A/N: Spoilers up to the S4 Valentine's Day episode (The Wedding? IDK what the eff they called it). Also, I make several references to my last fic, The Dance - read it at .com (slash) . If you haven't read The Dance, you might be a little lost. In my world, it happened. Also in my world, this happened right after Rachel caught the bouquet at the Wemma Wedding That Wasn't.
It always happens when he drinks.
Whether it's beer, wine, or the hard stuff.
Whether he's alone, with friends, with strangers. If there's the cool feeling of glass in his palm, the tangy aroma tendriling into his nostrils, it happens.
And her hair is just so fucking shiny and her cheeks are flushed pink and her smile is about 80 bajillion megawatts when she catches that bouquet, and, fuck.
He starts getting...just...
It's not supposed to be this way.
~~~~~~~~~~
He catches her on the way to the bathroom, with that bouquet in her hand, still a ghost of a smile on her lips. Her eyes are trained on the ground; she's in thought.
"Hey," His voice is low, his hand wraps around her upper arm, fingers brushing the velvet petals of the roses. "Hey."
She's jolted out of her reverie, and the whisper smile on her face broadens when she meets his eyes. "Hi, Noah!" Rachel brightly responds. "I didn't get to catch up with you, I was so busy rehearsing with Finn. How ARE you?"
It's the Jack Daniels talking. It's the Jack, making his mouth thick and his eyes hazy...
It always happens when he drinks. It only happens when he drinks.
"You look gorgeous, Berry."
He's not slurring his words.
Her lashes bat to the ground and she smiles a close lipped, bashful smile. He sees the New York in her, the heavy eyeliner, the styled hair, the shorter skirts with different intentions. Regardless of all that, she's still the Rachel he remembers, the one who takes compliments and tucks them behind her ear like a lock of hair that surprises her as it brushes across her face.
"Why thank you Noah," Her eyes meet his. "How is LA?"
LA sucks. LA is full of fake opportunities, shallow people, misinterpreted success, wistful intentions. LA is full of lonely nights and empty bank accounts, dinners of microwave popcorn (the shitty kind, even, with hardly any powdered butter on top). LA was a pipe dream of a stupid kid who had balls that just weren't big enough.
"I'm home now." He replies. He doesn't want to let go of her arm.
So he doesn't.
It always happens when he drinks.
Her cheeks are tinted and Puck realizes that Rachel might have imbibed a bit herself. He recognizes the glassiness in her eyes; he remembers the last time he saw that illuminative hue. Football field. Before graduation. An F on a test, a botched audition. A bottle of Jack (it only happens when he drinks).
The night he thought he was nothing to no one, that he was useless to everyone. But he knew what she needed, and she knew what he needed, and none of it was sexual but it was monumentally earth shattering yet a whispery hushed secret at the same time, because they've never spoke of it after Mercedes' graduation party.
"Oh," She responds, surprised, her eyes opening a little wider. "I...oh. Ok."
There were always these silences between them. Obviously, not recently, since he hadn't seen or talked to her since graduation. But throughout high school, there were just these...quiets. Pauses. Lapses in thought and space, but not uncomfortable. Where she just watched him and he just watched her and sometimes their eyes would meet and, fuck, it always happens when he drinks, but he just misses Rachel fucking Berry so Goddamn much and he's just going to fucking kiss her and blame it on the Jack because it always happens when he drinks.
So he just goes for it. He presses his lips to hers and pushes her flush against the wall by the ladies room door and her hip jostles the hallway table, the vase of fake flowers precariously wobbling on top. He's so close to her he feels her fingers uncurl around the bouquet as it flutters, the only sound the gentle rustle as the petals hit the carpet.
But she's not resisting.
She's kissing back.
His hands are in her hair and touching her cheeks, thumbs, stroking her earlobe, memorizing every curve of her jaw and the creases by her eyes and his mind is racing a mile a minute, replaying moments, where her cheeks were so red and flushed and she was positively shining when she caught that bouquet and he just MISSES Rachel fucking Berry so Goddamn much and this always happens when he drinks.
Tentative, hesitant, fingers wrap around his bicep, and she sighs into his mouth.
The few lilting notes of a poppy 80's song and laughter floats into the hallway and both realize, at the same time, the door to the ballroom has been opened and it's only a matter of time -
He lifts his lips from hers. Uncurls fingers from long locks, brushes a hand down her arm, feels her shiver.
"Just...needed. To do." He breathes in. "That. Just had to." Before she could ruin the moment and try to analyze, talk, make sense of it, he turned on his heel and walked towards the doors outside, to get some cool air to jolt him into reality. The reality where Rachel Berry wasn't his, was never his. The reality where he could sober up enough to remember who he was and who he couldn't be. The reality where he could not and should not admit, to anyone, anywhere, especially himself, that it has always been Rachel Berry, and it might always be Rachel Berry, but it only happens when he drinks.
~~~~~~~~~~
Rachel stood in a daze, leaning her head against the wall, touching one fingertip against her bottom lip, stunned at what had just happened. She hadn't seen Noah in...forever. Since...she left for NYADA, maybe?
She'd be lying if she said he hadn't crossed her mind. When she passes Katz's Deli, with the amazing pastrami she know he'd love. When that stupid, insipid guitar player in her accompaniment class tried to strum a Led Zepplin song she knew he'd play better. On Hanukkah, when she wondered if he was celebrating, alone, in LA, or if he was wrapped around some girl. When she would stomp out those silly, useless, unfounded random jealousy pangs that resulted after that particular thought.
But mostly, she thought of Noah when she had a bad day. When she was so scared, so lost, the first few weeks in NYADA, and she would come home and pour herself a glass of this cheap peach schnapps she stole from her daddy's liquor chest the last night she slept in her childhood bedroom. When the sugary sweet liquid, coupled with orange juice, her mixer of choice, slid down her throat, when tears squeezed at the corners of her eyes, when she remembered the last and only time she ever felt listened to, taken care of, safe, was this one night she fell asleep, drunk, with Noah Puckerman on the McKinley football field, pouring her fears out to him.
Rachel shakes her head and bends down to pick up the bouquet that had tumbled out of her hand.
That's when she thinks of Noah Puckerman. That's when she misses, aches, yearns, for that same feeling.
It only happens when she drinks.
It always happens when she drinks.