Fic: Higher Education, 3/?
Title: Higher Education, Part 3/?
Author: knittycat99
Pairing: Kurt/Blaine, Kurt/Puck
Rating: R-ish for kissing and potential future sexual situations
Word Count: 3,953
Spoilers: through 2x16, "Original Song"
Summary: They move in and out of Kurt's life over the years, showing up occasionally when he needs them and more often when he doesn't
Note: A speculative fic about what the future might hold for our boys; the musical inspiration for this part is brought to you by the excellent soundtrack from John Hughes' "Some Kind of Wonderful".
And I'm at the stage
Where I want my words heard and no one wants to listen though
No one wants to listen 'cause everybody's yelling
About you and yours and how I'd have the answer if only I'd open up up up and let you in
-Furniture
Part 3: Northeastern University, Freshman winter
Kurt thought that he knew from winter. Ohioans were nothing if not hardy folk, but this winter was going to kill him well before it made him stronger. It had started during exam week with freezing rain that turned to ice that became 8 inches of snow, which made walking treacherous. He’d had to give in and wear his winter boots. Not his fake-winter fashion boots, but his real LL Bean snow boots. The epic weather continued with another foot of snow three days before Christmas that left him camped out for 14 hours at Logan Airport waiting for a runway to be cleared so his flight to Columbus could take off. Two days after New Year’s, Kurt returned to Boston for January term; it was supposed to be a more relaxed time of hanging out with friends and picking up extra hours at his job in the Admissions office. Instead, he spent three weeks in his pajamas, eating Ramen or cereal and watching 7 seasons of The West Wing. He got to work only when campus offices were open as Nor’easter after Nor’easter swept up the Atlantic coast and blanketed Boston with close to five feet of snow in 14 days. On the last Thursday of the term, though, the sky was clear and temperatures ventured above Arctic. Kurt couldn’t wait to get to work, and to the grocery store. He was expecting his roommate back sometime before the weekend, since classes began again on Monday, so when his cell rang early he answered without looking at the caller id.
“Greg? I hope you come back with a tan. It’s been miserable here, and I can vacation vicariously.”
“Dude. Who’s Greg?”
“Puckerman?”
“Yeah.”
“Um. Greg is my roommate. Why are you calling me? Where are you?” Kurt hadn’t really seen Puck since August. They had missed each other over Christmas; Puck had been over hanging with Finn a couple of times, but Kurt had having Epic Coffee with Blaine or out with Quinn and Mercedes. He and Puck had never been great friends, but they had reached a certain level of understanding (and grudging almost-friendship) in the time since the Great Coffeehouse Confrontation of 2010.
“I’m in Boston. I thought maybe you’d be up for breakfast. Or something.”
Kurt tried to shake sleep-fog out of his brain. He definitely wasn’t following.
“Wait. What are you doing here again?”
“Just taking some time to visit with my East Coast peeps.” Kurt could almost hear the white lie in Puck’s voice, but he figured he’d call him on it later. There were times when he wondered what was going on behind Puck’s tough exterior; he was pretty sure it was more than a little complicated.
“Yeah. So, breakfast. You’re at the airport still?”
“Yeah.”
“OK, listen. And pay attention. Take the Silver Line from the airport to South Station. When you get to South Station, you’re going to want the Red Line inbound. Get off at Downtown Crossing and transfer to the Orange Line heading to Forest Hills. Get off at Ruggles, and I’ll meet you at the top of the escalator.”
“Dude. No way. I won’t remember all of that.”
Kurt rolled his eyes in frustration. “Just get on the Silver Line and I’ll text you the rest. It should take you about 40 minutes.” Just enough time to shower and dress and cross campus to the T stop, he thought. “Travel safe, and I’ll see you there.”
“’K. Bye.”
“Bye.”
He was out the door thirty minutes after he hung up with Puck. He was oddly excited to see him. He’d lacked for company since coming back to school; his dorm was pretty quiet, and the weather had been so nasty that most people just stayed in their rooms. The snow had also prevented Blaine from getting down to Boston for the long weekend they had planned over break; Bowdoin had been snowed under worse than Northeastern, though apparently that had worked out well for Blaine. He’d found an unexpected friends-with-benefits situation with a boy he met at the pool. “A football player, if you can believe that!” he’d told Kurt when he’d called to cancel the visit. “I don’t think I’m ready for another boyfriend yet. You kind of spoiled me, in a good way.” Kurt kind of felt bad about that. In the short term, his romance with Blaine had gone well, but it just couldn’t stand up to the distance and the schedule conflicts. They had cut the cord over Christmas break last year, and quickly and easily reverted back to being best friends. Kurt had no doubt that if circumstances were just right, they could also slip into friends-with-benefits, but for now he was enjoying Blaine’s friendship and his own single status.
Kurt reflected as he walked to the T stop on how much he loved Boston. He had always expected that he’d end up in New York, which was why he was so stunned to realize, 15 minutes into his first visit, that New York City would do nothing but chew him up and spit him out. Confidence was one thing. He would have needed to be a masochist to succeed there. At the beginning of senior year, Mr. Schue met with each of them to help plan a college strategy. That was the first time he confided his secret dream, that he wanted to be a counselor or a teacher, to help kids like himself. “I never expected to hear that from you, Kurt,” Mr. Schue had said with genuine surprise, “but I think you’ll be remarkable at it.” Over a handful of meetings, he articulated more of what he wanted from a college: a medium-sized university with a legacy of community involvement. He liked the specs on Northeastern, especially that it was a 5-year program with plenty of opportunities to complete field-specific internships. When he visited the campus, he felt instantly at home in Boston. It was the right sized city for him, a place where he could stand out sometimes and be invisible at others. With so many colleges in such a small area, the romantic and friendship possibilities alone were astounding.
He had to admit, his first semester had been a success. He got along well with his roommate, a not-too-serious Bio major from Pittsburgh who sang with one of the a cappella groups. Kurt had toyed with trying out himself, but ended up casting his lot with the Boston Gay Men’s Choir, and he had been pleased to be accepted. He had gotten solid A-/B+ in his fall classes, an odd mix of intro classes for his major and a couple of more advanced gen ed’s he’d been able to place into by virtue of scoring 5’s on all three of his AP exams last spring. He was gradually carving a place for himself in this city where nobody knew anything about him. He could be a totally new Kurt here. It was, oddly, refreshing.
*****
Puck stood at the top of the steps at the subway entrance looking around for Hummel. He was looking for the Kurt he knew, skinny pants and fancy shirts, maybe a crazy hat. He wasn’t expecting the Kurt he finally found, leaning idly against a lamp post with his nose in a thick paperback book. This Kurt was wearing crisply pressed khaki pants and a blue button-down shirt under an open black pea coat. Black Docs, cranberry scarf. No hat to mess up perfectly styled brown hair. Messenger bag slung across his chest. This Kurt moved with a confident grace that Puck wasn’t used to seeing. He had filled out since summer. He would never be a big guy, but it looked like he was both eating well and maybe working the weights a little bit. He looked, Puck thought in the instant before he caught Kurt’s eye, pretty hot.
“Puck!” Kurt tucked a finger into his book and waved. Puck crossed the sidewalk, slick with melted snow and ice, and pulled him into a back-thumping hug. “Dude, you look great.”
“You too,” Kurt replied. “I like . . .” he gestured towards his head, which caused Puck to run a sheepish palm over his short curls.
“Yeah. I dunno. When I got to LCC, it just seemed a little too high school, y’know? I’m not sure this-” he gestured again “is really me either, but it’s a start.”
Kurt looked at him with an odd mix of interest and surprise. It unnerved him a little bit.
“Let’s go eat,” he said. “There’s a great place not far from here. We can walk, if you’re okay carrying your stuff.”
“This is all I have.” Puck motioned to his backpack with the hand holding his guitar case.
“If you don’t want to carry it, we can drop it in my room.”
“No, no. It’s okay.”
“Great. This way.” Kurt led him through a warren of mid-rise red brick buildings, across an open quad, and through a set of wrought iron gates. They stopped at a crosswalk while they waited for the light to change, and they crossed over and headed down what looked like an alley. When they came out the other side, they were in front of a diner. “Best food here,” Kurt told him, opening the door to the scent of dark coffee and sugar and fried fat. “They serve everything on the menu 24 hours a day.”
“Like-”
“The Golden Egg, exactly!”
The Egg had become a kind of Glee hangout their senior year. After their crash-and-burn at Nationals as juniors, they had recommitted to three evening rehearsals a week in addition to their regular class period. Most nights when they were done, the guys at least were hungry so they’d all go over to the Egg for a late-night snack before heading home to finish off their homework. Nobody cared that the whole club would take up three long tables, or that they would order tons of food and eat off each other’s plates. It was a place where they could all just be themselves. Puck thought that it was there, at the diner, when he began to slowly fall in love with Kurt. Watching him engage with the group rather than remaining a little outside the way he had been before Dalton. Watching him relax enough to actually eat. Seeing him smile, really smile, all open and free and happy. Puck wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Kurt truly happy before last year, and here he was again with happy written all over his face.
“You like it here?” he asked Kurt as they settled into a booth and opened skinny plastic-coated menus.
“Yes. It’s a good place for me. The people are good. I love my classes.”
The waitress came barreling over with a coffee pot and two chunky ceramic mugs. “Coffee?” she asked.
Kurt nodded, but Puck asked “what kind of pop do you have?”
The waitress looked confused, until Kurt spoke up. “He’ll have a Coke, extra ice.”
When she walked away, Kurt leaned in and whispered “it's soda here. I practically got laughed out of the cafeteria line my first week when I asked my roommate where the pop machine was. And don’t even get me started on what they call sandwiches.”
Puck was still a little stunned that Kurt knew his drink of choice. “What’s good here?”
“Everything. If you want breakfast, they have killer waffles and pancakes. I like to come here when I’m craving a burger. And they have good fries, too.”
“What are you getting?”
“A burger and fries.”
Puck thought a moment. “If I got waffles, do you want to share? Like old times?”
Kurt smiled. “I’d like that.”
When the waitress returned with Puck’s glass, brimming with ice just the way he liked it, they put in their order and tried to retrieve the delicate thread of conversation the waitress had interrupted.
“Finn said you got your EMT certification? I never knew you were interested in doing that.”
“I kind of always thought it would be a cool job. It turns out I like doing it, and I’m pretty good at it too.”
“It’s important to like what you do.”
“And you like it? What you’re studying?”
“Mmmm hmmm. Child and Adolescent Psychology. I think I’m going to be really good at it. I’ll have to do some practicum hours this semester for one of my classes. That’ll give me a better idea. I really just…” Kurt’s voice faded, and it looked to Puck like he was struggling for words.
“You want to help other kids, so they don’t have to go through what you did.”
“That’s surprisingly astute of you, Puckerman.”
“I only pretend to be dumb.”
“I know. I remember.”
“Remember what?”
“We were in the same track in middle school. You always were at the top in math and science. What happened to that boy?”
Puck looked away, out the window at the traffic going by. His throat tightened. Kurt was just as perceptive as always. “That boy… was scared. And lonely.” He turned back and looked Kurt straight in his eyes. “But I think you already know that. And what that feels like.”
Kurt looked surprised at both the honesty and the mild bite to Puck’s words. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
They were interrupted again by the waitress, who set their plates on the table and brought them a basket with condiments for Kurt’s burger and a plastic jug of warm syrup. Kurt cut his burger in half, and Puck gestured to his waffle. “Syrup?” At Kurt’s slight nod, he liberally syruped his plate and pushed it into the middle to make it easier to share. They ate in silence, suddenly awkward and more than a little uncomfortable with each other. When their plates were empty, and Kurt had finished a second coffee pale and sweet, they settled the bill and emerged, wordlessly, onto the sun-brightened street.
“I don’t have to be at work for another couple of hours. Would you like a tour?”
“Yeah. But can I ditch my stuff first?”
“Yeah.” Kurt led the way to his dorm, yet another brick half-tower in the opposite direction of the subway. Kurt slid his keycard into the outside door with practiced precision, and led the way through an institutional lobby and up two flights of dimly lit stairs. “My roommate isn’t back yet, but he’s pretty cool. I don’t know what your plans are . . .”
“If it’s okay, I was hoping to chill here a couple of days before heading down to New York to see Rachel.”
“Yeah, that’s fine.”
They stopped at the fourth door from the stairs, in front of a wildly decorated cork board. At quick glance, Puck could see a group shot of New Directions at Nationals in New York (the year they failed miserably), and another one of them in competition clothes surrounding their 1st place trophy last spring in D.C. There was a family picture taken at the Hudson-Hummel wedding, one of Blaine and Kurt in their Dalton uniforms, and two pictures of Kurt in his cap and gown at graduation: one with his dad and one with all of New Directions. The other half of the board was an eclectic mix of cartoons and a picture of a tall blond boy in a blue cap and gown holding a really little girl, apparently his toddler sister, in his arms. Puck thought that anyone who paid attention to the door display would learn a lot about what Kurt considered important: his friends, his family, and his singing.
Kurt let them into the room, which had drab whitish-gray walls and a really unfortunate green linoleum floor that was partially covered with a square of pale blue carpet. It was pretty much like Finn’s room at Ohio State, except that Finn shared his closet-sized room with three other guys. Kurt’s room was a little bigger, a lot cleaner, and only held two people. Puck could tell right away that the bed by the window was Kurt’s. It was covered with a soft-looking down comforter and a pile of pillows. Kurt’s iPod was docked into a set of speakers, and there was both a laptop and a stack of textbooks on the desk that was arranged to at least visually separate Kurt’s side of the room from his roommate’s. Kurt gestured to the empty space between his desk and bed. “You can drop your stuff here, if you want. Bathroom is up the hall; turn right at the “T” and it’s the double doors on your right. I’ll be right back.” He shed his bag, coat, and scarf before he headed out of the room. Puck dropped his own coat over Kurt’s where he had left it on the bed, and set down his backpack and guitar. He took in Kurt’s Broadway show posters, his bookshelves that were overstuffed with notebooks, textbooks, and different genres of paperbacks. There was a second cork board with more of Kurt’s family pictures, and what looked like a recent addition tacked on near the bottom. Kurt was wearing what appeared to be his New Directions black competition shirt and black pants with a pale purple tie. He was surrounded by 5 other men of a variety of ages also in black with different colored ties. A paper program was stuck underneath the picture, and Puck flipped it out to read it. “Boston Gay Men’s Chorus Broadway Revue 2012”. So Kurt hadn’t stopped singing. That was good.
“I was lucky to get in,” Kurt’s voice came from behind him. “Competition is pretty stiff. And I’m kind of the baby of the group.”
“Who are these guys?”
“Some of my ‘fairy godfathers’, as it were. They’ve made being a baby gay in a new city a little easier. They take me out dancing, or to karaoke, and give me boy advice.”
“And are there?”
“Are there what?”
“Boys?”
*****
Ah ha. Kurt had known that there was some kind of ulterior motive to Puck’s visit. He hadn’t been wrong, there was something going on. He was going to have to dig a little more. He moved closer to Puck, reaching around him to pull the picture off his cork board. “All of these guys were at my audition in some capacity. James is the second youngest. He’s an Engineering major at MIT. Michael is an English teacher at Boston Latin, this really exclusive prep school, and his partner Tom does something financial, I’m not really clear on the details. Eric is a paralegal at the DA’s office, and Ethan’s a grad student at BU. They’re probably my best friends in the city.”
“Boys, Kurt. Are there boys?”
“Why do you sound so tense?”
“I’m not.”
“I didn’t say you were. I said you sounded that way.”
“Dammit, Hummel, stop evading me. Are? There? Boys?”
Kurt backed away from Puck. His intensity was a little too much. He took a deep breath. “No,” he sighed. “There are no boys. Not since Blaine.”
“Why not? You’re smart, and nice. And . . .”
“And?”
It was Puck’s turn to back away. Kurt watched him swallow, breathe, rub his hands on the thighs of his faded jeans and through his hair in what Kurt knew to be Puck’s favorite self-soothing ritual.
“C’mon, Puckerman. You came here for a reason, and I don’t buy your story for single minute. Should I call Rachel right now and see if you’ve even talked with her since graduation?”
“No!” Before Kurt even had time to blink, Puck had crossed the three steps between them and grabbed Kurt by the wrist. Kurt started, and began to pull away, but then Puck’s mouth was on his, hungry and hot. When the immediate shock wore off, he relaxed into the kiss and pulled Puck closer to him. Puck’s arms were strong at the small of his back and the back of his neck. He twisted his hand into the softness of Puck’s t-shirt, let his other hand toy at the waistband of Puck’s jeans. At the briefest touch of Kurt’s hand along the bare skin at Puck’s waist, Puck pulled away, eyes large.
“I’m sorry, dude. I didn’t mean to.” Puck looked suddenly scared, like he had crossed a boundary and didn’t know how to go back.
“Yes, you did. And that’s okay.” Puck looked a little unsteady, so Kurt pulled out his desk chair and motioned for Puck to sit.
“Was that the first time you’ve kissed a guy?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. And you’ve been having feelings for guys for how long?”
“Not guys. Not plural. One guy.”
Kurt paused for a minute, his kiss-addled brain struggling to kick into gear. And then the connection. Oh. Oh. “Me,” he squeaked.
“Yeah. You. Always you.”
“Since when?”
“Honestly?”
“Please.”
Puck kind of turned away. “I think it started that day in 8th grade, in the dumpster.”
“The sunlight.” Kurt remembered that moment, how clearly he saw behind Puck’s tough exterior, how much depth and feeling there was behind those brown eyes.
“Yeah. And then, you’ve just always kind of been able to cut through all my crap, y’know?”
“It’s easy, Puck. We’re kind of the same, you and I. Underneath our slightly off-putting outer selves, at least.”
“Not to change the subject, but you look so different.”
“Yeah, that.”
“What happened?”
“Well, a couple of things. First, I have a work-study job at the Admissions office, which is why I’m a little more dressed today. But what really happened is that I started liking myself more. When I started feeling more comfortable with myself, I didn’t need to hide behind my clothes anymore. Not that I don’t still love me some fashion, but it’s just that now, fashion. Not a costume.”
“That makes sense.”
“What about you? Do you still hate yourself?”
“I’ve never hated myself.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not. I hate things that have happened in my life, and the way they make me feel, but I don’t hate myself.”
“And these feelings you have for me. Do you hate them?”
“No.”
“But?”
“But nothing. They make me confused. I’ve never been into dudes. Just you.”
The not-quite confident, slightly scared look on Puck’s face made Kurt’s heart hurt. The poor guy looked almost broken.
“Look,” he laid his hand gently on top of Puck’s where it rested on the back of the chair. “I’m not avoiding you, but I really have to get to work. I’ll be off at 4. Can you occupy yourself until then?”
Puck nodded his assent. “I can’t give you my keycard because I need it to clock in at work. You can stay here if you want, or you can go out. I’ll check in when I’m done at work and we can meet up and get something to eat. And come back here and talk. I think we need to do that, and I also think that we both need a little space to think about all of this.”
“Yeah. Would you mind if I took a nap?”
“Not at all.” He shrugged into his coat and wrapped his scarf around his neck. He shouldered his messenger bag and headed out the door. When he turned back before he left the room, Puck was still sitting at his desk with his head cradled in his hands.
“Puck?”
“Yeah?” Puck’s voice was thick with emotion.
“We’ll figure this all out, okay?”
“Yeah.”
He let himself out into the hallway, and closed the door with a gentle click behind him. What a mess.