two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, chapter 5
Glee. 2,417 words, title stolen from the classic Bob Dylan tune, as performed by one of my absolute favorite people. This chapter took quite a turn for the angsty? Somewhat unexpectedly because I was definitely planning on milking some of the light-hearted fun for a little longer, but oh well. Will try to be a bit more balanced in the following chapters! (Oh man, be pumped, shit’s totally going downnnn.) Again, thanks so much for all your enthusiasm about this; I haven't had the chance to properly sit down and reply to all your lovely comments, but I hope to soon!
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5. oh sister
-andrew bird
So, basically, they didn’t actually have sex. Did you really think Rachel would give her virginity up to someone who she wasn’t head over heels in love with? Yeah, not likely.
At first, she set out some ground rules. He generally hated being told what to do (surprise, surprise) but he saw them less as rules and more as tests in his lifelong pursuit of pussy. Plus, he knew it wouldn't take long for her undersexed self to change her mind; maybe a week, max? So yeah, he totally agreed: they wouldn't mess around until they finished all their work for the night, nothing past second base (he was pretty sure he could push this to third, but straight up sex was a definitely non-negotiable), and nothing before big Glee performances, tests or games. She also made it perfectly clear that no one could know about this; some shit about a girl’s reputation being a big deal or something. He didn't really care about people finding out about them any more, but the secrecy of it all was kind of nice. He’d never been with a girl without the whole school knowing and talking, but this? Whatever it was, it was just between him and her, and he liked that.
About a week in, it was a Tuesday night and they had a Geometry test the next day. They should have known that rule would be the first to go when they decided to review the chapter on his bed. She was lying on her stomach, reading aloud from the open textbook she had propped against his pillow. She put a good twelve inches of space between them so they “wouldn’t get distracted,” but he stopped paying attention the second they were both lying on his fucking bed. Instead, he rolled on his side and faced her, his eyes glued to her lips. He knew she had good lips from their first go round, but damn. She seriously had good lips.
“So then we’d have to use the Pythagorean Theorem to solve for-” He reached his leg over and nudged her. She didn’t skip a beat, but a smile crept on her face and he knew this would be easy, “-to solve for the length of this side. Once we have that-” He reached a hand out this time, let it rest on the small of her back and started rubbing. Feigning seriousness, she turned to glare at him.
“Don’t you dare think you’re gonna charm your way out of this review, mister. Tomorrow’s a big deal, and if you think I’m gonna let you get away with just listening to me read this stuff without doing some problems yourself, you’ve got another thing coming.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
As she turned back towards the book and continued to review the material, his hand crept up under her shirt. As skin met skin, he inched a little closer, and soon his hand was drifting farther north and the gap between them had somehow closed.
“And then…We just…Have…To…” His lips were on her neck and she could feel him smiling as the pauses between her thoughts became more pronounced. “Okay, fine!” He lifted his head triumphantly and watched her swiftly shut her book and drop it off the side of the bed. “Maybe it would be wiser to let off a little steam before we really get started.”
---
Seriously though, if he had to rank those first two weeks on a scale of awesome to most awesome, they would definitely be most awesome. Neither of their parents cared that they were spending so much time together, either convinced that they were so different from each other that this could never really turn into something they’d have to have a sex talk over (yeah, Puck’s mom was really, really out of touch with reality when it came to teenage boys; plus, she worked all the time) or they were just so happy that their kid had such a good friend who was so committed to succeeding in the music industry and getting good grades that they didn’t care how much time they spent together (really though, it was just that Rachel’s dads trusted her so unquestioningly; it actually made her feel a little bad sometimes). So what they had was basically parent-sanctioned weekday hook-up time. AKA awesome.
It was a dude’s dream, truly. Puck was so preoccupied getting lost in her (god, that dip between her shoulder blades was basically the highlight of his life) and trying to convince her that giving him a blow job really would be a win-win situation all around (she eventually agreed, but only when he offered to reciprocate the gesture, if you will) that he was too busy to think about all the obvious reasons why what they were doing was such a mistake. Which was the way he liked it; thinking about potential shitstorms he was getting himself into was such a buzzkill.
And she had to admit, to say he was adept at kissing would be an understatement. His lips (and tongue, and hands…) were actually quite skilled in a number of disciplines. She didn’t even mind that she didn't love him because the things he did made her knees weak, and in the best possible way. In fact, she had come to the conclusion that this might actually be the most excellent idea she had ever had.
The most incredible thing of all had to be the fact that she was totally right: their friendship didn’t change one bit. Sure, she got less vocal work in and his math grade started slipping again (which he was perfectly fine with; he missed his three hour naps at the nurse’s station in the middle of the day anyway) but other than that, they were still them. He still thought she was a psycho freak and made no point of hiding it, and she still very much disapproved of 98% of what he chose to be. But somehow, they just fit. They laughed at each others jokes and talked about shit that he certainly had never told another living soul and that she had always wanted to share, but never had someone to share it with.
She even started talking about Finn less and he started thinking about Quinn less, but that didn’t make it any less of a feature of what they had. Puck knew that’s what brought them together and that this was all just one big fucked up, mixed bag of shit. But dude, it was their shit. It didn’t matter if he was definitely starting to see her as more than what she saw him as; it was still their thing.
One night after Glee, he came over to her place and she practically mauled him the second he stepped in her bedroom. Usually Puck was the one who made the first move during their nightly study-trysts, but occasionally there were days when she and Finn had to sing a particularly moving (read: barf-inducing) power ballad that revved up her hormonal engines real good, but this wasn’t one of those nights. If Puck was the kind of guy who asked questions, he would have realized it was because Finn was at a doctor’s appointment with Quinn, and what he was having with Rachel could have very well fallen under the category of sad and desperate not-sex. Lucky for the both of them, he was less of a questions guy and more, well, action-oriented.
Not too long after he arrived, he had his thigh nestled firmly between her legs and she had her arms thrown around his waist when he started thinking (really thinking) about what they were doing. Her eyes were closed and he was pretty sure she was imagining Finn in his place when her hands found their way under his shirt and she began drawing lazy circles on his back. As he watched her eyelids flutter, his chest swelled with that unfamiliar ache of having everything he wanted and still not feeling satisfied. Surprising even himself, his first thought wasn’t how much he wanted this with Quinn, but rather that her douchebaggery may actually have been a blessing in disguise.
“You know, I’m not naïve enough to cling to some childish dream of happily ever after with Finn, but…” her eyes opened and she looked at him with such despair. “Does it ever stop feeling this awful?”
He framed her face in his hands and traced her cheekbones with the pads of his thumbs. “You know…It doesn’t really.”
She laughed sadly to herself and looked downward. He knew that wasn’t the answer she wanted, but it was the truth, and lately he felt like she at least deserved the truth.
“But!” He slapped on his trademark Puck grin and let his hands fall to her hips, “I’m a pretty fucked up dude with a bunch of fake ass friends who probably don’t give two shits about what I feel. You, on the other hand,” she rolled her eyes but couldn’t help smiling as he shifted in bed and pulled her on top of him.
“You know, Noah, I’m starting to think you’re an even bigger drama queen than Mercedes.”
Her hair was falling over her face and he reached up and placed it back behind her ears, leaving his hands there. “But you, on the other hand,” he raised his voice, “you’re a crazy, wacko, yet slightly normal chick with a whole flock of Glee losers who would totally take a bullet for you. I’m pretty sure you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
She pushed herself up from his chest, unknowingly giving him a straight shot view down her shirt.
“You do realize that you’re one of those Glee losers, right?”
He quickly looked up from her rack to her teasing grin. “Did I ever say I wasn’t?”
With that, she laughed and covered his lips with her own.
---
Puck knew he was getting in way over his head when he started to dream about her.
The first really serious one came after that night, and it was simultaneously amazing and really fucked up. It was like any other time they saw each other, except all she was wearing was his basketball jersey and a pair of his boxers. He was lying on his back, his fingers laced together behind his head, and she was sharing his pillow, so their faces were close. She had thrown her leg haphazardly over his and her arm across his abdomen, and she was playing with the drawstring on his pajama bottoms. He didn’t remember what they were talking about, but at one point she laughed and he looked at her blinding smile and thought he was one lucky bastard; not just to be with her, but to be fucking alive. He looked at her and she just pursed her lips and blinked tiredly. I know, Noah, she had said before resting her forehead on his. He remembered closing his eyes then, and her hand tracing down his arm. She took his hand and pulled it under her shirt, resting it on her belly. Can you feel it? She whispered. He grinned, opened his eyes and pulled her flush against him. Yeah, I do.
Pretty fucked up, right?
---
10:13:24 AM: yo mama p’s pulling the night shift and the pipsqueaks got a sleepover 2nite. come over!!!
Berry 10:15:08 AM: First of all, hardcore SAT vocab points for pipsqueak!!! Second of all, I’m sure you sister would NOT have appreciated that. I find your innuendo slightly unsettling, but earlier should work. See ya at Glee.
10:16:49 AM: shut up, u totally wanna have a million of my innuendos babies. admit it!!!!!!
Berry 10:17:04 AM: Ugh, you’re so immature.
10:18:38 AM: its ok 99% of girls here also think im supa fly…ur not alone
Berry 10:19:19 AM: Stop texting in class!!!!!
That afternoon, he skipped practice and she called her dads and told them she was going to Sally Griffith’s house after school to work on their biology project and wouldn’t be home until late. She worked as he listened to Kings of Leon (they were the only band of his that stuck for her, but she was trying to give some others a chance), they fooled around some, then ordered pizza and watched American Idol. She never once mentioned Finn.
As she arched her back and tugged his shirt over his head she whispered Puck’s name and he knew whatever fucked up shit was going on between them had suddenly become real. He stared down at her, all dark waves and longing eyes with those small hands pressed firmly against his chest, and for a second there he almost told her. He almost said, “holy shit, Rachel, Quinn’s pregnant with my baby and I think I’m fucking falling for you.” He almost said it, but she was so small and all he could think of was his dad leaving and all the reasons why you don’t tell people how you really feel.
So he didn’t say anything, and instead they peeled each other’s clothes off, their fingers slick with sweat, like they’d done it a million times before. She wrapped her legs around his waist and he lost himself in her skin, his face burrowed first in her neck and in her chest. He ran his hand up and down her smooth thigh, wanting to tell her so badly that this wasn’t just some fake ass physical release; that this is fucking real. But a part of him knew he didn’t have to; he was so sure she could feel it. The change in the air and the change in their bodies.
He had already thrown himself off the cliff and she was close behind when she flung an arm over her eyes, then quickly pulled his face up to hers with both hands.
“Noah.” They were both breathing heavily and she was looking at him like…Like…“This is getting too-I think we need to-”
He stared into her eyes, and there was something there, he just wasn’t sure what it was.
“Slow down.” He finished her thought and she looked pained.
“No, I think we need some time apart.”
While his dick would certainly beg to differ, his brain very much agreed. And for once, his brain actually won out.
TBC
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5. oh sister
-andrew bird
So, basically, they didn’t actually have sex. Did you really think Rachel would give her virginity up to someone who she wasn’t head over heels in love with? Yeah, not likely.
At first, she set out some ground rules. He generally hated being told what to do (surprise, surprise) but he saw them less as rules and more as tests in his lifelong pursuit of pussy. Plus, he knew it wouldn't take long for her undersexed self to change her mind; maybe a week, max? So yeah, he totally agreed: they wouldn't mess around until they finished all their work for the night, nothing past second base (he was pretty sure he could push this to third, but straight up sex was a definitely non-negotiable), and nothing before big Glee performances, tests or games. She also made it perfectly clear that no one could know about this; some shit about a girl’s reputation being a big deal or something. He didn't really care about people finding out about them any more, but the secrecy of it all was kind of nice. He’d never been with a girl without the whole school knowing and talking, but this? Whatever it was, it was just between him and her, and he liked that.
About a week in, it was a Tuesday night and they had a Geometry test the next day. They should have known that rule would be the first to go when they decided to review the chapter on his bed. She was lying on her stomach, reading aloud from the open textbook she had propped against his pillow. She put a good twelve inches of space between them so they “wouldn’t get distracted,” but he stopped paying attention the second they were both lying on his fucking bed. Instead, he rolled on his side and faced her, his eyes glued to her lips. He knew she had good lips from their first go round, but damn. She seriously had good lips.
“So then we’d have to use the Pythagorean Theorem to solve for-” He reached his leg over and nudged her. She didn’t skip a beat, but a smile crept on her face and he knew this would be easy, “-to solve for the length of this side. Once we have that-” He reached a hand out this time, let it rest on the small of her back and started rubbing. Feigning seriousness, she turned to glare at him.
“Don’t you dare think you’re gonna charm your way out of this review, mister. Tomorrow’s a big deal, and if you think I’m gonna let you get away with just listening to me read this stuff without doing some problems yourself, you’ve got another thing coming.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
As she turned back towards the book and continued to review the material, his hand crept up under her shirt. As skin met skin, he inched a little closer, and soon his hand was drifting farther north and the gap between them had somehow closed.
“And then…We just…Have…To…” His lips were on her neck and she could feel him smiling as the pauses between her thoughts became more pronounced. “Okay, fine!” He lifted his head triumphantly and watched her swiftly shut her book and drop it off the side of the bed. “Maybe it would be wiser to let off a little steam before we really get started.”
---
Seriously though, if he had to rank those first two weeks on a scale of awesome to most awesome, they would definitely be most awesome. Neither of their parents cared that they were spending so much time together, either convinced that they were so different from each other that this could never really turn into something they’d have to have a sex talk over (yeah, Puck’s mom was really, really out of touch with reality when it came to teenage boys; plus, she worked all the time) or they were just so happy that their kid had such a good friend who was so committed to succeeding in the music industry and getting good grades that they didn’t care how much time they spent together (really though, it was just that Rachel’s dads trusted her so unquestioningly; it actually made her feel a little bad sometimes). So what they had was basically parent-sanctioned weekday hook-up time. AKA awesome.
It was a dude’s dream, truly. Puck was so preoccupied getting lost in her (god, that dip between her shoulder blades was basically the highlight of his life) and trying to convince her that giving him a blow job really would be a win-win situation all around (she eventually agreed, but only when he offered to reciprocate the gesture, if you will) that he was too busy to think about all the obvious reasons why what they were doing was such a mistake. Which was the way he liked it; thinking about potential shitstorms he was getting himself into was such a buzzkill.
And she had to admit, to say he was adept at kissing would be an understatement. His lips (and tongue, and hands…) were actually quite skilled in a number of disciplines. She didn’t even mind that she didn't love him because the things he did made her knees weak, and in the best possible way. In fact, she had come to the conclusion that this might actually be the most excellent idea she had ever had.
The most incredible thing of all had to be the fact that she was totally right: their friendship didn’t change one bit. Sure, she got less vocal work in and his math grade started slipping again (which he was perfectly fine with; he missed his three hour naps at the nurse’s station in the middle of the day anyway) but other than that, they were still them. He still thought she was a psycho freak and made no point of hiding it, and she still very much disapproved of 98% of what he chose to be. But somehow, they just fit. They laughed at each others jokes and talked about shit that he certainly had never told another living soul and that she had always wanted to share, but never had someone to share it with.
She even started talking about Finn less and he started thinking about Quinn less, but that didn’t make it any less of a feature of what they had. Puck knew that’s what brought them together and that this was all just one big fucked up, mixed bag of shit. But dude, it was their shit. It didn’t matter if he was definitely starting to see her as more than what she saw him as; it was still their thing.
One night after Glee, he came over to her place and she practically mauled him the second he stepped in her bedroom. Usually Puck was the one who made the first move during their nightly study-trysts, but occasionally there were days when she and Finn had to sing a particularly moving (read: barf-inducing) power ballad that revved up her hormonal engines real good, but this wasn’t one of those nights. If Puck was the kind of guy who asked questions, he would have realized it was because Finn was at a doctor’s appointment with Quinn, and what he was having with Rachel could have very well fallen under the category of sad and desperate not-sex. Lucky for the both of them, he was less of a questions guy and more, well, action-oriented.
Not too long after he arrived, he had his thigh nestled firmly between her legs and she had her arms thrown around his waist when he started thinking (really thinking) about what they were doing. Her eyes were closed and he was pretty sure she was imagining Finn in his place when her hands found their way under his shirt and she began drawing lazy circles on his back. As he watched her eyelids flutter, his chest swelled with that unfamiliar ache of having everything he wanted and still not feeling satisfied. Surprising even himself, his first thought wasn’t how much he wanted this with Quinn, but rather that her douchebaggery may actually have been a blessing in disguise.
“You know, I’m not naïve enough to cling to some childish dream of happily ever after with Finn, but…” her eyes opened and she looked at him with such despair. “Does it ever stop feeling this awful?”
He framed her face in his hands and traced her cheekbones with the pads of his thumbs. “You know…It doesn’t really.”
She laughed sadly to herself and looked downward. He knew that wasn’t the answer she wanted, but it was the truth, and lately he felt like she at least deserved the truth.
“But!” He slapped on his trademark Puck grin and let his hands fall to her hips, “I’m a pretty fucked up dude with a bunch of fake ass friends who probably don’t give two shits about what I feel. You, on the other hand,” she rolled her eyes but couldn’t help smiling as he shifted in bed and pulled her on top of him.
“You know, Noah, I’m starting to think you’re an even bigger drama queen than Mercedes.”
Her hair was falling over her face and he reached up and placed it back behind her ears, leaving his hands there. “But you, on the other hand,” he raised his voice, “you’re a crazy, wacko, yet slightly normal chick with a whole flock of Glee losers who would totally take a bullet for you. I’m pretty sure you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
She pushed herself up from his chest, unknowingly giving him a straight shot view down her shirt.
“You do realize that you’re one of those Glee losers, right?”
He quickly looked up from her rack to her teasing grin. “Did I ever say I wasn’t?”
With that, she laughed and covered his lips with her own.
---
Puck knew he was getting in way over his head when he started to dream about her.
The first really serious one came after that night, and it was simultaneously amazing and really fucked up. It was like any other time they saw each other, except all she was wearing was his basketball jersey and a pair of his boxers. He was lying on his back, his fingers laced together behind his head, and she was sharing his pillow, so their faces were close. She had thrown her leg haphazardly over his and her arm across his abdomen, and she was playing with the drawstring on his pajama bottoms. He didn’t remember what they were talking about, but at one point she laughed and he looked at her blinding smile and thought he was one lucky bastard; not just to be with her, but to be fucking alive. He looked at her and she just pursed her lips and blinked tiredly. I know, Noah, she had said before resting her forehead on his. He remembered closing his eyes then, and her hand tracing down his arm. She took his hand and pulled it under her shirt, resting it on her belly. Can you feel it? She whispered. He grinned, opened his eyes and pulled her flush against him. Yeah, I do.
Pretty fucked up, right?
---
10:13:24 AM: yo mama p’s pulling the night shift and the pipsqueaks got a sleepover 2nite. come over!!!
Berry 10:15:08 AM: First of all, hardcore SAT vocab points for pipsqueak!!! Second of all, I’m sure you sister would NOT have appreciated that. I find your innuendo slightly unsettling, but earlier should work. See ya at Glee.
10:16:49 AM: shut up, u totally wanna have a million of my innuendos babies. admit it!!!!!!
Berry 10:17:04 AM: Ugh, you’re so immature.
10:18:38 AM: its ok 99% of girls here also think im supa fly…ur not alone
Berry 10:19:19 AM: Stop texting in class!!!!!
That afternoon, he skipped practice and she called her dads and told them she was going to Sally Griffith’s house after school to work on their biology project and wouldn’t be home until late. She worked as he listened to Kings of Leon (they were the only band of his that stuck for her, but she was trying to give some others a chance), they fooled around some, then ordered pizza and watched American Idol. She never once mentioned Finn.
As she arched her back and tugged his shirt over his head she whispered Puck’s name and he knew whatever fucked up shit was going on between them had suddenly become real. He stared down at her, all dark waves and longing eyes with those small hands pressed firmly against his chest, and for a second there he almost told her. He almost said, “holy shit, Rachel, Quinn’s pregnant with my baby and I think I’m fucking falling for you.” He almost said it, but she was so small and all he could think of was his dad leaving and all the reasons why you don’t tell people how you really feel.
So he didn’t say anything, and instead they peeled each other’s clothes off, their fingers slick with sweat, like they’d done it a million times before. She wrapped her legs around his waist and he lost himself in her skin, his face burrowed first in her neck and in her chest. He ran his hand up and down her smooth thigh, wanting to tell her so badly that this wasn’t just some fake ass physical release; that this is fucking real. But a part of him knew he didn’t have to; he was so sure she could feel it. The change in the air and the change in their bodies.
He had already thrown himself off the cliff and she was close behind when she flung an arm over her eyes, then quickly pulled his face up to hers with both hands.
“Noah.” They were both breathing heavily and she was looking at him like…Like…“This is getting too-I think we need to-”
He stared into her eyes, and there was something there, he just wasn’t sure what it was.
“Slow down.” He finished her thought and she looked pained.
“No, I think we need some time apart.”
While his dick would certainly beg to differ, his brain very much agreed. And for once, his brain actually won out.
TBC
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