Beating, Ch. 5

Puck stared at Kurt for a moment, then let out a short, hard bark of a laugh. "You got a camera in here or something?" he said, looking around.

Kurt looked back at him steadily. "No. What would the point be in that? You didn't do anything illegal."

"Didn't do anything at all," Puck said, but his eyes were still trained on a point up near the ceiling.

"Puck." There was something in Kurt's voice that made Puck look back at him. "What did you do?"

After a long moment, Puck shook his head. "Nothing. I couldn't've sent Brandon back to the locker room anyway. If someone had seen me in the hallway when Brandon caught you guys half the school wouldn't be calling me a fag right now."

"I don't care." Kurt's eyes were as hard as flint. "One more time, Puck: what did you do?"

"I don't know what you're –"

"Puck!"

"Fine!" Puck flinched at the sound of his own voice, lowered his tone hastily. "I lifted Brandon's stupid iPhone from his gym bag and dropped it in his locker before I left, okay? I knew he'd miss it, go back to get it. He never goes anywhere without the damn thing."

"And you knew we'd be in there."

Puck's face hardened. "Yeah. I knew you'd be in there."

"So..."

"It wasn't about you, kid. I don't give a flying fuck –"

"Yeah, I know."

"It's –" and the word exploded from his mouth with unbelievable venom – "it's Finn!"

And Kurt said, "I know."

There was a long silence.

Kurt felt his eyes watering. They would not overflow. He would not cry in front of Puck. He fought the tears as Puck stared at him – Puck who was willing him to break so he'd lose the upper hand, Puck who wanted him to be weak so Puck's own weakness wouldn't show. He battled the tears as Puck waited, a smirk hiding behind his eyes.

He won.

"When did you find out about us?" he asked, and his voice was as steady as it had ever been.

Puck looked down. "Like a week before... before this shit went down. I walked in on you myself." Puck grimaced. "I got out fast. Neither of you noticed me."

"No," Kurt murmured. "And I take it you decided that that meant you were entitled to Quinn?"

"She needed to know! Christ knows why she picked that asshole in the first place – he won't support her, he has no fucking clue what he's doing – he's wandering around –"

"Blah, blah, blah – Puck, I don't care." Kurt's eyes were snapping. "So you caught him cheating –"

"With a fucking dude!"

"Immaterial. You –"

"Like hell! She's dating a fucking fag –"

"Let me talk!" Kurt was shouting now, and his broken rib caught against soft tissue somewhere. He let out a short moan, and Puck flinched and cast a quick look over his shoulder, checking for a nurse coming down the hallway. "No. No," Kurt said, catching his breath. "I'm fine. I'm fine," he repeated.

Crock of shit, Puck thought. But Kurt was still talking:

"So you wanted Quinn for yourself. Why not just tell her?"

"She wasn't going to believe me," Puck muttered. "She knows I have a thing for her. She'd ask Finn and he'd lie and she'd believe him."

Kurt's eyes had gone blank. "So you set Brandon up to catch us."

"Yeah." And Puck waited for Kurt to say something, but Kurt's eyes remained blank, glazed over. Suddenly Puck found words spilling out of his mouth of their own volition: "I didn't think anything like this was going to happen. I swear I didn't. I thought – Brandon was supposed to see Finn, and, yeah, he was supposed to tell people so Quinn would hear and – and whatever, man, but it wasn't about you, Christ, everyone already knows you're a flamer, I figured there wasn't anything that mattered to –"

A shiver wracked Kurt's body. "Nothing that mattered." His gaze was a hundred miles away. "I had Finn. For – for just a few weeks, Finn and I..."

"Jesus. That's what you care about?" Puck stared at him in frank disgust. "You're worrying about losing your boyfriend?"

The breath that Kurt drew was so sharp that Puck thought his cracked rib had caught in his lung again. It seemed like forever before he exhaled. When he spoke, it was in a flat, dead voice:

"They thought I would be mentally retarded for the rest of my life. Did you know that?" Puck stared at him warily, didn't answer. "The swelling went down and I started to get better, and the doctors wouldn't believe it at first. The first time I could see and think again I looked at my dad and he'd lost fifteen pounds. In three weeks."

Puck looked down at the floor, shifted a foot from side to side. "Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean –"

But Kurt continued on as if he hadn't heard him. "The doctors told me I would probably have amnesia about the day... the day it happened. They said that usually happens. I don't." His voice took on a strange, singsong tone, almost hypnotic: "The car was tracking me, driving too slow, and I knew they were after me and I didn't know what to do. They had tinted windows and I couldn't see in. They pulled up behind me and I started to run. I thought maybe I could make Main Street, flag down someone to help. I couldn't."

"Kurt –"

"One of them grabbed me from behind and threw me down on my face. My knee smashed when it hit the pavement and that was it."

"I never meant to –"

"I never saw one of their faces. It's pointless, isn't it? The doctors said I should have amnesia. I remember every detail, but I never saw their faces. I just saw their shoes. Football cleats." Kurt sounded almost dreamy now, but his face was frozen in a rictus of pain. "It happened so fast, but I think my ribs must have broken first and punctured my lung, because almost as soon as I fell, I couldn't breathe. They were kicking me in the back over and over, and I thought they'd break my spine. My good luck that they didn't. One of the spikes from some guy's cleat almost took out my left eye. Good luck again." Puck's eyes were closed, battling the images. "But then something hit my temple and it all went black." His voice became small. "When I woke up I was here. And with all the fluorescent lights, the white ceiling... I thought I was dead. I thought I was in heaven." Finally, finally, his eyes traveled back to Puck's face. "This isn't heaven, though."

Puck had nothing to say.

"Do you know who did it?" Kurt whispered.

Puck swallowed, shook his head a little. "I wasn't there. I..."

"You must have heard things. Do you know?"

Puck's head was still shaking. "I don't know. No one told me... I'm not sure..."

"You're lying, Puck."

"No. No, I..."

"Then go." Kurt's voice was pure ice. "If you won't tell me, then go. I have nothing else to say to you."

Puck went.