"You can do this, baby. I'm right here with you, okay?"
Puck shrugs, and fidgets, and lets out a weak chuckle. His hand is trembling in Kurt's, drenched in cold sweat, but neither of them is letting go. The dark brown door is looming in front of them, calm and silent, like the sea before the storm. He has no idea why he's even here.
"She's just going to slam it in my face."
Kurt's warm palm caresses his cheek. Puck shudders in the balmy July air and tugs his boyfriend even closer.
"No, she's not. She's your mother, Noah, and I've met her before. She'll come around, but not if you just stay away and ignore her calls."
Puck shakes his head. "Then she's going to be pissed about me avoiding her. Either way, she's just going to kick me out. Again."
Kurt turns him around then, arms winding tight around Puck's shoulders, firm blue eyes boring into his. "Listen to me. It's been a year and a half. You've both had time to think. She's loved you for eighteen years, and trust me when I say that one argument isn't going to change that. Now knock on the damn door."
Puck sends a giant thank you for Kurt to whoever's listening and then, in a rush of adrenaline, closes the last few inches and knocks. He can hear the sound reverberate on the other side of the door, long way down the hallway, just like it used to.
But, even holding his breath and waiting for over a minute, nothing happens.
"Maybe she's not home," Kurt shrugs next to him, but Puck can hear the underlying anxiety that's finally crept into his voice. He shakes his head and turns around. He should've known.
Puck can already feel himself coming apart, and he's not even three feet away from where all his hope has died. He hears Kurt sigh, heavy but quiet behind him, and then his hand is slipping back into Puck's, who didn't even notice letting it go. He looks to his right, where his boyfriend, hopefully soon-to-be-fiancé, the damn love of his life is looking at him with the gentlest of gazes, like he's afraid to come close and setting off a bomb.
Puck sighs and pull Kurt close, squeezes him in his arms and breathes him in to make sure he's still real. As long as Kurt is there, nothing else is quite so important. Puck's happy like this. He's going to marry his man. He's going to have children, and a job; a life.
And if his mother doesn't want to see her deadbeat son make something out of himself, well, screw her.