AUTHOR'S NOTES: Profuse thanks to Meiran Chang for the beta. Thanks for the reviews, fav+, story+, etc. Very much appreciated!
Puck had always parted crowds of students like they were the Red Sea or something. It wasn't usually intentional; although he sometimes did it to remind them who the hell he was, students just knew to get the hell out of his way.
Today's only different was in how fast they parted, how the typical high school nerdling-loser fear was so amplified Puck could imagine tasting it, sharp at the back of his throat. He moved through the hall, gripping his backpack, and wondered how long it had taken for everyone in town to know what'd happened to him. Was it the next day? Two days later? How fast did that gossip spread?
People didn't skitter away like they were worried he'd bodycheck them into the lockers; they stood frozen as if they were worried he'd somehow change right there in the hallways. It was annoying; Puck had taken a good chunk of time to cultivate the perfect level of fear among his classmates, and he resented that anything but his hard work was affecting it right now.
Even if ben Israel literally peeing himself with fear when Puck did bodycheck him made Puck chuckle. Well, until he could smell it, then it was just gross.
He made it to his locker without much incident, shoving his books in there and figuring that since he'd dragged his ass to school, he might as well go to his first class. Which turned out- after taking a quick look at the crumpled schedule he had the corner of the locker- to be English. So he grabbed the book that looked like it was most likely for English, and closed the locker.
To find Kurt Hummel staring at him.
"Uh...dude, what do you want?" Puck blinked, because he thought he'd made it pretty clear that Kurt wasn't supposed to talk to him outside of Glee club. Even if the guy had visited him in the hospital, that wasn't an excuse to just walk up and talk like they were bros.
Kurt looked about as ridiculous as he usually looked. Black skinny jeans, a stupidly long red sweater, and a black hat. Puck was glad he'd trained himself out of rolling his eyes over all but the most absurd of Kurt's outfits, because otherwise his eye sockets would ache right now.
"Well, sorry for assuming that maybe the school's appalled and horrified reaction might have made you feel the slightest bit alienated, and for wanting to extend my hand- metaphorically, ugh, don't look at me like that, I am so not interested- by being a friend and showing you that I'm not whimpering in a corner in fear." Kurt rolled his eyes. "But whatever, if this somehow offends you, I have plenty of things I'd rather be doing right now."
Kurt started to turn and flounce off before Puck responded. "Hummel."
Stopping, Kurt glanced at him over his shoulder. "Yes, Puckerman?" His tone was droll, unimpressed, and, surprisingly enough, not bullshit. Kurt hadn't flinched during the entirety of his little speech, hadn't shown any signs of being any more afraid of Puck than he was on a daily basis- which, frankly, wasn't very afraid, considering how much time and effort Puck had put into tormenting him. Usually, Kurt seemed more annoyed than anything else. "Something you need?"
Puck clenched his jaw and looked to the side, pained. He wasn't entirely sure what he wanted to say to Kurt, except 'fuck you, people don't get to turn their back on me,' but after Kurt's mini-speech, it seemed lame to actually beat fear into the other teenager.
"Well?" Kurt snapped. "I've got class." He raised an eyebrow at Puck. "So do you, actually, if the roll-call Ms. Hampton gives at the beginning of the period is any indication."
Puck's eyes were narrow with irritation, but he dragged his feet so that he was standing next to Kurt. "Fine, whatever princess. But when all this 'bite-drama' dies down, we don't know each other. Got it?"
"Oh, thank you so much for bestowing me with your esteemed presence." Kurt was completely unamused, but he simply held his books to his chest and started doing that stupid little prance of his down the hall. Puck let out a breath before following after.
One day back, and he was stuck with Kurt Hummel, the world's only real-life Barbie doll (minus the tits, the waist, and anything that would make a real life Barbie attractive, plus a penis). Getting bit by a werewolf sucked.
It took about ten minutes before Puck remembered why he never went to class.
Instead of taking the seat that he normally took (normal being relative to how often he went to class to begin with), Puck ended up sitting in the middle, a seat diagonally behind Kurt. He'd come in with Kurt, after all. It seemed pathetic to sulk off to the back of the class, even if he did see several losers clear away from the back corner like a group of roaches when they saw him enter. When Mercedes came in, she threw Kurt and Puck both a confused look before taking the seat in front of Puck.
Kurt prompted him with a hiss when Ms. Hampton called Puck's name for attendance. Puck raised a hand, eliciting a fairly surprised noise from the teacher before she recovered and carried on with the roll-call. Puck threw Kurt an 'Are you happy?' look, which was completely lost, since Kurt had already turned back around to face the chalkboard.
Puck was completely lost the moment she said to open the book. Apparently, he'd guessed wrong, or maybe he'd grabbed the book they'd been reading at the start of the school year, because nothing made any sense to him. Something about symbolism, something about an evolving character arc, something about a plot resolution. All of it sounded too much like nerd words for him to even give a damn.
Glancing over at Kurt, it didn't seem like he cared much either. At first, Puck thought that Kurt was paying attention, his binder in his lap, circling and highlighting every so often. However, when Puck slouched back in his seat, he could make out the edges of a magazine poking out from the binder pages. About fifteen minutes in, Kurt pulled out his cellphone and started texting, checking the page of the magazine as he did.
On a hunch, Puck let a pen fall. He leaned over to pick it up and scoped out what Mercedes was doing. Sure enough, she was responding to a text, and flipping through her binder, where she was looking at the same magazine. Puck sat up and snorted in amusement. Freaks.
Kurt heard Puck, and threw him a look. Puck shrugged and folded his arms on the desk. Mystery of what Kurt was doing solved, Puck put his head down; he still had a half an hour's worth of nap to take, after all, and it wasn't as if anyone was going to wake him up.
He'd always been good at falling asleep in class. He'd conditioned himself to fall asleep the second his head touched the desk. He was pleased to find that that hadn't changed in the past week.
Normally, though, he was woken up by the sound of period bell. This time, he found himself awakening while Ms. Hampton was still droning on about character transformation, blinking in confusion as he wiped his mouth with his palm.
Something felt weird. He closed his eyes tight and opened them again, stretching and ignoring the disappointed look that Ms. Hampton threw at him. Whatever, it wasn't like he ever paid attention, and it wasn't like anyone sitting behind him was paying attention either. Hell, even Hummel, Miss Perfect GPA, wasn't paying any attention.
As if to get visual reconfirmation of that fact, Puck's eyes flicked over to Kurt's chair. Which was noticeably empty. His notebook was still there, closed. Puck narrowed his eyes in confusion, glancing forward at Mercedes as he sat back up fully. She was still texting and flipping through her magazine.
Puck rubbed his nose and shook his head, settling back in his seat. He just knew his nap was shot to all hell. He wasn't getting back to sleep now, at least not until his next class. The weirdness in the room made his muscles tense up, and he rolled his shoulders. Without thinking, he lifted his arm to massage his opposite shoulder. He winced; pressure on the scar caused hot pain to shoot down his shoulder blade, and he hissed. Stupid.
If getting bit meant he wasn't allowed to sleep during class, Puck was going to need to find someone to beat to make up for it.
Puck was sorely considering getting up and leaving when the door to the classroom opened. His head shot up as Kurt came back into the room and slid back into his seat. Puck looked at the other teenager warily before leaning into the aisle and poking him with a pencil.
Kurt damn near jumped. He turned his head quickly, throwing Puck a death glare while whispering, "What?"
"Where'd you go?" Puck questioned.
"Uh, the bathroom? Not that it's any of your business," Kurt pointed out, leveling the glare at Puck for a few seconds more before turning back around and going back to his magazine and texting.
Puck shrugged, sitting back in his seat, the knots in his shoulders already loosening.
Glee was actually been far less painful than Puck would have expected. Mr. Schue welcomed him back when he came in. Mike Chang gave him a 'welcome back' bro-hug, and Finn followed it up with an awkwardly delivered bro-hug (Puck would have rathered no hugs at all, but whatever, it was over with). Sam threw him a nod, and Artie waved happily.
Brit and Santana both gave him huge hugs that were inappropriately long. Even if Puck had to remind Brittany to back off his shoulder, it was totally worth it. Over Santana's shoulder, Quinn managed to throw him an actually pleasant, non-bitchy smile, which he threw right back at her. Apparently being in the hospital was the one thing that could make the Ice Bitch attitude melt and let Quinn and him get along again for awhile.
When the welcomes were done, Puck sat himself down in the back row, behind Kurt, Quinn, and Sam, and half-followed along with the songs until Glee was over.
He didn't get up right away, sitting back and texting. Santana wanted to see if getting bitten had any effect on Puck in bed, but they'd all known since like, seventh grade that there were no real symptoms of a bite until at least three weeks afterward, so she said she'd just leave him hanging for a little while.
He watched most of the club file out of the classroom without looking up from his phone, suppressing a gag at the sight of Quinn holding a hand out to Sam as they left the room. Mr. Schue made sure to throw out a 'If you need to talk at any point, Puck, I'll be in my office,' to which Puck just responded with a nod and a look that said exactly how likely it was that he'd be taking Mr. Schuester up on that offer.
Kurt and Brittany stayed behind afterward too. Puck wasn't listening, exactly, but they pulled out a few bottles of nail polish and started swooning, so he could only assume they were planning on having a girly playdate and were starting it right then and there.
They didn't start painting their nails right away, instead just checking out colors and looking through the magazine that Puck had seen Kurt with earlier. Puck forcibly ignored them; he was wasting time because he didn't feel up to going home, not because the choice between Lady's Night Shimmer and MegaPunk Pink was a vital one in his life. Still, they were irritatingly distracting, like when someone read a magazine with a picture of a hot chick as they sat down next to Puck on the bus, and he wanted to check it out (people got so uptight when he took the magazine).
"-when we go to Breadstix, Puck?"
Puck blinked. Brittany was talking to him, for some reason. He lifted his eyes, not his head, to look in her direction. "What?"
Kurt was looking mortified. "Oh. My. God. Puck, it wasn't important. I assure you."
Brittany looked confused. Shocker. "I just wanted to know if we needed to bring you dog treats when we all go out to Breadstix on Friday." Kurt was pinker than that MegaPunk Pink, looking as if he wanted to turn into a mouse and run through a crack in the wall.
Puck was just staring. He opened his mouth to respond, realized nothing came out, closed it, and then tried again. "No."
"I guess you'd be okay with the doggy bag then, right?"
"Brittany, shut up, please," Kurt begged her. He turned back to Puck, the look on his face clearly reminding Puck that this was Brittany Pierce they were talking about, and that he really shouldn't take it to heart. Puck knew because he'd gotten this look from a few different Glee club members a few different times.
Brittany was so lucky she was hot and slutty.
"Hey Brit?" Puck started, his tone lighter and more nonchalant than he actually felt.
"Yeah?"
"When we go to Breadstix, I'm going to order a huge steak and pasta meal, and I'm probably going to steal food off of some of you losers, like I always do." Then he paused, and frowned. "When are we going to Breadstixs, anyway?"
Kurt sighed, redirecting his attention again to the nail polishes in front of him. "Friday. Apparently Mr. Schue thinks we all deserve it for working so hard recently. Personally, I think he's just doing it because he feels..." Kurt stopped, shrugged awkwardly. "Bad about your current predicament, but thinks it would be wholly inappropriate to only treat you to Breadstix. Which, frankly, I agree with, and I'm not one to complain about a free trip to Breadstix."
Brittany smiled. "Santana's super excited. She said she's going to eat more than Tina's weight in breadsticks this time."
"Huh." Puck said. "Cool." Free meals? Had he known all he had to do to get Mr. Schue to treat them to Breadstix was risk getting mauled, he would have done this ages ago.
Puck was still trying, via text, to convince Santana that waiting and seeing was lame. She wasn't relenting, instead offering up all the things she planned on doing to him when the three weeks were up. Which, while encouraging, didn't do him any favors. So he started playing Tetris instead.
"Okay, I think you need to try this one, Brit," Kurt announced. Puck caught sight of the nail polish, some super girly pale pink thing that reminded Puck of the color his mom had wanted to paint his sister's room. "Diva Pearls. It's perfect for the dress."
Brittany's smile widened. "You always pick the pretty colors." Puck felt he deserved a pat on the back for not laughing. She lifted her hand, spreading her fingers. "Paint me?"
"Of course," Kurt answered, rolling his eyes. She put her hands on Kurt's knee as he opened the nail polish and started to do her nails.
Puck wrinkled his nose. "That stuff stinks, Hummel. Open a window."
"Oh, hush," Kurt tsked dismissively. "No one is making you sit here and smell it. Why don't you run off to do your little Neanderthal thing somewhere? I hear there's probably a wall without the required caveman drawings on them?"
It was as if Puck had needed a reminder he could move, because as soon as Kurt finished speaking, he snapped his phone shut and put it in his pocket. He snorted, shaking his head. "What happened to the whole supportive nonsense you were spouting earlier?"
"Oh, it's still in effect," Kurt assured him, not looking up from Brittany's nails. "But it's officially after school, and it's officially girl time, so unless you want to try the new Gunmetal Grey I picked up, it's probably best for everyone involved if you go home and get some sleep." There was a pause, and then, more gently, "You know, take care of yourself?"
Puck rolled his eyes. "Whatever. I'm outtie."
Brittany waved. With the hand that Kurt had been painting, which left Kurt groaning in irritation. "See you later Puck! I'll totally bring you a chew toy tomorrow, okay?"
Puck didn't bother responding.
Puck wasn't late to Breadstix, but a few of the club members were already there by the time he arrived. He glanced around at the possible seating options: Mercedes, Tina, and Mike were at one table, and the Cheerios and Sam were already filling in a booth across from them. Which blew, because Puck had wanted to drag Artie over to sit with Brittany and Santana again, but if that was the way they were going to do things, whatever.
He placed himself in the table behind Mercedes, kicking his legs up so that no one would sit in the chair directly next to him. He was quickly joined by Rachel and Finn, who quickly became the two most boring people to share a table with. To be fair, they weren't bad apart; Finn was his bro, and Puck could usually space out and stare at Rachel's chest when Finn wasn't there because Rachel never noticed when he did that.
He ordered the biggest meal on the menu when the waitress came by. Rachel ordered a salad, which got him in a debate with her over whether or not it was a waste of a free trip to Breadstix if you weren't buying the most expensive thing that you could.
It got less irritating when Artie finally arrived. Puck moved his feet off the chair so they could move the chair out of the way and let Artie sit. Rachel threw him a confused look. Whatever, Puck had a perfectly legitimate reason for blocking the seat, so he really didn't appreciate the look. With Artie there, Puck started animatedly telling the table about the pros and cons of TPing vs Silly String. He was pretty sure that Artie was only putting up with it to be polite.
The meals didn't get to the table until the conversation had switched over to what the coolest video game Easter Eggs of all time were (to the chagrin of Rachel). The second the smell of his meal hit Puck's nose, his stomach rumbled. It had to have been loud, because Rachel and Artie both gave him vaguely alarmed looks, to which he shrugged before diving in to the meal.
"Hey Kurt!" Mercedes was saying behind him. Puck glanced over his shoulder automatically, throwing Kurt- who was what, like thirty minutes late or something?- a nod before turning back to the plate. It was weird; everything smelled great, but the taste wasn't living up to it. It didn't matter, because Puck was hungry as hell and would have eaten one of Brittany's threatened dog treats if they'd put it on a plate in front of him. "What took you so long, boy?"
Kurt sighed the sigh of someone long-tormented. "Couldn't find the hat I wanted to wear. Took me a good forty minutes to completely rethink this outfit."
"Seriously?" Puck found himself saying from around a mouth of food. "You nearly missed Breadstix over a hat?"
Kurt, who had taken a seat next to Mercedes and was therefore directly behind Puck, turned to face him, resting an arm on the back of his chair. "If you must know, it's a very expensive knit hat. I didn't even get to find it. Ugh, Carol probably accidentally put it in Finn's laundry again. I told her it doesn't go in with the regular load, but does she listen? No." Kurt's eyes flicked over to Finn. "No offense to Carol."
Finn looked confused. "Didn't think you meant any."
Puck didn't actually care about the hat, the laundry, or Finn's mom. "Dude. Breadstix."
"Puck," Kurt said, blatantly mimicking Puck's tone, "I can survive if I have to buy my own Breadstix meal. It's not the end of the world."
"That's weak," Puck declared. "I don't even pay here, and I know you always make sure to be there if someone else is paying." Kurt rolled his eyes and turned back to his table, starting another conversation with Tina and Mercedes.
Puck turned back to his meal, quickly devouring most of it. Breadstix must have hired a new cook or something. He'd always been a fan of the steak and pasta meals, but something about this smelled different, and he couldn't put a finger on what it was. Not that he was trying that hard.
Rachel might've commented on his eating habits. He ignored it and ordered some more food the next time the waiter came over.
"...was thinking the Caesar salad, actually, with a soup on the side..." Kurt sounded indecisive. Puck didn't turn around, even though he was tempted, just to mock Kurt about the fact that he was pretty much ordering the same thing as Rachel. Which, he knew from personal experience, was a great way to irritate the smaller teenager.
But he was done with his food, and Rachel had roped his table mates into a discussion about vocal warm-ups that only Artie seemed remotely interested in (and again, it might have been Artie just being nice). Which left Puck bored until he had more food.
He slouched back in his seat, engaging himself with the age-old five-year-old-kid activity of tipping his chair back just enough so that it didn't fall backwards, and then sitting up, and then doing it again. The second attempt, though, Rachel sharply scolded him, reminding him they that were in public. He rolled his eyes and sat back up, tapping out a beat absent-mindedly on the edge of the table.
He'd never had a problem expressing his boredom outwardly. Most people considered it rude; Puck considered it pretty rude too, but at least he was being straightforward and honest. So when the conversation became absolutely mind-numbing for him, he groaned, closing his eyes and dropping his head back as if he were going to fall asleep.
The scent filled his nose again, and again, as if he hadn't just eaten an entire plate of food, his stomach rumbled. This time, though, instead of sitting straight up and waiting for the plate to be put in front of him, he kept his eyes closed. Just focused on the smell as it drifted his way. If he was the type to cook, he'd totally ask what it was that they'd done this time around, because the smell was practically short-circuiting his brain. It sure as hell was short-circuiting his stomach.
Puck found himself taking long, deep breaths of the scent. It washed over him; he even shuddered from it for a moment. For a minute he was totally able to understand those weirdoes with food fetishes, because-
"Puck, what the hell kind of noise are you making?" Kurt's voice jolted Puck out of it, his eyes snapping open.
He shook his head, sitting up as if he'd been shocked. "What?"
"Did you seriously fall asleep at the table?" When Puck turned to face Kurt, he realized that that entire table was staring at him. He just blinked back at them, confused. "You were..." Kurt practically whispered his next word, "...growling in your sleep, Puckerman."
"Huh...no I wasn't," Puck answered slowly. "I wasn't asleep, and I wasn't growling. My stomach-"
"That wasn't your stomach, honey," Mercedes said, looking equal parts weirded-out and pitying.
Puck didn't need pity, or the disturbed look on Kurt's face, or the worried glances that Mike and Tina were throwing at each other. His face twisted up in annoyance. "Whatever, back off. Don't you freaks have, like, lettuce and twigs to snack on or something?"
Kurt looked taken aback by the snap for a moment before recovering and looking like he expected nothing better. He shrugged. "If you say so, Puck." Then he smiled a bitchy smile to rival Quinn on her best day. "But I know what I heard, and maybe you shouldn't go throwing around the word 'freak' right now, huh?"
Couldn't Kurt have been like everybody else at McKinley and been at all scared? Just so he wouldn't make stupid comments like that? Puck chewed on the inside of his lip and turned back to his own table. Where he had three people looking at him with varying levels of shock, confusion, fear, and curiosity.
"What?" Puck snapped. They quickly changed the topic and pretended like nothing happened. Puck scowled and looked around. Where the hell was his meal? He wasn't crazy, so he knew he hadn't imagined the smell, but his plate wasn't in front of him, and the waiter definitely wasn't on her geriatric way over. So what was up?
He continued to scowl until his plate was in front of him, relieved that he could focus on eating, but disappointed that this one didn't smell quite the same. The smell was there, but it wasn't as strong, or maybe he'd just grown used to it or something. It still didn't explain why he thought he'd smelled it moments earlier. He convinced himself that someone else must have ordered the same thing as he did, and a waiter had served it to a nearby table.
Fortunately, Mr. Schuester must have felt really bad for Puck, because he didn't give Puck crap for ordering three plates and two desserts. He simply paid for everyone and gave them all congratulations for their hard work so far, convinced they'd win, blah blah blah, Puck stopped paying attention because he was busy finishing up some apple crumb cake.
He pushed his seat out to stand up, not realizing he was getting up at the same time as Kurt behind him. This meant that they both stood up and hit each other's backs. They both turned at the same time to face each other- Puck to go 'what the fuck's your problem, dude', and Kurt to apologize politely, but they were still far too close to each other, to the point where Puck was hovering over Kurt, looking down at him.
And there it was again. His mind was playing tricks on him, because there the scent was again, so strong it stuck to the back of his throat. He froze at its intensity, its closeness. He swallowed, licked his lips. Remained very still for a moment.
And that wasn't awkward. "Uh, Puck? If we're going to leave, you kind of have to move out of my way." Kurt's voice was as patient as it could be, considering how very close Puck was at the moment. "I know you're a consummate mouthbreather and all that, but could you kindly huff air at least three feet back?"
Puck took another quick breath in through his nose, confirming for another time that, no, it wasn't a plate of deliciously seasoned meat, but Kurt Hummel's...body wash? Cologne? Something.
He turned away, quickly. "Sorry, bro." He blinked a few times, leaning on the chair he'd just stood up from. The smell still lingered, but it wasn't as overwhelming now that he wasn't practically pressed against Kurt.
There was that noise again. And even Puck knew that it wasn't his stomach this time.
There wasn't enough Natty Light in the world for this.