Title: Suburban Trash
Rating: R
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Puck/Kurt, OCs
Genre: Drama.
Word Count: 3116
Warning: Sex, swearing, sometimes-graphic violence. Possible OOCness.
Disclaimer: I don't own it and I'm not making any money from it, this is pure entertainment and not intended to offend.
Author Notes: You're going to get slices of two very different pies. And, as it turns out, this story is less sexually explicit than the first. Go figure.
Summary: Kurt has this plan for how his life is meant to turn out. This plan includes very specific ideas of what he should be doing, and where he should be living, and who should conveniently die.
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"Designé has finished their internal restructuring," Kurt stated over the breakfast table, thoughtfully tapping his fingers against the rim of his coffee cup. He was summarising a filler article that had shown up on the twentieth page of the Sunday news, adding in information that he knew from office gossip at Studio Six. "Mr. Cripley stepped down as director, replaced by Agatha Mercer – who is as fabulous as she is uncompromising. Her position was filled internally, leaving an opening for Martin Longreach to leave Studio Six for a higher paid position. He's still on his two weeks notice."
"And Dwyer fits where?" Puck asked, crunching on toast. "If you say 'in a body bag' I'll hurt you."
"No you won't." Kurt folds up the paper and picks up his coffee instead. He takes a sip before he explains. "Harold Dwyer was an administration clerk at a company that owns and organises the events in the John Robbins Exhibition Centre. When he doesn't show up to work on Monday his paperwork will remain unfinished and the space he was meant to have confirmed will remain open."
"So you want Six to take that spot." Puck raised an eyebrow. "Ok. I got it. There's some big convention thing going on and you want to be sent along to show off your stuff, right?"
"Exactly."
"But you don't even know that Studio Six is going to get that free spot."
"Yes I do." Kurt smiled sweetly. "I submitted the application and payment myself. And if questioned, I'll call it 'initiative'."
Puck stared at his boyfriend for a moment, then started laughing. "You're such an evil fucking genius."
"I know." Kurt sipped his coffee. "But I couldn't do any of it without my faithful minion," he adds teasingly, knowing exactly what reaction he was going to get.
"Suck it, Kurt."
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Cristina Allen was in her twenties, highly qualified, and currently employed by a small, competitor company. She was bottle-blonde, fashionably thin, and ascribed to the 'higher the heel, greater the influence' rule. She'd managed to kick him in the leg while he was dragging her further out of sight into the alleyway and her stiletto heels had hurt like a bitch. Puck had retaliated by slamming her forward and downwards so her head caught on the edge of a dumpster. Skull had met metal with a hollow clang and Cristina's movements became suddenly sluggish.
He wiped the blood off the metal with his sleeve and hoisted her up so the cut wouldn't drip to the ground. His shirt would be a goner after this, he mused, but it was either that or leaving some type A behind.
The truck was parked out of sight in a loading bay that was only used on Saturday mornings and out of view from any of the nearby windows. Bar one, which belonged to a kebab shop that closed early on Tuesdays. Puck had picked the location both for convenience and for stealth. He'd watched the place for a full month, figuring out the exact right time and place to grab the girl while Kurt nagged him about ever-shrinking time windows.
"I'll get it done," Puck had said numerous times into the phone, with Kurt anxious and impatient on the other end of the line. "Keep your panties on."
He was getting it done now.
Puck dumped Cristina in the back of the ute where the tarp was already spread and pulled out a couple of zip ties from his hoodie. He tied her wrists together, and then her ankles. Stuffed a rag into her mouth (it didn't matter if she died on the way to the dump site he had in mind) and popped off her stilettos just to be sure. He rolled up the tarp with the efficient ease of practice and jack-knifed the whole thing into position near the cab. A couple of milk-crates full of six-packs of beer were shoved into the back alongside the rolled-up and immobile woman.
It was camouflage that he could later get pissed on. Puck thought it was a fucking brilliant idea.
Cristina Allen was the most likely competition that Kurt would have for a job that was not yet available with a company that was neither Studio Six nor Designe. Puck thought that his boyfriend was either a certified evil genius or completely freaking insane. He didn't really care either way, and just hoped that Kurt's horrifically detailed plans worked out. Otherwise it wouldn't be any of these poor dead bastards who'd suffer the fits of pouting and whining and bitchiness.
"You do not know how fucking lucky you are," Puck said to the rear view mirror, and the hidden woman in the back.
She probably didn't feel too lucky right about then, as Puck discovered when he later unrolled the tarp on the dirt he intended to make her last resting place. The woman's face was pale, her eyes wide and red with popped vessels. The rag he'd shoved in her mouth was further in than he'd thought, and when he checked for a pulse he found nothing.
He slit into her carotid anyway, just to be sure. Better safe than sorry after all.
Puck went through the motions of a familiar task, one eye always on the surrounding area and both ears alert for any sound. If he figured right then the body wouldn't be found for at least a couple of weeks, and if he did the smart thing and smashed most of her teeth in it might take them longer than that to figure out who she was. One day, he thought to himself as he did the hard work with the handle of his hunting knife, he was going to try this with pliers.
He left her there, buried in a shallow grave in one of the few secluded areas he could find. The loose soil would either shift or compact in time.
When Puck got home Kurt was waiting for him in the living room. Puck nodded to him, then took his stained shirt to the bathroom to burn. He washed away the gritty black ash to the sound of his boyfriend singing showtunes.
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The article was several pages in, bumped from the front to make room for neutral-right politics. It was barely two paragraphs, just a short statement that police were looking for witnesses who might have seen anything suspicious on the 5th in conjunction with the suspected disappearance of 27 year old Cristina Allen. There was a small portrait photo of the woman next to the piece, with the caption 'Cristina Allen, missing since Thursday'.
There was no mention of disturbances, no mention of anything suspicious. In fact, if anything, the lack of attention given to the article made it seem as though whoever had written it thought it was a waste of time. A filler piece. Clearly Cristina had just had an identity crisis and left town to find herself, or whatever it was women her age in her salary bracket did.
Puck folded up the newspaper and dumped it in the trash. He had a long weekend with an RDO on Monday and he planned to enjoy it. Starting by going back to bed. 8am was way too early to be awake on a Sunday.
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The only reason Doug happened to see it was due to the damned head cold he'd been suffering through the past two days. After struggling to wade through all of the usual guff at work he had finally decided to take a day off so he could sit in bed reading and recuperating. Marcie had come in just twenty minutes ago to tell him that she was off to do the grocery shopping.
"I'll pick you up some of that honey-lemon throat mix," she promised, kissed him on the forehead, and left.
Doug had continued reading until he became too restless to stay in bed any longer. He had just stood up when he noticed a flash of movement from the corner of his eye. If he'd waited just two minutes longer he wouldn't have noticed a thing. He wouldn't have caught the movement and automatically turned to see what it was. Which meant he wouldn't have seen Puck from next door carrying a dirty shovel in one hand, and a large jug of bleach in the other. He wouldn't have seen the other man disappear into the tiny shed out back for just a second, then return and walk straight to the back of his ute to retrieve a stained and dirty tarp and a blood-soaked grey hoodie.
He could pass off the sudden strange feeling of unease on his cold.
He couldn't find as good an explanation for why he stood by the window and squinted out into 56's back yard to try and see through the dirty garden shed window. After a few seconds of nothing he saw a shadow that might have been the other man, then nothing again. Doug waited for a full ten minutes before he sat down on the bed again. It was another ten before Puck emerged, carrying nothing with him. The younger man trekked to the ute again, leaned down to pick up something from the truck bed, and Doug would swear he saw a flash of something shiny before Puck tucked it out of sight.
Doug told himself he had to be hallucinating. It was the cold, and nothing more than uncharitable paranoia. He had not seen his next door neighbour tuck a hunting knife into his jeans after having dragged a dirty shovel and a bloodstained shirt into his shed.
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It was another month before the job actually opened up. Two weeks that Puck spent planning, while Kurt hovered in the background in nervous excitement. And then two weeks of an obligatory mourning period before the company felt it was appropriate to advertise. Kurt was giddy all morning. He floated into work and back out again to take lunch down the road at a trendy little cafe. He sat at a table in the back, alone, and ordered 'the largest piece of chocolate cake you have, and champagne, I'm celebrating'. He waited for his drink to be served before he whipped out his phone and dialled the number of his closest friend in the city.
"Marcie!" Kurt greeted the woman enthusiastically when she picked up. "Please bear with me, I know I sound like I'm on speed at the moment, but I'm just so happy, I have to tell someone about this or I'll explode!"
Marcia had been washing dishes when the phone rang, and had paused for a moment to wipe her hands off on a tea towel before she answered. She stood leaning against the kitchen counter, momentarily stunned by her friend's gushing.
"What?" Marcia asked, briefly struck by the impossible and ridiculous thought that Kurt was about to tell her that he was having a baby. It was a passing thought, and was shoved aside almost instantly by the infectious nature of her friend's enthusiasm. "What is it? What happened? Is it something to do with Noah?" Another thought occurred and Marcia gasped; "Did he ask you to marry him!"
"No," Kurt replied, laughing at the idea. He paused to sip his champagne and leaned back in his chair. "In fact, don't tell him this, but this news may be even better. You see, I have a job interview tomorrow with the one and only Runway magazine. And if –" he meant when "– I get the job it will be a significant pay rise and only a few small steps away from my dream career!"
"Oh, hun, that's marvellous!" Marcia exclaimed, though she'd had no idea that Kurt was looking for a new job. "What's the position?"
"Assistant Design Editor," Kurt said breezily, "it's basically what I do now, but for a magazine instead of people's houses."
"Well I'm really happy for you. We'll have to get everyone over to celebrate if you get it."
"Fingers crossed for me," Kurt said, smiling sweetly as he spoke. He'd already knocked out the important competition. He was already shortlisted or he wouldn't even have an interview. And on the off chance that he didn't hit it off with the interviewers he'd simply find ways to remove the other competition. He was in no way worried about that though. Kurt was the best out of a long list of applicants, and on top of that he was young and fashion-savvy.
He would have his cake and he would eat it too.