Notes: I have actually secretly been drawing illustrations to go with this fic.

Warnings: (Minor) Character death, graphic violence, boy/boy sex.

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September

Out of all the boys in the locker room, Puck was the strongest. Or so his muscle definition would imply. He took working out seriously and it showed. He could beat any of the other guys one on one, partly because he wasn't scared of taking a hit. He had the principles of fighting ingrained like second nature - Keep your back to the wall, get up if you're knocked down, don't be scared to take a hit (because taking a hit and coming back for more usually freaks the other guy the fuck out), and if you've got a weapon then don't fucking drop it. There were other 'rules', but Puck liked those first ones best.

Unfortunately for him he wasn't the only guy in the locker room with a solid knowledge of how to beat people.

Karofsky and Azimio took point while Donahue and Phillips cleared space in the room. They were all dressed, or half-dressed, having rushed through their showers to get done before their target. Puck, on the other hand, had just stepped out of the shower and was dressed only in a towel while he reached for his shirt.

He could by the way they surrounded him that this was not going to be fun.

Puck narrowed his eyes. He forgot about putting on his shirt and instead balled his hands into fists. He needed a wall behind him, quick, or some way to make sure they didn't get his hands behind his back. Puck made the first move. He darted to the left and threw all of his weight into the punch - a move that was usually pretty dumb, but he needed Phillips incapacitated for long enough to push past him and get the wall behind him.

Things moved fast after that. Phillips went down and Puck leapt through the gap he made in the few precious seconds it took the other boy to get back up again. It never occurred to him to yell for help, or for a teacher. Karofsky came after him, flanked by Azimio, Donahue following behind with a nasty look on his face. All of them, Puck realised as he ducked Azimio's fist only to be caught by a kick from Karofsky, guys he'd stopped from messing with the gleeks more than once.

There were other guys, he noticed as the wind was driven from him lungs. Surrounding them. Ringing them and forming a wall of flesh between them and escape. They were chanting, laughing, and Puck felt a sudden murderous fury in the pit of his stomach. He forced himself up despite the pain in his lungs. He was a force to be reckoned with. Even naked and outnumbered he'd go down hard or not at all.

He managed to crack his knuckles against Karofsky's nose just once before the commotion escalated. Boys scattered and suddenly the fight was broken up, Karofsky hauled away from him and Donahue trying to subtly inch away before he was caught like Azimio had been.

Puck stood in a defensive stance, hands still balled into fists, panting like he'd just run a marathon. He was still naked, towel dropped and forgotten in the scuffle. There must have been something about the way he looked, eyes narrowed into a sharp, cutting glare, because Coach Tanaka just stared at him for a moment in shock.

"Puckerman," he says after a moment, "get dressed. The rest of you are going straight to the principal's office."

Puck watched as his attackers were marched out of the locker room by a very pissed-off teacher. He waited until they were gone before he stalked back across the locker room to where he'd left his clothes. He wasn't worried about getting into trouble. It was pretty obvious who had been the underdog here, even if he'd technically started the fight.

"Puckerman," Tanaka said after a moment. "If you ever need to talk..."

"It's cool, coach," Puck said, zipping up his jeans.

"I just mean, if you need help." Tanaka cleared his throat, and the next thing he said sounded like a line pulled directly from a teen PSA; "I know bullying isn't something kids like to talk about."

"Jesus," Puck muttered under his breath. He pulled his shirt on, then turned around and shrugged. "I said it's cool. We got into a fight, thanks for stopping it... Can I go now?"

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October

A week's worth of detention and the dumbasses still didn't learn. Puck was at his wit's end over these jerk-offs. The vast majority of casual bullies had backed off when the realised that Noah Puckerman was now championing the cause of the gleeks. But there was still one small group of repeat offenders that just refused to learn.

They thought they were alpha males, that they were the top of the pack, therefore the social elite and above the rules. Puck thought it was complete and utter bullshit.

Rachel Berry's white cardigan was stained an obnoxious pink, parts of her hair dripping wet with raspberry, her face shiny and sticky with melted slushy mixture. It was pure luck that Puck caught sight of her when he did, just a split second before she disappeared into a girl's bathroom. In an instant Puck went from self-satisfied to livid. He'd only just stopped some asshole from dumping a tray of pasta into Artie's lap in the cafeteria and now it turned out that while he was doing that some other jerk was shoving ice cold raspberry mix into Rachel's face.

Not that he hadn't wanted to do that to her himself plenty of times in the past. It was the principle of the thing.

He shoved his way through a group of bespectacled geeks crowded around someone's iphone and barged into the girl's bathroom. "Who did it?" He demanded straight up. He didn't care that Rachel might not be the only girl in there, that there might be other girls lurking in the stalls. "Was it Karofsky? Phillips? Who?"

Rachel looked at him through the mirror, her eyes looking at his reflection. A toilet flushed, adding to the awkward silence. Rachel shrugged and reached up to start unbuttoning her cardigan. She was wearing a modest tank top underneath. "Why do you want to know?"

"So I can do something about it?"

"Why?" Rachel asked again, unfolding a new cardigan from her emergency after-slushy kit. "Why do you care about this now?"

"Because I can. I don't know. Do I need a reason?" The reasoning sounded much more credible to Puck when he didn't try to explain it. He shoved his hands into his pockets and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "We're friends," he said, watching her clean her face. "It'd make me a total pussy if I didn't stick up for my friends."

"Wow." Rachel wiped a last bit of cheery-flavoured stickiness from her cheeks and turned to face him. "You've really changed, haven't you?"

"What? No."

"I think it's sweet," Rachel beamed at him. She slid a beret into her hair, artfully hiding the few sticky strands that she couldn't was in the sink. "You've developed a conscience through love of song."

"Just tell me who it was, ok?"

"But this is -"

"Jesus, Berry! Gimme a damn name."

Rachel blinked. She twisted her hands together as she looked at him, and Puck imagined that she was forcing herself to hold back any number of inane happy-go-lucky trivialities. "Ok," she said finally. "It was Karofsky. He caught me just outside the choir room."

"Fucking Karofsky," Puck muttered. He barely resisted punching the wall. It was always Karofsky. The bastard just didn't learn. "I think I'm gonna talk to him."

Puck left the girl's bathroom, the door swinging shut of Rachel's "you're going to talk to Karofsky!" He ignored the surprised looks from the small group of girls outside and stalked down the hallway.

Karofsky was at the bottom of the list, still at least two names away from being dealt with permanently. But being on the list wasn't an excuse. If he changed his ways now and left Puck's people alone then he could still upgrade from 'stabbed repeatedly in the chest' to 'stabbed through the eye socket'. One would be slow and painful, while the other would be painful but much, much quicker. A few short seconds versus a couple of minutes in agony. Being thicker than two short planks was no excuse either. Even dogs learned. Maybe with enough repetition Dave Karofsky could learn too.

Puck didn't catch up with the hockey player until school had finished.

He literally caught up with Karofsky in the car park, having stalked him in silence since the end of after school sports practice to make sure he was alone - he didn't want any repeats of what had happened in the locker room. The hockey player was by his car, just about to open the door, when Puck made his appearance.

"Hey Karofsky, we need to talk."

"Nobody needs to talk to you, Puckerman. You need to get lost."

"Yeah, not happening." Puck took a casual stand in front of Karofsky, close enough to lean on the hood of the car if he wanted to. He decided it was best to come straight to the point. "I don't want you messing with my friends."

"What?" Karofsky scoffed.

"The glee club," Puck specified. "You're going to stop fucking with them. Or else."

"Or else what?"

"Or else I make the rest of your short, sad life a living hell."

Karofsky actually laughed. "You? Dude. You and what army?"

"I'm serious," Puck said, starting to feel anger uncurl and rise from the pit of his stomach. He took a step back. A scuffle in the parking lot wasn't what he was intending here. If they fought then Karofsky would forget what Puck had said and go for revenge instead. Puck knew because it's what he would have done.

"Whatever. Get away from my car." Karofsky opened his car door, clearly intent on ignoring whatever else Puck had to say.

"You ever wonder where your buddy Donahue is?" Puck asked.

Karofsky stopped half-in, half-out of his car. The look on his face clearly stated that he thought Puck was retarded. "Uh, what?"

"Your friend? Big dumb guy with the blond hair. Have you wondered why he hasn't been in school the past few days?" Puck shrugged casually and took a step back, patted the bonnet of Karofsky's car and gave him a condescending smirk. "Why don't you think about that and get back to me?"

Karofsky had about a week and a half to think about it if Puck kept to the schedule he had planned out. Kurt would probably tell him that it was stupid to tell Karofsky to think about his friend's sudden disappearance, but at least this once Kurt could shove it.

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September

"You and me, after school. No interference, no teachers, no rules."

Puck stood in the hallway, blocking entrance to the classroom. He was deadly serious, arms crossed over his chest, the force of his glare making him seem taller than he actually was. He'd been caught off guard yesterday in the locker room, and after an evening of quiet reflection he'd decided that maybe a physical confrontation was the way to go after all. This time he was fixing for a proper fight, a real one on one of the kind he was used to. Bare knuckles, no rules, all out brawling until one of them was down and not getting back up again.

Karofsky looked him up and down as if assessing his seriousness. "It's not just me who has the problem," the hockey player pointed out.

"So I'll take you all on," Puck replied easily. "As long as it's one on one. Whoever wants to fight me can come get it, but no ganging up on me like a bunch of pussies too scared to fight on your own." When the other boy didn't answer straight away Puck stepped away from the door and started down the hallway to his own class. "This evening at six, down by the bleachers. I'll be there."

He left before waiting for an answer and casually breezed into his science class ten minutes late. He didn't even pretend to do any work, too busy trying to figure out how many guys would actually show up and who were the likely candidates. How he'd beat them, what their weaknesses were. A couple of bloody noses, maybe a few broken bones, and nobody would be messing with him or the other glee kids in a long, long time.

Puck went home for the couple of hours between the end of choir practice and the scheduled fight. He told his mom he'd be out late, messed up his sister's hair, and left dressed in sweatpants, and a tight tee. The sweatpants were for easy movement, the tight shirt to make it harder to pull him in by his clothes. He wore sneakers instead of heavy boots, though he'd had a couple of fantasies about breaking someone's knees with his favourite pair of steel caps. Sneakers were easier to move in and he wanted to be light on his feet.

He arrived at the bleachers early and set about getting himself warmed up. He was done exactly two minutes before anyone else showed up.

Azimio arrived first, followed by Donahue and Phillips in the same car, Karofsky came next, and finally another couple of puckheads that arrived on mountain bikes instead of by car.

Puck cracked his knuckles. "Alright, bitches," he started, by no means intimidated. He'd done one-on-one progression fights at the club, and high school jocks weren't nearly as tough as the guys who went there. "Who starts?"

An hour later as he dabbed at his bloody nose with his ruined shirt before tossing it into the hamper he realised he'd forgotten one very important detail. High school jocks were nowhere near as hardcore as a middle-aged boxer with anger management issues... But at least the boxer had a sense of honour.

The fighting hadn't gone anything like he'd planned. He'd started off with a one-on-one with Azimio and everything had been going great. He'd gotten in a couple of freaking fantastic punches when suddenly he was sucker-punched in the kidneys from behind. The odds switched from one-on-one to six-against-one and Puck had been forced to cut his losses, kick his way out of the mêlée, and run like hell.

It took four blocks for them to stop chasing him. On top of all that he'd had to wait around for them to leave so he could go back and get his truck. Frankly it was just damn lucky they hadn't seen the car or he might have been dealing with busted windows or slashed tyres.

His only real consolation was that Azimio's left eye was probably going to be swollen shut by morning. Try explaining that, he thought viciously, and punched his pillow. His fist left a deep dent in the foam. For just a moment he imagined the pillow was a body. The idea was so satisfying that he hit it again dead centre with two sharp jabs. Then he sighed and flopped down onto his bed. He'd clean up later. He'd think of another way to get even later.

"Lousy cheating assholes," Puck muttered as he toed his sneakers off one after the other and let the shoes fall to the floor.

Sooner or later he would get even, then those jerks would wish they'd never even met him.