Title: The System - Chapter Ten
Pairing: Kurt/Puck
Word Count: 1050 this chapter // 9800 overall.
Rating: R
Previous Chapters: Can be found at the directory
here.
Kurt shuddered and pulled his jacket closed. It was colder than the last time he and Puck had met at the park. Fall was here and would quickly be followed by an Ohio Winter. He wondered why he was wanted here anyway. It was kind of confusing. He found the other boy by the swings.
"Hey," he said a little nervously.
"Hey," Puck responded. "Hudson acted like you were gonna break with worry, so I thought I'd tell ya the news myself."
Kurt put his bag aside and sat on the swing. "What news?" he asked.
"Some chick who was working there, she was undercover. They're gonna bring down the place in a big corruption case. Dude who did this to me might get his too."
Kurt turned his head, his eyes lighting up.
"Really? You're not gonna get in trouble or..."
Puck shrugged and sat down on the closest swing. "She swears she'll protect me but dude even if I land in the hole again, the idea of getting that place for covering it up and destroying him for ...wrecking me, it’s worth it. That's kinda cool yeah? Justice prevailing and all."
Kurt smiled. "Yeah. It'd give you some closure and yeah..."
He nodded. "Dude, were you really worried?"
"Don't call me Dude. And..." Kurt swung back a little. "Of course I was, some woman drags you off and I gotta go to class and..."
"You got warned against fallin' for me," he said sagely. He seemed to not be able to resist teasing.
"I'm not!"
Puck stood up.
"You had friends to warn you off the big bad that is love, but I don't really have a lot of friendly support. Finn and I are pretty cool again but instead of warring me off, he practically gushed over my feelings."
Kurt stopped the swing, feet dragging in the sand. "Are you saying-"
"That I'm totally gay for you? Maybe. I know what happened to me didn't hit a magical gay switch, but Dude I can't help it. Sorry I know, don't call you that. It's silly and stuff but you saved me you know that? You woke me up when I was just...falling inside. I was breaking down and..."
"Oh my god when did you get so romantic?" Kurt practically exclaimed. "This is a dream, a really good dream, but a dream nonetheless."
"You did it to me."
Kurt looked up.
"If it's not a dream then you're suffering from a bad case of hero worship because I helped you. Trust me; I did the hero worship thing with Finn. It's unhealthy and not real I promise."
Puck approached him with one long stride, leaned over and kissed him. It rocked his swing back.
Kurt let out a squeal when their lips touched and Puck kissed him rather intently. It felt so good and their lips just meshed together like they belonged, attached, ideal.
He got up and picked up his bag, shoving past the slightly kneeling boy, running as hard as he could. He didn't stop until he got home.
His dad was in the front room of the house, watching some very lame show about truck drivers. Instead of the usual quip about his father's poor taste in programming though, Kurt broke down crying.
Burt sprung to life there, turning off the television and gripping Kurt in his arms. "What happened? Kurt, did somebody hurt you? Talk to me kid, please."
He shook his head. "No, no but yes," he breathed. "Dad he kissed me! He...he kissed me and told me he was falling for me."
"Who?" Burt asked, confused.
"Puck," he rasped. "Noah Puckerman, the kid who threw me in dumpsters a year and a half ago and didn't give me a second glance in glee since he joined it. How can he be in love with me now? After all that! It's only...only because I helped him isn't it? I helped him get through a traumatic experience so he decided that he was in love with me. It’s just like my crush on Finn because he was nice to me and…oh man, Dad this is bad.”
Burt sat Kurt down, trying to calm his son. “Kurt, listen okay? This isn’t a bad thing, right?”
“How can you say that, Dad?” Kurt practically whined. “He doesn’t really love me and then he’s gonna make me fall in love with him which is just what Mercedes warned me not to do. I don’t like this. It’s not right.”
“If he makes you feel insecure Kurt…”
“That’s the problem!” he yelled, frantic. “He doesn’t make me feel insecure at all. It’s like he’s changed since he was hurt and he really cares about me.” He leaned back against the couch, smacking the back of his head against it a few times. He looked down at the floor because he was about to just start blabbering to a father who wasn’t prepared for this. “He’s the same guy he was before he got sent away, but only not. He was kind of the school man slut, a jock, a bully and…”
He had a feeling his father stopped cold at man slut, judging by his expression.
“It’s stopped though. The…the rape, it stopped that. He hasn’t so much as looked at a girl. He spends more time with me. He promised that they rape didn’t make him go gay for me, I did, but…um, this is really awkward isn’t it?”
His dad let out a choked, “Yeah it is.”
Kurt laughed, so upset he wasn’t sure how to react. “I ran away from him,” he said. “I left him in the park. That kind of sucked of me, right? Even if he’s not in love with me, he’s using me to help himself get through this and I ditched him in a freezing cold park.”
“How do you feel about the kid, incident aside?” Burt asked, with a look that said he really didn’t want to speculate on his son’s love life.
Kurt made it brief. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m very protective of him. I want to be close to him. I just don’t really know who he is.”