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Except he totally doesn't. Because they get the ice cream that he really wants first and then walk around the mall. When they go to Old Navy he figures it's about his wardrobe that she's talking about -and that's bullshit because his clothes are fine, okay. Fucking fine. But she's not exactly listening when he tells her this. So they end up shopping for clothes for the whole morning and he's totally not on board with it (although he has to admit she doesn't go all flouncy on him and she does stick to simple jeans and plain t-shirts and a few new plaid shirts and he's only complaining because she's spending his money on clothes when he'd totally use it on something else).
"Your turn." Those two words totally made him hate her again.
He officially hates shopping, even if she's just sort of walking around and thankfully doesn't make him try all this shit on. It's all put on her credit card and Puck's two steps away from making her carry all this shit when he just takes a fucking breath and lets it go. They'll be back in their own bodies before he needs to wear any of them, it's not like he's going to have to figure this shit out with hair and make-up, right? It'll be fixed long before that becomes an issue. Only, they sit down to lunch in this little sandwich place where Quinn has a standing order or something since they smile when they see Puck and ask if it's the 'usual'. He just nods, because whatever, and Quinn actually orders something different before they take a table and he's pretty sure this is where that serious 'talking about things' stuff comes in.
"So, we're probably going to school on Monday like this." It doesn't matter that Puck already sort of knew it, having it confirmed in his own voice pretty much made his stomach drop in that annoying and awkward way. "And you're going to need to be nice to Rach and San." She's acting like he's a kid, he's not too pleased -although realistically, his glare on her face, it might actually be a little more effective.
"I am not a pre-schooler; do not start this shit, Q." He knows that he needs to keep up her appearance -God, he'll need to do her fucking hair won't he- and he knows he's going to have to do her stupid 'holier than thou' bullshit and play the 'nice sweet' cheerleader -or former cheerleader, he's still not sure about that because really, he wants to stay on the football team, but he can't ask her to put up with that if he's not going to try the whole Cheerio's thing.
"We need to get some things ironed out." So they sit there and talk, like actually talk about stuff -usually Puck just lets someone else talk and he zones out, but shit he needs to pay attention. She calls Rachel and Santana by shortened names, he calls Rachel a slew of nicknames he has to remember for Quinn and her last name.
"And only, and I mean only, if Satan is in a funk you whip out Lo'. You over use that shit and she'll figure something out. Or think I wanna date her." It was difficult to explain his relationship with Santana -he was the one she cried on when Brittany didn't break up with Artie, she crawled into his house when she was supposed to be on Britt's little talk thing, she stayed with him on Prom night when she didn't win. It was like she didn't mind him seeing her all vulnerable and stuff. "So, if she climbs up the guttering, just make comment on her being a fucking spider-monkey or something and then just let her vent."
Puck needs to learn how to actually listen to Rachel, and to do French plaits because apparently, Rach and San can't but Quinn can and on occasion, they ask for one. Fuck his life.
"You need to keep up my grades. If this is a long term thing," Oh sweet mother of, don't let it be a long term thing, "I need those grades to get into college."
"Well, you need to not be nice to everyone or whatever; I'm not having my rep go down the pan just because you've lost your bitch or whatever."
"So, dating."
"I am not making love eyes at Sam, okay. He's with Mercedes, he's not single, he's a boy and I am not doing it."
"You're friends with him, right?"
"If you use me, and I mean my body, to break up Sam and Mercedes I will shave your damn head."
It's settled that they just won't date until things are back to normal. Puck's pretty sure he can deal with that, because it's not like he's looking to hook up with anyone. There's been one girl since Lauren and he broke up at the start of Summer, and that was just some stupid three date rebound. He's fine with Quinn not using his junk, because let's face it, he's got a rep and if he suddenly sucks at sex there will be questions, and he will kill Quinn. And there's no way he's trying to get with Sam for Quinn. No fucking way.
"Do you boys share any secrets that might come up in conversation?"
"Not really, but Finn hits out with some random ass stuff sometimes, and Artie likes statistics, so that happens from time to time. Just, try and watch the original three Star Wars movies so that when Sam mentions something you're not blinking clueless at him, okay?"
#
Quinn pulls up outside her house and Puck's got to admit, she's getting much better at handling his truck. He's going to make a go of her car tomorrow -although he's sure it'll be simple, it's just figuring out the finer points and the size of the thing. She kills the engine and he figures there's one more thing.
"I want to be on the Cheerio's again." Yup, knew it was coming.
"Well, um," he wants to be on the team too, so, "Compromise? I'll try out, if you try and stick with football?" Quinn actually knows about football. She's been dating the QB for most of her high school life and she's been a cheerleader just as long. It's pretty safe to say she won't totally fuck it up. "I know some of your cheers. Maybe, are you still friends with Britt?" Because getting Brittany to run through cheers with him would be so much easier than Santana, because Brittany will ask fewer questions.
"Yeah. Yeah, she'd help. Okay, so we're doing this?"
"Looks like." Quinn just nods at him, so he climbs out. "Hey, um, will you come over tomorrow? I'm gonna need hair and make-up help if this goes on for too long." Right now, Quinn's hair is a bit of a mess, she said it was okay so long as he didn't get lazy with it. That means he needs to actually straighten or curl it sometimes. Quinn just smirks and nods and Puck figures he's in for hell tomorrow.
Ms Fabray does the same thing again. "How was your day?" And Puck is nice and calm as he runs down the shopping spree for Quinn's mom. He even pulls out a pair of the ballet flats that apparently, go with anything, in case Puck gets stuck. "You're spending a lot of time with that Puckerman boy." And Puck recognises the question in it, because his Ma does the same thing.
"We're trying to not hate each other." It's pretty much the standard answer Puck's going to give to anyone who asks him about him and Quinn hanging out. Because yeah, they've gone two whole days without arguing about anything -except that one pink baby doll dress that Puck was absolutely not wearing ever.
"That's good," Ms Fabray smiles at him, like she's proud or whatever, and cups his cheeks in her hands, "I'm glad you're both making an effort."
"Really? You, you don't mind?" This is weird, Puck had always thought that Ms Fabray would rather Puck and Quinn were never in the same township together never mind sitting in his truck together. "I sort of thought you would hate him." After everything with Beth, Ms Fabray had reason to hate him.
"Oh, sweetie, no." There's no more elaboration on that fact and Puck just sort of heads up to Quinn's room in a bit of a daze. Ms Fabray doesn't hate him. Weird.
He puts away all Quinn's new clothes -because he's not that much of a douche that he'll just leave them lying around her room- and then lays out on the bed to figure out what to do now. Fifteen minutes, one Google search and one of Quinn's Cabbage Patch Dolls later and Puck's a fucking French plait Jedi. He texts Quinn to inform her as such. He gets a smiley face in return.
#
What really irritates Puck is how he's starting to get used to waking up in Quinn's body. Quinn texts to say she'll be over after lunch, so Puck spends the morning pottering around with Ms Fabray before she goes out. Surprisingly, it's easy to relax around Quinn's mom this time. She talks about her job -and Puck didn't realise that Ms Fabray had a job, but it seems she likes having work now that Mr Fabray is out of the picture- about her friends and their plans for a long weekend in the next few weeks, about a potential dye job on her hair. "But you look pretty with blond. We match." Puck doesn't know what Quinn's opinion would be, but he personally thinks Ms Fabray looks fine. He gets that chicks are all about their appearance and stuff, and Puck's all for that cause hot chicks are hot, but when they overdo it, fuck. Puck doesn't get it.
"Puck's coming over this afternoon," Puck figures that if Ms Fabray doesn't mind him and Quinn hanging out then he should do the whole 'honesty with parents' thing. "We're going to finish up our Glee project." Not that they have one, but Quinn's really coming over to help Puck out with all these pesky girl-stuff things that he needs to know so that she doesn't kill him when they're back to normal.
So the day is spent showing Puck how to do the basics, and Puck is rather grateful that Quinn doesn't wear a lot of make-up. "Why do you even need this crap? Is not like you don't look good without it." He's pretty sure that he's said something right, because Quinn is in a pretty good mood for the rest of the day -even when she has to explain three times what goes with what and what clashes in her wardrobe. Puck never thought getting dressed could be so awkward.
"We can discuss waxing and shaving in a few days."
"Um, you need to shave every morning." Puck uses one of Quinn's delicately manicured nails to poke his own cheek. "Stubble is not something I am comfortable rocking." But that descended into a talk on grooming -seriously, she called it grooming- and Puck put his fingers in his ears and started singing Led Zeppelin really loudly until Quinn stopped.
"So, you'll meet Rach and San in front of the school tomorrow? Early, because Rach is always early."
"Yeah, yeah. I'll be there at 8. Why the hell she gets there for 8 I will never understand. You're lucky, you get free reign to sleep in. Although Sarah needs to be at school before half past, okay? You need to drop her off." They've already compared their schedules, and Puck's fairly certain that he can cope with her classes and actually paying attention for a little while. He's fairly certain that his teachers are just going to be stunned that he actually shows up for class.
"Are you nervous?" He's not overly nervous, they've known each other long enough and well enough to manage to act like the other where they need. His biggest worry is someone -like Santana or Finn or Rachel- asking questions if they screw up somewhere.
"Not really, a little?" It's weird when Quinn hugs him, because he's pretty much hugging himself and he's the girl in this hug and frankly, it's the first weird thing he's felt since the boob thing. "You starting to freak out yet?" He expects that she might finally freak out at the worst time, because he has a tendency to ignore things until they explode -like when Beth was born.
"No, I'm fine. We're fine. It's going to be fine." Maybe if she says it enough times, it'll be true.
#
Monday comes far too fast, and Puck has another little break down in the bathroom when he's curling the end of Quinn's hair like she showed him. He's pretty sure he can pull this off, and he's hopeful that Quinn can too. It's just going to take a little bit of work -and self-restraint since Quinn made if perfectly clear that if he's not on his best behaviour that she will complete ruin him. Puck didn't ask how, because he's aware that Quinn has a devious mind (he always liked that about her). It's why Puck is up in plenty of time and dressed in what he's fairly sure Quinn said was okay for the first day back, and at school fifteen minutes before he's actually meant to meet Santana and Rachel. Only, Rachel's already there.
"Quinn!" Now, Puck still doesn't know what sparked the bonding between Rachel and Quinn, she didn't say what it was that brought the trio together, but Puck does know that Quinn is genuinely friends with Rachel this time (not faking it like she did the last time just so that she could keep Finn as her boyfriend) and that they share each other's secrets. Puck doesn't know all the secrets, but he does know a few, ones that Quinn had to tell him and swore if he used it against anyone she'd castrate him. "You're early."
"Not as early as you." Mostly, he's still not sure about the size of Quinn's car, so he drives a little slower than he would his own truck, plus, Quinn's body is just a little annoying at times. "How was your weekend?" Rachel went to Chicago with her Dads for the weekend, Quinn told him, and he has to ask how it was. Mostly, if Rachel is talking, Puck doesn't have to.
"Oh, it was fantastic!" She launches into the story of what happened, and Puck pays as much attention as he can, because Quinn might need to know details later and it'll suck if he doesn't know them -God, when did he start caring about that shit? Rachel's going on about some little bistro that she went to that made her think of New York and Puck nods along just as Santana screams into the car park with her signature skid -how she hasn't crashed yet, Puck doesn't know, but the girl is crazy wild. Rachel, apparently, doesn't approve of the recklessness of Santana's driving. "We'll be untangling her from a lamp-post one of these days." Puck doesn't necessarily disagree.
"Hey chicas, ready to rock the joint for one last year?" Santana is in strangely good spirits. Puck's never seen her excited for the beginning of a school year and -oh fuck, they usually have a pre-school fuck the night before! But then, Quinn would've text him, right? If Satan had showed up and expected something, Quinn wouldn't...would she?
"You're in good spirits, someone have a good night?" He tries to be casual; he's gotten the hang of using Quinn's voice. He can't have it dripping with sarcasm or dole out the utter filth he usually does, but Quinn's always had a sharpness that she can pull out of the bag that works fairly well for his comments, and he just needs to avoid his more colourful language to make it work out. Santana smirks her devilish little smirk and -thankfully- Puck knows that isn't her 'I got laid last night so I'm totally stress free' smirk.
"What, you don't check your mail anymore? We're back on the Cheerio's." Santana, apparently, was looking to get back on the squad as well. Puck didn't realise that it was something that Quinn had already discussed with the girls. But then, that was probably one of their girl talk topics or something. Rachel was hugging Santana (and man that was a sight) and grinning.
"What? Even though yo- we quit? We're just back on?" Coach Sylvester was all sorts of crazy -although she'd definitely mellowed out a little when it came to Glee after her sisters funeral, and that was cool because she was a touch more likeable when she wasn't totally psycho (she still didn't like Coach Beiste though).
"Coach has made Becky Captain this year or whatever. You, me and Britt just gotta make sure no one messes with her." Puck sort of knew Becky Jackson -she was an alright girl, and it was sort of cool that Sylvester was trying to help her feel like just a regular girl, since most of the teachers treated her different (hell, even he did), so it wasn't a big deal. "We're like the Captain's Lieutenants or something."
Rachel laced their arms together, sauntering them all into the halls while talking about how it would absolutely benefit them to be seen as the power trio -even if she was talking about a different power trio- of the Cheerio's, Puck sort of zoned out of that conversation, because undoubtedly Quinn knew why that was a good thing or whatever. They split off when they reached Santana's locker, Puck almost started heading for his own when he remembered to go to Quinn's instead, while Rachel practically bounced to hers.
Taping the class schedule to the door of the locker, highlighted study periods and everything, Puck noticed a slip of paper slid on the bottom of Quinn's neatly kept locker. It was the Cheerio's practice schedule, so that got taped up beside the class list. At least everything in Quinn's locker was easy to find -even if it did smell all fruity and stuff.
"How's this morning going?" Puck almost jumped out of Quinn's little ballet flats, hand clutching her chest as Quinn appeared beside him. "Oh, jumpy, I forgot about that."
"How do you get through life like this?" He couldn't stand the constant shock and freak outs. Seriously, Quinn had some serious frayed nerve syndrome or something. "You'll be happy to know you're on the Cheerio's again." Quinn raised an eyebrow at him in question. "Coach Sylvester wants you to watch Becky's back, so the three of you are back on. Or, I'm back on should I say." Quinn just nodded slowly. "Don't look so happy." But then, it's not like Puck made a point of smiling at school or whatever. "Anyway, things are fine so far. But you are ridiculously early for my standards."
"Dropped Sarah off early." As if that explained everything. Quinn shrugged one shoulder and Puck absently found himself growing annoyed with her.
"I'm going to slam this locker, turn around and walk away like you just insulted me. It's how I usually see our conversations end, so," Quinn smirked at him, even as he gathered her History book and notes in his arms and proceeded to do just as he'd said. He was pretty well versed in watching Quinn walk away, so he knew he got it down pat. Of course, he then walked into Rachel and Finn, who shared Quinn's History class.
"What was that about?" Rachel wondered aloud, looking back to see Quinn -or Puck really- smirking before heading to his locker.
"The usual, it's nothing." He wasn't about to think on something to rag on, because frankly, he didn't have the energy to bother right then. "Let's just get to class." Because even if they didn't start for another fifteen minutes, Puck could at least flip through Quinn's notes to see just what the hell she was doing in class and just how much work he was going to need to put into this. Which, in his opinion, was too much just by attending class.
"You know, you and Noah should try to get along. I understand that he can be difficult at times, but Noah just needs a little careful handling, for instance, you really hurt him when you called him a 'loser', Quinn. I understand that you were in a delicate place at the time, but Noah is much more than that, he just needs to hear that people believe in him sometimes." It should worry Puck just how much of an opinion Rachel has on him -it should probably also worry him that she's hitting a little too close to home with the comments there, but then, Rachel did have this weird way of making him actually consider his actions before he just rushed in. He never wanted to impress Berry, it was more proving something to her. With Quinn, he'd always been trying to prove something and she'd just never seemed to get it or whatever. "And, if our plan for this year is to be fully realised, we have to put forth a united front."
"You know, you're right." Quinn had told him about their 'plan', their hope that through the course of the year they could change the perception of Glee so that there were new members this year and that next year New Directions would continue on without them. Puck understood that this desire mostly came from Rachel, but really, after all that Schue had given up for them, it was only fair that they tried to pay it forward. "I'm sure Puck and I can come to some sort of agreement." The fact that they were renting each other's bodies for the moment would no doubt help that.
#
Puck hated French. Almost like he hated Spanish, but Spanish was slightly easier than French because there weren't as many stupid rules and it did have the harder test -seriously, written, oral and hearing tests for one stupid language? But Quinn, it seemed, was like one of those annoying go getter types and had fucking Advanced French. With Hummel. Puck had only just managed to not head-butt the desk when he'd realised they shared the class. It was hard enough to keep up with things, never mind hold a conversation with Kurt at the same time and not bark at the kid -yeah, he didn't mind the little fruitcake anymore, not really, but seriously, this was hard enough to focus on. Puck did not care that Kurt thought Quinn's little ballet shoes were adorable or that the baby doll shirt was complimentary to her figure -which, come on, a garbage bag would be fucking hot on Quinn.
Thankfully, Quinn had a study between French and lunch, although she had plans to sit with San and Rach for lunch to further detail their plan for the year -and really, how the hell were they supposed to do that- which meant that Puck ended up in the library -of his own volition- reading through all of Quinn's current work. Seriously, the girl didn't take a break. Advanced French, Advanced Chemistry -although hopefully that meant blowing something up in lab- English Lit, stupid fucking History. Puck could deal with the likes of Geometry -although how the hell he was meant to get Artie to keep up the tutoring when he was in Quinn's body he had no idea- and really, why the hell Quinn was taking Home Ec Studies, Puck did not know because the girl could burn water. Puck figured that he'd use his superior culinary skills to make up for his lacking language abilities and just make sure that Quinn understood he was going to flunk French because it sucked.
He was in the middle of reading about the French Revolution when a black stick was poked into his face, "Quinn Fabray, what is your response to the rumours that you had liposuction during the summer? Any comment on the idle gossip about your current lack of a boyfriend? Is it true that you spent the night with Lima's bad-boy and your former flame, Noah Puckerman?" Puck knew that he wasn't allowed to toss Jacob Ben Israel into any lockers or wedgie the annoying little dirtbag, but that didn't mean he needed to be nice.
"If you don't get that thing out of my face and let me get on with my work I will make sure the entire school knows you still wet the bed and sleep with Superman pyjamas." Puck scowled at the gnat, waiting for him to scurry away before he noticed what Jew-fro was staring at. "And if you look down my top one more time, I will remove your testicles with a pair of rusty bolt cutters." Jacob scurries off fairly quick after that.
It's not until lunch that Puck sees Quinn and there's this pinched look on his face -her face, it's his face but it's Quinn's pinched expression and God he's going to give himself a headache, and Quinn's headaches suck. He's not exactly sure what it is he's done, but it's probably something he's done, because that is Quinn's 'I'm pissed at you because you're stupid' look. Although it does resemble his own glower that makes people just piss off and leave him alone.
They stand beside each other in the line for food, and Quinn is very careful in keeping her voice lowered, "You threatened Jacob?" Ah, she'd heard about that.
"The little maggot deserved it. He's lucky I didn't tie him the flag pole by his hair." Because that was the sort of thing that Puck would do. "You never told me you take Advanced French. I haven't taken French in three years, Quinn. This blows."
"Your math teacher doesn't even know what you look like." Well, that's because he'd never actually attended maths. "And I've been propositioned by four cheerleader wannabes already." Well that's not entirely unusual. "They don't seem to take no for an answer."
"See, it was always easier to just say yes, bone them, and then walk away." Except he hasn't done that since Lauren, and frankly, he doesn't want Quinn using his body like that at all anyway. "Just keep up the mantra or whatever. Lie." He didn't think Quinn would be planning on doing anything other than that, but it didn't really matter.
"You have plans tonight, right?"
"Yeah, Britt's going to show me the routines after school and then I'm going over for this weird girl's night at Rach's. And right now I'm supposed to be over there," Puck tilted his head towards the table that Rachel and Santana had secured, "talking about the school domination plan. Not loitering around the jello talking to you." He made a point on smiling, so that Rachel would at least assume that they were having a friendly chat. "Rachel says I should be nicer to you. She thinks you hurt my feelings too much." Quinn scoffed and rolled her eyes, even though Puck caught the smirk.
"Like you even have any." Paying for lunch they sort of stopped for a second, as if it was a 'friendly' chat that didn't end just because they were finished with the line. "Call me when you get in from Rachel's?"
"Sure, and hey, if you get better at more than just Yoshi's Island, you should think about doing video game night with the guys, it's on Wednesday, at Mike's. They might mention it." Quinn just nodded before heading over to the Glock end of the jock table while Puck headed towards Rachel and Santana.
"What was that about?" San jerked her head towards where Quinn sat between Sam and Mike, already arguing about whatever.
"Olive branch." Puck just shrugged, getting a pleased smile from Rachel before the tiny little diva launched full steam into her thoughts on recruiting people for glee.
#
Between Brittany's demonstration of the cheers that she'd need to learn, then the girls night -which consisted of a pedicure, a leg wax and a face mask between gossiping about boys, college applications and music, Puck was ready to just collapse when he got back to Quinn's house. His muscles ached, although he was pretty pleased with the fact that Quinn's body seemed to remember the cheers even if Puck didn't. Following Brittany's moves was pretty easy, it just sort of clicked somewhere that he was meant to go into a lay off at some point and that was that.
At least he wouldn't be landing on his face in the middle of a routine if that was the case.
Quinn picked up the phone on the second ring while Puck shucked off the day's clothes and into the oversized shirt before flipping through Quinn's mail. "You are evil."
"Well, hello to you too." It was still weird hearing his own voice, but Puck was (scarily) starting to get used to it.
"You never mentioned anything about waxing at girl's night. My legs are fucking burning." And seriously, trying to play that off was almost impossible because that was a shock. "And what's with the mud on the face?"
"It's for the pores. How'd it go?"
"Fine, really. Rach talked about her and Finn's weekend plans, San mentioned some girl from Carmel that got Rach on about Vocal Adrenaline and then we got on to potential songs for Sectionals. We haven't even had our first rehearsal and Rach is talking about Sectionals. It's insane."
"She does that." As if that explained it all. "And the cheers?"
"Your body remembers them. It's pretty good. It's like when you know you can do something, you just haven't done it in a while, and then it all just comes back to you." It made him wonder, "You ah, you could probably try to play my guitar. Cause, well, it might come up at glee." He didn't always play, but it did happen enough that Quinn should at least figure out now if she could do it or not.
"I don't know the first thing about playing."
"Seriously? Sam never-" Puck stopped that line of questioning pretty damn fast. "Anyway, you should try." Because as possessive as he was about his guitar, it wasn't like he was giving it to some homeless guy. "But enough about me, how was your day, honey?" Quinn snorted on the other end of the phone.
"Well, I locked Jacob in a locker." And Puck had to laugh. "He was being a perv, he deserved it. Besides, it was totally in character for you and really, no one asked a thing. Although, you need to explain to me why Finn keeps blushing when Mike talks about his Mom."
"Finn flashed Mrs C. on the third week of break. It was a total accident, but he gave her a full frontal." Puck wasn't even in the least bit bothered about sharing that little tidbit, because really, Quinn should tease Finn mercilessly. "So, hey, San was right about this whole 'invited back to the Cheerio's' thing, I've got the letter here, which is actually very passive aggressive, does that mean I don't need to pick clothes every day and just need to wear the uniform?"
"Yeah, and I mean the full uniform."
"God, don't need to tell me twice. It's nice to see a little bit of an ass now and then, but the first person that is ogling mine, and by extension, yours, I will punch." Which made him think of something. "Hey, do you know how to throw a decent punch?"
"No. I slap."
"Um, no, you don't. Tomorrow, I'm showing you. My face is not getting messed up because you slap like a girl."
"Whatever you say. You have a free first thing tomorrow, right?"
"Yeah."
"Well, I am supposed to be in maths, but after today, I really don't think they'll care if I skip. Meet me in the auditorium?"
"Sure, why not." Since both San and Rach had class first thing, Puck had been planning on just loitering around -maybe in the library again, because it was surprisingly calming- but why not have some company. "Right, from the cheering and the girl talking, I'm exhausted. I'll see you later."
All in all, the first attempt at living each other's lives wasn't a total disaster.
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