Title: Borrowed Reality

Summary:

AU I didn't know the full story, but my dad had done terrible things. Things that I didn't want my new friends knowing, my first in ten years. Ohio is the first place where nobody knew the truth, but you can't run from your past forever though.

Everyone has memories of things of things that happened a long time ago, but they're so hideous that you don't dare look directly at them. Like scars that you keep hidden from everyone else but can't quite forget, because you know they will be with you even in your final days.

Pairing: Puck/MOC, eventually Puck/Dave, Quinn/OC, most canon couples.

Rating: M

!WARNINGS!: swearing, violence, death, mentions of physical, sexual, and emotional child abuse, drug abuse, weapons, domestic violence, stalker, slash and sex scenes.

Disclaimer: Sorry, I do wish I was RM at times, then I would change Glee in so many ways…

I've sometimes wondered what I was really born to be, a badass, an outcast, or something more? Most people at school seemed to have no problem figuring out who they were, they never seemed to need to think about it; of course they are meant to be a cheerleader, a band geek…a faggot…There was no doubt in their minds, or at least that's what I saw for my first few years of high school.

Even the people that were bullied everyday of their lives, they never appeared as if they wanted to change, that maybe, just maybe, being the gay guy wasn't worth the torment, almost as if what they had was the only logical thing to do. I had doubts. I wanted to be happy with whom I was, but at times it felt impossible. Badasses aren't supposed to have doubts, right?

Maybe I'm just one of those people that over thinks everything, has to question why it is what it is and what it could be like. It mostly because of my mom; she's a really deep thinker. My mom, Levina Puckerman, who is also known as The Peacekeeper to everybody on our street and who attends the temple. She is one of the most ethical people on the planet. You would think, given who she is, that I would have grown up to be the most emotionally well-adjusted kid on the block. Of course I didn't; I have my dad to thank for that.

She tried, she really did try to give me the best life considering our circumstances. Mom had lots of long talks with me about how people work and how to read people's emotional states through body language, mostly so I could tell what they thought of me. She didn't want me to be hurt by lies. I found it incredibly difficult though, I just hadn't inherited her talent for reading people. I didn't gain any of her emotional stability ether. I got my emotional state from my father. I got his temper and toughness. Unfortunately, I learned that rage was very destructible, but on the other hand, my ability to never seem affected by peoples words paid off.

As I grew up, I became known for being tough, able to take a really hard punch and I even survived numerous bangs to the head and getting flipped over a car, breaking three ribs and cracking my head open again. I was strong. Everybody knew that after my first fight at my new school. It had helped protect me from casual, and mayor childhood accidents. I often wished my strength had extended to my heart and spirit. That way I wouldn't have to feel so much.

Mom did what she could, but I could have been more than seven when I realized everybody had started looking at our family differently. Some looked at my mom with disgust and others with pity. They were harsher on my dad, always sending him spiteful looks and they always looked at me with pity. It was as if they almost knew what was going on behind closed doors…but that was impossible, they was no way they could have known.

I remember people keeping their kids away from me, pulling them away if they came to play with me on the playground. I remember Mom would sometimes bring me home from the park, set me down with some juice, waffles, and a Toy Story movie, and then go into the kitchen to have a hushed argument with my dad before locking herself in her room to cry.

I wasn't old enough to understand what was going on at the time, I was only a kid. I did know that it had something to do with my best friend, Jett, who had drowned in our swimming pool.

Things only escalated from there, at one point, somebody had even thrown a rock through my parent's window before screaming something at them and running off. The same day as Jetts' funereal we left Dallas, Texas, and moved far away to Pittsburgh.

I hated it there and desperately wanted to move back home. Whenever I asked ether of them, dad always got a nervous look on his face and mom suddenly looked sick with guilt. There was obviously something they weren't telling me.

After a year and a half of living there, something happened and dad had vanished, leaving behind my mom, who was devastated and pregnant, and a trail of rumours in his wake.

Just after Enot was born, when I was almost nine, I went to her door and listened. I could hear her crying, so I opened it and asked if she was hurt.

She was sitting on the bed, holding a picture frame in her hands, one I never remembered seeing around the house. I looked at the man in it, a teenager with glasses, longish curly hair and a wide smile. He had his arm around a young woman, my mom.

"Is that daddy?" I asked. Mom started a little, then smiled through her tears and pulled me onto the bed with her. She hugged me to her side, her long dark hair mixing in with mind, forming a little tent. I remembered sometimes I used to try and hide in her hair, and I would always tell her that no monsters could find me in there.

"Yes Noah, that's your dad," she said softly, and wiped her eyes with tissue.

"Did he hurt you again?" I asked, looking at the smiling man. I know now that that question must have cut her to the bone, but kids don't know when they shouldn't ask things. Mom knew that too, but it took her several minutes before she was able to speak.

"Yes, he hurt me. Not on the outside, but on the inside. He made me very sad, baby."

"Did he call you names? That makes me hurt on the inside," I asked. Kids sometimes called me names, like "freak", "monster" or "weirdo."

"No, sweetie, he never did anything like that. It's just…he lied to me. You know how I feel about lying," she explained gently. I knew that lesson, and I knew it well. Mom had never tolerated me lying, not from stealing a cookie out of the jar, saying I washed my hands and I hadn't or when I said somebody else started a fight on the playground. Mom punished me particularly hard when I told a lie, and I have never successfully lied to my mom. Trust me, sitting in the naughty corner is really horrible when you're a little kid.

The fact that he had lied had been enough for me for years.

Because I hadn't bothered to ask anymore, I never fully understood why other peoples parents thought it was okay for their kids to push me around, to alienate me. At first I thought it was because dad had told them about me, told them what I really was and what I had done. It wasn't until I was older and locked on to the real reason that I finally understood. It wasn't what I had done, it was what my dad had done to me. What he had done to Jett.

Suddenly everything made sense, but it only made it more painful to deal with. But when I was younger, the taunts, insults, and veiled glances were thick and fast around both of us. If I fought, I knew people would just say I had bad blood, so I couldn't let myself be caught. I had to end fights quickly, so I learned how to be strong. I hit the gyms in school, I learned wrestling, kickboxing, Karate and picked up whatever else I could from action films, practicing in the backyard.

My Freshman year of high school had been hell, the bulling had been even more terrifying than I had anticipated. I had came home, during the last term of school and then burst into tears. My mother ushered me in and I had begged and pleaded her to let us move.

In less then twelve weeks, we moved to Ohio, Lima. It had been hard on us, trying to conceal are past and learning to control the impulse I always had to just talk to somebody about it. I was also determined to never have the principal or any teacher call my mom at home for anything, particularly anything involving a fight. I had been forced to fight for the last ten years of my life. I couldn't bare to let it carry on.

For the remainder of freshman year I buried myself in schoolwork and got an after school job at an Italian restaurant, preparing food to bring in a little extra money. I worked under the table until I could legally be employed there, but the owners didn't mind the extra help, no matter my age. I didn't get involved with bad crowds. Or good crowds. Or any crowds, to tell the truth. And I hadn't been in a fight on school grounds as a part of my promise to myself. It was lonely, hellishly lonely, and if I hadn't been so angry at the world for dealing such a bad hand, I might have been severely depressed.

During the first month of my sophomore year, I noticed a shift in popularity. All of a sudden the quarterback was singing on stage, performing 'push it' with Hummel and a crazy chick called Rachel and getting slushied. I hated Finn on sight. He was popular, an idiot and he obviously thought he was pretty damn special, with his group of friends trailing around him and that crazy chick practically hanging all over him. He instantly reminded me of one of the worse bullies I had ever dealt, Eric Johnson.

Two months into our sophomore year was all it took for us to come to blows.


I hope you read the warnings and please tell me what you thought :)