Karamel Sutra
A self-conscious!Puck story inspired in part by: an anonymous prompt for Puck being called fat and being affected by it, Less Than Jake's song "The Science of Selling Yourself Short", and my ridiculous pining and whining for some Ben & Jerry's. (I wound up with Häagen-Dazs, but who am I to complain?) I wrote this as a sort of celebratory "I'm finally done with Teasing!fic!" story, to try and tickle my muse into activity before September seventh (a.k.a. the first day of school; a.k.a. the Apocalypse). I haven't written much of anything since, just bits and pieces of shapeless fic, but I'm hoping to crank something out shortly!
Enjoy!
Fifteen minutes, one half-assed Mercedes/Santana catfight and five variants of "Um, what" from Brittany later, Kurt was no closer to finding out what the hell went down than Brittany was to grasping the simple concept of PEMDAS. (She still thought it was German for PMSing, bless her ditsy, candy-coated bubblegum-sparkle soul.)
He figured it's some kind of karmic payback for the one time he stepped out of glee early. In his defense, he'd waited as long as he could before the scuffs marring his latest treasure from eBay-scrounging had him close to bawling his eyes out. His poor, choreography-injured Westwood babies pleaded with him to go to the bathroom and buff them back to pristine condition, and he was putty in fashion's hands. He was a firm, guiltless believer of fashion emergencies being second to none. Not even the Rachel Berry was more important than his precious boots, so he strutted out of the choir room, paying no heed to Rachel's whiny demands. It wasn't like he needed the extra dance practice; Finn, with his two left feet, on the other hand…
In the present, Kurt took to furiously kneading his fingertips into his temples, in hopes of staving off the migraine he could feel building up. He viciously swore he'd cut Mercedes out of his trust funds if his girl didn't shut her big mouth. He could ruminate on Santana's punishment once it didn't feel like stabbing riff beats were scrambling his brain matter like Chex mix.
"Guys," Artie yelped in an attempt to shut everyone up. His voice was easily swallowed by Mercedes and Santana's jabbering, which sounded more and more like an average episode of The View. Brittany was rocking his wheelchair back and forth, much to the bespectacled gleek's consternation, cooing some lullaby. "Yo-"
"SHUT THE HELL UP BEFORE I BRING IT!" Kurt hollered, taking fiendish delight when everyone froze mid-action. He could be vaguely intimidating, especially when he sounded so impressively manly with his deep, I-mean-business tone of voice he most likely inherited from his father.
"…Bring what?" Brittany asked as she slowly wheeled Artie away from Kurt's vicinity. She quietly hummed the Jaws theme in the awkward silence.
"Now, I want you-one of you!" he elaborated when more than one mouth opened to reply. "To tell me why Puck nearly ran me over while I was walking to the choir room."
"Maybe he wanted to play bumper cars," Brittany said, as if it were completely reasonable (it probably was, to her). Everyone wisely kept silent, and not just because Santana's freaky, horribly mutilating "I dare you" glare was back on her face.
"Karofsky asked Puck if you knocked him up," Mercedes offered. "Called him a chubby hubby, or something ridiculously moronic like that."
Kurt rolled his eyes in sync with his diva-in-crime. Plebeians. Brittany asked Santana if they could please get some Ben and Jerry's on the ride home. Santana probably murmured some form of assent because damn, was she pussy-whipped. (Then again, how could anyone say no to Britt, especially when she asked so nicely?)
"But I don't get it," Artie said slowly, rolling away when Brittany let go of his handlebars. "Why would Puck flip out over being called fat? I mean, he obviously isn't, right?" He looked at Mercedes for validation, and the mood turned really uncomfortable really fast. Kurt glared as Artie insisted "I didn't mean it like-like that!"
"Yeah, you better not have," Santana growled. Chica say what? Kurt blinked. Was this the same bitch that was talking smack about Mercedes' atrocious Uggs? Everyone gaped at her.
…Well, everyone except for Britt, but that was pointing out the obvious. Brittany's off in La-La Land, what else is new? Currently, she was counting the number of sticks of gum she had in her purse. "…Two, three… wait. Santana, how does that song go? One, two, three little ballads…"
Was Santana blushing? "I mean it, Wheels. I'll hijack your chair and roll it into the lake. With you in it."
"Right." Artie didn't look as frightened as he was humiliated. "I really didn't mean it, 'Cedes," he said softly. "Sorry if I hurt your feelings."
Mercedes shrugged it off with a half-smile and some scoffed witty comeback, but Kurt could see through his baby-girl's act. He laced their fingers together and tugged her against his side, steering the topic back on track. "So someone called Puck fat."
"Yeah," Artie said with considerably less enthusiasm. "And he looked pretty upset by it, too."
"Well, Puck's always angry whenever people make derogatory homophobic slurs," Kurt said. "Why would this be different?"
"Well," Mercedes piped up, "He wasn't really mad. He looked more…"
"Hurt." Santana looked as bewildered as he felt.
"But why would he…" Kurt sighed at all the blank looks he got before he even finished his question. "I guess there's only one thing to do here."
Brittany paused with four fingers up, cocking her head to the side. "Do the Single Ladies dance again?"
Kurt offered Britt a patronizing smile that had the girl grinning back, even if she didn't really get what was so amusing. "Maybe later. But what I meant to say, it's time for me to be the doting boyfriend to kiss Puck's boo-boo and make it better."
"And by boo-boo, you mean his dick?" Santana asked crudely, but Kurt just rolled his eyes as he walked past her. God, the bitch did not wear jealousy well, especially when it was an act, more or less.
"I'll text you about the mall," Kurt said to Mercedes before he walked out the door. He couldn't help but smile when he looked through the frosted glass to see Artie wheeling up to Mercedes with a guilty, beaten puppy expression on his face. Maybe his recent break-up with Tina had taught Artie a lesson or two about the fine art of sensitivity.
He wandered around the empty halls with no destination in mind, typing up a text to Puck. Just as he was about to press 'Send,' he heard grunting coming from…
Kurt frowned at the door to the weights room, knocking loudly a couple times before hesitantly cracking the door open. (Lest it was Azimio working off some post-bullying steam.) When he saw it was just Puck, Kurt let himself in, shutting the door behind him.
Puck didn't give him more than a quick glance as he bench-pressed what looked to be twice Kurt's body weight, grunting in exertion as his exposed muscles bulged. Kurt did his best to keep his eyes on Puck's face, instead of those deliciously sweaty abs, with a limited amount of success.
"Hey," Kurt said as casually as he could, hanging his scarf over a treadmill handrail with a slight moue of disgust. Puck grunted a simple greeting in return, not pausing his rhythmic barbell-hefting. "What's up?"
When Puck made it apparent he wasn't planning on deeming Kurt with a response, he just rolled his eyes a bit but didn't bother with feeling slighted. "Not that I'm averse to a private body-building show, but what's got you so pumped up?"
Puck let out a sigh as he lifted the weight one more time before setting it back on the rack above him. Kurt sat himself primly on a bench next to Puck's, tilting his head to the side as he waited for the boy to speak.
"Karofsky," Puck ground out, whipping a bandana out from his jeans pocket and wiping his sweaty brow with it. "Ticked me off."
Kurt wisely didn't point out that Puck seemed more than just 'ticked off.' "Oh?" Kurt asked, playing the wide-eyed and innocent part perfectly. "What'd he do this time?"
"He just-. Look, it's really stupid, okay?" Puck crumpled the red bandana into a ball before chucking it onto the ground. He stood and began pacing the length of the room. "He was just being an idiot, and I just didn't have the patience for his kind of moron today."
"Well if it didn't matter, why don't you just tell me what Karofsky did?"
Puck shot him a suspicious glare. "…You know something. Kurt, what do you know?" His eyes widened. "Did you… you talked to Finn. Oh my God, I'm going to kill that fucking big-mouthed giant!"
Kurt was startled Puck's sudden mood change, the fire that suddenly ignited in his eyes. Kurt grabbed onto Puck's sweaty arm before the boy stormed off, presumably to find Finn and beat the living shit out of him, if his clenched fists and fervent threats of bodily harm were any indication.
"Puck," Kurt said loudly, "Chillax! Look, Finn didn't tell me anything-I haven't seen or talked to Finn since I went to go fix my boots." Puck was thankfully less homicidal, but his breathing was still heavy, his entire body tensed.
Kurt sighed. "C'mere…" He tugged on Puck's arm until the boy plopped into the seat beside him. "I know what Karofsky said."
Puck looked instantly outraged. "So why didn't you-"
"Because I wanted you to tell me," Kurt easily interrupted, smoothing a hand along Puck's furrowed brow. "Don't make that face or you'll wrinkle. I wanted to know why you're so upset over something that baboon said. I mean," Kurt smirked self-depreciatingly. "Don't you remember when he and Azimio spread that transvestite rumor about me? He's not exactly what I'd call a legit source of information. He's almost as tasteless as Israel."
Puck couldn't seem to look Kurt in the eye. "But that's the thing," He went really quiet, looking small and insecure and really not the Puck that Kurt was accustomed to at all.
Kurt gave him a gentle nudge to go on, lacing his fingers through Puck's.
"What Karofsky said is true. Or-was," He amended when Kurt made to argue. He swallowed, eyes locked on the secondhand treadmills lined up against the wall. "I did-I used to be sort of… well, fat."
Kurt tried not to roll his eyes because Puck seemed to be taking this seriously, and when Puck was being serious, the last thing he wanted to do was offend Puck into silence. "Puck, having some baby fat when you're, like, eight isn't-"
"You don't understand," Puck insisted. "I was like, really fat. If I hadn't burned them all, I'd show you some pictures. But yeah." He cleared his throat uncomfortably. "I used to be… you know, picked on because of how big I was. I guess it's just a bit of a sore spot for me?" Kurt had to chuckle at Puck's grimace of disgust, as if admitting a weakness made him less of a badass.
He pressed a kiss to the boy's cheek for his troubles. "I still think it's odd," Kurt said as he leaned against Puck's chest. At Puck's guarded questioning look, he explained, "I don't remember ever seeing you during recess, and I'm pretty sure we were in the same school."
"Don't you remember?" Puck asked. His voice was carefully blank. "They used to call me Noah the Arc."
Kurt blinked, little recollections of teasing and giggling and… "Oh my God, I remember now!" Kurt gasped. He reddened in embarrassment and did his best to reign in his surprise. But come on. "Puck… that was you?"
"Yeah, hard to believe, right? Rolls, moobs, a fucking triple-chin… I had the works." Puck's hand was clammy in his own. "The summer before junior high, my mom chucked me into a fat camp. Told me my dad wasn't gonna come back, so I should stop eating my weight in Twinkies because unless I got a job, we couldn't afford it." His mirthless chuckles were shrill and borderline hysterical. "I lost a lot of weight there, and in junior high I tried out for the Peewee football team. The rest is history, or whatever." He sighed and leaned back against the wall, his wife beater clinging to his cooling skin.
Kurt could feel the pounding of Puck's heartbeat, as if it were his own. He pulled Puck's hand into his lap, kneading the roughened hands between his soft fingers. "Why doesn't anyone remember, though?" Kurt mused aloud. Puck, thankfully, didn't seem to be offended at being the subject of Kurt's game of twenty questions. "Sorry, I'm just curious."
"It's okay," Puck said. "And… I guess because when we went to middle school, everyone was kind of new to each other? Even if we'd done finger-painting together in first grade, being in a different school made people change." He bit his lip and his hand clenched in Kurt's grip. "When I went to junior high, I told everyone my name was Puck. I had the mohawk then, too, so people didn't realize that Puck was also Noah the Arc. Only Finn did, really."
The way Puck eyed him then, serious and vulnerable, told Kurt that no one else would know about this. He offered him a lighthearted smile in return, bringing Puck's hand to his lips to kiss those callused knuckles. "You know, I wasn't always this fabulous. I used to be a fashion train wreck."
"Oh really now?" Puck scoffed. "Like I believe that load of bull."
"It's true!" Kurt insisted with an embarrassed giggle. "I used to wear flannel. And Walmart-brand jeans." He nodded sagely at Puck's floundering expression. "I tell no tales. Swear on McQueen's grave."
"You… wore flannel?"
"Yeah." He ducked his head, grinning at his polished boots even as his cheeks flushed pink. "I used to have this thing about wanting to match my father. Think of my 'butch' phase, but with more plaid."
"Oh dear Lord," Puck snorted, "Do you have pictures?"
"Hell to the no!" Kurt cried, affronted. "Why would I keep pictures of that?" He wisely didn't tell Puck that his father, on the other hand, did, and frequently used them for blackmail material. Kurt grimaced in recollection, and it only made Puck guffaw even harder.
"Thanks," Puck sighed, once he'd stopped chuckling. "I needed that."
"You know what else you need?" Puck rose an eyebrow at him, looking very interested. Kurt just grinned. "Shopping! Oh, come on Puck," He said at Puck's flat-out no. "It can be fun. And very confidence-boosting."
"I don't know what kind of crazy world you live in, but shopping ain't fun." Puck scratched his chin as Kurt practically flew off of him.
"Take that back!" Kurt screeched, pointing a demanding, perfectly buffed finger in Puck's face.
Puck nipped at Kurt's index finger, grinning at the boy's yelp of surprise. "…Or what?"
"Or what, he asks," Kurt huffed. He fixed Puck with his best Bitch, please glare, fighting down a smile as he got into full hands-on-hips, head-cocked-to-the-side diva formation. "Or I'll fuck you up, Puckerman."
"Ooh, fuck me up, huh?" Puck subtly flexed his still-tingling guns, smirking at the glazed-over look in Kurt's eyes. Just another pro on the infinite list of Why You Shouldn't Eat Your Feelings Away. "I'm so scared."
Kurt licked his lips. It was kind of unfair how sexy Puck's nipples were, especially when they were barely hidden by the translucent cotton of that flimsy shirt. He ran his finger over the outline of that infamous nipple piercing, smirking at Puck's choked gasp. "You should be."
The sounds of people stampeding down the hall broke the moment, and all of a sudden the room seemed too warm and too small to be in any longer.
They grabbed their things and went to leave. Kurt held the door open for Puck, tapping that fine ass and grinning, looking innocent and butter wouldn't melt in my mouth when Puck turned to fix him with a smirk. "I'll see you tonight?"
"You, me, and the Hannibal trilogy," Kurt agreed. "If you're not done with your über masculine romp-around by seven, I'm locking you out."
Puck grimaced. "Trust you to make Fight Club sound like some super gay orgy," he muttered.
"Don't think I'm not onto you and your slutty wiles," Kurt teased. Puck looked borderline annoyed, so Kurt kissed him long enough to melt his pout away… and then some.
"Okay, so who's the slut here?" Puck asked breathlessly, pulling away with a smirk. "Not that I'm complaining." Kurt rolled his eyes and pecked Puck's swollen lips a few more times before bidding him farewell.
He was doing his ritual movie night snack stock-up, in the middle of slipping his usual pint of Karamel Sutra out of the freezer section when he paused. Kurt's mind slipped back to Puck, like it was wont to do. (He was a teenager in love, sue him.) He bit at his lip, flipping over to the nutritional facts he never really worried about.
Metabolism had always been on his side, but what about Puck? The same niggling guilt he felt whenever Mercedes reluctantly turned down a trip to Starbucks overcame him. His baby-girl was voluptuous, perfectly so. Like Queen Latifah, pre-Jenny Craig. Kurt always thought curves worked in her favor-he told her as much, as often as possible without giving off the wrong impression (they didn't need another boulder-sized hole in their relationship), but she still kept the sweets and treats to a once-a-week indulgence. Maybe it was for the best, but Kurt, with a sweet tooth the size of Alaska, couldn't imagine cutting back.
The ancient playground taunting began ringing in his head. Noah the Arc, Noah the Arc, he could hear, over and over again in his head. God, even as kids, Karofsky and his goons had been cruel and heartless.
He swallowed and resolutely set the Karamel Sutra back down on the shelf, slamming the glass door shut with more force than necessary. If he forced himself away from his milkshakes and lattes for Mercedes, he would sure as hell deal with a Ben & Jerry's withdrawal for Puck.
Kurt did his best to ignore the bewildered store employee gaping at him like he'd grown three heads, instead looking through the fro-yo and sorbet selections while trying to think of what Puck would like.
He ended up with some promising watermelon sorbetto and hightailed it out of the ice cream section, never looking back.
When it came down to it, sorbet didn't hold a candle to his beloved Ben & Jerry's. It lacked the rich creaminess and buttery sweetness of his beloved ice cream, and he didn't feel sinful afterward. Hell, he didn't even feel full. But the way Puck's eyes lit up when Kurt passed him the tub was worth it…
As was the epic spoon-dueling… and the accidental hand-brushing… and the feel of cold lips, the taste of fresh watermelon bursting on their tongues… Alright, so maybe Kurt could learn to like sorbet, but it would definitely require some more persuading.
Definitely.