Fic: Reverseverse Ep3: 'Gay', Part 4 - PG
Title: Reverseverse Ep 3, part 4
Verse: Reverseverse
Author: test_kard_girl
Rating: PG, for some sweary language
Characters/Pairings: Kurt/Puck, Finn/Rachel, Artie/Tina, most of the regular cast of Glee appear, albeit as their slightly altered role-reversal selves.
Genre: AU
Warning: Puck and Kurt not being themselves
Spoilers: Say through Season 1, although as it's AU, in a very roundabout, squint and you'll miss it kind of way.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Glee or anything to do with it; I just have vivid hallucinations. The role!reversal AU belongs to mundaneone. I’m just playing in it by her very kind permission :).
Author's Notes: A tribute and addition to mundaneone’s fabtastic 'A Little Role Reversal', whose characters ate my brain. The original fic was written by mundaneone in response to this prompt from the glee_angst_meme. I hope anything I write in this verse can do her original creation justice. You’ll need to read 'A Little Role Reversal' before you read anything I write, so you get the gist of the characters and the world they live in
Word Count: (This part) 4530
Summary: The "social ladder" is upside down. Puck gets bullied by one ice-queen Kurt Hummel. Doesn't mean he isn't head over heels though.
The Reverseverse, episode 3 part 4: The football game of epic. Time to get your ring-fingers in the air ladies :)
They're late. Fashionably late, and… purposefully late. After all, they don't want anyone to actually see them here.
"Thanks." Mercedes smiles tightly, pulling her scarf up to her nose and climbing into the space the three wide-eyed science nerds have just scrambled sideways to leave for her. Ugh, bleachers. It’s like the world’s biggest McDonalds. And can everyone just stop staring?
"How do I know when we’re winning?" Tina asks, sidling in beside her.
"Just cheer when everyone else cheers." Mercedes advises. Damn it's cold.
She reaches up on her tiptoes, scanning the red jerseys lumbering up and down the field for any sign of a player under five ten.
“Look, there he is…!” She grins, waving to try and catch Kurt’s attention, and accidentally elbowing Tina in the boob with her enthusiasm:
“-Ow!”
Kurt glances up; but as soon as his eyes meet Mercedes’, what little colour there is in his china-doll cheeks drains away and he whips back round, resuming what looks like some pretty arbitrary hamstring stretches.
Mercedes scowls: “Oh, as if he has anything to be proud about.” She grumbles. “He's wearing stirrup pants."
But Tina looks preoccupied by the accidental boob-barge, and doesn’t seem to care that Kurt is completely blanking their social-kamikazeing.
"We're the Titans, right?" She says flatly, sitting down carefully on the stained white plastic beneath them. A bit sheepishly, Mercedes follows suit.
“Go McKinley, go, go McKinley!”
Mercedes grimaces, glancing down at the cluster of goose-pimpled cheerleaders below.
She really doesn’t get how this has happened. A couple of weeks back, she’d sat with Kurt and congratulated him over two decaf sugarfree hazelnut mochas on his imminent freedom from the attentions of that steroid-enhanced pre-historic loser Puckerman; and now here he is (and here she is!) voluntarily participating in some mid-season sporting-event! And for what?
Tina presses against Mercedes’ side, mouth puckering into a thin blood-red line of lip-gloss as she tries to make sense of the sporting carnage playing out below them.
It’s gonna be a loooong night.
“Hey, ball-buster-!”
Puck bites his tongue, staring at the halfway point on the crossbar sixty yards away and trying to tune out the dickhead linebacker yammering
for his attention the other side of the scrimmage.
“-Yo momma so fat, her neck looks like a pack o hotdogs! Mmm, get me some ketchup!”
The Carmel Coyotes cackle; but Puck just introduces them to Exhibit A), his middle finger, and takes his place in the line. He exchanges a tiny nod with Finn: getting wound-up by these douche-nozzles ain’t gonna help nothing.
“Blue twenty-two! Blue twenty-two!...HUT!!”
Puck’s feet pound the grass, studs ripping at the turf as he runs, fire ripping through his quadriceps; grunting, yelling, chanting; the whistle screams:
PHWEEEETTT!!
“Set, thirty-six, HUT! HUT!”
Carmel’s Ninety-Nine barrels up the field, throwing the McKinley line aside like rags; and Puck’s brain rattles against his skull as Karofsky’s body crashes into his, the ball rolling away from his outstretched fingers like a sheepish hedgehog.
PHWEEEETTT!!
“White eighty-four! White Eighty-four!...HUT!”
Finn snatches the ball, tossing it back close enough to clock Matt in the groin and sending him to the floor:
PHWEEEETTT!!
“Blue sixty-two! Blue sixty-two, set, HUT!”
“It’s mine! Here, here you fucker!” Puck’s shoulder impacts the turf, curling the solid ball of pigskin into his stomach as he’s pounded into the ground, body after body piling on top of his:
PHWEEEETTT!!!
The damp grass feels fucking beautiful pressed into his cheek: welcoming him to just stay for a while; lay his big, stupid, helmeted head down on the ransacked turf and hang ten… Or twenty…Fifty…
He forces his eyes open. From the very, very corner of them he can see Kurt’s left calf, crossed tightly over his right, and his fingers, cold and white, knitted together over his knees.
Humiliation pricking his shoulders, Puck finally works his arms, pushing himself back to his feet. Every night this week, every freakin’ night practicing that damn dance routine, ‘cos Kurt- his Kurt, who he hates to death and loves to pieces- stood up at the front in practice with a straight face and told them it would help.
Puck pushes his fist against his mouth, teeth digging at his skin.
I’ll never stop falling for it, will I? Play me whatever tune you like Hummel...
He glowers round at the rest of the field, ignoring the Titans slapping him comiseratingly on the shoulder as they file past. The only good that dance routine could do them now would be if they busted it out in the middle of the scrimmage and hoped to hell the other team would stay concussed long enough to give them a head start to the endzone.
Puck sucks in a sudden, shuddering breath, heart leaping terrifyingly up his throat before settling back down again.
He squints once more at the dejected huddle of Titans dragging themselves towards the sidelines; feels a horrified grimace flit over his mouth.
Well shit…
PHWEEEETTT!!!
“TIMEOUT!”
By the end of the third quarter, most of the crowd in the McKinley stand seems to have dispersed and wandered inconspicuously towards the parking lot, or the porta-johns. Total humiliation isn’t that easy to take on the chin, even for those die-hard Titans fans, who were pretty used to watching Hudson get his plays mixed up as he called them, leaving his team standing in clueless disarray; or Karofsky getting all touchy about the opposing wing-backer pretending to ass-fuck him; or Chang dodging out of the way when one his team-mates remembered he was actually on the field and trying to pass him the ball. The Titanites knew their team wasn’t gonna get any better watching their fans abandon ship and head to the Lima Bean: but, honestly? It’s not like they could get any worse.
Mercedes snorts awake as Tina returns from her twenty minute pee-break, holding a hand up to her eyes and squinting across the field at the scoreboard.
"...So I guess that’s what losing looks like."
Mercedes rolls her head, trying fruitlessly to get the crick out of her neck.
"And we’re letting these guys in our glee club?” She makes an effort to prise her eyes open, doing a quick scan of all the red-clad players currently bumbling around the field, and the one she actually came to see, still sitting primly on the sidelines. She feels her mouth pinch in unhappiness: “...Maybe after this BP-sized industrial disaster he’ll hang up his football boots and get on with breaking in his Gucinaris…"
Tina latches onto Mercedes’ arm, smiling one of her incomprehensible smiles:
“...So, own up: You’ve never even thought about it?"
"About what?"
"Slumming it. Dating a football player."
"Psch. Scuse me while I choke on my own vomit."
Tina shrugs: “Kurt’s a football player now.”
Mercedes cocks an eyebrow:
“Watch it, Yenta.”
"Well they are pretty.” Tina wheedles smilingly. “Sometimes you don't want something... complicated."
"Are you serious?” Mercedes drawls, starting to get a bit suspicious of her friend’s insistence. “Nah, I'm sorry, I like my men to have a bit o meat between the ears, not just between the-"
"-thighs?"
The two girls burst out laughing, putting the middle-schoolers on Tina's other side to shame. Luckily, it’s swallowed up by the tentative hollering of the remaining crowd, as one of the bulbous Weebles on the field makes a break up the outside. After a few dramatic seconds though, the fullback (predictably) hits a hump on the perfectly flat playing field and crashes headfirst into the turf, causing a four man pile-up.
Everyone settles down again, a bit embarrassed about their enthusiasm.
Tina offers Mercedes an M&M, popping a green one in her own mouth, resuming their previous conversation.
"Y'know, I heard Kurt and Puckerman haven't even done it yet."
"Right.” Mercedes sniffs. “And Rachel Berry hasn’t started writing her autobiography...”
Kurt bounces his foot up and down, noticing from the corner of his eyes how much it’s annoying Player-seventeen-whatever-his-name-is sitting beside him. He pauses for a moment- and Player Seventeen closes his eyes with undisguised relief, which is all the more entertaining when Kurt re-crosses his legs and starts bouncing his other foot instead.
Moron.
Internally, he gives himself a slap across the wrist. They’re all on the same team now-or at least, that’s what this hideous and ill-fitting ensemble is forcibly reminding him everytime he has to jiggle his foot about to re-adjust the elastic straps under his arch. He’s meant to be civil, and supportive and other small-minded things that Broadway starlets are not best known for.
Kurt pouts a little, glancing down at his blue-tinged fingers.
He is trying. But he doesn’t belong on a football team. Every cell in his body knows this, and everyone else out on the field knows it too- all these pairs of eyes staring at him feel more like the murdering hordes of Mordor than any rapturous Broadway audience, and he bets to sweet Papa McQueen there won’t any standing ovations tonight.
Carefully, Kurt lifts his eyes, trying to spot Noah without anyone else noticing. It’s hard to tell the players apart out here: they’re all pretty much equally inept. How can it be so difficult to catch a ball? Surely this is what they do all the practice for?
A gruff voice comes from his side:
“…This rate you’re not even gonna get your chance to swoop in and save the day.”
Kurt stiffens:
“I’m sorry; and what alternate universe is this that allows us to make eye-contact?” He enquires, nevertheless turning his head around and glowering at the foolish hulk of testosterone slumped beside him.
Unexpectedly, the other boy doesn’t back down; just scowls more, and Kurt is surprised at how much he recognises the helpless anger in his face:
“That was it, right? You were just gonna swan in here, win the game and prove there’s nothin’ that you glee kids can’t own our asses at? Well, how’s it feel to be a Lima Loser Hummel?”
It’s like the nameless imbecile has kicked him in the solar-plexus, and Kurt can’t help how his lips part, indignance flaring:
“I’m not a loser.”
Nameless-Seventeen shrugs: “You’re sure as hell not winning.”
PHWWWEEETT!!!!!
“-Seventeen, get your butt out there! And where the hell is the physio--?!”
The brainless linebacker escapes Kurt’s wrath just in time, hauled to his feet by an apoplectic Tanaka, and replaced by a staggering Matt Rutherford, who looks like he’s run face-first into one of the uprights.
Kurt presses his knuckles to his mouth, twisting back round and staring out over the field again until his gaze alights almost accidentally on Noah, watching him kick listlessly at the turf, gritting his teeth against the endless taunts of the opposing defensive line.
Kurt can’t actually remember the last time he lost at something. It’s just never really been an acceptable option.
Kurt Hummel is not a Lima loser. Kurt Hummel does not play for losing teams.
His eyes tick upwards. On the Titans’ side the scorecard still reads a big fat zero.
Dammit.
"So.” Mercedes says through a mouthful of M&Ms “You better have a darn good reason for giving back that solo...”
It’s not the first time Mercedes has tried to broach this subject today, and Tina turns baleful eyes on her.
"I couldn't sing it.” She says flatly “I sounded like a Furby."
The other girl shrugs: "Artie said you were rockin it."
"Well he is kind of biased."
Mercedes snorts. Artie’s a decent enough guy, and yeah, gets extra kudos for having enough talent to negate the horrifying faux-pas he
regularly makes on the wardrobe front- but Mercedes knows even Tina isn’t blind to what a misogynistic ass her boyfriend can be.
"Yeah, 'cos Artie just throws round compliments like they're goin outta style.” She reminds her dryly. “…The guy who told you he didn't want you riding his thighs anymore in case you cut the circulation off to his paralysed legs??"
Tina glances at her ebony-coloured fingernails: "He didn't say it like that."
"I'm not down with any guy whaling on a girl 'cos of her curves, Tee.” Mercedes reminds her. “’Specially you; hell knows you could do better than putting up with his shiz...”
The referee’s whistle blasts again, and Mercedes automatically glances at the big neon clock flicking down to zero and realises with a jolt that it’s stopped moving.
“Wait,” She curls urgent fingernails in Tina’s arm. “What’s goin’ on?”
“Hudson called a time-out.” The other girl explains wearily, and Mercedes cannot believe that this is even legal.
“Are you freakin’ kidding me??” She spits, throwing her hands in the air, and Tina can’t understand why all of a sudden she cares so much:
“There’s one second to go! One second! Have you lost your crazy-ass minds??!”
“What the hell Hudson-??”
“-Kinda getting sick of prolonging the inevitable here-”
“- Not all of us enjoy getting’ shafted as much as Puckerman here does, okay?-”
“-Shut up, all of you!” Finn glares round at them. His face is pink, but he holds one hand up steady right in front of Azimio’s trash-talking mouth as that huge incriminating zero looms behind their heads: “Puck’s got an idea.”
Puck meets his friend’s gaze. He can honestly not believe his brain is letting him do this.
He passes a nervous tongue over his lips. The dozens of faces in the stands around them are blurring into one big acid-trip dream-sequence:
“We, uh…” He girds himself. “We need to do the ‘Single Ladies’ thing.”
“What?”
“You trippin’ Puckerman??”
“-You lost your mind?”
Puck sets his jaw. “’Single Ladies’. Like in practice…” He stares round at them “Yeah, come on-”
“- It was dance practice Puckerman.” Azimio snorts, looking horrified. “We can’t do that out here-”
“-And why? Worried you’ll look like a moron?” Kurt wanders over from the AV desk, making sympathetic eyes. “Have you noticed your
forehead-to-chin ratio recently? You already look like a moron.”
“Yeah, but it’s easy for you, ain’t it Hummel?” Karofsky snarls, turning on him. “To get out there and bust your moves in front of a hundred people? You’ve been doing Beyonce choreography since you popped outta your mom’s flappers.”
Kurt frowns, pointing at the frosty turf: “…You think there’s a hundred people here?”
“Whatever. This is football- it’s not about prancing around in leotards, it’s about cracking skulls, and I’m pretty sure Destiny’s Child don’t know a thing about leg tackles.”
Finn glances over his shoulder: “Look, we don’t have time to-“
“-No, no, Triceratops may have a point.” Kurt interrupts, folding his arms in contemplation. “My football knowledge is, yes, less than a week old. The reason for that being that my brain is bigger than my testicles; freely admitted. But what I do know about, David, is winning; doing whatever it takes to stay on the top; and that sometimes you need to pull a trick or two outta the bag to get some blindsided douche to pay you attention.”
Puck flinches, glancing at his boots: so that might’ve been directed at him…
“Right, now: you have two options, as far as Puckerman and I can see it. You can get back in your line, call one of your ridiculously-named plays and get ten yards down the field before ploughing into a cheerleader, like has been happening for the last fifty-eight minutes; or you can bang that music on, give those Coyotes thirty seconds of eye-popping what-the-fuckery and high-tail it down the field past the endzone before they’ve even stopped singing the chorus.”
A gust of dead silence follows this proclamation. Frustrated, Puck throws down his hands. Two weeks ago getting a verbal bitch-slap like that from Kurt Hummel would’ve had the whole team cowering at his feet. More and more it feels like this world has gone and got itself turned inside out in the wash:
"What we got to lose?"
“Go McKinley! Go go McKinley!!”
"This isn't Glee Club." Karofsky protests desperately.
"Then be a coward and stay a loser." Puck snaps. His toes have had enough of standing about here bellyaching; at least dancing might warm him up. "We could end this game with the biggest comeback in football history; I’m gonna give it a shot."
No-one else says anything. And with a jolt Puck realises that’s the closest they’re gonna get to an agreement.
“Okay.” Finn clears his throat roughly, nodding at Puck as they tighten up the huddle. Puck lifts his eyes, and his heart squeezes painfully when he finds Kurt still watching him.
“Here’s what we do…”
“Let’s just go.” Sarah grumps, slurping down the last of her slushie with pointed finality. She’s so doesn’t want to be here anymore. High School football games are not as cool as Tasha made them out to be. And Noah is being a total freak. What did he, like, plan to make her look like a dork?
“Wait, wait, wait-” Tasha tugs at Sarah’s hoodie, and Sarah would be really peed-off at her if there wasn’t all of a sudden a big, teeth-grinding shriek of feedback from the tanoy, and instead of the commentator’s suicidal mumblings there comes…
”All the single ladies! all the single ladies...!”
“Oh. My. God…” Sarah intones, jaw dropping open and bouncing off her knees. “What are they doing??”
‘Cos the McKinley Titans are dancing- like, properly dancing- in the middle of the football field, to Top 20 Beyonce solo hit ’Single Ladies’.
“No. Way.” Tasha’s eyes are about double the size of her Slushie cup.
Sarah blinks, hard, pretty sure this must be some e-numbers hallucination or something. But no: when she opens her eyes again they’re still there, still dancing- and they must’ve practiced a bunch of times, ‘cos everyone’s getting the steps right. And Sarah’s knows the steps are right because…
“…That’s how he knew all the moves…”
“…What?”
Sarah buries a hand in her hair, trying not to make eye-contact with anyone who might know she’s Noah Puckerman’s sister. “Noah showed me all the steps to this the other night.”
Tasha makes a face like oh my god: “Is he like trying to be gay or something?”
“He said it was a glee club thing!”
“Noah’s in glee club??”
Yeah. It sounded nutsy to Sarah too.
“If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it…”
“Not until like last week…” She mutters, torn between staring at the eleven jocks shaking their moneymakers and hiding her face in shame. They cannot be serious about this. If any other glee kids are here the whole football team’ll be eating garbage for a week.
Step and step and hip to the left, head… Well hey, at least they’re good at it…
The rest of the crowd don’t seem to know what to do. Some of them are laughing; most of the Titans fans are laughing, probably figuring what the hell, they don’t really have much to lose. The crowd from Carmel couldn’t look more shocked if the Titans were busting out their moves nekkid.
Sarah giggles, then immediately clamps her hand over her mouth: “This is epic...” She wrestles her phone out of her jeans pocket, flicking on the video camera, and Tasha bursts out into a peel of laughter.
Then-just as suddenly as it started, the music cuts.
Sarah straightens up: “…Wha-?”
The next few seconds seem to play out in slow-motion. The Carmel coyotes are shaking their heads, like they’re trying to dislodge the tune; a couple of them are taking the piss and flapping their hands about; and on the McKinley line, the Center snaps the ball.
Finn catches it.
“Oh shit.” Sarah hisses, scrambling to her feet. Tasha grabs her arm.
Noah starts running. Sarah has never seen him run so fast, he is bolting up the field, and it’s like the Coyotes are on another planet-half of them don’t even seem to know the ball’s in play.
Then they do. Then they really, really do. They start running; some of the massive guys on defense go hurtling up the field, but Noah’s smaller than them; and faster; and he’s got a massive head-start.
“Oh god, C’MON NOAH!!!” Sarah screams, bouncing up and down. Tasha echoes her shout:
“C’mon Noah!”
The whole crowd starts screaming, yelling, stamping their feet; they cannot believe this is happening.
(It is pretty fucked-up.)
“C’MON NOAH!!!!”
It’s like the ball was made for Noah’s hands: it slips out of the sky and into his waiting palms, and he hardly even slows down as he thunders towards the endzone. The Coyotes sound outraged; their players are running flat-out, all charging desperately up the field trying to block her brother’s breakout, but…
“They’re not gonna make it!” Sarah shrieks. “They’re not gonna make it!! ‘C’MON NOAH, C’MON, C’MON-YEEEEESSS!!!!”
Noah skids into the endzone, spiking the ball like he’s trying to blast a hole in the field two metres past the goal-line.
“YEEEESSSS!!! HOLY FREAKIN’ MOSES YEEESSS!!!” Sarah wraps her arms around her best friend, the two of them dancing on the spot.
“MY BROTHER’S A FUCKING HERO!!! THAT’S MY FUCKING BROTHER!!!” She gives Tasha a good shake, ‘case she wasn’t paying attention. “YEEEESSSSS!!!!!”
“We’re tied!” Tasha yells, pointing a dramatic finger at the scoreboard, which they’ve kind of avoided looking at for the last hour. “We’re tied! We’re not gonna lose!!!”
Sarah’s kinda dizzy from screaming so loud. Her brother is doing some douchbag victory-dance at the end of the field but she’ll let him away with it ‘cos he is a freaking hero and the Titans have just drawn a game in the last second by dancing to Beyonce.
“Oh my god they are INSANE!!!” She hollers, and Tasha bursts out laughing.
Puck has never heard noise like this.
The whole crowd is fucking screaming. Not kinda embarrassedly, like they do at most games; not ‘cos they’re pissed. But because he just, y’know: sprouted wings and ran like freaking Hermes to the other end of the field and scored a touchdown after busting out a verse and a half of Beyonce choreography.
They did it. They actually, actually fucking did it.
Puck holds a hand up to his eyes, squinting through the floodlights at his celebrating teammates. He’s pretty sure he has a smile on his face that it could give small kids night terrors, but he doesn’t even care.
Except…
Except the game isn’t over.
His stomach does some kind of Cirque De Soleil aerial somersault thing and lands heavily on top of his bladder.
From the bench Kurt strides onto the field, jamming his helmet down immediately over his head like it’ll protect him from all the breathless disbelief ricocheting around. He doesn’t even make a fuss about his bangs.
Puck swallows heavily.
“Oh god, c’mon Kurt.” He mutters through his teeth.
Kurt, for his part, couldn’t look less bothered- except Puck’s been paying Kurt Hummel an inordinate amount of attention for the last year and a half, and he knows exactly what nervous looks like on him. He watches as the other boy wordlessly hands Finn the tee, taking the few steps he needs to get a good run up and tugging reflexively on the hem of his shirt to straighten the creases out. The crowd has quietened; their giddiness being squashed by the weight of the moment.
Puck sticks his thumb between his teeth, chewing unashamedly. They could win this thing. They could fucking win this.
Kurt tilts his head a little to the side, tracing the perfect trajectory with his eyes; finding the spot on the ball he needs to hit to send that incongruous lump of pigskin soaring through the starry night and over the crossbar to totally unexpected, whacked-out victory.
Then-as if he’s finally just acknowledged the crowd around him-he glances right and left, at all the dozens of wide-eyed faces; takes a deep, deep breath; then sticks his hand in the air and twirls his finger.
“If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it…”
“Come on you fucker, come on…” Puck chants. “Come on…”
Kurt picks up the choreography bang on queue: hand, hand, point to the finger, hip, head…
The rest of the team are deathly pale, girding everything to keep back the Carmel Coyotes who look too shellshocked to even try and defend.
“Who-oh-oh, oh oh oh-oh, who-oh-oh…”
Kurt side-hops one way, then the other; then plants his right foot hard into the ground and swings his left, just like he did in that very first try-out.
Maybe the music cuts- or maybe it’s just that Puck’s brain can’t focus on anything except Kurt’s foot connecting squarely with the ball with a hard, satisfying thump- but he’s pretty sure he stops breathing.
Then, in a world soft and silent and cottony around the edges, he watches the football soar through the air and right over the centre of the crossbar; a perfect three-point conversion.
The crowd goes insane.
Once again, Puck starts running. His knees are burning and he thinks he screams obscenities the whole way to the other end of the field, but he couldn’t say for sure ‘cos his brain’s gone code red and flatlined. The world’s a blur of wide open mouths and flailing arms and red shirts and Kurt getting hoisted violently upwards onto the waiting shoulders of the rest of the McKinley Titans. Puck wants to drag him back down again, but instead he lets Finn wrap him in a massive bone-crunching head-lock and the two of them stare wonderingly round at the bleachers; at the dancing and the hugging and that big bastar,d of a scoreboard that now reads nine points to six and may as well just have a giant middle-finger waggling in the direction of the Carmel Coyotes’ team bus ‘cos those dickwads have just been right and fairly shafted by one hundred-and-twenty pound, fiercely-coordinated, ice-bitch Glee club soprano and his whole team of epic, fearless prancing daisies.
Puck spins round as the team finally lowers their new crown prince of victory back down to the turf. He wants to say something hot and witty and awesome… But his heart’s thumping so hard in his throat he doesn’t think he could form words even if his dumb, stuttering Neanderthal brain wanted him to. Then Kurt’s eyes meet his, and it feels like the first time Puck’s ever actually seen them. They’re bright, bright blue and warm as fireflies.
“I hate you.” Kurt mouths over the noise; but he’s beaming, glowing, happier than Puck thought his face could actually be, and Puck catches him up in his arms without a thought, grinning at the heart-thrilling surge of electricity between them that draws their lips together, at Kurt’s fingers curled around his face, the other boy kissing Puck hard and sure and laughing against his mouth, smudging the roar of the crowd and the hollering of their teammates and the shrieking of the Cheerios into just so much meaningless, fuzzy background noise.