Fic: Sweet Child O' Mine (13a/13)
Media: Fic
Title: Sweet Child O’ Mine (13a/13)
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
A/N: This isn't an April Fool's joke, I promise. ;)
This is it - the beginning of the end. Because my writing tends to expand between first-chapters and finales, this will be posted in two parts.
ALSO OF NOTE: I have a shiny new Archive of Our Own account under the name of likethedirection, and will soon be reposting this and the rest of my LJ fic on that account, along with some stories from my Fanfiction.net account under another name. I will be primarily using my AO3 account for future fic endeavors. So if this fic pops up on AO3, yes, it is me. :)
Enjoy, and you have my undying appreciation for sticking with me to the end!
~*~
It was a choice, not making a dramatic entrance. Granted, a split-second, oh-God-what-do-I-do-um-okay-THAT sort of choice, but a choice nonetheless. Kurt’s life was not a movie, and anyone who would snatch a child right off the grass and take her to a public restroom for God knows what was probably not someone who would take well to being startled. So, no dramatics. Just a push, and a firm step forward to block the doorway, and Beth’s red-faced, wailing reflection in the mirror, and…
Kurt’s mouth fell open, his phone lowering slowly to his side. Oh.
She was holding Beth tight, even as Beth howled and wriggled to be put down. She looked small, even with Beth so much smaller, and her hair covered her face as she bent it toward the top of Beth’s head. She didn’t look up when Kurt took another step, letting the door swing shut behind him, and she didn’t look up when he half-whispered her name.
“Quinn.”
She kept her eyes down, shushing over and over into Beth’s hair.
Kurt’s mind raced for the right words and came up empty. “Quinn,” he said again, God Beth was crying so hard and reaching for him and the urge to go straight up and wrench her out of Quinn’s grasp and shield her and sing to her until she calmed was overwhelming. He took a deep breath and focused on the most important thing. “Beth, sweetie, it’s okay. It’s okay, we’re going to take you back to your daddy, all right? Tout va bien.”
It didn’t help, and Quinn still hadn’t looked at him. He let his voice drop. “Quinn, what are you doing?”
For a long moment, nothing happened but Beth. Then Quinn lifted her eyes. Not all the way to him, but he could see them now, red and lost.
“She won’t stop crying,” she whispered at last, her voice full, her pretty face threatening to crumble. Beth fought and wailed. Quinn’s eyes shone.
“I carried her,” she murmured, the sound almost lost under Beth’s cries. “She came from me. When she was born, I held her for so long.” Her voice wavered. “I held her for so long, and she won’t stop crying.”
Her voice broke, and her face stretched wide with tears, and she hid her face in Beth’s dark curls. Mother and daughter sobbed, and it echoed off the tile and shot straight into Kurt’s chest to wrench at everything in it.
When his voice worked again, he said, “It’s because she doesn’t know you.”
Quinn curled around Beth tighter, and he refused to feel guilty. “But she can know you, Quinn. If you do it the right way. We can…we can talk to Shelby, you can work something out. But Quinn, you have to give her to me. Right now.”
“I just wanted to hold her,” she said. “Just hold her, just one more time, before she takes her away.”
Kurt frowned. “How did you--”
He thought of the last time he’d seen her.
“…In the hallway,” he slowly answered himself. “That’s what you were doing in the hallway yesterday. You heard Finn tell Jacob.” And Puck had gotten on Facebook last night and told the world where they would be.
It wasn’t really a question, and she didn’t answer. Beth slapped futilely at her shoulders, and Quinn’s face screwed, but she seemed to swallow it back. “I was going to be okay,” she said, full and breaking. “I was okay, I was okay with letting her go. But then you did this.”
She finally lifted her red eyes to Kurt’s face. “You and Noah. You had to make me see her.” She sniffed, tears streaming down. “You made me see her, and she’s perfect, and he got to hold her. Because he lied. He lied, and he got to hold her, and I couldn’t touch her. And it’s not fair.” She inhaled sharply, her voice going high and pinched. “It’s not fair that I don’t get to touch my baby.”
“No,” Kurt agreed, his voice fighting to come out past the lump blocking the way. “No, it’s not, but Quinn, taking her isn’t the answer--”
“I wasn’t going to take her,” Quinn shot back, and Beth’s cries rose in pitch and volume, and she was scared and he wasn’t making it all better fast enough. Quinn looked helplessly at Beth’s red face.
Kurt was not helpless. “I know, honey. Just look at me, Beth, okay? Look at Uncle Kurt.” Beth did, and her eyes and nose were streaming and her volume was piercing and she reached for him again, and he needed her in his arms now. He looked sharply back at Quinn and stepped forward, his chest tightening and his voice trembling a little when he used it. “Quinn, she’s scared. Please.”
Quinn’s wet eyes lingered on Beth’s hand reaching over her shoulder in his direction, then slowly rose to him. There was so much in them that it hurt a little to look back. It wasn’t until Kurt’s mind was already racing forward to the phone still in his hand, and the number it was ready to dial, and if it would really come to threatening her with the police, that she finally animated.
She turned toward him, and he reached out, and she almost didn’t let go, and then she did.
“Oh, God,” Kurt heard himself gasp as he pulled Beth to him, shifting to hold her as close as he could while she clung to him and muffled her cries in his shoulder. Automatically he started bouncing her just a little, the way she liked. “Okay. All right, sweetie, it’s okay. It’s okay.”
Quinn watched him, watched Beth, dripped tears. “I just wanted to hold her.”
Kurt lifted his cheek from Beth’s head, and he had no idea what would have come out of his mouth if the restroom door had not flown open and hit the wall with a bang. “Beth!”
Puck’s bandaged fists were clenched, his eyes wild, and he only faltered for a second at the sight of Quinn before Kurt said, “I’ve got her.”
He whipped his head in their direction, and Beth lifted hers, and she immediately reached for Puck with both arms and sobbed out one word.
“Daddy.”
The moment Puck’s expression broke, the moment Beth called him by that name and he heard it and it was suddenly everything he was, was something Kurt would never forget.
He handed over Beth without another word. The second Puck had her, he was clutching her tight to his chest, her chubby arms clinging to his collar, their faces buried in each other’s necks. “Right here, baby-girl,” he might have said, though it was muffled and hard to tell. “Daddy’s got you.”
Kurt looked away, because he was emotional by nature and God she’s okay she’s here she’s safe and Puck sounded a little too much like Kurt’s dad on a very bad day nine years ago, and there were enough crying people in this restroom. Instead, he dared a glance at Quinn. She was still crying, but he wasn't sure she'd noticed. Her arms hung limp at her sides.
Reconciling the Quinn of now with the Quinn singing out bitterness in the choir room, with the Quinn whose hand-mark he could sometimes swear he still felt on his cheek and the Quinn whose phantom weight he could still feel tucked under his arm in the dark, was easier than he wished it would be. Of course it was. All of those Quinns were this.
Puck breathed Beth in once more, twice, then kissed the side of her head and slowly lifted his eyes. They met Quinn’s, his face grave, as serious as Kurt had ever seen it, and Kurt glanced uncertainly between them.
Puck didn’t yell. He didn’t speak. He waited.
After a long few seconds of watching them with something like loss, Quinn said softly, “It was supposed to get better.” She tried for a deep breath. “I knew seeing her would make it worse. I knew. But I thought if I could just touch her…”
She looked at Puck so differently than she had looked at Kurt. Even angry, even crying, she looked at Puck like they were in this together. Two more tears rolled down. “It was supposed to get better. I was supposed to be okay again.”
I thought once I saw her again, it wouldn’t feel like this anymore, Puck echoed in Kurt’s memory.
Puck was shaking his head, and Quinn’s face threatened to break again. “But I’m not,” she said, her voice wavering, her eyes shining. “I’m really not okay.”
She exhaled fast, fighting the tears hard, and Puck finally spoke.
“I know.”
She took another shaky breath.
“We don’t get to be okay,” Puck said, “because we had her, and we gave her away.”
She sniffed. “You didn’t want to.”
“Wasn’t my call.”
“I wasn’t going to take her. I just…”
“I know.”
“I just made her cry.”
“You scared her.” Puck shifted Beth on his hip, and she was calm now, still tear-streaked but quietly observing them all with her fingers curling into Puck’s shirt collar. “She’s okay now.”
Quinn looked at Beth, looked at her the way Puck did, and Kurt didn’t belong in this conversation. He looked at the floor, at the mirror, at the door.
“Hummel.” He started a little, but Puck’s eyes were still on Quinn. “Go make sure Shelby’s not freaking out, will you?”
Kurt didn’t move right away, briefly following Puck’s gaze. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. We’re good. Be out in a minute.”
Swallowing, Kurt nodded. “Friendly reminder that you’re in the women’s restroom right now. Questions may arise.”
“It’s cool.” Finally Puck glanced at him. “Thanks.”
Kurt blinked, a little thrown, but Puck was already back to Quinn, gesturing with his head. “Come here.”
Quinn hesitantly crossed to him, and Kurt turned away, heading for the exit. He couldn’t help glancing at them one more time at the door, just long enough to see Beth’s hand curl tentatively around Quinn’s index finger. To see Quinn make it halfway to a tremulous smile before lowering her head the last half-inch to Puck’s shoulder with a whispered, “I’m sorry.”
Puck’s free arm started to curl around her shoulders in reply, and Kurt left them alone, because this wasn’t his.
Once back in the sun and fresh air and noise of the park, Kurt took a second to lean on the wall next to the restroom door and let out his breath in a rush. “Okay,” he muttered to the universe. “No more heart attacks, please. We can be done now.”
“Kurt?”
Kurt jumped halfway out of his skin, threw a skyward glare at the stupid rude universe, and lowered his gaze to Shelby. Crap. “Hi, sorry, spacing out. While talking to myself. It’s a thing I, um. Do.”
She studied him. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” Kurt said in a too-quick and unfortunate soprano. He cleared his throat. “Why?”
Slowly, she replied, “Because your eyes just got kind of huge.”
“Ah. Yes. They, ah, do that. No problems, though.” He plastered on a smile that he hoped was charming and not screaming, So we sort of lost your baby but got extremely lucky that the kidnapper was someone we knew and not one of the crazy baby-snatchers off of CSI, oh God why I am thinking of CSI that show is about murderers oh God--
“Okay,” she said, looking unconvinced. “Where are Noah and Beth?”
Crap crap crap he should have run lines. “Um--”
“Here,” came Puck’s voice from behind him, and Kurt nearly slumped with relief. A second, and Puck was next to him, Beth in tow. “My bad. Just had to deal with something.”
Shelby stared at Puck, then frowned at the door he’d come from. “What were you--” She looked between them, halfway between amused and concerned. “You guys do know they have changing tables in the men’s room, too, right?”
Kurt glanced warily at Puck, who glanced warily back, but before Kurt’s mind could get started panicking about whether it would be worse to tell the truth or a lie, the restroom door opened again and saved him from having to decide.
“Ms. Corcoran?”
Shelby’s face opened up, and Kurt avoided eye contact when Quinn paused next to him.
“I’m sorry,” Quinn said, her voice barely there, but she inhaled deep, and when she spoke again it was stronger. “I can explain.”
“Quinn,” Shelby murmured. “What--”
“Uh, hey, Shelby?” Puck shifted Beth up on his hip, glancing briefly at Quinn. “It cool if me and Kurt just take Beth around until she chills out?”
Next to Kurt, the air around Quinn relaxed just a little, and oh, all gold stars for Puck today. “Yeah,” Kurt agreed. “You two can talk for a minute. We’ll stay on the path.”
Shelby took a long moment to look between the three of them, then slowly nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, go ahead.”
Kurt nodded and followed when Puck started down the path.
They were quiet for a little while, until the women were well out of hearing range. Kurt glanced to Puck, who was still holding Beth tight, his eyes low and far away. “Is she okay?” Puck glanced up, and Kurt added, “Quinn, I mean.”
Puck dropped his gaze to the ground again. “Take a guess.”
“You didn’t seem that surprised.”
“Wasn’t.” Puck squinted at him. “How’d you know it was her?”
“Hm?”
“She was already in the bathroom when we split up, or we would have seen her. How’d you figure out it was her?”
“Oh.” Kurt studied his cuticles. “I, ah. You know. Didn’t.”
Puck stopped mid-step and stared at him. “Wait, what?”
“I passed by the restrooms and heard Beth crying. I couldn’t tell who was with her.” Kurt shrugged. “I went to get her.”
“Wait, wait, hold up. You didn’t know it was Quinn, it could have been some psycho baby-snatcher with a piece in there, and you freaking went in anyway?”
Right, the part Kurt had been trying not to think about. “…I had my phone.”
“What were you gonna do, chuck it at ‘em? Thought you were supposed to be smart or something. That was some fucking Chuck Norris shit, dude!”
“Beth, don’t listen to Daddy, he says vulgar and uncivilized words when he gets overexcited,” Kurt said, angling some visible judgement in Puck’s direction before catching up with the rest of the sentence. “Wait. Are we…happy that I exercised Gryffindor-judgement at the peril of all involved?”
Puck huffed something like a laugh. "You kidding? That's metal as hell. Right, baby-girl?" he said, his voice sliding up in pitch while he caught Beth's eye. "Gotta give our boy his props. Let's see it. Props," he said, demonstrating holding up a fist. She watched, then followed his gaze to Kurt and held up a tiny fist. "Pop!"
Kurt lost it a little, right along with Puck, and gently tapped her fist with his. "Merci beaucoup, ma petite."
They stopped on the bridge, Puck leaning forward with Beth to let her see the fish, and Kurt glanced back toward Shelby and Quinn. “What do you think they’re talking about?”
Puck shrugged, eyes on the water. “Probably her contract. Or how kidnapping’s bad. Whatever hot bio-moms that give up their bio-kids talk about.”
Kurt turned away from them and rested his elbows on the rail next to Puck. “You’re raging less than I’d have expected.” Puck shrugged. “What happened in there?”
“Nothing,” Puck muttered. “It’s not like I’m not pissed, but.” He frowned, shook his head. “I get it.”
He left it at that, and Kurt mulled it over before letting it go when Beth grabbed on to his thumb, and the three of them watched the water for a while before staying quiet got too difficult.
"There is one point where I disagree with you," Kurt said.
"Shocker."
Kurt threw him a look, if a short-lived one. "When you said that giving Beth to Shelby means neither of you get to be okay?" Puck's jaw worked, and Kurt idly swung Beth's hand back and forth. "I don't think that's true."
"Like you know," Puck muttered.
"I just think,” Kurt said, taking a second to find the words, “facing an impossible decision and making a call, or stepping aside to let Quinn make it…that isn't something that deserves punishment."
"Well, guess what, we're getting it anyway." Beth let go of Kurt's thumb to point at a pair of ducks crossing under the bridge, and Puck's gloom dropped away for a moment as he followed her gaze. "Remember what sound a duck makes, Bethie-boo?" She tilted her head at him, and he ducked his head and quacked into her neck, making her shriek a laugh. Puck came away with a smile that faded as soon as he straightened. "We decided to give her away, so we lose her. That's us doing our time."
He looked out over the water, and Beth did the same, and she had never looked more like she was his. Kurt looked between them and carefully asked, "Do you regret it?" Puck's eyes lowered, but not to him. "If Quinn had kept Beth, do you think it would be better?"
Puck didn't answer right away, his eyes on the water, then on Beth. He breathed in and out, then shook his head.
"Hell if I even know what the right thing is anymore," he murmured. "All I know is I suck at doing it."
Kurt smiled faintly at him. “You’re better at it than you think you are.” He turned nonchalantly away. “You picked out that outfit all by yourself, for one. I see progress.”
Puck huffed, and it was tired, but there was something like a smile in it. “Shut up.”
“Just saying.”
Puck rolled his eyes and left it, and they watched the water until Shelby was rather suddenly beside them, looking a little weary but less vengeful-mama-grizzly than he had been afraid of. “Hey.”
Kurt looked up and around, but Quinn was gone. Puck straightened up, quietly asking Beth if she was ready to see Mama before handing her off to Shelby. She studied Beth’s face, sleepy but no longer tear-stained, and kissed her forehead before settling her against her shoulder. “So, you three had some excitement this afternoon.”
Puck lowered his eyes, and Kurt bit his lip. “If we’re in the trouble I suspect we’re in, know that it was mostly my fault. I distracted Noah, and-“
“And got her back,” Puck finished for him, quiet and final.
Shelby held up a hand. “Don’t panic. Quinn told me enough.” She looked between the two of them for a moment that stretched, then seemed to come to a decision with herself and nodded toward their spot by the clover. “Come on. We should probably figure out how we’re going to feed the half-football-team you two will be bringing to help with the move tomorrow.”
Kurt let out a breath he hadn’t meant to hold, and Puck’s shoulders visibly relaxed. “Cool.”
They went back and sat down, and Puck picked Beth a clover, and suddenly there the end was. The end of this part, with the four of them. Not here yet, but visible, tangible, coming at them fast, and then…
Beth held Puck’s clover out to Kurt, and he weaved it carefully into her hair.
And then we keep going, he reminded himself, leaning down by Beth and taking a star-struck pose with her when Puck lifted his phone to take a picture of her with her clover. Puck huffed a laugh as he snapped it, and Shelby smiled at the three of them, and Kurt started plotting out Beth’s playlist in his head.
They would keep going.
After dropping Puck off and receiving a few last words of wisdom for his trouble (“Seriously though. If you pull some shit like that again and get your ass kicked, I’m kicking your ass.”), Kurt pulled back into his own driveway. A few steps later, he was dropping down next to his dad on the couch, dropping his head back to blink tiredly at the ceiling, reasonably certain that he’d been exhausted for at least a month straight now.
“How’d it go?” his dad asked after a second, and Kurt heaved a deep sigh.
“Everything is hard,” he said to the ceiling. “And everyone is complicated, and I’m starting to think that the only reason anything seems simple is because I haven’t looked at it hard enough yet.”
His dad’s arm wrapped around his shoulders and squeezed. “Welcome to the big leagues, kiddo.”
“It’s exhausting.” Kurt let his head loll to the side, looking at his dad and maybe pouting a little. “Don’t suppose I could just opt-out of this emotional maturity thing?”
“You could,” his dad conceded with a slow nod. “But you won’t.”
Kurt sighed. “Yeah.”
He dropped his head to his dad’s shoulder and stayed for a while.
-
>>Puck: yo gleeotchs tmrw 12pm come help us move shit or ill kick ur asses. address incoming
>>You: He means: we’re helping Shelby & Beth move, and can offer pizza & salad & lemonade + time with an adorable baby if you join us. :) There will be no ass-kicking.
>>Puck: what he said
>>Puck: exept not really srsly show up or ill fckn find u
>>You: Still included on the mass text, Puck.
>>Puck: wtf dont do ur ninja shit on my phone dude
>>You: Don’t blame me for being swift as a coursing river.
>>Puck: what
>>You: With all the force of a great typhoon.
>>Puck: ...what
>>Sam: with all the strenght of a rAGING FIRE
>>Mike: MYSTERIOUS AS THE DARK SIDE OF
>>Tina: THE MOOOOOON!!!!!!
>>Puck: W T F
>>You: LMAO. Stiiill on a mass text.
>>Artie: dammit people, you couldn’t save the disneyspam until after a guy’s out of the bathroom? 8(
>>David K: ……………………….…...is this rly what u guys do all the time
>>Kurt: Yes.
>>Artie: yep
>>Tina: pretty much
>>Puck: what of it
>>David K: calm ur shit suckerman just asking. dont put dishonor on my cow or anything
>>Sam: SNAP
>>You: Yep. You can stay. :)
-
A blink later--and Kurt was certain all he’d done was blink, maybe twice if he was feeling generous--he was back at Shelby’s, watching Lauren Zizes heft Shelby’s TV onto one shoulder, like that was a thing people should be able to do, and feeling suddenly and grossly inadequate.
Another blink, and he was navigating one end of the dining table through the living room toward the front door, smiling at the sight of Artie calling, “All aboard the trouble-train, woo woo!” as he wheeled a delighted Beth across the floor in his lap and Sam’s voice going goofy as he played the train conductor, and when Kurt glanced at Dave across the table so they could resume their task, Dave smiled faintly back.
Blink, and Beth’s cheek is resting on his shoulder while he paces slowly across her empty nursery, humming the only song he could possibly choose for his assignment tomorrow, her hair brushing his chin.
Blink, and Shelby is saying her goodbyes, looking Puck pointedly in the eye when she says she’ll be seeing them soon. As soon as Puck has hugged Beth for a year or three and buckled her into her car seat and stepped away, Kurt sets a hand on his shoulder because that’s the hardest thing he’s ever seen someone do. Puck lets him.
Eyes closed, eyes open, and the moving truck has vanished around the corner, and Kurt is taking a deep breath and pulling it together.
He turned to those of the group who had decided to hang around after, throwing on a smile. “Thanks for the help, all. We’re in your debt.”
“Nah, it was fun!” Tina said, linking arms with him. “Besides, Mike and I are getting our prize already. Meet you at Breadstix?”
Kurt stared at her for half a second before remembering, right, that was today. The two of them distracting Rachel so he could kidnap Finn to Shelby’s felt like it had happened years ago. “But of course. Lead on, Asian Fusion.”
With a “Yay!” and a squeeze of his arm, Tina went to drag Mike to the car while Finn turned into a six-foot-three-inch pair of puppy-eyes and Artie and Sam stared at Kurt in identical open-mouthed betrayal. “Hold up,” Artie said, lifting up both hands. “They get Breadstix?”
“How come we don’t get Breadstix?”
“Now I really want Breadstix…”
To his credit, Dave only lifted an eyebrow at him.
Looking between the four of them, Kurt heaved a resigned sigh. “Belching contests in my car will not be tolerated. Or farting,” he said over the triumphant noises and high-fives, “you hold it in or I throw you out. And no mud on the...and no one is listening.”
He rolled his eyes and turned toward Puck, who had wandered a little away from them to watch the front door of the empty house and hadn’t said a word. “Care to join us?”
It seemed to take a second for Puck to notice he was being spoken to. He blinked at Kurt, then shook his head. “Nah.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, dropping his gaze. “Not feeling it.”
“Sure he is,” Finn said, taking his place next to Puck and clapping a hand on his shoulder, smiling his Quarterback Superhero smile. He aimed it at Puck and softened it, ignoring the side-eye he got in return. “Come on, dude. It’s on us.”
Puck pressed his lips together, then glanced from face to face, looked at the front door, looked at the ground. He let out his breath. “Yeah, okay, whatever. Shotty.”
Finn grinned. “Sweet! Kurt, can you open it up? Artie’s chair can fit in the trunk, right?”
Kurt unlocked the car, popped the trunk, and indulgently met Finn’s low-five as he passed, but stayed back while Finn and Sam went about helping Artie, Dave heading to his own car to meet them there (or possibly to have an escape plan--he couldn’t quite tell whether Dave had been handling their weirdness remarkably well or it he’d just been going to a happy place in his mind until he could run for the hills). Puck’s hands were still shoved in his pockets, his eyes back on the front door.
He didn’t move when Kurt stopped next to him. Almost under his breath, Puck said, “It’s weird.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s empty in there.”
Kurt nodded. “It is weird.” Weird, because if he thought about it too hard, he was pretty sure it was yesterday that they had stared at that door for the first time, and Kurt had rung the doorbell, and Puck had almost run away. Weird, because they probably wouldn’t have any reason to come back.
Looking at Puck, he said, “If you really want some time to yourself, it’s okay. I can defend your life choices to the horde.”
He shook his head. “Nah. If I go home, my mom’ll want to talk about feelings or some shit. And if she doesn’t, I’ll just end up thinking. I do stupid shit when I think.”
“The things I could say.”
“Shut your face.”
There wasn’t much fire to it, and Kurt rolled his eyes. They both looked back when Finn called that they were ready, and Kurt slung his bag back into place on his shoulder and caught Puck’s eye. “Come on.”
One last look at the door, and Puck took a breath and turned away. Kurt turned with him, patting him on the back as they headed for the car. He got in the driver’s side, and Puck got in the passenger seat. They shut the doors.
There were faces in the rear-view mirror now, Finn and Artie and Sam all crammed in the backseat and already talking over each other about the top items on the Breadstix menu, but it didn’t feel so different, really. Puck’s seatbelt clicked into place, and Kurt pulled away from the side of the street. Puck didn’t look at the house again as they passed it, instead keeping his eyes on his knees.
“Hey,” Kurt said under the backseat-noise, and Puck glanced up. “When we’re done, remind me to run a glee-song by you for tomorrow.”
Puck nodded with a muttered, “Likewise,” just as Finn punched the back of his seat to rope him into the debate, and Kurt faced forward again. He turned the corner, and the mirror caught the blue of the house’s front door, and then it was gone.
-
>>You: I spent 20 minutes holding Beth today and now she’s in Chicago and Puck’s going to sing a song for her and the song choice might kill me and I am having feelings.
>>Blaine: I’m sorry babe :( Need phone call?
>>You: …I might cry hysterically. Or break into an overly-sentimental ballad. Or both. Probably both.
>>Blaine: I love it when you sing overly sentimental ballads, and I’ll still love you if you’re crying hysterically. I can’t promise I won’t end up crying hysterically with you, though…
>>You: Weepy Boy and Sympathy-Crier. We’re like the world’s worst superhero team.
>>Blaine: OMG our capes could be giant handkerchiefs! :D
>>Blaine: KURT. YOU OWN UNITARDS. OMG.
>>You: Blaine, once again, I am not making us superhero costumes.
>>Blaine: Ah, you’ll be here in a week. I’m sure I can convince you ;)
>>Blaine: Puck’s definitely okay with doing the recording next weekend, right?
>>You: Oh yes. We were talking playlists earlier. He’ll enjoy the distraction. Finn’s going to be coming too, and we may have another temporary visitor as well.
>>Blaine: Ooh, I love it when you’re cryptic. Who is it?
>>You: Phone call incoming. It’s a long story.
-
The thing was, Kurt had mentally prepared for this. As well as he was usually able to hide it, getting up in front of a group had always been a nerve-wracking thing for him, even when that group was made up entirely of his friends. An unfortunate side effect of getting pushed around for sticking out, not that he would give anyone credit for that. Kurt loved to sing, and he loved having the spotlight-that didn’t mean it wasn’t also terrifying.
Which is why, walking up to the front of the choir room, the last of the group to perform for the assignment, about to sing in a completely different style than his usual and knowing full well that there were still individuals in the audience who weren’t happy with him, he was surprised to find that he was weirdly…not-terrified.
He didn’t need to turn around and pretend to shuffle sheet music on the piano while he breathed out the stomach-butterflies, the way he usually did. He didn’t feel the automatic defensiveness that usually made him straighten his back and look down his nose at his audience (not that that was any excuse for poor posture, of course). Puck pulled up a stool and did a quick tune of his guitar strings, and Kurt looked out at the rest of the club, calm and comfortable.
He hadn’t even prepared a pre-song speech. This one just sort of happened.
“This assignment, as we well know, was to sing about our summers. And my summer wasn’t anything I had expected it to be,” he began, “for a lot of reasons. I won’t go into all of them. Most of you know.” He looked at all of them, left to right. No one looked away. “But the most important thing about the summer was that it taught me a lot about family. What it can be, and what it should be. What it shouldn’t be. What it can look like.”
He took a slow breath. “Some of them were things I already knew, but not…well enough. This summer showed me that family isn’t straightforward. Sometimes what you started with isn’t where you end up. It showed me how perfectly logical it can be for someone to have two moms and one dad and a sister or brother who isn’t, and to be loved by so many more people than that. That a mother doesn’t stop being a mother just because she isn’t your first one.” He glanced at Finn, who beamed back. “That we aren’t doomed to become our parents, and we can choose what we do, even if we can’t choose who we are. And…other things in that general vein.”
Kurt cleared his throat. “In short, the moral of my summer was that nothing is more complicated than family, and nothing can hurt like family does, but also that nothing can heal like it does. And I wouldn’t have seen that if it hadn’t been for one person in particular. So, first and foremost, this song is for her.” He scanned his audience once more. “But not only for her.”
He turned and nodded to Puck, who looked back with an expression he couldn’t read before playing the opening strum. Kurt breathed deep, and began.
It wasn’t a song he would have chosen a year ago, or even six months ago, and it was a bit off to the side of his wheelhouse, but if he could sing Tenacious D, he could certainly pull off acoustic coffeehouse-rock. He scaled back his tone, relaxed it a little, sang it the way he would sing it to Beth.
She’d liked it when he’d sung it to her the day before, at no-longer-Shelby’s. It had reminded him of Edelweiss, a little. She’d kept watching him as he had slowly walked her from one end of the room to the other, singing at half-voice, trying out keys and styles and transpositions. Just the two of them.
“What to do about the second verse,” he’d murmured after working through the first one. The second verse was problematic, because it wasn’t true. “I hope you know that, Beth,” he’d said. “He isn’t walking away from you. If he had it his way, he would stay with you forever.” She had stared at him with big eyes--hazel, Shelby had been right--and he had flashed on his dad telling him the same thing about his mom after the phone call, after the tears. Resting his cheek on Beth’s hair, he’d said softly, “It would be so nice if mommies and daddies never had to leave.”
He’d made it work. Changed more lyrics than he generally liked to, but it worked. It actually added something to the song, in his personal opinion, to change ‘him’ to ‘them,’ and ‘she’ to ‘we.’
The only other change he made was for Puck, not that he’d told him that. Just a little three-word addition, the second time through. On behalf of every man, looking out for every boy and every girl, you are the God and the weight of their world.
Okay, four words. He dared John Mayer to come and throw down the gauntlet.
And there were points at which he carefully didn’t look at Quinn (girls become lovers, then turn into…) and points at which he carefully did not look at Rachel (so mothers, be good to your…), but he wasn’t really thinking about who was watching, or what they were thinking. This was his summer, and this was his song, and all the things that had been weighing him down at the end of the summer just…weren’t anymore.
He hadn’t seen Quinn since his last glimpse of her at the park, and while she looked a little gaunt and far away, the waves of hate-energy he’d been feeling from her earlier in the month were long gone. She sat alone, a couple of rows behind Santana and Brittany. Santana...Kurt had no idea what was going on there, but she and Puck had both been suspiciously late to lunch that day, and while Puck had just shaken his head when Kurt asked, Kurt was pretty sure her hate-energy was...well, closer to its normal level.
He and Mercedes had ended their last conversation on an uncertain note, but she had said hi to him (if a bit coolly) when he’d walked into the choir room, so there was hope. And yesterday Finn had assured him that Rachel had been talking a lot with her dads about the Shelby situation, and that while she wasn’t feeling great about anything, she was at least starting to figure out who she was really upset with, and Finn didn’t think it was Kurt.
Nothing tied up in a neat little bow--and he did love a neat little bow in his life now and then--but it was all...okay. Shifting. None of them were standing still.
So he sang, and he finished, and when his cheering section of Tina-Mike-Artie-Finn-Sam-Lauren whooped and whistled for him over the at-least-didn’t-look-ironic applause from the rest of the group, he smiled and took a bow.
Mr. Schuester was still clapping as he came to join him at the front, looking somewhere between pleasantly surprised and just relieved at a not-passive-aggressive song choice, and congratulated him on his exploration of different singing styles before taking the floor. Stepping off to the side by the stool, Kurt bumped Puck’s shoulder with his elbow. “Now’s your chance.”
“I was getting there,” Puck hissed back at him, then shook out his shoulders and raised his hand. “Mr. Schue?” he said, just barely beating Mr. Schuester’s start-of-motivational-speech hand-clap. “Hey. I know we’ve been on this assignment for like a month, but I’m gonna need a redo.”
Mr. Schuester pressed his lips together, and Kurt knew that expression, and that wouldn’t do. “Puck, I really think we should be moving on. Sectionals are going to be-“
“‘Cause I did it wrong,” Puck said, loud enough that Mr. Schuester paused. “Before. We’re supposed to sing about our summer. I sang something to get back at someone for pissing me off. That’s not what my summer was about.” He stood from the stool, shoulders back and chin high, and somehow looked taller than before. “My summer was about Beth.”
Mr. Schuester’s expression shifted as he made the connection, and Puck turned toward the rest of the club. “Some of you guys know that, but some of you don’t get it yet. It wasn’t about me being an ass, it wasn’t about going behind anyone’s back, it sure as hell wasn’t about any of you. It was about her.” He fearlessly met each gaze. “It was about getting her back. Being able to see her, talk to her, hold her. It was learning how to deal with caring about someone that much, and knowing that none of the bullshit I do is ever going to be anywhere close to how important she is. It was figuring out that I’m not a lost cause, because I can make her laugh, and getting over how I can’t always get her to calm down, but Hummel can do it just by spouting some Frenchie moonspeak at her.”
Kurt let out a breathy laugh along with some of the others, his chest aching along with the back of his throat.
“And it was about letting her go.” Puck swallowed hard. “And figuring out how to trust that we’ll get each other back, over and over again. Because when you’re tethered to someone that tight, that’s what you do.”
No one said a word. Puck’s gaze lingered a second longer on the group, catching briefly on Quinn, whose eyes were conspicuously bright, before he turned it back to Mr. Schuester.
“I want to sing about that.”
Fighting down his hug-and-cry instincts, Kurt looked out at the rest of the club. Finn grinned knowingly back at him, drumsticks and brushes already in hand, and the rest of the cheering section mirrored him, because even if they hadn’t been told exactly what Puck was going to do, they knew why he wanted to do it. Kurt smiled back at them. “All in favor of letting the man sing?”
Puck sang.
-
Continued…
Title: Sweet Child O’ Mine (13a/13)
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
A/N: This isn't an April Fool's joke, I promise. ;)
This is it - the beginning of the end. Because my writing tends to expand between first-chapters and finales, this will be posted in two parts.
ALSO OF NOTE: I have a shiny new Archive of Our Own account under the name of likethedirection, and will soon be reposting this and the rest of my LJ fic on that account, along with some stories from my Fanfiction.net account under another name. I will be primarily using my AO3 account for future fic endeavors. So if this fic pops up on AO3, yes, it is me. :)
Enjoy, and you have my undying appreciation for sticking with me to the end!
~*~
It was a choice, not making a dramatic entrance. Granted, a split-second, oh-God-what-do-I-do-um-okay-THAT sort of choice, but a choice nonetheless. Kurt’s life was not a movie, and anyone who would snatch a child right off the grass and take her to a public restroom for God knows what was probably not someone who would take well to being startled. So, no dramatics. Just a push, and a firm step forward to block the doorway, and Beth’s red-faced, wailing reflection in the mirror, and…
Kurt’s mouth fell open, his phone lowering slowly to his side. Oh.
She was holding Beth tight, even as Beth howled and wriggled to be put down. She looked small, even with Beth so much smaller, and her hair covered her face as she bent it toward the top of Beth’s head. She didn’t look up when Kurt took another step, letting the door swing shut behind him, and she didn’t look up when he half-whispered her name.
“Quinn.”
She kept her eyes down, shushing over and over into Beth’s hair.
Kurt’s mind raced for the right words and came up empty. “Quinn,” he said again, God Beth was crying so hard and reaching for him and the urge to go straight up and wrench her out of Quinn’s grasp and shield her and sing to her until she calmed was overwhelming. He took a deep breath and focused on the most important thing. “Beth, sweetie, it’s okay. It’s okay, we’re going to take you back to your daddy, all right? Tout va bien.”
It didn’t help, and Quinn still hadn’t looked at him. He let his voice drop. “Quinn, what are you doing?”
For a long moment, nothing happened but Beth. Then Quinn lifted her eyes. Not all the way to him, but he could see them now, red and lost.
“She won’t stop crying,” she whispered at last, her voice full, her pretty face threatening to crumble. Beth fought and wailed. Quinn’s eyes shone.
“I carried her,” she murmured, the sound almost lost under Beth’s cries. “She came from me. When she was born, I held her for so long.” Her voice wavered. “I held her for so long, and she won’t stop crying.”
Her voice broke, and her face stretched wide with tears, and she hid her face in Beth’s dark curls. Mother and daughter sobbed, and it echoed off the tile and shot straight into Kurt’s chest to wrench at everything in it.
When his voice worked again, he said, “It’s because she doesn’t know you.”
Quinn curled around Beth tighter, and he refused to feel guilty. “But she can know you, Quinn. If you do it the right way. We can…we can talk to Shelby, you can work something out. But Quinn, you have to give her to me. Right now.”
“I just wanted to hold her,” she said. “Just hold her, just one more time, before she takes her away.”
Kurt frowned. “How did you--”
He thought of the last time he’d seen her.
“…In the hallway,” he slowly answered himself. “That’s what you were doing in the hallway yesterday. You heard Finn tell Jacob.” And Puck had gotten on Facebook last night and told the world where they would be.
It wasn’t really a question, and she didn’t answer. Beth slapped futilely at her shoulders, and Quinn’s face screwed, but she seemed to swallow it back. “I was going to be okay,” she said, full and breaking. “I was okay, I was okay with letting her go. But then you did this.”
She finally lifted her red eyes to Kurt’s face. “You and Noah. You had to make me see her.” She sniffed, tears streaming down. “You made me see her, and she’s perfect, and he got to hold her. Because he lied. He lied, and he got to hold her, and I couldn’t touch her. And it’s not fair.” She inhaled sharply, her voice going high and pinched. “It’s not fair that I don’t get to touch my baby.”
“No,” Kurt agreed, his voice fighting to come out past the lump blocking the way. “No, it’s not, but Quinn, taking her isn’t the answer--”
“I wasn’t going to take her,” Quinn shot back, and Beth’s cries rose in pitch and volume, and she was scared and he wasn’t making it all better fast enough. Quinn looked helplessly at Beth’s red face.
Kurt was not helpless. “I know, honey. Just look at me, Beth, okay? Look at Uncle Kurt.” Beth did, and her eyes and nose were streaming and her volume was piercing and she reached for him again, and he needed her in his arms now. He looked sharply back at Quinn and stepped forward, his chest tightening and his voice trembling a little when he used it. “Quinn, she’s scared. Please.”
Quinn’s wet eyes lingered on Beth’s hand reaching over her shoulder in his direction, then slowly rose to him. There was so much in them that it hurt a little to look back. It wasn’t until Kurt’s mind was already racing forward to the phone still in his hand, and the number it was ready to dial, and if it would really come to threatening her with the police, that she finally animated.
She turned toward him, and he reached out, and she almost didn’t let go, and then she did.
“Oh, God,” Kurt heard himself gasp as he pulled Beth to him, shifting to hold her as close as he could while she clung to him and muffled her cries in his shoulder. Automatically he started bouncing her just a little, the way she liked. “Okay. All right, sweetie, it’s okay. It’s okay.”
Quinn watched him, watched Beth, dripped tears. “I just wanted to hold her.”
Kurt lifted his cheek from Beth’s head, and he had no idea what would have come out of his mouth if the restroom door had not flown open and hit the wall with a bang. “Beth!”
Puck’s bandaged fists were clenched, his eyes wild, and he only faltered for a second at the sight of Quinn before Kurt said, “I’ve got her.”
He whipped his head in their direction, and Beth lifted hers, and she immediately reached for Puck with both arms and sobbed out one word.
“Daddy.”
The moment Puck’s expression broke, the moment Beth called him by that name and he heard it and it was suddenly everything he was, was something Kurt would never forget.
He handed over Beth without another word. The second Puck had her, he was clutching her tight to his chest, her chubby arms clinging to his collar, their faces buried in each other’s necks. “Right here, baby-girl,” he might have said, though it was muffled and hard to tell. “Daddy’s got you.”
Kurt looked away, because he was emotional by nature and God she’s okay she’s here she’s safe and Puck sounded a little too much like Kurt’s dad on a very bad day nine years ago, and there were enough crying people in this restroom. Instead, he dared a glance at Quinn. She was still crying, but he wasn't sure she'd noticed. Her arms hung limp at her sides.
Reconciling the Quinn of now with the Quinn singing out bitterness in the choir room, with the Quinn whose hand-mark he could sometimes swear he still felt on his cheek and the Quinn whose phantom weight he could still feel tucked under his arm in the dark, was easier than he wished it would be. Of course it was. All of those Quinns were this.
Puck breathed Beth in once more, twice, then kissed the side of her head and slowly lifted his eyes. They met Quinn’s, his face grave, as serious as Kurt had ever seen it, and Kurt glanced uncertainly between them.
Puck didn’t yell. He didn’t speak. He waited.
After a long few seconds of watching them with something like loss, Quinn said softly, “It was supposed to get better.” She tried for a deep breath. “I knew seeing her would make it worse. I knew. But I thought if I could just touch her…”
She looked at Puck so differently than she had looked at Kurt. Even angry, even crying, she looked at Puck like they were in this together. Two more tears rolled down. “It was supposed to get better. I was supposed to be okay again.”
I thought once I saw her again, it wouldn’t feel like this anymore, Puck echoed in Kurt’s memory.
Puck was shaking his head, and Quinn’s face threatened to break again. “But I’m not,” she said, her voice wavering, her eyes shining. “I’m really not okay.”
She exhaled fast, fighting the tears hard, and Puck finally spoke.
“I know.”
She took another shaky breath.
“We don’t get to be okay,” Puck said, “because we had her, and we gave her away.”
She sniffed. “You didn’t want to.”
“Wasn’t my call.”
“I wasn’t going to take her. I just…”
“I know.”
“I just made her cry.”
“You scared her.” Puck shifted Beth on his hip, and she was calm now, still tear-streaked but quietly observing them all with her fingers curling into Puck’s shirt collar. “She’s okay now.”
Quinn looked at Beth, looked at her the way Puck did, and Kurt didn’t belong in this conversation. He looked at the floor, at the mirror, at the door.
“Hummel.” He started a little, but Puck’s eyes were still on Quinn. “Go make sure Shelby’s not freaking out, will you?”
Kurt didn’t move right away, briefly following Puck’s gaze. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. We’re good. Be out in a minute.”
Swallowing, Kurt nodded. “Friendly reminder that you’re in the women’s restroom right now. Questions may arise.”
“It’s cool.” Finally Puck glanced at him. “Thanks.”
Kurt blinked, a little thrown, but Puck was already back to Quinn, gesturing with his head. “Come here.”
Quinn hesitantly crossed to him, and Kurt turned away, heading for the exit. He couldn’t help glancing at them one more time at the door, just long enough to see Beth’s hand curl tentatively around Quinn’s index finger. To see Quinn make it halfway to a tremulous smile before lowering her head the last half-inch to Puck’s shoulder with a whispered, “I’m sorry.”
Puck’s free arm started to curl around her shoulders in reply, and Kurt left them alone, because this wasn’t his.
Once back in the sun and fresh air and noise of the park, Kurt took a second to lean on the wall next to the restroom door and let out his breath in a rush. “Okay,” he muttered to the universe. “No more heart attacks, please. We can be done now.”
“Kurt?”
Kurt jumped halfway out of his skin, threw a skyward glare at the stupid rude universe, and lowered his gaze to Shelby. Crap. “Hi, sorry, spacing out. While talking to myself. It’s a thing I, um. Do.”
She studied him. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” Kurt said in a too-quick and unfortunate soprano. He cleared his throat. “Why?”
Slowly, she replied, “Because your eyes just got kind of huge.”
“Ah. Yes. They, ah, do that. No problems, though.” He plastered on a smile that he hoped was charming and not screaming, So we sort of lost your baby but got extremely lucky that the kidnapper was someone we knew and not one of the crazy baby-snatchers off of CSI, oh God why I am thinking of CSI that show is about murderers oh God--
“Okay,” she said, looking unconvinced. “Where are Noah and Beth?”
Crap crap crap he should have run lines. “Um--”
“Here,” came Puck’s voice from behind him, and Kurt nearly slumped with relief. A second, and Puck was next to him, Beth in tow. “My bad. Just had to deal with something.”
Shelby stared at Puck, then frowned at the door he’d come from. “What were you--” She looked between them, halfway between amused and concerned. “You guys do know they have changing tables in the men’s room, too, right?”
Kurt glanced warily at Puck, who glanced warily back, but before Kurt’s mind could get started panicking about whether it would be worse to tell the truth or a lie, the restroom door opened again and saved him from having to decide.
“Ms. Corcoran?”
Shelby’s face opened up, and Kurt avoided eye contact when Quinn paused next to him.
“I’m sorry,” Quinn said, her voice barely there, but she inhaled deep, and when she spoke again it was stronger. “I can explain.”
“Quinn,” Shelby murmured. “What--”
“Uh, hey, Shelby?” Puck shifted Beth up on his hip, glancing briefly at Quinn. “It cool if me and Kurt just take Beth around until she chills out?”
Next to Kurt, the air around Quinn relaxed just a little, and oh, all gold stars for Puck today. “Yeah,” Kurt agreed. “You two can talk for a minute. We’ll stay on the path.”
Shelby took a long moment to look between the three of them, then slowly nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, go ahead.”
Kurt nodded and followed when Puck started down the path.
They were quiet for a little while, until the women were well out of hearing range. Kurt glanced to Puck, who was still holding Beth tight, his eyes low and far away. “Is she okay?” Puck glanced up, and Kurt added, “Quinn, I mean.”
Puck dropped his gaze to the ground again. “Take a guess.”
“You didn’t seem that surprised.”
“Wasn’t.” Puck squinted at him. “How’d you know it was her?”
“Hm?”
“She was already in the bathroom when we split up, or we would have seen her. How’d you figure out it was her?”
“Oh.” Kurt studied his cuticles. “I, ah. You know. Didn’t.”
Puck stopped mid-step and stared at him. “Wait, what?”
“I passed by the restrooms and heard Beth crying. I couldn’t tell who was with her.” Kurt shrugged. “I went to get her.”
“Wait, wait, hold up. You didn’t know it was Quinn, it could have been some psycho baby-snatcher with a piece in there, and you freaking went in anyway?”
Right, the part Kurt had been trying not to think about. “…I had my phone.”
“What were you gonna do, chuck it at ‘em? Thought you were supposed to be smart or something. That was some fucking Chuck Norris shit, dude!”
“Beth, don’t listen to Daddy, he says vulgar and uncivilized words when he gets overexcited,” Kurt said, angling some visible judgement in Puck’s direction before catching up with the rest of the sentence. “Wait. Are we…happy that I exercised Gryffindor-judgement at the peril of all involved?”
Puck huffed something like a laugh. "You kidding? That's metal as hell. Right, baby-girl?" he said, his voice sliding up in pitch while he caught Beth's eye. "Gotta give our boy his props. Let's see it. Props," he said, demonstrating holding up a fist. She watched, then followed his gaze to Kurt and held up a tiny fist. "Pop!"
Kurt lost it a little, right along with Puck, and gently tapped her fist with his. "Merci beaucoup, ma petite."
They stopped on the bridge, Puck leaning forward with Beth to let her see the fish, and Kurt glanced back toward Shelby and Quinn. “What do you think they’re talking about?”
Puck shrugged, eyes on the water. “Probably her contract. Or how kidnapping’s bad. Whatever hot bio-moms that give up their bio-kids talk about.”
Kurt turned away from them and rested his elbows on the rail next to Puck. “You’re raging less than I’d have expected.” Puck shrugged. “What happened in there?”
“Nothing,” Puck muttered. “It’s not like I’m not pissed, but.” He frowned, shook his head. “I get it.”
He left it at that, and Kurt mulled it over before letting it go when Beth grabbed on to his thumb, and the three of them watched the water for a while before staying quiet got too difficult.
"There is one point where I disagree with you," Kurt said.
"Shocker."
Kurt threw him a look, if a short-lived one. "When you said that giving Beth to Shelby means neither of you get to be okay?" Puck's jaw worked, and Kurt idly swung Beth's hand back and forth. "I don't think that's true."
"Like you know," Puck muttered.
"I just think,” Kurt said, taking a second to find the words, “facing an impossible decision and making a call, or stepping aside to let Quinn make it…that isn't something that deserves punishment."
"Well, guess what, we're getting it anyway." Beth let go of Kurt's thumb to point at a pair of ducks crossing under the bridge, and Puck's gloom dropped away for a moment as he followed her gaze. "Remember what sound a duck makes, Bethie-boo?" She tilted her head at him, and he ducked his head and quacked into her neck, making her shriek a laugh. Puck came away with a smile that faded as soon as he straightened. "We decided to give her away, so we lose her. That's us doing our time."
He looked out over the water, and Beth did the same, and she had never looked more like she was his. Kurt looked between them and carefully asked, "Do you regret it?" Puck's eyes lowered, but not to him. "If Quinn had kept Beth, do you think it would be better?"
Puck didn't answer right away, his eyes on the water, then on Beth. He breathed in and out, then shook his head.
"Hell if I even know what the right thing is anymore," he murmured. "All I know is I suck at doing it."
Kurt smiled faintly at him. “You’re better at it than you think you are.” He turned nonchalantly away. “You picked out that outfit all by yourself, for one. I see progress.”
Puck huffed, and it was tired, but there was something like a smile in it. “Shut up.”
“Just saying.”
Puck rolled his eyes and left it, and they watched the water until Shelby was rather suddenly beside them, looking a little weary but less vengeful-mama-grizzly than he had been afraid of. “Hey.”
Kurt looked up and around, but Quinn was gone. Puck straightened up, quietly asking Beth if she was ready to see Mama before handing her off to Shelby. She studied Beth’s face, sleepy but no longer tear-stained, and kissed her forehead before settling her against her shoulder. “So, you three had some excitement this afternoon.”
Puck lowered his eyes, and Kurt bit his lip. “If we’re in the trouble I suspect we’re in, know that it was mostly my fault. I distracted Noah, and-“
“And got her back,” Puck finished for him, quiet and final.
Shelby held up a hand. “Don’t panic. Quinn told me enough.” She looked between the two of them for a moment that stretched, then seemed to come to a decision with herself and nodded toward their spot by the clover. “Come on. We should probably figure out how we’re going to feed the half-football-team you two will be bringing to help with the move tomorrow.”
Kurt let out a breath he hadn’t meant to hold, and Puck’s shoulders visibly relaxed. “Cool.”
They went back and sat down, and Puck picked Beth a clover, and suddenly there the end was. The end of this part, with the four of them. Not here yet, but visible, tangible, coming at them fast, and then…
Beth held Puck’s clover out to Kurt, and he weaved it carefully into her hair.
And then we keep going, he reminded himself, leaning down by Beth and taking a star-struck pose with her when Puck lifted his phone to take a picture of her with her clover. Puck huffed a laugh as he snapped it, and Shelby smiled at the three of them, and Kurt started plotting out Beth’s playlist in his head.
They would keep going.
After dropping Puck off and receiving a few last words of wisdom for his trouble (“Seriously though. If you pull some shit like that again and get your ass kicked, I’m kicking your ass.”), Kurt pulled back into his own driveway. A few steps later, he was dropping down next to his dad on the couch, dropping his head back to blink tiredly at the ceiling, reasonably certain that he’d been exhausted for at least a month straight now.
“How’d it go?” his dad asked after a second, and Kurt heaved a deep sigh.
“Everything is hard,” he said to the ceiling. “And everyone is complicated, and I’m starting to think that the only reason anything seems simple is because I haven’t looked at it hard enough yet.”
His dad’s arm wrapped around his shoulders and squeezed. “Welcome to the big leagues, kiddo.”
“It’s exhausting.” Kurt let his head loll to the side, looking at his dad and maybe pouting a little. “Don’t suppose I could just opt-out of this emotional maturity thing?”
“You could,” his dad conceded with a slow nod. “But you won’t.”
Kurt sighed. “Yeah.”
He dropped his head to his dad’s shoulder and stayed for a while.
-
>>Puck: yo gleeotchs tmrw 12pm come help us move shit or ill kick ur asses. address incoming
>>You: He means: we’re helping Shelby & Beth move, and can offer pizza & salad & lemonade + time with an adorable baby if you join us. :) There will be no ass-kicking.
>>Puck: what he said
>>Puck: exept not really srsly show up or ill fckn find u
>>You: Still included on the mass text, Puck.
>>Puck: wtf dont do ur ninja shit on my phone dude
>>You: Don’t blame me for being swift as a coursing river.
>>Puck: what
>>You: With all the force of a great typhoon.
>>Puck: ...what
>>Sam: with all the strenght of a rAGING FIRE
>>Mike: MYSTERIOUS AS THE DARK SIDE OF
>>Tina: THE MOOOOOON!!!!!!
>>Puck: W T F
>>You: LMAO. Stiiill on a mass text.
>>Artie: dammit people, you couldn’t save the disneyspam until after a guy’s out of the bathroom? 8(
>>David K: ……………………….…...is this rly what u guys do all the time
>>Kurt: Yes.
>>Artie: yep
>>Tina: pretty much
>>Puck: what of it
>>David K: calm ur shit suckerman just asking. dont put dishonor on my cow or anything
>>Sam: SNAP
>>You: Yep. You can stay. :)
-
A blink later--and Kurt was certain all he’d done was blink, maybe twice if he was feeling generous--he was back at Shelby’s, watching Lauren Zizes heft Shelby’s TV onto one shoulder, like that was a thing people should be able to do, and feeling suddenly and grossly inadequate.
Another blink, and he was navigating one end of the dining table through the living room toward the front door, smiling at the sight of Artie calling, “All aboard the trouble-train, woo woo!” as he wheeled a delighted Beth across the floor in his lap and Sam’s voice going goofy as he played the train conductor, and when Kurt glanced at Dave across the table so they could resume their task, Dave smiled faintly back.
Blink, and Beth’s cheek is resting on his shoulder while he paces slowly across her empty nursery, humming the only song he could possibly choose for his assignment tomorrow, her hair brushing his chin.
Blink, and Shelby is saying her goodbyes, looking Puck pointedly in the eye when she says she’ll be seeing them soon. As soon as Puck has hugged Beth for a year or three and buckled her into her car seat and stepped away, Kurt sets a hand on his shoulder because that’s the hardest thing he’s ever seen someone do. Puck lets him.
Eyes closed, eyes open, and the moving truck has vanished around the corner, and Kurt is taking a deep breath and pulling it together.
He turned to those of the group who had decided to hang around after, throwing on a smile. “Thanks for the help, all. We’re in your debt.”
“Nah, it was fun!” Tina said, linking arms with him. “Besides, Mike and I are getting our prize already. Meet you at Breadstix?”
Kurt stared at her for half a second before remembering, right, that was today. The two of them distracting Rachel so he could kidnap Finn to Shelby’s felt like it had happened years ago. “But of course. Lead on, Asian Fusion.”
With a “Yay!” and a squeeze of his arm, Tina went to drag Mike to the car while Finn turned into a six-foot-three-inch pair of puppy-eyes and Artie and Sam stared at Kurt in identical open-mouthed betrayal. “Hold up,” Artie said, lifting up both hands. “They get Breadstix?”
“How come we don’t get Breadstix?”
“Now I really want Breadstix…”
To his credit, Dave only lifted an eyebrow at him.
Looking between the four of them, Kurt heaved a resigned sigh. “Belching contests in my car will not be tolerated. Or farting,” he said over the triumphant noises and high-fives, “you hold it in or I throw you out. And no mud on the...and no one is listening.”
He rolled his eyes and turned toward Puck, who had wandered a little away from them to watch the front door of the empty house and hadn’t said a word. “Care to join us?”
It seemed to take a second for Puck to notice he was being spoken to. He blinked at Kurt, then shook his head. “Nah.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, dropping his gaze. “Not feeling it.”
“Sure he is,” Finn said, taking his place next to Puck and clapping a hand on his shoulder, smiling his Quarterback Superhero smile. He aimed it at Puck and softened it, ignoring the side-eye he got in return. “Come on, dude. It’s on us.”
Puck pressed his lips together, then glanced from face to face, looked at the front door, looked at the ground. He let out his breath. “Yeah, okay, whatever. Shotty.”
Finn grinned. “Sweet! Kurt, can you open it up? Artie’s chair can fit in the trunk, right?”
Kurt unlocked the car, popped the trunk, and indulgently met Finn’s low-five as he passed, but stayed back while Finn and Sam went about helping Artie, Dave heading to his own car to meet them there (or possibly to have an escape plan--he couldn’t quite tell whether Dave had been handling their weirdness remarkably well or it he’d just been going to a happy place in his mind until he could run for the hills). Puck’s hands were still shoved in his pockets, his eyes back on the front door.
He didn’t move when Kurt stopped next to him. Almost under his breath, Puck said, “It’s weird.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s empty in there.”
Kurt nodded. “It is weird.” Weird, because if he thought about it too hard, he was pretty sure it was yesterday that they had stared at that door for the first time, and Kurt had rung the doorbell, and Puck had almost run away. Weird, because they probably wouldn’t have any reason to come back.
Looking at Puck, he said, “If you really want some time to yourself, it’s okay. I can defend your life choices to the horde.”
He shook his head. “Nah. If I go home, my mom’ll want to talk about feelings or some shit. And if she doesn’t, I’ll just end up thinking. I do stupid shit when I think.”
“The things I could say.”
“Shut your face.”
There wasn’t much fire to it, and Kurt rolled his eyes. They both looked back when Finn called that they were ready, and Kurt slung his bag back into place on his shoulder and caught Puck’s eye. “Come on.”
One last look at the door, and Puck took a breath and turned away. Kurt turned with him, patting him on the back as they headed for the car. He got in the driver’s side, and Puck got in the passenger seat. They shut the doors.
There were faces in the rear-view mirror now, Finn and Artie and Sam all crammed in the backseat and already talking over each other about the top items on the Breadstix menu, but it didn’t feel so different, really. Puck’s seatbelt clicked into place, and Kurt pulled away from the side of the street. Puck didn’t look at the house again as they passed it, instead keeping his eyes on his knees.
“Hey,” Kurt said under the backseat-noise, and Puck glanced up. “When we’re done, remind me to run a glee-song by you for tomorrow.”
Puck nodded with a muttered, “Likewise,” just as Finn punched the back of his seat to rope him into the debate, and Kurt faced forward again. He turned the corner, and the mirror caught the blue of the house’s front door, and then it was gone.
-
>>You: I spent 20 minutes holding Beth today and now she’s in Chicago and Puck’s going to sing a song for her and the song choice might kill me and I am having feelings.
>>Blaine: I’m sorry babe :( Need phone call?
>>You: …I might cry hysterically. Or break into an overly-sentimental ballad. Or both. Probably both.
>>Blaine: I love it when you sing overly sentimental ballads, and I’ll still love you if you’re crying hysterically. I can’t promise I won’t end up crying hysterically with you, though…
>>You: Weepy Boy and Sympathy-Crier. We’re like the world’s worst superhero team.
>>Blaine: OMG our capes could be giant handkerchiefs! :D
>>Blaine: KURT. YOU OWN UNITARDS. OMG.
>>You: Blaine, once again, I am not making us superhero costumes.
>>Blaine: Ah, you’ll be here in a week. I’m sure I can convince you ;)
>>Blaine: Puck’s definitely okay with doing the recording next weekend, right?
>>You: Oh yes. We were talking playlists earlier. He’ll enjoy the distraction. Finn’s going to be coming too, and we may have another temporary visitor as well.
>>Blaine: Ooh, I love it when you’re cryptic. Who is it?
>>You: Phone call incoming. It’s a long story.
-
The thing was, Kurt had mentally prepared for this. As well as he was usually able to hide it, getting up in front of a group had always been a nerve-wracking thing for him, even when that group was made up entirely of his friends. An unfortunate side effect of getting pushed around for sticking out, not that he would give anyone credit for that. Kurt loved to sing, and he loved having the spotlight-that didn’t mean it wasn’t also terrifying.
Which is why, walking up to the front of the choir room, the last of the group to perform for the assignment, about to sing in a completely different style than his usual and knowing full well that there were still individuals in the audience who weren’t happy with him, he was surprised to find that he was weirdly…not-terrified.
He didn’t need to turn around and pretend to shuffle sheet music on the piano while he breathed out the stomach-butterflies, the way he usually did. He didn’t feel the automatic defensiveness that usually made him straighten his back and look down his nose at his audience (not that that was any excuse for poor posture, of course). Puck pulled up a stool and did a quick tune of his guitar strings, and Kurt looked out at the rest of the club, calm and comfortable.
He hadn’t even prepared a pre-song speech. This one just sort of happened.
“This assignment, as we well know, was to sing about our summers. And my summer wasn’t anything I had expected it to be,” he began, “for a lot of reasons. I won’t go into all of them. Most of you know.” He looked at all of them, left to right. No one looked away. “But the most important thing about the summer was that it taught me a lot about family. What it can be, and what it should be. What it shouldn’t be. What it can look like.”
He took a slow breath. “Some of them were things I already knew, but not…well enough. This summer showed me that family isn’t straightforward. Sometimes what you started with isn’t where you end up. It showed me how perfectly logical it can be for someone to have two moms and one dad and a sister or brother who isn’t, and to be loved by so many more people than that. That a mother doesn’t stop being a mother just because she isn’t your first one.” He glanced at Finn, who beamed back. “That we aren’t doomed to become our parents, and we can choose what we do, even if we can’t choose who we are. And…other things in that general vein.”
Kurt cleared his throat. “In short, the moral of my summer was that nothing is more complicated than family, and nothing can hurt like family does, but also that nothing can heal like it does. And I wouldn’t have seen that if it hadn’t been for one person in particular. So, first and foremost, this song is for her.” He scanned his audience once more. “But not only for her.”
He turned and nodded to Puck, who looked back with an expression he couldn’t read before playing the opening strum. Kurt breathed deep, and began.
It wasn’t a song he would have chosen a year ago, or even six months ago, and it was a bit off to the side of his wheelhouse, but if he could sing Tenacious D, he could certainly pull off acoustic coffeehouse-rock. He scaled back his tone, relaxed it a little, sang it the way he would sing it to Beth.
She’d liked it when he’d sung it to her the day before, at no-longer-Shelby’s. It had reminded him of Edelweiss, a little. She’d kept watching him as he had slowly walked her from one end of the room to the other, singing at half-voice, trying out keys and styles and transpositions. Just the two of them.
“What to do about the second verse,” he’d murmured after working through the first one. The second verse was problematic, because it wasn’t true. “I hope you know that, Beth,” he’d said. “He isn’t walking away from you. If he had it his way, he would stay with you forever.” She had stared at him with big eyes--hazel, Shelby had been right--and he had flashed on his dad telling him the same thing about his mom after the phone call, after the tears. Resting his cheek on Beth’s hair, he’d said softly, “It would be so nice if mommies and daddies never had to leave.”
He’d made it work. Changed more lyrics than he generally liked to, but it worked. It actually added something to the song, in his personal opinion, to change ‘him’ to ‘them,’ and ‘she’ to ‘we.’
The only other change he made was for Puck, not that he’d told him that. Just a little three-word addition, the second time through. On behalf of every man, looking out for every boy and every girl, you are the God and the weight of their world.
Okay, four words. He dared John Mayer to come and throw down the gauntlet.
And there were points at which he carefully didn’t look at Quinn (girls become lovers, then turn into…) and points at which he carefully did not look at Rachel (so mothers, be good to your…), but he wasn’t really thinking about who was watching, or what they were thinking. This was his summer, and this was his song, and all the things that had been weighing him down at the end of the summer just…weren’t anymore.
He hadn’t seen Quinn since his last glimpse of her at the park, and while she looked a little gaunt and far away, the waves of hate-energy he’d been feeling from her earlier in the month were long gone. She sat alone, a couple of rows behind Santana and Brittany. Santana...Kurt had no idea what was going on there, but she and Puck had both been suspiciously late to lunch that day, and while Puck had just shaken his head when Kurt asked, Kurt was pretty sure her hate-energy was...well, closer to its normal level.
He and Mercedes had ended their last conversation on an uncertain note, but she had said hi to him (if a bit coolly) when he’d walked into the choir room, so there was hope. And yesterday Finn had assured him that Rachel had been talking a lot with her dads about the Shelby situation, and that while she wasn’t feeling great about anything, she was at least starting to figure out who she was really upset with, and Finn didn’t think it was Kurt.
Nothing tied up in a neat little bow--and he did love a neat little bow in his life now and then--but it was all...okay. Shifting. None of them were standing still.
So he sang, and he finished, and when his cheering section of Tina-Mike-Artie-Finn-Sam-Lauren whooped and whistled for him over the at-least-didn’t-look-ironic applause from the rest of the group, he smiled and took a bow.
Mr. Schuester was still clapping as he came to join him at the front, looking somewhere between pleasantly surprised and just relieved at a not-passive-aggressive song choice, and congratulated him on his exploration of different singing styles before taking the floor. Stepping off to the side by the stool, Kurt bumped Puck’s shoulder with his elbow. “Now’s your chance.”
“I was getting there,” Puck hissed back at him, then shook out his shoulders and raised his hand. “Mr. Schue?” he said, just barely beating Mr. Schuester’s start-of-motivational-speech hand-clap. “Hey. I know we’ve been on this assignment for like a month, but I’m gonna need a redo.”
Mr. Schuester pressed his lips together, and Kurt knew that expression, and that wouldn’t do. “Puck, I really think we should be moving on. Sectionals are going to be-“
“‘Cause I did it wrong,” Puck said, loud enough that Mr. Schuester paused. “Before. We’re supposed to sing about our summer. I sang something to get back at someone for pissing me off. That’s not what my summer was about.” He stood from the stool, shoulders back and chin high, and somehow looked taller than before. “My summer was about Beth.”
Mr. Schuester’s expression shifted as he made the connection, and Puck turned toward the rest of the club. “Some of you guys know that, but some of you don’t get it yet. It wasn’t about me being an ass, it wasn’t about going behind anyone’s back, it sure as hell wasn’t about any of you. It was about her.” He fearlessly met each gaze. “It was about getting her back. Being able to see her, talk to her, hold her. It was learning how to deal with caring about someone that much, and knowing that none of the bullshit I do is ever going to be anywhere close to how important she is. It was figuring out that I’m not a lost cause, because I can make her laugh, and getting over how I can’t always get her to calm down, but Hummel can do it just by spouting some Frenchie moonspeak at her.”
Kurt let out a breathy laugh along with some of the others, his chest aching along with the back of his throat.
“And it was about letting her go.” Puck swallowed hard. “And figuring out how to trust that we’ll get each other back, over and over again. Because when you’re tethered to someone that tight, that’s what you do.”
No one said a word. Puck’s gaze lingered a second longer on the group, catching briefly on Quinn, whose eyes were conspicuously bright, before he turned it back to Mr. Schuester.
“I want to sing about that.”
Fighting down his hug-and-cry instincts, Kurt looked out at the rest of the club. Finn grinned knowingly back at him, drumsticks and brushes already in hand, and the rest of the cheering section mirrored him, because even if they hadn’t been told exactly what Puck was going to do, they knew why he wanted to do it. Kurt smiled back at them. “All in favor of letting the man sing?”
Puck sang.
-
Continued…