cool drink of water, such a sweet surprise.
poursomesugaronkurt:
Kurt sighed and looked at his water. While Noah telling him where he was from wasn’t a big deal, since he was his customer and all, Kurt was worried bringing up where he was from would just ruin the illusion for Noah. Maybe he should’ve made some elaborate backstory about where “Angel” was from, but it seemed pathetic to spend time creating a story for his stripper persona. Even the words stripper persona made him cringe at himself.
“Well, you’ve met me,” Kurt said with a small shrug. Honestly, he wasn’t sure he believed that; they lived in such a large city that was the biggest melting pot in the world, and Noah had literally never met a person from Kansas. “You’ve probably met someone from Kansas who just didn’t say it,” Kurt added. He looked down at his water and stirred his straw around, watching the ice bounce against each other. As Noah asked why he moved there, Kurt just kept staring at his drink. There was no good way to explain it to Noah, since, logically, moving out to New York was such a stupid thing to do.
“Because it was always my dream,” Kurt said softly. He paused for a moment before letting out a sigh. “It’s not like I dreamt of doing this. I mean, I already told you I’m a student. I just grew up obviously gay in a small town in a red state. I didn’t even have the luxury of being near KU or anything – Lawrence is such a liberal town. I lived in a town dominated by super churches, one of which helped lead a political campaign to try to ban same-sex marriage.“ Kurt’s throat clenched at the memory of people at school talking about that before he was out, and how sick he felt that day. All he wanted to do was find some way to be normal, and he repressed the hell out of his feelings for years in an attempt that almost killed him.
Kurt looked up as Noah unzipped his shirt, his eyes soon darting away as he saw the blood on his shirt. He winced, his mind’s eye bringing back memories of him being shoved against lockers and cornered in gym class. He brought a hand up to the small scar on his neck, the one that still had some coverup on it in an attempt to hide it from his customers. He gently rubbed it before dropping his hand as he simply said, “I wasn’t happy there; there’s a reason I don’t like violence, you know. So I applied to colleges in New York and I sold my car, took out loans, started a budget, and all of the usual stuff. Did some waiter jobs, tailor jobs, bartending. Then I got asked to audition after bartending at ND and…well. That’s it. School and work are kind of my only things.” Kurt didn’t really regret his move, but he regretted how little money he left with and how far he was from his dad and, well, he regretted having to take a job like the one he had just to keep his lights on. The logical answer would’ve been to earn some money at home for a year and take classes at the local community college to get some credits before moving, but Kurt had always been an idealist who loved the mere concept of the city. Even living with a limited budget was worth it in the city he loved. And even after a night like he had, Kurt couldn’t truly hate his job as much as the title made him.
“Sorry. That was definitely more than you wanted to know,” he said. Kurt was sure there was no way Noah would want to come back to see him after unloading all of that on him, and it was sad because that was definitely the short version of his story. “Why did you leave Philadelphia?”
Puck was quiet as he listened to the other man talking about what life was like in Kansas and why he decided to leave and come to New York instead. He glanced over at Angel and then down to his coffee, feeling a bit uneasy as the man gave him so much information. He didn’t mind, but it definitely caught him off guard considering he really didn’t know much about him at all prior to tonight, other than what he did for work and that he was a student. He wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to all of it, taking a second to process it all before Angel started to apologize for saying so much at once.
“Don’t be sorry. It’s seriously fine,” he told him, looking up at him again. “I don’t blame you for leaving. I’d wanna get out of a place like that too. I hope New York has been better for you.” He shrugged lightly, wondering if the dreams Angel had of New York ended up coming true, or if they ever would. He genuinely hoped that they would.
When asked why he left Philadelphia, the answer came to him immediately, but he waited a moment before responding. “To get away from my dad,” he explained and just shook his head. “But I guess I didn’t go far enough. I should have moved to California or something instead.” Realistically Puck knew that he couldn’t actually leave his dad completely unless he wanted to be totally cut off from his money, but sometimes he wished he’d never known what it was like to have so much wealth at his disposal. It would probably be a lot easier.
“I can’t actually get away from my dad. I mean with the company and everything.. it’s my destiny I guess. He still lives in Philly but he’s here a lot now. Basically every structure built here in the last 8 years has been from us.” Puck ran his thumb along the edge of his paper placemat, rolling his eyes when he spotted a Puckerman Construction advertisement on it. He just ripped around the square shape of the ad and pulled it off, folding it in half and setting his coffee mug on top of it.
“I’m grateful for the opportunities I’ve had and everything. I’m lucky and everything. I’ve never had to worry about paying for anything and I’ve never had to live uncomfortably.” He always felt guilty for complaining about it, but he couldn’t help it. “But sometimes I just wish I could be someone else. Anyone else. Anywhere else.” He looked down at the table and then over at Angel again, a little surprised that he’d said so much, but he didn’t have anyone to talk to about this kind of thing.