POUR ME ANOTHER DRINK

This has been the first day in what seems like weeks that Lima frickin’ Ohio hasn’t had any rain. Puck spent the whole day catching up on cleaning pools, and there is something satisfying about being so sore and exhausted from physical exercise when he’s been as frustrated as he has been for the last month or two. Lonely, his brain supplies unhelpfully. 

After grabbing the mail from a half-broken box outside of his house, Puck is met with a now-common meow from a scruffy-looking Pistachio. His sister is lucky he’s actually got a soft spot for the stupid all-black cat, or the damn thing would starve to death on her watch. Her ideal house pet should have been a rock, for all that she’s home these days.

Sarah and his mom are off with his mom’s newest beau, again. His fancy, overly expensive lake house cabin. With a roll of his eyes, he lets the cat inside, and the furball darts straight for his water dish, without so much as a thank you.

Puck throws his bag near the front door and kicks off his beat up sneakers, landing with a thump somewhere in the darkness. 

The voice in his head that sounds suspiciously like Sarah tells him that it’s Saturday and it’s been a few since he called his grandma. With school ending, he’s been too busy and too self-focused to have a chat with her. They’re never short and they always end with him being scolded. 

But there’s something comforting about the routine of it all, he thinks as his fingers automatically dial the keys he’s had memorized since he was a kid.

It rings a few times, and Puck’s sure she’s probably gone to bed already, and he’s just going to leave her a message when there’s a shuffling and a heavy sigh into the receiver. 

“Avi,” she starts, and there’s some more of that lovely deafening shuffling he’s grown accustomed to during these phone calls. “I see you finally decide to pay your grandmother some time, Tipesh.” She hums under her breath, finally settled in what he presumes to be her usual rocking chair. “You must have a good excuse?”

Puck laughs, plopping down onto his worn out couch. “Good to hear from you too, Grams. Just wanted to check up on you.”

“I could have been dead, you know. For how long you all leave me to my things. I raised you, Avi. I should worry you sick in my old age.”

“You’re 67, grandma. Not like you’re knocking on death’s door or nothin’.”

“I will beat your large head, yeled. Your mother doesn’t discipline you.” 

This woman brings a warmth to his chest that he doesn’t find in anyone else. He truly loves her. “Yeah, yeah. Just wait till I’m the one taking care of you and you can’t walk on your own, let alone try to beat me.” He can feel her frown through the phone.

“Respect your elders, Avi. Where is that mother of yours? She doesn’t call.”

“She’s with her new boyfriend. Sarah too.”

His grandmother is quiet for a long moment, “...Ah. Is this one good to you and your sister?”

Puck’s laugh is probably too bitter to be disguised from a woman who knows him so well, but he can’t stop himself before he says, “Well, he took her and Sarah to his fancy lake house for the holiday and left behind her delinquent son, so, yeah, probably better than the last.”

“Mm. Your mother is smart. She will marry a man with means, this time. Your father was an idiot. She was a fool to be with him, Avi.”

“Yeah, I know, Grams--”

“When will you change that name of yours? She was also a fool for naming you after him. What a trick, he played on her.”

“You used to like my name, you know.”

“That was before he up and left. Must run in the family, yes? Your grandfather was garbage too. You are not like them. You have stayed with your mother, no matter her bad decisions.”

“Well aren’t you just sweet.”

“Avi sounds much better, anyways.”

“You never call me Noah, it’s always Avi, so what does it matter if it’s legally changed?”

“That will be on your diploma, you know--” she talks over him like it doesn’t matter, and she’s pretty damn good at ignoring his protests.

“If I graduate.”

“You will, or I will beat your--”

“My head, I know. Can you even reach that high?”

“I will find a stool just to beat you with.”

There’s a moment where all he can do is laugh. She brings him such a stupid joy that reminds him of being a kid again. “Can I come stay with you tomorrow? They’ll be gone until Tuesday,” Puck finally says once he’s caught his breath.

“Of course. I haven’t made your room into my knitting studio yet.” She always says she will, but Puck knows it’s an empty threat. “Are you bringing that big friend of yours? The one with the dimples?”

The pang of hurt surprises him, and he’s quiet for too long because she’s repeating his middle name into the phone before he gets out a quiet, “No, Grams. Just me.”

“You should bring him. You know I like him very much. He always eats whatever I put in front of him.”

Puck rips off the bandaid just to get her to shut up about it-- “We’re not friends anymore.”

And then it’s his turn to sit in silence. He lets her stew in it though. Because she knows they’ve been friends since kindergarten, and that he always brings Finn with him to her place. And maybe that’s why he’s been avoiding her for a while now because he can’t stand how empty things are without him--

“That is a shame. Men are fools, Avi. You are a sweet boy, even when you are foolish. You will come together again.”

And like that, a weight is off of his shoulders, because wow, he finally told someone he’s hurting and he didn’t even have to say it out loud. “Thanks, Grams. Appreciate it.”

“Bring that cat of yours. There is a stray around my porch and I want them to have kittens.” And the subject is changed. No more Finn, no more thinking about the fact that he doesn’t even have Ryder thanks to Tina, and he’s so fucking lonely. Blaine’s the only person who even checks to see if he hasn’t drank himself into some stupor the evening before, and his mom always says she’ll call when she’s out of town and conveniently ‘forgets’ the moment she walks out of the door. Even his dad has sent him a ‘Happy Sweet 16th Birthday’ card, two years too late, with the short message of ‘To Noah Puckerman Jr; Happy birthday. Better late than never. Dad’ and a PS asking for 10 bucks and a lotto ticket when Puck gets the chance.

“Chio doesn’t like cars, Grandma. He’ll freak if I try and put him in the truck.”

“Then walk. That cat cannot control you, Tipesh.” 

Puck rolls his eyes, but concedes. His grandma’s rundown house isn’t too far from his own; just a mile or two, down dirty streets filled with old mattresses and littered with Coke cans and cigarette butts. 

He remembers walking down those same roads with Finn. And Santana, when they were closer. He feels like he’s been distancing himself from people, lately. The fact that it’s his senior year and he’s gonna have to pretend to be an adult soon has him on edge, and he’s afraid if he stays close with a single person, he’s gonna combust with all this anxiety he’s never had to worry about before. 

They talk a while longer before a silence overcomes them, and ever the conversationalist, his grandma is the one to break it, “You are a good boy, Avi. You have been dealt a hand that many would buckle under the weight of. Do not let others tell you what your cards should be. Whatever that means for you.”

Puck rubs at his eyes when the burning sensation gets to be too much, and he says, “Yeah, Grams. Thanks,” and he knows that she knows that he’s crying. He’s never seen her cry a day in her life before. “I will be over tomorrow after work, okay?”

“Yes, ben. I will see you tomorrow.”

And for a second he wants to tell her that he’s given up tobacco. That the ‘cancer sticks’ she’s always yelling about are finally gone, thanks to the all-consuming Blaine Anderson who’s slowly taking over his life, but then he knows she will ask about the ‘rat poison’ he drinks to get himself to sleep every night, and it’s not worth all of the trouble for some recognition. 

“I love you, Avi.”

“I love you too, Grams.”

A soft ‘click’ ends the call, and Puck is left sitting in silence, a small black cat curled onto his flat front shorts, in the darkness of his creaky, old, empty house.