(no subject)
Title: Pool Cleaning for Dummies
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Puck/Kurt
Word count: 1973
Warnings/Spoilers: Spoilers for 1.04; mental image of Kurt with breasts
Disclaimer: Not mine, don't sue, I need my money for useful things like frilly dresses
Summary: This actually has very little to do with pool cleaning and a lot more to do with ~emotions~
“Excuse me, what are you doing?”
“What the hell does it look like?”
It looks like a wet dream, Kurt thinks in a purely critical and objective sense, of course. It’s not that he personally would have a wet dream like that, but he’s sure lots of people do. Fantasize about Noah Puckerman in the process of taking his shirt off, lifting worn, greyed cotton to reveal a body that is large and tanned, giving off a heat that is almost tangible. The fact that his face is hidden in the process (chiselledjawlinefirmfulllipsalmostboringbutthoseeyes) makes it better. Like Popeye and his spinach, Kurt draws strength from his inner-bitch, certain that he can summon her at will and she will make him proof against anything Puck can throw at him. Like his nipple ring.
“Well, I don’t know,” says Kurt petulantly. “I know you’re not the brightest but try to keep up and believe me when I say you can’t steal swimming pools.”
“Dude, how the fuck did you come up with that? I came here to clean your pool, not listen to your conspiracy theories.” His voice is muffled by the shirt; then it’s gone and the last part comes through loud and clear, annoyed and defensive. “Or your bitchin - oh, hi, Mr. Hummel.”
Kurt turns around and there’s his dad: all plaid shirts and baseball caps, nothing to imply he’s worth just a few millions. He’s brisk but not unfriendly with Puck, in an embarrassing poor-man-to-rich-man-but-I’m-self-made manner. Doesn’t even seem to notice the boy’s half-naked, has a nipple ring and was about to throttle his son. “I’ve heard a lot of good things about you from Mrs. Erskine-Brown,” he says.
Oh, I’ll bet you have, thinks Kurt and bites his lip to stop himself from saying it. Puck scowls briefly in his direction before he’s smiling at Kurt’s dad - not the sexy smile he saves for his MILFs or the studly smirk that triple-Ds get and definitely not the smile-sneer that he directs at anything else that’s not in a short skirt. No, this smile is respectful and a little nervous. It changes his face.
Kurt puts his head to a side and just watches as Puck and his father go into this technical conversation about filters and saline systems and stuff. Puck’s nodding, standing straight and rolling back his shoulders. It should be aggressive, but it’s not and then Kurt realises that Puck is trying to impress. He stands like a son would for his dad before the first football match, the first time driving his car, the first time bringing a girl home. It’s a posture that says “believe in me, approve of me” and it’s all for cleaning a pool. Kind of cute. Kind of lame. Kind of sad.
Does his father get it? Kurt looks at him. He’s nodding to what Puck is saying and then he pats Puck on the back. “Sounds good,” he says. “I trust you.”
Puck grins.
Kurt blinks. His father turns to Kurt and then puts a hand on his shoulder, nudging him forward. Obligingly, Kurt shuffles up and meets Puck’s eyes. “Kurt, this is Noah. Noah, this is my son, Kurt,” he says.
“Yeah,” says Puck. “We’re in football together.”
“And glee,” adds Kurt.
“So you two know each other,” says Mr. Hummel. “It was a good game you guys played,” he adds to Puck, but his hand tightens briefly, proudly on Kurt’s shoulder. “And, ah, good singing too.”
He’s proud of me, actually proud of me -
“Thanks,” they say in unison, then stop.
“Kurt, I gotta go out. Just make sure Noah over there takes a rest every once so often and bring him a drink, right? I know cleaning pools can be tough work,” he says. “Used to do it, back when I was your age. Was how I saved up for college and got the capital for my business.”
“Yeah?” says Puck and there’s something in his voice that sounds like hope.
“Sure dad,” says Kurt, making his voice cool and sharp. “Did Mrs. Erskine-Brown say what Puck likes to drink?”
If looks could kill, Kurt would be six-feet under, pushing up daisies with maggots where his penis should be. His entire closet would be in flames. And his autographed poster of Beyonce.
“Anything’s good,” Puck says, his eyes never leaving Kurt’s.
“Okay,” Mr. Hummel says simply. “Bye, son. Be back for dinner. Noah. Nice meeting you.”
And then the only force that could possibly stop Puck from leaving his remains in several different dumpsters is gone. Kurt starts to back away as soon as would be dignified. “Well, I’ll leave you to it,” he says.
For a moment he really fears for the Beyonce poster. Then Puck turns, looks at the pool. “Yeah, okay,” he says, hands on hips. He has a way of slouching that accentuates his ass, not even those awful, frayed jeans can hide it. Then he turns his head, flashes Kurt a smile. It’s one he’s never really seen before except on the faces of sharks. “Oh, and Hummel? I want coke with lemon.”
Kurt crosses his arms. “And you don’t want a little umbrella in there too?”
Puck just snorts. Kurt huffs back into the house.
Man, this is an awesome pool, Puck thinks. This isn’t some stupid kidney-shaped thing that needs to be fully accessorized by a pool boy in a thong before the trophy wife is satisfied. It’s rectangular; clean, white lines that bring out the green of the lawn, Olympian in size. He can imagine that Kurt Hummel sitting on the edge, dabbling his pale, skinny legs into the clear water, face turned up to the sun. All clean, white lines, just like his pool, and he would look like an underfed Greek statue.
“Dude, no,” Puck says out loud, horrified. “Did they put some new shit in this chlorine?”
They must have, because he’s never ever thought of Hummel in. You know. That way. Even if he were a chick - just. ‘Kay. No. ‘Coz Hummel’d be the weirdest looking girl ever: irregular features and his little face, ghosted over with freckles. All pink lips and blue eyes and sass. With something untouchable inside him, burning like the little blue flame of a Bunsen burner. Yeah, you could toss him in the trash but as long as you didn’t hurt his precious clothes, his precious music, he’d dust himself off, zip himself back in and head off into class. Thinking he was better than you so you almost believed it.
“Fuck that noise,” murmured Puck as he lowered himself into the drained pool, preparing to spread granular tri-chlor where he could see black algae growing in the crevices of the pool surface. “Probably just gotta get laid…”
He tries not to think as he scrubs at the pool wall. The sun is hot and warm on his bare back but the thoughts come anyway:
Okay, he really doesn’t have to be half-naked for this; in fact, it’s a bit dangerous what with chemicals and all. But there’s not only a freedom of movement, there’s also that thrill of being watched, being desired and God was it ever awkward when Hummel’s dad appeared. Puck had been expecting Mrs. Hummel and been kind of excited about it ‘coz there’s no way Kurt got his looks from his old man so he must take after his mom and - dude, is he thinking about doing Mrs. Hummel ‘coz she might look like Kurt? Fuck that, and he wouldn’t do it now anyway ‘coz Mr. Hummel’s a good guy. Doesn’t treat him like shit, like all those other rich bastards do, looking down their noses at him ‘coz he’s poor and young. But good looking. And fucking all their wives, yeah. Wouldn’t do that to Mr. Hummel though, no matter how much the old lady looked like her kid - pale skin? Blue eyes? Red lips? But with boobs. He likes boobs.
Thinking about Kurt with breasts makes his head hurt.
Thinking about thinking about Kurt with breasts makes him recoil. “Oh man, seriously-”
“Do you often talk to yourself like that?” The high voice is perfectly courteous, a little curious but Hummel has this way of saying things, shaping them neat and perfectly enunciated and malicious before letting them out of his little pink mouth.
Puck turns and squints at Kurt who is standing directly in front of the sun, haloed by lime-bright light. He’s holding a tray and raising an eyebrow, on it (tray, not eyebrow) are two glasses of coke, ghostly slices of lemon bumping into the ice cubes. Kurt lifts his head imperiously. “Now do you want your drink or not?” he demands sharply.
“Hold your fabulous horses,” retorts Puck. He clambers out, feeling big and awkward and sweaty besides small, neat Kurt who manages to look pressed and starched even in the middle of summer. Kurt carefully hands him a glass (the bigger one, and it makes his hand look even smaller).
Puck gulps half of it down and then watches as Kurt takes tiny sips of his drink. It’s diet, he’s willing to bet. “Kinda funny having you do this,” Puck says, because he can’t think of anything else. “Normally it’s the moms that insist.”
Kurt looks at him as if there was so much insult in that remark he doesn’t even know where to begin. “My mom’s dead,” is what he settles on.
Puck feels the chill in his stomach and the heat in his face at the same time. “Shit,” he says, sitting down abruptly on a lawn chair. (He recognizes it, glued it right next to the lamp fixture actually). “Shit, I’m sorry, man. I didn’t know.”
“Oh no?” says Kurt and that bugs Puck. Like Kurt thinks he totally would say something like that, if he did know.
“No,” he says. “I really didn’t. What happened?”
“Cancer,” says Kurt. He licks his lips. “Breast cancer.”
Oh man. As if he didn’t feel bad enough about thinking about Kurt with boobs. Kurt’s mom’s boobs. Kurt's dead mom's cancerous boobs. “I’m really sorry,” says Puck again. “Oh man, am I ever sorry.”
Kurt’s looking at him now, sneering just a little. “Oh? Suddenly throwing the gay kid into the dumpster isn’t alright because his mother is dead? Would it make it worst if I told you I was seven when it happened and I remember enough about her, but not really?”
“My dad left when I was seven,” Puck says, as if it could possibly save him from certain hell. He takes a drink of his coke. “… It must have been a bad year.”
Kurt sits down suddenly on another lawn chair. This one had been glued to the door because there’d been no space left on the ceiling. His mouth works and Puck wants to say, Holy shit, I know. I’m a fucking moron, messed up. I say these things and they -
“Are at once unbelievable and offensive?” supplies Kurt and Puck realises he just said everything out loud.
“Well. Yeah,” he says.
Kurt looks at him and takes another sip of his coke. Maybe anyone else might have said ‘no, it’s okay…’ but, “Admission is generally the first step to recovery,” Kurt offers after a while. “Though your father absconding during formative years might stand well in court should you ever go on trial.”
“Yeah? What’s your excuse?” snaps Puck. “Your mommy died so you gotta make her memory live again through you obsessively going through her stash of lip-gloss and raiding her closet?”
Kurt’s hand goes automatically to his mouth. Thin finger tracing pink curves that are suspiciously full and shiny-wet. Then that pinkfullshinywet mouth parts and says, “I’ll have you know that’s Sisley’s Nutritive lip balm.”
Puck looks at Kurt. He looks back. No one knows who first starts laughing.
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Puck/Kurt
Word count: 1973
Warnings/Spoilers: Spoilers for 1.04; mental image of Kurt with breasts
Disclaimer: Not mine, don't sue, I need my money for useful things like frilly dresses
Summary: This actually has very little to do with pool cleaning and a lot more to do with ~emotions~
“Excuse me, what are you doing?”
“What the hell does it look like?”
It looks like a wet dream, Kurt thinks in a purely critical and objective sense, of course. It’s not that he personally would have a wet dream like that, but he’s sure lots of people do. Fantasize about Noah Puckerman in the process of taking his shirt off, lifting worn, greyed cotton to reveal a body that is large and tanned, giving off a heat that is almost tangible. The fact that his face is hidden in the process (chiselledjawlinefirmfulllipsalmostboringbutthoseeyes) makes it better. Like Popeye and his spinach, Kurt draws strength from his inner-bitch, certain that he can summon her at will and she will make him proof against anything Puck can throw at him. Like his nipple ring.
“Well, I don’t know,” says Kurt petulantly. “I know you’re not the brightest but try to keep up and believe me when I say you can’t steal swimming pools.”
“Dude, how the fuck did you come up with that? I came here to clean your pool, not listen to your conspiracy theories.” His voice is muffled by the shirt; then it’s gone and the last part comes through loud and clear, annoyed and defensive. “Or your bitchin - oh, hi, Mr. Hummel.”
Kurt turns around and there’s his dad: all plaid shirts and baseball caps, nothing to imply he’s worth just a few millions. He’s brisk but not unfriendly with Puck, in an embarrassing poor-man-to-rich-man-but-I’m-self-made manner. Doesn’t even seem to notice the boy’s half-naked, has a nipple ring and was about to throttle his son. “I’ve heard a lot of good things about you from Mrs. Erskine-Brown,” he says.
Oh, I’ll bet you have, thinks Kurt and bites his lip to stop himself from saying it. Puck scowls briefly in his direction before he’s smiling at Kurt’s dad - not the sexy smile he saves for his MILFs or the studly smirk that triple-Ds get and definitely not the smile-sneer that he directs at anything else that’s not in a short skirt. No, this smile is respectful and a little nervous. It changes his face.
Kurt puts his head to a side and just watches as Puck and his father go into this technical conversation about filters and saline systems and stuff. Puck’s nodding, standing straight and rolling back his shoulders. It should be aggressive, but it’s not and then Kurt realises that Puck is trying to impress. He stands like a son would for his dad before the first football match, the first time driving his car, the first time bringing a girl home. It’s a posture that says “believe in me, approve of me” and it’s all for cleaning a pool. Kind of cute. Kind of lame. Kind of sad.
Does his father get it? Kurt looks at him. He’s nodding to what Puck is saying and then he pats Puck on the back. “Sounds good,” he says. “I trust you.”
Puck grins.
Kurt blinks. His father turns to Kurt and then puts a hand on his shoulder, nudging him forward. Obligingly, Kurt shuffles up and meets Puck’s eyes. “Kurt, this is Noah. Noah, this is my son, Kurt,” he says.
“Yeah,” says Puck. “We’re in football together.”
“And glee,” adds Kurt.
“So you two know each other,” says Mr. Hummel. “It was a good game you guys played,” he adds to Puck, but his hand tightens briefly, proudly on Kurt’s shoulder. “And, ah, good singing too.”
He’s proud of me, actually proud of me -
“Thanks,” they say in unison, then stop.
“Kurt, I gotta go out. Just make sure Noah over there takes a rest every once so often and bring him a drink, right? I know cleaning pools can be tough work,” he says. “Used to do it, back when I was your age. Was how I saved up for college and got the capital for my business.”
“Yeah?” says Puck and there’s something in his voice that sounds like hope.
“Sure dad,” says Kurt, making his voice cool and sharp. “Did Mrs. Erskine-Brown say what Puck likes to drink?”
If looks could kill, Kurt would be six-feet under, pushing up daisies with maggots where his penis should be. His entire closet would be in flames. And his autographed poster of Beyonce.
“Anything’s good,” Puck says, his eyes never leaving Kurt’s.
“Okay,” Mr. Hummel says simply. “Bye, son. Be back for dinner. Noah. Nice meeting you.”
And then the only force that could possibly stop Puck from leaving his remains in several different dumpsters is gone. Kurt starts to back away as soon as would be dignified. “Well, I’ll leave you to it,” he says.
For a moment he really fears for the Beyonce poster. Then Puck turns, looks at the pool. “Yeah, okay,” he says, hands on hips. He has a way of slouching that accentuates his ass, not even those awful, frayed jeans can hide it. Then he turns his head, flashes Kurt a smile. It’s one he’s never really seen before except on the faces of sharks. “Oh, and Hummel? I want coke with lemon.”
Kurt crosses his arms. “And you don’t want a little umbrella in there too?”
Puck just snorts. Kurt huffs back into the house.
Man, this is an awesome pool, Puck thinks. This isn’t some stupid kidney-shaped thing that needs to be fully accessorized by a pool boy in a thong before the trophy wife is satisfied. It’s rectangular; clean, white lines that bring out the green of the lawn, Olympian in size. He can imagine that Kurt Hummel sitting on the edge, dabbling his pale, skinny legs into the clear water, face turned up to the sun. All clean, white lines, just like his pool, and he would look like an underfed Greek statue.
“Dude, no,” Puck says out loud, horrified. “Did they put some new shit in this chlorine?”
They must have, because he’s never ever thought of Hummel in. You know. That way. Even if he were a chick - just. ‘Kay. No. ‘Coz Hummel’d be the weirdest looking girl ever: irregular features and his little face, ghosted over with freckles. All pink lips and blue eyes and sass. With something untouchable inside him, burning like the little blue flame of a Bunsen burner. Yeah, you could toss him in the trash but as long as you didn’t hurt his precious clothes, his precious music, he’d dust himself off, zip himself back in and head off into class. Thinking he was better than you so you almost believed it.
“Fuck that noise,” murmured Puck as he lowered himself into the drained pool, preparing to spread granular tri-chlor where he could see black algae growing in the crevices of the pool surface. “Probably just gotta get laid…”
He tries not to think as he scrubs at the pool wall. The sun is hot and warm on his bare back but the thoughts come anyway:
Okay, he really doesn’t have to be half-naked for this; in fact, it’s a bit dangerous what with chemicals and all. But there’s not only a freedom of movement, there’s also that thrill of being watched, being desired and God was it ever awkward when Hummel’s dad appeared. Puck had been expecting Mrs. Hummel and been kind of excited about it ‘coz there’s no way Kurt got his looks from his old man so he must take after his mom and - dude, is he thinking about doing Mrs. Hummel ‘coz she might look like Kurt? Fuck that, and he wouldn’t do it now anyway ‘coz Mr. Hummel’s a good guy. Doesn’t treat him like shit, like all those other rich bastards do, looking down their noses at him ‘coz he’s poor and young. But good looking. And fucking all their wives, yeah. Wouldn’t do that to Mr. Hummel though, no matter how much the old lady looked like her kid - pale skin? Blue eyes? Red lips? But with boobs. He likes boobs.
Thinking about Kurt with breasts makes his head hurt.
Thinking about thinking about Kurt with breasts makes him recoil. “Oh man, seriously-”
“Do you often talk to yourself like that?” The high voice is perfectly courteous, a little curious but Hummel has this way of saying things, shaping them neat and perfectly enunciated and malicious before letting them out of his little pink mouth.
Puck turns and squints at Kurt who is standing directly in front of the sun, haloed by lime-bright light. He’s holding a tray and raising an eyebrow, on it (tray, not eyebrow) are two glasses of coke, ghostly slices of lemon bumping into the ice cubes. Kurt lifts his head imperiously. “Now do you want your drink or not?” he demands sharply.
“Hold your fabulous horses,” retorts Puck. He clambers out, feeling big and awkward and sweaty besides small, neat Kurt who manages to look pressed and starched even in the middle of summer. Kurt carefully hands him a glass (the bigger one, and it makes his hand look even smaller).
Puck gulps half of it down and then watches as Kurt takes tiny sips of his drink. It’s diet, he’s willing to bet. “Kinda funny having you do this,” Puck says, because he can’t think of anything else. “Normally it’s the moms that insist.”
Kurt looks at him as if there was so much insult in that remark he doesn’t even know where to begin. “My mom’s dead,” is what he settles on.
Puck feels the chill in his stomach and the heat in his face at the same time. “Shit,” he says, sitting down abruptly on a lawn chair. (He recognizes it, glued it right next to the lamp fixture actually). “Shit, I’m sorry, man. I didn’t know.”
“Oh no?” says Kurt and that bugs Puck. Like Kurt thinks he totally would say something like that, if he did know.
“No,” he says. “I really didn’t. What happened?”
“Cancer,” says Kurt. He licks his lips. “Breast cancer.”
Oh man. As if he didn’t feel bad enough about thinking about Kurt with boobs. Kurt’s mom’s boobs. Kurt's dead mom's cancerous boobs. “I’m really sorry,” says Puck again. “Oh man, am I ever sorry.”
Kurt’s looking at him now, sneering just a little. “Oh? Suddenly throwing the gay kid into the dumpster isn’t alright because his mother is dead? Would it make it worst if I told you I was seven when it happened and I remember enough about her, but not really?”
“My dad left when I was seven,” Puck says, as if it could possibly save him from certain hell. He takes a drink of his coke. “… It must have been a bad year.”
Kurt sits down suddenly on another lawn chair. This one had been glued to the door because there’d been no space left on the ceiling. His mouth works and Puck wants to say, Holy shit, I know. I’m a fucking moron, messed up. I say these things and they -
“Are at once unbelievable and offensive?” supplies Kurt and Puck realises he just said everything out loud.
“Well. Yeah,” he says.
Kurt looks at him and takes another sip of his coke. Maybe anyone else might have said ‘no, it’s okay…’ but, “Admission is generally the first step to recovery,” Kurt offers after a while. “Though your father absconding during formative years might stand well in court should you ever go on trial.”
“Yeah? What’s your excuse?” snaps Puck. “Your mommy died so you gotta make her memory live again through you obsessively going through her stash of lip-gloss and raiding her closet?”
Kurt’s hand goes automatically to his mouth. Thin finger tracing pink curves that are suspiciously full and shiny-wet. Then that pinkfullshinywet mouth parts and says, “I’ll have you know that’s Sisley’s Nutritive lip balm.”
Puck looks at Kurt. He looks back. No one knows who first starts laughing.