A/N: Apologies for the delay. For the muse, but she knows this already. I don't own Glee.

Kurt's Closet

dark, dark, dark.

sleep deprivation.

light.

more light.

more sleep deprivation.

Maybe it was all in his head.

The blue light peeking between the hinges on the closet door was significantly more blue than anything Kurt Hummel had ever seen before.

What they were not seeing was each other. As usual. Since they were in a closet again. And the light only came through a very, very narrow slot, that provided no other illumination whatsoever.

This time though, at least it was a decent-sized closet; Kurt's, actually. It was a Very Large Closet (Kurt had begun ranking closets according to size, Puck and him were in them so often). It fit them both with their legs outstretched, their shoes just barely touching. It was a very large, full closet. The clothes that hung down got in the way, ruffled up Kurt's hair, would have ruffled up Puck's if he'd had any besides the strip in the middle.

"So," Puck said, turning away to stare at the blue light. Kurt pressed a hand to his forehead and stroked his temples, warm fingers contrasting against the faintly cool haze that floated somewhere in front of his eyes. Sleep. Fatigue. Sleep deprivation. Hazy. Yep. Hazy.

"I guess I'm supposed...to talk?"

"Yes," Kurt said, quietly, and pressed his back against the wooden surface of the closet wall. His clothing hung above the two of them, the vests and the shirts and the scarfs with their beautiful, designer brands; Dolce and Gabbana, and oh, he even admitted to owning some of the shirts that Klein designed. Yes, it shrieked gay, but it was comrfortable, dammit.

"According to the therapist, you have a high chance of going on a further bullying rampage, and it is in my best interests to get you out of it, since I'm going to be the one in the way."

Puck sighed and scratched his head. "...The 'professional' therapy you managed to get me out of by saying you'd counsel me, sure," Puck said. "And how much fun have you been having? First you get...me...and then you get my axe-crazy mom."

"And then I get your cute little sister," Kurt countered, and ran one hand through his hair, his elbow brushing against the nice, tight, mildly-patterned shirts (micro-stripes, barely even visible, but providing good texture to contrast a scarf with thick width-wise stripes.) The leather pants, oh, he almost gasped at the sheer awesomeness of the tight leather pants. though he had to admit that they fit like they were painted on, but weren't nearly as easy to get on in the first place. "And your cute little sister tells me a secret and I think I'm gaining progress."

"Yeah," Puck said, and scowled. "Don't trust my sister."

"What," Kurt said, "That she said that you said I was pretty, that I was smart, that I was gorgeous beyond belief and you only wanted to take me? ...Hard?" He clapped a hand over his mouth, his eyes mockingly wide and shocked, and slowly lowered his hand, licking his lips (and his hand) in the process. Puck's legs tensed, from what little he could see in the dim light.

Puck slowly turned purple (red, he supposed, had the closet not been excessively blue), the heat in the closet rising another notch. Kurt's lips quirked upward. "Oh, yes, like I'd protest that."

Puck coughed and grew even purpler. "Which...part?"

"Oh, of course the handsome, good looking, et cetera et cetera part." Kurt flapped his hands, making sure to make use of as much of the wrist-bending as possible. Making a point, making a point. "...What other parts were there in there?"

"None," Puck said firmly. "Yep. None at all. Just that one. Yep."

"Oh?" Kurt said, leaning forward and tapping his nose. "So you really do think I'm pretty?"

"Er," Puck said, pressing his back into the wall, looking cornered. "No comment."

Kurt grinned.

Then leaned forward, tucking his knees under him and pulling up into Puck's personal space. He ran his hands up Puck's legs, very gently, and moved forward until he was practically kneeling on Puck's lap.

"How about from this distance?" Kurt said, his breath falling gently on Puck's shoulder. Moments later, he stuck his head onto Puck's shoulder and nuzzled into it. Yes, that skin was truly soft. And quite muscular, they lay underneath the skin. And Kurt just knew that if Puck so much as flashed his guns at Kurt, every piece of resistance he had as a last-ditch defense against jumping Puck was going to make a leap for the side of the moon. Which made no sense. Guhhh...he hated sleep deprivation.

And yet. And yet it was absolutely the best thing to have done, in order to keep the dragon - sorry, Mrs. Puckerman - from going all berserk and "What happens when you parade a man in clashing colors in front of fashion critics or anyone with real taste - " otherwise known as a RAGING FURY OF DOOM AND DEATH.The point was, it was a big she-bang as his father would put it and it hurt.

Somehow, along the way, Puck had had a thought, one goal that he had to achieve. That point had vanished. Oh, well, he could always focus on the other boy in the closet, Kurt, with his smoking pale blue shoulderblade, exposed under his nose and his lips and tongue and that curiously weak sleeve, and just give a little bit of touching time - he was sure that Kurt was suffering exactly the same amount of sleep deprivation as he was, unless Kurt somehow slept less due to all the busy-beavering he had to do to get his 'fashion' - his 'look' up, in the morning. He'd slept with girls into the same fashion as Kurt, so he knew exsactly how long they took to do makeup, co-ordinate outfit, and all of that other silly things - note, junk.

Mm.

Kurt smelt good. Kurt tasted good. Man, it was like being drunk except without all the throwing up at the end. That was, fucking epic and amazing. With more epic. And more amazing. And MORE EPIC AND MORE AMAZING AND MORE EPIIIIIIIICCCCCCC AND MORE AMAAAAAAZING, and after that it just got illegible to think about.

He'd fucked a girl once when he was feeling sleep deprived. Man, that was so fucked up he really, really needed to try it again. Orgasm time was one of the most fucking times...he wondered if Kurt, when he took him from behind hard...yes, he was thinking about the possibility now, would be just as deprived and have an equally tripped out experience.

Hell, now that he was feeling fine about kissing him fi-mmph. Mmph.

Mmphhhhhmm...

Someone should really have told him that apparently Kurt Hummel was an AMAZING kisser. Better than Santana, even, even though Kurt didn't own a pair of amazing, firm tits.

Right. Sleep deprivation. He should probably get some sleep after Kurt and him duked out their last remaining issues.

Wait, Kurt was talking?

And, oh, crap it was cold.

"I'm not sure we could do anything right now," Kurt said. "And you're lucky we're in my room instead of Finn's, because if Finn saw us in the closet, you know what he'd say."

"I know what he wouldn't say," Puck said, and ground his fist against his hand.

Kurt rolled his eyes. "You're so predictable. But fine, what he wouldn't say. We can't talk out our issues tonight, though, since you were so kind as to sneak back into my house past midnight and I haven't slept yet because you refuse to talk and you refuse to let me sleep!"

Puck cast his gaze downward, at the ground where their sneakers were touching, and then looked back up.

"I needed some time away from my mom. And some company. And I don't know, I just don't talk that much."

"Aaaah!" Kurt whispered, and smashed the back of his head quietly against the closet wall. He shook his head frantically.

"Fine, then we're just going to talk about the first things that come into our heads, no matter how completely out of the blue it sounds."

"You're just as trippy as I am?"

"Normally I wouldn't put it this way, since I am a terribly formal person, all the better to keep distance from people, but yes, I am very trippy."

"Distance?" Puck asked. "Why would you want to have distance?"

"Distance is both figurative and literal. Why would I want to get close to a jock when they'd push me into a locker or slushie me? And the same thing applies to getting close to any jock any other way."

"...Oh," Puck said, scratching his head. "I hadn't realized that it had gotten so bad."

Kurt rolled off Puck slowly, shuffling backward until his back hit the wall on the opposite side. In the dim but brightening light, Puck looked at him. He looked back. They both cast their gazes to the floor nearly simultaneously.

Kurt turned slowly to watch the blue light coming through the door. The blue had slowly began to lighten, until it was more of a kind of teal, a teal that turned everything teal with it. The starting calls of the birds outside, the cries, their songs, began to twitter. One of the neighbours' dog began to bark.

"This is all within a dream," Puck said, holding his hands to his forehead. "A dream within a dream within a dream within a dream within a dream within a dream within a-"

"Pfff," Kurt said. The haze of incomprehensibility took him, the sleepiness rushing to his head.

The conversation degenerated from there.

"I hold forth on great authority that Miss Rachel Berry is a turd meant to be crushed under my overwhelmingly powerful heel."

"You mean like that football kick? Dude, how did you ever manage to do that?"

"Practice in kicking balls, Puck."

"...Oof."

"Balls are spheres which are stars in the firmament of the existing universe."

"You sound like Sam."

"I don't look like him, do I? Tatertots forbid, as Mercedes would say. His hair is so amazingly dyed - who has that shade of blonde hair normally anyway? No one, that's who."

"So you're saying," Puck said with spaces between words, his head starting a hang low, "That you're critical of Sam Evans because you think he's attractive."

Kurt's head snapped up. "What? How could you say that?"

"Your...criticalness...is all about his hair, which unfortunately is what girls fall over him for. You, like, focus entirely on his hair instead of him, so you must kind of like him."

"Noah Puckerman," Kurt said, "Just because you're that kind of shallow and like pulling on pigtails and pigs' tails and other things doesn't mean that I am. Shallow. Like that. I mean."

Puck stared at him.

"...Fine, yes, he's attractive. Except for the hair. That shade of blonde would only work on certain types of people, and it is not him."

"Oh yeah? So who's shade of blonde-I can't believe I'm saying this..."

"Quinn's is fine," Kurt said, ignoring Puck's little catch of breath. "Brittany's fits her terribly well. Oh, not the vacancy or whatever other blonde stereotypes there might be, but the kind of facial structure she has fits blonde very well. If she were brunette, she'd look like a blowup doll."

A corner of Puck's mouth lifted, and his eyes momentarily went blank.

"You are a sick, perverted, disgusting bastard and I hope you burn in hell," Kurt muttered under his breath.

"What?"

"Uh, nothing."

"Didn't sound like nothing, Kurt. Sounded like a lot of insults, actually," Puck said, smirking a little wider. "Hey, lemme tell you, I'm not interested in blowup dolls, unlike...Artie, I guess."

"Hey," Kurt said.

"Sorry," Puck said. "Easy target."

Kurt looked down.

Puck shifted around in his seat. "Uhh...I didn't mean that. Just...wanted...to...get out of an uncomfortable situation, you know?"

Kurt gritted his teeth and looked away.

The light was getting brighter, slowly; the teal until a cyan, the cyan until a pale, pale blue, the color of ozone-covered sky, the faint pastel-purple. The birds outside started up their calls and the dogs from the opposite house as well as their neighbours started up the answer. Kurt winced.

"Shit," Puck said, the first time either of them had said anything in a while. "I screwed that up, didn't I."

Kurt looked at him and folded his arms.

"Fuck." Puck ran his hand through the strip of hair on his head. "Fuck."

An engine roared before it settled down into a quiet sort of rumbling in their garage. Kurt reached out and pulled the door shut all the way, until only a little bit of light peeked through, and only between the hinges.

"...Truce?" Puck asked.

His answer was a very quiet snore.

Puck closed his eyes.

The light was an almost solid gold, it fell directly on his face, the clothing brushing him was itchy, and the snoring was getting unbearable.

Puck opened his eyes, reaching out with one hand to find the source of the snoring. Oh, wait. Of course it would be Kurt. Who else would it be? Finn? He snorted quietly.

"...Elbow..."

Puck blinked. What? Elbow? What? He hadn't pegged Kurt for a sleeptalker, before. He winced as the snore came back, twice as loud.

"...Your cucumbers are dry..."

Puck reached out in the darkness and pushed Kurt over gently, rubbing at his mouth with the back of his arm as he did. Odd, he could've sworn that sometime in the night before Kurt had kissed him, but it must have been a very strange dream.

Yes. It was a strange dream. Because their times spent in the closet were always in darkness. And he'd been able to see Kurt's face at that time.

Must have been a dream.

Yep.