Title: Second-Best Author's Note: Puck likes to say f*** because I like to say f***. That is all! ;)
Word Count: 569
Rating: R (for a F**k-load of F*bombs)
Characters: Puck, Rachel, Quinn, Finn, and I guess, Mr. Schuester (but only Puck and Rachel feature heavily)
Spoilers: Mash-Up...
Summary: He won't admit that she's anything but a fling. Won't admit that he's watched her for a while, noticed things like her love of grape slushees, her black skirts, that she's stopped keeping a change of clothes at school, the secret smile she shares with Mr. Schue.
Disclaimer: Don't own them. Just borrowing them for the day and I'll give them back in pristine condition.
He won't fucking admit it.
Won't tell anyone she was anything but a fling.
Won't admit that he's watched her for a while. That he's noticed things about her. Like that she loves grape slushees (the image of her standing there in the hallway light pink sweater covered in purple slush, shining brown hair dripping, her tongue sweeping out over her lips quickly). That she always wears a black skirt on Friday (and it's so fucking short, he wonders how she gets away with it). That she's stopped keeping a change of clothes in her locker since he joined Glee (not that he's been to her locker, or stood watching her in the halls at all…). He's seen her watch Mr. Schuester with that (soft) smile sitting on her lips, like secretly she's imagining what it would be like to fuck him or something (he never knew she was so kinky). Most of all, he's noticed her eyes on Finn. Saint fucking Finn, with his fucking stupid expressions, and his self-obsession (if they weren't best friends, he swears, sometimes he'd kick Finn's ass so fucking hard, he would be shitting blood for weeks).
He's noticed how sad she gets when Finn and Quinn do their P.D.A. thing in Glee. When they stand beside one another, or Quinn stretches her arm around Finn's chest (an arm he can still feel wrapped around his body sometimes). He sees the look on her face. Sometimes it's like she's about to go all Linda Blair and vomit pea soup all over everything and everyone (he'd like to see how Quinn deals with getting vomit out of her skanky excuse for a cheerleading uniform). Sometimes it looks more like a huge piece of her is breaking and she needs to get away from it as fast as possible.
He starts off slowly, sitting beside her in Glee, asking her for help (under pretense).
Sure her hair isn't blonde, her eyes aren't green. Sure she can be kind of crazy sometimes.
But maybe she understands what it feels like to be second-best.
Maybe she's sick and tired of trying so fucking unbelievably hard for everything and wanting it so much, then having it turn around and spit in your face, telling you what a loser you are and will always be. Maybe she's ready to break free, too.
And after they've made out a few times (he's a teenage boy, of course the short skirt and the swollen lips gave him a hard-on), he stops imagining that she's someone else. And starts to open up to her (like he's sure his pansy-assed "friend" Finn did before).
Then it's all over. He feels a small soft hand on his shoulder, his eyes trailing after a bouncing red and white skirt, and wonders who he fucked up in a prior life to end up like this.
Alone, so fucking alone.
He stomps away because there is no way that the jealousy thing is going to work unless they both commit to it. He's ready. She's not.
So he'll wait.
A small smile lights his face for the first time since that practice where he made his sacrifice. Sure, they were never really friends before, but maybe they don't have to be. His walk becomes a strut and three sets of eyes follow him as he leaves the football field and they're the only three people that matter.
