Summary: Jacob needs to get as far away from Washington as he possibly can. He doesn't know where he's going, but he finds a very special someone when he gets there. Eventual Jacob/Kurt.

A/N: WARNING: I get kind of descriptive in this chapter, and it might get a little... graphic/violent. If it bothers you, or at any point you feel uncomfortable, just skip over that part and find the line-break; you won't really be missing much, and it's completely tame after the break. Although you might want to read a few lines before the break, actually. Oh, I don't know.

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25: Torn

Puck watched from the shadows, eyes glowing faintly yellow in the near-darkness. Outside, the world was just barely hitting dawn, the sky lightening but the sun not yet rising. Inside the warehouse, a shouting match between Jacob and the vampire chick was taking place— Puck kept his eyes locked on the vile leech, watching with disdain as she put her cold hands all over poor Kurt.

He watched carefully for an opening, meeting Jacob's eyes a few times only to find the same thing; not yet. Patience was not a characteristic Puck was used to needing, but he used every ounce he had waiting for Jacob to get Kurt out of the way. That was there unspoken plan: get Kurt out of harm's way, then kill then kill the vampire, if no peaceful solution could be found.

Puck was itching to get his paws on her, his mouth salivating at the idea of tearing her to shreds; thoughts that he once would have gone to seek psychiatric help about, but now just seemed natural to his being. But still he sat patiently, watching as the argument heated up between the two, with Kurt stranded helplessly in the middle of it all.

It was something little that sent the vampire off the deep-end; Jake insulted her mate to such a degree that she boiled over, lunging at him and throwing Kurt to the side. The moment Kurt was out of the way, Puck tensed his muscles and leaped clean over the couch, a determined growl at the back of his throat.

Irina screeched and put her arms up to block his attack, using all her strength to throw him off and send him spinning away, his claws slamming against the floor of the warehouse and leaving deep gouges in the concrete. He took a running start this time, snapping at her ankles with his strong jaws as Jake fought her hand-to-hand, still human.

The whole fight was a blur of movement, and Puck was depending on natural instinct, rather than actually being able to see what he was doing as he bit and clawed and fought tooth and nail to hurt the damn thing. Irina kept shoving him off rather easily, and it was starting to piss him off.

He almost missed the crucial moment, it happened so fast; Jacob jerked his hand back, howling a cry of pain and backing off. Irina turned to Puck and grinned, the blood on her teeth making her look like some batshit crazy chick out of a horror movie. Bitch had bitten Jacob!

The sound of tearing fabric alerted him to Jake's change, though it was the double vision that actually gave them an angle; seeing both sides of your prey when she can only see one is a good advantage. Puck lunged for her at the exact moment Jacob did, and they met in the middle. Irina floundered, trying to shake them both off, but failing.

Puck grabbed one of her arms between his teeth, clamping down like there would be no tomorrow if he didn't. Jacob did the same thing with her opposite ankle, leaving her with one free arm and leg, both unable to do much of anything but spasm about uselessly, trying to make contact with either of the elusive wolves.

Irina's arm was so cold it burned his tongue, so revolting-tasting that his eyes watered, but Puck refused to let go as their destruction tactic became clear: grab and pull. The sound was probably the worst part— her screams were shrill and loud, inhuman in their high-pitched-ness. His sensitive canine ears protested against the sound, almost driving him insane, but he pulled harder in the opposite direction as Jake was pulling her leg, effectively tearing her apart. Her blood (not blood, Puck reminded himself, venom) smelled sickly sweet, and her skin make metallic shredding noises as it tore, which was nearly as awful sounding as her screams.

He gave one last yank and the arm came free, leaving a trail of silvery fluid in its wake as he dropped it from his mouth. Irina had stopped screaming even as Puck watched Jake's mouth descend over her throat, and as the metallic noise sounded again in the near-silence. He couldn't bring himself to look away as Jake dismembered the rest of her still twitching body, though the awful sight would be burned into his memory for many nights to come.

He had just aided in murder, and while he knew it was justified, he knew it had to be done, he knew she wasn't human (she'd killed people, she'd kidnapped Kurt, she was a blood-sucker, she was his mortal enemy by nature), there was still something that stirred in his stomach, something akin to guilt.

Grab that leg, would you? We need to burn them.

Jake's thought broke him out of his own melancholy, and he quickly grabbed the limb, following Jacob as he trotted exhaustedly out of the warehouse through the open door. Irina's remains were piled at the edge of the road, and Puck turned around, feeling rather sick. The smell was awful too, as Jake somehow managed to light her on fire.

You'll get used to it, Jacob thought, gently comforting the suddenly nauseous wolf, the first time is the hardest.

The pair trudged back to the warehouse slowly, a slightly limp making Jacob walk slower than he might have before. There was no rush now that Irina had been disposed of, so Puck followed his just as slowly, apprehensive.

Are you gonna be okay? he asked, because Jacob looked like he was in a lot of pain, and was leaving tiny drops of dark-red blood with every tentative step forward with his front left paw.

I'll be fine. We have an immunity to the venom, Jacob mentally grunted as they rounded a tower of packaged furniture. Hurts like a bitch, though.

Puck chuckled quietly, looking at the unconscious boy beside the single unwrapped couch in the middle of the warehouse as they approached. During the fight, he hadn't really gotten a good look at him; now, he looked small and fragile, tied up like some kind of animal. Jacob whined at the back of his throat, lying down perpendicular to his imprintee and just looking at him. Puck vaguely wondered how the noises hadn't woken the countertenor, but was more weirded out by the fact that Jacob had yet to shift back into a human and untie him.

I don't have any clothes, he answered, and Puck blanched, forgetting for a moment that his Alpha could read his every thought when they were in this form. Grunting, Puck walked behind a stack of kitchen cabinets and changed, pulling on his pants in one fluid motion. Oh, yeah. He was getting good at this.

Kurt awoke to the strange feeling of something warm and wet and furry pressing against his neck. His eyes flew open and he was met with the most peculiar sight; a huge dog— no, wolf, his mind corrected automatically— was nosing him under the chin. Gasping around the gag, he struggled to get away, pushing himself further beneath the couch. The wolf backed off a little, his eyes almost too expressive to be an animal as he whimpered.

It hit Kurt like a punch to the stomach. He hadn't dreamed all that stuff; he'd seen Jacob... transform... His head was spinning and his breathing was heavy as he tried to grasp the implications of what he had witnessed. None of this could be real! It didn't make any logical sense.

Out of his peripheral vision, he saw the second monster— wolf— walk behind a pile of shipment and then emerge from the other side as Puck, doing up the button on a pair of jeans. Kurt was stunned. Puck was one of these things too?

The aforementioned bully walked right past the russet-coloured wolf, bending down to his level and pulling at the knotted scarf around his head. After a moment or two of fumbling with the knot at the back of his head, Puck grumbled a half-hearted, "Oh, fuck it," and just ripped the expensive fabric and pulled it from between Kurt's teeth.

While Kurt spluttered and coughed, taking deep breaths to try to steady himself, Puck made quick work of the silk cuff binding his hands together, releasing them as well. Carefully and unsteadily, Kurt lifted himself from the ground, shading on shaky legs and rubbing the dried blood from under his nose and his upper lip with a ruined silk sleeve.

"Puck? I... I don't..." He paused, the strangeness of the situation overwhelming.

Puck laid a hand on his shoulder, a strangely affectionate gesture, considering the teen once thought he could 'catch gay' from casually touching him. Kurt's bottom lip trembled as he looked up at his former bully, noticing the subtle changes in his appearance; his eyes were lighter, his shoulders broader, his muscles more defined, and his height had increased by few inches. He also looked older, somehow, as though in the few days he'd missed from school he had aged a couple of years. Normally, Kurt would never have considered such a silly idea; now, he wasn't so sure what to think.

"He loves you," Puck said gruffly, nodding his head towards the wolf. "And if you love him, and I know you do, you're going to stick around, even though he's... we're... different."

Kurt scoffed a little, trying to regain some normality in the face of so much strangeness. He looked down at the wolf and then quickly away again, his eyes watering slightly. "What... what are you?" he breathed, so quiet he barely even heard himself.

Puck opened his mouth to answer, then looked at his relative warily. "Well, what am I supposed to tell him, dude? You know what— you should explain. I've never been good at explaining and..." He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, shrugging at Kurt.

"Why is he still like that? Can't he change back?" Kurt wondered aloud, and Puck let out a bark of laughter— after seeing Puck return from wolf form, that was the only thing Kurt could think of the noise as, a bark— and grinned wolfishly.

"He can. He just doesn't have any clothes," he snickered, toeing a piece of torn cloth on the ground as evidence. "Oh, actually, I think I saw some work clothes over by the other entrance, I'll be right back..."

Puck disappeared around a corner quickly, and though Kurt was already protesting his leaving with a whined, "Puck!" the boy was already gone. Nervously, Kurt turned back to the animal— because he still couldn't believe that thing was Jacob— and tried not to give his little nervous laugh that seemed to annoy almost everyone. He fiddled with his hands, pulling at his torn sleeve and pushing his eyebrows together.

Even lying on his stomach in a submissive pose, Jacob looked about as non-threatening as a full grown bear; he was massive, and scary, and Kurt couldn't really look at him. A wet nose nudged his ankle and he jumped, looking down at his with watery eyes, meeting the warm brown eyes he recognised and loved.

He was torn between being scared of Jacob and loving him even more; but when the wolf nosed him again gently, wagging his fluffy tail and looking at him hopefully, Kurt knew he was a goner.

"Oh, Jake," Kurt mumbled, following his instinct and bending down a little to cautiously run his hands through Jacob's fur. His fear was quelled by the sight of Jacob's eyes, so sad that Kurt seemed to have rejected him. Kurt's hands shook as he gently patted his neck, shaking his head and holding back tears, because actually, this was rather nice.

He sat down on the floor cross-legged next to his boyfriend, barely even caring about the awful state of his once beautiful and expensive silk pyjamas. He bit his lip and ran his fingers across Jacob's face, watching, fascinated, as the wolf nuzzled gently into the palm of his hand. How he ever could have been scared of Jacob eluded him as he buried his face in the nape of his boyfriend's neck, wrapping his arms around him.

"You saved me," he mumbled into the fur, the tears silently overflowing the wells of his eyes and landing in the reddish-brown coat.

When Puck returned, triumphantly holding a pair of workman's overalls, he found them like that, cuddled up next to each other lovingly. Kurt's small body was completely sheltered by Jacob's massive one, dwarfing the countertenor in comparison, but somehow, they fit together. He paused to admire them like that, another feeling stirring in the pit of his stomach.

What was that, jealousy? He was jealous that Kurt had so readily excepted Jacob was what he was, even though he didn't understand it? He shook his Mohawked head quickly, dismissing those thoughts.

He was, however, torn between announcing himself an giving Jake the clothes so that he could shift back (and not mentally scar Kurt further, his brain reminded him of Jacob's fleeting thoughts before Puck had shifted) and leaving them like that for a while. They looked... happy.

Maybe he wanted something like that, but he certainly wasn't jealous.