(Author's note: Warning in this chapter for consensual nonsexual slavery. If you've forgotten what Noah is like as a slave, you might consider rereading chapter 33 of Fingers of Your Fire, in which Puck is sold to Mercedes for a Cheerios fundraiser and Mercedes gets more than she paid for.
Quoting from 2x07 The Substitute. I've glossed over most of the weirdness in this episode because, sure, I could probably make it work in the Donutverse if I really tried, but tater tots and Rachel singing and dancing with Holly are just not all that interesting to me. -amy)
The bell that rang cheerily as Kurt and Blaine entered the Lima Bean brought a delighted smile to Blaine's face. The smile was achingly familiar. Kurt tore his eyes away from Blaine and made himself look around the newly redecorated space. Even during opening week, the coffee shop was already crowded.
"Nice," he said approvingly. "North Hills Mall is cuter than I expected. Coming in from the parking lot, it doesn't feel like we're at the mall at all. And it definitely has a different feel than… their other location. But I like it."
"Oh, they have another location?" Blaine paused, his brow furrowing. "Where?"
"South," Kurt said vaguely. He waved at the counter. "Can I get you some coffee?"
He still wasn't sure how much Blaine Warbler was aware of his own weekend activities in Columbus as Patrick. Sometimes it seemed like Blaine didn't even realize he left Westerville on the weekends; other times Kurt caught him mentioning his father's house or places they'd been, just in passing, as though it were no big deal. In any case, Blaine never talked about performing at Java the Hut, or mentioned Irene, and Kurt didn't feel ready to bring any of that up. As far as Blaine Warbler knew, Kurt was nothing more than an ordinary junior at an ordinary high school.
And you kind of like that, he thought wistfully, digging in his messenger bag for change. You get to be one-on-one with Blaine Warbler in a way you never were with Blaine Anderson. He wasn't sure how to explain it to Finn without making it sound like he preferred Blaine this way. It wasn't like he wanted Blaine to be pretending.
Then Kurt caught a glimpse of somebody in the kitchen, and carefully disguised his excitement. "Blaine, could you get us a table by the window? I'm trying to decide between the peanut-butter brownies and the cranberry scones."
"Sure." He picked up Kurt's nonfat mocha and his own coffee with cream, balancing them carefully against the front of his Dalton blazer, and gave Kurt another dazzling smile. "Good luck with that decision."
As soon as Blaine was out of earshot, Kurt leaned across the counter and said to the barista, "Can you let Mr. Mitchell know that Kurt wants to say hi?"
Darius didn't waste any time. He trotted around to where Kurt was standing and swept him up into a hug while Kurt tried to contain his giggles. The barista stared at them in confusion.
"Me and Kurt were in a show together last summer," Darius told her. "RENT in Cleveland."
"You were in RENT, Mr. Mitchell?" She shifted her wide eyes to Darius.
"I've been in everything," Darius declared. "At the moment, I'm up to my ears in espresso machines. But enough about me. How's your year been? Don't tell me you're here alone?"
Even as Darius craned his neck to look for the others, Kurt tugged hastily at his arm. "That's part of what I'm here to talk to you about. It's been… a complicated year. For all of us."
Darius' brown eyes softened into concern. "What's going on?"
Kurt bit his lip. "Do you have time to talk after Blaine goes home? He's waiting in the corner over there, and I'm not sure you should talk to him until you know at least a little bit about what's happening."
"For you and Blaine, I have as much time as you need. Tell Elise to come get me in the back when you're ready. I'll be wrestling with the hose to the water line." He looked past Kurt at Blaine, who was sitting calmly, sipping his coffee and looking out the window, where the first flakes of snow were just beginning to fall. "But the two of you are still together…?"
"Later," Kurt promised. "Complicated. And thank you."
He fixed a smile on his face as he joined Blaine at the table by the window. Blaine's smile was so easy and relaxed that it would have been hard for Kurt to believe he was anything other than the happy, confident boy he appeared to be. In the weeks since they'd become friends "again," he'd been waiting for Blaine to reveal more of his private self to him, but so far Blaine had offered nothing of substance. Other than the moments Kurt had seen when Blaine had visited Dave at McKinley, Kurt had seen only Blaine Warbler—not Blaine Anderson.
Complicated, he thought, and set his coffee down with a resolute thunk. He was going to have to dig a little deeper.
"I'm surprised your father let you come out to Lima again," Kurt said. "That's twice in two weekends."
"Sure," Blaine said, smiling. "He knows I'm keeping my focus on my studies."
"He pays attention to what you do in your spare time."
"Oh, yes. He's a very attentive parent."
Blaine didn't seem to be surprised Kurt already knew about his father, though Kurt was sure he hadn't spoken to Blaine about him in the past couple weeks. Slowly, he reached out and brushed Blaine's fingers with the back of his knuckles. Blaine blinked, then tilted his head at Kurt, watching him with curiosity.
"I know he doesn't want you to be dating anybody," said Kurt.
"That's right." Blaine nodded to himself, but he didn't move his hand away from Kurt's.
"He might be upset if he found out you were spending all this time with me."
Blaine frowned. "No, I don't think so. We've mostly been studying and practicing. And I'm helping you with your problem at school." For the first time, he appeared to be uncertain. "I am, aren't I?"
"You really are, Blaine. I can't thank you enough."
"Well, see, then. That's okay." He shifted his coffee so that their fingers moved apart, but when he settled again, he was closer to Kurt. "Wow, look at that snow come down! I knew it was supposed to start today, but I didn't realize it was going to accumulate so quickly."
"Maybe you should head back to Westerville early," said Kurt. He didn't mean it to come out so wistfully, but Blaine shook his head immediately.
"No, it's fine. I want to be here." He reached out and rested his hand on Kurt's leg, just for a moment, before reaching for his backpack for his book. "I promise I'll be careful."
Blaine Warbler was nothing if not responsible. At exactly four-thirty, he closed his notebook and set his pencil on the table. Kurt stretched, shaking his head.
"I'm always amazed at how much work we get done when we study together. It's always been a lot more challenging with—other people."
Blaine's smile widened into a laugh. "Well, new kid, you're just going to have to let me come out here more often, won't you?"
"Or I could come to Dalton," Kurt said. He watched Blaine for concern or confusion, but Blaine just nodded.
"You would be welcome. I like this coffee house, though. This can be our place."
Kurt knew exactly how lovestruck he must look at that moment, watching Blaine talking to him like that. To have him declare The Lima Bean to be their place was something he never would have expected from Blaine Anderson.
"Well," he said, a little too briskly. "It's a long drive."
"My mother's here, though, so it's nice to have a reason to come back. And my brother, when he's in town."
"Your—what?" Kurt couldn't disguise the way his voice came out flat and disbelieving, even though there was no way he could say you don't have a brother to someone he'd supposedly only met a few weeks ago.
"Cooper lives in LA," Blaine explained. "He's a lot older than me. Eleven years. I don't see him much except for holidays."
"Oh." Kurt sipped his coffee while he digested this possibility. There was really no way he could know for sure if it was true or not. He could grill Santana and Dave later, at least.
"So, I was wondering." Blaine folded his hands on the table, watching him with a mischievous smile. "There's a boy who lives on my floor in the dorm with whom I happen to be sort-of friends. He's the son of a corporate bigwig in Columbus, and to make a long story short, he hates the theater, so whenever he gets comp tickets to things, he gives them to me?" He laughed. "This is my very awkward way of asking if you would like to go to see RENT with me on Friday night."
"Oh!" Kurt put his cup down and straightened up. "I think I—I mean, I love RENT, obviously you knew that already, and—I need to ask my dad first, but I'm sure he would…" He bit his lip. "Yes. Yes, I'd love to go."
"Great! I'll plan to come by at five-thirty on Friday to pick you up."
Kurt stood at the window and watched Blaine until he and his car had disappeared from view. Then he sent a text to Finn. Blaine's gone. Everything OK there?
Quiet, Finn reported. Sarah's super bored when Puck's at Shelby's. How was Blaine today?
His usual troublingly cheerful Warbler self. I'm going to talk to Darius today about the dishwashing job.
You really think Puck needs one more thing to think about?
Kurt sighed. I think he needs something to make him feel good besides Bethie, or else he's going to end up moving to Akron.
You don't really think he'd do that.
Kurt didn't respond. Instead, he walked over to the barista at the counter and smiled. "I hope it's not an automatic dishwasher Mr. Mitchell is installing back there."
"No, he's putting in the espresso machine. Why? Are you looking for a job?"
"It's not for me. It's for my—um." Kurt hated the words even as they passed his lips. "My stepbrother." There was really no way he could call Puck his boyfriend at the moment. "He could use something to keep him out of trouble after school."
"Your stepbrother causes trouble?" She sounded disbelieving.
"He's not like me," Kurt said wearily. "He just got out of juvie and he's… trying to figure himself out."
"Hey, Mr. Mitchell," the barista called over her shoulder. "We got a budget to hire a dishwasher?" To Kurt, she added in an undertone, "I doubt he's going to say no, not after he begged the boss for the expensive espresso machine."
Darius listened carefully as Kurt explained the situation with Puck. He stuck to the juvie story, but based on the way he was responding, Kurt thought Darius might know more than he was saying.
"We can try an hour after school, three days a week, and weekends if he's available," Darius said. "Mornings are busy, and then there's a long lull before the kids show up, but after school is when we really need the glassware washed. You said he has football on Mondays and Thursdays?"
"And Fridays on game days," he said. "But that will be over eventually. Thank you, D- Mr. Mitchell. I think this will help a lot. He's a good worker."
"I've seen him taking care of his daughter," said Darius, smiling. "I think that can serve as his interview. Tell him he can start tomorrow."
Lauren blinked, bleary-eyed, at her phone. It took her a while to drag herself out of sleep to focus on it. It was only after she registered who was calling that she understood why the phone was ringing at all.
"I was asleep," she grunted.
"But you answered the phone?" asked Puck.
"When you were away, I put your number, and Sarah's, on the bother-me-anytime-even-in-the-middle-of-the-fucking-night alert."
"It's four-thirty in the afternoon."
"Yeah, well, it might as well be the middle of the night. I don't even know what day it is."
"It's Monday."
"That was hypothetical," she moaned.
"I, uh, heard you were sick. From Sarah. And I thought, maybe, you might want some matzoh ball soup."
"What?"
"It's chicken noodle soup with big balls of dough instead of—"
"I know what matzoh ball soup is, Puckerman. Why are you offering to make me some?"
"Because… you're sick?"
He sounded so tentative, she wanted to slap him, but that was impossible to do over the phone. She rolled over, squinting at the gray afternoon outside her window.
"You have two hours," she said.
"Be over in fifteen minutes."
It occurred to her that Puck might not know where she lived, but apparently he'd figured that out on his own. Likewise, she wasn't sure about the amount of time it took to prepare and make any kind of soup, but she seriously doubted he could do it in two hours. Even so, she got out of bed and put on a sweatshirt and pants. It wouldn't do to meet Noah Puckerman at the door naked.
He looked her up and down, eyebrows raised. "Wow. You look like crap."
"Thank you for that astute observation, shitlips." She let him into the house, leading him into the kitchen. "And I will say with some certainty I feel worse than I look."
"You got a cutting board?" Puck was already unpacking the grocery bag onto the counter: a bundle of celery, a bag of carrots with the greens still on, several onions and garlic. "I brought my own knives."
It wasn't like Lauren had never seen Puck cook before. Over the summer she'd had dinner at their house enough times to know this was part of his responsibility, not just to Finn and Kurt, but to their whole family. She'd handled a couple slaves in the past few years, but she'd never really watched one in action, up close and personal. He didn't seem to mind being watched, so after finding him the cutting board he wanted, she pulled up a stool to the counter.
"You want some tea?" He switched on the electric kettle. He'd already figured out how to work the water filter and was filling up a pot in the sink.
"Decaf, no sugar."
He waved a packet of herbal tea at her. It was fragrant enough that she could even smell it around her stuffed-up nose, and she nodded in approval. He gave her a sunny smile.
"You're in a good mood," she said.
"I spent the weekend with my kid. She grew a fuckton while I was gone; I am not even kidding. And she's sitting up, kind of. She's going to be crawling in about three minutes. And I started a new job after school today." He set the pot of water on the stove and began washing the vegetables. "You're going to have to deal with matzoh balls from the box. There is no way I'm gonna bother making them from scratch."
She rubbed her itchy eyes. "I'd offer to help, but then no other human being would be able to eat anything I touched."
"No way," he said cheerfully. "This is my gig. Kurt always said…"
He trailed off, his smile slipping away as quickly as it had appeared. She watched his face closely as he peeled and chopped the onions, sliding his knife through them sideways before dicing them. He moved deftly, as though the process took no more effort than tying his shoes.
"What did he say?"
"Huh?" He didn't look up, crushing the garlic firmly under the flat of his knife.
"Kurt. You said he always said."
"Oh… well." Puck shrugged. He picked up the boiling kettle and dumped most of it into the pot, then poured the rest into the teacup bearing the herbal tea bag. "He said the kitchen is the only place I'm really in charge."
She leaned her forearms on the counter. "Huh. Pretty sure that's not the way Blaine saw it."
The way he flinched away from that name, it was almost as though the sound of it caused him physical discomfort, but that wasn't a limit for her. Puck obviously didn't need anybody to coddle him. He might not be the kind of badass he pretended to be at school, but in his own way, she thought he was actually pretty tough.
"It's not the way Kurt saw it, either," he said in a low voice. "I did that for him, too, a couple times."
She chuckled. "Yeah, you're a pretty poor excuse for a switch."
This time he did look a little annoyed. "Why, because Lima Losers can't do that?"
"What's that have to do with anything? No, I'm talking about because you love this so much."
"What?" He actually looked confused. She stared at him for a moment, then shook her head.
"All right, let me try explaining it another way." She let her voice get low and intimate, the way she talked when she was working a guy into subspace. "You dated a lot of girls, but you never really worried too much about how they felt about you. You figured it meant you hadn't met the right one yet. The sex was pretty good. It was a casual thing. You didn't care for the so-called kinky sex, it was just kind of stupid, but sure, you'd put those fuzzy handcuffs on her if she wanted. At night, you dreamed about stuff you couldn't describe, but it got you off better than any of those girls ever did."
He'd put down the knife and was staring at her, his mouth ajar. When she paused and gave him a wicked smirk, he recovered and went on with making the soup, but he'd clearly been rattled.
"So, what, you think I don't really like girls?" he said scornfully.
"I think you never thought about not liking them until you had a guy take you down. Then you realized how much you hadn't been getting of what you wanted."
He watched her over the top of the pot on the stove, checking on the progress beneath the lid. Then he ripped open the top of a box of Manischewitz matzoh meal and dumped it into a bowl with an egg and some oil.
"Needed," he said. She didn't hear it as a correction, but rather as a clarification, and she nodded.
"So I doubt you got that kind of epiphany from Topping your boy."
"So what?" He stirred the egg-matzoh mixture until it was frothy and stuck the bowl in the fridge. Then he slid the tea across the counter toward her. She'd forgotten he'd asked if she wanted some, and nodded thanks. He nodded back gravely.
"So that's all. You wouldn't have Topped him at all if he hadn't wanted it, and you never would have missed it if he hadn't. But that's not how you feel about being Topped."
He didn't react, but Lauren could tell he was thinking it over as he opened the a plastic container and dumped a frozen chunk into the boiling water on the stove. She sniffed experimentally, but couldn't smell anything other than the pleasant sweetness of the tea.
"What is that stuff?"
"Chicken stock," he said absently.
"You don't use that canned stuff," she guessed. He gave her a withering look, and she grinned. "Okay, got it. And I bet the chicken is organic?"
Now he rolled his eyes. "Organic meat's overpriced and overrated. It's Amish."
"A chicken can be Amish?" she said, laughing. He sighed, but he was smiling.
"It'd look pretty stupid wearing one of those little hats."
Even after that difficult conversation, Puck seemed a lot more calm than she would have anticipated. She sat back and sipped her tea while he got the matzoh meal out of the fridge and formed it into balls.
"I'm thinking you won't be able to do South Pacific," she said. "Not if you've got this job and you're planning to go see your kid every weekend."
"No," he said slowly. "Maybe. I'm still thinking about it. Mr. Schue asked me. How'd you know we were doing that show?"
"A/V club is handling sound. Recorded music's way simpler than conducting a pit orchestra. We're building the sets, too."
This made him lapse back into silence for a while, or maybe he was just concentrating on shredding the leg of cooked chicken he took out of the plastic bag.
"Finn and Kurt are doing it," he said eventually. He threw the chicken bone into the pot. "The musical. Even though Kurt still thinks it's bullshit that Mr. Schue isn't doing auditions with the whole school. Whatever."
"So you're avoiding them." She watched him pause in lowering the matzoh balls into the soup, along with the chicken and various herbs. "They're not handling you anymore?"
"Dude, kind of personal?" he asked, but he didn't seem to actually be upset by the question. She sipped her tea again.
"I handled a guy from Columbus last year. He was in college, but he graduated and moved out west."
He looked a little surprised, but nodded. "And you're telling me this because…?"
"Because you should tell people things when you trust them."
He nodded again. "So, I guess… no. They're not handling me anymore."
"Is that because of the sex thing?" she prodded. He shrank into himself, not answering, but she didn't worry about that. He wasn't going to keep her in the dark for long, not if she had anything to do with it. "Is that soup going to be ready soon? I don't even know if I'll be able to taste it or anything."
"You'll taste it," he promised. He lifted up the lid, stirring the chicken into the soup, then taking a sip from the stirring spoon and adding more salt and spices. "This is the quick and dirty way, but it'll be good."
"I usually prefer slow and dirty," she drawled, and he actually giggled. She wondered what Kurt would say to her if she told him Puck had done that.
"I guess it's because I don't know if I can submit to somebody without it being about sex," he said. He sounded remarkably matter-of-fact about this. "And so far, being around guys just makes my head hurt and makes me want to puke."
"All guys, or just guys you want to bone?"
He winced. "The… the second one."
"So, what, you're just going to be celibate for the rest of your life?"
"I don't know. I guess I could still date girls." He sounded more uncertain about this than anything else he'd said so far. "I mean, they kind of wanted me to do that. It was encouraged."
They. She carefully controlled her judgment of the shitty-ass program that had brainwashed this fine specimen of queer submissive manhood, and instead gave him a blithe nod. "You don't think that you dating girls would piss Kurt off?"
He looked at the floor. "I don't think it matters much anymore."
"That remains to be seen, but I think maybe you're selling him short. He's pretty resourceful, and he doesn't exactly forgive easily."
"He has every right to be pissed at me." Puck stirred the soup again, tasting it, then set the timer for half an hour and set the lid on top, turning it down to simmer. Then he glanced around himself, looking restless for the first time since he'd arrived. "So what do you do for fun around here?"
It was a loaded question, but Lauren was in no position to engage in a battle of wits when she was feeling this crappy. "Well, for the past two days, the answer to that has been not a lot. But we could play a little Halo."
He perked up at that and followed her to the television by the couch, where Xbox games were strewn all over the carpet beside wads of tissues. The mess didn't seem to bother him as he settled down on the floor, leaning his back against the couch and handing her one of the controllers.
"So how did you ever get your foster dad to let you come over here?" she asked. "I thought you were grounded for eternity, along with Sarah."
"I came from work. Kurt said it was okay as long as I was making you soup."
She filed that away for reference. Still taking orders from Hummel. "You do this for other people a lot?"
"No, just for—you know, my family. Finn and Kurt and their folks. My brother Timmy, when he was in Ohio. My Ma." He added her name without apparent reaction, but Lauren was attuned to subtle shifts in breathing and tension, and she knew his feelings about his Ma weren't simple. Then he chuckled. "And Mercedes, for one week."
"Mercedes Jones?" She considered this, then shook her head, wrinkling her nose. "No. I don't believe her as a domme, no how no way."
"Yeah, no, she wasn't. It was for the Cheerios' auction. She bought me."
That was interesting, not just because of the way he relaxed into the words. "So… you made her soup?"
"One night I did. I did whatever she wanted. We sang some. Watched that Disney movie with the dog and the meatball."
"The—oh, Lady and the Tramp?"
"Yeah, that one," he agreed complacently.
Mercedes Jones was a diva, but definitely not a Top. Sitting around and singing kumbayah with boys seemed like more her speed than paddling their ass or punishing them for infractions.
When the timer went off, Puck strained the vegetables out of the soup and added the matzoh balls back in. Finally, he ladled it into a bowl. His face didn't look nervous in the least as Lauren took a sip and the flavor exploded into her mouth.
"Not bad," she said.
He looked a little exasperated, but he didn't say anything, accepting her lukewarm compliment. It wasn't anywhere close to what the soup deserved, but she knew better than to let any boy get too cocky, especially not an open box like this one.
"You can freeze it in bags or plastic containers, if you don't eat all of it by Friday," he said.
"You're assuming I'd bother," she said, and she grinned at the expression on his face.
After Puck headed back home, Lauren picked up her computer. Within minutes, she'd found what she was looking for. Mercedes didn't answer her phone call, but she'd expected that.
"This is Lauren Zizes," she informed Mercedes' voice mail. "I've got some thoughts I want to run by you about a mutual friend of ours. Give me a call."
Then she went back to bed, feeling a lot better than she had earlier that afternoon—and it was only partly due to the healing powers of Noah Puckerman's matzoh ball soup.
Mercedes could tell Kurt wasn't happy, but between Rachel taking over Glee club during Mr. Schue's absence and Kurt's continuing conflict with Dave Karofsky, she figured he had enough reasons to justify that feeling.
"We'll forget all about it tonight at bowling," she soothed, pushing her lunch tray along after Kurt in line.
"I can't." The tension was evident in every move he made. "Blaine asked me to hang out."
"But I've been looking forward to it all week." She paused, looking more carefully at him. "Wait. The boy from the Warblers? Are you two going out? Because I think you need to come clean if—"
"No," he interjected hastily, glancing around, like anyone would care one tiny bit about who Kurt was or was not dating. "Don't make a big deal about this, please, Mercedes. Mum's the word?"
She shrugged, mystified. "We'd be happy for you? I mean, we know how lonely you've been…"
"No. We're just hanging out." His lips were tight, and he obviously wasn't saying anything more. She decided not to push it.
"So what are we going to do about Glee Club while Mr. Schue is sick?"
Now he paused, giving her a curious smile. "I have an idea. Have you met last year's summer school Spanish teacher, the one who taught Finn? She's been substitute teaching all over the building this fall, and I think she would be an excellent choice."
"Oh, yeah?" She nibbled on a tater tot. "What makes you think she even knows the first thing about directing Glee club?"
"Um… she subbed for my English class a few weeks ago," he said vaguely. "She was extraordinary. Somehow she managed to arrange a trio of girls singing 'Conjunction Junction.' Would you mind if I approached her?"
"Be my guest," she said. Kurt patted her hand excitedly before hurrying away. The whole exchange mystified her, but she supposed she could chalk it up to Kurt's challenging month. Puck's return from juvie was probably the least of his worries.
No sooner than Kurt had disappeared was the seat beside her occupied by an unexpected visitor. Mercedes regarded her warily.
"Lauren. I thought you were out sick with, like, the plague."
"I got better." Lauren wasn't one to bother with small talk.
Mercedes had never liked Lauren. Her brand of bravado always seemed more like loudmouth bullying to her, not to mention she was friends with Jacob ben Israel, who'd taken potshots at Kurt more than once in his newspaper.
"I take it you didn't get my message," said Lauren.
"No, no, I got it, I just… I wasn't sure what you wanted to talk about." She glanced around the cafeteria and dropped her voice. "Look, I know you've been spending a lot of time at Kurt's house, and maybe that makes the two of you friends, but I should inform you that he and I have been friends a lot longer than—"
"I'm not talking about Kurt. It's Puckerman."
Mercedes broke off, peering at her in disbelief. "You're Puck's friend?"
"Not exactly. He and I engage in some of the same extracurricular activities." She looked at Mercedes over the frames of her slim glasses. "The kind involving consensual control of another human being?"
Mercedes swallowed. "I don't really think this is something we should be talking about at—"
"He told me about that auction. The one where you bought him."
"Oh, that." She laughed in relief. "That was just a fundraiser for the Cheerios. It wasn't anything."
"Yeah, maybe it wasn't meant to be, but I don't think that's how he took it. And I think you know that."
"Maybe." She thought about how Puck had been that week, the person she'd seen him become, when he'd put control of everything into her hands. "Yeah. I know that. But I don't know if he… I mean, he and Kurt, and—other people, I think they're taking a break."
"All the more reason for me to get clear about what's going on for him." She stabbed a finger toward the hallway. "That boy had something seriously bad happen to him a couple weeks ago. I don't know details, but I wasn't sure I was ever going to see him smile again. And then yesterday, he made chicken soup for me, and suddenly he was fine. And I don't mean fake-fine, I mean he really was fine."
Mercedes thought back to that first dinner she'd ever had with Puck and Finn and Kurt, the night Karofsky had stuffed Kurt into a locker. Puck had been frantic, but cooking had calmed him right down. "I think I get that. And… what, you think he can't cook for Kurt and his family anymore because he went to juvie? They're not kicking him out for that."
Lauren frowned at her. "You need to spend a little more time with Puckerman if that's what you think is happening at his house."
She sighed. "Yeah, well, Kurt's been a little too busy to hang out with me lately. I think I'm not gay enough or something. He's been spending all his time with that Warbler from Dalton, Blaine."
Now Lauren's face went completely blank. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, Puck taunted Kurt into going to Dalton to spy on our competition for sectionals, and now I think Kurt's got a crush on him." She shook her head. "I used to worry about the—um, Kurt and Puck, but then I saw how good they were for each other? Now Puck pulled some crap and ended up in juvie, and… I don't know what to think."
Lauren snorted. "Yeah, well, sometimes Puck needs a little reminder that what he's doing isn't so appropriate. I don't think he's been getting that, either."
Mercedes blinked at her. "You really do… that to boys?"
A small smile curved the corners of Lauren's mouth upward. "Do what, exactly?"
"I don't—you know," she said, flustered. She hadn't ever talked about it in detail with Kurt or Finn or Puck. Maybe what she thought she knew they did wasn't really true.
But now Lauren's smile was more reassuring. "Don't worry. Yeah, I do that. Even if he is getting it from somebody, he definitely needs more of it. I'll talk to Kurt about it."
Mercedes watched Lauren walk away, the loneliness in her stomach growing. Missing Kurt wasn't doing anything to help. Maybe she did need to spend some more time at his house. What would he even do if she invited herself over? What would it be like to see Puck being somebody else's slave? He'd only been hers for one week, but that had been the closest to having a boyfriend she'd ever gotten. She still missed his snuggles. Imagining him doing that with Lauren made her shudder.
How would Kurt feel, she wondered. Or Finn? Are they even like that anymore? It was impossible to tell from the outside. And that was how she felt with them now—like an outsider. Kurt spent more time with Tina than he did with her. She sighed and tossed the rest of her tater tots in the garbage.
Puck knew getting tacos with Holly after singing Cee-Lo in Glee club wasn't the weirdest thing they'd ever done, but it was especially strange to have everybody else hanging around with her too. Like Holly was some celebrity or something, instead of the substitute teacher.
And our shrink, he thought, eyeing her as she slid into the booth in front of him.
"How cool is this," she said, grinning. "Your friends are just as great as you've been telling me. I love putting faces to names."
"Yeah," he muttered, staring down at his chimichanga.
"The buttered floor was inspired, by the way. So where have you been? You haven't come to talk to me since you got back."
He shrugged. "I'm kind of busy. I have all this work I have to do, community service and stuff, plus there's this job—"
"Yeah, sorry. I know you better than that." She took a large, messy bite of her taco. "You had one week to figure your stuff out, but now I'm calling foul. What's going on?"
Uneasily, he looked around them at the crowded fast food place. "You really want me to talk about this here?"
"Unless you want me to come over tonight. No, wait, I'm watching Animal Hoarders with Principal Sue."
He made a face. "You're hanging out with Coach Sylvester?"
"I believe you mispronounced spying for my roommate," Holly said smoothly. "So, yeah, it has to be now. And because I'm already getting paid to teach you monkeys, I won't even charge you the usual rate. Come on, tell me three bad things that happened this week."
Puck gave up trying to avoid her. "My dad," he said. "He called me four times since we got back, trying to get me to come to study group with him, but all I want to do is ignore him. He sent this fake parole officer after me, threatening me with going back to Adventure Camp. And now I can't even be around Kurt and Finn without getting these fucking headaches."
"You seemed fine while you were dancing with them around the piano an hour ago," she pointed out. "Okay, that's two things."
"Um—" He realized he was having trouble thinking of other bad things. Talking with Dave in the attic on Friday had put the cap on a shitty week, but since then, things had been looking up. Spending the weekend with Bethie had been a ton of work, but it had been so cool to see how much she'd grown and what she was capable of, the effort hadn't mattered at all. The hours he'd put in at The Lima Bean washing glassware had felt more like a reprieve than a chore. And making soup for Lauren, well, he wasn't sure what to think about that, but it sure as hell hadn't been bad.
Finally Holly sighed and rolled her eyes. "Look, I know you're the master of sublimation, but it can't escape your notice that nobody's looking after you right now."
"Well, I'm kind of looking after myself," he explained, then frowned when she started snickering. "Hey!"
"You really think that's working for you?"
"Everybody thinks I can't do it alone," he said hotly.
"Yeah. You can't. Not because there's something wrong with you, but—Jesus, you're doing way too much! How the heck were you thinking you could manage a kid and high school and your extracurriculars without a little help?"
"I do have help." He glared at Santana until she turned her curious eyes away, then leaned in closer to Holly and dropped his voice. "Just because I'm not bumping uglies with any of them right now doesn't mean they're not helping. Shelby's still taking care of Bethie, and everybody at the house is on my side. They're practically falling all over one another—"
"Okay, okay," she said, and her voice was abruptly benign. She held up her hands in surrender. "I get it. I was wrong."
Puck watched her suspiciously for a moment until he was sure she wasn't going to volley another slew of accusations. "So, yeah. Things are pretty good."
"And you're sleeping fine."
He closed his mouth quickly, sinking back into his seat. She laughed out loud.
"Yeah. You can't even admit that things suck when somebody leads you right to it. This is why you need a therapist. If it's not going to be me, I'm going to find you a replacement. Which I don't take personally, so don't worry about it." She stood up, giving him a sunny smile. "Thanks for the ten minutes, anyway."
He could see Finn and Kurt not-watching Holly as she moved over two tables to sit with Quinn and Sam. For one brief moment, he had a wave of awareness of his place in that room, and all the people around him, and precisely how not fine he really was. It was almost more than he could handle.
Well, fuck that, he thought angrily. Isn't it better to feel okay, even if it's fake, than to realize how much things actually suck?
The morning Will finally woke up lucid, he had to stare at his phone for several long minutes before he figured out what day it was. Hell. He rubbed encrusted eyes with the side of his hand and stretched every achy muscle in his body. He could tell the fever wasn't completely gone, but at least now he could breathe without coughing.
Then he had to sort through the memories of the last few days, trying to figure out which parts had been fever-induced and which parts had actually happened. The television was on, the blue screen indicating a DVD had come to an end. He thumbed the remote and the opening credits to Singing in the Rain appeared. So that was real. Which meant that Terri's frequent visits had probably also been real—and that implied that what she'd said and done to him, too, had occurred. The rubbing menthol, the teasing…
We can still have a baby, Will, she'd said as she slid herself against him. It doesn't have to be a dream. Right now, this is the perfect time.
He groaned. He hadn't even been certain he could still have sex with a woman after the events of the last year, but the plumbing had been functional. He could only blame the whole situation on his weakened, delirious state… not to mention the weeks spent alone in his apartment. It had been over a month since he'd seen Toby.
Perhaps, if he was lucky, his fevered temperature would keep his sperm from being viable. Or maybe Terri had no idea what she was talking about this being the "perfect time." She hadn't actually gotten pregnant all that time they were trying, after all. Why would this time be different?
Terri had been right about the movie that made him feel better when he was sick, though. He had watched Gene Kelly dance that scene with the umbrella more times than he could count. But when he picked up the remote control, instead of restarting it, he turned the television off.
The truth was, whenever he heard that song, the only person he could hear in his head was Toby. He closed his sore eyes and sighed. That was who he really wished had been there to take care of him while he was sick.
I'm not happy, he thought glumly. But whose fault is that but my own? I've committed myself to helping Emma. And whatever it is I'm searching for, it's not Toby's responsibility to find it for me.