Catalyst
Chapter 5
By Dani J.
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Summary: Kurt and Blaine have decided to just be friends and the dapper boy realized he really missed Dalton Academy so he's gone back. No Klaine-bashing is intended, it just wouldn't have worked for this fic. However, Kurt has an admirer in a new kid… and Puck isn't happy at all but doesn't seem willing to step up.
Disclaimer: I own nothing whatsoever. Blame RM and company for this unfairly attractive and addictive group of characters. Well, except for my cute, original character, Kristopher.
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Last chapter: Shit, he really was fucked! Puck's head bowed towards his knees and he prayed to the God he'd often ignored, asking him fervently to please, please, make him straight again.
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Noah sat at his mom's kitchen table and stared up at her. Naomi Puckerman knew something serious was bothering her son and prayed it wasn't another baby on the way.
Naomi loved her son but she knew his shortcomings very well; he was almost a clone of her absentee husband. Despite loving her husband more than life itself, she hadn't been enough for him, apparently. She had held her baby Noah one day and wished fervently that the boy would turn out more like her than his near-worthless father. Near-worthless because he had managed to gift her with two beautiful children. Sarah was quite a few years younger than Noah, born in the same year her husband – their father – had left.
Now she placed a plate of cookies warm from the oven before Noah who was cradling his glass of milk and took a seat. She was not going to push him; that got nowhere with her Noah. No, she was just going to sit there and look out the kitchen window and wait for him to talk. This was one of her rare days off from the hospital and she relished the simple things of life like baking cookies from scratch for her children.
Puck looked up at his mom and wondered how he was going to explain himself properly without getting a slap upside his head. His mom had brought him up as best she could without his dad around and he hated disappointing her. Still, he knew he had to man up and confess what he had done.
He took a cookie and ate it quickly, practically scarfing it down before drinking nearly half his glass of milk. Before he could get a word out, though, the telephone rang; his mom sighed, looked at him seriously and then got up to answer it.
Puck waited as he listened to her and then glanced up when she said, "Oh, hi, Finn, how are you? My, I haven't seen you in such a while…"
Puck felt his stomach clench and he didn't realize there was fear in his eyes as he stared at his mom standing with the phone to her ear.
"Uh-huh, yes, he's here, but he's a little busy right now. Is it okay if he calls you back when I'm done with him?"
Puck swallowed as he listened to his mom; that sounded really serious and he hoped he would escape the coming conversation in one piece. He was so glad that Sarah was spending the afternoon over at one of her annoying little friends.
Naomi Puckerman smiled briefly as she hung up, telling Finn, "Don't be such a stranger now – and bring your stepbrother around some time, too!"
Puck cringed at that and his eyes widened, wondering if somehow his mother had supernaturally divined that something was wrong, and that it involved Finn's stepbrother, Kurt.
He took a deep breath and watched as his mother, with a funny little twist to her lips, took her seat again. However, she reached for a cookie and ate it slowly before brushing her hands together. She then stared at Noah enquiringly and he swallowed, grasped his courage with both hands and began.
"Mom, I'm so sorry, I screwed up real bad today," he muttered, his cheeks red and his eyes prickling. There was silence and then his mom sighed and passed him a napkin from the holder on the table. He didn't want to be seen to be using it to dab his eyes but it would be worse if he sat there with tears running down his cheeks.
Naomi sighed again but there was a little amusement in her voice as she asked: "Did you knock over a bank, Noah? Rob a little old lady? Tell Principal Figgins a bad word?"
Puck's chuckle surprised him and he glanced up at his mom, noting the look of sympathy in her eyes. He sobered and shook his head. "No, it's worse, really bad."
Naomi touched his hand and leaned forward. "Listen, Noah, if there's no death involved, you can make it better, okay?"
He stared down at her hand on top of his and nodded, biting his lip before saying ashamedly, "I hurt someone I really, really like. I said something forbidden and… and…"
The words choked off and his mom squeezed his hand. His breath shuddered in his chest and when she said, "Can you tell me what it was you said," he shook his head and then nodded.
"I said… I called him… a fag," and the last word came out in such a small voice that Naomi had to lean forward to catch it. She looked a little confused and she shook her head.
"You called Finn a fegaleh?" Naomi's voice was a little stern now but she still looked a little disbelieving. Even if Noah had stupidly called his one-time best friend that word, everyone knew it wasn't true. It wasn't nice to do so at all, but Noah seemed extremely upset about it.
Puck shook his head and glanced up at his mom quickly from beneath his lashes and then back down at their hands on the table.
"No, not Finn…" and he remained silent as she waited for him to collect himself. Finally, he slowly withdrew his hand and looked up at her. "It was Kurt."
Naomi stared at her son, seeing the tears he refused to shed in front of her and the anguish in his eyes. Something was going on here that went deeper than the use of such an unpleasant word. Wait, he had said, 'I hurt someone I really, really like…' Did that mean he and Kurt – no, her son had always chased after skirts. If he were gay, she would have known, wouldn't she?
The silence stretched out between them and when it started to get really uncomfortable, Naomi asked, "Was that why Finn called?" When Noah nodded she demanded, "Okay, tell me everything from the start."
Puck looked at her and wondered how she hadn't exploded as yet. He suspected he got his temper from her, not his dad who everyone had always said was a pretty laid-back kinda guy. Now, sitting here before her, he gave thanks that she wasn't already beating him upside the head with her soft carpet slippers.
He took a deep breath and began, telling her about the new kid at school and how he seemed to be coming on to Kurt. He told her about how Kurt and Blaine had broken up and that he was simply worried that the new guy was just messing with Kurt. He told her he'd only wanted to look out for Kurt and then the new kid had pissed him off and he'd ended up saying stuff he hadn't expected to come out.
By the time Noah had finished telling her what had happened and his reasoning – well, so-called reasoning because she had her own suspicions – he had reduced a couple of her cookies to dust in his plate. She had never seen Noah so agitated, even when things were at their lowest between him and Finn or between him and Quinn.
She sighed now as she slowly moved the plate away from him, pursing her lips admonishingly at him. In her heart she was sad for her boy because she knew he was struggling. She wanted to find the right words to say to him but she herself was reeling from the possibility of her previously rampantly heterosexual son being homosexual now. Was that even possible, she wondered as she brushed some errant crumbs away.
Puck recognized his mom's actions as stalling tactics; he didn't blame her. He had presented her with what could be a bombshell if she had listened between the lines. His mom was pretty smart and he'd always felt that, had things been normal and their dad still around, she could have moved much higher in her chosen profession. He sighed as he waited for her to speak.
"Sweetie, look at me," Naomi said now and leaned forward, clasping her hands together as she looked at her conflicted son. "Why did you react like that to what this boy said? Was it something you had thought about before; was that why it hurt you?"
She raised a hand as he automatically tried to deny that he had been hurt by the other boy's unkind words. When he subsided mulishly, she stared at him seriously.
"Noah, I know you; you're not an unkind child and you've admitted that you 'really, really like' Kurt."
He dropped his head and then raised it with a resigned look in his eyes. His voice was thick as he said, "Ma, I don't want to like him; I know what it means and I don't… What he goes through almost every day… I'm not strong like him."
Naomi leaned back and held in the gusting sigh she felt was appropriate right now. Oy, vey, her son was really in deep, deeper than even he realized, and her heart ached for him. She was an intelligent woman; she knew the heart loved where it loved and there was no way to order it to 'do the right thing'. If Noah had feelings for Burt Hummel's son, things were going to get pretty interesting quite soon. Especially now that there was another player in the game: this new kid who, from listening between the lines, seemed to have drawn Kurt's interest.
Could life ever be simple for even a short time, she wondered as she looked at her poor Noah. Dredging up a smile she hoped would ease her boy somewhat, she nodded now. "You know what you need to do, right?"
When he looked at her quizzically, she finally leaned forward and whapped him lightly upside his head. "Apologize, boychik! I've brought you up better than this, haven't I?"
"Ma!" Puck whined as his mom's hand glanced off the back of his head. He had relaxed his guard and hadn't seen it coming but strangely, he felt the tension drain from him as his mom smiled triumphantly.
"You better sort it out soon, though; the longer you let that sort of thing fester, the worse it will get, okay?"
Puck nodded and then smiled softly at his mother. She hadn't made a fuss, not really, and she hadn't freaked out at what it all might mean. He glanced at the phone and when she nodded, he got up and went over to it. He was kinda hoping she would leave the kitchen so he could do this privately but at the determined expression on her face, he knew he was out of luck.
He listened to phone ringing, glad that he remembered Finn's number offhand. He felt the tension rise as the phone rang and rang, but just before it went to voice mail it was answered.
"Hello, this is Finn's phone. Sorry he can't come to the phone right now – you don't want to know!"
Puck drew in a breath as Kurt's light, playful tone came over the line. He cleared his throat and then blurted out: "Kurt, please, don't hang up; it's me – Noah."
He winced as he realized what he'd said and held his breath at the same time. Please, please, don't let him hang up, he prayed silently, oblivious to his mom's presence.
He could hear Kurt breathing and then: "Well, Noah Puckerman, what could you have to say to the 'fag', huh?"
Naomi watched as her son winced, waited and then winced again. She realized what had happened and now she prayed her son wouldn't be shredded by Kurt. She'd known the Hummels for years; her heart had broken for the little pale-skinned, blue-eyed boy when his dear mother had passed away. He'd grown up into a tall, slender, beautiful boy with a tongue like a blade. Her poor Noah had dug himself this hole, though, and he would have to grow some big ones to deal with Kurt Hummel.
Puck rushed into the silence, his voice pleading. "Kurt, please, you've got to know I didn't mean what I said. I've never called you that before – at least not since I joined glee club, right?"
He waited and then heard – "Why are you telling me this, Puck? I couldn't possibly care about anything you do... Finn is using the bathroom, call him later."
Puck stared at the phone, not quite believing that Kurt had hung up on him. He jerked slightly when a hand came around him and hung the phone up for him. He leaned against the wall and looked at his mother, his eyes devastated.
Naomi looked back at her son, and then a sad little smirk lifted the corner of her full lips. Shaking her head she grasped Noah's hand and led him back to the table.
"Noah, Noah," she sat across from him again and shook her head again. "Do you call that an apology? No wonder Kurt hung up on you!"
Noah continued to stare at her and she relented, taking pity on him. "He's still hurt, son. Give him time, and when you do apologize properly, do it in front of the same people as before, got that?"
Puck nodded as he sat in his mom's warm, sunny kitchen. He knew it was warm and sunny but he just couldn't appreciate it right now. He had never before felt so bad for hurting someone and it was causing his stomach to hurt.
Puck sat there accepting his mom's silent support and comfort. Gradually he calmed down and the germ of an idea began to grow. If he could apologize to Kurt in a grand gesture – the boy wasn't called a diva for nothing – maybe he could get rid of this pain in his stomach… and that Kris dude who was shaping up to be a real pain in the neck.
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TBC
