AN: This took a lot of work to get up today, but I hope you like it. (: Pretty, pretty please review. (: It's like..waaayyy off in left field and I tried my best to add some makeout stuff in there, but I have no experience in that, so I hope it still satisfied all of you. (: Let me know how to improve that in the reviews or something! :D Anyway, I really hope you like this, because I worked really hard on this chapter. Okay. Here you go.
P.S. Let's just pretend it's supposed to be on a Saturday. Works better for the story. Kthanx. (:
P.P.S. Also, you grammar Nazis, do feel free to correct me because it is currently 2:30 in the morning and I'm sure there are typos, awkward phrasing and stuff all over the place. (:
It was like any other day for a couple. Or at least it should have been. Valentine's Day is such an over done holiday for such an underestimate feeling. It was supposed to be about expressing your love for your other. But, how does chocolate and heart shaped candies convey that message? No matter how many little "Kiss Me" treats somebody eats it won't magically generate a companion for them to be with on this day that seemed so vital to couples.
Rachel used to have a strong opinion about this day. She thought it gave her a fleeting glimpse into that kind of love she always thought was natural, the kind that produced that magical overwhelming sensation in her chest whenever that special guy handed her a bouquet of roses. Or, in the case of last year, a star necklace that now lay untouched in her jewelry box.
Now, Rachel had no trouble admitting that those feelings she used to have couldn't even hold a flame to how it felt when Mike kissed her. It was like she just went down a hundred feet from the top of a hill on a roller coaster and her stomach couldn't seem to stay still. Because of that, the fact that her twisted idea of love was no longer valid in her mind, she didn't know what to expect.
So, maybe she was a hopeless romantic, and she knew that the heart pounding, head reeling, palm sweating, mind clearing kind of love still existed. And with Mike it was just confirmation. But, the whole "love at first sight" was now a foreign concept in her mind. She was reminded of those feelings when she would grab Mike's hand that she knew hers fit so comfortably in or when he would kiss on her neck in that absolutely perfect way that made her want to allow him to kiss all over.
Now, this wasn't a normal feeling for Rachel. Rachel had morals, she had limits and she'd never thought of crossing those with Finn. Yeah, she let him touch the side of her breast, but it never left the skin beneath her shirt burning and aching for more as it did with Mike. Mike didn't touch her like he needed to, like he was starving for the contact. He was still gentle, in every kiss and every graze of his hand. And never expected anything more than what she felt comfortable with.
He didn't rush anything, in fact, he used to have a cute habit of asking if he could kiss her, she thought it was kind and considerate, and then he realized she always said yes. That's when she loved it more. When she wasn't expecting it and all of a sudden his lips were covering hers and she let out a small involuntary gasp that made him smile without fail. But, he still never moved too far. Their limits were unspoken and yet still understood mutually.
This in no terms meant they hadn't spent plenty of time advancing physically in their relationship. It didn't take long before Rachel's curious hands pushed under his shirt. She seemed fascinated with his chest and stomach and how each muscle felt perfectly defined under her fingers. She would feel up and down his arms, from his wrists at wherever his hands lay on her, to his biceps, enjoying the feeling of his muscles tensing and relaxing under her touch as his hands held on to her waist harder and then returned to being gentle, his thumbs pressing lazy circles above her hip bones. Their kisses were slow and comfortable, like they were trying to make each second last longer than the one before.
Multiple times recently she had ended up on top of him, her legs on either side and her hands freely roaming his bare skin as his shirt was tossed somewhere on their bedroom floor. It was new and exciting and they didn't need anything more than that. She loved how when her hand lingered on his lower stomach, the pressure against her lips increased. But, it wasn't a bad kind of pressure. Rachel never felt like she had to do anything more than what they were already doing.
In fact, she still hadn't taken her shirt off, she was too self conscious for that. Her body had never been as slim and toned as Quinn's despite her bout with pregnancy and Rachel's daily workout regime. Her breasts were nowhere near Santana's, her legs as well failing in comparison to Brittany's that were toned and lean from dancing. But, Mike respected her decisions and despite not knowing about those insecurities that caused her to hesitate, always told her how beautiful she was and how lucky he was to have her. Even when she felt like he could do better.
Mike also made it very clear that he didn't want to just spend all their time together fooling around, he cared for Rachel more than that. He wasn't going to let her think that he just liked being with her because of the physical aspect of their relationship, although he did really enjoy that. They would talk, just sit and talk a lot. Sometimes, on the weekends after a stressful week, they would fall asleep laying on her bed, her curled up against his bare chest with her ear pressed to where she could hear his heart beating rhythmically, like it had it's own tune it was beating along to.
It was easy for her to get lost in those moments. Where the hot skin of his shoulder felt like it was burning her cheek and she had to tuck her hands close to her body to keep from reaching out and tracing the perfect contour of his muscles. But, no matter how tempted she was, her strongest inclination was to lean against him and be supported by him. And that's when she felt safe . With his strong arms around her she felt like she could take on the Jabberwocky and come out alive.
With Valentine's day being on a Saturday, it gave them all day to spend with each other, and nobody said anything about it because that's what was expected. It's not like they didn't spend weekends together anyway. Mike went over to Rachel's about knew and was ushered to the basement almost immediately with just small waves to her dads who didn't even take a second glance at their daughter going into a separate room with her boyfriend. They trusted Mike and they knew their daughter and believed they were both responsible adults at this point, them graduating in a matter of months. They started off just talking, shifting on the couch and talking about school drama, Glee club, anything really. Eventually they ended up in a more comfortable place.
Their intentions weren't bad as they sat on the couch, him sitting upright with his feet propped up on the coffee table and her head on his lap, facing the television. His fingers aimlessly twirled her curls around his finger before letting it go with a small bounce as it landed back on her shoulder. Their position wasn't sexual in any meaning of the word, and nothing similar to this position had ever been on their agenda with that kind of motive. It was just tender and sweet. Calming and relaxing. The TV played some cheesy Valentine's Day Lifetime movie that Rachel wanted to watch and Mike was determined to endure.
He just focused on the girl laying beside him, not really the scenes developing on the screen. He listened to hear breathing past the droning sounds of dialogue and how she sighed whenever the couple that had been so mercilessly torn apart in the movie were suddenly reunited by a twist of fate. He knew he would never get tired of being this close to a person. Especially if that person was Rachel. She knew so much about him, things he would never tell anybody else and yet they still maintained this calm environment together, not thinking about whatever embarrassing detail or secret they knew about one another.
Somehow, when the credits started and Rachel sat up, they both looked at each other, and it was like something was on fire in both of them and in hindsight neither could explain it. She almost immediately reached forward her hands to his neck, pulling him over to a kiss as she sat on her heels on the couch. He moved over slowly, and his hands moved to her waist, pulling only slightly, just urging, not pushing and she gladly complied. She lifted a leg and put it on the other side of him, now straddling him and sitting on the tops of his thighs. From there it progressed rather rapidly.
His hands were on her, one at the small of her back, wanting her closer but not caring if she stayed exactly where she was, because this was just as good. His other hand moved up and down her back in what felt like a pattern. Rachel felt trails of heat where his hands touched her and it was almost as if he burned straight through her blouse and was grazing her bare skin. Her elbows were on his shoulders and her hands ran through his short hair, loving how it felt and how it caused him to respond. When Rachel's heart was threatening to burst out of her chest, after what felt like much too short of a time, she broke the kiss, not understanding how she always seemed to lose control of herself when she was with him.
Her breaths was quick and short, her chest lightly meeting his with each exhale and she moved to rest her head on his still clothed shoulder and his hands stopped at her hips. Her arms lazily feel behind his head, her elbows at his neck. Her skirt had been slightly pushed up as she moved forward on his lap, but he didn't dare move to help her put it back in place, they'd already gone far enough and just trying to get near anywhere covered by her skirt would be a bad idea. He reached a hand up to her bangs, gently brushing them out of the way and pressing a soft kiss to her forehead. She was smiling at his actions, his sweet actions that caused her heart to flutter in a different way than it had just moments earlier.
They waited, both of them trying to catch their breath and Rachel's eyes were closed in concentration. It was so easy to get carried away with each other. Sometimes it didn't make sense to her. How did he have such self control when it came to situations like this? She shook her head against his shoulder, her forehead was just above his collarbone.
"I don't get it." She breathed softly. "How do you stop? /Why/ do you stop?" She was addicted to that feeling that pooled in the bottom of her stomach and if he was even feeling half of what she was, how he managed to control himself she had know idea. She'd barely been able to detach her lips from his and it was still difficult not to just start kissing him the second she regained her composure. His hand moved up to her hair and pushed it over her shoulder, exposing her neck. His placed a gentle kiss at the base of her neck.
"Because," he kissed higher, just barely brushing his lips over her skin, causing a chill to shoot down her spine. "I," one more kiss, inching his way to her ear, his shoulder still occupied by her head. "Love you," he said placing a final kiss close to her jaw and she was smiling widely, a blush spreading across her cheeks.
"Have I ever told you how great you are?" She asked simply, remaining close to him. He laughed, a sound she loved to hear, and could feel his chest rumbling with the sounds before he spoke.
"You know, you can only use that line so many times," he teased, to which she pulled an arm from around his neck and hit him on the chest playfully and then left her hand there.
"Shut up," she said succinctly and her hand moved to the collar of his shirt, toying with it innocently. "I'll have you know I can use that as many times as I want to." He laughed again and then she sat up, her hands moving over his hair and her eyes trained on patting down where she'd so easily moved hairs out of place. Her heard turned to its side, looking at him like she had a question in her eyes, but she didn't say anything.
"What you thinking about, babe?" He asked quietly his eyes narrowing as he noticed that look of contemplation on her face. She sighed completely content with being this close to him. She never used to imagine herself this open and comfortable with a person, this relaxed. Her hands slowly moved from around his neck, across his shoulders and down to his hands, turning them over in her own and interlacing their fingers with ease.
"I was just wondering what we were going to do today," she said as her eyes stayed on their joined hands, watching how his thumb moved soothingly across her skin. She was sort of in a far of place, thinking about when she always used to anticipate Valentine's Day as a fuel to a relationship. With Mike, it just felt like any other day. Like it should have.
"Well, I think this is pretty nice," he said with a joking smirk and she rolled her eyes before leaning in to kiss him softly, keeping it short and sweet. After pulling away, she left her face close to his, her eyes looking from his eyes and back to his lips that she wanted to kiss so badly again.
"We have to get out of the house some time," she whispered and he nodded wordlessly in reply. She smiled softly, moving off of him and patting her skirt back in to place and smoothing it down in the process. In this moment Mike knew that what he'd told her a while ago was still very, very true. She was the only girl he knew who could pull off skirts like that. One of each of their hands stayed connected in this moment and they both sat silently. It wasn't awkward though, far from it. It was comfortable and sweet and peaceful.
This is until Mike jerked her wrist as he stood up suddenly, his head having come up with, what he thought, was a good way to spend a Saturday.
"Come on. Let's go." He said quickly as he tugged her up off the couch, a wide grin on his face. She followed him as he pulled her up the basement stairs and then they were back in her living room. Mike put a finger up to her and said:
"Wait here." Before rushing off to the other room. It was interesting to see him like this, like alight bulb had gone off over his head. She had to admit it was immensely adorable and she was already excited for what he had in mind. Mike was off telling her dads they were heading out and not to expect her back until later. By this time it was about, 3:30 and for what he had in mind, it was going to take a little while. They approved saying as long as she was back by curfew, the agreed unspoken time of one in the morning, than they saw no problem.
He got back to her and quickly grabbed her hands, beginning to lead her off again, but he was stopped by one of her small hands on his bicep, and her feet staying planted. He turned back to her.
"Where are we going?" She asked seriously and his smiled only grew, knowing she didn't care for surprises. It didn't matter, he was going to do it anyway, knowing she would be elated with the end result.
"You'll see," he said and before she could even begin to groan out his name in annoyance, he was bending over to pick her up, almost like he was hugging her knees and putting her over his shoulder. She let out a small squeak before actually responding.
"Michael Andrew Chang! You put me down right this instant or I will kick you," she yelled as he opened her front door and carefully carried her out the door as she continued to yell. "I may be small but I can kick hard! Mike! Please, you know I don't like this!" Her balled fists were pounding on his back and her hair was falling over her head as Mike carried her to his car, like her attacks weren't even affecting him. He was just wildly excited.
"Put me down! Right now! I swear to you I will personally burn all of your anime comics! Don't even try me, Michael!" She kept coming up with threats as he carried her, them only causing him to pause and laugh harder at her actions. To which she would give a well placed hit on his back causing him to straighten back up and continue walking. "Would you like me to take all of your Cds? Because I will!" She began kicking her feet as she felt herself being lowered to the ground and as he was standing back up she crossed her arms and glared at him. .
"Come on, lighten up," he said reaching his hand up to push her hair out of her face as it was now awry and she would definitely have to fix that in the car. She looked down, his hand dropping from her face as she tried not to smile, he was too good at distracting her from her intentions.
"Just get in the car," she said quietly, looking at him, her face breaking into a smile. He walked around and hopped the passenger door for her to get in. He closed it and got in on his respective side and as he was driving, keeping his eyes forward he talked to her. She already had the visor flipped down and was combing through her hair with her fingers, fixing it and putting her headband back in.
"Okay, I want you to close your eyes, okay? I don't want you to see where we're going. But, it's going to take a little while to get there. They don't exactly have a kar-" Mike cut off his words abruptly as he almost accidentally said where they were going. He was never good at keeping secrets anyway, which is why they worked so well together, because she never had to worry about being surprised. "Just close your eyes." He said quickly and she sighed heavily, as if it were a huge burden to close her eyes. She put her elbow on the console and held her hand out, not being able to lean over and grab his due to a lack of vision. Mike happily reached over and took her hand in his as he drove. He trusted Rachel not to peek as he drove, but he worried about her getting bored on the way. He reached over with his free hand and turned on the radio. She started humming along and didn't realize she was tired until she feel asleep on his arm, her hand still clasping his.
It made him happy, feeling her weight against him. One, he knew she definitely wouldn't know where they were going and two, it was just a nice feeling her lean on him. Feeling her needing him to keep her up. It was about 2 hours before they got there. It was definitely out of town but, god, he hoped that she liked it. They pulled up and he unbuckled carefully, trying not to move his arm and wake her. He looked around the car for something to cover her eyes.
In the back he spotted a scarf, he had never noticed it there before, but, when he did he remembered exactly what it was from. Just back in January they had been in his car and he was messing around with Rachel, pulling her scarf from around her neck and holding it over his head and behind him so she couldn't reached it. She'd easily climbed over the divided between the seats and so he dropped the scarf into the back seat and pulled her into a kiss instead. It was short and not really that big of a deal, but it was big enough for both of them to have completely forgotten the source of their conflict in the first place.
It didn't really matter now, he awkwardly adjusted so he could reach into the bag and grab it. He gently moved his arm only slightly, and she stirred and he took that as a chance to pull his arm gently from hers, at least while she was coherent. He then moved to wrap the strip of cotton material around her eyes. Just when he finished tying the loose knot, that he knew would stay in place but wouldn't be too tight, she sat up quickly.
"Mike? Where are we? How long was I asleep for? Why do I have this-" She mumbled and reached her hands up to the tie and tried to start loosening it.
"Rach, stop. Stop," He said reaching over and grabbing both of her hands and pulling them down to where they were resting in her lap. "You were asleep for about an hour and a half. You have this on," He reached one hand up to tug on the scarf. "Because, I'm trying to surprise you. So, just, go along with it okay. Just this once?" He knew that if she hadn't had the scarf on she would be rolling her eyes right about now, but the release of the tension in her shoulders and her silence were signs to him to just get it over with. "Thanks," he said and leaned over to kiss her cheek before getting out of his side of the car. He walked around quickly, almost at a jog. He opened her door, and then leaned over her to unbuckle her seatbelt. She put a hand out to which he grabbed and helped her step out of the car without injury.
When she got out, he put both hands on her shoulders from behind and began walking her forward, hushed warnings being mumbled to her as they were walking to, well, wherever they were going. She knew they made it through a door as she felt the change in temperature as well as the sound around her increase greatly. One voice above the others, singing a badly formed rendition of some various Journey song.
"Oh, god, Mike. Where are we?" She asked almost scared, hearing the voice crack. "Is this some kind of torture?" She said softly as she heard what she knew was a man, continue singing off key. She shuddered and Mike just chuckled.
"Nope," he said simply as his hands worked on the knot tied at her hair. He undid it quickly and as she heard cheers for this man that obviously didn't know what music was, she was more than happy when he pulled the scarf from covering her eyes. It took her a second to adjust to the lighting and just as the scene was coming into focus she heard Mike's voice in a panic coming from behind her.
"Karaoke bar." He said. "Well, not actually a bar. They don't have alcohol. It's really more of a place for minors to hang out. Sing some bad songs. You know, have fun." He rambled on as she looked around seeing that who she thought was a grown man, was actually just a teenager with an unnaturally deep voice. Scattered throughout the place were other people, ranging from freshmen in high school to freshmen in college. "I thought maybe you'd like to relax. You know, not be focusing on Nationals or whatever. You could just sing whatever you want, however you want. And I mean, I could listen to you sing, I like to hear you sing." She had turned around while he was talking and he was now looking to the ground, embarrassed that he couldn't really control what his mouth was spouting off right now.
"I love you, Mike," she said and was beaming brightly as she stood up on her toes to kiss him gently. It was a short kiss, not wanting to attract any unwanted attention. "This is perfect. I love it. I don't even know how you knew about a place like this," she continued and he opened his mouth again to start talking, but she was sure if she allowed him to do that, she would have no idea when he would stop. "And I really don't care." His mouth snapped shut. "But, you're right. I could use some time to relax. /We/ could use some time to relax." She smiled and took his hand. "Come on," she said and started leading him to a table. As they were walking she heard him mumble something under his breath, but she couldn't quite decipher it.
"What?" She said turning around and looking at him with a raised eyebrow, curious as to what exactly he didn't feel the need to say out loud. He averted his eyes and took a deep breath before replying.
"I said, "I love you, too." Don't think you can get away with saying that and not giving me time to tell you." He said as her looked back to her with small smile and she returned it with just as much brightness, pulling him into a hug and then stepping away, nodding towards the stage that was now empty.
"You pick the first song." She said and he leaned down to say close to her. "Only if you'll sing it with me." She chewed her lips as if she were actually contemplating not singing with her boyfriend and then laughed lightly before nodding.
"Sounds perfect."