Fic: The Mysterious Case of the Socks Under the Tree (Glee, Finn/Puck)
Title: The Mysterious Case of the Socks Under the Tree
Pairing: Finn/Puck
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~2800
Summary: After finding an anonymous package under his tree, Finn tries to solve the mystery of who left it.
Author’s Notes: Written for auchic in the Finn/Puck Holiday Exchange. Originally posted here. Many thanks to the lovely becca_radcgg for her help.
His toes, where they stuck out from beneath the blankets, were cold. He wiggled them, trying to get the circulation going, to keep them warm, to stop them from feeling like ten ice cubes stuck to his feet. Also, it was something to do to pass the time.
Finn had been awake for hours, blankets pulled up to his nose to hide away from the wintery morning. There was snow outside- probably, hopefully- and maybe later, after the presents were opened, the whole family could go for a walk or have a snowball fight or make snowmen.
The whole family. It was a strange concept, one he still wasn’t used to. His entire life, Christmas had been about the two of them. Now they were four which meant all of the holiday trimmings. It was exciting.
But not as exciting as the knowledge of piles of presents, sitting underneath the tree downstairs. They’d decorated it earlier in the week, the room smelling like pine and cinnamon from the special eggnog his mom made every year. With the talking and laughing it had taken them hours. And even though Kurt had snuck down in the night and rearranged everything in a less-higgledy-piggledy and more-artistically-balanced way, Finn was still proud of their tree. The family tree.
Where the presents lived. Wrapped in shiny paper that would crinkle and tear beneath his fingers, ribbons that would have to be pried off with his fingernails, tape that would inevitably end up getting stuck to his elbow, unnoticed for most of the day. Some of the presents he’d already seen, had held and smelled and shaken to try and guess what was inside. And some would have appeared, as if by magic, laid out by his mom late last night, with labels reading ‘Love, Santa’ on them. Those, the unknown, the unguessed, were what Finn liked best.
His fingers itched to unwrap, to unknot, and later to wind around a hot mug of chocolate. It was time for Christmas Day to start already. Finn was not a patient guy.
The house was silent. Not a creature stirred, except Finn with the twitching icicles he’d once called his toes. He’d been waiting and waiting, ears straining for the first signs of life, for someone besides him to rush downstairs and declare open season on the piles of gifts.
But no one did. And, eventually, Finn couldn’t keep himself in bed any longer.
He threw back the covers, sliding his legs over the side of the bed. He pulled on his robe, padding in bare feet to his bedroom door. He listened. He sighed.
He opened the door and coughed loudly once, twice. Nothing happened. No response.
Finn started down the stairs, shivering from the chill of the wooden steps on his feet, toes curling as he walked. He wished he’d let his mom buy him the ridiculous Rudolph slippers they’d seen earlier that week at the mall. With a light up nose on the end he’d have looked ridiculous, but at least he’d have been warm.
Downstairs, the tree loomed above him, branches spread wide in invitation- to reach under, to pull out presents and unwrap to discover the mysteries within. But Finn had been down that road, more than once, and it was always the sad disappointment in his mom’s eyes (at missing the look on his face, more than anything else) that was worse than the shouting.
He turned on the lights, watching them twinkle on the tree for a moment. And then, unable to take it any longer, he moved to the foot of the stairs and yelled, “Merry Christmas!”
There were muffled noises. A door opened, and then another, and three bleary eyed family members stumbled downstairs, perking up as hot drinks were handed out and carols were played and presents passed around.
Finn’s world turned into a flurry of brightly coloured paper, with a surrounding moat of gifts. He’d never minded what he was given, not really. It was the act- the giving, the unveiling- that he loved. But it didn’t mean that the Wii console from Burt wasn’t the best gift he’d been given in years.
And then-
“There’s still one left,” Kurt said, reaching under the tree, right to the very back. He emerged with a small, lumpy package, wrapped carefully but inexpertly, and then tossed it into Finn’s lap.
There was no label, but someone had scrawled, in black marker, “FINN” across the pale blue paper. Finn looked to his mom, who looked puzzled.
He opened it, more carefully than normal. Not knowing who it was from made the mystery, the reveal, even more exciting.
The last piece of tape gave way, and the paper fell open, revealing a pair of woollen socks.
Finn picked one up. They were thick and brown, a stripe of blue around the top, and clearly handmade, his fingers going through a hole that probably wasn’t meant to be there, as he turned the sock over to look at it.
He pulled them on. One was a little shorter than the other, but he didn’t care. They were warm, and his toes wriggled happily inside them.
“I wonder who made them,” Finn said, looking around the room. His mom and Burt shook their heads and Kurt looked disgusted at the implication it might have been him.
“Brown is so out this season,” he said, “and they clash with the scarf I gave you.”
Finn wrapped the scarf around his neck, to make Kurt smile, and said, “I don’t mind.”
Then he spent the rest of the day eating too much and lying on the couch.
~~~
The next day he went to see Rachel.
“I got socks for Christmas,” he remarked, in case they were from her.
“I had tofu chow mein,” Rachel told him. “Why are you here? Last week you tell me you want to break up, and today you show up on my doorstep. Does this mean-”
“No,” Finn said quickly. He felt like a dick when Rachel’s face fell. “I mean. I don’t know. It’s...complicated.”
Rachel nodded slowly.
“I need some time,” he said. “And I need to find out who gave me these socks.” He hoped he sounded more concerned about the relationship than the socks, but judging by Rachel’s face, he didn’t.
Rachel thought for a moment. “Tina knits,” she said. “She makes those fingerless gloves she always wears.”
~~~
Tina made Finn take off his boots to show her.
She shook her head. “Those were made by a beginner,” she said, poking at a hole near the heel. It tickled and Finn accidentally kicked her as he tried to move away.
Tina looked unimpressed. “Those are dropped stitches. A rookie mistake. But they’re still really good.”
“And they weren’t from you?” Finn asked again.
Tina shook her head and showed him to the door.
~~~
The next day he went to Quinn’s place. Her mom answered the door and gave him an unfriendly look that probably had something to do with him breaking the news of Quinn’s pregnancy in song over dinner that one time. Which was unfair, considering everything.
She made him wait on the front stoop, even though it was cold, even though it was snowing. He stomped his feet, warm in the knobbly socks, to shake snow from his shoes and blew into his hands to heat them up.
Quinn frowned when she saw him.
“Finn,” she said, careful and blank.
“Did you knit me a pair of socks?” Finn blurted uncomfortably.
Quinn stared at him.
“What?”
“Socks,” he repeated. “I got a pair for Christmas.”
She was still staring.
“And I thought maybe you’d made them. Because maybe you knit. Because a lot of people who have babies seem to knit those booties and I thought that...”
Quinn folded her arms across her chest.
“Never mind,” Finn said, taking a step backwards.
“Finn! Hey!” Sam appeared behind Quinn and Finn stared in surprise.
“Sam!” he said. “I didn’t expect to see you. I guess...uh...” He looked at Quinn, who was giving him that look, the one that kept her on the top of the food chain at McKinley. He looked at Sam. He looked back at Quinn.
He opened his mouth and Quinn’s eyes narrowed in warning.
“Sam, did you give me a pair of handmade socks for Christmas?”
~~~
“Your feet smell,” Kurt remarked that night, looking pointedly at where Finn’s feet rested on the coffee table. “How many days have you been wearing those now?”
“Three,” Finn said, which wasn’t as long as he sometimes wore socks, when he ran out of clean ones. But he grabbed his ankle, twisting his leg to get his face as close to his foot as he could manage, like those Cirque du Soleil people. Who apparently were made of rubber like the Stretch Armstrong doll he’d had as a kid. Finn only managed to get his foot halfway to his face, but he sniffed anyway.
“Maybe I should wash them,” he said, and took Kurt’s wrinkled nose and raised eyebrow as agreement.
He washed them in his bathroom sink, using a bit of shampoo and hot water from the tap. Then he laid them out by a heater to dry, and went to sleep.
~~~
They shrank.
His mom looked amused as she explained proper wool laundry techniques while he half listened. He had other things on his mind.
He didn’t mind that they’d shrunk. They were snug around his toes now, pressing them together, still keeping them warm, still doing their job.
Later, he went for a walk, stepping happily through the snow, enjoying the numbness of the tip of his nose, the sharpness of each breath and the way he could see that breath curl up and away with each exhale.
He walked to Puck’s house and knocked at the door.
The sock mystery- one he wasn’t sure he was going to solve- had been good to take his mind off other things, now that the rush of Christmas was over. Other things like Rachel. Like what had happened. Like how it made his insides twist up inside whenever he thought about Puck and Rachel together, and he didn’t know why. He’d avoided being alone with Puck since he’d found out. It made it easier, not having to deal.
“You’re a dick,” he said, when Puck opened the door.
Puck looked pissed for a moment then nodded and shrugged. “Most of the time,” he agreed.
“You and Rachel,” Finn started, then stopped.
Puck shook his head. “Couldn’t do it,” he said. “You’re my boy. Wasn’t right.”
Finn stopped himself from asking why that mattered now, why it hadn’t more than a year ago, but he’d been doing really well at letting that go. Instead he said,” Good,” and after a beat Puck smiled.
“You, uh, wanna come in?”
Finn did. He toed off his boots inside, remembering the time Mrs Puckerman had yelled at them for walking dirty snow over her new carpets, half a lifetime ago.
Puck stared at his feet as Finn hung up his coat in the hallway. He frowned.
“They’re too small,” Puck said, almost sounding dismayed.
Finn glanced down, following Puck’s gaze, to his new socks. He grinned and shrugged.
“Nah, they’re just right. I got them for-”
He stopped. He stared at Puck.
Puck lifted his eyes from the socks to Finn’s face.
“Puck,” Finn started.
Puck’s jaw jutted out slightly, defiantly, warningly.
“Did you...”
Puck’s lips pressed together tightly.
Finn pointed at his toes.
The corner of Puck’s lips twitched upwards.
“Oh,” Finn said.
There was a long moment of silence as Finn stood, confused, not expecting the sock mystery to be solved so quickly, not expecting it to be Puck.
Then he realised he was being rude. Words of thanks tumbled out of his mouth, each vying to be heard. It all came out garbled and Finn stopped himself, took a breath.
“I mean, thank you,” Finn said. “I really like them. They’re warm.”
And Puck smiled. More than that, he looked pleased and Finn hadn’t seen him look like that in such a long time it made something inside him grow warm. Even warmer than the socks had made his toes. He felt toasty and happy and Puck kept smiling.
Finn stepped closer, meaning to do some sort of awkward bro hug- one arm, one pat, one manly noise of gratitude. But something inside his head misfired, made him place his hand on Puck’s shoulder and his mouth against Puck’s for a count of one, two, three and then move back.
It took Finn a moment to realise what he’d done.
“Uh,” he said. “Uh, I, uh.”
He turned, fumbled for his coat, trying not to freak out, trying not to think about the fist that was probably going to hit him smack in the jaw any second.
Finn picked up his boots in one hand and reached for the door with the other.
“I got a new video game,” Puck said.
Finn paused, hand on the door handle.
“For Hanukkah,” Puck explained. “We could play. If you want.”
Slowly, Finn turned around. Puck looked at him exactly the same as he had before Finn had launched himself forward and kissed him.
“Um,” Finn said, and dropped his boots back on the floor, following Puck up the stairs to his room.
They played the game in silence. It had zombies, which was kind of awesome. It was so normal- except for the zombies- that Finn started to doubt what had happened in the hallway downstairs. Maybe he hadn’t kissed Puck. Maybe he’d just thought about it, which was enough to freak out over as it was, but nowhere near as panic worthy as actually kissing his sometimes-best friend.
He stretched his legs out in front of him, wiggling his feet to try and get rid of the pins and needles that had started to creep in, and caught Puck watching his feet instead of the screen.
Finn looked over at him, and Puck’s attention immediately switched back to the game.
They played a couple more minutes in silence, and then-
“In Juvie,” Puck said.
Finn cut his eyes in Puck’s direction, then back to the screen, shooting down another stumbling zombie who wanted nothing more than to eat his tender brains.
“They wanted us to do something calming. Something productive. To channel our energy or some bullshit. I got assigned to knitting because I didn’t have a record of stabbing people with sharp objects.”
Finn nodded, even though he knew Puck wasn’t looking at him.
“It was okay. Better than talking about our feelings and shit. They wanted us to make this pussy scarf but it had tassels and shit on it. So I made some socks. They seemed more badass.”
There’s another moment or two of silence.
“Thought you might like them,” Puck added. “To say...I don’t know. Sorry. Or something.”
Finn put his controller down in his lap. He didn’t completely get it, but he knew that Puck giving him the socks meant something other than ‘sorry’. He’d made them with his own hands, was proud of them, wanted Finn to have them. To like them.
“Thanks,” he said.
“You really liked them?” Puck asked, trying to act like he didn’t care about the answer. “I know they kinda suck and stuff but-”
“I love them,” Finn said earnestly, then explained, “My toes were cold before.”
Puck smiled, looking really pleased.
They turned back to the game.
“About downstairs,” Finn said into the silence.
Puck didn’t respond.
“What I did, when I said thanks, what I meant was-”
“We’re not talking about it,” Puck said firmly.
“But-”
“Not talking about it.”
Finn nodded slowly. He looked down at his toes, snug and warm in his socks, then looked over at Puck in surprise when Puck said, “But you can do it again, if you want.”
There was a hard look in Puck’s eyes.
Finn panicked. He was the kind of guy who needed time. He needed to sit and think and process things, and-
“Or not. Whatever.” Puck shrugged, mouth curling up into an almost sneer, like he didn’t care.
It made the happy warmth inside Finn start to chill. He shivered.
“No,” Finn said quickly. “I mean, okay. Okay, I will.”
And he did.
~~~
“Hey,” Finn said later, licking at his reddened lips. The only downside he’d found with kissing a guy was the lack of transferable chapstick. “How’d you get the gift under my tree?”
Puck snorted. “Dude. I’m the Puckmeister. And the security on your new house? Not very secure.”
Finn smiled, and Puck laughed in a way that made Finn glad Puck was his friend, because otherwise he’d probably wake up tomorrow to find his TV stolen in the night.
They both leaned in. Along the way, they lost most of their clothes.
Finn kept his socks on.
Puck didn’t complain.
Pairing: Finn/Puck
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~2800
Summary: After finding an anonymous package under his tree, Finn tries to solve the mystery of who left it.
Author’s Notes: Written for auchic in the Finn/Puck Holiday Exchange. Originally posted here. Many thanks to the lovely becca_radcgg for her help.
His toes, where they stuck out from beneath the blankets, were cold. He wiggled them, trying to get the circulation going, to keep them warm, to stop them from feeling like ten ice cubes stuck to his feet. Also, it was something to do to pass the time.
Finn had been awake for hours, blankets pulled up to his nose to hide away from the wintery morning. There was snow outside- probably, hopefully- and maybe later, after the presents were opened, the whole family could go for a walk or have a snowball fight or make snowmen.
The whole family. It was a strange concept, one he still wasn’t used to. His entire life, Christmas had been about the two of them. Now they were four which meant all of the holiday trimmings. It was exciting.
But not as exciting as the knowledge of piles of presents, sitting underneath the tree downstairs. They’d decorated it earlier in the week, the room smelling like pine and cinnamon from the special eggnog his mom made every year. With the talking and laughing it had taken them hours. And even though Kurt had snuck down in the night and rearranged everything in a less-higgledy-piggledy and more-artistically-balanced way, Finn was still proud of their tree. The family tree.
Where the presents lived. Wrapped in shiny paper that would crinkle and tear beneath his fingers, ribbons that would have to be pried off with his fingernails, tape that would inevitably end up getting stuck to his elbow, unnoticed for most of the day. Some of the presents he’d already seen, had held and smelled and shaken to try and guess what was inside. And some would have appeared, as if by magic, laid out by his mom late last night, with labels reading ‘Love, Santa’ on them. Those, the unknown, the unguessed, were what Finn liked best.
His fingers itched to unwrap, to unknot, and later to wind around a hot mug of chocolate. It was time for Christmas Day to start already. Finn was not a patient guy.
The house was silent. Not a creature stirred, except Finn with the twitching icicles he’d once called his toes. He’d been waiting and waiting, ears straining for the first signs of life, for someone besides him to rush downstairs and declare open season on the piles of gifts.
But no one did. And, eventually, Finn couldn’t keep himself in bed any longer.
He threw back the covers, sliding his legs over the side of the bed. He pulled on his robe, padding in bare feet to his bedroom door. He listened. He sighed.
He opened the door and coughed loudly once, twice. Nothing happened. No response.
Finn started down the stairs, shivering from the chill of the wooden steps on his feet, toes curling as he walked. He wished he’d let his mom buy him the ridiculous Rudolph slippers they’d seen earlier that week at the mall. With a light up nose on the end he’d have looked ridiculous, but at least he’d have been warm.
Downstairs, the tree loomed above him, branches spread wide in invitation- to reach under, to pull out presents and unwrap to discover the mysteries within. But Finn had been down that road, more than once, and it was always the sad disappointment in his mom’s eyes (at missing the look on his face, more than anything else) that was worse than the shouting.
He turned on the lights, watching them twinkle on the tree for a moment. And then, unable to take it any longer, he moved to the foot of the stairs and yelled, “Merry Christmas!”
There were muffled noises. A door opened, and then another, and three bleary eyed family members stumbled downstairs, perking up as hot drinks were handed out and carols were played and presents passed around.
Finn’s world turned into a flurry of brightly coloured paper, with a surrounding moat of gifts. He’d never minded what he was given, not really. It was the act- the giving, the unveiling- that he loved. But it didn’t mean that the Wii console from Burt wasn’t the best gift he’d been given in years.
And then-
“There’s still one left,” Kurt said, reaching under the tree, right to the very back. He emerged with a small, lumpy package, wrapped carefully but inexpertly, and then tossed it into Finn’s lap.
There was no label, but someone had scrawled, in black marker, “FINN” across the pale blue paper. Finn looked to his mom, who looked puzzled.
He opened it, more carefully than normal. Not knowing who it was from made the mystery, the reveal, even more exciting.
The last piece of tape gave way, and the paper fell open, revealing a pair of woollen socks.
Finn picked one up. They were thick and brown, a stripe of blue around the top, and clearly handmade, his fingers going through a hole that probably wasn’t meant to be there, as he turned the sock over to look at it.
He pulled them on. One was a little shorter than the other, but he didn’t care. They were warm, and his toes wriggled happily inside them.
“I wonder who made them,” Finn said, looking around the room. His mom and Burt shook their heads and Kurt looked disgusted at the implication it might have been him.
“Brown is so out this season,” he said, “and they clash with the scarf I gave you.”
Finn wrapped the scarf around his neck, to make Kurt smile, and said, “I don’t mind.”
Then he spent the rest of the day eating too much and lying on the couch.
~~~
The next day he went to see Rachel.
“I got socks for Christmas,” he remarked, in case they were from her.
“I had tofu chow mein,” Rachel told him. “Why are you here? Last week you tell me you want to break up, and today you show up on my doorstep. Does this mean-”
“No,” Finn said quickly. He felt like a dick when Rachel’s face fell. “I mean. I don’t know. It’s...complicated.”
Rachel nodded slowly.
“I need some time,” he said. “And I need to find out who gave me these socks.” He hoped he sounded more concerned about the relationship than the socks, but judging by Rachel’s face, he didn’t.
Rachel thought for a moment. “Tina knits,” she said. “She makes those fingerless gloves she always wears.”
~~~
Tina made Finn take off his boots to show her.
She shook her head. “Those were made by a beginner,” she said, poking at a hole near the heel. It tickled and Finn accidentally kicked her as he tried to move away.
Tina looked unimpressed. “Those are dropped stitches. A rookie mistake. But they’re still really good.”
“And they weren’t from you?” Finn asked again.
Tina shook her head and showed him to the door.
~~~
The next day he went to Quinn’s place. Her mom answered the door and gave him an unfriendly look that probably had something to do with him breaking the news of Quinn’s pregnancy in song over dinner that one time. Which was unfair, considering everything.
She made him wait on the front stoop, even though it was cold, even though it was snowing. He stomped his feet, warm in the knobbly socks, to shake snow from his shoes and blew into his hands to heat them up.
Quinn frowned when she saw him.
“Finn,” she said, careful and blank.
“Did you knit me a pair of socks?” Finn blurted uncomfortably.
Quinn stared at him.
“What?”
“Socks,” he repeated. “I got a pair for Christmas.”
She was still staring.
“And I thought maybe you’d made them. Because maybe you knit. Because a lot of people who have babies seem to knit those booties and I thought that...”
Quinn folded her arms across her chest.
“Never mind,” Finn said, taking a step backwards.
“Finn! Hey!” Sam appeared behind Quinn and Finn stared in surprise.
“Sam!” he said. “I didn’t expect to see you. I guess...uh...” He looked at Quinn, who was giving him that look, the one that kept her on the top of the food chain at McKinley. He looked at Sam. He looked back at Quinn.
He opened his mouth and Quinn’s eyes narrowed in warning.
“Sam, did you give me a pair of handmade socks for Christmas?”
~~~
“Your feet smell,” Kurt remarked that night, looking pointedly at where Finn’s feet rested on the coffee table. “How many days have you been wearing those now?”
“Three,” Finn said, which wasn’t as long as he sometimes wore socks, when he ran out of clean ones. But he grabbed his ankle, twisting his leg to get his face as close to his foot as he could manage, like those Cirque du Soleil people. Who apparently were made of rubber like the Stretch Armstrong doll he’d had as a kid. Finn only managed to get his foot halfway to his face, but he sniffed anyway.
“Maybe I should wash them,” he said, and took Kurt’s wrinkled nose and raised eyebrow as agreement.
He washed them in his bathroom sink, using a bit of shampoo and hot water from the tap. Then he laid them out by a heater to dry, and went to sleep.
~~~
They shrank.
His mom looked amused as she explained proper wool laundry techniques while he half listened. He had other things on his mind.
He didn’t mind that they’d shrunk. They were snug around his toes now, pressing them together, still keeping them warm, still doing their job.
Later, he went for a walk, stepping happily through the snow, enjoying the numbness of the tip of his nose, the sharpness of each breath and the way he could see that breath curl up and away with each exhale.
He walked to Puck’s house and knocked at the door.
The sock mystery- one he wasn’t sure he was going to solve- had been good to take his mind off other things, now that the rush of Christmas was over. Other things like Rachel. Like what had happened. Like how it made his insides twist up inside whenever he thought about Puck and Rachel together, and he didn’t know why. He’d avoided being alone with Puck since he’d found out. It made it easier, not having to deal.
“You’re a dick,” he said, when Puck opened the door.
Puck looked pissed for a moment then nodded and shrugged. “Most of the time,” he agreed.
“You and Rachel,” Finn started, then stopped.
Puck shook his head. “Couldn’t do it,” he said. “You’re my boy. Wasn’t right.”
Finn stopped himself from asking why that mattered now, why it hadn’t more than a year ago, but he’d been doing really well at letting that go. Instead he said,” Good,” and after a beat Puck smiled.
“You, uh, wanna come in?”
Finn did. He toed off his boots inside, remembering the time Mrs Puckerman had yelled at them for walking dirty snow over her new carpets, half a lifetime ago.
Puck stared at his feet as Finn hung up his coat in the hallway. He frowned.
“They’re too small,” Puck said, almost sounding dismayed.
Finn glanced down, following Puck’s gaze, to his new socks. He grinned and shrugged.
“Nah, they’re just right. I got them for-”
He stopped. He stared at Puck.
Puck lifted his eyes from the socks to Finn’s face.
“Puck,” Finn started.
Puck’s jaw jutted out slightly, defiantly, warningly.
“Did you...”
Puck’s lips pressed together tightly.
Finn pointed at his toes.
The corner of Puck’s lips twitched upwards.
“Oh,” Finn said.
There was a long moment of silence as Finn stood, confused, not expecting the sock mystery to be solved so quickly, not expecting it to be Puck.
Then he realised he was being rude. Words of thanks tumbled out of his mouth, each vying to be heard. It all came out garbled and Finn stopped himself, took a breath.
“I mean, thank you,” Finn said. “I really like them. They’re warm.”
And Puck smiled. More than that, he looked pleased and Finn hadn’t seen him look like that in such a long time it made something inside him grow warm. Even warmer than the socks had made his toes. He felt toasty and happy and Puck kept smiling.
Finn stepped closer, meaning to do some sort of awkward bro hug- one arm, one pat, one manly noise of gratitude. But something inside his head misfired, made him place his hand on Puck’s shoulder and his mouth against Puck’s for a count of one, two, three and then move back.
It took Finn a moment to realise what he’d done.
“Uh,” he said. “Uh, I, uh.”
He turned, fumbled for his coat, trying not to freak out, trying not to think about the fist that was probably going to hit him smack in the jaw any second.
Finn picked up his boots in one hand and reached for the door with the other.
“I got a new video game,” Puck said.
Finn paused, hand on the door handle.
“For Hanukkah,” Puck explained. “We could play. If you want.”
Slowly, Finn turned around. Puck looked at him exactly the same as he had before Finn had launched himself forward and kissed him.
“Um,” Finn said, and dropped his boots back on the floor, following Puck up the stairs to his room.
They played the game in silence. It had zombies, which was kind of awesome. It was so normal- except for the zombies- that Finn started to doubt what had happened in the hallway downstairs. Maybe he hadn’t kissed Puck. Maybe he’d just thought about it, which was enough to freak out over as it was, but nowhere near as panic worthy as actually kissing his sometimes-best friend.
He stretched his legs out in front of him, wiggling his feet to try and get rid of the pins and needles that had started to creep in, and caught Puck watching his feet instead of the screen.
Finn looked over at him, and Puck’s attention immediately switched back to the game.
They played a couple more minutes in silence, and then-
“In Juvie,” Puck said.
Finn cut his eyes in Puck’s direction, then back to the screen, shooting down another stumbling zombie who wanted nothing more than to eat his tender brains.
“They wanted us to do something calming. Something productive. To channel our energy or some bullshit. I got assigned to knitting because I didn’t have a record of stabbing people with sharp objects.”
Finn nodded, even though he knew Puck wasn’t looking at him.
“It was okay. Better than talking about our feelings and shit. They wanted us to make this pussy scarf but it had tassels and shit on it. So I made some socks. They seemed more badass.”
There’s another moment or two of silence.
“Thought you might like them,” Puck added. “To say...I don’t know. Sorry. Or something.”
Finn put his controller down in his lap. He didn’t completely get it, but he knew that Puck giving him the socks meant something other than ‘sorry’. He’d made them with his own hands, was proud of them, wanted Finn to have them. To like them.
“Thanks,” he said.
“You really liked them?” Puck asked, trying to act like he didn’t care about the answer. “I know they kinda suck and stuff but-”
“I love them,” Finn said earnestly, then explained, “My toes were cold before.”
Puck smiled, looking really pleased.
They turned back to the game.
“About downstairs,” Finn said into the silence.
Puck didn’t respond.
“What I did, when I said thanks, what I meant was-”
“We’re not talking about it,” Puck said firmly.
“But-”
“Not talking about it.”
Finn nodded slowly. He looked down at his toes, snug and warm in his socks, then looked over at Puck in surprise when Puck said, “But you can do it again, if you want.”
There was a hard look in Puck’s eyes.
Finn panicked. He was the kind of guy who needed time. He needed to sit and think and process things, and-
“Or not. Whatever.” Puck shrugged, mouth curling up into an almost sneer, like he didn’t care.
It made the happy warmth inside Finn start to chill. He shivered.
“No,” Finn said quickly. “I mean, okay. Okay, I will.”
And he did.
~~~
“Hey,” Finn said later, licking at his reddened lips. The only downside he’d found with kissing a guy was the lack of transferable chapstick. “How’d you get the gift under my tree?”
Puck snorted. “Dude. I’m the Puckmeister. And the security on your new house? Not very secure.”
Finn smiled, and Puck laughed in a way that made Finn glad Puck was his friend, because otherwise he’d probably wake up tomorrow to find his TV stolen in the night.
They both leaned in. Along the way, they lost most of their clothes.
Finn kept his socks on.
Puck didn’t complain.