A/N: So, I'm a dunce and uploaded the wrong file the first time around! Whoops! Here is Act 2, right before the season 2 kick off! (Or, you know, seven hours before) I'm so excited! My friends and I are having a pot-luck party and everything. I hope you gleeks are partying as well.

Now, to highlight how awesome and funny the new season is going to be, some sadness and slash!

Not Alone

Act 2

Puck's Aunt Lena came to take care of the funeral and everything, showing up at the Hudsons' front door later that afternoon and steamrolling over everything. "...can't believe I was on vacation when my sister – my only sister – shuffled off. How could she do this to me? How, Noah?"

"Fuck if I know," he muttered angrily. Aunt Lena wouldn't know real family loyalty if it bit her on the impressively rotund ass. The only reason she was here was out of concern for her image and maybe a whopping load of misplaced guilt for being away when it happened.

Puck gathered his sister up and stood in front of his Aunt, needing her to tell him what to do. She'd helped with Nana Connie's funeral two years ago, so she had to know what was going on, right? She had to.

Turns out she wasn't much more than a fucking teenager like him, at heart. He guessed her low-cut tops sold more houses than her maturity and winning attitude. "Well, come on! Where's all your stuff?"

"Lena," Carole said in that damn half-whisper that Puck was really starting to hate, "the fire..."

"Oh," she chuckled, her hazel eyes infuriatingly like Puck's. He hated being related to this woman, flippantly proffered platinum card or no. "Go get yourselves whatever you need, kids. I've got a fucking funeral to plan."

With one final roll of her eyes, Lena straightened her big hat and was out the door on ridiculous heels, trotting away again. God, Puck hoped he didn't have to live with that woman, even though she was really the only family he had, besides a few of his mother's cousins who lived in Cincinnati and probably wouldn't know him from Adam.

"So..." Carole said softly as Lena's red sports car growled away. "The mall?

"You sure your aunt won't mind you spending all this money?" Finn asked stupidly as Puck stripped of and then threw another shirt at his friend to hold until they checked out - not particularly because he liked it, but because at least it fit.

But then, he realized what Finn had asked and what it might mean - spending all of his flaky aunt's money. She did that well enough on her own. But, it wasn't his fault he didn't have all his shit anymore. Was it? "Fuck," he growled, punching the wall and making Finn flinch. "Why did this have to happen to me, dude?"

Setting down his armload of clothes on the tiny corner seat of the fitting room and approaching Puck carefully, Finn replied, "I don't know." Taking (the currently shirtless) Puck into his arms and hugging him soundly, the taller boy suggested, "Maybe I could buy you a few things? You know, chip in somehow?"

Puck looked up the few inches into his friend's eyes and felt an almost overwhelming urge to push the guy away in rage. But he didn't. Instead, all Puck could bring himself to do was snarl, "No way, dude. I already owe you too fucking much. You-"

Finn cut him off with a kiss that Puck knew was supposed to be comforting, but that he – shirtless and confused and so fucking alone – couldn't help but return with force. Finn grunted when the shorter boy slammed him against the mirror and held him there, their lips pressed and kneading together urgently. Puck tried to stay angry at his friend, he tried to kiss the guy hard and mean, stealing breath and cutting lips and clashing teeth, but as soon as Finn's hand cupped the side of his neck, Puck's rage melted away.

And then he was on the floor crying again, with an uncomfortable hard-on and no idea what the fuck he was feeling or was supposed to feel. "So fucked up, bro."

"I don't think so," Finn whispered, sitting beside Puck on the scratchy department store carpet, but facing the other way and leaning his head against Puck's drawn-up knees.

"Yeah, sure," Puck scoffed, pulling over the first shirt he could reach and putting it on before wiping the tears from his face. "Let's just pick out a week's worth and then go find a suit.

"What d'you need a suit for?" Finn asked, watching as Puck shuffled over and started sorting through the clothes that fit.

"The..." Puck choked, wishing his boy was smarter or something so he wouldn't have to say it out-

"Oh," Finn nodded in understanding. "Yeah. The suit's important. Do we know when you need it by?"

"ASAP," Puck muttered, throwing one plaid button down shirt in the keep pile and another in the leave pile. "We Jews don't leave the..." Puck sighed again, unwilling to say the word "body" out loud, at least where his mother was concerned. "Soon. And Quinn's..."

"Yeah," Finn nodded sadly. "Dude! I don't have a suit that fits either. Just my dad's old sport coat. That's...I should ... to pay my respects. But we gotta find my mom and your sister before we leave this store. Otherwise they'll freak out and the last time I got lost in a store Mom paged me over the intercom and it was really embarrassing."

Nodding, Puck marveled at how weird it was that he and Finn had just been making out all hot and heavy, and now they were just talking, the same as always. It didn't make any sense. Why wasn't Hudson freaking out?

At the funeral the next day, after Sarah had fallen asleep in Lena's bedroom, Puck snagged a bottle of tequila and Finn's arm, dragging both out to the closed-in back porch. He wanted to be outside, breathe air that wasn't heavy with death and sadness, but it was fucking February, so this had to do. Puck sat down on the bench, took a big swig of the liquor, and sat back, letting his knee fall against Finn's once the dude sat down beside him.

After his third or fourth gulp, Finn took the bottle away, saying, "Quinn's thing is tomorrow. You should quit while you're still ahead, bro."

"Fuck that," Puck muttered, trying and failing to snatch the alcohol back from Finn's stupidly long orangutan arms. "And there's no way we can show our faces at the funeral. Mrs. Fabray thinks I killed her and you were the one who dropped the baby bomb."

"But..." Finn sighed. "We cared about her."

"It doesn't mean shit to Quinn's mom," Puck sighed, letting his head fall down into his hands, grateful the alcohol was actually starting to do something. Hopefully soon, he would be so out of his mind drunk that he'd forget, just for awhile, that his girls were dead.

At least his boy was still here, rubbing Puck's back with one big hand and keeping his knee pressed against Puck's. "I..." Puck sighed. "I was gonna have a family. Now all I have is Sarah."

"You have me," Finn whispered in Puck's ear, his breath hot and moist.

Puck didn't want to think about Finn's response and the alcohol kept buzzing around in his head, making everything clear and confusing at the same time. Finn was supposed to be his best friend. His bro. But if he was like family, Puck was a sick bastard for needing to kiss him. Unless he wanted to be Puck's wife or something. Puck snorted in amusement at the image of Finn, all dressed up in white and lace, towering over Rabbi Henry.

"What's so funny?" Finn asked. "I mean it, Puck. I'm with you."

"Just...nothing," he replied, leaning back with Finn's arm around his fucking shoulders.

When Finn started singing softly, Puck joined him now and then, feeling the grief of his mother's loss crest and ebb as the minutes ticked by.

For though they may be parted
There is still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer
Let it be.

"Well," Lena said later that night, after everyone but the Puckermans and Finn had left. "Sarah's asleep in my room, so I'll stay with her. I suppose I'll have to convert my den into some sort of bedroom. And the music room, too... There's the couch for tonight, Noah."

"He can stay with me," Finn offered and Puck felt his shoulders sag with relief. He hated it here. Lena was always burning this incense shit and had this yappy little dog and no TV. "At least until you get things rearranged?"

"Oh, would you?" Lena gushed. "What a darling you are!" When Lena smiled and touched Finn's arm, and Puck saw where this was headed, a flash of rage (jealousy) flashed through him.

"Great," he growled, grabbing Finn's wrist. "I'll see you, Lena. Have Sarah call me in the morning."

"Are you still drunk?" Finn asked on the way out to the car, jangling Puck's keys almost happily.

"A little," Puck confessed. "Though I wouldn't mind be drunk from now until June, to tell the truth."

"I've got a better idea," Finn insisted, taking the driver's seat of Puck's truck and watching with a grin as Puck heaved himself up into the passenger side. Puck gave his friend a raised eyebrow in question, expecting him to say something about making out. Instead, Finn said, "Halo," and took off.

"Dude! Watch that elite over there!"

"I would if this hunter would ever get off my ass!"

"Fuck!" Puck growled. "I'm dead." He hated that word. He hated saying, over and over again, that he was dead, but he was still a little reflex-slow from the alcohol and the exhaustion, so he just wasn't doing as well as normal.

"Hey, look," Finn sighed, setting down his controller, "me too. Maybe we should try again tomorrow."

"Yeah," Puck agreed, laying back on Finn's bed. "Tomorrow."

"After we crash Quinn's funeral. I mean, your kid is there, too. You've got the right to-"

Puck stood up violently and made for the door, wondering how the hell Finn had thought mentioning his ... would be a good idea. He was just gonna start crying again, which was so not cool.

"Sorry!" Finn breathed, catching Puck at the door before he could open it. "I didn't mean to upset you, bro. I just think you should take the chance to say goodbye and-"

"Shut up," Puck growled, doing the only thing he could think of and kissing Finn on the lips. No better way to shut someone up. Two seconds later, after Finn's arms wrapped around him again, Puck shoved his tongue into the other guy's mouth, needing to taste anything other than his own, acrid grief. Finn tasted like M&Ms and he smelled like Axe deodorant and he felt reassuringly solid.

Thirty seconds later, they were pushing each other down onto Finn's bed, Puck eventually ending up with his back on the mattress, all his senses clouded with Finn and the dude's heavy, but comforting weight on top of him as they kissed. Puck knew how to do this, even exhausted and sobering up, he knew how to kiss. He knew how to run his hands down to his partner's sides and swivel his hips for that extra bit of friction. He knew how to take Finn's shirt without breaking the kiss for more than a few seconds. He knew how to taunt and tease the boy's neck to get him really squirming with desire. He knew this, even though Finn was a dude. And that was comforting in its own right.

Then, pants and underwear hit the floor and everything was skin-on-skin and friction and holding on and thrusting against and no boobs, but an ass to knead desperately as he was so close and then slick, sticky come between them and he still wasn't there and almost crying in relief when Finn's hand wrapped around him and then ... happiness. Joy. Peace. Exhaustion. Nothing.

So there you have it! Don't forget to review!