Glee Fic: it’s always something wicked
From now on, this is just going to go: [STANDARD LET'S BLAME MARY BLURB] because it's nothing but true, 0penhearts. I should not be left to wander through glee_kink_meme prompts. Nope.
Also, fair warning (and I definitely should have put this up earlier), if Student/Teacher anything isn't your thing, you should keep on, keep on scrolling on. Please.
it’s always something wicked
if only there were competitions for poorly hidden secrets; teachers and students, it’s all relative anyway.
glee | will/rachel | general spoilers for special education | 4,600 words, adult.
-
The Monday after everyone watches her carefully. Santana even goes as far as following her to French, on the other side of the school, just to check if she’s going to go and murder anyone over solos. Rachel merely shrugs and spins her pen between her fingers before she disappears into class.
She’s not angry, she could say. At least, she’s not angry with any of them. It has nothing to do with the members of the club, whether it’s Finn and her relationship, and how it’s unraveling quickly, or how she’s grudgingly excited that she doesn’t have to shoulder the weight of expectation when it comes to performing.
It’s really none of that. She just decides to say nothing.
Glee actually happens in the middle of the week. Mr. Schuester decides that they all deserve a little bit of a break, all for team unity and the sake of prepping for the next competition. She’s too tired to fake it and sit next to Finn, choosing to squeeze in between Mercedes and Puck on the risers in the back.
She pulls out her History exam too, fitting it over a mess of sheet music and notes. Puck’s chair squeaks and scratches against the floor as he leans in, close to her, and Mercedes keeps cautiously asking her about their mall trip with Kurt and Blaine and even potential movie plans that Rachel is sure one of them has just decided to makeup.
“I’m fine,” she says quietly. Her pen rolls over her fingers.
Mr. Schuester heads into the room then, and he’s too full of energy and the kind of buzz that they all should be feeling after another job well done or whatever the school’s budgeting committee is deciding to call this time around. She’s half-listening to him talk about how proud he is of all of them and tries to read her compare and contrast answer about Marie Antoinette and Josephine Bonaparte. She says imperative a lot, but she’s not worried because it’s all practice for their midterms anyway.
It’s still Puck that nudges her. She looks up at him and he nods to the front of the room, where Mr. Schuester stands with his hands in his pockets and leaning against the empty piano. She watches him bite his lip.
“Rachel?” he asks, and it’s as if he’s asking again. When he swallows, she watches his tongue peek between his lips. “Any suggestions?”
The room is completely still. Her fingers slide into her hair, combing through the loose strands as she shakes her head.
She goes back to her exam.
There are a million different things she could say to him. There are a million different things that he’s said back to her and she’s sort of just took because at the end of the day, she gets that he’s the teacher and she’s the student and she’s still learning.
She gets through the rest of the week and to Friday, still quiet and still buried in her schoolwork and dance classes after school. She’s got voice lessons too and plans to work through the holidays with her teacher with a fun of the younger students. It’s something she was planning to talk to Mr. Schuester about, but now it feels more like a self-indulgent punishment.
But she finds Mr. Schuester waiting at her locker, right after Puck catches her outside of math and gives her some kind of bro warning, which she’s not really sure if she thinks it’s cute or not. Her hand brushes against her back and she approaches her locker carefully, watching him as he straightens against it.
“Are you all right?”
She nods.
“Rachel,” he says, and then gently: “I thought we’d be past this.”
“Past what?” she asks. Her voice is steady. There’s no warmth; she can taste the change in pitch and color, licking her lips as she swings her bag to the floor.
The hallway is dead. She has study hall and she usually escapes to the theater because it’s quiet and usually, that kind of headspace is something she can depend on. But looking at him, she knows he’d follow and she’s not having any discussion. She’s not tired. She’s not sad. She may or may not still be somewhat angry, but that will come and go just like everything else - the difference is, and now, she’s just done.
“Rachel,” he says again.
“I have a lot of homework,” she says.
“We can - ” he pauses, straightening again against her locker. The tension in his shoulders is obvious. She lets her hand drop to the end of her skirt, her fingers twisting in the fabric. Her knuckles hit her leg.
“We can talk,” he finishes.
Her mouth twists and she shakes her head. “I’ve got work to do.”
The next week, she ends up making a list; from Santana and Brittany, Quinn and Mercedes and Kurt, who, in an effort to be supportive about Finn and her support of his move to another school, tells her simply that he’s surprised that she’s taken this long to get to this kind of place with Mr. Schuester.
She knows that using the others are his way of trying to get a feel of her mood. In Glee, he calls on her when it’s about the technical stuff, when she could fall into tangents about tone and color and how not everybody needs to touch that high, high C. She sits in the same place too, always next to Puck, who thinks everything just funny, and a rotating chair of Santana and Mercedes. There’s Miss Pillsbury too, who tries to talk to her about habits and who doesn’t look surprised when Rachel looks at her, shrugs, and says something to the effect of how it should be Mr. Schuester who talks to her not everyone else in the club and school.
When her Chemistry class is canceled, she ends up in the chorus room, passing Brad who gives her some kind of signal about the piano. She thinks it’s only because she’s polite enough to ask him as it is.
“What can I do?”
Her hands hover over the keys.
“I mean, seriously,” he says. She listens to the door lock. “Clearly, I underestimated how angry you are about the solo.”
Her mouth twists. She almost shakes her head.
“Rachel.”
His hand covers hers, over the keys. She watches his knee drop and press against her leg, the fabric of her skirt pushing up a little over her tights.
“Is it about the solo?” he asks with a sigh, and she starts to play again. She goes from Mozart to Chopin; the classics are much easier, but she’s never been as good as her Daddy who likes to play and secretly write as it is. “I mean, I didn’t mean to react the way I did. It was, if anything, a little over the top. But you have to understand that I want to encourage all of you as a group, and it’s just as important as being a leader -”
“Did you rehearse that?” she asks, and it’s abrupt. Her voice is louder with no one else in the chorus room. This period’s an hour and there’s barely anyone around that may come and catch her as she flinches. “The speech,” she says.
He actually blushes. “Obvious?”
“Yes.”
The honesty is not new, but it is always strange. She thinks she levels herself with him different. The problem is that he seems to think that being able to give it back means something entirely different.
“You can be angry at me, Rachel, but you shouldn’t let it come between you and how this team operates. That’s not how this works.”
She looks up. It’s the first time she really meets his gaze. The corners of her mouth twitch, but there’s no real smile to give him.
“I think I’ve been very much a part of the team,” she says. “And I told you. I’m not angry with you. I think this is more of me accepting everything and that it goes beyond me wanting everything too much - with you, it’s always going to be like this. I’m always going to be the one that works too hard when it comes to you.”
“That’s not true,” he says quietly.
Her hands rise and she flicks her fingers into air quotes. “I’m your biggest fan, Rachel,” she mimics. “And sometimes, I’m your only fan.” She shakes her head. “I don’t know why it’s me that seems to grate at you, or push at you the wrong way and I think, I think that if this were the beginning and we were going backwards, it would be easier to say that it’s all water under the bridge. It’s not club, you know. It’s always you and me. But I’ve said it to you before, Mr. Schuester - when am I going to get my turn?”
She gets this sense of satisfaction when he winces and she almost tells him the same thing she told Jesse, oddly enough - it’s girls like her that carry these things around, and whether or not the small things mold them, it’ll remain to always be seen. She can feel it though, she can feel those small, snide moments and his big blowups sort of mix together. She may hold it against him. She may not.
She stands though and he hands her books without a word. She isn’t disappointed. There might just be a little more pity. She takes her Chemistry textbook, but slides her folder with sheet music back over the piano.
“See you in Glee,” she says.
They all seem to elect Kurt. There’s the mall and she can do the mall until Kurt drags her by the arm for coffee and Mercedes seemingly disappearing to go and check out something for her mother.
“Everybody seems to think that you’re headed towards an epic nervous breakdown of the sorts,” he tells her, and they pass a few stores until he drags her into the one he wants, pulling her hard towards the back. “What’s up?”
“Nothing,” she says.
“Rachel.”
They stop in front of a few dresses. She picks one up, her fingers rubbing lightly against the collar. It’s soft and this kind of blue and she’s thinking about things like winter hats and coats and things that she really just likes to indulge in. She wants to forget about competition and Mr. Schuester’s inability to just listen and talk to her like the others. She shouldn’t have to say it to his face, she decides.
Her mouth curls and softens. She gives Kurt a half-lie. “Just miss you,” she says.
The next couple of days grow easily into repetition. She keeps quiet in Glee. She even lets Puck steal her notes for the Math exam they have coming up.
Quinn gets another solo too. There’s Sam and Finn and some weird, weird back and forth that makes her stomach knot lightly - it’s not about who or what or even the decision that she sees there anyway between the three of them, it’s just lately, especially, she seems to feel like she’s always going to be that girl. You know the girl. But she spends too much time reading into things, whether they’re there or not and only because they give her a distraction.
She still feels Mr. Schuester watch her, somewhere in between the solos and the impromptu talks to all of them. They’re going on week two of her not singing anything in Glee; her voice lessons are becoming more complicated and harder as it is. The sad thing is that she doesn’t expect anything even after their last conversation anyway.
“Ma says that you should come over early Sunday,” Puck tells her when the bell rings. They stand up together and he hands her bag. “Sorry you got roped into that shit with my kid sister and stuff.”
She laughs softly. “I like your sister, Noah.”
He wrinkles his nose and ruffles her hair, or tries too as she reaches over and smacks his arm away from her head. Her bangs drop over her eyes and she catches Finn watching them too, looking away quickly. She can’t, she thinks. She can’t do that too.
“Tell your mother I’ll be there,” she offers, and he nods, fixing the strap of her bag over her shoulder. He smirks and then leans in, his fingers grazing her jaw. It’s a strange show of support, but she relaxes and watches him go.
Mr. Schuester comes from somewhere behind her. He touches her shoulder and she jumps back, turning into the locker next to her.
“Can you come to my office?”
Her throat is tight. She looks to a smiling Principal Figgins, and then Mr. Schuester, forcing herself to nod. She ignores his relief too.
She pays no attention to the conversation as she walks with them, giving the Principal a half-hearted reply about her exams until they reach Mr. Schuester’s office. He opens the door for her and they both wave to Figgins, Rachel letting her teacher pass first instead.
“We need to fix this,” he says quietly.
“There’s nothing to fix,” she says.
“Rachel.”
She shuts the door behind her, dropping her bag in front of it. She leans against the wall, watching him. He stays standing with her; close even, watching her carefully.
“I am sorry,” he says. She notices the pile of exams on his desk and his bag, tucked haphazardly into his chair. He reaches out, touching her cheek. She jumps and looks up, and he’s closer now. “Really,” he says. “I just - it’s important that you know that I don’t mean to be … an ass,” he says.
Her laughter is a surprise. He blushes and the corner of her mouth turn slightly, just before she looks down and studies the floor.
“I know how I can be,” she says. Her voice is steady. “I know there’s going to be the people that accept it and the people that don’t - it’s hard, but I’m learning to not hold it over myself. But you’re important to me, you know, and as much as I say that I can, I’m not looking to do this blindly or by myself.”
His fingers touch her cheek. She looks up and watches his mouth as it twists, not quite a smile, not quite anything else really. But he runs his thumb over her lip and his gaze seems to darken as she lets her body flush against the door.
It may be the way he holds himself over her, or how close he suddenly is, how her brain seems completely unable to process the fact that he’s said nothing and yet, here, now, he’s closer and she can feel him press lightly against her.
Rachel can never help herself. She bites lightly at the pad of his thumb, then his fingers as they run against her lip too. He makes a soft sound, barely there and together. It unnerves and thrills her, a nervous feeling crawling into her throat.
“I’m sorry,” he says. His fingers brush away from her mouth and then he leans in, his lips grazing hers. “I am.”
“I -” and she doesn’t know what to say, her mouth opening slightly against his. His lips are dry, taunt against hers and he’s still sort of kissing her, but not entirely. She lets her hands draw against his chest and he presses her harder against the door.
“What do I have to do?” he asks. The words are too soft against her mouth.
She doesn’t answer.
There are ten minutes between classes, an extra five if you’re cased with walking into an honors period, most of those classes halfway across the school and closer to where Rachel spends most of her day anyway. When he kisses her again, he bites at her lip and she lets out a low, swallow whimper that trembles all the same.
“Are we going to do this here?” she asks, and her hand tugs itself into his hair. She forgets that she’s here, that she’s in school, that she can very well skip her French class and it’ll be too okay because she’s at the top of the class and Rachel, for all her faults, is still a very good girl.
Mr. Schuester groans and sighs, his palm flat, flushed against her thigh and under her skirt. She can’t really put two and two together and decide how it got there and if it matters, she decides she’s not going to let it.
“You haven’t told me - ”
Her teeth graze his throat. “Is it that important to you?”
Her skirt starts to bunch, the fabric gliding back over her thighs and then it’s at her waist. Her leg hooks around his and then his fingers are spreading between her legs, rubbing lightly at her panties. She’s wet and there’s this feeling that sort of unravels inside of her, pulling at her belly, then over her skin and her throat.
“Touch me,” she says. Her voice is low and she makes a little sound, a sigh, a growl as his fingers slip underneath the fabric. They touch her clit and she arches into his hand, feeling the fabric pull back even further.
She hears a murmur of her name and his fingers are spreading against her, pushing lightly at the folds. Her head drops against his shoulder as he slides a finger inside of her. She feels it push slowly, maybe too slowly, the sensation of his skin as she tightens around him. It’s singular and it’s overwhelming and when he slides a second finger inside of her, her hips buck forward.
“Who?” he growls.
Rachel is vaguely aware of the sudden noise outside, the way the voices seem to pass and stumble into lunch - is it lunch? Her hips buck again and she feels his thumb slide against her clit. His fingers slide in and out of her, and she feels like she’s going to split in half, each time he goes as far as his knuckle.
“Finn,” he guesses. His breathing snaps and she bites a moan into his shoulder. “Puck? It must be Puck. Finn -”
“It’s not for you to - oh god - know,” she tells him.
He pushes his fingers into her again.
She falls apart somewhere between him kneeling in front of her, his mouth opening against her pussy, cunt - god, she doesn’t even care. His tongue flicks against the hole, then slides inside, twisting so slightly that she brings up her hand to bite into her knuckles. His fingers rub at her clit and her head twists against the door and when it hits her, she pulls a hand into his hair just so that he can feel it too.
He pulls back, still on his knees. His mouth is wet and glistening. She tries not to think how much she licks it like that.
Rachel’s voice is too steady. “Take me home,” she says.
The nurse writes a note. Her dads are away so a phone call to her Daddy, tucked away in a Manhattan hotel, is really all that she needs. She doesn’t ask what Mr. Schuester says to the Principal, but his car pulls up along the bus stop, just into the downtown area where the school sits, and she’s reaching for the door before thinking about it.
Between them, the car ride is silent. He reaches for her leg, midway, and his fingers curl over her thigh. She presses her fingers against the back of his hand and they sort of rest there until the car stops in front of his place.
“This isn’t the apology,” he says. His gaze remains steady, forward and staring at the garage door as it opens. There is a for sale sign somewhere behind him; it takes her a little while to process.
“You don’t even know what this is about,” she says quietly. “How do you expect to apologize for anything if - ” she laughs, shaking her head. “Forget it.”
His hand presses over his eyes and there’s no sigh; she watches as his shirt seems to wrinkle underneath his jacket, over the column of his throat and at his sleeves, settled right at the crook of his elbows.
“I can’t.”
She shakes her head.
“I can’t,” he says. “You’re there, you’re always there - you’re the one where it’s harder to feel like your teacher, where every aspect of your life is just … you pull me to you, Rachel. I don’t know what to do.”
“So you punish me,” she murmurs.
“No.” He looks over at her. She almost expects some kind of impulsive rant, about short skirts and strange fantasies. It seems to trivial anyway. He leans against his door, answering finally. “Yes. I don’t know. You get under my skin. Rachel, you get under my skin.”
“I didn’t ask you to feel like this.”
“I know.”
But you don’t, she wants to say. You don’t. Her fingers curl around her seatbelt when the car stops inside of the garage. It snaps back and she’s opening the door, stepping outside into the space. There is a door off to the side; it may go into the kitchen or some small, impassive hallway. She doesn’t wait for him to tell her where to go.
The bedroom is dark. The sheets are a mess. He sits on the edge of the bed, watching her as she starts to undress. She pulls at the buttons of her skirt - her panties are shoved into one of his pockets, a souvenir from his office.
It’s the fabric, then her shirt and her bra, and then her hair unravels at the nape of her neck, dusting over her eyes as she steps between his legs. His fingers touch her belly, and then trail against her thighs, back between her legs.
“Why aren’t you like this at school?”
She doesn’t answer him. She straddles his legs, spreading her thighs as his fingers slip back over her clit. She doesn’t want that, she thinks.
“I think I know why,” he says. “You like doing this to me, you like pushing -”
“No,” she breathes.
Her fingers fumble over his belt and his zipper and he’s leaning back. They’re a mess then, oh god, they’re a mess; his jeans peel off of him, off his hips and his ass as he turns her into the bed.
He’s thick and hard, over her belly and then her thigh. She manages to graze her fingers against the tip of his dick. It wets her skin and she makes a little gasp. She twists herself into him, just a little bit, and then he’s settling between her legs. She wants a mess and that scares her, the thought of him over her, baiting her just like he does in their day to day.
“I want to touch you,” she says, and it’s far from shy; somewhere in her head, she’s going back to that first time - it’s not a list of names, but it’s just a mix of her, Jesse, and Puck. It could be at the tip of her tongue too, but she thinks he might just know anyway too.
He slides an arm underneath her back, her waist, and it forces her to arch forward. Her legs spread wider and his eyes are dark. She watches his tongue slide over his lip and she wonders if she’ll have to watch him between her legs again.
She lets her hand reach forward and he takes her fingers into his mouth, sucking lightly at the skin. Her eyes feel heavy. She should be in Math or French or whatever and she’s not entirely sure what that means or how she should go about this.
But he pulls away to wrap his hand around his dick, and she watches as he stokes himself, the tips of his fingers taunt against his skin. She licks her lips and then he leans over her, forward, pressing the head of his dick against her clit. His hand jerks it lightly, dragging it down and then up again, and then she lets out a low, thoughtless moan as he rolls himself and his hips against her pussy.
“You’re so wet,” he breathes out. “I think - I think about you like this.”
She moans, her hips arching forward again. He presses himself against her too, but not too much. She can feel the tip of his dick slide further, and the sensation is starting to swallow her, the light brush of skin against skin making everything feel too, oh so tight.
“In your little girl room,” he says too. “In your bed - those boys don’t get it. They just don’t get it.”
And then his dick is deep, deeper, and it pulls them belly to belly, as her leg rises and wraps along his hip. His hand comes over, brushing against her mouth and then her throat, dragging between her breasts. His nails scrape over her nipples and she lets her head twist back into the pillows as she moans.
“You’re so warm,” he breathes.
And sticky, she thinks. She feels herself at her thighs, wet and slick. She brings a shy hand between them, rolling her fingers over her clit as he starts to thrust into her. There’s no particular rhythm; he jerks and her hips buck and he tells her how tight she is, over and over again.
It stays as a weird little game of who can touch each other the least. He leans back and then forward, stumbling and then giving up as he drops over her. His weight is heavy and then she feels herself tighten around his dick, a sloppy sound muffled as they start to roll against each other. He’s stretching her, wider and wider, and it pulls. Her teeth sink into her lip and her head drops back. She just might scream.
His teeth are at his throat, then her breasts, and then her nipple, twisting over the skin. She forces a hand into his hair and tries, tries so hard not to call him will but the name slips out from her mouth all the same, nearly lost to the room as he fucks her into the bed.
The weight of him afterwards is what keeps her from thrashing, and she feels so sticky and exhausted as he pulls out of her, sliding back between her legs. He rests on his belly and he presses his mouth against her thigh, licking at the softness of skin and semen. She wonders if he can taste her too and gasps when he’s back over again, sticking his fingers into her mouth for her to taste.
Rachel licks away at his fingers quietly.
Mr. Schuester apologizes again, much closer to Christmas when he picks her up from the empty Christmas tree parking lot. She’s not really hearing herself respond, nor does it really matter; they all have roles to fulfill, he tells her, and there is nothing in her that doesn’t agree. Her gaze is still absent and her eyes are wet from the early flurries. She twists her hands in her lap and when he pulls into her driveway, he turns the lights of the car off and she bends closer to his lap.
Her mouth is still warm. “You’ve been the closest,” she says.
Also, fair warning (and I definitely should have put this up earlier), if Student/Teacher anything isn't your thing, you should keep on, keep on scrolling on. Please.
it’s always something wicked
if only there were competitions for poorly hidden secrets; teachers and students, it’s all relative anyway.
glee | will/rachel | general spoilers for special education | 4,600 words, adult.
-
The Monday after everyone watches her carefully. Santana even goes as far as following her to French, on the other side of the school, just to check if she’s going to go and murder anyone over solos. Rachel merely shrugs and spins her pen between her fingers before she disappears into class.
She’s not angry, she could say. At least, she’s not angry with any of them. It has nothing to do with the members of the club, whether it’s Finn and her relationship, and how it’s unraveling quickly, or how she’s grudgingly excited that she doesn’t have to shoulder the weight of expectation when it comes to performing.
It’s really none of that. She just decides to say nothing.
Glee actually happens in the middle of the week. Mr. Schuester decides that they all deserve a little bit of a break, all for team unity and the sake of prepping for the next competition. She’s too tired to fake it and sit next to Finn, choosing to squeeze in between Mercedes and Puck on the risers in the back.
She pulls out her History exam too, fitting it over a mess of sheet music and notes. Puck’s chair squeaks and scratches against the floor as he leans in, close to her, and Mercedes keeps cautiously asking her about their mall trip with Kurt and Blaine and even potential movie plans that Rachel is sure one of them has just decided to makeup.
“I’m fine,” she says quietly. Her pen rolls over her fingers.
Mr. Schuester heads into the room then, and he’s too full of energy and the kind of buzz that they all should be feeling after another job well done or whatever the school’s budgeting committee is deciding to call this time around. She’s half-listening to him talk about how proud he is of all of them and tries to read her compare and contrast answer about Marie Antoinette and Josephine Bonaparte. She says imperative a lot, but she’s not worried because it’s all practice for their midterms anyway.
It’s still Puck that nudges her. She looks up at him and he nods to the front of the room, where Mr. Schuester stands with his hands in his pockets and leaning against the empty piano. She watches him bite his lip.
“Rachel?” he asks, and it’s as if he’s asking again. When he swallows, she watches his tongue peek between his lips. “Any suggestions?”
The room is completely still. Her fingers slide into her hair, combing through the loose strands as she shakes her head.
She goes back to her exam.
There are a million different things she could say to him. There are a million different things that he’s said back to her and she’s sort of just took because at the end of the day, she gets that he’s the teacher and she’s the student and she’s still learning.
She gets through the rest of the week and to Friday, still quiet and still buried in her schoolwork and dance classes after school. She’s got voice lessons too and plans to work through the holidays with her teacher with a fun of the younger students. It’s something she was planning to talk to Mr. Schuester about, but now it feels more like a self-indulgent punishment.
But she finds Mr. Schuester waiting at her locker, right after Puck catches her outside of math and gives her some kind of bro warning, which she’s not really sure if she thinks it’s cute or not. Her hand brushes against her back and she approaches her locker carefully, watching him as he straightens against it.
“Are you all right?”
She nods.
“Rachel,” he says, and then gently: “I thought we’d be past this.”
“Past what?” she asks. Her voice is steady. There’s no warmth; she can taste the change in pitch and color, licking her lips as she swings her bag to the floor.
The hallway is dead. She has study hall and she usually escapes to the theater because it’s quiet and usually, that kind of headspace is something she can depend on. But looking at him, she knows he’d follow and she’s not having any discussion. She’s not tired. She’s not sad. She may or may not still be somewhat angry, but that will come and go just like everything else - the difference is, and now, she’s just done.
“Rachel,” he says again.
“I have a lot of homework,” she says.
“We can - ” he pauses, straightening again against her locker. The tension in his shoulders is obvious. She lets her hand drop to the end of her skirt, her fingers twisting in the fabric. Her knuckles hit her leg.
“We can talk,” he finishes.
Her mouth twists and she shakes her head. “I’ve got work to do.”
The next week, she ends up making a list; from Santana and Brittany, Quinn and Mercedes and Kurt, who, in an effort to be supportive about Finn and her support of his move to another school, tells her simply that he’s surprised that she’s taken this long to get to this kind of place with Mr. Schuester.
She knows that using the others are his way of trying to get a feel of her mood. In Glee, he calls on her when it’s about the technical stuff, when she could fall into tangents about tone and color and how not everybody needs to touch that high, high C. She sits in the same place too, always next to Puck, who thinks everything just funny, and a rotating chair of Santana and Mercedes. There’s Miss Pillsbury too, who tries to talk to her about habits and who doesn’t look surprised when Rachel looks at her, shrugs, and says something to the effect of how it should be Mr. Schuester who talks to her not everyone else in the club and school.
When her Chemistry class is canceled, she ends up in the chorus room, passing Brad who gives her some kind of signal about the piano. She thinks it’s only because she’s polite enough to ask him as it is.
“What can I do?”
Her hands hover over the keys.
“I mean, seriously,” he says. She listens to the door lock. “Clearly, I underestimated how angry you are about the solo.”
Her mouth twists. She almost shakes her head.
“Rachel.”
His hand covers hers, over the keys. She watches his knee drop and press against her leg, the fabric of her skirt pushing up a little over her tights.
“Is it about the solo?” he asks with a sigh, and she starts to play again. She goes from Mozart to Chopin; the classics are much easier, but she’s never been as good as her Daddy who likes to play and secretly write as it is. “I mean, I didn’t mean to react the way I did. It was, if anything, a little over the top. But you have to understand that I want to encourage all of you as a group, and it’s just as important as being a leader -”
“Did you rehearse that?” she asks, and it’s abrupt. Her voice is louder with no one else in the chorus room. This period’s an hour and there’s barely anyone around that may come and catch her as she flinches. “The speech,” she says.
He actually blushes. “Obvious?”
“Yes.”
The honesty is not new, but it is always strange. She thinks she levels herself with him different. The problem is that he seems to think that being able to give it back means something entirely different.
“You can be angry at me, Rachel, but you shouldn’t let it come between you and how this team operates. That’s not how this works.”
She looks up. It’s the first time she really meets his gaze. The corners of her mouth twitch, but there’s no real smile to give him.
“I think I’ve been very much a part of the team,” she says. “And I told you. I’m not angry with you. I think this is more of me accepting everything and that it goes beyond me wanting everything too much - with you, it’s always going to be like this. I’m always going to be the one that works too hard when it comes to you.”
“That’s not true,” he says quietly.
Her hands rise and she flicks her fingers into air quotes. “I’m your biggest fan, Rachel,” she mimics. “And sometimes, I’m your only fan.” She shakes her head. “I don’t know why it’s me that seems to grate at you, or push at you the wrong way and I think, I think that if this were the beginning and we were going backwards, it would be easier to say that it’s all water under the bridge. It’s not club, you know. It’s always you and me. But I’ve said it to you before, Mr. Schuester - when am I going to get my turn?”
She gets this sense of satisfaction when he winces and she almost tells him the same thing she told Jesse, oddly enough - it’s girls like her that carry these things around, and whether or not the small things mold them, it’ll remain to always be seen. She can feel it though, she can feel those small, snide moments and his big blowups sort of mix together. She may hold it against him. She may not.
She stands though and he hands her books without a word. She isn’t disappointed. There might just be a little more pity. She takes her Chemistry textbook, but slides her folder with sheet music back over the piano.
“See you in Glee,” she says.
They all seem to elect Kurt. There’s the mall and she can do the mall until Kurt drags her by the arm for coffee and Mercedes seemingly disappearing to go and check out something for her mother.
“Everybody seems to think that you’re headed towards an epic nervous breakdown of the sorts,” he tells her, and they pass a few stores until he drags her into the one he wants, pulling her hard towards the back. “What’s up?”
“Nothing,” she says.
“Rachel.”
They stop in front of a few dresses. She picks one up, her fingers rubbing lightly against the collar. It’s soft and this kind of blue and she’s thinking about things like winter hats and coats and things that she really just likes to indulge in. She wants to forget about competition and Mr. Schuester’s inability to just listen and talk to her like the others. She shouldn’t have to say it to his face, she decides.
Her mouth curls and softens. She gives Kurt a half-lie. “Just miss you,” she says.
The next couple of days grow easily into repetition. She keeps quiet in Glee. She even lets Puck steal her notes for the Math exam they have coming up.
Quinn gets another solo too. There’s Sam and Finn and some weird, weird back and forth that makes her stomach knot lightly - it’s not about who or what or even the decision that she sees there anyway between the three of them, it’s just lately, especially, she seems to feel like she’s always going to be that girl. You know the girl. But she spends too much time reading into things, whether they’re there or not and only because they give her a distraction.
She still feels Mr. Schuester watch her, somewhere in between the solos and the impromptu talks to all of them. They’re going on week two of her not singing anything in Glee; her voice lessons are becoming more complicated and harder as it is. The sad thing is that she doesn’t expect anything even after their last conversation anyway.
“Ma says that you should come over early Sunday,” Puck tells her when the bell rings. They stand up together and he hands her bag. “Sorry you got roped into that shit with my kid sister and stuff.”
She laughs softly. “I like your sister, Noah.”
He wrinkles his nose and ruffles her hair, or tries too as she reaches over and smacks his arm away from her head. Her bangs drop over her eyes and she catches Finn watching them too, looking away quickly. She can’t, she thinks. She can’t do that too.
“Tell your mother I’ll be there,” she offers, and he nods, fixing the strap of her bag over her shoulder. He smirks and then leans in, his fingers grazing her jaw. It’s a strange show of support, but she relaxes and watches him go.
Mr. Schuester comes from somewhere behind her. He touches her shoulder and she jumps back, turning into the locker next to her.
“Can you come to my office?”
Her throat is tight. She looks to a smiling Principal Figgins, and then Mr. Schuester, forcing herself to nod. She ignores his relief too.
She pays no attention to the conversation as she walks with them, giving the Principal a half-hearted reply about her exams until they reach Mr. Schuester’s office. He opens the door for her and they both wave to Figgins, Rachel letting her teacher pass first instead.
“We need to fix this,” he says quietly.
“There’s nothing to fix,” she says.
“Rachel.”
She shuts the door behind her, dropping her bag in front of it. She leans against the wall, watching him. He stays standing with her; close even, watching her carefully.
“I am sorry,” he says. She notices the pile of exams on his desk and his bag, tucked haphazardly into his chair. He reaches out, touching her cheek. She jumps and looks up, and he’s closer now. “Really,” he says. “I just - it’s important that you know that I don’t mean to be … an ass,” he says.
Her laughter is a surprise. He blushes and the corner of her mouth turn slightly, just before she looks down and studies the floor.
“I know how I can be,” she says. Her voice is steady. “I know there’s going to be the people that accept it and the people that don’t - it’s hard, but I’m learning to not hold it over myself. But you’re important to me, you know, and as much as I say that I can, I’m not looking to do this blindly or by myself.”
His fingers touch her cheek. She looks up and watches his mouth as it twists, not quite a smile, not quite anything else really. But he runs his thumb over her lip and his gaze seems to darken as she lets her body flush against the door.
It may be the way he holds himself over her, or how close he suddenly is, how her brain seems completely unable to process the fact that he’s said nothing and yet, here, now, he’s closer and she can feel him press lightly against her.
Rachel can never help herself. She bites lightly at the pad of his thumb, then his fingers as they run against her lip too. He makes a soft sound, barely there and together. It unnerves and thrills her, a nervous feeling crawling into her throat.
“I’m sorry,” he says. His fingers brush away from her mouth and then he leans in, his lips grazing hers. “I am.”
“I -” and she doesn’t know what to say, her mouth opening slightly against his. His lips are dry, taunt against hers and he’s still sort of kissing her, but not entirely. She lets her hands draw against his chest and he presses her harder against the door.
“What do I have to do?” he asks. The words are too soft against her mouth.
She doesn’t answer.
There are ten minutes between classes, an extra five if you’re cased with walking into an honors period, most of those classes halfway across the school and closer to where Rachel spends most of her day anyway. When he kisses her again, he bites at her lip and she lets out a low, swallow whimper that trembles all the same.
“Are we going to do this here?” she asks, and her hand tugs itself into his hair. She forgets that she’s here, that she’s in school, that she can very well skip her French class and it’ll be too okay because she’s at the top of the class and Rachel, for all her faults, is still a very good girl.
Mr. Schuester groans and sighs, his palm flat, flushed against her thigh and under her skirt. She can’t really put two and two together and decide how it got there and if it matters, she decides she’s not going to let it.
“You haven’t told me - ”
Her teeth graze his throat. “Is it that important to you?”
Her skirt starts to bunch, the fabric gliding back over her thighs and then it’s at her waist. Her leg hooks around his and then his fingers are spreading between her legs, rubbing lightly at her panties. She’s wet and there’s this feeling that sort of unravels inside of her, pulling at her belly, then over her skin and her throat.
“Touch me,” she says. Her voice is low and she makes a little sound, a sigh, a growl as his fingers slip underneath the fabric. They touch her clit and she arches into his hand, feeling the fabric pull back even further.
She hears a murmur of her name and his fingers are spreading against her, pushing lightly at the folds. Her head drops against his shoulder as he slides a finger inside of her. She feels it push slowly, maybe too slowly, the sensation of his skin as she tightens around him. It’s singular and it’s overwhelming and when he slides a second finger inside of her, her hips buck forward.
“Who?” he growls.
Rachel is vaguely aware of the sudden noise outside, the way the voices seem to pass and stumble into lunch - is it lunch? Her hips buck again and she feels his thumb slide against her clit. His fingers slide in and out of her, and she feels like she’s going to split in half, each time he goes as far as his knuckle.
“Finn,” he guesses. His breathing snaps and she bites a moan into his shoulder. “Puck? It must be Puck. Finn -”
“It’s not for you to - oh god - know,” she tells him.
He pushes his fingers into her again.
She falls apart somewhere between him kneeling in front of her, his mouth opening against her pussy, cunt - god, she doesn’t even care. His tongue flicks against the hole, then slides inside, twisting so slightly that she brings up her hand to bite into her knuckles. His fingers rub at her clit and her head twists against the door and when it hits her, she pulls a hand into his hair just so that he can feel it too.
He pulls back, still on his knees. His mouth is wet and glistening. She tries not to think how much she licks it like that.
Rachel’s voice is too steady. “Take me home,” she says.
The nurse writes a note. Her dads are away so a phone call to her Daddy, tucked away in a Manhattan hotel, is really all that she needs. She doesn’t ask what Mr. Schuester says to the Principal, but his car pulls up along the bus stop, just into the downtown area where the school sits, and she’s reaching for the door before thinking about it.
Between them, the car ride is silent. He reaches for her leg, midway, and his fingers curl over her thigh. She presses her fingers against the back of his hand and they sort of rest there until the car stops in front of his place.
“This isn’t the apology,” he says. His gaze remains steady, forward and staring at the garage door as it opens. There is a for sale sign somewhere behind him; it takes her a little while to process.
“You don’t even know what this is about,” she says quietly. “How do you expect to apologize for anything if - ” she laughs, shaking her head. “Forget it.”
His hand presses over his eyes and there’s no sigh; she watches as his shirt seems to wrinkle underneath his jacket, over the column of his throat and at his sleeves, settled right at the crook of his elbows.
“I can’t.”
She shakes her head.
“I can’t,” he says. “You’re there, you’re always there - you’re the one where it’s harder to feel like your teacher, where every aspect of your life is just … you pull me to you, Rachel. I don’t know what to do.”
“So you punish me,” she murmurs.
“No.” He looks over at her. She almost expects some kind of impulsive rant, about short skirts and strange fantasies. It seems to trivial anyway. He leans against his door, answering finally. “Yes. I don’t know. You get under my skin. Rachel, you get under my skin.”
“I didn’t ask you to feel like this.”
“I know.”
But you don’t, she wants to say. You don’t. Her fingers curl around her seatbelt when the car stops inside of the garage. It snaps back and she’s opening the door, stepping outside into the space. There is a door off to the side; it may go into the kitchen or some small, impassive hallway. She doesn’t wait for him to tell her where to go.
The bedroom is dark. The sheets are a mess. He sits on the edge of the bed, watching her as she starts to undress. She pulls at the buttons of her skirt - her panties are shoved into one of his pockets, a souvenir from his office.
It’s the fabric, then her shirt and her bra, and then her hair unravels at the nape of her neck, dusting over her eyes as she steps between his legs. His fingers touch her belly, and then trail against her thighs, back between her legs.
“Why aren’t you like this at school?”
She doesn’t answer him. She straddles his legs, spreading her thighs as his fingers slip back over her clit. She doesn’t want that, she thinks.
“I think I know why,” he says. “You like doing this to me, you like pushing -”
“No,” she breathes.
Her fingers fumble over his belt and his zipper and he’s leaning back. They’re a mess then, oh god, they’re a mess; his jeans peel off of him, off his hips and his ass as he turns her into the bed.
He’s thick and hard, over her belly and then her thigh. She manages to graze her fingers against the tip of his dick. It wets her skin and she makes a little gasp. She twists herself into him, just a little bit, and then he’s settling between her legs. She wants a mess and that scares her, the thought of him over her, baiting her just like he does in their day to day.
“I want to touch you,” she says, and it’s far from shy; somewhere in her head, she’s going back to that first time - it’s not a list of names, but it’s just a mix of her, Jesse, and Puck. It could be at the tip of her tongue too, but she thinks he might just know anyway too.
He slides an arm underneath her back, her waist, and it forces her to arch forward. Her legs spread wider and his eyes are dark. She watches his tongue slide over his lip and she wonders if she’ll have to watch him between her legs again.
She lets her hand reach forward and he takes her fingers into his mouth, sucking lightly at the skin. Her eyes feel heavy. She should be in Math or French or whatever and she’s not entirely sure what that means or how she should go about this.
But he pulls away to wrap his hand around his dick, and she watches as he stokes himself, the tips of his fingers taunt against his skin. She licks her lips and then he leans over her, forward, pressing the head of his dick against her clit. His hand jerks it lightly, dragging it down and then up again, and then she lets out a low, thoughtless moan as he rolls himself and his hips against her pussy.
“You’re so wet,” he breathes out. “I think - I think about you like this.”
She moans, her hips arching forward again. He presses himself against her too, but not too much. She can feel the tip of his dick slide further, and the sensation is starting to swallow her, the light brush of skin against skin making everything feel too, oh so tight.
“In your little girl room,” he says too. “In your bed - those boys don’t get it. They just don’t get it.”
And then his dick is deep, deeper, and it pulls them belly to belly, as her leg rises and wraps along his hip. His hand comes over, brushing against her mouth and then her throat, dragging between her breasts. His nails scrape over her nipples and she lets her head twist back into the pillows as she moans.
“You’re so warm,” he breathes.
And sticky, she thinks. She feels herself at her thighs, wet and slick. She brings a shy hand between them, rolling her fingers over her clit as he starts to thrust into her. There’s no particular rhythm; he jerks and her hips buck and he tells her how tight she is, over and over again.
It stays as a weird little game of who can touch each other the least. He leans back and then forward, stumbling and then giving up as he drops over her. His weight is heavy and then she feels herself tighten around his dick, a sloppy sound muffled as they start to roll against each other. He’s stretching her, wider and wider, and it pulls. Her teeth sink into her lip and her head drops back. She just might scream.
His teeth are at his throat, then her breasts, and then her nipple, twisting over the skin. She forces a hand into his hair and tries, tries so hard not to call him will but the name slips out from her mouth all the same, nearly lost to the room as he fucks her into the bed.
The weight of him afterwards is what keeps her from thrashing, and she feels so sticky and exhausted as he pulls out of her, sliding back between her legs. He rests on his belly and he presses his mouth against her thigh, licking at the softness of skin and semen. She wonders if he can taste her too and gasps when he’s back over again, sticking his fingers into her mouth for her to taste.
Rachel licks away at his fingers quietly.
Mr. Schuester apologizes again, much closer to Christmas when he picks her up from the empty Christmas tree parking lot. She’s not really hearing herself respond, nor does it really matter; they all have roles to fulfill, he tells her, and there is nothing in her that doesn’t agree. Her gaze is still absent and her eyes are wet from the early flurries. She twists her hands in her lap and when he pulls into her driveway, he turns the lights of the car off and she bends closer to his lap.
Her mouth is still warm. “You’ve been the closest,” she says.