Fic - NC-17 - Glee - Puck/Rachel - Underneath (part two)
Title: Underneath (part 2)
Rating: NC-17
Fandom: Glee
Pairing: Puck/Rachel
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, some Angst, sort of sneakily creeping up on PWP status.
Spoilers: throughout early season 1, pre Mattress, since this was written before it had happened. So, AU? I’m just lazy about putting fiction up, sorry!
Warnings: Smexin'
Word Count: 4653
Author's Note / Summary: Feedback makes me write more fiction. It’s a proven fact. I wish I could say a prompt inspired this, but really, just imagining Puck and Rachel doing dirty things together did.
Underneath; part 1
When Rachel woke up, sore and satiated, Puck was gone. She had no idea how long she’d slept for, but it couldn’t have been too long because it was still light, and it had been mid-afternoon when they’d arrived. She tried to ignore the creeping horror that right now, Puck was out there, telling everyone in earshot about what a bad lay she was.
She felt like an idiot, getting caught up in the moment, acting impulsively, doing everything that made her feel like a juvenile, instead of an adult. (Not that she actually was technically an adult, but she knew the best role model you can have is yourself, and really, she had to act mature if she wanted to be a star).
She got up and hunted after all her clothing, putting it back on hurriedly. She walked into the pokey bathroom and looked at herself, swallowed a groan of ‘oh no, I look like birds started nesting in my hair.’
It was all too much. She went back into her room, sat down on the bed, stared ahead as she tried to martial her thoughts together. It didn’t work. The whole room smelt like sex.
And if Mr. Schuester wants to come in to go over your pitch, what are you going to do then?
And that thought prompted a whirlwind of movement that involved everything from making the bed with hospital corners, opening the tiny window and waving her hands ineffectually, spraying almost every surface with deodorant, and finding the condom looking a bit sad on the floor, picking it up with two pens that she found in a bedside cabinet, making a face at it while manoeuvring it out of the window.
She had almost finished untangling her hair when she heard a knock on the door. She closed her eyes briefly and took a deep breath.
She went to the door, opened it, and Finn strode into the room. He looked around wildly, his eyes narrowed, and then he turned back to her. She noticed that there were little splotchy patches on his cheeks.
‘You didn’t just...no never mind. He must be lying.’
Rachel felt the blood drain her face, she stared at him.
‘What?’ She said.
‘I mean you hate each other.’
‘P-Puck?’ Rachel volunteered, feeling stricken. What had the two-faced lying bastard said about her? And after his nice, lame speech about how he could keep a secret too.
‘What did he say? What has he said to the group?’ She ignored the quality of voice she had, which a more intelligent person would have read as ‘hiding something.’ She thanked any higher power she could think of in that moment that Finn, bless him, was actually kind of dumb.
‘Oh no, nothing to the group. Rachel, it’s cool, he must’ve just been trying to piss me off. Things have been weird between us for a while. You know how he is.’
‘Forewarned is forearmed, Finn, tell me.’
‘No, really, i-it’s cool. I don’t know why I even believed him.’ Finn laughed a little, and then fidgeted a little. ‘It smells really flowery in here, did your perfume leak or something?’
‘I...n-yes.’ Rachel said. ‘Everywhere, I think I’m going to have ask my Dads for a new bag and everything. But at least my notes will smell really nice, I hope not too strongly because as you know, strong scents can interfere with the vocal chords when singing,’ do I ever shut up? she mentally asked herself, as she finished her babbling with, ‘and I can’t have anything interfere with my star quality when I’m on that stage.’
‘Bummer.’ Finn said eloquently. ‘Well, I should go.’ He said, and left as awkwardly as he’d entered.
Rachel took another deep breath once he’d gone and shook her head. What had Puck said? She had a mind to march out there and force him to tell her. But she couldn’t bear the thought of even leaving her room right now, she felt like ten kinds of a fool. She knew. She knew.
She sat down on her bed and looked over her music notes, coughing occasionally as the floral scent crept into her throat.
*
She forced herself out of her room several hours later, skipping dinner, and going straight to the room marked for early rehearsals. She knew, logically, that no one could know that she had just had sex, that she wasn’t a virgin anymore (unless Puck had told everyone) just from looking at her, but she still wondered.
But when she entered, no one acted weird around her; Kurt didn’t snark more than usual, Quinn didn’t even seem to notice that she was there as usual, Santana wasn’t giving her the evil eye or anything.
She turned and saw Puck, who was looking at her sombrely. She felt queasy.
Big smile, Rachel, and down to business.
But she couldn’t do it, and feigning a coughing attack, she excused herself and walked out of the room. She leaned against the wallpaper in the corridor, pulling herself together, telling herself that just because Puck had probably told Finn, didn’t mean he was going to tell everyone ever. He certainly didn’t have enough mental capacity to put it on flyers and stick it around the school, so she should stop imagining that at least. But she couldn’t help but feel it was only a matter of time. She was torn between lambasting herself, and denouncing Puck in her own head.
Five minutes passed, and Mr. Schue came out and saw her leaning against the wall. He seemed surprised to see her there, and a beat passed before he asked;
‘Are you okay, Rachel?’
There was a beat, when Rachel realised that so much of her future was riding on this. Something as small as Sectionals could lead to a career in Broadway one day.
‘Of course, Mr. Schue.’ Rachel managed brightly and walked past him into the room.
This time her nerves didn’t fail her.
*
At 1.00am, after tossing and turning and deciding this was no way to live her life, she got out of bed and turned the flickering lamp on. In the dingy light, she sent a single text.
*Where are you?*
A text came back a moment later.
*Rm 32*
She put her shoes on, a jacket, and then decided to get dressed properly and spent ten minutes looking at herself in the mirror, fussing over her hair. And then she spent another five minutes trying to make it look dishevelled again, to indicate that no, she didn’t really care what she looked like around him.
She found his room easily, the door was unlocked, and she stepped into the same dingy lamp-lit room that was just a little bit crappier than hers. Puck was in bed, sitting propped up, looking at her.
‘What did you tell Finn?’ She said, unable to wait.
Puck smirked.
‘If this is the beginning of you telling everyone and his dog,’ she continued, ‘then you’d better let me know so I can prepare myself and my own narrative of the events.’
‘Sit.’ Puck said in a low voice, patting the side of the bed next to him. Rachel scoffed and shook her head.
‘If you sit, I’ll tell you what I said to Finn.’ He said, and she could actually hear the enjoyment he was getting out of this.
‘Listen to me, Noah,’ Rachel said, unleashing the spite that sometimes lurked nearby when she felt trapped, ‘you are just one phone call away from my Dads finding out and me claiming sexual harassment. And then it won’t matter what you tell people, because no one will believe you when they measure my own reputation against yours. I might be many things, Noah, but I’m not a slut, and I don’t get around like you do.’
Puck’s hand jerked back from the bedspread.
‘I told Finn to stay away from you, because I’d staked my claim. Okay? That’s it. I may have used more words. I don’t remember. That was the gist. But I take it back. You are way more trouble than you’re worth, Berry.’
Rachel turned to walk out of the room, and then paused with her hand on the doorknob.
‘Why? Why did you have to tell him anything at all?’
‘We can’t have anything at all, while you two are still thinking you have a shot at each other. You think I don’t know that he has some retarded super-magnetism that makes up for his dick size? Seriously.’
Rachel squinted as she tried to process that information. Puck wanting to have something with her? No, that didn’t sound right. Was that just a sledge at Finn’s penis size? She shook her head.
‘You’re not going to tell anyone else?’ She said into the door, unable to face him, feeling kind of ashamed now for being so paranoid.
‘Like anyone would be surprised that you’re a bad fucking lay, Berry. I wouldn’t even bother. It’d bring my rep down way more than yours. I might be some kind of man-whore to you, but I’d rather be that than be you.’
It was so scathing, so direct, that Rachel actually made a sound before she could stop herself. She paused, listening to the rushing sound in her head, and that inner voice that told her to keep it together, told her to keep it together, dammit. She had the door halfway open when a hand reached over her shoulder and pressed it closed. She turned and Puck was standing there, wearing boxers and nothing else.
‘Fuck you. I’m sorry.’ He said, in a way that both delivered anger and apology at once. She stared at him, shook her head.
‘I was...bad?’ She said in a voice that was so small, she had to look down at the floor to hide her embarrassment.
Puck swore, and she heard a loud thump next to her and jerked her head up. He had tiredly pressed his forehead against the door beside her, and looked as unhappy as she felt.
‘No.’ He said, tiredly.
Rachel nodded, and then needed some space, and ended up going to his bed and sitting down where he’d patted it. She ignored that it was warm from him, and that it was kind of nice, and said the next thing that came to her mind;
‘Finn is...small?’
Puck snorted laughter into the door and turned to face her, a broad grin stretching across his face. He shrugged.
‘Best friends don’t rat out best friend’s dick sizes.’
‘You’re probably lying anyway,’ Rachel said, defending Finn, even though it felt stupid to be doing it in the darkness of Puck’s room.
‘Whatever.’ He said.
‘Do you have any food? I haven’t eaten since...’ She thought, ‘since this morning.’
Puck raised brows at her, and then went into his backpack and dug around until he found something which he then tossed to Rachel. It was a bag of jellybeans with a post-it of ‘Good luck!’ on it. She opened the packet, and held up the post-it, and Puck shrugged.
‘My sister.’ He said.
‘I just wish I wasn’t so confused about all of this.’ Rachel said as she ate five jellybeans at once. ‘I don’t even know why I’m telling you anything at all. You clearly can’t be trusted. Sort of. And technically I shouldn’t even be here, but I couldn’t sleep, and I decided that you were at least partly responsible for that,’ Rachel said around her jellybeans, swallowing a multitude of flavours at once. ‘Are you sure I wasn’t bad?’
‘Jesus, get over it Rachel, you weren’t bad, okay?’
Rachel smiled a little.
‘I was hoping that some of the books I’d read had paid off, I mean I know nothing exempts the value of actual experience, but I thought that maybe-’
‘Is this thing you do, the not shutting up...do you do that when you’re nervous?’ Puck said suddenly, walking over to her and sitting next to her. Rachel looked at him, swallowed an apple flavoured jellybean. She was thinking of something to say, when his lips came down on hers and his tongue actually licked at her. Licked.
‘Apple.’ He said, and then grinned, before kissing her properly, lips pressing against hers, tongue gently tasting the underside of her lips and tongue. Rachel let the bag of jellybeans fall out of her hand, and closed her eyes, surprised to feel her body quicken already. Despite being physically exhausted, curls of warmth were beginning to float through her.
‘Shouldn’t we talk about this?’ She said against his lips, drawing back to take a breath, and ignoring the fact that her hands had somehow found their way to press against his ribs.
‘And say what? I said shit to Finn, you said shit to me, and now you’re letting me make it up to you?’
Rachel laughed.
‘Like you’re god’s gift.’
‘Like you didn’t enjoy it.’ He said, and she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of admitting he had a point, and he didn’t seem to care either way, because he was leaning in again to kiss her. She remembered some of the things he’d said and bit down on his lower lip hard. When he swore, she pushed him down onto the bed and straddled him, shifting her hips up so she didn’t immediately come into contact with his erection. She didn’t think she was ready for that yet. Not twice in one day, anyway.
She was feeling a little uncomfortable, and actually kind of tiny, aware of how far her legs have to spread just to straddle him. She wonders if she should just move back, apologise, go back to the serious discussion. But as she’s weighing up the pros and cons, Puck draws her upper arms down and kisses her again. She almost scoffs into his mouth when he goes straight to her top and starts trying to tug it up over her head.
‘Can’t kiss and undress at the same time.’ She said, leaning back and removing her blouse, folding it a little and then placing it on the other side of the bed.
Puck says nothing, no quip even, and when she turns back to him she is reminded that she hadn’t thought it was worth putting a bra on at one in the morning, and that he didn’t know that.
‘Condoms. Wallet.’ He says, pointing, and she looks at his wallet which has been thrown on the ground, next to the mound of his clothing, an empty water bottle, and some crumpled music notes. She tries to weigh the situation up again. Is it really a good idea to be having sex again, no matter how tempting it is? Should she just nip this thing in the bud and pretend it never happened? It was unfair being the smart, logical one all the time, because it’s not like the sex was bad or anything, and she’s fighting against a down-low warmth that persistently reminds her that actually, she is a hormonal teenager, and actually, Puck’s torso is really warm between her legs.
She is trying to think of ways to let herself and Puck down gently, when a hot palm ghosts over one breast, and then the other. She turned back and looks at him, and then closes her eyes when he squeezes gently, strokes one nipple, pinches it.
‘I can’t do both, Puck. I can’t get the condoms, and deal with you doing...whatever you’re doing.’
Puck removes his hand and Rachel wants to claw him in the face for that, but instead her body traitorously slides her off the bed and goes over to his wallet. She picks it up, and walks back over to the bed, where he’s watching her with a look on his face that might be awe. She thinks, no, that can’t be right.
‘This whole skirt and nothing else is a good look for you, Berry.’
Sometimes, rarely, Puck says things, and it makes her want him. And sometimes he says things that inexplicably (or sometimes not inexplicably at all) leave her thinking; this is not a good idea.
‘This is not a good idea.’ She says.
‘Tell me about it.’ He grins at her, beckons with his finger.
‘No really, I mean out of all the logical things I could be doing,’ she looks down at herself walking back to the bed and thinks; I’m trying to convince two people here, not just one, ‘this is not one of them. It’s not even remotely rational. I’m tired. You’ve been quite mean to me tonight, and I want to win Sectionals, not be snowed under by typical teenage angst because of some...’
‘When I said tell me about it, I didn’t actually mean it.’ He grabs her wrist, tugs her forward back to the bed, and then takes the wallet from her. And then he pulls her down alongside him, so that she’s lying on her side. She doesn’t know what she’s expecting, but she absolutely isn’t expecting him to straddle her.
She shifts to say something, but he’s pulling the hair back from her neck, and then kissing the skin there. Rachel sighs, relaxes onto her stomach, and then most of the cognitive part of her brain shuts down when he runs his capable hands down her shoulders, and back up again. It occurs to her after a moment that this is a lot like a massage, and she relaxes, cat-like, into the bed.
‘I thought I was going to be on top.’ She huffed, and he laughed softly, a sound that curled around her and was complemented by his hands stroking her upper arms, pressing into the muscles around her shoulder blades.
‘You know, you should loosen up. You’re really tight.’
She rolls her eyes at the innuendo, but can’t think of anything to say.
The massage of her shoulders turns to fingers curling around her upper ribs, skating the underside of her breasts. She arches up, and he cups them, touches her nipples and she shudders beneath him. She forces herself not to think of how many other people he’s probably done this with.
‘How much sleep do you need tonight?’ He asked, in a strained voice, as the fingers become palms again, and then the sensation of him squeezing both of her nipples at the same time. She swallows the sound that wanted to rise out of her throat.
‘I want to win.’ She said, instead.
‘You’re the best singer we have. We’re not performing until tomorrow night. You honestly think you won’t blow everyone away?’
Rachel isn’t listening to what he’s saying, because his hands have moved off her breasts and are deftly working her panties off. She turns, looks at him.
‘I should be on top.’
‘You should keep that skirt on.’ He says, and then lies down on the bed next to her, drawing her over him so that she’s straddling him. This time, he positions her hips so that she’s directly over his penis, with only the thin layer of boxers separating them. She closes her eyes, tries to stop herself from grinding down, and almost succeeds until Puck actually arches up into her. He doesn’t even hit her clitoris and it still feels amazing.
‘Every time I think you’re not into it,’ he drawls, his voice low, and deep, and doing unfair things to her, ‘it turns out you’re totally wet anyway. What is that?’
She ignores him, opens his wallet, hands him a condom. He winks at her, and she shakes her head as she shifts so he can put it on. She knows it would probably be hotter if she did it herself, but she’s not even sure her being on top is a good thing, now that she’s actually there and wondering how she’s supposed to keep herself upright and move and be all sexy and he can actually see her breasts and her torso and she thinks and of course they’ll bounce, and she’s blushing and biting her bottom lip and already embarrassed and she hasn’t even started yet.
He seems to be able to tell that something is up, even though she hasn’t said anything. He draws her back down and kisses her, silencing anything she might have said, and stifling her thoughts with his dexterous tongue. They kiss long enough, that she grinds down into him without even thinking. The angle is off, but it still feels good, so she does it again. His breath hitches beneath her, and he’s sitting up a little, reaching between them with one hand and actually positioning himself. And even that feels good. Rachel is feeling pretty breathless, but she knows at least some of that is him not exactly giving her many opportunities to catch her breath.
His tongue is sliding against hers as he pushes into her. She cries out, and the sound hums into his mouth. Puck responds with a groan of his own, moving back to catch his breath, even as he arches up even more. Rachel is kind of amazed at how different the angle feels. Because it’s good, and she knows she’s still tight, because actually Noah feels kind of huge still, and it hurts a little, but in that good, this isn’t fair kind of way.
Rachel pushes her hips down, and when he’s all the way in, she can’t move at all. She’s actually propping herself up on his chest and panting. But then Puck looks pretty out of breath as well. At least he gets to lie down, some voice in her head whines. But the angles are still really great, and she doesn’t want to change position yet. Or at all. Maybe even ever.
‘I can’t concentrate.’ She says, which has to be one of the stupidest things she thinks she could say in this situation, but Puck smirks up at her knowingly, like he didn’t think it was stupid at all.
His hands splay around her hips and he lifts her up a little, and withdraws, before pushing back in. She sees stars, while heat roars to life inside of her. She knows she’s saying something like ‘god,’ or ‘oh,’ but she’s not listening. He’s encouraging her into a rhythm which is slow and overwhelming. When she follows it of her own volition, hips undulating in that ‘I’ve been trained as a dancer since before I could walk’ kind of way, he actually groans and slumps back onto the bed. Rachel would feel pretty impressed that she’d rendered him speechless and unable to move, but she’s feeling pretty speechless herself. Sweat breaks across her forehead as she grinds into him, she experiments a little, moves a bit quicker, cants her hips into his a little more so that her clitoris is actually bumping into him.
‘Oh god.’ She hears herself say, and Puck reaches up and practically manhandles her down so that he’s kissing her, and running his hands over her belly and her breasts and her arms and basically anything he can reach. He’s pushing up into her each time, and it’s stoking some kind of invisible furnace because when she thought it was hard to catch her breath before, she had no idea that it was going to get significantly harder.
Their kisses are sloppy at times, but she doesn’t care. Her scalp hurts from time to time because he’s actually wound fingers into her hair now to keep her mouth near his, but she doesn’t care. She doesn’t know if she’s close, and she doesn’t even care about that either, because it feels so damned good.
But as it turns out, she is close, closer than she thought, because that strange, thrilling tension broadsides itself into her abdomen and suddenly she’s digging nails into his arm and whimpering into his mouth. Noah doesn’t let her up for air, doesn’t stop kissing her, just keeps the rhythm going even as she begins to falter.
When fingers she didn’t notice move between them, press themselves on either side of her clitoris and begin to rub, she is totally and completely lost. She crashes into him with a sharp cry, tightens around him, and then just holds on as the sensations smash into her. And a moment later, she knows he’s coming too, because she can actually feel the way he changes inside of her. And he’s tearing his mouth away from hers and swearing, pressing up into her so hard she wonders if her hips will bruise.
The aftershocks recede slowly, and pleasantly. Every time she thinks she’s done, her muscles ripple and she has to bite her lip and close her eyes. Puck recovers more quickly than her, and helps her off - her legs being kind of weak and non-functional - so that she’s lying by his side.
She has things she wants to say, but they sound muffled in her head, like all those mature voices are deep underwater. And she has things she thinks she should do, like put clothes back on, but she feels too tired and honestly, after a long day, she just wanted to sleep.
Puck is saying something to her, and it sounds serious, it even sounds like it might be nice, or sweet, or tellingly sincere. The sort of thing that makes her think of him as Noah, instead of Puck, like she’s in a Jekyll / Hyde situation.
But she’s too tired. And she’s asleep before she’s even finished telling herself to concentrate on what he has to say.
*
In the morning, Puck wakes up and Rachel is still next to him, naked except for her skirt, in his bed. She’s managed to wriggle her way - despite being virtually comatose - in the course of the night so that she was under the covers. And he had no fucking idea how she managed to take up all of the goddamned bed when she was so tiny, but he was pretty sure she’d defied rules of physics, mass, and a whole bunch of other stuff in the process.
He thinks about sex, but decides to have a shower first, because he’s feeling kind of sweaty. The water pressure from the shower nozzle is pathetic, but at least it’s hot and he luxuriates in the warmth for a while, trying to make sense of the events of the past twenty four hours.
First he’d scored with Rachel. And then, after watching Finn and imagining Rachel sleeping with him, he drew the guy aside and told him that Rachel was his and that sex equals ‘she’s mine’ and that he was to stop encouraging her. Seriously.
He could honestly say that he had no idea that Finn would get that annoyed and go straight to Rachel’s room. He knew Rachel fawned over Finn, but he had no idea that Finn was that into Rachel. And honestly, it pissed him off. Because it made him feel like he actually really had to do something about that. Like be with her, or some shit, because what if Finn ended up with her and then that was that? His chance was gone. And so he’d moped a bit after that. Because that was fucking depressing.
And then as it turns out, sex again, with her on top no less. He got hard again just thinking about it, and looked towards the direction of the bedroom door. There were heaps of things he could imagine doing with, or to, Rachel. Things that he didn’t even know he’d enjoy himself until he was introduced to them by cougars. And let’s face it, Rachel - for whatever reasons unknown to him - became kind of a sexpot in the bedroom. Maybe all her other personality ‘quirks’ was God’s way of balancing that out. He had no idea. But it made him think of some of the other things that had previously pissed him off in a totally different way. And he’d started even telling her about that last night, but he’d fucked her so good, she’d practically passed out. He resisted giving himself an actual pat on the shoulder for that one.
He stepped out of the shower, towelled himself off, and decided to go creatively wake Rachel up.
Rating: NC-17
Fandom: Glee
Pairing: Puck/Rachel
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, some Angst, sort of sneakily creeping up on PWP status.
Spoilers: throughout early season 1, pre Mattress, since this was written before it had happened. So, AU? I’m just lazy about putting fiction up, sorry!
Warnings: Smexin'
Word Count: 4653
Author's Note / Summary: Feedback makes me write more fiction. It’s a proven fact. I wish I could say a prompt inspired this, but really, just imagining Puck and Rachel doing dirty things together did.
Underneath; part 1
When Rachel woke up, sore and satiated, Puck was gone. She had no idea how long she’d slept for, but it couldn’t have been too long because it was still light, and it had been mid-afternoon when they’d arrived. She tried to ignore the creeping horror that right now, Puck was out there, telling everyone in earshot about what a bad lay she was.
She felt like an idiot, getting caught up in the moment, acting impulsively, doing everything that made her feel like a juvenile, instead of an adult. (Not that she actually was technically an adult, but she knew the best role model you can have is yourself, and really, she had to act mature if she wanted to be a star).
She got up and hunted after all her clothing, putting it back on hurriedly. She walked into the pokey bathroom and looked at herself, swallowed a groan of ‘oh no, I look like birds started nesting in my hair.’
It was all too much. She went back into her room, sat down on the bed, stared ahead as she tried to martial her thoughts together. It didn’t work. The whole room smelt like sex.
And if Mr. Schuester wants to come in to go over your pitch, what are you going to do then?
And that thought prompted a whirlwind of movement that involved everything from making the bed with hospital corners, opening the tiny window and waving her hands ineffectually, spraying almost every surface with deodorant, and finding the condom looking a bit sad on the floor, picking it up with two pens that she found in a bedside cabinet, making a face at it while manoeuvring it out of the window.
She had almost finished untangling her hair when she heard a knock on the door. She closed her eyes briefly and took a deep breath.
She went to the door, opened it, and Finn strode into the room. He looked around wildly, his eyes narrowed, and then he turned back to her. She noticed that there were little splotchy patches on his cheeks.
‘You didn’t just...no never mind. He must be lying.’
Rachel felt the blood drain her face, she stared at him.
‘What?’ She said.
‘I mean you hate each other.’
‘P-Puck?’ Rachel volunteered, feeling stricken. What had the two-faced lying bastard said about her? And after his nice, lame speech about how he could keep a secret too.
‘What did he say? What has he said to the group?’ She ignored the quality of voice she had, which a more intelligent person would have read as ‘hiding something.’ She thanked any higher power she could think of in that moment that Finn, bless him, was actually kind of dumb.
‘Oh no, nothing to the group. Rachel, it’s cool, he must’ve just been trying to piss me off. Things have been weird between us for a while. You know how he is.’
‘Forewarned is forearmed, Finn, tell me.’
‘No, really, i-it’s cool. I don’t know why I even believed him.’ Finn laughed a little, and then fidgeted a little. ‘It smells really flowery in here, did your perfume leak or something?’
‘I...n-yes.’ Rachel said. ‘Everywhere, I think I’m going to have ask my Dads for a new bag and everything. But at least my notes will smell really nice, I hope not too strongly because as you know, strong scents can interfere with the vocal chords when singing,’ do I ever shut up? she mentally asked herself, as she finished her babbling with, ‘and I can’t have anything interfere with my star quality when I’m on that stage.’
‘Bummer.’ Finn said eloquently. ‘Well, I should go.’ He said, and left as awkwardly as he’d entered.
Rachel took another deep breath once he’d gone and shook her head. What had Puck said? She had a mind to march out there and force him to tell her. But she couldn’t bear the thought of even leaving her room right now, she felt like ten kinds of a fool. She knew. She knew.
She sat down on her bed and looked over her music notes, coughing occasionally as the floral scent crept into her throat.
*
She forced herself out of her room several hours later, skipping dinner, and going straight to the room marked for early rehearsals. She knew, logically, that no one could know that she had just had sex, that she wasn’t a virgin anymore (unless Puck had told everyone) just from looking at her, but she still wondered.
But when she entered, no one acted weird around her; Kurt didn’t snark more than usual, Quinn didn’t even seem to notice that she was there as usual, Santana wasn’t giving her the evil eye or anything.
She turned and saw Puck, who was looking at her sombrely. She felt queasy.
Big smile, Rachel, and down to business.
But she couldn’t do it, and feigning a coughing attack, she excused herself and walked out of the room. She leaned against the wallpaper in the corridor, pulling herself together, telling herself that just because Puck had probably told Finn, didn’t mean he was going to tell everyone ever. He certainly didn’t have enough mental capacity to put it on flyers and stick it around the school, so she should stop imagining that at least. But she couldn’t help but feel it was only a matter of time. She was torn between lambasting herself, and denouncing Puck in her own head.
Five minutes passed, and Mr. Schue came out and saw her leaning against the wall. He seemed surprised to see her there, and a beat passed before he asked;
‘Are you okay, Rachel?’
There was a beat, when Rachel realised that so much of her future was riding on this. Something as small as Sectionals could lead to a career in Broadway one day.
‘Of course, Mr. Schue.’ Rachel managed brightly and walked past him into the room.
This time her nerves didn’t fail her.
*
At 1.00am, after tossing and turning and deciding this was no way to live her life, she got out of bed and turned the flickering lamp on. In the dingy light, she sent a single text.
*Where are you?*
A text came back a moment later.
*Rm 32*
She put her shoes on, a jacket, and then decided to get dressed properly and spent ten minutes looking at herself in the mirror, fussing over her hair. And then she spent another five minutes trying to make it look dishevelled again, to indicate that no, she didn’t really care what she looked like around him.
She found his room easily, the door was unlocked, and she stepped into the same dingy lamp-lit room that was just a little bit crappier than hers. Puck was in bed, sitting propped up, looking at her.
‘What did you tell Finn?’ She said, unable to wait.
Puck smirked.
‘If this is the beginning of you telling everyone and his dog,’ she continued, ‘then you’d better let me know so I can prepare myself and my own narrative of the events.’
‘Sit.’ Puck said in a low voice, patting the side of the bed next to him. Rachel scoffed and shook her head.
‘If you sit, I’ll tell you what I said to Finn.’ He said, and she could actually hear the enjoyment he was getting out of this.
‘Listen to me, Noah,’ Rachel said, unleashing the spite that sometimes lurked nearby when she felt trapped, ‘you are just one phone call away from my Dads finding out and me claiming sexual harassment. And then it won’t matter what you tell people, because no one will believe you when they measure my own reputation against yours. I might be many things, Noah, but I’m not a slut, and I don’t get around like you do.’
Puck’s hand jerked back from the bedspread.
‘I told Finn to stay away from you, because I’d staked my claim. Okay? That’s it. I may have used more words. I don’t remember. That was the gist. But I take it back. You are way more trouble than you’re worth, Berry.’
Rachel turned to walk out of the room, and then paused with her hand on the doorknob.
‘Why? Why did you have to tell him anything at all?’
‘We can’t have anything at all, while you two are still thinking you have a shot at each other. You think I don’t know that he has some retarded super-magnetism that makes up for his dick size? Seriously.’
Rachel squinted as she tried to process that information. Puck wanting to have something with her? No, that didn’t sound right. Was that just a sledge at Finn’s penis size? She shook her head.
‘You’re not going to tell anyone else?’ She said into the door, unable to face him, feeling kind of ashamed now for being so paranoid.
‘Like anyone would be surprised that you’re a bad fucking lay, Berry. I wouldn’t even bother. It’d bring my rep down way more than yours. I might be some kind of man-whore to you, but I’d rather be that than be you.’
It was so scathing, so direct, that Rachel actually made a sound before she could stop herself. She paused, listening to the rushing sound in her head, and that inner voice that told her to keep it together, told her to keep it together, dammit. She had the door halfway open when a hand reached over her shoulder and pressed it closed. She turned and Puck was standing there, wearing boxers and nothing else.
‘Fuck you. I’m sorry.’ He said, in a way that both delivered anger and apology at once. She stared at him, shook her head.
‘I was...bad?’ She said in a voice that was so small, she had to look down at the floor to hide her embarrassment.
Puck swore, and she heard a loud thump next to her and jerked her head up. He had tiredly pressed his forehead against the door beside her, and looked as unhappy as she felt.
‘No.’ He said, tiredly.
Rachel nodded, and then needed some space, and ended up going to his bed and sitting down where he’d patted it. She ignored that it was warm from him, and that it was kind of nice, and said the next thing that came to her mind;
‘Finn is...small?’
Puck snorted laughter into the door and turned to face her, a broad grin stretching across his face. He shrugged.
‘Best friends don’t rat out best friend’s dick sizes.’
‘You’re probably lying anyway,’ Rachel said, defending Finn, even though it felt stupid to be doing it in the darkness of Puck’s room.
‘Whatever.’ He said.
‘Do you have any food? I haven’t eaten since...’ She thought, ‘since this morning.’
Puck raised brows at her, and then went into his backpack and dug around until he found something which he then tossed to Rachel. It was a bag of jellybeans with a post-it of ‘Good luck!’ on it. She opened the packet, and held up the post-it, and Puck shrugged.
‘My sister.’ He said.
‘I just wish I wasn’t so confused about all of this.’ Rachel said as she ate five jellybeans at once. ‘I don’t even know why I’m telling you anything at all. You clearly can’t be trusted. Sort of. And technically I shouldn’t even be here, but I couldn’t sleep, and I decided that you were at least partly responsible for that,’ Rachel said around her jellybeans, swallowing a multitude of flavours at once. ‘Are you sure I wasn’t bad?’
‘Jesus, get over it Rachel, you weren’t bad, okay?’
Rachel smiled a little.
‘I was hoping that some of the books I’d read had paid off, I mean I know nothing exempts the value of actual experience, but I thought that maybe-’
‘Is this thing you do, the not shutting up...do you do that when you’re nervous?’ Puck said suddenly, walking over to her and sitting next to her. Rachel looked at him, swallowed an apple flavoured jellybean. She was thinking of something to say, when his lips came down on hers and his tongue actually licked at her. Licked.
‘Apple.’ He said, and then grinned, before kissing her properly, lips pressing against hers, tongue gently tasting the underside of her lips and tongue. Rachel let the bag of jellybeans fall out of her hand, and closed her eyes, surprised to feel her body quicken already. Despite being physically exhausted, curls of warmth were beginning to float through her.
‘Shouldn’t we talk about this?’ She said against his lips, drawing back to take a breath, and ignoring the fact that her hands had somehow found their way to press against his ribs.
‘And say what? I said shit to Finn, you said shit to me, and now you’re letting me make it up to you?’
Rachel laughed.
‘Like you’re god’s gift.’
‘Like you didn’t enjoy it.’ He said, and she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of admitting he had a point, and he didn’t seem to care either way, because he was leaning in again to kiss her. She remembered some of the things he’d said and bit down on his lower lip hard. When he swore, she pushed him down onto the bed and straddled him, shifting her hips up so she didn’t immediately come into contact with his erection. She didn’t think she was ready for that yet. Not twice in one day, anyway.
She was feeling a little uncomfortable, and actually kind of tiny, aware of how far her legs have to spread just to straddle him. She wonders if she should just move back, apologise, go back to the serious discussion. But as she’s weighing up the pros and cons, Puck draws her upper arms down and kisses her again. She almost scoffs into his mouth when he goes straight to her top and starts trying to tug it up over her head.
‘Can’t kiss and undress at the same time.’ She said, leaning back and removing her blouse, folding it a little and then placing it on the other side of the bed.
Puck says nothing, no quip even, and when she turns back to him she is reminded that she hadn’t thought it was worth putting a bra on at one in the morning, and that he didn’t know that.
‘Condoms. Wallet.’ He says, pointing, and she looks at his wallet which has been thrown on the ground, next to the mound of his clothing, an empty water bottle, and some crumpled music notes. She tries to weigh the situation up again. Is it really a good idea to be having sex again, no matter how tempting it is? Should she just nip this thing in the bud and pretend it never happened? It was unfair being the smart, logical one all the time, because it’s not like the sex was bad or anything, and she’s fighting against a down-low warmth that persistently reminds her that actually, she is a hormonal teenager, and actually, Puck’s torso is really warm between her legs.
She is trying to think of ways to let herself and Puck down gently, when a hot palm ghosts over one breast, and then the other. She turned back and looks at him, and then closes her eyes when he squeezes gently, strokes one nipple, pinches it.
‘I can’t do both, Puck. I can’t get the condoms, and deal with you doing...whatever you’re doing.’
Puck removes his hand and Rachel wants to claw him in the face for that, but instead her body traitorously slides her off the bed and goes over to his wallet. She picks it up, and walks back over to the bed, where he’s watching her with a look on his face that might be awe. She thinks, no, that can’t be right.
‘This whole skirt and nothing else is a good look for you, Berry.’
Sometimes, rarely, Puck says things, and it makes her want him. And sometimes he says things that inexplicably (or sometimes not inexplicably at all) leave her thinking; this is not a good idea.
‘This is not a good idea.’ She says.
‘Tell me about it.’ He grins at her, beckons with his finger.
‘No really, I mean out of all the logical things I could be doing,’ she looks down at herself walking back to the bed and thinks; I’m trying to convince two people here, not just one, ‘this is not one of them. It’s not even remotely rational. I’m tired. You’ve been quite mean to me tonight, and I want to win Sectionals, not be snowed under by typical teenage angst because of some...’
‘When I said tell me about it, I didn’t actually mean it.’ He grabs her wrist, tugs her forward back to the bed, and then takes the wallet from her. And then he pulls her down alongside him, so that she’s lying on her side. She doesn’t know what she’s expecting, but she absolutely isn’t expecting him to straddle her.
She shifts to say something, but he’s pulling the hair back from her neck, and then kissing the skin there. Rachel sighs, relaxes onto her stomach, and then most of the cognitive part of her brain shuts down when he runs his capable hands down her shoulders, and back up again. It occurs to her after a moment that this is a lot like a massage, and she relaxes, cat-like, into the bed.
‘I thought I was going to be on top.’ She huffed, and he laughed softly, a sound that curled around her and was complemented by his hands stroking her upper arms, pressing into the muscles around her shoulder blades.
‘You know, you should loosen up. You’re really tight.’
She rolls her eyes at the innuendo, but can’t think of anything to say.
The massage of her shoulders turns to fingers curling around her upper ribs, skating the underside of her breasts. She arches up, and he cups them, touches her nipples and she shudders beneath him. She forces herself not to think of how many other people he’s probably done this with.
‘How much sleep do you need tonight?’ He asked, in a strained voice, as the fingers become palms again, and then the sensation of him squeezing both of her nipples at the same time. She swallows the sound that wanted to rise out of her throat.
‘I want to win.’ She said, instead.
‘You’re the best singer we have. We’re not performing until tomorrow night. You honestly think you won’t blow everyone away?’
Rachel isn’t listening to what he’s saying, because his hands have moved off her breasts and are deftly working her panties off. She turns, looks at him.
‘I should be on top.’
‘You should keep that skirt on.’ He says, and then lies down on the bed next to her, drawing her over him so that she’s straddling him. This time, he positions her hips so that she’s directly over his penis, with only the thin layer of boxers separating them. She closes her eyes, tries to stop herself from grinding down, and almost succeeds until Puck actually arches up into her. He doesn’t even hit her clitoris and it still feels amazing.
‘Every time I think you’re not into it,’ he drawls, his voice low, and deep, and doing unfair things to her, ‘it turns out you’re totally wet anyway. What is that?’
She ignores him, opens his wallet, hands him a condom. He winks at her, and she shakes her head as she shifts so he can put it on. She knows it would probably be hotter if she did it herself, but she’s not even sure her being on top is a good thing, now that she’s actually there and wondering how she’s supposed to keep herself upright and move and be all sexy and he can actually see her breasts and her torso and she thinks and of course they’ll bounce, and she’s blushing and biting her bottom lip and already embarrassed and she hasn’t even started yet.
He seems to be able to tell that something is up, even though she hasn’t said anything. He draws her back down and kisses her, silencing anything she might have said, and stifling her thoughts with his dexterous tongue. They kiss long enough, that she grinds down into him without even thinking. The angle is off, but it still feels good, so she does it again. His breath hitches beneath her, and he’s sitting up a little, reaching between them with one hand and actually positioning himself. And even that feels good. Rachel is feeling pretty breathless, but she knows at least some of that is him not exactly giving her many opportunities to catch her breath.
His tongue is sliding against hers as he pushes into her. She cries out, and the sound hums into his mouth. Puck responds with a groan of his own, moving back to catch his breath, even as he arches up even more. Rachel is kind of amazed at how different the angle feels. Because it’s good, and she knows she’s still tight, because actually Noah feels kind of huge still, and it hurts a little, but in that good, this isn’t fair kind of way.
Rachel pushes her hips down, and when he’s all the way in, she can’t move at all. She’s actually propping herself up on his chest and panting. But then Puck looks pretty out of breath as well. At least he gets to lie down, some voice in her head whines. But the angles are still really great, and she doesn’t want to change position yet. Or at all. Maybe even ever.
‘I can’t concentrate.’ She says, which has to be one of the stupidest things she thinks she could say in this situation, but Puck smirks up at her knowingly, like he didn’t think it was stupid at all.
His hands splay around her hips and he lifts her up a little, and withdraws, before pushing back in. She sees stars, while heat roars to life inside of her. She knows she’s saying something like ‘god,’ or ‘oh,’ but she’s not listening. He’s encouraging her into a rhythm which is slow and overwhelming. When she follows it of her own volition, hips undulating in that ‘I’ve been trained as a dancer since before I could walk’ kind of way, he actually groans and slumps back onto the bed. Rachel would feel pretty impressed that she’d rendered him speechless and unable to move, but she’s feeling pretty speechless herself. Sweat breaks across her forehead as she grinds into him, she experiments a little, moves a bit quicker, cants her hips into his a little more so that her clitoris is actually bumping into him.
‘Oh god.’ She hears herself say, and Puck reaches up and practically manhandles her down so that he’s kissing her, and running his hands over her belly and her breasts and her arms and basically anything he can reach. He’s pushing up into her each time, and it’s stoking some kind of invisible furnace because when she thought it was hard to catch her breath before, she had no idea that it was going to get significantly harder.
Their kisses are sloppy at times, but she doesn’t care. Her scalp hurts from time to time because he’s actually wound fingers into her hair now to keep her mouth near his, but she doesn’t care. She doesn’t know if she’s close, and she doesn’t even care about that either, because it feels so damned good.
But as it turns out, she is close, closer than she thought, because that strange, thrilling tension broadsides itself into her abdomen and suddenly she’s digging nails into his arm and whimpering into his mouth. Noah doesn’t let her up for air, doesn’t stop kissing her, just keeps the rhythm going even as she begins to falter.
When fingers she didn’t notice move between them, press themselves on either side of her clitoris and begin to rub, she is totally and completely lost. She crashes into him with a sharp cry, tightens around him, and then just holds on as the sensations smash into her. And a moment later, she knows he’s coming too, because she can actually feel the way he changes inside of her. And he’s tearing his mouth away from hers and swearing, pressing up into her so hard she wonders if her hips will bruise.
The aftershocks recede slowly, and pleasantly. Every time she thinks she’s done, her muscles ripple and she has to bite her lip and close her eyes. Puck recovers more quickly than her, and helps her off - her legs being kind of weak and non-functional - so that she’s lying by his side.
She has things she wants to say, but they sound muffled in her head, like all those mature voices are deep underwater. And she has things she thinks she should do, like put clothes back on, but she feels too tired and honestly, after a long day, she just wanted to sleep.
Puck is saying something to her, and it sounds serious, it even sounds like it might be nice, or sweet, or tellingly sincere. The sort of thing that makes her think of him as Noah, instead of Puck, like she’s in a Jekyll / Hyde situation.
But she’s too tired. And she’s asleep before she’s even finished telling herself to concentrate on what he has to say.
*
In the morning, Puck wakes up and Rachel is still next to him, naked except for her skirt, in his bed. She’s managed to wriggle her way - despite being virtually comatose - in the course of the night so that she was under the covers. And he had no fucking idea how she managed to take up all of the goddamned bed when she was so tiny, but he was pretty sure she’d defied rules of physics, mass, and a whole bunch of other stuff in the process.
He thinks about sex, but decides to have a shower first, because he’s feeling kind of sweaty. The water pressure from the shower nozzle is pathetic, but at least it’s hot and he luxuriates in the warmth for a while, trying to make sense of the events of the past twenty four hours.
First he’d scored with Rachel. And then, after watching Finn and imagining Rachel sleeping with him, he drew the guy aside and told him that Rachel was his and that sex equals ‘she’s mine’ and that he was to stop encouraging her. Seriously.
He could honestly say that he had no idea that Finn would get that annoyed and go straight to Rachel’s room. He knew Rachel fawned over Finn, but he had no idea that Finn was that into Rachel. And honestly, it pissed him off. Because it made him feel like he actually really had to do something about that. Like be with her, or some shit, because what if Finn ended up with her and then that was that? His chance was gone. And so he’d moped a bit after that. Because that was fucking depressing.
And then as it turns out, sex again, with her on top no less. He got hard again just thinking about it, and looked towards the direction of the bedroom door. There were heaps of things he could imagine doing with, or to, Rachel. Things that he didn’t even know he’d enjoy himself until he was introduced to them by cougars. And let’s face it, Rachel - for whatever reasons unknown to him - became kind of a sexpot in the bedroom. Maybe all her other personality ‘quirks’ was God’s way of balancing that out. He had no idea. But it made him think of some of the other things that had previously pissed him off in a totally different way. And he’d started even telling her about that last night, but he’d fucked her so good, she’d practically passed out. He resisted giving himself an actual pat on the shoulder for that one.
He stepped out of the shower, towelled himself off, and decided to go creatively wake Rachel up.