What You Can't Ignore

Disclaimer: Glee most definitely is not mine. Neither is Finn. *blinks* *looks around sneakily* ...*gives in* Fine. Or Puck. (Damn.)

Also, I seem to have acquired a... sort of... unhealthy obsession... with these two. *sheepish grin* Sooo I had to write about them. I mean, after Blaine they're definitely my favourites. :P Ooh, and Sam because he is epic. (Blaine is always first. Because. Darren Criss always gets his own special spot of adoring dedication, always. *nods*)

So... read on?

Summary: About: closets. And how small they really are once you're stuck inside one with your best friend (who is most definitely not a midget). And how much more you appreciate the freedom once you're out of said-closet. / ...What? No, like, literally in a closet. Seriously.

Set: Soon after 2x11, The Sue Sylvester Shuffle. So, Finn's broken up with Rachel because she confessed to making out with Puck who broke off the making-out session because he didn't want to have a repeat of what happened with Quinn because Finn's like his bestest buddy – or was, anyway – and he's not a total jackass and Finn's still kinda pissed and hurt at Berry but has rejoined forces with Puck because they make a badass pair of bros and have totally got each other's backs in this epic bromance which I think I might be addicted to and this is a horribly long sentence with many run-ons I'm so sorry don't pass out on me shutting up now. (Heh. Wouldja lookit that. A full stop. Finally.)

Warning: Story's rated T for the very obvious reason that one of the characters is Puck. F-bombs abound so if that offends any of your sensibilities or something you can, like... skim over or... whatever. *blinks* I don't think it's that bad, he doesn't swear too much, (um, I think?) but that's just my opinion... But yeah. Lewd jokes and comments and just all-around Puck being his crude self. I have warned.

"I still don't get how this happened, exactly."

And maybe for once in his life, Finn's confusion is fully justified. Puck doesn't really have much of a clue, either. It would be quite worrying, if he worried about these sorts of things. As it is, Lima's self-professed badass deals with the situation the same way he's dealt with various other shit in life: with a nonchalant air of who gives a flying fuck and a confidence big enough to fill the auditorium.

"I put my money on Chang," he offers.

Finn tilts his head in consideration, eyes narrowing in the way they do when he's actually thinking about something. "Why would Mike shove us into a closet? And how?"

It's a good question. And... nope, he's got nothing. Not that he was serious but Finn sometimes takes things too literally.

"I dunno, dude, but the guy's a fucking ninja." Puck shrugs. "It was probably Azimio or something." He rolls his eyes. "Probably trying to make himself feel like a badass or some shit after dancing in front of the whole school."

"It wasn't that bad..." Finn trails off with a scrunched-up look that Puck knows to mean he's remembering something.

"'Sup?"

Finn shrugs, looking kind of put out. Puck narrows his eyes. "Dude, what'd you do?"

Finn huffs a bit and kicks the wall in front of him, the one Puck is leaning on; the very thin wall which actually shakes a little and threatens to make the brooms and mops leaning on it drop sideways onto Puck. He shoves them farther away into the corner – which is barely two feet away, but whatever – and glares at Finn, who of course has no idea that he almost got his friend crushed under cleaning equipment.

"I, uh, thought he'd wanna join glee club," Finn mutters.

...

"Azimio?!"

"What? No! No, dude, Karofsky!"

"Oh." Wait. His head rears back, almost banging against the wall, and he stares at the glee leader. "You're shitting me. You tried recruiting David fucking Karofsky into glee?"

Wow. He really had some hopes for his best friend having at least some brain cells, but then he tries shit like this and... "Christ, Hudson, what'd you think, one halftime performance was all it was gonna get and he'd come skipping into glee club with fucking daisies and shit? And that everyone would just, what, welcome him in with hugs and kisses and Berry's cookies?" Dude didn't even deserve those cookies. They are, like, divine or something. If angels can shit, that's probably what it'll taste like 'cause those things are fucking awesome. (Or was it angel kisses he's supposed to be comparing them to? Whatever, point is, Berry's cookies are the motherfucking shit.)

...But then, they are Berry's, so of course that basically meant they don't make him want to douse himself in gasoline.

Finn manages to look resentful and sullen at the onslaught of sarcasm. "The whole point of the assignment was for the glee kids and the football guys to stop being jackasses to each other," he points out.

Puck snorts. "No, the whole point was more to distract the guys with our awesomeness so that we could actually win the goddamn game. No-one's suddenly BFFs outta this, you do know that, right?" he asks wryly, half only to get a rise out of Hudson. The guy's way too easy to mess with, and Puck's known him long enough to know how to. Hell, he hasn't put those particular skills to use in ages so might as well dust them off while he has the chance.

The stink-eye he gets is less heated than it has been in a while. Not that he actually takes note of that stuff. So the guy who's been his best friend since before they were teens has been either ignoring him completely (unless it was for football or glee) or glaring at him (usually for Rachel-Berry-related incidents or, well... okay, almost only for Berry-related shit) for a while, big deal. (Shut up.)

"Yeah, well, that's basically what Karofsky said anyway," Finn adds with a shrug.

It doesn't escape Puck's notice that this isn't helping in any way, but short of standing there – well, sort-of standing, leaning back against opposite walls and somewhat hunched in the small space – awkwardly there's nothing to do, so they might as well try to guess who the culprit behind this not-so-ingenious pointless scheme is.

Because, really, whatever way Puck thinks about it he fails to see the point of this. Locking the two jocks in a closet barely big enough to fit Finn properly, let alone the both of them at the same time, might be a little bit funny but past the initial hilarity of the situation... there's nothing.

It's just really really awkward.

Puck huffs and drops his head back to thump on the wall behind him. Finn shifts his weight from one foot to the other, shoulders rolled in uncomfortably due to the distinctly insufficient space.

"I'm really hungry."

Puck laughs, because, seriously? "Dude, you're always hungry," he tells his ex-best-friend-turned-friend-again.

Finn frowns and crosses his arms loosely in front of his stomach. "Yeah, well... it's, like, almost lunch time." He glances longingly at the firmly closed door. It now bears a new dent in it from when, after being in the closet for approximately ten minutes and having realised that they weren't being let out soon, Puck had tried throwing his weight against it to knock it down and Finn had tried shouldering it like he would a rival football player. Unfortunately, the lack of space meant neither had any room to gain any sort of momentum before trying to break down a door and it had left them both nursing (and, in Puck's case, cursing at) throbbing aches.

And they are not going to start banging on the door to shout at the idiots walking past to let them out. That's if anyone even is out there anymore – the in-between-classes rush would have stopped by now and barely anyone would be out in the hallways now.

"Maybe they'll let us out then," Puck shrugs. He observes Finn's sigh and slump of defeat in a detached sort of curiosity. The awkward silence from before stretches on and it bugs him, like, a lot. Those aren't things that should exist around them. Hell, they'd known each other before 'awkward' even became a part of their dictionaries and, with Finn especially, that's saying something.

But then shit happened (and if that isn't the story of Puck's life...) and jealousy and a baby, and at that time whenever they were anywhere alone it was almost painful. Now, though, they're good. Puck knows they're good. He's got Finn's back and Finn's got his because that's how they are, but still. It doesn't erase shit. And the fact remains that, friends again or not, this is getting ridiculously uncomfortable.

Finn's the one that breaks the silence, though. But as soon as he clears his throat, Puck thinks 'Fuck it. This shit is about to get so much more awkward' because that kind of throat-clearing with that kind of not-really-meeting-his-eyes scrunched up expression always equals to Puck wishing he had the ability to make himself invisible. (Because, c'mon, that would just be awesome; he could go anywhere he wanted without being seen – but tangents aside...)

Finn takes a breath. He looks a little bit pained, but Puck's not sure if that's from the breath or from whatever he's thinking about. "I wanted to thank you," he blurts out.

Puck freezes. "What the fuck for?" he demands. His mind works on overdrive as he goes through what exactly he's done lately that Finn would actually be thanking him for. Because, let's face it, he doesn't exactly go out of his way to do things for people and definitely not in ways that are advertised to the world. He has a rep, for god's sake.

Finn's inability to stand still makes it even more uncomfortable considering the guy's all limbs and the closet is small as fuck, but Puck bites back the irritated 'stop fucking moving'. He's not too sure the words would have come out anyway – he's still going over recent-

Oh. He gets it just as the reply spills from Finn's lips.

"Rachel."

"Right," he says, uncomfortable, because he's not sure that's something Finn should be thanking him for instead of punching him. He also hopes Finn doesn't feel the need to elaborate. Anymore of this topic and something's gonna spill.

But it seems like Finn does need to elaborate because he keeps going on, all earnest and looking up – well, sort of down – at Puck with eyes that are wide and honest and just a little bit hurt... but not from him. Not hurt from Puck. It's enough of a change from what he's used to seeing (from what he just expects by now) that he stays silent.

"She told me what happened, right before Christmas," Finn says quickly, as if he's been holding this back and needs to get it out or it'll just run away from him. "She... she was angry 'cause of what Santana-"

"I know," Puck interjects quietly. She told me, he doesn't add, but Finn gets it and his eyes flicker away just for a second.

"So... just... thanks, for not..."

Saving him from having to spell it out, Puck shrugs coolly. "Dude, I'm not that much of a jackass."

Finn laughs a bit. "Yeah. Right." But his mouth tips into his trademark crooked grin and, fuck it all, but Puck is just relieved. Sure, he'd managed to make amends before and Finn had already admitted that he didn't feel like punching him out every time he saw Puck, but this is different. Words are one thing.

But by refusing to let Finn's girl cheat on him like that again, he'd proven that he's still got his back.

Noah Puckerman never made friends lightly, but once he did, he didn't throw them away. Treating people who didn't deserve it like trash and deserting them was one thing he vowed to never do that day his father had left them. He was not going to turn out like that dickwad failure. Which is why, even after getting beaten up real good and given the cold shoulder for ages, he still held out hope that Finn wouldn't hold that one time over him forever.

"I'm not doing that again," he adds before he can stop the words. There's a line between an understood and accepted apology, and going beyond that into the dark realm of feelings. And now he can't take the words back so he has to just ride it out. Yeah, great. If Hudson keeps this line of conversation going he's in danger of losing his balls and that does not happen, dammit, he is a renowned badass motherfucker.

Finn nods once, looking ahead at the wall instead. "Yeah."

He doesn't believe him. Puck gets pissed, even though he knows Finn's justified in thinking that or whatever, because he's being honest, damn it. "I'm serious." He is fucking dead beat serious.

What he isn't, though, is prepared for the two-second glare he gets. Okay, so he's not the only that's pissed off. "So why'd you do it the first time?" Finn shoots back and, yeah, whoa. This is a way overdue discussion.

Honestly, Puck preferred it when it was still that. Talking about shit like this so not cool.

He glowers his own hole through the closet wall. "Dude, that's all over and done. Fuck, if you don't want to believe me, fine, but we don't have to go back to that shit again."

"No. No, it's not, because I never got why, man." Finn tries to stand straighter, to face him down, but the height of the closet (lack of it, more like) makes him hit his head on the ceiling pretty hard and the dull thump resounds in the silence that follows it.

Finn rubs his head, the heat fading from his eyes. Puck blinks at him. His lips twitch.

He's not entirely sure how, but the next second, the anger has been sucked out of the room and both boys are doubled over with laughter until they've slid down to sit against the walls instead, trying to catch their breaths. He doesn't really know how they got from almost yelling at each other to cracking up with laughter but he thinks it might have something to do with the lack of air. This closet can only hold so much air at a time and with two guys in it...

He tells this to Finn, who cocks his head and furrows his eyebrows.

"Dude, what if we pass out in here?"

Puck makes a face. "No-one's passing out, man." He glances at the door. The small crack under it lets some fresh air in but other than that, it's four solid walls. And it's already getting hot. He shoots a look across at Finn. "You better not faint on me, Hudson. Soon as that door's open, I'm hauling ass outta here and it's not gonna be yours."

"Not if you faint first," Finn retorts.

Puck barks a laugh. "Dude, have you seen yourself? I'm pretty sure you need a helluva lot more air than I do-" He stops at Finn's flat look. "Are you... Finn, you fucktard, are you holding your breath?"

The idiot glares pointedly and remains silent.

Puck doesn't know whether to hit him or laugh. He settles for a nudge with his shoe (he's not going to actually make any effort to move) and a snicker. "Fine, more air for me and you'll pass out faster."

Finn deflates and lets go his breath. "What the hell are we going to do?"

He shrugs. There's nothing to do except talk and they already exhausted their usual convo topics, and picking up where they'd left off before isn't something Puck particularly wants to do. Even though the question's still running through his head and he can't help but wonder what kind of answer he could give. Trying not to, but it's an annoying little shit of a thought.

He shakes his head as if that'll get rid of the spiral of serious fuckery going on in his mind (seriously, there's a reason he makes it a point not to think too deeply about shit) and grumbles, "This is a dumb clusterfuck of a situation. Whoever's behind that door when it opens is gonna get a taste of pissed Puckerone..."

Finn chuckles. "What're you gonna do, man, pass out on them?"

Puck scowls at him, then smirks. "Thought we'd agreed that you'll pull a Sleeping Beauty before me." (Stop looking like that, he has a little sister who, despite her inherent badass Puckerman genes, is a girl and therefore took it into her hands to educate him, the fucking Puckzilla, about Disney princesses. So, yeah, he knows who Sleeping Beauty is.) "And then I'll just launch your heavy ass at them."

Finn does that thing where he tries to smirk but generally fails, so it just kind of looks like a grin gone wrong. "That's if you can."

He did not just go there. Puck lifts his eyebrows, lips twisting up into his own cocky smirk. "Bring it, Finnessa."

Finn scoffs, outright grinning now. He starts to retaliate when a knock on the door startles them both. Two pairs of eyes swivel to stare at the door before they share a look that tells Puck they're on the same page.

"You guys still alive in there?" That's Mike. Puck smirks knowingly at Finn, who gapes at him with a WTF look.

They stay silent.

"Shit. Hey, Puck! Finn! Come on."

"What happened, they couldn't have run out of air already." Artie.

'The fuck?' Puck mouths, frowning. Who else knew they were in here? Finn just looks confused – his default setting.

Santana's bitchy tones meet their ears next, answering Puck's question. "If it wasn't so quiet I'd say something hot and heavy was going on down there, but despite Puckerman's abilities there's no way the sasquatch can be that quiet."

Two voices from outside voice their disgust at the mental image firmly planted in their minds thanks to the Latina, while the two boys inside the closet have to clamp down their own indignant and outraged objections. Finn's face is red and Puck scowls, plotting Lopez's demise. Like they really need anything else fucking up their brains.

"Seriously, Santana." Mike sounds pained and, despite the comment, Puck kind of wishes he can see his face. "Brit, you have the key, right?"

Outraged looks are exchanged between the football jocks. They were locked in by Brittany?! What is this?

"We can't let them out yet." Brittany's answer is as dead-serious as the former Cheerio gets about anything. Which, considering, is pretty damn serious, even if it is in ways the others still don't really understand completely. "They have to prove that they've made up."

"Okay – what the actual fuck is going on?" Puck finally bursts out. Finn sighs and gives up the game too.

"C'mon guys, open the door," he calls out.

Puck gets to his feet as their friends fall silent outside and glares white-hot daggers into the wood. Seriously, if he could shoot lasers outta his eyes, the stupid-ass thing would be ashes by now.

"What the hell did you guys lock us in a goddamn closet for?" he demands.

The silence stretches for a second, before Mike speaks up with what Puck guesses is a shrug. "It seemed like a good idea."

Puck throws his hands in the air in disbelief. "Jesus fu-cking shit," he cuts off with a hiss as his momentary lapse in memory leads to him forgetting that he is in a closet that is barely a head-space taller than him and definitely does not have any space for flailing limbs. He crosses his smarting arms across his chest instead, scowl firmly reinstated.

"Why?" Finn asks as he carefully gets up. Puck mutters more obscenities under his breath as he moves back to give the guy some space to stand in because he so does not want Hudson all up in his face. "And can you just... let us out? Please, Brittany?"

Puck nods in agreement even though they can't see him (though his 'plea' to be let out would have included less 'please's and more cussing) and kicks at the door. "Seriously, dudes, this is so not kosher."

There's some mumbling too quiet for them to hear but, after a few irritating moments, they hear the blessed sound of a click and the doorknob starts turning.

"Christ, it's about time, you bastards," Puck mutters as he moves to shove the door open with absolutely no regard for who might be on the other side (they all know him well enough to stand well out of range, though). He wants out.

Finn almost cheers. He somehow manages to get in front of Puck and carefully (Puck almost nudges the idiot aside to show him how it's done) pushes the door open with a warning in case someone's an imbecile out there – "Move outta the way, we're coming out of the closet!"

...

"Jesus Christ, Hudson, just shut the fuck up, please."

"I called it, bitches!"

"You too, Satan."

...

"So," Finn says awkwardly after the laughter dies down and he stops rubbing the back of his head where Puck had smacked him. "What was the point of that?"

Brittany beams and says brightly, "It was our plan to make you stop being angry at each other! Because the angrier you are at your best friend, the more puppies die every second," she adds as an explanation when she gets blank looks – which only grow blanker, but they nod anyway.

Puck fights the urge to, like, sigh or rub his forehead or something equally sissy. He settles for an eye roll and, sticking his hands in his pockets (relishing being able to stand up properly again), says slowly, "How the fuck exactly was a closet supposed to do anything?"

Mike shrugs. "Well, we figured that way you'd have to talk things out."

"Or kill each other," Puck deadpans.

Finn punches him on the shoulder. "I'd like to see you try."

"You're really gonna bring this up again?"

Their testosterone-filled sort-of-mock glaring is cut off by Brittany's enthusiastic clapping as she practically bounces on the spot. "See?" She smiles at them happily. "You're acting like friends again! Now you won't keep avoiding each other and being angry all the time because you fixed things!"

"And we don't have to come up with ways to cut the tension," Artie adds.

"Besides, we know that you agreed that everything was good between you so you could work on the football team's dance, but consider this closing the deal," says Mike. They look kinda proud of themselves.

The two boys in question look between them all before turning to each other. Puck cocks a 'brow, meets Finn's stare head-on, and raises a fist. "We good?"

Finn chuckles. "Yeah, sure," he agrees. And they fist-bump.

It's enough for them.

A/N: *shrugs* I seriously don't even know. I started this with the firm thought that this will be humorous, it will be funny, I will not take this as a chance to practice my inner psychologist-wannabe and psycho-analyse Puck. (...and, okay, their truce thingy in that episode disappointed me. I wants me a bro-hug, dammit. *sulks* Which... isn't gunna happen, I realise that. Shush. Leave me 'lone.)

...It kind of failed. *drops head on desk in defeat*

Ah well. So. I dunno, it's not what I had in mind, and they didn't actually settle shit, but meh. The muse goes where the muse goes. I don't decide on the directions, I just steer.

Also I think I might have overused the word 'badass' in here but it's Puck! *pokes him* Ze (adorable) badass (who's sometimes a jackass but aren't they all? *rolls eyes* Like, season 3 Finn is kind of pissing me off but I guess I'll wait till I'm up to date fully before passing judgement). Who swears a goddamn lot. Jeez. I had to get rid of that well-placed filter between my cuss-y thoughts and what actually makes it through.

Writing this was fun. Cheers to my first Glee fic. xP

Lemme know what you thought, please? ;) Or, just, general thoughts on anything... I really don't give a shit as long as it's a review. :P

~izzy. (whose A/N's always turn out so fucking long. Dx)