A/N: I wrote this for obliqueoptimism's prompt on tumblr. Even though it's called Mr. & Mr. Puckerman, it has no resemblance to the movie since I have never watched it. I just needed a title for it. Also, I chose Mr. Puckerman because a) Mr. & Mr. Hummel-Puckerman was too long and b) because Chris said he wouldn't mind taking his husband's last name. I hope you like this!
Kurt put his hand on the chest of the man lying underneath him and pulled on the dagger's handle with all his strength to get it out of muscles and bones. Whenever he had a "job" to do he always picked a different weapon but knifes and daggers were usually his favorite choices.
He didn't need to look around himself to check for witnesses because he always searched carefully for his places; far away from main roads and houses and remote enough that no one would stumble upon him. His plans were always simple because the more details you put into them, the more easier it got to make a mistake. When he got a job he dressed up (wigs, contact lenses, make-up…), seduced his victims and got them to drive him whenever he wanted, with a promise of "a place where he could show what he did best, away from prying eyes" and always ended the night with blood.
He heard his phone starting to vibrate in the pocket of his coat and he got out of the car and started to walk away. He pulled off a bloody glove and answered with a cold, "Done."
"Good. The cleaning service is on its way."
The call was cut off and Kurt quickly shut the phone and pulled out the battery; better safe than sorry. He started walking down the deserted road while he waited for the car to come pick him up. He felt his other phone starting to vibrate and he had to compose himself before answering. He ignored the way his hands trembled a little while he flipped the phone open.
"Hey baby," he whispered with a shaky smile.
"I bought dinner." Kurt heard the sound of keys being dropped on glass and pictured his husband just getting inside their home. "I thought you'd be here by now."
"Got caught up with work." The lie slipped out easily and Kurt hated himself a little bit more. He loved his job but he hated having to lie. What he did had started long before Puck had come into his life and Kurt knew that he would never be able to get out. "I should be home in an hour or so."
Puck sighed. "Okay. I'll just put everything in the oven then. I'll go take a shower," he added in a more playful tone. "Perhaps my husband will get here in time to join me."
Kurt laughed and shook his head. He forgot about the dagger still clasped in his hand and the blood smeared on his clothes and on his face. "You better take a long shower then."
"You know me."
Kurt saw the car approaching from the end of the road and sighed. "I've got to go now."
"Alright. Love you."
He smiled softly and whispered, "I love you, too."
-.-.-.-.-
Puck closed the door with his foot and pulled out his cell hitting one on the speed dial. He stopped in front of the mirror they had hanging by the front door and studied his face while he waited for Kurt to pick up.
He had got cleaned up at "work" (because he couldn't go around town with stained clothes nor could he bring evidences back home) but he had somehow missed a spot on his face. He scrubbed at the red stain on his cheek with his finger but the blood didn't go away.
When Kurt's voice finally answered him, he dropped the keys on the glass table by the door and listened to his husband. It helped him from thinking about what he did every time he said he had to stay late to finish some work, and it reminded him that there was still something good in his life.
When he had been a kid in high school he had taken pride in getting detentions and breaking rules but by the time he turned eighteen he had done more than he could ever overcome. The first time he had killed someone it was to save his own life but a month later he was learning how to be a killer. He was good in what he did, he was the best apparently, or so he was told, but after meeting Kurt he had started hating that part of his life because it was the one thing he could never share with his husband.
He listened to Kurt telling him that he'd be late home and almost laughed at what that usually meant for himself. When he ended the call he put the dinner that Johnny had picked up for him in the oven and made his way to the bathroom.
He stopped in front of the mirror and while he washed away the blood from his face, he hated himself a little bit more.
The cool air coming in from the half opened window moved the red curtains and made the wind chime hanging by the bed tinkle.
Kurt turned around under the sheets and scooted a little closer to the body lying next to him. The heat and the wind were keeping him only half asleep and he could still hear the noises coming from the street as if they were just a little bit farther away than usual. It took him only a few seconds to hear the noise of footsteps coming from the living room.
He opened his eyes and caught his breath listening to the silence. For a while it seemed like Puck's soft snoring was the only noise in their apartment, but then the footsteps were back. It sounded like whoever was on the other side of their bedroom door was trying to be quite.
With fluent movements, Kurt rolled out of bed and knelt by the side of the mattress quietly pulling out a shoes box from under the bed; inside there was his favorite knife and his favorite gun. He picked up the latter and with deft fingers put the magazine in its place. He pulled back the barrel and when it slid back forward, Puck shot up in bed and turned to look at him.
For a moment Kurt was frozen in place wondering how he was going to explain what he was doing with a loaded gun knelt by the side of the bed. He opened his mouth still without knowing what he was going to say but before he could utter a single word, the knob of the door turned. Kurt had never been more grateful that they were paranoid enough to always lock it.
"I don't have time to explain," Kurt whispered. "But…"
They heard the tell tale sing of someone trying to pick the lock and faster than Kurt had ever seen him move, Puck slipped out of bed, crouched down and retrieved a small black box. He kept his eyes downcast while he quickly opened the lid, pulled out a small silver gun and assembled it.
All the questions that should have come up in that moment died when the door was suddenly opened and a guy dressed in black pointed his gun at them.
Kurt rejoiced for a moment in seeing the man's eyes widen at finding himself with two guns aimed at him.
"Who sent you?" Kurt asked, his voice slipping into the familiar cold tone he used for "work". But instead of answering the guy aimed his gun at Puck and a moment later found himself with a hole between his eyes. If there was one thing Kurt wasn't going to let happen, was someone shooting his husband.
"Care to…" Puck was cut off by the sound of hurried footsteps. He could picture whoever was the now dead-man's companion hurrying up the stairs of their condo after having heard the gunshot. "Fuck."
"We have to go!" Kurt said, gun still in one hand. He bent down to get his knife before walking over to the window to look outside. He glanced at Puck who was still standing by the bed staring at him as if seeing him for the first time. He pushed away the regrets and the fear and opened his mouth to tell Puck that they had to move and right fucking now but suddenly the vase on the dresser behind Puck exploded into pieces.
Puck hurried towards the window grabbing Kurt's wrist and dragging him out behind him. They hurried down the fire escape and Puck let go long enough to jump down on the concrete of the alley and hurry to their car. He slipped behind the steering wheel just as Kurt slid into the passenger seat.
"Take the highway and get off at the third exit," Kurt commanded. He looked up and saw a man leaning out of their bedroom's window.
Puck's hands gripped the steering wheel hard enough for his knuckles to turn white. "WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED?" he asked, even as he pulled quickly out of the alley and sped down the street. "WHY DO YOU FUCKING HAVE A GUN?" He yelled, glancing briefly at his husband.
Kurt looked down at the weapon he was still holding and then used the side mirror to make sure that no one was following them. 'Safe. For now at least.'
"KURT?"
"CALM DOWN!" Kurt yelled back. He looked at Puck and could read disbelief on his face for a moment before his husband scowled and turned back to the road.
"You calm down! Someone just tried to kill us and…"
"I think he was after me," Kurt replied with a calm he wasn't really feeling. Then he frowned. "Why did you have a gun?"
Puck's anger seemed to fade away quickly. He licked his lips slowly and didn't look away from the road for long moments. Kurt kept glancing to the side mirror and turning in his seat to look behind. "I may have left out a thing or two when we met."
Kurt scoffed. "No fucking way," he said sarcastically. Sure that no one was following them, he finally turned around in his seat and his eyes fell on Puck's shoulder were several cuts were scattered. "I always hated that vase," he commented as if they found themselves having to run away from a killer every day.
"You never answered," Puck said coldly. He didn't look at his husband and his hands tightened around the steering wheel. "Are you a special agent or something?" And his voice was filled with hope.
Kurt couldn't stop the snort that escaped him. "Please, I'm way too smart to be a fed." He glanced out of the window trying to buy a few more seconds where he could still be just Kurt and Puck wouldn't look at him as if he was a horrible person or a criminal. "People hire me for my services," he whispered. He tightened his hand around the gun out of frustration and then relaxed his fingers, gripping the legs of his pajamas instead.
Puck didn't say anything, not when they finally took the highway not after they drove by the second exit.
"Say something," Kurt said quietly.
Puck cleared his throat and asked, "Where am I going?"
Kurt sighed and turned to look out of the window once again. "I saw that guy once before after a… a job. He was supposed to clean something for… something but when he showed up he kept staring at me." He could still remember the guy paying more attention to Kurt than to what he was supposed to be doing. "I think my last job is trying to get rid of witnesses."
"Job?" Puck laughed and it sounded ugly and bitter. He took the exit Kurt had said and followed the other directions but felt unable to turn around and look at the man sitting next to him. He had always thought that no matter how fucked up everything got, Kurt was always going to be the one good thing that reminded him that life wasn't just what he saw on his job. Knowing that Kurt was tainted like he himself was, didn't give Puck any feeling of comfort.
Every time he killed someone, he would think about Kurt, about the fact that someone as great as Kurt loved him, and that would make him feel better. Now, he felt left with no hope of redemption.
A voice in the back of his mind reminded him that he had kept secrets too, that he still had to answer to Kurt's questions.
"You hate me," Kurt whispered when Puck killed the engine, and it was a statement. His lips curved into a bitter smile and he shook his head at himself. 'I always knew this would happen if he ever found out.'
"I…"
"Just tell me if I have to worry that you are a fed or something."
"The opposite," Puck answered.
Kurt frowned and turned around to look at his husband. "What do you mean?"
"You should know. I'm sitting in my car, half naked, I've almost got shot but I'm not panicking. You pretty much just said you are a killer and I didn't call the police. What do you think?"
It actually took Kurt a while to figure out what Puck meant and when he did, he had to stop himself from shouting. "Why are you being like this, then?" He paused and licked his lips, suddenly feeling his mouth dry. "Why are you looking at me like you hate me? You lied too but I'm not…"
"You were supposed to be someone better than that. Better than me," Puck replied honestly. He clenched his jaw and looked away from Kurt.
Kurt fought away his emotions. He told himself he was good at closing his feeling into compartments and ignore them, he did it every time he came home after a job after all. He reached for the handle and opened the door but stopped for a moment. "This is my boss' place. She will help us. You can stay here until I resolve everything and then we can… talk or whatever." He got out and slammed the door behind him and then walked up the drive way.
He had always promised himself he'd never let the job follow him home and now that that had happened, he was going to have to face and pay the consequences.
Kurt's fingers flexed around his gun. He was feeling as if Puck's gaze was a knife piercing in his back and if he let his control slip for just a second he'd regret it.
He nodded to Al as he walked inside, happy that people around that place were used to "don't ask, mind your own business and you will live" because he didn't want to waste time having to explain what was going on more than once.
Clancy was another matter. The moment Kurt reached his boss' office, the man stepped in front of the door blocking Kurt's path.
"I need to speak with her. It's urgent."
"She's not expecting you." Clancy's brown eyes shifted to Puck for a moment before he looked down at Kurt again. "Not even you can walk inside without…"
"Porcelain! Come on in!" A joyful voice sounded from behind the closed door and Kurt raised an eyebrow silently asking if Clancy really wanted to keep her waiting.
Clearing his throat, the big man stepped aside and opened the door for Kurt. "Go ahead."
Before any demand about having to leave Puck behind could be made, Kurt closed his free hand around his husband's wrist and pulled him behind him.
Behind a rich wooden desk sat a woman with short blond hair. Her hands were clasped over what looked like a journal and glasses were pierced on the end of her long nose. She was a non-threatening picture of gentleness and that made Puck take a step back.
"Porcelain, what brings you here with your little husband?"
Puck frowned both at the name and at being addressed as the "little husband."
"We were attacked. Someone came in our home and tried to kill us. To kill me," Kurt corrected himself after a second. He sat down on one of the red plastic chairs and put his gun down on the desk. "I need to find out if Kenneth wants me gone."
The woman whose name Puck still ignored, looked at him with a raised eyebrow and a little smile that was anything but friendly.
"They tell me you're good."
"What do you mean?"
The woman leaned back in her chair and looked at Kurt before speaking again. "When you told me you were getting married I did a little digging on your better half." Her gaze flickered to Puck again. "You're good, but Porcelain here it's the best which means that lots of people want him dead."
"You mean you knew that he was a killer and you never told me?" Kurt asked, his voice cold and low.
"Of course I knew it," the woman retorted and shook her head. "Do you think I would have let you marry just anyone?"
"Like you could have stopped me."
"Listen here, Porcelain." She clasped her hands over the desk once again and leaned forward, her eyes boring into Kurt as if they were the only people in the room. "When I saved your ass, you signed a contract and you knew it. I couldn't just have you get hitched with someone that one day could have found out about what you really did and sent you to jail." She looked at Puck then but kept speaking to Kurt. "Even if he looks like he doesn't want to be anywhere near you right now, he won't tell anyone who you really are because otherwise he'd get sent to prison too."
Puck waited to hear Kurt say that he knew Puck would never do such a thing, but when he noticed the way Kurt kept his head downcast, he hated himself. Maybe he didn't want to know that Kurt was a killer and by the look of it had been one for a long time, but that didn't mean that he wanted his husband to think him a bastard who would sold him to the feds either.
"I would never do that."
"We know," the woman said. "Now, the Kenneth case, Kurt. Of course he wants you gone. I'm surprised it took him this long to try something like this."
"You could have warn me, you know, Sue?"
Puck considered Kurt's tone; it sounded filled with fondness and Puck wondered just exactly how different he and Kurt were. Puck's boss was someone Puck hated because had stolen his life, but Kurt looked like he was his boss' friend and that was a chilling thought. He wondered why Kurt was in all this.
"How did you start working?" The question was out before he could stop himself and he wasn't sorry. Maybe there were parts of Kurt's that he clearly didn't know, but he knew Kurt enough to know that if he gave his husband time to strengthen his defenses, he wasn't going to get all the answers he wanted.
"I killed someone without meaning to," Kurt started, speaking in a calm tone and without meeting Puck's eyes. "A guy broke into my apartment. I thought he had a gun so when he spotted me and turned around I picked up a knife and stabbed him. The guy was in a gang and one of Sue's guys was following him. Next thing I knew Clancy was storming inside my apartment and telling me to follow him if I didn't want to die. I found myself here and Sue gave me a job in exchange for killing that guy's gang."
"Why in the hell didn't you just call the police?" Puck asked. "Why did you accept?" He turned to look at Sue then. "Why did you ask him in the first place?"
"Because he wasn't sorry to have killed that man." Sue took off her glasses and sighed. "Because he never asked me an out. I didn't blackmail him, that wouldn't have worked. He would have gotten himself killed or hate me enough to try something stupid. I offered, he accepted."
"I need to find Kenneth and kill him before he finds us again," Kurt cut in before Puck could ask other questions or before he had time to look at Puck and find that same hate from the car still in his eyes.
"He's not easy to get to, Kurt, you know it. The man works in the same business."
"Wait, Kenneth as in Paul Kenneth?" Puck asked. He sat down in the chair next to Kurt and looked between his husband and Sue. "I know him," he said when they nodded. "One of the guys I worked with got sent on a job for him. Kenneth doesn't like to send his own when it's something personal. He's smart."
"And we're smarter than him," Sue said. "Is that friend of yours still alive?"
"Yes, he had to leave town soon afterward."
"Good. Then you are going to ask him where we can find Kenneth." Sue looked at Kurt then and for a moment her eyes softened. "Porcelain, you could actually get killed this time, so be careful. Take Clancy and Al with you, alright? And watch your back."
"Sure." Kurt got up and picked up his gun. "I need to pick up some stuff if you don't mind and," he paused for a moment and looked briefly at Puck before adding, "And you need to watch over him while I'm gone."
Sue looked at Puck as if he was somehow disappointing her, but the expression vanished quickly and she gave a firm nod to Kurt. "Of course."
Kurt turned around and walked out. He stopped for a moment to tell Clancy that they were leaving for a job and then headed towards the armory. He took a deep breath and tried his best to push thoughts of Puck out of his mind because he needed to focus if he wanted a present to get back to.
"Why didn't you ever tell me?"
Kurt's fingers hesitated hovering over the guns, a moment later he picked up the most shining one and turned to pick up the bullets. "I could ask you the same thing."
"I was ashamed. I thought you'd leave me."
"You have your answer."
"Kurt…"
"Look, this is not the moment, okay?" He turned around and fixed his gaze a few inches above Puck's shoulder. "I need to focus or I'll get myself killed."
"I want to come with you."
"No you don't." Kurt shook his head. "I know this isn't something easy to accept but this is part of who I am. I wasn't blackmailed, I like it. It gives me power and control and I'm good at it." He willed his eyes to lock with Puck's and when they did, he took a small step forward, lowering the gun he was holding to the floor. "No one has ever accepted me and if now you can't either…" He trailed off afraid of making a threat he knew he wouldn't be able to follow through.
He lowered his gaze and felt a hand resting on the side of his neck and he was pulled forward until Puck's lips met his forehead. "I'm not going to let you go get yourself killed. I'm good, you heard your boss. We can talk about it later. We need to do this together."
Kurt wounded his arms around Puck's waist and nodded against his chest. "Thank you." He squeezed his eyes shut when Puck embraced him back.
Puck glanced at Kurt trying to ignore the two big men currently occupying the front seats of the car. He flexed his fingers around the gun he was holding and then cleared his throat. "When I was seventeen I used to be into a fight club." He paused for a moment when Kurt turned away from the window and looked at him. "I thought it was cool, I thought I was a badass."
"I know," Kurt whispered because he still remembered the tales Puck had shared on their first date and because he had met Finn, Puck's best friend. "You told me you were kind of a jerk."
"Yeah." Puck took a deep breath and ran a hand over his shaved head thinking for a moment that maybe they should cover their faces as well because they really didn't need to get recognized. It was why Kurt was using a gun instead of a knife. "I got into a mess once. I lost a fight and I was drunk and I beat the guy to death. I thought I was going to get sent to prison for the rest of my life but then this guy came up to me and told me he had a way to keep me out." He looked up into Kurt's eyes and begged him to understand. "I never wanted this for my life but it happened because I was stupid and accepted that guy's offer and I can't get out. God, the moment I met you I wanted to be out of that shit, but I can't."
He heard Al and Clancy shifting in their seats. It was uncomfortable for him to share all this with an audience but it was also uncomfortable for the other two men. He cleared his throat again and tried his best to pretend that he and Kurt were the only people in the car.
"I'm glad you didn't go to prison," Kurt whispered. He reached out and rested his hand on Puck's thigh and tried to offer him a smile. "Or else, I would never have met you."
"Maybe you would have ended up in prison and become his bitch," Clancy commented and Al sniggered.
"Shut up," Kurt told them and Puck was amazed at seeing two men so much bigger than Kurt, scoff and apologize. "After we're done here," Kurt continued as if he hadn't been interrupted, "I will talk to Sue. Maybe she can get you out. You could come work for her. She's intimidating when she wants to," he added with a grin.
"It would mean just work for someone else."
"I'm her favorite, I can get you a special deal." He let his fingers thread with Puck's and leaned a bit closer. "What would you say to pretend to be a killer while in reality you'd just be a constructor with no after hours job?"
Puck's lips curved into a smile. "I'd say it's pretty cool."
"If you're quite finished, we have a man to kill," Al said from the front seat. He opened the glove compartment and pulled out a few black mask. "Put these on. Kill as many of them as you can." He turned in the seat and looked right at Kurt. "We will cover. You go find him and tie all the loose ends."
Kurt gave a firm nod and a moment later his hand slipped away from Puck's. He opened the door and Puck had only a moment to think about telling him something like, "I love you," before deciding that it would sound like a goodbye and they had no reason to be saying goodbye.
Kurt leaned against the wall and took a deep breath to calm down the errant beats of his heart. The sound of gunshots was ringing in his ears and he was pretty sure they had been more than lucky to have made it this far without meeting anyone.
He looked around the corner to make sure that no one was coming before keep going towards Kenneth's office.
The apparently abandoned hangar was filled with containers and that was as much an advantage as it was a disadvantage. He ran the few feet left separating him from the door of Kenneth's office and kicked the door open hoping that Kenneth was there and hadn't had time to get ready to fight back.
As much of a criminal as Kenneth was, he had never been one to get his hands dirty and in the two jobs that Kurt had done for him, he had never saw guns; but then again, there were lots of ways to hide a weapon.
When Kurt stepped inside the office, the man he was looking for was sitting behind the desk, a gun in his hand pointed straight at Kurt.
"Did you think that I wouldn't know you were coming? You didn't exactly try to be quite."
Kurt ignored the man's word conscious that if he let himself get distracted he was going to end up dead. "I wonder if you know how to use that."
Kenneth snorted and cooked the gun. "You will find out in a moment."
He told himself not to close his eyes when he shot because if he was going to die, he wanted to see Death in its face. He wasn't going to run, not even to retreat in his own mind. He pulled the trigger staring straight into Kenneth's gray eyes.
-.-.-.-.-
If someone were to ask Puck what it meant for him to be lucky, his answer would have been, "running on a suicidal mission and find everyone out for the night."
He counted Al and Clancy sending down four men each and he himself shot three dead before they could understand what was happening. His mind was set on Kurt, his heart beating faster and faster because of the running and the adrenaline but above all because of the fear.
He stopped after he sent the last man down and took deep breaths. A few minutes later Clancy's voice declared the "all clear!"
The smile starting to spread on his face froze when he heard another two gunshots. Without a second thought he started running not even sure that he was headed in the right way. A third shot rang across the hangar and he ran faster.
He turned into a small hall and quickened his pace to get to the door at end of it as soon as he could. Thinking about it afterward, he would always remember the feeling of his heart stopping beating, the breath leaving his body and feeling as if a part of himself had been yanked out.
Kurt was lying in a pool of his own blood and Kenneth was still sitting in the chair behind the desk but had a hole in his chest and another one between his eyes.
Puck let the gun drop to the ground and knelt down besides Kurt.
"Kurt?" He rolled his lips inside his mouth to stop himself from screaming. He quickly pulled off his jumper and used it to press down on the wound in Kurt's chest. He tried to remember how many inches to the right the heart was, if maybe Kurt was simply loosing a lot of blood. He heard footsteps coming up behind him but didn't look away from Kurt's pale face. "Kurt? You've got to answer me or I will never forgive you."
"We've got to take him to the hospital," Al said while Clancy knelt down on Kurt's other side. "I will call Sue so she can get her friends moving."
"Kurt?" Clancy called and in any other moment Puck would have laughed at hearing such a big and scary looking man speak in such a delicate tone. "Sue won't be too happy to hear this. You better open your eyes, Porcelain."
Kurt coughed and his eyes blinked open a few times. "I.. don't... call.. that..." He coughed again and his eyes shifted to focus on Puck. "Sorry... lies..."
"Doesn't matter," Puck said. He pushed down harder on the wound and tried his best to ignore the blood that was starting to soak the jumper. "I lied to you too. I knocked up a cheerleader in high school, have I ever told you? She was smocking but I only wanted her because she didn't give me the time of the day." He smiled at the frown that creased Kurt's forehead. "She never let me be there though and her father got her to have an abortion. It's why I don't talk about having kids with you. I'm scared shitless, you know? My father was a deadbeat, I'll turn out just like him if you're not there."
Hurried footsteps sounded behind him and Puck flickered a glance toward Clancy to find him sighing in relief. "Fucking finally."
Puck bent down and kissed Kurt's lips and still didn't say I love you.
"You will come working for me and that's final. No one tells me no, not even you punk." Sue put her hands on her hips and glared at the man standing in front of her. "He gave you an out and you're going to take it."
Puck rolled his eyes and sat back down in the chair. "I didn't say I wasn't accepting, just that I wasn't going to be the one telling my boss."
"Let me handle that."
They fell into an uncomfortable silence for long minutes both staring at the body lying in the bed. Finally, Sue sighed and dropped herself in the empty chair next to Puck's.
"How is he?"
"They told me that he's gonna be okay. Just has to wake up."
"Porcelain always liked to keep people waiting. You need to make a big entrance and all that." She rolled her eyes fondly and looked at Puck. "You could both stop working. I would let him go, you know. He's my best but he's not only that."
For a few moments Puck actually thought about it. Having a normal life sounded perfect, they could be just a journalist and a constructor, they could be normal. As fast as that thought got into his head however, it left. Puck shook his head and shrugged. "I don't think it would work. He's not going to give it up."
"If you asked him..." Sue let the sentence hang heavily between them while her piercing gaze rested on him.
"I'm not going to ask him." He looked at the way Kurt's eyelids fluttered and mentally added, 'not yet, anyway.'
Kurt squeezed his eyes and then blinked them open. A moment later his head lulled to the side and his eyes focused on Puck's. When Puck leaned closer and let his hand cup Kurt's cheek, Kurt smiled and sighed contently.