I Think We're Alone Now - A Puckleberry Fanfic
Title: I Think We’re Alone Now
Pairing: Puck/Rachel
Word Count: Currently 1201
Genre: Romance/Fluff/Eventual Smut
Summary: There isn’t really a summary. Rachel, Puck and Mike all live in NYC. Rachel and Mike are roomies, Puck lives in his own apartment. Tina comes to stay for weekends and holidays. Basically Mike and Tina make a very brief cameo appearance for the sake of a) including them and b) build up of the plot (what little plot there is). Okay, really basically… Puck and Rachel are friends and they get their mack on.
A/N: Written at short notice for Aims for the Valentines Gift Exchange, back in February, over on tumblr. I hope you enjoy. There's a second part to this, written for Day 1 of the tumblr Smuckleberry Week, which I'll be posting soon!
If you were to ask anyone who knows them they’d tell you they shouldn’t work. She’s the girl with the dreams and ambitions and he is the stereotypical bad-boy-made-good. Maybe that’s why they work so well. (That and the fact that if they didn’t, she’d be stuck in her apartment, while her roommate spends most weekends trying to make his girlfriend scream. Loudly. It wouldn’t be as much of a problem if she hadn’t known Mike and Tina for years - she and Tina attended Toddler Dance together - which makes it almost as awkward as hearing your parents have sex. Trust her. That required months of therapy.).
Noah calls her up and tells her they’re getting take-out and taking over her apartment (because he hates his little shoebox studio) at the exact same moment Tina breezes in from Boston and proceeds to inhale Mike’s tonsils before she’s even said hello. She agrees without hesitation and heads to the liquor store for a bottle of something pink and fruity, before obnoxiously informing Mike and Tina of her plans. The almost murderous look on Tina’s face is the least of her worries because it’s the glint in Mike’s eye that scares her. She’ll save that for tomorrow though because they’re heading out as Noah arrives with the Chinese.
It’s not the first time they’ve just hung out eating junk food, drinking wine and beer, and paying little attention to Real Housewives (honestly? Thank God for Tivo and afternoons without interruption because this show is one of her guilty pleasures), but it is the first New York Valentine’s Day neither of them have had a date. Granted they’ve only experienced four including this one, but it’s nice to not have to work or have to try to impress a date for a change. It’s comfortable, easy, and oh, he’s talking and she’s not listening.
“What?”
“Shit, Rach,” he says, rolling his eyes, “you could at least pretend you’re listening.”
“Sorry,” she mumbles while she takes a sip of her wine. He scoffs which she does not take kindly to, “I am. But now you know how it felt every time I tried to have a conversation with Finn. That was a painful experience.”
“Yeah, I was on the receiving end of that blank stare a coupla times. You weren’t far off. Need to work on the open mouth s’more,” he teases, reaching for her chin to tug her mouth open.
She slaps at his hand and moves her head out of his reach because there’s no way she’s putting up with blow up sex doll jokes from him, which she would undoubtedly have to if she allowed him to manipulate her mouth into the O-shape he’s referring to.
“Stop it, Noah!” She squeals throwing a pillow at him. She giggles when it narrowly misses both his face and his beer bottle, giggles which stop abruptly as his eyes narrow, “oh shit, stop it! I’m not playing anymore! Noah!”
“Nuh-uh, you can’t just pretend you’re not playing when you started it, Crazy Face.”
It’s been a while since that particular nickname has been in circulation and she gasps at the initial shock of it, but then the pillow hits her on the knee (clearly this is why he never played Quarterback), jolting her out of her stupor.
“Crazy Face?! Crazy Face?! Do you have any idea how offensive that is? I cannot believe you.” She’s trying not to laugh at the worried look on his face as she puts her wine glass down on the coffee table and picks up the pillow from the floor. She advances on him, patented Rachel Berry Rant in full flow, “… and don’t forget I took that forensics workshop and watched enough crime dramas to know how to murder you without leaving even the tiniest speck of evidence.”
“Rach, c’mon. I’m sor-“
His apology is cut off by the pillow smacking him square in the face, her giggles ringing out throughout the apartment even as she darts away from him to stand behind the sofa.
“Like standing there’s gonna save you, Princess,” he taunts, stalking to his right. She follows suit and when he moves to his left, so does she.
“You’re forgetting who happens to be one-up, Puckerman,” she says, jutting her chin and snapping her fingers in a move she learned from either Mercedes or Noah’s sister. Actually, probably his sister - she has far more sass than anyone.
They circle each other for the best part of 10 minutes before he gives up and all but throws himself down on the sofa, forfeiting since they’d reached a stalemate, tilts his head back to look at her and reaches out for her hand. She climbs over the back of the sofa and settles herself next to him, tucked under his arm.
“Happy Valentine’s, Baby,” he mutters against her hair prompting her to turn her face up to look at him. She presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth, because it’s not like they haven’t kissed in the past (they have), and more recently (last week recently, as a matter of fact).
“Happy Valentine’s, Noah.”
Rachel just manages to get his name out before he’s shifting slightly and kissing her properly, more forcefully, fingertips trailing across her shoulder as his tongue mimics the action along her bottom lip. And then he’s pulling away and she doesn’t want to open her eyes in case he has that ‘shitfuckballs, what am I doing?!’ look on his face. Granted she’s only seen it once before when he saved her from herself - that time she was mad with Finn for being an idiot (yes, exactly. Which time was that again?).
“Rach? Look at me.”
Reluctantly she does just that, and she’s startled by what she sees. She’s pretty sure she understands that demented glint in Mike’s eye now. It’s almost as if Noah is seeing her for the first time if she’s reading the look of awe correctly (and no, she never was very good at reading people. She likes to think she’s gotten better, but if her shambles of a love life is anything to go by, she hasn’t), and her breath catches a little.
“Noah…”
“Fuck it,” he says, lowering his head again, kissing her, nipping and sucking her lips, sweeping his tongue into her mouth when she parts her lips to his silent demands.
“Noah,” she sighs when his fingers trail a nonsensical pattern down the side of her neck and along her collarbone. When his tongue follows the same path, she fists her hands into the sides of his shirt like it’s a lifeline.
~
The make out on the couch for what seems like forever, shedding clothing periodically, until it’s not enough and they’re both in need of something, everything, so he lifts her off him (she did always like being on top), wraps his arms around her legs when she’s standing in front of him and pushes his face into the apex of her thighs. She wobbles a little when he licks at her, but he just tightens his hold and she’s not going anywhere.
Until, of course, she’s telling him to move to the bedroom.