Fic: A Promise Kept
Title: A Promise Kept
Author: pterawaters
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: previous Kurt/Blaine, current Kurt/Puck
Genre: Humor, Drama, Angst
Warnings: mpreg, off-page character death, third-gender/intersex
Spoilers: none
Disclaimer: Glee is not mine, at all
Author’s Note: Written for the Weekly Writing Challenge (#6) over at gleempreg.
Words: 2700
Theme: AU
Prompt: First Date
Summary: Noah Puckerman, fighter pilot, knows what he wants, even if it’s a third named Kurt. Kurt was left pregnant and alone when his husband died in battle and never thought he’d fall for another fly-boy, especially one as insufferable as Puck.
Puck was just hanging out with his bros when he saw it - the most beautiful creature he'd ever seen. It walked down the pathway outside the pub with this serene sort of grace that Puck usually loved to destroy, but not this time. This time he had the weird urge to protect and savor it. While Puck watched, the person sailed down the catwalk ramp to the level below and Puck was up and out of his seat before it could get away.
"Where you goin', Puckerman?" one of his boys called after him.
"I gotta see a girl!" Puck cried over his shoulder, dodging a craft that was landing as he bolted, a little drunk, from the pub. Truth be told, he was pretty sure it wasn't a girl, but a third and from what he'd seen, it was beautiful.
He vaulted down the ramp and caught up with the third half a block away, rushing around to stop it and get a good look at its face. He found it breathtaking with high cheekbones, bright blue eyes, and soft-looking skin, but it was also clearly annoyed.
"Uh, hey," Puck grinned, sticking out his hand in an effort to seem polite. "I'm Puck. Who're you and why haven't I seen you in this sector before?"
Looking him up and down, the third replied in a high, droll voice, "What an ... interesting name. Excuse me, please."
"Aw, come on," Puck argued amiably, walking along with the third as it continued its way through the sector. "You know you're too pretty for me to give up just like that!"
"Such a charmer," the third replied with a scoff. "Bed been empty too long? I think you've forgotten there's a time and a place-"
"What're you hitched or something?" Puck asked, ignoring every effort the third made to brush him off. "Even if you are, let me buy you a drink."
The third pulled its overcoat back to reveal a round, gravid belly and said, "Can't have a drink, sorry. Maybe in a few... scratch that," it frowned sardonically. "How about never?"
"Whoa, you're pregnant?" Puck asked, trying to get a better look as the third let its overcoat fall back down. "That's so cool!"
Rolling its eyes, the third asked, "What, are you a belly chaser? Yes, I'm pregnant. Now leave me alone, Puck."
"Ooh, it still remembers my name! Score!" Puck grinned, happy to see a slight dimple forming in one of the third's cheeks as it tried not to smile.
"Not a victory," it insisted, though it did smile a little. "And I go by 'he', not that I need to be telling you this."
Puck smiled, since he seemed to be making some progress and insisted, "I'm not a belly chaser. I've just never seen a third who was pregnant before."
"I'm so glad I could shock and amaze you," he sniffed, moving to side-step Puck and go on his way.
"What's the rush?" Puck asked, falling into step beside the third as he descended another level onto the shopping mezzanine. "You got someone waiting on you?"
"Look," he said, stopping short and facing Puck with a little bit of fire in his eyes, "it's none of your business where I'm going or why. Now would you please leave me alone?"
Puck was a determined sort of guy, yes, but he wasn't a creep, so he nodded and said, "Full name's Noah Puckerman. Look me up if you change your mind about that drink - non-alcoholic of course."
"Of course," the third replied, turning on his heel and strutting away toward one of the shops. Man, Puck had it bad. He hadn't really cared for most thirds he'd seen but this one just ... did something to him. Puck sure as shit wished he'd call and soon.
**88**
Kurt sighed as he hauled himself out if bed for the ritual middle-of-the-night toilet run he'd gotten used to since becoming pregnant. He ignored the empty half of the bed, instead rubbing where he felt the baby press against the wall of his womb and trying not to think about how its father was gone.
He failed.
"Just had to go off on that one last mission, didn't he, baby?" Kurt asked his stomach, checking himself out in the mirror and allowing himself a small smile for how big his belly was getting. At least Blaine had left him with this, with his very own child.
Mercedes was so jealous. She and her husband, Sam, had been trying for years but everyone knew fertility was really low on this cruiser, something the scientists had yet to figure out and remedy. Kurt being a third made his chances of getting pregnant even lower, in theory. In practice, he and Blaine had only been trying for two months before it happened, before the test came back positive. Kurt had to tell himself not to gloat.
Losing his husband to the war felt like some tragic form of poetic justice. He was the first third on the cruiser to get pregnant in five years, and yet it felt like he'd lost everything the day Admiral Figgins stopped by Kurt's quarters to tell him Blaine wasn't coming home.
Kurt knew he had to keep going for the baby's sake. Scans showed it was a third, just like him, and Kurt wondered all the time how much it would look like Blaine and if he would be able to deal with seeing that face on someone who wasn't his husband day in and day out.
When Mercedes invited him to her Year-end party, Kurt thought about refusing, but then he realized she would just get worried about him and fuss over him even more than normal, so he dressed as best he could on a widower's budget and with the baby bump, making a fashionably late appearance. Within five minutes, a man with a cocky smile handed Kurt a drink, saying, "I wondered if I'd ever see you again. Don't worry, it's non-alcoholic."
Kurt frowned at the man he recognized from the shopping district a few weeks ago, but took the drink anyway. Sipping it politely, he asked, "How do you know Mercedes?"
"I know Sam, actually," the man replied and Kurt thought he remembered him being called Buck or Puck or something equally ridiculous. "We fly in the same squadron. The Titans."
"Ah," Kurt replied, taking another sip of his drink, which was fruity and not altogether unpleasant, especially as far as cruiser food went. Not that Kurt had tasted anything but cruiser food for the last ten years. "My husband was a Warbler."
"Oh," Puck replied sadly and yeah, everyone knew what a massacre the Warblers had undergone on their last mission to destroy an enemy communications relay planet. "He's...?"
"Dead, yes," Kurt answered matter-of-factly. "I know, not the happiest of topics for a Year's-end party, is it?"
Shaking his head as if to say he didn't mind, Puck asked, "What's your name?"
Kicking himself for not walking away from another fly-boy while he still could, Kurt gave - he finally remembered the guy's name - Puck his name and occupation, "Kurt Hummel. Tailor."
"Tailor, huh? I always figured our duds were machine-made or somethin'," Puck replied, flashing another one of those flirty smiles that Kurt was trying very hard to ignore.
"Most of them are," Kurt informed the man, "but someone has to run the machines and design the patterns and fix things when they go wrong."
Puck looked down at his shirt - a tight-fitting long-sleeved number in white - and asked, "So you made this?"
"Hell, no," Kurt replied, laughing at Puck's injured scoff. "I make excellent designs. That looks like something Lopez made. Here, let me look at the tag."
Curious about the man's shirt, Kurt failed to realize how close he had to get to Puck to check that tag. He did not, however, miss the way Puck shivered and turned around with dark eyes after Kurt's fingers grazed the back of his neck.
"Lopez," Kurt nodded taking a step away and putting his drink up to his lips as a kind of shield. "Though it was an easy guess, since there's only two of us on board."
Puck shook his head and laughed again, that strange moment broken, and Kurt wondered at how easy he felt around the man. He had only really ever dated Blaine, and he kind of figured now that Blaine was gone that was it. He was going to be alone with their kid for the rest of his life. Maybe that wasn't how it needed to be.
Smiling at Puck, Kurt said, "I've decided we can go for that drink after all."
Pointing at the drink in Kurt's hand, Puck asked, "What's that?"
"Open bars don't count," Kurt declared haughtily. Puck laughed and motioned for one of Kurt's hands so he could record Kurt's contact info from the data chip implanted there with his phone. The skin contact made Kurt shiver and raised goose bumps down his arm, even after the transfer was complete and he pulled away. "Talk to you soon?"
"Definitely," Puck promised, running a brave hand from Kurt's shoulder to his wrist as Kurt moved away to go find Mercedes.
"Making friends?" the woman asked with a wink when Kurt got close enough to hear her above the music.
"Maybe," Kurt allowed, taking a few final sips of the drink Puck had given him. "What do you know about him?"
Mercedes shook her head and leaned in to speak in his ear, "I hate to break it to you, baby, but Puck's kind of a player. Never known him to go after a third before, but it could be he's worked his way through every eligible woman on the ship."
Kurt could feel his face fall as he asked, "He's really that bad?"
Mercedes shrugged, "That's just what I hear from Sam and his friends."
Kurt nodded, looking across the party to where Puck had rejoined his fly-boy friends. What if the rumors Mercedes had heard were true? What if Kurt was just the latest in a long line of people Puck had used and then dumped?
Well, it couldn't hurt to go on one "crummy little date" as Blaine used to call them, could it? Kurt would just have to be wary, both for his own heart and for his unborn child.
**88**
Puck groaned when he got orders the morning after Year's end that said the Titans were flying out on a mission without delay. Shit, these bastards were relentless. Didn't they know to knock off the attacks during the holiday season?
He debated for a long time whether or not to contact Kurt before finally giving in and sending him a text explaining that he would be gone for a while and not to think Puck had forgotten about him.
Puck had yet to get a reply when he took off from the landing bay right after Sam and lost communications with everyone on ship, save military command.
"Okay, Puckerman," he told himself. "You can do this. Just go beat the bastards back and fly home, like every other time."
No one was expecting the second squadron that flanked them.
**88**
Kurt knew he was being stupid when he got Puck's text and started crying. It just brought back so many bad memories of Blaine going out and waiting for him to come back until the day he didn't. Kurt trudged over to Mercedes' quarters to see if she could cheer him up, but she was huddled near a speaker that looked hot-wired from the wall.
"What's that?" he asked, hoping his eyes weren't too red from crying.
"The military feed," Mercedes replied, ignoring Kurt's incredulous look. "I got Artie to hack into the system for me, so I can hear if anything happens to my boo. Now, shh! The battle's about to start."
Kurt had no idea what he was listening to, but it couldn't be good when the commanding officers started sounding nervous about some flanking squadron and then there was lots of yelling and calling for a retreat.
"Shit, baby," Mercedes sighed, one had pressed tightly to her forehead, "this is bad."
Kurt wrapped his arms around his friend as best he could and clenched his jaw as he listened to the battle continue. Several ships got hit and were presumed destroyed, but no one had mentioned Evans or Puckerman yet. Yet.
**88**
By the victorious end of the battle, communications were almost nonexistent so nobody really knew who was still flying and who had been turned into so much space dust, but at least a few of the Titans were headed back home. Mercedes was beside herself with worry and Kurt couldn’t say he felt much better, but kept up a brave face for his friend’s sake.
It took two days for all of the fighter ships to come limping home, worried family members and friends lined up outside the docking bay just waiting for hours and hours on end. Kurt had been here before. Blaine had a few close calls before the one that finally took his life, and Kurt knew there was nothing that would make Mercedes’ wait any easier. All he could do was sit and hold her hand, rub his belly to try to calm himself, and tell himself that Puck was just another stranger.
Sam showed up almost two hours after the last pilot, some of his face bloodied and singed from a cockpit fire he’d put out while defending a few of his wing mates simultaneously. The blonde hugged his wife tightly and then wrapped Kurt in an embrace as well, whispering in Kurt’s ear, “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since…”
Kurt nodded and murmured his thanks, watching the couple slowly amble toward the medical bay to get Sam’s health clearance before they could go home.
Now it was just him and a dozen probable widows and widowers lining the hallway, camping out for any news of their loved ones.
“This is stupid,” Kurt sighed, pushing himself away from the wall and heading away from the docking bay doors and back toward his empty, empty quarters. He heard the door behind him open, but Kurt knew it was just a worker or something and didn’t even look back, not wanting to get his hopes up.
Then a rough voice called, “Leaving so soon?” and Kurt recognized that cocky tone. He looked back.
Puck leaned against one of the dock workers, a gash in his forehead and one hand curled protectively against his chest. Even bloody and limping, barely making it forward with the worker’s help, Puck smirked.
Kurt sniffed and looked away, trying to sound calm and disinterested when he said, “I thought you were dead, Puckerman.”
“Hey, I promised you that first date, didn’t I?” he replied, groaning when a medical officer hurried forward and lifted him up onto a gurney. “I keep my promises.”
Kurt smiled and shook his head, grabbing the uninjured hand Puck gave him and walking along next to the gurney as it traveled toward the hospital wing. “That’s what they all say.”
“They don’t all have someone like you to come home to, do they?” Puck asked, grinning up at him again. “Don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind, Kurt. You don’t know what I had to do to make it ba-”
Kurt cut him off as they stopped to wait for the lift by pressing his lips against Puck’s gently. He smelled like fuel and burnt oil and blood, but so alive it made Kurt want to tear up and hang on and never let go. Smiling as he pulled back, Kurt squeezed Puck’s hand and said, “You can consider this our first date, Puck.”
“This?” the man asked in disbelief as they wheeled onto the lift.
“Of course,” Kurt replied, patting the back of Puck’s hand and looking straight ahead as the numbers on the display flicked down. “It’s a little gift from me to you, seeing as you’re injured and I don’t put out until at least the second date.”
Puck laughed loudly, grinning as he coughed and squeezed Kurt’s hand tightly, like another promise.
Author: pterawaters
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: previous Kurt/Blaine, current Kurt/Puck
Genre: Humor, Drama, Angst
Warnings: mpreg, off-page character death, third-gender/intersex
Spoilers: none
Disclaimer: Glee is not mine, at all
Author’s Note: Written for the Weekly Writing Challenge (#6) over at gleempreg.
Words: 2700
Theme: AU
Prompt: First Date
Summary: Noah Puckerman, fighter pilot, knows what he wants, even if it’s a third named Kurt. Kurt was left pregnant and alone when his husband died in battle and never thought he’d fall for another fly-boy, especially one as insufferable as Puck.
Puck was just hanging out with his bros when he saw it - the most beautiful creature he'd ever seen. It walked down the pathway outside the pub with this serene sort of grace that Puck usually loved to destroy, but not this time. This time he had the weird urge to protect and savor it. While Puck watched, the person sailed down the catwalk ramp to the level below and Puck was up and out of his seat before it could get away.
"Where you goin', Puckerman?" one of his boys called after him.
"I gotta see a girl!" Puck cried over his shoulder, dodging a craft that was landing as he bolted, a little drunk, from the pub. Truth be told, he was pretty sure it wasn't a girl, but a third and from what he'd seen, it was beautiful.
He vaulted down the ramp and caught up with the third half a block away, rushing around to stop it and get a good look at its face. He found it breathtaking with high cheekbones, bright blue eyes, and soft-looking skin, but it was also clearly annoyed.
"Uh, hey," Puck grinned, sticking out his hand in an effort to seem polite. "I'm Puck. Who're you and why haven't I seen you in this sector before?"
Looking him up and down, the third replied in a high, droll voice, "What an ... interesting name. Excuse me, please."
"Aw, come on," Puck argued amiably, walking along with the third as it continued its way through the sector. "You know you're too pretty for me to give up just like that!"
"Such a charmer," the third replied with a scoff. "Bed been empty too long? I think you've forgotten there's a time and a place-"
"What're you hitched or something?" Puck asked, ignoring every effort the third made to brush him off. "Even if you are, let me buy you a drink."
The third pulled its overcoat back to reveal a round, gravid belly and said, "Can't have a drink, sorry. Maybe in a few... scratch that," it frowned sardonically. "How about never?"
"Whoa, you're pregnant?" Puck asked, trying to get a better look as the third let its overcoat fall back down. "That's so cool!"
Rolling its eyes, the third asked, "What, are you a belly chaser? Yes, I'm pregnant. Now leave me alone, Puck."
"Ooh, it still remembers my name! Score!" Puck grinned, happy to see a slight dimple forming in one of the third's cheeks as it tried not to smile.
"Not a victory," it insisted, though it did smile a little. "And I go by 'he', not that I need to be telling you this."
Puck smiled, since he seemed to be making some progress and insisted, "I'm not a belly chaser. I've just never seen a third who was pregnant before."
"I'm so glad I could shock and amaze you," he sniffed, moving to side-step Puck and go on his way.
"What's the rush?" Puck asked, falling into step beside the third as he descended another level onto the shopping mezzanine. "You got someone waiting on you?"
"Look," he said, stopping short and facing Puck with a little bit of fire in his eyes, "it's none of your business where I'm going or why. Now would you please leave me alone?"
Puck was a determined sort of guy, yes, but he wasn't a creep, so he nodded and said, "Full name's Noah Puckerman. Look me up if you change your mind about that drink - non-alcoholic of course."
"Of course," the third replied, turning on his heel and strutting away toward one of the shops. Man, Puck had it bad. He hadn't really cared for most thirds he'd seen but this one just ... did something to him. Puck sure as shit wished he'd call and soon.
**88**
Kurt sighed as he hauled himself out if bed for the ritual middle-of-the-night toilet run he'd gotten used to since becoming pregnant. He ignored the empty half of the bed, instead rubbing where he felt the baby press against the wall of his womb and trying not to think about how its father was gone.
He failed.
"Just had to go off on that one last mission, didn't he, baby?" Kurt asked his stomach, checking himself out in the mirror and allowing himself a small smile for how big his belly was getting. At least Blaine had left him with this, with his very own child.
Mercedes was so jealous. She and her husband, Sam, had been trying for years but everyone knew fertility was really low on this cruiser, something the scientists had yet to figure out and remedy. Kurt being a third made his chances of getting pregnant even lower, in theory. In practice, he and Blaine had only been trying for two months before it happened, before the test came back positive. Kurt had to tell himself not to gloat.
Losing his husband to the war felt like some tragic form of poetic justice. He was the first third on the cruiser to get pregnant in five years, and yet it felt like he'd lost everything the day Admiral Figgins stopped by Kurt's quarters to tell him Blaine wasn't coming home.
Kurt knew he had to keep going for the baby's sake. Scans showed it was a third, just like him, and Kurt wondered all the time how much it would look like Blaine and if he would be able to deal with seeing that face on someone who wasn't his husband day in and day out.
When Mercedes invited him to her Year-end party, Kurt thought about refusing, but then he realized she would just get worried about him and fuss over him even more than normal, so he dressed as best he could on a widower's budget and with the baby bump, making a fashionably late appearance. Within five minutes, a man with a cocky smile handed Kurt a drink, saying, "I wondered if I'd ever see you again. Don't worry, it's non-alcoholic."
Kurt frowned at the man he recognized from the shopping district a few weeks ago, but took the drink anyway. Sipping it politely, he asked, "How do you know Mercedes?"
"I know Sam, actually," the man replied and Kurt thought he remembered him being called Buck or Puck or something equally ridiculous. "We fly in the same squadron. The Titans."
"Ah," Kurt replied, taking another sip of his drink, which was fruity and not altogether unpleasant, especially as far as cruiser food went. Not that Kurt had tasted anything but cruiser food for the last ten years. "My husband was a Warbler."
"Oh," Puck replied sadly and yeah, everyone knew what a massacre the Warblers had undergone on their last mission to destroy an enemy communications relay planet. "He's...?"
"Dead, yes," Kurt answered matter-of-factly. "I know, not the happiest of topics for a Year's-end party, is it?"
Shaking his head as if to say he didn't mind, Puck asked, "What's your name?"
Kicking himself for not walking away from another fly-boy while he still could, Kurt gave - he finally remembered the guy's name - Puck his name and occupation, "Kurt Hummel. Tailor."
"Tailor, huh? I always figured our duds were machine-made or somethin'," Puck replied, flashing another one of those flirty smiles that Kurt was trying very hard to ignore.
"Most of them are," Kurt informed the man, "but someone has to run the machines and design the patterns and fix things when they go wrong."
Puck looked down at his shirt - a tight-fitting long-sleeved number in white - and asked, "So you made this?"
"Hell, no," Kurt replied, laughing at Puck's injured scoff. "I make excellent designs. That looks like something Lopez made. Here, let me look at the tag."
Curious about the man's shirt, Kurt failed to realize how close he had to get to Puck to check that tag. He did not, however, miss the way Puck shivered and turned around with dark eyes after Kurt's fingers grazed the back of his neck.
"Lopez," Kurt nodded taking a step away and putting his drink up to his lips as a kind of shield. "Though it was an easy guess, since there's only two of us on board."
Puck shook his head and laughed again, that strange moment broken, and Kurt wondered at how easy he felt around the man. He had only really ever dated Blaine, and he kind of figured now that Blaine was gone that was it. He was going to be alone with their kid for the rest of his life. Maybe that wasn't how it needed to be.
Smiling at Puck, Kurt said, "I've decided we can go for that drink after all."
Pointing at the drink in Kurt's hand, Puck asked, "What's that?"
"Open bars don't count," Kurt declared haughtily. Puck laughed and motioned for one of Kurt's hands so he could record Kurt's contact info from the data chip implanted there with his phone. The skin contact made Kurt shiver and raised goose bumps down his arm, even after the transfer was complete and he pulled away. "Talk to you soon?"
"Definitely," Puck promised, running a brave hand from Kurt's shoulder to his wrist as Kurt moved away to go find Mercedes.
"Making friends?" the woman asked with a wink when Kurt got close enough to hear her above the music.
"Maybe," Kurt allowed, taking a few final sips of the drink Puck had given him. "What do you know about him?"
Mercedes shook her head and leaned in to speak in his ear, "I hate to break it to you, baby, but Puck's kind of a player. Never known him to go after a third before, but it could be he's worked his way through every eligible woman on the ship."
Kurt could feel his face fall as he asked, "He's really that bad?"
Mercedes shrugged, "That's just what I hear from Sam and his friends."
Kurt nodded, looking across the party to where Puck had rejoined his fly-boy friends. What if the rumors Mercedes had heard were true? What if Kurt was just the latest in a long line of people Puck had used and then dumped?
Well, it couldn't hurt to go on one "crummy little date" as Blaine used to call them, could it? Kurt would just have to be wary, both for his own heart and for his unborn child.
**88**
Puck groaned when he got orders the morning after Year's end that said the Titans were flying out on a mission without delay. Shit, these bastards were relentless. Didn't they know to knock off the attacks during the holiday season?
He debated for a long time whether or not to contact Kurt before finally giving in and sending him a text explaining that he would be gone for a while and not to think Puck had forgotten about him.
Puck had yet to get a reply when he took off from the landing bay right after Sam and lost communications with everyone on ship, save military command.
"Okay, Puckerman," he told himself. "You can do this. Just go beat the bastards back and fly home, like every other time."
No one was expecting the second squadron that flanked them.
**88**
Kurt knew he was being stupid when he got Puck's text and started crying. It just brought back so many bad memories of Blaine going out and waiting for him to come back until the day he didn't. Kurt trudged over to Mercedes' quarters to see if she could cheer him up, but she was huddled near a speaker that looked hot-wired from the wall.
"What's that?" he asked, hoping his eyes weren't too red from crying.
"The military feed," Mercedes replied, ignoring Kurt's incredulous look. "I got Artie to hack into the system for me, so I can hear if anything happens to my boo. Now, shh! The battle's about to start."
Kurt had no idea what he was listening to, but it couldn't be good when the commanding officers started sounding nervous about some flanking squadron and then there was lots of yelling and calling for a retreat.
"Shit, baby," Mercedes sighed, one had pressed tightly to her forehead, "this is bad."
Kurt wrapped his arms around his friend as best he could and clenched his jaw as he listened to the battle continue. Several ships got hit and were presumed destroyed, but no one had mentioned Evans or Puckerman yet. Yet.
**88**
By the victorious end of the battle, communications were almost nonexistent so nobody really knew who was still flying and who had been turned into so much space dust, but at least a few of the Titans were headed back home. Mercedes was beside herself with worry and Kurt couldn’t say he felt much better, but kept up a brave face for his friend’s sake.
It took two days for all of the fighter ships to come limping home, worried family members and friends lined up outside the docking bay just waiting for hours and hours on end. Kurt had been here before. Blaine had a few close calls before the one that finally took his life, and Kurt knew there was nothing that would make Mercedes’ wait any easier. All he could do was sit and hold her hand, rub his belly to try to calm himself, and tell himself that Puck was just another stranger.
Sam showed up almost two hours after the last pilot, some of his face bloodied and singed from a cockpit fire he’d put out while defending a few of his wing mates simultaneously. The blonde hugged his wife tightly and then wrapped Kurt in an embrace as well, whispering in Kurt’s ear, “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since…”
Kurt nodded and murmured his thanks, watching the couple slowly amble toward the medical bay to get Sam’s health clearance before they could go home.
Now it was just him and a dozen probable widows and widowers lining the hallway, camping out for any news of their loved ones.
“This is stupid,” Kurt sighed, pushing himself away from the wall and heading away from the docking bay doors and back toward his empty, empty quarters. He heard the door behind him open, but Kurt knew it was just a worker or something and didn’t even look back, not wanting to get his hopes up.
Then a rough voice called, “Leaving so soon?” and Kurt recognized that cocky tone. He looked back.
Puck leaned against one of the dock workers, a gash in his forehead and one hand curled protectively against his chest. Even bloody and limping, barely making it forward with the worker’s help, Puck smirked.
Kurt sniffed and looked away, trying to sound calm and disinterested when he said, “I thought you were dead, Puckerman.”
“Hey, I promised you that first date, didn’t I?” he replied, groaning when a medical officer hurried forward and lifted him up onto a gurney. “I keep my promises.”
Kurt smiled and shook his head, grabbing the uninjured hand Puck gave him and walking along next to the gurney as it traveled toward the hospital wing. “That’s what they all say.”
“They don’t all have someone like you to come home to, do they?” Puck asked, grinning up at him again. “Don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind, Kurt. You don’t know what I had to do to make it ba-”
Kurt cut him off as they stopped to wait for the lift by pressing his lips against Puck’s gently. He smelled like fuel and burnt oil and blood, but so alive it made Kurt want to tear up and hang on and never let go. Smiling as he pulled back, Kurt squeezed Puck’s hand and said, “You can consider this our first date, Puck.”
“This?” the man asked in disbelief as they wheeled onto the lift.
“Of course,” Kurt replied, patting the back of Puck’s hand and looking straight ahead as the numbers on the display flicked down. “It’s a little gift from me to you, seeing as you’re injured and I don’t put out until at least the second date.”
Puck laughed loudly, grinning as he coughed and squeezed Kurt’s hand tightly, like another promise.