Author's Note: So this is what I do when I'm not writing angsty Brucas fics (One Tree Hill, for those who aren't familiar). I write total crack. Really cracky crack, as in Glee meshed with Supernatural. This fic is Puck/Rachel, and I'm going to need you Glee fans to suspend disbelief for a few things, namely

1.) Quinn is not/never was pregnant.

2.) Puck never shaved off his mohawk.

3.) Puck and Rachel's parents are probably not as neglectful as they come across in this story.

4.) This story doesn't fit in well with the show's timeline, but it falls somewhere before Regionals.

5.) Rachel and Puck have continued their "benefits" relationship from Mash-up.

And for the Supernatural fans,

1.) Spoiler, but not really unless you just started watching the show: this happens before Dean goes to hell.

2.) Wincest only if you squint. Except for one part where it's blatantly obvious. (It's not squicky, I promise.)

Okay, I think you guys are set. I hope you enjoy reading and, if you can, please review!

Pt. I

Rachel's on her hands and knees, vomiting up black smoke, and Puck wishes he could say this is the weirdest thing he's ever seen her do, but really, it's not.

"She should be back to normal now," the crazy dude with the shotgun assures him. A few minutes earlier, right before shit - courtesy of Rachel Berry - hit the fan, he had introduced himself as Dean and his companion as Sam. His voice is all authoritative and deep, kind of like Batman, and Puck shoots him a suspicious glare.

Authority figures aren't really his thing, thanks.

"Berry?" he says, kneeling down. It looks like she's finally done with the demon-bulimia, but she still hasn't opened up her eyes. Not to sound like a girl or anything, but Puck really wishes she would. You know, just to make sure they aren't still black.

Everything's silent for a few minutes, except for the soft, pitiful sounds of Rachel gasping for air, and Puck's about to turn around and demand that these two weirdo janitors start over and get the job done right because there's no way Rachel Berry can go this long without talking about gold stars and show tunes and other ridiculous shit that Puck doesn't care about when all of the sudden she opens her eyes (they're back to brown, thankfully) and launches herself at him.

"Oh, Puck," she weeps. "That was awful. I couldn't do anything, and I was so afraid, and that terrible demon was going to make me sing Metallica at the talent show, and god knows what kind of damage that would have done to my vocal cords…"

It's all unnecessarily loud and dramatic and goes on for way longer than it should. Puck tunes her out and climbs back to his feet, unceremoniously dragging her along.

The janitors are staring at them with matching shell-shocked expressions. Rachel tends to have that effect on people.

"I like Metallica," Dean offers weakly. Puck notes, vaguely irritated, that even as the shorter of the two, Dean still has a good two inches on him.

Rachel unburies her face from Puck's shirt and blinks up at the man. Her eyes go doe-eyed and round, while Puck's narrow suspiciously. He knows that look.

"You saved me," Rachel says in this voice that's all breathy and soft and not Rachel. And sure enough, she throws herself at him, wrapping her arms round his middle and squeezing tight. "Thank you so, so, so much."

"Yeah, no problem," Dean chokes out, making no moves to untangle himself from her, and Puck kind of wants to deck him, but he figures that Rachel's vice grip will probably suffocate him soon enough, and that'll just take care of the whole problem, won't it?

Puck's not exactly sure what poetic justice means, but it's probably something like this.

Too soon, or not soon enough – Puck's having a hard time deciding – Rachel lets the janitor go. Puck makes a noncommittal guttural sound in the back of his throat, and she glances back at him. Briefly (but Puck's not really sure) he sees something wicked flash in her eyes. She stands on her tiptoes, kisses the Dean's cheek - who is looking more uncomfortable by the second, while his much taller partner Sam looks totally amused - and then steps back by Puck's side.

He squints down at her, then at Dean, then back to her. Rachel's not…playing games, is she? No way. She's too socially inept for that.

He's just imagining the smirk on her face.

Puck shakes his head. "So, uh, what was that? With the black smoke and everything?" he says, desperate to get his mind off the idea that Rachel Berry, the biggest geek in school, might possibly be toying with his feelings because really, what could be worse than that? It's downright humiliating.

"Well, it's hard to explain," Sam says gently.

"Trust me, dude, you don't want to know," Dean agrees. "It's a big, bad world out there."

Puck bristles. "What's that supposed to mean? You don't think I'm badass enough to handle it?"

Sam cocks his head. "Um, that's not what we meant – "

Puck cuts him off, pointing at himself. "'Cause I'm badass. See? I have a mohawk."

Now they're both staring at him. They have basically the exact same expression on their faces and it's really starting to creep him out.

"Right," they say at the exact same time.

Puck frowns. "That's really weird…and kinda gay. Are you guys gay?"

"No!"

All eyes turn to Rachel, who is flushing as pink as her argyle sweater (girls who wear argyle sweaters are not capable of playing games, Puck thinks).

"I mean, not that that would be a problem," Rachel stammers. Pause. She takes a steadying breath and puffs up her chest. "After all, I have two gay dads – one's actually black – and I am in no way discriminatory against anything like that. I'm a member of the local Lima chapter of the ACLU, and sometimes on weekends I answer phones at the office and…" and here it goes, she's starting to hit her stride again, but thankfully, the gay janitor cuts her off.

"We're not gay," Dean says emphatically.

Okay, so the not gay janitor cuts her off.

"We're brothers," Sam adds.

"Oh thank god, you're both too pretty," Rachel mutters.

"What?" says Puck and the two not-gay janitors in unison. Puck glares at them. Their creepy weirdness is rubbing off on him. Also, Rachel just called them pretty.

Let it be made clear that Puck is the prettiest fucking guy in this room.

Puck pauses, mentally runs back across that last thought. Seriously? The fuck was that?

"I think you guys need to do that freaky chant-y stuff with me," he says to them. "Something's wrong with my head."

Sam looks at him, askance. "I think you're all right, man."

"On that note," Dean adds, "we've really got to get going…"

Puck couldn't agree more.

"Wait!" Rachel insists.

Goddamnit, Berry.

"I would very much like to know a little bit more about my saviors…"

Dramatic, much? Puck's expression sours. He had the situation under control before weirdo janitors 1 and 2 came along. Rachel with black eyes wasn't all that different from Rachel with brown eyes, besides the part where she tried to stab Finn. And that had been pretty funny, actually.

"I'm Dean, and this is my brother Sam," Dean says. "We're hunters."

"Actually you're janitors," Puck corrects.

Dean knits his brow. "This is a disguise," he says slowly. "We just needed to get in the school. We're hunters."

"So you hunt…monsters?" Rachel asks hesitantly. "Like the thing that was inside me?"

Dean turns to her, looks vaguely regretful. "Yeah," he says, after a beat, "we hunt things like that."

"We're really sorry," Sam adds. "It's not the easiest thing to hear…"

"That monsters are real?" Rachel says. She looks down at her hands, strangely quiet for a few moments, and then lifts her head. "I guess it's not that surprising," she says, shrugging her shoulders. "Have you ever met Sue Sylvester?"

"What?"

Puck steps in. "So if you're not janitors, who's going to clean our school?"

"Really?" Dean turns to him, incredulous. "We just tell you monsters are real, and that's what you're worried about?"

Puck shrugs. "I'm a badass. I throw a lot of desks and trashcans and whatever. Somebody has to put them back."

Dean squints at him, as if he's not sure he's actually seeing and hearing a real person right now – kind of the way everybody looks at Brittany, come to think of it. "I'm sure somebody will take care of it," he says, gritting his teeth.

Puck nods, satisfied. As long as that somebody isn't him. He's a badass.

And badasses don't pick up after themselves.

"Puck's very strong," Rachel chimes in, like she's standing up for him or something, which seriously is not something Puck needs. Rachel Berry vouching for him? Seriously? "If he had known I was being possessed, he would've found a way to save me."

Dean and Sam just stare at her. She flushes again, and it's kinda cute.

Damn it, he did not just think that. He really needs to stop going over to her house after school to sing duets and make out with her.

"I'm sure he would've," Sam says in this stiff kind of way that implies he would fucking not have. Then he forces a smile and it looks kind of like the time Kurt realized Puck had switched his non-fat soy latte with whole milk and "a shitload of cream."

That had been a great joke. Especially when Kurt started hyperventilating, and Mercedes gave him the Heimlich.

That was the day Puck had discovered the secret to life: you can always find a way to have a good time, even when you're hanging out with the biggest freaks at school. When he had shared this insight with Rachel, she had beamed and made out with him for thirty minutes longer than usual, clearly not associating herself in the "biggest freaks in school" category he was talking about.

Puck, feeling charitable that day, had not bothered to correct her.

Partly because, that issue of her entire personality aside, Rachel Berry is not that bad a kisser. Maybe not as polished as someone like Santana, but not as cold either.

Although right now, Rachel Berry is giving him a massive headache and he hates her.

"So you use guns? And knives?" she's saying, sidled back up to Dean and Sam. "How dangerous. Really. It must be so thrilling…"

Puck scowls.

Abruptly, Dean gives this odd little jerk. "Whoa!" he exclaims. "Hands where we can see them!"

Sam smothers a laugh. "We'd better get out of here before any laws are broken," he says, smirking at his brother. Pause. "Well, any more laws."

Dean's scowl matches Puck's. "Wise ass. But yeah, let's go. It was nice, um, meeting you guys."

"Good riddance," Puck mutters.

Rachel looks crestfallen. "But…"

Dean and Sam motor down the hallway faster than Figgins did that time that Tina turned into a vampire. (Was she really a vicious Asian vampire? Puck thinks, momentarily side-tracked. She never really made that clear in her story.)

Puck and Rachel stand there for a few beats in their wake, still and silent. Then Rachel opens her big mouth and says something totally stupid.

"Puck, we have to follow them."

He recoils. "What? No!"

Rachel huffs impatiently. "Puck, don't you get it? This is my higher calling. Not singing or acting or being famous and wealthy and envied by everyone everywhere. This. This is it."

"Monster hunting?" Puck says skeptically.

Rachel's eyes shine with psychotic glee.

"What the fuck," Puck groans, but doesn't jerk away when she seizes hold of his arm and drags him down the hallway. "What the fuck."

She silences him with a glare – what? Berry can be insanely scary sometimes, okay – but it doesn't stop him from repeating the mantra in his head all the way through the parking lot, right up to his car.

"Uh uh, no way," he says. "We're taking your car."

"I had to drive Daddy's BMW into school today because mine had a flat tire," Rachel says primly. "Besides, yours is better suited for rough terrain."

"Rough terrain?" Puck repeats. "Why…"

"It's just better to be prepared for anything," Rachel says. "Stop arguing with me. I can see their car pulling out of the parking lot."

Puck shuts his eyes, prays for normalcy. He opens them and still finds Rachel tapping her foot in front of him. "Fine," he grumbles, unlocking the car doors. "But you're payin' for gas."

It only takes five blocks before the Impala they're trailing comes to an abrupt stop at the side of the road. Dean, with a completely murderous look in his eye, storms out, stomping right up to Puck's side of the car.

Puck sighs and rolls his window down. "It was her idea," he says automatically, before Dean can even get a word out.

Dean purses his lips. His nostrils flare. "What exactly was her idea? What do you two idiots think you're doing?

"We're coming with you!" Rachel chirps. "We want to hunt too."

"Speak for yourself," Puck mutters.

"You can't come with us," Dean says.

Rachel smiles beatifically. "This is my higher calling, Dean. My daddy always said I would know when I found it, and while I always used to think it was starring on Broadway, I realized today that there's so much more than that. I could be the next Lara Croft."

Puck snorts. Dean shakes his head. "Are you on drugs?"

"No, I've found that my naturally exuberant personality doesn't need any chemical enhancement."

"No shit," Dean mutters. "Anyway, you can't come."

"But my daddy says…"

"I don't give a fuck what your Daddy says!"

Rachel goes very still. Puck stifles a groan. Dean is clearly an idiot. "Are you mocking the words of a gay man?" Rachel hisses.

"What?"

"You heard me," she says, pointing her finger at him. "I really hope you're not, because I am on very close terms with certain high-ranking members of the ACLU, and I would hate to bring your discriminatory actions to a national spotlight."

"What?"

Rachel lifts an indolent brow. "Don't think I won't."

"This is blackmail," Dean says.

"I prefer to think of it as going after what I want," Rachel says, crossing her arms over her chest. "Some people see that as a very attractive quality in a woman. But I suppose if you're against the feminist movement as well…"

"Jesus Christ," Dean mutters. "Un-fucking-believable."

"Does that mean we can come?"

Puck's sure he can see Dean's eyebrow starting to twitch. He considers stuffing Rachel's mouth with his sock.

"You're going to regret this," Dean says.

"Do as I say, not as I do?" Rachel says pointedly.

Despite himself, Dean gives her a crooked grin. "Trust me, sweetheart, if I had the choice…"

Rachel shrugs. "This is my choice. And Puck's too."

Dean glances over at Puck skeptically. Puck rolls his eyes. "Somebody has to make sure she doesn't get herself killed. We need her for Regionals."

Rachel claps her hands, delighted, as she turns to look at him with shining eyes. "I knew you cared about Glee club!"

Puck's eyes widen, horrified. Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with him today?

"Do not," he says lamely.

"Do too!"

"Do no-"

"Oh, Jesus Christ," Dean says. He jerks a thumb back over toward his car. "Sam and I are leaving now. If you guys wanna follow us, go ahead. I really don't give a shit anymore."

Rachel beams, Puck scowls, and Dean walks off. Minutes later, they're on the road again. Puck curses as he tries to keep up with the Impala, which so far has run 3 red lights and hasn't dipped below 20 miles over the speed limit.

"Mom'll kill me if I get another ticket," he mutters as Dean totally ignores a stop sign and then makes a left turn at an intersection clearly marked No Left Turns. "Goddamnit."

Rachel just looks down at her fingernails. "Please go faster, Puck. I think they're trying to lose us."

Pt. II

Rachel sings while she kills things.

Mostly show tunes (of course), ridiculous, dramatic ones that nevertheless always seem to fit the moment. Hunting has been re-scripted into a musical – compiled, edited, and performed by Rachel Berry.

"You have to stop doing that," Dean told her one day, right after she had decapitated a shapeshifter (belting Let Me Walk Among You all the while).

Puck had been tired – and, oh yeah, bleeding from the stomach, thanks a freaking lot, Rachel – otherwise he would've told Dean what a lost cause going up against Rachel Berry was, but as it was, he was fine just bleeding here on the floor, thank you.

(Meanwhile, Sam went off to fetch a needle. Puck made a mental note to drown Rachel in slushies once she gave up on this ridiculous hunting business and came with him back to Lima.)

"Doing what?" Rachel had asked innocently. "Killing shapeshifters?"

"Well, yeah, it'd be great if you'd realize how dumb it is for you to tag along with us," Dean said. "But I was actually talking about the singing."

"What's wrong with the singing?"

Oh shit, man. Tread carefully.

Dean paused, as if he'd detected the edge in her voice. But then he decided to be an idiot and forge on anyway.

"Hunters don't sing," he said. "Singing is for pussies."

Rachel turned white. "I'll have you know that some of the greatest, most powerful people in all of history sing," she retorted. "Or have you forgotten about Madonna?"

And really, what do you even say to that?

"At least lay off during the hunt," Dean said through gritted teeth.

"Singing helps me find my center," Rachel said primly. "It's how I release my fears and find the strength within myself to slay ghosts and monsters, thereby ensuring the safety of hundreds of civilians."

Dean's mouth gaped open, then shut. After a few beats of shell-shocked silence, he shook his head and walked off, muttering to himself.

"Dad never had to deal with this shit. Bobby will never fucking let me live this down…"

The next week, when Puck torched a Wendigo, it was to the tune of Nobody's Side. Dean had growled and stomped away, and Sam had offered a weak smile.

"It's just going to take some getting adjusted to…I think."

Rachel turned to Puck with totally self-satisfied smile on her face. She had nailed the big finish with a pitch-perfect falsetto.

And Puck, breathing hard from the exertion of the hunt, had stood there wondering why he was falling in love with a total freak.

Pt. III

A few more weeks pass. Every now and then, Puck sees a poster with his or Rachel's face on it. He rips it down and ignores the guilt. They'll come home to boring old Lima when they're good and ready. As crazy as Rachel Berry is, she may have stumbled onto something here. Hunting, Puck is discovering, is pretty badass.

Of course, there are also those times when it absolutely sucks.

They come trudging back to their motel room one evening, tired and sore and cranky. Some bitch mind-reading demon had gone around throwing them into walls and prattling off all their deepest insecurities – though she had stuttered a bit when she reached Puck because he was steel, thank you – and it had just been a really terrible day.

Rachel is sniffling quietly (getting through all her insecurities had taken nearly an hour) and Sam is in a deep brood under his man-bangs. As soon as Dean unlocks the door and they all tumble inside of the room, Sam and Rachel automatically open their mouths to speak.

"No chick flick moments," Dean and Puck say at the same time, cutting them off, and Puck is too damn tired to muster up a glare at Dean for being weird. Instead, he just flicks off the light and crawls into bed.

Pt. IV

When they're not hunting, they're looking for hunts. When they're not doing that, and it's nighttime, they're at a bar eating or hustling. Except for Rachel. She sucks at pool because she's barely tall enough to see over the table.

But if it's daytime, they're usually trapped inside the motel room. All of them have wracked up various legal offenses, and unfortunately Sam's a gigantor and Puck's mohawk is a little too recognizable. The other three of them have all tried to shave it off when he wasn't paying attention (or sleeping, which is why he doesn't do that anymore) but so far he's caught them every time.

"The mohawk's intimidating, guys," he keeps explaining. "It makes the monsters afraid of me."

Dean snorts. "They're not afraid of you, idiot. A mohawk doesn't mean shit if you scream like a girl."

"They are," Puck insists, graciously ignoring Dean's last comment. "Besides, it's not like you ever try to cut off Sasquatch's legs."

And nobody even has a good argument for that.

Today is one of those days where they're all stuck inside, and Puck is literally crawling up the walls (except not in a demonic way because then Sam and Dean would break out the holy water…again). Over in the corner, Sam's epically sulking over something or other, as usual, and shooting creepy, homoerotically incestual glances at Dean, while Dean's on the bed cleaning guns for like the millionth time and shooting creepy, homoerotically incestual glances at Sam. Rachel, for her part, has been humming for like five hours and now it's turning into singing, and Puck's really going to snap at any second.

"Mama who bore me…mama who gave me…"

"You can't sing that song," Puck tells her. "You don't even have a mom."

Everybody in the room levels a glare at him for that comment. Puck rolls his eyes. He forgot that he was traveling around with a bunch of damaged emo bitches.

Pt. V

Puck gets gashed one day across the stomach - again - by some stupid demon bitch that kinda looks like Quinn. In return, he exorcises her then passes out from the loss of blood. (He'll leave out that last part when he tells the story later, naturally.)

Apparently, it was all really bad, and he almost died, but he doesn't remember any of that when he wakes up in the hospital under a fake name with Rachel freaking Berry sprawled across his bed sobbing and telling him she loves him and begging for him to please, please wake up.

And even though her eyes are all puffy and her nose is all gross and snotty and she doesn't have any make-up, Puck goes ahead and taps her on the shoulder because he doesn't like seeing a pretty girl cry (even if she's not all that pretty at the moment), and in response, Rachel jumps and screams and pretty much kills his entire head, especially his eardrums.

Thanks a freaking lot, Rachel.

That's what he wants to say. But he doesn't because she's still not completely done crying, so instead he pats her head and says "there, there" or something as equally stupid, he doesn't really know, he just wants her to stop.

"Oh, Puck," she sobs. "We didn't think you'd wake up. There was all that blood, and you were so pale, and I really didn't want to burn your body like Sam and Dean said we'd have to…"

Burn his body? What. The. Fuck.

I am so done with this hunting shit, Puck thinks.

"I am so done with this hunting shit," Puck says.

Rachel looks up at him, tear tracks still running down her face, but considerably calmer than before.

"I think you're right," she says. "I can't watch something like this happen to you again."

"FINALLY! They see reason!" Dean says, eavesdropping just outside the doorway. Sam shushes him. Rachel rolls her eyes, but otherwise ignores him.

"I'm so sorry for dragging you into this, Puck," Rachel says.

"Don't be stupid, Berry," Puck says. "I wanted to come."

"Yeah?" Rachel says, skeptical, "why?"

"I already told you," Puck says, pushing her shoulder lightly. "Somebody had to look out for you."

Rachel's eyes shine. Alarm bells go off in Puck's head.

"I mean, don't get the wrong idea or anything because I don't…" he tries to get it all out quickly, but he's not quite fast enough.

Because Rachel kisses him anyway. And okay, it's pretty nice – pretty hot, actually – and okay, there's this little tingly feeling in the bottom of his stomach that has nothing to do with Puck Jr. and another tingly feeling that has everything to do with Puck Jr., and okay, he wouldn't mind doing this for a while but the heart rate monitor he's attached to is speeding up, and it's really kind of embarrassing. So he pulls away.

"Don't have a heart attack or anything, kid," Dean sniggers outside. Sam shushes him. Puck ignores him.

"You know you're absolutely out of your mind, Berry," Puck says.

Rachel flushes.

"And you can be scarier than a Wendigo…"

She opens her mouth to protest, then seems to think better of it and closes it, waiting for him to finish.

"And you're the most unpopular girl in school…"

Sam appears in the doorway making slashing motions across his neck in a shut up, you idiot gesture.

"And sometimes you make me want to light myself on fire…"

Dean chokes. Everybody ignores him.

"Which is why I don't get how come I'm stupid in love with you."

When Rachel jumps for him in some big dramatic gesture, it definitely hurts, though not as bad as it could have been because he was kind of bracing himself for it the whole time during his speech…well, that or being punched in the face. So now, he can get around to kissing her right away and seeing how high he can get his heart monitor to go before the nurses come rushing in. In his head, Puck's already relishing what the expression on their faces will look like when they find Berry and him on his bed, hopefully in various states of undress. (Hey, a vicious knife wound has to be good for something, right?)

Somewhere down the hall, Sam and Dean get Twinkies out of a vending machine and mutter about the premature sexualization of today's youth.

Part Fin

They say their goodbyes on a Wednesday, after slaughtering one last Wendigo for old time's sake.

"It's not because I'm not badass," Puck says, while Rachel sniffles at his side. "It's just…"

Dean grins and claps him on the shoulder. "We know, kid. Nobody in their right mind stays in this business if they've got a choice."

"Right," Puck says, wondering, momentarily, what this says about Sam and Dean, but really, that kind of stuff is too deep to think about on a Wednesday.

"We'll miss you guys," Sam says, stepping forward. Pause. "I think."

"We definitely won't miss the singing," Dean mutters. Sam jabs him in the side. "Ouch! I mean, we'll definitely miss all the beautiful singing that nicely complemented beheading vampires and such."

Rachel laughs, despite herself. "I'll miss you guys too…and slaying monsters like Buffy, and hustling pool like Julia Roberts in Mystic Pizza, and traveling to a whole bunch of different places I've never seen, and riding in the car, and watching you sleep, and eating at diners every night even though it made me gain three pounds…"

Eyebrows shoot up on both Sam and Dean's faces. "You watched us sleep?" Dean asks tentatively.

Rachel flushes. Puck smacks a hand to his forehead. "Jesus, Berry," he says. "When we get back to school, can you at least pretend to be normal? 'Cause pretty soon people are gonna catch on to the fact that we're dating, and it's bad for my image if you keep acting like a total freak."

"So we're official then?" Rachel says, delighted. "I'm your girlfriend?"

"Not the point I was trying to make," Puck mutters. "But yeah, you're my girlfriend. Don't make a big deal out of it or anything."

Luckily, she doesn't. Probably because Sam and Dean are right in front of them, and she's practicing being normal in front of other people. At least, Puck hopes so. She does look pretty damn pleased with herself though, and it reminds Puck of that day a really long time ago, when they first met Sam and Dean, and she flirted with them right in front of him. Briefly, Puck wonders if this whole thing wasn't a part of her plan all along to make him her boyfriend. He wouldn't put it past her.

But that is way, way too much to think about on a Wednesday.

"Do you need us to drop you off back in Lima?" Sam asks, and Puck shakes his head in response.

"Too risky," he says. Sam nods in understanding.

So instead, Sam and Dean drop them off about an hour-and-a-half north of Lima at a diner (what else?), and Rachel tackle-hugs them one more time and Puck gives them a manly nod goodbye. Then Puck calls his mom, who cries and yells a lot over the phone, before bundling his little sister in the car and coming to get them. He and Rachel are sitting on a bench outside when he finally sees her car veer around the corner.

"You ready to go home?" he asks Rachel in the few moments they have left. She's been oddly silent for the past half-hour.

"Yeah, I guess," Rachel says wistfully. "It'll be nice to see everyone again."

"But…" Puck prods.

"It was just kind of cool to be somebody for a little while, you know?" she says.

He does. "You are somebody," he assures her, even if part of him feels the same loss she's feeling. "You're Berry, the way-too-driven, sometimes-insane leader of Glee Club, and the reason we're going to win Regionals. And you're my girlfriend."

Rachel gives him a tiny, but genuine smile. "I guess that's not a bad person to be."

"'Course not," Puck says confidently, getting up. His mother's car is close enough that he can make out her and his sister's frazzled expressions through the windshield.

"Hey, Noah," Rachel says.

"What?"

She stands up and takes his hand. "You're the way-too-cocky, sometimes painfully sexy guitar player who's going to charm all the Regionals judges with his great voice and smile. And you're a pretty good football player. And you're my boyfriend. That's not such a bad person to be, either."

"No," Puck says. "It's really not."

Rachel's smile grows wider.

"…But only sometimes sexy?" he continues, quirking a brow.

She shakes her head in exasperation and starts walking toward his mom's stalled car, dragging him along behind. "Let's go home, Noah."

Author's Note 2: Hello from the future! This is just an update to let you know that there is an unexpected sequel to this one-shot called "Falling Off the Wagon." You can find it on my profile, if this story hasn't completely scared you off. :)