Bromance

"Here he comes" Puck growled from his post next to his girlfriends locker, leaning against it casually as she collected her books to take home for homework.

"Really?" asked Rachel sadly looking at Puck and then over her shoulder where Finn was heading for them both.

"Here comes attempt one million at my supposed friend trying to steal my girlfriend" Puck growled slamming his head against the locker, as Rachel turned to face Finn, Puck stood up straight and slid his arms around her waist, clasping them in front of her to keep her close to his chest. "Hudson" he grunted at his girlfriends ex, breathing easier as Rachel leaned into him and held the hands he had wrapped around her.

Finn grunted before lowering his eyes to Rachel's "what you up to tonight Rach? Thought we could run through some songs for glee"

"Finn..." Rachel sighed "we don't have any songs together at the moment; Noah is the male lead now"

"Yeah but if we worked together, you know I could get it back"

Puck growled in the back of his throat again and tightened his hold around Rachel, pulling her closer, trying to restrain himself from snapping at Finn and ruining the friendship they had rebuilt over the summer, when Finn and Rachel were still dating.

Over the summer Rachel and Finn had got together and Puck had tried to work things out with Quinn, only for both attempts to crash and burn after only a few months, Finn for his lie about Santana, and Puck's realization that Quinn really wasn't the type of girl he could stand dating. Less than two weeks later he had managed to get Rachel to surrender to her attractiveness to his bad boy image, and found that Rachel was someone he could stand dating, and didn't give her a choice to say no. But for the last four months he had had to fight his possessive nature to stop himself from whaling on Finn for trying to steal his girlfriend, Finn under the impression that Rachel still loved him despite her and Puck's relationship.

"No Finn, I like singing with Noah" Rachel sighed again turning her head into his her boyfriend's chest, trying to tell Finn to leave them alone.

Finn took the hint and left quickly, sure that Rachel was just finding it hard to move on from Puck and was actually still in love with him.

"Babe we have to stop him doing that" Puck said hugging Rachel close, watching Finn walk away.

"I'll talk to him tomorrow, maybe it will get through this time" Rachel said still hiding her face.

"Come on baby I'll take you home" Puck said keeping her close, trying to deny that he was worried about this.

Gleeeeeeeeeeeee

"Finn can we talk" Rachel asked coming across the tall teenager in the hallway

"Course Rach" Finn smiled before following the small brunette into the choir room, neither of them seeing Puck at the end of the hall spotting them and heading towards the choir room, curious as to what Rachel was going to say to Finn, and also, maybe, just a little bit, worried, only to be headed off be by Mike.

"Finn, you have to stop trying to ask me out" Rachel said gently as she sat down next to him on the risers "I am with Puck"

"But I love you" Finn said sadly "I want to be with you" he begged, Puck finally reached the choir room to hear the last but of Finn's sentence, and growled again in anger, wondering what happened to the guy code.

"Finn..." Rachel sighed.

"I know you love me Rach, I know it"

"I do" Rachel sighed, hating the momentary hope light up in Finn's eyes at her admission.

Puck gasped in shock, feeling like he had been punched in the stomach with a slap at the wall he stalked off in anger, he hadn't realised how emotional invested he was but hearing that Rachel still loved Finn was killing him.

"But it's not the same love I feel for Noah"

"That's a good thing though right?"

"No Finn, I love you as a friend, you were my first real friend in this school and I will always love you for that, but Noah...its romantic love, full of passion and fire and comfort, and love the all consuming kind. I love Noah, I want to be with Noah, and you have to stop asking me out because I don't feel that way for you anymore"

Finn nodded gravely and got to his feet, unable to say anything as his own heart broke a little and he stalked out into the hallway, leaving Rachel alone, sighing Rachel pulled out her phone and texted Noah to come and meet her, because she had talked to Finn.

Puck felt his phone buzz in his pocket as he beat up Jacob, throwing the nerd into the lockers he pulled his phone and felt his heart drop even more, certain that she was asking him to meet her so they could break up. He couldn't hear those words, not from Rachel, Santana breaking up with him because of his credit score, Quinn's Dear John speech, that hadn't hurt, this he knew would.

Ignoring it he stuffed his phone in his pocket and headed towards his truck, he couldn't see Rachel and Finn being all lovey dovey in school all day; he couldn't face her knowing everything about his girl now. How she was snuggle up when she was cold or warm, it didn't matter, how she loved grape jelly and slushie but hated grapes themselves, that she never saw her dads but conference called them at least four times a week.

Rachel looked around the lunch room, an irrational fear spreading through her stomach as she called her boyfriend on her phone again, she had been looking for him all day and texting him and calling him, and he wasn't replying.

Puck picked up his phone as it rang for the twelfth time and looked at the picture of Rachel and him that popped up as he did, he couldn't bring himself to delete her number, despite knowing the relationship was over. Throwing it on the floor he grabbed a book off his floor and tried to lose himself in the story that Rachel had said he would love, and he did he was just too distracted to enjoy the Andy McNab novel.

Rachel made it through school by the skin of her teeth before rushing to his house, and banging on his door only to be told that he wasn't home by his sister "sorry Rachel he's not home" Sarah said apologetically, her ipod being held hostage until she lied to her brothers girlfriend, even though she liked Rachel.

"Oh ok, could you just tell him that I lo...that I talked to Finn and everything is ok now"

"Yeah sure" Sarah smiled, knowing that Rachel had been about to admit that she loved her doofus brother, Rachel smiled weakly and headed to her car as Sarah closed the door and headed upstairs.

"Yo broster" she said poking her head in "Rachel says that she has talked to Finn and everything is good now, oh and she almost said that she loves you"

"Yeah...yeah" Puck said not believing her, and thinking that how could Rachel think that everything is good now that she loved Finn, his heart hurting in his chest he turned his phone onto silent and turned his back on it so he couldn't see it light up.

Rachel hurried home, knowing that Sarah had lied to her and that Puck was avoiding her, her own heart breaking she poured herself a long hot bath and got dressed in her most comfortable pyjamas ready to wallow away her night until Puck would talk to her. She didn't know what she had done, she had thought finally getting rid of the Finn problem would make everything easier for them both and their relationship, but now she didn't know what she had done.

The next day she crawled out of bed to get ready for school, still miserable her phone quiet after she had texted him and called him all night she dressed herself in his favourite black skirt and fitted white shirt before heading to school and hovering by his locker, knowing his mom would have forced him to come to school today.

Puck watched, hiding around the corner he saw her crushed and depressed face and couldn't make himself walk down towards her, he knew that avoiding her was hurting her as much as it hurt him, but he didn't want to hear those words ending the best five months of his life. Turning around quickly he walked away before he gave in and was decidedly unbadass and went and begged for her to not end this, that he loved her and needed to be with her. Throwing himself into his chair at the back of home room he grunted as Finn came into the room, it was tempting to launch himself across the room and start beating him to a pulp for stealing his girlfriend but he guessed this was karma, instead of the smug grin he was expecting Finn looked as depressed as he felt.

"Thought you would be jumping up and down with joy" Puck grunted angrily as Finn sat next to him.

"I thought you would be" Finn admitted sadly.

"Why would I be happy? You won"

"I won? No you won"

"I heard her Hudson, she loves you"

"Yeah as a friend" Finn said shaking his head at Puck "she loves me as a friend, and loves you like, loves you loves you"

"What?" Puck demanded grabbing Finn's arm "I was outside I heard her agree that she loves you and left"

"Then you are a fucking idiot, because if you had hung around you would have heard her break my heart into a million pieces" Finn said sadly "dude she loves you"

"Fuck!" Puck swore at himself before bolting out of the classroom and towards the choir room where Rachel always hid at first period avoiding biology which she hated. "Baby?" he shouted as he entered the room, making her jump and look at him, tears falling down her cheeks as she huddled on the piano bench.

"No...Noah?" she stammered as he came and fell down to his knees next to her, tugging her off the bench.

"Oh baby I'm sorry" he apologised as she cuddled into his lap "I heard you yesterday, admitting you loved Finn and I lost it a little"

"But I only love him as a friend" Rachel protested

"I know that baby, I know that now Finn just told me, I just thought that you were going to break up with me and I couldn't handle it so I avoided you"

"I was so sad" Rachel said quietly "I love you Noah"

"I love you too" Puck smiled "I never thought I would be thanking Finn"

"You two going to be ok now?" Rachel asked as she pressed herself closer to him.

"You know what we just may be"