, shook his head. “Know what? Good night.” He caught Blaine’s hand and half-dragged him out the door. “Come on, dear.”
Blaine caught up quickly, still frowning as they rounded the corner and headed to his hall. “…So, he now thinks we-“
“Yes.”
“And he knew kind of a lot about-“
“Yes.”
“…I might have nightmares.”
“Me, too, sweetie,” Kurt said, lifting their joined hands to drop an empathetic kiss on Blaine’s knuckles. “Me, too.”
Getting ready for bed was slow and sleep-clumsy, Blaine nearly nodding off mid-skin-routine and not enough room in front of the sink and elbows bumping each other and resulting in toothpaste ending up on the wrong part of Kurt’s face, and laughing at each other every couple of minutes. He savored every second of it.
By the time they had tangled themselves up enough to fit on Blaine’s bed, Kurt was thinking goopy, domestic future-thoughts that would probably result in mortification if he said them out loud, and he may have been inhaling to do so anyway when Blaine beat him to the punch.
“I don’t say it enough,” Blaine murmured, “but you have to be the most impressive person I know.”
“Ooh,” Kurt said, grinning. “Cookie points for you.”
“I mean it,” Blaine said, smiling back. He covered Kurt’s hand with his on the pillow between them and squeezed. “A month ago, you were lying here telling me how awful things were going. How angry all your friends were, and how badly Puck was hurting, and how isolated you felt. Just a month. And look at what you’ve done.”
Kurt lowered his eyes, tracing the creases of Blaine’s finger with his thumb. “I didn’t fix everything. Some of the things that did get better weren’t all me.”
“But look at what was,” Blaine said. “You got Shelby to give Puck another chance, and now she’s invited you both to stay in the baby’s life--she wasn’t going to do that before. You tried your best to make things right with everyone, and so many of them took you up on it. Look at Finn. Look at Quinn.” Kurt lifted his eyes again, and Blaine shook his head. “You were the brains behind this whole recording, and you made it happen. And that’s not even counting the rest of it. Like the part where three guys had been bullying you since middle school, and you didn’t just forgive them--you taught them. And now one of them is so happy to call you his brother, and another one trusted you with this huge part of his life and has attached himself to you at the hip, and the third one has started defending you against his friends in front of everyone. I mean…you’re amazing, Kurt.”
Kurt blinked suddenly-blurry eyes and took an unsteady breath that he let out in a laugh. “You need to warn a boy before that kind of talk.” Blaine smiled big and bright and pulled him across the pillow into a hug, and Kurt squeezed back and mumbled into his shoulder, “Thank you.”
Blaine kissed his temple, and Kurt closed his eyes. Thinking over all of it--the secrets and the lying, the uncertainty, the spectacular crash-and-burn, the crippling loneliness and then the wonder of watching his people come back to him one by one, the planning and arguing and scheming, and at the heart of all of it the unexpected joy--he found that he was more amazed by everyone else, the ones who weren’t him. His friends and his family were weird and complicated and good and sometimes selfish but mostly wonderful. Artie was amazing. Tina and Mike were amazing. Dave, and the Warblers, and Carole, and Finn. Not one of them exactly what he’d thought they were, but so much better.
And Puck. Too many people at once, so talented and scarred and equal parts right and wrong about so many things. Passionate, defiant, loyal, sometimes ridiculous, sometimes hopeless. Worthy. His friend--his best friend, Noah Puckerman, was really, truly extraordinary.
He was surrounded by extraordinary people, and he was starting to think there would always be things about them that he didn‘t know, that would shift and change as often as he did, not always in the same direction. And that maybe, that was okay.
Blaine’s breathing was already starting to slow, but Kurt pulled back enough to lay a quick kiss on his lips and whisper, “You are amazing.”
Blaine smiled sleepily back at him, and Kurt kissed his forehead and settled back in. He stayed awake for a while after their I-love-yous and good-nights, listening to Blaine breathe and letting his thoughts meander. He kept his eyes closed when Finn and Puck not-so-quietly crept in at some ungodly hour, bumping into things and hissing to each other about who should get the futon versus the floor and generally failing at stealth.
Eventually there was shifting of clothing and unfurling of blankets, and the whisper-commotion died down. Finn was snoring within thirty seconds. The (relative) silence was a relief, and Kurt sighed.
From somewhere off to the side and down, Puck’s breath stopped for a second, and then his voice muttered, “You’re totally awake.”
Kurt sighed and mumbled into Blaine’s hair, “Not if I can help it. Note our fully-clothed-ness.”
“Like that means shit.” A shift of blankets. “So when’s the CD gonna be done?”
Prying his eyes open, Kurt dropped his head to the side and let his eyes try to focus on Puck’s shape a few feet away on the floor, not far from the snoring futon-lump that was Finn (who apparently had won the decisive and also-not-stealthy thumb-war). “They said a couple of weeks. Personally, I think the chances that we’ll have it by the first Chicago trip are pretty good.”
“Sweet.” Puck stretched his arms behind his head, getting comfortable in his sleeping bag. “Your dad and Hudson’s mom are still cool with my mom taking us, right?”
Kurt nodded, smiling a little. ‘Your dad and Hudson’s mom,’ not ‘your parents.’ Every time, no matter what anyone else called them or what kind of assurances Kurt gave that ‘your parents’ was okay. And it was okay. But this was, too. “You forget that your mom and Carole were bonding over you and Finn’s shenanigans long before Beth or I were involved. Plenty of trust there.” Blaine shifted, and Kurt absently rubbed his back, checking his volume. “Besides, it’s right for her to take us first. Beth’s her granddaughter.”
Puck huffed. “Don’t I know it. She got me to show her the pictures and went nuts. I put some on her phone and now she’s showing freaking everybody.”
“Can you really blame her? A child that adorable must be shown off.”
“Well, yeah.” He huffed quietly. “All her mom-friends keep saying she looks like me.”
Kurt smiled. “She does look like you.”
There was another exhale, sounding like satisfaction, and nothing after that for a little while.
“This was dope, dude,” Puck said at last, with the low volume and hint of resignation that always seemed to come with his honesty. “I mean, y’know. All of it. Summer and everything. Not telling me to fuck off when I asked you to help. Or when I was being an ass about it. Or when everyone else was.” He wasn’t good at eye contact when talking about feelings, and his gaze stayed somewhere off to the side. “But today, too. The prep, and Quinn, and everything. That was legit. So. Thanks.”
Kurt aimed his smile at nothing in particular, not entirely sure what to say, until the correct response occurred to him. He hadn’t thought it possible to roll his eyes at himself quite that hard. “Know that I am currently judging myself for this response, however appropriate it may be.” And he lifted his arm from Blaine’s back, and held out a fist.
Puck coughed out a laugh that he barely kept quiet enough to keep from waking up the others. “Oh, hell yeah. Totally turned you.”
Kurt sighed. “Shut up and pound it.”
“That’s what sh-“
“Finish that sentence, walk home.”
Puck chuckled under his breath but left the sentence unfinished, and there was a strangely reassuring impact of knuckles hitting his knuckles. Then it was gone, and Puck shifted in his sleeping bag while Kurt draped his arm back over Blaine. “A wise choice.”
“Still thinking it.”
“You have fun with that…oh God. Actually, no, please don’t.”
Puck snorted, shifted again, and seemed to settle. “Night, Hummel.”
“Sweet G-rated dreams, Puckerman.”
He was fairly certain he could feel Puck’s eyes rolling. “Dork.”
Kurt smirked at nothing in particular and buried his face back in Blaine’s hair. It wasn’t until a minute later, when Puck’s breath had evened out and Kurt was finally starting to drift himself, that Blaine shifted into the crook of his neck and murmured, “You two are adorable.”
Kurt pinched him, earning a breathy chuckle. “Hush.”
-
The next time Kurt opened his eyes, he immediately noticed two things. One was that it was stupidly early in the morning for how late he’d gone to sleep. The other was that the room was missing a Puck.
He stubbornly closed his eyes again for five minutes (no Puck), ten minutes (no Puck), fifteen (still no Puck), before sighing at the ceiling and carefully detangling himself from Blaine because this was going to bother him now.
Throwing on his robe, Kurt embarked on a search through the near-silent residence hall, first checking the places he’d gotten turned around himself during his first few weeks at Dalton. It was as he was heading for Not the Way to Kurt’s Old Dorm Room #3 that he happened to pass by the community room, and he slowed, because the door was ajar.
Tentatively, Kurt nudged it open a little wider and peered inside. Then, his suspicions confirmed, he opened it the rest of the way and stepped in. “What are you doing in here?”
Puck glanced up from where he’d settled against the wall, laptop on his legs. Looking back to the screen, he shrugged. “Sightseeing.”
Kurt frowned, looking between Puck and the door. “This room doesn’t open until nine. How did you even get in?”
“Jacked the lock.”
“Of course you did.” Shaking his head, Kurt closed the door behind him and sat down by Puck against the wall. “What are you doing?”
“Had an idea for the CD cover,” Puck muttered, distracted. “Just gotta pick the photos out.”
“At seven in the morning on a Sunday?”
“Yeah, what of it?” Puck glanced at him. “Why are you even up?”
“Morning person. Avenue Q naps. Psychic.” Kurt leaned in to look at the screen and smiled a little at the photos Puck was scrolling through. “I vote baby-rock-star. And/or that one where she’s trying to play the guitar with you.”
“Yeah, they’re in the pile.” Puck kept scrolling slowly through the photos, his gaze lingering on each one, not in a decision-making sort of way. “I dunno.”
On the bottom of the screen, next to the window he already had open, was a second tab. Kurt eyed it, then glanced at Puck. “So, you’ve been up early on your computer how many times since moving day?”
“What’s it to you?”
“With Skype open, even though you definitely said your Skype-day was yesterday before we road-tripped to the studio?”
Puck huffed. “So Beth gets Shelby up early like every day, right, and sometimes she’ll just throw me a chat saying she can do an extra Skype-day if I’m around, and I don’t see it until like two p.m. and then they’re out or Beth’s asleep or something. It sucks. So I’m gonna be ready.”
“Remember that thing we talked about, the logic thing?”
“Look, it’s freaking Chicago, okay?” Puck said, finally dropping his head back against the wall, glaring at the corner of the room. “It’s totally different from here. Change is freaking scary, dude. I got nightmares for like a month when we moved across town after my dad took off. That shit’s probably hereditary or something.” He turned his eyes moodily to the floor. “She might get scared. And if she does, I’m not gonna be just…nowhere.”
A multitude of responses were on the tip of Kurt’s tongue, ranging from questioning the logic and health benefits of Puck gluing himself to a computer waiting for a call to a hearty congratulations on spitting out a five-syllable word, but only one made it through.
“Good.”
Puck glanced at him sideways, then back at the corner. His brow lowered. “You think this is going to work?”
“What do you mean?”
“This,” Puck said, nodding at the laptop. “Skyping and visiting every month, and shit. A month ago, she didn’t even want me around Beth anymore. Now she’s cool with it, but tomorrow she could turn around and boot my ass out again, and there wouldn’t be shit I could do.”
Kurt shook his head, following Puck’s gaze to the screen. Which…oh. “That’s not going to happen.”
“You say.”
“No, I mean that’s actually not going to happen.”
“Yeah, how do you know?”
Kurt glanced up from the screen, starting to smile. “Look at your Skype tab.”
Puck frowned, then obeyed, his face opening up when he saw the tab blinking orange with a new message. “Holy shit!” A grin broke across Puck’s face, and he gleefully shoved at Kurt’s shoulder. “Owned! What’d I tell you? Got this shit on lock.”
Kurt didn’t bother chastising him for shoving, instead just righting himself and silently thanking the universe for its impeccable timing while Puck opened up the Skype window. Kurt leaned in to read along with Puck.
Shelby Corcoran
Hey, Noah - just letting you know that I’ll be home with Beth all day today, since she’s still getting over that little cold from the other day and has been pretty fussy. If you get this today, I’m sure she could use some cheering up from her daddy. :) I’ll keep Skype on. Talk to you later.
Puck was plunking the laptop into Kurt’s lap and scrambling for his guitar before Kurt had finished reading, and he watched in mild amusement as Puck slung the guitar over his PJs and gave it the world’s quickest tuning. “So Beth was super pissed when we Skyped the other day because she was all stuffed up and had no freaking idea what was up with that, and she wouldn’t chill out until I started singing to her. I mean, it took a while, but it worked, and that was just me. Both of us singing? I bet she’s doing the bouncer two songs in.”
“‘The bouncer?’”
“Y’know, that little dance thing where she bobs around. Gonna have a signature move, you gotta give it a name. So, ‘the bouncer.’ That way it still sounds badass.”
Kurt chuckled. “The Bouncer. Toddler dance craze of the future. Got it.”
“Kickass. Okay, shit, we gotta pick a song and call. They open up this room when?”
Kurt glanced at the clock. “About an hour from now. We’ve got time.”
“Sweet. Songs, though. What’s your vote, dude?”
Kurt thought about it, mostly for show. “The one you did for glee club. I daresay it may have been your best performance yet.”
“Yeah?”
“Mm.”
It was an understatement. The only performance that could have compared to that one was when he’d sung ‘Beth.’ Singing this song, for no one but Beth, with Finn and Kurt at his back on drums and piano and harmony, Noah Puckerman had become himself. Finally, and completely.
Puck’s eyebrows twitched in approval, and he settled his guitar on his lap. He nodded, and Kurt pressed ‘Call.’ “That’s legit. Good ol’ Jason Whatshisf-“
“Mraz, Noah,” Kurt said, shaking his head. “Mraz.”
The video screen loaded, and then Shelby was lifting her eyebrows at them, a pink-cheeked Beth in her lap. “Wow, we get both of you at this time of the morning?”
“Long story,” Kurt said, grinning harder than he’d expected to. He’d missed them.
Beth squeaked at the sight of them and pointed at the screen, and Shelby laughed, leaning down next to her. “Long time no see, right? Who’s that?”
Beth proudly replied, “Daddy!”
Puck exhaled fast, smiling huge and honest as he pressed his fingertip against hers on the screen. “Hey there, baby-girl.”
“And who’s that with Daddy? Do you remember?”
Kurt good-naturedly shook his head, not entirely sure saying his name was physically possible prior to a certain age, and then Beth tilted her head at him and said, “Unc-Ka?”
Shelby laughed, and Puck let out a surprised, “Ha!” and Kurt stared. Grinning at him, Shelby said, “I swear she’s writing her own language made up entirely of first syllables. But we’re working on it, Uncle Kurt.”
“…Wow. That’s…wow.” Oh God, he was absolutely not going to cry over Skype before eight in the morning because a baby kind of said half of his name. He cleared his throat. “Great job, sweetie. Tres bien.” Nope, not crying not crying not crying. “Puck, you were going to sing something, right? Maybe you should sing the thing.”
An elbow to the arm told him he was fooling no one, but Puck went with it. “If that’s what the lady wants. How about it, Bethie? Think a daddy-song would make you feel better?”
“I’m starting to think daddy-songs cure all ills for this one,” Shelby said, dropping a kiss on top of Beth’s head. “What have you got for us today?”
Kurt and Puck glanced at each other. Grinned, just a little, because this wasn’t new and strange anymore. They were used to being these people now, just the two of them in a sunlit room with a guitar, the boys who sang to Beth.
“From the top?” Kurt said, making his best attempt to channel Mr. Schuester.
Puck huffed a laugh. “From the top.”
They began.
~*~
Fin
~*~
A/N: For those of you who have stuck with me through my flailing, unexpected canon overlap, tragedy in the fandom, and an outrageously long hiatus or two, thank you thank you thank you, you are all so lovely. Special thanks to theslashbunny, who jumped in as a beta with the utmost enthusiasm, who gave me emoticon-cheerleaders and hand-holding when I pelted her with writerly despair, and who made some really kickass graphics to go with this story, even though she’s had a degree to earn and a wedding to plan. You’re da best, my dear! <3
Title: Sweet Child O’ Mine (13b/13, FINAL)
Author: likethedirection
Friendship/Pairings: Kurt+Puck, canon pairings as of 2x22
Spoilers: To be safe, we’ll say everything through Season 2?
Rating: PG-13+
Summary: Puck comes to Kurt for help, and Kurt figures it can’t hurt to do a friend a favor. Unfortunately, everything is more complicated when there’s a baby involved.
Previous Parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6a | 6b | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10a | 10b | 11a | 11b | 12a | 12b | 13a
~*~
Four days, nine attempts (eight failures) at playlist-planning, and one quiet conversation on which Kurt absolutely hadn’t been eavesdropping later, Saturday came.
“Shotty!”
“Wha--dude, no, I’m the tallest one, I barely even fit in the back seat!”
“I don’t make the rules, glee-otch!”
“You sat up there last weekend! Kurt, dude, tell him I--”
“Don’t bring me into this. I am starting the car. I hope one or both of you are inside it when I drive away in ten, nine, eight--”
“Puck, dude, come on!”
“--six, five, oh my God, really?”
“The rules of shotgun are simple and finite, yo.”
“--thr...Puck, did you just reference Legally Blonde?”
“No.”
"Sooo, I'm just gonna--"
"Whoa, hell no, dude! He who calls shotty, gets shotty!"
"...Two one. Ta-ta."
"Wha--whoa!"
"Okay, okay, I'll sit in back, stop the car!"
"I warned you. Noah, get in and move your seat up for Legs McFrankenteen. Finn, your pouting privileges are officially revoked. If we get halfway there and I need to separate you two, one of you may end up on the side of the road. Decide now that you're not going to give me any reason for that person to be you."
"Geez, fine. Can I at least put some tunes on, Mom?"
"Yes, but my car, my music. You break it, you walk. Everywhere. Forever."
"Yeah, yeah...aw, sweet! This is my jam, yo."
"Did we bring snacks?”
"It's a two-hour drive, Finn."
"...So did we?"
"Hold on to your eardrums, kids. Crankin' it."
Two hours and a whole lot of backup-singing later, Kurt pulled into the studio parking lot with a faint ringing in his ears and a new appreciation for every responsible adult who had ever endeavored to take small children on a road trip.
-
The Playlist was the product of Kurt and Puck more or less living at each other’s houses for the last week, occasionally with a Finn thrown in, going through every song they had sung to Beth over the summer, adding the ones they’d each thought about but not tried, growing the list even more when they included potentially-appropriate songs they’d done in glee club in the past, and then crossing out the no-goes and arguing about the maybes and starring the winners of each round of narrow-down. It was all Kurt could do to keep up with Puck now; there was something driven and a little manic about how Puck jumped in, how quick he was to bounce back after they’d crumpled up yet another attempt and how hard he would push back if he didn’t agree.
“It’s got to be perfect,” he’d said at one point, and Kurt the Perfectionist could work with that.
“Oh, it will be.”
It was worth their hard work, though, when Kurt had printed out the carefully-formatted and embellished final product, and both of them had looked it over and exchanged grins that said, This is it.
It was even more worth it now, as they worked their way down the list, Kurt stepping into the booth with Puck here and there to duet or accompany on the piano, but mostly sitting curled up with Blaine and hearing their playlist come to life.
Much debate had gone down on Puck’s futon about whether anyone other than Puck should be featured, and ultimately they had compromised on including three bonus tracks at the end. For the first of them, Kurt was the one stepping up to the microphone while Puck got settled with his guitar.
It hadn’t been a decision anyone had discussed, the idea of saying something to Beth about who they were and the songs they would be singing, but it seemed to make sense, giving Beth some context for all these other voices. Kurt had spent a good long while at his desk trying to write something out, but in the end had just scrapped it. The summer had taught him that he could wing it pretty well when he put his mind to it.
“Bonjour, ma petite,” he began, smiling. “I’m who you hopefully still know as Uncle Kurt. This is the first song I ever sang to you on my own, to help you go to sleep.” Interestingly, it was Puck who had insisted on this song, with a surprising amount of fervor. “It’s a song my mom used to sing to me, and it really helps me feel better when I’m worried about something, or when I can’t sleep. I hope it can make you feel better sometimes, too.” He started to lift his hand to signal Puck to start, but paused. “This is your dad on the guitar, by the way.”
He signaled Puck then, and Puck rolled his eyes to ineffectively hide his pleased grin as he started to strum.
The Warblers and Finn applauded once he’d finished and they’d stopped recording, and Kurt stayed in the booth, moving to the piano. Puck got up, slung his guitar around to his back, and clapped Finn on the shoulder as they swapped places.
Finn didn’t approach the microphone right away, taking in the booth and the sound equipment and the glass, looking not a little bit intimidated.
“Finn,” Kurt said softly, and Finn turned wide eyes on him. Kurt smiled back. “You know how to do this.” He wiggled his fingers over the piano keys, just like he had two years ago in the auditorium, back when he was so thrilled to be bonding with The Hot Quarterback Who Was Nice to Him. “We both do.”
Finn let out his breath, the side of his mouth turning up. His shoulders started to relax. “Yeah. Yeah, we do.”
He stepped up to the microphone, adjusted it from Kurt-height to Giant Rumblebuffin-height, took a deep breath, and nodded for Trent to start recording.
“Hey, Beth,” he said once he’d determined the best distance from the microphone. “I’m Finn. I’m your uncle Kurt’s brother, so I guess that makes me your uncle, too. But for a little while, I thought I was going to be your dad. And I was going to sing this song to you, but I never got the chance.” He swallowed hard, glanced at Kurt, and went on at Kurt’s encouraging nod. “I’ve got the chance now. And even though it turned out I’m not your dad-which is cool, I mean, your dad’s a great guy-I can still be your uncle, and I can always be your friend. And I want you to know that if you’re feeling sad, or mad, or really happy, or weird, or…anything, you can always talk to me, and I’ll always listen.”
He hesitated, seeming to consider saying more, then closed his mouth with a satisfied nod. He looked to Kurt, and Kurt started to play.
It was nice. It felt like they were finally finishing a conversation that had spent two years hanging in the air.
They weren’t three seconds past the end of the recording when Finn turned to Kurt and crushed him in a hug. “Thanks, dude.”
Kurt returned the hug, the perfect outlet for the rush of fondness that song always made him feel for Finn. “Thank you.”
Their last guest artist had arrived at mid-afternoon, and she had sat quietly on her own at first, just watching. Kurt had glanced over a few times, relieved when his third glance landed on Wes sitting down at a respectful proximity, talking quietly to her with the kind smile that occasionally appeared when he wasn’t in Warbler High Council Mode, and on her tentatively smiling back.
Now, she was getting up from her and Wes’s quiet-corner and making her way to the recording booth, where Kurt waited at the piano and Puck was already setting back up with his guitar, Finn settling at the trapset. She hesitated at the door.
Kurt didn’t blame her. “Are you okay?”
She looked at him, measured and carefully blank. “Ask me after.”
Once at the microphone, she pulled a piece of paper from her pocket and unfolded it. She swallowed, cleared her throat, and gave the signal to Trent.
“Hi, Beth,” she said, a little too soft before she noticed and corrected. “I’m not the mom that you know, but I carried you in my belly.”
Where before there had been a general susurrus of quiet chatter outside of the recording area, now it was silent. A glance told Kurt that this was partly because Wes was ushering the rest of the Warblers out to the break room. Wes looked briefly to Quinn in the booth, and Kurt followed his gaze just in time to see Quinn mouth back, Thank you.
“There are so many things I want you to know,” she said, her eyes back on her letter. “But the most important thing is this: you were always, always wanted, Beth, since the day you were born, and you were always, always loved. The first time I held you, I’d never seen anything more beautiful. And giving you to your mom, letting her adopt you, was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
For some reason she looked to Puck then, but his eyes stayed steadily off to the side. “But I did it,” she went on, “because you deserve everything good in the world, and I knew I couldn’t give that to you. More than anything, I want you to know that. That you deserve everything good, because you’re perfect to us, your dad and me.” Puck’s eyes lifted, but stayed angled away. “And that even if you don’t see me, and even if you don’t see your dad every day, we still love you. We’re all part of each other, just like your mom is a part of you.” Her shoulders seemed to lighten, her chin rising. “When you hear this song, I hope you’ll remember that.”
She nodded, looking straight ahead, and they began.
Kurt and Puck had grappled with this song’s place on the playlist. They agreed that it would be good to have it, especially since they’d never gotten to sing it for glee club, but no matter where they put it, it just didn’t feel right. It was at the end of glee club on Friday, as he’d watched Puck watch Quinn sitting alone, that it had struck Kurt as clearly as if it had been whispered in his ear.
“I know what’s wrong with ‘Without You,’” he’d said as soon as he and Puck had taken over his living room couch with notebooks and sheet music and guitar accessories that afternoon. To Puck’s lifted eyebrow, he’d said, “You’ve been singing it with the wrong partner.”
Not that he would ever deny that he and Puck sounded fabulous on this song. But it wasn’t his. Here, it felt right.
Quinn didn’t stay long after she’d finished. It was just long enough for her to hand Puck the letter she’d read before her song, quietly asking if he’d include it in the CD case for Beth, and for him to nod and take it. Long enough for Finn to read her the way he could read just about everyone, and say, “Hey, come here,” and for her to sink into his hug like she’d been waiting for it. (Kurt didn’t blame her for that, either-his stepbrother gave excellent hugs.)
Before going back to the parking lot, Quinn approached Kurt by choice, without anger or tears, for the first time in…wow, a long time. She tilted her head at him, studying him, and he returned the favor.
“Noah said it was your idea,” she said after a moment. “The CD, the studio. Me.”
Kurt, unlike Finn, was not a natural at reading people, and he utterly failed to guess where he stood with her now. “Yes, well.”
“I didn’t give you any reason to want to do anything for me,” she said. “Kind of the opposite. So I don’t know why you decided to anyway, but.” Her voice softened. “Thank you.”
Kurt nodded, coming up blank for what to say, and she added, “And I’m sorry I slapped you. I’m working with Miss Pillsbury on finding some more mature ways to deal with anger. And…other things.”
“Good,” Kurt said, because it was. “I mean, congratulations on your upper body strength, but I am going to have to vote for Not Slapping Kurt as well.”
Her face stretched into something between a smile and a grimace. “I’m sorry.”
“I know.” Something occurring to him, he said, “You told me to ask you after, and I never did.” He glanced up, fairly certain he knew the answer, but he asked anyway. “Are you okay?”
Just a little bit, she smiled.
“Right now,” she said, “I think I am.”
-
Quinn’s song had been the last, so after she had gone, the Warblers cheerfully kidnapped Kurt, Puck and Finn to Nick and Jeff’s dorm room for pizza and a celebratory showing of Avenue Q. When word made it around that Puck and Finn had never seen it before (as it was one of many unofficial rites of passage at Dalton, Kurt knew it far better than he had ever thought he would know a musical featuring naughty puppets, hallucination-bears, and Gary Coleman), he just sat back and enjoyed how wary the two of them started looking when the Warblers all exchanged knowing smirks.
“Wait,” Puck said skeptically as they started into the first act, “so it’s a puppet show?”
“Trust me,” Kurt said.
Finn shifted nervously on his floor-pillow. “Uh, you should probably know the Muppets scared the crap out of me when I was a kid…”
Kurt patted his shoulder. “Just trust me.”
By a couple of songs in, they both seemed entertained and pretty on-board, but when Kate Monster started bubbling about teaching a class on her own, Kurt came so close to laughing and giving them all away that Blaine pinched him. Kurt remembered this part from when the rest of the Warblers had done it to him at his first Avenue Q showing, and they all found just how high his voice could go when he was surprised. Ah, memories.
The sounds Finn and Puck made when the rest of the room simultaneously shouted, “For porn!” were possibly the best things that had ever happened.
It was a good place to be, curled up under Blaine’s arm, quoting some of the best lines with the Warblers while Puck and Finn laughed so hard that at a few points he worried for the structural integrity of their diaphragms, but Kurt had a feeling that he wasn’t going to last very long. The closure of having the recording done, the final release of tension, seemed to have sapped what was left of the adrenaline-energy he’d been running on for what felt like months now, and cuddling up with Blaine was a dangerous thing to do if he had any hope of staying awake.
He lasted as long as he could before nodding off to Christmas Eve crooning about hate and love, lulled by Blaine’s palm rubbing slow and warm against his back, listening to Finn chatting with Jeff and Nick and to Puck huffing a laugh, and feeling good.
He felt really, really good.
-
He drifted in and out a few times, but didn’t quite make it back to consciousness until Blaine shifted out from under him (to Kurt’s mostly-asleep dismay) with a kiss to his forehead (okay, Kurt forgave him). There was a shift, a muffled, “I’ve got him,” and then he was leaning against a different shoulder and there was an arm keeping him from slithering all the way to the floor, and the world started smelling an awful lot like pepperoni and Finn’s body wash.
He blinked the sleep from his eyes, making a questioning sound that he couldn’t quite manage to turn into coherence, and Finn patted his arm. “You can keep sleeping,” he said, his voice low under the dwindling conversations going on in the room. “He just needed the bathroom.”
Kurt grunted something to the negative, rubbing his eyes. “Hnn. No, s’okay. I’m up.”
“You sure?”
Goodness, Finn’s shoulder was comfy. “…Mm-mm.”
Finn huffed a laugh and gave him a squeeze, and then something suspiciously like an elbow was resting on his free shoulder and Puck’s voice was suddenly in his ear, even lower than Finn’s. “Dude, thought you said you and these guys weren’t tight.”
Kurt finally opened his eyes and sleepily panned around the Warbler-filled dorm room, getting a smile here and there when David or Jeff or Trent caught him looking.
“I was wrong.”
“No shit. You’ve gotta fix your priorities, dude. If I was at a freaking sleep-over school with this many chicks in uniforms who had boners for me, you’d have to drag me out of there with a fucking crane or a bunch of zombies or something.”
“That sounded better in your head. I’m sure of it.”
“Just saying, dude.”
“I’m perfectly happy in my healthy, monogamous relationship, thank you.” Kurt lifted his head a little from Finn’s shoulder to glance at the clock and smiled when Blaine came back in, yawning into his hand. “Speaking of which.”
Blaine stopped in front of them, chuckling as he looked between Puck and Finn. “I’m not getting him back now, am I?”
“Not my fault,” Kurt said immediately, lifting a finger for emphasis. “A cuddle-cheater I am not.”
Puck snorted. “Yeah, right. You should have seen him with the chicks in glee--ow. Dude.”
“It’s not my fault you all adore me.” Kurt looked up at Blaine, removing his elbow from Puck’s ribs. “Turning in?”
“I think so. It’s pretty late. You going to stay up?”
Kurt held out grabby-hands in reply, and Blaine huffed a laugh and obediently pulled him to his feet. Wrapping an arm around him, Blaine called to the room, “It’s been real, gentlemen--”
“--But we must bid you adieu,” Kurt finished with a sleepy flourish, because he would never pass up the opportunity for a flourish, and he was met with a few normal-person good-nights and a few knowing grins, and a wolf-whistle that was definitely Puck. Kurt pointed at him. “No.”
“Yeah, you guys can come up whenever you want,” Blaine said in Puck and Finn’s direction. “Sleeping only. Cross our hearts.”
Puck rolled his eyes. “Psh, dudes, seriously. We’re not gonna do you like that. We’ll stay up,” he said, automatically punching Finn in the arm when he frowned and opened his mouth. Puck nodded magnanimously toward the door. “Go get your gay on.”
Blaine’s mouth dropped open, and Kurt rolled his eyes. “You’re talking, and all I’m hearing is a little voice in my head saying, ‘Duct tape, duct tape, needs more duct tape.’”
Puck held his hands up. “Whoa, whatever you guys do with duct tape is your business. Just put a tie under it or something, that shit chafes.”
“Uhh…” Finn finally managed at the same time as Blaine’s, “Wow.”
With effort, Kurt pried his palm off of his forehead, opened his mouth, closed it, shook his head. “Know what? Good night.” He caught Blaine’s hand and half-dragged him out the door. “Come on, dear.”
Blaine caught up quickly, still frowning as they rounded the corner and headed to his hall. “…So, he now thinks we-“
“Yes.”
“And he knew kind of a lot about-“
“Yes.”
“…I might have nightmares.”
“Me, too, sweetie,” Kurt said, lifting their joined hands to drop an empathetic kiss on Blaine’s knuckles. “Me, too.”
Getting ready for bed was slow and sleep-clumsy, Blaine nearly nodding off mid-skin-routine and not enough room in front of the sink and elbows bumping each other and resulting in toothpaste ending up on the wrong part of Kurt’s face, and laughing at each other every couple of minutes. He savored every second of it.
By the time they had tangled themselves up enough to fit on Blaine’s bed, Kurt was thinking goopy, domestic future-thoughts that would probably result in mortification if he said them out loud, and he may have been inhaling to do so anyway when Blaine beat him to the punch.
“I don’t say it enough,” Blaine murmured, “but you have to be the most impressive person I know.”
“Ooh,” Kurt said, grinning. “Cookie points for you.”
“I mean it,” Blaine said, smiling back. He covered Kurt’s hand with his on the pillow between them and squeezed. “A month ago, you were lying here telling me how awful things were going. How angry all your friends were, and how badly Puck was hurting, and how isolated you felt. Just a month. And look at what you’ve done.”
Kurt lowered his eyes, tracing the creases of Blaine’s finger with his thumb. “I didn’t fix everything. Some of the things that did get better weren’t all me.”
“But look at what was,” Blaine said. “You got Shelby to give Puck another chance, and now she’s invited you both to stay in the baby’s life--she wasn’t going to do that before. You tried your best to make things right with everyone, and so many of them took you up on it. Look at Finn. Look at Quinn.” Kurt lifted his eyes again, and Blaine shook his head. “You were the brains behind this whole recording, and you made it happen. And that’s not even counting the rest of it. Like the part where three guys had been bullying you since middle school, and you didn’t just forgive them--you taught them. And now one of them is so happy to call you his brother, and another one trusted you with this huge part of his life and has attached himself to you at the hip, and the third one has started defending you against his friends in front of everyone. I mean…you’re amazing, Kurt.”
Kurt blinked suddenly-blurry eyes and took an unsteady breath that he let out in a laugh. “You need to warn a boy before that kind of talk.” Blaine smiled big and bright and pulled him across the pillow into a hug, and Kurt squeezed back and mumbled into his shoulder, “Thank you.”
Blaine kissed his temple, and Kurt closed his eyes. Thinking over all of it--the secrets and the lying, the uncertainty, the spectacular crash-and-burn, the crippling loneliness and then the wonder of watching his people come back to him one by one, the planning and arguing and scheming, and at the heart of all of it the unexpected joy--he found that he was more amazed by everyone else, the ones who weren’t him. His friends and his family were weird and complicated and good and sometimes selfish but mostly wonderful. Artie was amazing. Tina and Mike were amazing. Dave, and the Warblers, and Carole, and Finn. Not one of them exactly what he’d thought they were, but so much better.
And Puck. Too many people at once, so talented and scarred and equal parts right and wrong about so many things. Passionate, defiant, loyal, sometimes ridiculous, sometimes hopeless. Worthy. His friend--his best friend, Noah Puckerman, was really, truly extraordinary.
He was surrounded by extraordinary people, and he was starting to think there would always be things about them that he didn‘t know, that would shift and change as often as he did, not always in the same direction. And that maybe, that was okay.
Blaine’s breathing was already starting to slow, but Kurt pulled back enough to lay a quick kiss on his lips and whisper, “You are amazing.”
Blaine smiled sleepily back at him, and Kurt kissed his forehead and settled back in. He stayed awake for a while after their I-love-yous and good-nights, listening to Blaine breathe and letting his thoughts meander. He kept his eyes closed when Finn and Puck not-so-quietly crept in at some ungodly hour, bumping into things and hissing to each other about who should get the futon versus the floor and generally failing at stealth.
Eventually there was shifting of clothing and unfurling of blankets, and the whisper-commotion died down. Finn was snoring within thirty seconds. The (relative) silence was a relief, and Kurt sighed.
From somewhere off to the side and down, Puck’s breath stopped for a second, and then his voice muttered, “You’re totally awake.”
Kurt sighed and mumbled into Blaine’s hair, “Not if I can help it. Note our fully-clothed-ness.”
“Like that means shit.” A shift of blankets. “So when’s the CD gonna be done?”
Prying his eyes open, Kurt dropped his head to the side and let his eyes try to focus on Puck’s shape a few feet away on the floor, not far from the snoring futon-lump that was Finn (who apparently had won the decisive and also-not-stealthy thumb-war). “They said a couple of weeks. Personally, I think the chances that we’ll have it by the first Chicago trip are pretty good.”
“Sweet.” Puck stretched his arms behind his head, getting comfortable in his sleeping bag. “Your dad and Hudson’s mom are still cool with my mom taking us, right?”
Kurt nodded, smiling a little. ‘Your dad and Hudson’s mom,’ not ‘your parents.’ Every time, no matter what anyone else called them or what kind of assurances Kurt gave that ‘your parents’ was okay. And it was okay. But this was, too. “You forget that your mom and Carole were bonding over you and Finn’s shenanigans long before Beth or I were involved. Plenty of trust there.” Blaine shifted, and Kurt absently rubbed his back, checking his volume. “Besides, it’s right for her to take us first. Beth’s her granddaughter.”
Puck huffed. “Don’t I know it. She got me to show her the pictures and went nuts. I put some on her phone and now she’s showing freaking everybody.”
“Can you really blame her? A child that adorable must be shown off.”
“Well, yeah.” He huffed quietly. “All her mom-friends keep saying she looks like me.”
Kurt smiled. “She does look like you.”
There was another exhale, sounding like satisfaction, and nothing after that for a little while.
“This was dope, dude,” Puck said at last, with the low volume and hint of resignation that always seemed to come with his honesty. “I mean, y’know. All of it. Summer and everything. Not telling me to fuck off when I asked you to help. Or when I was being an ass about it. Or when everyone else was.” He wasn’t good at eye contact when talking about feelings, and his gaze stayed somewhere off to the side. “But today, too. The prep, and Quinn, and everything. That was legit. So. Thanks.”
Kurt aimed his smile at nothing in particular, not entirely sure what to say, until the correct response occurred to him. He hadn’t thought it possible to roll his eyes at himself quite that hard. “Know that I am currently judging myself for this response, however appropriate it may be.” And he lifted his arm from Blaine’s back, and held out a fist.
Puck coughed out a laugh that he barely kept quiet enough to keep from waking up the others. “Oh, hell yeah. Totally turned you.”
Kurt sighed. “Shut up and pound it.”
“That’s what sh-“
“Finish that sentence, walk home.”
Puck chuckled under his breath but left the sentence unfinished, and there was a strangely reassuring impact of knuckles hitting his knuckles. Then it was gone, and Puck shifted in his sleeping bag while Kurt draped his arm back over Blaine. “A wise choice.”
“Still thinking it.”
“You have fun with that…oh God. Actually, no, please don’t.”
Puck snorted, shifted again, and seemed to settle. “Night, Hummel.”
“Sweet G-rated dreams, Puckerman.”
He was fairly certain he could feel Puck’s eyes rolling. “Dork.”
Kurt smirked at nothing in particular and buried his face back in Blaine’s hair. It wasn’t until a minute later, when Puck’s breath had evened out and Kurt was finally starting to drift himself, that Blaine shifted into the crook of his neck and murmured, “You two are adorable.”
Kurt pinched him, earning a breathy chuckle. “Hush.”
-
The next time Kurt opened his eyes, he immediately noticed two things. One was that it was stupidly early in the morning for how late he’d gone to sleep. The other was that the room was missing a Puck.
He stubbornly closed his eyes again for five minutes (no Puck), ten minutes (no Puck), fifteen (still no Puck), before sighing at the ceiling and carefully detangling himself from Blaine because this was going to bother him now.
Throwing on his robe, Kurt embarked on a search through the near-silent residence hall, first checking the places he’d gotten turned around himself during his first few weeks at Dalton. It was as he was heading for Not the Way to Kurt’s Old Dorm Room #3 that he happened to pass by the community room, and he slowed, because the door was ajar.
Tentatively, Kurt nudged it open a little wider and peered inside. Then, his suspicions confirmed, he opened it the rest of the way and stepped in. “What are you doing in here?”
Puck glanced up from where he’d settled against the wall, laptop on his legs. Looking back to the screen, he shrugged. “Sightseeing.”
Kurt frowned, looking between Puck and the door. “This room doesn’t open until nine. How did you even get in?”
“Jacked the lock.”
“Of course you did.” Shaking his head, Kurt closed the door behind him and sat down by Puck against the wall. “What are you doing?”
“Had an idea for the CD cover,” Puck muttered, distracted. “Just gotta pick the photos out.”
“At seven in the morning on a Sunday?”
“Yeah, what of it?” Puck glanced at him. “Why are you even up?”
“Morning person. Avenue Q naps. Psychic.” Kurt leaned in to look at the screen and smiled a little at the photos Puck was scrolling through. “I vote baby-rock-star. And/or that one where she’s trying to play the guitar with you.”
“Yeah, they’re in the pile.” Puck kept scrolling slowly through the photos, his gaze lingering on each one, not in a decision-making sort of way. “I dunno.”
On the bottom of the screen, next to the window he already had open, was a second tab. Kurt eyed it, then glanced at Puck. “So, you’ve been up early on your computer how many times since moving day?”
“What’s it to you?”
“With Skype open, even though you definitely said your Skype-day was yesterday before we road-tripped to the studio?”
Puck huffed. “So Beth gets Shelby up early like every day, right, and sometimes she’ll just throw me a chat saying she can do an extra Skype-day if I’m around, and I don’t see it until like two p.m. and then they’re out or Beth’s asleep or something. It sucks. So I’m gonna be ready.”
“Remember that thing we talked about, the logic thing?”
“Look, it’s freaking Chicago, okay?” Puck said, finally dropping his head back against the wall, glaring at the corner of the room. “It’s totally different from here. Change is freaking scary, dude. I got nightmares for like a month when we moved across town after my dad took off. That shit’s probably hereditary or something.” He turned his eyes moodily to the floor. “She might get scared. And if she does, I’m not gonna be just…nowhere.”
A multitude of responses were on the tip of Kurt’s tongue, ranging from questioning the logic and health benefits of Puck gluing himself to a computer waiting for a call to a hearty congratulations on spitting out a five-syllable word, but only one made it through.
“Good.”
Puck glanced at him sideways, then back at the corner. His brow lowered. “You think this is going to work?”
“What do you mean?”
“This,” Puck said, nodding at the laptop. “Skyping and visiting every month, and shit. A month ago, she didn’t even want me around Beth anymore. Now she’s cool with it, but tomorrow she could turn around and boot my ass out again, and there wouldn’t be shit I could do.”
Kurt shook his head, following Puck’s gaze to the screen. Which…oh. “That’s not going to happen.”
“You say.”
“No, I mean that’s actually not going to happen.”
“Yeah, how do you know?”
Kurt glanced up from the screen, starting to smile. “Look at your Skype tab.”
Puck frowned, then obeyed, his face opening up when he saw the tab blinking orange with a new message. “Holy shit!” A grin broke across Puck’s face, and he gleefully shoved at Kurt’s shoulder. “Owned! What’d I tell you? Got this shit on lock.”
Kurt didn’t bother chastising him for shoving, instead just righting himself and silently thanking the universe for its impeccable timing while Puck opened up the Skype window. Kurt leaned in to read along with Puck.
Shelby Corcoran
Hey, Noah - just letting you know that I’ll be home with Beth all day today, since she’s still getting over that little cold from the other day and has been pretty fussy. If you get this today, I’m sure she could use some cheering up from her daddy. :) I’ll keep Skype on. Talk to you later.
Puck was plunking the laptop into Kurt’s lap and scrambling for his guitar before Kurt had finished reading, and he watched in mild amusement as Puck slung the guitar over his PJs and gave it the world’s quickest tuning. “So Beth was super pissed when we Skyped the other day because she was all stuffed up and had no freaking idea what was up with that, and she wouldn’t chill out until I started singing to her. I mean, it took a while, but it worked, and that was just me. Both of us singing? I bet she’s doing the bouncer two songs in.”
“‘The bouncer?’”
“Y’know, that little dance thing where she bobs around. Gonna have a signature move, you gotta give it a name. So, ‘the bouncer.’ That way it still sounds badass.”
Kurt chuckled. “The Bouncer. Toddler dance craze of the future. Got it.”
“Kickass. Okay, shit, we gotta pick a song and call. They open up this room when?”
Kurt glanced at the clock. “About an hour from now. We’ve got time.”
“Sweet. Songs, though. What’s your vote, dude?”
Kurt thought about it, mostly for show. “The one you did for glee club. I daresay it may have been your best performance yet.”
“Yeah?”
“Mm.”
It was an understatement. The only performance that could have compared to that one was when he’d sung ‘Beth.’ Singing this song, for no one but Beth, with Finn and Kurt at his back on drums and piano and harmony, Noah Puckerman had become himself. Finally, and completely.
Puck’s eyebrows twitched in approval, and he settled his guitar on his lap. He nodded, and Kurt pressed ‘Call.’ “That’s legit. Good ol’ Jason Whatshisf-“
“Mraz, Noah,” Kurt said, shaking his head. “Mraz.”
The video screen loaded, and then Shelby was lifting her eyebrows at them, a pink-cheeked Beth in her lap. “Wow, we get both of you at this time of the morning?”
“Long story,” Kurt said, grinning harder than he’d expected to. He’d missed them.
Beth squeaked at the sight of them and pointed at the screen, and Shelby laughed, leaning down next to her. “Long time no see, right? Who’s that?”
Beth proudly replied, “Daddy!”
Puck exhaled fast, smiling huge and honest as he pressed his fingertip against hers on the screen. “Hey there, baby-girl.”
“And who’s that with Daddy? Do you remember?”
Kurt good-naturedly shook his head, not entirely sure saying his name was physically possible prior to a certain age, and then Beth tilted her head at him and said, “Unc-Ka?”
Shelby laughed, and Puck let out a surprised, “Ha!” and Kurt stared. Grinning at him, Shelby said, “I swear she’s writing her own language made up entirely of first syllables. But we’re working on it, Uncle Kurt.”
“…Wow. That’s…wow.” Oh God, he was absolutely not going to cry over Skype before eight in the morning because a baby kind of said half of his name. He cleared his throat. “Great job, sweetie. Tres bien.” Nope, not crying not crying not crying. “Puck, you were going to sing something, right? Maybe you should sing the thing.”
An elbow to the arm told him he was fooling no one, but Puck went with it. “If that’s what the lady wants. How about it, Bethie? Think a daddy-song would make you feel better?”
“I’m starting to think daddy-songs cure all ills for this one,” Shelby said, dropping a kiss on top of Beth’s head. “What have you got for us today?”
Kurt and Puck glanced at each other. Grinned, just a little, because this wasn’t new and strange anymore. They were used to being these people now, just the two of them in a sunlit room with a guitar, the boys who sang to Beth.
“From the top?” Kurt said, making his best attempt to channel Mr. Schuester.
Puck huffed a laugh. “From the top.”
They began.
~*~
Fin
~*~
A/N: For those of you who have stuck with me through my flailing, unexpected canon overlap, tragedy in the fandom, and an outrageously long hiatus or two, thank you thank you thank you, you are all so lovely. Special thanks to theslashbunny, who jumped in as a beta with the utmost enthusiasm, who gave me emoticon-cheerleaders and hand-holding when I pelted her with writerly despair, and who made some really kickass graphics to go with this story, even though she’s had a degree to earn and a wedding to plan. You’re da best, my dear! <3