"I can't quit," Rachel argued in a tone that implied it should be the most logical thing in the world, that thinking otherwise was utterly ridiculous. "I have to work there because that's where Jesse works and my dad will, like, disown me if I quit because he says I have to spend time with Jesse before the inevitable wedding. And it can be really annoying to have him plan this whole wedding even though he knows that Jesse doesn't even talk to me really. But he doesn't care and it's stupid. It's so stupid and exhausting and..." All at once she just heaved a heavy sigh, her entire body slumping a little bit. And then, as though she had given up entirely on the idea of walking she sat down on the curb of the sidewalk, her feet in the street. Resting her arms on her knees she laid her chin on top of them, her face set in a frown. Maybe going out with Kurt had been a bad idea, not because Kurt had left but because she had drank so much and she had to go to work the next day. And all of that was going to be worse to deal with if she still didn't feel good. All of that on top of how much she normally hated it there wasn't something that she was going to enjoy having to deal with.

"I want my mom," she admitted suddenly, her voice sad but not as whiny as those words might come out from some people. It was the first time in a long time she honestly could remember thinking that things would be much better if her mother was there for her. She use to wish she was there all of the time when she was little but as she got older she was more accepting of the fact that she just wasn't going to get to have her mother to turn to when she really needed someone to talk to about certain things. But she wanted her mother then more than ever. At least she'd have someone in her family she could talk to about everything. Even if her mother might have agreed with what her father was doing- she would never know for sure as she barely remembered what her mother was even like- she would at least be able to tell her how she felt without worrying too much. Her father was there to listen to her a lot of the time while she was growing up but it wasn't the same. It would never be the same. Mothers and daughters just have a different type of bond than a daughter could ever have with her father. And there were certain subjects she just wouldn't bring up to the man who raised her. There were certain things he would never understand.

"I need to go home," she decided even though she made no move to stand up from the curb. She didn't move much at all except to turn her head to look at Puck for a moment in silence, her eyes just lingering on him as though she were studying him but she was really trying to decide how to say what she wanted to say in that moment. Gathering her thoughts in a cognitive way was much harder than she had expected it to be though that really shouldn't be that surprising. "I'm sorry I'm a nuisance," she said after a bit, turned her head so she could rest her chin on her arms again. "I wouldn't want to be fake married to me either. I'm loud and I'm bossy and I'm selfish. And I'm a perfectionist and I want things too much and I don't listen. I wouldn't want to be fake married to me either. Or real married. I'm a pain. I'm sorry."

Finding A Berry

 “I was teasing,” Puck said as he tried to defend himself. Of course he knew that he was mean but he would never be a guy who could just go and totally submit to a woman; especially a woman like Rachel. She wasn’t really anything to him. Yeah, he liked her but he didn’t even if know if they were friends. Were they? He was her fake husband and she was his fake wife but that didn’t necessarily make them friends. Most of their conversations had gone south so no; he didn’t think they were friends. That meant that his instinct to fight back, even just a little wasn’t going to be suppressed. He snorted a little at the ‘really love me’ part of her comment. That would have been one hell of a weird conversation. Really love her? Yeah, that wasn’t exactly something that he could just do at the drop of a hat, even if he had started to develop feelings for her.

When she started rambling he realized just how drunk she was, but even for a drunk girl she was honest. It seemed that her guard was down a hell of a lot more, which in all honesty, surprised him. She just kept rambling and he didn’t stop. “You don’t have to tell your dad the truth.” That was something that he felt like he had said for the millionth time. “We can keep this little charade up, because I don’t think that you should marry Jesse. He sucks and I don’t like him.” He was being nice there and well, he was half expecting her to go on this whole rant about how he doesn’t know him and blah, blah, blah. He didn’t care because no matter what he didn’t like the guy and seeing Rachel have to marry some dick like that pissed Puck off. So, he was going to try his hardest to stop her from telling her dad the truth and be nice. Hopefully was able to actually do it otherwise things would get even worse.

Great. Now she was comparing him to some bimbo.  He didn’t even know who she was talking about but he was sure that she was a bimbo. “I’m not that mean.” That was a lie but again, he couldn’t just sit there and take it. He was stubborn and that was that. “I’m glad I don’t have boobs.” He said honestly, though there was a bit of humor in his voice. He’d be a dude with boobs, which wasn’t okay in the least. “If you hate it so much then just quit your job.” Puck was pretty sure that Rachel could just get another job. All she seemed to do was bitch so he figured that she should just quit, forget the bimbo, and forget Jesse. Well, maybe not that last part since her father seemed so hell bent on making sure that she married Jesse. “Rachel,” he said, stopping and turning to her. “Your life doesn’t have to be this way. You aren’t stuck with this shitty hand that you’ve been dealt. I want you to be happy.”

"Husbands are supposed to love their wives. And fake husbands are supposed to pretend to love their wives and you just were mean to me," Rachel said as though he hadn't even spoken though somewhere in her drunken mind she knew he had, in fact, just spoken to her. Her brain was going to take a little while to actually catch up with that fact, however. Instead she wanted to keep on scolding him- if it could even be called that. "That isn't a lot to ask, is it? It's not like I asked you to really love me." Lifting up one hand she waved off that notion, made a sound as though that idea were completely ridiculous. No, she had never asked him to actually love her nor had she expected him to. Pretending though shouldn't have been so hard. All he had to do was be nice and act like he enjoyed being around her. She didn't think she was that hard to pretend to like. Was she? She couldn't imagine she was that impossible to like but maybe she was wrong.

All at once she turned so her back was to him and started walking, her steps very slow and deliberate like she was focusing on going in a straight line but she was instead focusing on continuing to talk. "And so I get to tell my dead the truth and he's going to be so, so, so, so, so angry. He's gonna yell at me like he's never yelled at me before and then he's gonna make me marry Jesse. And Jesse ignores me most of the time and he spends more time on his hair than Kurt does and I think he keeps a mirror in his pocket or something because he always makes sure he looks perfect. And then I have to spend the rest of my life working as his secretary and dealing with angry, bitter actresses who look like a Barbie doll. But...with the wrong color eyes." A little unsteadily she turned slightly so she was half facing him, her eyebrows furrowed for a moment while she tried to remember if the eyes really were different colored than Barbie's eyes or if she was imagining that in the moment.

"And she doesn't even like Jesse but any time he talks to me she glares at me like she's jealous and I think she just doesn't like anyone else getting attention when she's in the room. Because she's mean. Like you." Turning back towards him a bit quickly she teetered a little on her feet but caught her balance before she could fall over, one hand lifting up to point at him with her index finger. "She's like you. But blonde. And she had breasts which you don't, but still. She's like you. She's mean and she makes me feel bad. But you can go away. I'm stuck with her." That fact seemed to sink in just then and her shoulders slumped a little bit, her bottom lip jutting out again. "I have to see her every day and she's gonna be mean to me all of the time. And...I hate my life," she declared with a resigned sigh. Hanging her head she wrapped her arms around herself against the cold air. "I really, really, really, really hate my life."

Finding A Berry

To Puck, Rachel saying that she didn’t know how much she had to drink always meant that the person had a lot to drink. If they didn’t know then it was obviously so many drinks that they just ended up losing count. If she really had that many she was good at keeping her because she was vomiting or losing total control of herself. She could still type in the text messages so that was another good sign. What he did know was that she was going to end up waking up with a killer hangover tomorrow. He couldn’t help but smirk at that thought though, not because he wanted her to miserable but because he had been there and knew how much it sucked. At least it wasn’t going to be him waking up with the hangover tomorrow.

Even though things had been weird between them he was still standing there, making sure that drunk Rachel was there and safe. Okay, so he probably wouldn’t have done this for just anyone, certainly not someone he despised. Like that Santana chick, if she ever texted him he’d tell her to grab a cab and just figured it out herself. But of course he was standing out there, in the middle of the night, with Rachel, his fake wife. That all sounded like it came straight out of soap opera shit. Not that he watched soap operas, mind you. That’s just what he thought. It didn’t matter though, because he was out there with her. He was out there; glad to see that she was okay, while she was drunk. Now he was calmer. When he was at home he found himself really worried because who knew what could have happened to her? Someone could have slipped something in her drink or well, he wasn’t going to go there because she was standing there with him. She was fine and he didn’t need to worry anymore. Instead the two could just head back to his place where she could sleep it off, probably do some yelling the next morning, and then they would probably go back to how they were before. It wasn’t what he wanted but it was he had expected.

Puck had to bite the inside of his cheek in order to not burst out laughing. It wasn’t that what she was saying was funny; it was that she was so drunk. So very drunk and just being absolutely honest. “I’m sorry, Rachel.” He said with complete sincerity. He did feel bad. He probably shouldn’t have been so mean about everything. At the time he didn’t even think that he was being mean. “I’ll be the best fake husband there is, so your dad doesn’t need to find out. I don’t want you marrying that Jesse guy.” That was pretty much the shorthand version of what he had told her over texts before she was drunk, but maybe it would go over better in person. Granted she was drunk and he was pretty sure that the odds of her remembering what happened that night were slim, but he said it anyway.

"Dunno," Rachel admitted with a slight shrug of her shoulders, momentarily not really processing the fact that he had said she was a lot of trouble. If she had then the conversation would have gone an entirely different way pretty quickly. In all honesty she was truly surprised he was even there. He had said he was going to go and look for her but she hadn't really thought he was going to. It seemed like he was just saying that- not that there was much logic in her head in that moment. After all, walking home alone had seemed like a good idea despite the darkness outside in her state. And yet she couldn't even understand in that second why it was that walking home like that was a bad idea. Surely it was fine to just walk home, right? She had walked around at night before. Not really after drinking that much, of course, but still.

It didn't make sense to her that he was there anyway since he pretty much acted like he couldn't stand her most of the time. And so maybe his friend was right when he said that their whole fake marriage was a bad idea. She was pretty sure that his name was Finn or something like that but she had only met him that one time when they took the pictures that were supposed to convince her father they had gotten married. Sober she would probably remember his name easily but with her brain muddled by alcohol it was difficult to remember. It was even difficult to remember exactly what she had said to her father about her not living with Puck or anything of the sort. She knew she had given an explanation at the time but she couldn't remember what she had said. She couldn't remember most of that conversation with her father, mostly because she had been so nervous he wouldn't believe her and would just set a wedding date up that she pretty much had just said whatever she thought might work in the end. And yet even if he had believed her it didn't change anything. He still wanted her to marry some guy she didn't want to marry so maybe the fake marriage was stupid. It didn't change anything. If anything it just complicated her life even more.

Standing there on the street she watched Puck for a few seconds before her bottom lip jutted out slightly in a pout, her head cocking slightly to the side. "You're the worst fake husband ever," she declared as though she had just revealed something fascinating and amazing, something undeniably true. "You're always so mean to me and you make me sad. And I'm sad all of the time already. You don't need to make it worse." Reaching out with one hand she clumsily patted his cheek with the palm of her hand. "Worst fake husband ever," she repeated. "I'm miserable all of the time and you like to make me feel worse. And you laugh at how sad I am and how bad things are. You're so mean." Her hand fell away from his face in what seemed like a perfectly normal speed to her but was a lot slower than that. "Just mean."

Finding A Berry

Puck saw her turn around and that’s when he knew it was her and then when he heard what she had said he most definitely knew that it was her. Only Rachel would say something like that, especially since he wasn’t exactly anyone else’s fake husband. Though with everything that happened over the past couple of days he wasn’t sure that he was really her fake husband anymore. He was kind of an ass, and by kind of he meant that he was a total and complete dick. For the most part he was surprised that she was even still talking to him. He probably wouldn’t talk to himself if he had been treated the way that he treated her. One conversation with Santana was enough to make him realize that he should have been nicer. He really did not want to ever have to talk to Santana again. While most guys would run because of an annoying friend, it made him nicer to her. Go figure.

He stopped trying to understand his brain a long time ago, which was probably best for him. If he kept trying to understand why he did half the things that he did he was sure to end up giving himself the biggest migraine ever. Long ago he just had accepted that he was an asshole, which is probably how he attracted his crazy ex-girlfriend. That was one thought that put a sour look on his face. That relationship was hell from the beginning and he did not need to think about her. All he wanted was her out of his life for good and so far that seems to be what he got. But even though he stopped trying to understand the decisions that he made he wanted to know why he even agreed to do this whole thing in the first place. Pretend to be married to a total stranger? Yeah, that was stupid. It didn’t help that Finn thought that the whole thing was a big stupid mistake. Yeah. Like he was one to talk. He was surprised Finn could put his own shoes on sometimes. But then on the opposite end there was Sam who encouraged it. It was like the devil and angel were sitting on his shoulder and instead of them being two hot chicks they were two annoying band mates.

He stopped thinking though and went up to Rachel, trying to assess just how drunk she really was. “You’re a lot of trouble for a fake wife, you know.” He said honestly as he finally approached the tiny brunette. If this was the type of drama that being fake married to someone brought him then he wasn’t sure he wanted to be married for real. He could only imagine what the hell it would be like to actually be married to Rachel. At least this way they had their separate places and separate lies, which is how he didn’t understand how her dad even bought the story in the first place. They sure as hell didn’t act like a real life marred couple. “How much did you have to drink?”

Rachel had gone out with Kurt and normally when that happened the two of them would stay together. But Kurt had gotten a call and he had to leave and at the time Rachel wasn't drunk. She had just told him to go on ahead and leave and she'd finish her drink and then leave as well in a couple of minutes. But a couple of minutes turned into an hour- and then a couple of hours. And then finishing that drink turned into ordering another one- and another one and another one. It was, in the moment, much better than going home and trying to figure out exactly how to word her confession to her father in a way that might stop him from completely being angry at her. A little bit of anger was fine but she didn't want it to get out of hand.

Of course, she expected him to be angry with her. She had lied, after all. And it wasn't as though she lied about something minor either. She had lied about something rather significant. she had lied about something as big as being married to someone but, well, she hadn't seen any other choice at the time. She understood that in his own way her father was trying to look out for her wellbeing but at the same time she just didn't understand why he would want her to marry someone she didn't even know all that well let alone love. Didn't every parent want their child to be in love if they got married? And yes, they wanted their child to be able to take care of themselves financially but was that the most important thing? She wasn't even sure anymore. All she knew was that she had lied to him and it wouldn't surprise her if he got very, very angry with her. Angry and then started to set a wedding date for her before the day was out.

Eventually though she knew she couldn't keep hiding from the fact she had to talk to her father about what was really going on and she also knew she couldn't just stay there at the bar the whole night so that was why she started walking even though she wasn't entirely sure she knew where she was going. She had a vague idea but being that she wasn't stone sober her sense of direction wasn't the best in that moment. And she wasn't even sure when she heard someone calling her name that she was actually hearing it at first. For a moment she thought maybe she was hearing things but she turned anyway to look in the direction she thought that she heard her name coming from, her eyebrows furrowing slightly until she saw someone she thought she recognized. And after a second she realized she did recognize him and a slight, not so amused laugh slipped past her lips. "It's my fake husband," she declared mostly to herself, nodding a little as she said that.

Finding A Berry

The conversation that Puck had been having with Rachel was just going in circles. She was drunk and he couldn’t get it out of her where she was. Instead she just started walking back home, alone, in the middle of the night, completely wasted. He didn’t want something to end up happening to her, because he did care about her. It took him a hell of long time to even think about admitted that. The whole reason that Rachel was even drunk in the first place was probably because he went from uncaring douchebag to admitting that he had some type of feelings for her in 60 seconds. There was just something that ended up clicking eventually. But the point was that she was drunk and he wasn’t about to let some creep come and find and do something terrible. Even if he didn’t have some kind of feelings for her he was sure that he’d still go out and find her. A drunk girl walking alone in the city? That’s a bad idea no matter who she was.

He grabbed his jacket and his keys, still holding on tightly to his phone since they were still talking, and went out. She said that she was close to his apartment so he hoped that she actually was instead of it just being the drunk side of her talking. After a few more texts he found that she still happened to be by the coffee shop, which probably shouldn’t have surprised him as much as it actually did. He walked around the streets, trying to remember exactly where there were coffee shops around where he lived. Thankfully there weren’t as many as he thought but it still did take him a couple of tries before he even managed to find her, or at least who he thought was her. It was dark and he was kind of tired, dealing with a drunk person while sober wasn’t exactly the highlight of his life. “Rachel,” he called out, knowing that if she looked at him then it was her.

Texting: Rachel & Puck

Puck: Right.......

Rachel: =(

Texting: Rachel & Puck

Puck: Did you even move?

Rachel: Yes. =P

Texting: Rachel & Puck

Puck: Are you still near the coffee place?

Rachel: Uh-huh.

Texting: Rachel & Puck

Puck: Because I want.

Rachel: .....okay.....

Texting: Rachel & Puck

Puck: I'm going to come find you.

Rachel: Why?

Texting: Rachel & Puck

Puck: I suppose so.

Rachel: Course it is.

Texting: Rachel & Puck

Puck: Drunk you is so literal.

Rachel: What? It's true.

Texting: Rachel & Puck

Puck: We're not getting anywhere.

Rachel: I'm walking so I am.

Texting: Rachel & Puck

Puck: You're killing me.

Rachel: Why?

Texting: Rachel & Puck

Puck: I meant with the =P

Rachel: Sticking my tongue out at you. Silly Noah.

Texting: Rachel & Puck

Puck: What are you doing?

Rachel: Walking.

Texting: Rachel & Puck

Puck: I'll search for you out there. Don't think I won't.

Rachel: =P

Texting: Rachel & Puck

Puck: Just come over to my place.

Rachel: Dunno where it is from here. Besides, air is good.