A/N: So the prompt was- Finn/Puck, 'The last time he touched Finn was to punch him in the face', up to author whether Finn has died or just left. Suicidal thoughts, massive guilt. Warnings are in the prompt.
When Finn dies everyone sings all these lame songs about appreciation for life and cherishing the ones still around, but that's not how it feels to Puck at all. To Puck it feels exactly like how Finn was killed, like something big and opposing slammed into him and scattered him all over the place. His heart, his mind, his will, nothing seems complete anymore. Like he was reassembled and some idiot left out a really vital piece and now he doesn't know how to act like a normal human being anymore.
"Join the club," Tina laughs when he tells her at the funeral and he almost smiles.
The last time he touched Finn was to punch him in the face. He'd showed up to some party with some girl some day after Quinn had lost the baby because everyone else was changing but Puck would always be Puck. He leered at other girls while pressing up against the one in his arms as the music played.
And then suddenly he was pressed against Finn, being shoved for not showing up to the hospital. For not being the man nobody thinks he can be but still expected to act like it. Being accused of not caring about anything or anyone. Not Quinn or the baby or his best friend.
So Puck had punched him and Finn hadn't moved so he'd punched him again and again with all the force that hadn't been there the first time. And the music was still playing but nobody was dancing and soft hands were on his arm, trying to steady him.
"I always cared," about you he didn't say, but if Finn wasn't spitting blood onto the carpet he'd have seen it in his eyes. He shrugged off the girl's touch and slammed the door on his way out.
"Talk about irony," Artie had murmured when they got the news the next day, earning a swift punch from Tina and whispering a small, "ouch." as everyone focused on Puck whose eyes were glued to the television set in the room. The story was looping back again, star quarterback Finn Hudson who had been walking to the hospital and been side swiped by a truck in the middle of the night. On his way to the hospital and dead barely three blocks away from it.
"Puck?" Santana's fists banged against the door, "He'd want you there…it's the least you could do."
The least he could do. After sleeping with his best friend's girlfriend, his crush and finally him. For punching him instead of holding him and shoving his face in his mistakes instead of helping to fix them. He stared at the picture of them on his wall, the first day of freshman try outs. They'd been messing around, Puck holding Finn's practice jersey like a football, his arm stretched out flat against Finn's chest as if keeping him away while Finn's arms hung at his side, long hair(which coach would make him cut later) hiding rolled eyes but not his grin. Noah who was always messing around, taking things that weren't his and pushing people away while Finn just smiled and pretended not to care.
His mom kept a gun in a safe behind a framed picture of Moses that his sister had painted. She'd told him the combination one night when work forced her out of town the day after Home Invasions had aired on 20/20. He hadn't been to a school in a week, spent the days lifting weights in his room, staring at the picture of him and Finn and wondering if he'd feel the bullet on the back of his throat or if it'd go straight through to his brain and obliterate all the memories he couldn't erase.
He leans against the cemetery gate in jeans and a black shirt with a skull on the front while Tina catches her breath because graveyards make her dizzy. Puck doesn't even know how that makes sense, but whatever. In the distance a pastor reads from the bible while the Hummels support a sobbing Ms. Hudson. Quinn is sitting down, her fingers twisting hard into the fabric of Rachel's sweater. The rest of the Glee kids are on either side of them, squinting in the sunlight.
"Aren't funerals supposed to be on rainy days?" Tina says suddenly, Puck raises an eyebrow at her, "I-I mean so I've ever heard. Helps with the gloom and doom…although someone dying sounds gloomy enough."
"Do you have an off switch?"
"Oh…no. Sorry, I'll quit talking."
"Thanks."
"Uh so why are you over here?"
He rolls his eyes, running a hand over his head, "'Cause I can't stand to be over there."
"Hey me too! Although probably not for the same reason right?"
"Off switch." He growls
"Right, sorry."
She bites on her lower lip, in the distance Mr. Schuester pulls out a guitar and starts to play, Merecede's voice floating to his ears and every one else slowly joining in to "Let it Be." Puck's teeth clench and shoves away from the gate as Rachel starts to belt out There will be an answer!
"Puck?"
"Okay spit it out Avril Lavigne."
She stares at her shoes, "I just wanted to say that maybe it's okay to hate yourself. I mean I was there for the big," she waves her hands around sporadically, "love in at Glee the day we got the news. And I mean every one was telling each other it's gonna be okay and it was nobody's fault, but it was kinda yours. A-and it's better to be honest then to lie because that's the whole reason you two fought. But maybe it'll help you be better person, because you'll never blame anyone else for your own mistakes so you'll try to make less of them…so you don't feel like this anymore. Sorry that sounds really bad. I'm feeling better I should go…"
But in a weird way that sort of makes sense to Puck. It was his fault that things turned out like they did and he had to take responsibility for it and that took more guts than half the people around him, but he'd do it. Because he's Noah Puckerman and if the Jews could get over the blame for Jesus's death he could get over his for Finn's. He'd make all the right choices and be the person that Finn was pissed off about losing.
Seemingly out of nowhere Tina finds herself wrapped tightly in the arms of the football player, squeaking briefly, "Wow, um hi?"
And then he's gone, walking towards his truck, still not smiling but looking forward to the day when he can bring himself to.