Part One
There's times where I want something more
Someone more like me
There's times when this dress rehearsal
Seems incomplete
But, you see the colors in me like no one else
And behind your dark glasses you're...
You're something else
When people came into the club, all they saw were holes to fuck covered in make-up and clad in tight shiny clothes. They never saw other human beings and, after a while, you stopped feeling human because no one treated you like one anymore. You became just another pretty face with a fake name.
The clients came in and went out, always moving, always changing, but the strippers and the bartenders were always there, unmoving, fixed points in that debauchery where other people went during breaks from their normal lives. Sometimes, it felt like when the night ended, they just disappeared with no one to care about them but themselves.
The main attractions of the club were three strippers (Art, Ana and Annie) and not because they were the best dancers or the best singers, but just because they were the hottest and, at the end of the night, they would be the ones with the most money between the layers of clothes. They were two women and one man, all of them had had great dreams for their future before life had turned into a bitch and fucked them.
Brittany and Santana (Annie and Ana), were a couple, not that anyone cared, but they were each other's safe place, a reminder of happiness and love among the sex and the money. They danced and sang to Madonna and Britney Spears' songs, kissed each other on stage and accepted hands on their bodies that carried money that stole their souls.
Then, there was Kurt (Art) who sang and danced most of the times on his own, occasionally sharing the stage with Brittany and Santana. Kurt didn't have a safe place and there were days when he hated his life so much that he'd step on the windowsill and look down, a jump away from saying enough. Those days, he was happy to share that squalid apartment with the bartender of the club, Puck.
Kurt pulled himself up on the bar-counter and watched Brittany and Santana dance to "Me Against the Music".
Puck automatically passed him a White Russian and Kurt smiled at him in thanks.
"How's it going?" Puck had to shout a little to be heard over the music.
Kurt shrugged. "I have a lap dance in ten."
Puck's hands tightened unconsciously around the dishtowel he was using to wipe the counter. "A lap dance, huh?" he asked, trying to sound like he didn't care.
Kurt nodded, sipping on his drink and crossing his legs to lean a little on the counter.
"Who's the lucky guy this time?"
That question seemed to shut Kurt down. He put his drink down on the counter and didn't look at Puck.
"It's a woman, isn't it?" Puck felt his anger raising. He knew that they weren't supposed to care, weren't supposed to feel anything at all, but it wasn't like they had a button to turn off their emotions, it wasn't like he could stop himself from caring about Kurt. Not when he went home with the guy every day and had to witness how everything was tearing him up inside.
"How can you do it?"
Kurt put on the most fake smile he could muster and fixed his sultriest expression before looking at Puck. "Thinking about you." He jumped down from the counter and disappeared through the sea of dancing people.
Behind him, the bartender felt like he could tear the place up.
Puck had grown to hate everything about the club ever since day one. But that was until Kurt came along, much like a ray of sunshine that had suddenly entered the darkness. He was witty and most of the time a total bitch that wouldn't even let you joke about squeezing his ass, and he had the best voice Puck had ever heard.
Of course, the bold attitude had changed quickly.
After the first month, Kurt had lost his innocence and Puck hated it when he used that 'come and eat me' expression on him. Every day, Noah hated that club a little bit more for what it was doing to Kurt. After the boy's first week, Puck had offered him to move in with him and he really thought that had been the best decision he had ever made.
On the days when he wanted to leave everything behind and just go away, one look at Kurt reminded him that he had a reason to stay even though Kurt had stopped looking for love, had stopped believing in the future. There were times when Puck would get home just in time to pull the boy back from the window and he was scared out of his mind that one day he'd be too late.
He wanted to have with Kurt what Brittany and Santana had with each other. The two girls left the club everyday hand in hand, whispering to the other "I love you"s as if as soon as they stepped outside of the club, everything changed, everything looked a little bit better. Puck wished he could be that safe place for Kurt, but Kurt had shut out everyone. The boy was close to Brittany and Santana and, obviously to Puck, but he never let anyone in all the way and the bartender wanted in. Puck wanted to know every inch of Kurt's soul but as long as they worked in that place, it was never going to work.
His eyes caught Kurt leading a woman up the stairs, holding her hand, and he felt sick. Kurt wasn't supposed to do things like that. When he had started, all he had to do was go on the stage and dance teasingly, but then the singing came, and then the stripping and by the start of the second month he was giving "private lap dance", almost never looking anyone in the eyes anymore.
Puck loved going home with Kurt, watching a movie with him, hanging out with Brittany and Santana when they all had their day off, all of that just to pretend for a little while that they could have a normal life. But it was an act and Puck had started believing that it was never going to turn into reality.
"Hey, you ok?"
Brittany's voice pulled Puck out of his thoughts and he looked at the blond girl smiling at him worriedly. "Yeah, Brit, thanks."
"I saw Lady Face leave with a woman." Santana sounded as annoyed by the fact as Puck himself was. "I hate when he does that."
"We sleep with men, San."
"I know Brit." Santana kissed her girlfriend softly on the lips and entwined their fingers. Then, she turned to Puck. "Maybe you should tell him."
Puck put on a confused expression that he was pretty sure wouldn't fool anyone. "Tell him what?" He started wiping the bar counter from invisible spots just so he wouldn't have to look at his friends' faces.
"That you love him," Brittany cut in, smiling. "So we can go on double dates without pretending that we are all just friends."
"I don't think he'd ever see me like a potential boyfriend." He didn't waste time on pretending that it wasn't true that he loved Kurt, there was no point in denying the obvious.
"Why? Because you work here? Man up a little Puckerman, would you?" Santana put on her best bitchy attitude and glared at him. "Maybe he's just waiting for someone to show him that he's worth more than this," she waved at the dance floor behind her, at the half naked dancers and the shouts from the customers.
"San, we're never going to get out of here."
"We are going to." Brittany leaned forward on the counter. "We have a plan, are you in?"
Puck smiled at the blond girl and wished for a moment that he could really believe that they had a way out. "What's the plan?"
"We're thinking of going away. We've been saving for a while now and we want to leave this city."
"I can't come," Puck said, shaking his head.
"Yes, you can." Santana's grin turned into an actual smile. "We'll get Kurt out as well."
Puck shook his head harder. "There's no way out. Wherever we go, this fucking place will follow us. Can't you see what it does to him?" He looked up towards the stairs where Kurt had disappeared. "It's not going to stop tormenting him just because he leaves."
"So what?" Santana narrowed her eyes and gripped the edge of the counter tightly to stop herself from hitting Puck in the face. "You just want to let him keep going? How long till the day you stay at the grocery store a moment longer and you go back home only to find him on the concrete outside your condo?"
"Shut the hell up!" Puck hit the counter with his fist and glared at Santana. "Go fuck someone and get out of my face."
Brittany slid her hand into Santana's, entwining their fingers together. "C'mon. It's better if we go change for the next number." She looked at Puck almost apologetically but Puck just turned to a new customer and started fixing him a drink.
"I just wish he'd see that if we don't leave, we won't last much longer." Santana's voice was full of regret and sadness when she spoke and she squeezed Brittany's hand to remind herself that she had a reason to keep going.
Brittany brought their lips together into a gentle kiss before leading her girlfriend towards the changing rooms at the back of the club.
*GLEE*
Kurt kept his eyes shut even when nails dug deep into the skin of his back. He pictured Puck smiling at him on his first day of work, asking him if he was old enough because he looked about twelve. He squeezed his eyes a tad bit tighter and he was able to see that little flirtatious smirk on Puck's face when he had moved in with him.
He started singing a song in his head and if he concentrated hard enough, he was almost able to drown out the screams of the woman underneath him. He bit his lips and pictured Puck kissing him, imagining what it would feel like to be kissed by someone he liked just for once.
The woman left him 100$ in his pants when they were done. He threw away the condom and pulled his pants up before sliding down on the floor. Leaning his forehead on his knees, he told himself that he wasn't supposed to cry, he wasn't supposed to care because he was only doing his job, it shouldn't mean anything.
He heard the music of "Toxic" start and he smiled, knowing that Brittany and Santana would be on the stage. He wanted to have someone that loved him like Brittany and Santana loved each other so badly, but he was pretty sure that he had lost his chance for a happy life when he had set foot in the orphanage.
He pulled himself up and wiped his eyes before walking out of the private room. He made his way through the dancing people and ignored the hands grabbing his ass. He walked straight to the bar and put on that fake smile.
"I just made one hundred bucks!" he yelled at Puck who just looked at him like he was disappointed. Kurt averted his gaze and said, "I'm going home. That was my last client. I'll see you later." He turned around and walked away before Puck could reply anything.
There were times when he wondered what his parents would say if they knew about what he was doing. He remembered that once he had said to a girl that was in the same orphanage with him, that he didn't believe in God because no God would leave kids in places like that. Now he knew that he couldn't believe in God.
He still remembered when the nuns would tell them that their parents were looking after them from Heaven but if he believed in God, then he believed in Heaven and he couldn't stand the thought of his parents knowing what he had done with his life.
Kurt pushed his way through the crowd and walked out into the cold night air of Seattle. He tried not to think of the woman's cheap perfume still attached to his skin, he tried, and failed, not to think about Puck's disappointed gaze.
He started walking towards the apartment he shared with the bartender telling himself that he could pretend that he wasn't completely falling into pieces for just a little longer.
A/N: This is probably going to be in 2 parts. Thanks to QueenOfCitrus for beta-ing this for me.