Fic: It's An Art (And We're Artists), Chapter Twelve
It was raining on Friday morning.
The sky was nothing but grey as far as the eye could see and puddles made walking in anything less protective than gumboots a game of wet-sock roulette. Kurt only had one raincoat this season, a bright red tailored trench coat that was shiny and crinkled like plastic when he moved. He wore it reluctantly, paired with a high-collared white shirt and a black bowtie. Reluctant only because Burt had decided that the rain meant that he’d be gracious and drive Kurt to McKinley high.
Even if Kurt didn’t already know it Burt’s slightly raised eyebrows would have been an all too obvious indication that he’d never seen his baby brother dressed in something like this. Red raincoat, red gumboots, made up to look like he was sixteen and about to step out onto a runway rather than attend a public highschool.
“Don’t say a word,” Kurt threatened, finger pointing at his brother. “I never get to wear this coat,” he lied, “So I’m going to enjoy it while I can.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Burt replied, holding up his hands. “Actually I was just going to ask how long you reckon it will be before you get a reply from that bookie.”
“Today, actually,” Kurt said, picking up his leather satchel. “I expect I’ll be getting a call sometime this afternoon, so I should know by the time you get home from work. One way or another,” he added dryly, “I’ll know whether I’m in the clear.”
“That’s good. I’ll be glad when you can stop pretending to be sixteen. Seeing you looking like that makes me feel old.”
Kurt looked at his brother as they both stood in the entryway by the front door. Burt was dressed down in work coveralls that sported his name embroidered onto the left breast. In the v made by the open collar he could see the top of a plain grey t-shirt. Compared to him, with his designer raincoat and perfectly matched outfit, Burt looked dull and middle-class. And, Kurt realised, old enough to be his father. The thought of Burt as his father instead of his brother made his stomach churn.
Burt probably would have been a more attentive father than theirs was. Kurt might have actually turned out to be the wholesome and successful man he pretended to be.
“I’ll be late if we don’t leave now,” Kurt stated, feeling awkward.
“Right,” Burt said. He stepped forward and opened the door, leaving it for Kurt to close and lock. Just a couple of minutes later both Hummels sat in the front of Burt’s pickup truck, the heater turned on low and pumping warm air onto their feet. Kurt never understood why Burt insisted on having warm feet but refused to run heat through the vents in the dash.
They didn’t talk much on the short drive to McKinley. Instead Kurt listened to the radio talk show on Burt’s favourite station, wondering how it was that in all the years since radio was invented popular stations had somehow degenerated into toilet humour and sexism during the morning commute. He’d even take Puck’s terrible taste in music over this crap.
Thinking about Puck led Kurt back around to Mr. Schuester and the fact that he was supposed to pay up today. He started to think about when, and what they would need to do immediately afterwards, turning out the talk radio as he stared thoughtfully out the window at the rain.
Before he knew it Burt was pulling to a stop outside the school.
“Have you got everything?” Burt asked, a touch of dry humour on a rainy day. “Did you do all your homework?”
“I even have apples for my teachers,” Kurt replied, sarcasm on overdrive. He smiled at Burt, expression softer. “Thankyou for doing this,” he said softly, “for being so supportive.”
Burt sighed. “Just go to school. You can tell me what the bookie said at dinner.”
“Keep your fingers crossed for me,” Kurt said as he opened the door to step out into the rain. “And I might have some good news at the end of the day.”
He ran off through the car park without waiting for an answer and was inside the school building before the rain did too much damage to his makeup. Water droplets slid from his coat the floor, adding to the mess of water and mud that trailed in from the main doors. Some unlucky janitor was about to have a bad day, Kurt mused. On top of all the usual spills and stickiness from slushies the poor bastard would be mopping the floors all day just to keep on top of the muddy footprints.
-
Will Schuester had never carried an amount greater than two thousand dollars with him in his life, and even then that two thousand had been on a prepaid credit card and not in cash. When he’d made the withdrawal, a loan borrowed against his 401k, he’d instantly felt paranoid about the loan officer wondering what he needed ten thousand in cash for. He’d started babbling about holiday plans then, nervously explaining that he was taking his wife on a second honeymoon because you only live once and travel rates were great right now and blah blah blah. He couldn’t even remember half of what he’d said.
And now all of that cash was sitting in a brown paper bag in the bottom drawer of his desk, like some kind of home-made lunch.
He felt the absurd urge to write ‘blackmail money’ on the bag like some kind of sick anti-joke, but he wasn’t confident enough to try it. Not with the threat of that mohawked thug on top of the dirt they had on him. Not that it was dirt. More like a smudge. A lapse of judgement that looked so much worse on camera than it had been in real life.
A lapse of judgement called Kurt Hummel. Who was now blackmailing him with the aid of an unknown man with a few tattoos and a mohawk. Who had threatened rape allegations and police involvement if Will didn’t pay up. Kurt Hummel, who had seemed so fragile and innocent, was threatening to ruin his life if he didn’t hand over a quarter of his yearly salary. He would have laughed if the situation wasn’t so terrifying.
Having never done this before Will was unsure of the protocol here. Should he keep Kurt back for a few minutes after class and hand it over then? Or ask to see him at lunchtime? Or should he arrange the exchange for the end of the school day, presumably to prevent anything from happening to the bag of money in the meantime. It would be safer in a teacher’s desk than it would be in a student’s locker... But then Kurt had that shoulder bag, and it was possible he planned on putting it straight in there and carrying it around all day.
Will was getting a headache.
He’d been getting a lot of them this week.
Three classes in was when the cause of his headaches sauntered into his classroom to take a seat in the front row. Kurt looked calm, just the same as he had when Will had first spoken to him. An intelligent loner with all of the usual troubles that came with being an openly gay teen in a smallish town. The difference was in the way Kurt flashed him a small, meaningful smirk before opening his notebook. It reminded Will that whatever the boy was ‘innocent’ was nowhere on that list.
Will tried his best not to let Kurt’s presence distract him, but still found himself making a couple of mistakes that luckily went unnoticed by his inattentive students. He was relieved when the bell rang, the emotion quickly replaced by nerves when he realised it was now or never.
He cleared his throat. “Kurt, may I speak to you for a moment? I’ll write you a note if you’re late for your next class.”
“Or course, Mr. Schuester,” Kurt replied pleasantly, stepping up to his desk to wait patiently until the other students had gone. “I hope I’m about to hear some good news.”
“I have the money,” Will said, voice low. He was too afraid of someone overhearing to risk raising his voice any higher than a murmur. “I wasn’t sure when I should give it to you, if I should ask you to see me during lunch or after school...”
“Now is fine,” Kurt interrupted his musing, confident like this was something he did every other day and not remotely illegal or disturbing. “It’s cash, isn’t it?” Will nodded, and Kurt continued; “Then I’ll skip next period and count it. If everything is there you can consider our interaction one with, and your little indiscretion will never come back to haunt you.” A beat, and a smirk. “As long as you never try to tell the police.”
Will felt his mouth go dry, a horrifying impotent rage bubbling up in his chest. He ignored the urge to yell at the boy and instead just opened up the bottom drawer of his desk. He took out the brown paper bag full of cash, dumped it in the middle of his desk, and looked at the boy expectantly.
Kurt reached out and took the bag, then opened it and peered inside. He crumpled up the top again, smiling sweetly. “For the moment you can think of our business as concluded. I’ll let you know how my counting goes.”
Will watched the boy stuff the paper bag full of cash into his satchel and slink out of the classroom. He sat down in his chair, slumped as low as he could get. He’d never felt lower in his life. He just hoped that was the end of it, that it was over and he could forget it ever happened.
-
Kurt couldn’t count the money straight away and he didn’t have a counting machine readily available. Instead of trying to find somewhere private enough to count thousands in cash he ducked into a bathroom and called Puck.
Puck answered on the fourth ring and Kurt could hear the unmistakeable sounds of canned sitcom laughter in the background, which he’d guess meant that Puck was currently at the motel.
“Schuester paid the money,” Kurt told him, not mincing any words. “Come pick me up. We need to count it before we move.”
“I’ll be there in a jiff, babe.”
“See you in the car park.”
Kurt hung up and slipped his phone back into his jeans pocket. He checked himself in the mirror before he left the bathroom. A smug, flush-faced teenager in a red raincoat smirked out at him, shoulder bag clutched tight in his hands. Satisfied, Kurt marched out into the hallway. The halls were practically silent as he passed through them on his way to the front door. He saw only two other students, the rest of them either in class or off school grounds.
It was always different walking down an empty hallway than it was a crowded hall. The emptiness gave a sense of something forbidden, like he wasn’t supposed to be there.
The fact that Kurt really wasn’t just made his smirk grow a little wider and added a hint of a bounce to his step. As long as Schuester hadn’t tried to cheat them, and Kurt doubted that he had, he wouldn’t be coming back to this school on Monday. In fact, on Monday he’d be far, far away. Safe, and contemplating his next move in his very unorthodox career.
He stepped out of the front doors and paused a moment to take a breath. Next time he’d have his own damn car, he decided, even if they had to buy an old bomb and spend an hour a day on the engine just to make sure it would run. He wouldn’t miss taking the bus, or waiting outside for Puck to arrive. It wasn’t that he didn’t like catching rides with his partner, it was the waiting alone in the middle of a car park on a miserable day that he didn’t like. The rain had eased off since earlier that morning, reduced to tiny little droplets that fell in a light mist.
It was light enough that Kurt felt perfectly fine with walking out into it, headed for the entrance to the parking lot to make himself easier to find.
He was half way there when he discovered that he wasn’t the only one playing hooky in the car park today.
-
Puck drove with the stereo turned up as loud as it would go, fingers tapping against the steering wheel. He slowed to a crawl outside McKinley high and reluctantly turned the sound down as he approached the car park. Being cited as a noise nuisance was the last thing they needed right now, with things so close to being over. He peered out the windshield, scanning the lot and looking for Kurt. He knew his partner would be wearing something bright, most likely red, as they’d both agreed plenty of times over that it was one of Kurt’s best colours.
He was almost done with one circuit of the edge of the car park and beginning to wonder if Kurt was even there when he caught a flash of red in the corner of his eye. Puck put his foot down on the brakes and turned to look, frowning as he squinted through the rain-splattered glass.
As soon as he realised what he was seeing the engine was cut and he was out of the car.
That flash of red was Kurt being backed up against the dumpsters by a pair of letterman jackets who from the looks of things had already taken Kurt’s bag and pushed him around a bit.
Puck crossed the car park at a run, boots pounding against the asphalt. This was a familiar scene; Kurt, cornered, by people who were larger than but definitely in no way better than himself, and with a god damn lot to lose. Puck reacted without thinking, without stopping to take a better look at the situation or reminding himself that these were just kids.
“Hey assholes,” he called out as he slowed to a trot, “back away from the guy in the jacket and we can skip me bashing your faces in.”
The guys turned, just enough to look at him without letting their target get away.
“Who are you and what do you care what we do to some fag?” One of the letterman jackets asked.
“Yeah,” the other one added, “just walk away, man. This aint none of your business.”
“It’s my business if you’re fucking with my boy.”
“Your boy? Why don’t you back off before we decide to beat on your gay ass too?”
“Fists up, dipshit. I’m about to wipe the floor with you.”
That there was assault. And Puck was quick to follow through with the battery. He socked the closest guy square in the gut, an uppercut that drove the wind from his lungs and left him gasping. A left hook to the nose ensured he wouldn’t be getting up in the next minute. The second guy, the one with the big mouth, was a little quicker on his feet. He managed to get his arms up before Puck was on him, and hit back hard enough that there would be a bruise blooming over his side tomorrow. Even so he was no match for Puck’s experience. He wouldn’t have lasted long even he’d thought to fight dirty like Puck did, instead he suffered a brutal knee to the groin followed by a punch to the face that hit with a sick crack that might have been from Puck’s knuckle.
He’d hit bone. He knew that much. And he pulled back his fist and hit it again just to be sure.
“Puck!” Kurt cried out, and he looked up just in time to avoid most of a punch to the side of the head.
He slammed his fist into the front of the first guy’s knee, feeling a sense of dark satisfaction when the guy buckled. Two boys on the asphalt, bloody-mouthed and black-eyed, while Puck stood on his feet barely bruised, knuckles on his right hand scraped bloody and raw.
“You will stay the fuck down,” Puck told them, one finger pointing dangerously at the boys on the ground, “or I’ll rip your cocks off and make you eat them.”
Wisely, neither of the jackets made a move to get up.
Puck turned his attention back to Kurt and saw his partner nervously glancing up towards the school as he bent to retrieve his bag. When Kurt looked back at him his expression was decidedly less nervous and a helluva lot more pissed off. “We are going to have words,” Kurt hissed at him, grabbing his arm and trotting him back to the corolla, “about why exactly it’s a bad idea to beat up teenage boys in school parking lots.”
“I just stopped you from being terrorised,” Puck pointed out, already knowing it wouldn’t do any good.
“You also risked getting arrested!” Kurt jumped into the driver’s seat before Puck could get to it, forcing him to go around and slide into the passenger seat instead. “I don’t care,” Kurt announced as he tore out of the parking lot, “if that isn’t ten thousand dollars. We’re getting the hell out of here before either of those two file a police report.”