Chances: 9/?
title: Chances (9/ )
fandom: Glee
pairing: Rachel/Will
rating: A softish R for this part
spoilers: Through Sectionals. Yeah, the one from Season 1.
a/n: An early Christmas present for the lovely people who have read and enjoyed this story and bugged me to continue it. I don't have much more written after this, but I'm going to try not to leave it unfinished. Thank you for reading, and letting me know you read, and all the lovely things you've said about this story.
“Hey Rach.”
“Tell me you want to come to New York.”
Will drops his keys just as he's going to unlock his front door.
“Um . . .”
Rachel sighs over the line. “They’re extending our run.”
“Really?” Will’s too flustered trying to pick up his keys without dropping the phone from between his ear and shoulder to mask the surprise in his voice. Apparently opening night had been a fluke.
“Yes. Until the end of January.”
“January,” he repeats. “So, are you still going to be able to come home for Christmas?” Will finally gets his keys in hand and opens his door.
“I don’t know how. Even if I could afford it we’re supposed to do a Christmas Eve matinee and then back to our regular schedule on the twenty-seventh.”
Will hears the quiver in her voice and leans back against his closed door, letting his bag drop to the floor at his feet.
“Baby,” he sighs sympathetically.
“It’s fantastic, really,” she adds, too evenly. “Clearly the extension is only an indication that-” she trails off.
Her voice is small, and breaking here and there under the strain of her forced bravery, but the truth of it is that she’s nineteen and away from home and it’s all setting in. She had always existed in the small cocoon of Lima, barely able to stretch her creative limbs to test them. Having thrust herself - alone - out of everything familiar, her blind confidence had already begun to falter and the change of plans was nearly toppling it.
Will thinks about it for a split second before it’s decided.
“What if I do come out there?”
He’d spend all his time at strained family dinners wishing he was with her anyway.
“Really?”
“Yeah. We can have Christmas together. I mean, I don’t know if you really celebrate Christmas . . . do you?” Will backpedals quickly. He’s never dated a Jewish girl before. He suddenly wonders if he’ll have to procure a yarmulke.
“Christmas wasn’t exactly the main winter holiday in the Berry household, but - I’d like to try something new.”
“Okay then. Christmas in New York.”
“Christmas in New York,” she answers happily.
There’s a ripple of pure frenetic joy in Rachel’s stomach; a fantasy of her first New York Christmas with Will had been zipping through her mind even before Sam had made the announcement to the cast about the play. She would be happy enough to have one purely non-Jewish Christmas just once, which could never happen in Lima with her dads.
After they hang up Will pauses and glances a little unsurely at his phone. Rachel grabs her copy of Miracle on 34th Street - one of the few non-musicals she owns, and puts it in her DVD player. She sinks down onto her couch, still clutching her phone to her chest, and beams at the TV screen, everything else momentarily forgotten.
_
“Mom.”
“Hmm?”
“I’m not going to be home for Christmas this year. I’m going to New York.”
“New York? But what’s-”
“The woman I’ve been seeing. Dating. We’re dating.”
“Pretty seriously if you’re spending a holiday away from your family. Why haven’t I heard about her?”
“She - well. Alright. She was one of my students.”
“She what? Not from McKinley?”
“Well, yeah. Yes. From McKinley.”
“Will, really, a student? Even if she was a senior when you started teaching she’d only be, what, in her mid twenties now? How old is this girl?”
“She’s . . . not quite in her mid-twenties. Mom, I’m telling you this because I want you to meet her, at some point, and I don’t want it to be a surprise, I-”
“Oh, Will.”
_
Rachel greets Will at the airport in a Santa hat.
He grins as she fairly skips up to him and he drops his bags dramatically at his feet before he wraps her up in a tight hug. She nearly strangles him, wrapping her arms around his neck and holding on as he stands straight and lifts her feet off the ground.
“I’m so glad you came,” she whispers.
“Me too.”
Will gently pulls her grip loose and holds her face in his hands. He runs his fingertips over her eyebrows, her cheeks, and passes his thumbs over her mouth. He spends a moment just staring at her, letting the last dregs of uncertainty float around him, separate from him and her and everything he knows as long as he’s looking at her.
“Kiss me hello,” she demands softly.
Will smiles. “Okay,” he answers against her lips.
_
Bing Crosby’s gentle voice cuts out.
The soft light of white Christmas lights vanishes with a slight pop.
Rachel lets out a gasp and then there is the sound of glass colliding with metal and china when she knocks her glass over, sending egg nog flowing over the table.
“What happened?” Will asks, fumbling to set his glass down.
“The electricity’s out,” Rachel snaps through the dark. Will hears silverware clinking haphazardly.
Will glances out her window and sees the windows of the building next door glowing. The music coming up through the floorboards continues.
“Did . . . I mean, have you been able to-”
“I paid the bill. I paid . . . what I could,” Rachel says quietly.
Will feels a dreadful sinking in his chest. His eyes have begun to adjust to the meager light coming in from outside the windows and he reaches out and stills her hands fluttering ineffectually over the mess on the table.
“I don’t need your pity,” she snaps again, yanking her hands back.
“I’m not, I’m just trying to be . . . comforting.”
“Comforting? Why would I need comforting? It’s just a silly little power outage, Will. I’m fine. I’m- fine.”
“Okay, okay. Listen,” he continues cautiously as he reaches for his wallet. “Why don’t you call the power company, and just take care of whatever you need to get the lights back on.”
“I don’t need your money.”
“Rachel-”
“I said I don’t need-”
“It’s winter, Rachel. I really don’t feel like freezing to death just so you can keep your pride.”
“Fine.”
She snatches the credit card out of his hand and gets up from her seat on the floor at her coffee table and stalks off - as far as she can in a studio apartment. Will stays where he is, slumped against the couch. Rachel’s quiet, and he hears a voice on the other end of the line, very faintly and garbled, that sounds like a recorded message. He stares into the darkness and waits.
“No one’s there till tomorrow morning,” Rachel says. “For the holiday,” she adds.
Will looks up and sees her standing next to him, holding out the credit card for him to take back. He takes her hand in his and tugs her down to sit on the floor next to him. He wraps his arm around her and sighs with closed eyes when she curls against his side with her head on his shoulder.
“I hate this,” she whispers. “I hate it here.”
“It’s New York,” he reminds her gently. “This is where you’ve always wanted to be.”
She sniffs wetly before she continues. “Not like this. I wanted things to be different.”
“Different how?” he asks as he shifts and stretches his legs out in front of him. Rachel pulls her knees up to her chest and he wraps both arms around her curled up form. She shakes her head at his question and her fingers find a button on his shirt and toy with it blindly.
He turns and presses his lips to her hair, stays and breathes in the clean sweet smell before puckering his lips in a kiss.
“I didn’t plan on you,” she admits through a cautious smile. Will laughs out loud.
“You think I planned on you?” he asks incredulously, jostling her in his arms a little until she laughs.
“You already know I had very serious feelings for you sophomore year,” she reminds him primly. “I think it’s only fair I find out the first time you thought of me as something more than a student.”
Will pauses and his eyes widen a little. He huffs out a cough in an attempt to mask his discomfort.
“Come on Rach, we don’t really have to go into this, do we?”
She shifts until she can just see his profile, squinting to make out his features in the pale light filtering in from her windows. Even though it’s still dark, Will avoids her eyes. She lets out a little gasp and pushes further out of his arms to better stare at him in disbelief.
“Will,” she breathes, scandalized.
“Okay, wait, don’t jump to conclusions,” he tries to appease her, reaching blindly for her and catching her by the upper arms. She surprises him by climbing up to straddle his thighs and lace her fingers together along the back of his neck.
“Tell me,” she sing-songs. “Tell me about all the inappropriate thoughts you had about me when I was just a girl and you were my mentor.”
Will sighs, partially amused by her obvious delight but his discomfort at unearthing this topic with her wins out and he pats her hip softly. “Another time?”
Rachel acquiesces for perhaps the first time in her life.
They light candles and clean up the mess of spilled glasses from dinner. Will washes the dishes and Rachel dries. They round up every blanket Rachel owns, pile them on her bed and crawl under, pressing and twining together.
“This is nice,” Will says softly. He rubs his hands up and down Rachel’s back and she wriggles closer and laughs humorlessly.
“Yes, this is the best Christmas ever. The power went out and I made a mess and we fought and now we’re going to freeze to death in our sleep.”
“Rach, we’ve had bigger fights about eighth notes versus quarter notes.”
Her shoulders lift and drop against his arms. “I didn’t like it, anyway,” she says. He feels her hands slide slowly over his back and his sides.
He dips his head down and finds her mouth for a slow kiss. They linger and wander, trailing their mouths over sensitive skin and breathing each other in. Rachel shivers at the cold tip of Will’s nose on her neck and she feels goose bumps rise when he laughs softly against her skin.
She rolls over suddenly on top of him with her hands pressed to his chest. They stare at each other for a moment. A thrill of anxiety ripples up Rachel’s spine to slide around her neck and over her cheeks in a heated flush. Will’s hands rest gently on her thighs and she feels the exact moment they start to move, sliding lightly over the fabric of her pajama pants. There’s a strangely intertwined sense of safety and danger with him, familiarity and risk.
She leans in and watches his face as she lowers herself closer until she can kiss him. His lips part and his chin lifts in anticipation; his hands press insistently upwards until he grasps her waist. Rachel presses close to him and clenches her thighs around his hips, flexing her toes in the sheets. She draws a groan from him when she presses herself fully against his body.
They fall into a maze of limbs and hands and legs curving around hips. When he sits up and tugs off his sweatshirt she smiles and wiggles out of her pants and they kneel on the bed for a moment outlined by the bleak light from the window.
“Rach,” he whispers hoarsely, “baby-”
“I like that,” she interrupts. She runs her hands lightly over his chest. “When you call me baby? Say it again.”
“Baby,” he croaks, hands sliding up her back and bringing the hem of the thermal shirt she’d borrowed from him up over her skin, and she fists her hands in his t-shirt and drags him back on top of her. She shivers as his hand runs smoothly down her side and around to her inner thigh. His fingertips catch on the elastic of her underwear and they both freeze for a moment before Rachel shifts her hips against his hand and the movement sends his fingers sliding against her.
He moves his fingers experimentally, delving and circling and Rachel braces her forehead on his shoulder and gasps quietly, her hands still clenched unbelievably tight in his shirt. He slides his other hand up to cup the back of her neck and guides her face up to his to kiss her slow and deep as his touches slip into a rhythm that makes her moan against his mouth.
Rachel feels tension begin to melt, despairing want disappearing from under her skin, displaced by sparkling liquid jolts of pleasure. She leans into his kisses and rolls her hips into his touch and feels the grunt of pleasure well up from deep in his chest.
Will’s touches quicken until he’s sliding a finger inside her, and then two and she’s squirming and gasping more in shock than pleasure. She’s never felt anything like his hands and part of her mind is measuring and noting every stage of this, every barrier broken and line crossed.
Suddenly she understands that she is young, very very young in some ways even though she’s felt a hundred years old at times over the last several months. When she whimpers a little and Will soothes her, fingers sliding away to trail feather-light touches over her again as he copies the motion with gentle kisses peppered over her cheeks and neck.
“This is the first time, isn’t it?” he asks quietly, his face still nuzzled into the crook of her neck. Rachel feels her cheeks burning as she nods. There’s nothing to be ashamed of, she knows, but she hates the feeling of being behind or unprepared.
“I don’t want to rush anything,” he says. He palms her hip softly.
“We’re not. Will, it’s been three months.”
“It’s been three years,” he corrects her quietly. “You were sixteen when I met you. And I didn’t even know I was meeting . . . you.”
He tips his forehead against hers and whispers his next admission with his eyes closed.
“I’ve thought about this for . . . too long.”
Rachel’s eyes snap open and she stares at his closed ones. “You mean when-”
“Once or twice.” He opens his eyes and glances at her, clears his throat. If there were more light she’d be able to tell he was blushing. He takes a breath and continues. “It wasn’t . . . I just noticed you. A few times.” He turns to look at her fully. “That’s too much information, isn’t it?”
Rachel’s quiet for a moment before she surges up and kisses him brashly, full sudden and urgent passion. She strays from his mouth and her teeth scrape lightly along his jaw as she whispers against his cheek, “I had dreams about you.”
“Christ,” Will mutters. “Are you sure you want this? I mean now, tonight?” he murmurs into her ear before his lips close around her earlobe and he bites.
She almost laughs through her moan. She takes his face in her hands and pulls him up to look her in the eye. His hips arch between her thighs.
“Will,” she whispers, “I love you, but you can be an idiot sometimes.”
Of course he gets caught on one part of that sentence. “You love me?”
She pauses a moment, and nods. “I always have, in one way or another.”
He searches her face for a moment before he leans in again to kiss her shakily. The word, the thought, is caught up inside him and he feels young again. Through the fog of her skin and her sighs, he realizes he’s the one who hasn’t been ready, who’s been hesitating and stumbling along the way, while she’s been waiting for him to move forward.
“Rachel,” he whispers against her mouth. He repeats it, trails it over her cheek, knowing what he wants to say and unable to make it come out right.
“Yes?” she answers breathlessly. He feels her hand touch his cheek tentatively and he reaches up and pulls her fingers to his lips where he presses another kiss against the tips. Will stays frozen a moment longer, just processing for the thousandth time that this is Rachel, the same one who sang On My Own and baked him pink-frosted cookies and quit Glee club twice.
“I love you.”
_
When, what seems like hours later, he’s inside her and kissing her and everywhere all around her, Rachel wonders why no one told her how much it would hurt.
She wraps her arms around Will’s shoulders and holds him tight against her, feeling the hair on his chest tickle against her skin and as he rocks into her she buries her teeth in his shoulder. He hisses in pain and pulls back to look into her eyes.
“Are you okay?” he asks breathlessly.
Rachel nods and holds him tighter, and he brushes his cheek along hers, and murmurs endearments in her ear.
This moment, she knows, is one of the defining ones. It’s not the first time she’s found a small part of her heart broken away in the midst of a milestone. Before she would have wondered if she would ever be able to tell her mother about it. Now she knows she won’t. It’s a small piece of her, a sliver taken away, and that hurts too.
_
Will wakes slowly, aware of the cold and Rachel’s voice shuddering with her shivering. Rachel sits up in cross legged bed with the blankets pulled up over her lap. He reaches out blindly and hooks his arm around her hips, tugging her closer so he can curl around her with his head resting on her thigh. Rachel flips her phone closed and runs her fingers through Will’s hair.
“Morning,” she says softly.
He hums in response and reaches up and tugs her down next to him. She mirrors his position, pillows her head on her arms and wriggles in closer to his side so they’re pressed together side by side.
“The power should be back on soon,” she tells him. He “hm’s” again, eyes still closed, and reaches over to pull her still closer and twine his arms through hers until her cheek rests against his hands folded over hers and he has one leg pulled up resting over the backs of her thighs. Rachel pulls in a small breath and feels the resistance of his chest against her back.
She’s completely surrounded by home, almost smothered, and she can feel every breath and even the thump of his heart in his chest. She closes her eyes again and feels warmth suffuse her, finally.
_
fandom: Glee
pairing: Rachel/Will
rating: A softish R for this part
spoilers: Through Sectionals. Yeah, the one from Season 1.
a/n: An early Christmas present for the lovely people who have read and enjoyed this story and bugged me to continue it. I don't have much more written after this, but I'm going to try not to leave it unfinished. Thank you for reading, and letting me know you read, and all the lovely things you've said about this story.
“Hey Rach.”
“Tell me you want to come to New York.”
Will drops his keys just as he's going to unlock his front door.
“Um . . .”
Rachel sighs over the line. “They’re extending our run.”
“Really?” Will’s too flustered trying to pick up his keys without dropping the phone from between his ear and shoulder to mask the surprise in his voice. Apparently opening night had been a fluke.
“Yes. Until the end of January.”
“January,” he repeats. “So, are you still going to be able to come home for Christmas?” Will finally gets his keys in hand and opens his door.
“I don’t know how. Even if I could afford it we’re supposed to do a Christmas Eve matinee and then back to our regular schedule on the twenty-seventh.”
Will hears the quiver in her voice and leans back against his closed door, letting his bag drop to the floor at his feet.
“Baby,” he sighs sympathetically.
“It’s fantastic, really,” she adds, too evenly. “Clearly the extension is only an indication that-” she trails off.
Her voice is small, and breaking here and there under the strain of her forced bravery, but the truth of it is that she’s nineteen and away from home and it’s all setting in. She had always existed in the small cocoon of Lima, barely able to stretch her creative limbs to test them. Having thrust herself - alone - out of everything familiar, her blind confidence had already begun to falter and the change of plans was nearly toppling it.
Will thinks about it for a split second before it’s decided.
“What if I do come out there?”
He’d spend all his time at strained family dinners wishing he was with her anyway.
“Really?”
“Yeah. We can have Christmas together. I mean, I don’t know if you really celebrate Christmas . . . do you?” Will backpedals quickly. He’s never dated a Jewish girl before. He suddenly wonders if he’ll have to procure a yarmulke.
“Christmas wasn’t exactly the main winter holiday in the Berry household, but - I’d like to try something new.”
“Okay then. Christmas in New York.”
“Christmas in New York,” she answers happily.
There’s a ripple of pure frenetic joy in Rachel’s stomach; a fantasy of her first New York Christmas with Will had been zipping through her mind even before Sam had made the announcement to the cast about the play. She would be happy enough to have one purely non-Jewish Christmas just once, which could never happen in Lima with her dads.
After they hang up Will pauses and glances a little unsurely at his phone. Rachel grabs her copy of Miracle on 34th Street - one of the few non-musicals she owns, and puts it in her DVD player. She sinks down onto her couch, still clutching her phone to her chest, and beams at the TV screen, everything else momentarily forgotten.
_
“Mom.”
“Hmm?”
“I’m not going to be home for Christmas this year. I’m going to New York.”
“New York? But what’s-”
“The woman I’ve been seeing. Dating. We’re dating.”
“Pretty seriously if you’re spending a holiday away from your family. Why haven’t I heard about her?”
“She - well. Alright. She was one of my students.”
“She what? Not from McKinley?”
“Well, yeah. Yes. From McKinley.”
“Will, really, a student? Even if she was a senior when you started teaching she’d only be, what, in her mid twenties now? How old is this girl?”
“She’s . . . not quite in her mid-twenties. Mom, I’m telling you this because I want you to meet her, at some point, and I don’t want it to be a surprise, I-”
“Oh, Will.”
_
Rachel greets Will at the airport in a Santa hat.
He grins as she fairly skips up to him and he drops his bags dramatically at his feet before he wraps her up in a tight hug. She nearly strangles him, wrapping her arms around his neck and holding on as he stands straight and lifts her feet off the ground.
“I’m so glad you came,” she whispers.
“Me too.”
Will gently pulls her grip loose and holds her face in his hands. He runs his fingertips over her eyebrows, her cheeks, and passes his thumbs over her mouth. He spends a moment just staring at her, letting the last dregs of uncertainty float around him, separate from him and her and everything he knows as long as he’s looking at her.
“Kiss me hello,” she demands softly.
Will smiles. “Okay,” he answers against her lips.
_
Bing Crosby’s gentle voice cuts out.
The soft light of white Christmas lights vanishes with a slight pop.
Rachel lets out a gasp and then there is the sound of glass colliding with metal and china when she knocks her glass over, sending egg nog flowing over the table.
“What happened?” Will asks, fumbling to set his glass down.
“The electricity’s out,” Rachel snaps through the dark. Will hears silverware clinking haphazardly.
Will glances out her window and sees the windows of the building next door glowing. The music coming up through the floorboards continues.
“Did . . . I mean, have you been able to-”
“I paid the bill. I paid . . . what I could,” Rachel says quietly.
Will feels a dreadful sinking in his chest. His eyes have begun to adjust to the meager light coming in from outside the windows and he reaches out and stills her hands fluttering ineffectually over the mess on the table.
“I don’t need your pity,” she snaps again, yanking her hands back.
“I’m not, I’m just trying to be . . . comforting.”
“Comforting? Why would I need comforting? It’s just a silly little power outage, Will. I’m fine. I’m- fine.”
“Okay, okay. Listen,” he continues cautiously as he reaches for his wallet. “Why don’t you call the power company, and just take care of whatever you need to get the lights back on.”
“I don’t need your money.”
“Rachel-”
“I said I don’t need-”
“It’s winter, Rachel. I really don’t feel like freezing to death just so you can keep your pride.”
“Fine.”
She snatches the credit card out of his hand and gets up from her seat on the floor at her coffee table and stalks off - as far as she can in a studio apartment. Will stays where he is, slumped against the couch. Rachel’s quiet, and he hears a voice on the other end of the line, very faintly and garbled, that sounds like a recorded message. He stares into the darkness and waits.
“No one’s there till tomorrow morning,” Rachel says. “For the holiday,” she adds.
Will looks up and sees her standing next to him, holding out the credit card for him to take back. He takes her hand in his and tugs her down to sit on the floor next to him. He wraps his arm around her and sighs with closed eyes when she curls against his side with her head on his shoulder.
“I hate this,” she whispers. “I hate it here.”
“It’s New York,” he reminds her gently. “This is where you’ve always wanted to be.”
She sniffs wetly before she continues. “Not like this. I wanted things to be different.”
“Different how?” he asks as he shifts and stretches his legs out in front of him. Rachel pulls her knees up to her chest and he wraps both arms around her curled up form. She shakes her head at his question and her fingers find a button on his shirt and toy with it blindly.
He turns and presses his lips to her hair, stays and breathes in the clean sweet smell before puckering his lips in a kiss.
“I didn’t plan on you,” she admits through a cautious smile. Will laughs out loud.
“You think I planned on you?” he asks incredulously, jostling her in his arms a little until she laughs.
“You already know I had very serious feelings for you sophomore year,” she reminds him primly. “I think it’s only fair I find out the first time you thought of me as something more than a student.”
Will pauses and his eyes widen a little. He huffs out a cough in an attempt to mask his discomfort.
“Come on Rach, we don’t really have to go into this, do we?”
She shifts until she can just see his profile, squinting to make out his features in the pale light filtering in from her windows. Even though it’s still dark, Will avoids her eyes. She lets out a little gasp and pushes further out of his arms to better stare at him in disbelief.
“Will,” she breathes, scandalized.
“Okay, wait, don’t jump to conclusions,” he tries to appease her, reaching blindly for her and catching her by the upper arms. She surprises him by climbing up to straddle his thighs and lace her fingers together along the back of his neck.
“Tell me,” she sing-songs. “Tell me about all the inappropriate thoughts you had about me when I was just a girl and you were my mentor.”
Will sighs, partially amused by her obvious delight but his discomfort at unearthing this topic with her wins out and he pats her hip softly. “Another time?”
Rachel acquiesces for perhaps the first time in her life.
They light candles and clean up the mess of spilled glasses from dinner. Will washes the dishes and Rachel dries. They round up every blanket Rachel owns, pile them on her bed and crawl under, pressing and twining together.
“This is nice,” Will says softly. He rubs his hands up and down Rachel’s back and she wriggles closer and laughs humorlessly.
“Yes, this is the best Christmas ever. The power went out and I made a mess and we fought and now we’re going to freeze to death in our sleep.”
“Rach, we’ve had bigger fights about eighth notes versus quarter notes.”
Her shoulders lift and drop against his arms. “I didn’t like it, anyway,” she says. He feels her hands slide slowly over his back and his sides.
He dips his head down and finds her mouth for a slow kiss. They linger and wander, trailing their mouths over sensitive skin and breathing each other in. Rachel shivers at the cold tip of Will’s nose on her neck and she feels goose bumps rise when he laughs softly against her skin.
She rolls over suddenly on top of him with her hands pressed to his chest. They stare at each other for a moment. A thrill of anxiety ripples up Rachel’s spine to slide around her neck and over her cheeks in a heated flush. Will’s hands rest gently on her thighs and she feels the exact moment they start to move, sliding lightly over the fabric of her pajama pants. There’s a strangely intertwined sense of safety and danger with him, familiarity and risk.
She leans in and watches his face as she lowers herself closer until she can kiss him. His lips part and his chin lifts in anticipation; his hands press insistently upwards until he grasps her waist. Rachel presses close to him and clenches her thighs around his hips, flexing her toes in the sheets. She draws a groan from him when she presses herself fully against his body.
They fall into a maze of limbs and hands and legs curving around hips. When he sits up and tugs off his sweatshirt she smiles and wiggles out of her pants and they kneel on the bed for a moment outlined by the bleak light from the window.
“Rach,” he whispers hoarsely, “baby-”
“I like that,” she interrupts. She runs her hands lightly over his chest. “When you call me baby? Say it again.”
“Baby,” he croaks, hands sliding up her back and bringing the hem of the thermal shirt she’d borrowed from him up over her skin, and she fists her hands in his t-shirt and drags him back on top of her. She shivers as his hand runs smoothly down her side and around to her inner thigh. His fingertips catch on the elastic of her underwear and they both freeze for a moment before Rachel shifts her hips against his hand and the movement sends his fingers sliding against her.
He moves his fingers experimentally, delving and circling and Rachel braces her forehead on his shoulder and gasps quietly, her hands still clenched unbelievably tight in his shirt. He slides his other hand up to cup the back of her neck and guides her face up to his to kiss her slow and deep as his touches slip into a rhythm that makes her moan against his mouth.
Rachel feels tension begin to melt, despairing want disappearing from under her skin, displaced by sparkling liquid jolts of pleasure. She leans into his kisses and rolls her hips into his touch and feels the grunt of pleasure well up from deep in his chest.
Will’s touches quicken until he’s sliding a finger inside her, and then two and she’s squirming and gasping more in shock than pleasure. She’s never felt anything like his hands and part of her mind is measuring and noting every stage of this, every barrier broken and line crossed.
Suddenly she understands that she is young, very very young in some ways even though she’s felt a hundred years old at times over the last several months. When she whimpers a little and Will soothes her, fingers sliding away to trail feather-light touches over her again as he copies the motion with gentle kisses peppered over her cheeks and neck.
“This is the first time, isn’t it?” he asks quietly, his face still nuzzled into the crook of her neck. Rachel feels her cheeks burning as she nods. There’s nothing to be ashamed of, she knows, but she hates the feeling of being behind or unprepared.
“I don’t want to rush anything,” he says. He palms her hip softly.
“We’re not. Will, it’s been three months.”
“It’s been three years,” he corrects her quietly. “You were sixteen when I met you. And I didn’t even know I was meeting . . . you.”
He tips his forehead against hers and whispers his next admission with his eyes closed.
“I’ve thought about this for . . . too long.”
Rachel’s eyes snap open and she stares at his closed ones. “You mean when-”
“Once or twice.” He opens his eyes and glances at her, clears his throat. If there were more light she’d be able to tell he was blushing. He takes a breath and continues. “It wasn’t . . . I just noticed you. A few times.” He turns to look at her fully. “That’s too much information, isn’t it?”
Rachel’s quiet for a moment before she surges up and kisses him brashly, full sudden and urgent passion. She strays from his mouth and her teeth scrape lightly along his jaw as she whispers against his cheek, “I had dreams about you.”
“Christ,” Will mutters. “Are you sure you want this? I mean now, tonight?” he murmurs into her ear before his lips close around her earlobe and he bites.
She almost laughs through her moan. She takes his face in her hands and pulls him up to look her in the eye. His hips arch between her thighs.
“Will,” she whispers, “I love you, but you can be an idiot sometimes.”
Of course he gets caught on one part of that sentence. “You love me?”
She pauses a moment, and nods. “I always have, in one way or another.”
He searches her face for a moment before he leans in again to kiss her shakily. The word, the thought, is caught up inside him and he feels young again. Through the fog of her skin and her sighs, he realizes he’s the one who hasn’t been ready, who’s been hesitating and stumbling along the way, while she’s been waiting for him to move forward.
“Rachel,” he whispers against her mouth. He repeats it, trails it over her cheek, knowing what he wants to say and unable to make it come out right.
“Yes?” she answers breathlessly. He feels her hand touch his cheek tentatively and he reaches up and pulls her fingers to his lips where he presses another kiss against the tips. Will stays frozen a moment longer, just processing for the thousandth time that this is Rachel, the same one who sang On My Own and baked him pink-frosted cookies and quit Glee club twice.
“I love you.”
_
When, what seems like hours later, he’s inside her and kissing her and everywhere all around her, Rachel wonders why no one told her how much it would hurt.
She wraps her arms around Will’s shoulders and holds him tight against her, feeling the hair on his chest tickle against her skin and as he rocks into her she buries her teeth in his shoulder. He hisses in pain and pulls back to look into her eyes.
“Are you okay?” he asks breathlessly.
Rachel nods and holds him tighter, and he brushes his cheek along hers, and murmurs endearments in her ear.
This moment, she knows, is one of the defining ones. It’s not the first time she’s found a small part of her heart broken away in the midst of a milestone. Before she would have wondered if she would ever be able to tell her mother about it. Now she knows she won’t. It’s a small piece of her, a sliver taken away, and that hurts too.
_
Will wakes slowly, aware of the cold and Rachel’s voice shuddering with her shivering. Rachel sits up in cross legged bed with the blankets pulled up over her lap. He reaches out blindly and hooks his arm around her hips, tugging her closer so he can curl around her with his head resting on her thigh. Rachel flips her phone closed and runs her fingers through Will’s hair.
“Morning,” she says softly.
He hums in response and reaches up and tugs her down next to him. She mirrors his position, pillows her head on her arms and wriggles in closer to his side so they’re pressed together side by side.
“The power should be back on soon,” she tells him. He “hm’s” again, eyes still closed, and reaches over to pull her still closer and twine his arms through hers until her cheek rests against his hands folded over hers and he has one leg pulled up resting over the backs of her thighs. Rachel pulls in a small breath and feels the resistance of his chest against her back.
She’s completely surrounded by home, almost smothered, and she can feel every breath and even the thump of his heart in his chest. She closes her eyes again and feels warmth suffuse her, finally.
_