Warnings: Mentions of physical/emotional abuse
Summary: Puck thought he could handle his mom's boyfriend for the year. Turns out the abusive SOB was meaner than he thought.
.***.
"It's not a bag thing to want a real life." Terri Schuester
Arguments with Harold usually didn't go well, so Puck just didn't communicate with the other man sharing his living space. If he said where he was going at all, he told the woman who passed for his mother. And this arangement worked for all involved - if each of the men pretended the other was invisable, they could just about survive through the day.
Except for the times when the man really grated on his nerves. Like today, when Harold was yelling at Puck's mother about the credit card bill. And, alright, Lisa Puckerman wasn't exactly a saint when it came to shopping, but she wasn't laying out the big bucks for shoes either. This month's infraction had included getting a washing machine that didn't turn the clothes brown every time they were run through. It'd been doing this for years and finally the one who had to actually fish the clothes out of the muck was tired of it.
"You think I'm made of money!" Not for the first time when Puck winced at how loud the words were, he was thankful that his pool cleaning buisness brought in just enough cash that he didn't have to ask his mother for anything. At least Harold couldn't bawl at him over dough.
Ah, but then he tried to hit her. And, yeah, his mother wasn't exactly known for chosing the cream of the crop, and other guys had hit her, and Harold had hit her, and sometimes Puck himself felt like shaking some sense into her, but now he was big and he played football and he knew how to punch so it hurt so he couldn't stand it anymore. He punched Harold straight in the nose.
Well Harold was forty-nine, with forty-nine years of mean on him. He was also three hundreds pounds of pretty solid flesh. And he just loved seeing this kid layed out on the floor. It got the blood flowing.
Maybe Lisa Puckerman begged her boyfriend to stop whaling on her son. More likely she shook to the side, hoping he didn't turn on her. Puck tried getting up twice and was kicked down twice, the second time so hard he didn't even think about getting up again. He didn't scream, though. Not until his wrist snapped, and even then he bit it back as soon as he could. The bastard wanted to know he was in pain, and Puck wasn't giving him the satisfaction.
When he'd been soundly kicked from here to Doomsday, Harold got tired and pulled Lisa upstairs with him, probably to do some somethin-somethin under the covers to work off the high beating on minors gave him. And Puck moved feebly on the floor, wondering when his life had gotten so miserable.
The problem was that he couldn't call Finn. Sam was already bunking at their house and it was getting mighty full over there, not to mention the fact that Finn was a mother hen at heart and always warned him to stay out of Harold's way (like he didn't try. Like Finn wouldn't do the same thing if it was his mother about to slapped across the face like a common bitch.)
So he stared at the phone, a mile away above his head, and wondered what to do with his life. No way was he staying here tonight. He could crash at Santana's, just a half mile away, but going into the heart of Lima Heights was not what he needed right now. Somehow he didn't think Quinn would be so open to him using her place as a bunker, and though Mike Chang was a solid football player and a good guy, their friendship wasn't such that he could just show up, battered and bruised on his doorstep, and expect some old fashioned Christian charity (were Asians even Christian? Puck's pain-muddled brain tried to think on that thought and came up with nothing.)
And then he remembered that night after the Cherokee game, when those dicks had beat him up on the lawn of their school and Schue had decided to play knight in shining armor (which was a very gay, Kurt thought, now that Puck actually thought it...)
The question was whether or not he'd call social services. Puck was bleeding bad from a cut in his side, had at least one broken bone, and looked like a squashed blueberry after the festival and still he preferred this "home" to any one he could get placed in for the five months he had left of being a minor.
But then a wave of pain crashed over him and Puck's whole body tightened, shook, and he didn't have to think anymore. He needed to go to Schue's, or he might die. Period.
.***.
Will Schuester had never been more scared, or excited. Emma had tenure, which made their futures somewhat more financially secure. He'd switched from Spanish to History, and decided to spend the weekend he had to himself (he didn't have many, but Emma's few friends had decided to celebrate with a weekend in Toledo) reading some old war books his father recommended.
He'd gotten a hundred pages into an overview of the aircraft victories of WWII, opening a new beer every thirty pages or so, when there was a soft knock on the door.
He was expecting the pizza boy, Zach McLaran, a Sophomore who was almost as awful at Spanish as Will was. What he got was Puck looking supremely embarassed, not to mention drenched to the skin.
"Puck, what...?" But Will didn't get much further because Puck's body, which had carried him across town and had put up with so much that night, finally decided it was safe enough to give out, and he passed out quietly on Will Schuester's living room floor.
It took some doing, but eventually Will got a pillow to put under the teen's head and some hot water and bandages to start patching him up. He used to avoid being put into these difficult positions. As an only child, he hadn't had to choose which of his sibling's battles to fight. He'd married the biggest drama queen in the world and was therefore immune to getting swept up in drama. But then he became a teacher, and his life had gotten so much more complicated.
It wasn't like beaten kids were coming out of his ears, but he'd encountered a situaton of pretty blatant abuse once before, and it was a part of his life he'd always regret. A slight, dark boy named Joseph used to stay after school during Will's office hours and slowly eat all of the oranges he kept in his desk. There had been bruises, and those confusing little starts if Will moved too quickly. But that was his first year of teaching, and he'd been young. Too young.
He let the boy talk him out of doing anything. "It's really not that bad." Joseph would say, peeling another orange with shaking hands. "Honest. It's all my fault when he hits me, anyway." Two months later Joseph had moved away, and the next time Will heard any news from him was a blurb in the paper Ex-Bank Manager's Son Killed in Home Accident. Will knew in his heart Joseph ahd been beaten to death. He broke down that night, sobbing in the shower for the small dark boy who would smile at him around an orange slice.
Now he was mechanically wiping the blood from Puck's many cuts, wondering if he was making the same mistake. Someone had once said that teenage boys must be the most vulnerable group in the world: too young to strike out on their own, too old to ask for help. "I'll call the police." Will said out loud. His voice was shaking.
"I'll lie." Puck groaned, not opening his eyes (one, Will was pretty sure, was swelled shut.) "I'll say I justgot into a fight with a kid. You can't prove anything."
Will winced, dabbing at the blood again (and thanking God that Emma was gone again. The mess probably would have driven her crazy.) "Sometimes you need to ask for help."
"This is so not one of those times." Puck winced, sat up a little. "Look, I'm sorry for wimping out on you, but you seriously don't need to call the police. I got five months, Schue. I thought my house was cool enough to sleep in tonight and I was wrong. I'll bunk with the guys, I'll keep out of his hair, I swear..." His voice trailed off and Will was afraid that he would pass out again (he looked so pale!) But instead he asked, "Could we get off the floor? I feel like a piece of meat."
Will had seen pieces of meat that looked better than Puck did, but eventually they made it over to the living room. "Do you want to take a shower or something?"
"I don't think I'd be able to stand up in a shower." Puck said, embarrassed. "It's fine, Mr. Schuester. Thanks for doing this."
"I still haven't ruled out calling social services." Will warned, and he was serious this time. Last time had been a high school smack down, and Puck probably would have cooled his heels in juvie before the whole story came out. But this was abuse. There was no other word for it. "Did he have a knife?"
"Just at the end. That's when mom stopped him." Puck didn't mention that it was the only time his mother stepped in, but he didn't have to. Will Schuester was pretty good at reading expressions. "But honestly, Schue. I'm fine. Finn and Kurt and Santana all live close enough that I can crash at their places when it gets bad. I don't know why you're worrying about me and not And-"
He cut off sharply, looking worried. You don't divulge another kid's secret to a teacher. That was rule numero uno.
But it was too late. "Who? Anderson? You mean Blaine?" Why did Will's life have to be so complicated. "What's wrong with Blaine?"
"I shouldn't have said anything." Puck said, swabbing at a cut that was already clean to avoid looking at his teacher.
"Look," Will said, desperately, "You tell me about Blaine and I'll tell you about the boy I didn't save and then maybe you'll understand why seeing you kids like this makes me so crazy."
Maybe it was the anxiety making his voice high and fierce, but Puck blinked up at him, then nodded. "Okay. But you don't interfere with anything unless Blaine comes to you himself, okay? I been trying to convince him to. I told him how cool you were will me, and Blaine's still got more than a year with the bastard."
"Deal." And, yeah, he felt a little proud that Puck had told Blaine to come talk to him. So he was a trusted teacher still, even if he didn't know any Spanish.
"So it's like this," Puck said, trying to put a Band-Aid on with his left hand and failing miserably. Will let him, because he suspected that Puck was just trying to avoid his gaze. "Over Winter Break, when Finn and Kurt went to D.C., I was out at the park pretty late. Trying avoid home, I guess, and nothiing was open. I was bundled up but Blaine wasn't. I ran into him. He was sitting next to the lake, which had some ice on it but wasn't frozen over. I thought maybe he was thinking about jumping in.
"Anyway, I had my car, so I took him out for some coffee cause he looked like crap. Big bruise on his face, sure, but there was a really nasty one on his arm, like someone'd tried to twist it off. Plus he was shaking, which might have been the cold. He couldn't have had on more than a thin jacket. And eventually he told me that his dad had banged him up - I'm no Sherlock Holmes or anything, but I figured that out for myself - but worse, he'd screamed at him. Horrible things, Mr. Schuester. Things I wouldn't say to someone, no matter how gay they were. And I don't think Blaine even told me the worst of it."
"What did he say?"
"Ask Blaine." Puck said firmly, "Really, I shouldn't be telling you this much. It's his story. But it's been nagging at me ever since. Mostly because he said that - get this - nobody knew. Not the old Warblers, not Kurt, no one. He said that usually he doesn't get it in the face - that must have been a special Christmas present. Usually it's just places that can be covered up by your shirt."
"Wait," Will said, finally realizing what had been nagging at him since the start of this story. "I thought Blaine started Dalton's branch of fight club? Doesn't he know how to defend himself?"
Puck looked angry for the first time, and took his arm away from where Will was trying to wrap bandages around it. "And I play football, so I should stand up to Harold? It's not so easy when it's your dad, Schue. Not even your mom's boyfriend. And Blaine doesn't have his mom - I don't know where she is, but she's not in the picture. It's hard to fight back against the only thing that stands between you and the streets."
"I'm sorry," Will said, feeling truly awful, "I didn't mean it like that. I'm just...my God. You kids shouldn't have to be worrying about things like this."
"Tell me about it." Puck agreed, and stuck out his arm for Will to work on again. "And tell me about that kid."
So Schue did, right down to the oranges. And when he reached the end Puck nodded, looking sad. "I still can't let you call DYFS on me. But talk to Blaine, all right? I'm not saying his situation is...I don't think his father will clobber him to death...but no one should have to be around that kind of nastiness all the time. You know, Schue?"
Yeah, he knew. He just wished he could do more.
And when Emma came back Sunday night, Puck was gone (to Finn's, he'd promised) and all evidence of the violence had been swept away. In bed that night, Will brought up the idea of becomming foster parents.
.***.
Happy Valentine's Day, all! Hope this helps to brighten up your day (if not, we all get Glee tonight. That's a pretty decent Valentine's Day gift.) Drop us a line if you liked it, or hated it, or have thought of new ways to hurt your favorite characters.