Fic - NC-17 - Glee - Puck/Rachel - Underneath (part three)
Title: Underneath (part 3)
Rating: NC-17
Fandom: Glee
Pairing: Puck/Rachel
Genre: Angst, Smut
Spoilers: throughout early season 1, pre Mattress, since this was written before it had happened. So, AU? I’m just lazy about putting fiction up, sorry!
Warnings: Smexin'
Word Count: 2910
Author's Note / Summary: Feedback makes me write more fiction. It’s a proven fact. I wish I could say a prompt inspired this, but really, just imagining Puck and Rachel doing dirty things together did.
Underneath; part 1
Underneath; part 2
She was dreaming she was in a crowd, after a performance on broadway, and her entourage wasn’t there to protect her. This was a dream she had sometimes, and it always ended badly. But this time felt a little different. In fact it felt a lot different. A faceless member of the crowd came out and drew her away from everyone into an alleyway, and then started making out with her. Hands on her torso, her thighs, and she found herself feeling aroused and not even caring that they were in a public place or anything like that.
She rose up out of sleep slowly, moaning, feeling warm and leaden. Her eyes opened when she realised that there were actually fingers trailing up her thighs, and Puck was looking down at her, Mohawk spiky from a shower, smirking that half-smile at her.
‘Morning.’ He said, his voice still sleepy, and absolutely that smug and full of itself.
She wanted to reprimand him, but couldn’t find the words when he started running his fingers up and down between her legs. She was aware of things like; her breath couldn’t be fantastic, and she was still tired, and actually she hadn’t put her underwear back on so oh god he was right there, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. That sleepy sex-dream feeling had stolen over her, and she was made mute through being woken up this way.
She reached a hand out to touch him, but he interlaced his fingers with hers and then brought her arm up over her head so that she couldn’t move it at all.
‘Nope.’ He said, and she tugged her arm and was mildly surprised when he didn’t let it go. But then she was distracted, he had slid his index finger into her and, actually, the only thing that seemed to matter right now was how he made her feel.
‘There are so many things I’d like to do to you.’ He said lazily, pumping his finger in and out of her wetness until she moaned. ‘There’s doggie style, which I actually can’t imagine you doing, which makes it even better. There’s you blowing me, which, come on, Rachel, I’m pretty sure your mouth was made for that.’
Rachel wants to be indignant, really she wants to be, there’s a red light flashing in her head and she tells herself she wants to pay attention to it really, but there’s something about what he’s saying that just makes her even hotter. Also, his finger inside of her, that’s not helping matters. And that dream. She tells herself she’ll do indignant later. There will be lectures about inappropriateness or something, there will be.
Rachel is still wrapping her own half-formed thoughts around what he’s saying, when a second finger enters her and she moans loudly.
‘Noah...’ She breathes.
‘And there’s other things. More even. I just thought about a whole bunch of them in the shower. Thinking of all the things I could do, get you to do. Seriously. Did you know you’d be this hot?’
Rachel thinks, ‘I have just been asked a question, it’s polite to...’ but she wants him to touch her clitoris even more than she wants to think about what he’s saying. She can’t form the words, and tugs her arm down so she can show him, but he doesn’t let her wrist go. She makes a sound of frustration.
‘More.’ She says.
‘More what?’ He says back, maddeningly.
She opens her eyes halfway, glares at him, and he is actually grinning at her. And she thinks...she knows this game, she’s read about it in some of her less G-rated books. And maybe on some of her more NC-17 rated internet searches (in the name of education, of course). She knows what he’s trying to get her to do, and actually she’s not that intimidated by naming body parts, and really, what annoys her even more is that she has to string the sentence together in the first place. She gathers her thoughts together with great effort, wishing he wouldn’t twist his fingers like that, and wishing he didn’t know exactly how hard he was making this for her.
‘Noah, I want you to put one of your fingers on my clitoris, I don’t care which one.’
She got her own thrill of satisfaction when his mouth dropped open a little bit, his eyes widened, and she thought, ‘take that, Puckerman.’ And then that sense of vindication actually paid off even more when he did what she asked and ghosted a finger over her clitoris, before settling on it and playing with it in a non-rhythmical, relaxed fashion. When Rachel touched herself - because seriously, why not? It was a natural human instinct - she did it with the end result in mind. She couldn’t always, or even often, make it, but that’s what she drove towards. So this lazy, ‘maybe I’ll rub it, maybe I’ll draw circles around it, I wonder what will happen if I do this instead,’ attitude that he seemed to have was strange.
And completely a turn on.
Rachel shifted beneath him, arched up into his fingers, closed her eyes when something about everything that was happening seemed perfect, and her face flushed and she had to gasp around it. Puck made a small noise himself at that, and then she felt the warmth of his cheek by her ear, his lips, and he’d dropped his head alongside hers.
‘I can’t figure you out, seriously. How are you like this now, and then like that later?’
She can’t even answer. She doesn’t even want to. Firstly she’s kind of offended that he’s assumed that wanting things to be right doesn’t mean she can’t enjoy sex. She had a secondly, but it’s gotten lost among the feeling of his finger settling into a rhythm against her clitoris. A rhythm her body seems to really understand. She makes another noise, and it’s loud, loud even for her, so she turns her face into Noah’s so that they’re facing each other, pressed up close. And he can smell her breath and it’s probably not that great, and she can smell his and it’s all minty and she kisses him.
He kisses her back, rough, biting her lower lip and being surprisingly possessive about it all, but then stops.
‘Concentrating.’ He says, and she thinks, oh, well, okay, I suppose in this one situation I could forego kissing if it meant.... and then she stops because she’s starting to forget how to think in anything but one or two words at once.
‘On me?’ She manages, after a moment, because she wants to hear it.
‘On you.’ He says, his voice all low and husky and he sounds about as turned on as she is, which makes no sense because she’s not doing anything to him. She’s not even kissing him anymore. And it’s almost amusing that he’s concentrating so hard, because she’s as unfocused as ever, shifting up into him, softly moaning, wondering briefly if it would be better if it were Finn, deciding probably not, because she didn’t get that ‘all I ever think about is sex’ vibe off him in quite the same way.
There’s a moment, where he seems to just hit the right spot against her clitoris and suddenly she is on fire, and floating, and just desperately wanting that final peak. Which is good, because he’s rushing her towards it more dexterously than she’s pretty sure she’s ever rushed herself towards it.
And he puts his lips up against her ear and she’s crying out, wondering what he’s going to say, and just as her back begins to tighten into that arch he gloats;
‘Better than breakfast, huh, Berry?’
And she’s gone. She arches, and he lets go of her wrist and her arm comes down to hold onto him. Her fingers dig into his flesh and she’s muffling the husky sounds she’s making against his shoulder. She’s remembering how to breathe, gasping, vaguely aware that this might be the best finish to a sex dream that she’s ever had, even if he is a smug bastard with magic fingers.
As she settles down, she realises he’s already removed his hand, but she doesn’t remember him doing that. And he’s breathing hard next to her, like he’s just run a marathon.
‘Better than breakfast,’ she breathes, ‘even if it’s not sanctioned by an approved health foundation.’
‘Uhh, you’re gonna kill me,’ he complains half-heartedly as he slumps into the bed. ‘Shut up.’
‘Did you...have an orgasm?’ She asks and he lifts his head weakly to give her a squinting, dissatisfied look. Then he says;
‘Yes, I came. I blew my fucking load. Not anything these sheets haven’t seen before, hey.’
She made a face at him, and then licked her lips, feeling surprisingly refreshed.
‘I need to get practicing, I’ve been so remiss the past 24 hours. My voice feels great, not nearly so stiff as it often does first thing in the morning.’ She said, feeling surprisingly awake. ‘Can I use your shower?’ She said chirpily, and watched for about thirty seconds for the tiniest twitch of a nod from Puck’s tired head and closed eyes.
She bounced into the bathroom, and spent the next ten minutes figuring out the water pressure, determined that nothing was going to bring her down today.
*
Reality hit Puck about two hours later, when he was in the rehearsal rooms practicing, and Rachel said something inane and ridiculous and he laughed when Quinn pointed out just how stupid it was. Rachel’s eyes flickered to his in that ‘hurt wide-eyed rabbit in the headlights’ way and he was surprised at how much that got to him. And then he was really pissed off. Because even if she was a hot fuck, she was still Rachel, and he was entitled to making fun of her, dammit.
And then, seriously, then Finn made some bullshit excuse about why it wasn’t a stupid thing she said, and she looked at him like he was some goddamned saviour. Puck felt like his whole mouth had turned to acid at that point. He bit his tongue hard, he glowered ahead, Mercedes said something about it and he just glared at her until she looked away.
He wasn’t a complete idiot, he could see how she sidled up next to Finn after that between dance takes. And it didn’t even seem like she was doing it to make Puck jealous. Did she fucking need a rescuer that badly? It annoyed him. As far as he concerned, Quinn’s joke about Rachel was just a joke. It’s not like he hadn’t sledged every single person in that rehearsal room before now, and it’s not like they all needed people to make them feel better.
And who did he have to turn to after the constant digs at his intelligence? No one, that’s who, and it’s not like he needed anyone either.
He concertedly looked away from Finn, Rachel, and the jealous Quinn, and focused on his singing. And despite Mr. Schue asking him to tone down the force in his voice in some of the softer bits, he actually did pretty damned well.
*
Later, at lunch, Rachel was sitting on her own; ‘because I need to brush up on my music notes,’ she’d said. He got a crappy sandwich and sat down with her. The room was filled with the humming background noise of students from different schools, sitting together, going over notes, some looking at their manicures or discussing fashion. No one cared about them sitting together. He hoped.
He dropped the sandwich down because he wasn’t that interested in it, and stared at her. When she ignored him, he just laughed in the back of his throat. Because, seriously, he’d fucked her senseless less than twenty four hours ago, and this is what he got for it? Berry, you are more fucking trouble than you’re worth, but what he said was:
‘You ever noticed that you can’t take a joke? Why is that, Berry?’
Rachel looked up at him, surprised by the question, and she looked around as though expecting something awful to happen any moment. When she looked back, her mouth widened a little into something that would have been a smile, if it wasn’t so cynical.
‘A joke? One? When is it ever just one joke?’ She paused, and Puck was digesting what she’d said, when she continued, ‘anyway, studies have shown that repeated teasing actually decreases academic functioning, and when you consider what I’ve had to deal with since primary school, it’s actually amazing, and very self-satisfying that I’ve gotten the grades I’ve gotten so far. It’s been an uphill battle, but worth it.’ She finished, looking down to her notes and chewing on the end of her pen.
Puck stared at that for a moment, shifted in his chair uncomfortably, and looked away from her mouth.
‘You’ve practiced your acceptance speeches so many times, that everything you say sounds like one.’ He said, awkwardly, and then unwrapped the plastic around his sad looking lunch.
‘Should I dumb it down for you?’ She said, not looking up from her paper, and Puck was almost hurt by the assumption, the constant fucking assumption, that he was dumber than a box of hair, but she looked up at the last moment and said, ‘you don’t need me to dumb it down for you. You know what I meant.’
‘Yeah, whatever, but why Finn? You just need someone to save you so much, that it doesn’t matter who they’re with, or the fact that he’s got a baby on the way?’
Rachel put the pen down again, and gazed out into the crowd. She was hurt, he could tell, but Puck couldn’t bring himself to say anything else. After a moment she bit her lower lip, and then she looked down and sighed.
‘No one’s ever put it that way.’ She said, shocked, small.
Puck narrowed his eyes, he shifted and leaned forward so that he could see more of her face, even though most of it was hidden. There was a quality to her voice that she got sometimes, when it was just her and one other person, and she downshifted gears and everything she said was no longer filled with studies, legalities, jargon, nervousness. And here was the downshift, and he was fascinated by it.
‘Is there something so wrong in wanting to be saved by someone?’ She said finally, making eye contact.
‘You seem strong enough that you don’t need someone to fucking come along on a white horse and save you from...I mean from one joke.’
‘It’s never just one joke. But,’ she held up her hand as Puck went to say something in response, ‘but that’s not the point, obviously. I don’t know. It’s...nice to have someone who...’ She trailed off, her eyes flickered around the tables until she found Finn, and she frowned a little. ‘I’ve never had anyone who’s had my back before. Is it selfish to like that?’
Puck’s fingers ground on the underside of the table. This conversation had gone from benign, to this, in way too short a time. He thought, I could be trying something on right now, make her forget about all this shit, but it was a crowded room, and he was trying. He was actually trying to figure out how she could be so retarded one moment, and then okay the next. But worse than that, he found himself feeling unexpectedly sad for her.
His sister once came home from school, having been bullied by everyone, and Puck had laughed and said ‘get over it,’ and then later on, much later that night, it had been him in her room at two in the morning telling her that those fuckers weren’t worth it and she was better than all of them. And he had listened to her cry and he had consoled himself with the knowledge that at least the people he took the piss out of actually deserved it.
Rachel laughed a little, but it was a sad, rueful laugh. It was the sound made by someone who didn’t have an older brother promising to ‘kill those bastards,’ who had learnt to just deal with those bastards any way she knew how. Check that; any annoying way she knew how.
‘Can we just be making out again?’ She said suddenly, closing her music book. ‘It’s irresponsible, I know, but - and I can’t believe I’m saying this - that was much less complicated than this conversation has turned out to be.’
‘You mean, right now?’ He said stupidly.
‘I mean I saw a janitor’s closet on the way in here, and I think it could be nice to just...make out in the dark for a while.’
‘You are so on,’ he said, standing, and letting Rachel lead the way.
Rating: NC-17
Fandom: Glee
Pairing: Puck/Rachel
Genre: Angst, Smut
Spoilers: throughout early season 1, pre Mattress, since this was written before it had happened. So, AU? I’m just lazy about putting fiction up, sorry!
Warnings: Smexin'
Word Count: 2910
Author's Note / Summary: Feedback makes me write more fiction. It’s a proven fact. I wish I could say a prompt inspired this, but really, just imagining Puck and Rachel doing dirty things together did.
Underneath; part 1
Underneath; part 2
She was dreaming she was in a crowd, after a performance on broadway, and her entourage wasn’t there to protect her. This was a dream she had sometimes, and it always ended badly. But this time felt a little different. In fact it felt a lot different. A faceless member of the crowd came out and drew her away from everyone into an alleyway, and then started making out with her. Hands on her torso, her thighs, and she found herself feeling aroused and not even caring that they were in a public place or anything like that.
She rose up out of sleep slowly, moaning, feeling warm and leaden. Her eyes opened when she realised that there were actually fingers trailing up her thighs, and Puck was looking down at her, Mohawk spiky from a shower, smirking that half-smile at her.
‘Morning.’ He said, his voice still sleepy, and absolutely that smug and full of itself.
She wanted to reprimand him, but couldn’t find the words when he started running his fingers up and down between her legs. She was aware of things like; her breath couldn’t be fantastic, and she was still tired, and actually she hadn’t put her underwear back on so oh god he was right there, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. That sleepy sex-dream feeling had stolen over her, and she was made mute through being woken up this way.
She reached a hand out to touch him, but he interlaced his fingers with hers and then brought her arm up over her head so that she couldn’t move it at all.
‘Nope.’ He said, and she tugged her arm and was mildly surprised when he didn’t let it go. But then she was distracted, he had slid his index finger into her and, actually, the only thing that seemed to matter right now was how he made her feel.
‘There are so many things I’d like to do to you.’ He said lazily, pumping his finger in and out of her wetness until she moaned. ‘There’s doggie style, which I actually can’t imagine you doing, which makes it even better. There’s you blowing me, which, come on, Rachel, I’m pretty sure your mouth was made for that.’
Rachel wants to be indignant, really she wants to be, there’s a red light flashing in her head and she tells herself she wants to pay attention to it really, but there’s something about what he’s saying that just makes her even hotter. Also, his finger inside of her, that’s not helping matters. And that dream. She tells herself she’ll do indignant later. There will be lectures about inappropriateness or something, there will be.
Rachel is still wrapping her own half-formed thoughts around what he’s saying, when a second finger enters her and she moans loudly.
‘Noah...’ She breathes.
‘And there’s other things. More even. I just thought about a whole bunch of them in the shower. Thinking of all the things I could do, get you to do. Seriously. Did you know you’d be this hot?’
Rachel thinks, ‘I have just been asked a question, it’s polite to...’ but she wants him to touch her clitoris even more than she wants to think about what he’s saying. She can’t form the words, and tugs her arm down so she can show him, but he doesn’t let her wrist go. She makes a sound of frustration.
‘More.’ She says.
‘More what?’ He says back, maddeningly.
She opens her eyes halfway, glares at him, and he is actually grinning at her. And she thinks...she knows this game, she’s read about it in some of her less G-rated books. And maybe on some of her more NC-17 rated internet searches (in the name of education, of course). She knows what he’s trying to get her to do, and actually she’s not that intimidated by naming body parts, and really, what annoys her even more is that she has to string the sentence together in the first place. She gathers her thoughts together with great effort, wishing he wouldn’t twist his fingers like that, and wishing he didn’t know exactly how hard he was making this for her.
‘Noah, I want you to put one of your fingers on my clitoris, I don’t care which one.’
She got her own thrill of satisfaction when his mouth dropped open a little bit, his eyes widened, and she thought, ‘take that, Puckerman.’ And then that sense of vindication actually paid off even more when he did what she asked and ghosted a finger over her clitoris, before settling on it and playing with it in a non-rhythmical, relaxed fashion. When Rachel touched herself - because seriously, why not? It was a natural human instinct - she did it with the end result in mind. She couldn’t always, or even often, make it, but that’s what she drove towards. So this lazy, ‘maybe I’ll rub it, maybe I’ll draw circles around it, I wonder what will happen if I do this instead,’ attitude that he seemed to have was strange.
And completely a turn on.
Rachel shifted beneath him, arched up into his fingers, closed her eyes when something about everything that was happening seemed perfect, and her face flushed and she had to gasp around it. Puck made a small noise himself at that, and then she felt the warmth of his cheek by her ear, his lips, and he’d dropped his head alongside hers.
‘I can’t figure you out, seriously. How are you like this now, and then like that later?’
She can’t even answer. She doesn’t even want to. Firstly she’s kind of offended that he’s assumed that wanting things to be right doesn’t mean she can’t enjoy sex. She had a secondly, but it’s gotten lost among the feeling of his finger settling into a rhythm against her clitoris. A rhythm her body seems to really understand. She makes another noise, and it’s loud, loud even for her, so she turns her face into Noah’s so that they’re facing each other, pressed up close. And he can smell her breath and it’s probably not that great, and she can smell his and it’s all minty and she kisses him.
He kisses her back, rough, biting her lower lip and being surprisingly possessive about it all, but then stops.
‘Concentrating.’ He says, and she thinks, oh, well, okay, I suppose in this one situation I could forego kissing if it meant.... and then she stops because she’s starting to forget how to think in anything but one or two words at once.
‘On me?’ She manages, after a moment, because she wants to hear it.
‘On you.’ He says, his voice all low and husky and he sounds about as turned on as she is, which makes no sense because she’s not doing anything to him. She’s not even kissing him anymore. And it’s almost amusing that he’s concentrating so hard, because she’s as unfocused as ever, shifting up into him, softly moaning, wondering briefly if it would be better if it were Finn, deciding probably not, because she didn’t get that ‘all I ever think about is sex’ vibe off him in quite the same way.
There’s a moment, where he seems to just hit the right spot against her clitoris and suddenly she is on fire, and floating, and just desperately wanting that final peak. Which is good, because he’s rushing her towards it more dexterously than she’s pretty sure she’s ever rushed herself towards it.
And he puts his lips up against her ear and she’s crying out, wondering what he’s going to say, and just as her back begins to tighten into that arch he gloats;
‘Better than breakfast, huh, Berry?’
And she’s gone. She arches, and he lets go of her wrist and her arm comes down to hold onto him. Her fingers dig into his flesh and she’s muffling the husky sounds she’s making against his shoulder. She’s remembering how to breathe, gasping, vaguely aware that this might be the best finish to a sex dream that she’s ever had, even if he is a smug bastard with magic fingers.
As she settles down, she realises he’s already removed his hand, but she doesn’t remember him doing that. And he’s breathing hard next to her, like he’s just run a marathon.
‘Better than breakfast,’ she breathes, ‘even if it’s not sanctioned by an approved health foundation.’
‘Uhh, you’re gonna kill me,’ he complains half-heartedly as he slumps into the bed. ‘Shut up.’
‘Did you...have an orgasm?’ She asks and he lifts his head weakly to give her a squinting, dissatisfied look. Then he says;
‘Yes, I came. I blew my fucking load. Not anything these sheets haven’t seen before, hey.’
She made a face at him, and then licked her lips, feeling surprisingly refreshed.
‘I need to get practicing, I’ve been so remiss the past 24 hours. My voice feels great, not nearly so stiff as it often does first thing in the morning.’ She said, feeling surprisingly awake. ‘Can I use your shower?’ She said chirpily, and watched for about thirty seconds for the tiniest twitch of a nod from Puck’s tired head and closed eyes.
She bounced into the bathroom, and spent the next ten minutes figuring out the water pressure, determined that nothing was going to bring her down today.
*
Reality hit Puck about two hours later, when he was in the rehearsal rooms practicing, and Rachel said something inane and ridiculous and he laughed when Quinn pointed out just how stupid it was. Rachel’s eyes flickered to his in that ‘hurt wide-eyed rabbit in the headlights’ way and he was surprised at how much that got to him. And then he was really pissed off. Because even if she was a hot fuck, she was still Rachel, and he was entitled to making fun of her, dammit.
And then, seriously, then Finn made some bullshit excuse about why it wasn’t a stupid thing she said, and she looked at him like he was some goddamned saviour. Puck felt like his whole mouth had turned to acid at that point. He bit his tongue hard, he glowered ahead, Mercedes said something about it and he just glared at her until she looked away.
He wasn’t a complete idiot, he could see how she sidled up next to Finn after that between dance takes. And it didn’t even seem like she was doing it to make Puck jealous. Did she fucking need a rescuer that badly? It annoyed him. As far as he concerned, Quinn’s joke about Rachel was just a joke. It’s not like he hadn’t sledged every single person in that rehearsal room before now, and it’s not like they all needed people to make them feel better.
And who did he have to turn to after the constant digs at his intelligence? No one, that’s who, and it’s not like he needed anyone either.
He concertedly looked away from Finn, Rachel, and the jealous Quinn, and focused on his singing. And despite Mr. Schue asking him to tone down the force in his voice in some of the softer bits, he actually did pretty damned well.
*
Later, at lunch, Rachel was sitting on her own; ‘because I need to brush up on my music notes,’ she’d said. He got a crappy sandwich and sat down with her. The room was filled with the humming background noise of students from different schools, sitting together, going over notes, some looking at their manicures or discussing fashion. No one cared about them sitting together. He hoped.
He dropped the sandwich down because he wasn’t that interested in it, and stared at her. When she ignored him, he just laughed in the back of his throat. Because, seriously, he’d fucked her senseless less than twenty four hours ago, and this is what he got for it? Berry, you are more fucking trouble than you’re worth, but what he said was:
‘You ever noticed that you can’t take a joke? Why is that, Berry?’
Rachel looked up at him, surprised by the question, and she looked around as though expecting something awful to happen any moment. When she looked back, her mouth widened a little into something that would have been a smile, if it wasn’t so cynical.
‘A joke? One? When is it ever just one joke?’ She paused, and Puck was digesting what she’d said, when she continued, ‘anyway, studies have shown that repeated teasing actually decreases academic functioning, and when you consider what I’ve had to deal with since primary school, it’s actually amazing, and very self-satisfying that I’ve gotten the grades I’ve gotten so far. It’s been an uphill battle, but worth it.’ She finished, looking down to her notes and chewing on the end of her pen.
Puck stared at that for a moment, shifted in his chair uncomfortably, and looked away from her mouth.
‘You’ve practiced your acceptance speeches so many times, that everything you say sounds like one.’ He said, awkwardly, and then unwrapped the plastic around his sad looking lunch.
‘Should I dumb it down for you?’ She said, not looking up from her paper, and Puck was almost hurt by the assumption, the constant fucking assumption, that he was dumber than a box of hair, but she looked up at the last moment and said, ‘you don’t need me to dumb it down for you. You know what I meant.’
‘Yeah, whatever, but why Finn? You just need someone to save you so much, that it doesn’t matter who they’re with, or the fact that he’s got a baby on the way?’
Rachel put the pen down again, and gazed out into the crowd. She was hurt, he could tell, but Puck couldn’t bring himself to say anything else. After a moment she bit her lower lip, and then she looked down and sighed.
‘No one’s ever put it that way.’ She said, shocked, small.
Puck narrowed his eyes, he shifted and leaned forward so that he could see more of her face, even though most of it was hidden. There was a quality to her voice that she got sometimes, when it was just her and one other person, and she downshifted gears and everything she said was no longer filled with studies, legalities, jargon, nervousness. And here was the downshift, and he was fascinated by it.
‘Is there something so wrong in wanting to be saved by someone?’ She said finally, making eye contact.
‘You seem strong enough that you don’t need someone to fucking come along on a white horse and save you from...I mean from one joke.’
‘It’s never just one joke. But,’ she held up her hand as Puck went to say something in response, ‘but that’s not the point, obviously. I don’t know. It’s...nice to have someone who...’ She trailed off, her eyes flickered around the tables until she found Finn, and she frowned a little. ‘I’ve never had anyone who’s had my back before. Is it selfish to like that?’
Puck’s fingers ground on the underside of the table. This conversation had gone from benign, to this, in way too short a time. He thought, I could be trying something on right now, make her forget about all this shit, but it was a crowded room, and he was trying. He was actually trying to figure out how she could be so retarded one moment, and then okay the next. But worse than that, he found himself feeling unexpectedly sad for her.
His sister once came home from school, having been bullied by everyone, and Puck had laughed and said ‘get over it,’ and then later on, much later that night, it had been him in her room at two in the morning telling her that those fuckers weren’t worth it and she was better than all of them. And he had listened to her cry and he had consoled himself with the knowledge that at least the people he took the piss out of actually deserved it.
Rachel laughed a little, but it was a sad, rueful laugh. It was the sound made by someone who didn’t have an older brother promising to ‘kill those bastards,’ who had learnt to just deal with those bastards any way she knew how. Check that; any annoying way she knew how.
‘Can we just be making out again?’ She said suddenly, closing her music book. ‘It’s irresponsible, I know, but - and I can’t believe I’m saying this - that was much less complicated than this conversation has turned out to be.’
‘You mean, right now?’ He said stupidly.
‘I mean I saw a janitor’s closet on the way in here, and I think it could be nice to just...make out in the dark for a while.’
‘You are so on,’ he said, standing, and letting Rachel lead the way.