Fic: Those Old Streetscapes 3/? (Glee, Puck/Kurt, PG)
Title: Those Old Streetscapes 3/?
Fandom: Glee/So You Think You Can Dance
Pairing: Puck/Kurt
Rating: PG (but you've met me, so.)
Word count: 10,200
Warnings: Cheesiness. Lack of dance knowledge. Random Cat Deeley fangirling.
Summary: AU. Kurt's a classically trained dancer who has trouble connecting to his audience. Puck's a novice b-boy with loads of charisma and not a whole lot else. When they meet at the New York auditions for So You Think You Can Dance, both their lives change in more ways than they anticipated.
A/N: Vegas Week! My very favorite part of SYTYCD. Unfortunately it is also, you know, a week, which makes for kind of a long fic. There's going to be one more (much shorter) part to this, but I won't post that until tomorrow.
Week Three: Vegas Week
All things considered, Las Vegas was even scarier than New York City. The airport was a lot smaller, and most of the people on his flight seemed to be either other dancers or tourists, so the atmosphere was a lot less intense than when he’d deplaned at JFK International. But the fact remained that when Kurt went to his audition, he’d known exactly what he was going to dance and he’d known - or at least he’d thought he knew at the time - more or less what the judges’ reactions were going to be.
Vegas Week, on the other hand, was a whole different ballgame. There were routines to learn in several different styles, not to mention the group routine they were going to have to choreograph themselves, at least if this year’s show stuck to the usual formula. It was four days of relentless competition, with cuts every single day, and considering they’d already gone from thousands of hopefuls to less than two hundred amazing dancers, he knew the odds of making the top twenty weren’t great.
Kurt had spent the past three months studying old episodes of the show, learning the styles of the different choreographers and trying to prepare himself for what was coming. When he wasn’t working he was rehearsing, making sure his own routines were perfect and trying to imitate the styles of the choreographers who seemed to turn up most often from season to season.
The upside to obsessing about the choreography was that he hadn’t had a lot of time to obsess about Puck. He’d thought about Puck all the way home on the train, remembered the way Puck’s arms felt around him and the way he smiled when he got a tricky dance step down. He played the moment when Puck leaned in and tugged on the end of his scarf over and over in his mind, trying to decide if Puck was teasing him on purpose or if he just didn’t know how charming he was.
Kurt allowed himself the indulgence of thinking about Puck all the way back to Ohio, telling himself that their brief flirtation - if that was what it was - was just part of his grand New York adventure. But as soon as the train pulled into the station he pushed all those thoughts to the back of his mind, and whenever a stray memory of his only night in New York snuck up on him he told himself not to be naϊve and pushed the thought away again.
Chances were good that Puck had forgotten about him the moment he got back on the subway; Puck had the whole of New York City stretched out in front of him every day, after all, and Kurt was just some wide-eyed kid from Ohio who had never been anywhere or seen anything. There was no reason to think Puck would remember him if they ran into each other in Vegas, and even if he did remember, there certainly wasn’t any reason to think he’d care.
He made it all the way to the hotel on the airport shuttle, found his room and put his bags away. When he got there his roommate was already unpacking, and Kurt told himself that he wasn’t disappointed to find that he wasn’t sharing with Puck. Considering the number of male dancers who’d made it to callbacks, the chances of him being randomly assigned to share a hotel room with Puck were next to nothing.
Besides, it wouldn’t do him any good to develop a distracting crush on a straight guy he’d probably never see again after Vegas week was over. The chances of both of them making it to the top twenty were even smaller than the chances of them being assigned to the same room, after all, and he wasn’t about to let his imagination run away with him and distract him from the competition.
That was what he told himself when he followed his roommate down to the auditorium, joining the crowd of other dancers filing toward the stage. He scanned the crowd around him as they moved closer to the double doors, and he wasn’t looking for a mohawk, but when he heard a familiar voice calling his name, Kurt’s heart skipped a beat. A second later Puck appeared, shoving his way past a couple girls to catch up with Kurt.
“Hey,” he said, a little breathless, as though maybe he’d had to work to find Kurt in the crowd. The thought made Kurt’s stomach flutter, but he clamped down hard on the sensation and reminded himself that Puck wasn’t interested in him. He was just...nice, and if he’d been looking for Kurt it was probably just to make sure he’d actually managed to get back to Ohio without getting himself killed or anything.
“Puck,” Kurt said, surprised, and his cheeks flushed at the sound of his own voice. “How’ve you been?”
Puck shrugged and grinned, like maybe he was laughing at Kurt a little, but before Kurt could figure out why, he was talking. “Mostly I’ve been working on all that stuff you taught me.”
They both knew three months wasn’t even enough time to master one new dance style, let alone several, especially when Puck didn’t have a teacher there to correct his form. But the fact that he’d spent the past three months working on new styles instead of just focusing on his comfort zone was impressive, and Kurt was sure the judges would take note.
He wished he’d done the same, especially since he knew there would be a hip hop routine to learn at some point over the next few days. Only Kurt didn’t know any hip hop dancers in Ohio, and even if he did he Kurt wasn’t confident he’d be able to pick it up. Which was a problem, because if he wanted to advance in the competition, he was going to have to learn it and fast.
Before he had time to panic himself over hip hop again Kurt heard someone say Puck’s name, and they both turned to see Puck’s friend Mike waving at him from halfway down the center aisle. Puck grinned and waved back, and Kurt braced himself for the moment when Puck turned and wished him luck, maybe, then went to sit with his friend. And it wasn’t as though Kurt was expecting to spend the next four days hanging around Puck just because they’d had one dinner together, but the fact remained that he was the only person Kurt knew in Vegas.
Puck turned to look at him and Kurt pasted what he hoped was a convincing smile on his face, but instead of waving and ditching him, Puck inclined his head toward the row of seats where Mike was waiting. “You coming?”
Kurt blinked, then he swallowed his surprise and nodded, grateful that it was dark in the theater so Puck wouldn’t see him blush. “Sure.”
Puck grinned again and led him down the aisle, throwing himself down in the seat next to Mike. “Dude, this is Kurt. Kurt, Mike.”
“From Ohio, right?” Mike said, holding out a hand for Kurt to shake. His gaze slid toward Puck as he said it, and Kurt blushed even harder when he realized Puck had told Mike about him.
It didn’t necessarily mean anything. Mike and Puck were friends, after all, and he’d probably asked Puck about the choreography round of his audition. So it made sense that Puck would tell Mike about Kurt helping him; it didn’t mean that Puck had been thinking about Kurt over the past three months, and it certainly didn’t mean that Puck was interested in him.
“Right,” was all Kurt managed before one of the producers started calling for attention. Kurt turned toward the stage with the rest of the dancers, trying to ignore the burning in his cheeks and the solid warmth of Puck’s shoulder next to his long enough to find out what they were in for over the next few days.
~
Puck’s plan when he went looking for Kurt had mostly been just to see him again, but once they got into the theater he figured maybe sitting together would give them a better chance of being in some of the same groups for the performances. Not that he wanted to compete directly against Kurt any sooner than he had to, but Puck wanted to hang out with him, and he had a feeling they weren’t going to get a lot of chances just to chill over the next few days.
Sure enough, as soon as the judges showed up they started dividing people into groups, but when they started reading names off a list instead of grouping people according to where they were sitting, Puck knew his plan wasn’t going to work after all. They got split up pretty much right away when Kurt’s name was called for the first round of choreography, and when he stood up to head for the stage Puck reached out and grabbed his wrist before he could talk himself out of it.
“Break a leg,” he said, watching Kurt blush before he nodded and said, “You too.”
Puck grinned and let go of Kurt’s arm, and a few seconds later Puck’s name was called and he had his own group to worry about.
The first routine of the day was a jazz number, choreographed by the curly-haired guy from their auditions, and the steps were so fast that Puck didn’t have time to think about Kurt or anything besides not tripping over his own feet. Somehow he managed to keep up with the rest of the dancers in his group, but it was exhausting, and by the end of the first routine he wasn’t sure how he was going to make it through the rest of the day, let alone the rest of the week.
And they’d all seen the show before, so they knew how it worked, but that didn’t make it any less scary when the cuts started pretty much right away. A guy from Puck’s group got cut halfway through their routine, and when Nigel ordered the rest of them off the stage Puck held his breath until he was safely back in his seat. A few minutes later Kurt’s group was on the stage, and he found himself holding his breath again while he watched Kurt dance.
His technique was just as amazing as Puck remembered, but he still wasn’t doing such a great job of connecting with the judges, and part of Puck expected them to say Kurt’s name and then tell him he was out. But he made it through along with the rest of his group, and when he slid into the seat next to Puck and grinned, Puck had a hard time remembering that he wasn’t supposed to lean over and kiss him.
“You looked pretty good up there,” he said instead, handing over his bottle of water as he spoke.
“Thanks,” Kurt answered, though if it was for the compliment or the water, Puck wasn’t sure. Maybe both, but either way Puck didn’t really care, as long as Kurt kept smiling at him like that. “You really held your own as well. I’m impressed; you’ve been working hard.”
“I had a good teacher,” Puck said, just to watch Kurt blush, and he couldn’t reach out and touch to see if Kurt’s skin was as hot as it looked, either, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want to.
Before Kurt could deny it Mike’s group took the stage, and they both turned to watch as the music cued up. And Puck knew how good Mike was, but that didn’t mean he ever got tired of watching him. He practically flew across the stage, grinning at all the right places and making the judges laugh and Puck knew before Nigel even raised his hand to stop the music that Mike was safe.
“He could win this whole thing,” Kurt said, and Puck tore his gaze away from the stage to glance at Kurt’s profile. He was staring at Mike, watching him pat the guy next to him on the shoulder while the judges decided if they were going to cut anybody.
“So could you,” Puck said, and when Kurt glanced sharply at him he just shrugged. “You’ve got the moves. You just need to figure out the attitude and you could give Mike a run for his money.”
Before Kurt had a chance to answer Mike’s whole group was being sent off the stage to safety, and a second later he was throwing himself into the seat on Kurt’s other side.
“That wasn’t so bad, for a first round,” Mike said, and Puck didn’t bother suggesting he go tell that to the people who’d been cut, because the three of them had made it through, and they deserved to enjoy it, at least until the next round started.
“Any clue what’s next?” Puck asked instead, glancing over Kurt’s head at Mike.
“I haven’t heard anything, but I think I might have spotted Travis backstage.”
“Wait,” Kurt said, eyes going kind of wide before he turned his back on Puck to stare at Mike. “Travis is here? Travis Wall.”
“Like I said, I think so,” Mike answered, shrugging and glancing at Puck. “I mean, we knew we were dancing contemporary at some point, right?”
“Yeah, what’s the big deal?” Puck asked, and he wasn’t jealous, but he knew who Travis was, and he didn’t see why Kurt was panting at the thought of him showing up. Sure, he was kind of hot, in a weird, intense way, but he was kind of scary too, and Puck would rather deal with Mandy Moore or maybe Tabitha and Napoleon than some contemporary choreographer who took himself way too seriously. But he was pretty sure Kurt didn’t agree, at least if the way he was practically vibrating in his seat was anything to go by.
“The big deal,” Kurt said, and Puck didn’t have to look to know Kurt was rolling his eyes, “is that Travis Wall is the most talented contemporary choreographer to come out of this show. He’s amazing. Just to be allowed to dance one of his pieces would be an honor.”
“Well, it’s a pretty safe bet you’re going to get the chance. The dude shows up every season; it’s like he doesn’t have anything better to do.”
Kurt’s cheeks flushed an angry shade of red and he opened his mouth, probably to school Puck on just what Travis Wall did in his spare time. It sort of made Puck wonder just how much time Kurt spent stalking the dude on the Internet, but before he could ask Nigel was talking again. Puck was pretty sure it was going to be the only time he was grateful to hear Nigel announcing that the next routine was coming up, and the cuts were going to be even more brutal this time.
~
It turned out they didn’t see Travis on the first day. After lunch they got back in their groups to learn a ballroom routine, and Puck spent pretty much the entire afternoon expecting to get cut. But he landed a partner who danced ballroom, and she helped him get pretty comfortable with the routine, so by the time their turn came up, he figured he did at least as well as any of the other b-boys in the competition.
When Nigel called his name Puck tensed, but all he said was, “Good work. You got lucky on partner assignments. Be grateful.”
Puck nodded, because it wasn’t like Nigel was wrong, then he hustled off the stage before they changed their minds and sent him home anyway. Mike was already done by the time Puck got through, and Puck found him in the audience and took a seat next to him.
“Congratulations,” Mike said, grinning up at Puck.
“Yeah, I got really lucky with my partner.”
“Sure, but you’ve been working really hard, too. I don’t know how that Kurt guy taught you as much as he did in just a couple hours. He must be a hell of a teacher.”
“He’s something, all right,” Puck answered, grinning when Mike laughed.
As soon as he said it Kurt’s group stepped onto the stage, and Puck watched him step into position and flash a tight smile at his partner, an Asian chick that Puck was pretty sure usually did ballet. The music started and Puck kept his eyes on Kurt, watching him perform the steps pretty much perfectly. But the thing was, he looked pretty uptight, and he wasn’t really connecting with his girl at all.
“Kurt, please step forward,” Nigel said when the music stopped, and Puck cringed and watched Kurt press his lips together and step out of the line. “You’re not connecting with your partner. We’ve said this to you before; a great performance is about more than technique, and it’s the performers who do well on this show, not the technicians. You’re through, but just barely.”
Kurt nodded and headed off the stage without so much as a glance back at his partner, and when he headed out of the auditorium without even looking to see if Puck was around, he figured Kurt was headed somewhere to have a meltdown away from the cameras. Puck was standing up before he even knew he was thinking about it, and when he felt a hand on his arm he looked down to find Mike frowning at him.
“Where are you going?”
Puck shrugged and looked up the aisle in time to watch the auditorium door swing shut. “I just want to make sure he’s okay.”
“He’s fine. He made it through, didn’t he?” Mike said, raising an eyebrow when Puck scowled. For a second Mike just looked at him, then he shook his head and let out a laugh that made Puck want to hit him. “You’ve got it bad.”
“I do not,” Puck said, ignoring the look Mike gave him. “I just feel bad for the guy. He’s wound so tight he’s going to have a heart attack before we even make it to the top twenty.”
“So you’re going to unwind him?”
Puck snorted a laugh that could have been a denial, but the truth was he didn’t hate the idea. Still, no matter how much he liked Kurt, they were still competing for a spot in the competition, and if they didn’t both make it, the chances of him seeing Kurt again after Vegas were next to none.
“I figure he needs somebody to watch his back is all,” he said, and when Mike just smirked and shook his head Puck told himself it didn’t matter if he didn’t believe it.
~
Kurt didn’t see Puck again until dinner. Not that he felt much like eating, but he knew how many calories they were burning, and if he didn’t want to further humiliate himself by passing out on stage he had to keep his strength up. So he went through the line with everyone else, and when he picked up his tray and turned to look for an empty seat he found himself face to face with Puck.
“You’re still here,” Kurt said, his whole face flushing as soon as he realized he’d said it out loud.
“You sound surprised,” Puck answered, the corner of his mouth turning up just a fraction, and Kurt blushed even harder. “Anyway, it’s not like I’m going to bail without saying goodbye.”
“Oh. I mean, of course,” Kurt said, and he was pretty sure he was never going to stop blushing around Puck. “You’d really wait to say goodbye?”
“Yeah, sure. You’re my boy.” Puck shrugged and looked away, and Kurt wondered again what exactly that meant. Before he worked up the courage to ask Puck was nodding toward a table on the other side of the room, and Kurt followed his gaze to find Mike watching them with a weird smirk on his face. “So are you eating or what?”
“Sure...I mean, yes,” Kurt answered, gripping the edges of his tray a little harder as he followed Puck across the room.
Kurt was fairly sure that his eyes weren’t puffy anymore; it had been a couple hours since he fell apart in the last stall of the men’s room, and he didn’t think he still looked as though he’d been crying. As soon as he set his tray down he reached up to wipe at his eyes anyway, but if Puck or Mike noticed they didn’t point it out.
He nodded when Mike smiled at him, then he glanced at Puck in time to watch him dig into a huge plate of spaghetti and meatballs. And he wasn’t such a cliche that he enjoyed watching some guy he hardly knew bolting his food as though it was his last meal, but there was a part of Kurt that liked looking at Puck.
Okay, so most of him liked looking at Puck. Whether he was dancing or grilling Kurt about Ohio over Vietnamese food or just grinning like Kurt was the most interesting thing he’d ever seen, Kurt liked looking at him. It was impossible not to enjoy being the center of Puck’s attention, but Kurt couldn’t let himself enjoy it too much or he’d start reading things into it that Puck didn’t mean.
He cleared his throat and looked down at his own plate, pushing a piece of dry chicken around and wondering just how awful it would be to get sent home for passing out in the middle of a routine. At least if he was going to go out that way he’d hopefully pass out during hip hop, and then he wouldn’t have to worry about trying to make it through that round.
“What’s the problem?”
Kurt blinked at the sound of Puck’s voice, looking up to find Puck watching him over his half-eaten dinner. “Nothing. I was just wondering what we’re in for tomorrow.”
“We haven’t done hip hop yet,” Mike pointed out, grinning as though he was looking forward to it, and Kurt could hardly blame him. “And we never saw Travis today, so he’ll probably show up tomorrow too.”
He glanced at Puck when he said it, and Kurt couldn’t be sure why, but he had a sneaking suspicion it had something to do with their earlier discussion of Travis’ choreography skills.
Well. Kurt had talked about Travis’ talent; Puck had mostly implied that Travis had nothing better to do than hang around the set. Which wasn’t even true, because Travis worked more than a lot of young choreographers in the business. The show had helped give him a leg up, certainly, but that was the whole point. There was no reason to be here if it wasn’t to further their careers as dancers, and that was the thing he couldn’t figure out, because Puck mostly seemed like he was just along for the ride.
It should have annoyed Kurt, knowing that Puck didn’t share the same passion for dance the rest of them did. But it was impossible to hold it against him when he smiled and told Kurt he had as good a chance of winning as Mike. He was wrong, but it was a sweet sentiment nonetheless, so Kurt hadn’t pointed out the flaws in his logic.
“I just hope it’s not one of the scary hip hop choreographers,” Kurt said, blushing all over again when they both looked at him.
“Which ones are scary?” Mike asked, and Kurt thought about it for a few seconds before he said, “All of them.”
They all laughed at that, and Kurt was still sort of terrified of hip hop, but it felt good to laugh about something after the tension of the afternoon. He knew he was going to wash out at hip hop, and he hoped it wouldn’t be the thing that sent him home, but at least that would be better than being sent home on his own style because the judges didn’t think he was feeling it enough.
His smile faded at the thought, and when he looked up again he found Puck watching him, eyes dark and searching and Kurt swallowed hard against the fluttering in his stomach. “Don’t sweat the hip hop, dude. I told you, it’s all attitude.”
“That’s true,” Mike said, waving his fork vaguely in Puck’s direction. “Besides, if you can teach him to partner in like three hours, there’s no way you’re going home on hip hop.”
“That’s easy for both of you to say,” Kurt shot back, and he knew he sounded a little angry, but he was the one who’d barely scraped by today. “You’re not the ones being called out by the judges for lack of emotional commitment after every performance. I don’t even know what that means. I’m passionate about dance. I have been since I was three years old and choreographed my first routine. How they can not see that is beyond me.”
For a second they both just looked at him, and Kurt was starting to think he’d just alienated the only people in the competition he knew when Puck grinned. “See, I knew you had some attitude in there somewhere.”
When Mike laughed Kurt felt his cheeks flush again, and he cursed his pale skin and tried not to smile. It was sort of a losing battle, though, and finally he gave up and ducked his head to hide his grin.
“Look, if you’re that worried about it we’ll show you some moves after dinner. Once you get the basics down it’s mostly about making sure you hit the moves hard.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Kurt said, gripping his fork a little tighter at the prospect of making a complete fool of himself in front of both of them.
Puck shrugged and glanced at Mike, but all he did was shrug right back at Puck. “What else do we have to do tonight?”
“Sleep, for one thing. Tomorrow’s going to be even longer than today, and we’re probably going to have to choreograph group routines, which means we won’t be getting much sleep tomorrow night.”
“It’s not going to take all night to show you a few moves,” Puck said, and Kurt couldn’t prove it or anything, but he was almost sure Puck was laughing at him. “We’ll get you back to your room in plenty of time to get your beauty sleep. Besides, I owe you.”
Kurt opened his mouth to say that Puck didn’t owe him, that dinner had been more than enough thanks for the impromptu dance lessons. But he didn’t know if Mike knew about their...well, not ‘date’, exactly, but it had certainly felt like a date a few times that evening. He knew he couldn’t bring it up without blushing even harder, though, so instead he cleared his throat and said, “If you’re sure you don’t mind.”
“Good.” Puck grinned at him for another second, then he reached across the table and tapped Kurt’s barely touched plate. “So hurry up and eat already. You’re gonna need your strength.”
~
Puck wasn’t kidding about Kurt needing his strength to keep up with them. He hadn’t exactly meant it to sound like a come-on, but if Kurt thought Puck was flirting, well, it wasn’t going to hurt anybody. It was probably good for him; it put some color in those cheeks of his, anyway, and when he smiled like he was trying not to, he almost relaxed for a few seconds.
The more time they spent together the more Puck wanted to be the one to unravel Kurt, to strip away all that tight control Nigel was always complaining about and get to what was underneath it. He figured whoever did finally get Kurt to let go was in for a hell of a ride, and the thought of somebody else beating him to it made Puck’s jaw twitch.
He watched Kurt trying to follow the moves Mike was showing him, his whole body rigid as he focused on getting it exactly right. And that was the whole problem, because as long as he held himself like he was afraid he was going to fly apart, he’d never get the hang of it.
“Hold up a second,” Puck said, glancing at Mike and nodding. Mike got the message right away and stepped back, making room for Puck in the space they’d made between the beds in their hotel room. Once Mike was sitting on his bed Puck stepped close to Kurt, raising one eyebrow at the defeated look on Kurt’s face.
“I told you I couldn’t do this.”
“Dude, you can do it,” Puck said, shaking his head and reaching out to put his hands on Kurt’s hips. As soon as Puck touched him Kurt’s body went even more rigid, and Puck was starting to wonder if he could hurt himself from being so uptight. “Look, you just have to relax. That’s what the judges keep bitching about. You’re way too intense.”
“I thought the whole point of hip hop was sharp moves. Hitting it hard or whatever.”
Puck grinned, and he wasn’t laughing at Kurt or anything, but it was pretty funny to hear some kid from the middle of nowhere talking about hitting it hard like he even knew what that meant. Which he didn’t, if his dancing in the past hour was anything to go by.
“I told you, hip hop’s about attitude. You want to hit the moves hard enough to show the audience you mean it, yeah, but you want to make it look easy too. Which is why you have to relax and just go with it.”
He moved Kurt’s hips while he talked, moving his own in time with the music and yeah, he was kind of grinding on Kurt a little, but he was trying to prove a point here. He was trying to get Kurt to connect, but Kurt’s gaze was focused square in the center of Puck’s chest and Puck could see the blush moving up his neck and into his face.
And maybe it was a bad idea, but it wasn’t like Mike was going to do it - not if he wanted to keep his hands attached to his arms, anyway - so Puck rolled his eyes and let go of Kurt’s hip to slide a hand under his chin. He tilted Kurt’s face up until they were eye to eye, and yeah, Kurt was embarrassed and probably uncomfortable, but he looked kind of pissed, too.
“You look like you want to hit me,” Puck murmured, voice low and he felt the shudder that rolled through Kurt.
“The thought did cross my mind.”
Puck grinned and let his hand trail down Kurt’s neck, feeling the heat of his skin against Puck’s fingers before he let go again. “Good. What you’re feeling right now, use it. Don’t be afraid to let people see.”
“I’m not afraid,” Kurt said, but Puck’s hand was still resting on his hip, and he could feel Kurt trembling under his touch.
“Yeah? Then prove it. Let’s go through it again.” He let go of Kurt and turned away from him long enough to start the music over again, then he stepped back into the center of the room and raised an eyebrow at Kurt. ”Ready?”
Kurt’s only answer was a sharp nod, but as soon as Puck started moving Kurt followed. He kept up pretty well, and maybe pissing him off was the way to go, because he hit the moves harder than ever, and he managed not to come off like he was about to break in half. By the time the song ended Puck was almost convinced Kurt could actually pull off hip hop tomorrow, even if he didn’t know any of the advanced tricks yet.
That part Puck was sure he could handle, because he’d seen Kurt dance and Puck knew exactly how strong he was. So he could pick up the moves no problem, and as long as he figured out a way to bring the attitude without Puck annoying it out of him, he’d be okay.
“Not bad,” Puck said, grinning when Kurt blushed. “I think you might actually make it through the hip hop routine.”
“As long as it’s not Lil’ C,” Mike said from his spot on the bed. “If it’s krumping he’s probably screwed.”
“Dude,” Puck said, scowling at Mike, but all he got was a shrug. And yeah, okay, so he had a point, but that didn’t mean he had to say it out loud. Puck turned back to Kurt, reaching out to grip his shoulder and squeeze. “Relax, it’s not going to be Lil’ C. He never choreographs for the auditions; they always get somebody like Tabitha and Napoleon. Lyrical hip hop’s pretty close to what you do already, so you’ll be fine.”
Kurt didn’t look like he really believed it, but he didn’t argue. Instead he smiled up at Puck, the anger gone along with the tension, and Puck had to remind himself not to lean in and kiss him. He’d never live it down if he planted one on Kurt right in front of Mike anyway, and Puck wasn’t positive, but he was pretty sure Kurt wouldn’t appreciate the audience any more than Mike would appreciate the show.
“Do either of you krump?” Kurt asked, glancing from Puck to Mike.
“I haven’t done much, but Mike does everything,” Puck answered. “Why, you want a demonstration?”
Kurt shrugged, arms folded over his chest and looking kind of shy all of a sudden. “It couldn’t hurt, right? Just in case.”
“It’s not going to be Lil’ C,” Puck said again, but he threw himself down on his own bed and patted the mattress next to him. “But you don’t have to work all that hard to get Mike to show off.”
Mike threw a pillow at Puck, and Puck caught it and tucked it behind his head. His point was made for him a second later when Mike stood up, shooing Kurt onto Puck’s bed to perch cross-legged at the end, as far as from Puck as he could get. It wasn’t ideal, but at least he wasn’t thinking up some excuse and going back to his own room yet.
Music filled the room and Mike started moving, his freakishly long limbs taking up more space than it seemed like they should. There wasn’t really enough room for him to really hit the moves as hard as usual, and he couldn’t do any of the leaps that always made him look like he should be dancing for the New York City Ballet. Still, what he could do was pretty impressive, and the longer Kurt watched the more he forgot where he was sitting and relaxed.
Puck spent most of the dance watching Kurt’s face, taking in the little smile whenever Mike did an especially intricate trick and the way his eyes went a little wide when Mike proved that he was double-jointed. And yeah, Puck had seen it often enough to know it was pretty hot, but he couldn’t help wishing Kurt would look at him like that instead of Mike.
Maybe if he could move like Mike, but Puck knew better than to think he’d ever be that good. For him dancing was fun, something to do to blow off steam that didn’t involve hitting anybody or getting drunk and committing any misdemeanors. It kept him out of trouble, and it was a break from the pressure of knowing Beth depended on him to get his act together and make a life for both of them.
But he knew he was never going to be as versatile as Mike, and he wasn’t going to get rich or famous break dancing. As soon as he thought it the music stopped, and Puck looked up to find Mike grinning at him.
“So are you going to show him what you can do?”
“Me? No way,” Puck said, laughing and glancing over at Kurt. “I’m not following that.”
“Come on, don’t be a wuss,” Mike said, and Puck raised an eyebrow at the challenge in his voice.
“Honestly, I’d like to see you dance,” Kurt said, and yeah, he was completely screwed, because as soon as Kurt asked Puck was rolling his eyes and sliding off the mattress.
“Fine, but don’t blame me if I break a lamp or something.” He crossed to Mike’s iPod speakers and shuffled through his music until he found what he was looking for, then turned his back to both of them and started to move. He knew this routine so well he could do it in his sleep, but something about the fact that Kurt was watching made it feel different.
Like it mattered all of a sudden whether or not he was any good; like Kurt was going to compare him to Mike, and Puck knew already that there was no comparison, but it had never bothered him until right now. He grinned in all the right places anyway, because the whole routine was about attitude, just like he’d been telling Kurt since they met, and he wasn’t about to blow it by showing how much it bothered him that Kurt was watching.
And Kurt was watching. He’d moved up to the head of the bed at some point, stretched out on his side with his arm tucked under his head and Puck thought vaguely that he could get used to the sight of Kurt in his bed. The thought was distracting enough that he nearly lost his place in the choreography, but he pulled it back together in time to catch himself before he wiped out and landed on his ass.
He kept his eyes off Kurt after that, and when the music finally ended and he straightened up and glanced over at the bed he expected to find Kurt smiling. Except that Kurt wasn’t smiling; his eyes were closed, long eyelashes curling against pale cheeks and his lips were parted just a little. Fast asleep, and Puck wasn’t sure whether to be insulted or grateful that Kurt had passed out on his bed and not Mike’s.
Mike snorted a laugh from behind him, and Puck rolled his eyes and turned to look at him. “First time a guy’s passed out on you?”
“Yeah,” Puck said, glancing back at Kurt in time to watch him sigh in his sleep. “So much for my riveting stage presence.”
“We did kind of wear him out,” Mike said, standing up and clapping Puck on the shoulder. “Try not to take it personally.”
“I’m not,” Puck answered. And he wasn’t, mostly. After all, it wasn’t like he’d been trying to put the moves on Kurt when he passed out, and it would be a lot more insulting if Kurt couldn’t stay awake while Puck was kissing him than while he was watching Puck dance.
“So should we wake him up and send him back to his own room?”
“Nah, let him sleep,” Puck said, still watching the steady rise and fall of Kurt’s chest, and maybe it was a little creepy, but it wasn’t like he was planning to do anything. “The bed’s big enough to share.”
For a second Mike looked like he wanted to argue, and maybe he’d even be right, but Puck didn’t really want to hear it. Then Mike shrugged and crossed back to his own side of the room to dig through his suitcase for his toothbrush. “Suit yourself. Dibs on the bathroom.”
Puck nodded and let him go, waiting until the bathroom door closed before he let out a deep breath and ran a hand over his face. He knew Mike was right; he should wake Kurt up and send him back to his own room, but it was hard to remember why when Kurt looked so peaceful.
It wouldn’t really hurt to let Kurt crash in their room. It wasn’t like anything was going to happen, and waking him up now would just throw him off and probably leave him even more tired tomorrow. So really he was doing Kurt a favor, and if it meant Puck got to spend the night with him that was just a bonus.
~
When Kurt woke up it was still dark in the room. For a second he thought he was back home in his own bed in Ohio, but when he stretched out an arm and felt something warm and solid on the other side of the bed, the night before came flooding back.
He didn’t remember falling asleep, and he definitely didn’t remember Puck crawling into bed with him. If he had been aware that he was, for all rights and purposes, sleeping with Puck, Kurt would have gotten out of there before he could embarrass himself. He’d never shared a bed with anyone before, so he had no idea if he’d ended up cuddling Puck in his sleep or stealing the blankets or even fidgeting all night and keeping Puck awake.
Though judging by the way Puck was drooling into his pillow, Kurt didn’t have to worry about that last one. He appeared to be a fairly sound sleeper, and Kurt thanked his luck as he slid out of the bed without waking Puck.
Mike was snoring softly from the other bed, and Kurt blushed a little harder as he navigated his way to the door in the dark. He managed to reach it without running into anything or waking either of the room’s occupants, turning the knob as quietly as he could manage and slipping into the hallway to blink at the sudden change in light.
As soon as the door closed behind him Kurt realized he’d left his shoes in the room, but it wasn’t like he had a key, and he wasn’t about to knock and wake Puck and Mike just to get his shoes back. Instead he straightened his clothes and ran a hand through his messy hair, wrinkling his nose at the taste in his mouth from falling asleep without brushing his teeth.
His room was one floor down, so Kurt slipped into the stairwell where he’d be less likely to run into any other early risers. He made it to his room without running into anyway, holding his breath as he slid his key card in the door and opening the door as quietly as possible in case his own roommate was still sleeping.
The lump in the center of the bed nearest the window told Kurt that his roommate was still fast asleep, and he closed the door behind him and crossed to his suitcase to dig out his toiletry kit and a change of clothes before he let himself into the bathroom and closed the door behind him.
He set his things down and dug out his toothbrush, then he squeezed some toothpaste onto the bristles and ran it under the water. Once his mouth tasted fresh and minty Kurt set his toothbrush aside and ventured a glance in the mirror, his cheeks flushing at the sight of his own reflection.
He didn’t look any different. He knew no one would be able to look at him and tell he’d spent the night in the same bed as Puck. Even if they did it wouldn’t matter, because nothing had happened between them. Still, he couldn’t help remembering Puck’s hands on his hips, the way he’d moved with Kurt when he was trying to get him to relax a little. The way Puck had leaned in and whispered, You look like you want to hit me, and Kurt hadn’t denied it, though hitting Puck was the furthest thing from his mind.
The truth was that Kurt wanted to kiss him, and sometimes he got the feeling that Puck wouldn’t mind if he did. Other times he got the feeling that Puck just liked the attention, and that made him feel more than a little pathetic. Like he was some kind of groupie, and that was the last thing Kurt wanted to be.
What he wanted…what he wanted was to keep his head in the game and land a spot in the top twenty, and nothing else mattered. Nothing else could matter, because he’d been working toward this his entire life, and Kurt wasn’t about to let some embarrassing crush derail him when he was so close to his goal.
He managed to shower and moisturize before his roommate woke up, and when he got down to breakfast he was one of the first dancers to arrive. Kurt filled a tray and found a seat by himself in a corner of the room, and he was hard at work convincing himself to focus on his dancing and not the feel of Puck’s hands on his hips when someone pulled out the chair across from him.
Kurt looked up in time to watch Puck set his own tray on the table, then he dropped into the seat across from Kurt and nodded at him. “’Sup.”
“Good morning,” Kurt answered, lips pursed as he watched Puck dig into a plate overflowing with scrambled eggs and bacon. “Aren’t you Jewish?”
For a second Puck just blinked at him, then he looked down at his plate and laughed. “Right. I figure what Ma doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”
Neither of them said anything else for a few minutes; Puck turned back to his breakfast, and Kurt mostly sat and watched him eat. After a few minutes Puck glanced up at him, eyebrows raised as he reached for the glass of milk Kurt was pretty sure wasn’t any more kosher than the bacon.
“So you left in kind of a hurry.”
It was a statement rather than a question, and if Kurt didn’t know better he’d say that Puck sounded almost...hurt. But that was impossible, because Puck wasn’t interested in Kurt. If he was, last night would have been the perfect opportunity to do something about it, but all they’d done was sleep.
“All my things were back in my room. I didn’t want to wake you just so I could tell you I was going to brush my teeth.” As soon as he said it Puck’s expression softened a little, and Kurt felt the butterflies that had moved into his stomach the day he met Puck start to stir. “I’m sorry about passing out on you, by the way. You should have just woken me up and sent me back to my own bed.”
“It’s no big thing. Not like I’m not used to close quarters.”
Puck looked down at his plate again, reaching for a piece of toast and spreading butter on it, and Kurt was grateful that Puck wasn’t looking to see his reaction to that news. And it wasn’t as though Kurt had any reason to assume that Puck was single; he flirted, sure, but Kurt was starting to get the impression that was just part of his personality. So he wasn’t surprised to hear that Puck didn’t sleep alone, but that didn’t mean he wanted to hear about it.
“It must be hard to be away from her,” he said, and as soon as the words escaped his lips he wanted to kick himself.
Puck shrugged and swallowed a mouthful of toast, then he reached for his milk to wash it down.
“It’s kind of weird, I guess. I mean, it’s only been a day, right? Still, I’m used to her chucking every toy in her crib at me and saying ‘Daddy’ over and over until I give in and haul my ass out of bed. Waking up to the sound of Mike taking a leak isn’t exactly the same, you know?”
For a second Kurt was too stunned to answer. It wasn’t that he’d forgotten that Puck had a daughter; he was aware of what Puck had left back home, but in the confusion of the last twelve hours he’d put Puck’s story out of his mind. The fact that Puck slept with his daughter’s crib in his bedroom…well, that meant he probably did spend his nights alone, and Kurt knew he shouldn’t be happy about it, but he couldn’t help himself.
When he finally pulled himself together he smiled, and when Puck grinned back at him Kurt’s heart skipped a beat. “There are worse ways to wake up, I suppose.”
“Yeah, I mean, she always does this kind of stage whisper, you know, like she’s trying to be quiet, even though we both know she’s trying to wake me up.” He paused and let out a little laugh, his eyes going soft for a second before he looked at Kurt again. “It’s still kind of weird, having a kid, but it has its moments.”
Kurt could tell by the look on Puck’s face that he loved it, no matter how weird he claimed it was. And he couldn’t even imagine having a daughter at their age, so he believed Puck when he said it was kind of weird. But it was kind of cool, too, knowing that Puck was raising his daughter the way Kurt’s dad had raised him after his mom died.
“How are you going to handle being away from her during the show?”
Puck blinked at him a time or two, then shook his head and looked down at his breakfast again. “Have to make it through Vegas first. I’ll worry about it if I make top twenty.”
“You’re going to make it,” Kurt said, and he couldn’t even say why he sounded so sure, but he was.
~
The second day of Vegas Week flew by in a blur of choreography and tears, mostly. A lot of people got cut, and every time one of their groups stood on stage to be judged Puck held his breath until he was sure he, Mike and Kurt were all safe.
Not that he worried much about Mike; the judges practically pissed themselves telling him how amazing he was every time they saw him, and Debbie Allen herself told him she’d be disappointed if he didn’t make top three. Mike rode that compliment for the rest of the day, and Puck didn’t even give him any shit for it, because it was Debbie fucking Allen, and he had a right to be pumped.
Kurt made it through hip hop without embarrassing himself, and he even managed to connect with the audience a little, so Puck wasn’t surprised when the judges put him through without even commenting. They could have tossed him a bone and told him he’d done a good job, sure, but no comment was sure as hell better than telling him he kind of sucked again.
By the time they got to the contemporary round everybody was exhausted, and Puck was glad he didn’t have to worry about Kurt or Mike this time, because he had enough to worry about with himself. Sure enough, Travis was the choreographer, and Puck didn’t have anything against him, but the dude was intense and his routines were complicated as hell.
Travis expected them to convey a ton of emotion, and Puck was good with that in theory, but he wasn’t sure how to sell the kind of heartbreak Travis was looking for. Nobody had ever ripped his heart out and stomped all over it, unless Puck counted Beth’s mom trying to keep him out of her life in the beginning, or maybe his dad being a total loser.
He was pretty sure he’d done okay anyway, but that didn’t make him any less nervous when his group finished and formed a line on the stage, and when Nigel called out him and two other dancers Puck’s heart pounded so hard in his chest he was pretty sure he wouldn’t even be able to hear what Nigel said.
“Puck,” Nigel said, and his face was as unreadable as ever. “You’re a b-boy.”
“Yeah…uh, yes, sir.”
“And what other styles have you studied?”
“None,” Puck answered, glancing past Nigel into the crowd, but it was too dark to make out any faces in the audience. “I pick up what I can here and there, but I’ve never taken any classes.”
Nigel nodded and looked down at the paper in front of him for another second, and now Puck knew Nigel was just fucking with him because he could. “Your progress has been remarkable. Keep up the good work.”
“Thanks,” Puck said, then he headed offstage and toward the seats where he usually found Kurt and Mike. When he got there Kurt was waiting for him, a smug expression on his face, and Puck tried and failed not to grin. “What?”
“I told you you’d make it.”
“I haven’t made it yet, Ohio. We still have another day to get through.”
They still had to choreograph their own group routines, and everybody knew that was the worst part of Vegas Week. If they got stuck in a bad group or ended up with a lousy style it could be all over, and there was only so much they could do about it. But Kurt was grinning at him like he knew something Puck didn’t - like he was proud of Puck or something - and it was hard to be nervous about the group routines when Kurt was looking at him like that.
~
Kurt’s group number was a jazz routine, a stroke of luck that was almost enough to convince him of the existence of God. One of the girls in his group, a contemporary dancer named Brittany, had studied jazz for years, so between the two of them they came up with a number that got every single member of their group through.
Puck landed in a group that was forced to choreograph a contemporary routine, and Kurt watched the entire performance through his fingers, but they managed to pull it off in the end. Puck even held his own, a fact which surprised Kurt almost as much as it surprised Puck, and somehow by the end of the group numbers they were both through to the final round.
He still wasn’t sure how they’d pulled it off, and they still had their individual performances to get through, but Kurt wasn’t worried. Technically he knew he could hold his own, and he’d seen enough of Puck’s dancing to know that he could engage any audience. So all either of them had to do was perform to their strengths and they’d both be getting an invitation to L.A. to get the final results in just a month.
Making them wait around a whole month to hear who was in the top twenty seemed sort of cruel, but Kurt knew they did it to minimize any chance of the results leaking before the show started airing.
The judges didn’t critique them on their last performance, so none of them had any idea where they stood when they were called into the auditorium and lined up on stage. It was weird to look around and see less than fifty dancers left when they’d started the week with nearly two hundred, and it was even weirder to think that he and Puck were both still standing.
Puck was standing right next to him, as a matter of fact, shoulder pressed against Kurt’s and somehow the steady warmth made it easier to stand there and wait to hear the judges make their final cuts. It was tempting to reach for Puck’s hand, but Kurt had no idea how Puck would react if he did, so instead he leaned a little harder against Puck’s shoulder and tried to remember to breathe.
Nigel called out a few names, and Kurt held his breath while Nigel told them they were all cut from the competition. One by one more dancers got cut until there were only thirty-five of them on stage, and surely they couldn’t cut any more, at least not without practically giving away the top twenty. So it was no surprise when Nigel looked up and congratulated the rest of them on making it to the final round, but Kurt still blinked a few times to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating.
Strong arms grabbed him and Kurt caught a flash of Puck’s grinning face before he was wrapped in a tight hug, and he slid his arms around Puck’s shoulders and hugged him back. He pressed his face against Puck’s neck, breathing in the warm scents of soap and Puck. If Puck noticed that Kurt was…well, sort of perving on him, he didn’t complain. Instead he just hugged Kurt a little tighter, then he let go and Kurt managed not to grab him and drag him close again.
A second later Puck was hugging Mike, then Kurt was being pulled into a hug by Brittany, and all around them people were shouting and crying and clinging to each other. And Kurt had always told himself he wouldn’t get swept away by the emotion of the experience and start crying like everyone on TV always did, but it had been a long week and he was exhausted, so he wasn’t surprised to feel his throat tighten.
Nigel was shouting for their attention, and when the dancers finally settled down to listen to him Puck wasn’t standing next to Kurt anymore. He was halfway across the stage, and Kurt told himself it was fine. It was, because they’d made it through and they’d both be back next month to hear the final results, and the chances of them both making top twenty at this point were better than Kurt ever imagined they’d be.
He tried to pay attention while Nigel gave them all their final instructions, but it was hard to listen when his mind was racing and his blood was pounding against his eardrums. Nigel said something about callbacks for the final round of cuts, then he said something about exit interviews, and Kurt knew they were going to make them film those dumb little dance sequences they always showed at the end of Vegas week.
Even that he could endure, though, because he’d made it all the way to the end of the semifinals without getting cut, and that meant he was so close to realizing his dream that he could almost reach out and touch it. Kurt followed the others off the stage and down the aisle that led out of the auditorium, past the lobby into a conference room where they’d set up a backdrop for interviews during the week.
He’d stood in front of that stupid blue sheet and tried to act like he wasn’t terrified of getting cut at least a dozen times so far, and now that he really wasn’t getting cut he didn’t even mind doing a ballet jump for the camera. They made him repeat it a few times, and by the time they let him go he was red-faced and laughing, stumbling back into the hall to find Puck waiting for him.
As soon as Kurt appeared Puck pushed off the wall he’d been leaning against, his eyes going sort of dark for a second and Kurt couldn’t say why his heart stuttered in his chest at the sight. His breath caught in his throat, but as soon as he realized he was staring he shook his head and let out a nervous laugh.
“Am I allowed to say I told you so now?”
“No,” Puck said, grinning and taking another step toward Kurt. “Not unless I make top twenty.”
“Fine, but you’re going to,” Kurt assured him. “So I’ll just say it next month when I see you again.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve got something for you.” Puck reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper, holding it up between them. “In case you think of anything you want to say before then.”
It took Kurt a second to work up the nerve to pull the slip of paper out of his hand, but when he unfolded it and saw an e-mail address and a phone number his heart skipped another beat. He told himself it didn’t mean anything. Puck kept saying Kurt was his boy, and he still hadn’t figured out what that meant, but apparently it meant that he at least wanted to stay in touch.
“I don’t have a pen,” he said, glancing up at Puck again, and when Puck smirked at him he felt himself blush.
“You can text me your e-mail address. It’ll give you something to do during your layover.”
“Oh. Of course.” Kurt nodded and looked down at the piece of paper in his hand again, as though maybe it was going to disappear if he didn’t keep an eye on it. “So I’ll see you in a month?”
When Puck swayed forward Kurt’s heart stopped, and when he stopped just close enough to whisper in Kurt’s ear, his heart started over again in double time. “Count on it.”
Week Three (cont.): Meet Your Top Twenty
Fandom: Glee/So You Think You Can Dance
Pairing: Puck/Kurt
Rating: PG (but you've met me, so.)
Word count: 10,200
Warnings: Cheesiness. Lack of dance knowledge. Random Cat Deeley fangirling.
Summary: AU. Kurt's a classically trained dancer who has trouble connecting to his audience. Puck's a novice b-boy with loads of charisma and not a whole lot else. When they meet at the New York auditions for So You Think You Can Dance, both their lives change in more ways than they anticipated.
A/N: Vegas Week! My very favorite part of SYTYCD. Unfortunately it is also, you know, a week, which makes for kind of a long fic. There's going to be one more (much shorter) part to this, but I won't post that until tomorrow.
Week Three: Vegas Week
All things considered, Las Vegas was even scarier than New York City. The airport was a lot smaller, and most of the people on his flight seemed to be either other dancers or tourists, so the atmosphere was a lot less intense than when he’d deplaned at JFK International. But the fact remained that when Kurt went to his audition, he’d known exactly what he was going to dance and he’d known - or at least he’d thought he knew at the time - more or less what the judges’ reactions were going to be.
Vegas Week, on the other hand, was a whole different ballgame. There were routines to learn in several different styles, not to mention the group routine they were going to have to choreograph themselves, at least if this year’s show stuck to the usual formula. It was four days of relentless competition, with cuts every single day, and considering they’d already gone from thousands of hopefuls to less than two hundred amazing dancers, he knew the odds of making the top twenty weren’t great.
Kurt had spent the past three months studying old episodes of the show, learning the styles of the different choreographers and trying to prepare himself for what was coming. When he wasn’t working he was rehearsing, making sure his own routines were perfect and trying to imitate the styles of the choreographers who seemed to turn up most often from season to season.
The upside to obsessing about the choreography was that he hadn’t had a lot of time to obsess about Puck. He’d thought about Puck all the way home on the train, remembered the way Puck’s arms felt around him and the way he smiled when he got a tricky dance step down. He played the moment when Puck leaned in and tugged on the end of his scarf over and over in his mind, trying to decide if Puck was teasing him on purpose or if he just didn’t know how charming he was.
Kurt allowed himself the indulgence of thinking about Puck all the way back to Ohio, telling himself that their brief flirtation - if that was what it was - was just part of his grand New York adventure. But as soon as the train pulled into the station he pushed all those thoughts to the back of his mind, and whenever a stray memory of his only night in New York snuck up on him he told himself not to be naϊve and pushed the thought away again.
Chances were good that Puck had forgotten about him the moment he got back on the subway; Puck had the whole of New York City stretched out in front of him every day, after all, and Kurt was just some wide-eyed kid from Ohio who had never been anywhere or seen anything. There was no reason to think Puck would remember him if they ran into each other in Vegas, and even if he did remember, there certainly wasn’t any reason to think he’d care.
He made it all the way to the hotel on the airport shuttle, found his room and put his bags away. When he got there his roommate was already unpacking, and Kurt told himself that he wasn’t disappointed to find that he wasn’t sharing with Puck. Considering the number of male dancers who’d made it to callbacks, the chances of him being randomly assigned to share a hotel room with Puck were next to nothing.
Besides, it wouldn’t do him any good to develop a distracting crush on a straight guy he’d probably never see again after Vegas week was over. The chances of both of them making it to the top twenty were even smaller than the chances of them being assigned to the same room, after all, and he wasn’t about to let his imagination run away with him and distract him from the competition.
That was what he told himself when he followed his roommate down to the auditorium, joining the crowd of other dancers filing toward the stage. He scanned the crowd around him as they moved closer to the double doors, and he wasn’t looking for a mohawk, but when he heard a familiar voice calling his name, Kurt’s heart skipped a beat. A second later Puck appeared, shoving his way past a couple girls to catch up with Kurt.
“Hey,” he said, a little breathless, as though maybe he’d had to work to find Kurt in the crowd. The thought made Kurt’s stomach flutter, but he clamped down hard on the sensation and reminded himself that Puck wasn’t interested in him. He was just...nice, and if he’d been looking for Kurt it was probably just to make sure he’d actually managed to get back to Ohio without getting himself killed or anything.
“Puck,” Kurt said, surprised, and his cheeks flushed at the sound of his own voice. “How’ve you been?”
Puck shrugged and grinned, like maybe he was laughing at Kurt a little, but before Kurt could figure out why, he was talking. “Mostly I’ve been working on all that stuff you taught me.”
They both knew three months wasn’t even enough time to master one new dance style, let alone several, especially when Puck didn’t have a teacher there to correct his form. But the fact that he’d spent the past three months working on new styles instead of just focusing on his comfort zone was impressive, and Kurt was sure the judges would take note.
He wished he’d done the same, especially since he knew there would be a hip hop routine to learn at some point over the next few days. Only Kurt didn’t know any hip hop dancers in Ohio, and even if he did he Kurt wasn’t confident he’d be able to pick it up. Which was a problem, because if he wanted to advance in the competition, he was going to have to learn it and fast.
Before he had time to panic himself over hip hop again Kurt heard someone say Puck’s name, and they both turned to see Puck’s friend Mike waving at him from halfway down the center aisle. Puck grinned and waved back, and Kurt braced himself for the moment when Puck turned and wished him luck, maybe, then went to sit with his friend. And it wasn’t as though Kurt was expecting to spend the next four days hanging around Puck just because they’d had one dinner together, but the fact remained that he was the only person Kurt knew in Vegas.
Puck turned to look at him and Kurt pasted what he hoped was a convincing smile on his face, but instead of waving and ditching him, Puck inclined his head toward the row of seats where Mike was waiting. “You coming?”
Kurt blinked, then he swallowed his surprise and nodded, grateful that it was dark in the theater so Puck wouldn’t see him blush. “Sure.”
Puck grinned again and led him down the aisle, throwing himself down in the seat next to Mike. “Dude, this is Kurt. Kurt, Mike.”
“From Ohio, right?” Mike said, holding out a hand for Kurt to shake. His gaze slid toward Puck as he said it, and Kurt blushed even harder when he realized Puck had told Mike about him.
It didn’t necessarily mean anything. Mike and Puck were friends, after all, and he’d probably asked Puck about the choreography round of his audition. So it made sense that Puck would tell Mike about Kurt helping him; it didn’t mean that Puck had been thinking about Kurt over the past three months, and it certainly didn’t mean that Puck was interested in him.
“Right,” was all Kurt managed before one of the producers started calling for attention. Kurt turned toward the stage with the rest of the dancers, trying to ignore the burning in his cheeks and the solid warmth of Puck’s shoulder next to his long enough to find out what they were in for over the next few days.
~
Puck’s plan when he went looking for Kurt had mostly been just to see him again, but once they got into the theater he figured maybe sitting together would give them a better chance of being in some of the same groups for the performances. Not that he wanted to compete directly against Kurt any sooner than he had to, but Puck wanted to hang out with him, and he had a feeling they weren’t going to get a lot of chances just to chill over the next few days.
Sure enough, as soon as the judges showed up they started dividing people into groups, but when they started reading names off a list instead of grouping people according to where they were sitting, Puck knew his plan wasn’t going to work after all. They got split up pretty much right away when Kurt’s name was called for the first round of choreography, and when he stood up to head for the stage Puck reached out and grabbed his wrist before he could talk himself out of it.
“Break a leg,” he said, watching Kurt blush before he nodded and said, “You too.”
Puck grinned and let go of Kurt’s arm, and a few seconds later Puck’s name was called and he had his own group to worry about.
The first routine of the day was a jazz number, choreographed by the curly-haired guy from their auditions, and the steps were so fast that Puck didn’t have time to think about Kurt or anything besides not tripping over his own feet. Somehow he managed to keep up with the rest of the dancers in his group, but it was exhausting, and by the end of the first routine he wasn’t sure how he was going to make it through the rest of the day, let alone the rest of the week.
And they’d all seen the show before, so they knew how it worked, but that didn’t make it any less scary when the cuts started pretty much right away. A guy from Puck’s group got cut halfway through their routine, and when Nigel ordered the rest of them off the stage Puck held his breath until he was safely back in his seat. A few minutes later Kurt’s group was on the stage, and he found himself holding his breath again while he watched Kurt dance.
His technique was just as amazing as Puck remembered, but he still wasn’t doing such a great job of connecting with the judges, and part of Puck expected them to say Kurt’s name and then tell him he was out. But he made it through along with the rest of his group, and when he slid into the seat next to Puck and grinned, Puck had a hard time remembering that he wasn’t supposed to lean over and kiss him.
“You looked pretty good up there,” he said instead, handing over his bottle of water as he spoke.
“Thanks,” Kurt answered, though if it was for the compliment or the water, Puck wasn’t sure. Maybe both, but either way Puck didn’t really care, as long as Kurt kept smiling at him like that. “You really held your own as well. I’m impressed; you’ve been working hard.”
“I had a good teacher,” Puck said, just to watch Kurt blush, and he couldn’t reach out and touch to see if Kurt’s skin was as hot as it looked, either, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want to.
Before Kurt could deny it Mike’s group took the stage, and they both turned to watch as the music cued up. And Puck knew how good Mike was, but that didn’t mean he ever got tired of watching him. He practically flew across the stage, grinning at all the right places and making the judges laugh and Puck knew before Nigel even raised his hand to stop the music that Mike was safe.
“He could win this whole thing,” Kurt said, and Puck tore his gaze away from the stage to glance at Kurt’s profile. He was staring at Mike, watching him pat the guy next to him on the shoulder while the judges decided if they were going to cut anybody.
“So could you,” Puck said, and when Kurt glanced sharply at him he just shrugged. “You’ve got the moves. You just need to figure out the attitude and you could give Mike a run for his money.”
Before Kurt had a chance to answer Mike’s whole group was being sent off the stage to safety, and a second later he was throwing himself into the seat on Kurt’s other side.
“That wasn’t so bad, for a first round,” Mike said, and Puck didn’t bother suggesting he go tell that to the people who’d been cut, because the three of them had made it through, and they deserved to enjoy it, at least until the next round started.
“Any clue what’s next?” Puck asked instead, glancing over Kurt’s head at Mike.
“I haven’t heard anything, but I think I might have spotted Travis backstage.”
“Wait,” Kurt said, eyes going kind of wide before he turned his back on Puck to stare at Mike. “Travis is here? Travis Wall.”
“Like I said, I think so,” Mike answered, shrugging and glancing at Puck. “I mean, we knew we were dancing contemporary at some point, right?”
“Yeah, what’s the big deal?” Puck asked, and he wasn’t jealous, but he knew who Travis was, and he didn’t see why Kurt was panting at the thought of him showing up. Sure, he was kind of hot, in a weird, intense way, but he was kind of scary too, and Puck would rather deal with Mandy Moore or maybe Tabitha and Napoleon than some contemporary choreographer who took himself way too seriously. But he was pretty sure Kurt didn’t agree, at least if the way he was practically vibrating in his seat was anything to go by.
“The big deal,” Kurt said, and Puck didn’t have to look to know Kurt was rolling his eyes, “is that Travis Wall is the most talented contemporary choreographer to come out of this show. He’s amazing. Just to be allowed to dance one of his pieces would be an honor.”
“Well, it’s a pretty safe bet you’re going to get the chance. The dude shows up every season; it’s like he doesn’t have anything better to do.”
Kurt’s cheeks flushed an angry shade of red and he opened his mouth, probably to school Puck on just what Travis Wall did in his spare time. It sort of made Puck wonder just how much time Kurt spent stalking the dude on the Internet, but before he could ask Nigel was talking again. Puck was pretty sure it was going to be the only time he was grateful to hear Nigel announcing that the next routine was coming up, and the cuts were going to be even more brutal this time.
~
It turned out they didn’t see Travis on the first day. After lunch they got back in their groups to learn a ballroom routine, and Puck spent pretty much the entire afternoon expecting to get cut. But he landed a partner who danced ballroom, and she helped him get pretty comfortable with the routine, so by the time their turn came up, he figured he did at least as well as any of the other b-boys in the competition.
When Nigel called his name Puck tensed, but all he said was, “Good work. You got lucky on partner assignments. Be grateful.”
Puck nodded, because it wasn’t like Nigel was wrong, then he hustled off the stage before they changed their minds and sent him home anyway. Mike was already done by the time Puck got through, and Puck found him in the audience and took a seat next to him.
“Congratulations,” Mike said, grinning up at Puck.
“Yeah, I got really lucky with my partner.”
“Sure, but you’ve been working really hard, too. I don’t know how that Kurt guy taught you as much as he did in just a couple hours. He must be a hell of a teacher.”
“He’s something, all right,” Puck answered, grinning when Mike laughed.
As soon as he said it Kurt’s group stepped onto the stage, and Puck watched him step into position and flash a tight smile at his partner, an Asian chick that Puck was pretty sure usually did ballet. The music started and Puck kept his eyes on Kurt, watching him perform the steps pretty much perfectly. But the thing was, he looked pretty uptight, and he wasn’t really connecting with his girl at all.
“Kurt, please step forward,” Nigel said when the music stopped, and Puck cringed and watched Kurt press his lips together and step out of the line. “You’re not connecting with your partner. We’ve said this to you before; a great performance is about more than technique, and it’s the performers who do well on this show, not the technicians. You’re through, but just barely.”
Kurt nodded and headed off the stage without so much as a glance back at his partner, and when he headed out of the auditorium without even looking to see if Puck was around, he figured Kurt was headed somewhere to have a meltdown away from the cameras. Puck was standing up before he even knew he was thinking about it, and when he felt a hand on his arm he looked down to find Mike frowning at him.
“Where are you going?”
Puck shrugged and looked up the aisle in time to watch the auditorium door swing shut. “I just want to make sure he’s okay.”
“He’s fine. He made it through, didn’t he?” Mike said, raising an eyebrow when Puck scowled. For a second Mike just looked at him, then he shook his head and let out a laugh that made Puck want to hit him. “You’ve got it bad.”
“I do not,” Puck said, ignoring the look Mike gave him. “I just feel bad for the guy. He’s wound so tight he’s going to have a heart attack before we even make it to the top twenty.”
“So you’re going to unwind him?”
Puck snorted a laugh that could have been a denial, but the truth was he didn’t hate the idea. Still, no matter how much he liked Kurt, they were still competing for a spot in the competition, and if they didn’t both make it, the chances of him seeing Kurt again after Vegas were next to none.
“I figure he needs somebody to watch his back is all,” he said, and when Mike just smirked and shook his head Puck told himself it didn’t matter if he didn’t believe it.
~
Kurt didn’t see Puck again until dinner. Not that he felt much like eating, but he knew how many calories they were burning, and if he didn’t want to further humiliate himself by passing out on stage he had to keep his strength up. So he went through the line with everyone else, and when he picked up his tray and turned to look for an empty seat he found himself face to face with Puck.
“You’re still here,” Kurt said, his whole face flushing as soon as he realized he’d said it out loud.
“You sound surprised,” Puck answered, the corner of his mouth turning up just a fraction, and Kurt blushed even harder. “Anyway, it’s not like I’m going to bail without saying goodbye.”
“Oh. I mean, of course,” Kurt said, and he was pretty sure he was never going to stop blushing around Puck. “You’d really wait to say goodbye?”
“Yeah, sure. You’re my boy.” Puck shrugged and looked away, and Kurt wondered again what exactly that meant. Before he worked up the courage to ask Puck was nodding toward a table on the other side of the room, and Kurt followed his gaze to find Mike watching them with a weird smirk on his face. “So are you eating or what?”
“Sure...I mean, yes,” Kurt answered, gripping the edges of his tray a little harder as he followed Puck across the room.
Kurt was fairly sure that his eyes weren’t puffy anymore; it had been a couple hours since he fell apart in the last stall of the men’s room, and he didn’t think he still looked as though he’d been crying. As soon as he set his tray down he reached up to wipe at his eyes anyway, but if Puck or Mike noticed they didn’t point it out.
He nodded when Mike smiled at him, then he glanced at Puck in time to watch him dig into a huge plate of spaghetti and meatballs. And he wasn’t such a cliche that he enjoyed watching some guy he hardly knew bolting his food as though it was his last meal, but there was a part of Kurt that liked looking at Puck.
Okay, so most of him liked looking at Puck. Whether he was dancing or grilling Kurt about Ohio over Vietnamese food or just grinning like Kurt was the most interesting thing he’d ever seen, Kurt liked looking at him. It was impossible not to enjoy being the center of Puck’s attention, but Kurt couldn’t let himself enjoy it too much or he’d start reading things into it that Puck didn’t mean.
He cleared his throat and looked down at his own plate, pushing a piece of dry chicken around and wondering just how awful it would be to get sent home for passing out in the middle of a routine. At least if he was going to go out that way he’d hopefully pass out during hip hop, and then he wouldn’t have to worry about trying to make it through that round.
“What’s the problem?”
Kurt blinked at the sound of Puck’s voice, looking up to find Puck watching him over his half-eaten dinner. “Nothing. I was just wondering what we’re in for tomorrow.”
“We haven’t done hip hop yet,” Mike pointed out, grinning as though he was looking forward to it, and Kurt could hardly blame him. “And we never saw Travis today, so he’ll probably show up tomorrow too.”
He glanced at Puck when he said it, and Kurt couldn’t be sure why, but he had a sneaking suspicion it had something to do with their earlier discussion of Travis’ choreography skills.
Well. Kurt had talked about Travis’ talent; Puck had mostly implied that Travis had nothing better to do than hang around the set. Which wasn’t even true, because Travis worked more than a lot of young choreographers in the business. The show had helped give him a leg up, certainly, but that was the whole point. There was no reason to be here if it wasn’t to further their careers as dancers, and that was the thing he couldn’t figure out, because Puck mostly seemed like he was just along for the ride.
It should have annoyed Kurt, knowing that Puck didn’t share the same passion for dance the rest of them did. But it was impossible to hold it against him when he smiled and told Kurt he had as good a chance of winning as Mike. He was wrong, but it was a sweet sentiment nonetheless, so Kurt hadn’t pointed out the flaws in his logic.
“I just hope it’s not one of the scary hip hop choreographers,” Kurt said, blushing all over again when they both looked at him.
“Which ones are scary?” Mike asked, and Kurt thought about it for a few seconds before he said, “All of them.”
They all laughed at that, and Kurt was still sort of terrified of hip hop, but it felt good to laugh about something after the tension of the afternoon. He knew he was going to wash out at hip hop, and he hoped it wouldn’t be the thing that sent him home, but at least that would be better than being sent home on his own style because the judges didn’t think he was feeling it enough.
His smile faded at the thought, and when he looked up again he found Puck watching him, eyes dark and searching and Kurt swallowed hard against the fluttering in his stomach. “Don’t sweat the hip hop, dude. I told you, it’s all attitude.”
“That’s true,” Mike said, waving his fork vaguely in Puck’s direction. “Besides, if you can teach him to partner in like three hours, there’s no way you’re going home on hip hop.”
“That’s easy for both of you to say,” Kurt shot back, and he knew he sounded a little angry, but he was the one who’d barely scraped by today. “You’re not the ones being called out by the judges for lack of emotional commitment after every performance. I don’t even know what that means. I’m passionate about dance. I have been since I was three years old and choreographed my first routine. How they can not see that is beyond me.”
For a second they both just looked at him, and Kurt was starting to think he’d just alienated the only people in the competition he knew when Puck grinned. “See, I knew you had some attitude in there somewhere.”
When Mike laughed Kurt felt his cheeks flush again, and he cursed his pale skin and tried not to smile. It was sort of a losing battle, though, and finally he gave up and ducked his head to hide his grin.
“Look, if you’re that worried about it we’ll show you some moves after dinner. Once you get the basics down it’s mostly about making sure you hit the moves hard.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Kurt said, gripping his fork a little tighter at the prospect of making a complete fool of himself in front of both of them.
Puck shrugged and glanced at Mike, but all he did was shrug right back at Puck. “What else do we have to do tonight?”
“Sleep, for one thing. Tomorrow’s going to be even longer than today, and we’re probably going to have to choreograph group routines, which means we won’t be getting much sleep tomorrow night.”
“It’s not going to take all night to show you a few moves,” Puck said, and Kurt couldn’t prove it or anything, but he was almost sure Puck was laughing at him. “We’ll get you back to your room in plenty of time to get your beauty sleep. Besides, I owe you.”
Kurt opened his mouth to say that Puck didn’t owe him, that dinner had been more than enough thanks for the impromptu dance lessons. But he didn’t know if Mike knew about their...well, not ‘date’, exactly, but it had certainly felt like a date a few times that evening. He knew he couldn’t bring it up without blushing even harder, though, so instead he cleared his throat and said, “If you’re sure you don’t mind.”
“Good.” Puck grinned at him for another second, then he reached across the table and tapped Kurt’s barely touched plate. “So hurry up and eat already. You’re gonna need your strength.”
~
Puck wasn’t kidding about Kurt needing his strength to keep up with them. He hadn’t exactly meant it to sound like a come-on, but if Kurt thought Puck was flirting, well, it wasn’t going to hurt anybody. It was probably good for him; it put some color in those cheeks of his, anyway, and when he smiled like he was trying not to, he almost relaxed for a few seconds.
The more time they spent together the more Puck wanted to be the one to unravel Kurt, to strip away all that tight control Nigel was always complaining about and get to what was underneath it. He figured whoever did finally get Kurt to let go was in for a hell of a ride, and the thought of somebody else beating him to it made Puck’s jaw twitch.
He watched Kurt trying to follow the moves Mike was showing him, his whole body rigid as he focused on getting it exactly right. And that was the whole problem, because as long as he held himself like he was afraid he was going to fly apart, he’d never get the hang of it.
“Hold up a second,” Puck said, glancing at Mike and nodding. Mike got the message right away and stepped back, making room for Puck in the space they’d made between the beds in their hotel room. Once Mike was sitting on his bed Puck stepped close to Kurt, raising one eyebrow at the defeated look on Kurt’s face.
“I told you I couldn’t do this.”
“Dude, you can do it,” Puck said, shaking his head and reaching out to put his hands on Kurt’s hips. As soon as Puck touched him Kurt’s body went even more rigid, and Puck was starting to wonder if he could hurt himself from being so uptight. “Look, you just have to relax. That’s what the judges keep bitching about. You’re way too intense.”
“I thought the whole point of hip hop was sharp moves. Hitting it hard or whatever.”
Puck grinned, and he wasn’t laughing at Kurt or anything, but it was pretty funny to hear some kid from the middle of nowhere talking about hitting it hard like he even knew what that meant. Which he didn’t, if his dancing in the past hour was anything to go by.
“I told you, hip hop’s about attitude. You want to hit the moves hard enough to show the audience you mean it, yeah, but you want to make it look easy too. Which is why you have to relax and just go with it.”
He moved Kurt’s hips while he talked, moving his own in time with the music and yeah, he was kind of grinding on Kurt a little, but he was trying to prove a point here. He was trying to get Kurt to connect, but Kurt’s gaze was focused square in the center of Puck’s chest and Puck could see the blush moving up his neck and into his face.
And maybe it was a bad idea, but it wasn’t like Mike was going to do it - not if he wanted to keep his hands attached to his arms, anyway - so Puck rolled his eyes and let go of Kurt’s hip to slide a hand under his chin. He tilted Kurt’s face up until they were eye to eye, and yeah, Kurt was embarrassed and probably uncomfortable, but he looked kind of pissed, too.
“You look like you want to hit me,” Puck murmured, voice low and he felt the shudder that rolled through Kurt.
“The thought did cross my mind.”
Puck grinned and let his hand trail down Kurt’s neck, feeling the heat of his skin against Puck’s fingers before he let go again. “Good. What you’re feeling right now, use it. Don’t be afraid to let people see.”
“I’m not afraid,” Kurt said, but Puck’s hand was still resting on his hip, and he could feel Kurt trembling under his touch.
“Yeah? Then prove it. Let’s go through it again.” He let go of Kurt and turned away from him long enough to start the music over again, then he stepped back into the center of the room and raised an eyebrow at Kurt. ”Ready?”
Kurt’s only answer was a sharp nod, but as soon as Puck started moving Kurt followed. He kept up pretty well, and maybe pissing him off was the way to go, because he hit the moves harder than ever, and he managed not to come off like he was about to break in half. By the time the song ended Puck was almost convinced Kurt could actually pull off hip hop tomorrow, even if he didn’t know any of the advanced tricks yet.
That part Puck was sure he could handle, because he’d seen Kurt dance and Puck knew exactly how strong he was. So he could pick up the moves no problem, and as long as he figured out a way to bring the attitude without Puck annoying it out of him, he’d be okay.
“Not bad,” Puck said, grinning when Kurt blushed. “I think you might actually make it through the hip hop routine.”
“As long as it’s not Lil’ C,” Mike said from his spot on the bed. “If it’s krumping he’s probably screwed.”
“Dude,” Puck said, scowling at Mike, but all he got was a shrug. And yeah, okay, so he had a point, but that didn’t mean he had to say it out loud. Puck turned back to Kurt, reaching out to grip his shoulder and squeeze. “Relax, it’s not going to be Lil’ C. He never choreographs for the auditions; they always get somebody like Tabitha and Napoleon. Lyrical hip hop’s pretty close to what you do already, so you’ll be fine.”
Kurt didn’t look like he really believed it, but he didn’t argue. Instead he smiled up at Puck, the anger gone along with the tension, and Puck had to remind himself not to lean in and kiss him. He’d never live it down if he planted one on Kurt right in front of Mike anyway, and Puck wasn’t positive, but he was pretty sure Kurt wouldn’t appreciate the audience any more than Mike would appreciate the show.
“Do either of you krump?” Kurt asked, glancing from Puck to Mike.
“I haven’t done much, but Mike does everything,” Puck answered. “Why, you want a demonstration?”
Kurt shrugged, arms folded over his chest and looking kind of shy all of a sudden. “It couldn’t hurt, right? Just in case.”
“It’s not going to be Lil’ C,” Puck said again, but he threw himself down on his own bed and patted the mattress next to him. “But you don’t have to work all that hard to get Mike to show off.”
Mike threw a pillow at Puck, and Puck caught it and tucked it behind his head. His point was made for him a second later when Mike stood up, shooing Kurt onto Puck’s bed to perch cross-legged at the end, as far as from Puck as he could get. It wasn’t ideal, but at least he wasn’t thinking up some excuse and going back to his own room yet.
Music filled the room and Mike started moving, his freakishly long limbs taking up more space than it seemed like they should. There wasn’t really enough room for him to really hit the moves as hard as usual, and he couldn’t do any of the leaps that always made him look like he should be dancing for the New York City Ballet. Still, what he could do was pretty impressive, and the longer Kurt watched the more he forgot where he was sitting and relaxed.
Puck spent most of the dance watching Kurt’s face, taking in the little smile whenever Mike did an especially intricate trick and the way his eyes went a little wide when Mike proved that he was double-jointed. And yeah, Puck had seen it often enough to know it was pretty hot, but he couldn’t help wishing Kurt would look at him like that instead of Mike.
Maybe if he could move like Mike, but Puck knew better than to think he’d ever be that good. For him dancing was fun, something to do to blow off steam that didn’t involve hitting anybody or getting drunk and committing any misdemeanors. It kept him out of trouble, and it was a break from the pressure of knowing Beth depended on him to get his act together and make a life for both of them.
But he knew he was never going to be as versatile as Mike, and he wasn’t going to get rich or famous break dancing. As soon as he thought it the music stopped, and Puck looked up to find Mike grinning at him.
“So are you going to show him what you can do?”
“Me? No way,” Puck said, laughing and glancing over at Kurt. “I’m not following that.”
“Come on, don’t be a wuss,” Mike said, and Puck raised an eyebrow at the challenge in his voice.
“Honestly, I’d like to see you dance,” Kurt said, and yeah, he was completely screwed, because as soon as Kurt asked Puck was rolling his eyes and sliding off the mattress.
“Fine, but don’t blame me if I break a lamp or something.” He crossed to Mike’s iPod speakers and shuffled through his music until he found what he was looking for, then turned his back to both of them and started to move. He knew this routine so well he could do it in his sleep, but something about the fact that Kurt was watching made it feel different.
Like it mattered all of a sudden whether or not he was any good; like Kurt was going to compare him to Mike, and Puck knew already that there was no comparison, but it had never bothered him until right now. He grinned in all the right places anyway, because the whole routine was about attitude, just like he’d been telling Kurt since they met, and he wasn’t about to blow it by showing how much it bothered him that Kurt was watching.
And Kurt was watching. He’d moved up to the head of the bed at some point, stretched out on his side with his arm tucked under his head and Puck thought vaguely that he could get used to the sight of Kurt in his bed. The thought was distracting enough that he nearly lost his place in the choreography, but he pulled it back together in time to catch himself before he wiped out and landed on his ass.
He kept his eyes off Kurt after that, and when the music finally ended and he straightened up and glanced over at the bed he expected to find Kurt smiling. Except that Kurt wasn’t smiling; his eyes were closed, long eyelashes curling against pale cheeks and his lips were parted just a little. Fast asleep, and Puck wasn’t sure whether to be insulted or grateful that Kurt had passed out on his bed and not Mike’s.
Mike snorted a laugh from behind him, and Puck rolled his eyes and turned to look at him. “First time a guy’s passed out on you?”
“Yeah,” Puck said, glancing back at Kurt in time to watch him sigh in his sleep. “So much for my riveting stage presence.”
“We did kind of wear him out,” Mike said, standing up and clapping Puck on the shoulder. “Try not to take it personally.”
“I’m not,” Puck answered. And he wasn’t, mostly. After all, it wasn’t like he’d been trying to put the moves on Kurt when he passed out, and it would be a lot more insulting if Kurt couldn’t stay awake while Puck was kissing him than while he was watching Puck dance.
“So should we wake him up and send him back to his own room?”
“Nah, let him sleep,” Puck said, still watching the steady rise and fall of Kurt’s chest, and maybe it was a little creepy, but it wasn’t like he was planning to do anything. “The bed’s big enough to share.”
For a second Mike looked like he wanted to argue, and maybe he’d even be right, but Puck didn’t really want to hear it. Then Mike shrugged and crossed back to his own side of the room to dig through his suitcase for his toothbrush. “Suit yourself. Dibs on the bathroom.”
Puck nodded and let him go, waiting until the bathroom door closed before he let out a deep breath and ran a hand over his face. He knew Mike was right; he should wake Kurt up and send him back to his own room, but it was hard to remember why when Kurt looked so peaceful.
It wouldn’t really hurt to let Kurt crash in their room. It wasn’t like anything was going to happen, and waking him up now would just throw him off and probably leave him even more tired tomorrow. So really he was doing Kurt a favor, and if it meant Puck got to spend the night with him that was just a bonus.
~
When Kurt woke up it was still dark in the room. For a second he thought he was back home in his own bed in Ohio, but when he stretched out an arm and felt something warm and solid on the other side of the bed, the night before came flooding back.
He didn’t remember falling asleep, and he definitely didn’t remember Puck crawling into bed with him. If he had been aware that he was, for all rights and purposes, sleeping with Puck, Kurt would have gotten out of there before he could embarrass himself. He’d never shared a bed with anyone before, so he had no idea if he’d ended up cuddling Puck in his sleep or stealing the blankets or even fidgeting all night and keeping Puck awake.
Though judging by the way Puck was drooling into his pillow, Kurt didn’t have to worry about that last one. He appeared to be a fairly sound sleeper, and Kurt thanked his luck as he slid out of the bed without waking Puck.
Mike was snoring softly from the other bed, and Kurt blushed a little harder as he navigated his way to the door in the dark. He managed to reach it without running into anything or waking either of the room’s occupants, turning the knob as quietly as he could manage and slipping into the hallway to blink at the sudden change in light.
As soon as the door closed behind him Kurt realized he’d left his shoes in the room, but it wasn’t like he had a key, and he wasn’t about to knock and wake Puck and Mike just to get his shoes back. Instead he straightened his clothes and ran a hand through his messy hair, wrinkling his nose at the taste in his mouth from falling asleep without brushing his teeth.
His room was one floor down, so Kurt slipped into the stairwell where he’d be less likely to run into any other early risers. He made it to his room without running into anyway, holding his breath as he slid his key card in the door and opening the door as quietly as possible in case his own roommate was still sleeping.
The lump in the center of the bed nearest the window told Kurt that his roommate was still fast asleep, and he closed the door behind him and crossed to his suitcase to dig out his toiletry kit and a change of clothes before he let himself into the bathroom and closed the door behind him.
He set his things down and dug out his toothbrush, then he squeezed some toothpaste onto the bristles and ran it under the water. Once his mouth tasted fresh and minty Kurt set his toothbrush aside and ventured a glance in the mirror, his cheeks flushing at the sight of his own reflection.
He didn’t look any different. He knew no one would be able to look at him and tell he’d spent the night in the same bed as Puck. Even if they did it wouldn’t matter, because nothing had happened between them. Still, he couldn’t help remembering Puck’s hands on his hips, the way he’d moved with Kurt when he was trying to get him to relax a little. The way Puck had leaned in and whispered, You look like you want to hit me, and Kurt hadn’t denied it, though hitting Puck was the furthest thing from his mind.
The truth was that Kurt wanted to kiss him, and sometimes he got the feeling that Puck wouldn’t mind if he did. Other times he got the feeling that Puck just liked the attention, and that made him feel more than a little pathetic. Like he was some kind of groupie, and that was the last thing Kurt wanted to be.
What he wanted…what he wanted was to keep his head in the game and land a spot in the top twenty, and nothing else mattered. Nothing else could matter, because he’d been working toward this his entire life, and Kurt wasn’t about to let some embarrassing crush derail him when he was so close to his goal.
He managed to shower and moisturize before his roommate woke up, and when he got down to breakfast he was one of the first dancers to arrive. Kurt filled a tray and found a seat by himself in a corner of the room, and he was hard at work convincing himself to focus on his dancing and not the feel of Puck’s hands on his hips when someone pulled out the chair across from him.
Kurt looked up in time to watch Puck set his own tray on the table, then he dropped into the seat across from Kurt and nodded at him. “’Sup.”
“Good morning,” Kurt answered, lips pursed as he watched Puck dig into a plate overflowing with scrambled eggs and bacon. “Aren’t you Jewish?”
For a second Puck just blinked at him, then he looked down at his plate and laughed. “Right. I figure what Ma doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”
Neither of them said anything else for a few minutes; Puck turned back to his breakfast, and Kurt mostly sat and watched him eat. After a few minutes Puck glanced up at him, eyebrows raised as he reached for the glass of milk Kurt was pretty sure wasn’t any more kosher than the bacon.
“So you left in kind of a hurry.”
It was a statement rather than a question, and if Kurt didn’t know better he’d say that Puck sounded almost...hurt. But that was impossible, because Puck wasn’t interested in Kurt. If he was, last night would have been the perfect opportunity to do something about it, but all they’d done was sleep.
“All my things were back in my room. I didn’t want to wake you just so I could tell you I was going to brush my teeth.” As soon as he said it Puck’s expression softened a little, and Kurt felt the butterflies that had moved into his stomach the day he met Puck start to stir. “I’m sorry about passing out on you, by the way. You should have just woken me up and sent me back to my own bed.”
“It’s no big thing. Not like I’m not used to close quarters.”
Puck looked down at his plate again, reaching for a piece of toast and spreading butter on it, and Kurt was grateful that Puck wasn’t looking to see his reaction to that news. And it wasn’t as though Kurt had any reason to assume that Puck was single; he flirted, sure, but Kurt was starting to get the impression that was just part of his personality. So he wasn’t surprised to hear that Puck didn’t sleep alone, but that didn’t mean he wanted to hear about it.
“It must be hard to be away from her,” he said, and as soon as the words escaped his lips he wanted to kick himself.
Puck shrugged and swallowed a mouthful of toast, then he reached for his milk to wash it down.
“It’s kind of weird, I guess. I mean, it’s only been a day, right? Still, I’m used to her chucking every toy in her crib at me and saying ‘Daddy’ over and over until I give in and haul my ass out of bed. Waking up to the sound of Mike taking a leak isn’t exactly the same, you know?”
For a second Kurt was too stunned to answer. It wasn’t that he’d forgotten that Puck had a daughter; he was aware of what Puck had left back home, but in the confusion of the last twelve hours he’d put Puck’s story out of his mind. The fact that Puck slept with his daughter’s crib in his bedroom…well, that meant he probably did spend his nights alone, and Kurt knew he shouldn’t be happy about it, but he couldn’t help himself.
When he finally pulled himself together he smiled, and when Puck grinned back at him Kurt’s heart skipped a beat. “There are worse ways to wake up, I suppose.”
“Yeah, I mean, she always does this kind of stage whisper, you know, like she’s trying to be quiet, even though we both know she’s trying to wake me up.” He paused and let out a little laugh, his eyes going soft for a second before he looked at Kurt again. “It’s still kind of weird, having a kid, but it has its moments.”
Kurt could tell by the look on Puck’s face that he loved it, no matter how weird he claimed it was. And he couldn’t even imagine having a daughter at their age, so he believed Puck when he said it was kind of weird. But it was kind of cool, too, knowing that Puck was raising his daughter the way Kurt’s dad had raised him after his mom died.
“How are you going to handle being away from her during the show?”
Puck blinked at him a time or two, then shook his head and looked down at his breakfast again. “Have to make it through Vegas first. I’ll worry about it if I make top twenty.”
“You’re going to make it,” Kurt said, and he couldn’t even say why he sounded so sure, but he was.
~
The second day of Vegas Week flew by in a blur of choreography and tears, mostly. A lot of people got cut, and every time one of their groups stood on stage to be judged Puck held his breath until he was sure he, Mike and Kurt were all safe.
Not that he worried much about Mike; the judges practically pissed themselves telling him how amazing he was every time they saw him, and Debbie Allen herself told him she’d be disappointed if he didn’t make top three. Mike rode that compliment for the rest of the day, and Puck didn’t even give him any shit for it, because it was Debbie fucking Allen, and he had a right to be pumped.
Kurt made it through hip hop without embarrassing himself, and he even managed to connect with the audience a little, so Puck wasn’t surprised when the judges put him through without even commenting. They could have tossed him a bone and told him he’d done a good job, sure, but no comment was sure as hell better than telling him he kind of sucked again.
By the time they got to the contemporary round everybody was exhausted, and Puck was glad he didn’t have to worry about Kurt or Mike this time, because he had enough to worry about with himself. Sure enough, Travis was the choreographer, and Puck didn’t have anything against him, but the dude was intense and his routines were complicated as hell.
Travis expected them to convey a ton of emotion, and Puck was good with that in theory, but he wasn’t sure how to sell the kind of heartbreak Travis was looking for. Nobody had ever ripped his heart out and stomped all over it, unless Puck counted Beth’s mom trying to keep him out of her life in the beginning, or maybe his dad being a total loser.
He was pretty sure he’d done okay anyway, but that didn’t make him any less nervous when his group finished and formed a line on the stage, and when Nigel called out him and two other dancers Puck’s heart pounded so hard in his chest he was pretty sure he wouldn’t even be able to hear what Nigel said.
“Puck,” Nigel said, and his face was as unreadable as ever. “You’re a b-boy.”
“Yeah…uh, yes, sir.”
“And what other styles have you studied?”
“None,” Puck answered, glancing past Nigel into the crowd, but it was too dark to make out any faces in the audience. “I pick up what I can here and there, but I’ve never taken any classes.”
Nigel nodded and looked down at the paper in front of him for another second, and now Puck knew Nigel was just fucking with him because he could. “Your progress has been remarkable. Keep up the good work.”
“Thanks,” Puck said, then he headed offstage and toward the seats where he usually found Kurt and Mike. When he got there Kurt was waiting for him, a smug expression on his face, and Puck tried and failed not to grin. “What?”
“I told you you’d make it.”
“I haven’t made it yet, Ohio. We still have another day to get through.”
They still had to choreograph their own group routines, and everybody knew that was the worst part of Vegas Week. If they got stuck in a bad group or ended up with a lousy style it could be all over, and there was only so much they could do about it. But Kurt was grinning at him like he knew something Puck didn’t - like he was proud of Puck or something - and it was hard to be nervous about the group routines when Kurt was looking at him like that.
~
Kurt’s group number was a jazz routine, a stroke of luck that was almost enough to convince him of the existence of God. One of the girls in his group, a contemporary dancer named Brittany, had studied jazz for years, so between the two of them they came up with a number that got every single member of their group through.
Puck landed in a group that was forced to choreograph a contemporary routine, and Kurt watched the entire performance through his fingers, but they managed to pull it off in the end. Puck even held his own, a fact which surprised Kurt almost as much as it surprised Puck, and somehow by the end of the group numbers they were both through to the final round.
He still wasn’t sure how they’d pulled it off, and they still had their individual performances to get through, but Kurt wasn’t worried. Technically he knew he could hold his own, and he’d seen enough of Puck’s dancing to know that he could engage any audience. So all either of them had to do was perform to their strengths and they’d both be getting an invitation to L.A. to get the final results in just a month.
Making them wait around a whole month to hear who was in the top twenty seemed sort of cruel, but Kurt knew they did it to minimize any chance of the results leaking before the show started airing.
The judges didn’t critique them on their last performance, so none of them had any idea where they stood when they were called into the auditorium and lined up on stage. It was weird to look around and see less than fifty dancers left when they’d started the week with nearly two hundred, and it was even weirder to think that he and Puck were both still standing.
Puck was standing right next to him, as a matter of fact, shoulder pressed against Kurt’s and somehow the steady warmth made it easier to stand there and wait to hear the judges make their final cuts. It was tempting to reach for Puck’s hand, but Kurt had no idea how Puck would react if he did, so instead he leaned a little harder against Puck’s shoulder and tried to remember to breathe.
Nigel called out a few names, and Kurt held his breath while Nigel told them they were all cut from the competition. One by one more dancers got cut until there were only thirty-five of them on stage, and surely they couldn’t cut any more, at least not without practically giving away the top twenty. So it was no surprise when Nigel looked up and congratulated the rest of them on making it to the final round, but Kurt still blinked a few times to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating.
Strong arms grabbed him and Kurt caught a flash of Puck’s grinning face before he was wrapped in a tight hug, and he slid his arms around Puck’s shoulders and hugged him back. He pressed his face against Puck’s neck, breathing in the warm scents of soap and Puck. If Puck noticed that Kurt was…well, sort of perving on him, he didn’t complain. Instead he just hugged Kurt a little tighter, then he let go and Kurt managed not to grab him and drag him close again.
A second later Puck was hugging Mike, then Kurt was being pulled into a hug by Brittany, and all around them people were shouting and crying and clinging to each other. And Kurt had always told himself he wouldn’t get swept away by the emotion of the experience and start crying like everyone on TV always did, but it had been a long week and he was exhausted, so he wasn’t surprised to feel his throat tighten.
Nigel was shouting for their attention, and when the dancers finally settled down to listen to him Puck wasn’t standing next to Kurt anymore. He was halfway across the stage, and Kurt told himself it was fine. It was, because they’d made it through and they’d both be back next month to hear the final results, and the chances of them both making top twenty at this point were better than Kurt ever imagined they’d be.
He tried to pay attention while Nigel gave them all their final instructions, but it was hard to listen when his mind was racing and his blood was pounding against his eardrums. Nigel said something about callbacks for the final round of cuts, then he said something about exit interviews, and Kurt knew they were going to make them film those dumb little dance sequences they always showed at the end of Vegas week.
Even that he could endure, though, because he’d made it all the way to the end of the semifinals without getting cut, and that meant he was so close to realizing his dream that he could almost reach out and touch it. Kurt followed the others off the stage and down the aisle that led out of the auditorium, past the lobby into a conference room where they’d set up a backdrop for interviews during the week.
He’d stood in front of that stupid blue sheet and tried to act like he wasn’t terrified of getting cut at least a dozen times so far, and now that he really wasn’t getting cut he didn’t even mind doing a ballet jump for the camera. They made him repeat it a few times, and by the time they let him go he was red-faced and laughing, stumbling back into the hall to find Puck waiting for him.
As soon as Kurt appeared Puck pushed off the wall he’d been leaning against, his eyes going sort of dark for a second and Kurt couldn’t say why his heart stuttered in his chest at the sight. His breath caught in his throat, but as soon as he realized he was staring he shook his head and let out a nervous laugh.
“Am I allowed to say I told you so now?”
“No,” Puck said, grinning and taking another step toward Kurt. “Not unless I make top twenty.”
“Fine, but you’re going to,” Kurt assured him. “So I’ll just say it next month when I see you again.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve got something for you.” Puck reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper, holding it up between them. “In case you think of anything you want to say before then.”
It took Kurt a second to work up the nerve to pull the slip of paper out of his hand, but when he unfolded it and saw an e-mail address and a phone number his heart skipped another beat. He told himself it didn’t mean anything. Puck kept saying Kurt was his boy, and he still hadn’t figured out what that meant, but apparently it meant that he at least wanted to stay in touch.
“I don’t have a pen,” he said, glancing up at Puck again, and when Puck smirked at him he felt himself blush.
“You can text me your e-mail address. It’ll give you something to do during your layover.”
“Oh. Of course.” Kurt nodded and looked down at the piece of paper in his hand again, as though maybe it was going to disappear if he didn’t keep an eye on it. “So I’ll see you in a month?”
When Puck swayed forward Kurt’s heart stopped, and when he stopped just close enough to whisper in Kurt’s ear, his heart started over again in double time. “Count on it.”
Week Three (cont.): Meet Your Top Twenty