Fic: Man of the House (1/1)
Title: Man of the House
Genre: Angst
Rating: R
Pairing: Gen - Puck centric
Word Count: 2220
Summary: It was just a small fire in the adjoining Home Economics room, but the moment he saw it, Puck's eyes went wide and he stopped moving out of a fear he’d long forgotten.
It was just a small fire in the adjoining Home Economics room, but the moment he saw it, Puck's eyes went wide and he stopped moving out of a fear he’d long forgotten. The tiny lick of flame caught his attention out of the corner of his eye and it may as well have been the same fire that engulfed the local hardware shop when he was only eight years old. .
"No," he pleaded low, unaware that he was speaking the words aloud. "Please...I wanna get out…it’s everywhere…”
He had been going to get some things for his mom. They were going to remodel his bedroom, fix some of the damage his father left behind and he was so damned proud of himself. He was the man of the house at eight years old. His mom had gone next door to pick up some much needed groceries and gave the man of the house a tiny list of things to buy for her.
He had been proudly hauling some small tools to the register when parts of the building started to collapse in front of him. He had not been paying much attention, had not even seen that the roof was on fire until it began to slowly collapse into itself, and flames roared through the room.
"Watch out!" someone screamed. There was so much screaming that day. He would never forget that screaming.
The fire spread so fast, flame dancing dangerously down every aisle. People screamed but they couldn't avoid its path. He dropped the tools in fear. Some woman he could not see well through the smoke, she grabbed him by the arm and led him to the floor beneath the cashier's stand. He tumbled to the ground, the woman’s body on his, guarding him from the flame. "Mommy!" he screamed, forgetting that he was too much of a big boy to call for his mommy. Sarah was the baby, she needed mommy, but in that moment so did he. He needed his mommy so much. In that second, Noah, the big man of the house was once again a little baby sobbing hysterically.
His mommy wasn't there but the woman was. From behind the counter, he could see her. She was a very pretty lady with soft eyes who kept looking at him protectively. She kept him down, shielding him from the falling debris. "It’s all gonna be okay son I got you," she said soothingly, touching his hair. "Firemen will come. It won't get you."
Noah was a smart child. He knew when adults were lying to you and the woman was starting to lie to him. She didn’t know that it wouldn’t get him.
The screams of people around him were terrifying. Sirens came, so she was right, firemen were there, but the front of the building collapsed in and nobody could get in. Noah coughed, the black smoke was filling his lungs. The woman was coughing too, arms wrapped around him to shield him. Wh-what's your name sweetie?" she rasped out.
"Noah," he cried.
"Noah, I'm...my name’s Katherine. I don't think the firemen can get to the door so I'm gonna pick you up and move us closer to the front of the building, so they can get you out of here.”
He didn't speak but Katherine wrapped both arms around him even tighter and he could feel that they were moving towards the door. He couldn't see anything and was starting to get dizzy and want to close his eyes. He whimpered in pain when the flame caught his shirt, howling as it started to burn.
"Help!" he shrieked and his voice wasn't alone. There were more voices, more hands on him. He was being pulled out by strong arms and saw yellow, but was being moved away from the loving, motherly arms wrapped around his lower body.
When he woke up next he was in a hospital, unharmed, aside from a few minor burns to his chest and arm and some smoke inhalation. His mother was sitting by his bedside with his baby sister in her arms.
He woke up crying for the woman he’d met in the middle of that hysteria, that chaos. .
His mom eventually told him what happened to the nice lady who saved his life. It was not something that you told an eight year old child so bluntly, but Noah was the man of the house.
"She was a hero Noah," she said through tears. "A lady they found inside carried you to safety but got caught in the rubble when handing you over to the firemen. She didn't make it. By the time they got her out too, she was gone. You’d have been gone if she didn’t…put you first. She gave her life...to save my baby. I'm so happy you're okay baby boy. So so happy.”
To this day, Puck remembered how overjoyed his mother was and how many tears she cried for the poor woman who saved her son. Puck had never understood the heroic woman who was dead so he could live. He never understood the motivation she had. She saved some loser eight year old instead of getting herself to safety. She probably had a family of her own and yet she risked herself for some dumb kid and lost her life.
When he blinked, the thoughts flooding out of his head and away from him, he was already outside with Finn, the other boy’s arm around his shoulder. He pushed the boy away from him. "Dude what happened?" he asked.
"The nurse wants you to come in after they clear the school," Finn said, looking at Puck like he was a ghost or something. He had obviously blanked out for awhile, because Finn looked honestly terrified of him. "I think we lost you for a second there, dude. Your eyes were absolutely empty and you kept saying 'no' and 'Katherine,’ over and over again."
Oh god. Puck groaned. He had blurted all of that out and now he was kind of stuck without much of a choice, as far as letting Finn know what was going on in the fucked up place known as his head. "There was a fire..."
"Yeah dude in the Home Ec room," Finn said. "But that's not where your head was. Spill."
He looked at Finn and where he'd normally tell his best friend to fuck off and leave him alone, he talked. He had to say this or else he was going to go insane. He had almost lost his mind back there when the memory became too much to handle. "I'm terrified of fire," he said softly. "It sends me back to a place I can't deal with, okay? Do you remember the fire when I was eight? Probably not...your mom was big on sheltering you back then. I don’t think you even knew…”
"No," Finn said, predictably.
"I was eight," he mumbled, "when the hardware store uptown burnt to the ground. I was inside."
"Wait, Joe's?" Finn asked, making a connection that Puck wasn’t expecting him to make. He was sure that Finn had never heard of the fire, though it was pretty well known around Lima. He was Finn and little details were not his thing. "Like twenty people died there…including-"
"Yeah," Puck said, unintentionally cutting Finn off. He was surprised that Finn knew of the fire, but at least that made things a bit easier. "The building went down and I would have died, but I'm still here, with not even a burn left anywhere you can see. Twenty people died and I'm still alive. You know, this woman died to save me and I can still hear her cries, especially after I see fire. I haven’t really talked about the fire with anyone, except my mom when I was a little kid - but it’s never gone away, not completely, especially not the fact that someone died so I could live to be the fuck up I am.”
"A woman?" Finn asked softly, hesitantly, like he was scared of asking.
"Yeah, she told me that her name was Katherine. What kind of woman grabs some kid she never met, hides him from the flames, and then rushes him to safety, dying for some nobody rather than saving her own life?"
"A hero," Finn said, looking on the verge of tears. What was wrong with him? He looked like he was going to be positively sick and he wasn’t the one with the haunting memories and the crippling guilt. He had never seen Finn make such an emotional show of things. Finally, Finn spoke again though, and his words shocked his best friend. "Dude, let's say screw the nurse. You need to come home with me, see Burt and...Kurt. Dalton let out early, it's Friday, and he should be home."
"What?" Puck asked but Finn just pulled him up by the hand and they walked off campus. Luckily the chaos of the building being evacuated led to nobody noticing them. Why was Finn taking him to see Kurt of all people, though?
"It's not my place, dude, you just gotta trust me on this one."
They arrived at Kurt’s house, where Kurt was sitting at the table, talking animatedly to his father. Burt, of course, asked the two boys what they were doing there and Finn explained that there had been a small fire at school. He told them that Puck had to tell them something that happened to him when he was a child and that it would mean a lot to them. They were confused, as was Puck, but Puck decided what the hell, he would tell the Hummels his story. After Puck relayed his story, Kurt was crying and Puck was pretty sure that his father was too. Both of them looked so awe-stricken and amazed by the things he was saying.
"I knew she died saving a kid’s life," Burt Hummel finally managed, definitely choked up. "The police told me that she was a hero, but I was grief stricken at the time and I never managed to get the kid's name."
Puck looked around, confused. What was going on? What were they even talking about?
"What?"
Kurt composed himself eventually and got up for a moment. He left the room and returned with a framed picture. He handed that picture to Puck, without saying a word. In the picture, a small version of Kurt, maybe five years old or so, sat in the lap of the woman who saved a kid from certain death, years ago. They were looking at each other with the adoration that usually was exchanged between mother and child.
"She was..."
"My mom," Kurt whispered through his tears. “My mom died in a fire when I was eight years old. After we started to recover, my dad told me that she died a hero and I’ve always admired her for making the most heroic choice.”
"She was simply the most amazing, kind-hearted woman in the world," Kurt's father supplied, putting a hand on his son’s shoulder and squeezing. "Katherine Elizabeth Hummel loved everything in the world and would defend the life of an innocent with her last breath. It was never a surprise to me that she lost her life defending a child. I always wanted to know the boy, you know?”
"She - no - but she threw away her life, her life with you guys...to save me." He felt sick to his stomach. He knew that growing up with one parent struggling to survive was agony and could not imagine what it would have been like if his father had died, rather than abandoned him. He would have hated the child who lived while his parent died. He had been the man of the house at eight. He could not believe he was why Kurt didn't have a mother to get him through all the shit tossed his way. He was the reason that kid was suffering.
Kurt reached out and touched his hand. It was a surprising gesture and one that it was difficult not to recoil away from. "Mom saved a kid, who could do amazing things with a life he'd barely started. It makes sense to me."
He just looked down at the picture again. He was thankful for the woman who saved his life but the guilt was difficult to get past. “I’m so sorry,” he mumbled and it was the honest truth. He was so sorry and didn’t know what else to say.
“You need to get some help,” Kurt mumbled quietly, “for that fear of fires. You had a traumatic thing happen to you young and it’s still haunting you. Have you ever really talked to someone about the fire, before now?”
He shook his head. “My mom,” he mumbled, “when I was little, but she brushed it off because I had to be tough. I had to be the man of the house and it was just…”
He was pretty surprised when Kurt and his father both decided to hug him. “Well you’re not alone anymore,” Kurt said, just as quietly. “Mom saved your life for a reason. Kinda makes us family.”
Genre: Angst
Rating: R
Pairing: Gen - Puck centric
Word Count: 2220
Summary: It was just a small fire in the adjoining Home Economics room, but the moment he saw it, Puck's eyes went wide and he stopped moving out of a fear he’d long forgotten.
It was just a small fire in the adjoining Home Economics room, but the moment he saw it, Puck's eyes went wide and he stopped moving out of a fear he’d long forgotten. The tiny lick of flame caught his attention out of the corner of his eye and it may as well have been the same fire that engulfed the local hardware shop when he was only eight years old. .
"No," he pleaded low, unaware that he was speaking the words aloud. "Please...I wanna get out…it’s everywhere…”
He had been going to get some things for his mom. They were going to remodel his bedroom, fix some of the damage his father left behind and he was so damned proud of himself. He was the man of the house at eight years old. His mom had gone next door to pick up some much needed groceries and gave the man of the house a tiny list of things to buy for her.
He had been proudly hauling some small tools to the register when parts of the building started to collapse in front of him. He had not been paying much attention, had not even seen that the roof was on fire until it began to slowly collapse into itself, and flames roared through the room.
"Watch out!" someone screamed. There was so much screaming that day. He would never forget that screaming.
The fire spread so fast, flame dancing dangerously down every aisle. People screamed but they couldn't avoid its path. He dropped the tools in fear. Some woman he could not see well through the smoke, she grabbed him by the arm and led him to the floor beneath the cashier's stand. He tumbled to the ground, the woman’s body on his, guarding him from the flame. "Mommy!" he screamed, forgetting that he was too much of a big boy to call for his mommy. Sarah was the baby, she needed mommy, but in that moment so did he. He needed his mommy so much. In that second, Noah, the big man of the house was once again a little baby sobbing hysterically.
His mommy wasn't there but the woman was. From behind the counter, he could see her. She was a very pretty lady with soft eyes who kept looking at him protectively. She kept him down, shielding him from the falling debris. "It’s all gonna be okay son I got you," she said soothingly, touching his hair. "Firemen will come. It won't get you."
Noah was a smart child. He knew when adults were lying to you and the woman was starting to lie to him. She didn’t know that it wouldn’t get him.
The screams of people around him were terrifying. Sirens came, so she was right, firemen were there, but the front of the building collapsed in and nobody could get in. Noah coughed, the black smoke was filling his lungs. The woman was coughing too, arms wrapped around him to shield him. Wh-what's your name sweetie?" she rasped out.
"Noah," he cried.
"Noah, I'm...my name’s Katherine. I don't think the firemen can get to the door so I'm gonna pick you up and move us closer to the front of the building, so they can get you out of here.”
He didn't speak but Katherine wrapped both arms around him even tighter and he could feel that they were moving towards the door. He couldn't see anything and was starting to get dizzy and want to close his eyes. He whimpered in pain when the flame caught his shirt, howling as it started to burn.
"Help!" he shrieked and his voice wasn't alone. There were more voices, more hands on him. He was being pulled out by strong arms and saw yellow, but was being moved away from the loving, motherly arms wrapped around his lower body.
When he woke up next he was in a hospital, unharmed, aside from a few minor burns to his chest and arm and some smoke inhalation. His mother was sitting by his bedside with his baby sister in her arms.
He woke up crying for the woman he’d met in the middle of that hysteria, that chaos. .
His mom eventually told him what happened to the nice lady who saved his life. It was not something that you told an eight year old child so bluntly, but Noah was the man of the house.
"She was a hero Noah," she said through tears. "A lady they found inside carried you to safety but got caught in the rubble when handing you over to the firemen. She didn't make it. By the time they got her out too, she was gone. You’d have been gone if she didn’t…put you first. She gave her life...to save my baby. I'm so happy you're okay baby boy. So so happy.”
To this day, Puck remembered how overjoyed his mother was and how many tears she cried for the poor woman who saved her son. Puck had never understood the heroic woman who was dead so he could live. He never understood the motivation she had. She saved some loser eight year old instead of getting herself to safety. She probably had a family of her own and yet she risked herself for some dumb kid and lost her life.
When he blinked, the thoughts flooding out of his head and away from him, he was already outside with Finn, the other boy’s arm around his shoulder. He pushed the boy away from him. "Dude what happened?" he asked.
"The nurse wants you to come in after they clear the school," Finn said, looking at Puck like he was a ghost or something. He had obviously blanked out for awhile, because Finn looked honestly terrified of him. "I think we lost you for a second there, dude. Your eyes were absolutely empty and you kept saying 'no' and 'Katherine,’ over and over again."
Oh god. Puck groaned. He had blurted all of that out and now he was kind of stuck without much of a choice, as far as letting Finn know what was going on in the fucked up place known as his head. "There was a fire..."
"Yeah dude in the Home Ec room," Finn said. "But that's not where your head was. Spill."
He looked at Finn and where he'd normally tell his best friend to fuck off and leave him alone, he talked. He had to say this or else he was going to go insane. He had almost lost his mind back there when the memory became too much to handle. "I'm terrified of fire," he said softly. "It sends me back to a place I can't deal with, okay? Do you remember the fire when I was eight? Probably not...your mom was big on sheltering you back then. I don’t think you even knew…”
"No," Finn said, predictably.
"I was eight," he mumbled, "when the hardware store uptown burnt to the ground. I was inside."
"Wait, Joe's?" Finn asked, making a connection that Puck wasn’t expecting him to make. He was sure that Finn had never heard of the fire, though it was pretty well known around Lima. He was Finn and little details were not his thing. "Like twenty people died there…including-"
"Yeah," Puck said, unintentionally cutting Finn off. He was surprised that Finn knew of the fire, but at least that made things a bit easier. "The building went down and I would have died, but I'm still here, with not even a burn left anywhere you can see. Twenty people died and I'm still alive. You know, this woman died to save me and I can still hear her cries, especially after I see fire. I haven’t really talked about the fire with anyone, except my mom when I was a little kid - but it’s never gone away, not completely, especially not the fact that someone died so I could live to be the fuck up I am.”
"A woman?" Finn asked softly, hesitantly, like he was scared of asking.
"Yeah, she told me that her name was Katherine. What kind of woman grabs some kid she never met, hides him from the flames, and then rushes him to safety, dying for some nobody rather than saving her own life?"
"A hero," Finn said, looking on the verge of tears. What was wrong with him? He looked like he was going to be positively sick and he wasn’t the one with the haunting memories and the crippling guilt. He had never seen Finn make such an emotional show of things. Finally, Finn spoke again though, and his words shocked his best friend. "Dude, let's say screw the nurse. You need to come home with me, see Burt and...Kurt. Dalton let out early, it's Friday, and he should be home."
"What?" Puck asked but Finn just pulled him up by the hand and they walked off campus. Luckily the chaos of the building being evacuated led to nobody noticing them. Why was Finn taking him to see Kurt of all people, though?
"It's not my place, dude, you just gotta trust me on this one."
They arrived at Kurt’s house, where Kurt was sitting at the table, talking animatedly to his father. Burt, of course, asked the two boys what they were doing there and Finn explained that there had been a small fire at school. He told them that Puck had to tell them something that happened to him when he was a child and that it would mean a lot to them. They were confused, as was Puck, but Puck decided what the hell, he would tell the Hummels his story. After Puck relayed his story, Kurt was crying and Puck was pretty sure that his father was too. Both of them looked so awe-stricken and amazed by the things he was saying.
"I knew she died saving a kid’s life," Burt Hummel finally managed, definitely choked up. "The police told me that she was a hero, but I was grief stricken at the time and I never managed to get the kid's name."
Puck looked around, confused. What was going on? What were they even talking about?
"What?"
Kurt composed himself eventually and got up for a moment. He left the room and returned with a framed picture. He handed that picture to Puck, without saying a word. In the picture, a small version of Kurt, maybe five years old or so, sat in the lap of the woman who saved a kid from certain death, years ago. They were looking at each other with the adoration that usually was exchanged between mother and child.
"She was..."
"My mom," Kurt whispered through his tears. “My mom died in a fire when I was eight years old. After we started to recover, my dad told me that she died a hero and I’ve always admired her for making the most heroic choice.”
"She was simply the most amazing, kind-hearted woman in the world," Kurt's father supplied, putting a hand on his son’s shoulder and squeezing. "Katherine Elizabeth Hummel loved everything in the world and would defend the life of an innocent with her last breath. It was never a surprise to me that she lost her life defending a child. I always wanted to know the boy, you know?”
"She - no - but she threw away her life, her life with you guys...to save me." He felt sick to his stomach. He knew that growing up with one parent struggling to survive was agony and could not imagine what it would have been like if his father had died, rather than abandoned him. He would have hated the child who lived while his parent died. He had been the man of the house at eight. He could not believe he was why Kurt didn't have a mother to get him through all the shit tossed his way. He was the reason that kid was suffering.
Kurt reached out and touched his hand. It was a surprising gesture and one that it was difficult not to recoil away from. "Mom saved a kid, who could do amazing things with a life he'd barely started. It makes sense to me."
He just looked down at the picture again. He was thankful for the woman who saved his life but the guilt was difficult to get past. “I’m so sorry,” he mumbled and it was the honest truth. He was so sorry and didn’t know what else to say.
“You need to get some help,” Kurt mumbled quietly, “for that fear of fires. You had a traumatic thing happen to you young and it’s still haunting you. Have you ever really talked to someone about the fire, before now?”
He shook his head. “My mom,” he mumbled, “when I was little, but she brushed it off because I had to be tough. I had to be the man of the house and it was just…”
He was pretty surprised when Kurt and his father both decided to hug him. “Well you’re not alone anymore,” Kurt said, just as quietly. “Mom saved your life for a reason. Kinda makes us family.”