Sometimes Puck cared a little too much about what people thought about him. It's not like it was that bad, he wasn't fucking Finn, with his pansy-ass lack of a spine. He just had a rep that he'd spent a long time building up, and there was no way he was giving it up now.
This became way too clear on the second day of school. He'd totally powered through the whispers and stares he'd gotten from people that saw him hanging out with Rachel on the first day. He could tune shit out like crazy, something his teachers already knew. So, yeah. He hadn't given a damn when everyone had talked amongst themselves.
But then on the second day of school, he'd been heading to the football field with Mike and Matt, ready for another year of suck-ass playing, when Karofsky and Azimio had stopped them, looking all threatening (constipated).
"So," Karofsky said, "I hear you guys are tight with Rachel Berry now."
"Yep," Puck stated flatly, mentally mapping out the different ways to kick their asses without being late for practice.
"Seriously? I heard that but I was like, no way, those guys aren't that lame."
"Your high opinion of us means the world," Puck told him. "Now move."
"I was super shocked," Karofsky continued, crossing his arms, "because I heard that Berry was responsible for the whole dye prank last year, the one that made me dark purple for two weeks. Even I had to admit that it was a totally badass plot. But really? Berry? It's a shame to think that the biggest badasses in school are taking orders from some tiny little glee freak."
"Watch it, man," Puck warned, and Mike and Matt stepped forward. "Don't talk about her like that."
Azimio let out a loud guffaw when he saw their reaction.
"Would you look at that? She's got you guys totally whipped. I never thought I'd see the day when Puck was trying act like some gentleman. But I guess if you can't be a badass, you might as well be a candyass, am I right?"
Puck cracked his knuckles, but Karofsky and Azimio just smirked.
"Well," Karofsky said, rubbing his hands together, "we should get going. See you girls later."
Puck, Mike and Matt just stared at each other when the idiots left.
"Is it true?" Matt asked, looking shocked. "Are we big girls now?"
"Fuck no," Puck replied forcefully. "We're the biggest badasses in school. Our stuff is legendary."
"It used to be," Matt pointed out. "But come on, when's the last time any of us tried to pull anything off without Rachel? I don't know if we even can anymore."
"Why would we try?" Mike asked. "Before, we just TP-ed people and egged dorks. But since Rachel joined us, our stuff went epic. How many people can say that they've joy-ridden a yacht?"
"Dude," Puck snapped, "you're making it sound like we're useless without Rachel."
"Well, we are," Mike pointed out.
"No, we're not! Listen, we can totally pull off an epic prank without Rachel. And we will."
"When?" Matt asked.
"Tonight," Puck announced. "We always kick off the year by messing with Carmel. I say we figure out a prank that'll be legen - wait for it – dary."
Matt leaned forward, looking psyched. Mike was looking worried, though.
"I don't know, guys," he hesitated. "It just doesn't seem right to cut Rachel out of this. Even if we can pull something like this off, she's still our friend. We should tell her about it."
"Listen," Puck bit out, "we got along fine before Rachel, and we can do it again. I – we don't need her for anything. We'll be fine."
Mike just gave him the look, which clearly said I know something is going on here, and you'll regret this decision. Puck hated that look. Rachel gave him the same look all the time, although on her it was kind of cute.
Not that she was cute.
Because she wasn't. At all. Totally not.
Shut up.
"We're doing this, Chang," he said harshly. "Are you in or are you out?"
Mike stared at him for a minute, and then sighed. "Ok, fine. I'm in. But this can't possibly end well."
"Yeah, whatever, dude," Puck said. "Now here's what we're gonna do…"
Ok, sure. Puck was being kind of a douche. But this was a fuckin' sensitive subject, man. He'd spent the whole night thinking about his revelation about his feeling for Rachel. Well, actually, he'd spent part of the night having other thoughts about Rachel, but he had no problem with that bit. That bit was fan-fucking-tastic, actually.
Anyways.
Falling for Berry was not part of the plan. His plan was to remain emotionally unattached to each and every hot chick he met, fool around with them, and then move on to the next girl. Nowhere in the plan did it mention having thoughts about actually being with a girl, much less Rachel. Because Rachel Berry was not girlfriend material.
Well, maybe she sort of was. She made some damn good cookies, she listened when he talked, and she would rather stay in and come up with evil plans than go out to some fancy-ass restaurant. He could totally talk to her about whatever, and she never judged. And sometimes, she got this sweet look in her eye and he just wanted to hold her and –
Hold the fucking phone! Hold her? Yeah, ok, that shit never happened.
It didn't.
So what if he has totally girly thoughts about her sometimes (all the time)? It's not a big deal. He's still a badass.
And tonight, he's gonna prove it.
So maybe tonight wouldn't go down in the Puckerman Hall of Fame. It started out just fine. The boys got to Carmel at eleven, ready to wreak some havoc. Except Mike. He'd spent the entire drive over there squirming and insisting tat Rachel should have been there. Even Puck's threats of having him sit in the tailgate didn't shut him up. Eventually they stopped at a convenience store and Matt bought Mike some Red Vines. The idiot didn't waste any time talking when he had Red Vines to chew on.
When they finally got to Carmel, they huddled next to Puck's truck. Puck leaned in.
"OK, so we're clear about the plan?" he asked.
"Crystal clear," Matt confirmed.
The two looked over at Mike, who was loudly chewing on a Red Vine and staring blankly at them.
"Maybe we should just run over it one more time," Puck said, shaking his head and turning back to Matt.
"We burn the words 'Carmel Sucks' into the football field's turf," Matt recited. "We do this using strategically poured lighter fluid and a blow-torch. We have a fire extinguisher on standby for when Mike sets himself on fire."
"Hey!" Mike objected through a mouthful of Red Vines.
"After that we pack the stuff back into the truck and get the hell out of there," Matt continued. "Sound good?"
"Yeah, man," Puck agreed, "sounds good. Let's go get the stuff."
The trio stepped over to the tailgate of Puck's truck. It was empty. There was nothing in there. Puck glared over at Matt.
"What the hell, dude?" he accused. "You forgot the stuff!"
"I didn't forget the stuff, you did!" Matt defended himself.
"No, I didn't," Puck replied, shoving Matt in the shoulder. "You said you were gonna bring the stuff."
"No," Matt said, shoving Puck right back. "You said you were gonna bring the stuff."
"No, you said you were gonna bring the stuff." Shove.
"No, you said you were gonna bring the stuff." Shove.
Before the shoving could escalate into a full-blown fight, Mike piped in.
"No, no, no, no, no. I said I was gonna bring the stuff."
Puck and Matt froze and slowly turned to stare at Mike, who was once again eating a Red Vine.
"And did you bring the stuff?" Puck asked, voice strangely hollow.
Mike paused, mouth full a scarlet goodness hanging open as he pondered this question.
"Huh," he let out. "I guess I didn't."
"I'm gonna kill him," Matt said, voice deceptively calm. "I'm just gonna kill him dead right now." He moved towards Mike, who quickly stepped away from him. Before Matt could get any further, the purr of an engine approached the group. A second later, headlights shone on the boys.
"Oh, shit," Puck bit out. "Scatter!"
The three all took off in the direction of the bleachers. They all crouched under them, holding their breaths as the car pulled up, parked, shut off, and a small, dark figure emerged. Their hearts started pounding as the figure moved to the center of the field and, after a brief pause, took out a flashlight and started illuminating the field around it. Before they could escape the bleachers, the flashlight's beam landed on them. The boys, slowly crawled out, their hands raised in surrender.
"We're sorry," Matt said, taking the defensive. "We know we shouldn't be out here."
"I couldn't agree more, Matt," came a very familiar feminine voice. "So why are you here?"
"Rachel?" Puck and Matt yelled, shocked. The flashlight moved to illuminate the holder's face, revealing that it was in fact Rachel. "What are you doing here?"
"Mike called me and told me to come," she announced primly.
"What?" Matt called out. He turned to Mike. "Dude, when did you do that?"
Mike just shrugged. "At the convenience store. When I was pretending to look at the Archie comics, I was really calling Rachel."
"Why would you do that?" Puck asked.
"Because we can't pull off a prank without Rachel," Mike replied. "And it was stupid of us to try."
"Which begs the question," Rachel interjected, "why did you try?"
"Huh?" was all Puck could manage.
Rachel stepped closer to the guys, stepping into the moonlight. It caught her face and revealed the hurt in her eyes. Oh, shit, she was upset.
"Why did you feel the need to pull a prank without me?" she inquired. A sheen of tears appeared in her eyes. "I thought we were all getting along. Why did you decide not to include me in your plans tonight? Why the sudden need to reject me as a part of this group?"
Noah stepped towards her, the picture of remorse.
"Rachel, we weren't rejecting you," he claimed. "Karofsky and Azimio were messing with us, telling us that we weren't real badasses anymore. He was saying that since we started hanging with you, we got all dependent on you and shit, and we couldn't pull off anything epic on our own. So we wanted to prove him wrong."
"And in your mind, the only to do that was to attempt something without telling me, leaving me in the dark."
"Well, if told you, then you'd want to help, and the point was to prove that we could do this without your help," he defended.
Rachel's face darkened. That was the wrong thing to say.
"Well," she declared haughtily, "if you don't want my help, then I'll just keep my opinions to myself from now on." She turned to leave, but Noah reached out and grabbed her arm, trying desperately to keep her with them and ignoring the jolt he felt as he did it.
"Rach, we didn't mean it like that."
"Noah," she said, fighting to keep her voice even, "I have spent a lifetime having people tell me that my input isn't welcome. I've also spent a lifetime having people exclude me from their plans when I wasn't required. I never felt as if you, of all people, would treat me like that. I know perfectly well that I'm not the most pleasant person to be around, but I thought you were my friends. I thought that you valued my company and considered me to be your friend as well. Apparently, I was mistaken. I'm used to being used for my voice, or my intelligence, but now it would seem I'm being used for my cunning, and that you would rather be without me if you can manage. If that's the case, just tell me now. One thing I learned last year is that it's better to alone than to be used by false friends."
The boys all stared at their feet, severely chastened.
"We're so sorry, Rachel," Matt muttered, daring to look up at her. "We were being jerks. Mike and I may have started liking you because we figured out that you were this secret mastermind, but we do actually like you. We all consider you a friend, and we like having you around. We were just being macho, and we didn't realize that it would upset you if we left you out. Fuck Karofsky and Azimio, we wouldn't have listened to them if we'd known how much this would hurt you."
"Yeah, Rachel," Mike added. "I tried to stop them, but I should've tried harder. I know that you've had a rough time with all the sucky people at McKinley, but we're really your friends, and you're never getting rid of us."
"Thank you, Matt, thank you, Mike," Rachel said, touched. She turned to Noah. "Noah, do you have anything to say to me?"
"I, uh," he coughed, "I'm sorry we made you feel like you weren't awesome. You're pretty much the coolest chick in this town, and I wish that we didn't make you feel like you were anything less. I was friends with you before I knew how badass you were, and I would still be friends with you if you weren't. Because, uh, because you're great. Just the way you are."
Rachel's eyes filled with tears again and Noah flinched. Fuck, how I'd screw this up now? But before he could say anything, she'd enveloped him in a hug and was holding him to her. He hugged her back as quickly as he could, and she didn't even comment on how his hands were dipped so low they were slightly grazing the top of her ass.
"Thank you, Noah," she whispered into his jacket, and he just held her tight. After a moment, Mike let out an emotional noise and hugged them both, and Matt joined them a second later. They all stood like that for a while, hugging in the middle of the dark field. Eventually, Rachel broke away, wiping her eyes.
"Well," she said, "Mike called me on such short notice that I didn't have time to plan anything or bring supplies. But I do have a plan of action." She pulled out her lock-picking kit. "Let's get to work."
The next morning was an interesting one. At Carmel, students and faculty alike were surprised to see a notice taped to the front doors advising that classes had been relocated to the football field. When they made their way over, they saw that three hundred desks had been moved to the football field, along with a single blackboard, which had written on it:
McKinley: 1
Carmel: 0
Thus, the faculty and student body of Carmel High School spent first period relocating the desks and acquiring a new blackboard from storage, since it turned out that the message had been painted on.
Over at McKinley, the Badass Bunch strutted into the school like gods, enjoying the overheard conversations about the Carmel fiasco. Karofsky and Azimio, the Dumbass Duo, stopped them in the main hall.
"So," Karofsky commented, "I heard about the Carmel prank. Pretty funny."
"Yep," Puck said.
"Did you guys have anything to do with it?" Karofsky asked.
"Might've."
"And I'm guessing that Scary Berry planned the whole thing."
"Sure did."
"Figures," Karofsky sneered. "Looks like I was right. You losers can't do anything without her."
"Why would we want to?" Puck asked, slipping an arm around Rachel's shoulders. "The way I see, we pull off epic shit, and we do it with a super hot chick leading us." For a second, Puck considered doing it with that super hot chick, but totally not the time or place. "And you? Who have you got? Oh, that's right, Azimio. So yeah, we're the luckiest fucking losers in the place."
With that he strolled off, arm still around Rachel and Mike and Matt behind him. Everyone in that hallway turned to watch them go.
"Wait." Mike's voice pierced the awestruck silence. "Did you just call us losers?"
I'm back, babies! I'm sorry it took so long but my … grandmo- unc- dog died. Yeah, poor Rex, he was such a good boy…
OK, yeah, the truth is, I'm just a chronic procrastinator. I write this now because I'm really bored. I will be flaky and inconsistent with updates. But I intend to make up for that by taking requests for pranks and storylines. And if I had a beta, I might pressure me to write more often (hint, hint).
I hope you enjoyed this long overdue chapter. It was a bitch to write.