i'm a high school lover, you're my favorite flavor - one shot
co-author: une_fille
Glee. 4,451 words. Puck/Santana, Puck/Rachel. After all the shit they've been through, he realizes he probably wouldn't be the man he is today without her. Which is kinda fucked. Title stolen from the Air song, Playground Love.
Authors' Note: OKAY, SO. First and foremost, PUCK AND SANTANA SAY A LOT OF REALLY INAPPOPRIATE SHIT. Please don't get offended! They're vaguely awful human beings, we know this. Also, and more importantly: this is basically an MSN conversation gone horribly awry. There are only three things you need to know before you read this fic:
01. The hiatus has legit melted our brains.
02. There is nothing about Noah Puckerman that we do not find interesting and worthy of hours of discussion.
03. WE LOVE JESSE. (This has nothing to do with the fic, we just felt like sharing. Jesse: we knew we loved you before we met you. We think we dreamed you into life. /Savage Garden)
I'm a High School Lover, You're My Favorite Flavor
---
Santana’s first day at McKinley Middle, Puck elbows his dozing best bro and motions to her seat in the front of the room. Finn groggily wipes the drool from his face and mumbles something about clowns and purple gym socks.
“I call dibs.” Puck says, nodding in the direction of the new girl.
“What?”
Finn thinks she’s pretty, but to be honest, she kind of scares him. She's also really bossy and not particularly nice. Puck’s convinced she’s a girl after his own heart.
By week’s end, they’re the most talked about couple in the sixth grade, and their near-constant hand-holding in the halls is all the buzz around the second floor water fountain.
---
Puck and Santana have an epic middle school love affair, full of more heartbreak and drama than any two thirteen year-olds should bear. There’s laughter, there’s tears…But mostly there’s sharing Bubble Yum with their tongues and necking to Usher during Saturday night mixers in the gym.
---
Their first time is the summer before freshman year. All Puck's friends think he already did it because he told them three summers ago that he lost his virginity in fifth grade to his kid sister’s babysitter with the lip ring. But really, he loses it to Santana, her mouth tasting like rainbow snow cones and cherry Chapstick.
When his mom gets home, they barrel down the stairs, fingers entwined, saying something about catching the 7 o’clock show. Five minutes into Pirates of the Caribbean 3, she grabs his arm and pulls it around her shoulders and he thinks having a girlfriend is kinda cool.
---
When things are good, they're good. He makes Varsity Football freshman year, she makes Varsity Cheer, and they basically rule the freshman class with an iron fist. They may not be the most popular couple, but between publicly dry humping each other on a regular basis and terrorizing the late bloomers, they’re the most talked about. Which is all that matters to them anyway.
---
The first time he takes Spanish, it’s for her.
“A donde esta la Bibliotecha?”
She laughs and punches him in the chest then slings her arm around his back, slides her hand into the back pocket of his jeans and leads him to the bleachers.
(For three solid years, Puck’s thinks Bibliotecha is Spanish for blow job.)
---
When Quinn Fabray comes to town, Santana’s queen bee status is rescinded and she’s automatically bumped to second string. Puck’s strangely fascinated by the obnoxiously perfect, blonde Bible-thumper who (and he’d never admit this to San) is made infinitely hotter by the fact that she’s easily the biggest bitch he’s ever met. Finn, on the other hand, is too lost in her smile and long eyelashes to do anything but sigh and doodle hearts around her name during history class. He chases her around like a little puppy for weeks, leaving Puck noticeably bro-less.
“I fucking hate this chick.”
“You and me both, Papi.”
---
It’s not long before she notices Puck’s eyes wandering. At first she tells herself it’s because of Finn, but then she realizes it’s more than that.
Things start getting weird: there are more fights (and not fake, sexy fights, but actual knock-down drag-out wars where she says shit she knows will hurt him) and considerably less angry make up sex.
---
At first, Puck signs up for the Chastity Club because Finn grovels and his bro’s been wanting in that chick’s pants for the past three months. Then Santana explains to him what chastity means.
She cackles as he kicks over a garbage can.
“I swear to God, I’m going to murder Hudson.”
(They’re both high out of their minds when he drags her to the first meeting with him. She sits in his lap through the entire thing, whispering dirty things in his ear that make him wish he actually paid attention in Spanish class.)
---
When Finn and Quinn finally make it official, all Puck hears in basketball practice is how the four of them should “totally go on a double date.”
“Dude, your vagina. It’s showing.” Finn looks down at his crotch and Puck just rolls his eyes. “Listen dude, me and South of the Border don’t ride like that.”
“Come on, man. It’ll be fun.”
Finn decides on paintballing Friday night. Quinn shows up in delicate pink flats, carrying a straw bag that she holds daintily on the crook of her elbow while Santana saunters through the door in camo and a black bandana. The only thing she brings is her game face, eye black like war paint, and a plan of attack she probably spent hours cooking up.
Puck has never been more turned on in his life.
(Quinn ends up in the hospital and for reasons he will never understand, San decides to stay with her. By Monday, they’re attached at the hip, planning shopping trips and manicures together. He doesn’t ask her about it, just chalks it up to crazy chick shit, but all Santana thinks is that you keep your friends close and your enemies closer.)
---
After Homecoming sophomore year, they get totally plastered. Somehow, somewhere, there are drunken confessions of love and when they’ve finally sobered up, they both act like nothing happened. But Monday morning, she swears his grip around her waist is a little tighter than usual and she can feel him smile against her neck as he presses her against his locker.
(They don’t make plans for Saturday mornings anymore, instead penciling in their inevitable detentions weeks in advance.)
---
It’s not long before he gets tired of his old Hustlers and starts sending her dirty texts, half expecting her to forward them to his mom. When he gets a two message long reply about what she's doing and how she's thinking of him and how she cant stand it anymore…He almost faints.
Three elaborate texts later (seriously, she creates whole scenarios with cheetahs and jungle sex and Lamborghini fucking Diablos) and he's driving to her house, pedal to the floor, pants half-way off.
He doesn’t bother climbing up the tree to her window, like he usually does; instead, he bursts through the front door and finds her family in the living room. All thirty-four of them.
It’s her sister's Quinceañera.
(That was the day he learned meeting your girlfriend’s parents must be avoided at all fucking costs.)
---
Valentine’s Day, she finds a picture of Penelope Cruz stuffed in her locker, his chicken scratch scrawled over it.
Why did the Latina cross the Rio Grande?
To get to the Puckerone on the other side.
“Yo asshole,” she calls to him from across the hall, raising her message in the air. “Bitch is Spanish.”
“Whatevs,” he calls back, shrugging, “Same difference.”
---
"I’m pretty sure if you asked Finn to suck your cock, he would. That's all I'm saying okay? I mean, who needs a girlfriend when you've got a Halo butt-buddy taking up permanent residence on your fucking couch?”
“I don’t understand why you’re getting your panties in a bunch. I said we’d-”
When she launches into her Ricky Ricardo shit, he grabs the closest pillow and feigns suffocation.
---
The first time he gives Rachel Berry a Slushie facial, it's because San tells him to do it.
"Man, where are your cajones?”
His eyes narrow and they stare each other down before she finally breaks. “Come on, anyone who wears sparkly legwarmers to school deserves it.”
He hesitates and she laughs.
“Okay, seriously? If I wanted a girlfriend, I’d take Britt up on her offer.”
“Hey, I’m all man-wait what?”
(Turns out chucking flavored ice in unsuspecting losers’ faces was even more fun than Santana said it would be.)
---
When he finds Rachel Berry crying in the janitor's closet one day, he doesn’t meet Santana for lunch and cheats on her for the first time.
With Joe Gonsalves’ mom.
---
By Fall junior year, the epic of Puck and Santana is old news. They break up and get back together every other week, and he doesn't really mind because the angrier he gets her the better the make-up sex is, and it just turns out that in one of those lulls he gets Quinn Fabray knocked up.
When they get back together she asks him if the moms of Lima are going to survive it. He tries not to think of Quinn’s little secret as he laughs and says, “Bitch, I stayed home thinking of you.”
---
The second Santana finds out Quinn is pregnant, she knows it's Puck's.
She just knows.
---
Glee makes things weird. He stops hearing from her for awhile but it never crosses his mind that maybe she found out about the baby. They hook up every now and then, but it’s not like before; things are cold and distant and weird and when he calls her his little cunt muffin, she doesn’t laugh or swat his abdomen, she just hands him his boxers and tells him her dad will be home soon so he should probably leave.
---
When they come back from winter break, Santana’s top dog again, and all he gets is the cold shoulder.
---
About a month before Nationals, she’s notices Rachel’s fingers tangled with Puck’s as the group shuffles out of the music room, too many bodies to really distinguish whose limbs are where. If you’re not looking for it.
(Santana was always looking for it. In fact, she earned her place in high school because she could spot a weakness a mile away, even when everybody else missed it.)
Whatever passive-aggressive playground shit she’d dealt to Berry before pales in comparison to the outright abuse she now dishes out.
It lasts a solid week before Puck shows up at her locker and slams it in her face.
“Seriously? Cool it."
He's angrier than she's ever seen him and she doesn’t bother asking what the fuck he’s talking about, just scoffs and rolls her eyes.
After that, she stops acknowledging Rachel Berry’s existence altogether.
---
When Puck and Rachel become a legit item, she writes up a statement and reads it to the Glee Club. Santana practically salivates at the thought of Noah Puckerman facing the public humiliation of dating that thing until he stands up, places his hands on her shoulders and leads her to her seat.
“Alright, Little Miss Crazy-Pants, that’s enough outta you.” He turns to the rest of the club and immediately makes eye contact with Santana. “Newsflash: Berry and I are fucking. Deal with it.”
She knows that was his way of telling her to back the fuck off, but Santana Lopez takes orders from no one. And shit, she really does care about him, okay? In a really fucked up way. And dating Berry? He’d never be able to recover from that.
So she decides, for the boy’s sake, to intervene. What she forgets is that most of their talks usually lead to arguments.
“Where are your fucking balls, Puckerman?”
“I dunno, maybe I left them somewhere in the back of your throat!”
“I’m telling you, it’s gonna end badly. Poor girl doesn’t need a train wreck like you weighing her down.”
She doesn’t know how to handle it when his mouth closes, his shoulders slump, and he just walks away.
---
Puck always thought he wanted (no, needed) a bitch in his life to keep him in line but after Quinn, things change. It’s just that Berry’s voice is so soft and her hands are soft and her hair is soft and everything is soft and sometimes…You just need something soft. (He can hear Santana's voice in the back of his head, Oh my God. I think you just grew a vagina before my very eyes.)
He’s only a little ashamed until he walks into the music room earlier than usual one day, and finds Santana brushing Britt's hair, explaining how rainbows come from rain and sunshine.
---
A couple months before graduation, things get normal between them again. Not “Puck and Santana” normal, because sexting’s off the table now that Berry has his balls in a vice grip, but sometimes they get high and watch The Terminator in her basement together. She talks him into filling some pee balloons to launch at her neighbors’ snotty freshman daughter and he snorts into a pillow as she leaves dirty voicemails on his little sister’s boyfriend’s (not for long) phone.
He tries to tell Rachel that Santana's actually a pretty cool person, but Rachel will never not be convinced she's the spawn of Lucifer himself.
(Whatever, Berry is desperate for Kurt fucking Hummel’s approval, so her taste in friends is shit to him anyway.)
---
So he tells Rachel he loves her.
"Not bad for my first time. Minimal pain, no blood."
She rolls her eyes and hits him in the chest. Of course she loves him back.
“Is it different every time?” She asks.
“...What?” He sits up in bed and leans against the headboard. She scoots up next to him and wraps her arms around his waist, pressing her head against his chest so she can hear his heartbeat: loud and steady.
“Well, how you feel now. Was it different with Santana?”
He laughs so hard, he almost pees himself. Except, the thing is, he ends up thinking about it the whole drive home.
(What really bugs him is that he never could wrap his head around the thought of Santana loving him back.)
---
Graduation’s more emotional than he expects it to be. He doesn’t fucking cry or shit, it’s just that in the midst of Senior Week and being done with this shitfest of a high school, it never quite sinks in that everyone’s going their separate ways and his best fucking friend is moving to fucking Michigan and starting a new fucking life without him. Sure, Ann Arbor is only two hours away, but two hours is a lot more than two minutes.
When he sees Santana, he pulls her into a hug and it’s kind of weird, but it’s kind of not because no one’s really themselves right now. Her hand grazes the back of his neck as she kisses his cheek: a first. Their eyes linger on each other’s for a long moment, no sparks of passion or fiery tumult, just six years of their lives and a vague sense of melancholy.
He grins crookedly.
“You know, you're pretty alright for a chick, Lopez.”
“Yo, you better start running before they realize you can’t read and take that diploma back.”
“Wait-Can they actually do that?”
---
Santana’s the first to leave Lima, and Puck takes it pretty hard. At first Rachel thinks it’s just a post-graduation funk and everyone goes through it. But every time his phone buzzes, he scrambles to check it, and something’s just…Off.
“I’m not Santana Lopez, y'know. I'll never be Santana Lopez.”
“Um, no shit, Captain Obvious.”
“Noah, I’m being serious-”
“Listen, B. If you’re worried about the competition, don’t be. Trust me when I say, been there, done that…Seriously all of it. Bought the T-shirt and everything.”
Steam is practically coming out of her ears and murderous doesn’t even begin to describe the glare she’s shooting at him through her gritted teeth. His smile fades and he takes her hand in his.
“Seriously, Rachel. The day you become Santana Lopez is the day we fucking break up. I kinda like not getting fed to the dogs every other day.”
She quietly sits next to him and looks down at her hands. “How do I know I can trust you, Noah? Because I don’t think-After all we’ve been through, I don’t think I could handle-”
He stares at her seriously.
“Well I guess there’s no way to really know.”
She laughs sadly to herself but he speaks up again before she has the chance to say anything.
“Look, if I say I'm not, then I'm not, it's not fucking rocket science. And if that’s not good enough, I don’t really know what else to say.”
“Are you saying you changed?”
“I don’t know, maybe.” He wraps an arm around her and pulls her to him. “All I’m saying is if I wanted to be with that hellbeast I would be. But I’m not. I’m sitting in my basement watching fucking Dancing with the Stars with you.”
(He does have a point.)
---
Movie night can mean one of two things: chillaxin’ in front of the latest Tarantino or counting the hairs on his arms while Berry bops along to whatever musical she picked from her collection. In other words: fucking agony.
This week she sits him down and explains, slowly and with as few big words as possible, that even though it’s her turn to pick, she’s chosen something she feels they both need to pay very. Very. Close. Attention. To.
“This movie is about us, Noah.”
“Berry, you said that about fucking Moulin Rouge, so until you die…Or fuck me on an elephant…”
“Just watch it.”
Okay so Danny Zucco is this weird cross between flaming ’mo and secret BAMF that Puck can’t quite figure out without getting a headache, but by the end of the movie all he can really think about is that Fuck From Puck sounds a million times better than Hickey From Kinecky.
“So? What did you think?”
“I think Danny should’ve stuck it to that freaky Cha-Cha and dumped lame-o Sandy. Legit.”
Rachel starts sniffling and curls into a ball and he just rolls his eyes and goes to get himself a Mountain Dew. When he gets back she looks him dead in the eyes, "Cha-Cha was probably a hotbed for venereal disease." He doesn't know if she's talking about the movie or his own Cha-Cha, but he laughs so hard that the carpet’s stained toxic yellow for weeks.
---
Puck ends up staying in Lima for Rachel's senior year. His mom makes him enroll in some junior college shit (“When you’re living in my house, eating my food, you follow my rules. And no son of mine will work at Taco Bell for free chalupas.”) and things are actually pretty good. He works at the garage on Main Street for some extra cash and he has Berry, so…Yeah. Things are actually pretty good.
He doesn’t hear from Santana much, and he guesses it’s cause she’s too busy at Ohio State fucking anything with a dick and pledging whatever stupid sorority she told him about in her last e-mail. But every now and then, she calls him up and convinces him to come down to Columbus to party with her.
“Berry can come too, as long as you keep a muzzle on her.”
“Nah, it’s cool. We’ll see you whenever you’re back up here.”
“Say what? Is the Puckerone actually turning down an opportunity to party with college chicks? What did Rachel do to you?”
“Shut the fuck up-”
“Listen, Puck. Weren’t you the one who always said you wanted to get the hell out of that fucking town?” She pauses on the other end before speaking up again. “What’s one night?”
Rachel is in the middle of finals and refuses to see him until they’re over, so he thinks, what the hell? It’s just one night. Santana’s pretty trashed by the time he gets there and hanging on her frat boy, douchebag boyfriend’s arm like he shits bricks of 24-karat gold, and Puck can’t stand it because it’s all so…Not the Santana he knew.
So he grabs a drink and steps outside, pulling his cell phone out to check in with Berry and spin some lie about his mom sending him to his aunt’s house for the night to pick something up. She buys it (he truly is a gifted liar, really) but he keeps getting this nagging feeling to say something because Columbus sucks and the party’s, quite frankly, shit awful, and everything about it depresses him because everyone’s changing, but he will always be a Lima loser.
And that’s when he sees out of the corner of his eye, the purple of Santana’s dress. He fumbles a quick bye to Berry and snaps the phone shut. When he turns the corner, the dickweed boyfriend has his hands all over her and she’s crying and slurring teary apologies (she’s apologizing to him when he’s the one leaving fucking bruises on her arms) so he does what any sane, rational person would do. He fucking tackles the asshole to the ground and beats the living shit out of him.
Turns out jail is less like Oz and more like being grounded, except there's people to talk to and the food's better.
(Two hours later, Rachel shows up at the police station in her purple elephant pajamas, and her dad bails him out. She hugs him and says she’s proud of him for standing up for Santana like that. Then dumps him for lying about where he was.)
---
He and Berry fight all the fucking time. Usually everything sorts itself out after a couple of days, but every now and then it’ll go on for weeks. That’s usually when he drowns himself in Jack Daniels and drunk dials Santana.
“MAMI, I LOVED YOU, OKAY? WE HAD SOMETHING! FUCK, WHY'D YOU DO THAT TO US?”
“Uh...No hablo ingles.”
Click.
(“Uh, so…That call. I didn’t actually mean anything I-” “What call?” “Okay, cool.”)
---
In the Spring she calls him and is venting about some chick she's having a turf war with in her sorority, and he tells her about Berry getting into NYU.
“Oh God, if that girl actually becomes famous…I’m sorry, Papi, but I don’t think I can live in a world where your girlfriend is a star.”
He’s quiet for a long beat and she thinks, oh shit, too far? Until-
“...So yeah, I also got in.”
“Noah fucking Puckerman, stop bullshitting me, okay? Shut the hell up-You-You read at a third grade level. Did Rachel make this happen? Because I honestly don’t understand how any admissions officer in their right mind, let alone one at New York University-”
“Bitch, you don’t know my life!”
(Actually, she was right. Rachel wrote his essays for him and did 90% of his homework on the promise that he would do everything in his power to “secure his future” once he got to New York. Okay, okay whatever just tell me what the answer is to number three.)
---
So, those two weeks that he and Rachel were straight up, for real, Noah-I-mean-it-this-time-I’m-through, actually over over, him and Santana fall back into bed together. What else is there to do?
When Rachel takes him back, he figures he should say something, so he shows up at San’s house with some Taco Bell under his arm and his hands shoved deep in his pockets.
"Congrats, Cabron.” She nods. “Leave the taco."
---
Every now and then, Puck gets e-mails keeping him up to speed on the latest and greatest jetsetting destination Satana’s vaycay-ing at with her “girlies.” He usually zones out after “jetsetting,” but sometimes she talks about coming to New York and that’s when his attention picks back up. This time she’s celebrating something or another with her sorority sisters, some shit about shopping and getting herpes or whatever, he doesn't really care. All he knows is he’s supposed to meet her at Dean and Deluca’s at 10 AM sharp.
“HOLY. FUCKING. SHIT.”
“WHAT. THE. FUCK.”
“YOU’RE BLONDE.”
“YOU’RE DRESSED LIKE A HIPSTER.”
They get coffee and talk about old times (“Yo bitch, where’s my churro?” “What do I look like, a fucking amusement park?!”) and a little about what they’re up to now, but mostly old times. After an hour of laughing so hard she was pretty sure she doesn’t need to do her ab workout for a week, she motions to the tweed golf hat on Puck’s head.
“Plan on joining the PGA Tour there, Tiger?”
“Yeah, I heard you get crazy ass.”
She laughs, covers her face with her hand, and suddenly he notices the blinding ring.
“Shit, man. Who’d you catch in your Chicano lasso of love this time?”
“His name's Thad. He collects European sports cars.”
“Where'd you find him, the Mexican drug cartel?"
"You’re one to talk,” she says, motioning to a curiously short brunette hidden behind a potted plant, humming Streisand tunes to herself.
“Touche.”
---
When Rachel has a pregnancy scare, he calls Santana in a panic. It’s 2 AM and she's drunk and the music's really loud so she can barely hear herself think, let alone speak.
“Fuuuuuuuuuuck, I remember when I thought you knocked me up.”
“What?”
“What?”
“Santan-”
And the line goes dead.
(It had happened during one of his and Berry's “off” phases. Britt had driven her to the clinic to get the morning after pill. She would’ve asked him, but he got back together with Rachel by the time she admitted to herself there might be a risk. And even she's not that pathetic. When she finally tells him the whole story, it’s through e-mail - three sentences long - and he ignores her for the next four months.)
---
Santana ends up applying to law school. She gets into Columbia, so they see her more often than usual. Halfway through her first year, she’s found the love of her life, and she’s pretty sure it’s real this time: a hotshot neurosurgeon on the Upper West Side.
“YO, YOUR LIFE IS TURNING INTO THE HISPANIC COSBY SHOW.” He hears a click and the dial tone, then looks at the phone. “Hello?”
Rachel pats him on the shoulder from behind and grabs the phone from him.
“…We need to get you a job, babe.” **
---
When Rachel’s a week late and hovering over the toilet every morning, puking her brains out, that familiar panic sets in, but it feels different. His girl’s pregnant (for real this time) and she’s unusually calm about the whole thing and that gives him a little hope, because they have been together for god-knows-how-long by now, right? He knows that she'd never accept a proposal under these circumstances; she wants it to be real, and let’s be honest, so does he.
But the thing is...It is real.
Santana’s tapping away on her laptop, textbooks scattered around her, a venti, non-fat, triple-shot vanilla latte in her hand, when her BlackBerry buzzes.
TO: santana.lopez@columbialaw.edu
FROM: puckmehard69@yahoo.com
SUBJECT: WHOS GOT THUMBS AND A FIANCEE WITH A BUN IN THE OVEN
She spits her latte all over her constitutional law textbook and laughing, clicks the message.
THIS DOUCHEBAG
---
** Puck goes through a rough unemployed phase where he only wears wifebeaters and nasty old boxershorts; he eats Fruit Loops from salad bowls and watches The Cosby Show and Fresh Prince and even Full fucking House reruns all day.
une_fille: he thinks DJ tanner might've been his soulmate
of_hearts: he'll say shit like "WATCH THE HAIR" and crack himself up
of_hearts: once during sex he went HAVE MERCY
une_fille: HOW RUDE
of_hearts: and rachel pushed him off
Glee. 4,451 words. Puck/Santana, Puck/Rachel. After all the shit they've been through, he realizes he probably wouldn't be the man he is today without her. Which is kinda fucked. Title stolen from the Air song, Playground Love.
Authors' Note: OKAY, SO. First and foremost, PUCK AND SANTANA SAY A LOT OF REALLY INAPPOPRIATE SHIT. Please don't get offended! They're vaguely awful human beings, we know this. Also, and more importantly: this is basically an MSN conversation gone horribly awry. There are only three things you need to know before you read this fic:
01. The hiatus has legit melted our brains.
02. There is nothing about Noah Puckerman that we do not find interesting and worthy of hours of discussion.
03. WE LOVE JESSE. (This has nothing to do with the fic, we just felt like sharing. Jesse: we knew we loved you before we met you. We think we dreamed you into life. /Savage Garden)
I'm a High School Lover, You're My Favorite Flavor
---
Santana’s first day at McKinley Middle, Puck elbows his dozing best bro and motions to her seat in the front of the room. Finn groggily wipes the drool from his face and mumbles something about clowns and purple gym socks.
“I call dibs.” Puck says, nodding in the direction of the new girl.
“What?”
Finn thinks she’s pretty, but to be honest, she kind of scares him. She's also really bossy and not particularly nice. Puck’s convinced she’s a girl after his own heart.
By week’s end, they’re the most talked about couple in the sixth grade, and their near-constant hand-holding in the halls is all the buzz around the second floor water fountain.
---
Puck and Santana have an epic middle school love affair, full of more heartbreak and drama than any two thirteen year-olds should bear. There’s laughter, there’s tears…But mostly there’s sharing Bubble Yum with their tongues and necking to Usher during Saturday night mixers in the gym.
---
Their first time is the summer before freshman year. All Puck's friends think he already did it because he told them three summers ago that he lost his virginity in fifth grade to his kid sister’s babysitter with the lip ring. But really, he loses it to Santana, her mouth tasting like rainbow snow cones and cherry Chapstick.
When his mom gets home, they barrel down the stairs, fingers entwined, saying something about catching the 7 o’clock show. Five minutes into Pirates of the Caribbean 3, she grabs his arm and pulls it around her shoulders and he thinks having a girlfriend is kinda cool.
---
When things are good, they're good. He makes Varsity Football freshman year, she makes Varsity Cheer, and they basically rule the freshman class with an iron fist. They may not be the most popular couple, but between publicly dry humping each other on a regular basis and terrorizing the late bloomers, they’re the most talked about. Which is all that matters to them anyway.
---
The first time he takes Spanish, it’s for her.
“A donde esta la Bibliotecha?”
She laughs and punches him in the chest then slings her arm around his back, slides her hand into the back pocket of his jeans and leads him to the bleachers.
(For three solid years, Puck’s thinks Bibliotecha is Spanish for blow job.)
---
When Quinn Fabray comes to town, Santana’s queen bee status is rescinded and she’s automatically bumped to second string. Puck’s strangely fascinated by the obnoxiously perfect, blonde Bible-thumper who (and he’d never admit this to San) is made infinitely hotter by the fact that she’s easily the biggest bitch he’s ever met. Finn, on the other hand, is too lost in her smile and long eyelashes to do anything but sigh and doodle hearts around her name during history class. He chases her around like a little puppy for weeks, leaving Puck noticeably bro-less.
“I fucking hate this chick.”
“You and me both, Papi.”
---
It’s not long before she notices Puck’s eyes wandering. At first she tells herself it’s because of Finn, but then she realizes it’s more than that.
Things start getting weird: there are more fights (and not fake, sexy fights, but actual knock-down drag-out wars where she says shit she knows will hurt him) and considerably less angry make up sex.
---
At first, Puck signs up for the Chastity Club because Finn grovels and his bro’s been wanting in that chick’s pants for the past three months. Then Santana explains to him what chastity means.
She cackles as he kicks over a garbage can.
“I swear to God, I’m going to murder Hudson.”
(They’re both high out of their minds when he drags her to the first meeting with him. She sits in his lap through the entire thing, whispering dirty things in his ear that make him wish he actually paid attention in Spanish class.)
---
When Finn and Quinn finally make it official, all Puck hears in basketball practice is how the four of them should “totally go on a double date.”
“Dude, your vagina. It’s showing.” Finn looks down at his crotch and Puck just rolls his eyes. “Listen dude, me and South of the Border don’t ride like that.”
“Come on, man. It’ll be fun.”
Finn decides on paintballing Friday night. Quinn shows up in delicate pink flats, carrying a straw bag that she holds daintily on the crook of her elbow while Santana saunters through the door in camo and a black bandana. The only thing she brings is her game face, eye black like war paint, and a plan of attack she probably spent hours cooking up.
Puck has never been more turned on in his life.
(Quinn ends up in the hospital and for reasons he will never understand, San decides to stay with her. By Monday, they’re attached at the hip, planning shopping trips and manicures together. He doesn’t ask her about it, just chalks it up to crazy chick shit, but all Santana thinks is that you keep your friends close and your enemies closer.)
---
After Homecoming sophomore year, they get totally plastered. Somehow, somewhere, there are drunken confessions of love and when they’ve finally sobered up, they both act like nothing happened. But Monday morning, she swears his grip around her waist is a little tighter than usual and she can feel him smile against her neck as he presses her against his locker.
(They don’t make plans for Saturday mornings anymore, instead penciling in their inevitable detentions weeks in advance.)
---
It’s not long before he gets tired of his old Hustlers and starts sending her dirty texts, half expecting her to forward them to his mom. When he gets a two message long reply about what she's doing and how she's thinking of him and how she cant stand it anymore…He almost faints.
Three elaborate texts later (seriously, she creates whole scenarios with cheetahs and jungle sex and Lamborghini fucking Diablos) and he's driving to her house, pedal to the floor, pants half-way off.
He doesn’t bother climbing up the tree to her window, like he usually does; instead, he bursts through the front door and finds her family in the living room. All thirty-four of them.
It’s her sister's Quinceañera.
(That was the day he learned meeting your girlfriend’s parents must be avoided at all fucking costs.)
---
Valentine’s Day, she finds a picture of Penelope Cruz stuffed in her locker, his chicken scratch scrawled over it.
Why did the Latina cross the Rio Grande?
To get to the Puckerone on the other side.
“Yo asshole,” she calls to him from across the hall, raising her message in the air. “Bitch is Spanish.”
“Whatevs,” he calls back, shrugging, “Same difference.”
---
"I’m pretty sure if you asked Finn to suck your cock, he would. That's all I'm saying okay? I mean, who needs a girlfriend when you've got a Halo butt-buddy taking up permanent residence on your fucking couch?”
“I don’t understand why you’re getting your panties in a bunch. I said we’d-”
When she launches into her Ricky Ricardo shit, he grabs the closest pillow and feigns suffocation.
---
The first time he gives Rachel Berry a Slushie facial, it's because San tells him to do it.
"Man, where are your cajones?”
His eyes narrow and they stare each other down before she finally breaks. “Come on, anyone who wears sparkly legwarmers to school deserves it.”
He hesitates and she laughs.
“Okay, seriously? If I wanted a girlfriend, I’d take Britt up on her offer.”
“Hey, I’m all man-wait what?”
(Turns out chucking flavored ice in unsuspecting losers’ faces was even more fun than Santana said it would be.)
---
When he finds Rachel Berry crying in the janitor's closet one day, he doesn’t meet Santana for lunch and cheats on her for the first time.
With Joe Gonsalves’ mom.
---
By Fall junior year, the epic of Puck and Santana is old news. They break up and get back together every other week, and he doesn't really mind because the angrier he gets her the better the make-up sex is, and it just turns out that in one of those lulls he gets Quinn Fabray knocked up.
When they get back together she asks him if the moms of Lima are going to survive it. He tries not to think of Quinn’s little secret as he laughs and says, “Bitch, I stayed home thinking of you.”
---
The second Santana finds out Quinn is pregnant, she knows it's Puck's.
She just knows.
---
Glee makes things weird. He stops hearing from her for awhile but it never crosses his mind that maybe she found out about the baby. They hook up every now and then, but it’s not like before; things are cold and distant and weird and when he calls her his little cunt muffin, she doesn’t laugh or swat his abdomen, she just hands him his boxers and tells him her dad will be home soon so he should probably leave.
---
When they come back from winter break, Santana’s top dog again, and all he gets is the cold shoulder.
---
About a month before Nationals, she’s notices Rachel’s fingers tangled with Puck’s as the group shuffles out of the music room, too many bodies to really distinguish whose limbs are where. If you’re not looking for it.
(Santana was always looking for it. In fact, she earned her place in high school because she could spot a weakness a mile away, even when everybody else missed it.)
Whatever passive-aggressive playground shit she’d dealt to Berry before pales in comparison to the outright abuse she now dishes out.
It lasts a solid week before Puck shows up at her locker and slams it in her face.
“Seriously? Cool it."
He's angrier than she's ever seen him and she doesn’t bother asking what the fuck he’s talking about, just scoffs and rolls her eyes.
After that, she stops acknowledging Rachel Berry’s existence altogether.
---
When Puck and Rachel become a legit item, she writes up a statement and reads it to the Glee Club. Santana practically salivates at the thought of Noah Puckerman facing the public humiliation of dating that thing until he stands up, places his hands on her shoulders and leads her to her seat.
“Alright, Little Miss Crazy-Pants, that’s enough outta you.” He turns to the rest of the club and immediately makes eye contact with Santana. “Newsflash: Berry and I are fucking. Deal with it.”
She knows that was his way of telling her to back the fuck off, but Santana Lopez takes orders from no one. And shit, she really does care about him, okay? In a really fucked up way. And dating Berry? He’d never be able to recover from that.
So she decides, for the boy’s sake, to intervene. What she forgets is that most of their talks usually lead to arguments.
“Where are your fucking balls, Puckerman?”
“I dunno, maybe I left them somewhere in the back of your throat!”
“I’m telling you, it’s gonna end badly. Poor girl doesn’t need a train wreck like you weighing her down.”
She doesn’t know how to handle it when his mouth closes, his shoulders slump, and he just walks away.
---
Puck always thought he wanted (no, needed) a bitch in his life to keep him in line but after Quinn, things change. It’s just that Berry’s voice is so soft and her hands are soft and her hair is soft and everything is soft and sometimes…You just need something soft. (He can hear Santana's voice in the back of his head, Oh my God. I think you just grew a vagina before my very eyes.)
He’s only a little ashamed until he walks into the music room earlier than usual one day, and finds Santana brushing Britt's hair, explaining how rainbows come from rain and sunshine.
---
A couple months before graduation, things get normal between them again. Not “Puck and Santana” normal, because sexting’s off the table now that Berry has his balls in a vice grip, but sometimes they get high and watch The Terminator in her basement together. She talks him into filling some pee balloons to launch at her neighbors’ snotty freshman daughter and he snorts into a pillow as she leaves dirty voicemails on his little sister’s boyfriend’s (not for long) phone.
He tries to tell Rachel that Santana's actually a pretty cool person, but Rachel will never not be convinced she's the spawn of Lucifer himself.
(Whatever, Berry is desperate for Kurt fucking Hummel’s approval, so her taste in friends is shit to him anyway.)
---
So he tells Rachel he loves her.
"Not bad for my first time. Minimal pain, no blood."
She rolls her eyes and hits him in the chest. Of course she loves him back.
“Is it different every time?” She asks.
“...What?” He sits up in bed and leans against the headboard. She scoots up next to him and wraps her arms around his waist, pressing her head against his chest so she can hear his heartbeat: loud and steady.
“Well, how you feel now. Was it different with Santana?”
He laughs so hard, he almost pees himself. Except, the thing is, he ends up thinking about it the whole drive home.
(What really bugs him is that he never could wrap his head around the thought of Santana loving him back.)
---
Graduation’s more emotional than he expects it to be. He doesn’t fucking cry or shit, it’s just that in the midst of Senior Week and being done with this shitfest of a high school, it never quite sinks in that everyone’s going their separate ways and his best fucking friend is moving to fucking Michigan and starting a new fucking life without him. Sure, Ann Arbor is only two hours away, but two hours is a lot more than two minutes.
When he sees Santana, he pulls her into a hug and it’s kind of weird, but it’s kind of not because no one’s really themselves right now. Her hand grazes the back of his neck as she kisses his cheek: a first. Their eyes linger on each other’s for a long moment, no sparks of passion or fiery tumult, just six years of their lives and a vague sense of melancholy.
He grins crookedly.
“You know, you're pretty alright for a chick, Lopez.”
“Yo, you better start running before they realize you can’t read and take that diploma back.”
“Wait-Can they actually do that?”
---
Santana’s the first to leave Lima, and Puck takes it pretty hard. At first Rachel thinks it’s just a post-graduation funk and everyone goes through it. But every time his phone buzzes, he scrambles to check it, and something’s just…Off.
“I’m not Santana Lopez, y'know. I'll never be Santana Lopez.”
“Um, no shit, Captain Obvious.”
“Noah, I’m being serious-”
“Listen, B. If you’re worried about the competition, don’t be. Trust me when I say, been there, done that…Seriously all of it. Bought the T-shirt and everything.”
Steam is practically coming out of her ears and murderous doesn’t even begin to describe the glare she’s shooting at him through her gritted teeth. His smile fades and he takes her hand in his.
“Seriously, Rachel. The day you become Santana Lopez is the day we fucking break up. I kinda like not getting fed to the dogs every other day.”
She quietly sits next to him and looks down at her hands. “How do I know I can trust you, Noah? Because I don’t think-After all we’ve been through, I don’t think I could handle-”
He stares at her seriously.
“Well I guess there’s no way to really know.”
She laughs sadly to herself but he speaks up again before she has the chance to say anything.
“Look, if I say I'm not, then I'm not, it's not fucking rocket science. And if that’s not good enough, I don’t really know what else to say.”
“Are you saying you changed?”
“I don’t know, maybe.” He wraps an arm around her and pulls her to him. “All I’m saying is if I wanted to be with that hellbeast I would be. But I’m not. I’m sitting in my basement watching fucking Dancing with the Stars with you.”
(He does have a point.)
---
Movie night can mean one of two things: chillaxin’ in front of the latest Tarantino or counting the hairs on his arms while Berry bops along to whatever musical she picked from her collection. In other words: fucking agony.
This week she sits him down and explains, slowly and with as few big words as possible, that even though it’s her turn to pick, she’s chosen something she feels they both need to pay very. Very. Close. Attention. To.
“This movie is about us, Noah.”
“Berry, you said that about fucking Moulin Rouge, so until you die…Or fuck me on an elephant…”
“Just watch it.”
Okay so Danny Zucco is this weird cross between flaming ’mo and secret BAMF that Puck can’t quite figure out without getting a headache, but by the end of the movie all he can really think about is that Fuck From Puck sounds a million times better than Hickey From Kinecky.
“So? What did you think?”
“I think Danny should’ve stuck it to that freaky Cha-Cha and dumped lame-o Sandy. Legit.”
Rachel starts sniffling and curls into a ball and he just rolls his eyes and goes to get himself a Mountain Dew. When he gets back she looks him dead in the eyes, "Cha-Cha was probably a hotbed for venereal disease." He doesn't know if she's talking about the movie or his own Cha-Cha, but he laughs so hard that the carpet’s stained toxic yellow for weeks.
---
Puck ends up staying in Lima for Rachel's senior year. His mom makes him enroll in some junior college shit (“When you’re living in my house, eating my food, you follow my rules. And no son of mine will work at Taco Bell for free chalupas.”) and things are actually pretty good. He works at the garage on Main Street for some extra cash and he has Berry, so…Yeah. Things are actually pretty good.
He doesn’t hear from Santana much, and he guesses it’s cause she’s too busy at Ohio State fucking anything with a dick and pledging whatever stupid sorority she told him about in her last e-mail. But every now and then, she calls him up and convinces him to come down to Columbus to party with her.
“Berry can come too, as long as you keep a muzzle on her.”
“Nah, it’s cool. We’ll see you whenever you’re back up here.”
“Say what? Is the Puckerone actually turning down an opportunity to party with college chicks? What did Rachel do to you?”
“Shut the fuck up-”
“Listen, Puck. Weren’t you the one who always said you wanted to get the hell out of that fucking town?” She pauses on the other end before speaking up again. “What’s one night?”
Rachel is in the middle of finals and refuses to see him until they’re over, so he thinks, what the hell? It’s just one night. Santana’s pretty trashed by the time he gets there and hanging on her frat boy, douchebag boyfriend’s arm like he shits bricks of 24-karat gold, and Puck can’t stand it because it’s all so…Not the Santana he knew.
So he grabs a drink and steps outside, pulling his cell phone out to check in with Berry and spin some lie about his mom sending him to his aunt’s house for the night to pick something up. She buys it (he truly is a gifted liar, really) but he keeps getting this nagging feeling to say something because Columbus sucks and the party’s, quite frankly, shit awful, and everything about it depresses him because everyone’s changing, but he will always be a Lima loser.
And that’s when he sees out of the corner of his eye, the purple of Santana’s dress. He fumbles a quick bye to Berry and snaps the phone shut. When he turns the corner, the dickweed boyfriend has his hands all over her and she’s crying and slurring teary apologies (she’s apologizing to him when he’s the one leaving fucking bruises on her arms) so he does what any sane, rational person would do. He fucking tackles the asshole to the ground and beats the living shit out of him.
Turns out jail is less like Oz and more like being grounded, except there's people to talk to and the food's better.
(Two hours later, Rachel shows up at the police station in her purple elephant pajamas, and her dad bails him out. She hugs him and says she’s proud of him for standing up for Santana like that. Then dumps him for lying about where he was.)
---
He and Berry fight all the fucking time. Usually everything sorts itself out after a couple of days, but every now and then it’ll go on for weeks. That’s usually when he drowns himself in Jack Daniels and drunk dials Santana.
“MAMI, I LOVED YOU, OKAY? WE HAD SOMETHING! FUCK, WHY'D YOU DO THAT TO US?”
“Uh...No hablo ingles.”
Click.
(“Uh, so…That call. I didn’t actually mean anything I-” “What call?” “Okay, cool.”)
---
In the Spring she calls him and is venting about some chick she's having a turf war with in her sorority, and he tells her about Berry getting into NYU.
“Oh God, if that girl actually becomes famous…I’m sorry, Papi, but I don’t think I can live in a world where your girlfriend is a star.”
He’s quiet for a long beat and she thinks, oh shit, too far? Until-
“...So yeah, I also got in.”
“Noah fucking Puckerman, stop bullshitting me, okay? Shut the hell up-You-You read at a third grade level. Did Rachel make this happen? Because I honestly don’t understand how any admissions officer in their right mind, let alone one at New York University-”
“Bitch, you don’t know my life!”
(Actually, she was right. Rachel wrote his essays for him and did 90% of his homework on the promise that he would do everything in his power to “secure his future” once he got to New York. Okay, okay whatever just tell me what the answer is to number three.)
---
So, those two weeks that he and Rachel were straight up, for real, Noah-I-mean-it-this-time-I’m-through, actually over over, him and Santana fall back into bed together. What else is there to do?
When Rachel takes him back, he figures he should say something, so he shows up at San’s house with some Taco Bell under his arm and his hands shoved deep in his pockets.
"Congrats, Cabron.” She nods. “Leave the taco."
---
Every now and then, Puck gets e-mails keeping him up to speed on the latest and greatest jetsetting destination Satana’s vaycay-ing at with her “girlies.” He usually zones out after “jetsetting,” but sometimes she talks about coming to New York and that’s when his attention picks back up. This time she’s celebrating something or another with her sorority sisters, some shit about shopping and getting herpes or whatever, he doesn't really care. All he knows is he’s supposed to meet her at Dean and Deluca’s at 10 AM sharp.
“HOLY. FUCKING. SHIT.”
“WHAT. THE. FUCK.”
“YOU’RE BLONDE.”
“YOU’RE DRESSED LIKE A HIPSTER.”
They get coffee and talk about old times (“Yo bitch, where’s my churro?” “What do I look like, a fucking amusement park?!”) and a little about what they’re up to now, but mostly old times. After an hour of laughing so hard she was pretty sure she doesn’t need to do her ab workout for a week, she motions to the tweed golf hat on Puck’s head.
“Plan on joining the PGA Tour there, Tiger?”
“Yeah, I heard you get crazy ass.”
She laughs, covers her face with her hand, and suddenly he notices the blinding ring.
“Shit, man. Who’d you catch in your Chicano lasso of love this time?”
“His name's Thad. He collects European sports cars.”
“Where'd you find him, the Mexican drug cartel?"
"You’re one to talk,” she says, motioning to a curiously short brunette hidden behind a potted plant, humming Streisand tunes to herself.
“Touche.”
---
When Rachel has a pregnancy scare, he calls Santana in a panic. It’s 2 AM and she's drunk and the music's really loud so she can barely hear herself think, let alone speak.
“Fuuuuuuuuuuck, I remember when I thought you knocked me up.”
“What?”
“What?”
“Santan-”
And the line goes dead.
(It had happened during one of his and Berry's “off” phases. Britt had driven her to the clinic to get the morning after pill. She would’ve asked him, but he got back together with Rachel by the time she admitted to herself there might be a risk. And even she's not that pathetic. When she finally tells him the whole story, it’s through e-mail - three sentences long - and he ignores her for the next four months.)
---
Santana ends up applying to law school. She gets into Columbia, so they see her more often than usual. Halfway through her first year, she’s found the love of her life, and she’s pretty sure it’s real this time: a hotshot neurosurgeon on the Upper West Side.
“YO, YOUR LIFE IS TURNING INTO THE HISPANIC COSBY SHOW.” He hears a click and the dial tone, then looks at the phone. “Hello?”
Rachel pats him on the shoulder from behind and grabs the phone from him.
“…We need to get you a job, babe.” **
---
When Rachel’s a week late and hovering over the toilet every morning, puking her brains out, that familiar panic sets in, but it feels different. His girl’s pregnant (for real this time) and she’s unusually calm about the whole thing and that gives him a little hope, because they have been together for god-knows-how-long by now, right? He knows that she'd never accept a proposal under these circumstances; she wants it to be real, and let’s be honest, so does he.
But the thing is...It is real.
Santana’s tapping away on her laptop, textbooks scattered around her, a venti, non-fat, triple-shot vanilla latte in her hand, when her BlackBerry buzzes.
TO: santana.lopez@columbialaw.edu
FROM: puckmehard69@yahoo.com
SUBJECT: WHOS GOT THUMBS AND A FIANCEE WITH A BUN IN THE OVEN
She spits her latte all over her constitutional law textbook and laughing, clicks the message.
THIS DOUCHEBAG
---
** Puck goes through a rough unemployed phase where he only wears wifebeaters and nasty old boxershorts; he eats Fruit Loops from salad bowls and watches The Cosby Show and Fresh Prince and even Full fucking House reruns all day.
une_fille: he thinks DJ tanner might've been his soulmate
of_hearts: he'll say shit like "WATCH THE HAIR" and crack himself up
of_hearts: once during sex he went HAVE MERCY
une_fille: HOW RUDE
of_hearts: and rachel pushed him off