good intentions; glee
Title: good intentions
Pairing: Sam/Kurt, past Sam/Quinn.
Summary: Sam has an idea for a comic book. It accidentally looks everything like Kurt. Set after Never Been Kissed.
Response to this prompt on the Sam/Kurt comm, written forever ago.
GOOD INTENTIONS
Sam doesn't actually notice at first.
The first planning sketches are a female character, after all, but after he spends a long hour scrutinizing her every curve and contour, he realises the boobs have got to go - he leaves the long eyelashes though, and pouted pink-pencilled over lips, and the perfect ass he's still very proud of himself for getting right, but - his main character is totally a dude.
A girly dude. All superheroes are built like absolute tanks in comic books, and Sam doesn't always get that when they slapping on some Be Yourself! moral to the story, because no teenage guy looks down at the beast on the page and finds anything to relate to, not really. This guy's different though. He's way out there. He'll beat people to shit and then head to the mall for a victory spree and everyone will freak out at how unexpectedly awesome it is and might be taught a real Be Yourself! lesson, even. Sam is 99% sure this is the best idea anyone's had, ever, because maybe it could actually help someone.
That someone is definitely not Puck.
"Dude," he says to Sam at lunch through a mouthful of Jacob-Ben-Israel-paid-for-sandwich. He's making a face down at the page. "Where are her tits at? Nobody's gonna read that shit."
Sam ignores the fact that Puck's talking about a guy, and not the intentionally flat-chested actual girl character beside him. He shrugs, abruptly nervous to have his drawings, his now looking dumber by the second idea spread all over the table to be judged, even if it's just he and Puck in a deserted music classroom. "It's not really like that," Sam explains, instead of pointing out it's a guy or flipping Puck the bird or any of that stuff he kind of wants to do. This is just the safest bet: just drop it.
Puck's frowning down at the pictures, squinting. He jabs a finger at one and says, like an accusation, "I've totally seen that ugly coat before."
Pause. Sam blinks at him, and Puck shifts for an awkward moment, his frown setting deeper.
He leans closer to Sam and asks him, lowly, "It's not a chick, is it?" like this homemade comic book is some huge deal. Sam doesn't really get it.
"No," he confirms slowly, shaking his head, and Puck must see that he isn't really following because he just shuts up about it and eats, and none of his suggestions afterwards for character names are even that lewd.
-
It's kind of awkward when he and Quinn are left alone in the room together after rehearsal, packing up. Partly because they broke up three weeks ago and haven't actually spoken since, but mostly because Sam's bag is stuffed with sketches threatening to spill out of a major villain with blond hair and pretty eyes and a striking resemblance to someone.
He's relieved when she leaves just in time to not-see the page that goes skidding across the floor of her very own doppelgänger trying out her evil new method of castration.
That could have been embarrassing.
-
Sam doesn’t actually notice for a while.
He's fallen back into drawing all over the place now. That was the upside to no inspiration - it meant his study notes weren't covered in doodles, his books weren't all wrecked with graffiti. He's in history and he hasn't taken anything in much at all because he's been waiting for the teacher to stop walking around aimlessly so he can safely start a masterpiece on the back page of his textbook.
He doesn't really know anyone in the class that well, and he's a bit tired of drawing his characters by this point since they're now all perfected and awaiting to by crafted into The Greatest Story Ever Told back home. Kurt's in the row ahead, to the left, and Sam's not into drawing practical strangers, so he starts sketching the flick of Kurt's hair, because they're friends at least, so it can't be that weird.
It looks good after ten minutes or so, but Kurt keeps shifting back to check his phone under the desk, and it's probably just Mercedes, really, although Kurt's face keeps breaking into this completely smitten smile that has Sam thinking otherwise (probably Blaine, in all his fancy Prince Charming glory, as Finn calls it) that has Sam rubbing out over and over and over in attempts to get it perfectly on his page. Other than that, he's actually pretty surprised at how easy he finds drawing Kurt.
He hasn't really looked at it yet, and the bell rings so suddenly that he doesn't even get to because Kurt teeters dangerously close to his table on the way out and Sam's been drawing the back of his head for the better part of an hour, now, which now seems weird and maybe Kurt catches a curious glimpse, but Sam slams the book shut as quickly as he can manage, feeling like his face has caught fire after he realises it is totally fucking weird.
Then Kurt looks like Sam's freaking him out. Sam's kind of freaking himself out, too.
-
So far, Sam’s got most of his characters cast pretty well. The heroines - like Monette, who’s kind of sassy but super awesome, and Lola, who’s kind of overbearing and annoying but totally a good person anyway - and the baddies - like that embarrassing Quinn-lookalike, or the newest character Gregory, with his evil curly hair and overcomplicated dialogue that mean Sam had to spend like, two hours on thesaurus.com to perfect.
But the protagonist - who he’s poured the most work into to do justice, from every meticulously crafted line and meticulously crafted, somewhat filthy outfit - the protagonist, who’s kind of the biggest deal anyway, is still nameless.
“Well,” Sam says after another hour of staring down his page, mind blank, “Shit.” He leaves it there for the time being.
-
Whenever Finn asks him about his lovelife and girls and when he’s getting out of the depression phase that he’s never actually been in, Sam always half-wants to tell him he’s too focused on his art, in a mostly jokey, but kind of serious way.
“You know,” Finn starts today, pressing pause on the Xbox 360 controller and turning to regard Sam fully, “Valentine’s Day is coming up.”
Puck looks up from the other side of Finn’s room. Sam doesn’t know if he looks so uncomfortable because they’re almost confronting the Quinn-left-Sam-for-him thing or if it’s something more to do with the way Puck keeps saying shit like, “You can tell me stuff,” and, “You know we’re friends, right?” - and it’s kind of sad that Sam’s best friend is some guy that he only understands about 5% of the time, really.
“Is it,” Sam says.
Finn nods, nonchalantly. “A lot of the Cheerios are single.”
“Are they,” Sam says.
Puck rolls his eyes and heaves something blurry but no doubt sharp across the room at Finn. “Learn some discretion, man. Drop it al-fucking-ready.”
Finn holds his hands up defensively. He’s making a ‘no harm intended’ face that he’s started wearing practically all the time. “Just saying,” he just says.
There’s tension all over Puck that Sam can feel radiating without even looking up from his shoes, but he doesn’t say anything else. Finn looks genuinely confused by everything that just happened and shakes his head like he’s forgetting about it, then turns his attention back to Halo, where it’s better suited anyway.
When Sam looks up and Puck, he gets a hard, meaningful smile in return, and - he doesn’t really know what’s going on anymore either.
-
Sam has to leave Finn’s house early to pick his sister up from a sleepover and to avoid dinner with Kurt’s dad, who seems like a sincerely nice guy but Sam seen him pin Karofsky against a wall once and threaten him in plain sight of their entire school faculty and it absolutely scared the shit out of him, so now whenever they’re left in a room alone together Sam likes to find reasons to run away to his car in what he’s sure must appear as an extremely manly and respectable fashion.
Finn’s house is always so loud, with his mom singing from the kitchen and Burt an attempting off-tune duet with her, Finn always on his drum-kit or yelling hate at Albert Wesker on the final level of Resident Evil 5, and Kurt’s always blaring music from his room or sitting inside with Mercedes and Tina, laughing loudly every other minute; the whole family just sort of yells at each other from opposite sides of the house. Sam thinks it’s weirdly nice and all, but he’s still not used to Carole making a big fuss over when he comes or goes and Burt shaking his hand in a friendly death grip that makes his arm go numb, so he tries to sneak out most of the time to avoid it all, and the majority of the time, he’s successful.
Tonight, he bumps into Kurt on the stairs on the way, which is the first time he’s seen him outside his room, really, and Sam’s finding it hard to form words because his mind is too distracted telling him over and over again Kurt’s in his pyjamas Kurt’s in his pyjamas Kurt’s in his fluffy slippers and fucking pyjamas.
“You’re in your pyjamas,” Sam greets him, intelligently.
Kurt blinks and then looks down at himself, his cheeks turning red. He looks like he’s about to knock Sam down a peg - and also really embarrassed - so Sam adds like he’s clarifying something, “They’re cute,” without even thinking and then Kurt just looks more flustered.
“I,” Kurt starts, crossing his arms and looking elsewhere like he’s a little desperate for this moment to end. “Okay, then.”
He sidesteps Sam looking confused and mortified and Sam doesn’t even realise why he’s so freaked or what’s just happened until he’s in his car, halfway home, giving some innocent pedestrian the fright of their life. He feels like dishing out a possible come-on to Kurt might mean something big, but on the other hand, he can’t help that they were just cute pyjamas.
“They were,” Sam tells his judgemental rear-view mirror, then he forgets about it.
-
The Saturday Sam intends to do nothing on ends up being kind of a big deal. There’s a car parked outside when he wakes up, someone knocking furiously at the front door and a few dozen texts lighting up his phone’s screen that are pretty much all charming variations of jesus h christ sammy answer your fuckin door.
Puck’s been indiscreetly leading up to this for forever now, and this whole spontaneously showing up at Sam’s house at three in the afternoon on a weekend - when they shouldn’t even be conscious yet, really - is entirely disconcerting and Sam’s brain can’t absorb it even a little. Puck doesn’t seem to get what he’s doing there either from the way he shifts on feet, scruffing his nicest pair of shoes on Sam’s welcome mat. It’s too early after waking for Sam to form words, so he just leads him upstairs to his room in a stumbling, sleepy-footed rush, as always; anything to delay Puck getting a look at the photos of his mom.
“What’s up?” Sam asks gruffly after he shuts the door. The piling dread in his stomach and every one of his reflexes telling him to make for the nearest window and be free from whatever is about to happen, because it doesn’t seem like these past few awkward weeks have been leading to anything good so far.
The desk creaks where Puck sits on it, shoulders tensed, eyes glued to the almost toppling pile of sketches next to him. He grabs the one at the top - formal protagonist outfit, from the very first chapter where he’s still trying to find a way out of the brainwashing academy - and his eyes flick to Sam for a moment, unreadable.
“Look, man,” he starts, and Sam can’t meet his eyes right now, but he’s willing to bet Puck can’t meet his, either. “You know we’re friends, right?” he repeats for the hundredth time.
“Yes,” is all Sam can say.
“Whatever’s going on with you, you can,” and then he grabs on to Sam’s shoulder and he and Puck have never actually touched before, he doesn’t think, so Sam stares at him in surprise to find Puck staring back, his jaw clenched and, “You can tell me.”
Sam thinks he might be expecting more than, “I just woke up,” but he doesn’t know what that is, so he says carefully, with a heavy nod, “I’ll keep that in mind,” and he’ll make sure to later to see if he can crack this code Puck’s speaking in just a bit.
It must be obvious Sam still isn’t comprehending, because Puck’s face settles back into a frown, brow furrowed, and he presses the drawing against Sam’s chest with a little force and his other hand pats Sam’s shoulder again, something like reassurance only Sam isn’t sure how. “You didn’t get the idea for this comic book shit out of nowhere,” Puck tells him, looking way too serious, “You aren’t that smart, man, fucking think about it.”
Sam feels half-asleep, confused to the point of a headache and vaguely offended, but he nods again, taking the drawing into his own hands and watching Puck’s fall back to his side then clench in and out of a fist. He tries to smile at Sam with something genuine in his eyes and Sam only woke up five minutes ago and he thinks it might already be the weirdest day of his life.
“Nice mom, by the way,” is Puck’s idea of goodbye, already halfway down the stairs, and by the time Sam’s front door shuts and he’s out, Sam’s just blinking down at his drawing, trying to find whatever Puck was talking about in it, but instead just flaws he’s yet to fix in his artwork; eyes that aren’t pretty enough, legs too short and smile too vacant.
-
Blaine comes to Lima the weekend after. He shows up at Rachel’s house, Kurt beaming at his side, and Finn lumbering in after them, his expression a mixture of anger and hurt and confusion like it always is after he and Kurt have had an argument blow out of proportion. Rachel takes Finn by the hand and rubs his back soothingly with the other, then leads him out onto the porch for some time privacy so it’s just Sam and Kurt and Blaine - there’s this strange tension in the room, in every bone in Sam’s body, and he doesn’t get it at all, why the way Blaine slides Kurt’s coat off his shoulders and hangs it up for him makes him feel off, it just does.
-
Somewhere between Rachel enthusiastically suggesting karaoke and Santana and Brittany’s somehow wildly inappropriate Disney duet, Sam starts doodling on one of the many - helpful, Rachel assured him - post-it notes dotting almost every room in the Berry’s house. It’s a tiny little sketch of his nameless main character but it’s still pretty good, and neat, for a drawing half-cut out by the words Shelf to be fixed ASAP! x in Rachel’s insanely loopy handwriting.
He doesn’t know when Blaine takes the empty seat next to him, but the next time he looks up, there he is, looking down at the scribbled over scrap of paper on Sam’s lap. He squints his head at it, apparently impressed, but Sam can feel his eyes flicking to his face over and over again like he’s trying to work something out, and it makes him a little uneasy.
“It looks like him,” Blaine remarks approvingly, and all the words are careful and enunciated in his mouth this way that hurts Sam’s heart, especially when he has to reply in his slurring Tennessee-poisoned voice, curiously, “Like who?”
Blaine blinks at him, then his gaze becomes intent, and something like a smile spreads on his face. “You’re very good,” he says after a moment, looking at Sam with approval. He leans a little too close and adds, “I’m sure he’d love to see it,” before standing, shooting Sam a winning smile, and walking back out of his life, into Rachel Berry’s kitchen.
Sam stares at the space next to him for a while, then his drawing, then the door Blaine walked out of, before stuffing the paper into his pocket and wishing desperately that people would start making sense to him again.
-
Sam thinks he might be a little in love, lately.
He’s still drawing all over his school books, penning his palms over, constantly in a demented scribbling phase even now. But now instead of badass heroes and heroines, everything - everything - is covered in lovehearts. His pages are mangled by borders of them, his notes are a jumbled - yet adorable - mess. They’re like sleeve-tattoos on his arms. He wants to stop before it’s noticed by someone outside glee club who won’t immediately assume it’s just another ‘Sam thing’ - like bad impressions and Biebercuts and ‘speaking in tongues’ - but when he his pen hits the paper in third period history, in a flash, where there should be a lengthy description on the Third Reich, there is instead a mortifying, gigantic love heart.
And inside it says Kurt.
Sam blinks at it. It doesn’t move.
His heart literally stops when Puck leans over to copy from him and sees it, but he doesn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary and just turns to the left, trying to coerce the answers out of Lauren, instead.
When Puck acknowledges it and Sam has remembered how to breathe again, the only thing he says is a thoughtful, “I’ve got a red marker in my bag if you’re looking for something to colour that with.”
For a minute Sam feels so confused and so creepy. Then he manages a nod, because that would probably look nice.
-
He stares in glee club.
He isn’t even aware of it starting: his eyes just seem like they constantly slide between where Mr Schue is demonstrating the choreography for a potential Nationals number and where Kurt is tying Tina’s hair into a neat plait with long, distracting fingers. Every once in a while he murmurs something into he ear and they giggle and Sam swears he can feel the breath on his own skin, in a warm, tickling gust and it’s actually really creepy, too.
“I can’t,” Sam starts in a whisper, then he chokes. Puck raises an eyebrow at him and leans closer, so Sam figures he may as well be out with it, since Puck seems to be more in-the-know about all of his Kurt-regarded feelings than he is himself. Quietly, in a strangled voice, Sam admits, “I can’t stop looking at Kurt today.”
He cautiously looks around at the other club members to see if they’ve heard, and when he turns back, Puck is looking at him almost pityingly.
“This is what you do every day in glee, Sammy,” he corrects him, reassuringly clapping Sam’s back. Sam blinks, and when he returns to watching the back of Kurt’s head, Puck turns back to Mr Schue and says, more to himself, “Fuck if it didn’t take you long enough.”
-
After rehearsal, Puck tries his hand at convincing Sam to say something to Kurt- it’s impressively enthusiastic, and a lot of manly shoulder squeezing and a lot of Puck asking ‘if he’s psyched yet’ or ‘are you gonna barf because it looks like you are gonna barf’ takes place, which is all actually kind of nice, if Sam thinks about it. Sam mostly thinks he’s about to barf, though.
“What would I even say?” he asks, throat dry. It’s completely rhetorical, but like the smartass he is, Puck hands him an appropriately smartass reply after rolling his eyes like it’s not the very valid question Sam feels it is.
“How about something like, ‘hi Kurt, I’ve spent the last four months drawing you in flimsy excuses for underwear and fuck-all else, let’s do lunch sometime.’” Puck puts on this low monotone voice to impersonate him that Sam would find offensive on any other occasion; right now he’s more focused on how his hands are sweating, how Kurt is standing a step down from them, how Puck’s suddenly got this crazy look in his eyes like he might ferociously hug him or ferociously destroy him in the next second.
“Look,” Puck starts, his voice soft. He hauls his bag over his shoulder and looks at his feet instead of Sam when he continues, “You can wait, if you want.” His eyes dart to Quinn on the piano-bench, tellingly. “I’m just gonna flat-out tell you, waiting is a pain in the ass. Waiting is for pussies, Sam, and I’m pretty sure guys like Kurt don’t go for pussies.” Then, after realizing what he’s just said, he clarifies, “Actually, I’m completely and one-hundred-percent sure they don’t, so, don’t,” and then he just punches Sam in his bad shoulder and leaves, like it’s all sorted from here on out.
His faith in Sam is surprising and mildly terrifying. Especially when the club members have filtered out to just he, Kurt and Finn, arguing loudly at the front of the room. Sam feels rude, like he’s eavesdropping, but after Finn leaves, Kurt buttons his blue coat to his collar-bone and looks up at Sam with a little smile.
The whole moment plays slow-motion in Sam’s head. It’s painfully rom-com-esque, the way Kurt’s smile warms him to his toes and makes his heart hammer hard enough in his chest to wonder why the whole world can’t hear it, the way his eyes looks shiny and unbelievably blue even in the bad lighting of public school. Kurt looks the exact same as always, and absolutely, heart-stoppingly different at the same time - Sam wants to draw him and write his name in a thousand lovehearts in every one of his notebooks and continue being irrationally hostile towards Blaine and this time to say something charming and win his heart in the irrefutable manner of Gene Kelly (although he’s admittedly always been a little more Chuck Bartowski). Sam doesn’t know if he’s ever thought so many things at once and it makes him feel dizzy and embarrassingly smitten.
He steps down to level with Kurt and stares deep into his eyes, starting with a promising, “You’re-”
Kurt blinks at him with big eyes and Sam falls in love.
He swallows, thickly, shakes his head and then opens up his backpack and then says, looking back up at Kurt determinedly, “I think this is for you.”
He hands Kurt the first issue of his stapled-together comic-book. It’s titled in big, obnoxious bubble-writing, ‘PROUD’, and for a moment Sam can’t believe it’s taken him so long to realize - this, all of this.
Kurt takes it from him, questioningly arching an eyebrow. He looks down at the cover, face becoming unreadable and blank. He opens the first page and stares. Flips through the entire thing then back to the cover, where he levitates in the middle of Time Square, covered head to toe in black and red patterned spandex and throwing a car into the distance. Sam watches his lip part. Watches him say, “Is it...” and trail off again, offering it back out to Sam, unsure.
“It’s you,” Sam assures him, earnestly. He curls Kurt’s fingers around it and grins, feeling impossibly light. “It’s all you,” he says.
He doesn’t know what to expect in return. If Kurt will like it. If Kurt will like it so much he kisses him or hate it so much he punches him in the face. If Kurt will proceed to strip off all of his clothes only to reveal a spandex suit beneath and that he has been a real superhero all along. Or if Kurt will just strip off all of his clothes to reveal - other stuff instead. Sam has no idea, but his heart just starts pounding anyway, just in case.
Kurt holds the comic against his chest, smiling. “Thank you, Sam,” he says with shiny eyes, and then he reaches out and squeezes Sam’s hand in his.
It’s definitely a start.
Pairing: Sam/Kurt, past Sam/Quinn.
Summary: Sam has an idea for a comic book. It accidentally looks everything like Kurt. Set after Never Been Kissed.
Response to this prompt on the Sam/Kurt comm, written forever ago.
GOOD INTENTIONS
Sam doesn't actually notice at first.
The first planning sketches are a female character, after all, but after he spends a long hour scrutinizing her every curve and contour, he realises the boobs have got to go - he leaves the long eyelashes though, and pouted pink-pencilled over lips, and the perfect ass he's still very proud of himself for getting right, but - his main character is totally a dude.
A girly dude. All superheroes are built like absolute tanks in comic books, and Sam doesn't always get that when they slapping on some Be Yourself! moral to the story, because no teenage guy looks down at the beast on the page and finds anything to relate to, not really. This guy's different though. He's way out there. He'll beat people to shit and then head to the mall for a victory spree and everyone will freak out at how unexpectedly awesome it is and might be taught a real Be Yourself! lesson, even. Sam is 99% sure this is the best idea anyone's had, ever, because maybe it could actually help someone.
That someone is definitely not Puck.
"Dude," he says to Sam at lunch through a mouthful of Jacob-Ben-Israel-paid-for-sandwich. He's making a face down at the page. "Where are her tits at? Nobody's gonna read that shit."
Sam ignores the fact that Puck's talking about a guy, and not the intentionally flat-chested actual girl character beside him. He shrugs, abruptly nervous to have his drawings, his now looking dumber by the second idea spread all over the table to be judged, even if it's just he and Puck in a deserted music classroom. "It's not really like that," Sam explains, instead of pointing out it's a guy or flipping Puck the bird or any of that stuff he kind of wants to do. This is just the safest bet: just drop it.
Puck's frowning down at the pictures, squinting. He jabs a finger at one and says, like an accusation, "I've totally seen that ugly coat before."
Pause. Sam blinks at him, and Puck shifts for an awkward moment, his frown setting deeper.
He leans closer to Sam and asks him, lowly, "It's not a chick, is it?" like this homemade comic book is some huge deal. Sam doesn't really get it.
"No," he confirms slowly, shaking his head, and Puck must see that he isn't really following because he just shuts up about it and eats, and none of his suggestions afterwards for character names are even that lewd.
-
It's kind of awkward when he and Quinn are left alone in the room together after rehearsal, packing up. Partly because they broke up three weeks ago and haven't actually spoken since, but mostly because Sam's bag is stuffed with sketches threatening to spill out of a major villain with blond hair and pretty eyes and a striking resemblance to someone.
He's relieved when she leaves just in time to not-see the page that goes skidding across the floor of her very own doppelgänger trying out her evil new method of castration.
That could have been embarrassing.
-
Sam doesn’t actually notice for a while.
He's fallen back into drawing all over the place now. That was the upside to no inspiration - it meant his study notes weren't covered in doodles, his books weren't all wrecked with graffiti. He's in history and he hasn't taken anything in much at all because he's been waiting for the teacher to stop walking around aimlessly so he can safely start a masterpiece on the back page of his textbook.
He doesn't really know anyone in the class that well, and he's a bit tired of drawing his characters by this point since they're now all perfected and awaiting to by crafted into The Greatest Story Ever Told back home. Kurt's in the row ahead, to the left, and Sam's not into drawing practical strangers, so he starts sketching the flick of Kurt's hair, because they're friends at least, so it can't be that weird.
It looks good after ten minutes or so, but Kurt keeps shifting back to check his phone under the desk, and it's probably just Mercedes, really, although Kurt's face keeps breaking into this completely smitten smile that has Sam thinking otherwise (probably Blaine, in all his fancy Prince Charming glory, as Finn calls it) that has Sam rubbing out over and over and over in attempts to get it perfectly on his page. Other than that, he's actually pretty surprised at how easy he finds drawing Kurt.
He hasn't really looked at it yet, and the bell rings so suddenly that he doesn't even get to because Kurt teeters dangerously close to his table on the way out and Sam's been drawing the back of his head for the better part of an hour, now, which now seems weird and maybe Kurt catches a curious glimpse, but Sam slams the book shut as quickly as he can manage, feeling like his face has caught fire after he realises it is totally fucking weird.
Then Kurt looks like Sam's freaking him out. Sam's kind of freaking himself out, too.
-
So far, Sam’s got most of his characters cast pretty well. The heroines - like Monette, who’s kind of sassy but super awesome, and Lola, who’s kind of overbearing and annoying but totally a good person anyway - and the baddies - like that embarrassing Quinn-lookalike, or the newest character Gregory, with his evil curly hair and overcomplicated dialogue that mean Sam had to spend like, two hours on thesaurus.com to perfect.
But the protagonist - who he’s poured the most work into to do justice, from every meticulously crafted line and meticulously crafted, somewhat filthy outfit - the protagonist, who’s kind of the biggest deal anyway, is still nameless.
“Well,” Sam says after another hour of staring down his page, mind blank, “Shit.” He leaves it there for the time being.
-
Whenever Finn asks him about his lovelife and girls and when he’s getting out of the depression phase that he’s never actually been in, Sam always half-wants to tell him he’s too focused on his art, in a mostly jokey, but kind of serious way.
“You know,” Finn starts today, pressing pause on the Xbox 360 controller and turning to regard Sam fully, “Valentine’s Day is coming up.”
Puck looks up from the other side of Finn’s room. Sam doesn’t know if he looks so uncomfortable because they’re almost confronting the Quinn-left-Sam-for-him thing or if it’s something more to do with the way Puck keeps saying shit like, “You can tell me stuff,” and, “You know we’re friends, right?” - and it’s kind of sad that Sam’s best friend is some guy that he only understands about 5% of the time, really.
“Is it,” Sam says.
Finn nods, nonchalantly. “A lot of the Cheerios are single.”
“Are they,” Sam says.
Puck rolls his eyes and heaves something blurry but no doubt sharp across the room at Finn. “Learn some discretion, man. Drop it al-fucking-ready.”
Finn holds his hands up defensively. He’s making a ‘no harm intended’ face that he’s started wearing practically all the time. “Just saying,” he just says.
There’s tension all over Puck that Sam can feel radiating without even looking up from his shoes, but he doesn’t say anything else. Finn looks genuinely confused by everything that just happened and shakes his head like he’s forgetting about it, then turns his attention back to Halo, where it’s better suited anyway.
When Sam looks up and Puck, he gets a hard, meaningful smile in return, and - he doesn’t really know what’s going on anymore either.
-
Sam has to leave Finn’s house early to pick his sister up from a sleepover and to avoid dinner with Kurt’s dad, who seems like a sincerely nice guy but Sam seen him pin Karofsky against a wall once and threaten him in plain sight of their entire school faculty and it absolutely scared the shit out of him, so now whenever they’re left in a room alone together Sam likes to find reasons to run away to his car in what he’s sure must appear as an extremely manly and respectable fashion.
Finn’s house is always so loud, with his mom singing from the kitchen and Burt an attempting off-tune duet with her, Finn always on his drum-kit or yelling hate at Albert Wesker on the final level of Resident Evil 5, and Kurt’s always blaring music from his room or sitting inside with Mercedes and Tina, laughing loudly every other minute; the whole family just sort of yells at each other from opposite sides of the house. Sam thinks it’s weirdly nice and all, but he’s still not used to Carole making a big fuss over when he comes or goes and Burt shaking his hand in a friendly death grip that makes his arm go numb, so he tries to sneak out most of the time to avoid it all, and the majority of the time, he’s successful.
Tonight, he bumps into Kurt on the stairs on the way, which is the first time he’s seen him outside his room, really, and Sam’s finding it hard to form words because his mind is too distracted telling him over and over again Kurt’s in his pyjamas Kurt’s in his pyjamas Kurt’s in his fluffy slippers and fucking pyjamas.
“You’re in your pyjamas,” Sam greets him, intelligently.
Kurt blinks and then looks down at himself, his cheeks turning red. He looks like he’s about to knock Sam down a peg - and also really embarrassed - so Sam adds like he’s clarifying something, “They’re cute,” without even thinking and then Kurt just looks more flustered.
“I,” Kurt starts, crossing his arms and looking elsewhere like he’s a little desperate for this moment to end. “Okay, then.”
He sidesteps Sam looking confused and mortified and Sam doesn’t even realise why he’s so freaked or what’s just happened until he’s in his car, halfway home, giving some innocent pedestrian the fright of their life. He feels like dishing out a possible come-on to Kurt might mean something big, but on the other hand, he can’t help that they were just cute pyjamas.
“They were,” Sam tells his judgemental rear-view mirror, then he forgets about it.
-
The Saturday Sam intends to do nothing on ends up being kind of a big deal. There’s a car parked outside when he wakes up, someone knocking furiously at the front door and a few dozen texts lighting up his phone’s screen that are pretty much all charming variations of jesus h christ sammy answer your fuckin door.
Puck’s been indiscreetly leading up to this for forever now, and this whole spontaneously showing up at Sam’s house at three in the afternoon on a weekend - when they shouldn’t even be conscious yet, really - is entirely disconcerting and Sam’s brain can’t absorb it even a little. Puck doesn’t seem to get what he’s doing there either from the way he shifts on feet, scruffing his nicest pair of shoes on Sam’s welcome mat. It’s too early after waking for Sam to form words, so he just leads him upstairs to his room in a stumbling, sleepy-footed rush, as always; anything to delay Puck getting a look at the photos of his mom.
“What’s up?” Sam asks gruffly after he shuts the door. The piling dread in his stomach and every one of his reflexes telling him to make for the nearest window and be free from whatever is about to happen, because it doesn’t seem like these past few awkward weeks have been leading to anything good so far.
The desk creaks where Puck sits on it, shoulders tensed, eyes glued to the almost toppling pile of sketches next to him. He grabs the one at the top - formal protagonist outfit, from the very first chapter where he’s still trying to find a way out of the brainwashing academy - and his eyes flick to Sam for a moment, unreadable.
“Look, man,” he starts, and Sam can’t meet his eyes right now, but he’s willing to bet Puck can’t meet his, either. “You know we’re friends, right?” he repeats for the hundredth time.
“Yes,” is all Sam can say.
“Whatever’s going on with you, you can,” and then he grabs on to Sam’s shoulder and he and Puck have never actually touched before, he doesn’t think, so Sam stares at him in surprise to find Puck staring back, his jaw clenched and, “You can tell me.”
Sam thinks he might be expecting more than, “I just woke up,” but he doesn’t know what that is, so he says carefully, with a heavy nod, “I’ll keep that in mind,” and he’ll make sure to later to see if he can crack this code Puck’s speaking in just a bit.
It must be obvious Sam still isn’t comprehending, because Puck’s face settles back into a frown, brow furrowed, and he presses the drawing against Sam’s chest with a little force and his other hand pats Sam’s shoulder again, something like reassurance only Sam isn’t sure how. “You didn’t get the idea for this comic book shit out of nowhere,” Puck tells him, looking way too serious, “You aren’t that smart, man, fucking think about it.”
Sam feels half-asleep, confused to the point of a headache and vaguely offended, but he nods again, taking the drawing into his own hands and watching Puck’s fall back to his side then clench in and out of a fist. He tries to smile at Sam with something genuine in his eyes and Sam only woke up five minutes ago and he thinks it might already be the weirdest day of his life.
“Nice mom, by the way,” is Puck’s idea of goodbye, already halfway down the stairs, and by the time Sam’s front door shuts and he’s out, Sam’s just blinking down at his drawing, trying to find whatever Puck was talking about in it, but instead just flaws he’s yet to fix in his artwork; eyes that aren’t pretty enough, legs too short and smile too vacant.
-
Blaine comes to Lima the weekend after. He shows up at Rachel’s house, Kurt beaming at his side, and Finn lumbering in after them, his expression a mixture of anger and hurt and confusion like it always is after he and Kurt have had an argument blow out of proportion. Rachel takes Finn by the hand and rubs his back soothingly with the other, then leads him out onto the porch for some time privacy so it’s just Sam and Kurt and Blaine - there’s this strange tension in the room, in every bone in Sam’s body, and he doesn’t get it at all, why the way Blaine slides Kurt’s coat off his shoulders and hangs it up for him makes him feel off, it just does.
-
Somewhere between Rachel enthusiastically suggesting karaoke and Santana and Brittany’s somehow wildly inappropriate Disney duet, Sam starts doodling on one of the many - helpful, Rachel assured him - post-it notes dotting almost every room in the Berry’s house. It’s a tiny little sketch of his nameless main character but it’s still pretty good, and neat, for a drawing half-cut out by the words Shelf to be fixed ASAP! x in Rachel’s insanely loopy handwriting.
He doesn’t know when Blaine takes the empty seat next to him, but the next time he looks up, there he is, looking down at the scribbled over scrap of paper on Sam’s lap. He squints his head at it, apparently impressed, but Sam can feel his eyes flicking to his face over and over again like he’s trying to work something out, and it makes him a little uneasy.
“It looks like him,” Blaine remarks approvingly, and all the words are careful and enunciated in his mouth this way that hurts Sam’s heart, especially when he has to reply in his slurring Tennessee-poisoned voice, curiously, “Like who?”
Blaine blinks at him, then his gaze becomes intent, and something like a smile spreads on his face. “You’re very good,” he says after a moment, looking at Sam with approval. He leans a little too close and adds, “I’m sure he’d love to see it,” before standing, shooting Sam a winning smile, and walking back out of his life, into Rachel Berry’s kitchen.
Sam stares at the space next to him for a while, then his drawing, then the door Blaine walked out of, before stuffing the paper into his pocket and wishing desperately that people would start making sense to him again.
-
Sam thinks he might be a little in love, lately.
He’s still drawing all over his school books, penning his palms over, constantly in a demented scribbling phase even now. But now instead of badass heroes and heroines, everything - everything - is covered in lovehearts. His pages are mangled by borders of them, his notes are a jumbled - yet adorable - mess. They’re like sleeve-tattoos on his arms. He wants to stop before it’s noticed by someone outside glee club who won’t immediately assume it’s just another ‘Sam thing’ - like bad impressions and Biebercuts and ‘speaking in tongues’ - but when he his pen hits the paper in third period history, in a flash, where there should be a lengthy description on the Third Reich, there is instead a mortifying, gigantic love heart.
And inside it says Kurt.
Sam blinks at it. It doesn’t move.
His heart literally stops when Puck leans over to copy from him and sees it, but he doesn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary and just turns to the left, trying to coerce the answers out of Lauren, instead.
When Puck acknowledges it and Sam has remembered how to breathe again, the only thing he says is a thoughtful, “I’ve got a red marker in my bag if you’re looking for something to colour that with.”
For a minute Sam feels so confused and so creepy. Then he manages a nod, because that would probably look nice.
-
He stares in glee club.
He isn’t even aware of it starting: his eyes just seem like they constantly slide between where Mr Schue is demonstrating the choreography for a potential Nationals number and where Kurt is tying Tina’s hair into a neat plait with long, distracting fingers. Every once in a while he murmurs something into he ear and they giggle and Sam swears he can feel the breath on his own skin, in a warm, tickling gust and it’s actually really creepy, too.
“I can’t,” Sam starts in a whisper, then he chokes. Puck raises an eyebrow at him and leans closer, so Sam figures he may as well be out with it, since Puck seems to be more in-the-know about all of his Kurt-regarded feelings than he is himself. Quietly, in a strangled voice, Sam admits, “I can’t stop looking at Kurt today.”
He cautiously looks around at the other club members to see if they’ve heard, and when he turns back, Puck is looking at him almost pityingly.
“This is what you do every day in glee, Sammy,” he corrects him, reassuringly clapping Sam’s back. Sam blinks, and when he returns to watching the back of Kurt’s head, Puck turns back to Mr Schue and says, more to himself, “Fuck if it didn’t take you long enough.”
-
After rehearsal, Puck tries his hand at convincing Sam to say something to Kurt- it’s impressively enthusiastic, and a lot of manly shoulder squeezing and a lot of Puck asking ‘if he’s psyched yet’ or ‘are you gonna barf because it looks like you are gonna barf’ takes place, which is all actually kind of nice, if Sam thinks about it. Sam mostly thinks he’s about to barf, though.
“What would I even say?” he asks, throat dry. It’s completely rhetorical, but like the smartass he is, Puck hands him an appropriately smartass reply after rolling his eyes like it’s not the very valid question Sam feels it is.
“How about something like, ‘hi Kurt, I’ve spent the last four months drawing you in flimsy excuses for underwear and fuck-all else, let’s do lunch sometime.’” Puck puts on this low monotone voice to impersonate him that Sam would find offensive on any other occasion; right now he’s more focused on how his hands are sweating, how Kurt is standing a step down from them, how Puck’s suddenly got this crazy look in his eyes like he might ferociously hug him or ferociously destroy him in the next second.
“Look,” Puck starts, his voice soft. He hauls his bag over his shoulder and looks at his feet instead of Sam when he continues, “You can wait, if you want.” His eyes dart to Quinn on the piano-bench, tellingly. “I’m just gonna flat-out tell you, waiting is a pain in the ass. Waiting is for pussies, Sam, and I’m pretty sure guys like Kurt don’t go for pussies.” Then, after realizing what he’s just said, he clarifies, “Actually, I’m completely and one-hundred-percent sure they don’t, so, don’t,” and then he just punches Sam in his bad shoulder and leaves, like it’s all sorted from here on out.
His faith in Sam is surprising and mildly terrifying. Especially when the club members have filtered out to just he, Kurt and Finn, arguing loudly at the front of the room. Sam feels rude, like he’s eavesdropping, but after Finn leaves, Kurt buttons his blue coat to his collar-bone and looks up at Sam with a little smile.
The whole moment plays slow-motion in Sam’s head. It’s painfully rom-com-esque, the way Kurt’s smile warms him to his toes and makes his heart hammer hard enough in his chest to wonder why the whole world can’t hear it, the way his eyes looks shiny and unbelievably blue even in the bad lighting of public school. Kurt looks the exact same as always, and absolutely, heart-stoppingly different at the same time - Sam wants to draw him and write his name in a thousand lovehearts in every one of his notebooks and continue being irrationally hostile towards Blaine and this time to say something charming and win his heart in the irrefutable manner of Gene Kelly (although he’s admittedly always been a little more Chuck Bartowski). Sam doesn’t know if he’s ever thought so many things at once and it makes him feel dizzy and embarrassingly smitten.
He steps down to level with Kurt and stares deep into his eyes, starting with a promising, “You’re-”
Kurt blinks at him with big eyes and Sam falls in love.
He swallows, thickly, shakes his head and then opens up his backpack and then says, looking back up at Kurt determinedly, “I think this is for you.”
He hands Kurt the first issue of his stapled-together comic-book. It’s titled in big, obnoxious bubble-writing, ‘PROUD’, and for a moment Sam can’t believe it’s taken him so long to realize - this, all of this.
Kurt takes it from him, questioningly arching an eyebrow. He looks down at the cover, face becoming unreadable and blank. He opens the first page and stares. Flips through the entire thing then back to the cover, where he levitates in the middle of Time Square, covered head to toe in black and red patterned spandex and throwing a car into the distance. Sam watches his lip part. Watches him say, “Is it...” and trail off again, offering it back out to Sam, unsure.
“It’s you,” Sam assures him, earnestly. He curls Kurt’s fingers around it and grins, feeling impossibly light. “It’s all you,” he says.
He doesn’t know what to expect in return. If Kurt will like it. If Kurt will like it so much he kisses him or hate it so much he punches him in the face. If Kurt will proceed to strip off all of his clothes only to reveal a spandex suit beneath and that he has been a real superhero all along. Or if Kurt will just strip off all of his clothes to reveal - other stuff instead. Sam has no idea, but his heart just starts pounding anyway, just in case.
Kurt holds the comic against his chest, smiling. “Thank you, Sam,” he says with shiny eyes, and then he reaches out and squeezes Sam’s hand in his.
It’s definitely a start.