Fic: It's Getting Harder and Harder To Breathe
Ooookay. So... last Wednesday I was meant to have a TV date with jlz1 . Unfortunately, because of a situation that arose, I wasn't able to be home in time to watch it. I had a pretty randomly interesting night, for a Wednesday night, and then I realised the situation I found myself in would make a good situation for a Puck/Rachel fic. I'm obsessed, okay? Don't judge me. I tried to give it a happier ending than the way my night ended, but hmm.
Also, it's kinda long. So that's your warning. And I've been trying, and trying, and trying some more to write something for weeks and this is the first thing that's come out, so how decent it is is a whole other matter.
Final warnings? Santana and Puck swear. Vague references to cheating - but not them cheating on each other. This is a Puck/Rachel fic, kids. :)
Jess, I hope this makes up for missing our date. This Wednesday, however? It's all on with hot biker dudes.
She’s really, really looking forward to tonight. She can’t even remember the last time her and her best friend were in the same town, let alone able to be free enough to have dinner, catch up with a few glasses of wine (and knowing Santana, then a few more), and relax for the first time in what feels like forever. In fact, Rachel’s pretty sure she’s forgotten what it even means to relax, not think about anything, and just contentedly catch up with San and all the drama that her life entails.
Although, now, she’s kind of settled down into an actual functioning relationship with Matt, and they’re living together and they’re happy and Rachel often now gets to tease her about marriage and 2.5 kids and white picket fences and all the things that make Santana lean over and slap her as she swears at her best friend and says they’re too young for any sort of commitment bullshit.
Rachel’s running late. She’s felt like she’s been non-stop busy from the moment she hopped off the plane at Logan Airport in Boston. If it wasn’t an interview or catching up with her fathers, it was looking into work opportunities, seeing her favourite sights of Boston, and trying not to think about the fact that somewhere in this particular city, there’s a boy wandering around holding pieces of her heart that he broke three weeks before with a bitter array of words she never wanted to hear leave his lips, not when they’ve been not quite friends, not quite in a relationship since their senior year of high school. (She refuses to talk about the fact that for a great deal of this period, he had a long term girlfriend in Quinn. He was never bothered about it, repeatedly told her not to worry about it, that he wasn’t worried, and she decided she needed to live a little, be a little scandalous, and see where these feelings they had for each other took them.) Not even Santana has any clue that it’s over for good this time, that it’s real, that she’s walking away, that she just can’t do it any more. She wants to find someone who really, really wants to be with her, wants to love her and will let himself love her in all the way she deserves, and she wants a happy ending. She’s still the same girl wanting everything too much.
So she’s also in avoidance mode, which means cramming in as much as she can into every single hour of the day.
She parks her rental car, looks for her best friend outside the restaurant they’d agreed to pick up their takeaway dinners from, and can’t see her. She exits her car anyway, only to see her best friend getting out of an unfamiliar new car a few parks down. There’s a wolf whistle and a loud expletive that has Rachel rolling her eyes as people turn to look at them, and then she wraps her arms around her friend in a hug.
They sit down as Santana announces she’s already paid for it, and they stare at each other from across the table, trying to find the place to start all the news and gossip that can’t quite be shared across phone lines and through text messages.
Rachel’s silent, a rarity, as her best friends eyes search hers, and there’s so much she could say, if only she knew where to start. She’s about to start with something inane, when Santana takes her by surprise and talks first.
“So, guess who’s coming over? You’ve got three guesses, and if you don’t guess, you won’t know, and it’ll just be a surprise when they show up on my doorstep for dinner.”
The hard beating of her heart in her chest tells Rachel that she really, really does not want to know the answer to this.
All she can think of is Quinn Fabray, and how much this girl hates her for being the demise of her relationship with Noah, and Finn, and spread nasty, horrible things about Rachel around McKinley High School prior to graduation.
And honestly, hearing you’re psycho and irrational and jealous and a million other words from the lips of a girl who was your best friend for a while there, isn’t exactly words you want to hear.
It’s also not exactly something you want to think about when you could be sitting across from them at a dinner table awkwardly trying to avoid the fact that that’s what they think about you.
She doesn’t entirely know what to say.
Santana has the bitchy, evil, conniving look in her eye that always makes Rachel feel like she wants to be sick, and makes her heart beat a little faster still.
“Puck.” Santana says, and stares Rachel in the eyes, waiting for a reaction to follow.
And Rachel really, really wants to lean over and vomit in the gutter, because her chest is hurting and her heart is all she can hear.
“Are you kidding?” She asks, and she really, really hopes this is just Santana working out her bitch.
Santana’s shaking her head with a smirk. “I knew it. I knew something had happened!”
Rachel hangs her head. “It’s okay. I’ll just lock myself in the bathroom and cry about it until he leaves.”
Santana laughs. “I tried to warn you, chicka, that’s why there’s like, four missed calls from me on your phone. He called me today to see what I was doing, I said you were in town and we were going to have dinner, and he asked if he could come over. I made an excuse, hung up on him, and tried to call you, ‘cause I had a feeling something must have happened, but didn’t know what, and then you weren’t answering so I just had to say yes.”
Rachel has to let it slide, because her best friend did genuinely try. There was calls on her phone but she was getting ready and figured her best friend was just going to tease her about being late and learning to tell the time and ask her again if she’s sure she wants pasta for dinner.
“We haven’t talked in three weeks.” She informs Santana, and god, she can’t believe she actually lasted three weeks. Because despite the distance, there pretty much hasn’t been a day they haven’t text messaged or talked this entire year, since they kind of fell back into each others lives after his first “Boston” relationship broke up. (He thought it might end up in marriage, Rachel wasn’t going to stick around to be the pathetic ex girlfriend who got her heart broken when he said “I do” to a girl who wasn’t her. The relationship didn’t last, she texted him to see if he was doing okay, and it begins all over again.)
“What the fuck did he do?” Santana asks, and Rachel wants to cry as she briefly recounts all the ugly, angry words he said to her that she couldn’t forgive or forget or not be mad about when she decided she was done completely and wasn’t going to have anything to do with him any more.
Words and comments about how she doesn’t do commitment and how his feelings for her mostly revolve around wanting to fuck her, and words that basically make her feel used and like everything she’s thought meant something important this year and might mean this was finally, finally their chance (regardless of the fact that he’s been sort of in a relationship with someone for most of it), and she just wasn’t going to stick around to let him ruin the memories for her.
Three weeks without so much as a text message from him, and she’s been thinking about trying to date someone who isn’t Noah Puckerman, someone who has no resemblance to the guy from Lima she’s been sort of half in love with since he took her to Prom senior year.
She thought she was moving on.
That doesn’t mean she wants to sit across from him at a dining table and think about those bitter, ugly, heartbreaking words leave his lips.
“I’m sorry.” Santana says, and actually seems to mean it. Rachel shrugs, because what’s done is done, and her career is being an actress, so she’s not going to turn down the chance to practice, hone her skills a bit. “But the thing is, with Puck, he’s putting up a wall, because he’s always had feelings for you, and they’re strong, and he wants to push you away because he knows he can’t treat you like shit like he does with his girlfriends, because you won’t stand for it, you’d just walk away, and he doesn’t want to lose that. It’s just an act, Rach, he doesn’t mean it.”
She knows this about him, she knew as soon as he said the words that that’s what he was doing, but it doesn’t make it easier to forgive him. It’s just a reminder of what will never, ever be hers, and she’s kind of sick of wasting her time on a boy who isn’t even willing to try to be with her.
They’re back at Santana’s when Santana’s phone rings, and Rachel’s standing close enough that she can hear his voice across the line, and tries to ignore the butterflies that enter her stomach as she thinks of all the times she’s heard that voice in her ear, saying a multitude of different things in all the moments they’ve shared since they were 17.
She really, really wants to lock herself in Santana’s bathroom and cry, but she doesn’t want to be that pathetic girl, either. She just really, really cannot lose this feeling of surprise.
She just stands up straight, takes in a deep breath, and focuses on her dinner. She’s still doing this when Puck enters the living room, takes a brief look in Santana’s direction, and then focuses his eyes on her, staring, as she refuses to meet his eyes.
“Hi.” He says, only to her, and she gives him a brief glance, but then turns back to her food, her conversation with Santana, anything to avoid him and the fact that he’s here and he smells so familiar and good and he’s just irresistible wrapped up in one good looking package that she’s wanted since she was 17 years old and thought maybe she’d spend the rest of her life with, one day.
He tries to draw her into conversation, not giving up, even when she takes a leaf out of Santana’s book and decides to be a bitch to him, snapping at every thing he says. He hurt her first, it’s about time he knew what it felt like to have someone hurt you with the words that they say.
He kicks her a few times, just lightly, just trying to get her to glance in his direction, and she scowls before kicking him back, hard. He laughs, because it’s not like she’d actually hurt him, as much as she wants to.
She keeps up her front, her sarcastic responses, and it’s almost the battle of the wills as he keeps trying to make her be normal with him, make her talk to him, look at him, hold his hand, touch him back.
Santana gets front row seats to the drama, and she watches transfixed. Some people would feel uncomfortable about watching people destroy their relationship right in front of them, but then there’s Santana, who thinks it’s a scene from her favourite soap opera, or something, and can’t get close enough to the drama.
“You two have such a love/hate relationship.” Santana says at one point, looking between the two of them. Puck is staring at her, waiting to see what she’ll say to that. She smirks in his direction, as she responds that she hates him and it’s not like he’s got any serious feelings for her, so it’s not exactly a relationship.
He flinches as the words hang in the air between them, and she’s undeniably proud of how strong she can be in situations that threaten to break her heart.
They push their plates away and Puck stands up.
“Please tell me you’re leaving.” She says, but he just enters the kitchen as Santana looks at her, offers her a pat on the back, and then goes to carry dishes out to the kitchen.
Puck re-enters carrying two glasses of wine and a glass of water, and keeps trying to get her to look at him as Santana busies herself in the kitchen doing god knows what. (Probably leaning up against the kitchen door trying to hear any conversation that may take place.)
God, she wants him so much. She doesn’t think there’s been a moment in this entire time they’ve been something that she hasn’t. She can’t picture ever feeling this way about someone else, and that makes her feel a million kinds of ridiculous and pathetic, because he has a someone, and it’s not her.
He says something about people they know, and she replies in turn, and he looks her in the eye as he says, “You’re the only one who knows me.”
She wants this to mean everything, but it’s probably just her foolish hopes getting in the way again.
It just makes it a lot harder to breathe.
Santana comes back, tucking her feet under Rachel’s legs. Rachel’s attempting to be civil to Puck, to see if this will make it easier.
She’s also becoming increasingly aware that her bare feet are really, really cold.
She says it, out loud, and thinks maybe she’ll get up to get a pair from Santana’s drawer. Before she can do anything, he’s half sitting up on the couch he’s been lazing on since dinner ended.
“I just took these out of the dryer. They’re clean. Do you want them?” He’s gesturing at the socks he’s wearing, and she’s trying not to look repulsed. She’s not exactly a foot person, and wearing second hand socks that have been on someone else’s feet hold no appeal.
But she really, really appreciates the gesture. In fact, she thinks it might be one of the most random, weird romantic things he’s ever done for her, and she wants to fold it up and tuck it away in her heart for the memory.
She shakes her head and says she’ll be okay, steals Santana’s slippers as Puck offers her some fluffy builder’s socks he’s got from work in his truck.
“C’mere.” He says, gesturing with his hand.
“Why?” She asks, as he reaches for her foot.
“Let me see!” He says, and she doesn’t know what the heck he wants to see, so they tease him about having a foot fetish as she tucks her feet underneath her, away from his hands, away from his touch.
She settles back down on the couch, drinking her wine, and tries not to think about the longing, about how much she wants him, thinks she might be half in love with him, and it isn’t going away.
And then Santana ruins it all, with a question. “How’s your girlfriend?” She says, and Rachel chokes on her wine.
This is the moment her heart will break, she decides, as she adamantly refuses to look in Puck’s direction.
Instead, he carries on about how he had to turn his phone off because she’s called so many times in a day and she’s booked them a vacation he doesn’t want to go on and she’s demanding and she’s this, that and the other, and all Rachel can think is then why are you with her when you could’ve had me?
It’s a question Santana asks, once he’s finished complaining. “Then why are you with her? Because you could have something so much better.”
Rachel’s not entirely sure, but thinks he may have been looking at her as he says he doesn’t know why.
Santana starts bitching on at him about how he better not be in it just because he’s getting laid on the regular, because that’s a pretty shitty reason to stay with someone that’s making you so miserable, and he doesn’t say anything.
Rachel doesn’t either, because what can you say that isn’t, “Leave her, be with me.”
There’s just too much hidden meaning in every single one of the conversations they’ve had tonight, and she could spend her life analysing it for the real meaning and never get anywhere, except the land of dreams that never come true.
Puck disappears again, asking if they want anything, and she feels the tears fighting their way into her throat, so she asks for water.
He brings it and tells her that he’s good to her, that he even got her a lovely glass of water, and then tells her she still owes him a drink from some conversation they had back before everything fell apart and she felt like she was having a break up that never actually was.
“After everything? I’d say you still owe me a hell of a lot more than a drink.” She replies, and wants to smile and clap because that’s pretty much the strongest thing she’s ever said to him.
She wonders if this is what growing up feels like.
--
They’re all yawning and making jokes about being elderly and grandparents and honestly, it’s probably about 10pm, not exactly late, but they’re all sitting there yawning away. Rachel starts fiddling with her keys.
“I think I’m going to go, San. I’m pretty exhausted, it’s been a long day.” She says, standing up.
Puck stands up too and says he’s leaving.
Santana stands between them, looking back and forth between the two of them, wiggling her eyebrows.
“You realise I know you two well enough to know that you two are probably leaving together to go and have sex somewhere, right?”
Rachel rolls her eyes, tries not to show the fact that she can feel her skin heating up in embarrassment.
“Trust me, San, I’m going home. I’ll even text you when I’m at home. Alone. In my bed. By myself.”
“Why is that?” Puck asks from somewhere behind her as she leaves through Santana’s front door.
“Wasn’t invited anywhere else.” She says, and winks at him.
“You know where I live.” He says, and she doesn’t want to think about all those weekends she’s escaped to Boston and they’ve lazed around watching TV in his bed talking about everything and nothing, making future plans she desperately wants to cling to and believe in.
“That’s not an invitation, either.” She says, and she can see Santana smirking proudly behind Puck as she faces them to unlock her car door.
“Come home with me.” He says in a low voice, and she feels the butterflies flare up again.
For a fleeting moment, she thinks of his girlfriend, probably wondering where he is, why his dinner with his family is taking so long, not knowing that he’s currently trying to encourage a girl he has a complicated history with to come home with him, to spend the night.
And then she pictures the nights where he’s invited her and she’s said no and she’s woken up in the morning, alone in bed and full of regrets, and thinks of all the little things he’s done and said to her tonight, and can’t make herself say no.
“If you come, I’ll even give you my parking space.” He offers, and she smiles, and agrees.
He climbs into his truck, parked in front of her, and they say good night to San out windows, as she follows him out of Santana’s street.
He lets her overtake him and there’s something so comforting and thrilling about seeing his headlights in her mirrors as he follows her through the city on the way to his house.
She can’t believe she’s doing this. That she’s 22 years old, and she’s still messing around with a guy that has never allowed himself to be with her fully in all the years they’ve been something, that he has someone, and she’s still going home with him. She never thought she’d be that girl.
But there’s something about him that has always made her a little bit reckless, and she loves him for that.
She loves him for a lot of reasons, actually.
She’s still smiling about the fact that he offered to give her the socks he was wearing, just so his feet weren’t cold.
She texts Santana as she drives, a “I can’t believe I’m actually doing this” message, because she needs to know that she’s not completely insane and this isn’t a ridiculously stupid idea.
And then her fears kick in, and there’s a part of her that just wants to turn down the street for her hotel and lock herself in her room. She calls Santana, and asks if she thinks Rachel may wake up alone in Puck’s bed tomorrow, and he’ll never talk to her again.
“You mean too much to him for that to ever happen.” Her best friend informs her, and she wants this to be true.
“How do you know?”
“I just do. He likes you so much. Just the way he is with you. He really does like and care about you.”
Rachel takes a deep breath. She’s pretty convinced.
“Just go get laid, Rach, it’ll be good for you.”
She won’t even dignify that with a response.
She pulls into his driveway and they both get out of their cars, staring at each other in front of his house, and this is suddenly very, very real.
He casually waves at his housemates, talks to them a little bit, and rolls his eyes as he hears about how much they’ve been bombarded with calls from his girlfriend.
Rachel knows she should feel like a horrible, awful person, but all she can feel is her heart beating in her chest, hard, and smell him and feel his hands brushing against hers as they stand in his living room, and she doesn’t want to wake up tomorrow alone in a hotel room bed wondering “what if.”
She lets him lead her down to his bedroom, refusing to think of nights where he’s probably slept in this bed with the girl who spells camels “camills” and Santana says looks like a man, and lets him press her against his mattress as he kisses her in familiar ways she can’t forget and can’t walk away from, and feels like an idiot for even thinking she could.
She’s not entirely sure how long they’re going to play this game, where he tries to be with someone he doesn’t love because he’s too afraid to be with her, of what he might do to her, but she can’t let him go completely, either.
She’ll just wait it out, cross her fingers, and hope for the best.
She’ll just hold onto the fact that she feels pretty sure there’s a part of Noah Puckerman that loves her, and wants desperately to believe that one day, everything he promised her, the future and the house and the dogs and the children will come to fruition.
She’ll just take any part of him she can have, until he realises he can’t be without her.
Also, it's kinda long. So that's your warning. And I've been trying, and trying, and trying some more to write something for weeks and this is the first thing that's come out, so how decent it is is a whole other matter.
Final warnings? Santana and Puck swear. Vague references to cheating - but not them cheating on each other. This is a Puck/Rachel fic, kids. :)
Jess, I hope this makes up for missing our date. This Wednesday, however? It's all on with hot biker dudes.
She’s really, really looking forward to tonight. She can’t even remember the last time her and her best friend were in the same town, let alone able to be free enough to have dinner, catch up with a few glasses of wine (and knowing Santana, then a few more), and relax for the first time in what feels like forever. In fact, Rachel’s pretty sure she’s forgotten what it even means to relax, not think about anything, and just contentedly catch up with San and all the drama that her life entails.
Although, now, she’s kind of settled down into an actual functioning relationship with Matt, and they’re living together and they’re happy and Rachel often now gets to tease her about marriage and 2.5 kids and white picket fences and all the things that make Santana lean over and slap her as she swears at her best friend and says they’re too young for any sort of commitment bullshit.
Rachel’s running late. She’s felt like she’s been non-stop busy from the moment she hopped off the plane at Logan Airport in Boston. If it wasn’t an interview or catching up with her fathers, it was looking into work opportunities, seeing her favourite sights of Boston, and trying not to think about the fact that somewhere in this particular city, there’s a boy wandering around holding pieces of her heart that he broke three weeks before with a bitter array of words she never wanted to hear leave his lips, not when they’ve been not quite friends, not quite in a relationship since their senior year of high school. (She refuses to talk about the fact that for a great deal of this period, he had a long term girlfriend in Quinn. He was never bothered about it, repeatedly told her not to worry about it, that he wasn’t worried, and she decided she needed to live a little, be a little scandalous, and see where these feelings they had for each other took them.) Not even Santana has any clue that it’s over for good this time, that it’s real, that she’s walking away, that she just can’t do it any more. She wants to find someone who really, really wants to be with her, wants to love her and will let himself love her in all the way she deserves, and she wants a happy ending. She’s still the same girl wanting everything too much.
So she’s also in avoidance mode, which means cramming in as much as she can into every single hour of the day.
She parks her rental car, looks for her best friend outside the restaurant they’d agreed to pick up their takeaway dinners from, and can’t see her. She exits her car anyway, only to see her best friend getting out of an unfamiliar new car a few parks down. There’s a wolf whistle and a loud expletive that has Rachel rolling her eyes as people turn to look at them, and then she wraps her arms around her friend in a hug.
They sit down as Santana announces she’s already paid for it, and they stare at each other from across the table, trying to find the place to start all the news and gossip that can’t quite be shared across phone lines and through text messages.
Rachel’s silent, a rarity, as her best friends eyes search hers, and there’s so much she could say, if only she knew where to start. She’s about to start with something inane, when Santana takes her by surprise and talks first.
“So, guess who’s coming over? You’ve got three guesses, and if you don’t guess, you won’t know, and it’ll just be a surprise when they show up on my doorstep for dinner.”
The hard beating of her heart in her chest tells Rachel that she really, really does not want to know the answer to this.
All she can think of is Quinn Fabray, and how much this girl hates her for being the demise of her relationship with Noah, and Finn, and spread nasty, horrible things about Rachel around McKinley High School prior to graduation.
And honestly, hearing you’re psycho and irrational and jealous and a million other words from the lips of a girl who was your best friend for a while there, isn’t exactly words you want to hear.
It’s also not exactly something you want to think about when you could be sitting across from them at a dinner table awkwardly trying to avoid the fact that that’s what they think about you.
She doesn’t entirely know what to say.
Santana has the bitchy, evil, conniving look in her eye that always makes Rachel feel like she wants to be sick, and makes her heart beat a little faster still.
“Puck.” Santana says, and stares Rachel in the eyes, waiting for a reaction to follow.
And Rachel really, really wants to lean over and vomit in the gutter, because her chest is hurting and her heart is all she can hear.
“Are you kidding?” She asks, and she really, really hopes this is just Santana working out her bitch.
Santana’s shaking her head with a smirk. “I knew it. I knew something had happened!”
Rachel hangs her head. “It’s okay. I’ll just lock myself in the bathroom and cry about it until he leaves.”
Santana laughs. “I tried to warn you, chicka, that’s why there’s like, four missed calls from me on your phone. He called me today to see what I was doing, I said you were in town and we were going to have dinner, and he asked if he could come over. I made an excuse, hung up on him, and tried to call you, ‘cause I had a feeling something must have happened, but didn’t know what, and then you weren’t answering so I just had to say yes.”
Rachel has to let it slide, because her best friend did genuinely try. There was calls on her phone but she was getting ready and figured her best friend was just going to tease her about being late and learning to tell the time and ask her again if she’s sure she wants pasta for dinner.
“We haven’t talked in three weeks.” She informs Santana, and god, she can’t believe she actually lasted three weeks. Because despite the distance, there pretty much hasn’t been a day they haven’t text messaged or talked this entire year, since they kind of fell back into each others lives after his first “Boston” relationship broke up. (He thought it might end up in marriage, Rachel wasn’t going to stick around to be the pathetic ex girlfriend who got her heart broken when he said “I do” to a girl who wasn’t her. The relationship didn’t last, she texted him to see if he was doing okay, and it begins all over again.)
“What the fuck did he do?” Santana asks, and Rachel wants to cry as she briefly recounts all the ugly, angry words he said to her that she couldn’t forgive or forget or not be mad about when she decided she was done completely and wasn’t going to have anything to do with him any more.
Words and comments about how she doesn’t do commitment and how his feelings for her mostly revolve around wanting to fuck her, and words that basically make her feel used and like everything she’s thought meant something important this year and might mean this was finally, finally their chance (regardless of the fact that he’s been sort of in a relationship with someone for most of it), and she just wasn’t going to stick around to let him ruin the memories for her.
Three weeks without so much as a text message from him, and she’s been thinking about trying to date someone who isn’t Noah Puckerman, someone who has no resemblance to the guy from Lima she’s been sort of half in love with since he took her to Prom senior year.
She thought she was moving on.
That doesn’t mean she wants to sit across from him at a dining table and think about those bitter, ugly, heartbreaking words leave his lips.
“I’m sorry.” Santana says, and actually seems to mean it. Rachel shrugs, because what’s done is done, and her career is being an actress, so she’s not going to turn down the chance to practice, hone her skills a bit. “But the thing is, with Puck, he’s putting up a wall, because he’s always had feelings for you, and they’re strong, and he wants to push you away because he knows he can’t treat you like shit like he does with his girlfriends, because you won’t stand for it, you’d just walk away, and he doesn’t want to lose that. It’s just an act, Rach, he doesn’t mean it.”
She knows this about him, she knew as soon as he said the words that that’s what he was doing, but it doesn’t make it easier to forgive him. It’s just a reminder of what will never, ever be hers, and she’s kind of sick of wasting her time on a boy who isn’t even willing to try to be with her.
They’re back at Santana’s when Santana’s phone rings, and Rachel’s standing close enough that she can hear his voice across the line, and tries to ignore the butterflies that enter her stomach as she thinks of all the times she’s heard that voice in her ear, saying a multitude of different things in all the moments they’ve shared since they were 17.
She really, really wants to lock herself in Santana’s bathroom and cry, but she doesn’t want to be that pathetic girl, either. She just really, really cannot lose this feeling of surprise.
She just stands up straight, takes in a deep breath, and focuses on her dinner. She’s still doing this when Puck enters the living room, takes a brief look in Santana’s direction, and then focuses his eyes on her, staring, as she refuses to meet his eyes.
“Hi.” He says, only to her, and she gives him a brief glance, but then turns back to her food, her conversation with Santana, anything to avoid him and the fact that he’s here and he smells so familiar and good and he’s just irresistible wrapped up in one good looking package that she’s wanted since she was 17 years old and thought maybe she’d spend the rest of her life with, one day.
He tries to draw her into conversation, not giving up, even when she takes a leaf out of Santana’s book and decides to be a bitch to him, snapping at every thing he says. He hurt her first, it’s about time he knew what it felt like to have someone hurt you with the words that they say.
He kicks her a few times, just lightly, just trying to get her to glance in his direction, and she scowls before kicking him back, hard. He laughs, because it’s not like she’d actually hurt him, as much as she wants to.
She keeps up her front, her sarcastic responses, and it’s almost the battle of the wills as he keeps trying to make her be normal with him, make her talk to him, look at him, hold his hand, touch him back.
Santana gets front row seats to the drama, and she watches transfixed. Some people would feel uncomfortable about watching people destroy their relationship right in front of them, but then there’s Santana, who thinks it’s a scene from her favourite soap opera, or something, and can’t get close enough to the drama.
“You two have such a love/hate relationship.” Santana says at one point, looking between the two of them. Puck is staring at her, waiting to see what she’ll say to that. She smirks in his direction, as she responds that she hates him and it’s not like he’s got any serious feelings for her, so it’s not exactly a relationship.
He flinches as the words hang in the air between them, and she’s undeniably proud of how strong she can be in situations that threaten to break her heart.
They push their plates away and Puck stands up.
“Please tell me you’re leaving.” She says, but he just enters the kitchen as Santana looks at her, offers her a pat on the back, and then goes to carry dishes out to the kitchen.
Puck re-enters carrying two glasses of wine and a glass of water, and keeps trying to get her to look at him as Santana busies herself in the kitchen doing god knows what. (Probably leaning up against the kitchen door trying to hear any conversation that may take place.)
God, she wants him so much. She doesn’t think there’s been a moment in this entire time they’ve been something that she hasn’t. She can’t picture ever feeling this way about someone else, and that makes her feel a million kinds of ridiculous and pathetic, because he has a someone, and it’s not her.
He says something about people they know, and she replies in turn, and he looks her in the eye as he says, “You’re the only one who knows me.”
She wants this to mean everything, but it’s probably just her foolish hopes getting in the way again.
It just makes it a lot harder to breathe.
Santana comes back, tucking her feet under Rachel’s legs. Rachel’s attempting to be civil to Puck, to see if this will make it easier.
She’s also becoming increasingly aware that her bare feet are really, really cold.
She says it, out loud, and thinks maybe she’ll get up to get a pair from Santana’s drawer. Before she can do anything, he’s half sitting up on the couch he’s been lazing on since dinner ended.
“I just took these out of the dryer. They’re clean. Do you want them?” He’s gesturing at the socks he’s wearing, and she’s trying not to look repulsed. She’s not exactly a foot person, and wearing second hand socks that have been on someone else’s feet hold no appeal.
But she really, really appreciates the gesture. In fact, she thinks it might be one of the most random, weird romantic things he’s ever done for her, and she wants to fold it up and tuck it away in her heart for the memory.
She shakes her head and says she’ll be okay, steals Santana’s slippers as Puck offers her some fluffy builder’s socks he’s got from work in his truck.
“C’mere.” He says, gesturing with his hand.
“Why?” She asks, as he reaches for her foot.
“Let me see!” He says, and she doesn’t know what the heck he wants to see, so they tease him about having a foot fetish as she tucks her feet underneath her, away from his hands, away from his touch.
She settles back down on the couch, drinking her wine, and tries not to think about the longing, about how much she wants him, thinks she might be half in love with him, and it isn’t going away.
And then Santana ruins it all, with a question. “How’s your girlfriend?” She says, and Rachel chokes on her wine.
This is the moment her heart will break, she decides, as she adamantly refuses to look in Puck’s direction.
Instead, he carries on about how he had to turn his phone off because she’s called so many times in a day and she’s booked them a vacation he doesn’t want to go on and she’s demanding and she’s this, that and the other, and all Rachel can think is then why are you with her when you could’ve had me?
It’s a question Santana asks, once he’s finished complaining. “Then why are you with her? Because you could have something so much better.”
Rachel’s not entirely sure, but thinks he may have been looking at her as he says he doesn’t know why.
Santana starts bitching on at him about how he better not be in it just because he’s getting laid on the regular, because that’s a pretty shitty reason to stay with someone that’s making you so miserable, and he doesn’t say anything.
Rachel doesn’t either, because what can you say that isn’t, “Leave her, be with me.”
There’s just too much hidden meaning in every single one of the conversations they’ve had tonight, and she could spend her life analysing it for the real meaning and never get anywhere, except the land of dreams that never come true.
Puck disappears again, asking if they want anything, and she feels the tears fighting their way into her throat, so she asks for water.
He brings it and tells her that he’s good to her, that he even got her a lovely glass of water, and then tells her she still owes him a drink from some conversation they had back before everything fell apart and she felt like she was having a break up that never actually was.
“After everything? I’d say you still owe me a hell of a lot more than a drink.” She replies, and wants to smile and clap because that’s pretty much the strongest thing she’s ever said to him.
She wonders if this is what growing up feels like.
--
They’re all yawning and making jokes about being elderly and grandparents and honestly, it’s probably about 10pm, not exactly late, but they’re all sitting there yawning away. Rachel starts fiddling with her keys.
“I think I’m going to go, San. I’m pretty exhausted, it’s been a long day.” She says, standing up.
Puck stands up too and says he’s leaving.
Santana stands between them, looking back and forth between the two of them, wiggling her eyebrows.
“You realise I know you two well enough to know that you two are probably leaving together to go and have sex somewhere, right?”
Rachel rolls her eyes, tries not to show the fact that she can feel her skin heating up in embarrassment.
“Trust me, San, I’m going home. I’ll even text you when I’m at home. Alone. In my bed. By myself.”
“Why is that?” Puck asks from somewhere behind her as she leaves through Santana’s front door.
“Wasn’t invited anywhere else.” She says, and winks at him.
“You know where I live.” He says, and she doesn’t want to think about all those weekends she’s escaped to Boston and they’ve lazed around watching TV in his bed talking about everything and nothing, making future plans she desperately wants to cling to and believe in.
“That’s not an invitation, either.” She says, and she can see Santana smirking proudly behind Puck as she faces them to unlock her car door.
“Come home with me.” He says in a low voice, and she feels the butterflies flare up again.
For a fleeting moment, she thinks of his girlfriend, probably wondering where he is, why his dinner with his family is taking so long, not knowing that he’s currently trying to encourage a girl he has a complicated history with to come home with him, to spend the night.
And then she pictures the nights where he’s invited her and she’s said no and she’s woken up in the morning, alone in bed and full of regrets, and thinks of all the little things he’s done and said to her tonight, and can’t make herself say no.
“If you come, I’ll even give you my parking space.” He offers, and she smiles, and agrees.
He climbs into his truck, parked in front of her, and they say good night to San out windows, as she follows him out of Santana’s street.
He lets her overtake him and there’s something so comforting and thrilling about seeing his headlights in her mirrors as he follows her through the city on the way to his house.
She can’t believe she’s doing this. That she’s 22 years old, and she’s still messing around with a guy that has never allowed himself to be with her fully in all the years they’ve been something, that he has someone, and she’s still going home with him. She never thought she’d be that girl.
But there’s something about him that has always made her a little bit reckless, and she loves him for that.
She loves him for a lot of reasons, actually.
She’s still smiling about the fact that he offered to give her the socks he was wearing, just so his feet weren’t cold.
She texts Santana as she drives, a “I can’t believe I’m actually doing this” message, because she needs to know that she’s not completely insane and this isn’t a ridiculously stupid idea.
And then her fears kick in, and there’s a part of her that just wants to turn down the street for her hotel and lock herself in her room. She calls Santana, and asks if she thinks Rachel may wake up alone in Puck’s bed tomorrow, and he’ll never talk to her again.
“You mean too much to him for that to ever happen.” Her best friend informs her, and she wants this to be true.
“How do you know?”
“I just do. He likes you so much. Just the way he is with you. He really does like and care about you.”
Rachel takes a deep breath. She’s pretty convinced.
“Just go get laid, Rach, it’ll be good for you.”
She won’t even dignify that with a response.
She pulls into his driveway and they both get out of their cars, staring at each other in front of his house, and this is suddenly very, very real.
He casually waves at his housemates, talks to them a little bit, and rolls his eyes as he hears about how much they’ve been bombarded with calls from his girlfriend.
Rachel knows she should feel like a horrible, awful person, but all she can feel is her heart beating in her chest, hard, and smell him and feel his hands brushing against hers as they stand in his living room, and she doesn’t want to wake up tomorrow alone in a hotel room bed wondering “what if.”
She lets him lead her down to his bedroom, refusing to think of nights where he’s probably slept in this bed with the girl who spells camels “camills” and Santana says looks like a man, and lets him press her against his mattress as he kisses her in familiar ways she can’t forget and can’t walk away from, and feels like an idiot for even thinking she could.
She’s not entirely sure how long they’re going to play this game, where he tries to be with someone he doesn’t love because he’s too afraid to be with her, of what he might do to her, but she can’t let him go completely, either.
She’ll just wait it out, cross her fingers, and hope for the best.
She’ll just hold onto the fact that she feels pretty sure there’s a part of Noah Puckerman that loves her, and wants desperately to believe that one day, everything he promised her, the future and the house and the dogs and the children will come to fruition.
She’ll just take any part of him she can have, until he realises he can’t be without her.