Don't I Get A Dream For Myself? [Chapter Seven]
Title: Don’t I Get A Dream For Myself [Chapter Seven]
Author: niblettk
Rating: PG-13 to be safe
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Kurt Hummel, Noah Puckerman, Burt Hummel, Finn Hudson, ensemble / Puckurt, other couples are mostly canon (Finchel, Brittana, Wemma, Tartie, and Burt/Carole-whatever we’re calling that one)
Warning: This story does include medical themes and could possibly bring up cancer-related memories for some readers. Other than that, it’s possible some characters (Puck) could have a potty mouth.
Spoilers: Up to and including the season one finale.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything.
Genre: hurt/comfort, drama, gen
Author’s Note: I take credit for all my mistakes, but I also need to give credit to the amazing rainbowdocms for all her help.
Summary: Kurt is diagnosed with the same disease that killed his mother.
Word Count: 2185
Prologue | Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six
Kurt was making himself a huge breakfast-he’d gotten his appetite back for the first time in weeks-when it happened.
As he was rolling sausages absently around in the pan, he ran a weak hand through his bangs and several strands fell away. He backed away from the stove; staring at the hair in between his fingers and feeling the hunger dissipate quicker than it had come. He reached up again and moaned when more hair came away with his hand.
He dropped the hair on the table, washed his hands and then turned off all the appliances he had turned on. He sat heavily at the kitchen table, focused very hard on not fiddling with his hair-a nervous habit of his. He stared at the small metal case on the table, exactly where his Dad had left it. Kurt knew what was inside; his Dad had told him three nights before.
An electric razor, rarely used, that Burt had bought when Kurt’s mom had started to lose her hair. It was one of his earliest memories: he sat, in the chair he was in now, and watched his dad shave his mom’s head. He vividly recalled watching each chunk of hair drift to the floor, and he was fairly certain that was the first time-and one of few times, including the times since Kurt himself had been diagnosed-he’d seen his dad cry.
He’d known it was coming. He’d seen the way his friends had been staring at his hair; felt the subtle thinning on his already fair hair. The problem was: Kurt didn’t want to watch his hair fall out in the mirror for days or weeks, but he didn’t want to shave his head. He sighed, pulling the case towards him and meticulously arranging the various parts on the table in front of him.
Instead of putting the necessary pieces together, he left them arranged by size on the table and stood up. He spent a long time cleaning the pan he’d been scrambling eggs in and wrapping up the sausages to store them in the fridge. He was scrubbing the toaster when the doorbell rang.
When he got to the door, running a dish towel over his hands, he opened it to Puck’s grin; the other boy held up his promised movie and a giant bottle of Kurt’s favorite brand of apple juice.
Kurt stared blankly at the slanted writing on the DVD case in Puck’s hand until it dropped. “I forgot you were coming today.”
Puck shrugged, toeing off his shoes and closing the door behind him, “I promised half naked dudes, didn’t I?”
It took Kurt too long to collect himself. He stared at Puck’s head, where a layer of thick, dark hair had grown back from when he’d been forced to shave it off a few months before. Puck waved a hand in front of Kurt’s blank stare, “Dude, you’re freaking me out.”
Kurt blinked, lowering his gaze to meet Puck’s concerned brown eyes, “Can you do something for me?”
Puck looked skeptical, but he nodded, “Uh, sure. Anything you need.”
Kurt turned, moving briskly back into the kitchen, where the razor was neatly laid out on the table and a chunk of Kurt’s hair was sitting innocently beside it, dark against the stark white surface. Puck exhaled loudly.
Kurt gestured vaguely at the table, “It started falling out this morning, and I-” Kurt sighed, sitting down at the table, “I don’t want to watch it fall out. I just want to… get it over with, you know?”
“Yeah, I get it.” Puck started to put the razor together and reached down to grab the smock that came with the kit and Kurt reached up to grab his forearm.
“Thanks, Puck. This-It really means a lot to me.”
Puck laughed, keeping his mind focused on putting the razor together and not Kurt’s long fingers wrapped around his arm. His first instinct was to flex his muscles, but he kept his arm relaxed as Kurt released him, “Well, if it’ll make you feel better, you can shave mine after.”
---
“Whoa, you shaved your head again.”
Puck was pouring two glasses of juice in the Hummel’s kitchen. He turned, chugging down a mouthful and shrugging at Finn, who had started to dig through the fridge, “I shaved Kurt’s today. I let him shave mine because he seemed upset about it.”
Finn nodded, watching Puck refill his own glass, “So you really like him, then?”
Puck snorted, thankful that he wasn’t still drinking, because he would’ve spat it everywhere, “What?”
“Dude, you hate sick people,” Puck opened his mouth, ready to protest, but Finn kept going, “Plus you sit with him no matter where we’re going and now you let him shave your head. You guys seem pretty close, that’s all.”
“I don’t-Shut up, Finn.”
Finn blinked at him, turning his head to the side awkwardly, “Okay, so I meant you guys were getting close as friends, but I’m starting to think it’s a little more than that, which explains why you didn’t notice Santana and Brittany making out hardcore at the bowling alley.”
“Santana and Britt made out?” Puck forced a smarmy grin onto his face and made a lewd gesture with his hands.
A ridiculously smug smile was spreading across Finn’s face, “I know you, Puck. Try and distract me all you want, but I know you. I think Santana has noticed too.” Puck’s mouth dropped in surprise, “Not that she talked to me about it, but I heard her telling Brittany that the only reason she’s not getting all possessive is because she thinks you genuinely like him. I assumed she meant as friends, but I think she knows you better than I do sometimes.”
Puck glanced towards the stairs, and then grabbed the glasses, “Shut the fuck up, Finn.”
Finn’s laugh followed him down the stairs and he swore, wondering who the hell decided it was a good idea to have a best friend who knows you better than you know yourself.
---
“You need to stop babying him.”
Kurt was sleeping. Quinn was sitting beside him, holding a thermometer in his mouth, and Puck was sitting cross-legged on the floor, playing tug-of-war with Fiyero, who was now about an inch or so taller than Kurt’s knees. He was also watching Quinn fuss around Kurt’s bed, a small frown on his face.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Quinn took her hands back from where they were straightening Kurt’s blankets and she plucked the thermometer from Kurt’s mouth. Puck watched her stare at the thin white stick for a moment; she began swiping a sanitizing wipe over it obsessively, “Kurt is sick and it’s only natural that, as his friends, we want to take care of him.”
“Yeah,” Puck drew it out as she turned around and started doing something he couldn’t see, “But everybody else is acting like his friend. Finn is protective because he’s gone all big brother on us, Mercedes is the same as usual and I think Rachel is being less self-centered than usual, but you’re treating him like a baby.”
Quinn turned back to him, and her face had morphed into something he hadn’t seen for a long time. At least not since she’d been in a Cheerio’s uniform; she changed her face somehow to make herself seem threatening and she leveled a glare at him that made his fingers slacken on the chew toy.
Fiyero ripped it from his hands and retreated to the other side of the room; he settled down and started tearing thin strips of rope off and pawing them out of his mouth.
“I’m not having you, of all people, talk to me about babying him. Because yes, maybe I’m treating him like a child,” she still looked livid, but tears were spilling down her delicate cheeks and Puck felt his breath catch, because how many girls-and Kurt-were going to decide it was okay to cry in front of him?
“But you have no right to call me out on that. I just gave up a child, Puck. Do you have any idea how hard that was for me?” Puck opened his mouth, because yeah, he did, Beth was his kid too, but Quinn changed tactics, her quivering lips curling into a sneer, “What is wrong with you, Puck?”
“Uh... What?” Puck started to stand up, pulling himself up.
“Do you just prey on whoever you think is the most vulnerable?” Puck straightened fully; his eyebrows curled together angrily, “I thought you couldn’t stoop any lower, but apparently you can.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Quinn?” Puck was trying hard to regain his footing in the conversation. She’d thrown him with whatever the hell this was.
“I’m talking about you-You seduce the most vulnerable person you can find and you never feel bad about it,” her eyes had widened crazily and she gestured wildly with her hands, “First, you get your best friend’s girl knocked up and leave him in the dark about it-”
“That was your choice!”
“Second, you go after the girl your best friend likes but can’t have because he has a pregnant girlfriend,” she snorted, smirking cruelly at him, “and you leave her in the dust after barely a week. Third, you go after Mercedes, who had just had a personal weight-crisis, and now? Now, you’re going after Kurt, who’s never had anyone into him and has just had his heart broken-”
“Whoa, Quinn-”
“I really thought you couldn’t sink any lower, but going after a cancer patient, Puck? That’s low, even for you.”
Puck stared at her, struggling and failing to come up with something to throw back at her, “I get that you’re defensive about the mom thing, but there’s no way I deserved all that.” He sighed, moving past her, “I don’t need this. Let me know when you’ve calmed down.”
He stormed past her, ignoring her spitting “Creep,” at him as he climbed the stairs.
Quinn waited until he had closed the front door before letting herself sit gently on the edge of Kurt’s bed; she stared at the stairs and let the tears stream down her face, pulling Kurt’s lax hand into her own and stroking it with her thumb.
---
“Okay, so even though she went totally bitch-crazy on you and you probably didn’t really do anything to her, she’s right.” Puck rolled his eyes and Santana elbowed him in the side, even though she couldn’t see his face from where she was laying next to him on the bed, “You know what I mean. You do tend to go for the weaklings, which, yeah, is a little weird.”
“You’re with Brittany, San.”
“Okay, but Brittany is so not weak. You’ve seen her abs, Puck.” Puck groaned, nodding as Santana lifted herself up to sit cross-legged against his wall, “What is it about her that makes me want to stop being a bitch just so I can cuddle with her?”
Puck leaned over, somehow managing to take a swig of the beer Santana had brought over without sitting up in bed, “Do I really need to answer that?”
“I’m not a rhetorical kind of girl.” Santana plucked at the tab on the top of her can, “I was hoping for an answer, but considering you’re in the same boat as me…” She trailed off, watching him roll over to glare at her.
He was sprawling across the bed, staring at the ceiling. His beer was balancing precariously on the end of his desk, “Shit, San. Did we turn each other gay?”
“Don’t be stupid, Puck.” They sat in companionable silence for a while; Santana tapped away at her cell phone, giggling every once in a while. Eventually, without looking up from the screen, she broke the quiet, “So when are you going to grow a pair and make a move?”
Puck stayed quiet for a while, biting his lip, “When he’s better.”
“Don’t be stupid. What if he doesn’t get better?”
Puck ignored her in favor of trying to fight off the crushing weight that had settled in his stomach as she’d spoke. The idea that Kurt wasn’t going to make it hurt more than he cared to admit.
“Relax, Puck. Kurt’s like, the strongest person I know.” Santana laughed-inappropriate for their conversation, but he didn’t feel obligated to point it out to her-shifting her foot out to kick him in the thigh before climbing over him and heading to the door. He propped himself up on his elbows, watching her, “Sorry, the wifey’s calling. And don’t worry about the gay thing either. We’re both too awesome and too good in bed to limit ourselves to one sex. Although I still can’t figure out why neither of us is sleeping around anymore.” She waved her fingers at him, teasing and almost degrading, and then disappeared down the hallway.
He let himself fall back onto his pillows with a groan.
Chapter Six | Chapter Eight