Hands, Touching Hands

It had been several weeks since April Rhodes had come and gone and the sexuality and friend crises she caused with Puck and Kurt were averted. Kurt had gotten his car back and Puck had started to accept that he liked guys a bit. Everyone knew that Quinn was pregnant now, but everyone believed that Finn was the father, and Puck and Kurt staying silent on that issue. So while things had changed in their life, their friendship was still a constant.

Both boys kept up their usual best friend antics of cuddling and giggling and Kurt sitting on Noah's lap and, of course, the incessant handholding. So everyone knew something was up when Puck came into practice one day and sat next to Rachel, Kurt glaring at him from the corner as Mercedes tried to talk to him.

"So then she tries to tell me that I need to take my grandmother to the mall and I—Kurt, are you listening?" Mercedes looked at her friend and furrowed her brow. Following his gaze, she sighed to find Puck and Rachel together. "Kurt?" she repeated. "Kurt Hummel, I will touch your hair if you don't stop looking at them."

He finally lifted his glare, "Sorry, 'Cedes I just…"

"You're jealous of having your best friend's affections shared?"

Kurt's eyes narrowed. "I am not jealous. I'm…I'm…I'm furious that my best friend is trying to date that…that hag with no fashion sense who constantly irritates me and everyone else and…ugh!" He threw his hands up in frustration and then crossed his arms, leaning against the wall behind him.

"Boy, you need to calm down. Puck isn't going after Rachel to frustrate you. And he'll probably just try to get in her pants and then leave. You know why he goes after girls—"

"He's going after her because he thinks he had a vision of God telling him to date her and because his mom wants him to date a nice Jewish girl," Kurt said tensely, just barely managing to avoid saying that his friend also felt guilty about knocking up a Catholic girl his mom would never approve of, too.

"Kurt…" she began, stopping herself at the look he had on his face, a mix of anger and sadness and loneliness all in one.

He stayed in a bad mood for a little while longer. When he seemed to finally be getting happier after their impromptu performance of "Bust a Move", Mercedes started getting optimistic that maybe Kurt would be okay.

"Hey, Kurt, I can't come over after school, I'm going to help Rachel with the mash-up project," Puck said as Mercedes and Kurt walked out the door after Glee ended. "Thanks, Kurt, see ya later!" He called out as he ran to his next class.

Kurt watched him go with a glare before throwing the sheet music Mr. Schue had given them into the air with a yell and stomping off in the opposite direction. Mercedes sighed as she watched Kurt go; it was going to be a long week…

—

Glee club only got more and more tense as the week progressed. Puck came in the next practice with his guitar in hand and started playing "Sweet Caroline". Quinn and Rachel were amazed and pleased at hearing his voice by itself for the first time, but Kurt just glared.

"A-aren't you happy th-that he finally s-sang, though?" Tina asked as she, Mercedes, Artie and Kurt ate lunch that day.

Kurt snorted. "What, you think I've never heard him sing?" He gave a humorless laugh before adding, "I've heard that song as performed by him thousands of times alone. It was the first song he ever played on the guitar; his dad taught him the basic chord outlines of it as a kid and after he left he learned it himself. And so he takes a song that's so important and emotional for him and he wastes it to try to get her."

"Well, doesn't that mean he truly likes her?" Mercedes asked, peeling an orange.

"He. Doesn't. Like. Her," Kurt said through gritted teeth. "His mom wants him dating a Jewish girl and…and it's just…" Kurt sighed and seemed to shrink in sadness. "Religion's like the one thing we can't really discuss," Kurt whispered.

The girls nodded sympathetically, thinking he meant how he couldn't relate to being Jewish. Kurt didn't feel like correcting them, telling them he was an atheist. That was a discussion for another day.

"How are you sure that he doesn't like her?" Artie asked, finally ready to voice something he had observed. "You guys are close friends and you and Rachel have a lot in common. Maybe he's subconsciously going after someone like you because it's comfortable to him."

Kurt rolled his eyes. "One, I am insulted that you just compared me to her," he said, standing up and adjusting his raincoat (the Gleeks had been wearing them to avoid slushie stains in the great slushie war). "Two, that is just ridiculous. Puck does not look for people like when he dates. He doesn't want to date me or anything…that's just weird." Shaking his head, Kurt went up and threw his half-eaten lunch away, leaving the lunchroom without another word.

Artie raised an eyebrow as he watched Kurt go. He had never seen two people more oblivious about how they felt in his whole life. Turning back to Mercedes and Tina, he said, "Boy be trippin'."

—

Rachel gasped as the purple slushie hit her new boyfriend, Noah Puckerman, in the face. After he got it out of his eyes, she pulled the hand she was holding, leading him to get washed up, or at least that's what Puck guessed.

Holding Rachel's hand was weird. When he dated Santana she never held his hand (just Brittany's before he got to watch them make out, but whatever) so really the only hand he ever held for a long time was Kurt's. Rachel's hand was a lot smaller than Kurt's, which was weird since Kurt wasn't that much taller, but he figured Kurt was still going to grow into them a bit more. Kurt would occasionally squeeze his hand for comfort, but Rachel was constantly holding his hand in a death grip as if she was afraid he'd run away from her over enthusiasm, which he possibly would've if he wasn't used to Kurt's babbling about the same sort of thing.

Rachel led him into a girl's bathroom and finally let go of his hand to find a chair in a nearby room. Puck sighed and texted Kurt when she left, wanting him to know that he was slushied. It kind of warped his mind and he needed his best friend there.

Kurt strutted into the bathroom soon after Rachel sat Puck down on the chair she brought in. "Noah," he said sympathetically before turning to Rachel and greeting her coldly. Noah lit up at his best friend's entrance, Rachel noticed, smiling at him. Kurt bent his head over the sink and got him washed up, getting him to laugh while he did so, something Rachel couldn't seem to get him to do. She wasn't sure how she felt about it. On one hand, she was miffed that Noah didn't seem to like her as much as Kurt, but on the other she knew she had no right to be mad because she was using Puck to try to forget about Finn.

She was completely zoned out in her thoughts when they called her name. "Huh?" she asked.

"I was saying that I'm going to help Kurt with the Glee project now," Noah repeated, standing up from the chair. He gave her a quick hug that seemed forced to her before grabbing Kurt's hand (so much more willingly than he had grabbed hers) and leaving the bathroom, laughing at something Kurt said she didn't hear.

"I'm sorry I've been hanging with Rachel so much," Puck said when they left the restroom. "I've missed hanging out with you, though."

"I'm sorry, though; I shouldn't have been so rude about it," Kurt said, squeezing Puck's hand.

Puck shrugged. "I don't know it makes sense. I'm dating a girl you don't like and spending time with her because of something God told me and you don't believe in God…I understand why you're pissed."

Kurt shook his head with a smile. "You know me too well, you know that?" He pulled him into the choir room. "Let's just agree to let it go, okay? You date whoever you want." He sighed before adding, "And as much as I dislike her, please don't hurt her in your attempt to get over Quinn. She doesn't deserve that…and we don't need her upset at Sectionals."

Noah looked at him with a slight smile. "I think you care about her more than you'll admit," he teased, "But I promise I'll do my best to not hurt her."

—

Kurt, with the rest of the non-football playing Glee club members stared at the clock. Noah just had to choose Glee over football, right? He hated being told what to do and Coach forcing him to choose? That pissed him off beyond anything else. He bit his lip as he continued to wait for the time to come up. When they talked about it the night before he didn't seem to be leaning toward any side, leaving to go home and think over it himself.

The clock hit the time for Glee to start and they turned to the door. This was it; if they chose Glee, they were in the clear but if they dropped for football…they were over unless they could find new members.

They all froze as footsteps sounded and soon Mike and Matt came in the room, Noah trailing behind them. Kurt and Rachel ran out to hug them, Rachel getting there first. Puck hugged her briefly before turning to Kurt, hugging him tightly and spinning him around. Rachel crossed her arms and went back to the piano, Artie watching her, wondering how long it would take for her to realize who Puck really cared for the most (and the rest of Glee for that matter).

Kurt grabbed his best friend's hands and looked up at him, concerned. "Are you sure about this? You're choosing slushies and geekdom over popularity."

Puck squeezed Kurt's hands and smiled with him as they locked eyes. "Bring it."

—

"Get me to a day spa and text Noah, stat!" Kurt demanded. Tina and Mercedes immediately grabbed him and took him into the girls' restroom nearby and Rachel texted Noah as Artie wheeled up behind them.

"So this is the girls' restroom," Artie observed, rolling through the areas in front of the stalls. "Huh."

"Slushied?" a voice asked from the door. The group turned around to see Noah.

"No, just trying out a new ice mask," Kurt said sarcastically. "Can you grab the Clinique toner and Olay cleanser from my bag, Noah?" He sighed but dutifully opened the bag and grabbed the products for him as Kurt rinsed off his face.

"So, who did it and what happened?" Puck asked, stroking the back of Kurt's neck soothingly as he bent over the sink to get the rest of the icy mixture off.

"Kurt did it," Rachel said.

Noah turned to her with a confused expression, then back to Kurt, locking eyes with him in the mirror. "What?" Kurt blushed and went back to his face washing.

Mercedes and Artie filled in the rest of the story, telling Puck how Kurt was supposed to be slushied by Finn but he couldn't bring himself to do it so Kurt did it for him in the name of friendship.

"Yeah…friendship. Mmhmm…" Noah said, raising an eyebrow. "Can you guys leave me and Kurt alone for a little bit?"

Noah smiled at them cheesily as they all walked (or, in Artie's case, wheeled) out of the room. As soon as the door closed he turned back to Kurt and hit him upside the head.

"Ow!" He exclaimed, his hands going to the back of his head. "What the heck was that for?"

"I've been waiting my whole life to be able to hit you for doing something stupid and now I finally got my opportunity," he hit Kurt again, ignoring his yelp. "You are so stupid." He went to hit him again but Kurt managed to hit his hands away.

"Stop it, okay?" Kurt cried out. He sighed heavily as his hands went to the sink, using it to support his weight. "I know that was stupid. I was stupid and…God. I just slushied myself to get him to like me and I was just blinded by him and…" he trailed off, biting his lip.

Noah immediately wrapped his arms around him, Kurt's head ducking underneath his chin. "Kurt, it's okay; we all do stupid things for people we like. We get jealous, we try to ruin their relationships, we go out with other people to try to forget them, we do whatever we can to impress them and get their attention and try to make them like us…we do a lot of crazy things." Kurt nodded into his chest, breathing in his best friend's scent and relaxing in his arms as he let Noah stroke his hair. Finally Kurt pulled away with a soft smile on his face, one of his hands immediately grabbing Noah's and giving it a squeeze.

After a few moments of peaceful silence, Kurt whispered, "You're going to break up with Rachel now, aren't you?"

"Yeah…yeah, I am."

—

"Listen, Rachel—"

"Noah, this relationship is simply just not working. I don't know if you like someone else or not, but I definitely do and I don't think we're meshing like we're supposed to. I hope we can still remain, friends, though," Rachel spouted off.

"Friends would be great—"

"Fantastic," she said cheerfully, turning on her heel and leaving. She gave Kurt a small nod as she walked past him, knowing he was going straight to Noah to find out what happened. At least she had been truthful on some level; she did like someone else and they weren't meshing. But they weren't meshing because of Kurt and Rachel Berry was not sharing handholding privileges with her boyfriend's gay best friend.

—

Kurt's fingers intertwined with Puck's as they walked down the hall after Glee practice. Maybe life wasn't perfect for either of them—neither were closer to getting the object of their affections and they were both targets for slushies, even if Puck was back on the football team as well as Glee—but as long as they could hold each other's hands, everything was right with the world.

Rachel watched them go with a thoughtful look on her face. The way they looked at each other and acted when the other was there reminded her of how her dads. But there was no way that they loved each other.

...Right?

—

A/N: Not my favorite chapter, but it's not my favorite episode either. Sometimes you need to have some filler anyways. So get ready for the next segment since it'll be a big one, I'm sure.

Reviews are lovely, by the way. :)

Love,
xLessxThanx3x