Warnings: slash, post season/series finale, future fic, au - canon divergence, ptsd, implied/referenced alcoholism, explicit language, gang violence, references to drugs, angst/hurt/comfort/crime/drama/family


C'mon Puckerman, it'll be fun, they said. There'll be great clubs, they said. We won't cause any trouble, they said. Bunch of dumbasses, Puck thinks with an eye roll as he gets out of the rental car.

He should've known getting called out of his hotel room at four in the morning to pick up two of his guys at the Los Angeles Police Department was a big possibility, but he didn't think it would happen the first night they were in town. Christ, they only needed to stay out of trouble for one damn weekend while they were away from base, and yet here he was, nearly sixteen hours after arriving in the damn city, and he's gotta make nice with the local cops in the hopes of not stirring up trouble because two of his two out of four of his Airmen decided to get into a bar fight.

He signs in, tells the receptionist why he's here, and waits in the lobby like a normal civvie in blue jeans and long sleeved henley, kind of wishing he brought his full dress blues just to make a statement. His eyes sweep over toward the main doors where he figures the bulk of the police force sits around with stacks of papers and boxes of stale donuts.

A balding guy with a beer gut sticks his head in the lobby, beady eyes zooming in on him, and barks, "Puckerman? Your boys are back here. Follow me."

Fucking finally.

Duran and Fellows better be quaking in their seats cause he is going to chew their asses out when he drags them back to the hotel.

Sharp eyes scan the bullpen, large and spacious with desks crammed against each other and, he smirks, boxes of donuts on a table to the far left. There aren't many people in - a few rookie cops, judging by their blue uniforms, and one or two older guys who are either just off duty or detectives with nothing better to do at the ass crack of dawn on a Friday night.

Puck spots his boys quickly enough, settled into two chairs beside an empty desk and looking a little freaked out, and on any other day it would be hilarious to see a huge black guy slumped down next to a skinny Chinese kid, both barely twenty-two and old enough to be out by themselves. But right now the situation isn't that funny, and as irritated as he is, concern easily wins over. Duran and Fellows can be dunderheads at the best of times (Fellows more than Duran), the young usually are, but they aren't the type to get into bar brawls easily and they know how hard their superiors - aka him - will crack down on them for even the slightest misdemeanor. They have a reputation to maintain, after all.

The guy who called him in doesn't bother hanging around, just waves vaguely at them and mutters, "Hale will get to you in a bit, you can take it up with him."

Hale, huh? Same detective his Airmen talked about just a half hour ago on the phone.

Puck crosses his arms when he reaches Duran and Fellows, looking down at them with a stern expression he thinks might look a little like Mr. Schue when he's disappointed or even his old drill Sergeant but less terrifying. They're not wearing handcuffs, which is a plus he supposes. It's not as bad as he was fearing, anyway.

"Uh, hey, Staff Sergeant," Duran greets groggily, straightening out of habit.

"We gave the detective our statements after he picked us up at the club," Fellows says, looking beat and hungover with a nice looking black eye slowly forming. "We could've just grabbed a cab but he insisted on bringing us here and having someone pick us up."

"He probably didn't trust you two numbskulls to not get into another fight before getting back to the hotel," Puck points out. "Now, wanna tell me what the hell made you two start a damn bar fight?"

"Actually, I have an answer for that," a voice responds behind him, and Puck can practically hear the smirk in that tone.

He rolls his eyes. "Officer Hale?"

"That's me. Detective Hale, actually."

Puck grits his teeth. It's too early for this and he really just wants to grab his boys and get out, so he does the adult thing and turns with the good intention to shake hands with the detective responsible for bringing them in, but as soon as he sees the man's face, his vision goes grey and it's suddenly harder to breathe.

Dimly, he thinks maybe he's not the only one in shock because the guy in front of him practically deflates from a cocky, way-too-awake-for-four-am douchebag to something much less put together. The detective is rapidly turning pale, brown eyes wide and dark against the sudden whiteness of his face. He's over six foot easily, with a head of tousled brown hair and a nice face - high cheekbones and strong jaw somehow boyishly charming even without a crooked half-smile Puck can imagine in his mind so vividly even though it's been years since he's seen it.

"Finn?"

It isn't until he says the name floating in his mind that he realizes how wrecked he sounds and it makes the man flinch as if he'd been struck. If anything it only solidifies the abstract image of a young Finn Hudson in his mind, superimposed over this stranger with scruff on his face and no varsity jacket on his shoulders.

"Staff Sergeant, you okay?" one of his boys asks, but he can't really hear anything through the fog in his mind.

He doesn't really snap out of it until Finn - it's Finn, Finn, his best friend, his quarterback, his goddamn conscious but it can't be because he's been dead for so long, years and years and years - grabs his arm and starts to drag him to another doorway. Hale - Finn - the imposter throws a, "Stay put!" over his shoulder at Puck's boys, and before Puck knows it, they're in a classic interrogation room with one bright light in the ceiling, a wide metal table, two chairs, and a two-way mirror.

Of all things, the door closing is what jars him out of his - whatever, shock or brain aneurysm or stroke, and it takes less than a second for him to turn and swing.

His fist makes satisfying contact against the taller mans face and he only uses the pain radiating up his arm to fuel his rage and grab the man by his white dress shirt and throw him against the door he'd just closed, arm tight against the other's throat and teeth bared in a snarl. "Who the fuck are you?" The man groans, pushes forward, but Puck isn't letting him go anywhere and just slams his weight into him again. "I asked who the fuck you are! This isn't fucking funny! Why do you look like-"

He has to crane his head a little to look up, and familiar brown eyes are watching him with startling clarity despite the pain he must be feeling from the already forming bruise on his jaw.

For a wild moment Puck thinks he's imagining things, that he's wrong, he must be, until the man says, "Puck-"

He pulls back his fist and almost lands another hit, but Finn - Hale - whoever the bastard is manages to twist out of his grip and Puck hits his head on something as they tumble to the ground in a mass of limbs and angry swearing where they wrestle for control.

Puck's a big guy, but the detective has about twenty pounds and four inches on him with some decent training in hand to hand, so he's not all that surprised or happy to end up caught in a hold that immobilizes him for the most part. His head is swimming and his limbs feel heavy from lingering exhaustion, and it doesn't help that the imposter keeps saying his name, his nickname that no one in the military knows about and rests in the heart of Ohio, over and over and over again in that same broken voice-

"C'mon Puck, man, please stop, Puck just listen to me-"

"Shut up, shut up, shut up! You're not him, you can't be-" Puck chokes, struggling against the cage of arms around him, "Finn's dead dammit, he's fucking dead! Finn Hudson died eight years ago so don't fucking call me Puck, only my friends call me that! Finn's dead, you're not him, he's-"

"He's dead and all we've got left is his voice in our heads!"


Puck doesn't know how long they stay in that interrogation room.

At some point, they'd stopped struggling, fatigued beyond just physical exhaustion, eventually gravitating away from each other until Puck is leaning against the door and Finn is on the other side leaning against the wall. Puck's been tracing the planes on the other man's face for what feels like forever, and somewhere deep down, he knows his instincts when he first laid eyes on the taller man were right even if he hasn't said outright what his real name is.

It's Finn.

Older Finn wearing a grim frown and old eyes, granted, but not that different from the plaque still hanging in the auditorium at Mckinley.

He thinks he should be doing something, like celebrating or crying tears of joy or some shit.

So why does he feel so numb?

He should he happy, right? Finn's alive. He's breathing and here and isn't that what Puck has wished for every Hanukkah and Christmas and birthday and all those other useless holidays for the last half decade? He should be calling everyone he knows, everyone who still misses Finn and still feel his absence, telling them about how his stupid assignment to California turned out to be a blessing, right?

So why does he feel like his chest has been hollowed out and scraped clean? Is it because in all those wishes and dreams of Finn being alive, Puck always imagined him crashing one of Glee Clubs reunions with a big, dopey grin and apology about being gone for so long and it all being a misunderstanding? Not like this, like he's walked into some huge, scandalous affair that needs to be kept quiet.

Deep down, Puck always thought the next time he'd get to see Finn would be on his deathbed, old and grey or bleeding out on the battlefield, not running into him masquerading as a different person at four in the morning on the other side of the country, perfectly healthy and happy and not at all in a rush to contact the friends and family he left behind.

He sure as hell never imagined Finn hiding from them, letting them think he was dead.

"I need to drive them back to the hotel," is the first thing either of them says in - he checks his watch - nearly a half hour. His voice his gritty and raw sounding and rouses Finn from his own thoughts.

"Right," Finn says, mostly to himself. "Right, I just- uh, have some release paperwork."

Of course you do. "Okay."

"Your guys did a good thing," Finn says stiltedly. "Two guys at the bar were harassing a woman. Your guys told them to back off. They didn't throw the first punch."

Puck looks at him, through him, and pretends he can't see the desperate and sad look on Finn's face. "Okay."

They manage to get back to an even emptier bullpen without exchanging any more words, and Puck sees why no one came to get them. Duran and Fellows are half asleep in their chairs and there's no one to see their rumpled clothes and bruised faces, no one around to hear them fighting.

Finn doesn't say another word as he hands Puck the paper and he doesn't either as he signs it.

As soon as that's done, he kicks their chairs with a sharp, "Up and at 'em you lazy bastards."

It says something about his emotional state that their sudden flail to jump up and salute doesn't even get him to smile like usual. They blink at him blearily and must see something on his face, the bruising or the desolation, because they don't even complain about how long he was gone or whine about him being mean. They just keep their heads down and march out the door without looking back.

Puck takes a step forward to leave when Finn calls out, "Puck…"

For a long, stupid moment, hope rises in his chest-

"...don't tell anyone you saw me. Please."

-and it crashes and burns like all the good things in his life.

He doesn't even look back when he throws over his shoulder, "Whatever. Who would even care anyway?"


We need to talk. Meet me at the diner on 32nd and Adams Ave. 8am Sunday?

Please.

Puck stares at his phone.

So last night - this morning - hadn't been a dream, huh?

There's only one person who could've sent this, one person besides his four friends who even know he's in the city and are currently out bar hopping before hitting the clubs again tonight. Duran and Fellows had skittered around him like startled animals all day, promising to not cause trouble again and unwilling to get on his bad side after their fuck up the night before, but also throwing him furtive looks he doesn't really or know to care what they mean. The other two, more like acquaintances, don't even ask what happened.

Everyone partying tonight means they'll be hungover and enjoying the rare opportunity to sleep it off, and Puck will be free to go out and-

And what?

He squeezes the device between his hands, eyes clenched shut and shoulders taught.

God, what is he gonna do? What can he do? What should he do?

He wants to call someone. Quinn, because she's become his best friend in the last few years and always knows what to say. Beiste, because she'll tell him what to do. Santana, because she's a badass and would fly all the way to LA if he so much as breathed a word about Finn being alive because she loves and hates Finn more than anyone Puck's ever met and would kick his Frankenteen ass up and down the streets of LA. Berry, because Puck can still hear her mournful song play in his head when the nights are too quiet, or Hummel, because Puck knows he still has the varsity jacket everyone used at one point to comfort themselves as they grieved.

For the thirtieth time that day, his finger hovers over Carole Hudson-Hummel's name, one touch away from a phone call because she deserves to know. He owes her, because she's treated him like her own since he and Finn were kids and claiming to be best friends forever, because she still looks so heartbroken to see him without his taller shadow, because she has to know that her son is alive-

"Don't tell anyone you saw me. Please."

Puck swears and resist the urge to chuck the phone across the room, instead grabbing a pillow to scream into it.

Fuck. Fuck. FUCK. What do I do?

At this point, there's only one thing he can do. He picks up his phone and texts back:

You're paying.


Author's Note: Started watching Glee a few weeks ago and I can't stop crying over Finn Hudson (and everyone important to him/he was important to tbh) so this is me writing out how much in denial I am. I'm still working on my other fics (and I have four other Finn-is-still-alive fics and one time travel Finn fic, ngl) but I almost physically could not stop writing this. I haven't actually finished season 3 or watched season 4-6 but I've watched most of the eps after season 3 that are Finn-heavy so I think I have a decent grasp on his (and Puck's) character. Watch out for spoilers in case you haven't watched the whole series. Set a year or so after the series finale, so eight years after Finn's canon death.

I don't know much about the military or how police departments are run or anything, so sorry for any wrong information.

Please leave a review and tell me what you think!

(I've bought over thirty songs in the span of three weeks help me)