Disclaimer: I don't own Glee. I just play around with its characters. A lot.

A/N: Had to write something fluffy to keep myself from going nuts.

. . . . . .

"Achilles Heel"

"Ouch!"

The dull pain that had been keeping him company ever since the run had started had suddenly turned into a pins-and-needles kind of burning sensation in his foot. "Shit," he swore under his breath and winced, hoping that Rachel hadn't heard him - she'd given him an earful just the other day about his "disgraceful overindulgence in expletives", and he'd tried to keep the swearing down ever since.

Trying to ignore the pain in his foot, he fell into a slower jog that increased the distance between Rachel and him within seconds. But it only took those seconds for her to realise it. And then she slowed down so quickly that he'd caught up with her again before he'd even had the chance to keep his discomfort from showing on his face.

"What's wrong?" came her immediate question, her voice full of concern and slightly breathless from the exertion.

As she caught onto him with a tug on his shirt, he almost missed her cue to stop altogether as the brief touch sent a shiver down his spine. For a moment it competed against the pain in his foot, and then grew in intensity as he came to a stop right next to her and her hand returned to that same spot. The pain grew almost too dull to notice anymore now that he wasn't moving – and the heat from her hand was spreading in circles all over his own body.

He blushed.

Of all the embarrassing reactions his body sprung up on him, this one probably had to be the dumbest one. Hoping she hadn't seen it he bent over and rubbed his ankle, silently cursing his himself for his lack of control over… well, pretty much all parts of himself.

"Just a cramp," he mumbled, and then instantly forgot all about his embarrassment as he sucked in a loud breath when his fingers hit the spot right below the ankle bone. This wasn't a cramp – it seriously hurt!

"Finn?"

"Mmm… okay," he said, giving up on playing brave, and breathed out noisily, "no cramp, I think I tore a muscle or something."

She immediately knelt down by his side, right next to his foot, to take a closer look. But there wasn't anything to see – it didn't look swollen or anything, it just hurt whenever he moved it or touched it.

This close to her, he was momentarily distracted by the vanilla scent of her hair. It filled him with the irrational need to run his fingers through her hair. But then she put her own fingers right on that spot he'd touched before.

It felt like his foot was on fire, but not in a good way. He yelped. "Shit, don't do that!

She snatched back her hand as if she'd been stung, and stood up straight. Looking up, he saw her face tinged with alarm, a frown slowly forming on her brow.

"Sorry," she mumbled, as he straightened up, too. "Did this just happen now? Did you trip over something?"

He stared at her with unfocused eyes for a moment, unsure what to say. As much as he wanted to be honest with her, the truth was a bit embarrassing – but there really wasn't any way of dodging the fact that compared to her he was apparently badly out of shape and going running every morning for the past week had apparently been too much for his foot. Realising he'd been staring at her lips, he looked up to meet her eyes, and instantly he knew he couldn't lie to her. "Nope… it's been sort of building up. Hasn't been this bad before now, though."

She stared at him - her eyes big and round and brown, the colour of chocolate, why do they remind me of her lips which I totally wished I could kiss just now, just have the feeling of her soft, warm lips brushing against mine, her hands on my shoulders, around my neck, running through my hair, over my scalp, this is totally inappropriate right now, I gotta stop, I mean really really stop thinking, not good! Not GOOD! – and then all he could do was shut his eyes, squeeze them shut tightly to stop himself from getting lost in hers. The pain in his foot had momentarily been pushed very, very far into the back of his consciousness. But as he dared to open his eyes and met hers again, he could see past the worry right to that spark of irritation that always told him there was trouble ahead if he didn't watch out carefully now.

"Are you trying to tell me you have had a pain in your foot this entire week we have been running together?"

Clipped speech. Not a good thing. Not as bad as a mouthful of long words AND clipped speech, but still – not a good thing.

"No, uh, yeah – I mean, no, not at first, it just felt a bit sore after a day or two. Nothing like this. It's been nothing, really – this is the first time it ever really hurt. Seriously, it's not so bad now, though, probably just twisted it."

He was babbling, and he knew it. And what was more: she knew it, too. But it was also the truth – it really hadn't hurt like this before now. Maybe he'd really stepped on something to set it off. It wasn't like he had been paying attention to anything other than her – yeah, so what if I can't stop staring at her while she's running - whilst trying to keep up with her pace.

"Finn!"

She stood there, her hands on her hips by now, her dark eyes flashing with annoyance. He knew he should feel a little bit more concerned about all this, but seriously – it wasn't as if it hurt just now anyway, he was fine just standing there, and all he could do was think about how much he just wished he could kiss those lips. Without thinking, he held out his hand, ran it up her arm, then took a step forward –

This time the pain shot up his leg like lightning from his foot that literally felt like it was burning up from some internal fire. It was so bad it made his eyes tear up. "Oww… shit!" he said, this time no longer caring if she heard.

But if she had it didn't matter – the next moment she was holding him close, her arms wrapped around his waistline, her head buried against his chest, another – muffled – outcry of his name carrying nothing of that annoyance anymore. When the pain abated – which it seemed to do whenever he'd just hold his foot still and didn't put any weight on it – he found himself stroking her back in calming circles, feeling slightly amused that she'd be so affected by his injury.

He looked down at her at the same moment she looked up at him. They always seemed to do that kind of thing. It was a bit weird, but in a magical sort of way, he thought. And just as with all the other times that had happened before, his heart did this thing where it felt like it was about to leap out of his chest.

This was the closest he'd been to her in the two weeks since Regionals; they'd both agreed they'd take things very slowly after hitting that small snag a week ago, but it was killing him not to be able to even just kiss her – he just couldn't take it any longer.

"You need to get this looked at," she said, quietly, her eyes swallowing his.

"Uh huh," he replied, and bent a little lower towards her.

"We should get you to a hospital," she said, her voice barely audible.

"Yeah," he said, as his hands stopped circling her shoulder blades and moved to the back of her head instead.

"Now….," she whispered, as his lips brushed against hers.

"Mhmmm," he replied, a sound that came straight from his heart and seemed to find an echo in hers as she melted into his embrace and started kissing him back.

. . . . .

A/N #2: Okay, so this is going to be more of a three-shot. There's more to come.