Fic: An Ideal Shelf Life, 3/6
Title: An Ideal Shelf Life, 3/6 (for LJ posting purposes)
Author:knittycat99
Rating: NC-17
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Kurt/Puck
Genre: AU, romance
Spoilers: all aired episodes, to be safe
Disclaimer: I don't own or profit from Glee. Song lyrics are property of Sting. Dialogue from The American President belongs to Aaron Sorkin.
Author Notes: Written for this prompt in the Writing The Fic I Didn't Write Challenge. First, massive amounts of thanks and lifelong adoration for my awesome friend and beta, nubianamy, who spent many nights watching me write this in googledocs, asking questions and challenging my plot, and picking up the innumerable times I misspelled cappuccino. She also provided musical inspiration in the forms of Eva Cassidy, Adam Lambert, and Five For Fighting. I couldn't have done this without her! Second, I've seriously upended the Glee timeline here to make it fit my purposes. As a result, the actions and attitudes of my characters reflect the time and places where they grew up. For more information on the issues and institutions I talk about, follow these links: Senate Page Program, Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, and Don't Ask Don't Tell (this link is to wikipedia, but there is also a really good history at the SLDN page, I just didn't want to link you to the same page twice).
Summary: Two quietly out of the closet White House staffers, years of unresolved romantic tension, mid-term elections, and a major GLBT social issue.
Word Count: 31,926
Noah waited at work until he had all but cleaned his desk off. He hesitated to jump into anything new because he didn’t want to be stuck there all night. Kurt was coming home, had actually been due back before dinner. But dusk was falling, and the last text had been an hour ago from the highway running through southern Pennsylvania. The event ran long. On my way. Don’t wait. Meet at your place?
Noah closed up his office and walked home, and then texted Kurt. Just home. Chinese for dinner?
The reply was almost instant. Forget Chinese. You for dinner.
He had no reply for that except for God, K. Hurry home!
The anticipation made him slightly crazy, so he puttered around his apartment for an hour with tingling limbs and an ache in his gut. Idiot, he thought to himself more than once. You’re a grown man, not a fumbling sixteen year old. Get it in gear. But he couldn’t think of anything except Kurt, the feel and sound of him and the way he moved and the way he laughed and . . . well.
He’d had his fair share of boyfriends since coming out in college, some longer term than others, but none of them had made him crazy like Kurt did, made him want like Kurt did. Made him feel love the way he felt it for Kurt. Noah’s heart had been pushing him along on this path for years, but he was having trouble fully believing in the feeling of it. If I can just get out of my head... the idea made him laugh, because he and Kurt both spent way too much time thinking and analyzing and endlessly, endlessly talking.
No talking tonight. No work. No news. No damn phones or emails. He was interrupted by the harsh ring of his buzzer, and after he let Kurt in he stood in his open doorway and waited. Kurt was faster than Noah had expected, mostly because he was hauling his suitcase and messenger bag. But he was there, tired and rumpled and his. Noah shuddered at the thought, and tugged Kurt inside before closing the door, turning the deadbolt, and pulling Kurt into a slow, languid kiss.
Noah could feel Kurt holding back slightly, and he looked at Kurt with puzzled eyes when he pulled away. “You okay, baby?”
“I-” Kurt licked his lips and looked away. “I just want to lose myself in you.” He plucked a hand at his wrinkled t-shirt and made a face.
Noah watched, and nodded. “I know what you need.” He took Kurt’s hand, led him into the bedroom, and motioned for him to undress. “You can put your clothes in with mine, if you want.” Mingling of laundry was a step for them, but Kurt didn’t blink, so Noah didn’t either. He left Kurt and headed into the bathroom, to turn on the shower. He turned the hot on first and then added the cold slowly, until the water was steaming instead of scalding. When he deemed it ready, he started to call for Kurt, but was surprised by the tug of Kurt’s hand at the waist of his pants, at Kurt’s hands sliding along the fabric of his shirt, at the press of Kurt’s body behind him. At the blatant wantonness in Kurt’s voice.
“I think one of us has an unfair advantage here, and I don’t think it’s me.” Kurt’s voice was liquid, warm and wanting. Noah shuddered under his touch, and starting navigating the frustratingly small buttons on his shirt with trembling, water-damp hands. Kurt stepped around him, body aware and full of confidence, and into the shower. “Join me when you’re ready,” he called before his voice disappeared under the curtain of water.
When Noah climbed in Kurt was turned away, the water running through his hair and leaving tracks of shampoo suds down his back and legs. Noah hummed low in his throat, and didn’t say a word, just ducked under the spray with Kurt and reveled in the warm, soap-slicked feel of him. He pressed his lips to the side of Kurt’s neck and down his shoulder, and shivered in delight when Kurt pushed back into the touch.
“I’ve missed you,” Noah mumbled into the water in the instant before Kurt turned and kissed him. It was hard, and demanding, and Noah thought he might drown in that kiss. But he wanted more than that, wanted to feel Kurt under him, tight and hot and coming undone. He let his hands wander down Kurt’s back, over the slight jut of his hip bones, between them to where he was already rock-hard. “Want you,” he breathed over the water and Kurt’s low, light moans.
Mmmmm was the only response he got, so he moved carefully then, guiding and urging with hip and shoulder and the gentle splay of his hand, first at the small of Kurt’s back and then against the flat of his abdomen, until Kurt was braced with both his hands against the tile and was rocking his hips, seeking.
“Baby.” Noah stopped for a moment, just wanting to be in the moment. “You make me crazy.”
Kurt’s words were low, rich with need and want. “Stop looking and just, please. Noah.”
Noah couldn’t help wanting to tease, so he trailed a hand lightly down the length of Kurt’s spine before moving lower and pressing Kurt open. “Please what?”
Kurt gasped at the motion, rocking into Noah’s hand. “Please,” Kurt ground out again. “Are you going to fuck me or not?”
Noah’s stomach dropped to his feet for a split second before he caught his breath. “Yes, baby, yes.”
He had been ready for hours, anticipating for fourteen days. He wasn’t new at this, but he suddenly felt nervous. “Kurt.” He covered Kurt’s body with his own, placed a hand over Kurt’s and twined their fingers. He didn’t even really have to do anything, because Kurt was arcing back, pushing himself around Noah, and it was bliss.
It was slow, the delicious slide of the two of them, together. Noah lost himself to everything except for that, the glide of skin and solid feel of Kurt under his arm, against his chest. Kurt made him feel, and want, and the things in his head and heart just bubbled over, whispered like faded echoes into Kurt’s unhearing ear. Good, so beautiful, so strong. Baby. My baby. The last one, over and over like a mantra, as Kurt came around him and under him, as Kurt’s tears washed away under the warm silence of the water.
He repeated it later, drowsy in the aftermath of Kurt’s relentless hands and mouth, when they were wrapped around each other in Noah’s bed. It was different then, a promise rather than a prayer, but it made Kurt shudder just the same.
Funny, Noah thought as he drifted closer to sleep, it makes me feel whole.
**
They didn’t talk about it. None of it. Not going public, not Noah’s news about his mysterious meeting. And most definitely not the implications of the words Noah had whispered so many times.
Kurt wanted to sleep, he really did. Being still instead of a slave to the persistent motion of the bus was nice. Being wrapped up in Noah’s arms was better. The limp bliss of his post-orgasm haze was perfect. And yet.
Past 3 am and he was still awake.
He slipped out of bed as gently as he could, and he wasn’t halfway into his suitcase digging for a clean pair of sleep pants when the bed creaked behind him.
“You okay?” Noah’s voice was thick with sleep.
“Noah. I was trying not to wake you.”
“It’s okay, baby.”
Kurt kept his back turned at the rustling of the sheets. He didn’t want to disturb Noah, he just felt like he always did in the dark of the night, a touch restless and a lot anxious with a brain that was never quiet. “Go back to sleep,” he scoffed. “At least one of us should take the chance when it presents itself.”
He kept waiting for the sheets to rustle again, for the telltale humph Noah always mumbled before he fell asleep. He waited for the gentle solidness of Noah’s breath in sleep, but it never came. What he got instead was Noah’s warm hand at the small of his back. Kurt stilled instantly, felt the warmth seep into his muscles.
Noah’s rough voice was like balm to his frayed and tattered brain. “Come back to bed.”
Kurt wanted. Oh, how he wanted. But he also didn’t know how to say things like how can you think about sleep and sex when our world might be falling apart? and what if we ruin everything? And the biggest thing of all: how can you be so sure that I’m worth all of this?
His words caught in his throat, but he choked them out just the same. “I- I can’t. There’s just so much . . ..”
But Noah’s hand was gentle in his own then, and his voice held no judgment. He tapped the side of Kurt’s head with his free hand. “Come back to bed, baby, and tell me what’s going on in that amazing brain of yours.”
The bed was still warm, and Noah wrapped Kurt up in his body, held him tightly for a few minutes before loosening his grasp and setting to work running his fingers through Kurt’s hair. Kurt let out an unintentional sigh at the contact, and before he realized what he was doing, he was talking. Not the stilted half-sentences that had been turning over in his head for two days either, but torrents of words and thoughts and fears and dreams. It felt like it did sometimes when he sat down to work on a speech, those times when he would type for hours and look back when he was done and wonder did I really do all that?
When his voice was hoarse, and then silent, Noah just held him again. Kurt could feel him nodding against the pillows.
“Okay. So. First,” Noah kissed the back of his neck, “you will always be worth it. I love you. All this stuff you’ve been holding in isn’t going to send me running.”
At Kurt’s snort, Noah just sighed. “You don’t believe in yourself very much, do you?”
Kurt wasn’t sure what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything at all. Noah had plenty to say, though.
“I know, you kick ass at work and you know it. But I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about how you feel about yourself here.” He pressed his palm in the center of Kurt’s chest, and Kurt could feel the thumping of his heartbeat echoed back into his body from the strength in Noah’s hand. “You put this great face out there to the world, but you don’t see yourself the way the rest of us do, do you?”
Kurt just shook his head. “I feel like I’m really good at faking it.”
“Faking what?” Noah sounded genuinely confused.
“All of it. I have no qualifications to do what I do. I have no marketable skills outside of this city. And I’ve never been in love before.”
“Really. And here I thought that jerk who left you right before the campaign was the love of your life,” Noah joked lightly, trailing hot breath along the broad expanse of Kurt’s upper back.
“Brat.” But there was more edge to Kurt’s voice than he intended, and Noah pulled back.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t-“
“Just wait, okay? I just-” Kurt let his voice drop in shame. “I just wanted you to know.”
“Know what?”
“That you’re the first person I’ve ever been in love with, and I have no idea what I’m doing. I don’t want to ruin this. Ruin us.”
Noah lay back on his pillow and sighed. He was silent for a maddening stretch of minutes that left Kurt reeling with a startling variety of worst case scenarios. When he finally spoke, it was so sudden that Kurt actually startled.
“Why do you think you’re going to ruin things?”
“Because we might be too much. You and I together, it might be more than anyone can handle. We’re both a beck and a call from the Oval Office, and the public has very strong opinions about these kinds of things.” Kurt sat up and pulled the sheet tight around him. “The people that matter all know anyway.”
Noah just looked at him, his eyes going bigger and bigger until he finally thrust angry words out into the room. “Oh. Fucking hell, Kurt. “
“What?”
“All that righteous anger you have about homophobes, and outing, and how everyone deserves to be out and happy? You believe it for everyone else, but you don’t believe in it for yourself.” He dropped a hand to the blankets between them and reached tentative finger out to graze the side of Kurt’s wrist.
Kurt paused in his thoughts, about to deny it, but he knew Noah was right. “I’m not brave like your soldiers, or so easy about things the way you are. It’s not that I’m not proud of who I am, it’s just, I never had a reason to care so much before. And caring too much means that the hurt in the aftermath is even worse.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Noah pulled Kurt into his chest and held him tight, murmuring nothings into his ear and punctuating them with I’m here, always and things like it. Things Kurt wanted to believe, but had trouble with even though it had been over two decades since his mother had died.
When Kurt was warm and settled again, Noah stretched out and pulled Kurt down next to him. Kurt let himself explore Noah’s body, running his hands over arms and chest and reveling in the little dip at the base of Noah’s throat. Noah hummed happily, relaxing under Kurt’s touch, and as Kurt tucked himself against the length of Noah’s body he sighed a content, full sigh. He stilled the motion of Kurt’s hand with the gentle touch of his own. “You have a reason to care now, though, right?”
Kurt nodded. “Yes. You’re my reason to care. I just might need help remembering that sometimes.”
“I can do that.” Noah fumbled on the bedside table for something, and when he turned back to Kurt he had his glasses in one hand and his phone in the other. He slipped the glasses on and thumbed through his contacts. Kurt grabbed his arm. “Noah, don’t. It’s 4 am!”
Noah smiled grimly. “No. Now, before you change your mind. We’re doing this, K. And we’re getting the ball rolling tonight.” He hit dial, and waited. Kurt didn’t need the phone turned towards him to hear the caller on the other end pick up.
“This is AJ.”
“AJ, Noah. Kurt and I need to talk to you.”