Puck was on edge.
Here, out in the open he was far too vulnerable to attack, and even though he kept stealing quick glances behind him at the stairwell, he couldn't help but feel like-
"Gah!" Puck was barely able to muffle his reaction, his fingers curling into fists, grasping at the unyielding wood of the kitchen table.
Daphne let out a snort of laughter across from him, nearly choking on her cereal. He glared at her even as a blush spread up to his cheeks.
He didn't dare look behind him, not needing to see Sabrina to imagine the smug smirk on her lips.
Leaning far too close for comfort, she whispered a "Good morning," in his ear while her fingers stayed poised on his neck, sending shots of lightning pleasure mixed with dread down his spine.
"You too," he ground out, staring forward steadfastly as she lighted her hands off of his skin and went to get her own food, snickering softly to herself. With his entire cervical array nearly glowing from the heat of his own blood, Puck gathered the frayed ends of his sanity and began to eat once more.
Traitor, he thought, watching Daphne continue to giggle into her breakfast.
Puck stole a glance at the older girl who had cooled her amusement enough that she nearly looked demure as she ate.
How dare she-that upstart human female shouldn't rightly be able to make him feel like this.
But there he was, heart pounding, completely flustered from a simple touch.
Sabrina noticed him watching her and perked her head up to wink infuriatingly.
Against his will, he turned red again. She was doing something to him that would make any seventeen-year-old guy feel like they were going insane. It felt like the only thing he could think about was her and the way her lip curled when she tormented him.
Pranks weren't supposed to be attractive, right?
He had to keep himself from slumping his shoulders and throwing in the towel for their war.
This was a disaster. A disaster that rightly should've never happened-if he didn't push her over the edge or if Jake and had just let him continue traveling.
It all began as many problems in the Grimm household did-Puck pranked Sabrina. It was a pretty simple operation by his standards-dying her hair an unnatural electric blue...along with the rest of her skin.
"You little troll!" she yelled at him, nearly catching him by the back of his shirt, "I look like a smurf!"
"It's a good look on you!" he called back, laughing as he raced around the house. He was making good time this week: five pranks to him, and only one for Sabrina.
Unfortunately, no good thing could last for that long. As he was yelling insults back at her, due to his divided attention, he tripped right over Daphne who had been trying to make her way to the bathroom. The two hit each other and found themselves sprawled out on the floor three feet away from each other from the sheer force of their collision.
"Ow," Daphne complained as they both sat up rubbing their heads. Puck was about to share the same sentiment before he got surprised tackled from behind.
"Hey!" he pouted, struggling to separate himself from his assalent, "Not fair-I ran into Marshmallow."
"Well," Sabrina growled ruthlessly, putting him in a rough headlock, "that's too bad. Look where you're going next time."
Puck simply snorted in response, already trying to decide which disgusting animal he should turn into to.
That was the precise moment when disaster hit.
Thoughtlessly, the hand that Sabrina was using to keep his head immobilized slipped and brushed against his neck. Without meaning to, a stunted, uncomfortable laugh burst out of him. Sabrina's grip loosened at the sound, as it seemed so uncharacteristic of him. In her moment of weakness, Puck wriggled out of her hold and sat aside, one hand on his throat in confusion.
Daphne blinked, watching the exchange from her place on the floor. Ever so slowly, a smile began to spread across her face. She scooted closer to the other two.
"Wow, if I didn't know better, I'd think that Puck just had a ticklish reaction, but of course..." she reached out and tickled the back of his neck, eliciting a laugh similar to the first one that caused him to fall over, "that could never happen.
Slapping a hand over his mouth, Puck glared at Daphne as he sat up, his face beginning to glow red from embarrassment.
Catching on, Sabrina began to laugh heartily, grinning-positively enthused by this turn of events.
"No way! Your neck is ticklish!"
"N-no it's not," he replied unsteadily, not liking the way that the Grimm sisters were looking at one another. Then, with only a slight nod, the girls launched themselves at him, namely giving him any time to react. He bolted off of the floor and, understandably, he ran for his life. For nearly half an hour, the sisters chased him before he locked himself in his room.
"You can't stay in there forever!" Sabrina had warned.
"Watch me!" he snarled back, stoically standing firm on the other side of the door.
His stomach, however, proved to not be quite as stoic.
After only two days of isolation, he had to surrender his position on the high ground and stealthily made his way down to the kitchen to eat. He had been sure that he never couldn't be discovered, but it turned out his timing was horrible.
As his luck would have it, he walked right into Daphne and Sabrina holding a meeting of war, speaking in hushed tones on how they could break into his fortress. Puck attempted to retreat, but with a casual glance up, he was caught by the perpetrator of his grief-Sabrina Grimm herself. Now that her evil look wasn't softened by complete cyanosis, he understood why so many seemingly tougher enemies backed away in terror.
He attempted to run once again, but he was weakened from hunger and was easily captured by his foes and was subjected to their own amusement-namely, tickling his neck until their own giggles caused tears to streak down their gleeful faces.
Thus began the longest two days of his life-a time period where the sisters made a game of getting him to react to getting his neck touched.
He was convinced that they needed to be detained from the battle, but when he told the Old Lady what happened, she couldn't stop laughing long enough to listen to his whole debriefing.
Discouraged and demoralized, he returned to his new existence with his tail between his legs and turned to a new tactic: immunization. To not react would be difficult, but he was firm in his fortitude of mind and spirit-he would put an end to this and show them once more who the greatest prank general was.
To his delight, it only took one day to block out Daphne, much to her disappointment.
Sabrina, however, was an entirely different story. All she had to do was skim her fingertips over his sensitive skin just so and he was a goner.
Daphne was annoyed with this, but found great entertainment from this indirect source nonetheless. Sabrina might have been curious, but, honestly, she didn't care on the why so long as she was able to continue to make him jump out of his seat just by grazing him. He did everything to escape her but to no avail. Relda told him that he would get over his ticklishness soon enough and then Sabrina would lose interest.
What they didn't realize was that when Sabrina did it, he didn't feel ticklish-it just, well, it just...felt.
Felt like burning sparks tingling along every vertebra of his spine.
He desperately needed her to stop because one of these days he was going to to do something stupid that would get him into a world of trouble.
Like kissing her-
However, judging from the smug satisfaction she got every time he freaked, he didn't think his personal torture was going to end anytime soon.
"See ya at school, Puck." Sabrina offered once she was done eating. As she passed, she patted him on the top of the head to cause further misdirection. His toes curled and he forced himself to be quiet.
On the other side of the room, Daphne laughed aside to herself, noting what her sister had not in Puck's reaction-the irregular blush, the goose bumps on his forearms. From the other side of the room, Sabrina didn't seem to notice that she was smiling to herself.
Well, they're bound to realize how much they affect each other one day, right?
.-.-.-.
Puck didn't particularly enjoy that he was being forced to high school. It hadn't been his idea in the slightest; his only plan after the Everafter war had been to travel with Jake to drift for who knew how long. He had time, nothing but endless time to retire his role as the Grimm's vigilante and to take up his old mantle of a wayward vagrant.
At least, he'd thought that he did until time (the worst trickster of all) caught up with him-through the loudest source possible: his mother. It was through her meddling (along with a healthy amount of persuasion from Relda) that Puck was forced into his own personal torture: high school. The two women had come up with more than a few reasons for him to go that he didn't pay much attention to. It was a chance for social experiences with normal humans (to open future diplomatic opportunities), to learn what a 'modern' education was...so many nuances that he hardly cared for. He had wanted to tell them to take a hike, but Relda then mentioned something that sweetened the deal-to go to high school with Sabrina. From there, he became interested.
Apparently, the Grimm family was coming back to Ferryport Landing in an attempt to lay low while some undesirable radical Everafters passed through New York (he scoffed-four years just to pass through? They were hardly covering the fact that they just missed the old place).
Thus, Sabrina would be taking her secondary education in Ferryport. If he went, he would have the chance to live like they had when they were twelve. Slowly, he warmed up to the idea.
'But, liebling, please, no pranks.' Relda had pleaded.
Adorable, they thought that they could tell the Trickster King what to do.
He agreed to their proposal-and silently, it became his personal mission to completely sabotage Sabrina's high school experience.
At first, it had been a grand old time for him-filling her conditioner with glue, turning her eyes a malicious radioactive puke green, filling her lunch with sunflower seeds (she hated those)-all delightfully wholesome fun. Perhaps he had gone a little to far, but he'd hardly thought of the supposed consequences in the moment.
Now, sitting in the school cafeteria while keeping a careful eye on Sabrina, however, he was thinking that maybe he should have skipped town when he had the chance.
Sabrina, from her group of friends, noticed him watching and smiled sweetly, waving in what some might think was flirtatious but what he knew was a warning.
If there's any anchovies in my sandwich, your social life is dead, fairy boy.
Most days, he would back down-but today he determined that he was done with his game of cat and mouse. With a deep breath, he bid farewell to his comrades and crossed enemy lines to make a negotiation.
Upon seeing his trajectory, his so called friends cajoled him, whispering among themselves the same thing they always did when he went to speak with Sabrina.
"They're so dating in secret," one muttered.
"Nah, they're just friends, remember?" another snickered.
That was a common thought in their high school-that the two of them were dating or something of the like.
But dating was too strong of a term, he would argue. Their relationship was better described at that point as a mutual feeling 'I don't hate you now, and I also maybe kinda feel something towards you.'
Basically, this meant that they acted like vehement enemies a disproportionate amount of time but let little ticks show how much they cared for each other.
They weren't in love.
They were in complete self-proclaimed war with the other.
Which explained why, the second either of them found one of the others weaknesses, they exploited it. Usually they were small nuances, like when Sabrina had thrown a red scarf into Puck's white laundry or when Puck filled Sabrina's bag with pens when he learned that they annoyed her.
This particular weakness, however-this sensitivity-so seemingly innocent, had thrown the whole system askew. Puck hadn't pulled a proper prank on Sabrina in over three days because the looming threat of her tickling his neck right in front of his friends was an embarrassment that he wasn't willing to risk.
He found his way to her table and almost wordlessly willed her to come with him. Rolling her eyes, she got up with a promise that she would be swift. Her friends giggled to each other, adding more gossip to the soap opera that was Puck and Sabrina.
Finally, the two made it out to the hall, away from the prying eyes and ears of their peers.
"Listen," Puck began, already frustrated by the bored look on Sabrina's face, "this has to stop."
The girl didn't even bother to play dumb and smirked. "Make me, fairy boy. I'm enjoying this week of normal hair and easy payback."
"But, but-" he floundered, "this isn't fair! I don't get any chance to retaliate!"
"Wow," she said, face deadpan, "wouldn't that suck-not being able to do anything while someone annoyed you day in and day out."
Touché.
She continued on, noting his frown, "Anyways, weren't you the one who said that you aren't afraid of this?" She reached forward with one hand and he instinctively stepped away from her.
She laughed, clutching her side as he glowered, annoyed at her trick.
"Look," she finally managed to gasp out, "if you can get by at least one time without reacting, I'll stop."
Puck narrowed his eyes.
"You're on."
.-.-.-.
It took two and a half weeks of driving himself nearly insane before he finally bested her.
He was in the living room, just about to go to the TV and find something to watch when he felt fingers touch his neck unannounced. Perhaps it was the fact that he had heard quiet footsteps moments before, or that she had gotten too predictable-but he managed to stay still and not make any noise. He turned to give her a triumphant grin, enjoying her floored expression.
Barely able to contain his excitement and relief he exclaimed, "Ha! Now we can go back to our regularly scheduled programming of me pranking you."
Sabrina finally found her voice again and huffed, plopping down onto the couch, quickly followed by a gloating Puck.
She let out a defeated sigh, conceding graciously, "Guess that was fun while it lasted."
While the girl looked like she was already ready to let the whole matter go, Puck had other ideas.
"Well, looks like now that you can't exploit my weakness that you're pretty wimpy," he jested, poking her side.
She frowned and muttered aside, "Yeah, yeah. Whatever. I'll figure out some other way to make you miserable before long."
Puck guffawed, "No way. I'm too perfect to have more than one flaw."
She narrowed her eyes, getting irritated with his excessive winner talk. "Sounds like you're scared. Afraid I'll figure out something else?"
He leaned back, hands crossed behind his head, completely puffed up in his self-pride.
"Nope. I bet you couldn't make me react by touching my neck now if you tried."
Utterly confident, he tilted his head back and gave her full view of his throat, slightly tense despite his brave words.
After nothing happened for a few moments, Puck grinned and opened one eye. "Just like I thought, too scared to try."
Annoyed, Sabrina crossed her arms and replied, "Well, I'm just honoring the bet. You didn't react."
"Right, right, of course."
"Let it go, Puck."
"Just say it."
"Seriously, chill out."
"Never!"
With each moment of their heated exchanged the two got closer, Sabrina beginning to fume while Puck's face only turned more and more cocky.
Glaring at his pompous face, Sabrina remembered once more why she loathed him so much. He never let her win at anything-and everything was about winning with him. From his number of friends and admirers to the time it took him to belch the ABC's.
While staring down his stupid yet admittedly aesthetically pleasing face-with that horrid, beautiful grin-Sabrina snapped.
"Fine! You want to see if you're over your sensitivity-here!"
Hardly thinking beyond getting a reaction out of Puck, Sabrina grabbed him by the collar and pressed a kiss against his throat.
The smile fell off of his face instantly, and for one frantic heartbeat, he couldn't breathe or think, or do much of anything really.
Ironically, Puck didn't react physically-because he was going to be paralyzed to that couch for the rest of his natural life.
When Sabrina pulled back, it only took one look at Puck's bright red face to know that she'd caught him in his own trap.
She smiled wickedly at him as she stood up, her face an odd mix between glowering and triumph. "Don't get so smug so soon next time, Stinkpot. Remember that I always have another trick up my sleeve." With that, she strode out of the room, leaving him alone-his jaw working up and down with failed retorts.
His heart felt like it was going to beat out of his chest.
Oh, he thought, I don't think you'll ever let me forget.
.-.-.-.
AN: Ah, the war of love. This fic has to be the most ridiculous thought process. 'Puck has a sensitive neck, Sabrina finds out' was my literal prompt for myself. Anyways, hope you had a good laugh. Feel free to voice it with a review!
Have the best day of all the days-
-Pinklily8