Streetlight People
Title: Streetlight People
Author: jockchic
Characters/Pairings: Puck/Kurt and Finn/Quinn, and Artie and Santana get (REVENGE OF THE GIANT) face time here.
Rating/warnings: NC-17 overall, R-ish for this chapter. Future fic, drinking, language, hooker!Kurt, Ten Year Gleeunion trope. Angst. Also, crap, spoilers for Inglourious Basterds! Sorry I forgot to warn for that.
Disclaimer: Glee’s not mine.
Summary: A decade after joining New Directions, Puck gets slapped in the face by his past. Literally.
AN: This is easily my least favorite quarter of this story because it’s the most angst-heavy and dialogue-heavy, but I’ve got to hurry and post it all before Glee starts again and changes the 13-episode canon. Thank you for reading!
Part one.
*
Puck had coaxed a coworker into covering for him on Thursday night, but he didn’t feel right ducking out of his Friday shift. The club was brimming with scum these days, and the girls-most of them below the age of twenty, for fuck’s sake-needed all the help they could get. Puck donned a dark shirt and his most opaque pair of sunglasses before he left, striking ridiculous poses in the bathroom mirror. A cape probably wouldn’t go too well with his ensemble, but maybe he could still get The Puckinator to catch on. After all, the strippers got to pick out their own nicknames.
Santana was already working the pole when Puck clocked in, her body a pulse of green lingerie in the spotlight. The crowd was going crazy at the edge of the stage. Puck found a safe nook between Santana and the spectators, and if he felt any of his usual empathy for her, it was assuaged by the cynical little ass-slap she sent his way when she noted his presence. They hadn’t spoken at all since the debacle with Kurt, and that was fine by Puck-she couldn’t have been any further from the feisty nineteen-year-old waitress who regularly kicked the pizza ovens into submission, who still held the record on the Simpsons Pinball machine in the back room. She was all fire now, no spirit. Welcome to Lima. Viva Fuego.
She danced her way through a long set of techno before stepping down to take a break, her shoulders shimmering with sweat. A tiny red heart tattoo winked at Puck as she lifted her hair to cool down her neck, the line of it smooth and lovely even in the poor lighting.
I assume you’ve hit that, Kurt had observed the night before, as Puck was systematically emptying his apartment of her pictures.
It was kind of a dumb remark, because Puck had already plucked twelve photos out of his billfold, Santana Lopez from age fifteen to twenty-six. He couldn’t stop hitting that, in fact. He was like a five-year-old and she was like one of those shiny counter bells in a convenience store. But bells were annoying, and Puck had grown up, and he’d left the store three years ago after an awkward hookup in which he had failed to produce an erection.
You’re losing your store metaphor, Kurt had warned.
I mean, I didn’t have enough quarters to make change, amended Puck. Thanks for shopping at the Come-and-Go.
Not that anyone actually came that night, said Kurt, beaming.
If they hadn’t both been so drunk, Puck would’ve punched him.
But even intoxicated, Kurt had refused to let him throw away Santana’s pictures. He tucked them all into an envelope and stashed it in his coat pocket, assuring Puck that he would want them back as soon as he was sober. Puck hadn’t been quite inebriated enough to believe that, and even now, in the club, he was unconvinced. Santana was talking with some greasy trucker near the hallway that led to the restrooms. The guy was stroking her shoulders too often and too enthusiastically; she didn’t even let Puck touch her like that anymore. He was happy enough with Kurt-whatever “with” meant nowadays, thought Puck-but it was the principle of the thing.
Their proletarian DJ was just mixing in some trance when the trucker tried to pull Santana in for a kiss. Santana yanked back, shoving and yelling, but it was already escalating out of control-drinks were spilling and people were pushing, and Santana was crammed right in the heart of the scuffle, getting batted around like a ping pong ball.
“Break it up!” Puck shouted. The noise of the club swallowed the sound; it was as if he hadn’t spoken at all. He leapt across the stage and hurdled over a table, nearly knocking over Chastity, who was just climbing up to take Santana’s place at the pole. “Tell the other guys to back me up,” he ordered, seizing her arms to steady her. Chastity gave him a frightened nod and dashed for the bar. Her stilettos clicked against the floor like gunfire as she moved.
Puck shoved through a cluster of onlookers and leapt into the brawl.
The trucker had one hand on Santana’s waist and one in her hair, still trying to slobber on her neck. Santana kept trying to shove him away, but the damn shoes they made her wear had no leverage on the tile. Not one of the bystanders was helping her. What the fuck.
“Santana, move!” Puck yelled at her.
She twisted out of the trucker’s grip as best she could. As soon as he had a clear shot to the guy’s face, Puck drew his fist back and punched him square between the eyes. He dropped like a sack of potatoes against the wall and released Santana’s hair. Santana staggered against Puck for balance, her breasts rising and falling in her bodice as she caught her breath. He held onto her until he was sure she could stand on her own, then yanked her aside, into the quietness of the bathroom hallway. Santana was sporting a shallow cut by the side of her mouth.
“Are you okay?” he demanded, examining the injury.
“Fine,” Santana panted, eyebrows knit in anger. Her hand flew to her cheek. “I’m not bleeding, am I? Did that fucker give me something that’s going to scar?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Lucky for him. I fucking hate men,” she added fiercely, bringing both fists down hard against the wall. There was an audible crunch of drywall. Puck winced.
“Fuego! Hey, Fuego!”
Their shift manager bustled into the hallway, already sweating stains into his too-tight suit, Chastity following shaken and pale-faced behind him. Out on the dance floor, the rest of the security team was forcing order. Unruly patrons were being expelled from the club. The bartender was offering to replace drinks. Their manager huffed for breath, and maybe it was the adrenaline high, but the whole thing felt abruptly absurd to Puck-they were standing by the same door where they used to store pizza ingredients, and they didn’t even know this guy. They had stopped learning their bosses’ names two years ago, around the time their bosses had stopped learning theirs.
“Are you okay, baby?” he said, seizing Santana’s arms. “Are you hurt?”
She wrenched away from him. “Get your hands off me; I’m fucking stellar. And I’m taking the rest of the night off, with pay.”
“Sure, whatever you want,” said the manager.
“Puck’s going with me,” said Santana, startling him.
“Anything for you, Fuego.”
“Don’t call me that!” Santana seized Puck’s hand and began dragging him out of the corridor, intentionally stepping on the prone trucker’s arm on the way. Chastity took a shaky step towards her, and Puck thought for one terrible second that she was going to deck the poor kid-but Santana merely touched her shoulder as they passed, motherly and protective.
“Why the hell are you still working here, Holly? Get lost. You can do better than this shithole.”
Holly. It had never occurred to Puck that ‘Chastity’ might not even be the girl’s real name.
Both the lack of dancers and the bustle of activity had caused a scene. The club was uncharacteristically quiet as Puck led Santana to the exit on his arm, and no one made any trouble, even when Santana shimmied out of her corset right there by the coat rack and buttoned up a blouse over her exposed bra. Puck hadn’t seen her in actual clothes for almost four years; it was surreal. He helped her into her coat and held the door open to a cool rush of evening air.
Only when they were deep into the parking lot did Santana’s hands begin to shake. She dug a crumpled cigarette out her purse and stuck it between her teeth, struggling to keep her breathing steady enough to keep the flame going on her lighter. She was freaked out, and Puck barely had it in him to comfort her-in all of their animosity, no guy had ever gotten close enough to hit her before. Tonight was the first time Puck had left her side.
“This isn’t going to happen again, I swear,” he said, draping his jacket over her shoulders. His guilt gnawed at him, making him queasy. “It was my fault.”
“Everything is everyone’s fault, isn’t it?” said Santana. “That’s just how it fucking works.” She coughed, ground out the cigarette after a single drag. “Like taking a bite out of a campfire. I knew there was a reason I quit. What I wouldn’t do for a few goddamn vices right now, though-aside from hooking you up with old classmates.”
It was one of Santana Lopez’s patented indirect apologies. He touched the cut by her face. “Yeah, it’ll heal fine, but holy fuck. What will calm you down? We’ll do anything you want.”
Santana looked at him, her eyes dark. “I want to dance.”
That made no sense. She danced five days a week in grueling shifts, on the stage or between the tables with trays full of Jell-O shots. But Puck suddenly understood when she flung open her car doors and turned her stereo on full blast, making the whole parking lot resonate with the high, crooning purr of Cyndi Lauper’s voice.
It was “True Colors.” Yes, Queen Bitch Santana Lopez drove home every night with a Glee Club memory, the smooth jazz response to Puck’s longing for Journey. Santana mouthed all the words as she placed her arms around his neck, moving in the slow elegant circles Puck was sure she had forgotten. Why had he ever given her so little credit? She’d been there, too. She had sung their harmonies, watched from the balcony with Quinn as Rachel and Finn performed “Don’t Stop Believin’” to an invisible audience.
“It wasn’t always like this,” Santana said, her breath warm on his neck, not meeting his eyes.
She was friendship and familiarity in his arms, his comfort, his constant. “I know it wasn’t,” said Puck.
They were streetlight people in the weak glow of the lampposts. Red and green fluorescents flickered from the bar sign, the neon catching the shimmer of Santana’s battle wounds. Her shoulders were bruising purple. If these were their true colors, then maybe Puck didn’t want to see them after all.
But what other reason would there be for the color of Kurt’s eyes, the way emerald looked against Santana’s skin? Gray and blue brewing like a storm. Green singing on bronze. Puck pulled Santana closer and stared at the pavement, that endless stretch of uninspired black. No way would anyone in the bar would be able to see them this far out into the darkness, if they weren’t looking. And no one ever was.
“‘Can’t remember when I last saw you laughing,’” Santana sang softly, in her husky smoker’s voice.
Puck wondered if Santana dreamt in color.
*
“Do you ever get hurt when you’re working? I mean, by people who aren’t me?”
Kurt raised an eyebrow at the inquiry. He had been waiting in the dark hallway when Puck got home, and Puck, still keyed-up from the incident with Santana, had thrown him against the wall before he realized who he was. Thankfully, Kurt had decent reflexes and was a good sport. He’d checked himself for bruises, and, after accepting Puck’s repeated apologies, had set to work baking some sort of layered coffee cake. It smelled amazing. Puck was no slouch in the kitchen, but breakfast items had never been his bag-unless you counted an unfortunate stint with ketchup-based grits as a twenty-two-year-old, from which he still suffered a sodium imbalance and an extreme aversion to condiments.
“What a question,” said Kurt, checking the oven timer. “What brought this on?”
“Some asshole got grabby with Santana tonight. Isn’t it pretty dangerous, what you two do? She works around alcohol, and you-well, do you even have a bodyguard or a-like-”
“A pimp? No. I run a self-owned business.”
“And how do you, uh, protect your merchandise?”
“Through customer discrimination and a killer alarm system,” said Kurt.
Puck paused with his glass of beer at his lips. “The metaphors, man. I have no idea what you’re saying anymore.”
“I didn’t even understand the ‘alarm system’ part,” Kurt admitted. “I think I still have Finn on speed dial. Maybe that’s what I meant.” He took Puck’s beer out of his hand and sipped from it, propping his socked feet in his lap. “No, no one ever tries to take advantage of me like that. Remember, I’m not normally on the prowl like the night I was with you. Customers come to me.”
“That sounds even more dangerous.”
“You have the wrong idea,” said Kurt. His cheeks were growing red. “You’re picturing the creepy inebriates at your club. Think more like…clean-shaven men who wear cufflinks. Blue BMWs. French sliding doors and white rose bouquets, ninety-dollar glasses of wine-those are the kinds of people who request my services. People who have a lot more to lose than I do, should the details of our affiliation ever get out. That’s what makes it so safe.”
The concept was only slightly more appealing than Kurt hooking on the streets in torn nylons. Cleaner environments, sure, more perks and a significantly higher salary-but then there was the image of Kurt lying in the lavender-scented linens of some well-to-do socialite, pampered pet by day, dirty little secret by night. It was brainwashing, pure and simple. Kurt would go home and play with whatever lavish trinket he’d received in payment, and the instant reward would make him believe that it had been a fair trade. That was the good thing about gas station blowjobs: no pretenses. In the end, maybe a lower sense of worth was better than a false one. At least the dangerous circumstances inspired some change.
“Well, I’m glad you’re not getting hurt,” is what Puck said instead, wishing it were true. He massaged Kurt’s feet in firm circles, making him hum in gratitude. When Kurt’s eyes were closed, he asked the question that had been on the tip of his tongue since Saturday: “How’d you get that scar?”
Kurt’s eyes flew open. He popped the top of a new can of beer, making it hiss. “Not from my job, if that’s what you’re implying.”
It was a tone that meant “back off before I freak out and run,” and Puck was finally learning when to stop. He continued working the knots out of Kurt’s calves, kneading the smooth skin with his guitar-callused fingertips. Kurt had tensed up all the way to the knee. Puck waited for him to relax a little before looking up to offer an apology, but Kurt held the glass of beer to Puck’s mouth to silence him, the ghost imprint of their lips tracing circles around the rim.
“It happened during a fight,” Kurt said. His voice was soft. “It was a glass of orange juice and I didn’t duck in time. Just a little memento from my domestic days, as if I needed the reminder.”
They were toeing the territory that none of them ever touched. It was one of the few things that Puck knew about Kurt’s past-and the only thing that he didn’t have the audacity to pursue. Finn and Artie probably had more of the story than Puck did, but they never talked about it. Puck wondered what they might tell him now that he had been welcomed into Kurt’s confidences.
The oven timer beeped, breaking the silence. Kurt reluctantly extricated his legs from Puck’s hands and stood up to ease the coffee cake off of the bottom rack, prodding it expertly with a toothpick. Now that Puck remembered where Kurt had acquired all of his homemaking skills, he felt a little uneasy.
“Smells incredible,” he said anyway.
Kurt smiled and shoved the pan back into the oven. “Needs to bake just a little bit longer. Wait’ll you try it. It’s a far cry from raw eggs or protein shakes or whatever it is you silly bachelors eat for breakfast.” He drummed his fingers on the counter, then crossed the kitchen to regard Puck again. “You know what? We should do something for Santana.”
“Short-sheet her?”
Kurt hit him on the arm. “Something nice!”
“Not short-sheet her?”
“Well, that too,” said Kurt, grinning. Then he sobered again, the corner of his mouth quirked up in thought. “She’s obviously lonely. She has a traumatizing, high-risk job, and you and Mike Chang are the only people she still talks to, besides me. I feel like this whole crisis with us could have been averted if she just felt like she had someone to confide in. And I mean, like, in a non-hostile way. Her yelling at you doesn’t count.”
She was lonely, Kurt was right-Puck had seen that side of her tonight. Lonely and tired and bitter as hell. “She needs someone,” Puck agreed, embarrassed that he had ever thought otherwise. “Wish she weren’t so angry all the time.”
“She’s justified in it, but nothing good can come of it,” said Kurt.
“I don’t know. I can think of one good thing.”
“What?”
“She brought you back into my life,” said Puck.
Kurt looked at him, startled. A shy smile spread across his face. Then he nudged Puck’s knee aside so he could straddle his lap, his weight delicate, hands smooth and firm against Puck’s cheeks. “Where were you ten years ago?” he asked, leaning forward so that their foreheads touched. “Why wasn’t it like this in high school?”
It was a question Puck had asked himself every night that week, the memory of Kurt flickering behind his closed eyelids. “Guess we were both too busy being in love with other people, and I was too busy sucker-punching you in the hallways. Which I’m sorry for.”
“I’m not,” said Kurt, grinding against him. His teeth traced Puck’s neck as he spoke. “I thrived in it, you know. Every time you pushed me into the lockers or knocked my books out of my arms, I walked away feeling empowered. Like you could hate me all you want, but I was still getting under your skin, and that gave me control. I love control.”
Puck shuddered. They hadn’t touched like this since the night of their reunion. “You’ve got it now, that’s for damn sure.”
Kurt licked a gentle trail below his ear. “Do I?”
“Fuck, Kurt,” Puck groaned. He grabbed the seat of Kurt’s jeans and squeezed, making Kurt smile and thrust against him. “You’re so hot. I could seriously bend you over the counter right now and-what’s that smell?”
“Shit!” Kurt yanked away. He sounded hilariously high-pitched when he wasn’t using his phone-sex-operator voice. “The coffee cake!”
“Let it burn!” Puck shouted, but Kurt was already out of his lap and stooping over the oven, giving Puck a view of his delectable, out-of-range backside. Puck threw his hands in the air. “Are we ever going to have a meeting that doesn’t end with me jerking myself off alone?”
“It’s breakfast time now, anyway,” said Kurt. He put on an oven mitt and waved the pan under Puck’s nose. “I saved it in time, see? Just need to scrape off a few burnt brown sugar granules. Mmm.”
“Yum, cockblock cake,” Puck grumbled, but his stomach growled loudly in response. Damn, that smelled good.
Kurt set out plates and glasses, replacing the beer with a carton of orange juice. Good morning, Lima.
“I have an idea,” said Kurt.
“Yeah?” said Puck, wriggling his eyebrows.
“I have an idea for Santana,” said Kurt, and winked.
*
“Hey, man, change of plans. I need you to talk to Artie for me because he’s trying to bail on the reunion. Shut up, I know you’re groaning right now-but do you remember what you were saying the other day about people connecting on an intellectual level? That’s you and Artie, even if you two don’t chill that often. Appeal to his reason. I leave this all in your capable hands. And if you’re doing that thing where you’re pretending you’re wringing my neck right now, stop it. Be mature!”
“Is that dad? Tell him I say ‘hi.’”
“Oh, and Drizzle says, ‘Yeah, asshole, be mature.’”
“I didn’t say that!”
“Peace out, Puck.”
*
The gym and the auditorium had undergone major renovations in the past decade, but walking into the McKinley High library was like stepping ten years back in time. Save for a new row of computers on the west wall, nothing had changed-those horribly un-ergonomic chairs still lined the wooden tables, and students loitered by the magazine racks, hiding Teen Vogue and Esquire inside their reading list requirements. Puck paged through that year’s Thunderclap and located the Glee Club photo. The graffiti hadn’t stopped, but a protective plastic cover had minimized most of the damage. Clever.
“Thought I saw your ugly mug,” said Artie, rolling himself beside Puck. He took the yearbook, scrubbed the portrait clean with his handkerchief, and smiled. “What’s doin’?”
“I’m Finn’s olive branch,” said Puck.
“I…didn’t know we were fighting?”
“He’ll do anything to get you to go to this reunion, man.”
“Ah. Knew I hadn’t heard the end of that.” Artie pulled volumes of encyclopedia one by one into his lap, checking them for labels. “You can reach the top row, right? Grab a volume or six for me.”
Puck took as many of the books as he could and followed Artie out from between the shelves, toward the neatly-kempt checkout counter where two students were waiting with armloads of research materials. Artie stamped their cards and sent them along with complimentary bookmarks.
“Are you going?” he asked, as he replaced the spine stickers on the A volume.
Puck hesitated. “I don’t know yet. But Finn asked me to ask you, and I thought it sounded up your alley-you deserve the chance to chill with some equally stable people for a change. Like Tina?”
He ignored that last remark. “Out of curiosity, who doesn’t fit that bill?”
“Santana and Kurt, I guess. They’re not too thrilled about this thing.” An understatement; Santana had tried to impale herself with a plastic drink sword after she got Finn’s call, and Kurt still did his wide-eyed Sissy Spacek impression whenever it came up. “I’m thinking of inviting them over to my place to get drunk instead. You’re more than welcome to join us, if you want.”
“I didn’t know you and Kurt were friends.”
“Yeah, well…this is a very recent, very surprising development.”
Artie must’ve detected a note of nervousness in his voice, because he stopped stickering the encyclopedia and fixed Puck with a knowing grin. “Oh, yeah? I always knew that you two would get along if you ever got your heads out of your asses. You’re both proud, bratty, and wholly uncontainable.”
“Except, you know, by city limit signs,” said Puck.
“Ooh, bitter. What do you and Kurt do together, anyway? Sit around your apartment all day sucking lemons?”
“Dude!”
“No, I mean, that’s a good thing! You’re still present enough to care about escaping, which means that you haven’t been brainwashed like me yet. More power to you. Suck those lemons.” Artie paused to stamp a few more books for a group of freshmen, their faces so young and ambitious that it made Puck feel suddenly exhausted. Artie watched Puck watch them go. His smile had grown sympathetic. “Tell Finn I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to pass on the reunion.”
Puck glanced around the library. Everything in the huge room exhibited some type of order-alphabetical, publish date, color-coding. Even the potted plants were arranged by size. “You’re allowed to say no, I guess, but I still don’t understand your reasoning.”
“I’ve always taken great pains to keep in contact with everyone,” said Artie, shrugging. “Rachel’s the only one who slipped off my radar. I know you all on a basis that’s totally distinct from where we were in high school, and I’d prefer to keep it that way…it’s kind of how I stay real. Dig?”
“Having never been ‘real,’ I don’t know,” said Puck.
“You’re real, Puck. You’re the realest of real. In fact, you’re the most painfully self-aware person I know, and you should try giving yourself a break sometime.”
Artie had always had this power, this uncanny ability to say the right things at the right times. Finn had been right-Puck and Artie understood each other. Then again, Artie understood everyone.
“Can I ask you a question?” said Puck.
“Always,” said Artie.
“What happened to Kurt?”
Artie’s hands stilled briefly on the C-Ch volume. Then he nudged it shut and slid it onto the pile, lips pursed in thought. “Here’s an idea,” he said. “Have you ever thought that maybe nothing happened to him? Maybe he’s just living his life, and you’re the only one who has problems with where it’s taken him.”
Puck rolled his eyes. “Did you two sit down and plan that speech together or something?”
“Do you have any reason to think he’s not happy where he is?” Artie countered, evading the question.
In the past week, Puck had spent six of his seven evenings with Kurt. Last night had been the first time he’d slept over, and they’d fallen asleep almost immediately, Kurt’s body warm and soft and platonic against Puck’s chest. Even crammed together in the single, it had been comfortable. Puck’s dreams were free and vivid. His sleeping mind was still summoning up spectrums to “True Colors” when Kurt leapt out of bed and sank down against the far wall, sobbing for breath.
“Yeah, I do,” said Puck, and relayed the story to Artie. “It took me fifteen minutes to calm him down. He apologized and said that he always has nightmares, that it’s not a big deal. Do you know if…?”
“I had no idea it was a problem,” admitted Artie. “Then again, I don’t sleep with him.”
Puck felt his cheeks growing hot. “It’s not like we had sex or anything! We were just sleeping!”
“Chill, Puck, I’m not judging. If he’s spending the night with you, then he’s not spending it with anyone else. For which I am very, very grateful.”
The lunch bells went off. The few remaining students gathered their belongings and headed to the cafeteria, and Puck almost followed them out of sheer muscle memory. It was amazing what the body remembered, even when the mind wanted to forget. Suddenly conscious of his visitor’s pass, Puck helped Artie gather up the encyclopedia again and wheeled him back to the proper shelf. While he finished putting them away, Artie opened up the 2009 edition of the Thunderclap. The shock of all those faces, smiling and unsullied-it made Puck stagger.
“How-?”
“I replaced it with my copy when I got this job,” said Artie, grinning. “Jocks don’t have big enough attention spans to go back five years to deface a photo, even of the glee kids. Don’t we look spiffy?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen this picture without the graffiti,” said Puck. He took the book from Artie and scanned the page, feeling overwhelmed. Finn and Quinn, pre-baby-drama shitstorm, looked so young. So did Matt. Puck himself was wearing his customary unenthused half-smile, and Santana and Brittany shone with confidence in their red Cheerios uniforms. Kurt stood on the far edge of the frame with one hand perched sassily on his hip. God, the life in his eyes-he had been beautiful back then, too. Puck wished he’d been in a place to appreciate it before life had done so much damage to him.
“Do you remember the guy Kurt moved in with after his dad died?” Artie asked. “The tall creep who talked with his fists?”
“Sort of,” said Puck. He’d only met the man once, at Mr. Hummel’s funeral, and no one had had the heart to take up the issue with Kurt standing between his mother and father’s graves.
“Don’t suppose you heard how that one went down,” said Artie.
“Only in the vaguest of terms.”
Artie scrubbed his glasses clean with his shirt as he spoke, trying to sound casual: “Well, they were only together for about six months. It ended badly, but it began badly, too-Kurt was always tired; I think that’s what I remember most about that part of our lives. Always tired. And every time I tried to talk to him about it, he’d feed me some canned line about ‘how much I need him’ or ‘how much he cares about me.’ God, it was cliché. There’s a reason no one told you. It makes for such a lame story.”
No one had told him about it because he hadn’t given a shit about Kurt back then. Artie was just too polite to say so. “Go on,” said Puck, unable to meet his gaze.
“Well, the night Kurt left him, I was taking my Research Methods final at the university,” said Artie. “I got flunked for leaving to take his call, but I’d been waiting for it for months now, you know? He asked me if I could help him get his stuff. That’s when I knew it was bad, because he’d forgotten about my chair. So I called Finn to come and get me, and he picked up the van and met me in the parking lot, and we drove over there together. He-hmm. Sorry, this just feels so weird. I never talk about this.”
Artie was looking at Puck, at the floor, everywhere but the yearbook still open to the club photo. Sixteen-year-old Kurt with the fire still in his eyes. Artie took a moment to think of a place to start again, then went on, not a hitch of emotion in his voice.
“When we got there, he was picking up broken glass in the kitchen. He kept cutting himself because he was shaking and one of his eyes was swollen shut. He said he’d changed his mind about leaving, but we’d had enough-I kept Kurt talking while Finn packed up all of his things into plastic grocery bags, then we each grabbed one of his hands and got the hell out of Dodge. None of us have looked back, I’m proud to say-Kurt may not be the most collected person ever, but he’s about a million times better than he was. He just doesn’t like to talk about it. For obvious reasons. And neither do I. Finn, Quinn and I are the only ones who know the whole story…and you now, of course.”
Puck’s whole body felt too heavy. He snapped the yearbook shut and tried to shove it onto the shelf, startled when his shaking hands wouldn’t allow it. “Why did you tell me?” he demanded instead, dropping the annual back into Artie’s lap. “I have no right knowing any of this shit! You should’ve just told me to back off, like he does!”
“Kurt says that?” asked Artie, impressed.
“In his way.” Like waking up screaming. The ice in his eyes.
“Hey, that’s progress, I guess.” Artie just shook his head and smiled. How the hell did he manage to do that, smile with all he knew about people and their pasts? Puck wanted to punch him and embrace him at the same time, but Artie had already eased the Thunderclap back into place and was wheeling himself back to the front desk, as if they had never even spoken.
“Artie,” said Puck, stumbling to catch up. “Artie, man-sorry I flipped out. Wait.”
“No way I’m going to the reunion,” said Artie calmly, turning to face him. “Okay? I love you guys, but it blows being the memory keeper. There’s just too much. If I get into the same room with all of you at the same time, there’s no way I’m going to be able to do anything but snivel about life and where it’s brought all of us.”
“Even if it’s brought us together?” Puck said.
“Even then. Especially then. The irony of it would crush me to death.”
The bells were ringing in the halls again, second lunch or assembly; Puck couldn’t remember. Students spilled into the corridors and talked in high voices like white static, making the whole school reverberate with mirth. Something in Puck’s chest was aching like hell, but Artie merely straightened his tie with an unperturbed tug and got himself comfortable behind his desk again, hand ready on the checkout stamp. He shrugged at Puck.
“Are you leaving now?”
“Yeah,” said Puck, pausing at the exit. “Yeah, got some shit to do…thanks for talking to me.”
“You’re welcome,” replied Artie. “And, hey. You really don’t know why I trust you with that stuff?”
“No, Artie, I have no fucking clue.”
“Because you sleep with Kurt without having sex,” he said, ticking the point off one finger, “because you cared enough to ask, and because you’re real. Seriously, stop judging yourself based on who you used to be. It was high school. No one is keeping track anymore. I know Kurt isn’t.”
The doors swung shut on that send-off, students bustling by Puck on their way to the library. Puck raised one hand in farewell. Artie waved back from behind the checkout counter, miming sucking a lemon.
*
“I can’t, dude,” said Finn. “What if I came to the club and asked you to let my six-year-old in?”
“I’d be pissed at you for being an irresponsible parent,” said Puck. He was trying not to beg, but damn it, Finn wasn’t making this easy. “Anyway, this is totally different. I’m only asking out of concern for a friend.”
“No. No no no. Remember when we were twenty-three, and you stole the baby Jesus from the nativity scene in front of the church and asked me if you could hide Him under my bed? This is just like that. Except this time Quinn isn’t going to find the Divine Infant wrapped in an old moth-eaten comforter in our box-spring, and I’m not going to have to crash for a week in your living room with all of your other stolen statues.”
“That was just a phase! I returned them all!”
“To the wrong places,” said Finn, shuddering. “Have you ever seen Taco Joe in a crèche? I prayed for like six hours afterward, and I still feel like I sinner whenever I eat drive-through Mexican food.”
“I definitely feel something in my lower intestines when I eat Taco Joe burritos, but it’s not repentance,” said Puck.
Finn crossed his arms over his chest. It was a stance he could only pull off while he was in uniform. “The answer is no, Puck. I have obligations to protect the people around me, and that includes respecting their privacy. Why don’t you just ask Kurt yourself? If you two are as close as you say you are, you should have no problem getting him to give you a straight answer.”
“But you don’t understand what he’s like now,” Puck argued, slumping into the chair in front of Finn’s desk. “He walls up whenever I try to talk to him about these things. Sometimes I can get a little information out of him, but then he gets this weird, scared look in his eyes, and I freak out and don’t know how to push it. It’s like he’s the exact same person in all the ways that don’t matter. He still wears nice clothes. He still irons and bakes and says these insanely fruity things. But it’s like something inside him got lost along the way. Or broken. He doesn’t even have any ambition anymore; do you know what he does for a living?”
“He’s an accountant,” said Finn.
Puck scrubbed his face with one hand. His head was starting to hurt. “Uh, right. That’s what he is, sure, and I guess there’s nothing wrong with that. But Kurt was supposed to be something...glorious. I don’t know, but, like…like, not a…”
“Prostitute?”
Puck froze, peeking at Finn through his fingers. Then he sat up straighter and tried too late to hide the surprise in his expression. “Speculatively. Sure. Like not a prostitute.”
“I know what he does,” said Finn quietly. “I’m not completely stupid, Puck, and word does get around to the police. I just didn’t know that you knew.”
“I found out when Santana set us up together last Saturday,” Puck confessed. Coming clean to Finn was like feeling a weight lift somewhere in his heart; the two of them never kept secrets from each other. Not anymore, at least. “This is all off the record, right?”
“Yeah, man. Like I’m really going to book you.” Finn’s eyes drifted to the pictures he had pinned to his billboard-a couple of family portraits, Quinn standing barefoot in the backyard with a watering can, a group shot from a Thanksgiving dinner that included Puck and Artie. He kept all of his New Directions photos at home on the refrigerator. “This is why Kurt stopped talking to me, you know. We were super close until he moved out, then he started sleeping around…and now he refuses to have anything to do with me, because he thinks that I’d have some sort of moral dilemma over hanging out with someone who’s breaking the law.”
“Would you?” asked Puck.
“Says the guy who made me hide his stolen statues? No, dude. Kurt’s my friend. I just miss him.”
They sat there in silence for a moment. A phone rang somewhere in the distance, and the clock on Finn’s wall ticked away behind them.
“Why didn’t you tell me about him?” said Puck finally. “About What’s-His-Face, I mean. The guy Kurt lived with.”
Unlike Artie, Puck could trust Finn not to pull his punches to spare his feelings. It was why they were best friends. “Because you didn’t care about Kurt. You didn’t hate him by then, but I still didn’t think you had a right to know. I’m not even sure how I feel about you knowing now. Why wouldn’t he tell you himself? I mean, if you two care about each other so much?”
“If you had a chance to start over with someone, without them knowing something damning about your past, wouldn’t you take it?” Then Puck saw Finn shoot the photo of Quinn a sideways glance, and he felt a familiar tug inside him. “Hypothetically,” he amended, keeping his voice low. “I know that you haven’t done anything worth being ashamed of. Just pretend you’re me for a second. Pretend you’re a fuck-up who’s got a history of hurting the people around you.”
Finn looked at him. His mouth was pressed into a thin, angry line. “Don’t talk about yourself like that! We were sixteen. Of course I’ve done some things that-I mean, we’ve all done things.”
“Yeah, sure,” said Puck. “What have you-?”
“I called Rachel to hook up once after Quinn and I got married, when we were fighting,” said Finn. “She said no, thank god-at least one of us knew better-but I still cheated in my heart, and in Quinn’s. I tore up Rachel’s number after I called her to thank her for being the bigger person. It’s why I don’t know how to reach her anymore.”
Puck sank back into his chair, stunned speechless. It changed everything and nothing. Finn Hudson had moments of weakness. Finn was human.
“Listen, dude, I can’t give you the file,” said Finn.
“Oh-I know,” said Puck, shaking himself a little. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“I can’t give you the file,” Finn repeated, “but I can tell you that Kurt’s ex is in a public registry that you can find online, if you were so moved to Google him. Is that fair enough? You agree that I’m not technically breaking any laws, right?”
“I’ll swear to it in court.”
Finn made a face and stood up to stretch. “Ugh. Court. I still remember peeing myself on the witness stand when I had to testify about the plastic clown you stole from the top of the ice cream truck.” He paused at the open door, pulled it shut again, and whispered, “He looked so good in the principal’s office. That William McKinley bust next to Crispy the Clown-it was like seeing double. Remember how Figgins flipped out?”
Puck grinned and gave him a little salute. “Proudest moment of my life.”
“Same. We need to get out more.” Finn rolled his eyes, opened the door, and crossed himself. “I’m going to Taco Joe’s for lunch. I figure if I start my Hail Marys now I’ll at least be square for a quesadilla and a pop.”
“Happy dysentery,” said Puck, waving goodbye.
When he was reasonably sure Finn wasn’t going to leap back into the office and say something horrible and irreverent like ‘Jew your worst, Puckinator,’ Puck stood up look at the pictures on his billboard. Finn, Quinn, Buster, Carole. The Hudsons were a good-looking family…they took at least as nice a shot as the 2009 Glee Club, anyway, despite the schmaltzy blur-filter that made them look vaguely stoned.
This fascination with mementos. Artie had the library, Finn had his photo wall. Except for the portraits that came crammed in Christmas cards every year and the snapshots Kurt had saved for him of Santana, Puck kept no pictures of anyone he knew in his apartment. He wondered if this made him very practical, or very pathetic.
*
“Hi, is this Puck’s voicemail? Wow, the guy who told me to leave a message sounded just like you! Anyway, I got your call, and I love the idea! I can get there a few days early, but you or Kurt will have to pick me up from the airport. I have my driver’s license and everything; I just want to retake the test before I get on the road because they gave me an F for the ‘Sex’ section. For the fourth time, too! I don’t know how many times I’ll have to sleep with this guy to get him to pass me. Can’t wait to see you guys! Try to keep Santana happy until I get there.”
*
“Oh,” said Kurt. “Oh my god. Puck-”
“Just watch,” Puck urged, leaning forward to watch Utivich scalp Landa’s driver. “I can’t believe you’ve never seen this. It’s a classic.”
“Pardon me, I must’ve been too busy with garbage like Top Hat and The Sound of Music. Oh! Look, now he’s going to carve-” Kurt began, and then a half-chewed bite of salad escaped spectacularly from his open mouth. Puck scrambled to the other end of the couch to get away from him.
“Sick, Kurt!”
“You’re watching Brad Pitt slice swastikas into a man’s forehead,” Kurt pointed out, but he was blushing bright red behind his napkin. As soon as Aldo began scoring the swastika’s second arm, he was on his feet, rattling his TV tray in his hurry to vacate the room. “That’s it. I’m done eating, and so are you. I would rather die than watch you consume strawberry Jell-O right now.”
“Stay! It’s almost over.”
“Thank god for small favors.” Dishes clattered as Kurt went to the kitchenette and began to load the dishwasher. These domestic sounds were becoming soothing in their regularity; the hum of the washing machine, the hand-held vacuum, clean bed sheets being shaken open over his mattress. Puck glanced toward the kitchen in appreciation, and was surprised to see Kurt peering under the cabinets to watch the rest of movie. “I’ve got a little hunch that this isn’t quite how World War II played out in real life,” he said, face contorted in disgust. “How does your mom feel about that?”
Puck snorted. “Are you kidding? We haven’t had to watch Schindler's List once since this came out. She built a Shosanna shrine in her closet.”
“Does she set it on fire every time a Nazi goes to see it?”
“Uh, no. She doesn’t invite many Nazis over, Kurt.”
Kurt ignored him, wiped his hands on a dishtowel, and tossed it toward the laundry basket in the corner of the room. “Did Brittany call you back today?”
“Check my phone.”
Kurt disappeared into the bedroom, but not before giving the TV screen one final, thoughtful look. “‘Revenge of the Giant Face,’ hmm. I’ll admit it: if I had tiny pores like that, I might be featuring myself heavily in extreme close-ups, too.”
Puck shook his head and took the rest of the dishes into the kitchen. There were so many signs of Kurt lying around his apartment now-new hand towels, rows of shoes by the door, a mint green sweatshirt draped over the back of a chair. The extra toothbrush in the cup near the bathroom sink still gave Puck shivers when he saw it. It had taken him a while to get used to Kurt’s scented laundry soap, but nowadays he was ready for the smell of lavender whenever he opened to the dryer to fish out an extra pair of socks. This could work, he thought, not for the first time that night. Kurt still put the cups away in the wrong place and had shitty taste in movies. But it could work.
“Puck,” said Kurt from the hallway.
“What?”
“Puck,” he said again, his voice dangerously soft.
Startled by his tone, Puck wheeled around to look at him. Kurt was standing by the wall with his hands on his hips, his face grim and pale except for two furious roses of color on his cheeks.
“Why the hell were you looking up my ex?”
Puck froze. It all came back to him in a rush-he’d been using his laptop when Kurt came over with groceries, and in his haste to give him a hand, he hadn’t closed any of his windows. That included the one about Kurt’s old partner-now forty-eight years old-listed in the Lima public registry for sexual battery and unlawful conduct with a minor. It had chilled Puck to the core. But that was nothing compared to the way Kurt looked now, hurt and livid and already eyeing paths to the door.
“How do you even know his name?” Kurt demanded.
“He was at the funeral,” said Puck, careful not to answer in any way that might implicate Artie or Finn. “You introduced us.”
“And why the sudden interest?”
He racked his mind for a suitable excuse, but in the end, he could only come up with the truth: “I was worried about you. I wanted to know what had happened with this guy, because you freak if I move the wrong way or say the wrong thing. That scares me. I mean, it scares me that I do things that scare you, even unintentionally.”
Kurt’s eyes flashed with fury. “I would have told you if you had asked!”
“That’s a lie, and you know it,” said Puck. “I’ve asked you dozens of times, and you’ve never once given me a real answer. You run scared every single time.”
“Well, what do you want to know? You want all the nasty details?”
This was the second time Kurt had used this line with him, and he was sick of the implications. “That’s not what I’m saying, damn it! I’m not in this for jerk-off material! I’m just trying to figure out why you are the way you are so I can fix it!”
Kurt advanced on him. “You think I need to be fixed? You think there’s something wrong with me?”
“You sell your body to forty-year-olds, for fuck’s sake!” Puck shouted. “You wake up in hysterics in the middle of the night! I care about you, Kurt, and I want you to get healthy, but I can’t do a thing for you if you won’t even admit that you need help!”
Kurt laughed without humor. “What I need is to get back to my own life.”
Puck’s body grew cold. “No. Kurt. Come on.”
“No,” said Kurt. “I can’t deal with this. I wasn’t happy before I met you, but I wasn’t scared all the time, either. I had a system. I wasn’t worried about wearing clothes that would cover all my scars or wondering what to say if you asked me something that I didn’t have an answer for. What you saw in that file? That happened long after we were through. The bastard beat me, but I never pressed charges and he never raped me. Believe it or not, sex is the only thing in my life that I’ve always had control over. So I sleep with men for money, so what? It’s my body. It’s a living. It’s the only weapon I’ll always have at my disposal, and I’m not going to give that up just because you think I’m cheap.”
“I don’t think you’re cheap!” But, fuck, it was a punch in the gut hearing Kurt talk about sex like that-the kisses in the kitchen, the coy exchange of touches when they said goodbye… just more smoke bombs from Kurt’s under-the-sheets arsenal. “Sex is not a weapon,” Puck said, his voice unsteady. “Trust me, I’ve had enough meaningless escapades to know that it should mean so much more than that.”
“You called me that first night, remember?” Kurt reminded. “You were the one who wanted it anonymous, no strings attached!”
Puck smacked his hands on the wall. “That was before I knew you!”
The intensity of it scared Kurt away. He backed towards the door, trembling almost imperceptibly. “Well, I don’t do feelings. I decide what I give or take, not my ex, and definitely not you.”
“This isn’t even you right now,” said Puck, stunned into disbelief. It was like they didn’t know each other at all. It was like they hadn’t shared a bed and a life for the past week. “This isn’t you; you’re just fronting because you run away from the shit you can’t handle! You ‘don’t do feelings,’ what kind of bullshit is that? You have more passion in one philosophy than I have in my entire life!”
Kurt scoffed. “And what philosophy is that?”
“‘Anything can happen,’” said Puck.
And for just one moment, Puck had him back. Kurt wavered with one heel off the ground, his eyes desperate, one hand paused on a sleeve in the closet. Then he tugged the coat free from its hanger. It was the black Givenchy he had worn the night Puck hired him. He pulled the coat on in one swift motion, cramming his feet back into his unlaced boots. “We didn’t get along ten years ago,” said Kurt, not stopping to tie the laces. “Why would it be any different now?”
Puck had to work to keep breathing; it hurt that badly. “If you really don’t know the answer to that by now, then I’m not going after you.”
“Good,” said Kurt. “I’ll be back for my stuff later. Have a stress-free and sexually fulfilling life, Puck.”
“You have a heart, Kurt,” said Puck. “Learn to use it.”
Kurt slammed the door on his way out.
And this time, Puck didn’t go to the window to watch him walk away.
*
Part three.
Author: jockchic
Characters/Pairings: Puck/Kurt and Finn/Quinn, and Artie and Santana get (REVENGE OF THE GIANT) face time here.
Rating/warnings: NC-17 overall, R-ish for this chapter. Future fic, drinking, language, hooker!Kurt, Ten Year Gleeunion trope. Angst. Also, crap, spoilers for Inglourious Basterds! Sorry I forgot to warn for that.
Disclaimer: Glee’s not mine.
Summary: A decade after joining New Directions, Puck gets slapped in the face by his past. Literally.
AN: This is easily my least favorite quarter of this story because it’s the most angst-heavy and dialogue-heavy, but I’ve got to hurry and post it all before Glee starts again and changes the 13-episode canon. Thank you for reading!
Part one.
*
Puck had coaxed a coworker into covering for him on Thursday night, but he didn’t feel right ducking out of his Friday shift. The club was brimming with scum these days, and the girls-most of them below the age of twenty, for fuck’s sake-needed all the help they could get. Puck donned a dark shirt and his most opaque pair of sunglasses before he left, striking ridiculous poses in the bathroom mirror. A cape probably wouldn’t go too well with his ensemble, but maybe he could still get The Puckinator to catch on. After all, the strippers got to pick out their own nicknames.
Santana was already working the pole when Puck clocked in, her body a pulse of green lingerie in the spotlight. The crowd was going crazy at the edge of the stage. Puck found a safe nook between Santana and the spectators, and if he felt any of his usual empathy for her, it was assuaged by the cynical little ass-slap she sent his way when she noted his presence. They hadn’t spoken at all since the debacle with Kurt, and that was fine by Puck-she couldn’t have been any further from the feisty nineteen-year-old waitress who regularly kicked the pizza ovens into submission, who still held the record on the Simpsons Pinball machine in the back room. She was all fire now, no spirit. Welcome to Lima. Viva Fuego.
She danced her way through a long set of techno before stepping down to take a break, her shoulders shimmering with sweat. A tiny red heart tattoo winked at Puck as she lifted her hair to cool down her neck, the line of it smooth and lovely even in the poor lighting.
I assume you’ve hit that, Kurt had observed the night before, as Puck was systematically emptying his apartment of her pictures.
It was kind of a dumb remark, because Puck had already plucked twelve photos out of his billfold, Santana Lopez from age fifteen to twenty-six. He couldn’t stop hitting that, in fact. He was like a five-year-old and she was like one of those shiny counter bells in a convenience store. But bells were annoying, and Puck had grown up, and he’d left the store three years ago after an awkward hookup in which he had failed to produce an erection.
You’re losing your store metaphor, Kurt had warned.
I mean, I didn’t have enough quarters to make change, amended Puck. Thanks for shopping at the Come-and-Go.
Not that anyone actually came that night, said Kurt, beaming.
If they hadn’t both been so drunk, Puck would’ve punched him.
But even intoxicated, Kurt had refused to let him throw away Santana’s pictures. He tucked them all into an envelope and stashed it in his coat pocket, assuring Puck that he would want them back as soon as he was sober. Puck hadn’t been quite inebriated enough to believe that, and even now, in the club, he was unconvinced. Santana was talking with some greasy trucker near the hallway that led to the restrooms. The guy was stroking her shoulders too often and too enthusiastically; she didn’t even let Puck touch her like that anymore. He was happy enough with Kurt-whatever “with” meant nowadays, thought Puck-but it was the principle of the thing.
Their proletarian DJ was just mixing in some trance when the trucker tried to pull Santana in for a kiss. Santana yanked back, shoving and yelling, but it was already escalating out of control-drinks were spilling and people were pushing, and Santana was crammed right in the heart of the scuffle, getting batted around like a ping pong ball.
“Break it up!” Puck shouted. The noise of the club swallowed the sound; it was as if he hadn’t spoken at all. He leapt across the stage and hurdled over a table, nearly knocking over Chastity, who was just climbing up to take Santana’s place at the pole. “Tell the other guys to back me up,” he ordered, seizing her arms to steady her. Chastity gave him a frightened nod and dashed for the bar. Her stilettos clicked against the floor like gunfire as she moved.
Puck shoved through a cluster of onlookers and leapt into the brawl.
The trucker had one hand on Santana’s waist and one in her hair, still trying to slobber on her neck. Santana kept trying to shove him away, but the damn shoes they made her wear had no leverage on the tile. Not one of the bystanders was helping her. What the fuck.
“Santana, move!” Puck yelled at her.
She twisted out of the trucker’s grip as best she could. As soon as he had a clear shot to the guy’s face, Puck drew his fist back and punched him square between the eyes. He dropped like a sack of potatoes against the wall and released Santana’s hair. Santana staggered against Puck for balance, her breasts rising and falling in her bodice as she caught her breath. He held onto her until he was sure she could stand on her own, then yanked her aside, into the quietness of the bathroom hallway. Santana was sporting a shallow cut by the side of her mouth.
“Are you okay?” he demanded, examining the injury.
“Fine,” Santana panted, eyebrows knit in anger. Her hand flew to her cheek. “I’m not bleeding, am I? Did that fucker give me something that’s going to scar?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Lucky for him. I fucking hate men,” she added fiercely, bringing both fists down hard against the wall. There was an audible crunch of drywall. Puck winced.
“Fuego! Hey, Fuego!”
Their shift manager bustled into the hallway, already sweating stains into his too-tight suit, Chastity following shaken and pale-faced behind him. Out on the dance floor, the rest of the security team was forcing order. Unruly patrons were being expelled from the club. The bartender was offering to replace drinks. Their manager huffed for breath, and maybe it was the adrenaline high, but the whole thing felt abruptly absurd to Puck-they were standing by the same door where they used to store pizza ingredients, and they didn’t even know this guy. They had stopped learning their bosses’ names two years ago, around the time their bosses had stopped learning theirs.
“Are you okay, baby?” he said, seizing Santana’s arms. “Are you hurt?”
She wrenched away from him. “Get your hands off me; I’m fucking stellar. And I’m taking the rest of the night off, with pay.”
“Sure, whatever you want,” said the manager.
“Puck’s going with me,” said Santana, startling him.
“Anything for you, Fuego.”
“Don’t call me that!” Santana seized Puck’s hand and began dragging him out of the corridor, intentionally stepping on the prone trucker’s arm on the way. Chastity took a shaky step towards her, and Puck thought for one terrible second that she was going to deck the poor kid-but Santana merely touched her shoulder as they passed, motherly and protective.
“Why the hell are you still working here, Holly? Get lost. You can do better than this shithole.”
Holly. It had never occurred to Puck that ‘Chastity’ might not even be the girl’s real name.
Both the lack of dancers and the bustle of activity had caused a scene. The club was uncharacteristically quiet as Puck led Santana to the exit on his arm, and no one made any trouble, even when Santana shimmied out of her corset right there by the coat rack and buttoned up a blouse over her exposed bra. Puck hadn’t seen her in actual clothes for almost four years; it was surreal. He helped her into her coat and held the door open to a cool rush of evening air.
Only when they were deep into the parking lot did Santana’s hands begin to shake. She dug a crumpled cigarette out her purse and stuck it between her teeth, struggling to keep her breathing steady enough to keep the flame going on her lighter. She was freaked out, and Puck barely had it in him to comfort her-in all of their animosity, no guy had ever gotten close enough to hit her before. Tonight was the first time Puck had left her side.
“This isn’t going to happen again, I swear,” he said, draping his jacket over her shoulders. His guilt gnawed at him, making him queasy. “It was my fault.”
“Everything is everyone’s fault, isn’t it?” said Santana. “That’s just how it fucking works.” She coughed, ground out the cigarette after a single drag. “Like taking a bite out of a campfire. I knew there was a reason I quit. What I wouldn’t do for a few goddamn vices right now, though-aside from hooking you up with old classmates.”
It was one of Santana Lopez’s patented indirect apologies. He touched the cut by her face. “Yeah, it’ll heal fine, but holy fuck. What will calm you down? We’ll do anything you want.”
Santana looked at him, her eyes dark. “I want to dance.”
That made no sense. She danced five days a week in grueling shifts, on the stage or between the tables with trays full of Jell-O shots. But Puck suddenly understood when she flung open her car doors and turned her stereo on full blast, making the whole parking lot resonate with the high, crooning purr of Cyndi Lauper’s voice.
It was “True Colors.” Yes, Queen Bitch Santana Lopez drove home every night with a Glee Club memory, the smooth jazz response to Puck’s longing for Journey. Santana mouthed all the words as she placed her arms around his neck, moving in the slow elegant circles Puck was sure she had forgotten. Why had he ever given her so little credit? She’d been there, too. She had sung their harmonies, watched from the balcony with Quinn as Rachel and Finn performed “Don’t Stop Believin’” to an invisible audience.
“It wasn’t always like this,” Santana said, her breath warm on his neck, not meeting his eyes.
She was friendship and familiarity in his arms, his comfort, his constant. “I know it wasn’t,” said Puck.
They were streetlight people in the weak glow of the lampposts. Red and green fluorescents flickered from the bar sign, the neon catching the shimmer of Santana’s battle wounds. Her shoulders were bruising purple. If these were their true colors, then maybe Puck didn’t want to see them after all.
But what other reason would there be for the color of Kurt’s eyes, the way emerald looked against Santana’s skin? Gray and blue brewing like a storm. Green singing on bronze. Puck pulled Santana closer and stared at the pavement, that endless stretch of uninspired black. No way would anyone in the bar would be able to see them this far out into the darkness, if they weren’t looking. And no one ever was.
“‘Can’t remember when I last saw you laughing,’” Santana sang softly, in her husky smoker’s voice.
Puck wondered if Santana dreamt in color.
*
“Do you ever get hurt when you’re working? I mean, by people who aren’t me?”
Kurt raised an eyebrow at the inquiry. He had been waiting in the dark hallway when Puck got home, and Puck, still keyed-up from the incident with Santana, had thrown him against the wall before he realized who he was. Thankfully, Kurt had decent reflexes and was a good sport. He’d checked himself for bruises, and, after accepting Puck’s repeated apologies, had set to work baking some sort of layered coffee cake. It smelled amazing. Puck was no slouch in the kitchen, but breakfast items had never been his bag-unless you counted an unfortunate stint with ketchup-based grits as a twenty-two-year-old, from which he still suffered a sodium imbalance and an extreme aversion to condiments.
“What a question,” said Kurt, checking the oven timer. “What brought this on?”
“Some asshole got grabby with Santana tonight. Isn’t it pretty dangerous, what you two do? She works around alcohol, and you-well, do you even have a bodyguard or a-like-”
“A pimp? No. I run a self-owned business.”
“And how do you, uh, protect your merchandise?”
“Through customer discrimination and a killer alarm system,” said Kurt.
Puck paused with his glass of beer at his lips. “The metaphors, man. I have no idea what you’re saying anymore.”
“I didn’t even understand the ‘alarm system’ part,” Kurt admitted. “I think I still have Finn on speed dial. Maybe that’s what I meant.” He took Puck’s beer out of his hand and sipped from it, propping his socked feet in his lap. “No, no one ever tries to take advantage of me like that. Remember, I’m not normally on the prowl like the night I was with you. Customers come to me.”
“That sounds even more dangerous.”
“You have the wrong idea,” said Kurt. His cheeks were growing red. “You’re picturing the creepy inebriates at your club. Think more like…clean-shaven men who wear cufflinks. Blue BMWs. French sliding doors and white rose bouquets, ninety-dollar glasses of wine-those are the kinds of people who request my services. People who have a lot more to lose than I do, should the details of our affiliation ever get out. That’s what makes it so safe.”
The concept was only slightly more appealing than Kurt hooking on the streets in torn nylons. Cleaner environments, sure, more perks and a significantly higher salary-but then there was the image of Kurt lying in the lavender-scented linens of some well-to-do socialite, pampered pet by day, dirty little secret by night. It was brainwashing, pure and simple. Kurt would go home and play with whatever lavish trinket he’d received in payment, and the instant reward would make him believe that it had been a fair trade. That was the good thing about gas station blowjobs: no pretenses. In the end, maybe a lower sense of worth was better than a false one. At least the dangerous circumstances inspired some change.
“Well, I’m glad you’re not getting hurt,” is what Puck said instead, wishing it were true. He massaged Kurt’s feet in firm circles, making him hum in gratitude. When Kurt’s eyes were closed, he asked the question that had been on the tip of his tongue since Saturday: “How’d you get that scar?”
Kurt’s eyes flew open. He popped the top of a new can of beer, making it hiss. “Not from my job, if that’s what you’re implying.”
It was a tone that meant “back off before I freak out and run,” and Puck was finally learning when to stop. He continued working the knots out of Kurt’s calves, kneading the smooth skin with his guitar-callused fingertips. Kurt had tensed up all the way to the knee. Puck waited for him to relax a little before looking up to offer an apology, but Kurt held the glass of beer to Puck’s mouth to silence him, the ghost imprint of their lips tracing circles around the rim.
“It happened during a fight,” Kurt said. His voice was soft. “It was a glass of orange juice and I didn’t duck in time. Just a little memento from my domestic days, as if I needed the reminder.”
They were toeing the territory that none of them ever touched. It was one of the few things that Puck knew about Kurt’s past-and the only thing that he didn’t have the audacity to pursue. Finn and Artie probably had more of the story than Puck did, but they never talked about it. Puck wondered what they might tell him now that he had been welcomed into Kurt’s confidences.
The oven timer beeped, breaking the silence. Kurt reluctantly extricated his legs from Puck’s hands and stood up to ease the coffee cake off of the bottom rack, prodding it expertly with a toothpick. Now that Puck remembered where Kurt had acquired all of his homemaking skills, he felt a little uneasy.
“Smells incredible,” he said anyway.
Kurt smiled and shoved the pan back into the oven. “Needs to bake just a little bit longer. Wait’ll you try it. It’s a far cry from raw eggs or protein shakes or whatever it is you silly bachelors eat for breakfast.” He drummed his fingers on the counter, then crossed the kitchen to regard Puck again. “You know what? We should do something for Santana.”
“Short-sheet her?”
Kurt hit him on the arm. “Something nice!”
“Not short-sheet her?”
“Well, that too,” said Kurt, grinning. Then he sobered again, the corner of his mouth quirked up in thought. “She’s obviously lonely. She has a traumatizing, high-risk job, and you and Mike Chang are the only people she still talks to, besides me. I feel like this whole crisis with us could have been averted if she just felt like she had someone to confide in. And I mean, like, in a non-hostile way. Her yelling at you doesn’t count.”
She was lonely, Kurt was right-Puck had seen that side of her tonight. Lonely and tired and bitter as hell. “She needs someone,” Puck agreed, embarrassed that he had ever thought otherwise. “Wish she weren’t so angry all the time.”
“She’s justified in it, but nothing good can come of it,” said Kurt.
“I don’t know. I can think of one good thing.”
“What?”
“She brought you back into my life,” said Puck.
Kurt looked at him, startled. A shy smile spread across his face. Then he nudged Puck’s knee aside so he could straddle his lap, his weight delicate, hands smooth and firm against Puck’s cheeks. “Where were you ten years ago?” he asked, leaning forward so that their foreheads touched. “Why wasn’t it like this in high school?”
It was a question Puck had asked himself every night that week, the memory of Kurt flickering behind his closed eyelids. “Guess we were both too busy being in love with other people, and I was too busy sucker-punching you in the hallways. Which I’m sorry for.”
“I’m not,” said Kurt, grinding against him. His teeth traced Puck’s neck as he spoke. “I thrived in it, you know. Every time you pushed me into the lockers or knocked my books out of my arms, I walked away feeling empowered. Like you could hate me all you want, but I was still getting under your skin, and that gave me control. I love control.”
Puck shuddered. They hadn’t touched like this since the night of their reunion. “You’ve got it now, that’s for damn sure.”
Kurt licked a gentle trail below his ear. “Do I?”
“Fuck, Kurt,” Puck groaned. He grabbed the seat of Kurt’s jeans and squeezed, making Kurt smile and thrust against him. “You’re so hot. I could seriously bend you over the counter right now and-what’s that smell?”
“Shit!” Kurt yanked away. He sounded hilariously high-pitched when he wasn’t using his phone-sex-operator voice. “The coffee cake!”
“Let it burn!” Puck shouted, but Kurt was already out of his lap and stooping over the oven, giving Puck a view of his delectable, out-of-range backside. Puck threw his hands in the air. “Are we ever going to have a meeting that doesn’t end with me jerking myself off alone?”
“It’s breakfast time now, anyway,” said Kurt. He put on an oven mitt and waved the pan under Puck’s nose. “I saved it in time, see? Just need to scrape off a few burnt brown sugar granules. Mmm.”
“Yum, cockblock cake,” Puck grumbled, but his stomach growled loudly in response. Damn, that smelled good.
Kurt set out plates and glasses, replacing the beer with a carton of orange juice. Good morning, Lima.
“I have an idea,” said Kurt.
“Yeah?” said Puck, wriggling his eyebrows.
“I have an idea for Santana,” said Kurt, and winked.
*
“Hey, man, change of plans. I need you to talk to Artie for me because he’s trying to bail on the reunion. Shut up, I know you’re groaning right now-but do you remember what you were saying the other day about people connecting on an intellectual level? That’s you and Artie, even if you two don’t chill that often. Appeal to his reason. I leave this all in your capable hands. And if you’re doing that thing where you’re pretending you’re wringing my neck right now, stop it. Be mature!”
“Is that dad? Tell him I say ‘hi.’”
“Oh, and Drizzle says, ‘Yeah, asshole, be mature.’”
“I didn’t say that!”
“Peace out, Puck.”
*
The gym and the auditorium had undergone major renovations in the past decade, but walking into the McKinley High library was like stepping ten years back in time. Save for a new row of computers on the west wall, nothing had changed-those horribly un-ergonomic chairs still lined the wooden tables, and students loitered by the magazine racks, hiding Teen Vogue and Esquire inside their reading list requirements. Puck paged through that year’s Thunderclap and located the Glee Club photo. The graffiti hadn’t stopped, but a protective plastic cover had minimized most of the damage. Clever.
“Thought I saw your ugly mug,” said Artie, rolling himself beside Puck. He took the yearbook, scrubbed the portrait clean with his handkerchief, and smiled. “What’s doin’?”
“I’m Finn’s olive branch,” said Puck.
“I…didn’t know we were fighting?”
“He’ll do anything to get you to go to this reunion, man.”
“Ah. Knew I hadn’t heard the end of that.” Artie pulled volumes of encyclopedia one by one into his lap, checking them for labels. “You can reach the top row, right? Grab a volume or six for me.”
Puck took as many of the books as he could and followed Artie out from between the shelves, toward the neatly-kempt checkout counter where two students were waiting with armloads of research materials. Artie stamped their cards and sent them along with complimentary bookmarks.
“Are you going?” he asked, as he replaced the spine stickers on the A volume.
Puck hesitated. “I don’t know yet. But Finn asked me to ask you, and I thought it sounded up your alley-you deserve the chance to chill with some equally stable people for a change. Like Tina?”
He ignored that last remark. “Out of curiosity, who doesn’t fit that bill?”
“Santana and Kurt, I guess. They’re not too thrilled about this thing.” An understatement; Santana had tried to impale herself with a plastic drink sword after she got Finn’s call, and Kurt still did his wide-eyed Sissy Spacek impression whenever it came up. “I’m thinking of inviting them over to my place to get drunk instead. You’re more than welcome to join us, if you want.”
“I didn’t know you and Kurt were friends.”
“Yeah, well…this is a very recent, very surprising development.”
Artie must’ve detected a note of nervousness in his voice, because he stopped stickering the encyclopedia and fixed Puck with a knowing grin. “Oh, yeah? I always knew that you two would get along if you ever got your heads out of your asses. You’re both proud, bratty, and wholly uncontainable.”
“Except, you know, by city limit signs,” said Puck.
“Ooh, bitter. What do you and Kurt do together, anyway? Sit around your apartment all day sucking lemons?”
“Dude!”
“No, I mean, that’s a good thing! You’re still present enough to care about escaping, which means that you haven’t been brainwashed like me yet. More power to you. Suck those lemons.” Artie paused to stamp a few more books for a group of freshmen, their faces so young and ambitious that it made Puck feel suddenly exhausted. Artie watched Puck watch them go. His smile had grown sympathetic. “Tell Finn I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to pass on the reunion.”
Puck glanced around the library. Everything in the huge room exhibited some type of order-alphabetical, publish date, color-coding. Even the potted plants were arranged by size. “You’re allowed to say no, I guess, but I still don’t understand your reasoning.”
“I’ve always taken great pains to keep in contact with everyone,” said Artie, shrugging. “Rachel’s the only one who slipped off my radar. I know you all on a basis that’s totally distinct from where we were in high school, and I’d prefer to keep it that way…it’s kind of how I stay real. Dig?”
“Having never been ‘real,’ I don’t know,” said Puck.
“You’re real, Puck. You’re the realest of real. In fact, you’re the most painfully self-aware person I know, and you should try giving yourself a break sometime.”
Artie had always had this power, this uncanny ability to say the right things at the right times. Finn had been right-Puck and Artie understood each other. Then again, Artie understood everyone.
“Can I ask you a question?” said Puck.
“Always,” said Artie.
“What happened to Kurt?”
Artie’s hands stilled briefly on the C-Ch volume. Then he nudged it shut and slid it onto the pile, lips pursed in thought. “Here’s an idea,” he said. “Have you ever thought that maybe nothing happened to him? Maybe he’s just living his life, and you’re the only one who has problems with where it’s taken him.”
Puck rolled his eyes. “Did you two sit down and plan that speech together or something?”
“Do you have any reason to think he’s not happy where he is?” Artie countered, evading the question.
In the past week, Puck had spent six of his seven evenings with Kurt. Last night had been the first time he’d slept over, and they’d fallen asleep almost immediately, Kurt’s body warm and soft and platonic against Puck’s chest. Even crammed together in the single, it had been comfortable. Puck’s dreams were free and vivid. His sleeping mind was still summoning up spectrums to “True Colors” when Kurt leapt out of bed and sank down against the far wall, sobbing for breath.
“Yeah, I do,” said Puck, and relayed the story to Artie. “It took me fifteen minutes to calm him down. He apologized and said that he always has nightmares, that it’s not a big deal. Do you know if…?”
“I had no idea it was a problem,” admitted Artie. “Then again, I don’t sleep with him.”
Puck felt his cheeks growing hot. “It’s not like we had sex or anything! We were just sleeping!”
“Chill, Puck, I’m not judging. If he’s spending the night with you, then he’s not spending it with anyone else. For which I am very, very grateful.”
The lunch bells went off. The few remaining students gathered their belongings and headed to the cafeteria, and Puck almost followed them out of sheer muscle memory. It was amazing what the body remembered, even when the mind wanted to forget. Suddenly conscious of his visitor’s pass, Puck helped Artie gather up the encyclopedia again and wheeled him back to the proper shelf. While he finished putting them away, Artie opened up the 2009 edition of the Thunderclap. The shock of all those faces, smiling and unsullied-it made Puck stagger.
“How-?”
“I replaced it with my copy when I got this job,” said Artie, grinning. “Jocks don’t have big enough attention spans to go back five years to deface a photo, even of the glee kids. Don’t we look spiffy?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen this picture without the graffiti,” said Puck. He took the book from Artie and scanned the page, feeling overwhelmed. Finn and Quinn, pre-baby-drama shitstorm, looked so young. So did Matt. Puck himself was wearing his customary unenthused half-smile, and Santana and Brittany shone with confidence in their red Cheerios uniforms. Kurt stood on the far edge of the frame with one hand perched sassily on his hip. God, the life in his eyes-he had been beautiful back then, too. Puck wished he’d been in a place to appreciate it before life had done so much damage to him.
“Do you remember the guy Kurt moved in with after his dad died?” Artie asked. “The tall creep who talked with his fists?”
“Sort of,” said Puck. He’d only met the man once, at Mr. Hummel’s funeral, and no one had had the heart to take up the issue with Kurt standing between his mother and father’s graves.
“Don’t suppose you heard how that one went down,” said Artie.
“Only in the vaguest of terms.”
Artie scrubbed his glasses clean with his shirt as he spoke, trying to sound casual: “Well, they were only together for about six months. It ended badly, but it began badly, too-Kurt was always tired; I think that’s what I remember most about that part of our lives. Always tired. And every time I tried to talk to him about it, he’d feed me some canned line about ‘how much I need him’ or ‘how much he cares about me.’ God, it was cliché. There’s a reason no one told you. It makes for such a lame story.”
No one had told him about it because he hadn’t given a shit about Kurt back then. Artie was just too polite to say so. “Go on,” said Puck, unable to meet his gaze.
“Well, the night Kurt left him, I was taking my Research Methods final at the university,” said Artie. “I got flunked for leaving to take his call, but I’d been waiting for it for months now, you know? He asked me if I could help him get his stuff. That’s when I knew it was bad, because he’d forgotten about my chair. So I called Finn to come and get me, and he picked up the van and met me in the parking lot, and we drove over there together. He-hmm. Sorry, this just feels so weird. I never talk about this.”
Artie was looking at Puck, at the floor, everywhere but the yearbook still open to the club photo. Sixteen-year-old Kurt with the fire still in his eyes. Artie took a moment to think of a place to start again, then went on, not a hitch of emotion in his voice.
“When we got there, he was picking up broken glass in the kitchen. He kept cutting himself because he was shaking and one of his eyes was swollen shut. He said he’d changed his mind about leaving, but we’d had enough-I kept Kurt talking while Finn packed up all of his things into plastic grocery bags, then we each grabbed one of his hands and got the hell out of Dodge. None of us have looked back, I’m proud to say-Kurt may not be the most collected person ever, but he’s about a million times better than he was. He just doesn’t like to talk about it. For obvious reasons. And neither do I. Finn, Quinn and I are the only ones who know the whole story…and you now, of course.”
Puck’s whole body felt too heavy. He snapped the yearbook shut and tried to shove it onto the shelf, startled when his shaking hands wouldn’t allow it. “Why did you tell me?” he demanded instead, dropping the annual back into Artie’s lap. “I have no right knowing any of this shit! You should’ve just told me to back off, like he does!”
“Kurt says that?” asked Artie, impressed.
“In his way.” Like waking up screaming. The ice in his eyes.
“Hey, that’s progress, I guess.” Artie just shook his head and smiled. How the hell did he manage to do that, smile with all he knew about people and their pasts? Puck wanted to punch him and embrace him at the same time, but Artie had already eased the Thunderclap back into place and was wheeling himself back to the front desk, as if they had never even spoken.
“Artie,” said Puck, stumbling to catch up. “Artie, man-sorry I flipped out. Wait.”
“No way I’m going to the reunion,” said Artie calmly, turning to face him. “Okay? I love you guys, but it blows being the memory keeper. There’s just too much. If I get into the same room with all of you at the same time, there’s no way I’m going to be able to do anything but snivel about life and where it’s brought all of us.”
“Even if it’s brought us together?” Puck said.
“Even then. Especially then. The irony of it would crush me to death.”
The bells were ringing in the halls again, second lunch or assembly; Puck couldn’t remember. Students spilled into the corridors and talked in high voices like white static, making the whole school reverberate with mirth. Something in Puck’s chest was aching like hell, but Artie merely straightened his tie with an unperturbed tug and got himself comfortable behind his desk again, hand ready on the checkout stamp. He shrugged at Puck.
“Are you leaving now?”
“Yeah,” said Puck, pausing at the exit. “Yeah, got some shit to do…thanks for talking to me.”
“You’re welcome,” replied Artie. “And, hey. You really don’t know why I trust you with that stuff?”
“No, Artie, I have no fucking clue.”
“Because you sleep with Kurt without having sex,” he said, ticking the point off one finger, “because you cared enough to ask, and because you’re real. Seriously, stop judging yourself based on who you used to be. It was high school. No one is keeping track anymore. I know Kurt isn’t.”
The doors swung shut on that send-off, students bustling by Puck on their way to the library. Puck raised one hand in farewell. Artie waved back from behind the checkout counter, miming sucking a lemon.
*
“I can’t, dude,” said Finn. “What if I came to the club and asked you to let my six-year-old in?”
“I’d be pissed at you for being an irresponsible parent,” said Puck. He was trying not to beg, but damn it, Finn wasn’t making this easy. “Anyway, this is totally different. I’m only asking out of concern for a friend.”
“No. No no no. Remember when we were twenty-three, and you stole the baby Jesus from the nativity scene in front of the church and asked me if you could hide Him under my bed? This is just like that. Except this time Quinn isn’t going to find the Divine Infant wrapped in an old moth-eaten comforter in our box-spring, and I’m not going to have to crash for a week in your living room with all of your other stolen statues.”
“That was just a phase! I returned them all!”
“To the wrong places,” said Finn, shuddering. “Have you ever seen Taco Joe in a crèche? I prayed for like six hours afterward, and I still feel like I sinner whenever I eat drive-through Mexican food.”
“I definitely feel something in my lower intestines when I eat Taco Joe burritos, but it’s not repentance,” said Puck.
Finn crossed his arms over his chest. It was a stance he could only pull off while he was in uniform. “The answer is no, Puck. I have obligations to protect the people around me, and that includes respecting their privacy. Why don’t you just ask Kurt yourself? If you two are as close as you say you are, you should have no problem getting him to give you a straight answer.”
“But you don’t understand what he’s like now,” Puck argued, slumping into the chair in front of Finn’s desk. “He walls up whenever I try to talk to him about these things. Sometimes I can get a little information out of him, but then he gets this weird, scared look in his eyes, and I freak out and don’t know how to push it. It’s like he’s the exact same person in all the ways that don’t matter. He still wears nice clothes. He still irons and bakes and says these insanely fruity things. But it’s like something inside him got lost along the way. Or broken. He doesn’t even have any ambition anymore; do you know what he does for a living?”
“He’s an accountant,” said Finn.
Puck scrubbed his face with one hand. His head was starting to hurt. “Uh, right. That’s what he is, sure, and I guess there’s nothing wrong with that. But Kurt was supposed to be something...glorious. I don’t know, but, like…like, not a…”
“Prostitute?”
Puck froze, peeking at Finn through his fingers. Then he sat up straighter and tried too late to hide the surprise in his expression. “Speculatively. Sure. Like not a prostitute.”
“I know what he does,” said Finn quietly. “I’m not completely stupid, Puck, and word does get around to the police. I just didn’t know that you knew.”
“I found out when Santana set us up together last Saturday,” Puck confessed. Coming clean to Finn was like feeling a weight lift somewhere in his heart; the two of them never kept secrets from each other. Not anymore, at least. “This is all off the record, right?”
“Yeah, man. Like I’m really going to book you.” Finn’s eyes drifted to the pictures he had pinned to his billboard-a couple of family portraits, Quinn standing barefoot in the backyard with a watering can, a group shot from a Thanksgiving dinner that included Puck and Artie. He kept all of his New Directions photos at home on the refrigerator. “This is why Kurt stopped talking to me, you know. We were super close until he moved out, then he started sleeping around…and now he refuses to have anything to do with me, because he thinks that I’d have some sort of moral dilemma over hanging out with someone who’s breaking the law.”
“Would you?” asked Puck.
“Says the guy who made me hide his stolen statues? No, dude. Kurt’s my friend. I just miss him.”
They sat there in silence for a moment. A phone rang somewhere in the distance, and the clock on Finn’s wall ticked away behind them.
“Why didn’t you tell me about him?” said Puck finally. “About What’s-His-Face, I mean. The guy Kurt lived with.”
Unlike Artie, Puck could trust Finn not to pull his punches to spare his feelings. It was why they were best friends. “Because you didn’t care about Kurt. You didn’t hate him by then, but I still didn’t think you had a right to know. I’m not even sure how I feel about you knowing now. Why wouldn’t he tell you himself? I mean, if you two care about each other so much?”
“If you had a chance to start over with someone, without them knowing something damning about your past, wouldn’t you take it?” Then Puck saw Finn shoot the photo of Quinn a sideways glance, and he felt a familiar tug inside him. “Hypothetically,” he amended, keeping his voice low. “I know that you haven’t done anything worth being ashamed of. Just pretend you’re me for a second. Pretend you’re a fuck-up who’s got a history of hurting the people around you.”
Finn looked at him. His mouth was pressed into a thin, angry line. “Don’t talk about yourself like that! We were sixteen. Of course I’ve done some things that-I mean, we’ve all done things.”
“Yeah, sure,” said Puck. “What have you-?”
“I called Rachel to hook up once after Quinn and I got married, when we were fighting,” said Finn. “She said no, thank god-at least one of us knew better-but I still cheated in my heart, and in Quinn’s. I tore up Rachel’s number after I called her to thank her for being the bigger person. It’s why I don’t know how to reach her anymore.”
Puck sank back into his chair, stunned speechless. It changed everything and nothing. Finn Hudson had moments of weakness. Finn was human.
“Listen, dude, I can’t give you the file,” said Finn.
“Oh-I know,” said Puck, shaking himself a little. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“I can’t give you the file,” Finn repeated, “but I can tell you that Kurt’s ex is in a public registry that you can find online, if you were so moved to Google him. Is that fair enough? You agree that I’m not technically breaking any laws, right?”
“I’ll swear to it in court.”
Finn made a face and stood up to stretch. “Ugh. Court. I still remember peeing myself on the witness stand when I had to testify about the plastic clown you stole from the top of the ice cream truck.” He paused at the open door, pulled it shut again, and whispered, “He looked so good in the principal’s office. That William McKinley bust next to Crispy the Clown-it was like seeing double. Remember how Figgins flipped out?”
Puck grinned and gave him a little salute. “Proudest moment of my life.”
“Same. We need to get out more.” Finn rolled his eyes, opened the door, and crossed himself. “I’m going to Taco Joe’s for lunch. I figure if I start my Hail Marys now I’ll at least be square for a quesadilla and a pop.”
“Happy dysentery,” said Puck, waving goodbye.
When he was reasonably sure Finn wasn’t going to leap back into the office and say something horrible and irreverent like ‘Jew your worst, Puckinator,’ Puck stood up look at the pictures on his billboard. Finn, Quinn, Buster, Carole. The Hudsons were a good-looking family…they took at least as nice a shot as the 2009 Glee Club, anyway, despite the schmaltzy blur-filter that made them look vaguely stoned.
This fascination with mementos. Artie had the library, Finn had his photo wall. Except for the portraits that came crammed in Christmas cards every year and the snapshots Kurt had saved for him of Santana, Puck kept no pictures of anyone he knew in his apartment. He wondered if this made him very practical, or very pathetic.
*
“Hi, is this Puck’s voicemail? Wow, the guy who told me to leave a message sounded just like you! Anyway, I got your call, and I love the idea! I can get there a few days early, but you or Kurt will have to pick me up from the airport. I have my driver’s license and everything; I just want to retake the test before I get on the road because they gave me an F for the ‘Sex’ section. For the fourth time, too! I don’t know how many times I’ll have to sleep with this guy to get him to pass me. Can’t wait to see you guys! Try to keep Santana happy until I get there.”
*
“Oh,” said Kurt. “Oh my god. Puck-”
“Just watch,” Puck urged, leaning forward to watch Utivich scalp Landa’s driver. “I can’t believe you’ve never seen this. It’s a classic.”
“Pardon me, I must’ve been too busy with garbage like Top Hat and The Sound of Music. Oh! Look, now he’s going to carve-” Kurt began, and then a half-chewed bite of salad escaped spectacularly from his open mouth. Puck scrambled to the other end of the couch to get away from him.
“Sick, Kurt!”
“You’re watching Brad Pitt slice swastikas into a man’s forehead,” Kurt pointed out, but he was blushing bright red behind his napkin. As soon as Aldo began scoring the swastika’s second arm, he was on his feet, rattling his TV tray in his hurry to vacate the room. “That’s it. I’m done eating, and so are you. I would rather die than watch you consume strawberry Jell-O right now.”
“Stay! It’s almost over.”
“Thank god for small favors.” Dishes clattered as Kurt went to the kitchenette and began to load the dishwasher. These domestic sounds were becoming soothing in their regularity; the hum of the washing machine, the hand-held vacuum, clean bed sheets being shaken open over his mattress. Puck glanced toward the kitchen in appreciation, and was surprised to see Kurt peering under the cabinets to watch the rest of movie. “I’ve got a little hunch that this isn’t quite how World War II played out in real life,” he said, face contorted in disgust. “How does your mom feel about that?”
Puck snorted. “Are you kidding? We haven’t had to watch Schindler's List once since this came out. She built a Shosanna shrine in her closet.”
“Does she set it on fire every time a Nazi goes to see it?”
“Uh, no. She doesn’t invite many Nazis over, Kurt.”
Kurt ignored him, wiped his hands on a dishtowel, and tossed it toward the laundry basket in the corner of the room. “Did Brittany call you back today?”
“Check my phone.”
Kurt disappeared into the bedroom, but not before giving the TV screen one final, thoughtful look. “‘Revenge of the Giant Face,’ hmm. I’ll admit it: if I had tiny pores like that, I might be featuring myself heavily in extreme close-ups, too.”
Puck shook his head and took the rest of the dishes into the kitchen. There were so many signs of Kurt lying around his apartment now-new hand towels, rows of shoes by the door, a mint green sweatshirt draped over the back of a chair. The extra toothbrush in the cup near the bathroom sink still gave Puck shivers when he saw it. It had taken him a while to get used to Kurt’s scented laundry soap, but nowadays he was ready for the smell of lavender whenever he opened to the dryer to fish out an extra pair of socks. This could work, he thought, not for the first time that night. Kurt still put the cups away in the wrong place and had shitty taste in movies. But it could work.
“Puck,” said Kurt from the hallway.
“What?”
“Puck,” he said again, his voice dangerously soft.
Startled by his tone, Puck wheeled around to look at him. Kurt was standing by the wall with his hands on his hips, his face grim and pale except for two furious roses of color on his cheeks.
“Why the hell were you looking up my ex?”
Puck froze. It all came back to him in a rush-he’d been using his laptop when Kurt came over with groceries, and in his haste to give him a hand, he hadn’t closed any of his windows. That included the one about Kurt’s old partner-now forty-eight years old-listed in the Lima public registry for sexual battery and unlawful conduct with a minor. It had chilled Puck to the core. But that was nothing compared to the way Kurt looked now, hurt and livid and already eyeing paths to the door.
“How do you even know his name?” Kurt demanded.
“He was at the funeral,” said Puck, careful not to answer in any way that might implicate Artie or Finn. “You introduced us.”
“And why the sudden interest?”
He racked his mind for a suitable excuse, but in the end, he could only come up with the truth: “I was worried about you. I wanted to know what had happened with this guy, because you freak if I move the wrong way or say the wrong thing. That scares me. I mean, it scares me that I do things that scare you, even unintentionally.”
Kurt’s eyes flashed with fury. “I would have told you if you had asked!”
“That’s a lie, and you know it,” said Puck. “I’ve asked you dozens of times, and you’ve never once given me a real answer. You run scared every single time.”
“Well, what do you want to know? You want all the nasty details?”
This was the second time Kurt had used this line with him, and he was sick of the implications. “That’s not what I’m saying, damn it! I’m not in this for jerk-off material! I’m just trying to figure out why you are the way you are so I can fix it!”
Kurt advanced on him. “You think I need to be fixed? You think there’s something wrong with me?”
“You sell your body to forty-year-olds, for fuck’s sake!” Puck shouted. “You wake up in hysterics in the middle of the night! I care about you, Kurt, and I want you to get healthy, but I can’t do a thing for you if you won’t even admit that you need help!”
Kurt laughed without humor. “What I need is to get back to my own life.”
Puck’s body grew cold. “No. Kurt. Come on.”
“No,” said Kurt. “I can’t deal with this. I wasn’t happy before I met you, but I wasn’t scared all the time, either. I had a system. I wasn’t worried about wearing clothes that would cover all my scars or wondering what to say if you asked me something that I didn’t have an answer for. What you saw in that file? That happened long after we were through. The bastard beat me, but I never pressed charges and he never raped me. Believe it or not, sex is the only thing in my life that I’ve always had control over. So I sleep with men for money, so what? It’s my body. It’s a living. It’s the only weapon I’ll always have at my disposal, and I’m not going to give that up just because you think I’m cheap.”
“I don’t think you’re cheap!” But, fuck, it was a punch in the gut hearing Kurt talk about sex like that-the kisses in the kitchen, the coy exchange of touches when they said goodbye… just more smoke bombs from Kurt’s under-the-sheets arsenal. “Sex is not a weapon,” Puck said, his voice unsteady. “Trust me, I’ve had enough meaningless escapades to know that it should mean so much more than that.”
“You called me that first night, remember?” Kurt reminded. “You were the one who wanted it anonymous, no strings attached!”
Puck smacked his hands on the wall. “That was before I knew you!”
The intensity of it scared Kurt away. He backed towards the door, trembling almost imperceptibly. “Well, I don’t do feelings. I decide what I give or take, not my ex, and definitely not you.”
“This isn’t even you right now,” said Puck, stunned into disbelief. It was like they didn’t know each other at all. It was like they hadn’t shared a bed and a life for the past week. “This isn’t you; you’re just fronting because you run away from the shit you can’t handle! You ‘don’t do feelings,’ what kind of bullshit is that? You have more passion in one philosophy than I have in my entire life!”
Kurt scoffed. “And what philosophy is that?”
“‘Anything can happen,’” said Puck.
And for just one moment, Puck had him back. Kurt wavered with one heel off the ground, his eyes desperate, one hand paused on a sleeve in the closet. Then he tugged the coat free from its hanger. It was the black Givenchy he had worn the night Puck hired him. He pulled the coat on in one swift motion, cramming his feet back into his unlaced boots. “We didn’t get along ten years ago,” said Kurt, not stopping to tie the laces. “Why would it be any different now?”
Puck had to work to keep breathing; it hurt that badly. “If you really don’t know the answer to that by now, then I’m not going after you.”
“Good,” said Kurt. “I’ll be back for my stuff later. Have a stress-free and sexually fulfilling life, Puck.”
“You have a heart, Kurt,” said Puck. “Learn to use it.”
Kurt slammed the door on his way out.
And this time, Puck didn’t go to the window to watch him walk away.
*
Part three.