Title: Red Windmills

Summary: Kurt Hummel has always been good at running away. And Noah? …Noah has always been good at chasing him, to the ends of the earth if he had to.
Kurt Hummel left Lima without a goodbye, hoping to forget his shattered life. Performing in a burlesque lounge in Chicago, he's found the secrecy and the spotlight he needs to stay happy. But Noah, his unrelenting best friend whom he left without a shoulder to cry on, refuses to give up on him. He knows just how much more Kurt deserves, and he's determined to show him how much love the world still has to offer him; and maybe find a romance of his own along the way...

Pairings: Puckurt (friendship...mostly); eventually a Klaine romance; Puck/OC romance. [Note, Kurt did not meet Blaine in his high school years. We just love the pairing...though not as much as Puck and Kurt's friendship...also, Blaine isn't going to feature at all for some time, we don't think…]

Chapter Warnings: Implied violence, language

Reviews are rewarded with hugs and love, so keep those fingers typing! This is just Sally right now, but Kyle sends his love…Papa Burt features, at Kyle's request…

Italics are flashback scenes. NOTE: Not sure how it's been implied/stated so far, but to clear things up - Kurt left during senior year. It is now about four and a half years later.

7) What's My Name?

Noah's first job after leaving Lima, Ohio had been, to his embarrassment, some sort of 1930s Alphabet Agency scheme position.

Shovelling gravel and laying it down, breaking up old roads to build new ones; smoothing the surface and painting the lines, tightening the edges and doing man jobs. Real man jobs. Hard labour at a small wage. Mostly big guys with enough muscle and testosterone to leave them all feeling alpha-driven and frustrated at the end of each working day, sweat dripping and tensions rising.

He'd slaved hour after hour for his meagre pay, and out of the fifteen or so men he worked with six days a week, he had made two friends. The first a lankier version, he realised, of Finn Hudson, who answered to the name Stanley Rodder, and would have painted the road signs backwards if he'd been given chance to make a mistake. The second was a small mouse of a man, Henry Baske, with thin mumbling lips and eyebrows constantly angled into a defensive frown. Stanley was talkative, friendly, a real peacemaker among the group, while Henry stood out like a giraffe in the Arctic from the rest of the men, his wiry frame proving him to be a twiglet beside his co-workers, who no doubt would have ripped him limb from limb if it weren't for Noah's badass protection.

The others, he had been forced to accept, were assholes.

Including him, sometimes.

He'd never settled into the job. Or the next one. Or the next one.

The Philadelphia office job he'd waved goodbye to at the first scent of a trail to Kurt had taken him weeks to feel comfortable in. And after those first weeks, comfort swiftly turned to trigger pressing, skull numbing, mind obliterating boredom.

Red Miller's, however, was another matter entirely.

By his third customer Noah felt as if he'd been at the job his whole life - and unlike the office job, fortunately, this time he meant it in a good way.

Born to charm, he squeezed money from wallets like the juice of ripe lemons with a suave smile and a few choice words for the ladies, innuendo filled humour for the men. They loved him - possibly even more than the staff did.

Well, the staff bar one individual.

Kurt had walked beside him all the way from the apartment to the lounge, but upon entering had stalked directly to the dressing room without so much as announcing their arrival, leaving Noah to search for a familiar face to be told what to do.

Ten minutes with Carley - behind the bar this time, not as a customer - and he'd got the hang of it.

He danced up and down the bar, bumped hips with the girl working by his side, be it Carley or the other girl, raven hair and cocoa toned skin, by the name of Jade, and even danced along to a few of the numbers, earning some extra tips from a group of giggling spectators (a gaggle of hen party women with eyes on every man in the room at once).

Kurt still hadn't said a word to him (hadn't even looked his way to check on him) but he paid no heed. He let the younger man stew in his sulk, maybe exert some of that frustration on the stage, and entertained himself by crowd watching whenever he had a moment of peace.

As it turned out, the customers of Red Miller's were the ultimate examples of crowd watcher gold.

The hen party were draped over the bar at the end closest to the band, all cackling hysterically as they made eyes at the guitar player closest to them, who, uncomfortable under the stare of so many (clearly oblivious) women, was trying his best to ignore them, while his boyfriend, one of the dancers, smirked in amusement at him from the stage between numbers. The bride to be, CHERYL tattooed to her forehead with lipstick, kept nearly falling off her stool, her legs spread wide so the left one was stretching up to rest on the bar while the right lay limp in her maid of honour's lap. Their cowboy hats were tattered and stained, but they seemed to be enjoying themselves, hooting and whooping with the music, shrieking with glee when one of their song requests was granted.

On one of the sofas on the opposite side of the room Noah watched half amused, half sympathetic, at a young couple, him ignorant as he watched the stage avidly and gulped down his drinks, her stony as she glared at him with the eyes of a girlfriend preparing to shout at her boyfriend the first private chance she had. Unimpressed by her date's lack of interest in anything but the chance of catching a glimpse up one of the dancers' skirts, the girl had returned three times to the bar without her absence being noticed. And if Noah perhaps slipped a little more vodka than was strictly necessary each time? Well, no harm done. She deserved a little something, at least.

One of his favourites to watch had been a group of what looked to be twenty-something business boys who turned up not long before midnight. They'd danced in rowdy, most drunk with anticipation (but soon something more substantial) and the group took up three of the large couches, spreading out near the front of the room. They'd crowed with delight when one of the girls - Georgie, Noah had smirked as he glanced over - actually slid off the stage and proceeded to flirt outrageously with them all, paying particular attention to one in particular. The lucky one, Noah soon realised, actually wasn't enjoying himself at all, and his friends seemed to think it a mighty waste that she had chosen to give special notice to the only one that looked genuinely uninterested by the venue. With every drink, while the majority grew more raucous, the bored one even less stricken by his surroundings, and had been the first to leave, a good half hour before any of his friends.

And then there had been Andy. Good old Andy, who Noah only knew by name because he'd introduced himself at least twelve times, and after each introduction had regaled the bartender with a long, in depth description of his break up with the love of his life, a girl called Chanice, who had the most beautiful eyes in the world and did the most wonderful things with her tongue. By two in the morning Noah had found himself with a bone deep hatred for the bitch. Not out of sympathy for poor ol' Andy, but because he was fairly certain if he ever heard the sorry tale again, he would likely quit his new job to look for the nearest tall roof to jump from.

So yes. Noah Puckerman found himself enjoying his job. He wondered vaguely if bartender could be considered a 'career', a vocation, even.

And from his position, watching the stage as he cleaned another glass, he let out a loud, belt of a laugh, spontaneous and hysterical. The grin on his face was and old grin. His old grin. Not a real smile, just a smooth curve of the lips, half up and half down, almost a smirk, but not quite.

A Puck smile, Kurt had called it. The Puck-smile, not half as lovely as the Noah smile.

He wasn't Noah anymore, he realised with a pang. Glancing up at the stage, empty in that moment, he saw again in his mind Kurt prancing up and down in his godforsaken glitter corset costume that he'd been wearing not half an hour before, and the Puck-smile deepened. He wasn't Noah.

He was Puck all over again.

RWRWRW

"Ow-fuck-ow-shit-Hum-shit-Hummel!"

Noah smacked Kurt's hand away with a clenched fist, leaning so far backwards he nearly fell off his chair and into the middle of the kitchen floor of the Hummel household. Kurt glowered, waiting in stubborn silence until Noah had finished his whining before dipping the cloth back into a bowl of hot water and squeezing it into a soft dampness.

"You finished moaning?" he asked coldly, and Noah scowled, only to wince when the expression pulled at his puffy face.

Once more Kurt pressed the damp cloth to Noah's right eyebrow, softening the scabbed blood that had crusted around his eye, clumping his eyelashes shut and pinching the skin. His nose had finally stopped bleeding, too, but he continued to pressed his fingers to the bridge of it, just in case, his split lips clamped tightly shut to hide blood stained teeth.

"That's better," Kurt said patronisingly, stroking Noah's brow with the cloth and humming under his breath, trying his best not to grimace as the water in the bowl swelled crimson with every dip.

Noah merely growled under his breath.

For a while the silence was broken only by Noah's panting, Kurt's sighing, and the drip-drip-drip of trickling water.

The clock above the cooker read not long past three in the afternoon. They'd arrived at Kurt's house some time after two, Kurt supporting a bleeding Noah; it had taken every ounce of Kurt's cheerleader strength to drag Noah away from the degrading insults that had followed them out into the car park of McKinley High.

Kurt had sniffled all the way home, his hands gripping the steering wheel in a vice grip, and Noah would have told him to man up, but he'd been distracted by the hot, choking blood that from his nostrils over his top lip and slowly filled his mouth. He hadn't even noticed the boy hadn't taken him to his own home until he was ushered through the front door of the house.

"You didn't have to do that," Kurt muttered under his breath, leaning a little closer to scrutinise the gash above his eye.

"Yes I did," Noah whispered, and both boys felt heat rising up their cheeks at the proximity. Kurt felt sure he was indecently close to the straight (straight! he continued to shout at himself) jock, but Noah hadn't moved away, so neither did he.

He made sure not to consider how very similar Noah's eyes were to melting honey.

"You could get sent back, Puck," Kurt reminded him firmly, meeting his eye with dark resolve. Noah just about managed to hide the shudder of fear that rippled through him at the thought.

"I didn't do anything."

"You aggravated him."

"Yeah, well, his face aggravates me."

Kurt giggled under his breath. "Me too," he admitted sadly. "But I doubt your probation officer will see it that way."

Kurt chose to ignore the stream of misogynistic insults that spewed from the footballer's mouth at the mention of the woman in charge of keeping him in line for the first weeks of his post-juvie life.

"I don't want you to go back there, Puck," Kurt pleaded quietly, gaze resting on the swelling black eye that was slowly closing the boy's eye in a ring of purple to avoid really seeing whatever emotion swirled in those honey irises.

Pity? Anger? Disgust?

Humour?

He couldn't bear the thought.

"I'm sorry," Noah whispered, words quieter than the breath that carried them, but Kurt heard them. He wasn't sure he'd ever truly believe it was Noah Puckerman saying those two words. To him.

His lower lip was trembling, so he bit it.

"Thank you."

So wrapped in the shock at how not-awkward the closeness between them was, they didn't hear the front door swing and slam, nor did they notice the clump-clump of boots tramping down the hall, through the living room, stopping at the kitchen door.

"What the hell's going on?"

Kurt flinched so violently he nearly knocked the bowl of bloody water over. "Dad!" he cried, an anxious smile breaking into his pale expression. "You're early."

"So are you," Burt Hummel replied pointedly, eyeing the letterman wearing boy sitting in front of his son with a suspicion that neither teenagers enjoyed.

"Yeah, something happened and Puck…Dad, this is Puck. Puck, this is my dad."

"Puck?" Burt's eyes narrowed a little more, taking in the blood soaked cloth in Kurt's hand and the battered state of his guests' face.

"Yes sir," Puck mumbled, looking uncomfortable. The last time he'd come close to the Hummel's house it had been to mess with the garden furniture. He wasn't sure if Mr Hummel was aware of his part in such antics, but he felt uncomfortable nonetheless.

"I see," was the man's reply, thoughtful, if a little reluctant. "What happened?" He gestured with a vague hand to the boy's face.

"A…fight." He opted for the truth.

"Aren't you the kid who just got out of juvie?"

"It wasn't a fight, dad. Puck was attacked."

"Was not!" Noah insisted, pride hurt at the thought of being so cowardly as to admit to being a victim, rather than a willing participant.

"Yes, Puck. You were," Kurt corrected with a stern gaze that kept the boy's buttocks planted in his seat, knowing Noah would probably try stand again to defend himself.. "I brought him back here because he didn't want to get himself checked out properly. I don't think his nose is broken, and the cut on his head isn't too bad, so-"

Noah wasn't too keen on the nurse role Kurt seemed to have adopted, but he knew better than to make a quip in front of the boy's father. Burt was still glancing at him with eyes full of dark intent.

When the man took a step closer Noah instinctively backed away, pushing his chair back a few inches, and he had to hold back a scowl when Burt snorted at him. "Com'ere, kid," Burt insisted, and a quick inspection had him nodding. "Nah, not broken," ("Told you," Noah muttered, and Kurt's mouth twisted into a relieved smile that played anxious on his face.) "But you best be careful for a while. Get some ice, Kurt."

Kurt flustered about the freezer, scraping blocks of ice out and piling them into a sandwich bag, which he then wrapped a few napkins around.

"What happened?" Burt asked sternly, taking Kurt's seat at the head of the table. Noah shifted uneasily, torn between betraying his almost-friend's trust and lying outright to this (quite frankly) intimidating man sitting before him.

"Got into an argument with some of the jocks," Noah mumbled half-heartedly, and he could feel the tension rippling from Kurt in white hot waves as he accepted the bag of ice gratefully and pressed it to the middle of his face.

"What about?" Burt Hummel could sense blood.

Kurt looked ready to intervene, and Noah blurted out his answer before the countertenor could slip in a lie.

"Your son."

"My what?" Burt demanded, his eyes flitting between his child and this stranger with outraged confusion.

"I was getting the guys to lay off him."

"They've been hassling you again, Kurt?"

"Dad, it's nothing-"

"No, it's not, Hum…Kurt," Noah corrected. It felt wrong calling the boy by his surname in front of his father. "It's been bad. I promised you I'd help out once I got back to school. I was only keeping my word. My word is solid, dude."

"Noah!" Kurt groaned, and Burt leaned back in his chair, astounded, breathless with disappointment.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he demanded. "Kurt, damnit, how am I supposed to take care of you if-"

"I don't need you to-"

"Don't worry, Mr. H, I took care of it-"

"You can shut up," Burt snapped, pointing finger dangerously close to Noah's not-broken nose, and the mohawk-sporting boy cringed away abruptly.

"Dad!" Kurt snapped. "Puck helped me, don't-" Noah clutched his ice bag like a lifeline, confused by where the power balance lay between this father and son. He'd never thought of Kurt Hummel as much of a guy, but now, confronting his father, Alpha male energy seemed to surround him.

"Oh yeah? You think I don't remember his name, Kurt?"

Normally Noah would have objected to being spoken about while he was in the room, but this time he kept silent.

"Dad…" Kurt mumbled, looking strangely shy, awkwardly embarrassed.

"You think I don't remember he was the one that damn well started the bullying in the first place?" He glanced over at Noah, daring him to challenge the accusation. Noah didn't. He couldn't. "So thanks a lot, kid, but I think you should go. I need to talk to Kurt alone."

"Sure," Noah stood eagerly, desperate to leave the house before Burt pulled a teenage-girl-father tactic and got out the key for the shotgun case. "Thanks for the ice and everything, Kurt." He was too keen to escape Burt Hummel's glare to be discomfited at having called him Kurt again, this time without thought.

"Noah, don't-"

"See you around," he muttered.

Perhaps Kurt followed him as he hastily showed himself out - he didn't stop or turn around to check. He left the house in as few strides as possible, and it was only once he had stepped out into the breezy afternoon air that he realised he would have to walk, Kurt having driven him from school.

He cursed, pressing the ice too hard to his tender skin in anger, aggravating the bruises further.

And perhaps he heard, only for a second or two, the sounds of a resounding argument coming from the Hummel household between father and son. And maybe he felt a twinge of painful regret as he wondered vaguely what it was like to be a teenage boy arguing with his father.

And maybe, just maybe, he felt good for having done something right for once.

Not for himself - Kurt would probably never trust him again. But good for Kurt Hummel.

And he was surprised by how happy it made him when, half way down the street, he realised Kurt had called him Noah.

RWRWRW

"Porcelain! In here!"

Kurt, who was in the process of re-stitching a feather that had fallen from one of the girls' tutus, grunted a noncommittal reply.

"NOW!"

"I'm about to go on, Ollie!" Kurt called over his shoulder, straightening up and patting the girl (Issie, a petite woman of twenty five with bottle-black curls and shapely legs) on the behind to let her know he was finished. He glanced at the curtain which separated him from the stage, flexing his fingers in jittery excitement, ready to go…

"Get your ass up here, Porcelain!"

"I'm about to perform!" Kurt bellowed back as loudly as he dared, aware that as loud as the band in the main lounge was, he had a voice that could rival it when needed.

"I don't care!" Ollie, the manager of Red Miller's, bellowed back from where he stood between racks of sparkly outfits.

"But-" Kurt began, throwing an expression of longing towards the stage.

"Sammy!" Ollie shouted, and a young man of a similar height to Kurt, after a mutter of impatient swear words, came stumbling into view. He looked eager, wide eyes looking up with adoration towards his employer, whose lips almost twitched into a fond smile.

"Yeah?"

"Go get ready to do Feeling Good."

"OLLIE!" Kurt shrieked, and Sammy flinched, turning a guilty eye to the slightly older man. "You can't just- That's so- How dare you-"

"No arguing, Porcelain," Ollie raised a single eyebrow expectantly. "Get your pretty pale ass in here now."

"You can't!" Kurt looked crestfallen, his entire face dropping in disappointment. "It's my favourite in this set!" He glared at Sammy, who looked half-minded, not wanting to disobey Ollie, but too scared to move for fear of Kurt skinning him alive.

"Consider it punishment," Ollie snapped, not replying to Kurt's For what? "Here, now," he said firmly, pointing to his heel as if speaking to a disobedient dog, to which Kurt scowled further, embarrassed and angry at the sniggers he received from his friends, who were watching the spectacle with amused sympathy.

"I'm sorry, Kurt," Sammy mumbled to his feet. He'd only been working at Red Miller's for a few months, and he was yet to be given any songs that would be regarded as 'his' in the way Kurt had. His elation at being given a performance (one he had envied a lot, he admitted to himself with blushing shame) was crushed by the anguished fury Kurt seemed to have taken the denial to perform his favourite song of the night.

"Whatever," Kurt snapped, stalking past him through the backstage channel and down the corridor that led to Ollie Fitzgerald's office.

Ollie Fitzgerald was not a mean employer. Comparatively to the hateful Billy Lemming, whom Kurt harboured violent death wishes for, he was an angel, in both looks and charm. Ollie was rarely seen out of his casual suits, spending every night flitting between socialising with customers and encouraging his performers from open to close, flashing the same warm-hearted smile to all, the creases around his boyishly soft brown eyes the only sign of his post-forty age. He was a tall man, softly built, and had the room presence of a man who would sweep you into his welcoming arms gladly, but would not be against giving you what for if you deserved it. His hair, blond originally but it was darkening with age, was slicked back with perhaps a little too much wax, but it was almost midnight by the time Kurt was called to see him, so a few strands were starting to fall loose from their hold.

Kurt liked Ollie, had liked him from the moment they met, but that didn't stop him from being resentful as he threw himself into a chair in the man's office, pointedly glaring at him, just in case Ollie wasn't fully aware of how upset he was.

"Don't sulk, Kurt. It doesn't suit you."

"You don't suit that haircut," Kurt muttered darkly, and Ollie chuckled a guttered laugh under his breath.

"You're such a child, Kurt," he said, unaffected by Kurt's Bitch please expression. "And that's what I wanted to talk to you about."

Lighting a cigarette, not even bothering to offer Kurt one as he had no wish to hear another lecture on the effects of smoking on the lungs and voice, Ollie let out a long, relaxed breath of smoke before continuing.

"You've been bad tempered all night, Kurt. What the hell's wrong with you?" He sounded exasperated, but his expression was closer to concern.

"Nothing," Kurt replied petulantly, disproving his own words with his tone.

"Clearly there is," Ollie raised his eyebrow again. "Is it about the new guy? Georgie said he was your friend…"

The wordless snort he received from Kurt in reply confused him.

"So...you're not friends?" he asked hesitantly. "Isn't…isn't he living with you?"

"Yes, he is," Kurt grumbled reluctantly.

"So he is your friend?"

"I suppose."

"Kurt, if this is how you're going to react to Puck working here," he didn't miss the way Kurt winced at the sentence, and he wondered what he'd said wrong. "…there's not really much I can do."

"What are you going to do? Fire me?" Kurt laughed derisively at the notion.

"No," Ollie sighed, leaning one elbow on his desk. "But I'll have to fire Puck."

"What?" Kurt cried, and for all the hatred he seemed to have about the man working at Red Miller's, he appeared outraged at the thought of letting him go. "You can't do that! That's unfair!"

"Then you'll get over yourself and stop being a bitch?" Ollie questioned in a hard voice.

Kurt paused. Wasn't this exactly what he wanted? To get rid of Noah? Why was he defending his job?

Wetting his lips with a fretting tongue, he exhaled loudly, watching the smoke from his boss' cigarette swirl above them.

"Fine," he whispered to the ceiling, vaguely aware of Ollie's tense posture relaxing at the single word.

"So what you got against the guy?" Ollie asked, tapping some ash into a tray and turning his eyes to a pile of paperwork that he'd been putting off for nearly a week. He sounded genuinely interested, and he was. He cared about all his staff, on a personal level as well as a professional one, and after almost five years he was starting to learn difference between Kurt's bitchy diva-ness and Kurt's defensive bitch act.

Kurt, however, didn't seem to appreciate this.

"We had a falling out, and now he wants back in my life and I don't want him. He won't get the picture."

"Back in…your life?" Ollie hummed thoughtfully, he'd been sure the new kid was straight…

"Not romantically," Kurt frowned, understanding the confusion in the older man's face. "He's a friend."

"I see," Ollie shrugged. "Well keep the domestics domestic, ok? We have enough drama without you and your friends."

Kurt smiled sadly. "Sorry Ollie," his brow crinkled with his meek apology.

"I know, kid," Ollie waved a careless hand in understanding. "Sorry about the song. Couldn't think of another way to get your full attention."

"Well you certainly managed," Kurt replied a little frostily. He was still upset at being denied his full stage time.

"You can do an extra number tomorrow to make up for it."

"I have tomorrow night off, Ollie," Kurt replied in a deadened voice.

"Oh, yeah," Ollie said distractedly. "Thursday then…oh!" he looked up from the bank letters he'd been giving the majority of his attention to. "Thursday, you think Susie can come in?"

"Doubtful," Kurt shrugged. "She had Monday off."

"I'll talk to Lemming," Ollie promised. "He'll understand. There's a party have called ahead, last time they were here she was in for a few numbers, and they've requested she make another appearance."

"Billy won't say yes if there's nothing in it for him," Kurt reminded him, as if Ollie hadn't been working with the owner of ATJ his entire career.

"There will be," Ollie replied lightly, revealing nothing. "Just tell her, ok?"

"Yeah sure," Kurt heaved himself out of his seat.

"Go get a drink!" Ollie ordered. "Your performances are over and when I come out there I want to see you at the bar in full, enjoyable conversation with your friend. You understand me?"

"Yessir," Kurt cried in mock heartiness, squeezing the two words together and saluting sarcastically.

Ollie grinned at the gesture, waving his hand to urge the young man out of his office and leave him to his work.

And Kurt, true to his word, slipped out of the side stage, hopping lightly down the steps until he reached the band, nodding his head as a smatter of cheers reached him from a table not too far away. Stopping briefly to thank them, he began his usual saunter across the room, hips swaying to the soft jazz tunes that had taken over after Sammy's (thankfully successful) rendition of Feeling Good.

He felt Noah watch him approach, but didn't acknowledge him until he was seated comfortably on a stool, elbow resting on the polished wood and eyes on the rows of booze that lined the bar mirror wall.

"What can I get you?" Noah asked coolly, but his eyes betrayed his confused nerves.

"Surprise me," Kurt winked, and Noah smiled shakily as he began throwing a little of this and that into a shaker, wondering vaguely where he was supposed to refill the ice bucket, but too distracted by his newest customer to really care.

Sliding a glass of something pink and fizzy under Kurt's waiting hand, Noah pulled a stereotypical barman pose, towel thrown over his shoulder, pad and pen clipped to his belt, lounging lazily on his bar as if he'd been born there.

"So," Kurt smiled, leaning forwards into his friend's personal space, lips moist and rosy from one sip of his drink. "Is your favourite singer still Billy Joel?"

Noah's laughter washed over him a wave of homely warmth, and Kurt felt a reluctant gratefulness for his employer as they began to argue playfully over Jewish performers, and how exactly Noah Puckerman would one day fit into this section of the music industry.