"Who's up for a game of Truth or Dare?" The evil glint in Kurt's eye shined brightly in the dark basement of the Hummel-Hudson house. The group of teenagers decided to have one last hoorah before Kurt left their team for a safer life at Dalton Academy, and they promised to make it one they wouldn't forget; or, one where they were too intoxicated to remember the specifics. They weren't all that picky, really.
A drinking game of Never Have I Ever ended far too quickly when the students realized just how much they already knew about each other. Kurt's scheming with Puck didn't help matters either, as they tried—and succeeded—to get every other person out one by one by playing on their weaknesses.
Puck had pulled through as he had promised, and came bearing gifts of wine coolers and beers, also managing to bring along their old teammate Matt. Just because he didn't attend McKinley High anymore didn't make him any less of a friend to Kurt or the rest of New Directions. While the two came loaded with alcoholic beverages, and despite how short of a game Never Have I Ever had become, the number of bottles and cans left had dwindled down to a small, microscopic number, which only reasoned that a new game was necessary.
"No pussying out." Puck commented as he popped the tab of his fifth beer. Unlike the rest of his teammates, he wasn't showing signs of drunkenness and was able to speak coherent sentences still.
"If you don't answer the Truth or do the Dare, you have to drink an entire Wine Cooler or Beer; it's up to the drinker. How's that work?" Sam spoke while rubbing circles into Quinn's palm with his right hand. While they had been hanging out for hours now, not once did he stop having some type of touch on his girlfriend.
"'ow do we pick who goes?" Rachel asked, not annunciating her words as perfectly as she would have normally. One of Kurt and Puck's first targets had been Rachel, and they watched happily as she took sip after sip of alcohol.
"Spin the bottle." Santana reached forward and placed an empty wine cooler on the floor in the middle of their formed circle. She spun the glass container with a flick of her wrist, and watched with amusement as it landed on Rachel. "Truth or Dare, Berry?"
"Truth." Even in her drunken stupor, it seemed that the star performer had some sense of survival left in her.
"Have you ever kissed a girl?" The Cheerio leaned back on her elbows, shifting some of her weight onto Brittany, who sat on her left, watching the brunette in front of her with interest.
"Yes." Rather than look Santana in the eye with a pointed eye, as if to argue "What now?", Rachel burst into a fit of giggles and lost her balance, falling backwards for a moment. The rest of the club watched in amusement as she tried to right herself in order to spin the object in front of her.
"Artie! Truth or Dare?"
"Dare." Just because he had been given limitations in life, didn't mean the teenager wasn't going to live every moment to the out right extreme. That'd just be boring, for crying out loud.
"I dare you to…." Rachel rubbed the back of her neck, worry etched into her brow. She turned to look at Finn, "What should I make him do?"
"Uh…" The normally clueless, and now nearing brain dead with the alcohol in his system, boy looked just as lost for words as his girlfriend was. "Rub your stomach while patting your head at the same time. Yeah."
"Got it." Artie tried his best, having had his fair share of beer during their earlier festivities, but only managed to do both actions simultaneously for less than a millisecond before declaring that was enough. With a flick of his own wrist, he watched as the bottle fell upon one Brittany S. Pierce.
"Truth or Dare, Britt?"
"I want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help me God!" The usually innocent and offbeat girl shouted at the top of her longs, startling Santana who had made herself comfortable on the girl's bicep.
"Right…" Artie looked worried at the blonde for a moment before continuing. "What's your IQ?"
"128." The rest of the club was dumbfounded, to say the least. They knew she wasn't stupid, her innocence clearly obvious, but they hadn't realized just how smart the girl was, what with all her years of cheating and barely getting by in classes.
"These questions are boring. The only interesting thing to happen so far was to Rachel, and even that wasn't all that surprising." Puck whined from his seat next to Kurt.
Brittany paid the delinquent no mind as she reached forward and daintily spun the bottle slowly, watched as it fell on Puck. "Hah! Show's you to question the game!"
"Is she okay?" Sam asked Quinn, having never seen this side of the blonde Cheerio.
"Completely. While some people because lucid and more slow to react when given alcohol, it seems to have an adverse effect on Brittany." Quinn explained, before turning to look at her fellow Cheerleader and baby daddy, waiting to hear whatever task Brittany would give. It was obvious Noah was going to pick Dare—Brittany didn't even bother giving the boy options.
"I dare you to go into the closet with Kurt for ten minutes."
Well, that caught everyone's attention; even that of Mike and Tina who had begun to doze off as they slouched against each other. "Hell to the no!" Mercedes cried out, staring at her best friend in worry. She could only imagine the kind of things Puck would say, and this was supposed to be Kurt's night, despite all of the fun they were having as a whole. None of them voiced it, but they knew it'd be hard to keep seeing the boy due to their new conflicting schedules, just as it had become rare to see Matt on the off chance he was around.
Brittany linked pinkies with Santana and smirked, a look she could have only learned from the brunette next to her, waiting for Puck's response. "If you don't want to, we can always watch you down that beer like it's no tomorrow."
"I'm not going to force Hummel to do anything he doesn't want to." Noah rolled his eyes at Brittany's forwardness before chugging the can in hand and smashing the aluminum a moment later.
"You're such a wuss." Brittany frowned and watched grumpily as Puck spun the empty glass bottle. It landed on Matt, and soon enough the game was rolling smoothly. Sometimes embarrassing or revealing questions were asked, or ridiculous dares were forced upon one another, but everyone took what they had coming to them, and no one had another drop of alcohol—forced upon them, that is—save for the hiccup with Puck when they had first began.
Silently to himself, Noah Puckerman was glad that Kurt had suggested the game change. The amount of alcohol he and Matt had brought cost a pretty penny, and while he had grown to love his fellow Glee-members, he was so not ready to spend a whole month's worth of work on drinks he wasn't savoring himself.
"All right Hummel, it's your turn." Santana announced as Finn's spin landed on the boy whose room they were currently occupying.
"Truth or Dare, Kurt?" The overly tall football player asked his stepbrother.
"Truth." With the way Santana and Brittany had been taking over other people's turns, he was so not going to go ahead give them the option of giving him a dare; those girls were shady, and when given just the right amount of motivation, things could get deadly serious. He silently wondered if Artie was shocked by the change of personality in his girlfriend.
"Um…" Like his girlfriend, Finn found himself at a lost for words. It wasn't so shocking for him to not have a clue, unlike the talkative brunette, but still. If he didn't have any ideas, it was a wonder he was even still playing. Tina had voiced her lack of brainpower and contentedly backed away from the circle with Mike in tow before taking a seat on the sofa and dozing off; Sam and Quinn didn't take long to follow suit. Although Matt and Artie were still in the circle, they had also announced their job as mere observers and regulators, to "Keep you guys from breaking any more laws".
"I got one." Santana's eye glinted much in the way Kurt's had when they first started playing, and he'd be lying if he wasn't anxious to hear just what kind of question the feisty Latina would give him.
"Who was your first kiss? Girl and boy."
The color drained from the Hummel boy's face as Santana's words sunk in. The only person who knew about Karofsky was Blaine, and he was hours away, sleeping in his dorm room at Dalton. He loved New Directions—they were his best friends, for crying out loud—but this…this was something he kept secret. Not even his father knew, and Kurt could only imagine what would happen when Monday rolled around and his ex-teammates were back in the same building as Dave.
"You don't have to answer that." Puck's voice made Kurt jump, despite knowing the boy was next to him all night long. The teen had expected Mercedes to jump in, or even Finn, despite his current foggy, drunken, brain dead status, but Puck? Never in a thousand years.
"W-What?" The normally smart-witted and snappy boy looked at Puck in confusion.
"That's personal. Santana shouldn't even be asking you questions; it's Finn's turn." Noah drugged his shoulder, very Kanye-like, before turning his attention from that of Kurt to the bottle in the middle of the floor.
"Why are you such a spoil sport tonight, Puckerman?" Santana asked angrily, glowering at the Jewish boy. "Usually you'd be hooping and hollering; drinking and running around like an idiot."
"People change, Lopez." Noah raised an eyebrow and looked from Brittany to Santana. It had been weeks since the two had engaged in any type of sexual activity, and he knew it was in partial due to the brunette's newfound fondness for the blonde, despite her having a boyfriend. If there was one thing he knew about the Cheerio after their years of hooking up, it was that when she wanted something, she went for it wholeheartedly.
"It's okay." Kurt spoke quietly, out of his usual character, which he would later blame on the alcohol he had consumed during the night. He would later blame every thing shared that night on the alcohol, even if the parties involved knew better than that. "To answer your question Santana, I don't count either kiss I have had as being my first. They were unwanted or foolish when it came down to it." After a moment's pause he added, "Sorry Brittany."
"So you have kissed a boy." Mercedes noted from where she sat, leaning against a table leg. The usual diva air about her was gone, replaced with somber concern.
"I didn't want it."
"You're telling me that you, Kurt Elizabeth Hummel, capital-G Gay, did not want a kiss from a boy?" Santana stared incredulously at the ex-cheerleader.
"Yes."
"Who the hell was it?" Finn asked, while simultaneously lowering a sleeping Rachel from his upper arm to the ground. He was new to the whole brother thing, but being protective was something that came naturally.
"It doesn't matter." The normally loud teenager, almost always trying to get people to look and say Wow, had begun to speak so softly his friends had to strain their ears in order to catch the words he was saying.
"It sure as hell matters, white boy. Why didn't you tell me sooner, I'd have gone and kicked some serious ass." Perhaps Mercedes wasn't diva'd out when given alcohol. "Wait…Was it that Blaine guy? Kurt! You're transferring to Dalton! Do I need to come with you and make sure he understands you do not mess with my boy?"
"Mercedes, it's alright. Nobody knows but Blaine, and no, it wasn't him. I would have so not minded it if it was from Blaine." Kurt rolled his eyes at Mercedes quick jump to anger.
"Who the fuck was it?" Puck's anger surprised not only his teammates, but himself as well. Since when was he protective over Hummel? That was Finn's territory, not his.
"N-No one." Obviously thrown off by Puck's continuous show of concern that night, Kurt looked away as his skin began to heat up.
"Like hell it was no one." Without even looking at the football player, Kurt could tell Puck was rolling his eyes as he spoke. "That's the largest amount of bullshit I've ever heard from you."
"I'm not going to tell you guys who he was." Kurt spoke with more confidence than before; he wasn't going to give this one up.
"Drink up, buddy!" Brittany smiled brightly while she handed him a wine cooler she had just taken the cap off of.
When Brittany smiled, it was hard for those around her to not catch onto her infectious laugh, and before they knew it, everyone was smiling and laughing as Kurt downed the alcohol. With a roll of his blue-green eyes at his friends' antics, the Hummel boy spun the bottle on the floor and watched with amusement as it fell onto Puck.
"Truth or Dare, Noah?" If the use of the boy's first name didn't throw him off, it was Kurt's care to actually ask the teen rather than assuming like everyone else had that he'd go with the Dare.
"Dare. Let's see what you've got for me, Hummel." Puck's eyes narrowed as he looked at the countertenor sitting next to him, egging him on for a challenge.
"Ten minutes, my closet. Starting now." Kurt didn't wait for Puck to answer. He stood up, and with as much grace as any teen under the influence of alcohol and adrenaline could muster, strode to his walk in closet with confidence. Something was up with Puckerman, and he was going to find out just what it was, so help him Gaga. He knew the older boy had denied the closet invitational when Santana had dared him to do it, but he assumed it was out of concern for Kurt, not the actual motions of being in a closet with him. One way or another, he was going to find out.
"What the hell, Hummel." Puck closed the closet door behind him before leaning on it, staring at the boy in front of him, who stood self-assuredly, leaning on one foot while cocking the other out, arms resting on his hips. The smirk on his face never once left.
"I want to know why you're being so nice to me tonight."
"Is that really it? You could have asked me that out there." Puck rolled his eyes once more before stepping away from the door and towards his fellow Glee Clubber. Or, well, ex-Glee Clubber. The realization that once the weekend was over, Kurt wouldn't be returning with them to McKinley High had only begun to sink in, and Puck was not expecting to feel as bothered by it as he was.
"You kept on picking Dare, Noah." Kurt stated the fact as if it was the simplest thing in the world.
"How the hell should I have known this is what you wanted to talk about?"
"Our conversation is going in circles, Noah." It was Kurt's turn to roll his eyes as he emphasized his use of the other boy's first name, all the while stepping closer to him, arms never once leaving his hips.
"Who's fault is that?"
"Clearly yours."
With every line spoken between the two, their steps grew closer and closer together before realizing that with each breath they took, they could feel their opposite's chest, rising and falling. They could feel the almost-touching-yet-not-quite proximity of their bodies, yet could recognize how far away their bodies were; they could recognize the sensation of someone else's breath ghosting over their own with each inhale and exhale.
"You smell like flowers." Puck stated, as if he were simply commenting on the weather outside.
"You reek of booze." Kurt scrunched up his nose in distaste.
"No kidding."
"And cinnamon." After adding the second thought, the countertenor turned his eyes from Puck's lips to his eyes, staring straight into his half lidded irises.
"Thanks." Acting on their own accord, or so Puck would later argue, his arms found their way around Kurt's slightly smaller frame. Subconsciously, the guitar-playing teen thought to himself about how much the boy in front of him had grown in the last year. He wasn't the small little gay kid they could kick around anymore. It didn't stop the other jocks from doing so, but his body had matured.
"I'm going to miss you." Kurt whispered against Puck as he wrapped his own arms around the teen's waist. His face turned red when he realized he had spoken his silent thought, and closed his eyes in preparation for whatever Puck was going to throw at him; perhaps a slur or two, definitely a throw that would probably land him on the floor and effectively messing up his neat alignment of shoes.
And yet, nothing happened. If anything, the hold the football player had on Kurt's waist strengthened. This was all too real for both boys; this wasn't supposed to happen. Puck was supposed to be having sex with some nameless girl while Kurt adjusted to a new life hours away while simultaneously falling for a boy who knew exactly what he was going through. They weren't supposed to be holding each other, and they definitely weren't supposed to be feeling what they were; their brains protested while their hearts won over.
"No one can replace you, you know that?" Puck stared at the wall above Kurt's shoulder, and the vibrations his deep voice caused Kurt to shudder in his hold.
"I never would have thought you'd say that." He left out a sad laugh before stopping short, knowing that if he continued he'd be crying. Since when did Noah Puckerman mean so much to him? This was the boy who threw him into dumpsters and threw slushies at him every day since middle school. Sure, he had let up since joining the Glee Club, but he was not supposed to be falling for an old tormentor. That'd be like falling in love Karofsky!
"Why are you laughing?" Still holding onto his waist, Puck backed away from their embrace. He didn't know when their conversation turned into a hug, but he didn't not like it, and that confused him more than anything. The self proclaimed badass had identified his love for a fine ass, no matter the gender, months prior, but never would he expect to find himself in the arms of Kurt Hummel; that just didn't happen.
"It's nothing."
"You're lying. When you lie your right eye twitches and your nostrils flare up." Puck noted before stopping himself. Since when did he pay so much attention to Hummel that he noticed his slight facial changes?
"…I don't know what to say to that." Kurt looked up at Puck, both confused and amused. Did he really notice that much about him; that even the slightest twitch stood out? Personally, Kurt felt that he kept a strong hold on his emotions; he was an excellent performer.
"Neither do I." Puck confessed.
"Glad to know I'm not the only one." Laughing again, the younger boy looked up once more into the dark eyes above him. "So. You care about me?"
"I don't know what I feel about you, Hummel," Puck stared back into the green-blue eyes before him—what color were they, really? He had to find out later—while talking, "All I know, I like holding you and oh my god, dat ass."
"You did not just use the phrase "dat ass" in reference to my behind." Kurt glared at Puck lightheartedly. "I can't believe you."
"Yes you can, because you obviously like me too." Smirking at the boy he held, Puck rubbed circles into Kurt's lower back while strengthening his hold.
"I shouldn't."
"And why is that?" His smirk turned into a smile, and while still rubbing lazy circles with his right hand, Puck reached him with his left and reached for Kurt's right, interlacing their hands.
"It'd be like falling for Karofsky; wrong, disgusting, gross, and did I mention wrong?" Kurt shuddered as he remembered every bad moment involving the hockey/football player.
"Glad to know I'm compared to Karofsky. Pretty sure it's the first time anyone's ever done that." Puck's infamous smirk once again appeared on his face. "There's good reason, too—we're nothing alike."
"You say that, but what about all those years of throwing me into the dumpster? Covering me in slushy?" Kurt quirked a perfectly shaped eyebrow in question, voicing his own subconscious questions.
"Hey—I've stopped doing that! Besides, he's nowhere near as badass as me. Or as good of a kisser, word on the street says."
"How can you be so sure of that? Who would go within ten feet of Karofsky's face, much less actually kiss it?" Teasing was the safest route, Kurt decided, as the conversation started heading into tricky territory. He had to watch his words more carefully than he normally did, and having had several drinks throughout the night did not help matters. Just the wrong wording would spill his secret concerning Dave and a certain locker room incident not too long ago, much less his growing affection for one Noah Puckerman.
"Some girls have risked their health and gone for it." Noah shrugged his shoulders. "Pretty badass, if you ask me. Thankfully Karofsky didn't scar any of them and they were all still good in the sack afterwards."
"So you're telling me that every person who has kissed Karofsky, you've done?" Kurt asked, his foggy brain planning up a scheme to see just how much Puck apparently liked him, throwing the play-safe tactic out the window.
"Pretty much."
"What if I told you that was a lie?" Kurt pulled Puck's body closer to him, using his left hand as leverage from where it still sat, holding onto the hip beneath his fingers.
"I'd have to ask just how you knew that, Hummel." Puck smirked as their heads dipped closer once their bodies returned to the level of proximity they previously had.
"Think back to the dare Santana gave me." Kurt smirked as he felt his breath comingle with Puck's. Not wanting to wait another second, god forbid "Puckzilla" decided to continue this soft banter some more, he caught Puck's mouth in a quick, chaste, kiss. Too quick for the other boy to react, and swift enough that Kurt was able to back up a little to watch Puck's reaction.
"Time's up, love birds!" Santana's voice rang in the air, cutting the sexual tension easily.
"I swear if you hurt my boy—" Mercedes' voice was cut off when she walked up to where Santana stood, catching sight of the two and the embrace they were still in. While Kurt had leaned his body away from Puck, their hands still held onto their opposite's waist; rather securely, the diva noted. "What in the hell is going on here, Puckerman?"
"Shh," Santana turned to Mercedes. "They're having a moment."
"Moment my ass." Rolling her eyes, the black teenager turned around and headed back to her seat with a humph. It was too late in the night, and she was way too sober, to be dealing with this. Snatching the beer Finn was about to drink out of his hand, she took a hefty gulp before returning it.
"Get a move on boys, times not waiting for anyone, and we still have a large sum of wine coolers to drink through." Winking at the pair, Santana returned to her seat next to Brittany who had also just returned from helping Artie lay down on the extra futon Kurt brought out for the affair, having fallen asleep sometime in the ten minutes Puck and Kurt were away.
"Uh, right." The smaller of the two began to pull out of the embrace, but Puck's strong hold stopped him.
"Wait."
"They're not going to, Puck." Kurt glanced out the door to his closet in the direction of their friends. If there was one trait both Santana and Mercedes shared, it was impatience.
"Don't call me that."
"What are you talking about, it's your name."
"Nickname, and I don't want it associated with you."
Listening to Puck babble on, Kurt glared. What the hell was wrong with this boy? "What are you rambling about? You won't let me go, but you don't even want me uttering your name? That's messed up."
"No, you don't get it." Puck's eyebrows knit together in confusion while he thought before speaking, gathering his ideas rather than blurting them out. "I don't want you calling me Puck. I was an ass to you for way too long. My first name is Noah."
Slowly understanding what the older teen was getting at, Kurt nodded before smiling. "All right, well, Noah, they're waiting for us. I don't want Santana getting any kind of ideas about what's been going on in here."
"Yeah, sure." Puck nodded, loosening his hold on Kurt's waist finally. "Just, one thing?"
Standing by the open door, the younger Hummel nodded, listening for what he had to say. "Shoot."
"It was Karofsky, wasn't it?"
"And to think I thought you were more stupid than Finn." Smiling a somber smile at the memory, Kurt couldn't help but feel relieved that someone besides Blaine and Karofsky knew what had happened. Sure, Noah didn't know the details, but he got the gist of things, and that all he really needed, right?
"To be badass, you have to be able to get away with your offenses, Hummel." Rolling his eyes as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, Puck headed for the door as well before stopping to let Kurt exit first.
"One more thing, Noah." Kurt stopped in his step and turned around. "My name is Kurt."
A/N- Thank you to everyone who takes the time to read this, I am so entirely thankful for it. After lurking the pages of Puckurt on here and LJ for a few weeks, I finally decided to have myself a go at a Puckurt oneshot. Do tell me what you think; I love Puck's character, but I don't think I characterized him all too perfect. Any advice or criticism on my writing/grammar/etc is greatly appreciated. I wanted this to be longer, as well as a lot hotter between the too, but it didn't feel right. Once more, thank you for reading.