But whatever her commands to him had been, however she might have wanted them to be carried out, Santana had clearly spoken more out of sarcasm and desire to hurt than out of any genuine thought that Puck might agree. Staring at him, she squinted her eyes, even tilting her head slightly with genuine confusion as she regarded him, seeming unable to process his response.
"What do you mean, okay?" she repeated, putting deliberate emphasis on the final word of the sentence. "Okay what?"
"I mean, okay," Puck said yet again, exhaling. He hadn't thought that the word or its concept was so difficult, but it seemed beyond Santana's understanding at the moment as he attempted to explain. "You want it that badly, and whether or not you believe it, I want it too. For it not to happen, I mean. So…okay. I'm not gonna do it again, Santana. I'm not gonna do that to you."
He hadn't exactly expected Santana to beam with great enthusiasm or to clap and cheer and tell him what an awesome guy he was for this decision. But neither had he expected her to just continue to stare at him, her mouth slightly open, brow furrowed deeply, before abruptly shaking her head, putting both hands up in the air, and turning away from him.
"Just…Puck…just, just shut up, okay? Just…just leave me alone a little while…just stop it. Don't even…just stop it, okay?"
Her voice was quieter then, all anger and aggression gone; in fact, Puck could hear it shaking slightly as she cupped her elbows again, a deep breathing visibly rolling through her spine. It was clear that she didn't believe what he was saying, or couldn't allow herself to believe it, and so Puck leaned forward towards her, speaking more intently to try to convince her as much as himself.
"I mean it, San. I'm not doing it again. I won't do it to you. I said it and I mean it. Whenever we're supposed to…" he shrugged, lifting both hands in an uncertain gesture and letting them fall again. "We just won't. We'll have to figure out what we're gonna do instead…but we won't do that."
"Oh, right, Puck, we just won't. Jeez, why didn't I think of that one, it would have just been so simple," Santana scoffed, turning back to face him then, arms at last uncrossing to gesture sarcastically towards him as well as she rolled her eyes at him. But despite the sarcasm of her gesture, there was no longer any real anger in her face, and she was actually looking him in the eyes. "Don't be an idiot. You heard them. You think if you just refuse to do what they say, they're gonna go, oh, okay then, sorry to bother you, and go skipping back up the stairs and go about their merry freakin' way without us? You know exactly what will happen, you're the one that made the fucking deal with them. You're gonna get your fucking head blown off is what's gonna happen, and then…you know what they'll do with me," she swallowed, the words emerging with some difficulty. "Don't be stupid."
"We don't know that for sure," Puck shrugged, although he privately thought that she was probably totally right. "They make a lot of threats, they won't necessarily carry them all out. They've said a lot of shit, maybe they only mean some of it. We can't know until we test it out…they could be bluffing. Maybe their guns don't even have bullets or whatever."
"Right, I'm sure they carry them around just for fun, they probably use them to paintball with or to shoot water wars," Santana rolled her eyes again, but Puck thought he noticed a slight easing of her posture, and she had taken a step towards him as well. "Might be bluffing, are you serious, that's the best you've got? And you're gonna bluff with your life on the off chance that they're bluffing with their threats?"
Puck shrugged again. Put like that, it did sound silly, but he didn't regret it. If anything, the more he talked about it aloud with Santana, the more he could see her relaxing just a little, showing even with her skepticism the smallest signs of hope, the more he was convinced that this was what he wanted…that this was what he should do. What he had to do.
"If I have to, yeah." He held her eyes with his, speaking with as much sincerity as he could manage. "I'm not doing it again, Santana. I won't. We'll find another way, I'll take whatever it means. But I won't do this anymore."
He watched as she began to smile, slowly at first, then more fully, her eyes lightening. There was a new softness to her features as she shook her head again, more slowly now, but even so, he noticed that her lips were trembling slightly as she uncrossed her arms, taking another step towards him.
"You're an idiot…you're going to get yourself killed."
She was probably right. There wasn't much Puck could say to dispute that, so he simply shrugged, giving her a small smile back.
"Yeah, well…that ain't new, right?"
She smiled more fully then, taking another step forward, and then, to Puck's surprise, she hugged him, somewhat hesitantly at first, but then more fully, leaning into his chest. As Puck slowly slipped his arms around her, returning the embrace, he could just barely hear her whisper into his chest, after taking a slow breath that he could feel through her back. "Thank you."
When she pulled back, then walked back to the bed, sitting and gesturing for him to join her, he did so, unsure what was to come next. He expected her to start discussing the practicalities of this new plan, to start coming up with a new plot and strategy of some kind. But instead, Santana simply rolled her shoulders, cutting her eyes at him sideways before asking, "Do you really think I'm too skinny?"
Puck's eyebrows shot up, and he snorted with part surprise, part amusement, turning to face her more fully. "What? Where did that come from?"
"From you and your mouth, who else?" Santana rolled her eyes, exhaling loudly. "All you talk about making me eat and humping a bone…what other conclusion is there left for me to draw?"
"Santana, don't you think we have more important things to worry about?" Puck shook his head at her, still smiling slightly, but also incredulous. "Does it even matter what I think about how you look? Sexy as we both automatically are, it's not like either of us are at our most studly now. What do you even care what I think of how you look?"
"I don't!" Santana said hurriedly, sitting up straighter on the bed as her features immediately stiffened, defensive. "I don't. Just…it's whatever. It doesn't matter, I don't care at all. I just…I wondered, that's all."
But when Puck looked her over again, he could see that she was still looking at him sideways, that she was still holding herself in such a way that her body language seemed to belie her quick replies. He had a feeling, observing her guarded expression and demeanor, that Santana did care what he thought, maybe more than even she realized. He wasn't sure why he believed that, but it nevertheless seemed true.
Less than a week ago, he wouldn't have noticed or cared if Santana's words didn't match with her expression. He would have taken them at face value, rising to whatever bait she set, and any hidden meaning would have blown past him. But he's been with her now at such a close and constant level of proximity, hour after hour, day after day, that this is no longer possible. He's seen every side there probably is to see of her, everything from her most brave to her most bitchy to her most broken, and none of it really shocks or surprises him anymore. He has held her through the night and tried to protect her through the day, comforted her and been tended to and comforted by her. He has worked out countless plans of how to help and save her and yet dreamed and despaired over all the ways he could harm or lose her, and all seem equally possible and real. He has watched her bare her naked skin but even more importantly, he has seen her bear her naked, hurting soul, as stupid and cheesy as that might sound, and there is no way, after all of this, that he wouldn't notice and care when she's lying through her teeth about being hurt. Especially when the person she was lying to and about happened to be him.
"Yeah you do care," he said simply, shrugging. "Look, 'Tana…I just want you to eat, alright? Not because I want you to look any certain way, even though I gotta say the sticking out ribs look ain't the most attractive one. And not 'cause I think you're ugly or not hot anymore or whatever if you don't. I just want you to be okay, alright? Just…healthy and 't be a badass if you lost all your ass, right?"
Puck had hoped that the light tone of his reply would cause Santana to lighten up as well, that she would smirk, roll her eyes, and reply in a similar fashion. But she just cut her eyes at him, crossing her arms over her chest, and the defensiveness of her stance and tone was something she didn't even try to conceal now as she lifted her chin defiantly towards him.
"Oh, so you don't like my body then, is that what you're saying?"
This was just getting ridiculous to Puck. He had thought he had already made his thoughts on the matter pretty clear, both verbally and otherwise, not to mention, he wouldn't have thought that it would bother Santana what he thought one way or the other. She had always seemed to be perfectly comfortable and pleased with her body, convinced that others were very much attracted and interested in it as well, so to hear her expressing any insecurity or defensiveness about this was surprising and somewhat unprecedented to him. She was a Cheerio. She was always wearing tight, short little dresses and flipping her hair around and showing off her augmented boobs, with a smile and a smirk and obvious assurance that what you saw would be something you liked. So how could she somehow come to the conclusion that he thought she was unattractive…and why did she suddenly care, especially since he was a guy and she was a lesbian?
It was beyond Puck's current ability or inclination to analyze, and he didn't attempt to. It was enough for him to understand that for reasons beyond his comprehension, Santana did care what he thought about her appearance and obviously wasn't as totally confident with it as she usually put off, at least not in the moment. But because he didn't understand, and found it somewhat ridiculous, he didn't waste much time trying to reassure her otherwise.
"Yeah, 'Tana, you're totally right," he rolled his eyes, impatiently scuffing at the floor with the toe of his shoe. "I spent all night hugging up on you and all the night before making out with you and squeezing your ass, not on camera, not on command, 'cause I think your body is totally nasty. Same reason I slept with you on and off all sophomore and junior year, 'cause you're one hideous chick. How'd you figure that one out so fast?"
"You said I was a bone and you said I have a nonexistent stomach, and you keep harping on me to eat even though if I did, I'd probably puke two minutes later right now," Santana shot back. She was pulling apart from him on the bed now, not quite turned away from him, but definitely not close to him as she could be and definitely not looking him straight on. "You practically called me Mary-Kate Olson and I hate that twiggy, bug-eyed Janis Joplin wannabe."
"You used to puke anyway in Cheerios, didn't you?" was Puck's thoughtless reply, paired with a shrug. "All you Cheerios did with that shake of Sue's or whatever. So what does it matter if I do think you're skinny or eating disordered or whatever else, obviously that was what you wanted, right? To be super skinny? Only thing is now you gotta take what you can get here 'cause you're not even eating enough to puke, so…"
It was clear within seconds that this was again not a helpful response. When Santana stared at him, her eyes narrowed, and shook her head, her lips pressed into a thin line, the frustration scrunching her eyebrows and forehead was intense enough that Puck thought for a second that she was going to slap him.
"You're really such a clueless dick, aren't you? How the hell do you EVER get laid?"
When Puck opened his mouth, intending to go into specifics to annoy her if nothing else, she cut him off, actually now turning again to fully face him as her voice rose slightly.
"Let me school you now, Puckerman, because obviously you need the education. No girl at any time wants to hear that their body sucks, okay? It doesn't matter if it's 'cause people are saying it's too fat or too thin or too short or too tall or too dark or too light or what, and it doesn't matter if they know they're hot and it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if they like the person or not or care what they think or not because news flash, every fucking girl cares what every fucking person on the planet thinks even if they don't actually say it, because the way you look is the first and usually last thing anyone notices or cares about. No one wants to hear they're too skinny even if they work every single fucking day to be that skinny…everyone wants to hear they're hot and beautiful and amazing, and that is ALL. And that's what I want to hear too. Is that so damn hard to understand?"
She paused, swallowing, and the stridence of her tone dimmed considerably as she swallowed, lifting her chin, and continued somewhat defensively, "And…I don't do that anymore. The puking thing. That was sort of a high school thing. So that has nothing to do with this. I just can't fucking eat when I can barely even swallow or breathe sometimes here, is that so damn hard to understand?"
It made sense to Puck, and on some level was actually something of a relief. It wasn't that Santana was worried about her looks or her body, or trying to exert some sort of control over her circumstances or get into a power struggle with him; it wasn't that she was trying to make him angry or punish him in some way, make him worry about her deliberately or feel guilty. It seemed from what she was saying that this was nothing deliberate on her part, that it wasn't actually nearly as within her control as he had assumed. For her to make a decision not to eat was different than for her to genuinely have difficulty eating, and he could understand and respect that, maybe even try to help her to get past the anxiety or fear that was causing it.
"Oh," he muttered, giving a slow nod of acknowledgement. "No, I get it…just, you should have told me that, San. I can't get it if you don't say it."
He watched Santana shrug, dropping her eyes as her hand opened and closed against her knee, squeezing slowly. He knew her, and he knew that whatever she might say then, she had no intention of doing what he had just asked. And he could understand that too. It was hard, almost impossible to voice aloud a weakness, especially given that the only person you could tell was part of everything that made you feel the way you did.
She had admitted to him her fear, both through words and through actions, over and over; somehow it would seem too much to continue, for both of them, to have to over and over spell out to each other exactly how deeply they were being affected by it. Puck himself knew that for him to voice his own aloud to her, it would seem almost an admission of defeat, an indication that there was nothing left he could do at all but to talk about it, acknowledge it as inevitable and hopeless. To tell Santana of all the ways and reasons he was afraid would mean somehow to tell her that he could not help her, that he had given up, and they were both entirely on their own.
It might be true, that there wasn't much he could do to help her. But he hadn't given up. He refused to, and so he refused to really explain to her the extent of his fear of otherwise.
"You have to push past it, 'Tana," he told her more quietly, not touching her, but lifting a hand and holding it palms up, shrugging. "I get it, but you gotta get past it, don't let them do it to you. Can't let them make you any weaker than you gotta be physically. They give food, you gotta eat it. They give you anything at all you can use, you gotta take it. You just, you have to, okay?"
He didn't wait for her to acknowledge or agree. He frowned at her slightly, still thinking through some of what she had shared, and noticed her continued stiff expression, the fact that she still wasn't looking him fully in the eye. She seemed to still be irritated or upset, and after a few moments of her still not verbally responding, Puck sighed again, tilting his head towards her and looking her over more thoroughly before speaking.
"You're seriously pissed off about that, aren't you? Look, 'Tana, sorry for not getting it or making you think I don't think you're hot or whatever. I just sorta thought you already knew that. And that you knew you're hot. You say it all the time, so…and I thought you wanted to be skinny. You did the Cheerios thing, so…and you cut on fat chicks." He rolled his eyes slightly, heaving out another slow breath. "You girls are so freakin' confusing, can you seriously blame me for being lost on what I'm supposed to say here?"
When Santana snorted, rolling her eyes to the ceiling, Puck made one last stab at saying whatever it was she wanted or needed to hear, while keeping it still truthful as well. Realizing from her reaction that, although her body had loosened up somewhat in how she was holding herself as she listened to him, he was still clearly not saying what she wanted to hear, he shifted, reaching out to touch her upper arm. He waited until her eyes followed his hand's movement, then came to meet his own, before he spoke, still lightly holding her arm.
"I know I'm an ass or whatever. But you gotta know one thing, anyway. Of course I like your body and think you're hot. I think you're beautiful, Santana. Alright? I think you're beautiful. Don't you know that already?"
This wasn't something that Puck generally said to girls, not unless he was trying to get into their pants, anyway. It definitely wasn't something he regularly said with quiet sincerity, while looking into their eyes and putting a hand on them in a definitely non sexual manner. But it seemed needed now, almost natural, and there was no motive behind it other than a genuine desire to share with her the truth.
And it actually did seem to be working, to be making some difference between them. Puck could feel the remaining tension in Santana's arm ease beneath his hand, and he watched her swallow before she shook her hair back from her face, turning to face him. She didn't shake his hand off her arm, but she also didn't move much closer to him or make an effort to touch him herself.
"You really aren't going to get this, are you?" she laughed dryly, rolling her eyes again, but there was more resignation to her tone and expression than sarcasm or irritation. "There's a lifetime of context, Puck, that you ain't gonna get, 'cause you're a guy and you're white even if you are Jewish, so there's no way in hell you'd ever really understand. Let me just dumb it down to the basics. I'm a girl and I'm Latina, we're not even going into the gay thing, 'cause those two are enough when you're from Lima. My whole life I've been set up to be looked down on and judged for those two facts alone, so when you start adding the context of having to be compared to white girls on top of just the general girl population, and then I'm gonna be in a whole new category 'cause it's cheerleader girls, and then you add in the lesbian, there is no possible way I'm ever gonna go through life without someone somewhere, or more like everyone and everything everywhere, telling me what's wrong with me. Everything in the world is always gonna be telling me I'm not enough or where I could be better or where I suck. So…no, Puck, I don't always know that, okay? The looks thing. I mean, I do know it, and I say it and it's right, but…I don't always believe it, I don't always feel it. Hearing the same shit and seeing the same looks and just…knowing what the world really thinks all the time…you can know something, but that doesn't mean it's not gonna fuck with your head sometimes and wear you down. Just like you can know or say you're a badass, but that doesn't mean you're also not scared and hurting like hell."
She looked him over deliberately as she said the last bit, and Puck knew that she was now referring to him as much as she was to herself. He couldn't deny that she was speaking the truth, putting into words what both of them knew to be the essence of his own feelings now. It did make sense, what she was saying, when she put it into this context for him, and he felt a new sense of faint guilt and unease as he considered. He hadn't exactly made it easy for her to feel any differently, with the things he had done and said, not just over their time in the basement, but over the past several years. It was strange, thinking of Santana Lopez as insecure in this way, but then, hadn't they been sharing this, showing this with each other, over the past several days? Could any new perception or perspective of her really surprise him when he had already been exposed to so many, when he had already shown her so many of his own?
"You can't even let that bullshit in your ears, let alone your head, San," he responded after a few more moments' thought. "No one sane would think you ain't good enough for anything you want to do or be. What the hell does it matter if you're not white or you're not straight or whatever else they wanna throw out that ain't your fault to begin with. You just gotta know for you how cool and badass you are and don't even give a shit about them. Know it for you and not for anyone else…you're hot and you're fuckin' gorgeous, and if they can't see it then they're way too dumb to pay attention to anyway. Who the hell is that stupid anyway, that they don't see that?"
Puck lifted his hand off her shoulder then and took her by the chin, turning Santana's face back towards him when she started to throw back her head and roll her eyes again, in what was a not too subtle effort to avoid looking at him. He held on, waiting for her to focus on him, and when she heaved a sigh and finally did so, he noticed that it shook slightly, even though her eyes remained calm.
"Everyone," she informed him. "Fucking everyone, Puckerman. Think it through. Quinn's in some big shot college, Brittany's in MIT, Rachel's on fucking Broadway, Mercedes is getting an album made, and what do I get? A stupid yeast infection commercial. Freaking figures."
"'Tana, we ain't talking about Quinn or Rachel or Brittany or Mercedes. We're talking about you. Never thought the day would come where Santana Lopez can't take a freakin' compliment," Puck rolled his eyes right back at her, noticing and smirking when Santana simply rolled her eyes yet again, this time seemingly in deliberate effort to annoy him.
But even as she rolled her eyes, Puck saw that her expression was softening, that her lips were curving into a smile. It seemed that his words had nevertheless affected her, that they meant something to her, and she slowly began to smile more fully, even looking into his eyes. "Of course I know that. I'm hotter than any one of them, hell, I'm basically hotter than anyone. There's really no touching this level of hotness. Of course they had to go to school and all the rest, how could they stand to stay in the same general vicinity of me when the comparisons would be so pained?"
Glad to see her interacting more playfully now, Puck smiled back at her, no longer rolling his eyes. "Yep. Hottest thing ever, ain't gonna forget that title." Because she was relaxed, because she was smiling, and because she just looked so much more comfortable than he had before, Puck found himself reaching out to her, slowly stroking his fingers over her cheek, resting the flat of his palm against it. "Ain't gonna forget the beautiful part that goes along with that though, right?"
"Nope…can't forget that," Santana murmured back, her voice considerably softer than it had been even moments before. She breathed out slowly, shifting, and Puck looked down as her knee bumped his leg, wondering if this bodily adjustment was deliberate. It looked like it was. She was leaning in towards him now, her posture relaxed, even…was she suggesting that she wanted him closer? Was she inviting him to draw her near?
Puck tested the theory by looping his arm around her, pulling her against his side, and sure enough, Santana molded into him, wrapping her arms around his waist. She tilted her head up towards him, looking up at him, only inches from his face, and he was almost certain now. Still he waited, not wanting now to break what seemed the fragility of the moment after the storminess of before, and this time it was Santana who made the first move.
Stretching her neck up slightly, she pressed her lips to his, softly at first, barely more than a brushing of skin. But then she was deepening it, parting her lips against his, one hand sliding up the back of his head and scratching at his scalp, and she was arching her back, her breasts pressing into his chest in such a way that Puck felt heat spark through his chest and spread low through his groin.
He kissed her back. There would have been no other response possible. His thumb lightly stroking her cheek, Puck kissed her, even as his other hand rubbed up and down the length of Santana's spine, finally settling against the small of her back as he drew her close to him, holding her firmly against his chest. He could feel her quickened breaths against his skin, her heartbeat against his chest, her hair brushing his arm, and it was so much contact even fully clothed, even with the surreal nature of all the circumstances in combination together, that he felt lightheaded, not quite there in the moment. Puck could feel Santana's hand pressing against his chest, seeming to want him to lie down, and he did, pulling her down on top of him, so she lay partly over his chest, his arms locked around her waist. Continuing to kiss her, his tongue caressing hers considerably less carefully now, Puck twined her hair into his fist, lightly tugging, enjoying the responding soft groan that escaped her.
She was enjoying this. Lesbian or not, previously pissed off at him or not, she was enjoying this, for whatever reasons for her own. Maybe it was escape, maybe it was effort to be used to him in light of what would have to continue to occur between them, maybe it was fantasy on her part of someone and somewhere else, anywhere but him, here. But it hardly mattered in the moment. She was enjoying this, she was relaxed and open to it, and she trusted him. She trusted him, she wanted to do this with him, to be with him, whatever the reasons and stipulations for it, so Puck let himself go, let himself enjoy it too.
That is until the basement door opened yet again, and the familiar, sharply dreaded sound of feet descending the staircase met their ears. That is until a familiar voice called out, "Excellent, it seems you're already off to a head start…this will certainly be no trouble for you to get in the mood this time…"