Title: Nothing to Lose, But You
Author:
ordinaryxdayRating: PG
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Puck/Kurt, Kurt Hummel, Noah Puckerman
Genre: Angst, Romance, Future Fic
Spoilers: Nothing really.
Disclaimer: I do not own Glee nor do I own the characters. I own absolutely nothing. Title comes from the song Nothing Gold by Johnny Gallagher.
Word Count: 1,554
Summary: The snow is falling outside and all he wants is for him to come back
Author Notes: This original was a work of original fiction that was handed in for my creative writing class. However, after reading through it numerous times I decided to change up a few things and post it here. I've been having some issues with writing fanfiction lately (no matter how hard I try it just will not work) but then I read through this and I suddenly have a bunch of ideas. This will be more than one part, I promise you that. :)
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Puck realizes he’s really lost Kurt on the fifteenth of November. Outside, the snow is falling rather heavily onto the city streets, blanketing the sidewalks and tops of buildings with a thick, white cover. It isn’t the first snowfall of the year but it is the first real one and all he wants to do is grab him by the hand and waltz him down that snow-covered sidewalk. It’s something they’ve done every snowfall for as long as he can remember: the two of them out alone just walking and wandering through the snowy streets.
But when he wakes up on that November morning and stares out his bedroom window, all he can think about is turning around and curling up to wait for death to slowly devour his soul. He closes the curtains, mentally noting how he had been the one to pick them out, and hurls himself back underneath that thick blanket - which had also picked out by him. He stays in bed for the entirety of the morning, coming out only to grab something to drink and give the falling snow a hard glare.
It really starts to get to him sometime after lunch passes by and there’s been no signal from Kurt. He starts to think that he’s going to drive himself up the fucking wall with insanity if he doesn’t just call or come back or something. But he never does. The door never opens and the phone never rings, and now he’s left alone with his thoughts and a half empty bottle of cheap red wine. He’s left alone to stare out through that tiny crack left by those awful, cheap curtains that just won’t stay closed . The bright white of the falling snow blinding him as it streams in, a cheery strip of light in the otherwise bleak room.
Puck hates this. He hates the goddamn snow and the sounds of those neighbourhood kids screaming and running through the crowded city sidewalks. He knows that they’re most likely picking up the snow and packing it into snowballs before ducking and dodging through the legs of businessmen and women. He knows that they’re tossing those balls of snow and ice at each other, laughing and screaming in delight each time they manage to actually hit their target.
Puck knows this because he used to join in with those kids while Kurt stood back and watched. Kurt always smiled so damn brightly when he would stop to play with the laughing, screaming children. And afterwards, he would tell him, while picking the melting snow off of his shoulders, that he knew one day he would make the best father. Puck would smile right back at him and pick him up, right in the middle of the sidewalk, and swing him around. The snow would continue to fall around them, and for a few moments, the world would just stop.
Now he’s left alone to deal with these memories bouncing around in his foggy brain. He spends the afternoon alternating between wanting him back and wanting him gone forever as he watches the strip of light slowly turn dark. He’s still waiting for him to call by the time the street lights come on and the snowfall begins to slow. When the phone still doesn’t ring he just stumbles to the kitchen to find the other bottle of wine and drinks it slowly, straight from the bottle, as he stares out into the snow-covered world.
By the time Puck wakes up the next morning, the snow has stopped falling and the sun is shining all too brightly onto his face. He’s on the living room couch, bottle of wine still half full and sitting open on the floor next to him. The windows out here don’t have any curtains to cover them, they could never find the right shade in the right size, and he feels like murdering the sun would be a task he’d like to complete right about now.
He mumbles to himself as he walks into the bedroom and grabs onto his beeping mobile phone. His eyes light up at the sound of the electronic beeps, and he mentally crosses his fingers that it’s a signal from Kurt. A message, text or voice, saying that he’s sorry and that he messed up and that he’s coming back and they can finally go on that snowy walk. But it’s not. It’s just the stupid piece of shit telling him that it needs to be charged before the screen goes black.
He thinks about hurling the phone out of his window and watching it fall. Instead, he plugs it in to charge and pulls on the first pair of jeans he can find. He tops it off with an old long-sleeved shirt and his jacket, pulling a wool hat down onto his head as he walks out of his apartment and down the fifteen flights of stairs to the outside. He inhales deeply, welcoming the sharp pain that comes with the cold air, before turning and walking the opposite direction of what they usually walk.
He wanders through the city sidewalks for what feels like hours but turns out to really only be one and a half. He watches the children playing with snowballs and has to refrain himself from joining in. He smiles at the few who recognize him, that kind of sad half-smile that he used to swear never to give, and walks straight past their pleading eyes. He wants to let go and run through the streets with them but he won’t. Because it reminds him of Kurt, and right now, he just wants to fucking forget.
He makes it back to the apartment with a somewhat clearer mind and fingers that he’s sure have to be halfway to frostbitten. He slowly walks up the stairs and repeatedly tells himself that he’s not going to let this get him down, and that there is an entire world out there for him to explore. He tells himself that break-ups happen all the time, all the goddamn time, and that he needs to just stop with this whole woe-is-me attitude before it kills him.
And then he sticks the key into his apartment door only to find the thing already unlocked. He’s shaking his head, eyes squeezing shut, as he walks into the main room and hears his voice. Just greeting him like it’s totally fucking normal for him to be there. Just standing in his living room like he hadn’t broken his heart in a million tiny pieces only mere days earlier. Kurt smiles at him, that shaky smile that he falls in love with every single time he sees it, and his whole pep talk from the stairs evaporates.
When he crosses the room to place one soft hand on his shoulder, he crumbles. He falls against him and doesn’t even try to stop the tears. He’s not exactly sure why he’s back, but it doesn’t matter because he’s back and he’s his once again. They can go out now and go for that walk and he can stop and play with the laughing children, and Kurt can smile and tell him that he’s going to make the best goddamn father. Then, they can come back to the apartment and finish that bottle of wine while talking and cuddling on the couch. And they’ll swear to each other that they’ll never break up again, and they’ll promise to never break each other’s hearts because it just hurts too damn much.
But Kurt’s not back to do those things and he finds that out the hard way when he leads him into the bedroom and goes straight to the closet. He pulls out his suitcase, the one that’s black with thin grey lines covering the surface, and begins to make his way around the small room. His heart breaks, over and over again, as he watches him place his entire life into that suitcase before moving into the next room and doing it again. He kisses him good-bye, just on the cheek, before he leaves. Telling him that he’s sorry once again, and that he just can’t do this anymore. Kurt tells him that it just doesn’t feel right.
And Puck understands because he has to. He has to just accept it and move on. Accept that his perfect, beautiful boy isn’t coming back to him and that he just has to learn how to get past it. He needs to become the hero, and try to rewrite his own goddamn story, and rise above all of the hurt to become something greater.
So, he shoves his arms back into the sleeves of his coat and puts his hat back over his hair and runs. He runs down the stairs and out onto the street until he finds those kids with their shining eyes and their snow-soaked clothes, and he kneels down next to the smallest one and helps her form a snowball out of the sticky snow. He spends the afternoon running and laughing with the children, letting them tackle him to the ground and lifting the smaller ones up to place rocks onto the snowman’s smiling face.
And by the time the snow starts to fall again, he finally starts to feel okay.