Puckleberry One Shot
Title: Forsan Miseros Meliora Sequentur
Chapter: 1/1
Author: Blackgem88
Pairing: Puck/Rachel
Rating: T for language
Words: 5178
Spoilers: Season 1
Summary: Noah's father comes back to rebuild the relationship he left behind. Noah doesn't want shit from him.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Just taking the character for a spin.
Notes: Written for the Puckleberry Drabble meme for the prompt: "You're the first person who broke my heart. For the rest of my life, you will always be the one who hurt me the most. Don't forget that."
§§§
“Noah” Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck. This was not supposed to be happening.
“What the fuck do you want?”
“Noah, please don’t talk to your father that way.” His mom just doesn’t understand. He counts to ten but shit doesn’t work.
“Fuck that. Douche walked out on us. I can talk to him any fucking way I want to.”
“Look, Noah…”
“Fuck you. You don’t get to call me that. The name’s Puck.” His hands are clenching at his side, fists curling and uncurling.
“Noah, don’t.”
“Don’t what, mom. Don’t tell this douchetard that he’s not wanted here. Don’t tell him that he lost all right to fucking anything all those years ago. Don’t what?”
“I’m back, Puck. For good.”
“Tell me he’s lying. Please tell me you are not allowing this asshole back into our lives now. Tell me you haven’t lost your mind and that he’s just making shit up.”
“Noah, your father and I have been talking and we both want to give this thing another try. We want to be a family again. All of us.”
“Screw that shit. We already are a family. We don’t need him. We’ve managed just fine without him for the last decade.”
“You need a father, Noah. Hannah needs a father. Don’t you think she deserves to have a father?” His mother is begging but he’s too far gone.
“She does. Hannah deserves to have a father that loves her. Not some bastard that’s gonna beat the crap out of her. Or some loser who’ll take off as soon as something better comes along.”
“I’m different, now. I’ve been sober for 3 months and I haven’t sat at a poker table in 2.”
“Well congratulations to you. But, I don’t give a shit. You’re a day late and a fucking penny motherfucking short. So get to steppin’”
“I’m not leaving, Puck. You better get used to seeing me around.”
“Well fucking Happy New Year to me.”
“Noah.” His mother is looking at him, her eyes pleading but he doesn’t know what she’s pleading for.
“Don’t Noah me. You want this son of a bitch here. Fine. But, when he starts his shit again, I’m not going to be around. I’m out.”
He walks out the door and doesn’t look back.
§§§
Shit kinda goes crazy the day his father walks back into his life. The douchetard walked out all those fucking years ago and never looked back; he has no fucking right to just come back and expect everything to be alright. Eli Puckerman has no right to strut around the house like he owns the place and it makes him so fucking angry to know that he does. He has been for the last week. It makes him so angry to know that every morning when he wakes up, he can expect good ol’ Eli to be there.
So, really, it comes as no surprise when he feels the need to vent out his frustrations elsewhere. He couldn’t care less about his probation restrictions at this point. Anything is better than sharing his space with his sperm donor. Besides, (almost) nobody at McKinley cares about what happens to him, and he hasn’t deluded himself into thinking otherwise.
He starts out small. Just a little something to help take the edge off the anger coursing through his veins. His truck keys are burning a hole in his pocket so he takes off. It’s not like anyone actually expects him to go to class; especially on the first day.
His tires screech as the truck violently pulls out of the school parking lot, the nearest state park the only thing on his mind. He spends the rest of the day in a stupor, the alcohol impairing his senses. It’s not until almost nine that he manages to sober up enough to drive home. When he gets there he realizes that maybe staying out was the better option.
It’s Monday evening so his mom is out working the graveyard shift and Hannah is staying at the babysitters. He thanks whoever is out there for that small miracle. The man that gave him life is sprawled out on the couch, unconscious and disheveled. A newspaper lies on top of their coffee table and even from far away he can tell that each job announcement the loser circled this morning has been exxed out. But, the worst part of it all is the nearly empty bottle of Jack Daniels resting beside the paper. One day back was all it took for the old man to throw 3 months down the drain.
For a moment he feels like that scared 8 year old boy that used to come home with fear weighing him down. It’s like he’s traveling back in time, to a time when he had to come up with elaborate lies to explain the bruises on his body to his friends. He hates those times, especially the ones when he used to watch his mom recover after a brutal night of protecting him. But, then he realizes he’s not 8 anymore. He’s a man now and he can take anything Eli throws at him or his family.
It’s a depressing sight, really. So he doesn’t want to linger. He’s almost up the stairs when he hears the old man stir. He’s almost to his room when he hears the sound of glass breaking. His door is locked by the time the old man goes on a rampage. Ten minutes later he hears the front door slam. He sure as fuck doesn’t want to see the state of the family room in the morning.
§§§
The morning light comes sooner than he expects or wants it to. His head is pounding from all the shit going on and he’s dreading going downstairs. But, he has to take care of things before his ma comes home. So he drags himself out of bed, forgoes his morning work out, and heads for the family room. It takes almost an hour to get the place looking like some drunken idiot didn’t totally trash the place and by the time he’s done, he doesn’t have time for breakfast. So it’s a shower and then off to school. At least, he has enough time to pick up a cup of some shit excuse for coffee before his morning class.
Anger and frustration have totally taken over by the time he stalks through the halls of McKinley. His eyes are practically burning with rage and he needs to do something to release it. Rachel Berry is the first person he sees. Jacob Ben-Israel is the second. Creep is trying to corner Berry into a corner but she manages to get away from him when Tina comes to her rescue. The second he sees her get away he knows exactly how the day is going to turn out for the little fucker stalking her. He takes the time to drink his morning coffee but by the end of Tuesday morning Jacob Ben-Israel ends up in the dumpster. So do his friends.
Still, its not enough. The anger, resentment, and frustration are still there, just below the surface.
His day goes from whatever to shittastic Tuesday evening. It’s bad enough he got reamed by his probie officer but everything spirals out of control when he gets home after football practice. The first thing he hears when he walks inside is his sister crying. His feet carry him to her and the first thing he does is wrap his arms around her. He whispers soothing words in her ear until her sobs die down to whimpers, and its only then that he asks what happened.
“He yelled at me, Noah. He said I was worthless. He was so mean.” He hates that sound; his sister’s cries have always been his weakness.
“It’s okay, Han. He’s doesn’t know what he’s talking about. You’re not worthless, I promise you that. You’re worth everything.”
“But I didn’t even do anything.”
“I know.”
He takes her hand and leads her upstairs. Hannah comes first and he has to make sure that she’s okay. They go into her room and he spends the next two hours playing with her and trying to get her mind off the monster living just down the hall from them. He tries to show her just how much he thinks she’s worth.
The minute Hannah is fast asleep, he desperately needs to unleash his anger a bit. He marches straight into his mother’s bedroom to find the bastard. He has shit to get off his chest. But bastard’s gone and his anger continues to build.
§§§
Wednesday morning is shittastic. He wakes up at the butt crack of fucking dawn and tries to sweat his rage out. It’s the only thing he can think of to work his anger out without further angering his probation officer. She wasn’t too happy he decided to skip Monday and she sure as hell didn’t appreciate the art of him throwing stalkers into dumpsters. He wants to tell her to go fuck herself but he can’t bring himself to get the words out. Impulse control at its finest. Rachel would be proud.
A long jog and a few rounds of weights later and nothing. It’s all still there. He hasn’t worked out shit.
He showers and dresses as quickly as he can, eager to get out of before Eli stirrs. The last thing he needs right now is Eli fucking with him. He still kinda hopes that he does.
“Noah? Is that you?”
“I told you, old man, the name is Puck.”
“Fine. Good morning Puck.”
He makes a noncommittal grunt and walks out the door. He ignores the fact that the little voice congratulating him for not punching his father sounds an awful lot like Rachel. Besides that, anything other than that nod just doesn’t seem right. Nothing seems right anymore. He wonders if things were ever right in his life and he can’t come up with one time that they were. The only time that even comes close was built on a goddamn fantasy. He refuses to acknowledge that week and focuses on the fact that before his father showed up, things were getting to close to almost right.
By the time he pulls his truck into the school parking lot he’s at war with himself. He’s angry and frustrated and generally upset that his father decided to walk back into their lives. Now that he’s older, though, he appreciates the man for leaving rather than continue using them all as his punching bags. He’s angry at the way he chose to leave. He hates him for the choices he made once he left. He loathes the type of man he is. But he can’t help the fact that, try as he might to suppress it, there is a small part of him that is glad that the old man is back. He wishes that there wasn’t a part of him that hopes that Eli Puckerman will prove himself to be worthy of redemption. He wishes that life would be less complicated than this.
The internal battle raging in his head is quickly forgotten the minute he sees five hockey players dump large slushies on Rachel. Fuck. He immediately sees red. Adrenaline is coursing through his veins as he marches over, fully intent on going all death star on the fucking assholes. But, as soon as they see the look in his eyes and his deliberate stride they scatter like the fucking cowards they are. He keeps moving, though, cause he knows Rachel is going to need him.
He’s less than a foot away from her when they finally lock eyes and his heart plummets. The look in her eyes is enough to bring him to his knees. Rachel’s doe brown eyes are shining with tears; the pain, sadness, and disappointment all evident in their brown depths. It’s all his fault this happened and he feels fucking horrible about it. He should have known that the minute those puck heads sniffed even the smallest opportunity they’d attack; he’d just been too preoccupied to make sure he didn’t give them one.
“Come on, Rach, let’s get you cleaned up.”
He breathes a sigh of relief when she wordlessly nods her head. They walk towards the nearest handicapped bathroom. It’s still pretty early; classes don’t start for another twenty minutes so they have time to get her cleaned up. The steady sound of her trolley bag rolling behind them is the only sound that echoes through the halls. He wonders how badly he’s fucked things up between them.
They separated as soon as Puck locked the door behind them. Rachel took the time to open her bag and gather the necessary supplies while he set up a chair and started the warm water. Even after everything was set up to clean her up they still hadn’t said a word to each other. He doesn’t want to be the first one to break the silence but he idly wonders if he’s going to have to be.
“What happened, Noah?”
“You got slushied.” Avoidance has always been his strong suit.
“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Noah.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Well, I think you should.”
“I. Don’t. Want. To. Talk. About. It.”
“Well why not?” Her hand is on her hip and she’s legit tapping her foot at him. It’d be kind of fucking funny if she wasn’t, you know, clearly annoyed at him.
“It doesn’t concern you Ray. Let it go.”
“I can’t let it go Noah.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“Because it concerns you and I care deeply about you. If something is bothering you then something is bothering me.” She’s looking at him and for the first time he thinks he sees something different in her eyes. He just can’t quite put his finger on it.
“It’s none of your business.” He hates the hurt look that comes into her eyes when he says that. But it leaves as quickly as it left.
“It is my business. You are my business, damn it.” She pauses as she takes a step towards him but continues right after, “I’ve waited three days Noah. I can wait a little longer. I’m here when you’re ready.”
He walks out the door.
That afternoon he locks himself in the locker room with five members of the hockey team. It wasn’t a fair fight but it would have to do. Anger and adrenaline are coursing through his system as he comes face to face with them. He taunts, he pushes and prods, but he doesn’t throw the first punch. A little voice inside his head tells him he can’t be the one to start the fight. He tries again to ignore that the little voice sounds an awful lot like Rachel. But he can’t quite accomplish that; instead a new surge of anger rushes through him as a picture of the slushied Rachel from this morning springs to mind. He walks out. They don‘t.
At least not right away. He gets a two day suspension and an angry call from his probation officer threatening to return him to juvie.
He couldn’t care less.
§§§
Thursday is awkward as shit.
He’s stuck at home with no one but Eli Puckerman for company. So, he does what he does best - he goes into avoidance mode. He spends the morning working out. He goes for a long run, then hits the weights for a while. Once he runs himself ragged he goes inside, takes a shower, and takes off before the old man can lift himself off the couch. Dude still hasn’t found a job and Puck knows its only a matter of time before the man snaps. Eli Puckerman isn’t made to handle things not going his way; he’s just not strong enough it seems.
He spends the rest of the morning driving around. But, by noon, he knows he just has to go back. He’s got nowhere else to run. At least not yet.
The first thing he hears when he opens the door is the faint sound of crying. Then everything goes to hell as the next sounds rips through the air. Shit is slamming against walls and things are being thrown and all he can think is that they’ve been here before. Many, many times before.
He inches towards the family room and when he’s as close as he’s going to get he lets himself slide down the wall and pulls his knees to his chest. The slamming and throwing and general rampage lasts another twenty minutes before he hears his father’s cries for the second time in his life. He sits there, frozen, listening to the older man cry for who knows how long before Eli finally succumbs to sleep once more.
He pushes himself off the floor, goes upstairs, and throws himself onto his bed. Sleep will come soon enough. And maybe, Eli Puckerman was onto something. Sometimes, sleep is the only escape you have.
He wakes up to a text.
Come over. Dad’s are gone for a long weekend. -Rachel*
B there in 10 - Puck
I miss you. - Rachel
He doesn’t know how to respond to that last one. Fuck, he doesn’t even know what to do with the overwhelming sense of calm that envelops him as he reads it. He wants to respond but nothing he types seems appropriate. Instead, he pushes himself out of bed and heads off.
“Puck, can we talk?”
“How ‘bout fuck no.” He really doesn’t want to do this right now.
“I just want to talk to you?”
“Yeah well, I just want you gone. Guess neither one of us is getting what they want.” He throws on his letterman jacket and hopes he can make a clean getaway.
“Do you have to be such a little bitch about this?”
“I don’t know, do you have to be such a fucktard?” His voice is even, despite the fact that his blood is boiling.
“Give me a break here, kid, I’m fucking trying.”
“Fuck you. I. Don’t. Owe. You. Anything.” He walks out the door - again- without a backwards glance.
He doesn’t know how the hell Berry managed to burrow herself so deep into his life in only a few weeks. I mean sure, they spent every waking moment of winter break together. They talked and got to know each other. But it wasn’t supposed to be like this. He wasn’t supposed to be like this. Somehow he started to care. He started to look forward to their time together. He started to think about her all the time. Shit, he even missed her when she wasn’t around. But, he kept fighting it because he just wasn’t what she wanted.
But then his father waltzed back into his life and he just dropped her. Fuck his life.
He walks up to the two story Berry house with his heart in his throat. His heart is racing, his palms are sweaty, and he has absolutely no clue what he’s going to say once she opens the door. He (sort of) hates that all it took was one message and he came running. He loves that he was the one she texted.
She opens the door and she’s practically naked. So, cue his jaw hitting the floor. She’s wearing a pair of those hot little cotton short shorts that every girl seems to exploit and a practically see through white wife beater. She’s perfection and she’s launching herself at him.
“Noah!” Her tight, hot little body wraps around him and her head immediately nuzzles into his neck.
“I missed you too, Ray.” He chuckles. It would figure that she could make him laugh at a time like this.
Her hands cradle her face as she speaks, “Noah, look at your face.”
“It’s fine.”
“No, it’s not. There’s a bruise on your eye. Come inside and let’s get you cleaned up.” He totally checks out her ass as she walks inside. It’s like instinct or whatever.
They are an hour into the movie, her body cradled against his, before she speaks. “Thank you, Noah.”
“For what?”
“For sticking up for me. I know it couldn’t have been easy, what with getting suspended. And getting in trouble with your probation officer probably wasn’t easy on you either.” She’s looking at him with those big, wide brown eyes and he just want to kind of kiss her.
“It’s not a problem, Rach. I’d do it again in a heartbeat, no matter the consequences, if it meant those assholes would stop slushieing you.”
“Because you’re a badass?”
“Because I’m a badass and no one messes with my girl.” He tightens his arms around her.
She’s quiet after that. For a whole fucking minute until she finally asks, “How long are you suspended for?”
“I’ll be back to school on Monday. Don’t worry.”
“I wont.”
“Hey, Noah?”
“Yes, Rach?”
She turns her head towards him and asks, “Will you tell me what’s going on?”
“You don’t want to know and I don’t want to bring you into this.”
“But I do want to know, Noah. You’re hurting. I know you wont admit it, but I can see it. I can see it in your eyes, in the way you carry yourself, in your posture, in you….”
“My old man is back in town” He wants to say he just spit it out before she talked him to death, but its not. It’s because she makes him want to talk to her.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“My sperm donor has decided to grace us with his presence.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“How does that make you feel.” Shit.
“Rach.”
“Noah.”
“Rach.” He wonders how long he can hold out on her and if that is enough time for her neck to start cramping up. That is all he needs to change the subject.
“I can go all day, Noah.” Well fuck.
“I hate it. I hate having him around. I hate him. But there’s still a part of me that wishes that he would stick around and try. You know?”
“I do.”
“Are you going to talk to him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh.”
“If I do. You’ll be the first person I’ll tell.”
“Really?” She’s beaming up at him and that warm feeling he gets when she does that starts spreading through him again.
“Yeah.”
“Cause I’m your girl.”
“Cause you’re my girl.” She turns her head back and wiggles herself father back into him when he says it.
He wonders if she knows just what that means to him- her being his girl.
§§§
He finally stumbles out of bed at 2 in the afternoon on Friday. He had a late night with Rachel and didn’t end up coming home until she after Rachel had left for school. By then his ma and sister were gone for the day so he’d just gone to his room and thrown himself on his bed. But now, his stomach is growling and he really can’t avoid the kitchen forever. He’ll wonder later, if he should have just starved.
“What the fuck are you thinking, boy?”
“Excuse me?”
“What the fuck are you thinking, sneaking in here at 7 in the morning? Where the fuck were you? What the fuck were you doing, or should I say, who the fuck were you doing?” He should totally not be thinking about how his old man just totally channeled Rachel.
“Fuck you, Eli. I don’t owe you any explanation.”
“The fuck you don’t. I’m your father.” He hates the fact that he still knows the tell tale signs in the man’s face that signal his rising anger.
“You’re not my father. You stopped being my father the day you walked out. I don’t owe you a damn thing.”
“You think what you’re doing is right, huh? You think making your mother worry about you, doesn’t hurt her?”
“Fuck you. You can cut the guilt trip bullshit. Ma knew where the fuck I was. She knew where I was staying.” Now he’s the one getting angry.
“Sure she did. Is that why you felt the need to climb in through your window rather than the front door.”
“I came in through the window cause I didn’t want to run into your sorry ass, not because I didn’t want Ma to know.”
Eli throws his hands in the air and sighs,” Why are you avoiding me, Noah?”
“Because I want nothing to do with you?”
“I’m fucking trying here, kid. I’m trying to rebuild. I’m fucking trying to get my life back.”
“Yeah, how’s that working out for you.”
“Shitty at the moment.”
“Yeah, well, it isn’t going to get any better. Your life isn’t here waiting for you anymore. We’ve moved on.”
“Come on, Noah, cut me a little slack.”
“Stop calling me Noah. The name is Puck.” And he’s even angrier.
“Fine. Puck, cut me a little slack.”
“You don’t deserve slack.”
“You don’t know what the fuck I deserve, kid.”
And he explodes, “Fuck if I don’t. Did you give mom any slack when you used to slap her around after you’d hit the sauce a little too hard, huh? Or did you cut me a little slack when you punched me, despite the fact that I was a little kid, or that I was less than half your size? Did you cut us some fucking slack when you cleaned out our bank accounts the day you walked? Or better yet, did you ever consider that we might need a little help, and sent us some money to get by? Fuck no. You left and never looked back. So, as one of the people you walked out on, I think I know what you fucking do and don’t deserve.”
“Puck, please…” The man looks deflated and the signs of anger have long since faded. But, he can’t help himself. He’s always kinda imagined kicking this man while he was down, so he would know what it was like.
“No, fuck you. I’m talking. You don’t deserve slack and you don’t deserve mercy. You don’t deserve to be allowed back into our lives without a whole fucking lot of fighting on your part. You don’t deserve to see the daughter you turned your back on. You never once tried to contact us, and for that you deserve nothing.”
“But I came back. I’m fucking here and I’m trying and it hasn’t been easy.”
“What did you expect? That everyone in town would be bending over backwards to hire a drunken wife beater. Or that we would just welcome you back with open arms after all the shit that you pulled.”
“I thought you would at least give me a shot to prove myself.”
“All you’ve proven since you got here is that you still run to alcohol when things get tough, and that anger is still your default setting. You’ve proven nothing else.”
“You wont give me the chance to show you anything else. And your mom and sister wont either until they see you trying. Please, for me, try.” He’s not sure he wants to try at all.
“No.”
“Puck.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t. Because I don’t care. I stopped caring years ago.” He wishes that were true.
“Will you ever change your mind?”
“I don’t know. Are you going to cut and run and give up?”
“No. That couch has my name on it for as long as your mom is willing to put with me.”
“And if I don’t ever change my mind.”
“I’ll still be here.” He searches the man’s face for any sign of deceit. He can’t say what he wants to say unless he’s sure that the man is for real.
“You're the first person who broke my heart. For the rest of my life, you will always be the one who hurt me the most. Don't forget that."
“I wont.”
“I might change my mind.”
§§§
They’re sitting on the tailgate of his truck. It’s a clear, bright, and starry Saturday night. She’s curled up against him, both his arms are wrapped around her, and his face is buried in her hair.
He lifts his head and whispers, “I talked to my dad.”
“Did you? When?”
“Yesterday.”
“How did it go?” He knows she’ll keep asking questions till she’s satisfied so he’s just going to answer them without censors. She could tell if he was lying away.
“I don’t know. We yelled and we talked and I told him I might never forgive him. I even told him how much he hurt me”
“And what did he say?”
“That he understands and that he’s still staying.”
“How do you feel?”
“Honestly?”
“Yeah.”
“Like this big weight has finally been lifted off my chest.”
“I’m glad, Noah.”
And just like that they are back to comfortable silence. Only this time, he’s the one who feels the need to break it.
“What’s going on with us, Rach?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what are we?”
“I thought we had established that already.”
“We have?” He’s confused as fuck.
“Yes, I do believe we have.”
“Do you mind, like, clarifying it for me.”
“I thought we had decided that I was your girl and you were my boy. I mean this has been building up for a while after all.”
“Okay. What kind of boy?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Am I your boyfriend?”
“I thought I had just answered that?”
“Could you answer it again?” He needs to be sure.
“Fine. Yes, Noah, you are my boyfriend.”
“Good to know, baby. Good to know.” It’s in that moment that he realizes just how instinctual this all really is, this whole being hers thing. It’s like he was hardwired to be this way. So he stops fighting it and embraces it. There’s a little voice in his head telling him it’s the best decision he’ll ever make.
§§§
Monday is the shit. Especially when compared to the last two.
He wakes up in the morning to breakfast cooked by his old man. He even exchanged good mornings with the guy. It felt like progress. His mom and Hannah even looked at him funny. Then, Hannah even kinda hugged the man when he presented them both with homemade lunches. They might just be on the road to recovery after all.
But, Rachel walking into school wearing his letterman jacket and holding his hand was still the highlight of his day. Everyone started and whispered but he didn’t care. Things were finally going his way. He just might get his badass happily fucking ever after.
§§§
He totally fucking does. He eventually gets the father he always wanted. His mom and sister have always been there so he gets that. And to top it all off, he gets Rachel Berry to become Rachel Puckerman - a kick ass wife who gives him kick ass little boys.
Chapter: 1/1
Author: Blackgem88
Pairing: Puck/Rachel
Rating: T for language
Words: 5178
Spoilers: Season 1
Summary: Noah's father comes back to rebuild the relationship he left behind. Noah doesn't want shit from him.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Just taking the character for a spin.
Notes: Written for the Puckleberry Drabble meme for the prompt: "You're the first person who broke my heart. For the rest of my life, you will always be the one who hurt me the most. Don't forget that."
§§§
“Noah” Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck. This was not supposed to be happening.
“What the fuck do you want?”
“Noah, please don’t talk to your father that way.” His mom just doesn’t understand. He counts to ten but shit doesn’t work.
“Fuck that. Douche walked out on us. I can talk to him any fucking way I want to.”
“Look, Noah…”
“Fuck you. You don’t get to call me that. The name’s Puck.” His hands are clenching at his side, fists curling and uncurling.
“Noah, don’t.”
“Don’t what, mom. Don’t tell this douchetard that he’s not wanted here. Don’t tell him that he lost all right to fucking anything all those years ago. Don’t what?”
“I’m back, Puck. For good.”
“Tell me he’s lying. Please tell me you are not allowing this asshole back into our lives now. Tell me you haven’t lost your mind and that he’s just making shit up.”
“Noah, your father and I have been talking and we both want to give this thing another try. We want to be a family again. All of us.”
“Screw that shit. We already are a family. We don’t need him. We’ve managed just fine without him for the last decade.”
“You need a father, Noah. Hannah needs a father. Don’t you think she deserves to have a father?” His mother is begging but he’s too far gone.
“She does. Hannah deserves to have a father that loves her. Not some bastard that’s gonna beat the crap out of her. Or some loser who’ll take off as soon as something better comes along.”
“I’m different, now. I’ve been sober for 3 months and I haven’t sat at a poker table in 2.”
“Well congratulations to you. But, I don’t give a shit. You’re a day late and a fucking penny motherfucking short. So get to steppin’”
“I’m not leaving, Puck. You better get used to seeing me around.”
“Well fucking Happy New Year to me.”
“Noah.” His mother is looking at him, her eyes pleading but he doesn’t know what she’s pleading for.
“Don’t Noah me. You want this son of a bitch here. Fine. But, when he starts his shit again, I’m not going to be around. I’m out.”
He walks out the door and doesn’t look back.
§§§
Shit kinda goes crazy the day his father walks back into his life. The douchetard walked out all those fucking years ago and never looked back; he has no fucking right to just come back and expect everything to be alright. Eli Puckerman has no right to strut around the house like he owns the place and it makes him so fucking angry to know that he does. He has been for the last week. It makes him so angry to know that every morning when he wakes up, he can expect good ol’ Eli to be there.
So, really, it comes as no surprise when he feels the need to vent out his frustrations elsewhere. He couldn’t care less about his probation restrictions at this point. Anything is better than sharing his space with his sperm donor. Besides, (almost) nobody at McKinley cares about what happens to him, and he hasn’t deluded himself into thinking otherwise.
He starts out small. Just a little something to help take the edge off the anger coursing through his veins. His truck keys are burning a hole in his pocket so he takes off. It’s not like anyone actually expects him to go to class; especially on the first day.
His tires screech as the truck violently pulls out of the school parking lot, the nearest state park the only thing on his mind. He spends the rest of the day in a stupor, the alcohol impairing his senses. It’s not until almost nine that he manages to sober up enough to drive home. When he gets there he realizes that maybe staying out was the better option.
It’s Monday evening so his mom is out working the graveyard shift and Hannah is staying at the babysitters. He thanks whoever is out there for that small miracle. The man that gave him life is sprawled out on the couch, unconscious and disheveled. A newspaper lies on top of their coffee table and even from far away he can tell that each job announcement the loser circled this morning has been exxed out. But, the worst part of it all is the nearly empty bottle of Jack Daniels resting beside the paper. One day back was all it took for the old man to throw 3 months down the drain.
For a moment he feels like that scared 8 year old boy that used to come home with fear weighing him down. It’s like he’s traveling back in time, to a time when he had to come up with elaborate lies to explain the bruises on his body to his friends. He hates those times, especially the ones when he used to watch his mom recover after a brutal night of protecting him. But, then he realizes he’s not 8 anymore. He’s a man now and he can take anything Eli throws at him or his family.
It’s a depressing sight, really. So he doesn’t want to linger. He’s almost up the stairs when he hears the old man stir. He’s almost to his room when he hears the sound of glass breaking. His door is locked by the time the old man goes on a rampage. Ten minutes later he hears the front door slam. He sure as fuck doesn’t want to see the state of the family room in the morning.
§§§
The morning light comes sooner than he expects or wants it to. His head is pounding from all the shit going on and he’s dreading going downstairs. But, he has to take care of things before his ma comes home. So he drags himself out of bed, forgoes his morning work out, and heads for the family room. It takes almost an hour to get the place looking like some drunken idiot didn’t totally trash the place and by the time he’s done, he doesn’t have time for breakfast. So it’s a shower and then off to school. At least, he has enough time to pick up a cup of some shit excuse for coffee before his morning class.
Anger and frustration have totally taken over by the time he stalks through the halls of McKinley. His eyes are practically burning with rage and he needs to do something to release it. Rachel Berry is the first person he sees. Jacob Ben-Israel is the second. Creep is trying to corner Berry into a corner but she manages to get away from him when Tina comes to her rescue. The second he sees her get away he knows exactly how the day is going to turn out for the little fucker stalking her. He takes the time to drink his morning coffee but by the end of Tuesday morning Jacob Ben-Israel ends up in the dumpster. So do his friends.
Still, its not enough. The anger, resentment, and frustration are still there, just below the surface.
His day goes from whatever to shittastic Tuesday evening. It’s bad enough he got reamed by his probie officer but everything spirals out of control when he gets home after football practice. The first thing he hears when he walks inside is his sister crying. His feet carry him to her and the first thing he does is wrap his arms around her. He whispers soothing words in her ear until her sobs die down to whimpers, and its only then that he asks what happened.
“He yelled at me, Noah. He said I was worthless. He was so mean.” He hates that sound; his sister’s cries have always been his weakness.
“It’s okay, Han. He’s doesn’t know what he’s talking about. You’re not worthless, I promise you that. You’re worth everything.”
“But I didn’t even do anything.”
“I know.”
He takes her hand and leads her upstairs. Hannah comes first and he has to make sure that she’s okay. They go into her room and he spends the next two hours playing with her and trying to get her mind off the monster living just down the hall from them. He tries to show her just how much he thinks she’s worth.
The minute Hannah is fast asleep, he desperately needs to unleash his anger a bit. He marches straight into his mother’s bedroom to find the bastard. He has shit to get off his chest. But bastard’s gone and his anger continues to build.
§§§
Wednesday morning is shittastic. He wakes up at the butt crack of fucking dawn and tries to sweat his rage out. It’s the only thing he can think of to work his anger out without further angering his probation officer. She wasn’t too happy he decided to skip Monday and she sure as hell didn’t appreciate the art of him throwing stalkers into dumpsters. He wants to tell her to go fuck herself but he can’t bring himself to get the words out. Impulse control at its finest. Rachel would be proud.
A long jog and a few rounds of weights later and nothing. It’s all still there. He hasn’t worked out shit.
He showers and dresses as quickly as he can, eager to get out of before Eli stirrs. The last thing he needs right now is Eli fucking with him. He still kinda hopes that he does.
“Noah? Is that you?”
“I told you, old man, the name is Puck.”
“Fine. Good morning Puck.”
He makes a noncommittal grunt and walks out the door. He ignores the fact that the little voice congratulating him for not punching his father sounds an awful lot like Rachel. Besides that, anything other than that nod just doesn’t seem right. Nothing seems right anymore. He wonders if things were ever right in his life and he can’t come up with one time that they were. The only time that even comes close was built on a goddamn fantasy. He refuses to acknowledge that week and focuses on the fact that before his father showed up, things were getting to close to almost right.
By the time he pulls his truck into the school parking lot he’s at war with himself. He’s angry and frustrated and generally upset that his father decided to walk back into their lives. Now that he’s older, though, he appreciates the man for leaving rather than continue using them all as his punching bags. He’s angry at the way he chose to leave. He hates him for the choices he made once he left. He loathes the type of man he is. But he can’t help the fact that, try as he might to suppress it, there is a small part of him that is glad that the old man is back. He wishes that there wasn’t a part of him that hopes that Eli Puckerman will prove himself to be worthy of redemption. He wishes that life would be less complicated than this.
The internal battle raging in his head is quickly forgotten the minute he sees five hockey players dump large slushies on Rachel. Fuck. He immediately sees red. Adrenaline is coursing through his veins as he marches over, fully intent on going all death star on the fucking assholes. But, as soon as they see the look in his eyes and his deliberate stride they scatter like the fucking cowards they are. He keeps moving, though, cause he knows Rachel is going to need him.
He’s less than a foot away from her when they finally lock eyes and his heart plummets. The look in her eyes is enough to bring him to his knees. Rachel’s doe brown eyes are shining with tears; the pain, sadness, and disappointment all evident in their brown depths. It’s all his fault this happened and he feels fucking horrible about it. He should have known that the minute those puck heads sniffed even the smallest opportunity they’d attack; he’d just been too preoccupied to make sure he didn’t give them one.
“Come on, Rach, let’s get you cleaned up.”
He breathes a sigh of relief when she wordlessly nods her head. They walk towards the nearest handicapped bathroom. It’s still pretty early; classes don’t start for another twenty minutes so they have time to get her cleaned up. The steady sound of her trolley bag rolling behind them is the only sound that echoes through the halls. He wonders how badly he’s fucked things up between them.
They separated as soon as Puck locked the door behind them. Rachel took the time to open her bag and gather the necessary supplies while he set up a chair and started the warm water. Even after everything was set up to clean her up they still hadn’t said a word to each other. He doesn’t want to be the first one to break the silence but he idly wonders if he’s going to have to be.
“What happened, Noah?”
“You got slushied.” Avoidance has always been his strong suit.
“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Noah.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Well, I think you should.”
“I. Don’t. Want. To. Talk. About. It.”
“Well why not?” Her hand is on her hip and she’s legit tapping her foot at him. It’d be kind of fucking funny if she wasn’t, you know, clearly annoyed at him.
“It doesn’t concern you Ray. Let it go.”
“I can’t let it go Noah.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“Because it concerns you and I care deeply about you. If something is bothering you then something is bothering me.” She’s looking at him and for the first time he thinks he sees something different in her eyes. He just can’t quite put his finger on it.
“It’s none of your business.” He hates the hurt look that comes into her eyes when he says that. But it leaves as quickly as it left.
“It is my business. You are my business, damn it.” She pauses as she takes a step towards him but continues right after, “I’ve waited three days Noah. I can wait a little longer. I’m here when you’re ready.”
He walks out the door.
That afternoon he locks himself in the locker room with five members of the hockey team. It wasn’t a fair fight but it would have to do. Anger and adrenaline are coursing through his system as he comes face to face with them. He taunts, he pushes and prods, but he doesn’t throw the first punch. A little voice inside his head tells him he can’t be the one to start the fight. He tries again to ignore that the little voice sounds an awful lot like Rachel. But he can’t quite accomplish that; instead a new surge of anger rushes through him as a picture of the slushied Rachel from this morning springs to mind. He walks out. They don‘t.
At least not right away. He gets a two day suspension and an angry call from his probation officer threatening to return him to juvie.
He couldn’t care less.
§§§
Thursday is awkward as shit.
He’s stuck at home with no one but Eli Puckerman for company. So, he does what he does best - he goes into avoidance mode. He spends the morning working out. He goes for a long run, then hits the weights for a while. Once he runs himself ragged he goes inside, takes a shower, and takes off before the old man can lift himself off the couch. Dude still hasn’t found a job and Puck knows its only a matter of time before the man snaps. Eli Puckerman isn’t made to handle things not going his way; he’s just not strong enough it seems.
He spends the rest of the morning driving around. But, by noon, he knows he just has to go back. He’s got nowhere else to run. At least not yet.
The first thing he hears when he opens the door is the faint sound of crying. Then everything goes to hell as the next sounds rips through the air. Shit is slamming against walls and things are being thrown and all he can think is that they’ve been here before. Many, many times before.
He inches towards the family room and when he’s as close as he’s going to get he lets himself slide down the wall and pulls his knees to his chest. The slamming and throwing and general rampage lasts another twenty minutes before he hears his father’s cries for the second time in his life. He sits there, frozen, listening to the older man cry for who knows how long before Eli finally succumbs to sleep once more.
He pushes himself off the floor, goes upstairs, and throws himself onto his bed. Sleep will come soon enough. And maybe, Eli Puckerman was onto something. Sometimes, sleep is the only escape you have.
He wakes up to a text.
Come over. Dad’s are gone for a long weekend. -Rachel*
B there in 10 - Puck
I miss you. - Rachel
He doesn’t know how to respond to that last one. Fuck, he doesn’t even know what to do with the overwhelming sense of calm that envelops him as he reads it. He wants to respond but nothing he types seems appropriate. Instead, he pushes himself out of bed and heads off.
“Puck, can we talk?”
“How ‘bout fuck no.” He really doesn’t want to do this right now.
“I just want to talk to you?”
“Yeah well, I just want you gone. Guess neither one of us is getting what they want.” He throws on his letterman jacket and hopes he can make a clean getaway.
“Do you have to be such a little bitch about this?”
“I don’t know, do you have to be such a fucktard?” His voice is even, despite the fact that his blood is boiling.
“Give me a break here, kid, I’m fucking trying.”
“Fuck you. I. Don’t. Owe. You. Anything.” He walks out the door - again- without a backwards glance.
He doesn’t know how the hell Berry managed to burrow herself so deep into his life in only a few weeks. I mean sure, they spent every waking moment of winter break together. They talked and got to know each other. But it wasn’t supposed to be like this. He wasn’t supposed to be like this. Somehow he started to care. He started to look forward to their time together. He started to think about her all the time. Shit, he even missed her when she wasn’t around. But, he kept fighting it because he just wasn’t what she wanted.
But then his father waltzed back into his life and he just dropped her. Fuck his life.
He walks up to the two story Berry house with his heart in his throat. His heart is racing, his palms are sweaty, and he has absolutely no clue what he’s going to say once she opens the door. He (sort of) hates that all it took was one message and he came running. He loves that he was the one she texted.
She opens the door and she’s practically naked. So, cue his jaw hitting the floor. She’s wearing a pair of those hot little cotton short shorts that every girl seems to exploit and a practically see through white wife beater. She’s perfection and she’s launching herself at him.
“Noah!” Her tight, hot little body wraps around him and her head immediately nuzzles into his neck.
“I missed you too, Ray.” He chuckles. It would figure that she could make him laugh at a time like this.
Her hands cradle her face as she speaks, “Noah, look at your face.”
“It’s fine.”
“No, it’s not. There’s a bruise on your eye. Come inside and let’s get you cleaned up.” He totally checks out her ass as she walks inside. It’s like instinct or whatever.
They are an hour into the movie, her body cradled against his, before she speaks. “Thank you, Noah.”
“For what?”
“For sticking up for me. I know it couldn’t have been easy, what with getting suspended. And getting in trouble with your probation officer probably wasn’t easy on you either.” She’s looking at him with those big, wide brown eyes and he just want to kind of kiss her.
“It’s not a problem, Rach. I’d do it again in a heartbeat, no matter the consequences, if it meant those assholes would stop slushieing you.”
“Because you’re a badass?”
“Because I’m a badass and no one messes with my girl.” He tightens his arms around her.
She’s quiet after that. For a whole fucking minute until she finally asks, “How long are you suspended for?”
“I’ll be back to school on Monday. Don’t worry.”
“I wont.”
“Hey, Noah?”
“Yes, Rach?”
She turns her head towards him and asks, “Will you tell me what’s going on?”
“You don’t want to know and I don’t want to bring you into this.”
“But I do want to know, Noah. You’re hurting. I know you wont admit it, but I can see it. I can see it in your eyes, in the way you carry yourself, in your posture, in you….”
“My old man is back in town” He wants to say he just spit it out before she talked him to death, but its not. It’s because she makes him want to talk to her.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“My sperm donor has decided to grace us with his presence.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“How does that make you feel.” Shit.
“Rach.”
“Noah.”
“Rach.” He wonders how long he can hold out on her and if that is enough time for her neck to start cramping up. That is all he needs to change the subject.
“I can go all day, Noah.” Well fuck.
“I hate it. I hate having him around. I hate him. But there’s still a part of me that wishes that he would stick around and try. You know?”
“I do.”
“Are you going to talk to him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh.”
“If I do. You’ll be the first person I’ll tell.”
“Really?” She’s beaming up at him and that warm feeling he gets when she does that starts spreading through him again.
“Yeah.”
“Cause I’m your girl.”
“Cause you’re my girl.” She turns her head back and wiggles herself father back into him when he says it.
He wonders if she knows just what that means to him- her being his girl.
§§§
He finally stumbles out of bed at 2 in the afternoon on Friday. He had a late night with Rachel and didn’t end up coming home until she after Rachel had left for school. By then his ma and sister were gone for the day so he’d just gone to his room and thrown himself on his bed. But now, his stomach is growling and he really can’t avoid the kitchen forever. He’ll wonder later, if he should have just starved.
“What the fuck are you thinking, boy?”
“Excuse me?”
“What the fuck are you thinking, sneaking in here at 7 in the morning? Where the fuck were you? What the fuck were you doing, or should I say, who the fuck were you doing?” He should totally not be thinking about how his old man just totally channeled Rachel.
“Fuck you, Eli. I don’t owe you any explanation.”
“The fuck you don’t. I’m your father.” He hates the fact that he still knows the tell tale signs in the man’s face that signal his rising anger.
“You’re not my father. You stopped being my father the day you walked out. I don’t owe you a damn thing.”
“You think what you’re doing is right, huh? You think making your mother worry about you, doesn’t hurt her?”
“Fuck you. You can cut the guilt trip bullshit. Ma knew where the fuck I was. She knew where I was staying.” Now he’s the one getting angry.
“Sure she did. Is that why you felt the need to climb in through your window rather than the front door.”
“I came in through the window cause I didn’t want to run into your sorry ass, not because I didn’t want Ma to know.”
Eli throws his hands in the air and sighs,” Why are you avoiding me, Noah?”
“Because I want nothing to do with you?”
“I’m fucking trying here, kid. I’m trying to rebuild. I’m fucking trying to get my life back.”
“Yeah, how’s that working out for you.”
“Shitty at the moment.”
“Yeah, well, it isn’t going to get any better. Your life isn’t here waiting for you anymore. We’ve moved on.”
“Come on, Noah, cut me a little slack.”
“Stop calling me Noah. The name is Puck.” And he’s even angrier.
“Fine. Puck, cut me a little slack.”
“You don’t deserve slack.”
“You don’t know what the fuck I deserve, kid.”
And he explodes, “Fuck if I don’t. Did you give mom any slack when you used to slap her around after you’d hit the sauce a little too hard, huh? Or did you cut me a little slack when you punched me, despite the fact that I was a little kid, or that I was less than half your size? Did you cut us some fucking slack when you cleaned out our bank accounts the day you walked? Or better yet, did you ever consider that we might need a little help, and sent us some money to get by? Fuck no. You left and never looked back. So, as one of the people you walked out on, I think I know what you fucking do and don’t deserve.”
“Puck, please…” The man looks deflated and the signs of anger have long since faded. But, he can’t help himself. He’s always kinda imagined kicking this man while he was down, so he would know what it was like.
“No, fuck you. I’m talking. You don’t deserve slack and you don’t deserve mercy. You don’t deserve to be allowed back into our lives without a whole fucking lot of fighting on your part. You don’t deserve to see the daughter you turned your back on. You never once tried to contact us, and for that you deserve nothing.”
“But I came back. I’m fucking here and I’m trying and it hasn’t been easy.”
“What did you expect? That everyone in town would be bending over backwards to hire a drunken wife beater. Or that we would just welcome you back with open arms after all the shit that you pulled.”
“I thought you would at least give me a shot to prove myself.”
“All you’ve proven since you got here is that you still run to alcohol when things get tough, and that anger is still your default setting. You’ve proven nothing else.”
“You wont give me the chance to show you anything else. And your mom and sister wont either until they see you trying. Please, for me, try.” He’s not sure he wants to try at all.
“No.”
“Puck.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t. Because I don’t care. I stopped caring years ago.” He wishes that were true.
“Will you ever change your mind?”
“I don’t know. Are you going to cut and run and give up?”
“No. That couch has my name on it for as long as your mom is willing to put with me.”
“And if I don’t ever change my mind.”
“I’ll still be here.” He searches the man’s face for any sign of deceit. He can’t say what he wants to say unless he’s sure that the man is for real.
“You're the first person who broke my heart. For the rest of my life, you will always be the one who hurt me the most. Don't forget that."
“I wont.”
“I might change my mind.”
§§§
They’re sitting on the tailgate of his truck. It’s a clear, bright, and starry Saturday night. She’s curled up against him, both his arms are wrapped around her, and his face is buried in her hair.
He lifts his head and whispers, “I talked to my dad.”
“Did you? When?”
“Yesterday.”
“How did it go?” He knows she’ll keep asking questions till she’s satisfied so he’s just going to answer them without censors. She could tell if he was lying away.
“I don’t know. We yelled and we talked and I told him I might never forgive him. I even told him how much he hurt me”
“And what did he say?”
“That he understands and that he’s still staying.”
“How do you feel?”
“Honestly?”
“Yeah.”
“Like this big weight has finally been lifted off my chest.”
“I’m glad, Noah.”
And just like that they are back to comfortable silence. Only this time, he’s the one who feels the need to break it.
“What’s going on with us, Rach?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what are we?”
“I thought we had established that already.”
“We have?” He’s confused as fuck.
“Yes, I do believe we have.”
“Do you mind, like, clarifying it for me.”
“I thought we had decided that I was your girl and you were my boy. I mean this has been building up for a while after all.”
“Okay. What kind of boy?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Am I your boyfriend?”
“I thought I had just answered that?”
“Could you answer it again?” He needs to be sure.
“Fine. Yes, Noah, you are my boyfriend.”
“Good to know, baby. Good to know.” It’s in that moment that he realizes just how instinctual this all really is, this whole being hers thing. It’s like he was hardwired to be this way. So he stops fighting it and embraces it. There’s a little voice in his head telling him it’s the best decision he’ll ever make.
§§§
Monday is the shit. Especially when compared to the last two.
He wakes up in the morning to breakfast cooked by his old man. He even exchanged good mornings with the guy. It felt like progress. His mom and Hannah even looked at him funny. Then, Hannah even kinda hugged the man when he presented them both with homemade lunches. They might just be on the road to recovery after all.
But, Rachel walking into school wearing his letterman jacket and holding his hand was still the highlight of his day. Everyone started and whispered but he didn’t care. Things were finally going his way. He just might get his badass happily fucking ever after.
§§§
He totally fucking does. He eventually gets the father he always wanted. His mom and sister have always been there so he gets that. And to top it all off, he gets Rachel Berry to become Rachel Puckerman - a kick ass wife who gives him kick ass little boys.