Puckmel/Hummerman? – The Trials and Tribulations of Becoming a Patchwork Family

Thank you Mariekjepower. Jenn, Charon and Faia Sakura for your kind words!

A/N: This chapter is longer than the previous ones but I doubt you'll complain. Actually, the next few chapters will all be longer. And it'll probably stay that way.

Anyone know why FFnet attempts to eat my punctuation and also whole sentences I edited in twice (ha!), four times now? Weird. And really annoying!

Alright readers, here's the deal: FFnet refuses to let me post some sentences - theyt just don't show up no matter how often they appear correctly in the saved doc upload! I had them as sentences without spaces - as Kurt gasps them out in one breath. I had them as smaller sentences. I spaced them differently. FFnet refuses to show them. So I'm giving up: I'll edit again and put them normally. Please use your fertile imagination and picture Kurt vomiting them out in one breath. Do that for me? It's the part before the one run-on sentence FFnet accepts for some reason: ... Pleasedon'thurtme!" Crap. That hadn't come out right.

Thanks! And sorry for the hassle. And the A/N within the text: I cringed typing.

Kurt tries to survive a talk with Puck despite mentioning dangerous words in potentially explosive combinations like "your mom", "my dad" and "dating". Wish him luck! Or not, angst-fans ^_~

Chapter 4

Kurt decided to brave Puck on Thursday after their shared US history AP; Puck usually showed up for it (if only to use the time to do homework he needed later that day). That way Puck would hopefully have calmed down by the time Glee started... Also, he was running out of time to tell.

He had to wait a few minutes until Brittany finished her flirt with Puck at his locker, then inched forward.

"Hi, Puck."

The boy in question looked baffled to be approached by one of McKinley's official losers outside of class or Glee. He didn't answer either, just cocked his brow.

"Uh, before we proceed - promise you won't hurt me."

"... No way. I don't make blind promises."

Great, 15 seconds into the conversation and they were at a stalemate. Kurt suddenly noticed that Puck wasn't even staring down at him anymore. He'd turned around and was walking away. Damn! He jogged after him.

"I really need to talk to you."

"Yeah? Talk."

This wasn't going at all like he thought it would. It wasn't even going like his less desirable scenarios went! He couldn't tell Puck in the middle of a crowded hallway. Also, he'd rather be humiliated or attacked somewhere more private if Puck felt he had to, Kurt was particular like that. And he felt like an idiot or lapdog hastening alongside Puck without a clue to where.

"I notice you're not talking."

"Where are we going? I think we could use some privacy."

Puck shoved open what Kurt realized belatedly was the boys locker room. After he'd followed in like Puck had him on a leash. Thankfully it was mostly deserted. Boys weren't ever happy about sharing with him. Even before the corset...

"I'm going for weight training. No idea what you're doing."

Puck opened his locker and started changing without any apparent qualm about Kurt being within 10 feet of him. That wasn't something that happened often to Kurt. Weird. He'd always thought of Puck as a raging homophobic despite the lack of actual f-slurs used. On the other hand he never seemed to have a problem with manhandling Kurt into dumpsters and the occasional locker. That was highly unusual for the guys harassing him who thought they'd catch his 'gay' if they interacted physically with him. Like during PE or simply by standing next to him in some state of undress, in locker rooms for instance... Why was Puck so nonchalant about it?

"That was a not so subtle prompt to start talking by the way. Is this about Glee?"

Kurt hastily averted his eyes from Puck's exposed broad shoulders. He was a brainless jock. Kurt shouldn't be flustered by someone whose whole life seemed geared towards working out and having sex using the body he got working out. And possibly playing guitar with that forearms and hands. He needed to get himself together. Now! While they were actually alone in here after the other boys had left.

"What do you do on Saturday?"

"Duh, practice, what else? And some kinda family thing my mom conned me into. Why?"

Suddenly Puck looked horrified. "You're not trying to ask me out while your perving after Hudson doesn't work, are you? Cause I'm not homo enough for that! Or, like, at all. G-d," he actually shuddered! "Even if I were bi by some fluke, you'd be so far from my type you might as well be Martian."

What? How dare he? As if Kurt would ever- He didn't even find Puck attractive! Okay, besides a body part or five on its own in a completely non-Puck-related capacity. He couldn't be held responsible for that. He wasn't blind. Everything about Puck that wasn't his body more than served to not attract him, like at all. His personality, case in point, couldn't be more off-putting if he tried. And how dare he say Kurt was not good looking enough for Puck's standards?

"No! No. You're not my type either, thank god. And I'm not 'perving' on Finn! Why would you think that?"

"Uh, on account of not being blind, moron! You're about as discreet as Rachel - and twice as creepy about it and that's saying something, given her crazy. I wonder how Finn attracts you swim fans. I'm just waiting for Jewfro to join you nutcases too... Maybe he secretes some kinda pheromone stalkers get turned on by?"

"I haven't been close enough yet to smell him real- never mind! I mean, I'm not a stalker! Or stalking Finn. Or in love with Finn." Oh god, why did he say that? "Or thinking Finn's attractive. Not that I'm saying he isn't. I'm not anything really that isn't just being Glee-mates. Completely platonic. Like we are. Obviously. You're deluded. You should cut down on the steroids, Puck, they're not good for you."

"I'm not taking 'roids. They shrink your junk, even Finn knows that. And mine's in prime condition. If anyone here shows sign of using 'roids it's you - freakishly high voice in guys is a typical sign. Just ask Shane... Though your scrawny body pretty much screams you're clean. And these guns are aaall natural." Puck flexed in demonstration. "Also, that stuff is crazy expensive," he added helpfully.

How had they gotten so far off-track? Hell, he hadn't even gotten on track before the whole thing derailed. Why did Puck have to be so difficult? Why did nothing ever go like Kurt wanted it to?

(A/N FF-bug here: the following said quickly in one giant breath by Kurt to get it over with:)

"Your mom and my dad are dating. Each other! They want us all to meet Saturday. Pleasedon'thurtme!" Crap. That hadn't come out right.

"What?"

Puck clearly repeated Kurt's word vomit in his mind, with spacing of individual words this time.

"... Care to repeat that?"

No, Kurt didn't care to. Right now he cared about leaving. Quickly. Puck slammed his locker closed and Kurt jumped.

"Are you trying to be funny with me?"

Suddenly Puck was right in his face. How had he moved so fast? Someone made a pathetic sound, like a squeak. Why hadn't he noticed how tall Puck was when he'd handled him into the dumpster all those times? Kurt's back hit the closed door. How had he gotten there? He couldn't remember moving.

It didn't matter because Kurt wasn't moving on his own anymore: Puck had him by his cardigan, yanked him forward and then slammed him against the door again. Kurt's feet weren't on the ground anymore. He scrambled for purchase but only managed to skim his toes over the ground. Also, he couldn't breathe. He grabbed onto Puck's forearms, trying to remove his grip. It was like trying to shift a tectonic plate.

With the clarity of panic Kurt suddenly remembered when he'd seen Puck's face looking like it was right now: intense and frighteningly disengaged at the same time...

It had happened in the middle of freshman year. The big hockey player had stormed towards Puckerman where he flirted with a pretty Asian Cheerio near Kurt, screaming about ending him for sleeping with his girlfriend. Kurt had, with a mix of fear and vindictiveness, thought that finally Puck would know how it felt to be publicly bullied and humiliated. The enraged boy had thrown a punch which Puck had nearly managed to duck, resulting in only a glancing blow. And then it had all happened incredibly fast: Puck had grabbed the junior's arm, twisted, did something himself and the muscular boy had sailed through the air before landing hard on his stomach. Puck had wrenched his trapped arm up at what looked like a brutal angle, rammed a knee into his back and used his free hand to fist it into the other's hair, slamming his face into the floor with a sickening crunch. Kurt had seen the blood pooling on the floor and nearly lost his lunch. Then Puck made the blubbering boy thank him for fucking his girlfriend and finally giving her the first orgasm she didn't have to fake - out loud, for the whole hallway to hear. He'd dismounted from his attacker turned victim, and sauntered away with the shell-shocked Cheerio on his arm, but not before stepping on the junior's neck and grinding his face into the ground again. The guy - another of Kurt's casual tormentors so he wasn't feeling particularly sympathetic - had ended up with a dislocated shoulder and a broken nose. The whole thing had happened in a minute and then spread like wildfire across the school.

Puck with his looks, athleticism and sex appeal had already been one of the most popular kids in their year. Now he was feared too. Rumors had exploded: a delegation of four Cheerios had offered him head and Puck, instead of choosing one, had made them all give him a blowjob before declaring a winner. The fact that a very smug Santana Lopez had been glued to his side - and onto his lap - from that day on led some credence to the rumor. At practice that day the whole football team had supposedly prostrated themselves in awe of his supreme "badassness" and for putting a rival jock from the loathed hockey team into place. Puck suddenly having a place at the coveted #1 jock table (taking Finn with him) seemed to back that one up too. The cool freshie had become McKinley's bad boy prince, courted and warily respected by older students. Students parted like the Red Sea for him, boys lower in the hierarchy (practically everyone their age and a good deal of the sophomores) didn't look him in the eye unless Puck told them to, fellow freshmen brought him his lunch to the table (Kurt had that duty once or twice and it had been mortifying: he'd felt like everyone was waiting and hoping for a mistake that would get him humiliated or beaten. Puck had just ignored him for whatever conquest or fellow jock he sat with; aside from the regular dumpstering and the occasional slushie Kurt seemed beneath his notice.), girls and nerds (for very different reasons) offered to do his homework...

And most incredibly he'd gotten away with it: Kurt wasn't sure if it was that the hockey guy had attacked first, that nobody talked to teachers, that the boy or his parents didn't press charges, that the football jocks ruled the school, that the hockey team was universally loathed, that it looked very uncool to admit to have been beaten up by someone three years younger who had stolen your girl... Whatever it was, it had resulted in the whole thing being swept under the rug.

For Kurt it had resulted in a whole new level of anxiety: was this what Puck would do next, to him? With the whole school looking on, laughing and gossiping about it, worshipping the jock for hospitalizing the effeminate freak? He had lived in fear for weeks, taking great care to stay out of Puck's sight and, when he couldn't, to not antagonize him. When Puck had finally searched him out again (Kurt carefully didn't think about Finn leading the group right next to Puck. His Finn was better than that: hadn't he chastised Puck for checking him into the lockers that one time? He probably was just scared of opposing his bad boy friend. Finn just hid it really well.) it had been for the usual though: a dumpster dive when his goons had declared the dumpster Kurt-ready after inspecting it.

In fact he never had seen Puck using violence to bully. There were occasional rumors of fights about girls, yes, but those were exclusively with other jocks - not with his usual victims consisting of McKinley's quickly established losers. Still, he had never quite forgotten what Puck could do if he felt like it...

And now he was doing it. To Kurt. He tried to speak, to explain, to- he didn't know, he was getting light-headed. Suddenly he could breathe again and his tailbone hurt. From abruptly landing on the floor. Puck loomed over him. He needed to act quickly.

"It's true! I'm not trying anything! I saw them and my dad told me. I thought you should know! I swear I didn't have anything to do with it!" Alright, so now he was an oath breaker. Whatever, he needed to be alive. He was reasonably sure the risk of becoming an undead restless spirit or whatever Lord of the Ring or the law threatened oath breakers with was far smaller than the risk an enraged Puck posed. "I'm just as shocked-," okay, Puck looked more like pissed, "as you are! I-I wasn't sure if you knew and I really thought you should. Before Saturday, you know. When we have this stupid family get-together."

Puck stared down at him. His face still looked emotionless, his eyes large, dark and intense. Kurt had a feeling that wasn't necessarily a good thing. He didn't try to get up.

"Okay. Back up. Start from the beginning." Oh, thank god. "Now!"

Kurt did. Well, the edited beginning. The one without him sending his father after Carole Hudson.

Next chapter: Puck, and he'll be broody and angsty to make up for Kurt's lack of serious angst-commitment so far. He's also a lot more proactive than Kurt about stopping this dating nonsense - but then: he has more to lose. It will be up this week too!