hello again world of fanfiction!

*hides in fear of being murdered because of the already broken promise of consistent updating*

ok, but listen. I know it's been a full month (wow that happened) since I last updated but prepare yourself for my actually legitimate reasoning.

so, my first week of not posting was because of the last-minute vacation my parents surprised me and my friends with – a week-long trip to the beach with anniepear and cLeoo and a few of our not writer friends (because yes, we have those too). and while at said beach, I happened upon a bit of a dilemma. see, I made the mistake of bringing my laptop… inside of my duffel bag. which I sort of forgot I did, so everytime I through down my duffel bag my laptop was basically being thrown against the floor.

and yeah, I think you all know where this is going. basically my laptop, the keeper of all of my finished fics and unfinished fics and pictures and life, essentially, broke.

yeah, what a great thing to happen during the summer, am I right?

luckily, since I use a laptop for most of my schoolwork, my parents got me a new one a week after the vacation was over, and I've been spending the rest of my time trying to rewrite all of the things I had stored up on my old laptop – which was by no means an easy task.

so yeah, I'm pretty irritated with myself at the moment, but I've written a rough draft of each of the chapters of this particular story and will be editing like a maniac each week to try and get them where they need to be to be posted.

also, my new posting day will be on either Sunday or Saturday, because chances are I'll forget to post on the weekdays because of sCHOOL UGH.

ok, now to respond to reviews (this is the longest author's note ever I think) (also I'm not going to respond to reviews with "Guest" as the name anymore just because there're more than one Guest review sometimes and it gets confusing so yeah)

...

JudgmentalPraise: as you so eloquently put it in your review, HOLY MOTHER OF COWS. I am exaggerating zero percent when I say this, this review made my entire week. I literally read it like three times and then debated PM'ing you to tell you how much I loved you before deciding I would just express my love in this chapter. so here it is: I LOVE YOU. and yeah, I thought about the whole swearing Puck thing before posting the first chapter, but as someone who sort of swears a lot (at least, in my head), all the cursing just sort of came out naturally while writing Puck's internal thoughts and I figured I might as well keep it that way. and I'm so glad you like the pucakbrina cheesiness of this story, which I tried to make work as much as possible, and the humor too, which I'm trying to incorporate as much as I can because this is PUCK we're talking about – surely his mind is a funny place. and I should be honored? trust me, this is the longest response to a review I'll probably ever write – you should be honored my friend!

Amy Grimm: OH MY GOSH I AM SO HAPPY I UPDATED ON YOUR BIRTHDAY AND IT MADE YOU THAT HAPPY THAT WORKED OUT SO PERFECTLY! I hope you have a wonderful year as a twelve year old (and hope I didn't make your mom think you're insane).

OakeX: oh my gosh I really hope you actually did that while reading this because that's sort of super hilarious – unless you, like, broke your fist because you slammed that table too hard. might want to watch out for that… and as soon as I get the time, I promise I'll PM you, or get either cLeoo or anniepear too. trust me, we're not as good as you think, but we'd love to talk and give advice if that's what you want!

Annie Carter: thanks for pointing out the whole "I" thing – I actually noticed that while writing but you never hear people say, "he means", so I didn't know what to do about it. now I do know – I'll be changing it to honestly as soon as possible!

Lovetheday: OH MY GOSH you're melting into my story?! that is simultaneously the most confusing and kind thing someone has ever told me – and I sure do hope it's writer's paranoia. I'll just have to take your word for it

DelusionalApple: lol that is not tmi at all, it's actually super hilarious oh my gosh. and please, you're beautiful and awesome and your self-esteem should be through the roof, friend. thanks for the super duper nice review!

GriffinGirl8655: YOU'RE NICE GIRL! no, no, YOU're really really really fantastic!

HappyHippiHippo: sorry I couldn't update sooner, but hey, it's here now!

hallietucker: ooh, sorry about not updating quicker, but like I said, LAPTOP! and I promise you I will be updating a lot sooner now that I've got a laptop again (hoorah!). and thanks so much for your love – I've been trying my hardest to keep both Puck and Sabrina in character, but still being able to show that they've obviously grown since the end of the books. I'm glad it seems to be working!

shouldercookie: meh, not a fast update this time, sorry, but I'm glad you like the story!

komaeda: DON'T DIE JESUS CHRIST – well, at least you're dying in a good way, am I right?

...

and now, let it begin. my re-written third chapter that wouldn't have to have been re-written if I wasn't such a moron. *face palm*

disclaimer: I don't own sisters grimm, obviously.

Chapter 3: Reading (gag)

Puck wakes up – well not really wakes up, but you get the point – to the sound of his annoyingly constant heart monitor beeping away (yeah, he's alive, we get it) and someone talking. It doesn't seem all too important, and those drugs he felt weighing down his system yesterday still seem to be floating around, so he's considering just drifting back to sleep when he recognizes the voice as Sabrina's.

And mentally slaps himself awake.

"-the surgery go well?"

So he was right about the surgery bit. Great.

"As well as we could hope, with no real complications. The window in his skull provides a bit more room for the swelling, and we drained as much cerebral spinal fluid as we could, so the pressure's relieved a bit."

That's Veronica, which means yeah, she willingly subjected him to the aforementioned "skull windows" and "cerebral fluid draining." She better get him a fucking amazing present for Christmas this year, or he's never letting this one go.

"But?" Sabrina says after a few moments, because yeah, Puck can hear the very evident 'but' in there too, what with the almost guilty way Veronica's talking.

"But none of the scans or monitor readings show major improvement of any kind."

"Meaning?" Sabrina asks after another pause.

Veronica lets out this dramatically long breath and Puck can hear her shuffling papers around. "Meaning for the time being, Puck's going to be like this."

He'd rather scrape a cheese grader down his face than be like this for any longer, actually. Puck would prefer it if he could make that known too, then maybe people would stop sucking parts of his brain out and start doing things that actually helped – like leaving his skull and everything in it alone.

"How long is the time being?" Sabrina asks bitingly, as if it's Veronica's fault he's like this in the first place. He's been on the end of that tone before. He doesn't have to try very hard to imagine Veronica's wince.

"It's hard to say," she says carefully. "Coma's are… weird. He could wake up tomorrow – it wouldn't be realistic with the pressure still in his brain – but he could. Or he could wake up a month from now. Or…"

"Or he could never wake up again," Sabrina all but whispers. Puck really preferred it when she was still using the whole "when you wake up" vocabulary. No need to talk about him like he's already being lowered into the ground, thanks.

"Yes, that's a possibility. But as long as he's like this, there's still hope. And bear in mind that it's only been eight days. He's got plenty of time to be in this coma and for it to still be considered normal."

"Normal? Really? Like anything in this entire situation is normal," Sabrina snaps.

"Sabrina, we're doing all we can. Getting mad won't help at all."

"Oh so what, I'm just supposed to sit in my bed and pretend like nothing happened and be my usual cheery self while Puck is over here in a fucking coma?"

It's not one of the most pleasant conversations Puck's had to sit through, but there seems to be something substantial about the fact that Sabrina's getting this worked up over him. Puck doesn't want to read into it, because if he does he'll come to the conclusion that he actually matters to her, and then he'll get himself all worked up and excited only for the inevitable letdown of, wait, you thought I liked you?

And yeah, it's inevitable. Puck's a lot of things, and self-pitying tends to be one of them.

"You know that's not what I meant, I'm just saying-"

"And I'm just saying that maybe you should stop making excuses and find a way to actually help him!"

"It doesn't work like that, Sabrina! We're doctors, not miracle-workers!"

"I'm starting to doubt you're either, actually!"

"Listen up young lady, the second you-"

"No, you know what, I'm done. It's time for my daily checkup anyway, and I'd hate to miss it."

Sabrina storms off with all the grace of any furious teenager – needless to say, it's a lot of stomping and door slamming and then Veronica is muttering something under her breath that Puck doesn't quite catch. She stays in there for a while longer, not talking but just moving around and messing with some of the monitors, before she too leaves. Puck sort of wishes he had just gone back to sleep, because the conversation leaves a sick feeling in his stomach.

He knows Sabrina, and he knows she has a short temper, but he also knows she and her mom usually get along really well. The fact that they're not, well… it says a lot about his condition, he thinks. It says a lot about how serious this entire thing is, because Sabrina doesn't yell at her mom over nothing.

The sick feeling in his stomach doesn't pass, and the desire to just sink back into the steadiness of sleep doesn't either, even though it seems there's no chance of that now. He lies there, thinking about too much and not being able to do anything about it.

Eventually some of his doctors come in (he's beginning to recognize their voices, which is good because it means he'll have a better grasp for what's going on but bad because it shows how long he's been like this) and talk a bit about stabilizing his nutrient intake – turns out he's been "eating" through a tube needled into one of his veins, which sounds all fine and dandy except for the fact that he wants nothing more than to stuff a whole pizza in his mouth – before they begin speculating about all of his various problems. It's all boring doctor stuff, although Puck doesn't mind it too much because voices are a nice contrast from the sterile sound of beeping that fills the room all day.

When they leave, he actually finds he misses the sound of their talking a bit.

So when the door creaks open later that day, he all but jumps up (figurative – he doesn't all but do anything, actually) in excitement. His internal monologue can only keep him busy for so long.

Of course, the excitement only grows from there because that's right, it's Sabrina. He doesn't know this at first, until she coughs lightly and it's not at all pathetic that he can recognize her by that, right?

She pulls up the customary chair and no doubt sits down in it, and then it's back to silence. Don't get Puck wrong, he's totally fine with the knowledge that Sabrina's actually sitting by him, but he can't help but feel like it's a tremendous step backwards. She was talking to him just, what, a day ago? It makes the whole quiet routine feel almost agonizing.

In all honesty, he'd prefer the screaming over this. Because if the silence is a reminder of one thing, it's all of the unsaid stuff he has jumbled around in his ridiculously pathetic brain.

The feeling is palpable and even if Puck wanted to break it, he can't. The visit leaves him feeling more distressed than is probably good for him – he really needs to figure that out, actually. Sabrina's hand brushes his for a brief second as she's leaving, and he's sure his skin is burning from her touch. The rest of the day passes by pretty uneventfully, and that surgery must've really worn him out, because he's drifting back into what he supposes you could call slumber before he even realizes it.

*.*.*

It's around the middle of the next day (which he knows thanks to his favorite nurse) when the door opens again. He expects it to be Daphne – he hasn't been awake for any of her visits since the surgery and figures she'll pop in sooner or later – or maybe even Henry with some more news on the progress with the Scarlet Hand. Or, even more likely, Sabrina and her very frequent, very quiet visits. What he doesn't expect is the unmistakable voice of his brother.

"Hey big brother."

Puck hasn't been Mustardseed's big brother for a while. Not only is Mustardseed painfully more responsible than him, but he also has this calm kindness and sharp logic – traits that his parents apparently forgot to pass onto Puck when he was still in the womb and whatnot. To Everafters, they are basically twins, what with the miniscule difference of only two years between them, but everyone knows if you're talking older, Mustardseed's personality wins by a longshot.

"Looks like you've got yourself into a bit of a jam," Mustardseed says, and it's been way too long since Puck's heard that warm, gentle voice and something deep inside of him aches. He misses his brother. He misses his mom. He – yes, he'll admit it – even misses his dad.

He misses everyone.

"Sabrina called me and told me what happened. I guess I should've known that if you would get hurt, it would be protecting her, you hopeless moron."

Puck would be smirking if he could, because yeah, he is a hopeless moron and yeah, the way Mustardseed says it is very matter-of-fact and fond and Puck may not be one to consider himself overly-sensitive, but all he wants to do in that moment is stand up and hug his brother.

"Anyway, I came to see you. Mom couldn't come, because someone's got to watch over Faerie, but she should be visiting soon." He pauses, and the soft air of the room seems to shift. "She's awfully worried, you know. We both are."

Mustardseed doesn't sit down, choosing instead to lean down and squeeze Puck's shoulder. "Puck, we can't lose you. We just lost Dad, and we can't-"

He takes a shaky breath, and it's like shards of glass are slowly stabbing themselves into Puck's heart. Mustardseed should never sound like this, should never sound unhappy or shaken or any realm of emotion between the two.

"I know you'll get better though. I know it. Because if there's anything you are, it's stubborn, and there's no way you're gonna leave us this easily."

Mustardseed's optimism finds a way to sound uplifting instead of naïve. Puck still doesn't know if he believes it though, because he's pretty sure willpower alone won't save him.

"Besides, I can't believe that you're ready to leave that Grimm girl quite yet."

His voice is light again, teasing, and if Puck appreciates anything, it's the way he talks to him like he's a person and not a corpse. The obvious attempt at staying as positive as possible. It warms some part of Puck, even if he can't convince himself to think the same way.

"But moving on," Mustardseed begins, and then he's just talking. The conversation (if you can call someone basically talking to themselves a conversation) stays upbeat and light, and even if Puck can't respond, he enjoys every second of listening to his brother. It feels like a long while later that Mustardseed gets some call on his phone and promises to visit Puck again before walking out with his well-wishes trailing behind him. The visit leaves Puck content in a way that he probably shouldn't be while in a coma.

Of course, the second he's feeling actually good is the second the doctors come in and decide that a nice tube cleaning is in order, just to top off his day. Puck honestly can't say he's surprised. Honestly. He swears that if he gets out of this he'll give up his snarky attitude. Maybe even work on balancing out his insult to compliment ratio. He figures pleasing the universe is the only way to go if he expects to stay coma-free for the rest of his life.

*.*.*

The day is drawing to a close – another wasted attempt at getting out of this fucking coma, because yeah, that's pretty much the only way he can look at this whole thing at the moment – and Puck thinks that if he could move, he'd probably be banging his head against the wall right about now. Alas, he can't, so he settles for thinking up the best one-liners to drop as soon as he does wake up.

Emphasis on does.

He's pretty sure announcing his return to reality by saying he needs to pee would be pretty golden, but before he can run the scenario in his head, something he's been doing a lot of lately because he's discovered that his brain – as fucked up as it seems to be – can run ideas like a movie, the door is cracking open. He's annoyed for about a second, because he was really looking forward to thinking through the reaction to that particular quip, but then he remembers that door opening means company means not being so pathetic as to entertain himself with stupid one-liners in his spare time. He already has a hunch as to who it is, and he's never letting anyone call him stupid again because just as he predicted, he's right.

Sabrina walks in with a sniff and pulls up her customary chair. He settles in for a long while of complete silence, but as soon as he thinks he knows how these little visits are gonna work, she throws another curveball up his ass.

"Hey, Puck."

Puck would probably be smiling like some giddy two year old if he could, simply because the whole talking thing is back on and fuck him if it feels like Christmas come early.

"Sorry about fighting in here yesterday. That was stupid. But sometimes my mom can just be so annoying with her fancy doctor words and her inability to take the blame for anything and her way of tip-toeing around problems when she's around me and-"

She lets out a long, irritated sigh, the sound of skin on skin one that Puck assumes is coming from her rubbing her face, a favorite I'm-mad-but-don't-feel-like-talking-about-it move of hers.

"Sorry, you probably could care less about my relationship with my mom."

And Puck never thought such a thing would interest him either, but when the words happen to be coming out of Sabrina's mouth, he finds he's totally up to listen to her rant for the next few hours. Which could possibly be a sign of just how far he's fallen. At the same time, he feels like it's a giant leap forward, simply because sound is actually coming out of her mouth again.

"Anyway, I didn't come here to complain, actually. I came here to, well, read."

And the minute Puck thinks she's gonna continue the whole talking to him thing, she decides she's gonna pop out one of her little books and ignore him the entire time. Puck knew he hated reading for a reason.

"To you."

Oh. Well that's… new.

"And before you start complaining-" she catches herself for a moment, no doubt because she's remembering he can't really complain, or do anything for that matter. But she does a wonderful job of going on smoothly like nothing happened. "-let me explain. See, I was talking to my mom and she said studies point to the belief that most coma patients are completely unable to hear or perceive any information from the things around them while in their coma."

Well, I'm not most coma patients, Puck thinks jauntily. Maybe his first words waking up will be disapproving whatever scientist came up with that shit theory.

"But she also said no one's a hundred percent sure, and I imagine if you can hear in there you're getting pretty bored right about now."

He thinks, not for the first time, that maybe old Canis slipping Sabrina's name into the Book of Everafter gave her some sort of mind-reading ability. Or maybe, even in a coma, Puck's still not too good at hiding how he feels.

"So I came up with the brilliant idea of reading to you. And since I know you hate all books and knowledge, I decided to read a little something special."

Puck hates the feeling of being excited about even listening to a book, but he honestly can't help it. Sabrina's talking, sounding like her usual confident self, as if nothing's wrong, as if he's ok again. He doesn't know what happened in between this visit and her last, but he finds himself thanking whoever controls sudden flips of emotion for it.

"So, drumroll please," she says, and Puck thinks she's gonna wince at the whole 'oh yeah his body is useless he can't drumroll' thing, but instead she snorts and mutters, "some drumroll-er you are," and he thinks that maybe this is what'll bring him back, the laughter bubbling inside him that needs a way to get out.

"I will be reading you," she hits some other surface to make the sound of a drumroll, because Puck's inadequate, as usual, "my diary."

And at first Puck can feel some inward part of him blanch because diary? Like, diary as in most inward, personal feelings and secrets and things Puck's not sure he's ready to here, especially if they're about liking boys, particularly boys that aren't him. Then Puck remembers that the Grimm family does that weird diary thing where they write out all of the magical things that happen to them, where they record their lives as useful information for their descendants.

And oh. He's ok with that. I mean, out of all books, one written by Sabrina about their adventures as kids can't honestly be that bad. As a matter of fact, he feels like maybe it'll even be good.

"I thought you'd be ok with this choice," Sabrina says, and Puck can hear the flipping of pages that means she's opening up the book. "I mean, you're in it, and I assumed your ego would love that. And it should be like a trip down memory lane for both of us. And I even mention some of your pranks, so you can witness your genius from the mind of the victim, which I'm kind of hoping will make you reconsider next time you go to put food coloring in my new shampoo."

Oh, that was a good one. Her hair was bright green for weeks. They wouldn't let her go on any missions for fear that the color would be too noticeable. And all of the punches to the ribs he got were totally worth it.

"I honestly wanted to kill you after that one," she mutters under her breath, but there's a lightness to her tone that lets Puck know she's joking around, at least slightly. He wishes he could see the small smirk that usual accompanies such a voice. Instead, he tries to feel satisfied with what he's got. It's not that hard, in the end.

"Ok, well, here goes nothing, I guess," she says, and she lets out this long breath, like she's standing at the edge of some cliff, bracing herself for the plunge. He would feel the same way, probably, but he's too busy being ridiculously happy about the entire thing.

"Before I say anything else, let me make one thing clear – Ferryport Landing is not your average New York city."

And she continues like that for the next hour, interjecting her own comments every few sentences about things she didn't contain in her diary, and even if Puck doesn't make an appearance before the hour's up, hearing the story told again, hearing the behind the scenes stuff he never knew happened before he met the two… well, he can't pretend he doesn't enjoy it. He finds himself holding on to her every word, and the drop of disappointment in his stomach when he hears the book close is not one he expected.

Especially when it came from a book closing. He's growing soft, he thinks bitterly. As soon as he's out of this little predicament, he's going to work on his tough exterior and inner stupidity. Maybe dye his wings black or something. He can't be seen as a pansy after thousands of years sealing his reputation.

"Ok, well, it's getting late and I actually have a life, as crazy as that may seem considering I'm still living in this stupid hospital wing."

He hears her stand up and push the chair back, and then she's at his side again. "I guess I'll see you later then, fairy-boy. Maybe next time you can actually do something other than just lying there – I mean, just between you and me, you sort of make for a terrible audience."

It wouldn't be Sabrina if she didn't end with an insult, but it's spoken with a fondness that Puck doesn't really hear that often. She's usually all tough-as-nails around him, emotion covered behind a fine layer of sarcasm and glaring, and even if she still does make time to slip in the occasional snarky comment (Puck would be disappointed if she didn't), there's something soft in her voice that doesn't usually happen around him. He's heard it with Daphne, with BJ, with people she really cares about, and if he's going to jump to conclusions than he can say that maybe it means that she cares about him too.

But he's not going to jump to anything. He's going to be practical and patient and not let things such as Sabrina talking to him – Sabrina. Talking. To. Him. – get him all worked up, even if it is a bit too late for that.

She grabs his hand before she leaves, giving it a hard squeeze, and something flips inside of his stomach. He wishes he could squeeze back, but of course, when he tries nothing happens. As it is, he can't help but think that, all things considered, he really doesn't mind spending his coma this way. It's a stupid thought, but hey, Puck's never had a shortage of those, has he?

third chapter complete - be ready for my fourth chapter (hopefully) next weekend!

-quinn the finn