Author Notes: Fill for Glee fluff meme. This a slightly AU universe, in which Quinn's mum found the balls to kick out her husband as soon as he tried to throw Quinn out. Quinn therefore kept the baby. She and Puck are not together, but she happily lets him into Beth's life.
Puck let himself into the Fabrays' home, exhausted, football kit in hand. Quinn's mom had decided to let him have a key when she realised that he spent more time there with Beth than he did at home. He placed his football kit neatly on the chair by the door, and went through to the living room in search of his daughter.
The French doors onto the deck were open, and he could hear merry laughter pealing into the house. He walked over to the sound, and peered outside.
There, sitting around a small, white cloth covered table, clearly laid for afternoon tea , were three figures.
The first, and most important, was Beth. She resembled Puck so much it was almost uncanny, her dark hair curling gently around her head. At three years old, she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. She had a huge smile on her face as she pretended to sit daintily at a little pink plastic teacup.
Next to her was Quinn, lovely as ever. In a pretty floral dress, white sunhat on her head, her golden hair cascading over her shoulders, she was the very picture of summer. She too was laughing, as she reached across to jestingly push the other person on the arm, apparently in response to something he had said.
Puck's eyes widened as he recognised the third figure. He was facing the opposite direction, but there was no mistaking that immaculately coiffured hair, or that elegantly poised neck. Kurt Hummel was having afternoon tea with his daughter.
Over the past few years, things had certainly mellowed between the two of them, but they had never reached the point where they would hang out for any reason other than a Glee thing. After Kurt had moved away to some out-of-state college, Puck had assumed that he'd never see the fashion obsessed counter-tenor again.
Puck watched as Kurt turned his head to look at Quinn with an affronted expression.
"This is McQueen!"
Quinn just laughed again as Beth repeated the new word, "Mommy, I wanna McKeen!"
"Not 'til you're older, sweetie," Quinn replied. "You grow far too fast for Mommy to buy you McQueen," she explained, noticing Kurt's puzzled expression.
"Wanna McKeen!" Beth said firmly, putting down her teacup and doing her best to look stern.
Kurt reached forward with the little teapot to 'fill' Beth's cup. "Why don't you try this new tea instead?" he suggested. "It has honey and milk in it to make it extra yummy," he said persuasively.
Beth picked up her cup, and looked at Kurt. Seeing his encouraging smile she looked back to the cup, suddenly noticing that her pinkie wasn't sticking out any more 'like Kurtie's'. She rearranged her hand, and, with a serious expression on her face, took a sip of the imaginary tea.
She considered before giving her answer. "It's yummy!"
Kurt and Quinn grinned at each other in relief that Beth had been distracted from the 'McKeen'.
After taking another sip, Beth looked up again.
"Daddy!" she yelled, haphazardly putting down the teacup and dashing to the doorway. "You came for Kurtie's teaparty!"
"Of course I came to see you!" Puck exclaimed as he picked her up and swung her round, eliciting excited squeals as he did so.
As he returned her to the ground and allowed himself to be dragged over to the table, he couldn't help but notice that some of the enthusiasm behind Kurt's smile had gone.
Doing his best to be friendly, Puck smiled at him, "Hey, Kurt, how're you doing?"
Kurt opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted by Beth, who had resumed her seat once Puck had knelt down next to the little table.
Puck was barely able to follow the tumult of words that poured from her mouth.
"Kurtie's come all the way back from far far away where they have tea parties an' Mommy said that he could show us so that we can be grown up an' have tea an' have manners an' wear pretty things like they do in story books, 'cos Kurtie's going back far far away when the semi… semu… semmen… semmenessie starts. But I don't know what a semmenessie is so we have to have lots of tea now so that he won't miss it."
Puck was able to gather from that that it was most likely that Kurt had come home for the summer vacation, stopped by to say hello to Quinn, and then been roped into his daughter's tea party.
"Are you going to pour Daddy some tea, Bethy?" Quinn suggested gently.
"Oh, yes, Daddy, I have to pour you some of Kurtie's tea! It's got honey and it's so so yummy!" Beth exclaimed, bouncing out of her seat once again to grab for the teapot.
Puck glanced in Kurt's direction to see how he was taking the turn of events. The brown haired diva was smiling indulgently at the little girl currently attempting to pour out imaginary tea with her pinkie out.
"Thanks, sweetie," Puck said as he took the proffered teacup. He mimed drinking it, catching Kurt's eye as he did so. He could see that he was trying not to laugh at Puck pretending to drink honeyed tea from a tiny pink teacup.
"Daddy, you have to hold your pinkie out!" Beth commanded. "That's how they do it when they want to look really really special!"
Puck obliged, looking at Quinn with his eyebrows raised. His expression clearly said 'The things I do for our daughter…'
Quinn simply shook her head and laughed. "Daddy's doing it very well, I think," she commented.
Beth considered her father's technique. "He's not very grateful," she decided.
Puck's eyebrows knitted together quizzically.
"Do you mean 'graceful', honey?" Quinn asked, light dancing in her eyes.
"Uh-huh. Kurtie's all smooth and pretty when he does it. Show him, Kurtie!" she cried, turned to Kurt and throwing out an arm in his direction.
Kurt demonstrated his impeccable technique, picking up his tea and sipping it with the elegance of a character from a Jane Austen novel. As he replaced the cup onto the saucer, he said, "I think Daddy's very good for a beginner, Bethie. You and mommy have had lots of practice today already."
Puck looked at Kurt with a startled expression. It was the first time he had ever heard a compliment leave the fashionista's mouth, most definitely the first time he had ever heard one directed at him.
Kurt smiled meekly at him, uncertain what Puck's reaction was going to be.
"Well, maybe Kurt can give me lessons so that I can be just as good as you," Puck responded.
Beth nodded her approval of the plan as she reached over to the plate of cucumber sandwiches.
"Alright then, Bethie," Kurt agreed. "Just for you."
They exchanged grins, uncertainly at first, then both breaking into fits of laughter (Kurt in disbelief, Puck in embaressment) at Beth's next words:
"Daddy, why don't you tell Kurtie all about that guy that you knew that was really cool an' used to sing really high an' could levitate an' who you used to say was the awesomest dude you know? I think Kurtie would like him, maybe they could get married."
As Kurt recovered his breath, he managed to gasp out "Levitate?"
Puck had a sheepish expression on his face. "I told her about the Defying Gravity thing… I didn't explain it very well."
Beth squirmed in her seat, a discontent expression on her face. "Mommy…" she whined, quietly. "I gotta go."
Quinn, still shaking with laughter at the expressions that had been on Puck and Kurt's faces, took her daughter's hand and led her inside.
Kurt looked to Puck with a wide grin on his face, and raised an eyebrow.
"The awesomest guy you know?"
"Dude, you were fancy, but you had more balls than the rest of us put together to wear all that shit in public."
Kurt's reaction was cut off by a high pitched voice floating out through the French doors:
"Mommy, how did Kurtie have more balls than Daddy? He wasn't even on the baseball team."
Puck blanched. Quinn was going to kill him.
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