(Authors' note: A meeting of minds! We decided that we being awesome, and these boys being awesome, and Puck needing some love, we would give him some. Enjoy! -amy and gala)

It occurred to Kurt one morning, as he was being walked bodily toward the dumpster, that the state of construction on the east wing of the building was going to pose a whole new set of problems for him. It wasn't just going to be his wardrobe at risk anymore. He could actually see shards of ceramic and lengths of sharpened metal rebar, mere inches from his face. So this time, before Mercedes and Tina pulled him out, he got out his phone and took a picture of the contents of the dumpster.

"Don't you think I could threaten Figgins with a civil lawsuit if I'm in this kind of danger?" he demanded, showing them the photo.

Tina looked dubious. "Figgins doesn't care about anything else that's going on at this school. I think you'd have to involve your dad if you really wanted to stop anything."

That decided it for Kurt. His dad had been upset enough by one fag phone call; he wasn't going to find out what kind of reaction he'd get from him if he found out Kurt was still being thrown into trash receptacles. He was going to have to deal with this on his own.

The next time Rick and Lipoff seized him under the arms and started the long walk across the school grounds to the dumpster, Kurt was prepared. "Hold on," he said, not struggling, because he knew from experience that would just make them cackle and he'd lose their attention. "I'm sure you've noticed by now that there's some construction happening. Which means the contents of the dumpster have changed. Have you considered what implications this has for the bunch of you?"

Rick didn't pause in his mission, but Lipoff seemed uneasy. "What do you mean?"

Kurt pushed his advantage. "I'm not trying to quash your freedom of speech here, because I understand this action is a protest of sorts against people like me... but honestly, you could get into a lot of trouble if I got tetanus, or... or glass in my eye, or something." He hoped the bullshit dropping from his lips didn't smell too suspicious.

Rick didn't seem to understand what he was getting at. Kurt sighed inside his head, where it was safe. He wasn't sure how much more he could dumb this down. Maybe he should speak in caveman voice. Blood poisoning bad. Gay kid sue.

Thankfully Lipoff took care of it before he could say something that ended with a punch to the gut. "Dude, there's rebar in there. What if we chucked him and he landed on it? If it went through his chest there'd be blood everywhere. He'd like, puke blood and die."

"Huh."

Kurt could tell by Rick's expression that the hockey player had a full Saw franchise gorefest in his head, starring Kurt Hummel, dying horribly. For a moment he had a truly terrified feeling, people like Matthew Shepard coming to mind. His bloody death might not be considered a bad thing. Then Rick let go of his arm. He shoved him into the nearest car, and over the sound of the car alarm shouted, "Don't think we won't figure something out."

Kurt was well aware that they would. It was statistically impossible for him to go a single day without being harassed. He just didn't see the point of being on edge every minute. He had no Alastor Moody shouting "Constant Vigilance!" into his ear. Mr Schue blathering about eighties soft rock didn't count, even if it felt equally annoying. So when the hockey team passed him a few times in the hall between periods looking menacing as usual, he readjusted his bag and refused to whimper.

It took Rick until lunch to approach him with intent. There was a smile on his face - a fully toothed smile, though Kurt took joy in imagining him with broken teeth and a permanent concussion - as he leaned in. "Guess what the Cheerios had?"

Kurt's first thought was that they were going to make him wear the uniform to humiliate him. Except that didn't make sense because none of them would want to actually touch him to strip him, in case The Gay was catching. He discarded that idea as Lipoff steered him down the hall and outside. That sort of humiliation would have begun in the bathroom.

"Six dozen bottles of chemical hair remover," Kurt guessed, though he was loathe to plant suggestions in his head. Rick smirked.

"I can spare you the fireman's carry if you follow me outside, behind the cafeteria."

Kurt almost wanted to let him give it a try, because the Manolo Blahnik oxfords he was wearing had particularly sharp toes, and it would have been especially satisfying to dig them into Rick's kidneys. But he looked down at his Joseph Abboud blazer and sighed. A couple jabs to the Neanderthal's abdomen wouldn't be worth two hours repair work at the sewing machine. "Lead the way," he said in a monotone.

But he didn't bargain on Rick pulling out a pair of handcuffs from his pocket. When Kurt saw them, he forgot his blazer, forgot everything else except the obscured distance between the chain link fence and the school door, which would almost certainly be locked from the outside anyway. Rick grabbed him by both arms and shoved him face-first up against the links, making them ring. He used his elbows to force Kurt to stand flat, and before he knew it, Kurt's wrists were fastened securely by the cuffs to the fence above his head.

"You're never going to get away with this!" Kurt yelled, but Rick ignored him, dodging Kurt's attempts to kick him in the shins.

"Now stay there," Rick hissed into his ear. "And don't think this is some kind of negotiation, because it's not. I'll come uncuff you when I'm good and ready."

Kurt spent the first minutes of his captivity hyperventilating. He hadn't been hit, but there was still a strong comparison to be made with what had happened to Shepard, and that hadn't ended well. Dying in Lima, Ohio appeared nowhere on Kurt's list of life goals. He was too good for Lima. The idea of being stuck here, his body rotting in Ohio forever, was terrifying.

Once he'd been standing for five minutes without interference, violent or otherwise, he started to think more logically. His cellphone was out of reach in the normally accessible front pocket of his backpack. His foot was close enough to the strap that he could probably hook it and kick it closer, but with both his hands bound there was no way to get the phone out. Instinct told him to scream, but only ten percent of McKinley students would be amenable to helping him, at best. The rest would ignore him, or use the opportunity to get their own hits in. It would be safer to wait. Mercedes and Tina and Artie would notice when he didn't show up in the cafeteria. He was expected; he'd never failed to show up without a valid excuse. They would come looking for him. He just had to wait. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Stay calm, and wait it out.

There was something about being silent and stuck in one position that made it easier to think about his body. Kurt generally lived the life of the mind. Without a boyfriend to draw attention to the way things felt, Kurt tended to focus on the way his body seemed. It was the difference between using five skin care products to aim for smooth radiance, and some pretty boy rubbing his face on his thigh. Standing like this he could feel his arms get heavier, his weight shifting, minutely but constantly. And he could feel himself start to get hard.

It was a reaction that catapulted him from his newfound body awareness, straight back into his head. A running commentary rose up, a good half of which was oh my god. It was a phrase he tended not to use, his atheism not allowing for it, but he was panicking. What was wrong with him? Who got an erection when they were being bullied? The only thing that made sense was some sort of Stockholm thing, like he was the next Elizabeth Smart. Well, Kurt would put a stop to that before it grew any stronger. He wouldn't let his body betray him like this.

When Rick appeared fifteen minutes later to uncuff him, Kurt was barely thinking about what might have motivated him to show up, or anything other than don't let him notice how tight my pants are, with a healthy side of why did I wear the skinny jeans today? Luckily, Rick wasn't paying much attention to anything. He just muttered something about Kurt watching his step, and let him go free. Kurt went to the girls' restroom and stood alone in one of the stalls, rubbing his wrists for a good ten minutes before he felt safe enough and in control enough to return to class.

But his subconscious apparently hadn't gotten the memo that it wasn't okay to be turned on by teenage terrorists, because that night he woke, sticky and flushed, his dreams crystal clear in his memory. He couldn't do anything other than change his pajama pants and hope that such nonsense would be gone from his mind by morning.

Puck didn't have any desire to throw kids into the dumpster anymore, but he was aware it was still happening. He'd noticed Hummel stopping Rick and Lipoff to argue with them, and really, he had to give the guy some credit for standing up for himself. But he wouldn't have noticed Kurt being handcuffed to the fence if he hadn't followed Rick out there that first time.

At first, he thought he'd have to storm the cafeteria to confront the assholes in front of the whole school, but one little handcuff key was easy to lose. So he ended up standing there in the shadow of the smelly kitchen dumpster, watching Kurt for a few minutes. Part of him found it funny, the way Kurt was just dangling there from his wrists, looking helpless. But mostly he thought it was a dick move on Rick and Lipoff's part. At least when it came to the dumpster, Kurt always had a chance of being able to get out on his own. What the fuck's he supposed to do now? he wondered in annoyance. Rick didn't always think this shit through.

But even after he left to go find Rick and kick his ass a little, even after Kurt had been disconnected from the chain link and was safely in Glee, the idea stayed with him. He thought it must have bothered him more than he'd realized - until he was in the middle of making out with Penny Rogers, and the image of Kurt's wrists cuffed to the fence appeared in his mind, and suddenly he was Finn Hudson thinking about the mailman. He had to call a time out to get himself back together. What the fuck?

The next day Puck went back to the fence to see if Kurt was there again. He was, though Lipoff had cuffed him face-forward this time, both hands linked through one chain segment, above his head. Puck went back and forth between the school and the kitchen dumpster three times before gritting his teeth and making himself walk away. This wasn't his fight; Rick and Lipoff were way beyond his ability to control. The best he could do was try to get them in trouble, and, failing that, make sure Kurt got out okay. He considered telling Finn, because Finn had more social capital than he did when it came to school officials, but things between him and Finn continued to be awkward and strained since he found out about Quinn and the baby.

And there was this added layer of weird, the one in which Puck saw Kurt Hummel suspended by handcuffs from the chain link fence and ended up needing to find a quiet corner in which to beat off. There wasn't anything that would make him tell Finn about that.

Kurt was there the next day, too, and Puck decided sitting in the shadow of the garbage dumpster and considering what to do was getting old, and not a little stalkery. He went up to Kurt and said, "Hey."

Kurt's eyes widened, his face going immediately crimson. For several seconds he said nothing, and Puck almost smiled.

"You here to laugh at me too?" Kurt finally asked.

"I'm not going to do anything like that," Puck promised. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay. Like, your wrists. Your skin's kind of soft." What the fuck did he mean by that? That was about the douchiest of douchebag things to say. He sighed and went on. "I'll go make Rick cut you down as soon as they're done with lunch."

Kurt looked suspicious. "Why would you do that?"

"Because I've been doing it for the last three days. You think Rick's been uncuffing you out of the goodness of his very small heart?" He tried not to look directly at the cuffs, but he got close enough to reach out and touch Kurt. Which he did, just a hand on his shoulder, which he thought would be kind of innocent, right? But that wasn't the way Kurt was looking at him. Or, if he had to be honest, was probably the way he was looking at Kurt either. He took his hand away. "So, I should go get him now."

"Yeah," whispered Kurt. "That would be... thank you."

Puck frowned, watching the way Kurt was straining to get his wrists down, not wanting them to dangle and chafe, but making an effort to hold his arms like that must be wearing on him. Not that Kurt didn't have strong arm muscles. Not that Puck would have noticed whether or not he did.

"You look kind of uncomfortable, is all."

"You think?" snapped Kurt. But he wasn't looking at Puck, and whatever he was focusing on wasn't really working very well, because he was breathing a little hard, and Puck thought his chin might be wobbling a little behind that determined expression. Puck wasn't going to touch Kurt again, but he absolutely hated the prospect of walking away and leaving him alone like this.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. "Who could I text?"

"What?"

"Who. Who'd be the best one to find you like this? I can't tell Finn; he'd go apeshit. So, tell me - Mercedes, Tina, Mr. Schue? Who?"

Kurt was staring right at him now. "I have no idea. Nobody. I don't want anybody to - see me like this."

Puck sighed again. "All right. I'm gonna - just hang on. I mean, I'll be right back, okay?"

He didn't like it, didn't like it at all, but it was better than humiliating Kurt further. Puck took off, jogging around to the side door and letting himself back into the building near the office. Lipoff was the first one he found, standing beside the water fountain with two other hockey players.

"The key," he said. "You got one?"

Lipoff ignored him, until Puck turned on the fountain and leaned on it hard with one thumb, spraying him in the crotch. "What the fuck, Puckerman?" he screeched.

"The key," he repeated insistently. "Give it to me."

The other guys laughed hard enough that they couldn't ask questions, at least, and Lipoff scowled as he dug into his pocket and came up with a small silver key. "I need it back."

"Yeah, well, we can have that conversation when you've changed your jeans," he said. "They sell adult diapers for that problem, you know."

He took the shortcut through the cafeteria and let the door swing shut behind him as he emerged in the yard behind the kitchen. Kurt was, of course, still there.

Puck didn't know when it had happened that Kurt had gotten tall enough that reaching above his head was a stretch for him, but he could barely touch the cuffs with the tips of his fingers. "Fucking Rick the fucking Stick," he muttered, lodging a toe of his boot in the first row of diamonds in the fence and hauling himself up above Kurt's head. Kurt turned his head away from Puck's abs right in his face. He managed to unlock it on the third try, and jumped down, watching Kurt massage his wrists. "Lemme see those."

"I'm fine," Kurt insisted, but Puck grabbed his hands anyway, turning them over to examine the red marks on the heels of his hands. They weren't bleeding, but he guessed they weren't super happy either.

And then he got a look at the crotch of Kurt's tight jeans, and he wondered if he should rethink that assumption. Because... dude. If it were Finn or Matt or one of the other guys, he could make a joke about the size of the meat he was packing, but somehow with Kurt that felt completely the wrong thing to say.

Kurt hadn't missed his glance. He closed his eyes, cradling his wrists to his chest. "Don't - just don't tell Rick about this. Please? I don't think I could handle him having one more piece of ammunition against me."

"What, you mean your boner? Is it the cuffs?" Puck squinted into the sun, looking above them at the links of the fence. "Never would have expected you to be into bondage, Hummel."

"Yeah, well." Kurt sounded weary. "That makes two of us, so."

Puck reached out and took the cuffs from Kurt's loose grasp, considering them. "I've got the key now," he pointed out.

"Yeah. That was really nice of you. Thank you." Kurt crossed his arms and tucked his hands around his ribs, looking defeated. It made Puck a little annoyed to see him that way, because Kurt was a fighter, not a giver-upper.

"And the cuffs." Puck dangled them from a finger, grinning. "Maybe we should grab them and lock them to a fence. See how they like it."

Kurt laughed, shaking his head. "I'm sure I couldn't. But it's a nice thought."

"Or you could take them home. Use them, you know. Yourself."

He watched Kurt's face move from startled to shocked to completely overwhelmed in the space of a few seconds. That look was good on him, actually, pupils blown and mouth hanging open.

"Um. No. Thanks," he managed to stammer out. "I can't anyway. If those troglodytes don't get the cuffs back they'll do something worse."

Puck watched Kurt stalk off. It was kind of insane, how he could see his attitude slot back into place, like armor attaching piece by piece. No doubt by the time he was inside he would be the bitchy queen all of Glee loved and adored. But Puck didn't have time to follow and watch that happen. He needed to come up with a plan. Kurt was right. He was going to have to give Rick something to do, otherwise he'd go back to the dumpster stand-by, and Puck had spent his biology period watching them jackhammer the walkway. Kurt would probably bruise up pretty badly if he was thrown on top of chunks of concrete.

By the end of the day, Puck was pretty pleased with himself. He'd talked up bodychecking in the NHL, so Rick would likely imagine himself a Sidney Crosby and return to shoving Kurt. But better still, when Mercedes and Santana were doing some bad ass bitch song in Glee and Kurt was watching like it was better than porn, Puck managed to get the cuffs and the key into a pocket of his messenger bag.

Kurt was undoubtedly the kind of girly-dude that switched his purse every day. When he did that thing that Puck's mom did, the upending and shaking out ten thousand things to transfer them thing, he'd see the cuffs, and then it'd be up to him if he used them. Puck didn't have a personal stake in the matter. It wasn't like he cared if Hummel got off. It was just an easier problem to solve than Finn's hilarious quick-draw issue, and Puck liked feeling like a problem solver.

When he woke up in the middle of the night, he reached immediately for his phone to see what time it was. Calling Kurt at 1:45 am to check on him might be a stupid idea, but it was hard for Puck to feel rational about any of this, anyway. He settled on sending a text. So how'd you like them? He didn't expect to get a response, but it still took him a while to settle down enough to get back to sleep.

Most days, Kurt went to his dad's garage to study. It was easier to focus in an environment that didn't contain every piece of media he'd rather be consuming. On the agenda today was American history and geometry. He'd claimed the wobbly work table in the back office, and dumped the entire contents of his bag out before sorting through the detritus, his notes and extra pens and the cuffs and -

Wait a minute.

Kurt almost didn't want to touch them, but the chances of his dad walking back into the room and seeing them there were quite high, and he really didn't want to have that conversation with him. He ended up taking his pen and sliding it through one of the loops, dangling it gingerly, like a dead rat, over his deflated bag.

Then he gave himself a stern shake and reached out with the other hand, grasping them firmly. They're just a tool, he told himself. This has nothing to do with your long-standing uniform fetish. He crammed them into his back pocket and tried to forget about them while he opened his geometry textbook.

This was easier said than done. The afternoon drama with Puck at the chain-link fence kept coming back to poke at him, completely unbidden. Interior angles of polygons, and poke, Puck's hand on his shoulder. Circle area by sectors, and poke, Puck leaning against him as he climbed the fence to uncuff him. Congruent shapes, and poke, Puck staring at his goddamn crotch. He stopped, resting his head in one hand.

"Everything okay, buddy?" his dad asked, making him jump. He gave him a wan smile.

"It's been kind of a long day," he replied. "I think I might head home early tonight."

The cuffs pressed against his ass as he walked the five and a half blocks back to the house, and by the time he got home, he had a very clear picture in his mind of exactly what he wouldn't be doing with them. Because it would be completely unsafe, for one thing, doing anything like that alone in the house, and because it was absurd to think that it might really turn out to be enjoyable. Not that his persistent hard-on was any indication of that.

Kurt dropped his bag next to his bed and stood in the center of his room, closing his eyes and trying to chase away the plan that had emerged as he'd walked. No. He wasn't going to. There was absolutely no way. He shed his clothes and hung them up, determined not to check the stability of the closet rod, and slipped the cuffs out of his pants and into his robe without looking at them.

Then he freaked out that maybe he'd lost the key, and spent thirty frantic seconds scrambling in the pockets of his bag before he had it again, during which time he gave up anything that looked like sensibility. He wondered, while he brushed his teeth, if it might be better to start by searching the Internet for articles about the sanity of self-bondage or the psychological stability of those who might get hard thinking about it.

Finally, he sat on the edge of his bed, holding the cuffs in both hands, making himself look at them, trying desperately to reconcile his vision of himself as a liberated supporter of equal rights with this new piece of information about what really turned him on. Because he had to admit, it really, really did, maybe more than anything ever had. For a moment, he had a glimpse of what other guys dealt with at school, surrounded by stimulus for their own kinks all the time, and he heaved a sympathetic sigh.

He curled the metal around his left wrist until it latched. If he was going to do this, better to have his dominant hand free. The second cuff fit easily around the rod. When he moved forward a few steps to really stretch his arm the metal skittered on metal. The noise sent a sharp jolt to his crotch. This was such a bad idea. The key was safe in his robe pocket, and no one would ever have to know, and this was still a bad idea, but here he was, giving in. Just because Puck had suggested it - and when had he ever looked to Puck for ideas about sex?

Kurt shook his head. He was allowed to be the stupid one if no one was watching. As long as it didn't become a school wide debacle, it was okay. He ran the fingers of his free hand over his hip once, twice. Enough to wake up his skin, and then he curled his hand around his cock and stroked.

Kurt normally masturbated with lubricant. After all, he gave his skin every other liquid it needed in any given situation. That wasn't possible now, he didn't have enough hands, but his dick wasn't complaining about the rougher sensation. And above it all was his trapped wrist. At least half his attention was caught on the warmth of his raised arm, and the way his elbow was strained. He didn't have the knowledge of anatomy to explain it, it just felt so straight that it nearly bent inwards.

He barely needed to touch himself at all. The warmth travelled down his arm and into his shoulder as it spread up from his cock and he bit his lip, not caring if it would leave a mark. He came, not bothering to muffle his groan. No reason for it, not with dad and Carole at work, and Finn at basketball practice. That's when his knees buckled, and Kurt realised two things in quick succession. Yes, he was acquainted with getting off standing up, but masturbation in the shower allowed for leaning against tile until he regained mastery of his limbs. No such support was available in the middle of his room. Also, his arm didn't stop being attached to the closet rod above his head just because his centre of gravity was suddenly somewhere near the floor. It took all his willpower to spring back to his feet before the dead weight of his body dangling from the closet rod ripped his arm out of its socket.

Later, manically scrubbing the floor, he considered the event. Technically it was a success. There had been no embarrassing emergency intervention by the fire department, and he had climaxed. It was safe to say bondage was a thing he liked, without any unfortunate implications about being turned on by bullying. Still, Kurt wasn't settled. Now, not only did he need to find a mythical second gay man in Lima, he needed to hope said man liked tying others up. It was more than depressing, it was statistically impossible. He went to bed on the verge of angry tears.

When he woke up in the morning and saw the text from Puck, he shoved his phone into his pocket and ignored it as successfully as he had the cuffs the night before. Puck was just going to have to get used to disappointment.

Puck was impatient by the time he got to school the next day. Impatient with not knowing how Kurt's night had gone, and confused-leaning-to-pissed-off about why the absence of texts made him impatient. He didn't even listen to what Jacob ben Israel asked, he just shoved him into the trophy display. Little asshole never had anything good to say anyway.

He wasn't stalking the halls waiting for Kurt. He wasn't, because that would be weird, and gay, and that wasn't who Puckasaurus was. He was just... taking the lay of the land. A man had to be aware of his surroundings, right?

Then the boy in question came walking in, stupidly expensive outfit unmarked. So at least he hadn't been dumpstered yet, which was important. Because Puck had Glee's backs, not because he cared about Kurt's stupid hundred dollar shirt with freakin' rhinestones.

Any question of whether Kurt had done anything involving the cuffs flew out the window when Puck registered him leaning against the wall decked out in Cheerios posters, blushing. On a guy that pale, it was brighter than a cop's flashing lights. Puck wondered for a second how far the blush went down his chest, then stomped on the thought viciously and turned slightly to look at Santana's thighs. They weren't flushed at all, but they were still hot and he was still hard. It was fine.

He minded his own damn business all day. Didn't even walk the hall. Mike and Matt and Finn could punch someone in the face if the need arose. And then it was Glee, and the same words he'd typed out last night were sliding out of his mouth in an undertone, quiet enough that Schue could still talk about songs with the word "hello" in them and think he had the room's undivided attention. Man was a little delusional sometimes.

"So, how'd you like them?"

Kurt kept his eyes fixed on the piano. "Wrong time, wrong place, Puckerman."

He shuffled his feet on the linoleum. "Dude, I'm not scheduling a lunch to talk about this. Just tell me."

"It worked. It's...a thing that works for me."

That wasn't enough detail for Puck, but he didn't really want to think about why he wanted more detail, and sure as shit if he asked for more Hummel would want to know why. So he just said, "So, all good then."

"Well, until the end." With a smirk and a roll of the eyes Kurt added, "I nearly wrenched my arm."

That made sense. Puck had come close to falling over in the shower before. Attaching yourself to something and then losing the stability of your legs would hurt like a bitch. Before he thought about it, he said, "I could spot you?"

Kurt's eyebrows - plucked like a girl's, and shaped better than half the Cheerios - raised so high they almost left his face. "Excuse me?"

"Kurt?" Mr. Schue paused, with an inquiring look. "Do you... have something to add?"

"Excuse me, I was just trying to wrap my brain around something." His face was closed and his demeanor serene. Nothing of what he'd been showing Puck that morning, with his three-alarm blush, was in evidence now. Puck suddenly found himself wanting to do whatever it took to get Kurt to lose his cool. But he waited until the end of Glee to approach him again, this time by his car.

"I just don't like the idea of you hurting yourself doing something awesome," said Puck. He tried leaning against the Navigator, but moved away again when he caught Kurt's expression. You're clear about how you feel about scratching the paint on your car, but not about how you like to get off? He couldn't help but thinking this was kind of sad.

Kurt picked at the buckle on his messenger bag. "You... think that's awesome?"

"I'm in favor of things that feel good." Which wasn't really an answer, but maybe he wasn't quite ready to give one yet. "And, if you didn't notice, I woke up in the middle of the night wondering how you were doing. I guess if I'm going to be doing that, I might as well be... right there with you. While you're doing it." And fuck, he wasn't thinking about that.

They stood there for a few moments, breathing in unison, before Kurt cleared his throat. "You want to do that. For me?"

Puck tried not to glower at him. "What do you want, an engraved invitation?"

Kurt had no such compunction. He glared right back. "I want some kind of assurance that this is not a practical joke, or a gag of any kind, or some way to humiliate me."

"Well, it's not," snapped Puck.

"Fine," Kurt snapped back.

Puck was about to continue the snapping when he paused. "You... fine, as in you understand that I'm not trying to humiliate you, or fine, as in...?"

Kurt sighed, squeezing his forehead between two fingers. "Fine. Yes. God, I can't believe this. I'm saying yes."

And now Puck had to scramble for words to reply, because Kurt was opening the door to his Navigator and climbing in and closing it again, and maybe he didn't actually want to do this because he was having trouble with that breathing in and out thing, and didn't you need to keep doing that when you were putting handcuffs on someone?

Kurt knocked on the window, gesturing with his head: Get in.

They'd already driven three blocks before Puck realized he'd left his truck at school. "Um," he began, but Kurt cut him off.

"You're going to have to excuse me if I'm a little nervous. I've never - I mean, ever. With anybody else. I even turn my stuffed animals around to face the wall. So this might not actually work at all with you there." He hunched forward in his seat and gripped the steering wheel more firmly. "And I'm also warning you that I might freak out and tell you to leave."

"That's cool," Puck shrugged. "You don't know how you're gonna react. I'm not interested in freaking you out."

Kurt nodded slowly, breathing out. "Okay. Not freaking out. Just... this. It's hard to accept."

Puck wasn't sure he could coach Kurt through that one, considering he was still feeling a lot of that himself, but he nodded. "Hey, you know, athletes have spotters, too. It's a safety thing. And all this stuff, I've done it before, so you don't need to worry."

Kurt gave him a strange look. "You've arranged opportunities to assist other boys with bondage."

"Not - exactly, but... you're going to have to reach pretty far to find something I haven't tried at least once." Puck wasn't going to get detailed unless Kurt asked for it, but between cougars and Cheerios, he'd had plenty of willing test subjects for those times when he'd said, Hey, have you ever...? "But, okay, it's all been with girls."

"Believe it or not, boys have wrists to put in handcuffs too."

Puck rolled his eyes, but the words made him feel a bit better. Snarky Kurt he knew how to deal with better than a possibly traumatised Kurt. "I'm not saying it's all that different, I'm just..." He paused, thinking it through. Huh. Maybe it wasn't all that different? He shrugged. "I'm not here to criticise your technique or anything."

"One time doesn't a technique make. I'd take suggestions. Probably. We're nearly here. Leave your shoes at the door."

"Then... turn left, or...?"

Kurt rolled into the driveway and gestured to the garage door, opening in front of them. "Private entrance."

Puck wanted to roll his eyes again, because even Berry didn't have a private entrance, and she was queen diva. But if Kurt saw him doing that in his peripheral vision, or in the rear view mirror, he'd get all sensitive, and Puck had a feeling Kurt was the sort of person for which a one-step-forward, two-steps-back interaction would not be acceptable.

He followed Kurt through the door into the basement room, decorated in pale grey and muted tones, and watched while he unlaced his boots. Puck heeled off his own and left them by the door, peering around in curiosity. "Kinda pictured you for a little more color in your bedroom."

Kurt's nose tilted up ten degrees. "Not everyone can pull off Dior Grey."

He was as cool and collected as Puck had ever seen him. But Puck was starting to understand that wasn't really what was going on inside Kurt, when he got like that. Once again, he resisted the urge to try to get past that veneer of confidence.

"So I don't see a lot of exposed pipes, or a four poster bed. How'd you do it last night?"

Kurt hesitated only a moment before going to the corner and opening the closet door. He gripped the rod with one hand. "Here," he said, his voice low.

He had to give the guy credit for creativity. If he was trying for the whole suspension experience, this was a good way to get it. Puck took off his letterman jacket and tossed it on Kurt's dressing table. "Where'd you keep the cuffs?"

Kurt fished out one of the bottom pillows from the ridiculous stack on his bed, shoving his arm down inside the pillowcase. "My dad never comes in, but. I wanted -"

"Parents should be separate from the sex life. No teenager would say anything else, dude."

Kurt's hand snuck up to cover his mouth, hunching in on himself as he started to pace. "I - okay, this is - I've never had a sex life before, Puck, and I'm not exactly sure how this works. I mean, I have all these clothes on." He shook his head in desperate confusion. "And you're here, and - I really have no idea what I'm doing -"

Puck had had plenty of experience talking girls down from their freak-outs, but the easiest way to get one of them to shut up was to kiss them. It wasn't any different here. Kurt's mouth was just as soft and pliant as any girl's, and the way he responded to Puck's light pressure and hint of tongue felt familiar. None of that explained why Puck was suddenly rock-hard and guiding Kurt toward the bed. He made himself let go, and tried his best calm smile in response to Kurt's thunderstruck expression.

"Calm down, dude." Puck said it half for Kurt, half for himself. First guy kiss and all, things would fall to shit if he didn't listen to his own advice. "I'm going to sit on your bed, and I dunno, see if I can figure out why you need ten million pillows. You put your handcuffs on and jerk off. And if you fall, I'll catch you so you don't rip a tricep. Everything's cool if everyone's calm."

That last part was definitely for himself, and he repeated it to himself several times as he watched Kurt take off each piece of clothing. He kept his hands firmly on the bed as it became increasingly evident that a naked Kurt was wholly unlike a naked Any Other Guy Puck had ever seen. Not that he'd ever had the opportunity to really stare at another naked guy before, but he was pretty sure none of them had skin that looked like that, or that kind of an ass, or moved the way Kurt did. He was kind of glad he didn't have any kind of a speaking part in this play, because he'd definitely be ad libbing all kinds of embarrassing comments about Kurt's body, and no, that wasn't gay at all.

Kurt picked up the cuffs from the side table, leaving the key there while he fastened them around his left wrist, then moved slowly toward the closet, reaching up to hook the other end to the rod. Puck was sure he'd be able to close his eyes after this in any circumstance, ever, and identify the sound of metal cuffs on metal. But for now, he was going to stay right here, with his eyes open, because he was here for Kurt, to keep him safe. It didn't matter that this was feeling more complicated with every moment he sat there on Kurt's bed. He was going to stick with the simple explanation, because that was what he had. He reached out and picked up the key, feeling its solidity and sharp edges in his palm.

Kurt's hand was on his own ribcage, just his fingertips lightly gliding over them. It was the kind of thing that shouldn't be hot. No director would ever bother to put it in a porno. But the touch made Kurt flush, his face and neck and down to his collarbones, and it was seriously a pleasure-kick straight to the balls. Puck bit down on the insides of his cheeks, and didn't move otherwise. Even if he wanted to do something, like unhook his own belt buckle, this wasn't about him. His job was to be a good bro and spot for potential injuries.

And then Kurt's hand moved lower, wrapping around the base of his cock and beginning a slow, steady rhythm. Puck looked at the union for a second, Kurt's hand on Kurt's cock, then moved his gaze back up. Kurt didn't jerk off like he did; there was a complete lack of thumb on the slit of his dick. But that really, really wasn't any of Puck's business.

"Could you not look me directly in the eye while we do this?" Kurt's voice was hoarse. "It's disturbing."

Fuckin' Hummel. It wasn't like there were a hundred different things to look at, and if he didn't want to be supergay and stare at Kurt's dick, well, his pretty girly face would have to do. Feeling absurdly defiant he kept looking at Kurt's face. It was how he caught the bite of lip a few minutes later. Instinctually, before he could explain to himself why, Puck was on his feet, rushing forward. And good thing too, because Kurt's knees buckled and it was only Puck holding him with a hand on either side of his stomach that kept him from dangling all his weight on his bound wrist.

"I've got you," he said, as quietly as he could, so as not to interrupt the moment. Nothing worse than being stopped in the middle of everything, but as far as Puck could tell, Kurt was done. He gave one little gasp and threw his uncuffed arm around Puck's neck, his entire body shuddering before it went still and slack against him.

One thing that absolutely had not occurred to Puck before that exact moment was to wonder what guys smelled like when they came. It was definitely on his mind now, though, as Kurt's sticky hand fluttered in the air inches from his face. He wasn't exactly bothered by it, but it was strong, and completely unexpected. Another thing I'm not going to be able to forget about this whole experience. He reeled a little, trying to stay steady on his feet. It wouldn't do at all for the spotter to go down.

He wrangled the key from his palm to his fingertips, then reached up to unlock the cuffs from the closet rod. As soon as Kurt's arm was free, it came up to join the first around Puck's neck, clinging tightly. Puck didn't worry too much about what parts were pressing up against him, or the hand that brushed against Kurt's bare ass as he helped him stumble toward the bed.

"Come on. That's it - on the bed." Puck had to give him a little lift, half like a push and half like a scoop, to get him onto the mountain of pillows. Then he realized he should have pulled the covers down beforehand, but really, lying in Kurt Hummel's bed with the covers at the foot implied a whole different set of expectations than lying on top of it. He managed to lift Kurt off the bed, still not thinking too hard about what he was grabbing while he did it, far enough to get the covers over his feet. Kurt closed his eyes and let out a long, shaky sigh.

Whatever instincts were telling Puck to stroke his hair away from his forehead and kiss his neck were completely off-base. He needed a minute to clear his head. "How about I get you a glass of water?" he said, standing and backing away from the bed. "Kitchen's upstairs?" He fled the room before Kurt could even give him an answer.

Puck was relieved to find the upstairs empty, because he really wasn't ready to answer the kind of observations that might come up at this moment. Questions like, hey, Puck, where'd that white stain on your thigh come from? Or, dude, why are you looking so freaked out? Or especially, you're hard enough to cut glass, who's the chick? Because the chick was currently lying in Kurt Hummel's bed downstairs. Which maybe was where he'd like to be just then, but there wasn't any provision in their agreement for cuddling. Too bad for Kurt, because Puck was damn good at it.

He found an empty glass tumbler in the cupboard and poured himself a glass of water, drinking the whole thing down before refilling it for Kurt. He was pretty sure Kurt wouldn't mind his mouth being on it, considering his mouth had just been - on Kurt.

Then he had to pull out a kitchen chair and sit down for a few minutes while he worked hard on not hyperventilating. First guy kiss was feeling like a whole lot bigger deal than he'd anticipated, especially following the witnessing of said guy getting off. The handcuffs were nothing by comparison. If it had been anyone other than Kurt down there in that bed, Puck might have considered heading quietly out the front door and hoofing it back to McKinley to pick up his truck.

But it was Kurt down there, and Kurt wasn't in any goddamn shape to come upstairs to get his own water. Hell, he probably couldn't lift his arms up high enough to reach the glasses. Puck stood up again, taking the water in one hand, and made his way down the staircase back to the bed where Kurt was waiting for him.

The room was quiet, and darker now that his eyes had adjusted to the light of the ordinary upstairs. This was Kurt's private sanctuary, and he could feel the responsibility Kurt had placed on him - not like a weight, but definitely something delicate and important and valuable. "Kurt?" he called quietly. But Kurt didn't respond. When Puck got back to the bed, he realized why.

Puck had been taking care of his little sister since she was a baby. It didn't feel so different, here, to brush Kurt's hair off his face, and pull the covers up closer to his chin, gently lifting his arms to tuck under the blanket. Kurt didn't wake, but he stirred a little, making small, peaceful noises under his breath. They dug in under Puck's skin, giving him a pleasant itchy sensation.

He figured Kurt wouldn't really want to leave the cuffs attached to the closet rod, so he unhooked them and stashed them deep inside the same pillowcase Kurt had shown him when he'd arrived. The key he placed in the drawer in the table next to his bed. He didn't spend any time dwelling on the diary or the bottle of lube he found in the same drawer, and he closed it quickly.

Puck considered the pros and cons of waiting for Kurt to wake up, and decided that until he'd personally been introduced to Kurt's dad, it would be better for him not to be found there accidentally. It was pretty impossible for Kurt to not be out to his dad, but there was a world of difference between that and meeting a significant other. Not that he was. This hadn't been a date. This had been him helping Kurt out, because Kurt so obviously needed help, and Puck was the guy that stepped up when others couldn't get the job done.

And if he was maybe going to text and see if Chelsea from the Cheerios wanted to use those pink fur covered cuffs tonight, well, it had fuck all to do with dating Kurt Hummel.

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Late night
Step on the carousel
And spend all night
Spinning round and round

Hold tight
And no don't you let go
Until daylight
Pours through your window
I long for the smell of your hair,
The smell of your hair

And all this time
In a hiding place, in a hiding place
All our lives, with a melody all our own
All this time
Yeah we might as well, we might as well
Close our eyes, singing a melody all our own

Sometimes
We talk on the telephone
Running dry
The conversation slows
Red lights
And plans not set in stone
Well I'm up all night
Until you get home
I long for the smell of your hair,
The smell of your hair

And all this time
In a hiding place, in a hiding place
All our lives, singing a melody all our own
All this time
Yeah we might as well, we might as well
Close our eyes, singing a melody all our own

And all this time
In a hiding place, in a hiding place
All our lives, singing a melody all our own
All this time
Yeah we might as well, we might as well
Close our eyes, singing a melody all our own

- Morning Parade, "Carousel"