Five Times The Guys Temporarily Forgot About Girls (And One Time It Stuck)
Title: Five Times The Guys Temporarily Forgot About Girls (And One Time It Stuck)
Pairing(s): Finn Hudson/Noah Puckerman, Finn Hudson/Kurt Hummel, Finn Hudson/Sam Evans, Noah Puckerman/Sam Evans, Noah Puckerman/Kurt Hummel, Kurt Hummel/Sam Evans
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Spoilers: Through S2.
Summary: Six instances in which the boys of Glee are rather gay.
1
It wasn’t one of those things that gets planned out, marked on a calendar, decided in advance. He doesn’t really do that with anyone, come to think of it; Finn Hudson has never been a Planner. He’s a Doer. A Doer who Does things and then sometimes comes to regret it later.
When he’s fifteen, he sort of Does his best friend.
Yeah. Like that.
Oops.
It’s not intentional, and he does sort of regret it-and also sort of not. Depending on your definition of “regret.” If the word calls to mind self-loathing and endless nights kept up in torment, then, no, not really. He can’t say he finds giving Noah Puckerman a handjob in his bedroom particularly regret-worthy in the sense of ‘oh God, oh God, what have I done’-although he did have that moment.
Except that moment kind of came in the moment.
You know those times where you just sort of trip and fall onto a situation? Yeah. It was like that. Finn’s used to tripping and falling places he doesn’t mean to be. He does it all the time. It’s how he broke his mom’s favorite lamp, four of her best plates, and his first Playstation, in fact. Tripping, falling, ruining things: it’s kind of Finn’s bag.
So, today, when he “trips and falls”-from a certain perspective-in the middle of one of their weekly Dude-Bro Porn Afternoons-which is not gay, okay, not if they’re watching chicks do each other; it’s just that Puck’s mom has this thing about monitoring the activity on the family computer, and the dude really can’t go the whole summer without steady doses of porn. Finn’s his best friend, what else is he supposed to do?-the first thing he thinks is, Oh fuck. I broke this too.
The thing is, he can’t break his friendship with Noah Puckerman. He just can’t. They’ve been bros since the dawn of preschool, and he really doesn’t want that to ever go away. Puck keeps him cool, keeps him thinking when shit gets bad, and he has a classic Pacman arcade system in his bedroom. It’s not the sort of thing Finn ever plans on giving up unless he has to.
When, in the middle of watching Busty Brunette 1 fingerbang the shit out of Raunchy Redhead 2, his hand slips from his own dick and lands on Puck’s instead-that might be the thing marked “has to.”
He isn’t surprised when Puck’s eyes fly open, his jaw dropping. He is slightly more shocked that the next thing he feels isn’t a punch in the eye so much as Puck’s hand curling around his wrist.
“Dude.”
Finn swallows, hand stilling instantly. “Yeah?”
“Wanna tell me why you’re handlin’ Puckzilla like a chick?”
“Sorry. Sorry.” Head shaking, Finn moves to withdraw entirely. Strong fingers tighten around his wrist, holding him in place.
“We never talk about it,” Puck growls in a low, slightly strangled voice, even as he gives a tug that very clearly means keep going, dipshit. “Got that? Never.”
“Right,” Finn answers, a bit too eagerly, and this is the part where he starts to wonder what the fuck he thinks he’s doing. Smashed onto a tiny cot of a bed, listening to the slightly-too-fake moans coming from his computer screen, holding his best friend’s junk in the hand that should be working his own-it’s insane. It’s gross.
And he’s pretty sure that this? Has officially crossed over into gay territory.
Still, Puck is leaning back on his hands, face scrunched up the way Finn has seen a million times and never really stopped to admire, and he has to admit there is something pretty great about this level of power.
When it’s over-and, seriously, how does Puck manage to hang on so much longer than Finn ever can? It’s seriously unfair-Finn wipes his hand on the bedspread and stares down at his sneakers. Puck reaches over to click the pause button.
“Never,” he repeats in that same low tone, socking Finn hard in the thigh. “Or I’ll kick your ass six ways past the Sabbath.”
Finn nods, wincing. Puck stands and stretches, buttoning his jeans in the next motion and glancing towards the door. This is it-the moment their friendship curls and shrivels like paper tossed into a fireplace.
“Mortal Kombat?” Puck asks, already switching the console on and chucking a controller into Finn’s lap. It just barely missing nailing him in the jewels. He coughs.
“Yeah. Definitely.”
That’s it, all there is to it. When summer ends, Puck picks up Santana Lopez. A few months later, Finn starts dating Quinn Fabray. They never speak of their Dude-Bro Porn Afternoons again.
He doesn’t regret in the typical, ‘haunted forever’ sort of way.
It just sort of…works its way into his brain from time to time.
Which isn’t gay.
Right?
2
Kurt Hummel is kind of like a girl. Well, not really. Not totally. He’s got dude-parts and everything-Finn’s seen the bulge in his too-tight jeans, because who the hell hasn’t? Seriously, the guy’s sperm count must be about as high as a chick’s by this point, the shit he wears. But in the long run?
Kurt’s kind of girly.
And sometimes-Finn will die before he admits this to anyone-it’s almost kind of hot.
Almost.
Kind of.
Ish.
He blames Glee for doing this to him, warping his brain this way and that. Before Glee, Finn Hudson was a stud (sort of), a powerhouse of manhood (or so he likes to think, even if Quinn does spend most of her time figuratively stomping on his balls). Before Glee, Finn Hudson was The Man.
Now, he’s kind of just That Guy Who Sometimes Breaks Into Song.
It’s ruining him.
And Kurt isn’t helping, with his doe-eyed expressions and all the prancing around he does. He’s everywhere, following Finn like a puppy without a leash, and normally it drives him up the wall, but today…
He’s tired. He hasn’t slept in what feels like three weeks, and except for that brief hopped-up-on-blue-meanies thing (Mrs. Schuester got in so much trouble for that, so he figures he ought to stay away from the drugs from now on), it doesn’t seem to be getting any better. Quinn is pregnant, Puck is being an asshole, Rachel is getting more attractive by the minute, and Kurt-
Kurt is prodding him repeatedly in the forehead with one delicate, girly fingertip.
It’s too much.
“What?” he explodes, eyes flying open. Kurt, to his credit, doesn’t flinch.
“You missed History. Again.”
He wants to ask what Kurt could possibly care about him missing History, since Finn himself really couldn’t give a shit, but those big eyes are staring at him like that kitten he once brought home, right before his mom told him they couldn’t afford to feed anything that didn’t live in a tank.
And then he killed eighteen consecutive goldfish, and his mom gave up on that idea too.
“Stop looking at me like that!” he snaps, hot guilt seeping under his skin when Kurt blinks and takes a step back.
“I wasn’t aware I was being offensive with the power of my eyes.”
“Well…you are,” Finn splutters, probing with forehead with splayed fingers. Kurt’s cheeks are rosy, his eyes are bright, and with this level of exhaustion, he’s looking entirely too close to pretty for Finn’s comfort. “Just…go away, will you? Please?”
The huffy noise that leaves Kurt’s lips makes Finn wonder what other noises the boy is capable of-which only makes his head pound harder. He’s already done this one before, and with Puck, it was okay. Forgive, forget, never fucking mention it again. But Kurt? Kurt is gay. Really gay. Rainbows and pride parades and that Logo network he sometimes flicks through when there’s nothing else on. He’s the kind of gay you don’t come back from.
And right now, the fact that Finn kind of-maybe-almost wants to kiss him is also gay.
Really gay.
The kind you don’t come back from.
He lurches from his seat, pushing past the smaller boy, and sighs. “Sorry, dude. I’m sorry. I’m just wiped out, you know? I shouldn’t take it out on you.”
“No,” Kurt replies primly, “you shouldn’t.” He hesitates, one hand dangling limply at his side, like he’s resisting the temptation to reach out to Finn. “Are you all right?”
No, Finn wants to blurt, I’m anything but. Except that would lead to questions like “why” and “what’s wrong” and he can’t answer those. Not if he wants to keep Quinn’s secret from the rest of the school. Kurt’s a good guy, he’s pretty sure, but he’s got a big mouth and Mercedes Jones for a best friend. The last thing Finn needs right now-apart from giving in and pressing his mouth against the gayest pair of lips ever to roam McKinley’s halls, anyway-is to betray the mother of his child.
“Yeah, dude,” he manages, smiling weakly. “Totally. Just have a lot on my table.”
“Plate,” Kurt amends for him, tucking that wayward hand into his back pocket and smiling. “A lot on your plate. I get it.”
“Yeah?” Hopefully, he smiles back, ignoring the flutter in his chest when Kurt shrugs.
“You’re a busy man, Finn Hudson.”
A busy man. Yeah, that sums him up pretty well. A busy football-playing, song-singing, baby-having, Rachel-dwelling man.
Who sometimes falls asleep at night thinking about Kurt Hummel’s very girly mouth.
Normal.
3
Sam Evans is going to be his new best friend. Not that Sam knows it yet, but Finn is positive he’s right. The kid is cool. He’s new, he can sing, and best of all, he has never stolen a girl out from under Finn’s nose (unlike certain other ex-best friends who will remain Noah Puckerman). He’s great. Finn likes him from day one.
Thing is, Sam doesn’t seem to know how to be somebody’s best friend.
It’s weird. Finn is doing everything he can to get under the dude’s skin, but all Sam ever does is nod politely in his direction and then walk the other way. It’s almost like he’s blowing him off-except Finn hasn’t even done anything yet to deserve it.
It happens in the halls, it happens in Glee, and now it’s happening after football practice. The only thing Finn can think is that he is not a bad guy, and he certainly doesn’t deserve the constant cold shoulder from a kid who barely even knows him. He’s going to fix this. Now.
There’s something to be said for taking the reins back. He’s pretty sure.
The locker room is empty, apart from the sounds of Sam belting some Rascal Flatts song in the shower. Finn changes slowly back into his jeans and polo, then sits down to wait. There’s no shame in cornering a man, he tells himself firmly, if all else fails.
And besides, it’s not like he’s planning on chucking Sam in the dumpster or something.
When he emerges, one towel wrapped around his waist, another covering dripping blonde hair, Finn squares his shoulders. Go for it.
“Hey, Sam!”
Okay, a little too brightly, maybe. The kid jumps a mile, just barely keeping hold of the towel protecting his man-bits. Finn frowns sheepishly.
“Sorry.”
Sam stares at him, looking very much like that mailman he ran over with his mother’s car that one time, and Finn shuffles uncomfortably on the bench. “Just. Uh. Wanted to say hi. See how you were doing.”
“Great,” Sam replies, trying for a smile and winding up looking more like he was just punched in the gnads. “I’m great. How are you?"
“Awesome!” Finn shoots back, which isn’t entirely true, but hey, what’s the harm in a little white lie in the name of friendship?
Sam blinks at him, puffy lips spread open in obvious confusion. “Cool. Uh. What are you still doing here?”
Finn’s shoulders raise and drop as carelessly as he can manage. “Just wanted to talk.”
“About what?” Sam returns to towel-drying his hair, restlessly glancing from Finn’s face to the door and back again. It’s weird that the dude won’t even look at him, like he’s hiding something.
“I dunno.” Hands tighten nervously against his jeans, his whole body feeling too tightly-strung. He feels bad, being here right now, even though he hasn’t done a damn thing to deserve it. He feels bad because Sam is clearly uncomfortable-for no reason at all.
“You like comic books?” he asks suddenly, pleased when Sam’s mouth stretches into a surprised smile.
“Sure. Spider-man’s the coolest.”
“I’m more of a Batman dude,” Finn confides, grinning when Sam drops down next to him on the bench.
“No way. Batman doesn’t even have super-powers. He’s just a rich boy with dead parents.”
“He’s a ninja,” Finn protests, giving Sam a friendly shove. The new kid grins back from under his mop of wet hair.
“He’s a ninja who can’t climb walls or sail through the air on his own webs. Batman’s a chump.”
Finn pushes him again, eyes narrowed teasingly. “Take that back, Evans.”
“Or what, Hudson?” Sam’s eyes twinkle, exactly the way Finn has always thought Santa’s might. Which is a weird connection, and kind of makes what he does next even weirder, but-
The guy’s cheeks are bright, his mouth looks soft, and when Finn kisses him, it takes them both by surprise. The kind of surprise that makes Finn push his hands into Sam’s hair and jerk him closer, the kind that leaves Sam panting into his mouth, the kind that makes his jeans feel unnervingly tight, and oh man, no.
He jerks back, hands slamming down on the bench. Sam very nearly falls to the floor.
“Do you do that to every guy you talk comics with?” he asks shakily, brushing a hand against his flushed mouth. Finn shakes his head, stumbling to his feet.
“I. Uh. Um. Have to go. Now. Sorry.”
He escapes into the hall, pulling his own hair angrily. So much for best friends. They never mention it again, but two weeks later, Sam is dating Quinn Fabray.
Finn wishes he could believe it was a coincidence.
4
Noah Puckerman is undoubtedly the straightest man ever to straight. He has always been straight. He will always be straight. He likes boobs, and pussy, and everything that goes along with.
He also has a thing for lips.
Big, pouty, womanly lips.
Santana Lopez is a prime example. She’s one of his best friends, and easily one of the hottest girls in this school, but she is also hopelessly, head-over-perfect ass in love with Brittany Pierce forever and ever, amen. The only reason they lasted even half as long as they did was a mixture of blind aggression in the bedroom and those unbearably perfect Latina lips.
Noah Puckerman likes boobs, and ass, and legs, and everything that comes with a shorter-than-legal miniskirt, but in the end, he is a lip man.
It’s what drew him to Rachel Berry, to Quinn Fabray, to Mercedes Jones-even to Lauren Zizes. Almost every girl in Glee has a fantastic set of lips.
And so, it is impossible to ignore, does Sam Evans.
They’ve set up shop in the choir room long after school is over, a place and time Puck generally prefers to avoid. They’re only here now because they’re practicing chords for an upcoming duet (some John Mayer song, which is incredibly lame-for the record, it was totally Sam’s idea), and they’re only doing that because Schue is trying to push some same-sex partners thing for this week’s assignment.
As with most Glee assignments, Puck’s pretty sure the purpose is totally bogus.
But it does give him the chance to look like a rock star in front of everybody again. If he plays his cards right, maybe Berry will give him another grand tour of her mattress.
He watches Sam perform a few quick chord changes, his head bent over the body of the guitar. Eyes closed, mouth open, he looks-
“Dude,” Puck hears himself say, “your mouth is hot.”
It sort of slips out, in that way things sometimes do with him, but he doesn’t really care. Those lips have been distracting him from day one, and it’s about damn time he said something about it. Sam’s head jerks up, eyes wide.
“What?”
“Your mouth.” Puck flicks two fingers in that general direction, grinning. “You’ve got a chick mouth, dude.”
“I do not!”
“You totally do.” Setting his guitar aside, Puck places his hands on his knees and wiggles his eyebrows. “Want to take it for a spin?”
Sam stares at him, hair flopping into his eyes, like he’s never heard English sentences before. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Come on,” Puck urges. “You’ve never thought about it? With a mouth that humongous, I would have tried on myself. …have you?”
“No!” Sam’s eyes flit to the door. “Dude, I’m…I’m not...”
“Neither am I.” Puck shrugs. “Neither is my boy Finn, but I heard he chatted you up in the locker room a few weeks ago.”
“I figured he wouldn’t tell anybody about that,” Sam mutters. Puck laughs.
“Like he would. You guys were in a locker room. Not exactly private.”
“A choir room isn’t much better,” Sam argues, but he’s slowly placing his acoustic into its case and leaning forward. His tongue flicks out across his bottom lip anxiously, gaze pinning with Puck’s. “Um. You wouldn’t…tell anyone?”
“Who the fuck would I tell?” Puck demands, flicking open the button of his jeans and sliding the zipper down. “Bro, I give it to chicks and chicks only. Even knocked up Fabray last year.” He pauses, quelling the instinctive well of emotion. “I don’t do dudes,” he finishes fiercely, standing and kicking the pants off. Sam stares at the line above his boxers.
“Why me?”
“Because you’ve got the mouth of a sex kitten,” Puck laughs. “Just happens to be attached to a dude, is all. And I haven’t had sex in, like, weeks. C’mon, it’ll be fun.”
And fun is exactly what it is when Sam shrugs and walks to his chair, sinking somewhat hesitantly to his knees. Fun sums up perfectly the feeling that rises in his chest and then sinks down fast through his stomach when calloused hands pull him free and rosy-red lips part, and damn, this is at least as fun as when Lopez used to do it.
Of course, her technique was a little more stable, what with all the practice. Still, he finds he kind of likes Sam’s unsteady, blatantly hopeful approach as well. In its own messy, vibrant sort of way.
Getting blown by the new kid in the choir room isn’t really a straight activity, but sometimes stepping outside of that box is kind of worth it.
When they’re done, Sam leans back on his haunches and wipes his mouth, making a face that falls somewhere between nervous and proud. It’s not the face Puck expects to see when he opens his eyes. All the same, he grins.
“Dude, your mouth is the best.”
5
He used to launch Kurt Hummel into the garbage every morning for kicks, so life’s a little strange now that they’re actually friends. Real friends, with Puck standing up for Kurt (and more than once getting his eye blacked for him) and Kurt tutoring Puck on the finer points of Biology and not “dressing like a homeless man-whore.” They’re buddies, as thoroughly fucked as that might seem.
Weird buddies. Weird buddies who sometimes totally piss each other off. But still.
He hates that Kurt swapped over to that stupid Academy, mostly because it means doing his own homework, but also because it is a constant reminder of how he failed to hold up his end of the bargain. Being Kurt’s protector never seemed like a taxing job until Dave Karofsky stepped in, and then it was too late. Puck still kicks himself for the whole juvie thing; not only did it royally suck, but it kept him away right when Kurt needed him most.
He doesn’t really know when Kurt became his boy, but the fact of the matter is, a dude does not abandon his boy in times of crisis. Ever.
He’s a failure.
He’s skipping class, hanging out behind the gym with a cigarette in hand, when Kurt finds him. He might actually feel guilty, given the displeased expression on Hummel’s face, except that’s the one thing they don’t do. Guilt. Not about the little things, anyway.
“You are a picture of class, Noah Puckerman,” Kurt drawls. Puck nudges the aviators down his nose, shoulders the collar of his army jacket higher, and takes a drag.
“Rich boys don’t do the school thing, neither do I.”
“For your information,” Kurt replies witheringly, swishing a hand in front of his face to clear away the puff of smoke, “Dalton has parent-teacher conferences today. Half day of classes.”
“Lame.” Puck shakes his head and peers up at the sky. “What’d you come here for? Don’t you have a boyfriend or something?”
“Blaine is not my boyfriend,” Kurt informs him for the thirty-seventh time this week. “And I came around to make sure this wasn’t happening. You’re really back to skipping class?”
“Why not? Nobody misses me.” It’s technically a lie. He’s supposed to be in Spanish right now, with the one teacher in the school who never fails to recognize his absence. Still, he just doesn’t feel like dealing right now. Not with the hopeful glances Sam keeps sending him at practice, or the hairy eyeball from Finn every time he happens to glance at Rachel’s (or Quinn’s, for that matter) ass, or the sneer Karofsky seems to have permanently etched onto his mountainous face. Things are quickly unraveling, and he is beginning to sincerely consider dropping out and skipping town entirely.
Except that would make him even more of a failure.
“Okay, enough,” Kurt blurts, striking the cigarette from his hand and rolling his eyes magnificently. “I am sick and tired of you McKinley kids acting like your life is one big soap opera. I’m the one who got his life threatened and had to change schools, remember? Between you and Rachel, God, you’d think that never happened.”
Puck bites his tongue before he can fire back with, It shouldn’t have happened. I should have been here to stop it. It’s exactly that kind of self-pitying bullshit that Kurt only accepts in himself, no exceptions. Not even Puck.
Still, he’s reasonably certain Hummel can see it in his face that something is wrong. He’s pretty sure he has been wearing the same expression every time they’ve hung out since the transfer, and-Kurt being the smart guy that he is-he wouldn’t be surprised if Elton John’s figured it out by now.
But of course he’s going to go for the lecture first. Typical.
“You can’t just kill time back here, waiting for Figgins to throw you out,” Kurt rages, stomping his foot in a way that Puck finds endearing now, but tended to ram him into the flagpole for in the past.
He fumbles in his jacket pocket for another cigarette. “Why not?”
“Stop asking why not!” Kurt fumes. “You are a smart man, Noah Puckerman, and I am going to save you from your own pathetic inanity if it kills me.”
He swats again at Puck’s hand, sending the unlit cigarette tumbling into the dirt. Puck growls.
“Those cost money, you know. Hard-earned, cougar money.”
“So do lung operations,” Kurt retorts, shaking his head. “Since when do you smoke?”
“Since chew got boring.” He shrugs. “Couple of guys traded them in juvie. Calms my nerves.”
“What nerves?” Kurt throws his hands into the air, narrowly missing dislodging the jauntily-perched hat on his head. “For God’s sake, I leave, and everyone at this school transforms into a drama queen overnight!”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have left, then,” Puck snaps, catching himself a hair too late. Kurt’s eyes narrow dangerously.
“Would you like to repeat that?”
Scuffing one booted foot on the ground, Puck looks away. He feels Kurt step closer, hands squarely planted upon his hips.
“Puckerman, don’t make me slap you.”
“You shouldn’t have gone, okay?” His cheeks feel too warm to look Kurt in the eye, so he fixes his attention on the roof instead. “I could have protected you. It would have been fine.”
“You could have-“ Trailing off, Kurt sucks in a breath. “Puck. Noah. Look at me.”
He does, hating himself. “I could have protected you,” he repeats, more earnestly than he’d like. “Me, and Finn, and those other guys. We would have done it. Hell, even Berry would’ve thrown in her hand to keep you safe. We fucked up once, not being there, but we-I would’ve been there.”
The tenderness in Kurt’s eyes still feels foreign, mostly because their friendship revolves around a lot of insults and not many girly-bonding moments. Which Puck is generally a fan of avoiding, for the record. Being totally not gay, and all.
When Kurt places his hands on Puck’s shoulders and leans up, brushing feather-soft pink lips across his cheekbone, he looks away again. It’s too much to deal with, knowing he fucked up and still, Kurt has forgiven him. For failing, and for all the times he fucked up in the past. Kurt has forgiven it all.
For all of his obnoxious, flaming tendencies, Kurt Hummel is a pretty cool dude.
The heaviness in Puck’s chest doesn’t lift when Kurt pulls back and smiles at him, but his heart does race a little faster. Kurt’s a cool dude, and Puck wasn’t there when he needed him most.
Next time, he swears he’ll do better.
6
That Kurt kid kind of freaked him out at first. Big-time, actually. Their first major conversation came while he was in the shower, and Kurt didn’t seem to care at all that-in most civilized cultures-shower conversations are fairly freaksome.
Anyway, Kurt was bright and overzealous and kind of a flirtatious diva-and then, just like that, he was gone. Driven away by a dude the size of a skyscraper, who Sam actually tried to take out on principle.
It…didn’t work out as planned.
So Kurt was freaky, and then he was a damsel in distress (sort of), and then he was gone. And Sam found himself bounced from Finn Hudson’s lips, to Noah Puckerman’s dick, to Quinn Fabray’s popularity, to Santana Lopez’s…talons…
And now he’s alone.
Which is sort of a relief, after all of that, because Sam Evans is really, really confused.
When Kurt Hummel stomps gloriously back into McKinley, bringing with him a spray of proverbial glitter and really literal singing boys, that confusion turns into downright bewilderment. Kurt’s freaky and opinionated and wears far too many ruffles and bows, and Sam-
Thinks he’s kind of awesome.
Which doesn’t make sense, because he doesn’t even know the guy, but then again, that seems to be how this school works. Finn didn’t know him before shoving his tongue into Sam’s mouth. Puck didn’t know him before undoing his pants and thrusting his hips suggestively. Even Quinn didn’t know him when she accepted the promise ring he threw at her in such desperation to be liked by an actual girl.
Maybe it’s just the New Directions way, liking people before you know them. Maybe there’s something in the water, or maybe they’re standing on the Axis of Fated Love or something.
This is Ohio. Buffy taught him there’s a Hellmouth here, so why not an Axis of Fated Love too? It only seems fair.
Everyone else perks up immediately when Kurt hits the schoolyard again, dancing and talking and generally being friendly in a way Sam’s not great at. He likes this group a lot-some more than others; he’s still not thrilled with the whole Quinn-cheating-on-him-with-Finn debacle, even if part of him is more relieved to be free than anything else-and he can get along with them all right, but Kurt seems to fill a void in New Directions he never knew was there. It’s like there was this weird disturbance in the Force, and only with Kurt’s return does the Light Side prevail at least over the Dark.
Which reminds him, he needs to check his bids on that E-bay lightsaber when he gets home.
The point is, everyone is suddenly better in some weird way, and Sam just feels awkward. He likes Kurt, but he barely knows the guy at all, and the way his stomach keeps fluttering every time he gets too close is…unnerving at best.
He doesn’t expect to ever have to do anything about it, but it turns out the boys at this school are at least as persistent as the girls-who, by and large, are terrifying-and Kurt might be the most persistent of them all.
Looking back, he guesses he should have known the shower wasn’t safe.
“Sam Evans.” The semi-familiar melodic voice rings out just as he’s soaping his hair. A wayward sud slinks down into his left eye, temporarily blinding him. He yelps.
A towel finds its way into his hand immediately. “What is it with football players and being klutzy? Maybe I should consider rejoining the team. It would be nice to have one person out there who doesn’t spend half his time falling down.”
“It’s football,” Sam mutters, clearing away the soap and blinking repeatedly. A very blurry-around-the-edges Kurt Hummel slowly comes into focus. “The game is all about falling down.”
“Is it about blinding yourself too?” Kurt teases, leaning gracefully against the partition. Sam fumbles the towel protectively lower.
“You do this a lot, don’t you?”
“Spy on cute boys in the shower?” Kurt winks, then lets the act abruptly drop. “Truthfully, no. I just wanted to speak with you about something.”
Why does everyone have to talk to me in here? “Shoot.”
“I was thinking,” Kurt says simply, “that we might reattempt our original plan for Glee. Now that I’ve returned and you’re all settled in, that is.”
“What was our original plan?” Sam wonders, switching the water off and hiking the towel a little higher around his waist. Kurt smiles.
“Our duet, of course.”
“You want to sing a duet with me?” He remembers how strange it had been when, months before, Kurt had dropped him out of nowhere with some excuse that hadn’t seemed to fit in his mouth quite right. He also remembers how it sort of hurt. “Why now?”
“Well,” Kurt says slowly, skimming a fingertip across the tile wall and wrinkling his nose at it. “Now that David Karofsky and Santana are playing Bully Patrol-“
“Bully Whips,” Sam corrects automatically. Kurt rolls his eyes.
“Whatever. The point is, with them taking care of business, as the case may be, you will have less to worry about in terms of harassment. And, I must confess, I’ve been curious as to what our voices might sound like together for some time…”
Trailing off, he eyes Sam’s face hopefully. “If you would like to, of course.”
The thing is, he does want to. He can’t explain it-and, really, he’s not sure he wants to-but Kurt’s smile makes him want to smile. And if singing with the kid might make him smile more…
“Absolutely,” he replies, flashing a hesitant grin. “I’m in.”
Kurt’s hands clap together excitedly. “Perfect! How well would you say you know Wicked?”
Which is how Sam Evans finds himself strutting around a stage, belting “As Long As You’re Mine” at the top of his voice. In the audience, the rest of the club is eating it up: Puck hoots, Finn chuckles, Rachel looks like she’s torn between pride and wanting to murder Kurt in order to take his place, and Quinn’s eyebrow seems permanently locked to the top of her forehead. Even Santana is smirking, but every once in a while, her gaze slips longingly in Brittany’s direction, apparently failing to notice the way Karofsky is elbowing her viciously for attention.
Standing opposite him, hand positioned exaggeratedly over his forehead, Kurt sings the chick parts with every ounce of heart in him. He looks utterly, thoroughly beautiful (which is weird to think about another dude, but whatever, it’s the truth). Sam beams like an idiot when it’s over, letting Kurt slip one gentle hand into his and give a mighty squeeze.
“I think we should do that again sometime,” he whispers under the applause of their friends. Kurt’s face lights up.
“Fantastic! How do you feel about Rent?”
Pairing(s): Finn Hudson/Noah Puckerman, Finn Hudson/Kurt Hummel, Finn Hudson/Sam Evans, Noah Puckerman/Sam Evans, Noah Puckerman/Kurt Hummel, Kurt Hummel/Sam Evans
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Spoilers: Through S2.
Summary: Six instances in which the boys of Glee are rather gay.
1
It wasn’t one of those things that gets planned out, marked on a calendar, decided in advance. He doesn’t really do that with anyone, come to think of it; Finn Hudson has never been a Planner. He’s a Doer. A Doer who Does things and then sometimes comes to regret it later.
When he’s fifteen, he sort of Does his best friend.
Yeah. Like that.
Oops.
It’s not intentional, and he does sort of regret it-and also sort of not. Depending on your definition of “regret.” If the word calls to mind self-loathing and endless nights kept up in torment, then, no, not really. He can’t say he finds giving Noah Puckerman a handjob in his bedroom particularly regret-worthy in the sense of ‘oh God, oh God, what have I done’-although he did have that moment.
Except that moment kind of came in the moment.
You know those times where you just sort of trip and fall onto a situation? Yeah. It was like that. Finn’s used to tripping and falling places he doesn’t mean to be. He does it all the time. It’s how he broke his mom’s favorite lamp, four of her best plates, and his first Playstation, in fact. Tripping, falling, ruining things: it’s kind of Finn’s bag.
So, today, when he “trips and falls”-from a certain perspective-in the middle of one of their weekly Dude-Bro Porn Afternoons-which is not gay, okay, not if they’re watching chicks do each other; it’s just that Puck’s mom has this thing about monitoring the activity on the family computer, and the dude really can’t go the whole summer without steady doses of porn. Finn’s his best friend, what else is he supposed to do?-the first thing he thinks is, Oh fuck. I broke this too.
The thing is, he can’t break his friendship with Noah Puckerman. He just can’t. They’ve been bros since the dawn of preschool, and he really doesn’t want that to ever go away. Puck keeps him cool, keeps him thinking when shit gets bad, and he has a classic Pacman arcade system in his bedroom. It’s not the sort of thing Finn ever plans on giving up unless he has to.
When, in the middle of watching Busty Brunette 1 fingerbang the shit out of Raunchy Redhead 2, his hand slips from his own dick and lands on Puck’s instead-that might be the thing marked “has to.”
He isn’t surprised when Puck’s eyes fly open, his jaw dropping. He is slightly more shocked that the next thing he feels isn’t a punch in the eye so much as Puck’s hand curling around his wrist.
“Dude.”
Finn swallows, hand stilling instantly. “Yeah?”
“Wanna tell me why you’re handlin’ Puckzilla like a chick?”
“Sorry. Sorry.” Head shaking, Finn moves to withdraw entirely. Strong fingers tighten around his wrist, holding him in place.
“We never talk about it,” Puck growls in a low, slightly strangled voice, even as he gives a tug that very clearly means keep going, dipshit. “Got that? Never.”
“Right,” Finn answers, a bit too eagerly, and this is the part where he starts to wonder what the fuck he thinks he’s doing. Smashed onto a tiny cot of a bed, listening to the slightly-too-fake moans coming from his computer screen, holding his best friend’s junk in the hand that should be working his own-it’s insane. It’s gross.
And he’s pretty sure that this? Has officially crossed over into gay territory.
Still, Puck is leaning back on his hands, face scrunched up the way Finn has seen a million times and never really stopped to admire, and he has to admit there is something pretty great about this level of power.
When it’s over-and, seriously, how does Puck manage to hang on so much longer than Finn ever can? It’s seriously unfair-Finn wipes his hand on the bedspread and stares down at his sneakers. Puck reaches over to click the pause button.
“Never,” he repeats in that same low tone, socking Finn hard in the thigh. “Or I’ll kick your ass six ways past the Sabbath.”
Finn nods, wincing. Puck stands and stretches, buttoning his jeans in the next motion and glancing towards the door. This is it-the moment their friendship curls and shrivels like paper tossed into a fireplace.
“Mortal Kombat?” Puck asks, already switching the console on and chucking a controller into Finn’s lap. It just barely missing nailing him in the jewels. He coughs.
“Yeah. Definitely.”
That’s it, all there is to it. When summer ends, Puck picks up Santana Lopez. A few months later, Finn starts dating Quinn Fabray. They never speak of their Dude-Bro Porn Afternoons again.
He doesn’t regret in the typical, ‘haunted forever’ sort of way.
It just sort of…works its way into his brain from time to time.
Which isn’t gay.
Right?
2
Kurt Hummel is kind of like a girl. Well, not really. Not totally. He’s got dude-parts and everything-Finn’s seen the bulge in his too-tight jeans, because who the hell hasn’t? Seriously, the guy’s sperm count must be about as high as a chick’s by this point, the shit he wears. But in the long run?
Kurt’s kind of girly.
And sometimes-Finn will die before he admits this to anyone-it’s almost kind of hot.
Almost.
Kind of.
Ish.
He blames Glee for doing this to him, warping his brain this way and that. Before Glee, Finn Hudson was a stud (sort of), a powerhouse of manhood (or so he likes to think, even if Quinn does spend most of her time figuratively stomping on his balls). Before Glee, Finn Hudson was The Man.
Now, he’s kind of just That Guy Who Sometimes Breaks Into Song.
It’s ruining him.
And Kurt isn’t helping, with his doe-eyed expressions and all the prancing around he does. He’s everywhere, following Finn like a puppy without a leash, and normally it drives him up the wall, but today…
He’s tired. He hasn’t slept in what feels like three weeks, and except for that brief hopped-up-on-blue-meanies thing (Mrs. Schuester got in so much trouble for that, so he figures he ought to stay away from the drugs from now on), it doesn’t seem to be getting any better. Quinn is pregnant, Puck is being an asshole, Rachel is getting more attractive by the minute, and Kurt-
Kurt is prodding him repeatedly in the forehead with one delicate, girly fingertip.
It’s too much.
“What?” he explodes, eyes flying open. Kurt, to his credit, doesn’t flinch.
“You missed History. Again.”
He wants to ask what Kurt could possibly care about him missing History, since Finn himself really couldn’t give a shit, but those big eyes are staring at him like that kitten he once brought home, right before his mom told him they couldn’t afford to feed anything that didn’t live in a tank.
And then he killed eighteen consecutive goldfish, and his mom gave up on that idea too.
“Stop looking at me like that!” he snaps, hot guilt seeping under his skin when Kurt blinks and takes a step back.
“I wasn’t aware I was being offensive with the power of my eyes.”
“Well…you are,” Finn splutters, probing with forehead with splayed fingers. Kurt’s cheeks are rosy, his eyes are bright, and with this level of exhaustion, he’s looking entirely too close to pretty for Finn’s comfort. “Just…go away, will you? Please?”
The huffy noise that leaves Kurt’s lips makes Finn wonder what other noises the boy is capable of-which only makes his head pound harder. He’s already done this one before, and with Puck, it was okay. Forgive, forget, never fucking mention it again. But Kurt? Kurt is gay. Really gay. Rainbows and pride parades and that Logo network he sometimes flicks through when there’s nothing else on. He’s the kind of gay you don’t come back from.
And right now, the fact that Finn kind of-maybe-almost wants to kiss him is also gay.
Really gay.
The kind you don’t come back from.
He lurches from his seat, pushing past the smaller boy, and sighs. “Sorry, dude. I’m sorry. I’m just wiped out, you know? I shouldn’t take it out on you.”
“No,” Kurt replies primly, “you shouldn’t.” He hesitates, one hand dangling limply at his side, like he’s resisting the temptation to reach out to Finn. “Are you all right?”
No, Finn wants to blurt, I’m anything but. Except that would lead to questions like “why” and “what’s wrong” and he can’t answer those. Not if he wants to keep Quinn’s secret from the rest of the school. Kurt’s a good guy, he’s pretty sure, but he’s got a big mouth and Mercedes Jones for a best friend. The last thing Finn needs right now-apart from giving in and pressing his mouth against the gayest pair of lips ever to roam McKinley’s halls, anyway-is to betray the mother of his child.
“Yeah, dude,” he manages, smiling weakly. “Totally. Just have a lot on my table.”
“Plate,” Kurt amends for him, tucking that wayward hand into his back pocket and smiling. “A lot on your plate. I get it.”
“Yeah?” Hopefully, he smiles back, ignoring the flutter in his chest when Kurt shrugs.
“You’re a busy man, Finn Hudson.”
A busy man. Yeah, that sums him up pretty well. A busy football-playing, song-singing, baby-having, Rachel-dwelling man.
Who sometimes falls asleep at night thinking about Kurt Hummel’s very girly mouth.
Normal.
3
Sam Evans is going to be his new best friend. Not that Sam knows it yet, but Finn is positive he’s right. The kid is cool. He’s new, he can sing, and best of all, he has never stolen a girl out from under Finn’s nose (unlike certain other ex-best friends who will remain Noah Puckerman). He’s great. Finn likes him from day one.
Thing is, Sam doesn’t seem to know how to be somebody’s best friend.
It’s weird. Finn is doing everything he can to get under the dude’s skin, but all Sam ever does is nod politely in his direction and then walk the other way. It’s almost like he’s blowing him off-except Finn hasn’t even done anything yet to deserve it.
It happens in the halls, it happens in Glee, and now it’s happening after football practice. The only thing Finn can think is that he is not a bad guy, and he certainly doesn’t deserve the constant cold shoulder from a kid who barely even knows him. He’s going to fix this. Now.
There’s something to be said for taking the reins back. He’s pretty sure.
The locker room is empty, apart from the sounds of Sam belting some Rascal Flatts song in the shower. Finn changes slowly back into his jeans and polo, then sits down to wait. There’s no shame in cornering a man, he tells himself firmly, if all else fails.
And besides, it’s not like he’s planning on chucking Sam in the dumpster or something.
When he emerges, one towel wrapped around his waist, another covering dripping blonde hair, Finn squares his shoulders. Go for it.
“Hey, Sam!”
Okay, a little too brightly, maybe. The kid jumps a mile, just barely keeping hold of the towel protecting his man-bits. Finn frowns sheepishly.
“Sorry.”
Sam stares at him, looking very much like that mailman he ran over with his mother’s car that one time, and Finn shuffles uncomfortably on the bench. “Just. Uh. Wanted to say hi. See how you were doing.”
“Great,” Sam replies, trying for a smile and winding up looking more like he was just punched in the gnads. “I’m great. How are you?"
“Awesome!” Finn shoots back, which isn’t entirely true, but hey, what’s the harm in a little white lie in the name of friendship?
Sam blinks at him, puffy lips spread open in obvious confusion. “Cool. Uh. What are you still doing here?”
Finn’s shoulders raise and drop as carelessly as he can manage. “Just wanted to talk.”
“About what?” Sam returns to towel-drying his hair, restlessly glancing from Finn’s face to the door and back again. It’s weird that the dude won’t even look at him, like he’s hiding something.
“I dunno.” Hands tighten nervously against his jeans, his whole body feeling too tightly-strung. He feels bad, being here right now, even though he hasn’t done a damn thing to deserve it. He feels bad because Sam is clearly uncomfortable-for no reason at all.
“You like comic books?” he asks suddenly, pleased when Sam’s mouth stretches into a surprised smile.
“Sure. Spider-man’s the coolest.”
“I’m more of a Batman dude,” Finn confides, grinning when Sam drops down next to him on the bench.
“No way. Batman doesn’t even have super-powers. He’s just a rich boy with dead parents.”
“He’s a ninja,” Finn protests, giving Sam a friendly shove. The new kid grins back from under his mop of wet hair.
“He’s a ninja who can’t climb walls or sail through the air on his own webs. Batman’s a chump.”
Finn pushes him again, eyes narrowed teasingly. “Take that back, Evans.”
“Or what, Hudson?” Sam’s eyes twinkle, exactly the way Finn has always thought Santa’s might. Which is a weird connection, and kind of makes what he does next even weirder, but-
The guy’s cheeks are bright, his mouth looks soft, and when Finn kisses him, it takes them both by surprise. The kind of surprise that makes Finn push his hands into Sam’s hair and jerk him closer, the kind that leaves Sam panting into his mouth, the kind that makes his jeans feel unnervingly tight, and oh man, no.
He jerks back, hands slamming down on the bench. Sam very nearly falls to the floor.
“Do you do that to every guy you talk comics with?” he asks shakily, brushing a hand against his flushed mouth. Finn shakes his head, stumbling to his feet.
“I. Uh. Um. Have to go. Now. Sorry.”
He escapes into the hall, pulling his own hair angrily. So much for best friends. They never mention it again, but two weeks later, Sam is dating Quinn Fabray.
Finn wishes he could believe it was a coincidence.
4
Noah Puckerman is undoubtedly the straightest man ever to straight. He has always been straight. He will always be straight. He likes boobs, and pussy, and everything that goes along with.
He also has a thing for lips.
Big, pouty, womanly lips.
Santana Lopez is a prime example. She’s one of his best friends, and easily one of the hottest girls in this school, but she is also hopelessly, head-over-perfect ass in love with Brittany Pierce forever and ever, amen. The only reason they lasted even half as long as they did was a mixture of blind aggression in the bedroom and those unbearably perfect Latina lips.
Noah Puckerman likes boobs, and ass, and legs, and everything that comes with a shorter-than-legal miniskirt, but in the end, he is a lip man.
It’s what drew him to Rachel Berry, to Quinn Fabray, to Mercedes Jones-even to Lauren Zizes. Almost every girl in Glee has a fantastic set of lips.
And so, it is impossible to ignore, does Sam Evans.
They’ve set up shop in the choir room long after school is over, a place and time Puck generally prefers to avoid. They’re only here now because they’re practicing chords for an upcoming duet (some John Mayer song, which is incredibly lame-for the record, it was totally Sam’s idea), and they’re only doing that because Schue is trying to push some same-sex partners thing for this week’s assignment.
As with most Glee assignments, Puck’s pretty sure the purpose is totally bogus.
But it does give him the chance to look like a rock star in front of everybody again. If he plays his cards right, maybe Berry will give him another grand tour of her mattress.
He watches Sam perform a few quick chord changes, his head bent over the body of the guitar. Eyes closed, mouth open, he looks-
“Dude,” Puck hears himself say, “your mouth is hot.”
It sort of slips out, in that way things sometimes do with him, but he doesn’t really care. Those lips have been distracting him from day one, and it’s about damn time he said something about it. Sam’s head jerks up, eyes wide.
“What?”
“Your mouth.” Puck flicks two fingers in that general direction, grinning. “You’ve got a chick mouth, dude.”
“I do not!”
“You totally do.” Setting his guitar aside, Puck places his hands on his knees and wiggles his eyebrows. “Want to take it for a spin?”
Sam stares at him, hair flopping into his eyes, like he’s never heard English sentences before. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Come on,” Puck urges. “You’ve never thought about it? With a mouth that humongous, I would have tried on myself. …have you?”
“No!” Sam’s eyes flit to the door. “Dude, I’m…I’m not...”
“Neither am I.” Puck shrugs. “Neither is my boy Finn, but I heard he chatted you up in the locker room a few weeks ago.”
“I figured he wouldn’t tell anybody about that,” Sam mutters. Puck laughs.
“Like he would. You guys were in a locker room. Not exactly private.”
“A choir room isn’t much better,” Sam argues, but he’s slowly placing his acoustic into its case and leaning forward. His tongue flicks out across his bottom lip anxiously, gaze pinning with Puck’s. “Um. You wouldn’t…tell anyone?”
“Who the fuck would I tell?” Puck demands, flicking open the button of his jeans and sliding the zipper down. “Bro, I give it to chicks and chicks only. Even knocked up Fabray last year.” He pauses, quelling the instinctive well of emotion. “I don’t do dudes,” he finishes fiercely, standing and kicking the pants off. Sam stares at the line above his boxers.
“Why me?”
“Because you’ve got the mouth of a sex kitten,” Puck laughs. “Just happens to be attached to a dude, is all. And I haven’t had sex in, like, weeks. C’mon, it’ll be fun.”
And fun is exactly what it is when Sam shrugs and walks to his chair, sinking somewhat hesitantly to his knees. Fun sums up perfectly the feeling that rises in his chest and then sinks down fast through his stomach when calloused hands pull him free and rosy-red lips part, and damn, this is at least as fun as when Lopez used to do it.
Of course, her technique was a little more stable, what with all the practice. Still, he finds he kind of likes Sam’s unsteady, blatantly hopeful approach as well. In its own messy, vibrant sort of way.
Getting blown by the new kid in the choir room isn’t really a straight activity, but sometimes stepping outside of that box is kind of worth it.
When they’re done, Sam leans back on his haunches and wipes his mouth, making a face that falls somewhere between nervous and proud. It’s not the face Puck expects to see when he opens his eyes. All the same, he grins.
“Dude, your mouth is the best.”
5
He used to launch Kurt Hummel into the garbage every morning for kicks, so life’s a little strange now that they’re actually friends. Real friends, with Puck standing up for Kurt (and more than once getting his eye blacked for him) and Kurt tutoring Puck on the finer points of Biology and not “dressing like a homeless man-whore.” They’re buddies, as thoroughly fucked as that might seem.
Weird buddies. Weird buddies who sometimes totally piss each other off. But still.
He hates that Kurt swapped over to that stupid Academy, mostly because it means doing his own homework, but also because it is a constant reminder of how he failed to hold up his end of the bargain. Being Kurt’s protector never seemed like a taxing job until Dave Karofsky stepped in, and then it was too late. Puck still kicks himself for the whole juvie thing; not only did it royally suck, but it kept him away right when Kurt needed him most.
He doesn’t really know when Kurt became his boy, but the fact of the matter is, a dude does not abandon his boy in times of crisis. Ever.
He’s a failure.
He’s skipping class, hanging out behind the gym with a cigarette in hand, when Kurt finds him. He might actually feel guilty, given the displeased expression on Hummel’s face, except that’s the one thing they don’t do. Guilt. Not about the little things, anyway.
“You are a picture of class, Noah Puckerman,” Kurt drawls. Puck nudges the aviators down his nose, shoulders the collar of his army jacket higher, and takes a drag.
“Rich boys don’t do the school thing, neither do I.”
“For your information,” Kurt replies witheringly, swishing a hand in front of his face to clear away the puff of smoke, “Dalton has parent-teacher conferences today. Half day of classes.”
“Lame.” Puck shakes his head and peers up at the sky. “What’d you come here for? Don’t you have a boyfriend or something?”
“Blaine is not my boyfriend,” Kurt informs him for the thirty-seventh time this week. “And I came around to make sure this wasn’t happening. You’re really back to skipping class?”
“Why not? Nobody misses me.” It’s technically a lie. He’s supposed to be in Spanish right now, with the one teacher in the school who never fails to recognize his absence. Still, he just doesn’t feel like dealing right now. Not with the hopeful glances Sam keeps sending him at practice, or the hairy eyeball from Finn every time he happens to glance at Rachel’s (or Quinn’s, for that matter) ass, or the sneer Karofsky seems to have permanently etched onto his mountainous face. Things are quickly unraveling, and he is beginning to sincerely consider dropping out and skipping town entirely.
Except that would make him even more of a failure.
“Okay, enough,” Kurt blurts, striking the cigarette from his hand and rolling his eyes magnificently. “I am sick and tired of you McKinley kids acting like your life is one big soap opera. I’m the one who got his life threatened and had to change schools, remember? Between you and Rachel, God, you’d think that never happened.”
Puck bites his tongue before he can fire back with, It shouldn’t have happened. I should have been here to stop it. It’s exactly that kind of self-pitying bullshit that Kurt only accepts in himself, no exceptions. Not even Puck.
Still, he’s reasonably certain Hummel can see it in his face that something is wrong. He’s pretty sure he has been wearing the same expression every time they’ve hung out since the transfer, and-Kurt being the smart guy that he is-he wouldn’t be surprised if Elton John’s figured it out by now.
But of course he’s going to go for the lecture first. Typical.
“You can’t just kill time back here, waiting for Figgins to throw you out,” Kurt rages, stomping his foot in a way that Puck finds endearing now, but tended to ram him into the flagpole for in the past.
He fumbles in his jacket pocket for another cigarette. “Why not?”
“Stop asking why not!” Kurt fumes. “You are a smart man, Noah Puckerman, and I am going to save you from your own pathetic inanity if it kills me.”
He swats again at Puck’s hand, sending the unlit cigarette tumbling into the dirt. Puck growls.
“Those cost money, you know. Hard-earned, cougar money.”
“So do lung operations,” Kurt retorts, shaking his head. “Since when do you smoke?”
“Since chew got boring.” He shrugs. “Couple of guys traded them in juvie. Calms my nerves.”
“What nerves?” Kurt throws his hands into the air, narrowly missing dislodging the jauntily-perched hat on his head. “For God’s sake, I leave, and everyone at this school transforms into a drama queen overnight!”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have left, then,” Puck snaps, catching himself a hair too late. Kurt’s eyes narrow dangerously.
“Would you like to repeat that?”
Scuffing one booted foot on the ground, Puck looks away. He feels Kurt step closer, hands squarely planted upon his hips.
“Puckerman, don’t make me slap you.”
“You shouldn’t have gone, okay?” His cheeks feel too warm to look Kurt in the eye, so he fixes his attention on the roof instead. “I could have protected you. It would have been fine.”
“You could have-“ Trailing off, Kurt sucks in a breath. “Puck. Noah. Look at me.”
He does, hating himself. “I could have protected you,” he repeats, more earnestly than he’d like. “Me, and Finn, and those other guys. We would have done it. Hell, even Berry would’ve thrown in her hand to keep you safe. We fucked up once, not being there, but we-I would’ve been there.”
The tenderness in Kurt’s eyes still feels foreign, mostly because their friendship revolves around a lot of insults and not many girly-bonding moments. Which Puck is generally a fan of avoiding, for the record. Being totally not gay, and all.
When Kurt places his hands on Puck’s shoulders and leans up, brushing feather-soft pink lips across his cheekbone, he looks away again. It’s too much to deal with, knowing he fucked up and still, Kurt has forgiven him. For failing, and for all the times he fucked up in the past. Kurt has forgiven it all.
For all of his obnoxious, flaming tendencies, Kurt Hummel is a pretty cool dude.
The heaviness in Puck’s chest doesn’t lift when Kurt pulls back and smiles at him, but his heart does race a little faster. Kurt’s a cool dude, and Puck wasn’t there when he needed him most.
Next time, he swears he’ll do better.
6
That Kurt kid kind of freaked him out at first. Big-time, actually. Their first major conversation came while he was in the shower, and Kurt didn’t seem to care at all that-in most civilized cultures-shower conversations are fairly freaksome.
Anyway, Kurt was bright and overzealous and kind of a flirtatious diva-and then, just like that, he was gone. Driven away by a dude the size of a skyscraper, who Sam actually tried to take out on principle.
It…didn’t work out as planned.
So Kurt was freaky, and then he was a damsel in distress (sort of), and then he was gone. And Sam found himself bounced from Finn Hudson’s lips, to Noah Puckerman’s dick, to Quinn Fabray’s popularity, to Santana Lopez’s…talons…
And now he’s alone.
Which is sort of a relief, after all of that, because Sam Evans is really, really confused.
When Kurt Hummel stomps gloriously back into McKinley, bringing with him a spray of proverbial glitter and really literal singing boys, that confusion turns into downright bewilderment. Kurt’s freaky and opinionated and wears far too many ruffles and bows, and Sam-
Thinks he’s kind of awesome.
Which doesn’t make sense, because he doesn’t even know the guy, but then again, that seems to be how this school works. Finn didn’t know him before shoving his tongue into Sam’s mouth. Puck didn’t know him before undoing his pants and thrusting his hips suggestively. Even Quinn didn’t know him when she accepted the promise ring he threw at her in such desperation to be liked by an actual girl.
Maybe it’s just the New Directions way, liking people before you know them. Maybe there’s something in the water, or maybe they’re standing on the Axis of Fated Love or something.
This is Ohio. Buffy taught him there’s a Hellmouth here, so why not an Axis of Fated Love too? It only seems fair.
Everyone else perks up immediately when Kurt hits the schoolyard again, dancing and talking and generally being friendly in a way Sam’s not great at. He likes this group a lot-some more than others; he’s still not thrilled with the whole Quinn-cheating-on-him-with-Finn debacle, even if part of him is more relieved to be free than anything else-and he can get along with them all right, but Kurt seems to fill a void in New Directions he never knew was there. It’s like there was this weird disturbance in the Force, and only with Kurt’s return does the Light Side prevail at least over the Dark.
Which reminds him, he needs to check his bids on that E-bay lightsaber when he gets home.
The point is, everyone is suddenly better in some weird way, and Sam just feels awkward. He likes Kurt, but he barely knows the guy at all, and the way his stomach keeps fluttering every time he gets too close is…unnerving at best.
He doesn’t expect to ever have to do anything about it, but it turns out the boys at this school are at least as persistent as the girls-who, by and large, are terrifying-and Kurt might be the most persistent of them all.
Looking back, he guesses he should have known the shower wasn’t safe.
“Sam Evans.” The semi-familiar melodic voice rings out just as he’s soaping his hair. A wayward sud slinks down into his left eye, temporarily blinding him. He yelps.
A towel finds its way into his hand immediately. “What is it with football players and being klutzy? Maybe I should consider rejoining the team. It would be nice to have one person out there who doesn’t spend half his time falling down.”
“It’s football,” Sam mutters, clearing away the soap and blinking repeatedly. A very blurry-around-the-edges Kurt Hummel slowly comes into focus. “The game is all about falling down.”
“Is it about blinding yourself too?” Kurt teases, leaning gracefully against the partition. Sam fumbles the towel protectively lower.
“You do this a lot, don’t you?”
“Spy on cute boys in the shower?” Kurt winks, then lets the act abruptly drop. “Truthfully, no. I just wanted to speak with you about something.”
Why does everyone have to talk to me in here? “Shoot.”
“I was thinking,” Kurt says simply, “that we might reattempt our original plan for Glee. Now that I’ve returned and you’re all settled in, that is.”
“What was our original plan?” Sam wonders, switching the water off and hiking the towel a little higher around his waist. Kurt smiles.
“Our duet, of course.”
“You want to sing a duet with me?” He remembers how strange it had been when, months before, Kurt had dropped him out of nowhere with some excuse that hadn’t seemed to fit in his mouth quite right. He also remembers how it sort of hurt. “Why now?”
“Well,” Kurt says slowly, skimming a fingertip across the tile wall and wrinkling his nose at it. “Now that David Karofsky and Santana are playing Bully Patrol-“
“Bully Whips,” Sam corrects automatically. Kurt rolls his eyes.
“Whatever. The point is, with them taking care of business, as the case may be, you will have less to worry about in terms of harassment. And, I must confess, I’ve been curious as to what our voices might sound like together for some time…”
Trailing off, he eyes Sam’s face hopefully. “If you would like to, of course.”
The thing is, he does want to. He can’t explain it-and, really, he’s not sure he wants to-but Kurt’s smile makes him want to smile. And if singing with the kid might make him smile more…
“Absolutely,” he replies, flashing a hesitant grin. “I’m in.”
Kurt’s hands clap together excitedly. “Perfect! How well would you say you know Wicked?”
Which is how Sam Evans finds himself strutting around a stage, belting “As Long As You’re Mine” at the top of his voice. In the audience, the rest of the club is eating it up: Puck hoots, Finn chuckles, Rachel looks like she’s torn between pride and wanting to murder Kurt in order to take his place, and Quinn’s eyebrow seems permanently locked to the top of her forehead. Even Santana is smirking, but every once in a while, her gaze slips longingly in Brittany’s direction, apparently failing to notice the way Karofsky is elbowing her viciously for attention.
Standing opposite him, hand positioned exaggeratedly over his forehead, Kurt sings the chick parts with every ounce of heart in him. He looks utterly, thoroughly beautiful (which is weird to think about another dude, but whatever, it’s the truth). Sam beams like an idiot when it’s over, letting Kurt slip one gentle hand into his and give a mighty squeeze.
“I think we should do that again sometime,” he whispers under the applause of their friends. Kurt’s face lights up.
“Fantastic! How do you feel about Rent?”