fic: In this moment where we all exist
Title: In this moment where we all exist
Rating: G
Characters/pairings: established Sam/Puck, a handful of OCs
Genre: fluff for fluff's sake, family
Spoilers: none, although a working knowledge of my No Surrender verse will probably be useful
Warnings: none
Summary: Everything is going to change.
Word count: 2600ish
Author's note: This is the much asked-for follow up to I Can Love You Out of There. ;) Title borrowed from 'Wonderful World', by Take That.
“You’re going to have to stop hating me eventually.” Puck tells Bob Dylan when he stumbles into the kitchen for coffee that morning. The cat is in her usual spot on the window seat, watching Puck with suspicious eyes. He doesn’t entirely blame her; he knows the whole abandonment issues thing pretty intimately, after all. But he’s been back for a few months and he thinks it should be clear by now he’s not going anywhere. Besides, he and Bob Dylan have history. He’d found her behind a dumpster in Cincinnati during his sophomore year at UC when she was just a kitten, and he’d smuggled her into his dorm room and managed to hide her from his nosy-as-fuck RA for the rest of the year. With Sam at OSU and then in Syracuse getting his Masters while Puck was still an undergrad, it had been nice having Bob Dylan around.
The coffee finishes percolating and Puck pours it into two mugs while his cat continues to ignore him. He stirs milk into one mug and sugar into the other and heads carefully towards the stairs. He reaches the bedroom just as the alarm starts beeping. Sam grumbles sleepily, his hand snaking out to slap the snooze button with more force than necessary, and Puck grins. At eighteen, Sam used to happily run five miles before the sun came up. Now, he would probably stay in bed until noon if he could.
Puck sets the coffees down on his nightstand and slides back into bed next to his husband. Sam makes a snuffling, half-asleep noise and buries his face against Puck’s chest. He startles when the alarm goes off a second time.
“Coffee?” Puck asks and Sam sits up, leaning back against the headboard. He nods and Puck hands him the milky coffee. Sam wraps his hands around the mug, becoming more alert with each sip.
“How’s Bob?” Sam asks.
“Same old, same old.” Puck sighs.
“She’ll come around.” Sam yawns widely and lets his head drop onto Puck’s shoulder. They’re up earlier than they normally would be for a Saturday, but today is far from a normal Saturday.
“Gonna hop in the shower,” Puck says, dropping a kiss on the top of Sam’s head. “Don’t go back to sleep.”
“Won’t.”
Puck showers quickly, on edge and anxious. He towels off and pulls on jeans and a sweatshirt, before changing his mind and swapping the hoodie out for a sweater he thinks Jamie and Henry got him for Christmas last year. He feels strangely self-conscious, but maybe that’s normal for a day like today. Everything is going to change.
He finds Sam in the kitchen, and he can’t help laughing a little because Sam is wearing the same sweater in a different colour and neither of them are really sweater people at all.
“I just thought, you know, pictures.” Sam shrugs and Puck nods.
“Yeah. I know. Me too.”
Sam eats a bowl of cereal standing at the counter while Puck checks everything is set up for Hannah Blake from two doors down to come and stay overnight so Han Solo doesn’t totally destroy the house.
“Ready, babe?” Sam calls up the stairs, and Puck takes few deep breaths in the guest bedroom before returning to the kitchen.
“Let’s go.”
***
Puck drives because the thinks he’d go crazy just sitting in the passenger seat, while Sam DJs, changing playlists so often it’s like he has music ADD. Eventually he decides to stick with their glee club list, for nostalgia’s sake, and they both relax a little, singing loudly along with some of Schue’s cheesier eighties’ ballads.
And then their song comes on and Puck can’t resist reaching across the console, lacing his fingers with Sam’s. Sam squeezes his hand a little tighter than he normally would, but Puck doesn’t exactly blame him. Part of Puck can’t believe this is really happening, and he has a feeling that will be the case until they’re back in Syracuse tomorrow.
They stop somewhere between Rochester and Buffalo to eat lunch and stretch their legs a bit, and when Puck checks his phone he has twelve texts. Four are from his mother and three from Sarah, both demanding pictures, ASAP. He sends them the same text telling them to chill the fuck out. He’s got one from each of his siblings-in-law, one from Jamie and one from Santana, who he’s stayed in pretty good touch with over the years. Sam frowns down at his own phone and Puck figures he has just as many curious messages from people. More, probably, since Sam has more friends.
“We shoulda kept this a secret,” Puck grins and Sam shrugs.
“We wouldn’t’ve been able to. They’re just excited.”
“I know.” Puck nods, and he can’t help reaching out, curling his hand around the back of Sam’s neck and pulling him close for a soft kiss. Sam sighs and leans against him, and wraps his arms around Puck’s middle, hugging tight.
“Ready?” Puck asks after a few minutes, and Sam nods.
“Yeah.”
***
Once they get into downtown Buffalo, Puck switches on the GPS because he’s terrible at city driving, and he still manages to miss a few turns, but eventually he finds a parking space and then they’re walking up the sidewalk, into the hospital and towards the reception desk.
The woman at the front desk is young and smiley and reminds Puck a little bit of Audrey. “Can I help you?” She asks.
“We’re here to see Amber Greene.” Sam says because Puck’s tongue is suddenly stuck to the roof of his mouth.
The receptionist types something into her computer. “In the maternity ward, right?”
“Yeah.” Sam nods.
“She’s in Room 4G. Take the elevators up to the fourth floor and head to your right.”
“Thanks,” Sam smiles and grabs Puck’s hand, steering him towards the elevators.
“You alright?” Sam asks when the metal doors slide closed and they’re alone in the elevator.
Puck nods. “Just…nervous.”
“It’s fine.” Sam says, sliding his arm around Puck’s waist and squeezing. Puck nods again. He hates hospitals but this is a necessary evil, and it will be so so worth it.
Amber is sitting in bed, thumbing through an e-reader when they get to her room. Leo is noticeably absent.
“Hey guys,” Amber greets them. “I’d get up to hug you, but I’m tired so you can come hug me.”
Sam laughs and does exactly that and Puck follows suit.
“Kelly’s at her office getting the paperwork.” Amber says, and Puck recognises the hint of forced cheerfulness in her voice. He’s been exactly where she is, after all. “You guys should go over to the nursery and see him. It’s just down the hall.”
They can take a hint, so they leave Amber with her book and follow the signposts down the hall to the nursery. They step up to the window and squint at the names, trying to pick out Baby Greene.
Sam finds him, three in from the left in the second row, and they both sort of freeze just looking at him. Puck can’t help remembering Beth; it was eighteen years ago and he was a different person then, but he remembers this feeling. Because the baby on the other side of the glass is his, his and Sam’s, not biologically but in all the ways that really matter.
They stand staring for a long time, just watching him sleep.
“I can’t believe this is really happening,” Sam whispers. Neither can Puck. When they’d started filing with adoption agencies, Puck had expected this to take a while, months, maybe even a year or more, but Amber had come across their file only six weeks after they submitted their information and then Kelly had called them and it’s been smooth sailing since then. The only bump in the road has been Leo, who doesn’t know what he wants.
Sam’s phone starts ringing in his pocket and he pulls it out, frowning at it.
“Work?” Puck asks.
“Yeah. I said not to call unless it was an emergency…”
“Take it. It’ll probably be a bit before Kelly gets here.”
Sam nods and sets off in search of somewhere quiet to deal with whatever emergency is happening.
“Hey man,” Puck hears and he turns to find Leo standing with his hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans and looking nervous. He’s not Amber’s boyfriend, as far as Puck knows, just a boy she slept with a handful of times. Maybe they could’ve become something, but pregnancies have a way of fucking up relationships when you’re not ready for them. He’d know.
“Hey,” Puck nods, and wonders if he looked that young when he was nineteen. Probably.
“So, uh, he’s like the most beautiful thing ever, right?” Leo says, nodding to the still-unnamed baby.
“He is.” Puck agrees.
“Amber hasn’t really…she doesn’t want to see him.”
Puck gets that. He wonders if it would’ve hurt less, giving up Beth, if he’d never really looked at her or held her or watched Quinn hold her.
“I gave up a baby once.” Puck says. “Did Amber ever tell you?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s about your age now. Little bit younger.”
“You ever see her?”
Puck shakes his head. “Closed adoption.”
Leo turns to look at the baby again. “Does it get easier?” He asks after a few moments.
“Not right away, but…yeah. Eventually.” Puck braces himself to ask the question he’s been afraid to ask since Leo showed up. But he has to know now, before he gets even more attached than he already is, just from watching the baby through the nursery window. “Are you still okay with this?”
Leo looks startled. “Jesus, yeah. I just…maybe want something different than Amber does.”
Sam returns then, and he looks a little stricken hearing that. Puck wraps his arm around Sam’s shoulders.
“It’s cool,” Leo rushes to say. “I’m not pulling last minute baby-daddy drama. I was just thinking maybe…pictures? Emails once and a while?”
Puck glances over at Sam, who nods and reaches for his phone again. “I’ll let Kelly know. She can figure out the paperwork.”
Leo looks relieved. “I’m gonna, uh, go check on Amber. But…thanks.”
“Thank you,” Puck says and Leo nods jerkily.
***
Their afternoon is consumed with re-working Leo’s adoption contract and then signing all the paperwork. Puck remembers a lot of this stuff from when he was on Amber and Leo’s side of things. Amber is discharged from the hospital once she finishes signing all the paperwork, and she hugs them both tightly before gathering her things and leaving. She wants a closed adoption and Puck doesn’t blame her for not wanting to prolong the inevitable. He’d done pretty much the same thing once he signed away all his parental rights eighteen years ago.
It leaves them with Leo and Kelly, fine-tuning the details of their new agreement, which now looks like pictures and an email update twice a year. Puck’s more than okay with that. He doesn’t begrudge Leo asking for something he himself would’ve asked Shelby for if he’d known he could.
“Is it okay if I have a couple minutes with him before I go?” Leo asks.
“Of course,” Sam says.
“Congratulations dads,” Kelly tells them warmly once Leo leaves the room. “You have a name ready for the birth certificate yet?”
“We want to meet him first. He might be more of a Luke than an Eli.”
“We’re not naming him Luke,” Puck protests good-naturedly. “We already have a dog named Han Solo. That’s plenty of Star Wars.”
“I’ll let you two work that out.” She laughs. “I need to go file some things with the hospital.”
“Maybe he’s a Jack.” Sam teases.
“We’re not naming our son after a Titanic character either, babe.” Puck laughs. “And if you try to name him after what’s his face from Dirty Dancing, my answer is still gonna be no.”
Sam laughs and Puck leans against him, tipping his face up to kiss Sam’s cheek. “I love you,” he says quietly.
“You too,” Sam murmurs. “Should we go meet our son?”
Puck’s stomach does a series of complicated loops hearing that, but he nods and gets to his feet despite his shaking knees.
Leo isn’t there when they arrive at the nursery again, and that’s probably for the best. The nurse lets them in this time, and goes to get the baby.
“Who wants to hold him first?” The nurse asks, carrying him over and Sam looks at Puck.
“You can,” Sam says, and Puck has a moment of terror that he’s going to drop him but before he can change his mind there’s a baby in his arms, warm and small and he blinks his eyes open and stares up at Puck.
“Elijah,” Puck says. “He’s definitely an Eli.”
“Yeah,” Sam agrees, hooking his chin over Puck’s shoulder to look down at the baby. “He is.”
Puck swallows hard around the lump in his throat and sits down in one of the chairs. He barely notices Sam pulling out his phone to snap a few pictures.
“He’s perfect.” Puck breathes as Eli yawns widely, his eyelids drooping closed again.
They switch after a few minutes and Puck can’t help taking pictures of his own, because the smile that lights up Sam’s face is something he wants to remember forever.
Later, they’ll pick a favourite picture to send to their families and friends, but for now Puck is happy to keep this moment for just the three of them.
Rating: G
Characters/pairings: established Sam/Puck, a handful of OCs
Genre: fluff for fluff's sake, family
Spoilers: none, although a working knowledge of my No Surrender verse will probably be useful
Warnings: none
Summary: Everything is going to change.
Word count: 2600ish
Author's note: This is the much asked-for follow up to I Can Love You Out of There. ;) Title borrowed from 'Wonderful World', by Take That.
“You’re going to have to stop hating me eventually.” Puck tells Bob Dylan when he stumbles into the kitchen for coffee that morning. The cat is in her usual spot on the window seat, watching Puck with suspicious eyes. He doesn’t entirely blame her; he knows the whole abandonment issues thing pretty intimately, after all. But he’s been back for a few months and he thinks it should be clear by now he’s not going anywhere. Besides, he and Bob Dylan have history. He’d found her behind a dumpster in Cincinnati during his sophomore year at UC when she was just a kitten, and he’d smuggled her into his dorm room and managed to hide her from his nosy-as-fuck RA for the rest of the year. With Sam at OSU and then in Syracuse getting his Masters while Puck was still an undergrad, it had been nice having Bob Dylan around.
The coffee finishes percolating and Puck pours it into two mugs while his cat continues to ignore him. He stirs milk into one mug and sugar into the other and heads carefully towards the stairs. He reaches the bedroom just as the alarm starts beeping. Sam grumbles sleepily, his hand snaking out to slap the snooze button with more force than necessary, and Puck grins. At eighteen, Sam used to happily run five miles before the sun came up. Now, he would probably stay in bed until noon if he could.
Puck sets the coffees down on his nightstand and slides back into bed next to his husband. Sam makes a snuffling, half-asleep noise and buries his face against Puck’s chest. He startles when the alarm goes off a second time.
“Coffee?” Puck asks and Sam sits up, leaning back against the headboard. He nods and Puck hands him the milky coffee. Sam wraps his hands around the mug, becoming more alert with each sip.
“How’s Bob?” Sam asks.
“Same old, same old.” Puck sighs.
“She’ll come around.” Sam yawns widely and lets his head drop onto Puck’s shoulder. They’re up earlier than they normally would be for a Saturday, but today is far from a normal Saturday.
“Gonna hop in the shower,” Puck says, dropping a kiss on the top of Sam’s head. “Don’t go back to sleep.”
“Won’t.”
Puck showers quickly, on edge and anxious. He towels off and pulls on jeans and a sweatshirt, before changing his mind and swapping the hoodie out for a sweater he thinks Jamie and Henry got him for Christmas last year. He feels strangely self-conscious, but maybe that’s normal for a day like today. Everything is going to change.
He finds Sam in the kitchen, and he can’t help laughing a little because Sam is wearing the same sweater in a different colour and neither of them are really sweater people at all.
“I just thought, you know, pictures.” Sam shrugs and Puck nods.
“Yeah. I know. Me too.”
Sam eats a bowl of cereal standing at the counter while Puck checks everything is set up for Hannah Blake from two doors down to come and stay overnight so Han Solo doesn’t totally destroy the house.
“Ready, babe?” Sam calls up the stairs, and Puck takes few deep breaths in the guest bedroom before returning to the kitchen.
“Let’s go.”
***
Puck drives because the thinks he’d go crazy just sitting in the passenger seat, while Sam DJs, changing playlists so often it’s like he has music ADD. Eventually he decides to stick with their glee club list, for nostalgia’s sake, and they both relax a little, singing loudly along with some of Schue’s cheesier eighties’ ballads.
And then their song comes on and Puck can’t resist reaching across the console, lacing his fingers with Sam’s. Sam squeezes his hand a little tighter than he normally would, but Puck doesn’t exactly blame him. Part of Puck can’t believe this is really happening, and he has a feeling that will be the case until they’re back in Syracuse tomorrow.
They stop somewhere between Rochester and Buffalo to eat lunch and stretch their legs a bit, and when Puck checks his phone he has twelve texts. Four are from his mother and three from Sarah, both demanding pictures, ASAP. He sends them the same text telling them to chill the fuck out. He’s got one from each of his siblings-in-law, one from Jamie and one from Santana, who he’s stayed in pretty good touch with over the years. Sam frowns down at his own phone and Puck figures he has just as many curious messages from people. More, probably, since Sam has more friends.
“We shoulda kept this a secret,” Puck grins and Sam shrugs.
“We wouldn’t’ve been able to. They’re just excited.”
“I know.” Puck nods, and he can’t help reaching out, curling his hand around the back of Sam’s neck and pulling him close for a soft kiss. Sam sighs and leans against him, and wraps his arms around Puck’s middle, hugging tight.
“Ready?” Puck asks after a few minutes, and Sam nods.
“Yeah.”
***
Once they get into downtown Buffalo, Puck switches on the GPS because he’s terrible at city driving, and he still manages to miss a few turns, but eventually he finds a parking space and then they’re walking up the sidewalk, into the hospital and towards the reception desk.
The woman at the front desk is young and smiley and reminds Puck a little bit of Audrey. “Can I help you?” She asks.
“We’re here to see Amber Greene.” Sam says because Puck’s tongue is suddenly stuck to the roof of his mouth.
The receptionist types something into her computer. “In the maternity ward, right?”
“Yeah.” Sam nods.
“She’s in Room 4G. Take the elevators up to the fourth floor and head to your right.”
“Thanks,” Sam smiles and grabs Puck’s hand, steering him towards the elevators.
“You alright?” Sam asks when the metal doors slide closed and they’re alone in the elevator.
Puck nods. “Just…nervous.”
“It’s fine.” Sam says, sliding his arm around Puck’s waist and squeezing. Puck nods again. He hates hospitals but this is a necessary evil, and it will be so so worth it.
Amber is sitting in bed, thumbing through an e-reader when they get to her room. Leo is noticeably absent.
“Hey guys,” Amber greets them. “I’d get up to hug you, but I’m tired so you can come hug me.”
Sam laughs and does exactly that and Puck follows suit.
“Kelly’s at her office getting the paperwork.” Amber says, and Puck recognises the hint of forced cheerfulness in her voice. He’s been exactly where she is, after all. “You guys should go over to the nursery and see him. It’s just down the hall.”
They can take a hint, so they leave Amber with her book and follow the signposts down the hall to the nursery. They step up to the window and squint at the names, trying to pick out Baby Greene.
Sam finds him, three in from the left in the second row, and they both sort of freeze just looking at him. Puck can’t help remembering Beth; it was eighteen years ago and he was a different person then, but he remembers this feeling. Because the baby on the other side of the glass is his, his and Sam’s, not biologically but in all the ways that really matter.
They stand staring for a long time, just watching him sleep.
“I can’t believe this is really happening,” Sam whispers. Neither can Puck. When they’d started filing with adoption agencies, Puck had expected this to take a while, months, maybe even a year or more, but Amber had come across their file only six weeks after they submitted their information and then Kelly had called them and it’s been smooth sailing since then. The only bump in the road has been Leo, who doesn’t know what he wants.
Sam’s phone starts ringing in his pocket and he pulls it out, frowning at it.
“Work?” Puck asks.
“Yeah. I said not to call unless it was an emergency…”
“Take it. It’ll probably be a bit before Kelly gets here.”
Sam nods and sets off in search of somewhere quiet to deal with whatever emergency is happening.
“Hey man,” Puck hears and he turns to find Leo standing with his hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans and looking nervous. He’s not Amber’s boyfriend, as far as Puck knows, just a boy she slept with a handful of times. Maybe they could’ve become something, but pregnancies have a way of fucking up relationships when you’re not ready for them. He’d know.
“Hey,” Puck nods, and wonders if he looked that young when he was nineteen. Probably.
“So, uh, he’s like the most beautiful thing ever, right?” Leo says, nodding to the still-unnamed baby.
“He is.” Puck agrees.
“Amber hasn’t really…she doesn’t want to see him.”
Puck gets that. He wonders if it would’ve hurt less, giving up Beth, if he’d never really looked at her or held her or watched Quinn hold her.
“I gave up a baby once.” Puck says. “Did Amber ever tell you?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s about your age now. Little bit younger.”
“You ever see her?”
Puck shakes his head. “Closed adoption.”
Leo turns to look at the baby again. “Does it get easier?” He asks after a few moments.
“Not right away, but…yeah. Eventually.” Puck braces himself to ask the question he’s been afraid to ask since Leo showed up. But he has to know now, before he gets even more attached than he already is, just from watching the baby through the nursery window. “Are you still okay with this?”
Leo looks startled. “Jesus, yeah. I just…maybe want something different than Amber does.”
Sam returns then, and he looks a little stricken hearing that. Puck wraps his arm around Sam’s shoulders.
“It’s cool,” Leo rushes to say. “I’m not pulling last minute baby-daddy drama. I was just thinking maybe…pictures? Emails once and a while?”
Puck glances over at Sam, who nods and reaches for his phone again. “I’ll let Kelly know. She can figure out the paperwork.”
Leo looks relieved. “I’m gonna, uh, go check on Amber. But…thanks.”
“Thank you,” Puck says and Leo nods jerkily.
***
Their afternoon is consumed with re-working Leo’s adoption contract and then signing all the paperwork. Puck remembers a lot of this stuff from when he was on Amber and Leo’s side of things. Amber is discharged from the hospital once she finishes signing all the paperwork, and she hugs them both tightly before gathering her things and leaving. She wants a closed adoption and Puck doesn’t blame her for not wanting to prolong the inevitable. He’d done pretty much the same thing once he signed away all his parental rights eighteen years ago.
It leaves them with Leo and Kelly, fine-tuning the details of their new agreement, which now looks like pictures and an email update twice a year. Puck’s more than okay with that. He doesn’t begrudge Leo asking for something he himself would’ve asked Shelby for if he’d known he could.
“Is it okay if I have a couple minutes with him before I go?” Leo asks.
“Of course,” Sam says.
“Congratulations dads,” Kelly tells them warmly once Leo leaves the room. “You have a name ready for the birth certificate yet?”
“We want to meet him first. He might be more of a Luke than an Eli.”
“We’re not naming him Luke,” Puck protests good-naturedly. “We already have a dog named Han Solo. That’s plenty of Star Wars.”
“I’ll let you two work that out.” She laughs. “I need to go file some things with the hospital.”
“Maybe he’s a Jack.” Sam teases.
“We’re not naming our son after a Titanic character either, babe.” Puck laughs. “And if you try to name him after what’s his face from Dirty Dancing, my answer is still gonna be no.”
Sam laughs and Puck leans against him, tipping his face up to kiss Sam’s cheek. “I love you,” he says quietly.
“You too,” Sam murmurs. “Should we go meet our son?”
Puck’s stomach does a series of complicated loops hearing that, but he nods and gets to his feet despite his shaking knees.
Leo isn’t there when they arrive at the nursery again, and that’s probably for the best. The nurse lets them in this time, and goes to get the baby.
“Who wants to hold him first?” The nurse asks, carrying him over and Sam looks at Puck.
“You can,” Sam says, and Puck has a moment of terror that he’s going to drop him but before he can change his mind there’s a baby in his arms, warm and small and he blinks his eyes open and stares up at Puck.
“Elijah,” Puck says. “He’s definitely an Eli.”
“Yeah,” Sam agrees, hooking his chin over Puck’s shoulder to look down at the baby. “He is.”
Puck swallows hard around the lump in his throat and sits down in one of the chairs. He barely notices Sam pulling out his phone to snap a few pictures.
“He’s perfect.” Puck breathes as Eli yawns widely, his eyelids drooping closed again.
They switch after a few minutes and Puck can’t help taking pictures of his own, because the smile that lights up Sam’s face is something he wants to remember forever.
Later, they’ll pick a favourite picture to send to their families and friends, but for now Puck is happy to keep this moment for just the three of them.