Fic :: Kurt/Puck "talk in the past and not the present tense"
Title: talk in the past and not the present tense
Pairing: Kurt Hummel/ Noah Puckerman
Rating: PG-13 (maybe vaguely R)
Summary: “Doesn’t he look JUST like Puck?” “That is Puck.” Kurt runs into Puck in the last place he thought he would. (Future Fic)
Author's Notes: I had five betas (!!!) so I will do a quick thank you here and a more intensive one at the end. So thank you: Timm, openice, kishi, be_merry and writingpathways You all rule. ♥
Disclaimer: Also, I stole one moment from Nick and Norah's infinite Playlist in here. If you've seen it you will know it but if you haven't... well. You should. It's a good movie. I don't own it though, nor Glee, or well... Anything beyond my own personal words.
“Stand still, will you?”
Kurt was really trying not to take the scissors from his tool kit and do some serious damage to Brittany, he really was but the girl wouldn’t stop wiggling.
“You have to come tonight,” Brittany said, obviously not paying attention. “Claire found this bar, and the bartender there… oh my gosh. You have to see him to believe it.”
He took the pin out of his mouth and sighed, he never could stand her whine. It grated at him like nails on a chalkboard and he hadn’t yet developed the resistance he required even after years of friendship. He deliberately waited as long as possible, putting the last pin on her skirt and taking a step back before he answered.
“If it’ll shut you up, I’ll go.”
“Awesome! You won’t regret it!”
That, however, seemed to be a subjective conclusion, because what he saw at the bar definitely wasn’t ‘awesome’, it was Noah freaking Puckerman.
“What the hell Brittany?” Kurt asked through gritted teeth. Brittany didn’t seem to catch the annoyance in his tone (why would she?) and just smiled wide and happy.
“Doesn’t he look JUST like Puck?”
“That is Puck.”
Because it was, even though his hair was just a buzz cut now and his skin a darker tan than usual it was unmistakably Puck in all his glory. Kurt knew that living with a girl from high school made it kind of hypocritical but he tried to pretend that high school in general didn’t exist. It had had its more bearable moments but none were worth the mental trauma that was four years in a city where being himself warranted daily trips to the trash can. The fact that the guy who put him in the trashcan was standing behind the counter didn’t help one bit.
“His name is Noah,” Brittany said, the duh heavily implied as she pointed towards his nametag.
Kurt held a hand up to his forehead and sighed. “His name is Noah Puckerman.”
“Hmmm,” Brittany paused. “Do you think they’re related?”
He loved her. He really did. He just had to keep repeating that to himself as he waited for the fit of rage to subside. He took a long breath to regain his chi. “Okay, so I saw the bartender. Let’s go.”
“We can’t!” Brittany pointed towards a booth. “Look, Claire and Megan and Jacks are all here.”
He knew better than to fake sick and looked between the bar and the booth where a group of Brittany’s friends all sat waving at them. It was in the back, far back enough that even if Puck was looking there was no way he would be able to see him.
“I’m buyyyying,” she sing-songed and he rolled his eyes. He wasn’t much of a drinker, but he figured he could make an exception. Plus she had been rubbing the fact that she got that stupid ‘Herbal Essence’ commercial in everyone's faces for weeks, he didn't mind reaping some of the benefits. He waved for her to lead the way and she clapped her hands giddily.
Kurt couldn't shake the feeling that he was being watched even when he knew the booth they were in was built with privacy in mind. He maneuvered to the corner and when the people around him moved he tried to hide by mirroring them, and flattened himself against the back of the booth when people wouldn't stay still.
Brittany hadn’t been kidding when she said she was buying, she made her way back and forth from the bar almost like a waitress. She started them off with a ‘Buttery Nipple’ and then went for cocktails (he had given up his sense of pride six months into avoiding Appletinis, because yeah it was a cliché but they were still delicious). He relaxed by degrees, alcohol warming him up and making it easier to focus on the table around him rather than the urge to check out what was happening across the room.
The obvious downside of all the alcohol was that the bathroom was directly next to the bar, of course. He felt a little bit like a spy in a bad movie, which might be a sign he had drank too much already, but he maneuvered as best he could through the crowd by clinging to the outside.
He had succeeded and was actually quite proud of himself all the way until he turned the corner back into the bar and hit a wall of flesh and Axe body spray. (Ew.)
“Hummel?”
Kurt pasted on a huge smile and feigned surprise. “Wow, Puck. Fancy seeing you here?”
“I thought I saw you earlier,” Puck commented. “You with that airhead chick from high school?”
He just resisted the urge to go on the defensive. Because yes, Brittany was an airhead but she was his airhead. “That’s Brittany.”
“She and Santana used to be friends,” Puck pointed out. “What’re you doing in LA?”
“I live here.” He felt the muscles at his temples tighten and his lips purse. And he realized he was just being deliberately rude so he inhaled deeply. It was almost like being around Puck made him who he was in high school all over again and didn’t that just suck? “What are you doing here?”
Puck shrugged, tugging off the black apron around his waist. “I was just getting off work.”
“Awesome,” he said, not meaning it to sound as sarcastic as it came out. He relented. “Come over and say hi. I’m sure Brittany would like it, though she might ask if you’re your own doppelganger.”
He got a quizzical look and was sure a question was forming but something over Kurt’s shoulder caught Puck’s attention instead. For a split second a dark look crossed his face, one that couldn’t help but make Kurt unnerved.
“Fuck,” Puck muttered, only barely audible over the music. His eyes flicked back and forth between Kurt and whatever was behind him as he seemed to make a split second decision. “Do me a favor, will ya?”
Kurt nodded. “What?”
“Just play along.”
He had just long enough to notice for the first time that Puck had freakishly long eyelashes before Puck’s lips were on his. And it wasn’t a kiss so much as a smashing of faces, and his eyes were wide open and he probably looked like he was in shock.
Play it cool, he thought to himself. He closed his eyes and tried to relax but that was easier said than done and the more he focused on it the less relaxed he could make himself. Then he felt a hand move onto his lower back and maybe for a second he forgot that it was all a bit unreal.
So he leaned in and put a hand up to the back of Puck’s neck, fingers in the fuzz at the base of where his Mohawk used to be. It was soft and he stroked up softly, and he thought he might have felt Puck make a noise of approval. He opened his mouth just a little, ready for something more but was stopped by a quite close and loud cough. Kurt jerked back.
A guy, maybe a little older than the two of them, stood nearby and stared directly at them. If Kurt’s head wasn’t swimming he might even have found the lack of distance a little disturbing but he was just relieved to find he was standing. It had been a while since he kissed anyone, let alone like that.
“Mark,” Puck drawled.
Mark crossed his arms over his chest and flexed. “Noah.”
Mark turned a look at Kurt with a toothy smile. "And you are?"
"Kurt?"
That wasn't supposed to come out as a question but to be fair he had just been kissed. Quite well actually. By literally the last person on earth he would expect to be kissed by. He stood still, acutely aware of Puck out of the corner of his eyes. He put a hand on his hip, trying to come off as defiant with maybe a flare of dramatic but it didn't seem to matter. Mark turned back to looking at Puck with annoyance.
"Nice to see you bounced back."
And this was all going from just weird to truly surreal, because he knew a bitchy cat fight when he saw one and Mark was all but actually putting out claws. Puck was being .... well. He was being Puck. Silent and brooding and warm. Really warm, right at his side and by some feat of miracle he smelled amazing even though he was wearing Axe (it had to be pheromones, seriously. Axe wasn't meant to smell good.) Mark wasn't moving and Puck was so freaking tense that it was making Kurt want to twitch but he remembered the way he was asked to play along and he was a card carrying Thespian, even after all these years so he thought Fuck it and turned in towards Puck.
"It was nice meeting you," he said and put a hand up on Puck’s chest. "But um, we were in the middle of something."
The second kiss was definitely better than the first, even if there was a small voice in the back of his head screaming, ‘DANGER WILL ROBINSON! DANGER!’ Puck didn’t fight it though, which was a good sign, he guessed. And when he pulled back for breath he saw that Mark was long gone.
Kurt was shaking, like it wasn’t embarrassing enough. “So… um. Who-who was that?”
“That was my ex,” Puck said, his eyes searching behind Kurt rather than looking at him and well. Kurt nodded, like that made any sense at all.
“That’s... that’s good,” he paused, bit his lip and backed away. “I should probably…”
He didn’t finish the sentence, just turned and made a break for it, thankful to find Brittany in the middle of the crowd rather than all the way back at the booth. She was looking at him wide-eyed and confused.
“Was that really Puck? Did he kiss you?”
Kurt stared at her for a second to see if maybe she was joking before he gave his best deadpan. “No Brittany, he didn’t. He slipped and fell and I caught him with my mouth.”
“That happens to me all the time!”
He swore that someday he would work up the reserve of energy required to get her a clue. Instead he just rolled his eyes and jerked a thumb towards the door. “I’ll see you at home.”
His feet couldn’t take him fast enough. Thankfully the bouncer didn’t even bother to turn and look at him, just put one hand up and swung the door open for him. The air wasn’t that cold outside but he shivered when it hit him. He looked down at his watch and realized that he had maybe four minutes to jog down the street and make the bus.
He made it maybe four steps.
“Wait up Hummel.”
Kurt froze before he had enough time to play like he didn’t hear it. He turned to find Puck jogging towards him. He had really hoped to avoid a punch but there wasn’t a trashcan in sight so he figured he was pretty doomed. He stood his ground though. He wasn’t a kid or a wimp, he could take this.
“You know, you kissed me first,” he pointed out. “And I just was playing along. You told me to play along.”
Puck didn’t look like he got what Kurt was saying, and Kurt sighed. High school, this was just like high school. He closed his eyes to brace for impact. “Just not the face.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
When he opened his eyes he found Puck was staring at him like he grew a third eye. He tilted his head. “If you’re going to punch me, just not the face. I don’t have the right type of cover up and my dad’s coming in town next week. The last thing I need is for him to have ammunition for his campaign against me living in LA.”
Puck paused. “What makes you think I’m going to hit you?”
“Umm, everything I know about you?”
“Maybe you don’t know that much,” Puck said and Kurt caught the frown on his face in the dim light of the parking lot.
He worried his lower lip, the sudden feeling of being sixteen and awkward taking over where the self-confident twenty one year old had been. “What do you want?”
“I told you, I just got off work. Figured you owed me dinner.”
“I do?”
The quick flash of white teeth with Puck’s smile brought back the memory of what it was like to kiss him just minutes before. He seemed to notice it and the smile just got bigger. “I usually don’t let someone kiss me like that without at least a drink first, I’m not that kind of girl.”
“That’s not what I heard in high school,” Kurt muttered, and he really didn’t know what disconnect in his brain was keeping the little filter he had from blocking the stupid from his mouth… Maybe he needed to stop hanging out with Brittany all the time.
“How about that food?”
And Kurt nodded, because what did he have to lose? But when he turned to walk back towards the bar he got a hand on his shoulder and a firm shake of the head from Puck.
“You don’t shit where you eat.”
Well that was pleasantly graphic. “I don’t have a car.”
“I’ve got one,” Puck moved, his hand still on Kurt’s shoulder to pull him along. “And I’ve got the perfect place to go.”
When it turned out that ‘one’ actually meant ‘motorcycle’ Kurt stood back and stared at Puck like the crazy person he must actually be. “There is no way in hell I am getting on that thing.”
Puck didn’t say anything, just got on, handed Kurt the helmet and arched an eyebrow at him. It was so… frustratingly attractive that Kurt shoved the helmet over his face mostly to avoid giving Puck the satisfaction of a blush. He got onto the bike and straddled the back.
He lifted the mask long enough to warn, “You kill me and I will haunt you forever.”
From where his hands gripped Puck’s chest he felt the rumble of a laugh before they were off.
*
"I thought you said we were getting food," Kurt commented, once he let go of the death grip on Puck's chest and took off his helmet. Kurt knew that motorcycles were legally allowed to weave in and out of traffic but the concept and the execution were two very separate things and he was pretty sure that he had held his breath the entire five-minute ride.
They were outside another bar, granted far less fancy than the one he had gone to with Brittany or any of his FIDM friends but still just a bar. Puck shrugged, "Trust me, this place has the best chicken wings you've had."
That was supposed to be a point in the places favor? But Kurt bit his tongue. Puck was his ride home, after all, and he had been too busy clinging on for dear life to get any sense of direction. They could be in the Valley for all he knew. (He tried to suppress that thought.)
"My place is just over there," Puck pointed down the street a little and up at a dilapidated building that looked almost like it could be an old factory rather than a place where people actually lived. Puck opened the door for him and he didn't quite know whether to bristle or thank him so he ducked his head and walked in without comment.
The place was dead, a small group of old men in one corner the only other people not being paid to be there and Kurt couldn't help but quirk an eyebrow. It wasn't quite run down, it was just... it was almost the kind of place you would find in a movie rather than an actual real life situation. Christmas lights over the bar, even though it was April, signs for Miller and Bud mixed with vintage posters of car ads and pin ups. He felt like he had walked through a time machine.
"Noah!" a girl behind the bar called out and when another guy came walking up from the back to do the same thing it was the final straw. Puck had taken him to the set of Cheers.
Puck waved and smiled and walked towards a corner booth far away from the louder old men. The girl came over from the bar and beamed happily at the both of them.
"Three days, it's a record," the waitress chided. She turned her smile to Kurt and pointed towards the end of the table. "There are the menus, though I don't think he's looked at them once. I'm Brynn. I know Noah’s getting a Corona, can I start you off with something to drink as well?"
Kurt looked at the menu, which did in fact have a list of cocktails on the back of it that included an Appletini and even a few of his less embarrassing choices. Rather he put it down and tried to give a genuine smile, “I guess I’ll have a Corona as well.”
Puck arched an eyebrow at him, head tilted forward and eyes shining with amusement. When a moment later they were both handed their bottles, he tilted his beer towards Kurt and smiled lazily. "You know, if you told me four years ago that I would be where I am right now I would have laughed."
"You and me both," Kurt rolled his eyes and sipped. It still tasted as bad as he always thought beer did but it reminded him of his dad and home and suddenly his chest ached. He took another swig to give himself a moment. "But four years ago I thought I was going to be on Broadway and living a fabulous life in New York City."
"What happened?"
Kurt froze, not entirely sure why he had even admitted that in the first place and completely out of his depth when it came to how to answer that. "Well, life happened I guess?"
"Tell me about it," Puck laughed bitterly. "I never thought I was the LA type."
"Me either. But here we are."
"Here we are," Puck swallowed some more beer.
Kurt weighed his chances of crossing some sort of imaginary line but threw caution to the wind. "What happened?"
"Life?" Puck gave a half bitter laugh but when Kurt didn't back down from looking at him he shrugged. "Wasn't like football was taking me anywhere and I never was cut out for college… even the community type. Ohio started to feel small, all the same faces and places. Figured I’d make a break for it. “
A laugh escaped, and it took a minute to realize how that could be taken as rude. The look on Puck’s face clued him in. “You make a break for it and end up having dinner with me.”
Puck instantly relaxed. “I can make a few exceptions.”
They ordered half honey barbeque and half Oriental garlic, mostly because Puck went on and on about it like the place had invented the chicken wing in general but partially because Kurt had eaten before he left for the club. Though the first beer was pretty much what he thought it was going to taste like, the second (which came with the wings) was actually pretty satisfying. And while the wings were nothing to write home about, there was something more worthwhile in the company then he had been expecting.
He had deliberately spent the years since high school avoiding most of the gossip, only hearing through snippets of conversations and Facebook statuses. Somehow Puck had been kept more in the loop, but they swapped stories with a weird ease. Rachel had gone to Broadway, not shockingly, and was apparently a secondary character in a new play that was still in workshops. Mercedes had a contract but had yet to get a CD made. Finn was finishing up a degree in Education (that was the one that caught Kurt the most off guard but once he thought about it he could see him doing pretty well with it). Apparently Artie and Tina had finally started dating sometime after graduation, which was a shock to no one and were together in school at OSU.
They skated around the topic of Quinn with surprising ease and it wasn't exactly like he was expecting for Puck to let out all of his deep dark secrets after a few beers and wings but it took a lot out of him not to ask for more. Puck did tell him a bit though, about going to bartending school as an ends to a mean and how he actually liked the fact that it gave him time and space to adventure with music. How he had found that after years of thinking football was the ticket he needed out of their hometown, he couldn't bring himself to play the game anymore.
The part that got Kurt the most was Puck admitting that even in high school he had known he was bisexual, had actually experimented a bit (out of town and where no one would know his name). Kurt was glad that he hadn't known that in high school, because the only thing more mortifying than being 'that gay kid' would probably have been 'that gay virgin’. He tried to muster up some sort of anger towards how Puck had treated him back then, but it dissolved when Puck apologized and seemed to mean it. A part of him, a part of him that he wasn't particularly proud of, would have probably kept it in longer if he could have. It was something he hoped would change by the time he would think about kids, the part that would have to put shame on something that was not even a little bit shameful.
Kurt braved asking about Mark at just about the time when the alcohol was tipping him from buzzed to pleasantly drunk and it was just as bizarre to hear Puck talk about Mark as he thought it would be. They worked together; Puck admitted that was his first mistake. But he had been lonely and hadn’t actually thought it through. But apparently it was a rite of passage at the bar, to date Mark and when a new girl had come along Puck was knocked out of the new spot. He hadn’t even been that bothered by it, just embarrassed to be that guy.
When Puck asked him about his past few years he felt oddly shy about it. It wasn’t like he was a failure or anything, but he still felt oddly embarrassed that after years of fighting for a spot in the limelight he wasn’t doing something with it.
"Not everyone can make it on Broadway, and I'm not cut out for that chorus line crap,” he tried for blasé. “So after a year I packed up my bags and headed out here. Brittany was already modeling and had some money. She offered me her spare room, I got into FIDM and I guess the rest is history.”
“FIDM?”
“Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising,” Kurt replied, and he couldn’t help but use the voice that all his professors had. They made it sound like Harvard or Oxford or something, which in a way it was but it never ceased to amuse him. Puck looked at him funny and he smiled. “It’s a fashion school. They taught me all the things I already knew with two years of pure grunt work and being underappreciated. All so that now I get to be underpaid and underappreciated.”
“You’ve got to be used to being misunderstood,” Puck mused and it took a second for Kurt to realize that that could almost count as a compliment. He flicked his eyes up from where he had been staring at his hands to catch Puck looking at him and flushed before he could stop himself.
He had blushed more in the past few hours than he had in the entire four years since high school. Good to know all he needed to regress was a few drinks and a compliment, he felt like such a hussy.
*
By the time the bartender told them that they didn’t have to go home but they couldn’t stay there Kurt really really didn’t want to go home. He hadn’t felt this relaxed in so long he couldn’t actually remember and all he could think was that home meant Brittany and talking about this, which he was half afraid would ruin the whole thing.
He was relieved when Puck just started walking towards his place he had pointed out as his place earlier on. All they had was a half a block, but it was cold and he found that walking closer to Puck was a nice way to keep warm.
"What exactly were you thinking when you rented this place?" Kurt asked before he could think better of it, eyes going around the shoebox posing as an apartment.
Puck laughed behind him, "Something along the lines of 'I can afford this'. Not all of us have sugar mamas."
"Brittany is NOT my sugar mama," Kurt's eyes went wide. "I fully intend on paying her back in full when I get my own line. Which, by the way, shouldn't be that long."
"Well then maybe you could be my sugar daddy."
Kurt jerked back to see the half smile he still recognized from high school. He would have to be really dense to think this wasn't flirting by now and for once he was ready with a response. "If I remember correctly you’re an awesome pool boy."
That warranted him a grin and he swallowed around the knot in his throat. He wasn't getting butterflies in his stomach, he wouldn't be that lame. It was the alcohol. The carbonation in the beer. He turned away and started to walk around the little space that there was. Along the wall there were picture frames, more than Kurt would have assumed of Puck in general but with just a female enough touch that he guessed his mother had set them up.
One stood out to him though, small and simple and completely out of place in the jumble of high school photos and a family he could only guess was the Puckermans. He tilted himself forward and stared for maybe a half a second before he could feel Puck come up behind him.
"Her name is Summer," Puck’s voice low and intimate enough to make Kurt shiver. He didn’t have to ask what he meant because as soon as he thought of it there wasn't a question in his mind. The little girl, probably three, had Quinn's eyes but Puck's smile and looked at the camera so happily that Kurt could feel it.
“She’s beautiful.”
“Her parents send us pictures every once in a while,” Puck said, suddenly a few feet back. “Do you want another beer?”
The line drawn Kurt shrugged and turned to where Puck stood (about two feet away) in the kitchen. “Sure.”
He sat down on the couch and shifted a pillow from behind his back onto his lap. Puck didn’t have a TV, but instead a huge computer screen with a screen saver of a ball bouncing around. It was oddly addicting to watch, reminded him of computers from when he was a kid. He waited for the ball to reach a corner almost like it was a game of pong.
Puck laughed as he placed a beer in Kurt’s hands. “Don’t watch too long, I’ve lost hours to that damn screensaver.”
Before he sat down Puck crossed the space and hit a few buttons, music suddenly playing coming up in the background. It took a few seconds for Kurt to place but by the time Puck sat down beside him the words connected and Kurt boggled.
“Elvis Costello, really?”
A half shrug. “I have untold depth.”
He didn’t give himself a chance to wonder if he was doing the right thing before he put his beer on the cluttered coffee table and pushed himself over and onto Puck’s lap.
Third time’s the charm, he thought triumphantly, because this kiss was by far the best of the others. Puck was handsy, but in a good way and Kurt wasn’t nearly as awkward as he had been the last two times. He was confident that this is what Puck wanted, and he was damned sure it was what he wanted. He braced a hand behind Puck’s head and pulled back.
“Well if I knew you were that easy I wouldn’t have taken you to dinner first,” Puck laughed.
Kurt probably should be annoyed, but he wasn’t. “You kissed me first.”
And then Puck kissed him again.
*
Kurt didn't have to open his eyes to realize that something was wrong. Over the years on his own he had scrimped, begged and borrowed himself into a set of plush Egyptian cotton and a thick memory foam mattress. What he was laying on now couldn't be anything other than jersey sheets and oh lord, he was on a futon. On a futon with a body pressed up against him, arm tucked around him and warm breath on his neck and a not so soft snoring noise in his ears ... Puck. Puck was behind him. (He had too much pride to call it spooning. He was just... nuzzling him or something.)
His eyes shot open and he took stock of the situation. The night was there in his memory, full on Technicolor. Seeing him at the bar, kissing him at the bar, dinner... more kissing. If it had been anyone else he would have called it a date, but date and Noah Puckerman just couldn't reconcile in his head. He turned slowly onto his back and saw that Puck was still asleep. Face lax and eyes moving like maybe he was in the middle of a pretty vivid dream. He had to take the moment for what it was, a moment to escape. He was still fully clothed, which would be an entirely good thing if not for the fact that it meant he was going to do the walk of shame with a rumpled button down shirt and wasn't that just the cherry on the sundae of embarrassment.
There was also the problem that Puck was pretty stubbornly holding on to him (Kurt wouldn't have figured him for a clinger but he also didn't think he was bi so what did he know?) and there was little chance for him to wriggle out without waking him up. He stared up at the ceiling and thought of all of his options. He didn't even know what time it was, or how late Puck could sleep. He could be stuck for hours. But ... well. Not that that was going to be too much of a hardship. Even with the still lingering smell of alcohol coming off of him Puck smelled good. Sweat and sweet and like aftershave and maybe cologne and good lord Kurt was NOT going to get turned on while trapped by an arm and unable to do anything about it. Or maybe he was. Fuck.
He wriggled experimentally, thinking maybe if he shimmied down the bed there was a chance he wouldn't wake Puck but still be able to make his escape. When he heard a sudden snort and Puck's arm gripped just a bit tighter he knew he had tried in vain.
"Whazzat?"
Kurt shifted again. Taking advantage of the moment that Puck lifted himself with the hand that had been at his side Kurt sat up against the backboard. "Nothing, go back to sleep."
Puck rubbed at his eyes with the palm of his hands. "Where you going?"
"Home."
"Why?"
Kurt looked down at Puck and considered if he was serious or not. He frowned when all he saw was genuine curiousity and grasped for the first thing to say. "My shirt is rumpled?"
Really smooth.
Puck laughed, the noise a little rough with the remnants of sleep. He tugged at Kurt’s shirt and pulled him down. “You can borrow one of mine.”
“You’re joking,” Kurt blurted out. He would rather be caught in a rumpled mess of the morning after than a flannel shirt.
Puck had morning breath and come to think of it Kurt probably did too but that idea was interrupted by a kiss and wow. He hadn’t actually figured it would be happening again without the aid of alcohol. Not that he was complaining.
“I know how to get the wrinkles out of your shirt,” Puck said as he put a hand up to move Kurt off the bed.
“Yeah?”
They stood together and Puck crooked a finger into one of Kurt’s belt loops to tug him back. It was a studio, so it was barely a few steps into the bathroom before Puck closed the door behind them and turned the shower on. He started to unbutton the top of Kurt’s shirt until Kurt got on board and fumbled with the rest of them. “Just like steam cleaning.”
“Why didn’t I think of that?” he mused. He had, in fact, been the one to go to freaking fashion school. As if to answer that question, Puck put his hands down, pulled off his own shirt and suddenly Kurt’s brain short-circuited all over again. “What are you doing?”
Puck jerked his head toward the shower. “Figure we could multi task.”
Kurt was okay with that.
The End.
thank yous: So basically I owe this to Timm, as he is the one who gave me the idea but beyond that I had some killer as hell betas. openice poked me to write even when I really fought it and then looked over it in the end to make sure I don't come off as silly. kishi who not only betaed for me even though he had never betaed before but ALSO gave me awesome notes and a few things I wouldn't have caught at all (and he isn't even here for the slash! He's just here because he's awesome!) be_merry who betaed and took the time to point out my adventures in verb tenses. AND writingpathways who betaed like a quick stallion and gave me the comfort of knowing things were coming across well enough. (Why yes, I had 5 betas and yet inevitably this will have more mistakes, which are all my fault. Go me. :))
Pairing: Kurt Hummel/ Noah Puckerman
Rating: PG-13 (maybe vaguely R)
Summary: “Doesn’t he look JUST like Puck?” “That is Puck.” Kurt runs into Puck in the last place he thought he would. (Future Fic)
Author's Notes: I had five betas (!!!) so I will do a quick thank you here and a more intensive one at the end. So thank you: Timm, openice, kishi, be_merry and writingpathways You all rule. ♥
Disclaimer: Also, I stole one moment from Nick and Norah's infinite Playlist in here. If you've seen it you will know it but if you haven't... well. You should. It's a good movie. I don't own it though, nor Glee, or well... Anything beyond my own personal words.
“Stand still, will you?”
Kurt was really trying not to take the scissors from his tool kit and do some serious damage to Brittany, he really was but the girl wouldn’t stop wiggling.
“You have to come tonight,” Brittany said, obviously not paying attention. “Claire found this bar, and the bartender there… oh my gosh. You have to see him to believe it.”
He took the pin out of his mouth and sighed, he never could stand her whine. It grated at him like nails on a chalkboard and he hadn’t yet developed the resistance he required even after years of friendship. He deliberately waited as long as possible, putting the last pin on her skirt and taking a step back before he answered.
“If it’ll shut you up, I’ll go.”
“Awesome! You won’t regret it!”
That, however, seemed to be a subjective conclusion, because what he saw at the bar definitely wasn’t ‘awesome’, it was Noah freaking Puckerman.
“What the hell Brittany?” Kurt asked through gritted teeth. Brittany didn’t seem to catch the annoyance in his tone (why would she?) and just smiled wide and happy.
“Doesn’t he look JUST like Puck?”
“That is Puck.”
Because it was, even though his hair was just a buzz cut now and his skin a darker tan than usual it was unmistakably Puck in all his glory. Kurt knew that living with a girl from high school made it kind of hypocritical but he tried to pretend that high school in general didn’t exist. It had had its more bearable moments but none were worth the mental trauma that was four years in a city where being himself warranted daily trips to the trash can. The fact that the guy who put him in the trashcan was standing behind the counter didn’t help one bit.
“His name is Noah,” Brittany said, the duh heavily implied as she pointed towards his nametag.
Kurt held a hand up to his forehead and sighed. “His name is Noah Puckerman.”
“Hmmm,” Brittany paused. “Do you think they’re related?”
He loved her. He really did. He just had to keep repeating that to himself as he waited for the fit of rage to subside. He took a long breath to regain his chi. “Okay, so I saw the bartender. Let’s go.”
“We can’t!” Brittany pointed towards a booth. “Look, Claire and Megan and Jacks are all here.”
He knew better than to fake sick and looked between the bar and the booth where a group of Brittany’s friends all sat waving at them. It was in the back, far back enough that even if Puck was looking there was no way he would be able to see him.
“I’m buyyyying,” she sing-songed and he rolled his eyes. He wasn’t much of a drinker, but he figured he could make an exception. Plus she had been rubbing the fact that she got that stupid ‘Herbal Essence’ commercial in everyone's faces for weeks, he didn't mind reaping some of the benefits. He waved for her to lead the way and she clapped her hands giddily.
Kurt couldn't shake the feeling that he was being watched even when he knew the booth they were in was built with privacy in mind. He maneuvered to the corner and when the people around him moved he tried to hide by mirroring them, and flattened himself against the back of the booth when people wouldn't stay still.
Brittany hadn’t been kidding when she said she was buying, she made her way back and forth from the bar almost like a waitress. She started them off with a ‘Buttery Nipple’ and then went for cocktails (he had given up his sense of pride six months into avoiding Appletinis, because yeah it was a cliché but they were still delicious). He relaxed by degrees, alcohol warming him up and making it easier to focus on the table around him rather than the urge to check out what was happening across the room.
The obvious downside of all the alcohol was that the bathroom was directly next to the bar, of course. He felt a little bit like a spy in a bad movie, which might be a sign he had drank too much already, but he maneuvered as best he could through the crowd by clinging to the outside.
He had succeeded and was actually quite proud of himself all the way until he turned the corner back into the bar and hit a wall of flesh and Axe body spray. (Ew.)
“Hummel?”
Kurt pasted on a huge smile and feigned surprise. “Wow, Puck. Fancy seeing you here?”
“I thought I saw you earlier,” Puck commented. “You with that airhead chick from high school?”
He just resisted the urge to go on the defensive. Because yes, Brittany was an airhead but she was his airhead. “That’s Brittany.”
“She and Santana used to be friends,” Puck pointed out. “What’re you doing in LA?”
“I live here.” He felt the muscles at his temples tighten and his lips purse. And he realized he was just being deliberately rude so he inhaled deeply. It was almost like being around Puck made him who he was in high school all over again and didn’t that just suck? “What are you doing here?”
Puck shrugged, tugging off the black apron around his waist. “I was just getting off work.”
“Awesome,” he said, not meaning it to sound as sarcastic as it came out. He relented. “Come over and say hi. I’m sure Brittany would like it, though she might ask if you’re your own doppelganger.”
He got a quizzical look and was sure a question was forming but something over Kurt’s shoulder caught Puck’s attention instead. For a split second a dark look crossed his face, one that couldn’t help but make Kurt unnerved.
“Fuck,” Puck muttered, only barely audible over the music. His eyes flicked back and forth between Kurt and whatever was behind him as he seemed to make a split second decision. “Do me a favor, will ya?”
Kurt nodded. “What?”
“Just play along.”
He had just long enough to notice for the first time that Puck had freakishly long eyelashes before Puck’s lips were on his. And it wasn’t a kiss so much as a smashing of faces, and his eyes were wide open and he probably looked like he was in shock.
Play it cool, he thought to himself. He closed his eyes and tried to relax but that was easier said than done and the more he focused on it the less relaxed he could make himself. Then he felt a hand move onto his lower back and maybe for a second he forgot that it was all a bit unreal.
So he leaned in and put a hand up to the back of Puck’s neck, fingers in the fuzz at the base of where his Mohawk used to be. It was soft and he stroked up softly, and he thought he might have felt Puck make a noise of approval. He opened his mouth just a little, ready for something more but was stopped by a quite close and loud cough. Kurt jerked back.
A guy, maybe a little older than the two of them, stood nearby and stared directly at them. If Kurt’s head wasn’t swimming he might even have found the lack of distance a little disturbing but he was just relieved to find he was standing. It had been a while since he kissed anyone, let alone like that.
“Mark,” Puck drawled.
Mark crossed his arms over his chest and flexed. “Noah.”
Mark turned a look at Kurt with a toothy smile. "And you are?"
"Kurt?"
That wasn't supposed to come out as a question but to be fair he had just been kissed. Quite well actually. By literally the last person on earth he would expect to be kissed by. He stood still, acutely aware of Puck out of the corner of his eyes. He put a hand on his hip, trying to come off as defiant with maybe a flare of dramatic but it didn't seem to matter. Mark turned back to looking at Puck with annoyance.
"Nice to see you bounced back."
And this was all going from just weird to truly surreal, because he knew a bitchy cat fight when he saw one and Mark was all but actually putting out claws. Puck was being .... well. He was being Puck. Silent and brooding and warm. Really warm, right at his side and by some feat of miracle he smelled amazing even though he was wearing Axe (it had to be pheromones, seriously. Axe wasn't meant to smell good.) Mark wasn't moving and Puck was so freaking tense that it was making Kurt want to twitch but he remembered the way he was asked to play along and he was a card carrying Thespian, even after all these years so he thought Fuck it and turned in towards Puck.
"It was nice meeting you," he said and put a hand up on Puck’s chest. "But um, we were in the middle of something."
The second kiss was definitely better than the first, even if there was a small voice in the back of his head screaming, ‘DANGER WILL ROBINSON! DANGER!’ Puck didn’t fight it though, which was a good sign, he guessed. And when he pulled back for breath he saw that Mark was long gone.
Kurt was shaking, like it wasn’t embarrassing enough. “So… um. Who-who was that?”
“That was my ex,” Puck said, his eyes searching behind Kurt rather than looking at him and well. Kurt nodded, like that made any sense at all.
“That’s... that’s good,” he paused, bit his lip and backed away. “I should probably…”
He didn’t finish the sentence, just turned and made a break for it, thankful to find Brittany in the middle of the crowd rather than all the way back at the booth. She was looking at him wide-eyed and confused.
“Was that really Puck? Did he kiss you?”
Kurt stared at her for a second to see if maybe she was joking before he gave his best deadpan. “No Brittany, he didn’t. He slipped and fell and I caught him with my mouth.”
“That happens to me all the time!”
He swore that someday he would work up the reserve of energy required to get her a clue. Instead he just rolled his eyes and jerked a thumb towards the door. “I’ll see you at home.”
His feet couldn’t take him fast enough. Thankfully the bouncer didn’t even bother to turn and look at him, just put one hand up and swung the door open for him. The air wasn’t that cold outside but he shivered when it hit him. He looked down at his watch and realized that he had maybe four minutes to jog down the street and make the bus.
He made it maybe four steps.
“Wait up Hummel.”
Kurt froze before he had enough time to play like he didn’t hear it. He turned to find Puck jogging towards him. He had really hoped to avoid a punch but there wasn’t a trashcan in sight so he figured he was pretty doomed. He stood his ground though. He wasn’t a kid or a wimp, he could take this.
“You know, you kissed me first,” he pointed out. “And I just was playing along. You told me to play along.”
Puck didn’t look like he got what Kurt was saying, and Kurt sighed. High school, this was just like high school. He closed his eyes to brace for impact. “Just not the face.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
When he opened his eyes he found Puck was staring at him like he grew a third eye. He tilted his head. “If you’re going to punch me, just not the face. I don’t have the right type of cover up and my dad’s coming in town next week. The last thing I need is for him to have ammunition for his campaign against me living in LA.”
Puck paused. “What makes you think I’m going to hit you?”
“Umm, everything I know about you?”
“Maybe you don’t know that much,” Puck said and Kurt caught the frown on his face in the dim light of the parking lot.
He worried his lower lip, the sudden feeling of being sixteen and awkward taking over where the self-confident twenty one year old had been. “What do you want?”
“I told you, I just got off work. Figured you owed me dinner.”
“I do?”
The quick flash of white teeth with Puck’s smile brought back the memory of what it was like to kiss him just minutes before. He seemed to notice it and the smile just got bigger. “I usually don’t let someone kiss me like that without at least a drink first, I’m not that kind of girl.”
“That’s not what I heard in high school,” Kurt muttered, and he really didn’t know what disconnect in his brain was keeping the little filter he had from blocking the stupid from his mouth… Maybe he needed to stop hanging out with Brittany all the time.
“How about that food?”
And Kurt nodded, because what did he have to lose? But when he turned to walk back towards the bar he got a hand on his shoulder and a firm shake of the head from Puck.
“You don’t shit where you eat.”
Well that was pleasantly graphic. “I don’t have a car.”
“I’ve got one,” Puck moved, his hand still on Kurt’s shoulder to pull him along. “And I’ve got the perfect place to go.”
When it turned out that ‘one’ actually meant ‘motorcycle’ Kurt stood back and stared at Puck like the crazy person he must actually be. “There is no way in hell I am getting on that thing.”
Puck didn’t say anything, just got on, handed Kurt the helmet and arched an eyebrow at him. It was so… frustratingly attractive that Kurt shoved the helmet over his face mostly to avoid giving Puck the satisfaction of a blush. He got onto the bike and straddled the back.
He lifted the mask long enough to warn, “You kill me and I will haunt you forever.”
From where his hands gripped Puck’s chest he felt the rumble of a laugh before they were off.
*
"I thought you said we were getting food," Kurt commented, once he let go of the death grip on Puck's chest and took off his helmet. Kurt knew that motorcycles were legally allowed to weave in and out of traffic but the concept and the execution were two very separate things and he was pretty sure that he had held his breath the entire five-minute ride.
They were outside another bar, granted far less fancy than the one he had gone to with Brittany or any of his FIDM friends but still just a bar. Puck shrugged, "Trust me, this place has the best chicken wings you've had."
That was supposed to be a point in the places favor? But Kurt bit his tongue. Puck was his ride home, after all, and he had been too busy clinging on for dear life to get any sense of direction. They could be in the Valley for all he knew. (He tried to suppress that thought.)
"My place is just over there," Puck pointed down the street a little and up at a dilapidated building that looked almost like it could be an old factory rather than a place where people actually lived. Puck opened the door for him and he didn't quite know whether to bristle or thank him so he ducked his head and walked in without comment.
The place was dead, a small group of old men in one corner the only other people not being paid to be there and Kurt couldn't help but quirk an eyebrow. It wasn't quite run down, it was just... it was almost the kind of place you would find in a movie rather than an actual real life situation. Christmas lights over the bar, even though it was April, signs for Miller and Bud mixed with vintage posters of car ads and pin ups. He felt like he had walked through a time machine.
"Noah!" a girl behind the bar called out and when another guy came walking up from the back to do the same thing it was the final straw. Puck had taken him to the set of Cheers.
Puck waved and smiled and walked towards a corner booth far away from the louder old men. The girl came over from the bar and beamed happily at the both of them.
"Three days, it's a record," the waitress chided. She turned her smile to Kurt and pointed towards the end of the table. "There are the menus, though I don't think he's looked at them once. I'm Brynn. I know Noah’s getting a Corona, can I start you off with something to drink as well?"
Kurt looked at the menu, which did in fact have a list of cocktails on the back of it that included an Appletini and even a few of his less embarrassing choices. Rather he put it down and tried to give a genuine smile, “I guess I’ll have a Corona as well.”
Puck arched an eyebrow at him, head tilted forward and eyes shining with amusement. When a moment later they were both handed their bottles, he tilted his beer towards Kurt and smiled lazily. "You know, if you told me four years ago that I would be where I am right now I would have laughed."
"You and me both," Kurt rolled his eyes and sipped. It still tasted as bad as he always thought beer did but it reminded him of his dad and home and suddenly his chest ached. He took another swig to give himself a moment. "But four years ago I thought I was going to be on Broadway and living a fabulous life in New York City."
"What happened?"
Kurt froze, not entirely sure why he had even admitted that in the first place and completely out of his depth when it came to how to answer that. "Well, life happened I guess?"
"Tell me about it," Puck laughed bitterly. "I never thought I was the LA type."
"Me either. But here we are."
"Here we are," Puck swallowed some more beer.
Kurt weighed his chances of crossing some sort of imaginary line but threw caution to the wind. "What happened?"
"Life?" Puck gave a half bitter laugh but when Kurt didn't back down from looking at him he shrugged. "Wasn't like football was taking me anywhere and I never was cut out for college… even the community type. Ohio started to feel small, all the same faces and places. Figured I’d make a break for it. “
A laugh escaped, and it took a minute to realize how that could be taken as rude. The look on Puck’s face clued him in. “You make a break for it and end up having dinner with me.”
Puck instantly relaxed. “I can make a few exceptions.”
They ordered half honey barbeque and half Oriental garlic, mostly because Puck went on and on about it like the place had invented the chicken wing in general but partially because Kurt had eaten before he left for the club. Though the first beer was pretty much what he thought it was going to taste like, the second (which came with the wings) was actually pretty satisfying. And while the wings were nothing to write home about, there was something more worthwhile in the company then he had been expecting.
He had deliberately spent the years since high school avoiding most of the gossip, only hearing through snippets of conversations and Facebook statuses. Somehow Puck had been kept more in the loop, but they swapped stories with a weird ease. Rachel had gone to Broadway, not shockingly, and was apparently a secondary character in a new play that was still in workshops. Mercedes had a contract but had yet to get a CD made. Finn was finishing up a degree in Education (that was the one that caught Kurt the most off guard but once he thought about it he could see him doing pretty well with it). Apparently Artie and Tina had finally started dating sometime after graduation, which was a shock to no one and were together in school at OSU.
They skated around the topic of Quinn with surprising ease and it wasn't exactly like he was expecting for Puck to let out all of his deep dark secrets after a few beers and wings but it took a lot out of him not to ask for more. Puck did tell him a bit though, about going to bartending school as an ends to a mean and how he actually liked the fact that it gave him time and space to adventure with music. How he had found that after years of thinking football was the ticket he needed out of their hometown, he couldn't bring himself to play the game anymore.
The part that got Kurt the most was Puck admitting that even in high school he had known he was bisexual, had actually experimented a bit (out of town and where no one would know his name). Kurt was glad that he hadn't known that in high school, because the only thing more mortifying than being 'that gay kid' would probably have been 'that gay virgin’. He tried to muster up some sort of anger towards how Puck had treated him back then, but it dissolved when Puck apologized and seemed to mean it. A part of him, a part of him that he wasn't particularly proud of, would have probably kept it in longer if he could have. It was something he hoped would change by the time he would think about kids, the part that would have to put shame on something that was not even a little bit shameful.
Kurt braved asking about Mark at just about the time when the alcohol was tipping him from buzzed to pleasantly drunk and it was just as bizarre to hear Puck talk about Mark as he thought it would be. They worked together; Puck admitted that was his first mistake. But he had been lonely and hadn’t actually thought it through. But apparently it was a rite of passage at the bar, to date Mark and when a new girl had come along Puck was knocked out of the new spot. He hadn’t even been that bothered by it, just embarrassed to be that guy.
When Puck asked him about his past few years he felt oddly shy about it. It wasn’t like he was a failure or anything, but he still felt oddly embarrassed that after years of fighting for a spot in the limelight he wasn’t doing something with it.
"Not everyone can make it on Broadway, and I'm not cut out for that chorus line crap,” he tried for blasé. “So after a year I packed up my bags and headed out here. Brittany was already modeling and had some money. She offered me her spare room, I got into FIDM and I guess the rest is history.”
“FIDM?”
“Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising,” Kurt replied, and he couldn’t help but use the voice that all his professors had. They made it sound like Harvard or Oxford or something, which in a way it was but it never ceased to amuse him. Puck looked at him funny and he smiled. “It’s a fashion school. They taught me all the things I already knew with two years of pure grunt work and being underappreciated. All so that now I get to be underpaid and underappreciated.”
“You’ve got to be used to being misunderstood,” Puck mused and it took a second for Kurt to realize that that could almost count as a compliment. He flicked his eyes up from where he had been staring at his hands to catch Puck looking at him and flushed before he could stop himself.
He had blushed more in the past few hours than he had in the entire four years since high school. Good to know all he needed to regress was a few drinks and a compliment, he felt like such a hussy.
*
By the time the bartender told them that they didn’t have to go home but they couldn’t stay there Kurt really really didn’t want to go home. He hadn’t felt this relaxed in so long he couldn’t actually remember and all he could think was that home meant Brittany and talking about this, which he was half afraid would ruin the whole thing.
He was relieved when Puck just started walking towards his place he had pointed out as his place earlier on. All they had was a half a block, but it was cold and he found that walking closer to Puck was a nice way to keep warm.
"What exactly were you thinking when you rented this place?" Kurt asked before he could think better of it, eyes going around the shoebox posing as an apartment.
Puck laughed behind him, "Something along the lines of 'I can afford this'. Not all of us have sugar mamas."
"Brittany is NOT my sugar mama," Kurt's eyes went wide. "I fully intend on paying her back in full when I get my own line. Which, by the way, shouldn't be that long."
"Well then maybe you could be my sugar daddy."
Kurt jerked back to see the half smile he still recognized from high school. He would have to be really dense to think this wasn't flirting by now and for once he was ready with a response. "If I remember correctly you’re an awesome pool boy."
That warranted him a grin and he swallowed around the knot in his throat. He wasn't getting butterflies in his stomach, he wouldn't be that lame. It was the alcohol. The carbonation in the beer. He turned away and started to walk around the little space that there was. Along the wall there were picture frames, more than Kurt would have assumed of Puck in general but with just a female enough touch that he guessed his mother had set them up.
One stood out to him though, small and simple and completely out of place in the jumble of high school photos and a family he could only guess was the Puckermans. He tilted himself forward and stared for maybe a half a second before he could feel Puck come up behind him.
"Her name is Summer," Puck’s voice low and intimate enough to make Kurt shiver. He didn’t have to ask what he meant because as soon as he thought of it there wasn't a question in his mind. The little girl, probably three, had Quinn's eyes but Puck's smile and looked at the camera so happily that Kurt could feel it.
“She’s beautiful.”
“Her parents send us pictures every once in a while,” Puck said, suddenly a few feet back. “Do you want another beer?”
The line drawn Kurt shrugged and turned to where Puck stood (about two feet away) in the kitchen. “Sure.”
He sat down on the couch and shifted a pillow from behind his back onto his lap. Puck didn’t have a TV, but instead a huge computer screen with a screen saver of a ball bouncing around. It was oddly addicting to watch, reminded him of computers from when he was a kid. He waited for the ball to reach a corner almost like it was a game of pong.
Puck laughed as he placed a beer in Kurt’s hands. “Don’t watch too long, I’ve lost hours to that damn screensaver.”
Before he sat down Puck crossed the space and hit a few buttons, music suddenly playing coming up in the background. It took a few seconds for Kurt to place but by the time Puck sat down beside him the words connected and Kurt boggled.
“Elvis Costello, really?”
A half shrug. “I have untold depth.”
He didn’t give himself a chance to wonder if he was doing the right thing before he put his beer on the cluttered coffee table and pushed himself over and onto Puck’s lap.
Third time’s the charm, he thought triumphantly, because this kiss was by far the best of the others. Puck was handsy, but in a good way and Kurt wasn’t nearly as awkward as he had been the last two times. He was confident that this is what Puck wanted, and he was damned sure it was what he wanted. He braced a hand behind Puck’s head and pulled back.
“Well if I knew you were that easy I wouldn’t have taken you to dinner first,” Puck laughed.
Kurt probably should be annoyed, but he wasn’t. “You kissed me first.”
And then Puck kissed him again.
*
Kurt didn't have to open his eyes to realize that something was wrong. Over the years on his own he had scrimped, begged and borrowed himself into a set of plush Egyptian cotton and a thick memory foam mattress. What he was laying on now couldn't be anything other than jersey sheets and oh lord, he was on a futon. On a futon with a body pressed up against him, arm tucked around him and warm breath on his neck and a not so soft snoring noise in his ears ... Puck. Puck was behind him. (He had too much pride to call it spooning. He was just... nuzzling him or something.)
His eyes shot open and he took stock of the situation. The night was there in his memory, full on Technicolor. Seeing him at the bar, kissing him at the bar, dinner... more kissing. If it had been anyone else he would have called it a date, but date and Noah Puckerman just couldn't reconcile in his head. He turned slowly onto his back and saw that Puck was still asleep. Face lax and eyes moving like maybe he was in the middle of a pretty vivid dream. He had to take the moment for what it was, a moment to escape. He was still fully clothed, which would be an entirely good thing if not for the fact that it meant he was going to do the walk of shame with a rumpled button down shirt and wasn't that just the cherry on the sundae of embarrassment.
There was also the problem that Puck was pretty stubbornly holding on to him (Kurt wouldn't have figured him for a clinger but he also didn't think he was bi so what did he know?) and there was little chance for him to wriggle out without waking him up. He stared up at the ceiling and thought of all of his options. He didn't even know what time it was, or how late Puck could sleep. He could be stuck for hours. But ... well. Not that that was going to be too much of a hardship. Even with the still lingering smell of alcohol coming off of him Puck smelled good. Sweat and sweet and like aftershave and maybe cologne and good lord Kurt was NOT going to get turned on while trapped by an arm and unable to do anything about it. Or maybe he was. Fuck.
He wriggled experimentally, thinking maybe if he shimmied down the bed there was a chance he wouldn't wake Puck but still be able to make his escape. When he heard a sudden snort and Puck's arm gripped just a bit tighter he knew he had tried in vain.
"Whazzat?"
Kurt shifted again. Taking advantage of the moment that Puck lifted himself with the hand that had been at his side Kurt sat up against the backboard. "Nothing, go back to sleep."
Puck rubbed at his eyes with the palm of his hands. "Where you going?"
"Home."
"Why?"
Kurt looked down at Puck and considered if he was serious or not. He frowned when all he saw was genuine curiousity and grasped for the first thing to say. "My shirt is rumpled?"
Really smooth.
Puck laughed, the noise a little rough with the remnants of sleep. He tugged at Kurt’s shirt and pulled him down. “You can borrow one of mine.”
“You’re joking,” Kurt blurted out. He would rather be caught in a rumpled mess of the morning after than a flannel shirt.
Puck had morning breath and come to think of it Kurt probably did too but that idea was interrupted by a kiss and wow. He hadn’t actually figured it would be happening again without the aid of alcohol. Not that he was complaining.
“I know how to get the wrinkles out of your shirt,” Puck said as he put a hand up to move Kurt off the bed.
“Yeah?”
They stood together and Puck crooked a finger into one of Kurt’s belt loops to tug him back. It was a studio, so it was barely a few steps into the bathroom before Puck closed the door behind them and turned the shower on. He started to unbutton the top of Kurt’s shirt until Kurt got on board and fumbled with the rest of them. “Just like steam cleaning.”
“Why didn’t I think of that?” he mused. He had, in fact, been the one to go to freaking fashion school. As if to answer that question, Puck put his hands down, pulled off his own shirt and suddenly Kurt’s brain short-circuited all over again. “What are you doing?”
Puck jerked his head toward the shower. “Figure we could multi task.”
Kurt was okay with that.
The End.
thank yous: So basically I owe this to Timm, as he is the one who gave me the idea but beyond that I had some killer as hell betas. openice poked me to write even when I really fought it and then looked over it in the end to make sure I don't come off as silly. kishi who not only betaed for me even though he had never betaed before but ALSO gave me awesome notes and a few things I wouldn't have caught at all (and he isn't even here for the slash! He's just here because he's awesome!) be_merry who betaed and took the time to point out my adventures in verb tenses. AND writingpathways who betaed like a quick stallion and gave me the comfort of knowing things were coming across well enough. (Why yes, I had 5 betas and yet inevitably this will have more mistakes, which are all my fault. Go me. :))