Dude, his life? Is AWE. SOME. He finally got shit dialed in and is in a direction towards….well, towards something other than screw-up. He is a certified, motherfucking Airman First Class and he is totally making technical training his bitch right now. And what's more is that he LIKES his training classes. All these airplanes to dissect and take apart and put back together - it's like how he used to screw around with cars, only way cooler. It's all Danger Zone Top Gun up in this piece.
Plus, he's finally got the girl. Noah Puckerman has been pursuing Quinn Fabray like, forever. Well, maybe not when she was crazypants Quinn with that pink hair. Oh, and he wasn't really into her when she was all, "let's get Child Protective Services after Shelby!" But, damn, he's been faithful to her - Texas and Connecticut aren't exactly neighbors, and now that Q's in Amsterdam on some study abroad shit, it's even harder, but, whatever, Skype and some (ok, like, ONCE, but he's working on that) phone sex do the trick (mostly). She had been his reward, his goal, since he first set eyes on her in that hott-with-an-extra-t Cheerio uniform freshman year. Noah Puckerman is pretty bomb at entertaining nights, sometimes weeks, with a girl, but this long term relationship thing? Hell yeah, you bet he's rocking that too.
Life's pretty fucking damn good.
And then.
The phone rings.
It all happened so fast, but at the same time, he felt like he was moving in slow motion.
He doesn't remember calling his Senior Airman. He doesn't remember the words that tumbled out of his mouth, "blood clot," "heart attack." He doesn't remember how many days leave he got, or packing his bag, or getting on the plane, or landing in Lima.
He doesn't remember his 18 year old sister, Becca, her eyes red rimmed, white knuckles gripping the steering wheel, picking him up in his mom's SUV from the airport.
He doesn't remember walking up the front path, past the zinnias and geraniums and that one bush that always just grew crazy out of control.
He doesn't remember walking into his house, his familiar house, with the pencil marks in the doorway from charting his and Bec's heights, and the loose wood plank on the floor that always, always creaked, especially at 2am when he was sneaking home.
He does remember sinking onto the couch, that orange and red plaid monstrosity of a couch. He remembers running his fingers over the burn mark where he once put out a cigarette before his mom caught him.
He remembers his head dropping onto a throw pillow that still smelled like her, generic antibacterial lotion mixed in with vanilla.
He remembers wondering how long that smell will last. Before it's gone.
He doesn't remember ever hurting this badly.
Somehow he made it up to his bedroom. His untouched bedroom. It looked exactly the same as the day he had left for basic training. The consistency of it comforted and crushed him all at the same time.
He didn't call Quinn right away. He didn't call anyone, really, except his supervisor on base, and that was the first, and only, call he made after hanging up the phone with Becca before he had left Texas for Lima.
Bec said she had called Nana Connie. Jesus. Nana Connie didn't even know. Isn't that, like, a mom thing? Don't you get some spidey sense or something when your kid is gonna die? She found out on the phone. Just like he did. Shit. Do people know? Who else knows? Shouldn't everyone know, shouldn't the world be reacting right now, stop turning on its axis or some crap, reacting to the fact that this person, his mother, his mom, is not here anymore?
What's the fucking protocol for this shit? Does he have to call people? What the fuck, he has to keep repeating those horrible, bitter, words? Who would he even call? Does he go down a list? Do people make lists of who to call when they die? Like when there's a snow day and the teachers call each other (funny, the things your brain goes to).
He opens his mouth to holler, "Ma," and ask her.
Shit.
Ma's not there.
Shit. Shit. He…
He feels the red rush into his eyes again and the room spin.
His mom. His ma.
He scrubs his hand over his face for the fiftieth time in the last hour, trying to get his bearings. Becca appears in the frame of his open door, chewing her lip, looking anywhere but at her brother.
"Do I have to, like, call people or something?" he asked.
"No...Nana Connie started calling the relatives, and then all these people from synagogue, and then the phone started ringing and I just stopped answering."
Becca sat down on the bed next to him.
"I didn't want to hear it. All these people calling to say they were sorry and stuff. I don't care, it doesn't bring her back." Her voice trailed off, her face crumpled, and all he could do was put his arm around her.
He doesn't know how to comfort her. He doesn't know how to comfort himself.
He didn't sleep. Well, maybe he did, his digital clock did change from the last time he looked at it. His mouth had that stale morning taste, but the night had felt wildly unproductive, like he just zombied out.
The old school clock on his nightstand read 5:37am (it still worked? When he left , the batteries were dead... Oh. Ma must have).
He quickly figured that it was around noon in Amsterdam, and he knew Quinn would probably be in class. She's not gonna answer the phone, That's fine. Plus, he can't do it. He just can't say the words again. He knows he has to. But...no. Not yet.
Maybe a text is cold, but, whatthefuckever. His life is pretty cold right about now.
Q. I'm in Lima. My mom died.
He didn't expect her to answer right away. His girl focuses on her studies there, almost to a fault. Like, he gets it, make something of yourself and shit but, damn, if she sexted him in the middle of a class? You can damn well bet that he'd answer.
If only this was that kind of text.
His phone rang a few minutes later. "Oh Puck. Oh Puck, oh my God, I'm so sorry. Oh, Puck." The purr of her voice gave him some comfort, and he could hear the bubble in her throat and the echo of the hallway. "Puck….what happened?"
"She collapsed at work. They originally thought heart attack, but it turns out she had a blood clot. I….I didn't even…" His voice trailed off. "Quinn. I...I nee..." He paused. "Can you come home?"
He didn't exactly hear the words she was saying on the other line; they all blurred one into another. He heard her sniffling, then something about logistics and flights and homework and shit….he focused long enough on the, "Love you," at the end to respond accordingly, and hung up.
He rolled over and tried to find sleep.
When he opened his eyes again, the sun was fully up. He heard Becca and, Nana Connie probably, moving around downstairs. He rolled over onto his back, cupped his hands behind his neck, and stared at the ceiling for who knows how long. The front door downstairs echoed with a mantra of opencloseopencloseopenclose and he knew enough from when his uncle died that people he didn't even know were bringing food he didn't like and wouldn't eat.
His cell was laying on the floor next to the bed, buzzing with texts and missed calls and who the fuck cares. Now that it was regular daytime, he knows the world will be reacting. At least, his world will be. Whatever his world is.
Nana Connie came and sat on the edge of his bed, cooing and clucking over him, as if it was just (just. Fuck.) his mom that had died, and not her daughter, too.
That's his Nana. And that's his mom, too. She is always concerned with everyone else first.
Was. Was concerned.
Nana Connie is talking about services, burial, but, like Quinn's words, it all melts into one, and he blankly nods and just goes along with what she says.
"Puck, I want to be there, I swear I do, I just can't get there right now. Not for the burial at least. I mean, I thought I had some time, like, with Catholic services we get a few days before the actual funeral, and the visitation...like, with Finn's and... but….I can't…and the flights, not till tomorrow, and I'm in the middle of midterms..."
He's not mad at her. He's not.
Or maybe he is. Whatthefuckever. It's not like he can even feel anything right now anyway.
"Yeah. S'ok. I got you." He replies. There's no anger in his voice.
"Puck, oh God, I will do my best to get there as soon as I can, I promise." Her voice is quiet. "I'll be there. And...call me? I'm here."
"Yup."
"Love you?"
"Yup."
He's decided. He's mad.
It's easier to be mad.
It's a sun shining, cold day at the cemetery, and Puck is grateful for the chance to wear his sunglasses, and not just to shield his eyes from the reflection off of the February snow.
His brother-from-another-mother (literally), Jake, is there, and Jake's ma, and then some aunts and uncles he's used to, but the bulk are the "true blue Jew crew" from his synagogue and the old yentas that get off on grief. He just stays close to Becca and tries to be stoic or some shit, when all he really wants to do is swim to the bottom of a bottle of Jack Daniels. He's ignored his liquor so far, but it's not going to be much longer till he reacquaints himself with it. When Finn died, he kept himself more than half-drunk for two straight weeks. It was kind of an accomplishment, that, if not for the circumstances, he'd be damn proud of.
He wants to be strong for Becca, for Nana Connie, because that's what his mom would have wanted. He's standing, ramrod straight, in his USAF uniform, hands clasped in front of him. Soldier himself, steel himself, with Bec to his left, Nana Connie holding her up as she silently shakes with tears.
He won't let himself cry in front of all these relatives. Fucking jackass strangers. Where were they when his ma was alive? Shit. Where was he when his ma was alive?
He feels like a grade-A asshole, because he honestly can't remember the last time he ever thanked his mom for anything. She stood by him and bailed him out, literally and figuratively, so many fucking times and he doesn't think he ever really thanked her. And now he fucking can't, and he should have at least called her more when he was on base, and when was the last time he actually talked to her? Damn, he hasn't called her in, like, three weeks, and the last time they talked, he told her to can the shit talk about his dating life and no, he's not marrying a Jew, or a Gentile, or anyone for that matter, so shut it, ma.
Crap. He is an awful son. Was an awful son? Shit. Was.
Nope, not gonna cry. Nope. Hold it in, Puckerman, be a man.
He remembers Finn's funeral. Fuck, that was heartbreaking too. And Puck's not a heart breaking kind of person; he breaks the hearts, he doesn't get broken.
He didn't cry at that funeral. At least, not in front of anyone. (He also didn't steal the damn letterman jacket, and yes, he's still pissed that everyone thought he did). Jack. Thank God for all that Jack.
Finn. And now his mom. Jesus. Shit.
Come on, don't be a pussy, Puckerman. Don't cry in front of these people. Puck sets his jaw and squeezes his hands in fists at his side, fists so tight he feels the pulse pounding in his thumbs.
The rabbi is reciting the final prayers when he feels a hand brush against his, working its way in to unclench his fingers.
"Noah." It's Rachel. He hadn't noticed her there, but then again, he hadn't noticed much. "Noah." She whispers again. Her thumb gently sways back and forth over his knuckle, her fingers intertwine with his.
Her gesture is enough to get him to grip her hand back (maybe a little bit tighter than a guy with a girlfriend should…) and he allows a tear to roll silently down his cheek as the dirt hits his mom's casket.
Thankfully, Nana Connie made the declaration that they will sit shiva for only 3 days. All these people in and out of his house, all this, "Oh I am so sorry, young man," and "at least she didn't suffer," and, "she was so proud of you," and just, everyone needs to shut the fuck up and leave him the hell alone.
He's still reeling from the burial and just wants to, seriously, just go to his room and drink already, but everywhere he turns, people are jockeying for his attention and trying to comfort him with useless words.
He grabs a bagel from the kitchen and manages to escape a potentially 10-minute diatribe of his Aunt Louisa repeating, "oh you poor kids," over and over again.
He's done crying. Now it's time to get shitty blackout drunk for the next seven days before he goes back to base.
He closes his bedroom door and sighs with relief upon wrapping his fingers around the bottle, his good buddy Jack's neck. God bless us motherfuckers, everyone.
And of course, the minute the rim of that bottle hits his lips, his door opens, and fuck the lack of a lock on his door.
"Hi, Noah." Rachel is like some ninja ghost or some shit, with how she just randomly appears places. She sits down on the floor next to him, leaning against the bottom of his bedframe and smooths out her (ridiculously short for a funeral, but, hel-lo) navy blue skirt. "I'm not going to ask how you are."
"Good," he snaps. Probably a little too tightly.
"I see the bottle of whiskey in your hands and please, be aware that if you would like to imbibe in my presence, while I don't normally condone alcohol as a coping mechanism, I can certainly excuse this given the circumstances."
"Gee, thanks for your permission."
She actually folds her hands and watches him. This might be worse than the crazy aunts downstairs. Is she, like, waiting for him to drink? Is she gonna watch him?
Well, whatever, Noah Puckerman doesn't need an engraved invitation for whiskey. He slugs down his first gulp.
"When did you get here? Aren't you, like, in New York or something? Classes and shit?" He asks, punctuating his question with another gulp. "Fucking midterms?" He spits the words out.
They're not really meant for her.
So, ok, yeah, he's still mad.
"My dad called me yesterday with…" She hesitates. "...the news. I skipped classes and got the first flight out of JFK this morning. I needed to be here." She nods, decisively (she's Rachel Berry, yeah?). "I wanted to be here." Her lashes drop and her next words come out in a rush. "Noah, I know everyone will be saying how sorry they are, and I just wanted you to know -"
"Yeah, whatever," He cuts her off. Gulp. "You and everyone else and just, whatever. Fucking contest to see how many sorries I can get. Few more days and I'm goin' back."
She replied quietly. "I wasn't going to say I'm sorry."
He shrugs. This one burns going down his throat. It's easier to be mean. To be cutting. To be rude and crass and it's just so much.
Easier.
"So you're not? You're not sorry that my mom fucking died? You're not sorry that I was a complete dick to her the last time I talked to her? You're not sorry that, fuck, who knows where Becca's gonna live when she's home from college? You're not sorry that my own fucking girlfriend -"
He's interrupted by surprise and shock when Rachel suddenly grabs the bottle of whiskey out of his hands and takes a long…..damn, long drink from it, and slaps it back onto the carpeted floor.
Like, an, "at-least-two-shots-worth" sized drink. An, "I'm-the-size-of-a-small-puppy-but-can-drink-like-a-trucker", sized drink.
Well then. She's staring at him, defiantly, eyebrows raised, and a hint of a….challenge in her eyes.
Huh. So this is what his mom's shiva is gonna be like.
They've had these silences before, where it's just actions, no words. Rachel has the ability to talk the ear off of a rock, but with Puck, it's never...filling airspace. She doesn't feel the need to puncture with babbling words. She can just exist and he can just exist and the give and take, push and pull, of whatever their friendship-that's-not-friendship is, just….exists comfortably.
The bottle passes back and forth between the two of them, the minutes passing. The dull murmur of indistinguishable voices downstairs, the same cadence of opencloseopencloseopenclose of the door, provides a backdrop, a soundtrack for this...this. Whatever this is, whatever it's ever been, when they interact.
Rachel doesn't ask where Quinn is. She knows from the Glee Facebook group she manages that Quinn is abroad. She's amazed, though, that she didn't make it back here to support her boyfriend but….well, the Puck/Quinn relationship has never been conventional to begin with, either. He has that effect on girls, she supposes.
She can't assume to know exactly what Noah is going through. She can't imagine losing a parent. She's been through her share of loss and grief, and she knows how Noah handles (or, doesn't handle) his emotions.
When Finn died, she found little comfort in the sentences that everyone placated her with. Words don't help. Ever. Words reopen wounds, words pour salt on wounds, words remind you that he is not here, he will not be here, ever again. She found little comfort in the, "No, but, how are you?" and those pitying looks. Pity is unproductive. People want you to talk to them, to pour your heart out to them, on the subway or in a restaurant, or when they bump into you at a coffee shop. They all mean well, she knows this, but really? She's not going to cry her eyelashes off about her dead ex-boyfriend in the middle of The Lima Bean. Especially not to a stranger. She'd really wanted to pull a play from the Noah Puckerman handbook and tell them all exactly where they could go. Fuck them and their pity. They didn't know her.
No one would leave her alone. But at the same time, she didn't want to be alone, she just wanted to be left alone. Why didn't anyone seem to get that? She suspects, sitting here on his dingy brown carpet, maybe Noah gets it.
Unfortunately.
She doesn't expect him to open up to her. But she does know he can, and will, shut down. She just wants him to know she's here, to help bridge that medium place, between pouring your heart out and shuttering your heart up. And if that means sitting and drinking with him, well, hand her the bottle.
Except...well...she can't really keep up with his pace. She's trying, though, and she's holding her own...kind of. But if this is what he needs, she understands.
Rachel understands grief.
The Jack is half done, Puck's eyes are bloodshot, and they've spent the last hour laughing over choir room memories. He's teasing her, she's rolling along with it, feigning her overly dramatic, typical Rachel Berry indignance. It's refreshing to laugh, to forget momentarily, why Rachel is here and why he's on his way into a drunken blackout.
"Omigod, and Night of Neglect?! When Mercedes wanted all those puppies!" Rachel was gasping with laughter.
"Oh Goooooooood…" Puck moaned. "I had to jimmy the lock to the pet store and then one shit in my truck, the little bastard."
"Ahaha, a shot for a….a shit!" Rachel spit the words out and started laughing hysterically, pushing the rapidly emptying bottle at him. Oh, damn, Berry was drunk if she's cursing. Then again, he wasn't exactly sober as a nun. He was flying pretty high.
And her eyes are just stupid sparkly and whenever she starts on a string of her (fucking cute as fuck, wait, what?) drunken giggles, she grabs his bicep or his wrist, and he definitely doesn't not like being touched by Rachel Berry.
It's refreshing. It's refreshing to not acknowledge and entertain pity, or think about futures, futures missing integral parts. Just pasts, when everyone was ok and alive and it's just so fucking refreshing and he doesn't want to stop and just everything and nothing all at once and not thinking and the world is swimming in front of him but Rachel, Rachel is still, and smiling and not swimming or moving or swaying or thinking, he's not thinking, not thinking.
Definitely not thinking.
And definitely drinking, and drinking, and she keeps drinking and he sure as fuck is going to keep drinking, and he's certainly not thinking when he grabs Rachel's face, in the middle of a stretch of those giggles (fuck, so cute) and just starts kissing her.
And then for the first time since he got the call from Becca, nothing is spinning, nothing is floating, and it's just NoahandRachel and that's fine and he's not thinking he's kissing he's kissing he's kissing.
And she's certainly not thinking either when she wraps her arms around his neck, and pulls herself into his lap. His hands are in her hair and her whispery gasps are in his mouth and he can't won't don't ever stop kissing.
And, oh God, his mouth moves to her neck and he nibbles her ear, her eyes are closed, she moans breathily, and ohGodohGodohGod and his nose is nuzzling against the edge of her hair and pleaseNoahpleaseNoahpleasepleaseplease.
And, fuck. FUCK. He's making out with Rachel Berry, at a shiva for his MOM, and, fuck, and Finn and his MOM, and Quinn, and, NO, he does not want to stop.
Cause it's so much easier. So, so, so much easier.
He tastes like whiskey and salt and just...he tastes and smells like comfort and safety and warmth and Noah. She remembers it all these years later, the last time she kissed him was, what, 4 years ago? But still, so easy and just so….Noah.
Her mind is fuzzy, so fuzzy, from all the drinking she had to do to keep up with him. Grief has no rules. Grief has no pie charts and pro/con lists and, she knows this is bad, so, so bad. There's Quinn, and there was Finn, but then his hand cups her behind and, oh, oh my, it's so, sooooo good.
It's no secret that it's been a damn while since she had any sort of male interaction. And what a reintroduction into that world she is getting. Noah has always been good, mind blowing, amazing, at his "craft."
Her logical mind keeps screaming at her to stopstopstop. She has every reason in the world to stop.
But Rachel's pretty unhappy with her life right now, the monotonous acquiescence that her life has adopted. So, this whole making out thing? She's just going to gogogo.
Cause it's so much easier. So, so, so much easier.
Of course his phone rings. Of motherfucking course his cell phone starts blaring and jolts both of them out of the spell they were in and Rachel leaps off of his lap and, grief stricken or not, Puck was about to go under the shirt to the promised land of Berry boobs and fuck that noise.
Of course it's Quinn.
Well, fuck. Stone cold sober, now, that's for sure.
He lets it ring out and vibrate its way across the floor.
"So. I, um, I probably should go." She whispers it, and then bumps into the side of his dresser as she's attempting for a quick getaway.
"You're still drunk, Rachel." It's a label, a reminder, a veiled plea to get her to stay.
"My dad's downstairs; I didn't drive here."
She scoots out of his bedroom, refusing to meet his eyes.
A few (painful, in more ways than one) hours later, he's sitting at the kitchen table, picking at a plate of baked ziti absentmindedly and scrolling on his phone. The shiva for the day is finished, everyone gone, so he's flipping through texts to see if any were worth a response. Just a metric fuck-ton of, "I'm sorry man" and "Gonna try to make it later this week" and, whatever. Sorry is lame.
Becca slides into the chair across from him and cuts right to the chase (in typical Puckerman fashion). "Where was Quinn today? You guys break up?"
Puck doesn't lift his eyes from his phone. "You know she's away. She couldn't get here." (Well, her voicemail from earlier said she was gonna be on a flight tomorrow afternoon but, whatever, he doesn't care and yeah, he's still mad and no, he didn't call her back because he's still thinking of his handful of Rachel Berry ass and so-close-to-tits from earlier).
He doesn't have to look up at her to know that Bec's eyes are rolling. "Your eyeballs are gonna get stuck in the back of your head like that, and I am going to laugh my ass off at you."
"She's your girlfriend, Puck. What the hell?" Just like his mother, Becca was not Quinn Fabray's biggest fan. "I know she's far away but Jesus."
"And Jesus ain't here either, Bec. So shut up."
"I'm just sayin." She raised her hands in surrender. "Rachel Berry was here for a pre-tty long time."
Puck still didn't break his gaze on his phone screen. "Yup."
"None of your other friends came today."
That got his attention. "So they'll come tomorrow! Fuck, Becca!" He threw his phone down. "What the hell?"
Again, hands raised. "I'm just. Sayin." Fucking teenagers, man.
"God, Bec, you can be such a bitch, you know that?" He shoved away from the table and stomped off upstairs.
Shitty thing was, yeah, she was a bitch, but she was also right and that sucked.
"So how long do you think you'll be home for, babydoll?" LeRoy pushed a cup of tea across the table to Rachel.
She pulled her hoodie over her shoulders as she sat at the table. "Thanks, Daddy. I don't want to intrude on you for too long." She stirred her mug. "I know your new
place is...small."
"Now, baby, you will have a room, and a home, wherever I, or your father, live. Always."
"I know. Thanks."
"Did you get to spend some time with Noah tonight? He must be devastated. I didn't seem him for awhile at shiva."
"Yes. He's….he's...ok, I guess." She felt an involuntary blush creep up her cheeks with the memory of his hands in her hair...on her back...
"Is he still with that Quinn girl? I didn't see her today."
It bothers her that Quinn wasn't there. It shouldn't bother her, but, you know what, yes. It does. She shrugs silently.
Thumbs stroking her cheek, oh God. Fingertips trailing under the hem of her sweater.
"You're a good friend to him, sweetheart. He's lucky to have you."
She just nods as her father goes to put his mug in the sink. "Good night, Rachel, sweet dreams."
Rachel's left sitting at the table, staring into her now cold mug of untouched tea.
Lips on her neck, tongue flicking her earlobe, arms, oh his lovely, lovely arms, holding her so tight, his hands trailing down, down...
Oh God.