Snow is Gone; Glee
De-anoning a pretty old fic for this request: Deaf!Puck and Kurt helping him deal and adjust. Preferably high school-set. I'm really sorry to Josh Ritter for ripping his songs off for every fic title.
Title: Snow is Gone
Pairing: Puck/Kurt, little hints to past Puck/the ladies, of course.
Summary: It's helpful when he slows down, and mouths something Puck can recognize and make out perfectly well: "You idiot."
SNOW IS GONE
At first, Puck assumes it's only temporary. It's not absolute, is the thing. He can still hear something - low rumblings, the blurry fragments of words he can never quite make out.
The first few days, he ditches school and tells his mom it's a bug to avoid her fretting. It's about a week later when he picks up his guitar and strums and feels the strings shaking at his fingertips, violent and frantic, feel their vibrations through the whole of the guitar's body and hears nothing; a buzz, maybe, but that's been there forever now, and he can't tell anymore if it's really there or not.
He tries to talk. He says, "What the hell," and watches himself mouthing the words in the mirror.
That's when he knows something's really fucking wrong here.
-
It could be anything - Google tells him this clearly. It could be from a fight or fall, could be from infection, could be from all the up-close exposure to blasting speakers, could just be nerve damage. It's shit luck, anyway, something Puck has substantially more knowledge about.
Regionals is in a fortnight, and when he goes over his music, when he stares at his open, attempting-to-sing mouth in the mirror as it opens and closes at all the wrong moments, all the wrong beats he can't figure out, a slow dread drips into his stomach, black and thick like tar, sticking to his insides and weighing them low enough that he feels sick, dizzy, terrified.
He keeps assuring himself it'll pass, because there's the chance it can, there is. At dinner, nodding along to the white noise his mother is talking, he feels considerably less certain, considerably more hopeless.
-
Who do you tell when you lose hearing? How do you tell them? How the fuck are they supposed to help?
Finn is still a grey area. Quinn is still trying to bleach out all those nasty stains Puck left in her life, more successfully than he cares to admit. Rachel would freak out and tell everyone. Puck comes to the decision in the end that nobody really needs to know if they don't have a medical degree or some really fucking good weed.
Santana's dad is the doctor who sees him. He writes his questions down on a little marker-board and sometimes frowns at Puck's fast-spoken answers, like he's trying to make sense of them. It's long and just a little frightening. Puck stares at him through the whole ordeal, trying to clock every expression and what it means, every small nod and smile and frown and furrow.
The doctor's handwriting is a squinty chickenscratch mess, so it takes Puck a good two minutes to make out the words perforated eardrum in condemning red ink. Even then, he isn't exactly sure how to feel; the situation still sucks, doesn't it?
They're going to wait a bit, cross-their fingers it heals on its own and send him back on his way. No need to worry, Doctor Lopez scrawls. The words even look empty.
"Fine for you to say," Puck snaps as he's headed out the door. The doctor frowns at him again, waving him goodbye.
-
Puck's kind of scared about the whole thing, really.
The world is completely silent around him. People stumble into him more, he checks the roads incessantly, he's suddenly interested greatly in whatever elementary school story his sister's got today.
It's isolated. It's like looking at Lima through a dense glass, looking at his life standing a mile away from it.
When he bumps into Kurt, it's an accident, and Puck feels so fucking dumb and useless over everything that he even bends down to help pick up the groceries Kurt's dropped on the sidewalk after. He gathers them up and sets them back in their bags one by one, movements jerky with agitation.
He steps back after. Kurt's mouth is moving a mile a minute, eyebrows drawn, clutching his bags to his chest with his hands in tight little fists. Puck just rolls his eyes, because no matter what Kurt says, that's the general response to it.
He jams his hands back in his pockets then takes a step past him when Kurt pulls him back, abruptly, surprisingly forceful. Puck blinks down at him, mouth in a thin frown. He checks who's around for who might see this out of instinct, but it's people they don't know, parents making shopping trips and tiny little kids who look like they might be crying agonizingly hard or laughing agonizingly hard.
Kurt's lips are still moving. They stop, still parted. He lifts his free hand in front of Puck's face and Puck watches his fingers click, blankly.
It's helpful when he slows down, and mouths something Puck can recognize and make out perfectly well: "You idiot."
-
Kurt walks him home without a word. It's odd, and to be honest, Puck thinks it might give people the wrong idea, but one stray step on the concrete and the grip of Kurt's fingers on his arm to reel him back from a shot of wheels and white carlights leads him to think it might not be such a bad idea, having some assistance.
Puck doesn't say thanks, but Kurt still rolls his eyes when they get to his house and mouths with a sneer, "You're welcome."
"Don't say anything," Puck calls out when Kurt's started heading home. He fidgets with the zipper of his coat, trying to look careless, cool.
Kurt looks back at him with understanding and gives him a slow, careful nod, then he goes.
-
He comes back after school the next day, with all Puck's books and missed homework and even the sheet music from glee. He shifts awkwardly in the doorway while he hands them in, looking like he wants to say something, but doesn't know the right words, doesn't know if Puck will possibly comprehend them.
After a moment, he writes in at the bottom of Puck's math textbook, then lifts it to eye-level with him. In neat, loopy handwriting, it says, You should have told someone sooner.
Puck just shrugs like it's no big deal, like this is not his life.
-
Kurt doesn't stop showing up after that. He never tells Puck anything explicitly, but he has a feeling that maybe Kurt knows how lonely his world is right now, how strange and difficult it is to come to terms with.
It's after school, and Kurt's tidying his room, shooting glares at him for every dirty year-old article of clothing he finds swept under Puck's bed and every stain left on his bedroom's crème carpet. Puck sits at the desk and waits until Kurt's done and his room smells fresh and lemon-y to hand him a pen and a small pad of Post-Its.
"What are you doing here?" Puck asks. He tries not to sound confrontational about it, just curious, because he honestly doesn't know. He honestly doesn't get what's going on at all.
Kurt looks down at him with a hard, calculating stare, then quirks his brow and sticks a note to Puck's knee saying, You won't let anyone else help you.
Puck can live with that.
-
It's been about five days since he went to the doctor's office. They don't expect his recovery to be as swift as he does, so when he tells them at the desk he's still can't hear for shit, they assure him it's still too soon for any real changes, any real repair.
Kurt shows up at his door that night, but shakes his head when Puck opens the door for him to come inside. He holds up a notepad, and across the centre of the page it says, Rachel was determined to drop in on you today. She says you're not being a team player.
"Like she's got room to fucking talk," Puck says, flippantly.
Kurt opens his mouth, then turns the page. It says, You should tell them, now.
"I'm gonna get better," Puck tells him.
Kurt raises his eyebrows, then turns the next page: Before Regionals?
He convinces Kurt he knows what he's doing, that he'll sort things out, and Kurt shuts his notebook over, face hard, before leaving without another word.
Puck thinks about it later - the preconceived replies in Kurt's Audrey Hepburn notebook, and how it almost felt like a real conversation.
-
His mother finds out.
At first, she thought he was ignoring her, or was so ill he couldn't leave his room, but of course she ends up realizing. She takes him to the same doctor he went to two days before, and gets the same diagnosis. Doctor Lopez also tells her Puck already came earlier, and on the drive home, she hisses at him, angrily. He's gotten much better at reading lips, and he makes out a harsh, "You should have said something to me, Noah," or - something along those lines.
He doesn't see why he should have; it's not like she could have helped, anyway.
-
She tries to persuade him to go into school, but he knows it would never end well if he tried. He looks over his notes and works a little, but mostly he lingers on the sheet-music for glee, staring down at it and feeling pretty fucking useless all over again.
Try it, Kurt writes. They're in his basement; since they argued at Puck's, Kurt hasn't came back to see him, and Puck doesn't mind his company, and maybe possibly feels just a little bad, just a little ungrateful.
Puck makes a face at him, and Kurt crosses his arms, expectantly.
He sings the first few bars, hopefully as quietly as he intends. It's an odd feeling, discontentedly hollow, to sing words he can't hear, notes he doesn't know if he's hitting right, but Kurt smiles at him the whole time, regardless, and - it does make Puck feel better, in the end.
He nods enthusiastically when Puck trails off, still smiling, and something in Puck feels very suddenly bared, very suddenly soft.
-
Losing his hearing has taught Puck three major things:
1. Watching silent reruns of The OC means the show makes even less sense to him.
2. At some point in his life, he should have invested in lipreading, or even knowledge in sign language that extended further than just his middle finger.
3. He might be a little more lonely than he first suspected.
Puck blames the third one on last semester - on what happened with Finn and Quinn; on joining the glee club; on dating Rachel Berry - and that's fair enough. If this happened a year ago, Finn would undoubtedly be barging into his room freaking out and forgetting the number for an ambulance. The football team might take a little interest. Santana wouldn't despise him as much, might show up a little. His mother would probably care a lot more than she does now.
Maybe even Quinn would show.
Kurt isn't his first choice for company, not really, but he's as good as current-Puck is going to get, and that might not be as bad a thing as he first assumed it would be.
-
At the weekend, he drags Kurt out to a shop that sells guitars. He doesn't say anything the way there, just stares out the window. Kurt spends the drive wearing a frown and glancing at him questioningly every so often.
When they pull up at the entrance, Kurt yanks out his iPhone and types, I'm not some kind of charity.
Puck makes a face. "I'm not paying you for the four minute drive here."
Kurt rolls his eyes at him, then, I have a life.
"Not until I'm better, you don't," Puck tells him. He grabs Kurt by the arm and drags him inside.
They don't really do anything in the store, but Puck still likes it in there, surrounded by quieted instruments with Kurt, who looks over them with unhidden boredom. The guy managing takes a call through the back and that's when Kurt leads Puck by the wrist to the speakers at the side and switches the biggest one on. His fingers are on the volume dial, twisting, until it's so loud his face catches in a scowl.
He takes Puck's hand and sets it against the speaker, where it trembles from the vibrations, the deafening noise. Puck presses his ear to it and there's a buzz again, louder, fuzzier, but definitely there. He shuts his eyes, listens for a but, but the guy managing comes back inside and from what Puck can see, he isn't really happy at the attempt to deafen the customers (who aren't already deaf, that is).
They get kicked out the store. The clerk yells and makes a lot of angry gestures at Kurt, who looks deeply apologetic and makes to reply when Puck drags him out the store, snorting.
"Idiot," Puck mutters, more to himself, but Kurt's the only one who hears it. He rolls his eyes, again, then brings his iPhone back out.
His fingers tap the keys in a flurry. Anything? it reads. Kurt's got concern in his eyes, now.
Puck pauses for a moment - thinks about the low hum of noise, then Kurt's hand around his wrist, warm - before shaking his head, solemnly. "Not a thing," he answers, and Kurt slowly nods, absorbing the news. After another moment, he helps Puck cross the road to get to the passenger's seat, mouth drawn thin.
-
Highschool has taught Puck three major things:
1. He's not good with school. Puck's smart, but he refuses to study or put it to use, is the thing. It's a waste, really, but he's settled on the decision by now, so - what can you do?
2. He's not good with girls. When sex isn't included, that is. The two girls outside of Quinn he's genuinely liked are Rachel and Mercedes, but they didn't put out, so he never even bothered to make an effort.
3. He's not good with friends. Period.
Today Kurt's bribed him into homework by waving a bag of sugar-free cookies over his head while he reads over Spanish notes, and Puck has no idea how they've got here.
If you finish it all, I'll give you some, he's written on the side of the page. He's rearranging the pile of DVD's at the foot of the bed. Puck would deny that he purposely left them there after Kurt went home early the night before (You don't need anything else). He looks from the note, to Kurt, to the blank spaces for answers on the homework sheet.
"That sounds pretty dirty," Puck says over the textbook. He can half-hear it now, gravelly and low an just off coherent.
He glances at Kurt, and revels for a second in the deep shade of red that takes over his cheeks.
Kurt blinks at him, ridiculously flushed, then leans down and starts fiddling with the films again like nothing happened. Which is mostly expected, and which does things to Puck's stomach; so does the way Kurt haltingly smiles back every time he catches Puck smirking over at him, the way Kurt takes the paper out his hand and looks over it carefully, lips parted and eyes green, and shiny.
You need to study more, Kurt tells him. His face is blank, unimpressed - Puck can see a tiny smile beneath it all.
Kurt still ends up handing him the bag of cookies after wordlessly demanding a pinky-promise that he'll study. Puck goes along with it, but he's pretty sure from the look on Kurt's face they both know it isn't going to happen.
-
He comes to the understanding only a week before Regionals that he likes Kurt.
That's also when he wakes up to the vague sounds of cars outside, and the shower running from next door, for the first time in what feels like forever.
-
Kurt still writes everything he means to say down, in his neat, font-like handwriting. Puck still leaves him to believe he's as deaf as ever.
When they're together, Kurt doesn't even make a sound. He doesn't speak a word at all, snorts instead of laughing. Sometimes his phone goes off - the first time, Puck had to catch himself before he snorted at the sound of Boys Boys Boys blaring from Kurt's iPhone - or they sit a little closer together than usual, and Puck can hear his breath, soft and a bit reassuring.
-
It's the Monday before Regionals. Kurt's impatient now. He keeps trying to convince Puck to visit the doctor's, which is an awkward argument to have over pencil and paper, especially when the incessant, outdrawn scratch of lead makes Puck want to tell him just to say it, already.
Regionals ends up coming up, since it's all either of them are thinking about anyway.
Kurt pauses for a moment, cheeks red, before sliding a scrap of paper over.
We need you. It makes Puck feel like shit, makes him want to apologize, even.
Instead, he pushes Kurt to curve over his seat, ignoring the squeak of surprise he makes, and sets his head against Kurt's chest, carefully, like he's trying to gingerly fit them together. He can hear the frantic beat of Kurt's heart instantly, the what? bubbling at his lips.
"Sing," is all Puck says, softly.
Kurt hesitates, and Puck shuts his eyes, listens to him breathe.
Then comes first bars of Mr Cellophane; Puck listens to his voice, sweet and melodic, his heartbeat, the music; he feels the vibrations of Kurt's voice against his cheek, every stilted, trembling breath, a warm body against his own, and a dozen other lies.
-
His mom knows now that he's practically all better. She and his sister still have to yell everything a few times over so he can really hear it, but there's no doubt he's almost good as new, or he will be soon.
It's about time, really.
"Hi," Puck says when Kurt steps into his room. His mom's been talking - yelling - at him about this as well, the boy he spends all his time locked in his bedroom with. Puck tells her they're friends, but he doesn't even know if that's a real answer, either, and he doesn't know if he'd give her the real one if he had it.
Kurt smiles at him, a small awkward smile he's taken to given Puck lately. His cheeks are all red from the cold, from being around Puck. He unbuttons his coat and waves a hand in reply, still smiling.
"Say hi," Puck tells him from the other side of the room.
Kurt's brow furrows. He folds his coat over his arms and says, curiously, "Hi?"
It's strange to spend so long with someone in complete silence, to forget how they talk. It's not at full clarity yet, but he can make the simpler words out, can still hear the soft, high tone of Kurt's voice again, and that's enough.
Puck face spreads into a slow grin, then he says, again, "Hi."
There's a short moment before Kurt grins back at him, brightly. "Took you long enough," he says, quietly, and Puck just shrugs.
-
Kurt really does drive him out to the doctor's this time. He tells him to act politely, say thank you, smile at the nurses without sex in his eyes. Puck finds it hard to take any information in when Kurt's talking; it feels brand new, and nice. Kurt keeps catching Puck smiling at him like an idiot, but he doesn't say anything except, "And keep your hands out your pockets, will you?"
They're slotted in for a five minute examination between Doctor Lopez's appointments. He seems happy Puck understands him practically perfectly this time around. Kurt sits at his side on on the hospital bed the whole time, fidgeting until Puck nudges him when the doctor's back is turned and tells him to calm down.
"I am calm," Kurt says quietly, staring at his feet.
Puck goes to reply when the doctor tells him the healing is going well, that he should be alright soon, and that he can go to Regionals and perform - the news Kurt's been waiting on that he doesn't seem the least pleased to hear.
-
They sit in the car-park after, in silence - Puck sits clicking his seatbelt over and over to break it. He's not good with silences now; they've made him feel antsy and a tad scared since.
Kurt's just staring out the window, holding the steering-wheel and frowning.
"It's not good news?" Puck asks, lowly. He pushes the button in again, just for something to do with his hands.
Kurt blinks at him, then answers with confusion, "I don't know." He's got his bottom lip caught between his teeth.
They both pause, then Puck says before he can even register that he's talking, "I'll still like you." It's an accident, then floodgates are being forced open. "If anything, I'll like you more when I can hear what the fuck you're actually talking about."
The look on Kurt's face, like he's been caught red-handed, called out, like this thing between them is being acknowledged for a minute, finally - it's odd to see. "I don't know if I'll like you when you're not deaf, though," Kurt counters, like a reflex. A smile is quirking at his lips.
"It could work," Puck says. He shrugs.
Kurt's still looking at him, still half-smiling, and Puck doesn't even let himself think about what he does next.
He leans over and kisses the soft corner of Kurt's mouth, carefully, dryly. Kurt hums against his lips, and Puck feels his lashes brushing against his cheek when he closes his eyes. He slides his hand over Kurt's on wheel, holding it firmly, then buries his head into Kurt's neck and breathes in his McQueen scarf, and listens to the same familiar sound of his heart beating, more paced, now. "I," Puck starts, then he shakes his head, buries himself deeper and squeezes Kurt's hand in his own, the words dying in his throat.
Kurt snorts. He leans down to press a warm kiss to his cheek, smiling into the skin, then hovers his mouth over Puck's ear and just says, quietly, "You're welcome."
Title: Snow is Gone
Pairing: Puck/Kurt, little hints to past Puck/the ladies, of course.
Summary: It's helpful when he slows down, and mouths something Puck can recognize and make out perfectly well: "You idiot."
SNOW IS GONE
At first, Puck assumes it's only temporary. It's not absolute, is the thing. He can still hear something - low rumblings, the blurry fragments of words he can never quite make out.
The first few days, he ditches school and tells his mom it's a bug to avoid her fretting. It's about a week later when he picks up his guitar and strums and feels the strings shaking at his fingertips, violent and frantic, feel their vibrations through the whole of the guitar's body and hears nothing; a buzz, maybe, but that's been there forever now, and he can't tell anymore if it's really there or not.
He tries to talk. He says, "What the hell," and watches himself mouthing the words in the mirror.
That's when he knows something's really fucking wrong here.
-
It could be anything - Google tells him this clearly. It could be from a fight or fall, could be from infection, could be from all the up-close exposure to blasting speakers, could just be nerve damage. It's shit luck, anyway, something Puck has substantially more knowledge about.
Regionals is in a fortnight, and when he goes over his music, when he stares at his open, attempting-to-sing mouth in the mirror as it opens and closes at all the wrong moments, all the wrong beats he can't figure out, a slow dread drips into his stomach, black and thick like tar, sticking to his insides and weighing them low enough that he feels sick, dizzy, terrified.
He keeps assuring himself it'll pass, because there's the chance it can, there is. At dinner, nodding along to the white noise his mother is talking, he feels considerably less certain, considerably more hopeless.
-
Who do you tell when you lose hearing? How do you tell them? How the fuck are they supposed to help?
Finn is still a grey area. Quinn is still trying to bleach out all those nasty stains Puck left in her life, more successfully than he cares to admit. Rachel would freak out and tell everyone. Puck comes to the decision in the end that nobody really needs to know if they don't have a medical degree or some really fucking good weed.
Santana's dad is the doctor who sees him. He writes his questions down on a little marker-board and sometimes frowns at Puck's fast-spoken answers, like he's trying to make sense of them. It's long and just a little frightening. Puck stares at him through the whole ordeal, trying to clock every expression and what it means, every small nod and smile and frown and furrow.
The doctor's handwriting is a squinty chickenscratch mess, so it takes Puck a good two minutes to make out the words perforated eardrum in condemning red ink. Even then, he isn't exactly sure how to feel; the situation still sucks, doesn't it?
They're going to wait a bit, cross-their fingers it heals on its own and send him back on his way. No need to worry, Doctor Lopez scrawls. The words even look empty.
"Fine for you to say," Puck snaps as he's headed out the door. The doctor frowns at him again, waving him goodbye.
-
Puck's kind of scared about the whole thing, really.
The world is completely silent around him. People stumble into him more, he checks the roads incessantly, he's suddenly interested greatly in whatever elementary school story his sister's got today.
It's isolated. It's like looking at Lima through a dense glass, looking at his life standing a mile away from it.
When he bumps into Kurt, it's an accident, and Puck feels so fucking dumb and useless over everything that he even bends down to help pick up the groceries Kurt's dropped on the sidewalk after. He gathers them up and sets them back in their bags one by one, movements jerky with agitation.
He steps back after. Kurt's mouth is moving a mile a minute, eyebrows drawn, clutching his bags to his chest with his hands in tight little fists. Puck just rolls his eyes, because no matter what Kurt says, that's the general response to it.
He jams his hands back in his pockets then takes a step past him when Kurt pulls him back, abruptly, surprisingly forceful. Puck blinks down at him, mouth in a thin frown. He checks who's around for who might see this out of instinct, but it's people they don't know, parents making shopping trips and tiny little kids who look like they might be crying agonizingly hard or laughing agonizingly hard.
Kurt's lips are still moving. They stop, still parted. He lifts his free hand in front of Puck's face and Puck watches his fingers click, blankly.
It's helpful when he slows down, and mouths something Puck can recognize and make out perfectly well: "You idiot."
-
Kurt walks him home without a word. It's odd, and to be honest, Puck thinks it might give people the wrong idea, but one stray step on the concrete and the grip of Kurt's fingers on his arm to reel him back from a shot of wheels and white carlights leads him to think it might not be such a bad idea, having some assistance.
Puck doesn't say thanks, but Kurt still rolls his eyes when they get to his house and mouths with a sneer, "You're welcome."
"Don't say anything," Puck calls out when Kurt's started heading home. He fidgets with the zipper of his coat, trying to look careless, cool.
Kurt looks back at him with understanding and gives him a slow, careful nod, then he goes.
-
He comes back after school the next day, with all Puck's books and missed homework and even the sheet music from glee. He shifts awkwardly in the doorway while he hands them in, looking like he wants to say something, but doesn't know the right words, doesn't know if Puck will possibly comprehend them.
After a moment, he writes in at the bottom of Puck's math textbook, then lifts it to eye-level with him. In neat, loopy handwriting, it says, You should have told someone sooner.
Puck just shrugs like it's no big deal, like this is not his life.
-
Kurt doesn't stop showing up after that. He never tells Puck anything explicitly, but he has a feeling that maybe Kurt knows how lonely his world is right now, how strange and difficult it is to come to terms with.
It's after school, and Kurt's tidying his room, shooting glares at him for every dirty year-old article of clothing he finds swept under Puck's bed and every stain left on his bedroom's crème carpet. Puck sits at the desk and waits until Kurt's done and his room smells fresh and lemon-y to hand him a pen and a small pad of Post-Its.
"What are you doing here?" Puck asks. He tries not to sound confrontational about it, just curious, because he honestly doesn't know. He honestly doesn't get what's going on at all.
Kurt looks down at him with a hard, calculating stare, then quirks his brow and sticks a note to Puck's knee saying, You won't let anyone else help you.
Puck can live with that.
-
It's been about five days since he went to the doctor's office. They don't expect his recovery to be as swift as he does, so when he tells them at the desk he's still can't hear for shit, they assure him it's still too soon for any real changes, any real repair.
Kurt shows up at his door that night, but shakes his head when Puck opens the door for him to come inside. He holds up a notepad, and across the centre of the page it says, Rachel was determined to drop in on you today. She says you're not being a team player.
"Like she's got room to fucking talk," Puck says, flippantly.
Kurt opens his mouth, then turns the page. It says, You should tell them, now.
"I'm gonna get better," Puck tells him.
Kurt raises his eyebrows, then turns the next page: Before Regionals?
He convinces Kurt he knows what he's doing, that he'll sort things out, and Kurt shuts his notebook over, face hard, before leaving without another word.
Puck thinks about it later - the preconceived replies in Kurt's Audrey Hepburn notebook, and how it almost felt like a real conversation.
-
His mother finds out.
At first, she thought he was ignoring her, or was so ill he couldn't leave his room, but of course she ends up realizing. She takes him to the same doctor he went to two days before, and gets the same diagnosis. Doctor Lopez also tells her Puck already came earlier, and on the drive home, she hisses at him, angrily. He's gotten much better at reading lips, and he makes out a harsh, "You should have said something to me, Noah," or - something along those lines.
He doesn't see why he should have; it's not like she could have helped, anyway.
-
She tries to persuade him to go into school, but he knows it would never end well if he tried. He looks over his notes and works a little, but mostly he lingers on the sheet-music for glee, staring down at it and feeling pretty fucking useless all over again.
Try it, Kurt writes. They're in his basement; since they argued at Puck's, Kurt hasn't came back to see him, and Puck doesn't mind his company, and maybe possibly feels just a little bad, just a little ungrateful.
Puck makes a face at him, and Kurt crosses his arms, expectantly.
He sings the first few bars, hopefully as quietly as he intends. It's an odd feeling, discontentedly hollow, to sing words he can't hear, notes he doesn't know if he's hitting right, but Kurt smiles at him the whole time, regardless, and - it does make Puck feel better, in the end.
He nods enthusiastically when Puck trails off, still smiling, and something in Puck feels very suddenly bared, very suddenly soft.
-
Losing his hearing has taught Puck three major things:
1. Watching silent reruns of The OC means the show makes even less sense to him.
2. At some point in his life, he should have invested in lipreading, or even knowledge in sign language that extended further than just his middle finger.
3. He might be a little more lonely than he first suspected.
Puck blames the third one on last semester - on what happened with Finn and Quinn; on joining the glee club; on dating Rachel Berry - and that's fair enough. If this happened a year ago, Finn would undoubtedly be barging into his room freaking out and forgetting the number for an ambulance. The football team might take a little interest. Santana wouldn't despise him as much, might show up a little. His mother would probably care a lot more than she does now.
Maybe even Quinn would show.
Kurt isn't his first choice for company, not really, but he's as good as current-Puck is going to get, and that might not be as bad a thing as he first assumed it would be.
-
At the weekend, he drags Kurt out to a shop that sells guitars. He doesn't say anything the way there, just stares out the window. Kurt spends the drive wearing a frown and glancing at him questioningly every so often.
When they pull up at the entrance, Kurt yanks out his iPhone and types, I'm not some kind of charity.
Puck makes a face. "I'm not paying you for the four minute drive here."
Kurt rolls his eyes at him, then, I have a life.
"Not until I'm better, you don't," Puck tells him. He grabs Kurt by the arm and drags him inside.
They don't really do anything in the store, but Puck still likes it in there, surrounded by quieted instruments with Kurt, who looks over them with unhidden boredom. The guy managing takes a call through the back and that's when Kurt leads Puck by the wrist to the speakers at the side and switches the biggest one on. His fingers are on the volume dial, twisting, until it's so loud his face catches in a scowl.
He takes Puck's hand and sets it against the speaker, where it trembles from the vibrations, the deafening noise. Puck presses his ear to it and there's a buzz again, louder, fuzzier, but definitely there. He shuts his eyes, listens for a but, but the guy managing comes back inside and from what Puck can see, he isn't really happy at the attempt to deafen the customers (who aren't already deaf, that is).
They get kicked out the store. The clerk yells and makes a lot of angry gestures at Kurt, who looks deeply apologetic and makes to reply when Puck drags him out the store, snorting.
"Idiot," Puck mutters, more to himself, but Kurt's the only one who hears it. He rolls his eyes, again, then brings his iPhone back out.
His fingers tap the keys in a flurry. Anything? it reads. Kurt's got concern in his eyes, now.
Puck pauses for a moment - thinks about the low hum of noise, then Kurt's hand around his wrist, warm - before shaking his head, solemnly. "Not a thing," he answers, and Kurt slowly nods, absorbing the news. After another moment, he helps Puck cross the road to get to the passenger's seat, mouth drawn thin.
-
Highschool has taught Puck three major things:
1. He's not good with school. Puck's smart, but he refuses to study or put it to use, is the thing. It's a waste, really, but he's settled on the decision by now, so - what can you do?
2. He's not good with girls. When sex isn't included, that is. The two girls outside of Quinn he's genuinely liked are Rachel and Mercedes, but they didn't put out, so he never even bothered to make an effort.
3. He's not good with friends. Period.
Today Kurt's bribed him into homework by waving a bag of sugar-free cookies over his head while he reads over Spanish notes, and Puck has no idea how they've got here.
If you finish it all, I'll give you some, he's written on the side of the page. He's rearranging the pile of DVD's at the foot of the bed. Puck would deny that he purposely left them there after Kurt went home early the night before (You don't need anything else). He looks from the note, to Kurt, to the blank spaces for answers on the homework sheet.
"That sounds pretty dirty," Puck says over the textbook. He can half-hear it now, gravelly and low an just off coherent.
He glances at Kurt, and revels for a second in the deep shade of red that takes over his cheeks.
Kurt blinks at him, ridiculously flushed, then leans down and starts fiddling with the films again like nothing happened. Which is mostly expected, and which does things to Puck's stomach; so does the way Kurt haltingly smiles back every time he catches Puck smirking over at him, the way Kurt takes the paper out his hand and looks over it carefully, lips parted and eyes green, and shiny.
You need to study more, Kurt tells him. His face is blank, unimpressed - Puck can see a tiny smile beneath it all.
Kurt still ends up handing him the bag of cookies after wordlessly demanding a pinky-promise that he'll study. Puck goes along with it, but he's pretty sure from the look on Kurt's face they both know it isn't going to happen.
-
He comes to the understanding only a week before Regionals that he likes Kurt.
That's also when he wakes up to the vague sounds of cars outside, and the shower running from next door, for the first time in what feels like forever.
-
Kurt still writes everything he means to say down, in his neat, font-like handwriting. Puck still leaves him to believe he's as deaf as ever.
When they're together, Kurt doesn't even make a sound. He doesn't speak a word at all, snorts instead of laughing. Sometimes his phone goes off - the first time, Puck had to catch himself before he snorted at the sound of Boys Boys Boys blaring from Kurt's iPhone - or they sit a little closer together than usual, and Puck can hear his breath, soft and a bit reassuring.
-
It's the Monday before Regionals. Kurt's impatient now. He keeps trying to convince Puck to visit the doctor's, which is an awkward argument to have over pencil and paper, especially when the incessant, outdrawn scratch of lead makes Puck want to tell him just to say it, already.
Regionals ends up coming up, since it's all either of them are thinking about anyway.
Kurt pauses for a moment, cheeks red, before sliding a scrap of paper over.
We need you. It makes Puck feel like shit, makes him want to apologize, even.
Instead, he pushes Kurt to curve over his seat, ignoring the squeak of surprise he makes, and sets his head against Kurt's chest, carefully, like he's trying to gingerly fit them together. He can hear the frantic beat of Kurt's heart instantly, the what? bubbling at his lips.
"Sing," is all Puck says, softly.
Kurt hesitates, and Puck shuts his eyes, listens to him breathe.
Then comes first bars of Mr Cellophane; Puck listens to his voice, sweet and melodic, his heartbeat, the music; he feels the vibrations of Kurt's voice against his cheek, every stilted, trembling breath, a warm body against his own, and a dozen other lies.
-
His mom knows now that he's practically all better. She and his sister still have to yell everything a few times over so he can really hear it, but there's no doubt he's almost good as new, or he will be soon.
It's about time, really.
"Hi," Puck says when Kurt steps into his room. His mom's been talking - yelling - at him about this as well, the boy he spends all his time locked in his bedroom with. Puck tells her they're friends, but he doesn't even know if that's a real answer, either, and he doesn't know if he'd give her the real one if he had it.
Kurt smiles at him, a small awkward smile he's taken to given Puck lately. His cheeks are all red from the cold, from being around Puck. He unbuttons his coat and waves a hand in reply, still smiling.
"Say hi," Puck tells him from the other side of the room.
Kurt's brow furrows. He folds his coat over his arms and says, curiously, "Hi?"
It's strange to spend so long with someone in complete silence, to forget how they talk. It's not at full clarity yet, but he can make the simpler words out, can still hear the soft, high tone of Kurt's voice again, and that's enough.
Puck face spreads into a slow grin, then he says, again, "Hi."
There's a short moment before Kurt grins back at him, brightly. "Took you long enough," he says, quietly, and Puck just shrugs.
-
Kurt really does drive him out to the doctor's this time. He tells him to act politely, say thank you, smile at the nurses without sex in his eyes. Puck finds it hard to take any information in when Kurt's talking; it feels brand new, and nice. Kurt keeps catching Puck smiling at him like an idiot, but he doesn't say anything except, "And keep your hands out your pockets, will you?"
They're slotted in for a five minute examination between Doctor Lopez's appointments. He seems happy Puck understands him practically perfectly this time around. Kurt sits at his side on on the hospital bed the whole time, fidgeting until Puck nudges him when the doctor's back is turned and tells him to calm down.
"I am calm," Kurt says quietly, staring at his feet.
Puck goes to reply when the doctor tells him the healing is going well, that he should be alright soon, and that he can go to Regionals and perform - the news Kurt's been waiting on that he doesn't seem the least pleased to hear.
-
They sit in the car-park after, in silence - Puck sits clicking his seatbelt over and over to break it. He's not good with silences now; they've made him feel antsy and a tad scared since.
Kurt's just staring out the window, holding the steering-wheel and frowning.
"It's not good news?" Puck asks, lowly. He pushes the button in again, just for something to do with his hands.
Kurt blinks at him, then answers with confusion, "I don't know." He's got his bottom lip caught between his teeth.
They both pause, then Puck says before he can even register that he's talking, "I'll still like you." It's an accident, then floodgates are being forced open. "If anything, I'll like you more when I can hear what the fuck you're actually talking about."
The look on Kurt's face, like he's been caught red-handed, called out, like this thing between them is being acknowledged for a minute, finally - it's odd to see. "I don't know if I'll like you when you're not deaf, though," Kurt counters, like a reflex. A smile is quirking at his lips.
"It could work," Puck says. He shrugs.
Kurt's still looking at him, still half-smiling, and Puck doesn't even let himself think about what he does next.
He leans over and kisses the soft corner of Kurt's mouth, carefully, dryly. Kurt hums against his lips, and Puck feels his lashes brushing against his cheek when he closes his eyes. He slides his hand over Kurt's on wheel, holding it firmly, then buries his head into Kurt's neck and breathes in his McQueen scarf, and listens to the same familiar sound of his heart beating, more paced, now. "I," Puck starts, then he shakes his head, buries himself deeper and squeezes Kurt's hand in his own, the words dying in his throat.
Kurt snorts. He leans down to press a warm kiss to his cheek, smiling into the skin, then hovers his mouth over Puck's ear and just says, quietly, "You're welcome."