Note: I usually try to preface any new piece I do by saying with something. With this pairing, all I really can say is that I have wanted to write Luck for a long time, because I love everything about them, and hopefully I'll be able to do them justice because they are more than worth it.
Also, the only thing I own in regards to Lauren and Puck is my love for them. The characters themselves, and anything else pertaining to Glee, belongs to the shows creators. Thank you for the most awesome clay ever, gentlemen.
Redemption
Chapter 1: Cameras Flashing, Lives Crashing
"Can you believe they actually taped it?"
"Did you see it was posted on Facebook?"
"Someone needs to tell Puckerman that having sex with an endangered species of hippo is against the law."
They were all whispers. No one had the nerve to say it to his face.
All they could manage was to stare as he walked down the hallway, a few people even snickering.
This is bullshit, thought Puck as he glared back at everyone, most people looking away, but continuing to talk once he passed.
It wasn't so much what they were saying about him. He didn't much care what they thought. What they said about her, though, made him want to start taking swings.
So she wasn't model perfect, and, yeah, it probably looked different. It had felt different when it was happening, and not because of size or shape. He had felt…something. Something that he really could not describe, because he sucked with words
Sex was sex, and he was good at it. It wasn't his style to leave a lady unsatisfied. This was more than that though. This…she…, had left him feeling completely unraveled.
He had always been able to separate himself from the other girls, and women, if he wanted to. Frankly, he just wasn't into a lot of the chicks he'd been with and the distance between them had gotten him what he wanted without having to actually invest in the person.
With her, he had felt…attached.
He didn't want to be lame and say it felt like the first time. He couldn't actually remember what the first time felt like anyway. He figured that volume, or quantity, or whatever people called it, would do that to a guy. Maybe, though, when he was with her, that's what it was suppose to feel like. Like what he always heard girls talk about.
Special.
Thinking of it that way had made him regret not pointing out that the camera was on.
He didn't know what Rachel had been up to before the party. Probably recording herself singing, so she could go back over it later and "find areas for improvement" in her performances. She was a little crazy like that, but in a way that made him like her. Whatever it was, he had noticed the red light on the top of the camera blinking as Lauren was pulled at his arm. He really didn't give it much thought because he really hadn't planned on having sex at that party.
Yeah, that's what parties were for, and he had been trying really hard to woo his way into Lauren's pants for almost a month. But for all the bluster, he didn't want it to go down that way. Not at some party, in his friend's bedroom, on her bed. Though he hadn't admitted itout loud, he felt like Lauren was better than that, and he was trying really hard to treat her like she was.
How it ended up on the Internet was beyond him. Stuff like that doesn't just happen. Video cameras do not magically put the stuff they record on the Internet. And he knew none of his friends would have put it on Facebook. If anything, Rachel would have seen three seconds of it, erased it, then talked his ear off about how appalled she what he did.
He had a feeling that explaining all that to Lauren was not going to make her think he was any less of a creep. She was still going to hate him. And that was going to suck because…
…he really liked her.
Yeah, she was tough on him. Tougher than was probably fair sometimes. It was always honest, though, and he knew that if he told her she was out of line, she'd stop doing it because she wasn't a mean person. She could even be kind of sweet in her own way. The week before, she had given him a plate of butterscotch cookies that she'd claimed were simply leftover from a batch her mom had made. He'd known it was a lie, that she'd made the cookies for him, but he just said, "Cool. Thanks," and let her retain some of that badass demeanor that had drawn him to her in the first place even though she was being a total girl.
He couldn't help but smile at the memory. At how cute she was, even though he knew she hated anyone seeing her that way.
As soon as he looked through the window on the choir room door, and saw the way everyone was looking at each other, then sneaking glances back at her, sitting in the back row, his insides lurched a bit.
Whenhe finally forced himself through the doorway, , all eyes were on him. They all looked…kind of pissed? They hadn't even looked this mad when the baby drama had been blown wide open last year and almost ruined their chances at Sectionals. Sam and Artie were the only ones who looked they were not completely disgusted with him.
This was the hallway all over again. Only worse because he couldn't glare back at them. They were his friends and, as much as he didn't want to, he kind of cared that they all seemed to hate him at the moment.
Still, he wasn't about to back down from them. Especially when he hadn't actually done anything to any of them. "Gotta problem?" he snapped at the person nearest to him...Finn.
Finn glanced around at everyone, trying to find the encouragement to say what they all were thinking. "How could you, man?" he asked, his words less venomous than his look had been.
Puck rolled his eyes. "How could I what?"
"Oh please! You know what you did," piped up Mercedes, her voice more contemptuous than Finn's. "How could you be so selfish? How could you do…that to someone."
He looked up at Lauren, but she wasn't looking back. She hadn't since he walked in the room. Maybe he didn't deserve it, but he wanted her to step in and tell everyone to back off. That she could stand up for herself. Like she had told him the day Santana had gone after her for "stealing" him from her.
His eyes flicked over to Santana for a split second, checking out her reaction to all this. He wouldn't put posting this online past her. She was just that much of a bitch. But the smug look she usually got when she made someone's life miserable wasn't there. She looked like everyone else did, like she thought he was complete scum.
"Whatever," he growled as he shoved between Tina and Mike, nearly knocking both of them with his backpack, and sat down next to Lauren. "Look, let's get out of here and…talk about this."
When she finally looked up, he felt a cold shot up his spine. Her eyes were…calm. Deadly calm. This is probably what a serial killer looks like right before he cuts up his victim into a million pieces, he thought. And he definitely felt like one of those zebras on the discovery channel that's about to be pounced on by a cheetah.
She stood up without saying a word, slung her bag over her shoulder, and made her way to the door. He followed dumbly – down the hallway, through the gym, out the doors, and all the way to her car.
"Well?" she finally said, no hint of emotion in her voice.
"I didn't do this," he said a little too defensively, like he was talking to all of them back in the choir room, and not to her.
"So what, Puckerman? It just happened?" Her eyebrows flared up. This usually happened when she thought someone was lying.
"Well, yeah kind of.. I mean, us actually doing it just happened. I didn't plan to hook up with you at that party. Or on Rachel's bed or anything." He was rambling, and he felt like a jackass for it. He'd wanted to be confident because he figured it might make her believe that he wasn't just blowing smoke. That he actually hadn't done this. But now, he was starting to believe it was all his fault too.
Lauren wanted to slug him…because she knew he was right. That it had just happened, and if anything she was the one who started the only sex romp that had ever taken place in the Berry boudoir. But how was she suppose to know it was all being filmed? Making a sex tape was one thing. She wasn't entirely opposed to it, even if it was all kinds of Paris Hilton trashy. Being filmed without her permission was something else. It was like..being violated, and not in a fun way.
He should have known. He had to have. He had been in Rachel's room plenty of times, and rolled around on that bed with her once or twice. Lauren's teeth ground at the idea of him with anyone else, especially Rachel since he'd made out with her almost immediately after they'd shared the whole 7-minutes in heaven debacle. If Lauren was being honest with herself, having sex on Berry's bed was like fucked up payback, no matter how juvenile she knew it was. Rachel wasn't suppose to know about it, though. No one was. Especially not everyone in school.
"Tell me the truth," she finally said, after glaring at him while he shifted uncomfortably front of her for a few minutes. "Did you see the camera?"
He sighed, heavily. "Yes," he said, hating this whole honesty thing. "And..okay, I saw the light blinking on the top, and should have turned it off, but I swear…."
"Wait, you knew the camera was on?"
"I didn't think we were going to have sex!"
"You should've said something!" she fumed. She was trying to hold back the tears. She never cried – it just wasn't her style especially not in front of someone she obviously couldn't trust.
"I'm sorry, alright. But I didn't put this thing on the internet…hey…"
She was already pushing her car door open and climbing in. When he grabbed for her arm, she almost took his fingers off slamming the door. "You better get out of my way, Puckerman, I'm going to run your ass over."
"Zizes, c'mon. Seriously. You have to believe I didn't do this. That I'd never hurt you on purpose.. I like you too much to do that."
She looked up at him, glasses sitting on the end of her nose. "Well aren't I lucky that a guy like you would ever like a girl like me enough to nail her on someone else's bed than post it all over the internet. Get bent, Puckerman. And while you're at it, lose my number."
Her blue G6 reared back hard, then ripped through the lot, hitting the street at full speed.
All he could do was watch, and feel like the complete fuck up that everyone thought he was. Scratch that… that she thought he was. No one else mattered as much as she did a thought that didn't make it any easier to go back into the building and face the looks that were somehow tolerable before.