Title: Sex Shark, a Papa Bear Spinoff Story
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Kurt/Puck, Burt, Mrs. Puckerman.
Genre: Humour/Drama
Warning: Crack. Overuse of the word 'sex'.
Disclaimer: I don't own it and I'm not making any money from it, this is pure entertainment.
Author Notes: Blame kirke_novak from LJ and her prompt on the Puckurt meme. This story is technically within the Bear!Burt verse, and happens after Halfbreed Hummel. So for those of you whohaven't read either of those arcs, Burt is literally a bear and (almost) everyone is cool with that. And now, apparently, there are also sentient sharks. /facepalm
Summary: Kurt has no idea what the consequences are going to be when he demands a month of celibacy from his sex-obsessed boyfriend.
The post-sex recovery period of a half-bear male is frankly awesome, especially when coupled with teenage hormones, and what makes it doubly awesome is the fact that the Hummel's basement is totally soundproof. You could, like, drop a nuke in there and nobody would know. It's fucking epic! And leads to some truly epic fucking. Puck loves it. He loves Kurt's big, comfortable bed, loves the way the sheets smell when he's face down with the other boy inside him, loves the way Kurt can literally go for hours if he wants to.
Actually, he just loves Kurt. Full stop.
Which is why he's here now, sitting on the edge of that awesome bed (and clearly not having sex) while Kurt paces back and forth in front of him and tries to explain why he's been so touchy lately. It's hard to keep his attention on what the pale (sexy, witty, sometimes frustratingly bitchy) boy is saying though, given that he's currently wearing an outfit that might as well have been painted on.
"... too dependent on sex," Kurt says, which snaps Puck back to reality.
"What?"
"I just... we don't talk," Kurt explains, stopping in his tracks to looks Puck in the eye. Kurt has really pale eyes that seem to change colour with his mood. Right now they're grey. "Whenever you come over we just come straight down here and get naked. We hardly see each other in school except for glee or at lunch, and all you want to do is make out."
"We go out," Puck points out, trying to be reasonable about this, "to movies and stuff."
"The last time we went to dinner I wound up blowing you in the back of my car," Kurt sighs. He crosses his arms and looks down at the floor.
"So?" Puck asks. "There's nothing wrong with that. We're just active in the bedroom." Puck twists his hands together. He can see where this is going. He's not a dumbass, and he knows he should have mentioned this sooner but he's not expecting it when Kurt says: "I don't think we should have sex anymore."
"Excuse me?" Puck really hopes he heard wrong.
"No more sex," Kurt says firmly. "For a month."
"A whole month!"
"Puck... I really like you. I just need to know that you like me too and this isn't all about sex."
He thinks about protesting, about trying to explain that he needs it - really actually needs it and not just in the way that most teenage boys say they need sex - to survive... But Kurt has a stubborn tilt to his chin that says he's not in the mood to listen. Puck bites his tongue. He can see how tense Kurt is, despite how well the other boy is hiding it. He knows this is a big deal, that Kurt has a few lingering self esteem issues that will never go away if Puck tries to talk him out of this.
A sick, stupid part of him is even relieved when he decides not to explain it.
"Ok," Puck says finally, a phantom throbbing in his chest reminding him of how bad it could get. But it's just a month, and he's only a halfbreed. It's not like he's ever tried it either. He just took the textbooks and wikipedia articles at face value and assumed that it would apply to him too. "Yeah," Puck says, and Kurt looks so relieved that it's almost heartbreaking. "We can do that. A month without sex, no problem... I can still kiss you though, right?"
Kurt smiles and joins Puck on the bed, sitting beside him close enough to touch but not close enough to give the wrong impression.
"Thankyou," he says, and hesitates just a moment before he adds Puck's real name, "Noah..."
Puck smiles back, hiding the low buzz of worry that makes his stomach churn. He hasn't said it yet, probably won't for a long time, but he loves Kurt. So he'll totally do this shit. Even if it kills him.
.
.
Actually the first week isn't so bad. Puck doesn't even notice a difference. He's still busy with sports and glee practice and avoiding schoolwork as avidly as only a true slacker can (seriously, it's fucking boring! He could ace these stupid quizzes in his sleep, so why does he have to be there when they're not taking exams?). He still hangs out with his friends. He still spends his afternoons at Kurt's place. The only difference is in what he and Kurt do. They watch movies upstairs on the big screen and geek out over TV shows that neither of them ever admits to liking while in public, sometimes while Finn pulls 'I'm gonna vomit at how coupley you two are'faces from the other couch. One night Puck even stayed for dinner, and spent half an hour talking to Burt and learning how to pronounce 'Titans rock' in perfectly accented Bearglish.
In all seriousness it's actually kind of fun, and he likes how much Kurt has been smiling. Puck can't help but feel proud of himself for proving that yeah, he does actually like Kurt for more than his sexy-as-hell body and his awesome recovery time. If he's started sleeping later in the mornings it's totally nothing to worry about. He doesn't care about fifteen minutes and just managing to sneak into class before the bell rings.
But he starts noticing it in the second week. When fifteen minutes turns into a half hour and he starts going to bed at eight o'clock because he can hardly keep his eyes open.
The second time he does it his mother gets an odd look on her face. "I'm feeling kinda tired," Puck announces after dinner, pushing himself away from the table. "I think I'm just gonna go to bed."
His mother looks at him funny, the corners of her lips turned down. "Noah... Are you feeling ok?"
"I'm fine, mom," he replies, and yawns. "Just had a long day."
"You know if you're having troubles," his mother says delicately, "I can talk to my friend Betty..."
Puck pulls a face. "Mom, I have a boyfriend."
"I'm just saying, honey..."
"Mom," Marie, Puck's sister interjects with preteen pissiness, "he's got his ass-face on, he's not going to budge."
Puck flips her off when their mother isn't looking and trudges to bed with his mother's insistent "I just don't want you getting sick if that boy isn't putting out..." trailing behind him.
Ten hours sleep later and he's still feeling kind of tired, but his alarm clock is beeping insistently into his ear. He thrusts out a hand and blindly tries to find the source of the noise, and only succeeds in knocking it to the floor. "Fuck you," Puck groans at the (fuckin' wake me up you piece of shit) alarm clock, but levers himself out of bed and forces himself to stumble to the bathroom for a quick shower. A glance in the mirror afterwards and he looks as tired as he feels. There are light smudges under his eyes that he doesn't remember ever having had before and for a moment it scares him. "Don't be a pussy," he tells himself. "Man up and deal with it, bitch."
He gulps two cups of bitter instant coffee before he leaves for school. He falls asleep during his morning history class anyway, but the good news is that the nap perks him up just enough that he only looks a little tired during lunch. He goes to the nurse's office afterwards and sleeps the rest of the afternoon.
"Are you ok?" Kurt asks him when he shows up at the Hudmel house.
"Huh?" Puck asks, blinks, and smiles at Kurt. "Yeah. I'm just a little out of it today."
"Maybe you should go home," Kurt suggests reluctantly, "and get some sleep. You look like you were up all night."
Puck waves off the suggestion and slings an arm around Kurt's shoulders. "Nah. Hey, I got season two of Mythbusters. Wanna watch stuff blow up?"
They wind up kissing on the couch for half of the first episode. With Kurt's mouth against his and his body pressed up as close to Puck's as the couch will allow Puck starts to think this might be ok. He made it. It's totally over. His hands start slowly wandering and he knows he's getting Kurt all hot and bothered, but when his hand creeps down to squeeze the other boy's ass Kurt suddenly pulls away.
"Um," Kurt says, blushing, "I think we should stop there."
"How come?" Puck asks, feeling better than he had in days. He can feel his blood pumping, can feel Kurt's thigh against his like a line of fire, and he's half-hard in his jeans already.
"It's only week two," Kurt explains sheepishly.
Puck curses in his head and bites the inside of his cheek so he doesn't do anything stupid like try and seduce Kurt out of this stupid month of celibacy thing. He's got the feeling that trying to convince Kurt to have sex with him right now would only reinforce the idea that Puck only wanted him for his body, only liked him for the sex. He told himself it wasn't too bad and gave a mental smackdown to the whiny little bitch part of his brain that kept telling him to 'fess up and just tell his boyfriend why he totally needed to get some.
"Two weeks," Puck says instead, and sighed. "Ok, Prince Virtue."
It only gets worse from there on in. He tries the whole self love thing and it gives him a jolt... but his body knows the difference between his right hand and sex with an actual live person. Warming lube makes no difference. Toys make no difference. He gets off, but it feels hollow and does practically nothing. Monday morning of the third week he wakes up at nine in the morning to find the house empty, but a note slipped under his door in his mother's writing with a woman's name and number and the words CALL HER underneath.
Puck crumples it up and tosses it without a second thought. He's not going to cheat on Kurt, especially not with some twenty-something part time hooker his mom knows from work.
.
.
He doesn't make it to Glee on Tuesday and calls Kurt to let him know he can't make it over.
"I just feel like shit," Puck says muzzily into the phone. "I think I'm coming down with something."
He doesn't tell Kurt that he lost a tooth that morning. It wouldn't be a big deal, over the years he's lost more teeth than he could be bothered to count, but the problem is that this one had yet to grow back. Under normal circumstances Puck would have a full set of teeth again within twelve hours, but today that just wasn't happening. He doesn't mention the fantasies either. Vivid ones that keep popping into his head in a continuous stream of pornography starring himself and Kurt and all sorts of positions and props. Even just the sound of Kurt's voice over the phone is making him think about blowing him.
"Do you want me to come over?" Kurt is asking, sounding concerned. "I can bring some soup, or cookies."
Puck wants to say yes. He wants to tell Kurt to come over right the fuck now and screw him until his eyes roll back and he screams with the intensity of it, but it's only week three. "No," he says, shocked by the jolt of physical pain in his chest when he accepts that Kurt won't be coming over to help him. He can get through this. He's the fucking Puckasaurus for chrissake! The Puckzilla can wait another ten freakin' days. "No. I don't wanna pass it on to you too."
"Ok..." Kurt says, sounding like he doesn't quite believe it. "But if you're not at school tomorrow I'm coming over. With soup. And you will eat it and enjoy it and I don't even care if you drip mucus from your eyeballs, I'm not letting you stay home alone when you're sick."
Puck smiles. He images Kurt riding him, head thrown back in ecstasy. "I love you too," he says, and doesn't even realise it.
.
.
Kurt hears the call disconnect before he can answer and considers calling Puck again just so he can demand to know whether the other boy is delusional or screwing with him or if he really meant it. He stares at his phone for a full minute before he decides it would be too clingy to demand an explanation. Somehow it's not too clingy to threaten to play nursemaid at Puck's house, and yet it's too clingy to ask about it when Puck says 'I love you' for the first time.
Kurt had always figured he would be the first one to say it. If they ever wound up saying it at all.
He places his phone down on the nightstand and trots upstairs to find his dad. If anyone can give him advice about emotionally stunted teenage boys it would be someone who had once been an emotionally stunted teenage boy. He finds Burt on the couch in front of the TV, beer in paw, clearly having just got home from the shop. Kurt hesitates, then sits down next to his father and states determinedly; "I need advice."
Burt takes one look at his son and immediately reaches out a paw for the remote. The TV flicks off. 'I'm listening.'
"I think Puck just told me that he loves me," Kurt says, smoothing invisible wrinkles from his pants. "But he didn't give me a chance to say it back. He just hung up. He wasn't... It wasn't a fight or anything. He called to let me know that he couldn't come over and he sounded tired, so I asked what was wrong and he said he was sick. I told him that if he wasn't at school tomorrow I would come over, and he told me he loved me, and hung up."
Burt's eyes crinkled up in amusement and he chuckled, the sound a low rumble in the back of his throat. 'I don't think that's anything to be worried about. If he meant it you'll find out soon enough.'
"What if he didn't?" Kurt asks, his face flushing.
'Then he's in for a mauling for toying with my boy's heart,' Burt replies, clearly joking. He pats Kurt's shoulder with one heavy paw. 'Look, it may not be love, but that kid cares about you. I wouldn't want him anywhere near you if he didn't.'
Kurt smiles and leans against his father's side. "Thanks," he says softly. "I guess I'll see what happens tomorrow."
.
.
Puck doesn't come to school on Wednesday and he doesn't answer the door when Kurt knocks.
Kurt stands on the front step for a few seconds, glancing around. He walks to the driveway and peers into the carport to see that Puck's car is definitely still there, then walks back to the front step. He knows where the spare key is in theory but it still takes a moment or two to actually find it.
The house is unusually quiet inside. The few times Kurt had been to the Puckerman residence it had been loud and full of life. The TV was on, or music, and Puck's sister usually had a friend over or was talking with someone on the phone while his mother puttered around in the kitchen and fussed over whether or not everyone had enough snacks. It seemed weird and wrong for the house to be quiet and (presumably) empty.
He makes a beeline for Puck's room and pauses briefly outside the door. "Puck," he calls tentatively, "it's me... I hope you don't mind that I let myself in..."
He notices a note sticking out from under the door and bends down to pick it up just as Puck replies, sounding awful; "S'Ok... Didn't hear you knocking, sorry. Door's unlocked."
Kurt picks up the note and goes to open the door, but his hand pauses on the doorknob when he reads what's written on the piece of paper.
Betty, XXX-XXXX, CALL HER NOW NOAH, and in smaller writing; I don't know what brought this on, but if I come home and you haven't had sex I am taking you to the emergency room.
Kurt stares at the note. He opens the door and steps into Puck's room half expecting to see some kind of evidence that a woman had been there. All he sees is Puck lying in bed, looking awful, and the same messy room he'd seen those other times. Only this time (for some strange and inexplicable reason) there is a photo on the nightstand of Puck standing in knee-deep water with a shark, and a small handful of human teeth.
"Puck..." Kurt starts, clutching the note tight in his hand. It feels mean to ask about it when Puck is so clearly feeling awful, but he has to know. "What's going on?"
Puck props himself up in the bed, moving sluggishly until he's slumped against the headboard. "What d'you mean?" he asks.
Kurt can't make himself answer. He knows if he speaks then the only thing that will come out is a bitchy tirade about Puck potentially cheating on him with some woman named Betty. Instead he crosses the room until he's standing next to the bed and holds out the note. He makes himself take a calming deep breath before he asks; "What's this about?"
Puck takes the note, reads it, and becomes even paler than he had been before. "S'nothing," he says, muttering. And then; "I'm not gonna call her. I wouldn't do that, so don't worry."
"Why does it say your mother is going to take you to the emergency room if you don't have sex?" Kurt asks.
"She worries too much."
"Puck..." A sudden feeling of horror sweeps over Kurt. "Are those your teeth?"
"... Maybe," Puck says. He frowns. "Look, I didn't want to tell you, ok? I thought I'd be fine, you know...? It's just four fucking weeks. It's not a big deal."
"Four weeks?" Kurt repeats, feeling like he's missing some point vital to the conversation. "What are you talking about?"
Puck mumbles something, not looking at Kurt.
"What?"
"M'a sex shark," he repeats, this time loud enough for Kurt to hear it.
For a moment Kurt thinks he has to be joking. He's heard it before, of course. Santana once quoted it back when he and Puck first started going out, and Puck had said it before jokingly once or twice. Puckzilla the sex shark. Suddenly it didn't seem so funny. Kurt looks at the other boy, really looks at him. His eyes look dull and tired, dark smudges underneath them as if he hasn't slept in days. Kurt's eyes flick from his boyfriend to the photo on the nightstand. Looking closely he can see that the shark is leering at the camera.
"Mom put it there," Puck states, sounding uncomfortable. "Yesterday. To remind me."
"Of sharks...?"
"Of my dad." Puck hesitates, looks at his boyfriend and then away. "My dad was a sex shark. Mom met him when she was in college, spring break in Florida. There's this story about a string bikini that totally scarred me for life... She only found out she was pregnant when she got back home. Turns out it doesn't happen very often, you know. Sharks and human chicks. Usually the kids are stillborn or they die afterwards cause their lungs didn't develop right. Anyway... if the kid survives that then it's fine, gets a whole lot of visits from the tooth fairy." He laughs dryly. "It's only around puberty things start going to shit. When you can't go a week without getting some or..." Puck raises a hand and lets it drop again.
"You're half shark." It feels surreal, and Kurt isn't sure if he wants to kiss the other boy or punch him in the face. He goes for the sensible compromise and does neither, just looks at the photo again and tries to remember every documentary he ever saw during shark week. He can't remember much, just that the sex sharks literally can't survive without regular sex. The sentient sharks (the sex sharks and the nurse sharks) usually don't have a lot to do with humans. "Why didn't you tell me?"
Puck just shrugs listlessly.
"Why didn't you tell me when I said we couldn't have sex!"
Another shrug, and Puck mumbles; "Didn't want you thinking I was just after sex..."
Kurt doesn't know what to say to that. He sits there on the edge of Puck's bed, feeling simultaneously like an insecure jerk and like he wants to throttle the other boy for keeping such a dumb secret. He can only remain silent for so long. "You are such an idiot!" Kurt finds himself yelling. "Did you really think I would care that you're half-shark! Me? With everything I've been through? With everything my dad has been through? You're the biggest freaking moron I have ever met!"
"Don't hold it in, Hummel," Puck splutters, clearly surprised by the outburst.
"You're a stubborn, stupid, feckless... meathead!" Kurt slaps Puck's arm, not nearly as hard as he could. Then he surges forward and kisses the other boy full on the lips, not even caring that one of his canine teeth is currently sitting on the nightstand and a new one hasn't grown in yet. "And you agreed to go a whole month without sex just for me..."
Kurt kisses him again and it takes Puck a moment to catch on to the complete change of mood from livid to affectionate. He's kissing back even before his brain catches up, his body knows what to do even if his mind is left behind two minutes and a lot of yelling ago. His hands raise to frame Kurt's face, tongue tasting the other boy's lips. He's out of breath when the kiss ends, can only lie there as Kurt's mouth wanders down over his jaw and to his neck.
The blankets on his bed get pushed down and to the floor, and Puck starts to remember why exactly it's so incredibly awesome to have a boyfriend who happens to be half bear.
END