seven for a secret (never to be told) - chapter 4 (5/7)
Pairing: Blaine/Kurt, OC/Kurt, eventual Puck/Kurt
Rating: R
Spoilers: none
Warnings: domestic abuse (physical, sexual, emotional), noncon, dubcon, eating disorder, violence, infidelity, homophobic language
Wordcount: 2,271
Summary: Rick and Kurt were perfect together. Now they're not, because Kurt isn't good enough anymore.
In this chapter: Puck stays. Puck helps.
A/N: this is an ancient (almost) fill for this prompt over at the angst meme.
Chapter 4
Puck wasn’t sure what possessed him to enter the Hummel-Hudson house in the first place. Well, he actually did know why he did it, but still… he could have run. He could have disappeared from the face of Earth. Instead of doing that he chose seeking help.
Standing in the rain on the sidewalk by the house, Puck felt bad about intruding on them like this. They had a lot on their plates now that Kurt was back. He didn’t know what the deal was but Carole’s tone when she phoned him had been bad enough. Being asked to clean the basement of all items not necessary for living had been worse. Still… it was Lima, fucking Ohio, and now that most of his friends were gone there was no other place for Puck to go to.
He hesitated with the doorbell. He didn’t really want to wake the others up, especially with all the shit going on… With a sigh Puck pulled out his phone and sent Finn a short message. A minute or two later the door opened and a puffy-eyed Finn poked his head outside.
“Puck?” the taller man mumbled sleepily. “What’s - holy shit!”
“Hi," Puck grinned sheepishly. The movement burned the side of his face. Not a good idea. “Can I come in?”
“What… yeah, yeah, come on!” Finn stepped back. “Just be quiet… Last night was, uh, kinda rough.”
“Kay. Sorry.”
Water pooled on the floor beneath Puck. Thankfully there was a thick carpet on the laminate floor absorbing most of it. Finn disappeared for a few seconds and when he returned, he came equipped with a soft-looking towel.
“Here," Finn spoke. “Let’s go to the kitchen… We need to clean your face.”
“Thanks.”
Puck took the towel gratefully and dabbed at his face, drying the small rivulets of rain water dampening his skin. The white fabric came back dotted with blood. After toeing off his shoes Puck followed Finn into the kitchen.
Into the bright lights.
“Oh God," Finn gasped. “You… what happened?”
Puck shrugged. He knew he looked like shit; the stinging pain on his right cheek told tales coherent enough and with hours spent wandering on the rainy streets of Lima, the bruise was sure to be blooming. His nose wasn’t broken, thankfully, but the blood… yeah. A car wreck left people in better conditions than this. Probably.
“Mom didn’t exactly appreciate what I had to tell her," Puck mumbled, wiping at his neck. “Ouch. Dude, is there Tylenol or something in this house?”
“What did… yeah, sure. Just a sec. Sit down somewhere?”
Finn walked past Puck to one of the kitchen cabinets. Puck didn’t comment on the padlock on the door despite his risen curiosity; it hadn’t been there before, he was sure. Now probably wasn’t the best time to ask about the fucked up life of Kurt Hummel, though. Alvaro. Whatever.
A quiet chortle from the doorway caught Puck’s attention. He turned around, mouth falling open to gape in shock at the sight.
‘Speak of the devil’, he might have joked if he’d been able to do anything else. He wasn’t, though, not when he actually saw Kurt for the first time in years. And oh boy, what had those years done to the guy…
Puck remembered Kurt as a strong person. A person who, despite his tiny build, had the attitude and pride to compensate for it. A person who looked absolutely perfect on every fucking occasion, like a model right off the catwalk.
This was the total opposite. Skinny and obviously malnourished, this Kurt was a ghost of the boy in Puck’s memories. And if his own injuries had looked bad a few seconds ago, they were nothing when compared to the multicolored bruising covering every inch of visible skin.
“Kurt…” Finn spoke suddenly. He sounded alarmed. Puck wasn’t surprised - he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed by far, but even he could put together the puzzle and fill in the blanks.
Kurt made no move. He was staring at Puck just like Puck was staring at him; eyes wide in shock, lips trembling, and damn if he didn’t look about ready to break down right there. He didn’t, though.
“Oh no…” Kurt whispered.
It was sudden, too fast for Puck to even realize, but somehow Kurt managed to pull a pack of those antiseptic wet wipe things seemingly out of nowhere (well, at least that hadn’t changed) and in seconds he was standing right in front of Puck. His blue eyes were impossibly huge and Puck didn’t even register the sound of a foil packed ripping until something white appeared in his line of sight.
His head spun around. Kurt stumbled back a step.
“Kurt?” Finn asked again. Puck hadn’t noticed him moving. “Is everything okay?”
“Oh, sorry, sorry," Kurt mumbled breathlessly, looking absolutely terrified. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that, I’m sorry…”
Kurt kept on rambling his apologies. The words slurred together in Puck’s ears when he looked at Finn, unsure of what to do. Finn mouthed something and waved haphazardly around with his hands.
O-kay?
“Kurt," Puck interrupted, trying to sound as nice as possible. “You… you didn’t do anything wrong.”
Finn nodded, flashed a bright smile and stuck his thumps up behind Kurt’s back. Puck took this as a sign to continue.
“You, uh, you can like… do stuff with that wipe.” Puck bobbed his head up and down. “Like totally.”
It took many words of encourage before Kurt’s hand moved from where it had dropped to his sides. The wipe was cold against Puck’s cheek and no matter how gentle Kurt was, the antiseptic stung, but even so he did his best to stay still.
If Kurt Hummel had been broken, what hope for future did the rest have?
Almost a week later Puck’s face had turned from a shade of dark red to a clearly purple color. The bruise swelled and ached, still sore, and it was hard to believe that one smack from a small woman could have done that. It had, though. There was no denying it.
Almost a week later Puck followed Finn home after a day at work. While Finn disappeared upstairs to take a shower - guy had somehow spilled more oil than BP and stank of the stuff - Puck found himself sitting on the living room sofa next to Kurt. The brunet glanced at him and took a swig of his red Gatorade, but didn’t say a word.
“Wassup, Princess?” Puck grinned, catching his mistake the second the word had passed his lips. “Kurt.”
The look Puck got was longer than the one before, less calculating. Still, Kurt didn’t answer. When he turned away, the yellow-edged bruise around his neck stretched along the skin.
“You look like shit.”
He shouldn’t have said that, Puck thought mere seconds later - Kurt would flip out, panic, do some stupid shit and it’d all be his fault. Blaine, whose arrival Puck hadn’t noticed, cleared his throat but before he could intervene Kurt had raised his eyebrow.
“Rather eloquent, Puckerman," he spoke slowly. He was testing the waters, seeing how far he could go. “Then again, I wouldn’t except any less from you. And your face is just horrid.”
“Right. What’re we watching?”
“Harry Potter and.. The Chamber of Secrets. It was on.”
“Oh, okay.” Puck shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, and thanks. For cleaning my face. You know.”
Kurt was silent for a long time. Puck assumed that he just went back to his own world and the movie playing on the enormous flat screen, so he did the same.
“Kurt," Blaine’s voice spoke from the door. “I’m sure Noah won’t mind if you ask him.”
Puck frowned and looked between the two others, only now noticing the nervous tilt of Kurt’s head and the way he kept on stealing hesitating glances in Puck’s direction.
“Yeah," Puck echoed, earning a nod of approval from Blaine. “I won’t mind. Go on, ask. If you want to.”
The last four words he added hastily. ‘Don’t give orders’ had been one of the rules he’d agreed to obey when Burt allowed him to stay in the house. Blaine had been given the same speech, apparently, or then the guy was just brilliant at observing and fixing. Puck didn’t know.
“Oh," Kurt muttered quietly. “Well, uh… What happened to your face?”
Puck had to fight to keep his face neutral. He looked at Blaine, silent until he black-haired man gave him a permission.
“I told mom I was, you know, pan. She didn’t take it too well.”
“Oh.”
All three of them left it at that.
“Well, someone looks happy today. Got laid or something?”
Puck looked up from the car motor he was checking when Finn all but bounced in, hopping around like Little Red Riding Hood on her way to the grandma’s. The man smiled brightly when he stopped next to the age-old Volvo.
“Nope!” Finn grinned. “Even better!”
“Even better? Dude, there’s nothing better than getting laid.”
A frown appeared on Finn’s face for a split second but soon it was gone, replaced by the thousand watt grin. He looked around the garage before leaning in.
“Kurt ate toast today!” Finn beamed. If possible, his expression gained another level of pure happiness. “Like, it was just one piece and without butter or anything but he really ate it and oh my God, I just like wanna go and scream at the rooftops!”
For whatever reason, Puck thought that he might have to join Finn in his craziness because the news were totally awesome.
“Kurt, sweetie, do you mind getting the plates?”
“Sure, no problem.”
Puck pressed closer to the kitchen countertops when Kurt walked up to him. They were all eating dinner together, something Puck hadn’t experienced since his mom disowned him. Carole, the amazing woman she was, had all but forced him to join their Friday night tradition when she heard about this.
“How many knives was I supposed to get again? Three?”
“Two," Finn answered. “Cause I’ve got, like, three in my hands. So. That’s five, isn’t it? Two plus three?”
“Yes, Finn, two plus three is five," Kurt sighed patiently. “Honestly, I don’t kno-oh.”
It all happened in a split second. The sound of a pile of plates crashing against floor tiles caused Puck to spin around to see what had happened, and everything just snowballed from there. Kurt saw the raised hand holding two knives, then the mess on the floor, then the body towering above him - and before Puck could react, he was crying on the floor.
“Don’t hit me!” Kurt yelped, covering behind his arms. “Please don’t hit me!”
Puck couldn’t breathe through the thickness constricting his throat. He stepped back until his back hit the edge of the counters, speechless, only able to stare at Kurt. The brunet pleaded, cried, tried to gather the broken plates with his bare hands. The sight of blood only made him cry harder.
Through this all he begged Puck to not hit him.
Puck had never felt this sick before.
They were sitting on the sofa, Puck and Kurt, watching some random car shows - Puck honestly had no idea which ones - when Finn pushed Blaine into the living room. Kurt’s expression brightened in seconds and he reached with his arms, inviting the black-haired man into a hug. Blaine was quick to comply.
“Oh wow, you look good!” he laughed. “A lot better since the last time.”
“I ate three stripes of bacon yesterday," Kurt boasted. “And I didn’t, well, you know.”
Puck wasn’t the only one to ignore the embarrassed blush or the implication of the words. Blaine just laughed louder, ruffling Kurt’s carefully styled hair that still lacked shine even in Puck’s eyes, and plopped down on the sofa. Kurt raised his feet, wrapped in a blanket, and laid them on Blaine’s lap.
A small part of Puck wanted to growl. The other wanted to poke out his tongue. Then there was the third side quite happy with hugging the body snuggling to his chest.
Not that he was jealous or everything. For real.
It was an accident when Puck stumbled into Kurt’s bedroom. He knocked the door and after receiving no reply of any kind he had no choice but to rush in, scared out of his mind. Kurt was silent. Kurt wasn’t supposed to be silent. Even months after his return, it was one of the rules.
As soon as he reached the floor and saw the open bathroom door, Puck knew the reason for the quietness.
Kurt was standing in the middle of the room, wearing nothing but a pair of loose boxer briefs that looked like they had fit him once. He stared at a large mirror, seemingly transfixed with it, while his fingers moved along the curves of his side. He didn’t notice Puck standing in the doorway. He didn’t notice Puck studying the pale skin.
A small smile grew on Puck’s lips. He only saw one bruise and that was the one on Kurt’s knee, the one he got after an unfortunate stumble caused by a wrinkled carped and a table. The scars where there, though, marring skin that hadn’t seen sun in a few months, and Kurt’s ribs were still visible.
Puck didn’t mean to step forward. He didn’t mean to stand behind Kurt’s back. He didn’t mean to lay his palms on sharp hipbones. He didn’t mean to kiss the pale shoulder.
He did, though.
And Kurt pressed closer, smiling slightly.
>>chapter 5