A/N: Written for a prompt at the puckrachel drabble meme, over on LJ. Hope you like it!
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Puck isn't sure what it is he said or did …
… but since it's Santana slipping her skirt back on and glaring at him while slipping out his front door, he thinks there's at least a fifty-percent chance that it wasn't even his fault at all. (Sometimes he thinks Senorita Loca has a few more screws loose than Berry; fuck, is that bitch insane.)
He just rolls his eyes, pulling his shirt back on casually and picking up an Xbox controller, because whatever. It would have been nice to get laid, sure, but he doesn't need to get wrapped up in her vortex of doom again anyways. (Once was more than enough, thank you very much.) She can go home and fuck Brittany or Finn or whoever it is she's got her eyes on this week; her loss, anyways.
He's just about to beat his high score when he hears whatever shitty Disney pop-star Dani's been listening to abruptly turn off (God, is he lucky Santana already left), and she calls out from her room, "Can I come downstairs now?"
"Yeah, all clear," he calls back, not looking up from the TV screen.
(He's not a totally shitty big brother. Sure, he hooks up sometimes when he's babysitting her … but he's got her trained to go upstairs and turn her music up when he's got female guests, doesn't he? It's not like he wants his sister seeing that shit. She's only nine. And there's no way she's allowed to think about doing that until she's, like, thirty; or maybe even forty.)
She comes bounding down the stairs, and he actually hits pause to turn and tell her to take it one step at a time so she doesn't kill herself, when she vaults over the side of the couch and lands on top of him. "Oof," he grunts, painfully. Stupid gymnastics lessons; why's he paying for that shit with his saved up pool cleaning money, anyway? … Ugh, if it weren't for that even stupider puppy dog face that he's never been able to say no to.
He glares at her as she sits on him, and she just smiles a gap-toothed smile at him. "I'm hungry," she declares, and he rolls his eyes.
"Yeah, so go find cereal or whatever." It's a pointless suggestion, he knows, because they both know he's going to make her a real dinner; but he likes to hold onto his dignity for as long as he can.
She rolls her eyes and scoffs, and he smirks a little bit because she looks like a total mini-badass when she does it. She breaks that image, though, when she wraps her arms around his neck and clings to him. "Food," she demands, and he waits for her to climb off so he can get to the kitchen. It's very clear in a few moments, however, that she has no intention at all of moving. He'd tell her that she's too old for crap like this, and that he's not carry her ass all the way to the kitchen … but he doesn't bother. Because she's as stubborn as all of his exes combined – and maybe then some – and it's not like she's that heavy. (Even if she was, have you seen his guns?)
He just groans playfully as he wraps an arm around her waist to keep her from slipping and hauls himself up, flinging her over his shoulder with ease and walking down the hallway.
"Let me down!" she complains as she jostles with each step, as if she hadn't practically asked him to carry her, and he chuckles.
Grabbing hold of her ankles, he flips her and she shrieks as he lets her head dangle an inch from the floor. "You said let you down," he reminds her. She swings out an arm to whack him in the shin – and fuck, that actually kind of hurt; but he doesn't tell her that. He just flips her back so she's upright before not-so-gently letting her drop to her feet.
She glares, sticking her tongue out at him, and he mimics her. They stay like that for a minute before she can't help but giggle. He swats her with another eye roll, and she goes to sit at the kitchen table.
"Your homework done?" he asks, spying her knapsack lying forgotten on one of the chairs. Probably from when Santana had shown up ten minutes after they got home, he thinks.
Dani almost nods, but thinks better of it when she sees his raised eyebrow. "No," she mutters reluctantly, unzipping it with a heavy sigh and pulling out a math worksheet.
He's ripping lettuce for a salad when Dani speaks up. "Santana's mean," she deadpans, and Puck doesn't really know where that came from, but he can't disagree.
"Yeah, she is," Puck tells her, moving on to chopping tomatoes, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye as she traps her tongue between her teeth as a question stumps her. She grins triumphantly a moment later, though, scribbling down an answer, and he grins too; proudly.
"So is Quinn," she informs him, catching him off guard again. (He feels like maybe he should defend his baby mama, but he hates lying to Dani; it just wouldn't feel right.) "What ever happened to that nice Rachel girl, Noah?" Dani asks, and this time he drops the knife he'd been holding.
"Shit," he swears loudly, and Dani exclaims: You have to put ten cents in the swear jar! But he's more concerned with his bleeding finger than the stupid swear jar his mom had gotten the bright idea to start. Not to mention his little sister bringing up Rachel Berry; and why is his little sister bringing up Rachel Berry?
He runs cold water over it, wrapping it in a paper towel and telling Dani, "I'm fine."
She doesn't seem to care, however, he notes bitterly. "So, what happened to her?"
"Nothing happened to her," he replies defensively.
"So why aren't you still dating her?"
"Because we broke up."
"Why'd you break up?"
"Because we did."
"Well, can't you just get back together?"
"It's not that easy, Dani," he says, in a voice that practically taunts: Its grown-up stuff and I don't have to talk about it with you. ('Not that I'd want to get back with Berry anyway', he adds in his head; because he doesn't.)
"Well, it should be."
"Well, it's not."
He can tell she's rolling her eyes, but he doesn't look back.
He doesn't want Rachel back; he doesn't. He doesn't … Does he?
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