Title: Greendale Loser
Fandom: Glee, Community
Rating: PG-13 for brief adult language and pretty tame Puck perving.
Characters: Noah Puckerman/Annie Edison
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Dan Harmon, genius creator of Community, as well as Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Ian Brennan, creators of Glee.
Summary: Noah Puckerman goes to college and meets a pretty girl.
A/N: Written for a crossover challenge at gleeverse.

Puck was getting out of Lima; he was not going to be a Lima Loser. He might end up a Greendale Loser instead but at least he'd be getting an education. Sort of. It was more than anyone had ever expected of him and it was enough for Puck.

When Puck turned eighteen, he learned something that changed his outlook on life, changed who he thought he was and eased insecurities that plagued him. On his birthday, he received a phone call from his father. His mom had all but forced his dad to cut contact with his son after they split but when Puck reached the legal age of adulthood, all bets were off and Puck's father was determined to rebuild a relationship with his son. It turned out that Puck's "deadbeat dad" was actually a really nice guy. After learning the truth behind his mother's deceitful behavior, Puck decided he'd take up his father's offer of free board at his Colorado home if Puck pursued some sort of post-high school education.

Greendale Community College, meet Noah Puckerman. You're welcome.

The pretty girl he was watching in the cafeteria was hard to miss. He had noticed her a couple weeks ago and now it seemed like his eyes were trained to spot her in a crowd. She reminded him of someone, this girl he knew in high school. Pretty. Brunette. Jewish (as the weird dude with the star-shaped facial hair had told him with a conspiratorial waggle of his eyebrows followed by a lewd gesture.) They even dressed similarly - that preppy innocent schoolgirl look - but this girl pulled it off better than Rachel ever did probably because of the way her breasts filled the tops. She was tightly wound in a way that Puck knew if he could find the right thread she would unravel for him. She was pretty damn hot, in Puck's expert opinion. Now if he could just find an opportunity to talk to her away from her friends...

It's not that Puck was against picking up a chick in front of her friends. It wasn't a confidence problem; he had plenty of that. It's just that Rachel-with-boobs seemed to have a really complicated relationship with her group of friends and he never saw her once without someone from that group.

They were a weird group - even more a hodgepodge group of social misfits than his high school glee club had been - but still somehow managed to give off the air of an elite group that other students wanted to join. (College was weird. Community College, he deduced, was even weirder.) Things seemed to revolve around them. They even had a groupie. People talked about them and, after some eavesdropping and a casual conversation with Alex with the facial hair, he learned the girl's name and the names of everyone in the group. And a lot of history that he straight up did not care about unless it had to do with Her.

Her name is Annie and that's the only name he cares about, committing it to memory. As he could tell from looking at them, things are complicated in the group. The guy, James or Jeff or whatever, had a thing with the blonde girl and a kinda thing with Annie. And he knows Annie had a thing for Troy when they were in high school. Alex also tells him something about Abed and Annie and paintball and City College and a man dressed like an ice cream cone and a vest and Han Solo that Puck doesn't understand at all. And something happened with Annie and some other guy who was "important" when it came to hacky sack. But as far as Alex can say, his target is not spoken for.

Now all he needs to do is wait for her to be alone. And wait. And wait some more.

On the day he first talks to her, he is in the lounge on one of the more comfortable couches on campus. She surprises him by sitting down on the couch across from him, a huff passing her lips as she places her obviously heavy backpack on the ground in front of her. She looks at her phone and glances around, probably looking for one of her friends. He opens his mouth to speak when a guy stands between the couches and shouts, "Pop, pop!" then dashes off.

Confused, Puck exclaims, "what the fuck was that?" It wasn't how he intended to speak with her for the first time but she looks up at him and laughs.

"That's Magnitude," she tells him. "He's the one-man party."

Puck laughs and shakes his head, "Okay, this place just got even weirder."

She giggles and leans in, speaking quieter than before as if she's telling him a secret, "Wanna know something weirder?" Puck leans in closer, mirroring her pose. "One time, I heard him on his phone when he thought no one was listening and he had a British accent. Like, he's faking that stereotypical, African-American thing."

"What the fuck?" Puck responds grinning and pauses before introducing himself. "I'm Noah Puckerman. You can call me Puck."

She blushes a little bit, looking at him with the most entrancing Disney princess eyes. "I'm Annie. Annie Edison," she says.

"Nice to meet you, Annie."

She's about to say something else when another figure passes in front of them. Troy, followed by Abed, drops his notebook onto the floor frustrated and says loudly, gesturing wildly with his hands, "I was this close to catching Annie's Boobs today but I lost him in the vent in the study room again!"

Annie smacks him on the shoulder and whines, "Rename your monkey, Troy!"

She doesn't say another word to Puck for the rest of their time sitting on opposite couches but he doesn't stop watching her when he takes brief breaks from his required reading and he sees her occasionally glancing at him while her friends tell a crazy story he doesn't even bother to follow.

Their eyes meet before she leaves with Troy and Abed. He smiles at her and nods and she blushes again before raising her hand for a gentle wave, innocently batting her eyes at him as if she doesn't even know hot she is.