So I basically wrote this when I heard the quote 'the mind sees what it wants to see' whilst watching 'The Da Vinci Code' and I was like 'huh, that'd be a cool story idea' so I wrote this. Fair warning, there is a lot of dialogue in this story, it's like 60% dialogue. And nothing really intense happens in this story, even I found it a little boring. But if you still want to read it, hey go ahead. Thanks for reading.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Sisters Grimm series.
Puck hates his life right now.
Like he really hates it. All this uncertainty, and strangeness, and alien new thoughts running through his 4000 year old mind, it's making his head spin.
He's been confused before of course; he can't be in a Faerie council meeting for more than two minutes without some random new law coming up, but this...
This is something new. This is something to do with his feelings, the mind sees what it wants to see rattles through his brain yet again, and it's driving him insane.
...
Mustardseed came over to Ferryport Landing for a while, mainly to visit the saviours of Faerie and once again offer his thanks; but also to "run damage control for whatever chaos my brother has caused", as he had put it.
When he said 'chaos' though, he was expecting something more along the lines of paint-splattered banks and wild chimps running amok, something a little more distant, and aloof.
Not once did he anticipate that it would be damage on an emotional level, a personal level, and to his brother of all people. And why should he? This was Puck, for goodness sakes. Puck! The immature fairy trickster who went around playing games and pranking innocents! He didn't get tied up by some girl, not when he had put off aging for so long, not when he still ate earthworms to pass the time.
But Mustardseed knew what he saw, how could he not? Puck's voice must have cracked at least seven times when Mustardseed was there. He came to one final conclusion:
Puck Goodfellow, his idiotic, though sometimes brilliant, brother, had fallen for Sabrina Grimm.
He doesn't know whether he should smile, or grimace.
...
"Puck, get up," Mustardseed says casually, coming down the stairs "I'm taking you out for lunch."
Puck's head whips up, frowning suspiciously. "Why?" He asks carefully.
Mustardseed shrugs. "No reason. Just 'cause I haven't seen you in a while."
"You've been here two weeks," Puck counters "you've seen me plenty."
"Look I just want us to go somewhere nice to eat alright?" Mustardseed says, exasperation evident in his voice, as if he's already tired of his brother's attitude. "Is there any harm in that?"
Puck's frown deepens, at his brother's strange change in mood, but relents. "Oh fine." He puts down his video game controller, and motions to Daphne. "Marshmallow, play for me."
"I don't know how to play." She says.
He grins. "Doesn't matter. Can't be worse than Grimm here."
Sabrina glares at him, and he chuckles. Then he turns to his brother, who had moved to the front door. "Where are we going?" He asks, as he slouches towards the now open doorway.
"Somewhere nice I assure you." Mustardseed replies, and pops out his wings.
...
"So why do you like Sabrina anyway?" Mustardseed asks, cutting up his steak.
Puck splutters into his bowl and looks up at his brother, soup dripping from the end of his nose. "What?"
"It's a simple enough question."
"Except for the fact that I don't like her."
"Oh come off it," Mustardseed replies dismissively, biting into a chunk of potato "We both know you do."
"I don't." He says heavily, and resumes noisily drinking.
"Puck," Mustardseed says, putting down his knife and fork "I know you're stubborn, and I know you're in denial, but trust me when I say you do."
"I don't."
"Stop being so childish and face the truth."
"I'm not being childish! How am I being childish? Prove it then, if you think I like her."
"Prove it? You want me to prove it? Open your eyes, brother, and you will find it is easy enough to prove. I can prove it in the way you search for her whenever you enter a room. I can prove it in the way your ears prick up when she calls your name. The way you devote so much time and energy to garner her attention-"
"That's for pranking-" Puck interrupts, but Mustardseed merely flicks his hand.
"We all know that's not true! We all know that you do it because you want her to look at you, you want her to listen for you, you want her to think about you wherever she goes!" Throughout his speech Mustardseed had been getting more and more excited, volume raising, hands gesticulating, and now his voice breaks fever-pitch, swells in the sheer fervour of his argument.
"It is plain to us, brother, plain as day! You may think you are being secretive about it, but the truth is that as you blunder around with your clumsy flirtation, the rest of us watch on! So before you try and deny it again, albeit weakly I might add, take a moment to consider just how obvious you are." He calms, takes a cool sip of water, and resume eating his meal.
Puck glares at him, and bites into his sandwich. "Ok fine," he admits "maybe I do like Grimm a little bit. A little bit," he stresses. "But what do you want me to do? I'm obviously not going to go and tell her."
Mustardseed signals to a nearby waitress, and asks for another glass of water. "What I want is for you to be careful." He says coolly, but looks meaningfully at his brother.
Puck frowns. That was not an answer he was expecting. "What do you mean?"
"Remember Cecilia?" Mustardseed asks suddenly, wiping his mouth with a cloth as he puts his finished lunch plate to the side. "Thank you." He smiles politely, as the waitress returns with his glass.
"Uh... no." Puck says "I've never heard that name before."
Mustardseed runs a hand through his hair. "Of course you don't." He shakes his head. "Cecilia was the girl I had a crush on during the Middle Ages. Long brown hair, blue eyes. Ring any bells?"
"No."
"She had a pet mouse."
Puck's eyes light up. "Oh her! Mousey! Oh yeah I forgot about her! She completely freaked out when I told her I fed her mouse to my snake."
"That was incredibly cruel, by the way."
"Hey, he didn't actually get eaten."
"Anyway," Mustardseed says heavily "back to what I was saying." He clears his throat. "I loved Cecila. I loved her like I had never loved anyone else before. To me, she was everything, and she was the one person who I wanted to be with forever. Do you know what happened when I asked her out?"
"Remember that time you wrote her a love poem?" Puck says, having completely ignored everything his brother was just saying.
Mustardseed sighs, and grimaces. "Don't remind me."
"It was great, how'd it go again? Oh, I know the first line was something like 'My love for you travels on a thousand steeds..."
"She said no." Mustardseed cuts in hastily, "She said she liked me as a friend, and that's it."
Puck frowned, looking slightly put-out. "You didn't let me finish." He said moodily.
"Do you know why I'm telling you this?"
"Because you still like her?"
"What, no. I'm telling you this because the only reason I had the courage to ask her out was because I thought she liked me too."
Puck snorts. "What really?! You did?" He starts laughing.
"Stop laughing, it's not funny."
"It kind of is." Puck replies, in between chuckles.
"I thought she liked me because I liked her, and because of that I saw everything she did differently. Every time she asked me what the time was, or lent me her pen to borrow, or asked if I wanted to catch a play with her friends, I thought it was her way of telling me she liked me. So when I asked her out, it was completely humiliating when I found out she didn't actually like me, that I was just misinterpreting everything she did."
"Boo hoo."
He glares at him."That was incredibly insensitive."
"I still don't get why this is important to me."
"It's called scotoma, Puck, the mind sees what it wants to see. I'm afraid you're going to do something stupid."
"Like what?"
"Like telling Sabrina you like her."
"Shouldn't you be wanting me to do that?"
"Well as a matter of fact I don't. I want you to do the exact opposite. Because if you end up thinking that Sabrina likes you, and then she rejects you when you ask her out because she actually doesn't, it will not be pleasant. It will be absolutely mortifying, brother, I assure you."
"So what you're saying is because I like Grimm a little bit now, I'll start thinking she likes me? Of course she'd like me, who wouldn't?" He gives a loud burp, and starts on another sandwich.
"Puck, be serious. I'm telling you to be careful around this. If you embarrass yourself like this to her, it could lead to things being very uncomfortable between the two of you."
"Oh please, I'll be fine."
Mustardseed sighs (he's been doing a lot of that lately) and pinches the bridge of his nose. "If you say so. But this isn't over." He looks at his watch. "Oh shoot. Finish up, I promised I'd take Daphne for a fly at 3."
"What time is it now?"
"2:48."
"Oh." Puck swallows the last mouthful of bread, dusts the crumbs off his hoodie, and stands up. "You should drop her in a lake, like I do to Grimm."
"And have her think I'm flirting with her? Not likely." Grinning at the almost unnoticeable blush on his brother's cheeks Mustardseed pays for the food, and together the pair pop out their wings and return home.
...
"Bloody Mustardseed." Puck mutters, as he lies down on his trampoline for the night. His brother had left about a month earlier, but not without a quiet word to Puck, just before he walked out the door. "Be careful," he had said "the mind sees what it wants to see." Puck had merely thrown a water balloon at him and told him to calm down, but right now he kind of wishes his brother was back, because it's like there's this curse on him, or some kind of virus or something.
Now, he can't stop thinking about her, and he's going completely mental.
Does she like me?
Of course she does, I'm the Trickster King!
But does she like me in that way?
Maybe, looks like it.
But what if Mustardseed is right?
No, what he said was stupid.
He rolls onto his side.
Right?
...
"Hey Puck." Sabrina says breezily, at the breakfast table. A fan is blowing nearby, and all the windows are open.
"Hey Grimm." He sits down on a chair, and begins to pile his plate with food.
They eat in contented silence, well, as silent as you can get with Puck noisily inhaling his meal, and Sabrina wipes her brow.
"Jeez it's hot today." She says.
"Only 'cause I'm here." He grins.
She groans and rolls her eyes, but when she looks down at her cereal there are the beginnings of a smile on her face. Puck notices this, and his heart begins to beat a little faster in his chest.
"You gotta admit," he says "that was pretty clever."
"It was well-timed, I'll give you that."
Maybe she does like me, he thinks, and then shakes his head. No no no don't be stupid like Mustardseed, she doesn't like me, we have this same talk every day.
"Why are you shaking your head?"
"Huh?" He looks confusedly at her, unaware of what he was doing. "Oh. That. No reason."
"Right."
Stupid Mustardseed.
...
The sounds of wood hitting wood ring throughout the forest, as two figures clash.
"You know, Grimm," Puck says, as he leaps to the side to avoid her sword thrust "you're not half bad at this."
"Half bad?" Sabrina replies, lunging forward as she speaks "I've beaten you, like, so many times."
"Well that's because I let you." Without warning he jumps towards her, sword raised, and she hastily throws up a defense. The two weapons collide, the blades centimetres from her face, and a drop of sweat rolls down her cheek.
"Sneaky," Sabrina says "but you forget who you're messing with." Pushing his sword to the left she aims for a side cut to his stomach, but he quickly parries and stabs forward. Her sword flies upwards yet again in a smooth block, and the blades lock, centimetres from her face.
"Good try," Puck chuckles "try again."
She smiles. "Don't get so cocky." Suddenly she ducks down, the sword dropping with her. His support gone, Puck lurches forward, and she uses this momentary lack of balance to sweep his legs out from under him. His sword spins away.
Falling on his stomach, he rolls quickly over to find Sabrina standing triumphantly above him, the sword tip placed to his throat.
"Yield." She says.
"You cheated!"
She shrugs. "All's fair in love and war."
Ignoring the slight rush of heat he felt at the word 'love', he grins. "Well," his fingers inch slowly to a nearby stick "if that's how you want to play-" Seizing the stick he bats her sword to one side and tangles his legs with hers, locking his ankles around the back of her knees and pulling her towards him. With wide eyes her legs buckle and she falls forward, throwing the sword out of her hand and slamming her palms onto the ground to break her fall.
He snickers, obviously pleased at his move. "Well that was a pretty good move, if I do say so myself..." He trails off when he realises just what kind of position they're in.
He's breathing heavily, lying below her with her hands on either side of his head, legs intertwined and chests almost touching. Her face is close enough that he can feel her breath, and the thump in his chest quickens. Face flushing, he sees a growing red in her neck, spreading upwards to her cheeks.
"Puck," Sabrina says quietly after a couple seconds "would you mind unhooking your legs from mine, so I can get up?"
"Huh? Oh right. Yeah." He pulls his legs from hers and she gets up, a little too hastily for his liking, and dusts off her shirt. She offers a hand to help him and pulls him to his feet, and he picks up the fallen swords.
"You cheated." She says, as he hands her her weapon back.
"You cheated first."
"Hardly." She assumes a defensive stance, sword raised, when they hear Granny announcing dinner. He grins eagerly; she groans.
Puck turns towards the door. "Race you?" He challenges.
Her reply is instantaneous. "No wings."
"You're on." He takes off at a sprint, her following closely behind, and there is the muted thump of sneakers on dirt.
Maybe she does like me... he thinks, yeah maybe she does. Mustardseed could have been wrong.
Distracted by his thoughts, he trips on a rock, and she runs past him.
Freaking Mustardseed.
...
He descends to the house, holding a gore-splattered Sabrina in his arms, carefully flying into his bedroom. Moonlight streams inside, and he carefully places her on his trampoline.
"Dammit Grimm," he pants "you can't even sneak out at night without getting into trouble."
"It's not my fault they attacked me."
He groans, collapses beside her, and rolls on his side to face her. "Not to sound sappy or make you think I care, but are you hurt?"
"A couple scratches on my leg, and a sword cut on my arm. Nothing major."
"How'll you hide it from your parents?"
"I'll take some potions to quicken the healing, and I'll just wear a sweater or something to cover it up. No big deal."
He chuckles. "Got it all figured out, don't you?"
She shrugs. "I've been doing it for a while."
She looks down, wincing as her sore muscles ache in protest, and grimaces at the grime and blood covering her. "I'm going to take a dip in your lake, and clean up."
"Can't use the shower?"
"Too loud. It'll wake everyone up."
"Alright then."
"Any clean clothes I can wear, since my current ones are filthy."
He waves his hand to a pile of clothes nearby. "There should be something in there."
"Are all those clothes clean?"
"No."
"That's gross."
"Stay covered in blood then." He closes his eyes, as she picks up a relatively unstained hoodie and jeans and walks over to the lake. Several minutes pass, and when he hears her come back he opens his eyes and sits up. She's a lot cleaner now, if not wetter, and his eyes roam (unintentionally, but he likes what he sees anyway). His jeans ride low on her hips, although the skin revealed is covered by his oversized sweatshirt.
"You look good in my clothes Grimm," he winks.
"That was incredibly suggestive."
He waggles his eyebrows. "You know it." Leaning over, he points to a nearby box. "Bandages for your arm are in there."
"You keep bandages in your room?"
"Prank-making is a dangerous job. My chimps can get injured."
"Your chimps can bandage themselves?"
He snorts. "Pft no. I do it for them."
"What really? You?"
He nods. "Yep. Happens more often than you think."
She sits down by the box and starts dabbing antiseptic on her now cleaned cut, hissing a little, and then tying it up with a bandage.
Puck sits down next to her and starts inspecting her arm. "Huh. Not bad."
"No need to sound so surprised."
He grins at her. "Well excuse me for thinking you weren't exactly doctor material, Miss breaks-my-nose-every-time-you-punch-me."
"You're just a wimp."
"Hurtful."
"It's true."
They lapse off into comfortable silence. Puck speaks suddenly.
"You still owe me loads of money."
She groans. "Not this again."
"You do. And tonight just added to your debt."
"Did it?" She asks flatly, deadpan.
"Yep."
"Well how can I start paying it off then?"
"Money would be nice."
"Don't have any on me sorry."
"You're not sorry."
"No I'm not."
He grins, and contemplates for a second. "You could say thank you." He suggests.
She arches an eyebrow. "Thank you?"
"Yeah. Since you're all poor and broke."
"I am not thanking you."
"Pay up then."
She glares at him, but he merely tilts his head towards her. "I'm waiting."
Sighing, she pulls a piece of grass aggressively out of the dirt. "Fine. Hold on a minute."
She clears her throat, attempts to smooth out the massive folds of hoodie hanging off of her, while Puck watches on, amused. When she's done, she looks up at him, dead in the eye.
"Thank you," she says coolly "for saving me."
He winks at her (he's been doing a lot of that lately). "We both know you secretly like it when I save you."
"I don't."
"Yeah you do. You like it when I hold you, and fight all the baddies, and grab you away from certain death."
"I hate all of those things."
"That's what you say. But you can't resist this." And he pulls the most ridiculous pose, with added facials, that Sabrina can't help but laugh.
"You can't even deny it," he chuckles.
"You wouldn't believe me anyway."
"That's what they all say."
Shaking her head, still smiling, she looks down at her thankfully waterproof, and therefore cleanable, watch, and gives a small start of surprise. "Holy crud it's almost 4am. And I have school tomorrow."
He gets up. "Yeah alright."
She clambers up after him and he flies them to his doorway. He opens the door.
"See you tomorrow Grimm."
"Yeah." She stands in the doorway, looking at her shoes, and Puck is just about to ask her why she hasn't left yet when she looks back up at him. "Thanks," she says sincerely "for saving me. Like no joke, seriously, thanks."
He blinks, a little taken aback. "Uh yeah sure. No problem."
She walks forward and gives him a hug, even going so far as to putting her head in his shoulder for a little bit, and he tentatively wraps his arms around her.
When she pulls back, she's blushing. "Yeah. Goodnight." She says.
"Goodnight." Puck replies, still a little confused. She walks out into the hallway, quietly closing the door behind her, and Puck flies back to his trampoline. He starts to smile.
Yeah she likes me, he thinks, Mustardseed was wrong, she's got to like me. There's no way she can act like that and not like me just a little bit.
He closes his eyes, and the fatigue of that night's events finally catches up to him, making his eyelids heavy. Just before he falls asleep, he thinks one more thing.
Thanks Mustardseed. I guess.
...
"Hello?"
"Hey Mustardseed."
"Puck?"
"That's me."
"Woah."
"What?"
"Nothing, I wasn't expecting you to call, is all. What is it?"
"You know that talk you gave me when you were here?"
"Yeah...?"
"Well I'm calling you to tell you you're wrong."
"Of course. You called me to gloat. Well, how am I wrong?"
"She likes me."
"Really now."
"Yeah. And I'm going to ask her out."
"Wait what?!" He shouts, in a panicked tone.
"Yeah, you heard me."
"But- But-" He flounders. "Why?!"
"Because all this debating and wondering and thinking is getting really annoying. I might as well just ask her out and get it over with."
"Did you not hear a single word I said about Cecilia?!"
"Not really."
"You're such an idiot."
"I've been called worse."
"Don't do it."
"Why not?"
"Because if she rejects you, it's going to be humiliating."
"But she won't reject me. Who would reject the Trickster King?"
Mustardseed slaps a palm to his forehead. "Ok. Tell me exactly why you think she likes you."
"Because she acts like it."
"Yes I got that, surprisingly enough. Mind being a little more specific?"
"Well... I made a joke and she smiled."
"Does she do that a lot?"
"Not particularly."
"Ok... Any other examples?"
"There was this practice sword fight we had, and she fell on me."
"What's important about that?"
"Well she was blushing."
"And...?"
"And that's it."
"Right. Anything else?"
"Uh... Oh one more."
"Let's hear it."
"She hugged me, and said thank you."
"Just out of the blue?"
"Well I saved her from a fight before."
"I see." He's silent for a minute. "Tell me Puck," he says finally "after hearing what you just said, do you still think she likes you?"
"Yeah."
Mustardseed pinches the bridge of his nose. "Puck, all these signs seem incredibly average."
"How?"
"Well alright, let's start with the first one. She smiled at your joke. Fine. That means nothing! Maybe your joke was funny. Maybe she was in a good mood. Maybe she was smiling at something else. But you can't assume she liked you just because she smiled."
"There are other reasons."
"Ok fine. She blushed when she fell on you. That's a perfectly normal reaction! Blushing is a perfectly normal reaction in that situation, when there's so much physical, skin-on-skin contact. It doesn't tell you anything about her feelings for you!"
"But what about when she hugged me?"
"What about when she hugged you?! You saved her life, of course she'd hug you you idiot! She wanted to express her gratitude, and she didn't know how to put it in words, so she chose a different method."
"But-"
"Look Puck," Mustardseed interrupts "I know I'm being really rude, and really harsh, and getting all worked up, but trust me when I saw, I've been where you are before. And it is humiliating. Completely mortifying. The only difference here is you live with this girl. You interact with her on a daily basis. You're one of her best friends. If you told her you liked her, if you told her that she was your first crush in forever, and she didn't like you back, how do you think that'd work out? Huh? I'll tell you how. It'd make things awkward, and uneasy between the two of you."
"But she likes me, I'm sure of it!"
"Does she?! Does she really?"
"Yes!"
"No! Argh! Are you even listening to what I'm saying?"
"Yes. And I still think she does."
"That's because you're not seeing straight. That's because you're seeing what you want to see."
"Don't go getting all philosophical on me. I know what I'm seeing."
"No you don't! For the first time in your life, you're letting your affection get in the way of understanding what's truly happening."
"I'm not!"
"You are! You're misinterpreting the situation!"
"Well I don't care. I'm doing it anyway."
"You'll regret it."
"I won't."
"I'm trying to help you."
"I don't care."
Mustardseed makes a strangled noise, and there is a thump from his end of the line. "Fine. Fine. Do it then. Do what you want."
"I will."
There's a silence, a long one this time.
Mustardseed sighs. "Just... be careful alright?"
"Yeah yeah."
"Don't get your hopes up."
"You've told me."
He sighs again. "Well alright. I'm going to go now. Call me when you've done it."
"Sure."
...
"Puck?" Sabrina calls, as she tramps through the forest. "Where are you? It's time for sword practice!"
"I'm up here!"
She looks up to see an arm waving out of a treehouse, a poorly built thing perched on top of a large cedar. She frowns. "Well get down from there, we've got training to do."
"Actually... Could you come up here for a minute?"
"Why?"
"I just need to tell you something."
She nears the trunk of the tree, and sees a rope ladder swinging down from the entrance of the treehouse. "Uh alright." Grabbing onto one of the rungs, she swings upwards, quickly clambering to the top. When she reaches the house she pulls herself over the ledge, and sees Puck sitting down in front of her, with a pile of cushions beside him.
"Here." He says, throwing one to her "To sit on."
"Thanks..." She replies warily, quickly checking the cushion for any traps, before deeming it safe and settling down on it. "What did you want to talk about?"
He takes a deep breath. "I like you." He says suddenly.
"Um... Ok. I like you too I guess."
"No like, I like like you."
"You like like me?"
"Yeah."
"As in, you like me more than you used to?"
"No like... I like you more than Marshmallow."
"Oh. Uh... alright. Good to know."
"No you don't get it! Uh... Argh why is this so hard? I like you..." He pauses. "A lot." He finishes lamely.
"Yeah you've told me that."
"Ok you know what? I'll just show you." And popping his wings out he flies towards her, holds her head in his hands, and presses his lips to hers. Her eyes widen, his eyes slide shut; his heart thumps like a hammer in his chest, her pulse rate quickens like lightning. Moving his hands from her head, he touches her cheek. She, still shocked by this sudden turn of events, does nothing.
Only at the end does she respond, eyelids flickering close for a fraction of a second, before he pulls away. His eyes dart over her face, hands still on her hips, searching for a reaction.
"Yeah," he says "now you know."
She doesn't reply.
"Do you like me back?"
No answer.
"Do you?" He presses, after several tense seconds.
A long minute passes. Finally she speaks. "Puck, I... I really like you..."
"Oh. Oh I see."
"No like-"
"No. That's alright. I get it, you don't like me. That's fine." He turns away, preparing to exit the treehouse, when she grabs him by the shoulder.
"Puck," she says sharply "I'm not done."
"What's left?"
"This." And with that she spins him around, leans forward, and kisses him. This time it's his eyes that widen, but he quickly recovers, and they close to mirror hers. His hands return to her waist, her fingers move to his hair, but they touch very tentatively, nervously; she only brushes his curls with the pads of her fingertips, he only passes his palms over her hips. They break apart, for a second time.
A crooked grin grows slowly on his face, a lengthening smile on hers.
"Well," he says "that turned out better than expected."
"I guess it did."
"Mustardseed was afraid you wouldn't like me."
"Can't blame him."
"Hey you fell for me."
"I've made some bad decisions before."
"Man, we've been dating for about ten seconds and you're already regretting it?"
"Just because we kissed doesn't necessarily mean we're dating."
"Well fine then. You want to be my girlfriend?"
"Do you want to be my boyfriend?"
"Obviously."
"Well then my answer goes without saying."
"...Is that a yes?"
"Yes Puck it's a yes."
"Then why didn't you just say that?"
She shakes her head. "You're an idiot."
He grins. "So I've been told."
Scotoma = When the mind sees what it wants to see.
Luck = When what the mind wants to see is what's actually there.
Holy crud this thing is long. And there's so much dialogue. I know it's not very good sorry, this definitely isn't any of my better pieces of writing, I'm not even trying to be humble here. But I hope that you didn't find it too bad. If you have any advice for my dialogue, which has a lot of inconsistencies, feel free to tell me. Thanks for reading (congratulations for making it to the end) and please review.