Spirit Exchange Fic! Foolproof, for auchic
Holiday Wish Fulfilled for: auchic
Title: Foolproof (or How Rachel Discovers Why You Should Be Careful What You Wish For)
Rating:PG
Pairings/Characters:Finn/Puck, Rachel, Santana
Warnings: N/A
Word count: 1,500
Disclaimer: This Glee fanfiction is based upon the television show of the same name. All characters and situations other than my own are sole property of Ryan Murphy Productions and 20th Century Fox Television.
Summary: Not every plan is foolproof; Rachel should have known this by now.
Rachel
Her name is Rachel Berry and her boyfriend is gay. Admitting you have a problem is the first step to solving it, right? It’s what her dads always try to tell her anyways. The fact that her boyfriend is gay isn’t even the real problem - that has always been a part of her life plan. It’s the timing more than anything else.
She looks at the bullet points she has written out for this particular situation in frustration.
- Age: 25
- Location: New York
- Occupation: Broadway Actress
- Situation: Rachel is happily dating one of her male co-stars until photos get leaked of him being intimate with another man.
- Public opinion: Poor Rachel Berry must feel so betrayed.
- Effect on career: Positive. Invites to appear on talk shows are only a matter of time, magazine deals are not out of the question.
Looking back there was no way Puck was drowning that day at the pool; there was no need for Finn to reanimate him. At the time she hadn’t realized that the expression on Finn’s face wasn’t confusion or surprise, that in actuality it was guilt. Or that the look in Puck’s eyes didn’t mean he was bored as usual, but that he was angry at her for interrupting.
What she didn’t (want to) see back then, has been made painfully clear to her yesterday. Of all the places it could have happened, it had to be on her own Christmas party, in her house.
After she found them, she closed the door, went back upstairs and kept up appearances. She had the role of the perfect hostess to fulfill after all. You can say what you want about her, but claiming she isn’t always a hundred percent committed to her role would be absurd.
Now it’s the right time though. She calls Finn and tells him to come over.
---
“You put the mistletoe away?”
“Yes”
“Good… it’s for the better I think… my mom says it can be deadly.”
“A kiss can be deadlier if you mean it.”
“Huh?”
“We can’t be together Finn.”
“What? Why?”
“You’re gay.”
(If Rachel was a few years older she would know to hide her teddy bear before this point in the conversation because they sound suspiciously like Irene and Stephen from The Real World Seattle, but she isn’t and so she hasn’t.)
Finn
Rachel just broke up with him because she’s certain that he’s gay. He doesn’t really know how accurate that assumption is. All he knows is that one moment he was still busy hating Puck and the next moment he thought that Puck stayed under water for an awfully long time and that he very well could be drowning and how Finn would lose him forever.
Wanting to save Puck was pure instinct. He’d already dragged Puck out of the water when he realized that Puck didn’t need to be saved after all. As if on auto-pilot he still moved in to give Puck mouth to mouth. It’s safe to say that went a little different than how he’d learned on his first aid training.
Later he learned that Puck was actually testing whether his long capacity had improved after Quinn made him give up smoking during her pregnancy. The irony that actions of the same girl - and Puck himself obviously - (in) directly managed to tear them apart as well as bring them back together isn’t lost on him.
During their months apart - between all the anger and hatred - he had come to learn more about the way they work as friends. He had always thought that the respect he got at school was because of his quarterback position in the football team and that Puck simply benefitted from that status. But it wasn’t like that at all, because after the news about the real father came out, Puck didn’t become persona non grata like Finn had expected. Instead it was Puck who told their teammates to lay off of Finn with all the impotency and virgin ‘jokes’.
He has always hated Puck a little bit for the way he doesn’t apologize for who he is. It’s a trait that Finn doesn’t possess, but wants to have so badly. He doesn’t want to call it jealousy because that sounds too much like the friendships between most girls he knows and that just makes him think about how Puck would call him a pussy (and would be right too), which in turn would make Finn hate him a little bit more.
The underlying understanding in their friendship that Finn is right and Puck is wrong, always was there long before Quinn and Beth (Drizzle) and it’s a process to let go of those feelings. It’s a challenge to accept that not everything is black and white. Growing up is what his mom calls it.
The first time they kissed - that faithful day at the pool a few months ago - all his conflicting feelings towards Puck seemed to melt away, until only a raw feeling of need remained. That’s why they haven’t stopped. How Rachel managed to find out remains a mystery, but maybe it doesn’t really matter.
He knows where to go.
Santana
She was only half joking when she told him to get a vasectomy at the beginning of summer, but then he said he’d do it if she’d get the boob job she'd been talking about. She’s never been good at ignoring challenges.
It didn’t escape her notice that he was panting after that new kid Sam like a dog with a bone since school started up, but it stopped after Puck came back from Juvie so she had thought (hoped) that was the end of it.
It had to be, because while he likes to take it up the ass sometimes - they did some experimenting after he read up on Mrs. Hudson’s non-existent prostate - Puck suddenly going gay would be pretty unfortunate for the entire female population of McKinley, but especially for her. He’s the best lay she’s ever had. And she’s the best he ever had, he told her so himself (without prompting!). Even in song that one time after she complained he never sang a solo for her in Glee. To be fair, a few mumbled lines of that song from that Degrassi rapper before he goes down on her isn’t the most romantic thing in the world, but then again she doesn’t want romance from Puck. She wants him to fuck her on a semi-regular basis. Surely that’s not too much to ask?
Then she sees Puck and Finn making out under the mistletoe at Rachel’s Christmas party and she thinks that this is how Puck must have felt that day when he found her and Brittany in the janitor closet for the first time. Eighty percent that’s hot, twenty percent did I make them go gay? (The percentages may vary in Puck’s case because in his mind sex and self-importance are pretty much the same thing.)
She doesn’t understand the motivation behind them doing this. There’s really just one reason she can think of, but it simply doesn’t add up. She only even found them because the party is boring and she had to snoop around to get an ounce of excitement, so it can’t possibly be about shocking the more innocent Glee club members; kissing in the basement (in front of a shrine that is dedicated to Rachel Berry) while the party is held in the living room doesn’t exactly scream “look at us”.
She’s ready to interrupt them and ask what exactly is going on, but then she makes the mistake of looking at Puck’s face. She has only seen him with that soft look in his eyes once before, not that long ago; with Beth. And suddenly she understands completely and she realizes that asking Puck for a with benefits kind of friendship maybe is too much to ask indeed.
When she’s back upstairs she asks Rachel if maybe there’s some more wine in the basement. (Her motivations are anyone’s guess; she doesn’t fully understand them herself either.)
Puck
He doesn’t question things that happen in his life anymore; the answers have always been disappointing or non-existent in the past after all.
In a way the sneaking around with Finn had been safe, he didn’t have to cop to feelings because Finn was already in a relationship full of them. Now Rachel knows though, that much became clear a few minutes ago when Finn arrived at his house mid-gay-crisis.
In Puck’s mind his thing with Finn started because he kissed a dude and he liked it. It’s that simple.
(He can’t help but think that if Katy Perry’s song had been about kissing a boy and liking it, she wouldn’t still be “entertaining” people with her live performances. Damn Glee for making him relate real life to music.)
---
“Do you mean it?”
“What?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes.”
“Yes, you know what I mean or yes, you mean it?”
“Both.”
“Oh my god, we’re going to die.”
Puck grins.
“Eventually…”
-
PROMPT: Puck/Finn - "A kiss under the mistletoe. You know, mistletoe can be deadly if you eat it." "But a kiss can be even deadlier... if you mean it."