I'm hoping you can all forgive me for starting with: OMG WICKED AND GLEE AND GLEE AGAIN WERE ALL AMAZING! DCBWEXCIUASXSXBXHX SXHS X /incoherent.

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Alex: Too Much Like Truth

So, Puck had been pissed when Annette mistook him for Alex's boyfriend. He'd seemed annoyed when Meg did the same thing. But if the countertenor tried to flirt with him, Puck ignored or deflected it. He didn't mind being treated like Alex's boyfriend, just being accused of it. Alex didn't see the difference, but he knew it was there. It had to be.

The first time, Meg hadn't used the word 'boyfriend.' She had asked if the jock was Robbie. Was that it? Could it be that simple? If Puck didn't want to be compared to Robin, then he must have done so himself. He must have found something, a similarity that he tried to hide.

Alex tapped his foot and brushed his bangs back. He would figure this out. And he would freak Puck the hell out. Then he would go back to New York. He wouldn't be able to live with Meg any longer because Puck could find her, but Alex was confident that he could locate another place to stay until he had enough money to afford his own apartment.

When a knock came at his door, the teen ignored it. He had managed to pull his smaller chest of drawers up the stairs, and now it blocked the door.

Puck was kind of tall, but not so much as Rob. They were both in pretty good shape and had dark hair but otherwise looked very little alike. It probably wasn't physical anyway; it would take something more profound to get to Puck as it clearly had.

The chest of drawers crashed down the stairs followed by the sound of Puck and Finn swearing loudly. It had taken him much longer to get the thing up there than it did for them to shove it back down. The boys rushed down the stairs and looked relieved to find Alex sitting at his desk with his browser open and a forgotten search on designer sunglasses still pulled up.

"Jesus, Kurt, what the hell was that for?" Finn panted a little, probably from the excitement of worrying about a guy he still thought might be sort of like a brother to him.

Alex shrugged. "It couldn't possibly be that I'm sick of having to put up with all of you fucking morons any time you damn well please, now could it?"

Finn looked hurt, but then he always looked hurt. The puppy eyes thing probably wasn't even an act. "Sorry, man, we just worry about you."

"And yet it would solve so many of our problems if you just wouldn't." He clicked on a couple links to make him look busy. "You can go now," he added with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Your presence makes my brain tired."

Finn made a sound like he wanted to say something but turned and left instead. Puck, unfortunately but predictably, stayed.

"You too, stupid. That last part was actually for you."

"I'm a bit thicker skinned than Finn. He's like a tiny, six-foot-something, helpless animal. The kind that follows you home and looks pathetic enough that your parents actually let you keep him. Don't tell him I said any of that or he'd punch me though."

"Hasn't he already punched you?"

"Lots of times." Puck grinned but then dropped it in favor of a frown. "You don't keep up with the news, do you?"

The countertenor sighed and shook his head, wondering what that had to do with anything.

"Someone found a body. They think it's another of Banks' victims based on the wounds and the way the body was left. If so, he had the guy while you were with him too."

Oh, fuck, it was Jack. It had to be Jack. Alex managed not to flinch, but his fingers tapped nervously on the desk. "What was his name?"

"They aren't releasing it. To protect his family or whatever."

If Puck didn't even know Jack's name, then maybe he knew little enough not to connect the other dots. Alex turned back to the computer and hoped (stupidly) that Puck would go away.

"I remember you told me…" He paused and licked his lips. "Banks had forced you before to have sex with another captive." Fuck, he remembered. Of course he remembered; it had obviously freaked him the hell out. "You weren't able to save that one, were you?"

Worse than that, Alex had killed him. "Get the fuck out of my room, Puckerman."

Instead of leaving, Puck knelt on the floor beside Alex's chair and placed one hand on the boy's leg, just above his knee. "I realize you're kind of an idiot, so I probably have to spell this out for you, but you know it wasn't your fault, right?"

"You don't even know what you're talking about." He turned his chair and kicked Puck firmly in the chest. The jock fell back.

"He's the one, right?" He rubbed at his chest and coughed, keeping his eyes on Alex as he pulled himself back up. Alex declined to answer. "I'm taking the bitchy silence as assent. So you didn't want to do it. Banks forced you, which makes it really not your fault."

"This is sweet and all, Puck, but you can shut up now. I don't need you misinterpreting events you don't actually know anything about." The jock had too little information. He didn't know what had happened. He couldn't know.

"Fine then, I'll talk about what I do know. I know you didn't want to do anything to me. I was fucking there for that part." The jock's brow furrowed, and his hands clenched into fists.

Alex rolled his eyes. "Oh, yes, and it took so very much convincing to change my mind."

"Hell, dude, I'd say a gun is about as convincing as it gets."

"Get out." Alex lacked the patience for this. He wasn't going to talk it out with Noah fucking Puckerman. That wasn't how it worked. Puck ran away from his problems and used bullying and petty crime as roadblocks so he could stay ahead of them. He didn't pull people into sharing sessions.

"No. I know you're messed up, but that doesn't mean you're as bad as he is."

"I said get out!" He screamed the words and flung his hands to his head. This was stupid and fucked up. He needed Puck to go away.

"You know throwing a fit doesn't work on me." Puck reached one hand between Alex's arms and pressed a finger to the bottom of the countertenor's chin. "Are you upset because you think I'm lying or because you believe you don't deserve to be accepted and forgiven anymore?" He raised the countertenor's eyes to meet his as he spoke.

It sounded too much like truth. Alex shoved a hand into his pocket and pulled out the knife Puck had returned to him. The knife he had killed Robbie with. He used his thumb to push out the blade and slashed at Puck's forearm. It worked. Puck pulled back.

"Holy fuck," he shouted, pressing his free hand to the slice running up his arm. Blood seeped past his fingers and fell to the carpet. It would stain. Alex didn't care. Puck stumbled back. "Dude, what the hell is wrong with you? No, I know what's wrong, but how did that seem like the thing to do about it?"

Alex held the knife in front of him. It took all the control he had to turn his scowl into something like a smirk. "Get the fuck away from me before I do it again, Puckerman. I think I'll try it on your face next." The countertenor even managed not to flinch saying it. Robbie would be proud.

"Goddamnit, Kurt." He held the arm high, probably to try and lessen the blood flow. "I just want your little bitch ass to know I'm coming back later when I've stopped bleeding all over your shit. And then I'll say something sappy just to spite you. Because I'm just that fucking pissed." When Puck walked out, his face held none of the fear Alex remembered from the motel room. Alex thought it should have.

He cleaned the knife and hid it. This one was important. He had others and put one in his pocket and another in his desk drawer for whoever came down next to find what he had attacked Puck with. They would definitely try to disarm him after that. Maybe Puck would have tried to hide a smaller cut, but Alex hadn't exactly been planning ahead when he lashed out.

Then it hit him that he had just hurt someone. Not like Rob or Kitty—they had deserved it. Puck may have been an asshole, but he wasn't a criminal, and he had never really hurt Alex. Fuck, he should have left the room like Alex told him to. Maybe now he'd let the countertenor leave. Maybe now he'd see that they couldn't be friends anymore.

It was Burt who came down to take the knife. His eyes were strained. Alex handed over the one he had placed in his pocket while Carol went through his things and found the weapon he'd planted in the desk. She didn't find the others.

"Son, why did you do it?"

"He wouldn't leave me alone. He kept talking about when I was with Robbie." Maybe he should have tried to sound pathetic, but Alex spat the words out with enough acid to corrode any chance of Burt taking sympathy with him. Whatever.

"You can't just hurt people when they upset you. That isn't how the world works." He frowned. "You're lucky it was Puck; he'll be angry but not too afraid to come back."

"Then maybe I should have waited for someone else to come down."

Burt clenched his jaw, and Alex couldn't tell if it was to keep himself from shouting or sobbing. "Kurt," he bit off the word like an old, tough piece of jerky. "We're putting you on the meds Janice prescribed, and I'm giving her a call tonight. I wanted to give you some space, but clearly I was wrong to. I won't let you hurt anyone else, especially not yourself." The man's voice was hard the way the trunk of a massive old tree was hard. Alex doubted he could cut through it alone.

"I won't take those fucking pills, and I won't talk to Janice." Alex's secrets were his own. They wouldn't have a chance to ruin anyone else.

"Son, we only want to help you. I will always be here for you, and I will always try to do what's best for you, whatever else happens. And right now, the only way I can do that is to keep you from driving off your friends."

"That's cute, father, but I am remarkably disinterested in your being here for me." He pulled away and wrapped his arms around himself. It only made listening to Burt's drabble worse knowing he wouldn't stand by it if he knew what Alex had done and what he had let Robin make him into.

"I'm also putting a lock on your door. Puck tried to tell me you want to leave but won't run away, but he also thought you wouldn't hurt him."

"So you're locking me in? Like a fucking prisoner?"

"Like someone who I'm truly worried is going to do something stupid and hurt himself. Once you're feeling better, we can flip the lock. Then you'll finally be able to lock your door after, what, six years of bugging me about it?"

"Hey, prince of the assholes," Puck shouted, hurrying down the stairs ahead of Mercedes and Finn. The two looked like they wanted to drag him out of the basement but were afraid to touch the already injured teen.

Alex arched an eyebrow and tried to look superior and impatient. It felt weird to be called a prince instead of a princess.

"No matter what you do, I will never in all of time stop being your friend because I believe you are a good person in your heart or wherever the hell puppies and rainbows would fit inside someone's body." He paused as if waiting for a reply. "Come on, dude! I got most of that from Schuester, and he's the sappiest bastard I know. I told you I'd do it." He pointed accusingly at Alex with his uninjured armed.

"Puck, did you keep your mind in your right forearm where it could bleed out after I cut you? Because I honestly suspect you've lost it." Alex crossed his arms.

"Everyone keeps saying that." He looked confused, like it had never occurred to Puck that chasing after a man as terrifying as Robbie, especially with no real chance of doing any good, was crazy. That he (mostly) succeeded only made it more insane.

"Come on, Puck. You should head back upstairs," Burt said, placing a hand on the jock's shoulder.

"Why?"

The look on Burt's face at the question might have been funny if Alex weren't so determined to be pissed off. "Because you're hurt."

"This?" He held up his injured arm. "It's all antibacterialized and bandaged. I had way worse when those jackasses ripped out my nipple ring. I'm fine."

This time, Alex did laugh at the look on Burt's face. It felt all wrong since he'd spent so long convincing these people he'd lost any sense of humor not directly linked to insulting them, but… Burt looked like he'd just realized the adorable little kitten he found on the street could talk, but all it would say was 'motherfucker'.

Everyone looked at Alex, but their faces couldn't seem to decide on disbelief, worry, or relief. Except Puck who grinned and used his cell phone one-handed to take a picture of Burt before the man had a chance to correct his expression.

"Now, if you would all fuck off…" Alex said, but he let a smirk stay on his face. Let them think what they would, he had just found a completely arbitrary and useless link between Puck and Rob that would no doubt annoy the jock. Alex he slashed them both on the right forearm to keep them from touching him. Now he just had to figure out the rest. When he did, Burt's lock wouldn't matter. Puck would want him gone so badly he would probably help.

~.x.~

I had a lot of trouble trying to find a balance between stern, worried, caring, etc with Burt at the end here… Let me know how it comes off because I don't even know anymore. :P

I know it's weird no one ever calls Janice Dr. [herlastname], and that's because she has no last name. I could've given her one but never really cared enough. ::shrug:: We'll say she's personable and asks people to call her by her first name because it makes them feel more free to talk to her that way, or something. Is it 'more free' or 'freer'? … too lazy for to google it.

Next time: Quinn!

Review! And I will reply to your review! And we will have a party of words! And, yes, I have had more caffeine than usual today; how could you tell?