Stronger than This (3/?) Puck: Turn it Up
Title: Stronger than this. (3/?) Puck: Turn It Up
Pairing: Santana/Brittany; Santana/Puck bromance
Rating: R (For Language)
Summary: Puck’s POV a month after “Sexy”. This fic starts with some pent up Santana with multiple character POV’s and builds to battle royal.
Spoilers: Season 2: Sexy
Chapt 1: Santana - Chapt 2: Artie - Chapt 3:Puck - Chapt 4: Rachel - Chapt 5:Finn - Chapter 6: Santana - Chapter 7: Kurt
Chapter 3
Puck: Turn It Up
Driving away from Artie’s place, Santana and I sat in the silence of each other’s company… There was an obvious elephant in the room… and I couldn’t wait to poke it with my long stick.
We turned right onto the main road quickly swaying together with the force. Women really didn’t know how to drive. I thought to tease her about it, but I had bigger fish to fry. Once the car was absolutely quiet, I jabbed... “So you just wanted to swing by Artie’s place eh…”
Santana let out the long sigh I knew she was holding. Her eyes stay fixed on the road. She didn’t answer, we turned left.
I poked again, “Just felt like a drive… then?”
Santana’s eyebrows knit together sourly. Like a cobra, her arm flings out and snatches at the radio, turning it on to muzzle me. The tension between us felt thick and sparkled. Her steady eye and iced posed made her sexy. I forgot how much fun Santana could be. If it weren’t for Lauren, I’d of made her pull over and had some fun with it.
The music beat pulses loud and strong in my head. Although I was more prone to guitar riffs than Santana’s R&B style, I liked the song ‘Yeah 3x’. I was sure I could sing louder than Chris Brown through the car speakers. I raise my voice. “Hold your glasses up, people everywhere, now everybody throw your hands in the air..!” I sing over the music. Once again Santana rolls her eyes and turns the music up louder. “Yeah!” I shout with a bad ass fist pump! “Turn it up! Let’s do this!” Even louder than before, my voice rises above the music… “Let me see your hands!.. tonight is the night!” Santana remains still, doing her best to ignore me, but I knew Santana… the corners of her lips flinch and I know I’m close. She shuts off the music to compete silence.
I grin widely… Puck never loses. The car stops quietly at a red light.
“Sooo” I prod. Drove this way to make sure he made it home… eh…” Smiling with my look of deviance, I batted my eyes her way. “Sooooo thoughtful of you.”
“Shut it Pukerman.” She quipped; her eyes fixed on the road.
When I laughed aloud, her grip tightened on the wheel. It was obvious she was trying to play cool and disregard me, but her white knuckles transfixed tightly on the steering gave her away. I hummed Chris Brown’s song a little to myself a moment watching her knuckles slowly loosen and return to color before I spoke again. “So why did you drag me along, if you didn’t want to talk?…”
She took a deep breath then, possibly in the manner of an adult trying to take a child seriously. “Artie hates me.” She stated. Her words were quick like thrown daggers as if the conversation would end if she sped it up. It didn’t sway me.
I stretched my short shirt sleeves up to reveal my shoulders… “Just wanted my protection then?” I quipped flexing, “Needed muscular defense from the wheelchair kid?… That’s understandable.” I shot her a teasing smirk. “…very believable.”
She laughed then, warm and full, reminding me that we actually were good friends. “Something like that,” she smiled.
The majority of kids at my school didn’t know Santana like I did. Behind her back they called her ‘Satan-plus-a.’ But instead of getting defensive and hurt by it, she owned it. She’d “accidentally” drop the middle ‘n’ in her signatures and on her homework sometimes. It was a smart move. I on the other hand have never been intimidated by her. That lack of fear made things comfortable.
We drove a few more blocks in silence until we pulled into my trailer park. The speed bumps kept the car moving slow, which I didn’t mind… less likely I’d die with a woman at the wheel. As she stopped the car at my mom’s place, I leaned against the door and faced her instead of climbing out. “Santana,” I spoke carefully, my tone growing serious. “What are you doing?”
She stays quiet at first. I couldn’t tell right away if the silence was from refusing to speak or not, but then gradually I feel the ice queen melt a little and her eyes flickered searching for words... “I don’t know,” she admits with a frown. “I don’t know.”
There weren’t many people that Santana let her guard down around, I knew this, I knew to be careful in these quick moments of vulnerability. She looked to me.
“I know you’re in love with Brittany.” I state with a shrug. Her eyes widen as she starts to protest, but I shake it off before she gets far… “Listen latina, I’ve known for awhile now.”
Santana does little to confirm or deny… instead she watches me with an arched eye… as if daring me to explain... the sexy bitch.
I cock my head to the side and scratch inside my ear. “Let’s just say,” I start, “being one who’s been in bed with the both of you at the same time… I never felt so invisible.” I laugh to myself… “Don’t worry though… I didn’t mind watching.”
Instead of the anger I expect from her, Santana visibly relaxes. Leaning back into the driver seat, she tilts her head back and looks to me exasperated. “What should I do?”
“Nothing.”
The word is a bullet to her and she flinches, taking it as such.
I don’t apologize.
“Listen Santana, you don’t want to roll Artie off a cliff and win by default do you?” Santana considers this a moment and shrugs a ‘maybe’. I laugh. “Winning by default isn’t winning. If she cares about you more, she’ll come to you.” It seems a simple, romantic concept, but I knew it to be true. Life had been kind to me in the lady department. Lauren could put up all the fight she wanted, but I knew she wasn’t going home to anyone else. And subconsciously, I knew Quinn would be back too. I counted on it.
Ignoring logic again, she reaches past me, and turns up the radio.
I chuckle and turn it back down. “So what then? What’s the plan?” I argue, “You’re going to sabotage Tina and Mike so that Tina’ll go back to Artie and then Britt’ll go back to you?” I sigh, my attention span was closing. “Bad plan… just about everyone is paired up now. Even Mr. Shue is getting his groove on... Deal with it. … You and I are the land of misfit toys in there… but we’re toys still, none-the-less… so we can have fun.”
Santana looks away nearly defeated. Her fingers trace her forearm slowly, whimsically. She’s concentrated on something outside the window: a neighbor’s sprinkler head. Click, click, click, spra-a-a-ay. And suddenly something in her beaten expression triggers a gut feeling in me. “You know Santana, it’s not over yet…”
She looks back to me. “What?”
“If that’s your girl… take her back.”
“Are you serious?” she asks suspiciously.
“Yeah.” I nod. All at once Santana’s expression turns lively and fired. I feed the fire. “She does love you,” I confirm egging on the beast. “It isn’t hard to tell you’re both smitten over one another.”
Santana’s cheek turns a shade of red I’ve never seen on her before. “If you ask nicely…” I continue, “I’ll help you win her back.”
Her dark eyes turn to little devils, “Okay.” She agrees. “What did you have in mind?”