[fic: glee]
everything I know about the apocalypse I learned from the movies
glee. apocalypse!au. noah puckerman. “that is some straight up Cloverfield shit.” Puck: succinct and correct, as always. ~5800 | r
Quinn snaps and finally says, “Fuck this. Fuck this. I’m going. I’m leaving.”
Sam’s a bloody, dead lump in her lamp, and her cheerio uniform is a lot redder than it should have been. He rolls to the floor when she stands. She held him for a long time, Quinn did, stroked his face and held his hand and listened to his breathing and listened to the nothingness coming from his chest afterward.
And now she stands. “Fuck this.”
She meets eyes with Santana. They got their cheerio lingo going on, speaking without words. End of the world and Quinn is still fucking head cheerleader and Santana falls in line.
There are field hockey sticks in the back of the locker room. Quinn grabs one, hands the other to Santana. Little amazon warrior cheerleaders with hockey sticks for spears. This is probably what anarchy looks like, if you get down to it.
They don’t ask anyone to follow. They stand shoulder to shoulder for a moment, then push aside the barricades around the door (in two seconds flat they’ll be back up and Quinn and Santana really will be on their own) and out they go.
And no one ever hears from them again, Puck thinks. The end.
If only it where that simple.
Brittany’s the first to go. Big surprise there. She all but got ‘come and murder me, Mr. Big Scary Demon/Serial Killer/Freddy Kruger-esque villian’ stapled on her forehead.
In the choir room, after Mr. Schue tells them to stay put while he tries to figure out what the holy shit is going on, they hear a scratching at the door. Sam has already informed them of at least five different horror flicks that start this way and so if they would all please just stay away the door-
Brittany opens it, of course. Puck doesn’t have a single fucking clue what went through her mind but he figures it was something along the lines of: oh, this sure is scary and Sam does have a-awe! What’s that noise? A cat? Let me go check.
She pokes her head out, it’s lopped clean off. The blood, at least, flows outward and not in. Her body’s sucked out of the room, like she’s caught in a vacuum. The door shuts again with a quiet click.
Santana doesn’t cry, but the look on her face’s kind of worse. She sits in her plastic chair, hands in her lap, lips pursed, and stares at the spot where poor, stupid Brittany used to be. She stares at it for a long time before sort of slumping forward and placing her hands on her knees. Not saying a damn word.
(“so,” Puck says later to lighten the mood. Yeah, he knows how that sounds. “So who wants to bet that Mr. Schue bit the dust?”
“That’s a sucker’s bet,” Santana says hoarsely)
“Dude, Kurt sure as hell picked a shitty time to go get laid,” Puck says as the screams die down a little outside their blocked doors.
“Kurt isn’t-” Rachel protests instantly, the first thing she’s said since Mr. Schue told them not to leave the room, under any circumstances. She’s gripping Finn’s hand like a lifeline, like if she lets go poof she’s gone.
“Did you know Dave’s in love with him?” Quinn asks suddenly.
“Dave Karofsky?” Finn reacts for the first time.
“Women, man,” Puck says. “They just want to turn everyone into fucking faggots.”
“I saw them making out in the biology lab,” Mercedes adds helpfully. Quinn shoots her a triumphant look. “Full-on mack.”
“There are some images a guy just doesn’t need, really,” Sam mutters.
“Well you know what they say in horror movies, don’t you? Get sexed up, get axed up.” Puck draws a finger across his neck. “Wanna bet they got it doing the nasty?”
Rachel looks about ready to hurl. “What the hell is your problem!?” she demands.
“Whole world goes crazy, you might as well go crazy with it.”
Fucking Sam fucking Evans corners him the next day, after they’ve all splintered off into groups. Mercedes is convening with Tina and Mike in their little minority power club, Rachel and Finn have generously picked up Artie, and Quinn and Santana are speaking in cheerio-code, probably about poor, dead Brittany.
“Hey, man, I just need to ask you something,” Sam says with all the guilelessness of the cutest puppy in the freaking world. Really. Puck wants to punch his lights out on principal. You do not get to be that cute in high school, date the hottest chick on the cheerleading squad, and survive. Not in Puck’s world.
But he ascends to a higher plane of peace and snaps, “Can you make it quick? I’m trying to make a shiv here.”
The shiv, such as it is, is mostly just him breaking off wood from the busted up piano and hoping for an extra pointy piece.
“It’s just you know, some freaky shit is going down out there and we’re not going to be able to stay here forever.” He shoots a look over his shoulder at Quinn and c’mon, man, really? They’re going to do this, really? “And if anything-um-happens to me do ya think you can-”
“Hey, you know what? Can we not do this? Ever. Thanks.” He’d point this conversation in Finn’s general direction but yeah Finn. Like that’d reassure anyone. Hey, big useless guy can you watch out for my girlfriend if I get killed off? Also, can you try to not be the big useless guy if that happens? Yeah right.
Fucking Sam fucking Evans returns to Quinn with all the grace of a kicked puppy and, shit, even Puck feels kinda of sorry for being a douche to him. Puck, feeling sorry. Sam's got talent, Puck has to admit.
Sam grips Quinn's hand and she turns to look at him for a moment, sees something in his eyes, and rests her head against his shoulder while their blonde hair creates fluffy, golden halo around them.
Puck nearly hurls.
(p.s. Puck is not still in love with Quinn. For the record. At all. Sure, he’d fuck her again but who wouldn’t? She’s Quinn motherfucking Fabray. The hottest piece of ass that ever flounced around McKinley High in a too short cheerio skirt.
Puck would tap that so hard.
But he’s not in love with it. Anymore.)
Later, when Finn approaches him, Puck says very loudly, “No. And not just no but hell no.”
Finn looks put out but unsurprised. Rachel Berry looks confused.
Plus, what the hell is it with them thinking he’ll be the one to make it to the end? Well okay. They have a point, but a little self-confidence never hurt anyone.
Well, no one except Artie who got it into his little wheelchair-bound brain that he ought to be the advanced scout on their harebrained plan of ‘getting the hell out of dodge.’
Rachel has already explained that the outside hardly looks better than the inside, standing on Finn’s shoulders and peeking out the top window.
“No offense, dude, but you’re kind of in a wheelchair.” Puck notices fucking Sam fucking Evans sitting close to Quinn, hand on her knee, stroking it comfortingly. “Why don’t you let Sam go? He’s quick. Quarterback.”
Artie looks over at Tina and then at the door were stupid, dead Brittany got herself killed. “No. I’m going. I’m the most expendable.”
Puck opens the door for him.
“Noah!” Rachel snaps when she notices.
He shrugs. “What? Boy’s got a point.”
(what happens to Artie, no one will ever knows but Puck imagines it went a little something like this:
he wheels down the empty, dark hallways and thinks well, this isn’t so bad. Maybe those things moved on?
they didn’t, and wheelchairs are terrible getaway vehicles. He probably makes it about ten feet, and he either falls out of his wheelchair or they manage to grab him. Either way, he’s thrashing uselessly on the ground, trying to punch his way free.
either way he’s probably still alive when they start chewing.)
On the bright side? Tina totally breaks up with Other Asian.
Mike, Puck reminds himself, Mike.
But they can’t stay in the choir room forever. It’s been two days, and the chips and cookies Mr. Schue had supplied for their planned late-night practice are running low.
“Well, if we lost Mercedes-” Puck starts.
She tosses him a look. “Oh, don’t you even, white boy. I will literally snap you in two.”
Puck decides to take her seriously.
“We can’t stay here,” Rachel speaks up, totally stealing the point Puck was trying to make. “We need to get out of here. How long will the door hold? Is the door even holding? Or do they just not want to come in?”
“They probably don’t want to come in,” Santana says lowly. “They know we’ll have to come out eventually.”
Tina, lifting her head from its lax position on Mercedes’ generous shoulder, says, “We don’t even know what’s out there.” Her face is streaked with grimy tears and creepy goth makeup.
Mike makes a move to comfort her, holds back, since Tina is now woefully regretting ever breaking up with Puck’s wheelchair-bound home boy. If Artie was still alive, Puck would totally high five him.
“Actually,” Santana snaps back. “We’ve got a pretty damn good idea.”
Puck really wants to tell her to stop thinking about poor, dead Brittany because the fuck good will it do anyway? He is sorry Brittany’s gone, and not even because she was a decent lay. Mostly because Santana was apparently totally gay for her-which, by the way? Hot.
So he’s sorry that she’s gone, he really is. Sorry that Santana keeps looking at the door and replaying those two split seconds over and over again. He’s sorry but how is that going to help anyone?
“So who wants to make a break for it?”
It’s unanimous.
It’s also a really fucking bad idea. Go figure.
They make it as far as the boys’ locker room. They lose Mercedes, Tina, and Mike. Acceptable losses, as they’d say in the army.
Acceptable losses.
Except, of course, for fucking Sam fucking Evans.
They’re moving real quiet-like through the hallways. Lockers are overturned; bodies lay haphazardly across the linoleum floor. Rachel trips over one, Mary Jane clad foot stepping onto a lifeless face and crunching bone. She squeaks and all but climbs up Finn.
They fall on them instantly. It’s hard to describe what they are. Basically, what's the scariest monster you ever pictured under you bed? Multiply that by like 9000 and you’ve got the fucking things nesting in McKinley High.
One grabs at Mike first, razor-sharp claws biting right down into his chest as the kid flails his arms out, chokes on his watery scream. He’s wearing a white shirt and the blood looks really super red splattering out of his chest, and they crack open his ribcage and pull out his insides.
Puck saw this zombie movie one time and this dumbass got cornered by a bunch of zombies and they just fell on him, starting ripping him apart like he was made of fucking butter. That’s the way Mike Chang goes, except they’re not zombies. There isn't a single hint of humanness in their faces, there is nothing but blackened flesh and pointed teeth.
Also? They’re fucking fast.
They all start running. Well, all except Tina who just stands there and watches them eat Mike-probably wondering if that’s how Artie got it too-and just stands there and stands there before one of them sort of realizes she’s a giant idiot and snaps her neck.
“Fucking move!” Puck snaps, reaching for the closest person to give them a good shove forward. It’s Quinn.
“Watch it, white boy!” Mercedes shoves him into a locker and claws bang into the metal above his head. Puck rights himself like the football playing jock he is and swings right back into gear. He doesn’t even notice Mercedes isn’t behind him anymore, he doesn’t even know what exactly happens to Mercedes. He’s got a pretty good guess though.
Finn has Rachel latched onto his back like she’s a howler monkey or something. Santana is even farther ahead, leaving them all in the dust because Santana? Santana is one smart ass girl.
As per usual in these sorts of things, someone trips. It’s Quinn. One of the half-dead students on the floor gets enough consciousness back to latch onto her ankle and scream for help. Quinn screams right back and kicks her leg free, jamming her heel into the poor son of bitch’s jaw and breaking it.
Sam falls on top of her, but on purpose. Teeth dig into his shoulder and nails bite into his lower back, muscles and sinew and tendons popping and bursting and he howls but he keeps himself on top of Quinn, spread out over her like a meaty shield. Kid watches way too many movies.
Puck probably watches too many movies too because you bet he didn’t rush passed them. You bet he stopped, grabbed the thing by its coarse, straggly hair and jammed its head into the metal locker again and again until its head did this sort of popping thing and blood slicked down his fingers and arms and ew he’s wearing his varsity jacket and is this shit ever going to come off?
He makes to grab Quinn but she pushes him away, tries to get a hold onto Sam who is a strong motherfucker because the kid is still breathing, even with what’s probably marrow and plasma and fluid and whatever pouring out of him like he’s made of confetti and it’s the Fourth of goddamn July.
“No!” Quinn swipes one angry hand at Puck when he tries to grab her again, and her nails leave nasty marks on the underside of his chin.
So Puck grabs Sam around his waist and warm, sticky Sam-blood gets all over his varsity jacket and hauls ass. Quinn stays right on his tail, making incoherent promises to fucking Sam fucking Evans.
Puck knew there was a reason he never liked that kid.
They settle Sam down on the floor. There’s enough towels in the boy’s locker room to soak up all the water in the Nile, but not stop the blood leaking out of Sam.
He mumbles and mumbles some more, a bunch of nonsense babbling that probably means wish I had never transferred here but Puck’ll never be sure.
Quinn sits with his head in her lap, stroking his bleached hair out of his eyes. Every so often, when he stops mumbling, she bends over him and kisses his forehead. What she’s really doing is feeling for his breath, but Puck doesn’t tell anyone that and neither does Quinn.
Rachel kneels down next to her and touches her arm. “Maybe we can sing a little, do ya think? Maybe it’ll calm him, make the blood run slower?”
If there was ever a time for Quinn to blow up all over Rachel’s perky face it’d be now. Instead, she just says in a quiet, low voice, “Could you just go away?”
Rachel retreats back into the safety of Finn’s arms, and watches the inevitable. Eventually Santana takes her place, though she doesn’t do it by saying dumbass shit. She just sits there, letting Quinn’s hip touch hers. Sam’s fingers move restlessly on his pants’ leg.
Puck reclines on one of the benches. It’s dark in the locker room, darker than it had been in the choir, but he can make them all out clearly. What’s left of them anyway.
“You know, that was some straight up Cloverfield shit.”
Everyone ignores him.
Rachel screams.
Finn’s off like the damn Flash. Rachel’s gone to the back to get some water for Sam from the shower, to see if Bieste had left anything to eat in her office.
Puck follows, because if it is one of those things Finn’s sure as hell cannon fodder, which means Puck’ll have to take care of it.
But it’s not a Cloverfield-wannabe. It’s just Jacob Israel. He’s hanging from one of the pipes in the showers, a borrowed jersey around his neck, his puffy hair covering his bloated face.
“Well shit,” is what Puck says.
Rachel turns her head into Finn’s chest. “Oh my God! Oh my God!”
“Explains the smell,” Puck realizes and bows his head at Finn’s reproachful look.
“Cut him down,” Rachel says dejectedly. “Please cut him down.”
“Right. Get on it, Finn.”
“What? Me? But I can’t-”
“I’m not tall enough for it. You are.” Puck shrugs, already turning back. “Man up and do it, Finn. Or leave him hanging there. Whatever. It’s not like he cares at this point, right?”
He returns back to where Quinn and Santana sit with Sam, who really is a tough motherfucker because he’s still not dead. He’s still dying. His fingers are all tangled up with Quinn’s and he keeps mumbling.
Puck almost suggests that maybe putting fucking Sam fucking Evans out of his misery is the best move for them all, but Quinn looks like she’s on an uneven edge and he doesn’t need his baby mama going batshit on him.
(yeah, Puck still thinks about Beth. He thinks about Beth a lot actually.
he starts thinking about Beth right then and if Santana and Quinn weren’t so close and weren’t the womenfolk he’d probably have himself a good cry.
Beth’s just a baby. A tiny, pinched and pink baby. What’re the odds little Beth is gonna live to see two?
he goes to Bieste office and tosses a paperweight at the window, shattering it. But no one says anything.)
Sometime later, Finn and Rachel come back and retake their seats quietly.
Judging by the pallor of Finn’s face and the way his hands shake, Jacob Israel is probably at least horizontal. Puck is duly surprised; he didn’t think Finn had it in him.
Finn lifts his head and meets Puck’s eyes. Puck gives him a nod of approval.
Fucking Sam fucking Evans finally dies. He spasms in Quinn arms, crying out in pain, as Quinn holds him to the ground and barks at Rachel to leave me the hell alone when she moves to help. Santana, because she is obviously the smartest one of them, gives Quinn her space.
And of course, because fucking Sam fucking Evans is dying he has to go out this way. His eyes flutter and he actually manages to say something coherent. Of course what he says is Quinn. He finds some last bit of strength and of course he uses it to touch Quinn’s cheek.
Then he dies. Just goes limp in Quinn’s lap, his chest doing this horrible rattling thing before going silent. Of all the shit that he’s seen, that’s what creeps Puck out the most. The silence that rises off of Sam’s chest.
“Oe tìyawn ngenga nìftxavang,” Quinn sort of says, sort of hiccups. Her fingers move through Sam’s hair, stroking and petting.
“What does that mean?” Puck asks in the hushed silence.
Quinn doesn’t answer for a moment. She shifts her legs and Sam’s head bounces limply. She’s not crying and like Santana that’s sort of worse. Worse because Puck doesn’t like that look in her eyes. He doesn’t recognize it, but he knows enough to not like it.
“I don’t know,” she admits, swallowing. “But he says it to me all the time.”
Puck doesn’t correct her. Said. Sam said it to her all the time. Past tense.
And you know, Puck didn’t promise Sam shit but he figures it’s probably in the Bro Code or something. The fact Sam even put the thought out there means it has to be picked up.
So he scoots a little closer to Quinn. Not enough to be in the space occupied by Quinn and the body she holds, because that’s probably a little low. Quinn was Puck’s baby mama but she was Sam’s girlfriend, and that distinction really does mean something.
Softly he says, “Hey, Quinn, hey.”
She doesn’t look at him.
“Look, Sam and I talked-before, okay? And he-shit. Anyway.” He tries again, swallowing. Quinn still won’t look at him. “I’m going to get you out of this alive, okay?”
This time she does look at him, but only to laugh lowly and harshly. “Puck, don’t be stupid. You’re not the hero of this apocalypse. If I want to get out of this alive, I’ll have to do it myself.”
“Yeah,” he agrees, thinking maybe she has a point. The hero shoes were probably already filled up by fucking Sam fucking Evans, and look where they got him. “But you’ve got his head in your lap so I don’t think you want to save yourself. It’s okay, though. That’s why I’m gonna do it for you.”
She bares her teeth at him, and now there are tears. Tears she hides behind her curtain of dirty hair. But Puck sees what she was thinking just before she hid it. She wishes it had been him, torn apart and dead.
And, damn it, that hurts.
(okay, so maybe Puck is a little in love with Quinn. A little. It’s just the baby mama thing.
and he’s not an idiot. He’s not going to make a move with fucking Sam fucking Evans’ blood all her cheerio skirt.
actually, he’s probably not going to make a move ever. Bro Code, or something.)
They try to get some sleep. At least Puck does, dozing against the wooden bench. If juvie teaches you anything, it’s to get sleep where you can.
He thinks he hears Quinn and Santana talking.
“If you wanna go, let’s go.” That’s Santana. It’s sort of been forever-like three days-since he’s heard her voice. Since Brittany died. Puck’s never, ever been tender with Santana Lopez, never in her whole life, but right now he just wants to gather her up and hold her close because it’s been three days since he’s heard her voice. “I’m with you.”
“If we go, we’re probably going to die,” Quinn points out quietly.
“Yeah,” Santana agrees and she’s probably thinking of poor, dead Brittany all headless and gross and that of course will get Quinn thinking of fucking Sam fucking Evans bloody and dead in her lap.
“If we go,” Quinn says, “we’ll need weapons.”
Quinn finds the field hockey sticks in the back. Santana takes one and holds it in her hands like she’s been waiting for the last three days for something like this.
Quinn doesn’t look at Sam on the floor.
“But you can’t go!” Rachel protests, leaping to her feet. “We have to stick together! We’re lost so many already don’t you want to-”
Santana presses the curve of her stick against Rachel’s temple. Rachel shuts it. “How ‘bout this? You sit tight and shut the fuck up while Quinn and I kick some ass and take some names?”
“Are you sure?” This from Finn who still looks like he’s going to throw up about the Israel thing. He looks behind the two cheerleaders. “Puck?”
Puck shrugs. “C’mon man. They got hockey sticks. Like I’m going to stop ‘em.” And he wasn’t the hero of this apocalypse, remember? But his fingers clench into unwilling fists all the same.
Quinn and Santana descend on McKinley high like avenging Valkyries. And probably get killed too.
Which leaves Puck with Finn and Rachel.
Great.
He moves Sam’s body into the back with Israel. Not in any way to disrespect Sam, but because he’s hella uncomfortable trying to catch some shut eye beside what’s left of fucking Sam fucking Evans decomposing or rotting, or whatever it is bodies do when they die, right next to him.
“You think its aliens?” Puck asks Finn. “Like Cloverfield? Or the Fourth Kind? Or do you think they really are just some sort of super mutant zombie freaks?”
“I think he’s gone insane,” Rachel whispers worriedly to Finn.
“Survival tactics, Berry. Better than going the way of Israel back there, huh?” Puck makes a jerking motion with him shoulder and then stops abruptly-Sam’s back there too. “I’m just trying to keep myself sane.”
“Can you do it without being disturbing?”
“Probably not.”
“I wonder,” Finn says between them, over them, looking at the ceiling, “if it’s like this everywhere. Do you think there’s another school, with a bunch other choir kids, getting their faces eaten off?”
“How should I know, man?”
“I saw what happened to Mercedes,” Finn tells them very quietly. His fingers shake where Rachel holds them. He manages a lopsided smile. “They just-it just bite into her cheek and pulled.”
Puck keeps one eye on Finn, thinking maybe Rachel shouldn’t be worried about him going insane.
Rachel and Finn sleep together, curled into one another. Rachel strokes his back, rubs his hair, while Finn rests nearly lifeless against her, head on her chest.
She sings, too. Of course she does. She’s Rachel Berry so she’s going to sing come hell, high water, or the apocalypse. It’s some kind of cheesy Barbara Streisand song about fighting for what you believe in or keeping your head high or happy days coming again or some such shit.
“Rachel,” Puck says, “if you don’t shut up you won’t have to worry about those things outside. I’ll tear your fucking face off.”
Finn bursts into hysterical giggles and Rachel grows quiet. Puck turns onto his side and looks at the big, useless log that used to be his best friend.
Oh shit, he thinks.
Finn calms down after a bit, but it doesn’t make Puck feel any better, though it has a positive effect on Rachel. Also, she shuts up. Singing anyway.
“I’m going to get some water,” Finn says suddenly, like anyone gives a damn. He says it anyway and kisses Rachel on her puckered mouth. “I love you,” he tells her.
“I love you,” she answers, confused.
It takes Puck ten minutes. Rachel is staring at the barricaded doors, saying nothing, while Puck picks himself up and follows Finn into the showers.
Somehow, he isn’t surprised to see Finn balancing himself on the lower wall of one of the stalls, the jersey Israel had used to off himself knotted around his neck and around the pipes in the ceiling.
“Fuck, man,” Puck says. “Fuck man, are you kidding me?”
“I can’t. I can’t,” Finn says. “They’re all dead, you know? All of them. Not just Artie or Mr. Schue or-or Mercedes. It’s everyone. My mom and your mom and Kurt’s dad and the whole fucking world and I can’t.”
“You can, even if I have break your legs to get you to quit your shit, you can,” Puck snaps. “You leave me alone with Rachel, I’ll never fucking forgive you. You hear? Never.”
“Take care of her for me, okay?” Finn’s not listening, because he is a big dumb idiot and Puck is going to murder him as soon as he stops Finn from killing himself.
Finn falls backwards, Puck leaps. The jersey rips under the strain, but it isn’t a damn blessing. Finn’s neck hits the edge of the stall, his temple bangs against the showerhead, and the back of his head cracks loudly against the tile when he lands and on the ground Finn lays still.
“Oh you fucker!” Puck howls, kneeling beside him, turning him over. “You motherfucker! Don’t you dare, don’t you fucking dare! I’m going to kill you, you retard! I’m going to kill you! You can’t do this to me!”
He isn’t aware he’s punching Finn’s face until he feels the sticky, wet blood rolling down his wrists. It isn’t doing any good. Finn’s chest is still, like Sam’s and like Artie’s and like Tina’s or Quinn’s. Still.
Rachel is finally drawn to the noise and she bursts into tears when she sees, pressing kisses against Finn’s bloodied face. She tries CPR, she tries begging, she tries pleading. Puck sits back on his haunches, blooded fists pressed to his forehead.
“No God,” Rachel says. “No please God. Finn!”
Finn doesn’t answer, just keeps on sleeping, goofy smile plastered on his face.
(it’s times like these, Puck thinks, that you remember who your best friend was.
what an asshole, leaving him here like this.)
“What’s the point?” Rachel demands, her fingers already crusting with Finn’s blood. She is up and moving like a whirlwind, the old Rachel nearly back. All determination and steel and will. Only this time it’s going to get them both killed.
“Don’t you go near that door,” Puck snarls, knowing exactly what she’s thinking.
“But why not? Why sit in here and die in the dark?” She looks at Finn’s body and sobs loudly. “I can’t do it! I can’t do it! Oh God, I can’t die in here! Not here!”
She takes off. Puck leaps, but she has a pretty good head start. She’s only feet from the door when he tackles her to the ground. Her chin bangs loudly against the floor, Puck’s knee wretches out of place.
“Finn’s gone!” he snarls in her ear. “But you are not getting us killed!”
“We’re already dead, you idiot!” she screams, thrashing against him. “Don’t you see? We’re already dead!”
No, Puck is breathing. Puck is talking. Puck is fucking alive and even with all the shit going on around them, he still wants to keep it that way and he does not need Rachel Berry fucking that up. The last few hours of his life might be spent wiling away in a dark locker room, but that’s what he wants.
Quinn and Santana got to choose the way they wanted to go, and so did Finn. Puck deserves this. This choice.
Rachel twists beneath him and throws her arms around him, kissing him so hard their teeth knock together. Her tongue in his mouth shocks Puck enough to loosen his grip and Rachel brings her knee up straight into his balls.
She rolls him off and makes a beeline for the door. Puck’s only just managed to push himself to his knees when the last wooden plank is ripped free and Rachel Berry throws open the door and welcomes her destiny.
The monsters pour in and eat them alive.
(which should be the end, right? Apocalypse. How do you survive the apocalypse? Hint-you don’t.
but that’s not what happens.
here’s what does)
They get Rachel. Even as Puck is grabbing her ankle and trying to drag her to safety, they get Rachel. She goes screaming into their arms, pale gross skin closing around her. Puck grips a Mary Jane, the last little bit left of Rachel Berry.
He runs. Away from them. He has to. Puck’s screwed. He knows that. He’s not an idiot. But he runs anyway, to grab just a few more seconds, a few more moments. Puck has never wanted to die. Not once. He has always wanted to live.
He manages to climb on top of the lockers. The monsters or whatever the fuck they are crowd around. They’re not zombies, remember? They figure out pretty quick they need to climb. Puck curls as tightly as his can into himself and waits.
The first one makes it up and Puck thinks, Rachel Berry. Figures she’d get me killed.
The second one makes it. They inch closer to him, taking their time. Why rush it? Savor the meal. How long has it been since they’d had good meat? Their faces aren’t human, don’t even resemble anything like a person. Had they even known what meat was, before they came here?
Machine gun fire is loud and painful, but it sounds like music to Puck’s ears. Like the chorus to Halleluiah.
Sue Sylvester is behind the machine gun, in a pristine, untouched track suit. She doesn’t look particularly concerned as she mows down the nearest group of hungry creates/monsters/things. Their bodies make horrible twisting and popping noises where her bullets hit, and Sue Sylvester doesn't miss.
And, you know, that in and of itself is so fucking trippy. But it gets worse-or better, actually. Because just behind Sue is Kurt Hummel and he has a katana. A fucking katana and anything that gets a bit too close to him gets its head sliced clean off. Kurt Hummel is like a super deadly gay ninja assassin or something. A super deadly gay ninja assassin in Oxford tweed and a matching cardigan.
Puck’s pretty sure he’s probably already dead, or dying. The monsters are probably eating his sternum and the blood loss is making him hallucinate, his body is putting him somewhere above the pain.
And then Quinn Fabray says, “You can come down now, Puck.”
He obeys, leaping off from the locker and staring into Quinn’s icy eyes. Her field hockey stick is bloody, her other hand holds a shotgun.
“They aren’t zombies,” he says dumbly.
“No, they’re not,” Quinn agrees and hefts the gun. “But it works just as good.”
“Santana?”
“Didn’t make it.”
That’s probably what she wanted, Puck thinks. When she told Quinn she’d go, she probably meant she’d go to where poor, dead Brittany was. She did choose the way she went out.
“Let’s get a move on people!” Sue snaps. “Haven’t got all day, apocalypse to avert, evil demon hellspawn to kill, etcetera etcertera etcertera. Hummel take point.”
“Can’t you just shoot them?” Kurt demands. “Blood is hell to wash out of tweed, you know.”
Quinn doesn’t look for Sam’s body, but he can see it in her eyes that she wants to. See in the way her throat bobs as she swallows. But she doesn’t look. What’s the point, anyway?
“God, I’m tired,” Puck finally says.
Quinn nods tightly, probably more exhausted then he is. She follows Sue and Kurt, leaving Puck to stay or go. Puck never hesitates. He follows. Puck has always wanted to live, even if he has to live through the apocalypse.
Outside, the sun rises over the skeletal remains of McKinley High. Students and teachers and monsters lay still and dead and bloody on the ground. A creature moves in the shadows of the school and Puck shoots it dead in the face with the shotgun Quinn loans him.
Sue pauses at bottom of the entrance’s steps. With a small, grim smile she surveys the damage that was done and the damage that was caused. And Puck will be informed later that Sue caused most of the damage. Spent three days waging war on MicKinley’s soiled grounds so she could get inside and reclaim what was hers.
And, she must thinks, there is work to do yet.
Quinn smiles as much as she can manage-it isn’t much; really it’s more of a grimace, smiling will hurt for a very long time yet to come, maybe even forever-at Puck as Sue leads them from the school.
“I told you that you weren’t the hero of this apocalypse,” Quinn reminds him.
Puck admits she has a point and he laughs until his sides ache and he coughs up blood.
glee. apocalypse!au. noah puckerman. “that is some straight up Cloverfield shit.” Puck: succinct and correct, as always. ~5800 | r
Quinn snaps and finally says, “Fuck this. Fuck this. I’m going. I’m leaving.”
Sam’s a bloody, dead lump in her lamp, and her cheerio uniform is a lot redder than it should have been. He rolls to the floor when she stands. She held him for a long time, Quinn did, stroked his face and held his hand and listened to his breathing and listened to the nothingness coming from his chest afterward.
And now she stands. “Fuck this.”
She meets eyes with Santana. They got their cheerio lingo going on, speaking without words. End of the world and Quinn is still fucking head cheerleader and Santana falls in line.
There are field hockey sticks in the back of the locker room. Quinn grabs one, hands the other to Santana. Little amazon warrior cheerleaders with hockey sticks for spears. This is probably what anarchy looks like, if you get down to it.
They don’t ask anyone to follow. They stand shoulder to shoulder for a moment, then push aside the barricades around the door (in two seconds flat they’ll be back up and Quinn and Santana really will be on their own) and out they go.
And no one ever hears from them again, Puck thinks. The end.
If only it where that simple.
Brittany’s the first to go. Big surprise there. She all but got ‘come and murder me, Mr. Big Scary Demon/Serial Killer/Freddy Kruger-esque villian’ stapled on her forehead.
In the choir room, after Mr. Schue tells them to stay put while he tries to figure out what the holy shit is going on, they hear a scratching at the door. Sam has already informed them of at least five different horror flicks that start this way and so if they would all please just stay away the door-
Brittany opens it, of course. Puck doesn’t have a single fucking clue what went through her mind but he figures it was something along the lines of: oh, this sure is scary and Sam does have a-awe! What’s that noise? A cat? Let me go check.
She pokes her head out, it’s lopped clean off. The blood, at least, flows outward and not in. Her body’s sucked out of the room, like she’s caught in a vacuum. The door shuts again with a quiet click.
Santana doesn’t cry, but the look on her face’s kind of worse. She sits in her plastic chair, hands in her lap, lips pursed, and stares at the spot where poor, stupid Brittany used to be. She stares at it for a long time before sort of slumping forward and placing her hands on her knees. Not saying a damn word.
(“so,” Puck says later to lighten the mood. Yeah, he knows how that sounds. “So who wants to bet that Mr. Schue bit the dust?”
“That’s a sucker’s bet,” Santana says hoarsely)
“Dude, Kurt sure as hell picked a shitty time to go get laid,” Puck says as the screams die down a little outside their blocked doors.
“Kurt isn’t-” Rachel protests instantly, the first thing she’s said since Mr. Schue told them not to leave the room, under any circumstances. She’s gripping Finn’s hand like a lifeline, like if she lets go poof she’s gone.
“Did you know Dave’s in love with him?” Quinn asks suddenly.
“Dave Karofsky?” Finn reacts for the first time.
“Women, man,” Puck says. “They just want to turn everyone into fucking faggots.”
“I saw them making out in the biology lab,” Mercedes adds helpfully. Quinn shoots her a triumphant look. “Full-on mack.”
“There are some images a guy just doesn’t need, really,” Sam mutters.
“Well you know what they say in horror movies, don’t you? Get sexed up, get axed up.” Puck draws a finger across his neck. “Wanna bet they got it doing the nasty?”
Rachel looks about ready to hurl. “What the hell is your problem!?” she demands.
“Whole world goes crazy, you might as well go crazy with it.”
Fucking Sam fucking Evans corners him the next day, after they’ve all splintered off into groups. Mercedes is convening with Tina and Mike in their little minority power club, Rachel and Finn have generously picked up Artie, and Quinn and Santana are speaking in cheerio-code, probably about poor, dead Brittany.
“Hey, man, I just need to ask you something,” Sam says with all the guilelessness of the cutest puppy in the freaking world. Really. Puck wants to punch his lights out on principal. You do not get to be that cute in high school, date the hottest chick on the cheerleading squad, and survive. Not in Puck’s world.
But he ascends to a higher plane of peace and snaps, “Can you make it quick? I’m trying to make a shiv here.”
The shiv, such as it is, is mostly just him breaking off wood from the busted up piano and hoping for an extra pointy piece.
“It’s just you know, some freaky shit is going down out there and we’re not going to be able to stay here forever.” He shoots a look over his shoulder at Quinn and c’mon, man, really? They’re going to do this, really? “And if anything-um-happens to me do ya think you can-”
“Hey, you know what? Can we not do this? Ever. Thanks.” He’d point this conversation in Finn’s general direction but yeah Finn. Like that’d reassure anyone. Hey, big useless guy can you watch out for my girlfriend if I get killed off? Also, can you try to not be the big useless guy if that happens? Yeah right.
Fucking Sam fucking Evans returns to Quinn with all the grace of a kicked puppy and, shit, even Puck feels kinda of sorry for being a douche to him. Puck, feeling sorry. Sam's got talent, Puck has to admit.
Sam grips Quinn's hand and she turns to look at him for a moment, sees something in his eyes, and rests her head against his shoulder while their blonde hair creates fluffy, golden halo around them.
Puck nearly hurls.
(p.s. Puck is not still in love with Quinn. For the record. At all. Sure, he’d fuck her again but who wouldn’t? She’s Quinn motherfucking Fabray. The hottest piece of ass that ever flounced around McKinley High in a too short cheerio skirt.
Puck would tap that so hard.
But he’s not in love with it. Anymore.)
Later, when Finn approaches him, Puck says very loudly, “No. And not just no but hell no.”
Finn looks put out but unsurprised. Rachel Berry looks confused.
Plus, what the hell is it with them thinking he’ll be the one to make it to the end? Well okay. They have a point, but a little self-confidence never hurt anyone.
Well, no one except Artie who got it into his little wheelchair-bound brain that he ought to be the advanced scout on their harebrained plan of ‘getting the hell out of dodge.’
Rachel has already explained that the outside hardly looks better than the inside, standing on Finn’s shoulders and peeking out the top window.
“No offense, dude, but you’re kind of in a wheelchair.” Puck notices fucking Sam fucking Evans sitting close to Quinn, hand on her knee, stroking it comfortingly. “Why don’t you let Sam go? He’s quick. Quarterback.”
Artie looks over at Tina and then at the door were stupid, dead Brittany got herself killed. “No. I’m going. I’m the most expendable.”
Puck opens the door for him.
“Noah!” Rachel snaps when she notices.
He shrugs. “What? Boy’s got a point.”
(what happens to Artie, no one will ever knows but Puck imagines it went a little something like this:
he wheels down the empty, dark hallways and thinks well, this isn’t so bad. Maybe those things moved on?
they didn’t, and wheelchairs are terrible getaway vehicles. He probably makes it about ten feet, and he either falls out of his wheelchair or they manage to grab him. Either way, he’s thrashing uselessly on the ground, trying to punch his way free.
either way he’s probably still alive when they start chewing.)
On the bright side? Tina totally breaks up with Other Asian.
Mike, Puck reminds himself, Mike.
But they can’t stay in the choir room forever. It’s been two days, and the chips and cookies Mr. Schue had supplied for their planned late-night practice are running low.
“Well, if we lost Mercedes-” Puck starts.
She tosses him a look. “Oh, don’t you even, white boy. I will literally snap you in two.”
Puck decides to take her seriously.
“We can’t stay here,” Rachel speaks up, totally stealing the point Puck was trying to make. “We need to get out of here. How long will the door hold? Is the door even holding? Or do they just not want to come in?”
“They probably don’t want to come in,” Santana says lowly. “They know we’ll have to come out eventually.”
Tina, lifting her head from its lax position on Mercedes’ generous shoulder, says, “We don’t even know what’s out there.” Her face is streaked with grimy tears and creepy goth makeup.
Mike makes a move to comfort her, holds back, since Tina is now woefully regretting ever breaking up with Puck’s wheelchair-bound home boy. If Artie was still alive, Puck would totally high five him.
“Actually,” Santana snaps back. “We’ve got a pretty damn good idea.”
Puck really wants to tell her to stop thinking about poor, dead Brittany because the fuck good will it do anyway? He is sorry Brittany’s gone, and not even because she was a decent lay. Mostly because Santana was apparently totally gay for her-which, by the way? Hot.
So he’s sorry that she’s gone, he really is. Sorry that Santana keeps looking at the door and replaying those two split seconds over and over again. He’s sorry but how is that going to help anyone?
“So who wants to make a break for it?”
It’s unanimous.
It’s also a really fucking bad idea. Go figure.
They make it as far as the boys’ locker room. They lose Mercedes, Tina, and Mike. Acceptable losses, as they’d say in the army.
Acceptable losses.
Except, of course, for fucking Sam fucking Evans.
They’re moving real quiet-like through the hallways. Lockers are overturned; bodies lay haphazardly across the linoleum floor. Rachel trips over one, Mary Jane clad foot stepping onto a lifeless face and crunching bone. She squeaks and all but climbs up Finn.
They fall on them instantly. It’s hard to describe what they are. Basically, what's the scariest monster you ever pictured under you bed? Multiply that by like 9000 and you’ve got the fucking things nesting in McKinley High.
One grabs at Mike first, razor-sharp claws biting right down into his chest as the kid flails his arms out, chokes on his watery scream. He’s wearing a white shirt and the blood looks really super red splattering out of his chest, and they crack open his ribcage and pull out his insides.
Puck saw this zombie movie one time and this dumbass got cornered by a bunch of zombies and they just fell on him, starting ripping him apart like he was made of fucking butter. That’s the way Mike Chang goes, except they’re not zombies. There isn't a single hint of humanness in their faces, there is nothing but blackened flesh and pointed teeth.
Also? They’re fucking fast.
They all start running. Well, all except Tina who just stands there and watches them eat Mike-probably wondering if that’s how Artie got it too-and just stands there and stands there before one of them sort of realizes she’s a giant idiot and snaps her neck.
“Fucking move!” Puck snaps, reaching for the closest person to give them a good shove forward. It’s Quinn.
“Watch it, white boy!” Mercedes shoves him into a locker and claws bang into the metal above his head. Puck rights himself like the football playing jock he is and swings right back into gear. He doesn’t even notice Mercedes isn’t behind him anymore, he doesn’t even know what exactly happens to Mercedes. He’s got a pretty good guess though.
Finn has Rachel latched onto his back like she’s a howler monkey or something. Santana is even farther ahead, leaving them all in the dust because Santana? Santana is one smart ass girl.
As per usual in these sorts of things, someone trips. It’s Quinn. One of the half-dead students on the floor gets enough consciousness back to latch onto her ankle and scream for help. Quinn screams right back and kicks her leg free, jamming her heel into the poor son of bitch’s jaw and breaking it.
Sam falls on top of her, but on purpose. Teeth dig into his shoulder and nails bite into his lower back, muscles and sinew and tendons popping and bursting and he howls but he keeps himself on top of Quinn, spread out over her like a meaty shield. Kid watches way too many movies.
Puck probably watches too many movies too because you bet he didn’t rush passed them. You bet he stopped, grabbed the thing by its coarse, straggly hair and jammed its head into the metal locker again and again until its head did this sort of popping thing and blood slicked down his fingers and arms and ew he’s wearing his varsity jacket and is this shit ever going to come off?
He makes to grab Quinn but she pushes him away, tries to get a hold onto Sam who is a strong motherfucker because the kid is still breathing, even with what’s probably marrow and plasma and fluid and whatever pouring out of him like he’s made of confetti and it’s the Fourth of goddamn July.
“No!” Quinn swipes one angry hand at Puck when he tries to grab her again, and her nails leave nasty marks on the underside of his chin.
So Puck grabs Sam around his waist and warm, sticky Sam-blood gets all over his varsity jacket and hauls ass. Quinn stays right on his tail, making incoherent promises to fucking Sam fucking Evans.
Puck knew there was a reason he never liked that kid.
They settle Sam down on the floor. There’s enough towels in the boy’s locker room to soak up all the water in the Nile, but not stop the blood leaking out of Sam.
He mumbles and mumbles some more, a bunch of nonsense babbling that probably means wish I had never transferred here but Puck’ll never be sure.
Quinn sits with his head in her lap, stroking his bleached hair out of his eyes. Every so often, when he stops mumbling, she bends over him and kisses his forehead. What she’s really doing is feeling for his breath, but Puck doesn’t tell anyone that and neither does Quinn.
Rachel kneels down next to her and touches her arm. “Maybe we can sing a little, do ya think? Maybe it’ll calm him, make the blood run slower?”
If there was ever a time for Quinn to blow up all over Rachel’s perky face it’d be now. Instead, she just says in a quiet, low voice, “Could you just go away?”
Rachel retreats back into the safety of Finn’s arms, and watches the inevitable. Eventually Santana takes her place, though she doesn’t do it by saying dumbass shit. She just sits there, letting Quinn’s hip touch hers. Sam’s fingers move restlessly on his pants’ leg.
Puck reclines on one of the benches. It’s dark in the locker room, darker than it had been in the choir, but he can make them all out clearly. What’s left of them anyway.
“You know, that was some straight up Cloverfield shit.”
Everyone ignores him.
Rachel screams.
Finn’s off like the damn Flash. Rachel’s gone to the back to get some water for Sam from the shower, to see if Bieste had left anything to eat in her office.
Puck follows, because if it is one of those things Finn’s sure as hell cannon fodder, which means Puck’ll have to take care of it.
But it’s not a Cloverfield-wannabe. It’s just Jacob Israel. He’s hanging from one of the pipes in the showers, a borrowed jersey around his neck, his puffy hair covering his bloated face.
“Well shit,” is what Puck says.
Rachel turns her head into Finn’s chest. “Oh my God! Oh my God!”
“Explains the smell,” Puck realizes and bows his head at Finn’s reproachful look.
“Cut him down,” Rachel says dejectedly. “Please cut him down.”
“Right. Get on it, Finn.”
“What? Me? But I can’t-”
“I’m not tall enough for it. You are.” Puck shrugs, already turning back. “Man up and do it, Finn. Or leave him hanging there. Whatever. It’s not like he cares at this point, right?”
He returns back to where Quinn and Santana sit with Sam, who really is a tough motherfucker because he’s still not dead. He’s still dying. His fingers are all tangled up with Quinn’s and he keeps mumbling.
Puck almost suggests that maybe putting fucking Sam fucking Evans out of his misery is the best move for them all, but Quinn looks like she’s on an uneven edge and he doesn’t need his baby mama going batshit on him.
(yeah, Puck still thinks about Beth. He thinks about Beth a lot actually.
he starts thinking about Beth right then and if Santana and Quinn weren’t so close and weren’t the womenfolk he’d probably have himself a good cry.
Beth’s just a baby. A tiny, pinched and pink baby. What’re the odds little Beth is gonna live to see two?
he goes to Bieste office and tosses a paperweight at the window, shattering it. But no one says anything.)
Sometime later, Finn and Rachel come back and retake their seats quietly.
Judging by the pallor of Finn’s face and the way his hands shake, Jacob Israel is probably at least horizontal. Puck is duly surprised; he didn’t think Finn had it in him.
Finn lifts his head and meets Puck’s eyes. Puck gives him a nod of approval.
Fucking Sam fucking Evans finally dies. He spasms in Quinn arms, crying out in pain, as Quinn holds him to the ground and barks at Rachel to leave me the hell alone when she moves to help. Santana, because she is obviously the smartest one of them, gives Quinn her space.
And of course, because fucking Sam fucking Evans is dying he has to go out this way. His eyes flutter and he actually manages to say something coherent. Of course what he says is Quinn. He finds some last bit of strength and of course he uses it to touch Quinn’s cheek.
Then he dies. Just goes limp in Quinn’s lap, his chest doing this horrible rattling thing before going silent. Of all the shit that he’s seen, that’s what creeps Puck out the most. The silence that rises off of Sam’s chest.
“Oe tìyawn ngenga nìftxavang,” Quinn sort of says, sort of hiccups. Her fingers move through Sam’s hair, stroking and petting.
“What does that mean?” Puck asks in the hushed silence.
Quinn doesn’t answer for a moment. She shifts her legs and Sam’s head bounces limply. She’s not crying and like Santana that’s sort of worse. Worse because Puck doesn’t like that look in her eyes. He doesn’t recognize it, but he knows enough to not like it.
“I don’t know,” she admits, swallowing. “But he says it to me all the time.”
Puck doesn’t correct her. Said. Sam said it to her all the time. Past tense.
And you know, Puck didn’t promise Sam shit but he figures it’s probably in the Bro Code or something. The fact Sam even put the thought out there means it has to be picked up.
So he scoots a little closer to Quinn. Not enough to be in the space occupied by Quinn and the body she holds, because that’s probably a little low. Quinn was Puck’s baby mama but she was Sam’s girlfriend, and that distinction really does mean something.
Softly he says, “Hey, Quinn, hey.”
She doesn’t look at him.
“Look, Sam and I talked-before, okay? And he-shit. Anyway.” He tries again, swallowing. Quinn still won’t look at him. “I’m going to get you out of this alive, okay?”
This time she does look at him, but only to laugh lowly and harshly. “Puck, don’t be stupid. You’re not the hero of this apocalypse. If I want to get out of this alive, I’ll have to do it myself.”
“Yeah,” he agrees, thinking maybe she has a point. The hero shoes were probably already filled up by fucking Sam fucking Evans, and look where they got him. “But you’ve got his head in your lap so I don’t think you want to save yourself. It’s okay, though. That’s why I’m gonna do it for you.”
She bares her teeth at him, and now there are tears. Tears she hides behind her curtain of dirty hair. But Puck sees what she was thinking just before she hid it. She wishes it had been him, torn apart and dead.
And, damn it, that hurts.
(okay, so maybe Puck is a little in love with Quinn. A little. It’s just the baby mama thing.
and he’s not an idiot. He’s not going to make a move with fucking Sam fucking Evans’ blood all her cheerio skirt.
actually, he’s probably not going to make a move ever. Bro Code, or something.)
They try to get some sleep. At least Puck does, dozing against the wooden bench. If juvie teaches you anything, it’s to get sleep where you can.
He thinks he hears Quinn and Santana talking.
“If you wanna go, let’s go.” That’s Santana. It’s sort of been forever-like three days-since he’s heard her voice. Since Brittany died. Puck’s never, ever been tender with Santana Lopez, never in her whole life, but right now he just wants to gather her up and hold her close because it’s been three days since he’s heard her voice. “I’m with you.”
“If we go, we’re probably going to die,” Quinn points out quietly.
“Yeah,” Santana agrees and she’s probably thinking of poor, dead Brittany all headless and gross and that of course will get Quinn thinking of fucking Sam fucking Evans bloody and dead in her lap.
“If we go,” Quinn says, “we’ll need weapons.”
Quinn finds the field hockey sticks in the back. Santana takes one and holds it in her hands like she’s been waiting for the last three days for something like this.
Quinn doesn’t look at Sam on the floor.
“But you can’t go!” Rachel protests, leaping to her feet. “We have to stick together! We’re lost so many already don’t you want to-”
Santana presses the curve of her stick against Rachel’s temple. Rachel shuts it. “How ‘bout this? You sit tight and shut the fuck up while Quinn and I kick some ass and take some names?”
“Are you sure?” This from Finn who still looks like he’s going to throw up about the Israel thing. He looks behind the two cheerleaders. “Puck?”
Puck shrugs. “C’mon man. They got hockey sticks. Like I’m going to stop ‘em.” And he wasn’t the hero of this apocalypse, remember? But his fingers clench into unwilling fists all the same.
Quinn and Santana descend on McKinley high like avenging Valkyries. And probably get killed too.
Which leaves Puck with Finn and Rachel.
Great.
He moves Sam’s body into the back with Israel. Not in any way to disrespect Sam, but because he’s hella uncomfortable trying to catch some shut eye beside what’s left of fucking Sam fucking Evans decomposing or rotting, or whatever it is bodies do when they die, right next to him.
“You think its aliens?” Puck asks Finn. “Like Cloverfield? Or the Fourth Kind? Or do you think they really are just some sort of super mutant zombie freaks?”
“I think he’s gone insane,” Rachel whispers worriedly to Finn.
“Survival tactics, Berry. Better than going the way of Israel back there, huh?” Puck makes a jerking motion with him shoulder and then stops abruptly-Sam’s back there too. “I’m just trying to keep myself sane.”
“Can you do it without being disturbing?”
“Probably not.”
“I wonder,” Finn says between them, over them, looking at the ceiling, “if it’s like this everywhere. Do you think there’s another school, with a bunch other choir kids, getting their faces eaten off?”
“How should I know, man?”
“I saw what happened to Mercedes,” Finn tells them very quietly. His fingers shake where Rachel holds them. He manages a lopsided smile. “They just-it just bite into her cheek and pulled.”
Puck keeps one eye on Finn, thinking maybe Rachel shouldn’t be worried about him going insane.
Rachel and Finn sleep together, curled into one another. Rachel strokes his back, rubs his hair, while Finn rests nearly lifeless against her, head on her chest.
She sings, too. Of course she does. She’s Rachel Berry so she’s going to sing come hell, high water, or the apocalypse. It’s some kind of cheesy Barbara Streisand song about fighting for what you believe in or keeping your head high or happy days coming again or some such shit.
“Rachel,” Puck says, “if you don’t shut up you won’t have to worry about those things outside. I’ll tear your fucking face off.”
Finn bursts into hysterical giggles and Rachel grows quiet. Puck turns onto his side and looks at the big, useless log that used to be his best friend.
Oh shit, he thinks.
Finn calms down after a bit, but it doesn’t make Puck feel any better, though it has a positive effect on Rachel. Also, she shuts up. Singing anyway.
“I’m going to get some water,” Finn says suddenly, like anyone gives a damn. He says it anyway and kisses Rachel on her puckered mouth. “I love you,” he tells her.
“I love you,” she answers, confused.
It takes Puck ten minutes. Rachel is staring at the barricaded doors, saying nothing, while Puck picks himself up and follows Finn into the showers.
Somehow, he isn’t surprised to see Finn balancing himself on the lower wall of one of the stalls, the jersey Israel had used to off himself knotted around his neck and around the pipes in the ceiling.
“Fuck, man,” Puck says. “Fuck man, are you kidding me?”
“I can’t. I can’t,” Finn says. “They’re all dead, you know? All of them. Not just Artie or Mr. Schue or-or Mercedes. It’s everyone. My mom and your mom and Kurt’s dad and the whole fucking world and I can’t.”
“You can, even if I have break your legs to get you to quit your shit, you can,” Puck snaps. “You leave me alone with Rachel, I’ll never fucking forgive you. You hear? Never.”
“Take care of her for me, okay?” Finn’s not listening, because he is a big dumb idiot and Puck is going to murder him as soon as he stops Finn from killing himself.
Finn falls backwards, Puck leaps. The jersey rips under the strain, but it isn’t a damn blessing. Finn’s neck hits the edge of the stall, his temple bangs against the showerhead, and the back of his head cracks loudly against the tile when he lands and on the ground Finn lays still.
“Oh you fucker!” Puck howls, kneeling beside him, turning him over. “You motherfucker! Don’t you dare, don’t you fucking dare! I’m going to kill you, you retard! I’m going to kill you! You can’t do this to me!”
He isn’t aware he’s punching Finn’s face until he feels the sticky, wet blood rolling down his wrists. It isn’t doing any good. Finn’s chest is still, like Sam’s and like Artie’s and like Tina’s or Quinn’s. Still.
Rachel is finally drawn to the noise and she bursts into tears when she sees, pressing kisses against Finn’s bloodied face. She tries CPR, she tries begging, she tries pleading. Puck sits back on his haunches, blooded fists pressed to his forehead.
“No God,” Rachel says. “No please God. Finn!”
Finn doesn’t answer, just keeps on sleeping, goofy smile plastered on his face.
(it’s times like these, Puck thinks, that you remember who your best friend was.
what an asshole, leaving him here like this.)
“What’s the point?” Rachel demands, her fingers already crusting with Finn’s blood. She is up and moving like a whirlwind, the old Rachel nearly back. All determination and steel and will. Only this time it’s going to get them both killed.
“Don’t you go near that door,” Puck snarls, knowing exactly what she’s thinking.
“But why not? Why sit in here and die in the dark?” She looks at Finn’s body and sobs loudly. “I can’t do it! I can’t do it! Oh God, I can’t die in here! Not here!”
She takes off. Puck leaps, but she has a pretty good head start. She’s only feet from the door when he tackles her to the ground. Her chin bangs loudly against the floor, Puck’s knee wretches out of place.
“Finn’s gone!” he snarls in her ear. “But you are not getting us killed!”
“We’re already dead, you idiot!” she screams, thrashing against him. “Don’t you see? We’re already dead!”
No, Puck is breathing. Puck is talking. Puck is fucking alive and even with all the shit going on around them, he still wants to keep it that way and he does not need Rachel Berry fucking that up. The last few hours of his life might be spent wiling away in a dark locker room, but that’s what he wants.
Quinn and Santana got to choose the way they wanted to go, and so did Finn. Puck deserves this. This choice.
Rachel twists beneath him and throws her arms around him, kissing him so hard their teeth knock together. Her tongue in his mouth shocks Puck enough to loosen his grip and Rachel brings her knee up straight into his balls.
She rolls him off and makes a beeline for the door. Puck’s only just managed to push himself to his knees when the last wooden plank is ripped free and Rachel Berry throws open the door and welcomes her destiny.
The monsters pour in and eat them alive.
(which should be the end, right? Apocalypse. How do you survive the apocalypse? Hint-you don’t.
but that’s not what happens.
here’s what does)
They get Rachel. Even as Puck is grabbing her ankle and trying to drag her to safety, they get Rachel. She goes screaming into their arms, pale gross skin closing around her. Puck grips a Mary Jane, the last little bit left of Rachel Berry.
He runs. Away from them. He has to. Puck’s screwed. He knows that. He’s not an idiot. But he runs anyway, to grab just a few more seconds, a few more moments. Puck has never wanted to die. Not once. He has always wanted to live.
He manages to climb on top of the lockers. The monsters or whatever the fuck they are crowd around. They’re not zombies, remember? They figure out pretty quick they need to climb. Puck curls as tightly as his can into himself and waits.
The first one makes it up and Puck thinks, Rachel Berry. Figures she’d get me killed.
The second one makes it. They inch closer to him, taking their time. Why rush it? Savor the meal. How long has it been since they’d had good meat? Their faces aren’t human, don’t even resemble anything like a person. Had they even known what meat was, before they came here?
Machine gun fire is loud and painful, but it sounds like music to Puck’s ears. Like the chorus to Halleluiah.
Sue Sylvester is behind the machine gun, in a pristine, untouched track suit. She doesn’t look particularly concerned as she mows down the nearest group of hungry creates/monsters/things. Their bodies make horrible twisting and popping noises where her bullets hit, and Sue Sylvester doesn't miss.
And, you know, that in and of itself is so fucking trippy. But it gets worse-or better, actually. Because just behind Sue is Kurt Hummel and he has a katana. A fucking katana and anything that gets a bit too close to him gets its head sliced clean off. Kurt Hummel is like a super deadly gay ninja assassin or something. A super deadly gay ninja assassin in Oxford tweed and a matching cardigan.
Puck’s pretty sure he’s probably already dead, or dying. The monsters are probably eating his sternum and the blood loss is making him hallucinate, his body is putting him somewhere above the pain.
And then Quinn Fabray says, “You can come down now, Puck.”
He obeys, leaping off from the locker and staring into Quinn’s icy eyes. Her field hockey stick is bloody, her other hand holds a shotgun.
“They aren’t zombies,” he says dumbly.
“No, they’re not,” Quinn agrees and hefts the gun. “But it works just as good.”
“Santana?”
“Didn’t make it.”
That’s probably what she wanted, Puck thinks. When she told Quinn she’d go, she probably meant she’d go to where poor, dead Brittany was. She did choose the way she went out.
“Let’s get a move on people!” Sue snaps. “Haven’t got all day, apocalypse to avert, evil demon hellspawn to kill, etcetera etcertera etcertera. Hummel take point.”
“Can’t you just shoot them?” Kurt demands. “Blood is hell to wash out of tweed, you know.”
Quinn doesn’t look for Sam’s body, but he can see it in her eyes that she wants to. See in the way her throat bobs as she swallows. But she doesn’t look. What’s the point, anyway?
“God, I’m tired,” Puck finally says.
Quinn nods tightly, probably more exhausted then he is. She follows Sue and Kurt, leaving Puck to stay or go. Puck never hesitates. He follows. Puck has always wanted to live, even if he has to live through the apocalypse.
Outside, the sun rises over the skeletal remains of McKinley High. Students and teachers and monsters lay still and dead and bloody on the ground. A creature moves in the shadows of the school and Puck shoots it dead in the face with the shotgun Quinn loans him.
Sue pauses at bottom of the entrance’s steps. With a small, grim smile she surveys the damage that was done and the damage that was caused. And Puck will be informed later that Sue caused most of the damage. Spent three days waging war on MicKinley’s soiled grounds so she could get inside and reclaim what was hers.
And, she must thinks, there is work to do yet.
Quinn smiles as much as she can manage-it isn’t much; really it’s more of a grimace, smiling will hurt for a very long time yet to come, maybe even forever-at Puck as Sue leads them from the school.
“I told you that you weren’t the hero of this apocalypse,” Quinn reminds him.
Puck admits she has a point and he laughs until his sides ache and he coughs up blood.