Streetlight People
Title: Streetlight People
Author: jockchic
Characters/Pairings: Main Puck/Kurt and Finn/Quinn, but everyone gets some screen time.
Rating/warnings: NC-17 overall, but this part’s more like a hard R. Future fic, language, hooker!Kurt, the Ten Year Gleeunion trope, and drinking. Like, beer should be a character in this story.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: A decade after joining New Directions, Puck gets slapped in the face by his past. Literally.
AN: This was supposed to be my entry for the Diva-Off, but I couldn’t finish editing it in time. Here’s the first third quarter because I wanted to prove that I tried! It seems Journey-heavy, but “True Colors” was the theme. Sorry about all the clichés.
*
Noah Puckerman dreamed in black-and-white gunfights, touchdowns during overtime, children with his eyes, and classic Corvettes. Only two things ever made it into color: Quinn Fabray’s lips paused around an “I love you,” and Will Schuester’s original six solitaries, breathing life into an empty auditorium.
Ten years had passed since Puck stood four steps from the exit sign, watching them set fire to the stage. The glory of Journey-give some kids a power ballad and a guitar solo like frayed nerve endings, and anything would feel miraculous. Their choreography was loose and unpolished. One of the trumpet players was sharp. But never in his abbreviated musical career did Puck ever again know the weight of sheer possibility, even when the first twelve of them could bring a whole stadium audience to their knees. All Puck needed was six voices and that killer keyboard riff. Finn Hudson and Rachel Berry had split the world that day, and his entire life lay before him, summarized and clear and conquerable. Pure rock. “Don’t Stop Believin’.”
But Puck did stop. He turned around and walked out of the auditorium, straight into another stark sunset of Nowhere, Ohio. He headed for the street and let those legendary sounds die somewhere behind him.
He was older and no wiser now, twenty-seven full years of nothing. Berry’s name was showing up in the Broadway reviews, and Tina What’s-Her-Face came over Puck’s radio every morning to host Seven O’Clock Bach on Classical Midwestern. Aretha was singing for weddings in Manhattan. Hummel had been out of touch for a good six years, which Puck could only presume meant that he’d escaped. In Lima, four survivors with success stories was a new record: Schuester had done right by them. They hadn’t all made it, but most of them had never expected to, anyway.
Noah Puckerman slept alone in his single-bedroom apartment every night and had gray dreams about the things he wanted. Dinner dates and driveways. Softail Harleys with flames on the fender tips. Puck was more than willing to face a monochromatic future, because it meant that he could hoard his true colors for his past.
Puck remembered how it felt to have aspirations. Every night, Puck dreamed blues, greens, and reds about being someone who was worth knowing.
*
The creepy bastard with the receding hairline had been leering at Puck for the last fifteen minutes, his eyes sleazy and seductive above a glass of Guinness that hadn’t left his lips once since he sat down. The guy wasn’t hideous-looking-decent teeth and a collared dress shirt, black slacks that didn’t look like they’d been plucked from a discount rack. He also resembled Ted Levine from the Silence of the Lambs. Pathetic as it was, Puck was just bored and horny enough to be okay with that.
“Hey there, Road Warrior.” Santana Lopez hoisted herself onto the counter beside him, all fishnets and pheromones from working the floor. It only took her half a second to evaluate his situation: “Oh-hell no. Please tell me you’re not thinking about hitting the sheets with Jame Gumb.”
So she noticed it, too. Puck shrugged. “You should be shaking my hand for getting gay play in a strip joint.”
“Not impressed,” said Santana, fixing her hair in the reflection of his sunglasses. “It’s all tits and giggles now, but we’re already on the swift decline to a point of undiscriminating sexual bedlam. Remember when this place used to be a restaurant?”
She had a point. Back in the day, the club was a modest pub and grill with a workforce comprised almost entirely of McKinley High graduates. Finn had bused tables for a few semesters, and Mike Chang flipped burgers every summer until he moved to Denver. Even Artie Abrams did a brief stint on dish duty. On those rare nights when their shifts overlapped, the five of them would stay hours after closing and sip straight from the soda fountains, choreographing cheesy stool numbers and racing each other across the freshly-buffed tile. They sang into their mops. They raided the tip jar for quarters to run Journey on the jukebox. Miles beyond their social borders, they had finally achieved some solidarity: those evenings were few and far between, but they were the best hours of their lives. Even now, Puck doubted that any of them would argue.
Then the management had changed. Pizza profits paid for a new cherry finish bar, and the “budget cuts” that took three inches from Santana’s uniform neckline were apparently going towards a show pole. Mike left the state with his girlfriend; Artie quit the day they installed a champagne room. By the time the place had become the leading love nest for Lima dirtbags, only Puck and Santana were left holding the fort. And they were still holding it today, four-dollar drink specials and all.
Seven fantastic years later.
Sometime around her twenty-fifth birthday, Santana had turned into a bitch. Not that she hadn’t been a bitch before, and not that she didn’t have plenty of reasons to be perpetually pissed off, but this latest form of cynicism was caustic enough to eat holes in Puck from clear across the room. That was why he didn’t immediately take the cocktail napkin she held out to him after a moment of writing, bearing her jagged cursive in green eyeliner pencil.
“What’s this?” Puck asked.
“The number of a gentleman friend of mine,” said Santana. “If you insist on having a homosexual encounter tonight, you should at least do it with someone who doesn’t look like he’s going to starve you in a pit in his basement.”
“You actually know people who aren’t interested in seeing you topless?”
She gave her mascaraed lashes an irritated flicker. “We share a business, that’s all. He and I collaborate every once in a while to accommodate our very confused clientele. Puck.”
Puck ignored her pointed addendum and examined the napkin, dubious. You’ll want to put a ring on it, Santana had written, followed by a phone number with a local area code. How did this even work? Was he supposed to go over to this guy’s house or meet him somewhere or what? Rentboy etiquette wasn’t his forte, and after living in Lima for his whole life, he wasn’t entirely convinced that anyone within a twenty-mile radius was actually worth paying for.
“I don’t suppose you brought a picture with you,” he said.
“He’s a scrumptious brunette who showers regularly,” said Santana. “Rumor has it he does especially inventive things with his tongue. Like this, see?”
He tried not to look at what she was doing to that poor martini toothpick. “And he’s…you know. Discreet?”
“He’s a whore, Puck. He’ll be whatever you want him to be.”
Puck dampened his lips, thinking. A change of pace might be exciting, but there was a premonitory sliver of suspicion in his stomach-it had been a long time since Santana had done him a sexual favor, even indirectly. Then again, it could also be indigestion. Buffalo Bill was sending him shot after shot of Jameson, and Puck had never been too good at holding his Irish whiskies.
“Ted Levine doesn’t look that bad,” he said. “It might be fun.”
Santana pulled a disgusted face. “If by that you mean ‘it puts the lotion on its skin.’”
“I just don’t think this is a good idea,” Puck admitted, returning the cocktail napkin.
She shrugged off her cover-up, a flimsy black shawl with sequins sewn to the hems, and slid the napkin back across the counter with one manicured finger. “You’re the muscle here, sweetheart, not the brains. Leave the thinking to someone else.”
Comments like that made him wonder why he’d ever signed on to protect the bitch in the first place. It was all he could do not to heave his glass of Jameson at her retreating back. Instead, he picked up the napkin again and examined at it as Santana resumed swaying in sensual circles around her show pole, hips already pulsing to the techno. A gentleman friend, the Scrumptious Brunette Who Showered Regularly. Santana hadn't even offered a name. Puck closed his eyes and tried to imagine the practiced hands of a streetwalker, some stranger who could dominate his night and disappear in the morning like a bad dream. It sounded good right now. The club was too loud, and Puck was too hard up.
The serial killer creep was grinning at Puck from between Santana’s spread legs. Puck gave him a thin smile and toasted him from across the room, downing his last shot. With his other hand, he tucked the cocktail napkin into his back pocket.
*
He dialed the number the instant he stepped out of the shower, tracking water across the tile. The silence of his kitchenette was unsettling after five hours of the club’s noise, so he tapped his fingers on the countertop and fiddled with the towel he’d slung over his bare shoulders. Someone picked up after five rings and did not speak. Puck could hear the faint sounds of his breathing, measured, elegant.
“Hi,” said Puck at last. “Uh…my friend gave me this number.”
“Well, that could be a very good thing or a very bad thing.” The young man’s voice was high and cadenced, like a song. “I presume your friend has a name?”
What the hell was Santana going by these days? She’d been an uninventive ‘Angel’ when she first started out, but now she was bouncing back and forth between ‘Ambrosia’ and ‘Fuego.’ Puck didn’t know which one to choose. They were, after all, equally skanky. “I’m not sure what she calls herself now, but I’ve always known her as ‘Lopez.’”
A pause. “Santana Lopez?”
“Only if it’s a good thing,” said Puck.
There was another long lull in conversation. Puck was dripping onto his carpet now; he used his towel to soak up the water that had puddled around his feet. He was just straightening again when the callboy pulled together a reply, his tone huskier this time, rich with flirtation: “Looks like we have something to discuss after all. Santana and I go way back, so I’d be glad to meet you somewhere tonight, but I’m usually not available for one-night stands. I prefer sponsors to sexcapades because I have very expensive tastes. I hope you never expect to see me again.”
This was exciting, but awkward. Puck drew swirls on the counter with his fingertip. “Frankly, I’d prefer it that way.”
The callboy chuckled. “You say that now, but you haven’t seen the things I can do with my hands. Do you have a bed at your place?”
“Yeah, but it’s a single.”
“I’m sure I’ll fit fine underneath you. Or above you. Anywhere, really; I’m flexible.”
Puck wondered if this guy ever just sat down somewhere to script all of these double entendres. Improvised or not, they sure were working-Puck felt a little shiver of arousal and had to concentrate hard to recite his street and apartment number. The callboy read the address back to him, somehow managing to make it sound provocative. Santana was right; he had this way of using his tongue, shaping the words like dirty poetry. Puck could listen to him talk all night. Not that he expected they’d be doing much of that together.
“So what am I supposed to call you?” Puck asked, after he’d regained his ability to speak. “Please don’t make me yell ‘John Doe’ in the throes of ecstasy. It’s kind of a turnoff.”
That laugh again, bright and cloudless. “I don’t know if it’s a marked improvement, but I feel like a Sally Bowles tonight. How about you?”
He only caught the reference because Mr. Schuester once forced them to attend a spring production of Cabaret at the community center. Puck had spent the whole evening ignoring Finn’s sniffles and squirming in his seat, too aware of Quinn sitting beside him in her final month of pregnancy .
“I guess that makes me Maximilian von Heune,” said Puck, relenting. He would match this guy musical for musical, if it meant getting into his pants.
“Mmm, this would be sexy if it weren’t so doomed,” the callboy purred. “Sieg Heil, Max. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
The line went dead in Puck’s hand. Puck listened to the static for a few seconds before replacing the receiver, feeling a pleasurable tightness in the front of his jeans. He had the Telephone Song stuck in his head now, damn it. Hopefully Sally Bowles would be good enough to rinse him of coherent thought. After the gratuitous Cabaret references, it was only polite.
*
There was a knock on the door exactly half an hour later, as measured by the digital readout on Puck’s microwave. Puck steadied his breathing and lowered one eye to the peephole, trying to keep his socked feet silent on the floorboards.
The hallway lights were dim and the young man outside had his head down. His boots shimmered in the darkness. Puck’s knowledge of fashion labels was limited to Michael Kors sportswear and the guy who made the underwear ads, but the callboy’s coat must’ve been at least three hundred dollars of Italian wool, perfectly tailored to the slim lines of his waist. He hadn’t been kidding when he said that he had expensive tastes. Puck swallowed. Whatever Santana had gotten him into, it was about a thousand steps above his normal drunken conquests. He didn’t know whether he was supposed to feel aroused or inadequate.
“C’mon, von Heune, make my night,” said Sally Bowles, leaning toward the peephole. “You’re not paying me to keep your doormat warm.”
Okay, aroused. Puck waited for a beat longer, marveling at that one visible eye shining pale blue under a pretty fringe of eyelashes. Then he sucked in a lungful of air, braced himself, and undid the deadbolt.
As soon as the door was open, Puck was assaulted by soft lips and the clean scent of cologne. He staggered against the couch. A skillful tongue had already set to work between his teeth with practiced fervency, and the callboy was wearing only garters beneath his coat-his parted neckline revealed nothing but sloped collarbones, a curve of throat, smooth white skin. Puck ran a hand across that pliant plane of flesh and kissed back hard, half reflex, half hunger. The callboy was already lowering Puck’s zipper. He coaxed Puck to arousal in long, steady strokes, making him shudder.
“This is going to end way too fast if you keep that up,” Puck warned.
“Good thing I switched from hourly rates to flat fees,” the callboy replied, but he slowed down anyway, laying feathery kisses against the sensitive area below Puck’s jaw line. “Mm, did you actually put on aftershave? I’m flattered. Most guys don’t even bother to take off their shoes anymore.”
Puck thought about dropping the old I’m not most guys standby, but, in truth, he was most guys, and the wool was making his arms itch. Puck pushed the coat off the callboy’s shoulders so he could explore the dips and crests of his vertebrae, making him arch against Puck’s chest. His fingers tightened in Puck’s hair. He gave Puck’s neck a gentle nip, breath hot beside his ear.
“You’re very handsome.”
The compliment startled Puck. It seemed pretty tame to come from a hooker’s repertoire of lines, but then again, this boy clearly knew his business. “Uh, thanks. That didn’t cost me an extra twenty, did it?”
“That one was on the house.” The callboy crawled away so he could remove his boots. “I think I owe Santana Lopez a thank-you card or something,” he said, his bangs slipping into his face as he stooped to undo the laces. “All the other women at her club send me fifty-year-old junkies who don’t believe in haircuts. Then again, she and I have known each other for a long time. She’s probably one of my oldest friends.”
“Yeah, I’ve got history with her, too,” said Puck, squirming out of his jeans. “Maybe too much.”
“Oh?”
“I think she hates me.”
“She hates everyone,” said the callboy, by way of consolation. He finished liberating himself from his boots and swung his legs around, getting himself comfortable on his back and straddling Puck’s shoulders with graceful efficiency. “Is here okay with you? Love-gloves and lube in my coat. Peach, mint, watermelon…”
“Cherry,” said Puck, fishing a condom and a small red tube out of the left pocket. He put the coat on the coffee table so it wouldn’t get rumpled. “Santana may be the world’s biggest bitch, but she did me a favor tonight, too. I thought she was setting me up somehow.”
“She still could be, you know. Wait until you see your bill.”
Puck just grunted and scooted into position on top of him, stroking the hair out of his face as he leaned over to bring their lips together again. “You’re worth it.”
They kissed like that for a long time, eyes closed, leisurely exploring each other’s mouths. Puck reached between them and stroked the silky skin of his inner thighs. The callboy responded with a sigh that sounded wholly authentic, tightening his smooth knees around Puck’s torso. It had been several years since Puck had felt so attuned to a sexual partner, and never during a first encounter-it would be too ungracious to equate all of the young man’s competence to his harlotry, because sweet talk was an acquired skill, but no amount of practice could’ve trained his body to fit against Puck’s with such perfect ease. It was like they were built for each other.
The callboy even seemed to read his thoughts. “I might just get an orgasm out of this,” he commented, rapping on the coffee table with one fist.
“Hope so,” Puck muttered into his neck, between kisses. “This is good. If I’d known about you ten years ago, I might not have been desperate and stupid enough to knock up my best friend’s girlfriend.”
“Sorry to shrink your boner, but ten years ago, I would’ve been too busy to give you the time of day.”
“Busy with what? Show poles?”
“Try show choir. I was in a glee club. McKinley High.”
And that’s when Puck finally yanked back to give him a thorough look, nearly slipping off the cushions in the process.
Blue eyes, right; he had noted that at the door. Good lips, skilled tongue, to which Puck was intimately acquainted with now. But he hadn’t seen the sloped cheeks with their delicate indomitable blush. He hadn’t noticed the faintest constellation of freckles dotting his nose, which was smooth and symmetrical and ever-so-slightly upturned. Eyebrows with a familiar condescending arch. Chin that was always a few degrees higher than level. He looked older and wearier now, and the scar near his mouth was definitely new, but there was no mistake about it even after six years of separation.
The same horror was dawning in Sally Bowles’ eyes, too.
“Puck?” he demanded.
“Kurt Hummel,” Puck hailed back, barely able to get the words out. He prayed he didn’t look as ill as he felt. “I, uh-I didn’t know that you were back in town.”
Silence reigned for five full seconds.
Then Kurt slapped Puck hard in the jaw, and Puck remembered belatedly that he’d still had his hand between Kurt’s spread legs. He tumbled backwards off the couch. Kurt was up and covered before he even hit the ground, clutching his wool coat frantically to his chest.
“Stay right there!” Kurt yelled, pointed a shaking finger in his face. He was wobbling and standing splay-legged, which sort of diminished the menace of his stance. “Stay right there and don’t you dare open your eyes until I’m dressed!”
“It’s nothing I haven’t seen already,” Puck pointed out.
Kurt seized a throw pillow and began pummeling him with it, driving him back down to the carpet. “Close your eyes!”
“Jesus fuck! Okay, I’m looking down!”
“Shit,” said Kurt, panting. He collapsed onto the couch again. With his head lowered, Puck could just make out Kurt’s shaky hands as he began to re-lace his boots, continually missing the hooks in his effort to complete the task as fast as possible. His coat had crept up to reveal one of his black lace garters. He yanked the bottom hem down over his knees when he realized where Puck was looking. “Stop it!”
“Sorry!” He meant it, too. This whole thing was weirder than hell, but apparently it took more than a Givenchy-clad blast from the past to turn him off. Puck squeezed his legs together, trying to will away his erection. For Christ’s sake, this was Kurt Hummel.
Who, admittedly, had been hiding a smokin’ body under those scarves and sweater sets during their high school years.
“You sound different on the phone, and you look different without clothes,” said Puck, trying to make conversation.
Kurt’s hand found Puck’s left sneaker. He heaved it at him, narrowly missing his head. “Get out!”
“But-”
Now the right one whizzed by his ear. Guy had decent aim. “So help me god, Puck, I will kill you until you are dead! And then I will murder you!”
Puck stood up and left, slamming the door on his way out. He hadn’t managed to grab his pants, and a draft ran down the stairs from the upstairs window, making him shiver in his flimsy boxers. He stood in the dark hallway with his hands cupped over his crotch for a long time before Kurt cracked the door open again, blushing.
“This is your apartment,” Kurt said.
“If it’s not, then I’ve been paying the wrong bills,” said Puck.
Kurt shifted, awkward. “I guess I’d better invite you back in, then?”
“Would be nice of you.”
And was there actually a tiny, sheepish smile on Kurt’s face as he stood back to hold the door open? Puck bustled back inside, careful not to brush against him as he passed, and retrieved his pants from the heap on the floor. Kurt sat down on the arm of the couch and watched him dress. Puck could feel his eyes tracing the taut curves of his arms, the well-toned muscles he worked every afternoon with a hundred pushups. He was in better shape now than he had been in high school. Kurt’s breath was growing heavy behind him, and when Puck straightened, Kurt jumped and moved his hand away from his mouth. He’d been biting his nails or sucking his fingers or something.
“I haven’t been this humiliated and disgusted since I found out that ‘Mooncups’ aren’t actually a new type of Girl Scout cookie,” he said, looking back down to fight with his untied laces. “Do you think that Santana-?”
Puck sat down on the opposite end of the couch. “She did this on purpose, I guarantee it.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s a bitter bitch who’s been out for blood for years now? I have no idea what I did to her, but don’t take it personally. It’s me. I swear to god she was the one who cut my brake lines last summer.”
“Shit,” Kurt said again, giving up on his boots and raking his hands through his hair. He tried to wither Puck with a glare, which was tricky, seeing as he was still unable to meet Puck’s eyes. “Since when did you start sleeping with men, anyway?”
“Since when did you start sleeping with men for money?” Puck countered.
It was the wrong thing to say; Puck knew it the instant he said it. Kurt’s mouth quivered, then tightened. “As if you have any right to pass judgment on me.”
The sad part was that Kurt could be referring to any number of things. It might be a comment about Puck being on the other end of this fucks-for-bucks transaction, or an archaic reference to the Quinn-Finn baby episode, which Puck was ninety-five percent over. Either way, Kurt hadn’t actually specified, and Puck was grateful for that. This was embarrassing enough when they weren’t spitting decade-old vitriol back in each other’s faces.
Puck didn’t know what else to do, so he arranged the throw pillow over his abating erection and lifted Kurt’s dumb Hitler Youth boot into his lap. Too tired to protest, Kurt leaned back into the couch cushions and watched Puck fiddle with his laces.
“I thought you’d moved away,” he said finally.
“You’re kidding, right? I’m never going to get out of here.” Puck crisscrossed the cords in neat X’s, drawing them tight around Kurt’s slender ankle. “What about you? You dropped off the face of the earth when I was twenty or twenty-one. I figured that you were off starting your own clothing line in New York or something big like that.”
Kurt sighed. “And why would you think I ever had that potential?”
“I don’t know, you were always-kind of a golden child. One of Schue’s kids.”
“We were all Mr. Schuester’s kids,” said Kurt. “I guess some of us just never grow out of being losers.”
He had meant that in terms of himself, but it struck Puck way too close to home. Lima loser. Quinn had called him that once, and even though she retracted the insult every Tuesday, nothing had ever mended the wound-she’d still married Finn, after all, and Puck was still hiring whores to keep him company after his Saturday shifts. He finished tying up Kurt’s boot with one rough tug. “There you go, princess. Now you can flee.”
But Kurt didn’t flee. He lowered his leg, ran his talented tongue nervously across his bottom lip, and met Puck’s gaze with the most dismal expression Puck had ever seen. “I’m really sorry this happened,” he said. “I mean, I shouldn’t have freaked out like that. If you still want me to get you off, I will. No charge.”
Oh, god. Kurt Hummel giving complimentary blowjobs in the living room, Kurt Hummel on his jazz hands and knees.
“Pass,” said Puck.
“Sure,” said Kurt, his voice frosty. “Fine.”
“No, no, it’s not like that,” Puck said in a rush, catching his arm. “I mean…” he indicated Kurt’s body in a wide gesture. “I just don’t want to make this any worse than it already is. Look at you. I’d totally hit that if I didn’t feel like I should be buying you dinner first.”
Kurt swelled up with irritation again. “So, what, are you saying I’m too skinny?”
“I’m saying that you’re too good for me to want to remember you as a quickie in my living room. That’s all.”
He didn’t realize the weight of his own words until Kurt looked up at him, his eyes softening. They stood there for a few long moments. Then Kurt bridged the distance between them in two sinuous steps and kissed him gently on the mouth, his only other contact a quick whisper of fingertips against Puck’s jaw.
“You are handsome, you know,” said Kurt, his voice quiet. “And you’ve changed.”
Puck licked his lips. “So have you.” Kurt was tentative when he kissed closed-mouthed, as if he’d never had a chance to attempt the act with any reverence. “What happened to you?” He didn’t even want to let go of Kurt’s sleeve.
But Kurt extricated himself with one practiced motion and smiled, that scar gleaming by his mouth, the smell of too many men clinging to his coat as he backed away. “Bye, Puck,” he said, and closed the door behind him. Disappearing from Puck’s life again. The only difference was that this time he was leaving a compliment and the memory of his hands, his pale save-me eyes so blue in the darkness of Puck’s apartment. Puck went to his bedroom window to watch him walk away.
On the sidewalk, Kurt moved deliberately outside the range of the streetlamps. He was only half a block away before he disappeared into the shadows.
*
Journey. The keyboard riff always kicks it off-white and purple spotlights burning holes in the dark, the jazz band glittering at the edge of the stage like a stubborn star system. Five singers from right to left: Artie, Finn, Rachel Berry, Tina Cohen-Chang, Mercedes Jones. For a smile they can share the night, it goes on and on and on and on. Rachel and Finn twirl arm-in-arm, their voices bright as visions in all that unfilled air.
He hears a clatter and Kurt Hummel brushes by him on the way to the door, little more than a dark coat and a glimmer of scar tissue. He calls out, but Kurt doesn’t turn. Kurt walks in one straight unrepentant line, boots heavy in the aisle, his shoulders silhouetted acid green against the exit sign.
Kurt’s spotlight sputters out on the stage, and Rachel Berry swallows his vacant space in a single sidestep, all sun and stars and hold on to that feeling.
*
Puck thrashed awake in a cold sweat. Kurt’s name was still shivering on his lips.
*
He couldn’t fall back asleep, so he made a pot of coffee instead and rehearsed elaborate insults in his head all morning. By the time she finally picked up her phone at noon, his fury had swept his mind clean of all but the most fundamental of affronts: “You unbelievable bitch.”
“Get a new line,” Santana replied, and damn it, she sounded bored. “Kurt stormed into my apartment last night and gave me the lowdown. Third base, huh? I’m more afraid of him than I am of you, by the way, so if you’re only trying to intimidate me, you might as well hang up now and save yourself the air. You’ll probably need it to blow up your next date, anyway.”
“Why are you so fucking hostile to me?” Puck demanded. “What have I ever done to you?”
Santana laughed. “You must be kidding. What haven’t you done to me? For starters, you took my v-card when I was fifteen.”
What the hell, seriously? “That was twelve years ago, and you wanted it too!”
“I wanted financial stability!” Santana yelled back. “I wanted commitment! I wanted someone who was going to care about what happened to me, and I wanted a job where I didn’t have to live off of whatever tips get shoved in my cleavage! Do you have any idea what that feels like, Puck? Do you have any idea how it feels to be me or Kurt?”
In all of her bitterness, she had never lost control like this before, had never even raised her voice to him since high school. At a complete loss for words, Puck held the receiver to his ear as she raged on.
“Your hand was between his legs before you even thought to look at him! Think about that! I mean, Jesus, that’s the kind of practice you have-fucking anything that moves, sleeping with people without ever actually seeing them-Kurt was a casualty, and I’m sorry for that, but I’m not sorry for what I hope this teaches you. Count your blessings, Noah. You have a loving daughter and a best friend and you’re allowed to wear clothes to work. I don’t have any of those luxuries.”
“Up until last night, I thought you knew you had me,” said Puck. “What the fuck changed?”
“It took me years, but I finally realized that I only ever had the principle of you, if that,” said Santana. Was she actually crying? “We aren’t who we used to be, any of us, and I’m done living with my delusions. Fuck you. Fuck you and everything you stand for in my life.”
Puck slammed his hand on his countertop. “That’s not fair!”
“I stopped caring about ‘fair’ the day my man decided to start boning boys,” said Santana, and slammed the phone down so hard that Puck had to yank the receiver away from his ear. When he lifted it back in place, he was met with the shrill chirping of a dead line.
And the day had been starting off so well, too. Puck let out a frustrated growl, heaved the phone back in its cradle, and went to take a nap.
*
Finn Hudson was a good man. There was no way around it. Sure, he had married the woman of Puck’s dreams and raised the child of Puck’s loins, but he was an endless spring of forgiveness, and he brought Puck a salami-and-pepperoni footlong every Sunday afternoon after his shift. Puck was dozing on his couch with his arms crossed over his face when Finn let himself in and tossed the sandwich on his exposed abdomen, making the sofa rock as he sat down. He was already halfway finished with his own BLT.
“Dude, I was thinking last night,” he said, through a mouthful of bread.
“So that’s what that burning smell was,” said Puck. He rubbed his eyes and sat up, unwrapping his sub. “Olives?”
“They’re in there somewhere. Beer?”
“In the fridge.”
“You look like crap.”
“Well, get the fucking beer and I’ll start looking better to you, I promise.”
Finn went to the kitchen and retrieved two six-packs. When they were both on their second cans, he cleared his throat, gave Puck a lettuce-filled grin, and laid it out with all the proper theatrical gestures and inflections: “Glee club ten-year reunion, baby.”
Especially given the last twenty-four hours, there were so many things wrong with this proposal that Puck didn’t even know where to start. He began by choking on a pepperoni.
“It’s genius,” Finn explained, after Puck had stopped wheezing. “See, we didn’t all graduate at the same time, so we’d never be able to catch each other for an official school reunion. And who wants to wear those stupid nametags in the gym and drink non-alcoholic punch, anyway? I’m thinking, like…karaoke bar. I’m thinking barbecue in my backyard and super raunchy parlor games. Hey, have they installed a mechanical bull at the club yet?”
“No, thank the sweet Lord in heaven and His abstemious chorus of angels,” said Puck.
“Do you know how we’d go about renting one?” Finn asked.
“Uh,” said Puck. He inched his beer back onto the coffee table, already trying to find a delicate way to decimate the plan. “Listen, it’s…not a terrible idea, man. It’s just really fucking sudden. When did you come up with this?”
“Well, Mike called on Thursday to tell me he’s going to be in town in a few weeks for spring break, and I said we should do something together. It kind of snowballed from there. I already talked to Matt and Mercedes; they’re game. So’s Tina. I’m going to ask Artie about it tomorrow, but I’m sure he’ll be okay with it…sans the mechanical bull, I mean. I just need to get in touch with Rachel and a few others now. You can tell Santana for me, right? And you can ask her to ask Kurt?”
“Santana and I aren’t exactly talking right now,” Puck muttered, then processed the rest of that sentence. “Wait. You knew she was friends with Kurt?”
Finn gave him a wide-eyed you’re-sort-of-a-moron look. Pot, kettle. “Sure. You didn’t?”
“Not until recently.” As in, twelve hours ago.
“That’s okay,” said Finn. “It’s not like you two ever had much in common. Kurt’s so ambitious and profound and stuff.”
Yeah. Ambitious and profound in bed. Puck didn’t have the heart to get mad at Finn, because the guy meant well and had always been sort of oblivious to connotations, but Puck was tired of feeling like the world’s biggest heel. He just tried not to dwell on the fact that he was redeeming himself by saying he was on good terms with a hooker: “You’re still going to have to call Santana yourself, because I’m through dealing with that bitch, but I can talk to Kurt if you want. I’ve got his number.”
Finn eyed him suspiciously. “You guys are friends?”
“We are…intimately acquainted.”
“But you didn’t even know he knew Santana.”
Puck was talking shamelessly out of his ass now. “Dude, there’s something powerful about non-verbal communication, okay? Give us some credit. It is possible for people to be friends on a different, more intellectual basis.”
Finn pondered over that for a long time. “I guess you’re right,” he said finally, sounding enlightened. “I have that kind of relationship with Brittany, even though we don’t talk all that often.”
Puck picked at his sandwich and said nothing.
“Anyway,” said Finn, sighing and climbing to his feet, “thanks for getting in touch with Kurt for me. I’ll hit Santana up on Tuesday. And thanks for hearing me out, too-I know that this reunion thing probably sounds like pure torture to you.”
“I’d rather be having my permanent teeth pulled out without an anesthetic,” Puck agreed.
That must’ve come out sounding a little too dramatic-Puck would prefer the anesthetic, actually-because Finn stopped at the door and stared at him. “Listen, man,” he said. “Success is totally subjective. Look at me. I walk around like I’m some crime-busting badass, but when you get down to it, I’m only working a desk job. You work all night protecting girls from creeps and drunks and every other brand of Lima freak. If I were you, I’d totally pick up a cape and some of those brass knuckle things and really go to town. You could be, like…the Puckinator. Go around flinging Star of David shurikens and saying things like, ‘Are Jew messing with me?’”
Puck put his beer down. “I’m sorry, what are we talking about here?’’
“I’m saying, don’t be embarrassed about who you are,” said Finn, reaching over the back of the couch to thump him on the shoulder. “I don’t want this reunion to be about who has bragging rights and who doesn’t, but even if that happens, you’ll have plenty to say. You’re a solid dude and I’m proud of you. Even if you’ve always been too stupid to know it.”
“Believe it or not, I’m not totally ashamed of myself,” said Puck, but it came out too tired-sounding to have any real conviction. How was it that Finn always knew exactly how he felt? Puck stood up and gave him an awkward hug/fist pound, wondering why he was lucky enough to have a best friend who reaffirmed their bond a hundred times a day. “Thanks, man. Really.”
“Call Kurt,” Finn reminded, backing out the apartment. “Reunion: two weeks from now.”
“Got it.”
“Later, Puckinator,” said Finn, and closed the door.
After his footsteps had retreated down the hall, Puck took a deep breath and went to the kitchen trash to fish out Santana’s cocktail napkin. You’ll want to put a ring on it, she’d written. Cute, in retrospect-he should’ve known right then that something was up. Puck picked up his phone, typed in Kurt’s number, and hesitated with his thumb over the send key. He wasn’t sure if he was ready to start talking to Kurt again. He didn’t even know how he was ever going to look at him without blushing.
But he did owe him an apology, as Santana had so obliquely pointed out.
And he sure had gotten…hot.
“Wait, I got another one!” Finn declared suddenly, bursting back into the apartment and striking a ridiculous ninja pose. “‘Jew wanna piece of me?’”
Puck banged his head soundly on the pantry door. “Ow, fuck! Go home, Finn!”
Finn laughed and swung the door shut again.
This time Puck waited for Finn to actually drive out of the parking lot. There was a hum of an engine, a Led Zeppelin track started up at a deafening volume, and the tires screeched a couple of times as Finn did his normal uneasy stop-and-go-and-check-for-mailmen thing before pulling out onto the street. Only when the last strains of “Dazed and Confused” had faded into the distance did Puck steel himself and place the call. He paced the kitchen as the phone rang. This was so…high school. As was ridiculously fitting.
Seven rings. Then a low shuffle and a husky, “Hello?” that made his pulse jump.
“Hey, Kurt, it’s me,” said Puck, trying to sound nonchalant. He took a deep breath and held it. “Don’t freak out, but-how about dinner?”
*
It was the sole restaurant in the area that had window treatments and a dress code which required shoes and shirts. Those were the only things it had going in the way of fine dining, really. Puck speared a chunk of baguette and dipped it into ceramic pot in the center of their table, waiting for it to stop steaming before bringing it to his lips. He’d already burned himself twice. What he could still feel of his tongue felt like a shag carpet.
“I don’t think I like fondue,” he said, after he had finished his bite.
Kurt gave his fork a delicate twirl, lifted the cheese-coated square of bread into his mouth, and chewed. “Yeah,” he said, after a moment of contemplation. “I like Gruyère as much as the next guy, but this is definitely more like…fon-don’t.”
Puck couldn’t repress a chuckle. He’d vowed before their meeting to keep the emoting to a minimum-had to play it cool, after all-but Kurt was charming when he was off the job, quick and collected and not unaware of how good his lips looked around a fondue fork. Much closer to the ten-years-ago Kurt, really. He was wearing a white cable-knit sweater and a blue scarf that darkened his eyes, dress slacks that hugged a tempting curve of thigh every time he crossed his legs. Puck felt outclassed in his un-ironed trousers. The only tie he owned was lime green paisley, so he’d forgone it completely, figuring that Kurt would probably be more offended by its presence than its absence. Judging by the horrified way Kurt kept picking at their toile tablecloth, that had probably been a good call.
“So, what’s the occasion?” Kurt asked. He sucked a drop of cheese off his finger, making Puck squirm a little in his seat. “Are we celebrating last night’s incredibly uncomfortable almost-sex?”
“No,” said Puck blandly, after trying and failing to come up with a snide comeback. “I’m glad you’re already ready to joke about that.”
“There was a time in my life when heavy-petting with my high school nemesis would’ve traumatized me. Now I just try to remember that there were seven very fortunate things about that evening, and one is that at least we buried the hatchet before you saw me naked.”
That was true enough-by the time they were both twenty, they could totally sit in the same room without wanting to cause bodily harm to each other. “What are the other six?"
Kurt picked up his fork again, dipped it one final time, and gave it a good, slow lick. “Your abs.”
Puck felt a rush of heat in his face and had to put his wine glass to his lips to hide his flush. “Actually, I did ask you here for a couple of reasons,” he said, after stalling with a long swallow. “First, Santana bitched me out when I called her this afternoon, and even if she did a shit thing to us, she made some good points. I need to apologize. It shouldn’t have gone as far as it did without me even noticing who you were.”
“Puck, get real,” said Kurt, shaking his head. “We weren’t looking to catch up on old times. I was there on business, and you were just trying to enjoy yourself.”
“Still-”
“Still nothing. I threw myself at you on purpose. It’s what I do sometimes so I don’t have to get too personal with my customers. You know…as a defense mechanism.”
It was the first time that night that Kurt had expressed any dissatisfaction toward his line of work. He seemed to realize the disclosure a moment too late, because some of the cheer went out of his eyes as he reached for his glass and sipped slowly. The scar by his mouth looked like an exclamation mark in the dim lighting. Puck stared at the fondue pot in the center of the table, suddenly conscious of the six unknown years between them.
“So…how’d you get back in touch with Santana?”
The waitress had returned to clear their plates. Kurt waited until she was walking back to the kitchen before answering. “Lima’s got a very intimate sex industry, wouldn’t you know it? She heard my name in the champagne room a month ago and gave me a ring. We’ve been sending each other business ever since. Santana is one fierce lady.”
“You’re half right,” said Puck, refilling their wine glasses.
“Are you still mad at her?”
“Hell yes, I am. Come on. After thirteen years of friendship, she’s suddenly decided to hate me on ‘principle.’”
“Meaning, she’s suddenly decided to hate herself on principle,” said Kurt. “We’ve only been talking for five weeks, and I can tell that this self-loathing business has been in the works for years. Just let her think she had her coup de grâce so she can get over it. No one got hurt.”
Puck shook his head. “We could’ve been.”
“Yeah, too bad you turned out to be such a nice guy,” said Kurt, and cupped one hand briefly to Puck’s cheek. The touch set a little flutter of nerves alight in Puck’s stomach. "Will you try to forgive her?”
“No promises,” said Puck. It wasn’t that simple. She was one of the few friends that he had left, and she’d stabbed him in the back to prove some misguided point. Thank god that Finn was still around to hold him together by way of salami sandwiches. Which reminded him. “I just hope you’ll react this well to my second order of business.”
“Try me.”
“Finn’s trying to get all of us together for a reunion in two weeks.”
Kurt paused with his napkin halfway to his mouth. “By ‘all of us,’ you mean…?”
“New Directions. The original dirty dozen.”
“Ah,” said Kurt. He sat back and gave the waitress a beatific smile as she leaned over to serve dessert, a caquelon of chocolate on a tray of strawberries. He said nothing about the hideous tablecloth. Puck took that as a bad sign. Sure enough, the second the waitress stepped away to tend to another party, Kurt downed the rest of his drink in one gulp and said, “That’s a fantastic idea, but why doesn’t Finn want to trigger my telekinetic paroxysm the old-fashioned way and drench me with pig blood?”
“He probably doesn’t have enough for both of us,” said Puck.
“You don’t want to go, either?”
“God, no. Too many successful people have already RSVPed. Tina, Mike, Matt, Mercedes…hey, who do you still keep in contact with these days?”
“Well, Artie, of course,” said Kurt. “I call Mercedes a couple times a month, and Tina and I send each other Christmas cards.” He hesitated. “They think I’m an accountant. One of the many thousands of reasons I would prefer not to see them in fourteen days. What kind of baggage do you have, anyway? Santana says you’re her bodyguard. That doesn’t sound disgraceful at all.”
Puck fought to find the right words. “It’s not about what I am, exactly. It’s about all the things I’m not. Married. Financially secure. Happy.” He traced a finger along the rim of his glass, making it hum. “Mostly happy.”
“I’ve sung that song before,” said Kurt.
“You understand me,” Puck replied, and was startled to realize that he meant it. People had been feeding him platitudes all his life, things like reach for the stars and anything can happen, their intentions good but barren. But here was Kurt Hummel, the only one of Schuester’s six who was still sharing midnight with Puck and Santana, and his fall from grace had begun from a much higher place. He never thought he would have anything in common with the kid whose hundred-dollar clothes he used to hide during showers after football practice. “Kurt…you were such a force of nature. I mean, if I couldn’t knock you off your pedestal, I figured nothing could. What happened to you?”
Kurt arranged the strawberries into neat rows on the tray, his face unreadable. For a moment, Puck was afraid they were going to have a repeat of the previous night-Kurt would storm out of his life, and this time, there would be no reconciliatory dinner date. Then Kurt sighed and flicked his napkin aside.
“This isn’t La bohème, Puck,” he said. “I’m not dying. It’s not that dramatic. I don’t have any excuses or explanations for where I am now; I’m just here, sitting at this table, and I would really, really prefer not to be having this conversation with you.”
“Why not?”
“Why do you care?” Kurt demanded, pushing away from the table in a clatter of silverware. “You want to hear all the nasty details, is that it?”
“Shit, no, stay,” said Puck, grabbing his wrist. “I’ll lay off. Sorry. It’s just, if you didn’t make it out of here, what does that say about someone like me? Does anyone here really have a chance?”
Kurt lowered himself back in his chair. “Well, of course they do,” he said haltingly. “We all do.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Rachel Berry’s on Broadway,” said Kurt, his voice a perfect blend of revulsion and admiration. “Don’t get me wrong, the girl’s talented as hell, but it takes a special kind of world to accommodate someone so strident and socially impaired. She found her niche in some distant, hopefully soundproofed corner of the universe. There must be a place for me and you.”
“Me and you?” Puck repeated. He felt something bloom inside him, something like hope, and tried to quash it. Of course that wasn’t what Kurt had meant.
Kurt plucked a strawberry from the tray and steeped it in chocolate, holding the dripping fruit to Puck’s mouth. “Anything can happen,” he said, laughing when Puck’s lips closed around his fingers. He let his hand linger there for a moment, and when Puck moved to take it in his own, he smiled. He was radiant in the candlelight. “That’s the one thing I still know, Puck. Anything can happen.”
And for the first time in his life, Puck began to believe it.
*
Part two.
Author: jockchic
Characters/Pairings: Main Puck/Kurt and Finn/Quinn, but everyone gets some screen time.
Rating/warnings: NC-17 overall, but this part’s more like a hard R. Future fic, language, hooker!Kurt, the Ten Year Gleeunion trope, and drinking. Like, beer should be a character in this story.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: A decade after joining New Directions, Puck gets slapped in the face by his past. Literally.
AN: This was supposed to be my entry for the Diva-Off, but I couldn’t finish editing it in time. Here’s the first third quarter because I wanted to prove that I tried! It seems Journey-heavy, but “True Colors” was the theme. Sorry about all the clichés.
*
Noah Puckerman dreamed in black-and-white gunfights, touchdowns during overtime, children with his eyes, and classic Corvettes. Only two things ever made it into color: Quinn Fabray’s lips paused around an “I love you,” and Will Schuester’s original six solitaries, breathing life into an empty auditorium.
Ten years had passed since Puck stood four steps from the exit sign, watching them set fire to the stage. The glory of Journey-give some kids a power ballad and a guitar solo like frayed nerve endings, and anything would feel miraculous. Their choreography was loose and unpolished. One of the trumpet players was sharp. But never in his abbreviated musical career did Puck ever again know the weight of sheer possibility, even when the first twelve of them could bring a whole stadium audience to their knees. All Puck needed was six voices and that killer keyboard riff. Finn Hudson and Rachel Berry had split the world that day, and his entire life lay before him, summarized and clear and conquerable. Pure rock. “Don’t Stop Believin’.”
But Puck did stop. He turned around and walked out of the auditorium, straight into another stark sunset of Nowhere, Ohio. He headed for the street and let those legendary sounds die somewhere behind him.
He was older and no wiser now, twenty-seven full years of nothing. Berry’s name was showing up in the Broadway reviews, and Tina What’s-Her-Face came over Puck’s radio every morning to host Seven O’Clock Bach on Classical Midwestern. Aretha was singing for weddings in Manhattan. Hummel had been out of touch for a good six years, which Puck could only presume meant that he’d escaped. In Lima, four survivors with success stories was a new record: Schuester had done right by them. They hadn’t all made it, but most of them had never expected to, anyway.
Noah Puckerman slept alone in his single-bedroom apartment every night and had gray dreams about the things he wanted. Dinner dates and driveways. Softail Harleys with flames on the fender tips. Puck was more than willing to face a monochromatic future, because it meant that he could hoard his true colors for his past.
Puck remembered how it felt to have aspirations. Every night, Puck dreamed blues, greens, and reds about being someone who was worth knowing.
*
The creepy bastard with the receding hairline had been leering at Puck for the last fifteen minutes, his eyes sleazy and seductive above a glass of Guinness that hadn’t left his lips once since he sat down. The guy wasn’t hideous-looking-decent teeth and a collared dress shirt, black slacks that didn’t look like they’d been plucked from a discount rack. He also resembled Ted Levine from the Silence of the Lambs. Pathetic as it was, Puck was just bored and horny enough to be okay with that.
“Hey there, Road Warrior.” Santana Lopez hoisted herself onto the counter beside him, all fishnets and pheromones from working the floor. It only took her half a second to evaluate his situation: “Oh-hell no. Please tell me you’re not thinking about hitting the sheets with Jame Gumb.”
So she noticed it, too. Puck shrugged. “You should be shaking my hand for getting gay play in a strip joint.”
“Not impressed,” said Santana, fixing her hair in the reflection of his sunglasses. “It’s all tits and giggles now, but we’re already on the swift decline to a point of undiscriminating sexual bedlam. Remember when this place used to be a restaurant?”
She had a point. Back in the day, the club was a modest pub and grill with a workforce comprised almost entirely of McKinley High graduates. Finn had bused tables for a few semesters, and Mike Chang flipped burgers every summer until he moved to Denver. Even Artie Abrams did a brief stint on dish duty. On those rare nights when their shifts overlapped, the five of them would stay hours after closing and sip straight from the soda fountains, choreographing cheesy stool numbers and racing each other across the freshly-buffed tile. They sang into their mops. They raided the tip jar for quarters to run Journey on the jukebox. Miles beyond their social borders, they had finally achieved some solidarity: those evenings were few and far between, but they were the best hours of their lives. Even now, Puck doubted that any of them would argue.
Then the management had changed. Pizza profits paid for a new cherry finish bar, and the “budget cuts” that took three inches from Santana’s uniform neckline were apparently going towards a show pole. Mike left the state with his girlfriend; Artie quit the day they installed a champagne room. By the time the place had become the leading love nest for Lima dirtbags, only Puck and Santana were left holding the fort. And they were still holding it today, four-dollar drink specials and all.
Seven fantastic years later.
Sometime around her twenty-fifth birthday, Santana had turned into a bitch. Not that she hadn’t been a bitch before, and not that she didn’t have plenty of reasons to be perpetually pissed off, but this latest form of cynicism was caustic enough to eat holes in Puck from clear across the room. That was why he didn’t immediately take the cocktail napkin she held out to him after a moment of writing, bearing her jagged cursive in green eyeliner pencil.
“What’s this?” Puck asked.
“The number of a gentleman friend of mine,” said Santana. “If you insist on having a homosexual encounter tonight, you should at least do it with someone who doesn’t look like he’s going to starve you in a pit in his basement.”
“You actually know people who aren’t interested in seeing you topless?”
She gave her mascaraed lashes an irritated flicker. “We share a business, that’s all. He and I collaborate every once in a while to accommodate our very confused clientele. Puck.”
Puck ignored her pointed addendum and examined the napkin, dubious. You’ll want to put a ring on it, Santana had written, followed by a phone number with a local area code. How did this even work? Was he supposed to go over to this guy’s house or meet him somewhere or what? Rentboy etiquette wasn’t his forte, and after living in Lima for his whole life, he wasn’t entirely convinced that anyone within a twenty-mile radius was actually worth paying for.
“I don’t suppose you brought a picture with you,” he said.
“He’s a scrumptious brunette who showers regularly,” said Santana. “Rumor has it he does especially inventive things with his tongue. Like this, see?”
He tried not to look at what she was doing to that poor martini toothpick. “And he’s…you know. Discreet?”
“He’s a whore, Puck. He’ll be whatever you want him to be.”
Puck dampened his lips, thinking. A change of pace might be exciting, but there was a premonitory sliver of suspicion in his stomach-it had been a long time since Santana had done him a sexual favor, even indirectly. Then again, it could also be indigestion. Buffalo Bill was sending him shot after shot of Jameson, and Puck had never been too good at holding his Irish whiskies.
“Ted Levine doesn’t look that bad,” he said. “It might be fun.”
Santana pulled a disgusted face. “If by that you mean ‘it puts the lotion on its skin.’”
“I just don’t think this is a good idea,” Puck admitted, returning the cocktail napkin.
She shrugged off her cover-up, a flimsy black shawl with sequins sewn to the hems, and slid the napkin back across the counter with one manicured finger. “You’re the muscle here, sweetheart, not the brains. Leave the thinking to someone else.”
Comments like that made him wonder why he’d ever signed on to protect the bitch in the first place. It was all he could do not to heave his glass of Jameson at her retreating back. Instead, he picked up the napkin again and examined at it as Santana resumed swaying in sensual circles around her show pole, hips already pulsing to the techno. A gentleman friend, the Scrumptious Brunette Who Showered Regularly. Santana hadn't even offered a name. Puck closed his eyes and tried to imagine the practiced hands of a streetwalker, some stranger who could dominate his night and disappear in the morning like a bad dream. It sounded good right now. The club was too loud, and Puck was too hard up.
The serial killer creep was grinning at Puck from between Santana’s spread legs. Puck gave him a thin smile and toasted him from across the room, downing his last shot. With his other hand, he tucked the cocktail napkin into his back pocket.
*
He dialed the number the instant he stepped out of the shower, tracking water across the tile. The silence of his kitchenette was unsettling after five hours of the club’s noise, so he tapped his fingers on the countertop and fiddled with the towel he’d slung over his bare shoulders. Someone picked up after five rings and did not speak. Puck could hear the faint sounds of his breathing, measured, elegant.
“Hi,” said Puck at last. “Uh…my friend gave me this number.”
“Well, that could be a very good thing or a very bad thing.” The young man’s voice was high and cadenced, like a song. “I presume your friend has a name?”
What the hell was Santana going by these days? She’d been an uninventive ‘Angel’ when she first started out, but now she was bouncing back and forth between ‘Ambrosia’ and ‘Fuego.’ Puck didn’t know which one to choose. They were, after all, equally skanky. “I’m not sure what she calls herself now, but I’ve always known her as ‘Lopez.’”
A pause. “Santana Lopez?”
“Only if it’s a good thing,” said Puck.
There was another long lull in conversation. Puck was dripping onto his carpet now; he used his towel to soak up the water that had puddled around his feet. He was just straightening again when the callboy pulled together a reply, his tone huskier this time, rich with flirtation: “Looks like we have something to discuss after all. Santana and I go way back, so I’d be glad to meet you somewhere tonight, but I’m usually not available for one-night stands. I prefer sponsors to sexcapades because I have very expensive tastes. I hope you never expect to see me again.”
This was exciting, but awkward. Puck drew swirls on the counter with his fingertip. “Frankly, I’d prefer it that way.”
The callboy chuckled. “You say that now, but you haven’t seen the things I can do with my hands. Do you have a bed at your place?”
“Yeah, but it’s a single.”
“I’m sure I’ll fit fine underneath you. Or above you. Anywhere, really; I’m flexible.”
Puck wondered if this guy ever just sat down somewhere to script all of these double entendres. Improvised or not, they sure were working-Puck felt a little shiver of arousal and had to concentrate hard to recite his street and apartment number. The callboy read the address back to him, somehow managing to make it sound provocative. Santana was right; he had this way of using his tongue, shaping the words like dirty poetry. Puck could listen to him talk all night. Not that he expected they’d be doing much of that together.
“So what am I supposed to call you?” Puck asked, after he’d regained his ability to speak. “Please don’t make me yell ‘John Doe’ in the throes of ecstasy. It’s kind of a turnoff.”
That laugh again, bright and cloudless. “I don’t know if it’s a marked improvement, but I feel like a Sally Bowles tonight. How about you?”
He only caught the reference because Mr. Schuester once forced them to attend a spring production of Cabaret at the community center. Puck had spent the whole evening ignoring Finn’s sniffles and squirming in his seat, too aware of Quinn sitting beside him in her final month of pregnancy .
“I guess that makes me Maximilian von Heune,” said Puck, relenting. He would match this guy musical for musical, if it meant getting into his pants.
“Mmm, this would be sexy if it weren’t so doomed,” the callboy purred. “Sieg Heil, Max. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
The line went dead in Puck’s hand. Puck listened to the static for a few seconds before replacing the receiver, feeling a pleasurable tightness in the front of his jeans. He had the Telephone Song stuck in his head now, damn it. Hopefully Sally Bowles would be good enough to rinse him of coherent thought. After the gratuitous Cabaret references, it was only polite.
*
There was a knock on the door exactly half an hour later, as measured by the digital readout on Puck’s microwave. Puck steadied his breathing and lowered one eye to the peephole, trying to keep his socked feet silent on the floorboards.
The hallway lights were dim and the young man outside had his head down. His boots shimmered in the darkness. Puck’s knowledge of fashion labels was limited to Michael Kors sportswear and the guy who made the underwear ads, but the callboy’s coat must’ve been at least three hundred dollars of Italian wool, perfectly tailored to the slim lines of his waist. He hadn’t been kidding when he said that he had expensive tastes. Puck swallowed. Whatever Santana had gotten him into, it was about a thousand steps above his normal drunken conquests. He didn’t know whether he was supposed to feel aroused or inadequate.
“C’mon, von Heune, make my night,” said Sally Bowles, leaning toward the peephole. “You’re not paying me to keep your doormat warm.”
Okay, aroused. Puck waited for a beat longer, marveling at that one visible eye shining pale blue under a pretty fringe of eyelashes. Then he sucked in a lungful of air, braced himself, and undid the deadbolt.
As soon as the door was open, Puck was assaulted by soft lips and the clean scent of cologne. He staggered against the couch. A skillful tongue had already set to work between his teeth with practiced fervency, and the callboy was wearing only garters beneath his coat-his parted neckline revealed nothing but sloped collarbones, a curve of throat, smooth white skin. Puck ran a hand across that pliant plane of flesh and kissed back hard, half reflex, half hunger. The callboy was already lowering Puck’s zipper. He coaxed Puck to arousal in long, steady strokes, making him shudder.
“This is going to end way too fast if you keep that up,” Puck warned.
“Good thing I switched from hourly rates to flat fees,” the callboy replied, but he slowed down anyway, laying feathery kisses against the sensitive area below Puck’s jaw line. “Mm, did you actually put on aftershave? I’m flattered. Most guys don’t even bother to take off their shoes anymore.”
Puck thought about dropping the old I’m not most guys standby, but, in truth, he was most guys, and the wool was making his arms itch. Puck pushed the coat off the callboy’s shoulders so he could explore the dips and crests of his vertebrae, making him arch against Puck’s chest. His fingers tightened in Puck’s hair. He gave Puck’s neck a gentle nip, breath hot beside his ear.
“You’re very handsome.”
The compliment startled Puck. It seemed pretty tame to come from a hooker’s repertoire of lines, but then again, this boy clearly knew his business. “Uh, thanks. That didn’t cost me an extra twenty, did it?”
“That one was on the house.” The callboy crawled away so he could remove his boots. “I think I owe Santana Lopez a thank-you card or something,” he said, his bangs slipping into his face as he stooped to undo the laces. “All the other women at her club send me fifty-year-old junkies who don’t believe in haircuts. Then again, she and I have known each other for a long time. She’s probably one of my oldest friends.”
“Yeah, I’ve got history with her, too,” said Puck, squirming out of his jeans. “Maybe too much.”
“Oh?”
“I think she hates me.”
“She hates everyone,” said the callboy, by way of consolation. He finished liberating himself from his boots and swung his legs around, getting himself comfortable on his back and straddling Puck’s shoulders with graceful efficiency. “Is here okay with you? Love-gloves and lube in my coat. Peach, mint, watermelon…”
“Cherry,” said Puck, fishing a condom and a small red tube out of the left pocket. He put the coat on the coffee table so it wouldn’t get rumpled. “Santana may be the world’s biggest bitch, but she did me a favor tonight, too. I thought she was setting me up somehow.”
“She still could be, you know. Wait until you see your bill.”
Puck just grunted and scooted into position on top of him, stroking the hair out of his face as he leaned over to bring their lips together again. “You’re worth it.”
They kissed like that for a long time, eyes closed, leisurely exploring each other’s mouths. Puck reached between them and stroked the silky skin of his inner thighs. The callboy responded with a sigh that sounded wholly authentic, tightening his smooth knees around Puck’s torso. It had been several years since Puck had felt so attuned to a sexual partner, and never during a first encounter-it would be too ungracious to equate all of the young man’s competence to his harlotry, because sweet talk was an acquired skill, but no amount of practice could’ve trained his body to fit against Puck’s with such perfect ease. It was like they were built for each other.
The callboy even seemed to read his thoughts. “I might just get an orgasm out of this,” he commented, rapping on the coffee table with one fist.
“Hope so,” Puck muttered into his neck, between kisses. “This is good. If I’d known about you ten years ago, I might not have been desperate and stupid enough to knock up my best friend’s girlfriend.”
“Sorry to shrink your boner, but ten years ago, I would’ve been too busy to give you the time of day.”
“Busy with what? Show poles?”
“Try show choir. I was in a glee club. McKinley High.”
And that’s when Puck finally yanked back to give him a thorough look, nearly slipping off the cushions in the process.
Blue eyes, right; he had noted that at the door. Good lips, skilled tongue, to which Puck was intimately acquainted with now. But he hadn’t seen the sloped cheeks with their delicate indomitable blush. He hadn’t noticed the faintest constellation of freckles dotting his nose, which was smooth and symmetrical and ever-so-slightly upturned. Eyebrows with a familiar condescending arch. Chin that was always a few degrees higher than level. He looked older and wearier now, and the scar near his mouth was definitely new, but there was no mistake about it even after six years of separation.
The same horror was dawning in Sally Bowles’ eyes, too.
“Puck?” he demanded.
“Kurt Hummel,” Puck hailed back, barely able to get the words out. He prayed he didn’t look as ill as he felt. “I, uh-I didn’t know that you were back in town.”
Silence reigned for five full seconds.
Then Kurt slapped Puck hard in the jaw, and Puck remembered belatedly that he’d still had his hand between Kurt’s spread legs. He tumbled backwards off the couch. Kurt was up and covered before he even hit the ground, clutching his wool coat frantically to his chest.
“Stay right there!” Kurt yelled, pointed a shaking finger in his face. He was wobbling and standing splay-legged, which sort of diminished the menace of his stance. “Stay right there and don’t you dare open your eyes until I’m dressed!”
“It’s nothing I haven’t seen already,” Puck pointed out.
Kurt seized a throw pillow and began pummeling him with it, driving him back down to the carpet. “Close your eyes!”
“Jesus fuck! Okay, I’m looking down!”
“Shit,” said Kurt, panting. He collapsed onto the couch again. With his head lowered, Puck could just make out Kurt’s shaky hands as he began to re-lace his boots, continually missing the hooks in his effort to complete the task as fast as possible. His coat had crept up to reveal one of his black lace garters. He yanked the bottom hem down over his knees when he realized where Puck was looking. “Stop it!”
“Sorry!” He meant it, too. This whole thing was weirder than hell, but apparently it took more than a Givenchy-clad blast from the past to turn him off. Puck squeezed his legs together, trying to will away his erection. For Christ’s sake, this was Kurt Hummel.
Who, admittedly, had been hiding a smokin’ body under those scarves and sweater sets during their high school years.
“You sound different on the phone, and you look different without clothes,” said Puck, trying to make conversation.
Kurt’s hand found Puck’s left sneaker. He heaved it at him, narrowly missing his head. “Get out!”
“But-”
Now the right one whizzed by his ear. Guy had decent aim. “So help me god, Puck, I will kill you until you are dead! And then I will murder you!”
Puck stood up and left, slamming the door on his way out. He hadn’t managed to grab his pants, and a draft ran down the stairs from the upstairs window, making him shiver in his flimsy boxers. He stood in the dark hallway with his hands cupped over his crotch for a long time before Kurt cracked the door open again, blushing.
“This is your apartment,” Kurt said.
“If it’s not, then I’ve been paying the wrong bills,” said Puck.
Kurt shifted, awkward. “I guess I’d better invite you back in, then?”
“Would be nice of you.”
And was there actually a tiny, sheepish smile on Kurt’s face as he stood back to hold the door open? Puck bustled back inside, careful not to brush against him as he passed, and retrieved his pants from the heap on the floor. Kurt sat down on the arm of the couch and watched him dress. Puck could feel his eyes tracing the taut curves of his arms, the well-toned muscles he worked every afternoon with a hundred pushups. He was in better shape now than he had been in high school. Kurt’s breath was growing heavy behind him, and when Puck straightened, Kurt jumped and moved his hand away from his mouth. He’d been biting his nails or sucking his fingers or something.
“I haven’t been this humiliated and disgusted since I found out that ‘Mooncups’ aren’t actually a new type of Girl Scout cookie,” he said, looking back down to fight with his untied laces. “Do you think that Santana-?”
Puck sat down on the opposite end of the couch. “She did this on purpose, I guarantee it.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s a bitter bitch who’s been out for blood for years now? I have no idea what I did to her, but don’t take it personally. It’s me. I swear to god she was the one who cut my brake lines last summer.”
“Shit,” Kurt said again, giving up on his boots and raking his hands through his hair. He tried to wither Puck with a glare, which was tricky, seeing as he was still unable to meet Puck’s eyes. “Since when did you start sleeping with men, anyway?”
“Since when did you start sleeping with men for money?” Puck countered.
It was the wrong thing to say; Puck knew it the instant he said it. Kurt’s mouth quivered, then tightened. “As if you have any right to pass judgment on me.”
The sad part was that Kurt could be referring to any number of things. It might be a comment about Puck being on the other end of this fucks-for-bucks transaction, or an archaic reference to the Quinn-Finn baby episode, which Puck was ninety-five percent over. Either way, Kurt hadn’t actually specified, and Puck was grateful for that. This was embarrassing enough when they weren’t spitting decade-old vitriol back in each other’s faces.
Puck didn’t know what else to do, so he arranged the throw pillow over his abating erection and lifted Kurt’s dumb Hitler Youth boot into his lap. Too tired to protest, Kurt leaned back into the couch cushions and watched Puck fiddle with his laces.
“I thought you’d moved away,” he said finally.
“You’re kidding, right? I’m never going to get out of here.” Puck crisscrossed the cords in neat X’s, drawing them tight around Kurt’s slender ankle. “What about you? You dropped off the face of the earth when I was twenty or twenty-one. I figured that you were off starting your own clothing line in New York or something big like that.”
Kurt sighed. “And why would you think I ever had that potential?”
“I don’t know, you were always-kind of a golden child. One of Schue’s kids.”
“We were all Mr. Schuester’s kids,” said Kurt. “I guess some of us just never grow out of being losers.”
He had meant that in terms of himself, but it struck Puck way too close to home. Lima loser. Quinn had called him that once, and even though she retracted the insult every Tuesday, nothing had ever mended the wound-she’d still married Finn, after all, and Puck was still hiring whores to keep him company after his Saturday shifts. He finished tying up Kurt’s boot with one rough tug. “There you go, princess. Now you can flee.”
But Kurt didn’t flee. He lowered his leg, ran his talented tongue nervously across his bottom lip, and met Puck’s gaze with the most dismal expression Puck had ever seen. “I’m really sorry this happened,” he said. “I mean, I shouldn’t have freaked out like that. If you still want me to get you off, I will. No charge.”
Oh, god. Kurt Hummel giving complimentary blowjobs in the living room, Kurt Hummel on his jazz hands and knees.
“Pass,” said Puck.
“Sure,” said Kurt, his voice frosty. “Fine.”
“No, no, it’s not like that,” Puck said in a rush, catching his arm. “I mean…” he indicated Kurt’s body in a wide gesture. “I just don’t want to make this any worse than it already is. Look at you. I’d totally hit that if I didn’t feel like I should be buying you dinner first.”
Kurt swelled up with irritation again. “So, what, are you saying I’m too skinny?”
“I’m saying that you’re too good for me to want to remember you as a quickie in my living room. That’s all.”
He didn’t realize the weight of his own words until Kurt looked up at him, his eyes softening. They stood there for a few long moments. Then Kurt bridged the distance between them in two sinuous steps and kissed him gently on the mouth, his only other contact a quick whisper of fingertips against Puck’s jaw.
“You are handsome, you know,” said Kurt, his voice quiet. “And you’ve changed.”
Puck licked his lips. “So have you.” Kurt was tentative when he kissed closed-mouthed, as if he’d never had a chance to attempt the act with any reverence. “What happened to you?” He didn’t even want to let go of Kurt’s sleeve.
But Kurt extricated himself with one practiced motion and smiled, that scar gleaming by his mouth, the smell of too many men clinging to his coat as he backed away. “Bye, Puck,” he said, and closed the door behind him. Disappearing from Puck’s life again. The only difference was that this time he was leaving a compliment and the memory of his hands, his pale save-me eyes so blue in the darkness of Puck’s apartment. Puck went to his bedroom window to watch him walk away.
On the sidewalk, Kurt moved deliberately outside the range of the streetlamps. He was only half a block away before he disappeared into the shadows.
*
Journey. The keyboard riff always kicks it off-white and purple spotlights burning holes in the dark, the jazz band glittering at the edge of the stage like a stubborn star system. Five singers from right to left: Artie, Finn, Rachel Berry, Tina Cohen-Chang, Mercedes Jones. For a smile they can share the night, it goes on and on and on and on. Rachel and Finn twirl arm-in-arm, their voices bright as visions in all that unfilled air.
He hears a clatter and Kurt Hummel brushes by him on the way to the door, little more than a dark coat and a glimmer of scar tissue. He calls out, but Kurt doesn’t turn. Kurt walks in one straight unrepentant line, boots heavy in the aisle, his shoulders silhouetted acid green against the exit sign.
Kurt’s spotlight sputters out on the stage, and Rachel Berry swallows his vacant space in a single sidestep, all sun and stars and hold on to that feeling.
*
Puck thrashed awake in a cold sweat. Kurt’s name was still shivering on his lips.
*
He couldn’t fall back asleep, so he made a pot of coffee instead and rehearsed elaborate insults in his head all morning. By the time she finally picked up her phone at noon, his fury had swept his mind clean of all but the most fundamental of affronts: “You unbelievable bitch.”
“Get a new line,” Santana replied, and damn it, she sounded bored. “Kurt stormed into my apartment last night and gave me the lowdown. Third base, huh? I’m more afraid of him than I am of you, by the way, so if you’re only trying to intimidate me, you might as well hang up now and save yourself the air. You’ll probably need it to blow up your next date, anyway.”
“Why are you so fucking hostile to me?” Puck demanded. “What have I ever done to you?”
Santana laughed. “You must be kidding. What haven’t you done to me? For starters, you took my v-card when I was fifteen.”
What the hell, seriously? “That was twelve years ago, and you wanted it too!”
“I wanted financial stability!” Santana yelled back. “I wanted commitment! I wanted someone who was going to care about what happened to me, and I wanted a job where I didn’t have to live off of whatever tips get shoved in my cleavage! Do you have any idea what that feels like, Puck? Do you have any idea how it feels to be me or Kurt?”
In all of her bitterness, she had never lost control like this before, had never even raised her voice to him since high school. At a complete loss for words, Puck held the receiver to his ear as she raged on.
“Your hand was between his legs before you even thought to look at him! Think about that! I mean, Jesus, that’s the kind of practice you have-fucking anything that moves, sleeping with people without ever actually seeing them-Kurt was a casualty, and I’m sorry for that, but I’m not sorry for what I hope this teaches you. Count your blessings, Noah. You have a loving daughter and a best friend and you’re allowed to wear clothes to work. I don’t have any of those luxuries.”
“Up until last night, I thought you knew you had me,” said Puck. “What the fuck changed?”
“It took me years, but I finally realized that I only ever had the principle of you, if that,” said Santana. Was she actually crying? “We aren’t who we used to be, any of us, and I’m done living with my delusions. Fuck you. Fuck you and everything you stand for in my life.”
Puck slammed his hand on his countertop. “That’s not fair!”
“I stopped caring about ‘fair’ the day my man decided to start boning boys,” said Santana, and slammed the phone down so hard that Puck had to yank the receiver away from his ear. When he lifted it back in place, he was met with the shrill chirping of a dead line.
And the day had been starting off so well, too. Puck let out a frustrated growl, heaved the phone back in its cradle, and went to take a nap.
*
Finn Hudson was a good man. There was no way around it. Sure, he had married the woman of Puck’s dreams and raised the child of Puck’s loins, but he was an endless spring of forgiveness, and he brought Puck a salami-and-pepperoni footlong every Sunday afternoon after his shift. Puck was dozing on his couch with his arms crossed over his face when Finn let himself in and tossed the sandwich on his exposed abdomen, making the sofa rock as he sat down. He was already halfway finished with his own BLT.
“Dude, I was thinking last night,” he said, through a mouthful of bread.
“So that’s what that burning smell was,” said Puck. He rubbed his eyes and sat up, unwrapping his sub. “Olives?”
“They’re in there somewhere. Beer?”
“In the fridge.”
“You look like crap.”
“Well, get the fucking beer and I’ll start looking better to you, I promise.”
Finn went to the kitchen and retrieved two six-packs. When they were both on their second cans, he cleared his throat, gave Puck a lettuce-filled grin, and laid it out with all the proper theatrical gestures and inflections: “Glee club ten-year reunion, baby.”
Especially given the last twenty-four hours, there were so many things wrong with this proposal that Puck didn’t even know where to start. He began by choking on a pepperoni.
“It’s genius,” Finn explained, after Puck had stopped wheezing. “See, we didn’t all graduate at the same time, so we’d never be able to catch each other for an official school reunion. And who wants to wear those stupid nametags in the gym and drink non-alcoholic punch, anyway? I’m thinking, like…karaoke bar. I’m thinking barbecue in my backyard and super raunchy parlor games. Hey, have they installed a mechanical bull at the club yet?”
“No, thank the sweet Lord in heaven and His abstemious chorus of angels,” said Puck.
“Do you know how we’d go about renting one?” Finn asked.
“Uh,” said Puck. He inched his beer back onto the coffee table, already trying to find a delicate way to decimate the plan. “Listen, it’s…not a terrible idea, man. It’s just really fucking sudden. When did you come up with this?”
“Well, Mike called on Thursday to tell me he’s going to be in town in a few weeks for spring break, and I said we should do something together. It kind of snowballed from there. I already talked to Matt and Mercedes; they’re game. So’s Tina. I’m going to ask Artie about it tomorrow, but I’m sure he’ll be okay with it…sans the mechanical bull, I mean. I just need to get in touch with Rachel and a few others now. You can tell Santana for me, right? And you can ask her to ask Kurt?”
“Santana and I aren’t exactly talking right now,” Puck muttered, then processed the rest of that sentence. “Wait. You knew she was friends with Kurt?”
Finn gave him a wide-eyed you’re-sort-of-a-moron look. Pot, kettle. “Sure. You didn’t?”
“Not until recently.” As in, twelve hours ago.
“That’s okay,” said Finn. “It’s not like you two ever had much in common. Kurt’s so ambitious and profound and stuff.”
Yeah. Ambitious and profound in bed. Puck didn’t have the heart to get mad at Finn, because the guy meant well and had always been sort of oblivious to connotations, but Puck was tired of feeling like the world’s biggest heel. He just tried not to dwell on the fact that he was redeeming himself by saying he was on good terms with a hooker: “You’re still going to have to call Santana yourself, because I’m through dealing with that bitch, but I can talk to Kurt if you want. I’ve got his number.”
Finn eyed him suspiciously. “You guys are friends?”
“We are…intimately acquainted.”
“But you didn’t even know he knew Santana.”
Puck was talking shamelessly out of his ass now. “Dude, there’s something powerful about non-verbal communication, okay? Give us some credit. It is possible for people to be friends on a different, more intellectual basis.”
Finn pondered over that for a long time. “I guess you’re right,” he said finally, sounding enlightened. “I have that kind of relationship with Brittany, even though we don’t talk all that often.”
Puck picked at his sandwich and said nothing.
“Anyway,” said Finn, sighing and climbing to his feet, “thanks for getting in touch with Kurt for me. I’ll hit Santana up on Tuesday. And thanks for hearing me out, too-I know that this reunion thing probably sounds like pure torture to you.”
“I’d rather be having my permanent teeth pulled out without an anesthetic,” Puck agreed.
That must’ve come out sounding a little too dramatic-Puck would prefer the anesthetic, actually-because Finn stopped at the door and stared at him. “Listen, man,” he said. “Success is totally subjective. Look at me. I walk around like I’m some crime-busting badass, but when you get down to it, I’m only working a desk job. You work all night protecting girls from creeps and drunks and every other brand of Lima freak. If I were you, I’d totally pick up a cape and some of those brass knuckle things and really go to town. You could be, like…the Puckinator. Go around flinging Star of David shurikens and saying things like, ‘Are Jew messing with me?’”
Puck put his beer down. “I’m sorry, what are we talking about here?’’
“I’m saying, don’t be embarrassed about who you are,” said Finn, reaching over the back of the couch to thump him on the shoulder. “I don’t want this reunion to be about who has bragging rights and who doesn’t, but even if that happens, you’ll have plenty to say. You’re a solid dude and I’m proud of you. Even if you’ve always been too stupid to know it.”
“Believe it or not, I’m not totally ashamed of myself,” said Puck, but it came out too tired-sounding to have any real conviction. How was it that Finn always knew exactly how he felt? Puck stood up and gave him an awkward hug/fist pound, wondering why he was lucky enough to have a best friend who reaffirmed their bond a hundred times a day. “Thanks, man. Really.”
“Call Kurt,” Finn reminded, backing out the apartment. “Reunion: two weeks from now.”
“Got it.”
“Later, Puckinator,” said Finn, and closed the door.
After his footsteps had retreated down the hall, Puck took a deep breath and went to the kitchen trash to fish out Santana’s cocktail napkin. You’ll want to put a ring on it, she’d written. Cute, in retrospect-he should’ve known right then that something was up. Puck picked up his phone, typed in Kurt’s number, and hesitated with his thumb over the send key. He wasn’t sure if he was ready to start talking to Kurt again. He didn’t even know how he was ever going to look at him without blushing.
But he did owe him an apology, as Santana had so obliquely pointed out.
And he sure had gotten…hot.
“Wait, I got another one!” Finn declared suddenly, bursting back into the apartment and striking a ridiculous ninja pose. “‘Jew wanna piece of me?’”
Puck banged his head soundly on the pantry door. “Ow, fuck! Go home, Finn!”
Finn laughed and swung the door shut again.
This time Puck waited for Finn to actually drive out of the parking lot. There was a hum of an engine, a Led Zeppelin track started up at a deafening volume, and the tires screeched a couple of times as Finn did his normal uneasy stop-and-go-and-check-for-mailmen thing before pulling out onto the street. Only when the last strains of “Dazed and Confused” had faded into the distance did Puck steel himself and place the call. He paced the kitchen as the phone rang. This was so…high school. As was ridiculously fitting.
Seven rings. Then a low shuffle and a husky, “Hello?” that made his pulse jump.
“Hey, Kurt, it’s me,” said Puck, trying to sound nonchalant. He took a deep breath and held it. “Don’t freak out, but-how about dinner?”
*
It was the sole restaurant in the area that had window treatments and a dress code which required shoes and shirts. Those were the only things it had going in the way of fine dining, really. Puck speared a chunk of baguette and dipped it into ceramic pot in the center of their table, waiting for it to stop steaming before bringing it to his lips. He’d already burned himself twice. What he could still feel of his tongue felt like a shag carpet.
“I don’t think I like fondue,” he said, after he had finished his bite.
Kurt gave his fork a delicate twirl, lifted the cheese-coated square of bread into his mouth, and chewed. “Yeah,” he said, after a moment of contemplation. “I like Gruyère as much as the next guy, but this is definitely more like…fon-don’t.”
Puck couldn’t repress a chuckle. He’d vowed before their meeting to keep the emoting to a minimum-had to play it cool, after all-but Kurt was charming when he was off the job, quick and collected and not unaware of how good his lips looked around a fondue fork. Much closer to the ten-years-ago Kurt, really. He was wearing a white cable-knit sweater and a blue scarf that darkened his eyes, dress slacks that hugged a tempting curve of thigh every time he crossed his legs. Puck felt outclassed in his un-ironed trousers. The only tie he owned was lime green paisley, so he’d forgone it completely, figuring that Kurt would probably be more offended by its presence than its absence. Judging by the horrified way Kurt kept picking at their toile tablecloth, that had probably been a good call.
“So, what’s the occasion?” Kurt asked. He sucked a drop of cheese off his finger, making Puck squirm a little in his seat. “Are we celebrating last night’s incredibly uncomfortable almost-sex?”
“No,” said Puck blandly, after trying and failing to come up with a snide comeback. “I’m glad you’re already ready to joke about that.”
“There was a time in my life when heavy-petting with my high school nemesis would’ve traumatized me. Now I just try to remember that there were seven very fortunate things about that evening, and one is that at least we buried the hatchet before you saw me naked.”
That was true enough-by the time they were both twenty, they could totally sit in the same room without wanting to cause bodily harm to each other. “What are the other six?"
Kurt picked up his fork again, dipped it one final time, and gave it a good, slow lick. “Your abs.”
Puck felt a rush of heat in his face and had to put his wine glass to his lips to hide his flush. “Actually, I did ask you here for a couple of reasons,” he said, after stalling with a long swallow. “First, Santana bitched me out when I called her this afternoon, and even if she did a shit thing to us, she made some good points. I need to apologize. It shouldn’t have gone as far as it did without me even noticing who you were.”
“Puck, get real,” said Kurt, shaking his head. “We weren’t looking to catch up on old times. I was there on business, and you were just trying to enjoy yourself.”
“Still-”
“Still nothing. I threw myself at you on purpose. It’s what I do sometimes so I don’t have to get too personal with my customers. You know…as a defense mechanism.”
It was the first time that night that Kurt had expressed any dissatisfaction toward his line of work. He seemed to realize the disclosure a moment too late, because some of the cheer went out of his eyes as he reached for his glass and sipped slowly. The scar by his mouth looked like an exclamation mark in the dim lighting. Puck stared at the fondue pot in the center of the table, suddenly conscious of the six unknown years between them.
“So…how’d you get back in touch with Santana?”
The waitress had returned to clear their plates. Kurt waited until she was walking back to the kitchen before answering. “Lima’s got a very intimate sex industry, wouldn’t you know it? She heard my name in the champagne room a month ago and gave me a ring. We’ve been sending each other business ever since. Santana is one fierce lady.”
“You’re half right,” said Puck, refilling their wine glasses.
“Are you still mad at her?”
“Hell yes, I am. Come on. After thirteen years of friendship, she’s suddenly decided to hate me on ‘principle.’”
“Meaning, she’s suddenly decided to hate herself on principle,” said Kurt. “We’ve only been talking for five weeks, and I can tell that this self-loathing business has been in the works for years. Just let her think she had her coup de grâce so she can get over it. No one got hurt.”
Puck shook his head. “We could’ve been.”
“Yeah, too bad you turned out to be such a nice guy,” said Kurt, and cupped one hand briefly to Puck’s cheek. The touch set a little flutter of nerves alight in Puck’s stomach. "Will you try to forgive her?”
“No promises,” said Puck. It wasn’t that simple. She was one of the few friends that he had left, and she’d stabbed him in the back to prove some misguided point. Thank god that Finn was still around to hold him together by way of salami sandwiches. Which reminded him. “I just hope you’ll react this well to my second order of business.”
“Try me.”
“Finn’s trying to get all of us together for a reunion in two weeks.”
Kurt paused with his napkin halfway to his mouth. “By ‘all of us,’ you mean…?”
“New Directions. The original dirty dozen.”
“Ah,” said Kurt. He sat back and gave the waitress a beatific smile as she leaned over to serve dessert, a caquelon of chocolate on a tray of strawberries. He said nothing about the hideous tablecloth. Puck took that as a bad sign. Sure enough, the second the waitress stepped away to tend to another party, Kurt downed the rest of his drink in one gulp and said, “That’s a fantastic idea, but why doesn’t Finn want to trigger my telekinetic paroxysm the old-fashioned way and drench me with pig blood?”
“He probably doesn’t have enough for both of us,” said Puck.
“You don’t want to go, either?”
“God, no. Too many successful people have already RSVPed. Tina, Mike, Matt, Mercedes…hey, who do you still keep in contact with these days?”
“Well, Artie, of course,” said Kurt. “I call Mercedes a couple times a month, and Tina and I send each other Christmas cards.” He hesitated. “They think I’m an accountant. One of the many thousands of reasons I would prefer not to see them in fourteen days. What kind of baggage do you have, anyway? Santana says you’re her bodyguard. That doesn’t sound disgraceful at all.”
Puck fought to find the right words. “It’s not about what I am, exactly. It’s about all the things I’m not. Married. Financially secure. Happy.” He traced a finger along the rim of his glass, making it hum. “Mostly happy.”
“I’ve sung that song before,” said Kurt.
“You understand me,” Puck replied, and was startled to realize that he meant it. People had been feeding him platitudes all his life, things like reach for the stars and anything can happen, their intentions good but barren. But here was Kurt Hummel, the only one of Schuester’s six who was still sharing midnight with Puck and Santana, and his fall from grace had begun from a much higher place. He never thought he would have anything in common with the kid whose hundred-dollar clothes he used to hide during showers after football practice. “Kurt…you were such a force of nature. I mean, if I couldn’t knock you off your pedestal, I figured nothing could. What happened to you?”
Kurt arranged the strawberries into neat rows on the tray, his face unreadable. For a moment, Puck was afraid they were going to have a repeat of the previous night-Kurt would storm out of his life, and this time, there would be no reconciliatory dinner date. Then Kurt sighed and flicked his napkin aside.
“This isn’t La bohème, Puck,” he said. “I’m not dying. It’s not that dramatic. I don’t have any excuses or explanations for where I am now; I’m just here, sitting at this table, and I would really, really prefer not to be having this conversation with you.”
“Why not?”
“Why do you care?” Kurt demanded, pushing away from the table in a clatter of silverware. “You want to hear all the nasty details, is that it?”
“Shit, no, stay,” said Puck, grabbing his wrist. “I’ll lay off. Sorry. It’s just, if you didn’t make it out of here, what does that say about someone like me? Does anyone here really have a chance?”
Kurt lowered himself back in his chair. “Well, of course they do,” he said haltingly. “We all do.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Rachel Berry’s on Broadway,” said Kurt, his voice a perfect blend of revulsion and admiration. “Don’t get me wrong, the girl’s talented as hell, but it takes a special kind of world to accommodate someone so strident and socially impaired. She found her niche in some distant, hopefully soundproofed corner of the universe. There must be a place for me and you.”
“Me and you?” Puck repeated. He felt something bloom inside him, something like hope, and tried to quash it. Of course that wasn’t what Kurt had meant.
Kurt plucked a strawberry from the tray and steeped it in chocolate, holding the dripping fruit to Puck’s mouth. “Anything can happen,” he said, laughing when Puck’s lips closed around his fingers. He let his hand linger there for a moment, and when Puck moved to take it in his own, he smiled. He was radiant in the candlelight. “That’s the one thing I still know, Puck. Anything can happen.”
And for the first time in his life, Puck began to believe it.
*
Part two.