Fic: Eight Days a Week-Chapter 3
Title: Eight Days a Week
Disclaimer: I don't own em, I if I did glee would probably have to be on a different channel.
Rating: Probably PG-13ish overall
Warnings: None for this chapter.
Word count: 1985
Summary: After Burt has a heart attack, Kurt finds himself stretched a little to thin.
A/N: OMG It's not a prompt! I know, I can hardly believe it either. Beta'd by gleeker13 Thank you dahl-ing!
Puck is pretty sure it would be easier to talk to Kurt if he could actually find him. It seems every time Puck enters a room Hummel is leaving, having to go to the garage or home, or something that involves not talking to Puck. He’s pretty sure he’s not avoiding him on purpose, but it’s pissing him off either way. He told Rachel he’d talk to him three days ago, and he’s yet to be able to do that. He finally tracks him down by accident as he’s trudging into the nurse’s office for his daily nap. Kurt seems to be sitting in the chair by sheer force instead of sprawled out asleep, and he glances up when Puck walks in.
“Hummel.” He greets, silently pleased to have finally tracked down the boy, even if it was by coincidence. He eyes how tired the other boy looks and wonders why he looks like he wants to bolt out of the chair suddenly. He hops up on the bed but doesn’t bother to lie down, instead he watches Kurt with open curiosity as the other boy shifts in his seat. “What are you doing here?” He finally asks when Kurt seems content to remain silent.
“Ms. Pillsbury seems to think I need help taking care of myself and sent me here to talk to the nurse about the importance of sleeping.” Kurt replies, his voice a mix of amusement and annoyance.
“You do look tired.” Puck points out and Kurt sighs in frustration.
“Yes, thank you Noah.”
“I didn’t mean that to be, like, offensive or anything.” Puck backpedals, as he realizes that was probably not the best thing to say to him. Even if the bags under his eyes were so dark they kind of looked bruised, still, people didn’t tend to like being told how awful they looked. “We’re just worried about you. You haven’t been to glee in a while, and of course we understand with your dad and all, but you’d come to us if you needed help wouldn’t you?”
“Unless you can give me more hours in a day there’s nothing for you to help me with.” Kurt tells him, his tone just a little too snappish for this to have been the first time he’s had this conversation.
“Seriously dude, if you need help you can ask us for it.” Puck tells him sincerely, but Kurt scoffs slightly at the very idea.
“Like you’d ever help me with anything.” For some reason that actually stings, and Puck stares openly at the other boy.
“I would you know.” He tells him, and the expression on Kurt’s face falters.
“What?”
“I’d help.” Puck clarifies, and Kurt looks away like he feels guilty for what he said. “Not that I would have actually ever done anything to show you that.” He concedes, really all he had ever done for Kurt was let him drop of his bag before throwing him in the trash, and that was really only because it was something Finn started.
“Really, I’m fine.” Kurt tells him. What in the world was going on, first Rachel and now Puck, it’s like everyone he disliked, and who he was pretty sure disliked him back suddenly came around and wanted to be friends. He was glad for Rachel’s support and he found that he actually liked the girl, but Puck, his new attitude gave him pause. Something seemed like it was going on.
“Why don’t you take a nap?” Puck suggests and Kurt looks at him strangely, and he realizes that did kind of backtrack to the beginning of their half assed conversation.
“I have things to do.” Kurt admits and when Puck raises an eyebrow, Kurt averts his eyes to his hands.
“What kind of things?” Puck prompts and for some reason Kurt actually tells him.
“I’m slightly behind on my school work for one; I could be using this time to catch up. I won’t be able to make it to Glee this week unless I can catch up on everything that’s due. My teachers are mostly pretty accommodating since they know the situation. Ms. Pillsbury and Mr. Schue made sure of that, which I’m not actually sure if I appreciate or not.”
“Mostly?” Puck echoes and Kurt sighs.
“My math teacher isn’t all that accommodating. In his world, nothing is more important than his math homework, so that’s usually what I have to do first. It’s usually really late when I get home and get started on it though, so I don’t always have the freshest mind for it.”
“Come on Hummel, what’s going on? You’re exhausted all the time, and you never have time for anything, I mean your Dad’s feeling better isn’t he?”
“Yes, but he still isn’t completely cleared to go back to work for another few days, and even then it’s just half days to start with. He can’t over exert himself.” Kurt snapped, but it was half hearted at best. He was too tired to try and defend his actions to Puck.
“Right, sorry.” Puck said feeling like he was doing everything but helping. “Well, what can I do to help?” He asked he wasn’t even speaking for the rest of Glee at this point.
“Unless you can control the time space continuum, nothing.”
“There has to be something I can help with.” Puck pressed. “I mean I don’t even know everything you have been doing, but I’m sure I can help with something.”
“Noah,” Kurt said rubbing his forehead as if he’s warding off a headache. “I’m basically taking care of my dad, the house, and the garage, not to mention trying to keep up with school and glee. Obviously I’m not doing all that great a job of it, but really I don’t think there’s anything else you guys can do for me. Keep me updated in Glee and I’m going to try and get there this week.”
“What exactly are you doing at the garage?” Puck asked, he wasn’t sure if Kurt ever actually worked on the cars or not.
“Mostly keeping the books, but some of the customers refuse to let the other mechanics work on their cars. If dad’s not there, they want me.” That was true, in fact Mr. Jonsoburgh, who was practically older than Lima, was hard to handle on his best days, but he seemed to like Kurt, for reasons no one could quite figure out. So he usually dealt with him, even when his dad was around. He’d been by several times this past week, trying to keep his ancient Volvo running.
“Does your dad know it’s stressing you out like this?” Puck asked, because he didn’t really know Burt Hummel, but he knew that he wouldn’t let Kurt keep doing this if he could help it.
“It’s fine, I’m not stressed.” Except he was, and everyone knew it. He finally gave a low sigh and dropped his head into his hands. “No, but he doesn’t need anything else to worry about. My priorities right now are to get him better, and if that means putting in extra time at the shop so he’s not worried about it, well then that’s what I’ll do.” Puck had to admit, he was impressed that Kurt would put his father above everything else, but it couldn’t be healthy for him to be going at this rate.
“Well at least lay down for a little while. If you’re in the nurse’s station, you might as well make use out of it. Besides if I know Ms. P, she won’t let you out until you’ve slept at least some anyhow. She most likely has the nurse and Mr. Schue in on it too. Might as well give it up, you’re sunk dude.” Kurt looked like he was going to argue briefly before sighing and nodding.
“I can‘t believe I‘m saying this, but you’re probably right. I won’t be getting out of here anytime soon; I guess I could take a small nap.” If he slept now he could work on his homework once he got home from the garage and he could probably catch up on it all. He would only sleep for a little while. He watched as Puck hopped down off the bed and pulled out a blanket from one of the shelves. He really had spent too much time in here.
“I’ll leave if you want me to, or you know we could talk until you fall asleep or, uh whatever.” Puck said uncomfortably, suddenly realizing this may have been the longest conversation he’s ever had with the other boy, and really that’s kind of sad.
“Don’t you waste time in here, instead of going to class? I mean, what would you do if you left, go to class?” Kurt doubted it, but really he would feel kind of guilty for disrupting Puck’s daily routine. However the other boy shrugged.
“If you don’t care, I’ll probably just sleep in the chair. I can sleep anywhere.” Puck was a little amused by the fact that he rhymed a lot in that sentence, but waited until Kurt shrugged, before settling down into one of the more comfortable plastic chairs. As a testament as to how tired Kurt really must have been, he was out quicker than Puck anticipated him to be.
Instead of sleeping himself he took a few moments to study Kurt and he did not like what he saw. Even asleep, Kurt looked pale and had extremely dark circles under his eyes. Puck wondered just how much sleep Kurt was actually getting, because he really didn’t look healthy, and if he didn’t figure out a way to help him, Puck was afraid Kurt was going to spiral out of control until he crashed.
And when he crashed Puck was sure it would be horrible and he would do whatever he could to at least slow down the inevitable events that were already in motion. Puck slid out his phone and began to text Rachel. She seemed to be running the glee club intervention and really he would talk to her first, she seemed to be pretty tight with Kurt lately anyhow. He asked for her to meet him during lunch to talk about Kurt, and she responded back within minutes, immediately agreeing.
Puck sighed and watched the other boy sleep; wondering if this could be considered creepy. He really didn’t make it a habit to break into people’s homes to watch them sleep, so this felt a little awkward. Still, as long as he could watch Kurt, he could make sure he kept sleeping, and he was willing to put aside his feelings of weirdness for that.
Which in itself was a whole new weird feeling of weird, because, really, since when did Puck really care all that much? Sure he had been trying to be friendlier to the other boy, but he couldn’t quite place when he decided to do that. Maybe being in Glee had opened up his eyes a little to what the others went through, but Kurt always seemed like he was above all that.
Looking at him now though, Puck realizes that just about everything he had ever assumed about Kurt Hummel had been wrong. He sighed and settled back into the chair, before pulling a book out of his bag, he wasn’t going to sleep, but he wasn’t going to leave Kurt alone either, especially with the other boy sleeping what looked to be so peacefully. And damn it, Puck didn’t want to be so invested, but he was, and now that he realized how deep he was in, he began to wonder why it wasn’t bothering him. He shoved those thought from his mind rather brutally and settled down to read his book. He pretended that his attention didn’t drift to Kurt more often than it did his book.
Disclaimer: I don't own em, I if I did glee would probably have to be on a different channel.
Rating: Probably PG-13ish overall
Warnings: None for this chapter.
Word count: 1985
Summary: After Burt has a heart attack, Kurt finds himself stretched a little to thin.
A/N: OMG It's not a prompt! I know, I can hardly believe it either. Beta'd by gleeker13 Thank you dahl-ing!
Puck is pretty sure it would be easier to talk to Kurt if he could actually find him. It seems every time Puck enters a room Hummel is leaving, having to go to the garage or home, or something that involves not talking to Puck. He’s pretty sure he’s not avoiding him on purpose, but it’s pissing him off either way. He told Rachel he’d talk to him three days ago, and he’s yet to be able to do that. He finally tracks him down by accident as he’s trudging into the nurse’s office for his daily nap. Kurt seems to be sitting in the chair by sheer force instead of sprawled out asleep, and he glances up when Puck walks in.
“Hummel.” He greets, silently pleased to have finally tracked down the boy, even if it was by coincidence. He eyes how tired the other boy looks and wonders why he looks like he wants to bolt out of the chair suddenly. He hops up on the bed but doesn’t bother to lie down, instead he watches Kurt with open curiosity as the other boy shifts in his seat. “What are you doing here?” He finally asks when Kurt seems content to remain silent.
“Ms. Pillsbury seems to think I need help taking care of myself and sent me here to talk to the nurse about the importance of sleeping.” Kurt replies, his voice a mix of amusement and annoyance.
“You do look tired.” Puck points out and Kurt sighs in frustration.
“Yes, thank you Noah.”
“I didn’t mean that to be, like, offensive or anything.” Puck backpedals, as he realizes that was probably not the best thing to say to him. Even if the bags under his eyes were so dark they kind of looked bruised, still, people didn’t tend to like being told how awful they looked. “We’re just worried about you. You haven’t been to glee in a while, and of course we understand with your dad and all, but you’d come to us if you needed help wouldn’t you?”
“Unless you can give me more hours in a day there’s nothing for you to help me with.” Kurt tells him, his tone just a little too snappish for this to have been the first time he’s had this conversation.
“Seriously dude, if you need help you can ask us for it.” Puck tells him sincerely, but Kurt scoffs slightly at the very idea.
“Like you’d ever help me with anything.” For some reason that actually stings, and Puck stares openly at the other boy.
“I would you know.” He tells him, and the expression on Kurt’s face falters.
“What?”
“I’d help.” Puck clarifies, and Kurt looks away like he feels guilty for what he said. “Not that I would have actually ever done anything to show you that.” He concedes, really all he had ever done for Kurt was let him drop of his bag before throwing him in the trash, and that was really only because it was something Finn started.
“Really, I’m fine.” Kurt tells him. What in the world was going on, first Rachel and now Puck, it’s like everyone he disliked, and who he was pretty sure disliked him back suddenly came around and wanted to be friends. He was glad for Rachel’s support and he found that he actually liked the girl, but Puck, his new attitude gave him pause. Something seemed like it was going on.
“Why don’t you take a nap?” Puck suggests and Kurt looks at him strangely, and he realizes that did kind of backtrack to the beginning of their half assed conversation.
“I have things to do.” Kurt admits and when Puck raises an eyebrow, Kurt averts his eyes to his hands.
“What kind of things?” Puck prompts and for some reason Kurt actually tells him.
“I’m slightly behind on my school work for one; I could be using this time to catch up. I won’t be able to make it to Glee this week unless I can catch up on everything that’s due. My teachers are mostly pretty accommodating since they know the situation. Ms. Pillsbury and Mr. Schue made sure of that, which I’m not actually sure if I appreciate or not.”
“Mostly?” Puck echoes and Kurt sighs.
“My math teacher isn’t all that accommodating. In his world, nothing is more important than his math homework, so that’s usually what I have to do first. It’s usually really late when I get home and get started on it though, so I don’t always have the freshest mind for it.”
“Come on Hummel, what’s going on? You’re exhausted all the time, and you never have time for anything, I mean your Dad’s feeling better isn’t he?”
“Yes, but he still isn’t completely cleared to go back to work for another few days, and even then it’s just half days to start with. He can’t over exert himself.” Kurt snapped, but it was half hearted at best. He was too tired to try and defend his actions to Puck.
“Right, sorry.” Puck said feeling like he was doing everything but helping. “Well, what can I do to help?” He asked he wasn’t even speaking for the rest of Glee at this point.
“Unless you can control the time space continuum, nothing.”
“There has to be something I can help with.” Puck pressed. “I mean I don’t even know everything you have been doing, but I’m sure I can help with something.”
“Noah,” Kurt said rubbing his forehead as if he’s warding off a headache. “I’m basically taking care of my dad, the house, and the garage, not to mention trying to keep up with school and glee. Obviously I’m not doing all that great a job of it, but really I don’t think there’s anything else you guys can do for me. Keep me updated in Glee and I’m going to try and get there this week.”
“What exactly are you doing at the garage?” Puck asked, he wasn’t sure if Kurt ever actually worked on the cars or not.
“Mostly keeping the books, but some of the customers refuse to let the other mechanics work on their cars. If dad’s not there, they want me.” That was true, in fact Mr. Jonsoburgh, who was practically older than Lima, was hard to handle on his best days, but he seemed to like Kurt, for reasons no one could quite figure out. So he usually dealt with him, even when his dad was around. He’d been by several times this past week, trying to keep his ancient Volvo running.
“Does your dad know it’s stressing you out like this?” Puck asked, because he didn’t really know Burt Hummel, but he knew that he wouldn’t let Kurt keep doing this if he could help it.
“It’s fine, I’m not stressed.” Except he was, and everyone knew it. He finally gave a low sigh and dropped his head into his hands. “No, but he doesn’t need anything else to worry about. My priorities right now are to get him better, and if that means putting in extra time at the shop so he’s not worried about it, well then that’s what I’ll do.” Puck had to admit, he was impressed that Kurt would put his father above everything else, but it couldn’t be healthy for him to be going at this rate.
“Well at least lay down for a little while. If you’re in the nurse’s station, you might as well make use out of it. Besides if I know Ms. P, she won’t let you out until you’ve slept at least some anyhow. She most likely has the nurse and Mr. Schue in on it too. Might as well give it up, you’re sunk dude.” Kurt looked like he was going to argue briefly before sighing and nodding.
“I can‘t believe I‘m saying this, but you’re probably right. I won’t be getting out of here anytime soon; I guess I could take a small nap.” If he slept now he could work on his homework once he got home from the garage and he could probably catch up on it all. He would only sleep for a little while. He watched as Puck hopped down off the bed and pulled out a blanket from one of the shelves. He really had spent too much time in here.
“I’ll leave if you want me to, or you know we could talk until you fall asleep or, uh whatever.” Puck said uncomfortably, suddenly realizing this may have been the longest conversation he’s ever had with the other boy, and really that’s kind of sad.
“Don’t you waste time in here, instead of going to class? I mean, what would you do if you left, go to class?” Kurt doubted it, but really he would feel kind of guilty for disrupting Puck’s daily routine. However the other boy shrugged.
“If you don’t care, I’ll probably just sleep in the chair. I can sleep anywhere.” Puck was a little amused by the fact that he rhymed a lot in that sentence, but waited until Kurt shrugged, before settling down into one of the more comfortable plastic chairs. As a testament as to how tired Kurt really must have been, he was out quicker than Puck anticipated him to be.
Instead of sleeping himself he took a few moments to study Kurt and he did not like what he saw. Even asleep, Kurt looked pale and had extremely dark circles under his eyes. Puck wondered just how much sleep Kurt was actually getting, because he really didn’t look healthy, and if he didn’t figure out a way to help him, Puck was afraid Kurt was going to spiral out of control until he crashed.
And when he crashed Puck was sure it would be horrible and he would do whatever he could to at least slow down the inevitable events that were already in motion. Puck slid out his phone and began to text Rachel. She seemed to be running the glee club intervention and really he would talk to her first, she seemed to be pretty tight with Kurt lately anyhow. He asked for her to meet him during lunch to talk about Kurt, and she responded back within minutes, immediately agreeing.
Puck sighed and watched the other boy sleep; wondering if this could be considered creepy. He really didn’t make it a habit to break into people’s homes to watch them sleep, so this felt a little awkward. Still, as long as he could watch Kurt, he could make sure he kept sleeping, and he was willing to put aside his feelings of weirdness for that.
Which in itself was a whole new weird feeling of weird, because, really, since when did Puck really care all that much? Sure he had been trying to be friendlier to the other boy, but he couldn’t quite place when he decided to do that. Maybe being in Glee had opened up his eyes a little to what the others went through, but Kurt always seemed like he was above all that.
Looking at him now though, Puck realizes that just about everything he had ever assumed about Kurt Hummel had been wrong. He sighed and settled back into the chair, before pulling a book out of his bag, he wasn’t going to sleep, but he wasn’t going to leave Kurt alone either, especially with the other boy sleeping what looked to be so peacefully. And damn it, Puck didn’t want to be so invested, but he was, and now that he realized how deep he was in, he began to wonder why it wasn’t bothering him. He shoved those thought from his mind rather brutally and settled down to read his book. He pretended that his attention didn’t drift to Kurt more often than it did his book.