All my life I've been searching for something
Something I can put my finger on
Maybe I've been living for the weekend
Maybe I've been living for this cyber soul
Every Friday just about midnight
All my problems seem to disappear
Everyone that I miss when I'm distant
Everybody's here
{Band of Skulls – Friends}
When Rachel doesn't come home that night, Puck thinks there are two possibilities. Either she's really, really pissed at him, or she and Jesse are . . .
Fuck. He doesn't need those images in his head. He really does not.
So Puck spends his Saturday morning playing Xbox and eating chips and doing absolutely nothing at all. Seriously. He's never been one to get bored easily, but shit, Rachel gone is really messing with his head. He swears the clock stops every time he looks away, and then acts all innocent when he tries to catch it out.
He might be going slightly insane too.
He leaves Rachel three messages, all of them full of profanity and swearing. He even mumbles that she's a bitch in one of them, which will get her going for sure. She can't stand his 'crass, deplorable language' and blah, blah, blah. (Part of him is actually hoping that she'll come home soon, just to yell at him. Please, Rachel, come home.)
What makes Puck really angry is that Jesse is probably hoisting his flag on the Berry island right now, and hell, he hates that. He hates that a lot. He hates Jesse St James and his adorable little smile and the cool superiority he thinks he has over everyone else. He hates that Rachel doesn't hate him. Fuck, she'll probably come home boasting about how in love they are. He wouldn't be surprised if she started doodling their initials all over her uni assignments.
Once it hits one in the afternoon, he is seriously contemplating throwing out Rachel's junk. She can go fetch her papers and dresses from the New York streets while Puck laughs from his bedroom window. But then again, St James would probably make it romantic. Like, their hands would touch to pick up the same pair of panties or something and it would be all oh.
The worst part about that is that Jesse would get to touch Rachel Berry's panties.
God, he needs to hit something.
When the doorbell rings, he practically leaps over the couch to answer it. Except the girl standing in front of him isn't brunette, or midget-sized, or talking a million miles a minute. She's blond, and girly, and there's a little replica of her standing at her feet.
"Daddy!" Beth squeals, her big eyes shining. Her five-year-old arms encircle his leg, and he's left gaping at Quinn, who has this innocent expression on her face.
"You could've said something," he grunts, hoisting Beth up over his shoulder, much to her dislike. "I would've cleared this hole up."
"Where's Rachel?" Quinn asks, stepping inside, eyeing his crushed potato chips disgustedly.
"Dunno," Puck shrugs. "With some ass- jerk, I mean jerk – called Jesse."
"Huh, that's funny, remember- Wait . . . No!" Quinn gasps, putting a hand on her hip. "I thought she'd be over Prince Charming by now."
She doesn't notice his frown. "He isn't a Prince Charming."
"He's as close as she was going to get in Lima. You know, I always thought . . . Never mind. I figured I'd bring Beth up for the weekend. You miss her, Puck," Quinn says slowly, flattening out her dress. The baby doll dresses had stayed very much with her after high school. "And she misses you."
"You miss me, beautiful?" he says, turning his head around to face his daughter.
Beth pokes her tongue out at him. "If I say yes, will you let me down?"
Quinn bites her lip. "She's cheeky. Too cheeky. I wonder where she got that from . . ."
Puck winks at Beth, who has leapt from his arms and landed on the couch. She has his mother's grace, he sees. He's glad. Hopefully she'll be entertained by dancing and singing, and Rachel of course . . . But that brings him back to an angry place – a place he really shouldn't be in around his daughter – so he pushes the thoughts away and focuses on the two blonds in the room.
Quinn sits down on a chair and smiles up at him. It's sarcastic, which is good. Motherhood never made her soft. Not too soft, at least. "I have news. I don't think you're going to like it." Her smile doesn't falter, though, and he gets the impression she doesn't care whether he does or does not like whatever bombshell she's about to drop on him.
Puck sighs and flops into a chair, leaving Beth to watch TV. "Lay it on me, baby."
Quinn rolls her eyes and stares at her knuckles for a long minute before talking. "Okay. Artie and I, it's . . . official. We're dating, okay?"
"What about . . . What about Tina?" It's the stupidest thing he could have said, because he knew this would happen and he knew Tina and Artie split up sometime after graduation, when Artie stuck around to help Quinn.
"You know Tina is in Chicago, Puckerman. You didn't hear about her and Mike?"
Puck shakes his head, because honestly? He really hadn't heard from anyone lately from McKinley, excluding Quinn. He'd have to give Chang a phone call and see what was going on.
God, he sounded like such a gossip. Rachel was turning him into a chick.
"Well," Quinn beams, leaning in. Just about all girls love gossip, he's come to realise. "Tina was studying at her school library in Chicago, and suddenly someone taps her on the shoulder. She turns around, and there's Mike with a cup of coffee in hand! He said he saw her walk in, and he was about to get one too, so he got one for her while he was at it. How sweet is that?"
Fuck. Mike and Tina and romance, now?
"BETH!" Quinn squealed. "If you don't stop changing the channel, I'll throw the batteries out the window!"
Beth slumps into the chair, tossing the remote aside, her brow furrowed and her little arms crossed. She was a spitting image of Quinn. He'd rather that. He doesn't know how good a Puckerman-Fabray baby would look.
(He'd always thought the kid would be fucking gorgeous if it was an equal mix, but now he's not so sure, for some reason. It must be seeing Beth, looking like her pretty mother.)
"She's just like you."
"Good," he replies.
When Rachel finally comes home, Beth is taking a bath. He knew how to take care of a five-year-old girl, thank god, because of Sarah. But still, he thinks having Rachel around would have been a lot easier.
"Where the hell have you been?"
She drops her bag on the counter, and he notices she's wearing a new pair of jeans and a grey t-shirt that was most likely her boyfriend's. "Oh really, Noah, calm down."
"No, I won't calm down, Rach! You've been gone, like, twenty four hours. He could've raped you or something! What if he sold you into slavery, Rach, what would you do then? You'd be begging for water in the fucking Sahara, that's what!"
She ignores him totally, and instead cocks her head to the side, listening out for something.
"Are you hearing me, Rach?"
"Oh, shush, Noah. Why do I hear giggling? And not wasted, twenty-year-old giggling either . . ."
"Quinn dropped Beth off."
"Beth!" Rachel squeals, a smile brightening her tired face.
"Hell no!" Puck says, jumping in front of her, blocking her off from the hallway. "I'm not letting you see my daughter. She's mine and you were out."
"You're acting like a child," Rachel frowns, trying to duck under his arms. "Don't be ridiculous! Come on, let me go see her, please?"
"No!"
She makes another lunge under his raised arms. Puck grabs her and pulls her against his chest, wrapping his arms around her tightly. He whirls her around into the living room again, which makes Rachel so dizzy that she is left gasping for air.
"Next time, Rach, just call me or something. I was seriously worried."
It's a lie. He was just pissed. The pussy wouldn't have the guts to hurt Rachel.
"Who are you?"
Releasing Rachel, Puck turns to see little Beth in her pink Barbie pyjamas, her golden ringlets wet and her little hands on her hips. Rachel beams wildly at the girl. "Remember me, Beth? I'm Rachel. We talk over the phone a lot. I'm you Daddy's friend."
"Oh, Rachel!" Beth beams, although she still looks slightly clueless.
Four long hours later, Beth is finally asleep on the couch. He would've offered, but Beth was tiny and that couch was a demon past ten at night. Rachel says good night to him quietly, and he doesn't say it back. He doesn't even glance at her as he closes the door behind him.
She thinks she's hurt him, even if she doesn't know how.
Beth goes home on Monday.
He swears he's not crying, he's not, he's not.
Rachel wraps an arm around his waist, and all he feels is anger, so he pushes her away and heads inside with one last lazy wave towards Quinn's retreating car.
See, Rachel has always had this dream. Ever since she was a little girl, and in the old films she watched, a girl woke up next to a man in the morning. She was either putting on his shirt or wearing it already. And that, is Rachel's perfect idea of romance. Sometimes she thinks she'd prefer it over any jewellery or flowers, because it was more personal.
So after one week of just-about-silence from Noah, while he's at the bar or work or doing whatever he does when he's angry, she sneaks down the hallway and takes a left. The door creaks open, much to Rachel's delight, and she's so glad he never got a lock. Once she's actually in the room, it feels more like trespassing.
The room is so Noah, but it's not. Like, there are traces of him, but not quite all of his delinquent-ness comes out in his décor.
The walls are navy and almost bare, except for the twenty five or so pictures taped above his bed. Pictures of Quinn and Beth from all stages of her short life so far, one sonogram, a few of Finn acting like a goof, a couple of Artie and Finn acting like big goofs together, one or two of his mom and Sarah, one of him playing in a local bar back in Lima even though he was underage, and the rest were all of Rachel and him. She'll have to get copies.
In the corner is an old, wooden, built-in closet, which is open with his clothes strewn across the floor. There's a mirror next to the window.
The room, overall, is boyish and messy and smells just like him (warm and dusky and earthy). But there's no motorcycling, bikini-wearing girls plastered to the walls, and there's no piles of napkins with girls phone numbers drawn in lipstick, and there's no underwear left about from any girls who had stayed the night. To be honest, that's what she had always expected from him.
Thinking of girls who had been with Noah, she realises that there really haven't beenmany. Not here, at least. He could, of course, be going to their place . . .
Rachel shook the thoughts from her head.
She pulls his McKinley football jacket on and trudges back out, hoping that this would be like waving the white flag.
Rachel hears him open the door at about five, so she crosses her legs meditation-style on the couch and waits for him.
Puck sees her on the couch, smiling up at him. Is she crazy? Boyfriends were supposed to give her that kind of stuff.
He goes into his room to get changed without saying a word.
She hates this right now. It's the kind of fight that seems like it might never end.
I need love
Cause only love is true
I need every wakin' hour with you
And my friends cause they're so beautiful
Yeah my friends they are so beautiful
They're my friends
They're my friends
They're my friends
They're my friends
{Band of Skulls – Friends}