Title: Do Unto Others…and Well, You Know the Rest
Author:
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/Characters: Puck/Kurt (established)
Genre: Angst/Drama
Warnings: Angst, slight cliché, a little OOCness and mentions of suicide.
Disclaimer: Glee doesn't belong to me.
Summary: After Kurt tries to commit suicide, Puck gives a speech on tolerance during a school assembly.
Word Count: 1,734
Notes: Written for the hs_bingo. This one is filling out the square labeled "school assembly."
"Are you sure you're ok to do this?" Puck hears Rachel ask him. Any other time he would have told her to go fuck off, but recent events have made him realize who his real friends are and he considers Rachel one of them.
"I'm not ok, but I have to do this for Kurt, you know?" She nods in understanding and he gives her a sad look before focusing his attention of the sheets of paper in his hands. It was his speech that he was planning on giving to the McKinley High student body. Puck isn't usually the type to give long, meaningful speeches to people, but this is needed and he feels that he is the only one who can get the message across clearly.
Puck is buried deep within his papers when the voice of Principal Figgins comes over the gym's sound system and interrupts him.
"Ladies and gentlemen, please settle down." Principal Figgins orders. Everyone surprisingly does so quickly and focuses their attention to the front. "Now, I know that you are all familiar with the events that have shaken our school. I just want to reiterate before we begin, that bullying is not or will ever be tolerated on school grounds. Even if I hear of it happening outside of the school campus, I will make sure of it myself that you are dealt the proper consequences." Everyone is silent at the warning, no one showing signs of protest.
"Now I will like to introduce Noah Puckerman to the front. He has graciously prepared a speech on the importance of tolerance." Principal Figgins turns to Puck to motion him to the front. With an encouraging smile from Rachel and the rest of the glee club, he makes his way to the front.
When he reaches the podium, he realizes for the first time just how big the school is. He starts to get nervous, but once he realizes that Kurt isn't there, he is reminded of exactly why he's up there.
"I'm Noah Puckerman or Puck as many of you know me." He starts. "I'm a football player, member of the glee club and the proud boyfriend of Kurt Hummel." He doesn't expect much reaction at that because by now everyone knows that he and Kurt are together. How could they not?
"When Kurt and I first got together, we weren't really together. We only wanted one thing from each other and that was all. There were no strings, no flowers or any of that lovey dovey crap. It was just us. Then of course, as cliché as it sounds, it turned into more. I fell in love with him and him with me." Puck smiles briefly. "Let me tell you though, you haven't experienced happiness until the person that you love tells you they love you back. There's nothing else like it." He trails off.
He takes the moment to look into the audience. He sort of expects some condescending looks, but there is none. It's the complete opposite of the glares and nasty comments that he was facing a week ago.
The glares and nasty comments that pushed Kurt off the edge.
It takes everything in Puck to not shout obscenities at the crowd. He knows that not all of them are responsible for what happened to Kurt. The ones who were directly responsible were expelled and charged with assault and a long list of other things.. But when he thinks about it, he wants to blame everybody. He wants them all to be punished.
Wiping away the tears that suddenly appeared, he continues. "Um, Kurt and I had been dating for awhile when we had finally decided to tell our friends, the glee club, about us. We felt that if anyone deserved to know, then it was them. I was scared, but Kurt told me that if they were our real friends then they would accept us unconditionally. He was right, as usual, and it felt good to not have to fully hide. It felt fucking good to be able to kiss him in front of other people without getting all paranoid. So the glee club had known for about three months when I brought up the idea of fully coming out. That's when he got scared. He didn't want me to feel like I had to come out because of him. He was right though. He's the reason I wanted to let everyone know. I knew that Kurt deserved someone who would be proud of him and want to parade him around like the fantastic person that he is. He agreed to it, so we planned it perfectly. We were prepared for the hate, but we were a little hopeful that people wouldn't find it such a big deal."
Puck struggles to hold in his tears. He doesn't want to blame himself, but it was all his idea in the first place. Why shouldn't he responsible? But before he gives himself time to have a mental breakdown, he quickly resumes his speech.
"I don't have to tell you all how people reacted to us. You all witnessed the endless slushie facials, the name calling and the pushes into lockers. You all saw the word "fag" spray painted in big bold letters across both of our lockers. You saw both of us trying to be strong and ignore it all because we didn't want to show you just how much it hurt and tore us up inside. You were successful in making our lives hell, but you were not successful in breaking us apart. Even though we were hated, our love was all we needed. He loved me and I loved him and that was all that mattered and that's all that still matters." He took a breath. "The day before Kurt tried to kill himself was one of the worse days that we went through together. Some stupid punks on the football team cornered Kurt behind the school and beat the hell out of him. They ripped his clothes, spit on him, kicked him in the stomach, punched him in his face and threatened to make it worse if they ever saw him act like a stupid fag again. They left him there with no remorse. When Kurt finally got the strength to pull out his phone and call for help, he called me and I ran like a bat of hell to get to him. I saw him broken and scared and I wanted to go kill the bastards who did that to him. I demanded that he tell me who did it and he refused to. I eventually got it out of him, but he begged me to not tell anyone. So I took him home and stayed with him until it was time for me leave. His dad said he could handle it. The next day, I went back to his house to see if he was doing better and of course he wasn't. His dad said that Kurt had just went back to sleep after coming upstairs for some water and medicine for his headache. I told his father that I just wanted to see him for a second and then I'd be gone. So he allowed me and I went down to his room and saw the worse possible thing ever. It was Kurt sprawled on the floor and not moving. I remember screaming for help and his dad running down to see what was the matter. He quickly called 911 and while we were waiting we both held Kurt and pleaded for him to wake up and to not die on us. When the ambulance finally arrived they immediately went to work and loaded him up in the ambulance and drove away with me and his dad." Puck bit his lip. He couldn't cry anymore. He just couldn't.
"Kurt had taken a handful of his dad's headache pills that morning. When the doctor told us that, I didn't even listen to see if he was alright. I automatically thought the worse. All I could think about was how I didn't get enough time with him. How I he didn't get to graduate or go to New York and show them just what exactly talent was. How I didn't get to tell him that I loved him one last time and that he meant more than the world to me. So when the nurse said that he would be fine, I nearly passed out. I mean, he took a handful of pain killers and he was going to be ok. Someone definitely had their eye on him. So yeah, Kurt is alive and I still get to tell him that I love him everyday, but he is far from ok. He's going have to go through months and months of therapy to get this all behind him. He's going to have to learn to love himself again because inconsiderate people made him scared and ashamed to be himself. Think about it, when you don't have self confidence, what do you have?" This time he can't hold in the tears any longer, but damn him if he wasn't going to finish.
"I want you all to imbed this in your brains: Words hurt. I know that you've all heard that so many times before, but it's true. Kurt Hummel is living proof. He tried to take his life because of hateful words and ignorant people. Intolerance will get you absolutely no where in life. If you can't get yourself to accept other people for their differences, then just forget about succeeding in anything. You can forget about that big fancy house and nice car and high paying job. You'll never even be close to it if you can't open your mind to other things. Tolerance is the only way you're going to survive the rest of your life."
He takes a pause before finishing.
"Kurt tolerated your hatefulness everyday. Why was it so hard for you to tolerate him?"
He leaves his speech at that. He walks away from the podium, his footsteps echoing off of the walls. When he sits back down in spot next to Rachel, he feels her arms wrap around him in a comforting way. He doesn't know if his words will stick with anyone, but he does know that he did his part in making the world a little bit easier for Kurt Hummel.