Fic: In the valley between intent and deed (Glee, Puck/Finn)
Title: In the valley between intent and deed
Pairing: Puck/Finn
Rating: R/NC-17
Wordcount: ~6k
Spoilers: All aired episodes so far
Warnings: Swearing and use of homophobic slurs by a character.
Summary: Puck has a secret that makes him angry at himself and the world- he’s in love with his best friend, but he’s determined not to be happy about it.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters.
A/N: Title belongs to OKGo. Wonderfully betaed by redandglenda who has let me talk her ear off about this pairing for several days now. All mistakes are mine.
This is my first attempt at Gleefic, so I’m still learning a lot, but I hopefully haven’t made too many canon errors. Concrit is always welcomed.
Finn looks at Puck like he hates him and really, Puck can’t blame him. Puck tells himself he doesn’t care. He’s gotten good at lying to himself over the years, so this is easy.
But Finn doesn’t look at Quinn at all, so there’s something at least. Puck still exists in Finn’s periphery. He’s still in his thoughts.
Puck’s pretty sure any thoughts Finn has of him are driving him crazy. And it makes him smirk, because that’s pretty much all he’s ever wanted.
~~~
Puck is 13 when he wrestles with Finn for possession of the Xbox controller and feels his dick give a twitch. It’s not the first time it’s happened- he is a teenager after all- but it’s the first time it’s happened in response to Finn’s wriggling body pressed hard against him, arms wrapped around Puck from behind as his fingers scramble to get hold of the controller.
Puck is immediately disgusted with himself. He knows that you’re not supposed to react like that to another dude. It’s wrong, which means there’s something wrong with him.
Finn doesn’t notice, just grabs the controller back and proceeds to beat Puck’s ass. Puck protests the victory. He’s too distracted feeling sick, hating himself and feeling dirty, although he can’t say that so Finn shoves him and laughs and calls him a sore loser.
When Finn goes home, Puck showers to try and rid himself of that unclean feeling. It works until he starts jerking off and finds his thoughts lingering on the way Finn had whooped with joy when he’d won, throwing his arms up and grinning. Finn had punched Puck in the arm when he’d accused Finn of cheating and Puck can’t stop himself picturing that fist wrapped around his dick instead of his own.
He comes at the thought, gasping into the shower spray. Then he washes off his hand, stands with his face under the water for too long, as if hoping it’ll somehow absolve him of whatever the fuck is wrong inside him. And then he gets out, gets dressed and punches a hole in his bedroom wall.
He hides the dent with a poster so his mom won’t find out and yell at him, ignoring the pain in his knuckles. The blood has almost dried by the time he finally looks at it, prodding with a finger. The pain feels good, a good kind of punishment for the fucked up thoughts he’s having about his best friend.
Puck isn’t a fag. He won’t let himself be one. And since his asshole of a father isn’t around to beat it out of him, Puck does the job himself. It becomes easier to pick fights and let someone else get a few swings in, to feel the pain spread through his jaw or solar plexus, overwhelming any thoughts, including gay ones. And the sensation of skin and sometimes bone breaking under Puck’s fists feels even better.
That summer he gets sent away to camp. His mom keeps saying she doesn’t know what’s wrong with him, that he’s going to end up like his bum of a dad if he doesn’t straighten up.
Puck laughs in her face because that’s exactly what he’s trying to make himself do, and then feels guilty about it later because it’s not her fault. He can’t explain himself though- can’t bear to see the look of disgust and disappointment on her face if she ever found out how sick and twisted he is, so he goes upstairs and packs and heads off to camp the next day without argument.
Eight days in, he fucks a junior councillor from the girls camp across the lake. He tells her he’s 16 and she believes him and lets him stare at her boobs and slide a finger inside her and, eventually, stick his dick in her. It doesn’t last long, and she doesn’t seem that impressed but Puck doesn’t care because it was awesome.
He couldn’t care less about the girl or her girl parts, but it’s somewhere to stick his dick that isn’t his hand and it felt good. And he didn’t think about Finn, or any other guys, the entire time.
~~~
“Hey man,” Puck says as he slouches into practice.
Finn looks up from the piano in surprise, either from the fact that Puck is uncharacteristically early- no one else is there yet, not even Rachel- or from the greeting that Puck insists on giving him whenever they cross paths. Generally Finn doesn’t reply, but that isn’t going to stop Puck from trying.
“Hey,” Finn says after a moment. He holds Puck’s gaze for a moment, then looks back at the sheet music in his hands.
“What’s that?” Puck asks, moving to lean against the side of the piano. He’s pushing his luck, he knows, but he wants a reaction from Finn. Needs a reaction. He doesn’t care what it is- a smile or a punch to the throat, he’ll take it. Because it’s been three weeks now and Puck misses him, even if he’d never admit it.
Finn doesn’t look up this time. “New song,” he shrugs. “Mr. Schue thought we could test it out.”
“Cool,” Puck nods.
Neither of them says anything else, but they’re in the same room, breathing the same air, and Finn isn’t sending him death glares and Puck isn’t watching Finn’s hands spread, unmoving, across the piano keys and wondering how they’d feel spread out against his ribs instead. Much.
He feels they’ve both moved on a lot.
Rachel bustles into the room with that air of importance she has. She stops when she sees them, nods at Puck with a small smile, then widens it to greet Finn.
“Hi!” she says brightly.
Finn glances her way. His expression isn’t unfriendly but it is guarded.
“Hey Rachel,” he says without enthusiasm, and Puck watches Rachel’s thousand watt smile dim for a moment, before returning even brighter than before. Puck knows Rachel is going to make it on Broadway or wherever she wants to end up, because she’s one hell of an actor.
She hurries across the room, her sensible buckle-up heels clicking in a rapid beat. She keeps her back to them until the rest of the club arrives, pretending to search in her bag for something.
Puck almost feels bad for her. He hadn’t expected Finn to shoot the messenger, and they’d seemed to be okay after sectionals but Finn had become more and more withdrawn in the days since. It made Puck wonder if something had happened between the two of them.
Finn hadn’t confided in him for a long time- they weren’t that kind of best friends, apparently, although Puck could hardly protest considering he’d knocked Quinn up and not said anything. Instead they’re the kind of best friends where one is in love with the other and fucks everything in both their lives up beyond all recognition.
~~~
Puck is 14 when he admits to himself these feelings he’s been having- thoughts about dudes, thoughts that still disgust him and make him feel sick, especially thoughts about Finn- aren’t going away.
But it doesn’t mean he has to accept it. And it doesn’t mean anyone ever needs to suspect it. He knows that the best defence is a good offense so he never lets anyone have the chance to accuse him of being gay. The moment a guy glances too long in his direction, he loudly labels them a fag. He loves the way ‘that’s so fucking gay’ drips off his tongue with malice whenever he talks about something that sucks. It makes him feel like one of the guys, because they’re all doing it too, and it helps to remind himself that if he lets himself be gay, he’s going to be the one facing this abuse. He doesn’t want that, and it’s another incentive to push those feelings away as far as they’ll go.
He makes sure his reputation with the ladies is well known. There’s not much choice in Lima for a 14 year old, but there are enough girls who’re easily pressured into making out with him and grinding against him. He never thinks about them when he’s doing it, and hardly ever thinks of Finn. But when he does he makes sure there’s no doubt in anyone else’s mind that Noah Puckerman’s sexuality is straighter than a straight thing.
~~~
“He’ll come around,” Puck leans against the lockers and smiles when Rachel jumps.
She turns towards him, hand still resting on the book she was neatly sliding into place.
“Hello,” she says. She looks nervous, like he’s hiding a slushie somewhere, but it’s been a long time since Puck’s slushied anyone. It probably means he’s growing as a person. Or that he’s got other things to think about.
He smiles at her. She hesitantly smiles back and it reminds him of how she’d looked beneath him on her bed.
The thing with Rachel had happened for two reasons.
Puck had been sure his mom was onto something with the nice Jewish girl thing. Puck’s generally not one to believe in God but he was pretty sure the dream about Rachel was a sign. A sign that a nice Jewish girl might be the one to finally rid his mind of these unnatural thoughts. He’s willing to try it anyway, and Rachel is hot enough that it’s not like it’s a chore. Puck still wonders if fucking her would have helped sort his head out, but that’s something he’ll never get to find out, especially not now.
The second reason is that everyone with a pair of eyes knows Rachel is hot for Finn. And it makes Puck curious. He wants to taste her lust for Finn, to see if it compares to his own. Rachel’s not his competition since Puck isn’t trying to get Finn- he’s not going to be gay, no matter what his mind and body tries to make him believe- but it doesn’t mean Puck doesn’t want to see what her deal is.
It’s part of the reason why he fucked Quinn, although that was at least partially motivated by wanting to destroy their relationship. He’s not sure if by ‘their relationship’ he means Finn and Quinn’s, or his and Finn’s, but either way he knew it’d make things different if anyone found out, and different was better than how things were.
“Was there something you wanted, Noah?” Rachel asks, and Puck smiles and leans in to trail a finger across her shoulder and down her arm, the soft wool of her sweater tickling his hand as he moves it. There’s always going to be the what-if factor with Rachel, that maybe she could have cured him, but that’s not why he’s flirting with her now. He can see Finn watching them from down the hallway, and it makes Puck’s smile grow wider.
“I was just thinking we should practice together again sometime,” he says, making his voice low and husky. “I had a lot of fun last time.”
Rachel’s cheeks colour and she shivers, but her face doesn’t show repulsion like he’d almost been expecting. It does seem confused though, and a little annoyed.
“Shouldn’t you be buying baby grows and betraying more of your friends?” she asks, and it makes Puck laugh. He likes that Rachel has a bit of bite to her, that it keeps him on his toes. It’s a nice distraction from everything else swirling around in his mind.
He shrugs. “Your loss,” he says, and lets his eyes trail down her body pointedly. “Mine too, maybe.”
She blushes an even deeper red, closes her locker quickly and turns to hurry down the hallway. Puck knows the moment she spots Finn, because she stops, head rising to stare at him. Finn stares back at her, then over at Puck, who shrugs and offers a cheeky grin until Finn turns and disappears into the throng of students. Puck doesn’t bother watching Rachel walk away.
~~~
Puck is 15 when Finn starts dating Quinn Fabray. To most of the school it’s a perfect match- the quarterback and the head cheerleader. But to Puck- and maybe to Finn judging by his even more confused than normal expression whenever Quinn is around or mentioned- it makes no sense at all.
Quinn is president of the celibacy club that suddenly the whole football team have to attend. Puck doesn’t see the point of chicks in general, other than something to stick his dick into, but he sees even less of a point to chicks who won’t even let you touch them.
In the moments where he lets himself imagine a world where he can be gay and not hate himself for it, he can pretend that the reason Finn chose Quinn as his first girlfriend is because she’s safe, because he won’t have to do anything with her, because maybe he’s secretly gay too. Maybe gay for Puck. Those are the times Puck wraps his hand around his dick and thinks of Finn in the showers, the careful glances Puck sends his way when no one’s looking so he can store it all up for later, piecing the brief moments together until it’s enough to jerk off to.
But if Finn is secretly lusting after dudes he hides it better than Puck can give him credit for. There’s probably no hope for Puck there and so he takes what he can get, hanging out whenever Finn’s not with Quinn. And when Finn’s busy, Puck finds other ways to amuse himself.
Girls, mostly, as if he still believes that if he fucks enough of them it’ll turn him straight by default. And torturing that gay kid who makes moon eyes at Finn. Puck’s pretty sure Finn hasn’t noticed, and neither have the rest of the football team, but Puck recognises the expression on the kids face that adds to his satisfaction whenever he throws the kid into the dumpster. He calls the kid a fag because he hates the kid for what he is, and at the same time envies him for being brave enough to be who he is, even when assholes like Puck make him pay for it.
~~~
“Leave Rachel alone.”
Puck doesn’t look up from restringing his guitar. The B string had snapped during practice, narrowly missing slicing his hand open. Puck was in no rush to get home so he’d hung back as the rest of the Glee club had dispersed, including Quinn who had given him a thoughtful glance before leaving.
“I thought you’d gone,” Puck says.
“Did you hear what I said?” Finn asks, and Puck lays his guitar down in his lap and looks up with a sigh.
“I heard. And I’ll do what I want.”
“What’re you going to do? Impregnate her too? Working on building yourself a little harem?”
Puck whistles through his teeth. “Impressive, Finn. A three syllable word and harem? Someone’s been studying for SATs.”
“You’re an asshole.”
Puck nods. “Probably,” he says. It seems to make Finn even madder. He has red spots high on his cheeks, the way he does whenever he’s frustrated and doesn’t know what to do.
“Just...leave her alone. Leave all of them alone. You hear me?”
Puck leans back in his chair, raising an eyebrow in challenge. “Make me,” he says, because it’s good to see how much he gets under Finn’s skin, good to see Finn getting a taste of his own medicine, understanding how Puck’s felt for the past three years. It’s not the same, and it’s not Finn’s fault, but it’s something at least, some form of revenge even if most of the time that’s not what Puck wants anymore.
Finn takes him by surprise as he reaches forwards and knocks the guitar from Puck’s lap. It lands on the floor with a hollow bang that makes Puck jump. They both stare at the guitar for a long moment.
“If you’ve broken it, I’ll break you,” Puck says calmly, getting up. They’re either going to fight or talk, and he feels his body tense in anticipation at either of those options.
But Finn shrugs like he doesn’t care, and it’s that look, aimed at Puck, that makes his blood boil. Because the only thing he’s ever wanted is for Finn to care about him. He doesn’t need Finn to love him, doesn’t even need Finn to like him, but he needs Finn to care about what he does, even if all Finn’s caring about is making the effort to hate him. Not existing in Finn’s world, that’s what Puck can’t face and he’s determined to get some sort of reaction from Finn.
He swings his fist towards Finn’s face, but Finn’s ready for him, shoving him away and punching him in the stomach. It takes the wind out of him and he goes down, but he grapples for Finn as he does, pulling them both onto the floor.
The roll about, wrestling and punching and there’s not a soul in the school to hear them or stop them. Puck fights with every pent up thought and feeling he’s had, wants to hurt Finn, to leave his mark. Puck’s a good fighter and he normally wins easily, but it seems he’s not the only one with pent up issues. Finn’s knuckles are smeared with Puck’s blood and Puck takes the blows until Finn tires and loosens up enough for Puck to flip them.
Finn lands on his back with a surprised ‘oof’ and he stares up at Puck with wide eyes and an expression Puck doesn’t understand, and doesn’t have time to before Finn is wriggling, trying to push Puck off him. He’s not fighting back anymore, just trying to get away.
“Puck, get off. Fucking get off me,” Finn says, urgent and higher pitched than normal, like he needs to get away right now, this very instant.
Puck doesn’t understand at first, just keeps pressing him down with all of his weight until he feels something hard pressed against him as Finn tries to wriggle free. It’s unexpected enough that Puck doesn’t make the connection until he’s grinding his hips down to keep Finn in place and their groins connect for a moment.
Puck feels his mouth drop open in surprise, just as Finn’s eyes roll back in his head and his hips jerk on their own. He’s surprised enough that he can’t think of anything to say and puts up no resistance when Finn pushes him off and scrambles to his feet. He stares down at Puck for a long moment and neither of them say anything, then Finn turns and sprints from the room.
Puck lies on his back on the floor for a long, long time. He licks his bottom lip, tasting blood and thinks of Finn’s face, of his dick pressed hard against him, of what it all means.
~~~
Puck is 16 when he hears Finn sing for the first time. He’s on the stage with the rest of Homo Explosion and they look like a bunch of losers, and sound it too but Finn looks...happy. It makes Puck’s stomach do flip flops which he hates because he might be a total fag somewhere deep down inside of him, but he’s not a girl, and it’s not like he’s going to rush home and write in a pink sparkly notebook about how listening to Finn sing like that makes his skin tingle. Except that it totally does. Puck gives Finn a hard time about it because he wants it to stop- he doesn’t want to have to hear Finn sing, and he doesn’t want him to spend all that time on the Glee club that Puck has nothing to do with.
Puck is 16 when he knocks up his best friend’s girl. He’s pretty sure it’s some sort of divine punishment, because he’s fucked a lot of girls and this has never happened before- that he knows of, and he’s happy to remain ignorant, just in case. Of course it has to happen with Quinn.
He freaks out when he first hears, mainly because Finn thinks he’s the father and that’s too cruel, even for Puck. He wants to make Finn pay for making Puck love him, but he doesn’t want to ruin his life like that. And then he freaks out because it’s his baby. His baby that Quinn is carrying and no matter what, he’s not going to be a loser like his dad. For a moment he lets himself imagine a future where he comes home from work to find Quinn making his dinner and their young son or daughter running up to greet him. It would be normal. It would be natural. And most of all it’d be a reason to force himself to be straight. And Finn wouldn’t be around, not once he found out. That’s a thought that feels both relieving and painful at the same time.
It’s a fantasy Puck allows himself to fall in love with, enough that he tries to make it happen but Quinn shies away, but always leaves a hint of maybe, just enough to give him hope. Puck doesn’t hate Quinn, hadn’t done, not even when she’d take Finn away from him, not even when she insisted she’d deny the baby was his. He thinks he could build a life with her, for her, and it wouldn’t be so bad. Better than how things are now, at least.
Puck is 16 when he joins Glee. To be near his future, the one that’s maybe going to save him from this thing that’s wrong with him. And because he can never deny it, no matter how hard he tries, to be part of something Finn loves. To have an excuse to be near him. To feel pangs of both happiness and hurt whenever he sees Finn with Quinn or Rachel, or whenever either of them push him away.
~~~
Puck doesn’t usually seek Finn out. He never really did it even when they were still buds. He always let Finn seek him out, so he could pretend he didn’t care and feel the flutter of excitement that Finn wanted him, even if just for video games or copying homework.
Finn’s mom is out at work and will be for hours, Puck knows. He likes Finn’s mom, likes her enough to never even have entertained the idea of flirting with her the way he does with so many other moms, more distractions from the things he hides from.
He rings the doorbell, and when Finn doesn’t answer he finds the spare key hidden in the flowerpot and lets himself in. He walks into Finn’s room without knocking. He’s never knocked before and now he’s made the guy come he’s hardly going to start now.
Finn is sitting on his bed, shirtless. The area around his left eye is darkening and it makes Puck’s knuckles ache again, remembering the contact.
“What do you want?” Finn asks, defensively. He’s not surprised to see Puck, almost seems to be expecting him.
Puck watches as Finn uses his discarded shirt as a compress, hears the ice rattle inside it as he lifts it to his eye and winces. Puck doesn’t answer for a long moment.
“You want to talk about what happened?” he asks, and Finn glares at him with his one good eye.
“No,” he says firmly. “You want to tell everyone in the school what happened?”
Puck knows that if it had been anyone else, he’d have half the football team spray painting ‘die, faggot, die’ on their locker by now. It smarts a little that Finn thinks Puck would do that to him, but he can’t help but be impressed by how there’s defiance in Finn’s eyes, like he doesn’t care what Puck tells the school about him.
“No,” Puck answers, just as firmly. “I’m not that much of a douche.”
Finn laughs, and it makes Puck smile too because yeah, okay, who’s he kidding?
“Okay, maybe I am,” he says wryly. “But I’m not going to.”
Finn licks his lips as he gives Puck a suspicious look, and Puck follows the wet path of his tongue with his eyes. He hasn’t allowed himself to look at Finn like this before, not when Finn’s aware of it, looking straight at him. But it almost doesn’t matter now. And it’s not like Finn’s going to tell anyone, not with what happened earlier.
“Why?” Finn asks, staring at Puck oddly.
Puck figures he’s got nothing to lose so he grabs Finn’s head, ignoring the bark of surprise and pain as Puck’s fingers connect with Finn’s bruised face. And he kisses him.
“What the fuck, man?” Finn pushes him away instantly, one hand on Puck’s chest to hold him at arm’s length. He drops his shirt and the ice cubes tumble onto the floor noisily.
Puck licks his lips, thinking about how all the times he let himself imagine this happening, it was never like this. Finn is looking at him with shock, but not disgust and Puck shrugs to himself and leans in again. Finn tries to hold him back but while Finn is bigger, Puck is definitely stronger. He grasps Finn’s face again and kisses him, hard and angry and hungry and Puck’s so caught up in the fact that this is the moment where everything gets fucked up forever, where Finn really does kick him out of his life so he might as well make it worth it, that it takes him too long to realise that Finn is kissing him back.
The realisation makes Puck gasp and pull away but Finn chases after him, pulling him back by the neck of his shirt and kisses him.
It’s not a friendly kiss. It’s not soft or gentle or anything Puck imagined Finn would be like. It’s hard and Puck’s teeth clack against Finn’s. Puck’s shirt is pulled completely out of shape as Finn yanks him closer and then pulls him bodily onto the bed.
“What’re we doing?” Finn asks, mouth still against Puck’s. It comes out muffled, but Puck understands. He’s wondering the same thing, or at least wondering what Finn is doing, why he isn’t punching Puck out.
“Shut the fuck up,” Puck says back, because he’s sure the moment they start talking, this all stops. And in this moment he isn’t hating himself for feelings he thinks he shouldn’t have. He isn’t hating himself for loving his best friend, and he’s not hating himself for wanting this more than anything.
Finn shuts up immediately and kisses him even harder. There’s an edge to their kisses, anger and teeth, and it feels good. Puck’s never understood why Quinn always called Finn stupid, because he’s catching on pretty quick.
Finn is almost completely on top of Puck, and it’s a nice feeling, having Finn over him like that, hand gripping Puck’s bicep as the other holds the back of his head. But Puck’s hands are just pressed to Finn’s bare back and he wants more. He’s willing to risk Finn coming to his senses and freaking out for it. So Puck pushes at Finn’s shoulder until they’re lying side by side, still making out.
He slides one hand down Finn’s chest, lower and lower until it brushes against the trail of hair that leads downwards. Finn chuckles against Puck’s lips as if it tickles and then gasps as Puck shoves his hands into Finn’s jeans. It’s a tight fit, but Puck’s impatient. He wants to touch it, not just because this is Finn’s dick inches from his fingers, but because he’s pretty sure once he does this, he’ll know for sure whether the thoughts and feelings he has, the way he thinks about guys more than he’s ever thought about girls, are something that he isn’t going to be able to fight against forever. It’s like he’s playing gay chicken with himself, and he isn’t sure what side he wants to win.
“What’re you doing?” Finn asks, and Puck rolls his eyes, wondering if maybe Quinn actually is right after all, if maybe Finn really is stupid because it seems pretty fucking obvious what he’s doing. But then his fingers brush against Finn’s dick, and Finn makes a strangled noise that distracts Puck from his thoughts. Puck shoves his hand in further, wraps his hand around Finn’s dick and squeezes lightly. It’s different that touching his own dick, obviously, but he hadn’t expected it to be this good, mostly because of the noises Finn’s making in his ear and Puck’s not even done anything yet.
He reaches down with his other hand to unbutton Finn’s jeans, but before he can free both hand and dick, Finn’s dick twitches in Puck’s palm and Finn mutters, “Oh, oh shit,” and comes all over Puck’s hand.
There’s a long moment where neither of them move, or say anything. And then Puck can’t stop himself from blurting, “really?” half in surprise and half in amusement. Part of him wants to mock Finn for blowing his load so quickly, and the other half wants to ask if he’s always like that, or if it’s because it’s Puck’s hand that’s still wrapped around him.
Finn’s face is flushed with embarrassment. “Dude, I-“
“Whatever.”
Puck pulls his hand free because his own dick is pressing hard and insistent against the confines of his jeans. He figures he can tease Finn later if needed, when he’s thought up hours and hours worth of euphemisms, but right now he’s at risk of coming in his own pants if he doesn’t do something about it.
He flicks open the button on his jeans and pushes the zipper down as quickly as he can before pulling out his dick. His hand is sticky with Finn’s cooled come as he wraps it around himself and he thinks that it should probably feel weird, but it doesn’t.
When Puck looks up, Finn is staring down at his dick apprehensively.
“Here, let me,” he reaches out when he catches Puck staring at him, but Puck bats his hand away.
“It’s okay, you don’t have to-”
“I want to, I mean, you did that to me so-”
“Yeah, but you don’t have to-”
“Move your fucking hand,” Finn says, and the forcefulness of it surprises Puck enough that he does.
He scrunches his eyes closed as he feels Finn’s fingers brush against him. He could probably come just from this, he thinks, but he’s determined to last longer than Finn did. Making it into a competition, something to focus on, helps when Finn’s hand wraps itself entirely around his dick and the determination to win stops Puck from coming then and there. Finn moves his hand, and his grasp is too tight, but Puck’s not going to complain because it’s Finn’s hand and he doesn’t want him to stop.
He opens his eyes and sees Finn watching his own hand move with the same intense scrutiny he gives to the math tests that make no sense to him but he’s determined to finish anyway. Finn bites his lip in concentration and moves his hand a little faster and Puck can’t hold out anymore. He stops himself from doing anything embarrassing like moaning Finn’s name as he comes, but only barely manages it.
Puck watches through the haze of sensation as some of his come lands on Finn’s stomach, and then stares as Finn’s stomach muscles tense. He curls in on himself slightly and makes the same “Oh, oh” noise as before.
When Puck can think straight again he props himself up on his elbow and looks down at Finn. “Again? Really?” he asks, smirking.
“No,” Finn lies, avoiding Puck’s gaze for a long moment before giving him a sheepish grin and a shrug that almost seems apologetic. It’s not needed though and Puck lets his elbow slide out from under him so he’s lying back with his head on Finn’s pillow.
They stay like that for several beats, just breathing, eyes half closed.
“Should we...should we talk about this?” Finn waves his hand between them as if there was any other ‘this’ they should be talking about right in that moment. Fights and babies and all that other stuff seem far away to Puck right now, far away enough he doesn’t have to, or want to, think about it.
“No,” Puck shakes his head, because there’s still the chance that Finn is going to freak out if he thinks about things too much. And if Finn starts freaking out, Puck’s going to have to start thinking about what this means, about how much he enjoyed touching another guy and being touched in return.
He’s starting to think about it now, even though he’s trying not to, and it’s scary because he feels weird about it, but not wrong and dirty and disgusting like he expected to feel. And he realises he’s lying here on a bed with his best friend who probably still hates him for what he did.
Puck sits up.
“I should go,” he says, and Finn sits up next to him. Their bodies are close together and for a moment Puck thinks Finn is going to kiss him. Instead he bows his head a little and looks down and it’s only then that Puck realises his dick is still hanging out of his pants.
He climbs off the bed, zipping his jeans up and pulling his t-shirt down. It looks a little worse for wear now, what with the come and the blood from the fight earlier, but it doesn’t look as bad as Finn’s blossoming black eye or the cut Puck sees on his cheek as he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror.
Finn watches him wordlessly. He looks confused, eyebrows knitting together like he can’t quite wrap his mind around what happened, and Puck understands how he feels.
“I guess I’ll see you in school tomorrow,” Puck shoves his hands into his pockets, shoulders hunched around his ears. He feels suddenly awkward in a way he’s never felt around Finn before, not even when he was jerking off to thoughts of him most nights.
Finn nods, still wordless, until Puck reaches for the door.
“Maybe,” he says, and Puck stops and turns back to him. Finn clears his throat. “Maybe after practice tomorrow. We could hang out.”
Puck nods. “Cool,” he says.
“Here,” Finn clarifies, and Puck can’t stop himself from smiling. It might be fucked up, it might be wrong, but it’s fun, and it’s spending time with Finn, and it’s something he’s wanted for a long time.
“Sure,” Puck says, and Finn offers him a smile back, and then a fist bump, both of which Puck returns.
~~~
Puck is still 16. He’s still hates himself for being gay, is still pretty sure there’s something wrong with him but it doesn’t twist as angrily inside him as it used to. He has a baby on the way that he’s not going to be allowed to raise because Quinn still insists she’s doing this on her own. He has a floundering reputation because no matter how much Mr Schue insists that getting to regionals is going to make Glee cool, it’s never going to be true. He has a bunch of people who call themselves his friends even though Puck’s not sure they like him and he’s not sure he likes most of them either. And he has a best friend who hasn’t forgiven him for screwing him over but is talking to him again and occasionally, in awkward moments they still don’t talk about afterwards, fucking him.
It’s all pretty fucked up, but so is Puck. And he’s dealing better than he thought he would. It hasn’t changed him from being angry at the world or with himself or with Finn, hasn’t stopped him wanting things he shouldn’t, but he’s beginning to think that maybe things aren’t supposed to be normal, or that normal doesn’t exist, or that if it does, not being normal is an okay thing to be.
Pairing: Puck/Finn
Rating: R/NC-17
Wordcount: ~6k
Spoilers: All aired episodes so far
Warnings: Swearing and use of homophobic slurs by a character.
Summary: Puck has a secret that makes him angry at himself and the world- he’s in love with his best friend, but he’s determined not to be happy about it.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters.
A/N: Title belongs to OKGo. Wonderfully betaed by redandglenda who has let me talk her ear off about this pairing for several days now. All mistakes are mine.
This is my first attempt at Gleefic, so I’m still learning a lot, but I hopefully haven’t made too many canon errors. Concrit is always welcomed.
Finn looks at Puck like he hates him and really, Puck can’t blame him. Puck tells himself he doesn’t care. He’s gotten good at lying to himself over the years, so this is easy.
But Finn doesn’t look at Quinn at all, so there’s something at least. Puck still exists in Finn’s periphery. He’s still in his thoughts.
Puck’s pretty sure any thoughts Finn has of him are driving him crazy. And it makes him smirk, because that’s pretty much all he’s ever wanted.
~~~
Puck is 13 when he wrestles with Finn for possession of the Xbox controller and feels his dick give a twitch. It’s not the first time it’s happened- he is a teenager after all- but it’s the first time it’s happened in response to Finn’s wriggling body pressed hard against him, arms wrapped around Puck from behind as his fingers scramble to get hold of the controller.
Puck is immediately disgusted with himself. He knows that you’re not supposed to react like that to another dude. It’s wrong, which means there’s something wrong with him.
Finn doesn’t notice, just grabs the controller back and proceeds to beat Puck’s ass. Puck protests the victory. He’s too distracted feeling sick, hating himself and feeling dirty, although he can’t say that so Finn shoves him and laughs and calls him a sore loser.
When Finn goes home, Puck showers to try and rid himself of that unclean feeling. It works until he starts jerking off and finds his thoughts lingering on the way Finn had whooped with joy when he’d won, throwing his arms up and grinning. Finn had punched Puck in the arm when he’d accused Finn of cheating and Puck can’t stop himself picturing that fist wrapped around his dick instead of his own.
He comes at the thought, gasping into the shower spray. Then he washes off his hand, stands with his face under the water for too long, as if hoping it’ll somehow absolve him of whatever the fuck is wrong inside him. And then he gets out, gets dressed and punches a hole in his bedroom wall.
He hides the dent with a poster so his mom won’t find out and yell at him, ignoring the pain in his knuckles. The blood has almost dried by the time he finally looks at it, prodding with a finger. The pain feels good, a good kind of punishment for the fucked up thoughts he’s having about his best friend.
Puck isn’t a fag. He won’t let himself be one. And since his asshole of a father isn’t around to beat it out of him, Puck does the job himself. It becomes easier to pick fights and let someone else get a few swings in, to feel the pain spread through his jaw or solar plexus, overwhelming any thoughts, including gay ones. And the sensation of skin and sometimes bone breaking under Puck’s fists feels even better.
That summer he gets sent away to camp. His mom keeps saying she doesn’t know what’s wrong with him, that he’s going to end up like his bum of a dad if he doesn’t straighten up.
Puck laughs in her face because that’s exactly what he’s trying to make himself do, and then feels guilty about it later because it’s not her fault. He can’t explain himself though- can’t bear to see the look of disgust and disappointment on her face if she ever found out how sick and twisted he is, so he goes upstairs and packs and heads off to camp the next day without argument.
Eight days in, he fucks a junior councillor from the girls camp across the lake. He tells her he’s 16 and she believes him and lets him stare at her boobs and slide a finger inside her and, eventually, stick his dick in her. It doesn’t last long, and she doesn’t seem that impressed but Puck doesn’t care because it was awesome.
He couldn’t care less about the girl or her girl parts, but it’s somewhere to stick his dick that isn’t his hand and it felt good. And he didn’t think about Finn, or any other guys, the entire time.
~~~
“Hey man,” Puck says as he slouches into practice.
Finn looks up from the piano in surprise, either from the fact that Puck is uncharacteristically early- no one else is there yet, not even Rachel- or from the greeting that Puck insists on giving him whenever they cross paths. Generally Finn doesn’t reply, but that isn’t going to stop Puck from trying.
“Hey,” Finn says after a moment. He holds Puck’s gaze for a moment, then looks back at the sheet music in his hands.
“What’s that?” Puck asks, moving to lean against the side of the piano. He’s pushing his luck, he knows, but he wants a reaction from Finn. Needs a reaction. He doesn’t care what it is- a smile or a punch to the throat, he’ll take it. Because it’s been three weeks now and Puck misses him, even if he’d never admit it.
Finn doesn’t look up this time. “New song,” he shrugs. “Mr. Schue thought we could test it out.”
“Cool,” Puck nods.
Neither of them says anything else, but they’re in the same room, breathing the same air, and Finn isn’t sending him death glares and Puck isn’t watching Finn’s hands spread, unmoving, across the piano keys and wondering how they’d feel spread out against his ribs instead. Much.
He feels they’ve both moved on a lot.
Rachel bustles into the room with that air of importance she has. She stops when she sees them, nods at Puck with a small smile, then widens it to greet Finn.
“Hi!” she says brightly.
Finn glances her way. His expression isn’t unfriendly but it is guarded.
“Hey Rachel,” he says without enthusiasm, and Puck watches Rachel’s thousand watt smile dim for a moment, before returning even brighter than before. Puck knows Rachel is going to make it on Broadway or wherever she wants to end up, because she’s one hell of an actor.
She hurries across the room, her sensible buckle-up heels clicking in a rapid beat. She keeps her back to them until the rest of the club arrives, pretending to search in her bag for something.
Puck almost feels bad for her. He hadn’t expected Finn to shoot the messenger, and they’d seemed to be okay after sectionals but Finn had become more and more withdrawn in the days since. It made Puck wonder if something had happened between the two of them.
Finn hadn’t confided in him for a long time- they weren’t that kind of best friends, apparently, although Puck could hardly protest considering he’d knocked Quinn up and not said anything. Instead they’re the kind of best friends where one is in love with the other and fucks everything in both their lives up beyond all recognition.
~~~
Puck is 14 when he admits to himself these feelings he’s been having- thoughts about dudes, thoughts that still disgust him and make him feel sick, especially thoughts about Finn- aren’t going away.
But it doesn’t mean he has to accept it. And it doesn’t mean anyone ever needs to suspect it. He knows that the best defence is a good offense so he never lets anyone have the chance to accuse him of being gay. The moment a guy glances too long in his direction, he loudly labels them a fag. He loves the way ‘that’s so fucking gay’ drips off his tongue with malice whenever he talks about something that sucks. It makes him feel like one of the guys, because they’re all doing it too, and it helps to remind himself that if he lets himself be gay, he’s going to be the one facing this abuse. He doesn’t want that, and it’s another incentive to push those feelings away as far as they’ll go.
He makes sure his reputation with the ladies is well known. There’s not much choice in Lima for a 14 year old, but there are enough girls who’re easily pressured into making out with him and grinding against him. He never thinks about them when he’s doing it, and hardly ever thinks of Finn. But when he does he makes sure there’s no doubt in anyone else’s mind that Noah Puckerman’s sexuality is straighter than a straight thing.
~~~
“He’ll come around,” Puck leans against the lockers and smiles when Rachel jumps.
She turns towards him, hand still resting on the book she was neatly sliding into place.
“Hello,” she says. She looks nervous, like he’s hiding a slushie somewhere, but it’s been a long time since Puck’s slushied anyone. It probably means he’s growing as a person. Or that he’s got other things to think about.
He smiles at her. She hesitantly smiles back and it reminds him of how she’d looked beneath him on her bed.
The thing with Rachel had happened for two reasons.
Puck had been sure his mom was onto something with the nice Jewish girl thing. Puck’s generally not one to believe in God but he was pretty sure the dream about Rachel was a sign. A sign that a nice Jewish girl might be the one to finally rid his mind of these unnatural thoughts. He’s willing to try it anyway, and Rachel is hot enough that it’s not like it’s a chore. Puck still wonders if fucking her would have helped sort his head out, but that’s something he’ll never get to find out, especially not now.
The second reason is that everyone with a pair of eyes knows Rachel is hot for Finn. And it makes Puck curious. He wants to taste her lust for Finn, to see if it compares to his own. Rachel’s not his competition since Puck isn’t trying to get Finn- he’s not going to be gay, no matter what his mind and body tries to make him believe- but it doesn’t mean Puck doesn’t want to see what her deal is.
It’s part of the reason why he fucked Quinn, although that was at least partially motivated by wanting to destroy their relationship. He’s not sure if by ‘their relationship’ he means Finn and Quinn’s, or his and Finn’s, but either way he knew it’d make things different if anyone found out, and different was better than how things were.
“Was there something you wanted, Noah?” Rachel asks, and Puck smiles and leans in to trail a finger across her shoulder and down her arm, the soft wool of her sweater tickling his hand as he moves it. There’s always going to be the what-if factor with Rachel, that maybe she could have cured him, but that’s not why he’s flirting with her now. He can see Finn watching them from down the hallway, and it makes Puck’s smile grow wider.
“I was just thinking we should practice together again sometime,” he says, making his voice low and husky. “I had a lot of fun last time.”
Rachel’s cheeks colour and she shivers, but her face doesn’t show repulsion like he’d almost been expecting. It does seem confused though, and a little annoyed.
“Shouldn’t you be buying baby grows and betraying more of your friends?” she asks, and it makes Puck laugh. He likes that Rachel has a bit of bite to her, that it keeps him on his toes. It’s a nice distraction from everything else swirling around in his mind.
He shrugs. “Your loss,” he says, and lets his eyes trail down her body pointedly. “Mine too, maybe.”
She blushes an even deeper red, closes her locker quickly and turns to hurry down the hallway. Puck knows the moment she spots Finn, because she stops, head rising to stare at him. Finn stares back at her, then over at Puck, who shrugs and offers a cheeky grin until Finn turns and disappears into the throng of students. Puck doesn’t bother watching Rachel walk away.
~~~
Puck is 15 when Finn starts dating Quinn Fabray. To most of the school it’s a perfect match- the quarterback and the head cheerleader. But to Puck- and maybe to Finn judging by his even more confused than normal expression whenever Quinn is around or mentioned- it makes no sense at all.
Quinn is president of the celibacy club that suddenly the whole football team have to attend. Puck doesn’t see the point of chicks in general, other than something to stick his dick into, but he sees even less of a point to chicks who won’t even let you touch them.
In the moments where he lets himself imagine a world where he can be gay and not hate himself for it, he can pretend that the reason Finn chose Quinn as his first girlfriend is because she’s safe, because he won’t have to do anything with her, because maybe he’s secretly gay too. Maybe gay for Puck. Those are the times Puck wraps his hand around his dick and thinks of Finn in the showers, the careful glances Puck sends his way when no one’s looking so he can store it all up for later, piecing the brief moments together until it’s enough to jerk off to.
But if Finn is secretly lusting after dudes he hides it better than Puck can give him credit for. There’s probably no hope for Puck there and so he takes what he can get, hanging out whenever Finn’s not with Quinn. And when Finn’s busy, Puck finds other ways to amuse himself.
Girls, mostly, as if he still believes that if he fucks enough of them it’ll turn him straight by default. And torturing that gay kid who makes moon eyes at Finn. Puck’s pretty sure Finn hasn’t noticed, and neither have the rest of the football team, but Puck recognises the expression on the kids face that adds to his satisfaction whenever he throws the kid into the dumpster. He calls the kid a fag because he hates the kid for what he is, and at the same time envies him for being brave enough to be who he is, even when assholes like Puck make him pay for it.
~~~
“Leave Rachel alone.”
Puck doesn’t look up from restringing his guitar. The B string had snapped during practice, narrowly missing slicing his hand open. Puck was in no rush to get home so he’d hung back as the rest of the Glee club had dispersed, including Quinn who had given him a thoughtful glance before leaving.
“I thought you’d gone,” Puck says.
“Did you hear what I said?” Finn asks, and Puck lays his guitar down in his lap and looks up with a sigh.
“I heard. And I’ll do what I want.”
“What’re you going to do? Impregnate her too? Working on building yourself a little harem?”
Puck whistles through his teeth. “Impressive, Finn. A three syllable word and harem? Someone’s been studying for SATs.”
“You’re an asshole.”
Puck nods. “Probably,” he says. It seems to make Finn even madder. He has red spots high on his cheeks, the way he does whenever he’s frustrated and doesn’t know what to do.
“Just...leave her alone. Leave all of them alone. You hear me?”
Puck leans back in his chair, raising an eyebrow in challenge. “Make me,” he says, because it’s good to see how much he gets under Finn’s skin, good to see Finn getting a taste of his own medicine, understanding how Puck’s felt for the past three years. It’s not the same, and it’s not Finn’s fault, but it’s something at least, some form of revenge even if most of the time that’s not what Puck wants anymore.
Finn takes him by surprise as he reaches forwards and knocks the guitar from Puck’s lap. It lands on the floor with a hollow bang that makes Puck jump. They both stare at the guitar for a long moment.
“If you’ve broken it, I’ll break you,” Puck says calmly, getting up. They’re either going to fight or talk, and he feels his body tense in anticipation at either of those options.
But Finn shrugs like he doesn’t care, and it’s that look, aimed at Puck, that makes his blood boil. Because the only thing he’s ever wanted is for Finn to care about him. He doesn’t need Finn to love him, doesn’t even need Finn to like him, but he needs Finn to care about what he does, even if all Finn’s caring about is making the effort to hate him. Not existing in Finn’s world, that’s what Puck can’t face and he’s determined to get some sort of reaction from Finn.
He swings his fist towards Finn’s face, but Finn’s ready for him, shoving him away and punching him in the stomach. It takes the wind out of him and he goes down, but he grapples for Finn as he does, pulling them both onto the floor.
The roll about, wrestling and punching and there’s not a soul in the school to hear them or stop them. Puck fights with every pent up thought and feeling he’s had, wants to hurt Finn, to leave his mark. Puck’s a good fighter and he normally wins easily, but it seems he’s not the only one with pent up issues. Finn’s knuckles are smeared with Puck’s blood and Puck takes the blows until Finn tires and loosens up enough for Puck to flip them.
Finn lands on his back with a surprised ‘oof’ and he stares up at Puck with wide eyes and an expression Puck doesn’t understand, and doesn’t have time to before Finn is wriggling, trying to push Puck off him. He’s not fighting back anymore, just trying to get away.
“Puck, get off. Fucking get off me,” Finn says, urgent and higher pitched than normal, like he needs to get away right now, this very instant.
Puck doesn’t understand at first, just keeps pressing him down with all of his weight until he feels something hard pressed against him as Finn tries to wriggle free. It’s unexpected enough that Puck doesn’t make the connection until he’s grinding his hips down to keep Finn in place and their groins connect for a moment.
Puck feels his mouth drop open in surprise, just as Finn’s eyes roll back in his head and his hips jerk on their own. He’s surprised enough that he can’t think of anything to say and puts up no resistance when Finn pushes him off and scrambles to his feet. He stares down at Puck for a long moment and neither of them say anything, then Finn turns and sprints from the room.
Puck lies on his back on the floor for a long, long time. He licks his bottom lip, tasting blood and thinks of Finn’s face, of his dick pressed hard against him, of what it all means.
~~~
Puck is 16 when he hears Finn sing for the first time. He’s on the stage with the rest of Homo Explosion and they look like a bunch of losers, and sound it too but Finn looks...happy. It makes Puck’s stomach do flip flops which he hates because he might be a total fag somewhere deep down inside of him, but he’s not a girl, and it’s not like he’s going to rush home and write in a pink sparkly notebook about how listening to Finn sing like that makes his skin tingle. Except that it totally does. Puck gives Finn a hard time about it because he wants it to stop- he doesn’t want to have to hear Finn sing, and he doesn’t want him to spend all that time on the Glee club that Puck has nothing to do with.
Puck is 16 when he knocks up his best friend’s girl. He’s pretty sure it’s some sort of divine punishment, because he’s fucked a lot of girls and this has never happened before- that he knows of, and he’s happy to remain ignorant, just in case. Of course it has to happen with Quinn.
He freaks out when he first hears, mainly because Finn thinks he’s the father and that’s too cruel, even for Puck. He wants to make Finn pay for making Puck love him, but he doesn’t want to ruin his life like that. And then he freaks out because it’s his baby. His baby that Quinn is carrying and no matter what, he’s not going to be a loser like his dad. For a moment he lets himself imagine a future where he comes home from work to find Quinn making his dinner and their young son or daughter running up to greet him. It would be normal. It would be natural. And most of all it’d be a reason to force himself to be straight. And Finn wouldn’t be around, not once he found out. That’s a thought that feels both relieving and painful at the same time.
It’s a fantasy Puck allows himself to fall in love with, enough that he tries to make it happen but Quinn shies away, but always leaves a hint of maybe, just enough to give him hope. Puck doesn’t hate Quinn, hadn’t done, not even when she’d take Finn away from him, not even when she insisted she’d deny the baby was his. He thinks he could build a life with her, for her, and it wouldn’t be so bad. Better than how things are now, at least.
Puck is 16 when he joins Glee. To be near his future, the one that’s maybe going to save him from this thing that’s wrong with him. And because he can never deny it, no matter how hard he tries, to be part of something Finn loves. To have an excuse to be near him. To feel pangs of both happiness and hurt whenever he sees Finn with Quinn or Rachel, or whenever either of them push him away.
~~~
Puck doesn’t usually seek Finn out. He never really did it even when they were still buds. He always let Finn seek him out, so he could pretend he didn’t care and feel the flutter of excitement that Finn wanted him, even if just for video games or copying homework.
Finn’s mom is out at work and will be for hours, Puck knows. He likes Finn’s mom, likes her enough to never even have entertained the idea of flirting with her the way he does with so many other moms, more distractions from the things he hides from.
He rings the doorbell, and when Finn doesn’t answer he finds the spare key hidden in the flowerpot and lets himself in. He walks into Finn’s room without knocking. He’s never knocked before and now he’s made the guy come he’s hardly going to start now.
Finn is sitting on his bed, shirtless. The area around his left eye is darkening and it makes Puck’s knuckles ache again, remembering the contact.
“What do you want?” Finn asks, defensively. He’s not surprised to see Puck, almost seems to be expecting him.
Puck watches as Finn uses his discarded shirt as a compress, hears the ice rattle inside it as he lifts it to his eye and winces. Puck doesn’t answer for a long moment.
“You want to talk about what happened?” he asks, and Finn glares at him with his one good eye.
“No,” he says firmly. “You want to tell everyone in the school what happened?”
Puck knows that if it had been anyone else, he’d have half the football team spray painting ‘die, faggot, die’ on their locker by now. It smarts a little that Finn thinks Puck would do that to him, but he can’t help but be impressed by how there’s defiance in Finn’s eyes, like he doesn’t care what Puck tells the school about him.
“No,” Puck answers, just as firmly. “I’m not that much of a douche.”
Finn laughs, and it makes Puck smile too because yeah, okay, who’s he kidding?
“Okay, maybe I am,” he says wryly. “But I’m not going to.”
Finn licks his lips as he gives Puck a suspicious look, and Puck follows the wet path of his tongue with his eyes. He hasn’t allowed himself to look at Finn like this before, not when Finn’s aware of it, looking straight at him. But it almost doesn’t matter now. And it’s not like Finn’s going to tell anyone, not with what happened earlier.
“Why?” Finn asks, staring at Puck oddly.
Puck figures he’s got nothing to lose so he grabs Finn’s head, ignoring the bark of surprise and pain as Puck’s fingers connect with Finn’s bruised face. And he kisses him.
“What the fuck, man?” Finn pushes him away instantly, one hand on Puck’s chest to hold him at arm’s length. He drops his shirt and the ice cubes tumble onto the floor noisily.
Puck licks his lips, thinking about how all the times he let himself imagine this happening, it was never like this. Finn is looking at him with shock, but not disgust and Puck shrugs to himself and leans in again. Finn tries to hold him back but while Finn is bigger, Puck is definitely stronger. He grasps Finn’s face again and kisses him, hard and angry and hungry and Puck’s so caught up in the fact that this is the moment where everything gets fucked up forever, where Finn really does kick him out of his life so he might as well make it worth it, that it takes him too long to realise that Finn is kissing him back.
The realisation makes Puck gasp and pull away but Finn chases after him, pulling him back by the neck of his shirt and kisses him.
It’s not a friendly kiss. It’s not soft or gentle or anything Puck imagined Finn would be like. It’s hard and Puck’s teeth clack against Finn’s. Puck’s shirt is pulled completely out of shape as Finn yanks him closer and then pulls him bodily onto the bed.
“What’re we doing?” Finn asks, mouth still against Puck’s. It comes out muffled, but Puck understands. He’s wondering the same thing, or at least wondering what Finn is doing, why he isn’t punching Puck out.
“Shut the fuck up,” Puck says back, because he’s sure the moment they start talking, this all stops. And in this moment he isn’t hating himself for feelings he thinks he shouldn’t have. He isn’t hating himself for loving his best friend, and he’s not hating himself for wanting this more than anything.
Finn shuts up immediately and kisses him even harder. There’s an edge to their kisses, anger and teeth, and it feels good. Puck’s never understood why Quinn always called Finn stupid, because he’s catching on pretty quick.
Finn is almost completely on top of Puck, and it’s a nice feeling, having Finn over him like that, hand gripping Puck’s bicep as the other holds the back of his head. But Puck’s hands are just pressed to Finn’s bare back and he wants more. He’s willing to risk Finn coming to his senses and freaking out for it. So Puck pushes at Finn’s shoulder until they’re lying side by side, still making out.
He slides one hand down Finn’s chest, lower and lower until it brushes against the trail of hair that leads downwards. Finn chuckles against Puck’s lips as if it tickles and then gasps as Puck shoves his hands into Finn’s jeans. It’s a tight fit, but Puck’s impatient. He wants to touch it, not just because this is Finn’s dick inches from his fingers, but because he’s pretty sure once he does this, he’ll know for sure whether the thoughts and feelings he has, the way he thinks about guys more than he’s ever thought about girls, are something that he isn’t going to be able to fight against forever. It’s like he’s playing gay chicken with himself, and he isn’t sure what side he wants to win.
“What’re you doing?” Finn asks, and Puck rolls his eyes, wondering if maybe Quinn actually is right after all, if maybe Finn really is stupid because it seems pretty fucking obvious what he’s doing. But then his fingers brush against Finn’s dick, and Finn makes a strangled noise that distracts Puck from his thoughts. Puck shoves his hand in further, wraps his hand around Finn’s dick and squeezes lightly. It’s different that touching his own dick, obviously, but he hadn’t expected it to be this good, mostly because of the noises Finn’s making in his ear and Puck’s not even done anything yet.
He reaches down with his other hand to unbutton Finn’s jeans, but before he can free both hand and dick, Finn’s dick twitches in Puck’s palm and Finn mutters, “Oh, oh shit,” and comes all over Puck’s hand.
There’s a long moment where neither of them move, or say anything. And then Puck can’t stop himself from blurting, “really?” half in surprise and half in amusement. Part of him wants to mock Finn for blowing his load so quickly, and the other half wants to ask if he’s always like that, or if it’s because it’s Puck’s hand that’s still wrapped around him.
Finn’s face is flushed with embarrassment. “Dude, I-“
“Whatever.”
Puck pulls his hand free because his own dick is pressing hard and insistent against the confines of his jeans. He figures he can tease Finn later if needed, when he’s thought up hours and hours worth of euphemisms, but right now he’s at risk of coming in his own pants if he doesn’t do something about it.
He flicks open the button on his jeans and pushes the zipper down as quickly as he can before pulling out his dick. His hand is sticky with Finn’s cooled come as he wraps it around himself and he thinks that it should probably feel weird, but it doesn’t.
When Puck looks up, Finn is staring down at his dick apprehensively.
“Here, let me,” he reaches out when he catches Puck staring at him, but Puck bats his hand away.
“It’s okay, you don’t have to-”
“I want to, I mean, you did that to me so-”
“Yeah, but you don’t have to-”
“Move your fucking hand,” Finn says, and the forcefulness of it surprises Puck enough that he does.
He scrunches his eyes closed as he feels Finn’s fingers brush against him. He could probably come just from this, he thinks, but he’s determined to last longer than Finn did. Making it into a competition, something to focus on, helps when Finn’s hand wraps itself entirely around his dick and the determination to win stops Puck from coming then and there. Finn moves his hand, and his grasp is too tight, but Puck’s not going to complain because it’s Finn’s hand and he doesn’t want him to stop.
He opens his eyes and sees Finn watching his own hand move with the same intense scrutiny he gives to the math tests that make no sense to him but he’s determined to finish anyway. Finn bites his lip in concentration and moves his hand a little faster and Puck can’t hold out anymore. He stops himself from doing anything embarrassing like moaning Finn’s name as he comes, but only barely manages it.
Puck watches through the haze of sensation as some of his come lands on Finn’s stomach, and then stares as Finn’s stomach muscles tense. He curls in on himself slightly and makes the same “Oh, oh” noise as before.
When Puck can think straight again he props himself up on his elbow and looks down at Finn. “Again? Really?” he asks, smirking.
“No,” Finn lies, avoiding Puck’s gaze for a long moment before giving him a sheepish grin and a shrug that almost seems apologetic. It’s not needed though and Puck lets his elbow slide out from under him so he’s lying back with his head on Finn’s pillow.
They stay like that for several beats, just breathing, eyes half closed.
“Should we...should we talk about this?” Finn waves his hand between them as if there was any other ‘this’ they should be talking about right in that moment. Fights and babies and all that other stuff seem far away to Puck right now, far away enough he doesn’t have to, or want to, think about it.
“No,” Puck shakes his head, because there’s still the chance that Finn is going to freak out if he thinks about things too much. And if Finn starts freaking out, Puck’s going to have to start thinking about what this means, about how much he enjoyed touching another guy and being touched in return.
He’s starting to think about it now, even though he’s trying not to, and it’s scary because he feels weird about it, but not wrong and dirty and disgusting like he expected to feel. And he realises he’s lying here on a bed with his best friend who probably still hates him for what he did.
Puck sits up.
“I should go,” he says, and Finn sits up next to him. Their bodies are close together and for a moment Puck thinks Finn is going to kiss him. Instead he bows his head a little and looks down and it’s only then that Puck realises his dick is still hanging out of his pants.
He climbs off the bed, zipping his jeans up and pulling his t-shirt down. It looks a little worse for wear now, what with the come and the blood from the fight earlier, but it doesn’t look as bad as Finn’s blossoming black eye or the cut Puck sees on his cheek as he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror.
Finn watches him wordlessly. He looks confused, eyebrows knitting together like he can’t quite wrap his mind around what happened, and Puck understands how he feels.
“I guess I’ll see you in school tomorrow,” Puck shoves his hands into his pockets, shoulders hunched around his ears. He feels suddenly awkward in a way he’s never felt around Finn before, not even when he was jerking off to thoughts of him most nights.
Finn nods, still wordless, until Puck reaches for the door.
“Maybe,” he says, and Puck stops and turns back to him. Finn clears his throat. “Maybe after practice tomorrow. We could hang out.”
Puck nods. “Cool,” he says.
“Here,” Finn clarifies, and Puck can’t stop himself from smiling. It might be fucked up, it might be wrong, but it’s fun, and it’s spending time with Finn, and it’s something he’s wanted for a long time.
“Sure,” Puck says, and Finn offers him a smile back, and then a fist bump, both of which Puck returns.
~~~
Puck is still 16. He’s still hates himself for being gay, is still pretty sure there’s something wrong with him but it doesn’t twist as angrily inside him as it used to. He has a baby on the way that he’s not going to be allowed to raise because Quinn still insists she’s doing this on her own. He has a floundering reputation because no matter how much Mr Schue insists that getting to regionals is going to make Glee cool, it’s never going to be true. He has a bunch of people who call themselves his friends even though Puck’s not sure they like him and he’s not sure he likes most of them either. And he has a best friend who hasn’t forgiven him for screwing him over but is talking to him again and occasionally, in awkward moments they still don’t talk about afterwards, fucking him.
It’s all pretty fucked up, but so is Puck. And he’s dealing better than he thought he would. It hasn’t changed him from being angry at the world or with himself or with Finn, hasn’t stopped him wanting things he shouldn’t, but he’s beginning to think that maybe things aren’t supposed to be normal, or that normal doesn’t exist, or that if it does, not being normal is an okay thing to be.