Disclaimer: I do NOT own rights to any of the characters from Glee. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
***WARNING SERIES TWO SPOILERS IN THIS STORY***
A/N: After watching the most recent episode of Glee, I got caught up in the notion of writing my own Artie/Puck friend fic. I'm not sure whether it has potential to go anywhere – in fact I'm almost certain that it doesn't – but I enjoyed writing it so I thought I'd share it with the group ;D
It's set at the start of 'Never Been Kissed' but goes completely AU from that point onwards borrowing here and there from various aspects of the episode and threading in my own twisted imagination at other points.
I hope you all enjoy.
"F*ck You" by The Jellybaby Bandit
Seeing Tina happy with Mike Chang was really starting to wear on Artie. Wherever he went there they were, making googly eyes at each other and endlessly checking each other's tonsils for polyps or something.
Artie sat in the lunch room, his bowl of Tapioca pudding in front of him and untouched – usually pudding was his favourite part of a meal – and Tapioca the favourite pudding of puddings.
But not today.
Today like each and every day, that he had been treated to a front row seat at the 'Mike and Tina Snog-a-thon', perfectly decent food tasted like ashes in his mouth.
It was his own fault he supposed. After all, it was he who had stupidly gotten caught up in a Halo marathon over the summer and missed Tina's birthday. It was he who had gotten dumped – Artie's breath hitched at the recollection before he took a shaky steadying breath – he was the one that had been dumped in favour of Mike Chang.
And from that point onwards, everything had gone to Hell – Artie didn't even want to think about what had happened between him and Brittany. As sweet as the Cheerio had been about everything, that was such a mistake of epic proportions.
Artie had stopped enjoying things – nothing seemed to keep his interest anymore – especially Halo. He had unplugged his Xbox the same afternoon that Tina had told him about her hooking up with Mike at Asian Camp and he had not yet found the desire to switch the console back on.
It was a constant reminder of everything that he'd now lost.
He supposed in hindsight he couldn't blame Tina for her decision. What she'd said was true, her reasoning was sound – he had been a terrible boyfriend. Of course he couldn't comment on the whole 'abs' thing – how exactly was he supposed to do crunches with no legs to work with? It was a little insensitive.
Still Tina had made her decision and now he had to live with it – even if it meant never eating lunch at school again.
"Hey..."
Artie's head snapped up before his face paled seeing Puck standing there with a slushie in his hand. Sighing, Artie took off his glasses and set them down on the table beside his pudding bowl.
"Go on then... just make it quick..."
"What?", Puck's tone held puzzlement as he took a long slurp from his drink through the crazy-bendy straw in the top.
Artie peered at the blurry outline of the jock as he answered with resignation.
"The slushie Puck... just do it already so I can get cleaned up before class..."
Artie was surprised when Puck pulled out the chair sitting empty next to him and sat down. Usually slushie attacks were carried out 'on the fly' so that the culprit, usually Puck or one of the other jocks, could make good their escape before they got caught by a teacher.
"Relax, Ironside – this slushie is for drinking only – you're safe."
Artie's brow furrowed in confusion as he picked up his glasses and tentatively slipped them back onto his face. Looking at the jock sitting beside him Artie couldn't help but voice the question,
"If you're not here to ritually humiliate me in front of my peers then can I ask what it is that you want?"
Artie waited for Puck to respond as the jock had just taken a large gulp of his slushie,
"Woah – brain freeze...", Puck shook his head and snorted, "... can't a guy just sit beside another guy and not have it mean anything? It's not like I'm hitting on you too or anything!"
Artie raised his hands in a defensive posture as he felt the sudden anger from the jock.
"Woah, Puck – chillax already man... wait – too?"
Puck bronze skin seemed to pale slightly before his eyes darted around the lunch room to check if anyone else had caught his slip.
"Shit – keep it down Abrams... and if you ever repeat that to anyone..."
The threat was unmistakeable though Artie gulped as Puck drew his finger across his throat just to make sure.
"Sure – lips – sealed – see?"
Artie drew his finger along his lips for effect. Even though he wasn't speaking however he couldn't quite get past the thought that Puck was bemoaning a guy thinking he was hitting on him when he wasn't.
Was this some kind of bizarre dream he'd slipped into? Was he actually lying face down in his Tapioca pudding having suffered some kind of seizure or fit? Or had Puck just inadvertently admitted to having previously intentionally hit on a guy?
'Nah... I must be having some kind of dream or hallucination...'
"Ow... guess not...", mumbled Artie as he rubbed his arm where he'd just pinched it rather hard.
"What the Hell did you do that for?", asked Puck as he took another slurp of his drink.
"Just checking I hadn't had an aneurysm or something...", said Artie cheerfully, "... I haven't in case you were wondering..."
"Well break out the streamers and let's have ourselves a party!", drawled Puck causing Artie to chuckle softly.
"So...", said Artie suddenly realising that in all the time he'd known Puck he'd never really had a conversation with him.
Actually this was the longest he'd ever spent in the jock's presence with it being just the two of them.
"Yeah... so... how you been?", asked Puck as his straw made a loud screeching noise as he reached the bottom of his slushie cup.
Puck looked sad as he set the empty cup down on the table and reached over to the untouched bowl in front of Artie.
"You gonna eat this?"
Artie shook his head no, as Puck dragged the bowl over to in front of him and began to devour the contents. Several seconds went by before he realised he hadn't actually replied to the jock's initial question and that Puck appeared to be waiting for him to speak.
"Oh, I'm fine – y'know – I'm on the football team now?"
"You're shittin' me? For real?", Puck's eyebrows raised in surprise as the shovelling motion of the spoon halted midway between the bowl and his mouth, "... I thought The Beast said no."
Artie nodded and watched as a glob of pudding dropped in slow motion to splat onto the table top.
"For real...", assured Artie as he smiled slightly while Puck hurriedly brushed the splash back off of his tee, "... and she did for a little while – but she changed her mind in the end. Doesn't matter though – I only did it to get Tina back and that worked about as well as a pedal powered wheelchair..."
There was an undeniable note of sadness in Artie's voice at the realisation that everything Finn had helped him with had all been for nought.
Puck's chuckling caught Artie off guard as the jock mumbled around his spoon,
"Pedal powered wheelchair – good one..."
Artie's dour mood lifted slightly as he chuckled along with the jock. Artie had long since come to terms with his disability and so had no qualms with using his unusual circumstances for comic effect.
"I picked that up years ago when I first ended up in this thing...", said Artie gesturing to the chair, "... I figured if I'm going to be the one in the chair then I should be allowed to make fun of myself..."
Puck nodded thoughtfully as he scraped the last spoonful of pudding out of the bottom of the bowl,
"How do you do it though? Stay positive all the time? I mean – it must suck right?"
Artie understood what Puck meant even if he hadn't phrased it as elegantly or conscientiously as he perhaps could. Not many people ever wanted to talk about his disability though, they all thought that to remind him of it would somehow make things worse.
As if living day to day, Artie ever got the opportunity to forget!
"I'm in a wheelchair Puck – I broke my back and there's nothing I can do about it."
"Yeah I know but you're always so damn cheerful – do you not want to scream every once in a while?"
Artie nodded, he hadn't always been as well adjusted as he was now.
"Sure – when it first happened, right after the accident – well let's just say I had trouble adapting...", the longer Artie talked on the subject the more animated he became and the cloud that had been hanging over his head steadily evaporated – despite the grisly change in topic, "... it was my Nana that sorta put things in perspective for me."
"Oh yeah?", asked Puck who had since set his spoon down and was now leaning his head on his hands and seemed to be listening intently.
If Artie had stopped to consider that fact he'd have probably been a little freaked out. He and Puck had now been talking civilly for nearly ten minutes – it was by far their longest interaction in, well ever.
"Yeah, my Nana was a strong woman – my Papa died young so she brought up my Mom and her five brothers by herself – a real salt of the Earth type of woman, y'know?"
Puck nodded in understanding and gestured for Artie to continue.
"When I got out of the hospital, I sorta shut myself away from the world. I refused to go out – I refused to let my friends in – I thought I was a freak."
Puck's eyes seemed to show a hint of sadness as the jock spoke and again surprised Artie with his insight,
"Sorry dude – if you don't want to talk about this..."
Artie waved off Puck's concern – he'd long ago learnt to let go of any resentment about his condition.
"It's cool – anyways, one day after I'd had yet another argument with my Mom and refused to let my friends in to see me, she sent for Nana."
Puck drew in a breath through his teeth and Artie chuckled and nodded.
"Oh yeah, she whupped my ass good and proper. 'You might not have working legs no more Artemus Abrams but you're buttocks can still feel the sting of my hand...'
Puck snorted at Artie's high pitched impersonation of what was obviously his Nana.
"Artemus?"
It was now Artie's turn to pale dramatically – he'd worked so hard over the years to suppress that information and now he'd gone and given it to Puck without thinking.
"Shit – keep it down Puckerman... and if you ever repeat that to anyone..."
Puck just raised an eyebrow at Artie's attempt to parrot the jock's earlier threat right back at him. Truthfully though if Puck wanted to tell everybody his full first name there wasn't much Artie could do about it.
"Sure – lips – sealed – see?", quipped Puck with a smirk.
'This conversation is getting really weird...'
Artie checked his watch and saw that it was almost time to head off to Glee – which he supposed now that Puck was back from his time in Juvie – he'd be returning to also. There was still time to finish off his story though before the bell was primed to ring.
"So, after I'd quit crying...", Puck snorted and Artie looked chagrined, "... hey, I was eight remember! Anyways, afterwards, she sat me down and told me all about my Papa and what she'd done when she lost him."
Several seconds of silence passed as Artie slipped into the memory of that day almost a decade earlier. It was Puck who shattered the silence with his question,
"So what'd she do?"
Artie shook himself clear of the melancholy and smiled softly at the recollection.
"She taught me a proverb."
"Schoolboy who play with schoolgirl during wrong period, get caught red-handed...", quipped Puck with a grin.
Artie's laughter rang out over the lunch room drawing attention to the unusual pairing seated at a table all by themselves. Neither cared of course what anyone thought of them – each secure in themselves enough to ignore the whispering and pointed glances.
'In a way we're both alike in that way...'
"That's really wrong on so many levels you know that right?", asked Artie though he couldn't keep the broad grin from his face.
"Damn straight, Professor X – that's a life lesson right there – believe me!"
Artie tried to ignore the icky image that Puck's declaration left in his mind's eye and also decided to let the whole 'X-Men' reference slide. Artie happened to like the X-Men, so being compared to Charles Xavier wasn't really a burden for him.
"I'm guessing though that wasn't the proverb your Nana taught you, right?"
Artie shuddered theatrically as he aimed a soft-glare at the jock,
"I love my past. I love my present. I'm not ashamed of what I've had, and I'm not sad because I have it no longer."
Artie remained silent whilst Puck absorbed the words and the meaning behind them.
"Sound advice...", the jock decided.
Artie nodded and cleared his throat which had developed a sudden lump – as it did every time he though of his Nana – before she'd passed when Artie was 13 she had been the rock upon which he'd rebuilt his life.
'Love you Nana...'
"So y'see, I don't mind. I might be in a chair for the rest of my life, I might never run on the beach, or stand in the shower, or -"
"Get up on your knees and take a chick from behind?", cut in the jock.
Artie's laughter again rang out, just as the bell for the end of lunch sounded.
"Yeah – that – but I still have quality of life and life is what you make of it."
Taking off his glasses and wiping at his damp eyes, Artie was a little surprised to feel the brake on his chair being disengaged before he was being propelled in the direction of the doors.
"Uh – Puck? Is there any way we could skip the whole throwing me down the stairs bit today?", asked Artie glancing up at Puck over his shoulder.
Artie was surprised, though he would never have voiced it, to see a momentary flash of shame on Puck's face.
"Why not? I'm feeling generous today..."
Artie sighed in relief before he yelped and grabbed at his arm which had suddenly blossomed in pain.
"Ow... What the Hell?", Artie looked up at Puck with an expression of betrayal on his face.
Puck shrugged as he continued to push Artie in the direction of the Choir Room.
"What? I said generous, not charitable."
Artie grumbled as he rubbed at his arm though he didn't argue with the jock's assessment.
"Fair point."
"Alright guys, settle down..."
Mr Schue stood in front of the assembled gleeks in his usual combo of shirt and sweater-vest requisitioned off some old dude from the 1970's. Puck snorted at his observation earning himself a curious glance from Santana who he noted with some dread was eyeing him like a side of beef.
Normally Puck would have been all over Santana like stink on a monkey, but ever since he'd gotten out of Juvie, the half-back had realised something about himself.
Noah Puckerman was gay – or at least bisexual.
The jock was positive that he could still do a chick if the occasion called for it and make her beg for mercy before the end – but for now the interest in doing so was gone – completely and utterly gone.
'Poof...', Puck chuckled again in amusement at his own wit.
"Puck? Everything OK?"
The jock looked up to see Mr Schue and the assembled gleeks looking at him in concern – all except for the one gleek he wanted to look at him.
'Damn you Hummel...'
"Just peachy, Mr Schue...", said Puck crossing his arms over his chest and huffing.
"OK then – as I was saying..."
Puck ignored the teacher again as the man nodded and went back to addressing the group about whatever project he had lined up for them for that week.
Puck supposed that if he were to try to pinpoint the exact moment he'd realised he was attracted to dudes was back in Juvie. As his probation officer had promised, some time in Juvie had indeed changed him – just probably not in the way 'Chairman Mao in a pants-suit' had expected.
'Stupid probation officer with her stupid rules... no way am I picking up trash...'
It had all started when he'd been forced to room with this small kid called Shaun. Juvie had turned out not to be a nice place – at all. As badass as Puck might have imagined himself while at McKinley, there were much bigger, and much badder fish out in the sea – and he was small-fry in comparison.
Shaun was the smallest of the small at Juvie – barely 17 years old but resembling more a 14 year old – short and skinny, like holocaust skinny, with a mop of badly styled brown hair and sunken blue eyes.
The larger kids – the gang-bangers especially – all targeted Shaun knowing that he'd be the weakest and least likely to fight back. They pushed him around, called him names like 'Faggot' and 'Pussy' and through it all, the smaller boy never reacted with anger. Puck had watched, as day after day, Shaun had silently taken the abuse levied out to him and then picked himself up, dusted himself off and carried on.
The same gang-bangers had targeted Puck too of course – stealing his waffles from him each day. The only difference between Puck and Shaun was that by virtue of his additional muscle mass, Puck was able to withstand the physical attacks much easier.
About three weeks into his stay at the centre, just after lights out, Puck had decided to ask Shaun the question that had been eating at him ever since he'd first arrived.
"Dude – you awake?"
Puck kept his voice low so as not to be overheard – the wardens that patrolled the corridor off which were each of the two-berth rooms – were real sticklers for lights out meaning lips shut.
"No...", came the voice from the lower bunk.
Puck paused in confusion for a second before he realised that he was being played.
"Bullshit – how'd you know to reply then?"
Puck could hear Shaun cursing under his breath before he replied,
"Alright – yes, I'm awake – what do you want?"
Although Puck had not said boo to the boy in his time at the centre, he wasn't about to be sassed by the smaller boy.
"Watch your tongue junior or I'll have to break it."
Puck heard the smaller boy snort before he responded in a harsh whisper.
"You can't break a tongue you moron."
Puck chuckled as he realised that Shaun did have some backbone to him after all.
"You sound just like Hummel."
"Who's Hummel? Your boyfriend?"
Puck snorted into the darkness and rolled over so he could hang his head over the side of the bunk – not that it did any good as in the complete pitch black of the room it wasn't as if he could see the smaller boy.
"You've got a big mouth...", Puck growled putting on his best intimidating tone of voice.
"All the better for sucking the big cock..."
Though it was dark and nobody could see him, Puck allowed his jaw to drop open in shock – that was not the response he'd been expecting.
"What? No witty comeback? No threat to beat the crap out of me?", in the dark Shaun's confidence was obviously higher, as he allowed a little anger and resentment to seep into his tone.
Puck shook himself out of his shock as he stammered,
"Y-you're gay?"
Puck didn't need to be able to see in the dark to know that if Shaun was truly anything like Hummel, that he'd be rolling his eyes at that moment.
"Y-yes..."
The half-back decided to cut the kid a break and not break his face for his sarcastic tone of voice – much the same way he cut Hummel a break on occasion by stepping in and warning off some of the more aggressive jocks back at McKinley.
Besides what exactly could Puck say other than 'oh'.
So he did.
"Oh."
Puck could hear shuffling coming from the lower bunk and figured that Shaun was moving himself into a defensive posture expecting that Puck was going to attack him or something.
"Relax kid, I don't care if you're black, white, yellow or green and if you like boys, girls or animals."
The jock heard the snort of amusement from the boy on the lower bunk and smirked to himself.
"Yeah, like I believe that – you're a jock – you're pre-programmed to despise everything about me."
Puck felt a swelling of indignation at the presumption that he was lying – if there was one thing Noah Puckerman never did it was lie – his Momma had brought him up right.
"Not true – one of my friends is -", Puck paused trying to find the right word to describe Hummel.
"Gay? A homo? A faggot? A shirt-lifter? A pansy? A fairy?"
"Alright can it – that's enough. Yeah, he's gay."
"Yeah right...", Puck could hear the clear disbelief in Shaun's tone of voice, "... what's this imaginary friend's name then?"
Puck imagined that Shaun was trying to catch him out in his lie so he could lord it over him. No way was Puckzilla going to be humbled by some scrawny little kid with a big mouth.
"Kurt. His name is Kurt – and he's not really my friend – at least not in the usual sense."
"Not in the usual sense? What kind of bullshit response is that?"
Puck growled in warning as he thought about his reply. His initial question had resulted in a weird conversation that the jock had never intended to have. But now that he had started, something within him wanted to finish.
"Kurt and I have a sort of unique relationship...", Puck grimaced as he realised the next admission he'd need to make in order to explain, "... I picked on him for being different for a long time."
"I knew it!", crowed Shaun in triumph before his voice cut off as he obviously worked out what that would mean for him.
"That was before!...", insisted the jock not caring that he was now talking at full volume and not noticing that he was talking with a passion he usually only reserved for football and Nintendo. "... Now we're sort of – well half-friends – we're both in Glee club together. Things are different. Better."
"Glee club?"
"Y'know – singing?"
Puck heard the snort before high-pitched giggling came from the boy on the lower bunk.
"You? Sing? In what? A boy-band?"
Puck peeled a sock off of his foot and balled it up in the darkness – using the position of Shaun's voice, Puck leant over the edge of the bunk and launched the projectile. The jock smirked and sat back, when a startled yelp sounded from the lower bunk.
"What the fuck?"
"Watch your mouth kid...", this time Puck's threat seemed to sink in as there was no smart-ass comeback.
"Yes I sing – I happen to have a badass singing voice and I play guitar too."
There were several seconds of silence before Shaun's voice spoke once again – and Puck noticed that the tone had changed somewhat from sarcastic and flippant to curious and hesitant.
"Does he?... Does Kurt have a boyfriend?"
"Not that I know of – would probably make him less of a prissy bitch if he did though."
Puck snorted at his own humour while Shaun remained quiet.
"Don't get any ideas though scruffy...", Puck called out into the dark, "... if Kurt is going to have a Juvie badass for a boyfriend, it'll be me – so don't even think about applying for the position."
Puck snapped his jaw shut so fast his teeth rattled.
'What the fuck did I just say?'
Judging from the spluttering coming from the bottom bunk – Shaun was having some kind of epileptic fit.
'Good... maybe if he falls into a coma he'll forget everything I just said...'
It was a forlorn hope which was dashed just a second after it had crossed Puck's mind.
"You... you want to date this Kurt?"
"What? No!", insisted the jock, though even to him his voice sounded unnatural enough that he didn't believe himself.
"Yeah right – well I'm going to sleep now – have fun swimming in 'De Nile'..."
Puck didn't respond as he heard the rustling of the smaller boy as he got himself comfortable and went to sleep. The half-back remained awake for several hours after Shaun had started to snore softly from his bunk just turning things over in his mind.
'Do I want to date Hummel? Why did I say that then? Am I attracted to dudes? Is it just him? What the fuck is wrong with me?'
The thought didn't disgust Puck – at least not all that much – the thought of another dude's cock in his hand or mouth did gross the jock out a bit if he was honest.
But not enough to dissipate the strange feeling in the pit of his stomach.
Dawn broke the next morning with Puck still lying in the same position deep in thought. The night had turned into day while the jock had tried to come to terms with the unintentional bombshell he'd dropped on both Shaun and more importantly – on himself.
"... and Puck..."
Puck zoned back in from his daydream to see Mr Schue standing with the Hat of Fate and a slip of paper in his hand, which the jock figured must have his name on it.
"Uh – what?", mumbled the jock having no clue what was going on.
Santana leaned over the back of the seat behind Puck and whispered to him, while at the same time not missing the opportunity to run her tongue around the shell of his ear,
"You're working with Artie on a duet... the song has to be about something personal to the both of you."
Trying to ignore the creepy crawly feeling of insects on his skin, Puck smiled broadly.
"Oh... that's cool then."
Glancing over at the wheelchair bound boy, Puck flashed Artie a grin and a thumbs up which the other boy returned albeit reluctantly and with a look of confusion on his face.
"So... my parents are out of town this weekend..."
The subtext was hardly subtle – though with Santana and sex – subtle wasn't a consideration. Puck however just wasn't in the mood for the Latina's hormone driven booty call.
"Hey Artie...", Puck made sure his voice was loud enough to carry across the entire group, "... you free to work on Glee this weekend?"
"Uh... sure...", said Artie with a look of patent disbelief and no small amount of apprehension on his face.
"Cool."
Puck ignored the angry growl from the Latina as she got up and stalked from the room.
'Fuck her... or not as it happened...'
A/N: This fic was part inspired by the most recent episode of Glee and by The Colbert Report of the same night. Don't ask – my mind works in strange ways – it would have to in order to link the two together in my mind and make me think 'hey there's a slash fic in there somewhere'.
If you haven't worked it out yet for yourself the two pairings that I'm going to be working towards in this story are Artie/Tina and Kurt/Puck – I say working towards as I don't know for definite at this point which pairing, if any will actually succeed.
If my outline is anything to go by, there will be one chapter after this in order to bring things to a conclusion. As you all know however, I tend to say that and then write a couple hundred thousand words. I promise this will not grow arms and legs. If it does, I shall curl up into a ball and most likely cry! ;D
I'm not sure how quickly I'll get to completing it but I do promise to get there as promptly as I can.
PLEASE REVIEW PLEASE REVIEW PLEASE REVIEW.