When Mr Schue had announced that they were going to do a piece from Hair!, the first thing Puck had thought was whether they had mohawks back in the twenties. That had been quickly put on the backburner when he saw Rachel march up towards the New Directions chair, a frown pulling at her features. Someone tossed him a wig and after removing the hair from his face, Rachel was storming out of the choir room.
'What the hell?' Puck murmured. 'Yo, Mr Schue. What's wrong with Rachel?'
'Nothing. She'll be back,' Mr Schue replied, though the uncertain look on his face belied the confident tone. 'Let's just run through this until she gets back okay?'
Rachel had walked in halfway through the choreography and brushed past Mr Schue with feigned nonchalance. 'I apologize for my interruption,' was all she said before inserting herself between Brittany and Mercedes. Mr Schue didn't look any less relieved as he went through the piece with them, and when Puck had tried talking to Rachel the petite girl had simply brushed him off and hurried away.
'Dude, you look like a girl,' Mike remarked as he flipped his now long hair over his shoulders. Puck could see the students from the School for the Deaf arranged in a row in the music room.
'You're just jealous because you'd never be this hot,' Puck shot back absently as Mike snorted.
'So how's things between you guys?' Mike's question made Puck raise an eyebrow.
'What?'
Mike cut his eyes back and forth and upon noticing that none of the other guys were paying them any attention, his lips stretched into a contemplative smirk.
'Well Rachel's a free agent now right? I thought you'd slap on some war paint and-'
'I thought we talked about your Call of Duty addiction man,' Puck interrupted, attempting to distract Mike who shook his head knowingly.
'What I'm saying is you need to make a move before, like, my grandson decides Berry is totally worth growing a pair,' Mike told him sagely.
'It's complicated. She just broke up with her boyfriend,' Puck mumbled, gaze fixed on the classroom door where the girls had gone to do their costume change.
Because you kissed her idjit. Oh, and did we mention you got Quinn pregnant? Just FYI.
'It's only like that because you're thinking too hard. And with your brain capacity, it's a wonder you haven't spontaneously combusted or some shit like that,' Mike said dryly, reaching to fix his wig. 'This thing is making my head itch man! Where are the girls? How long does it take to put on a pair of shorts?'
'That's really wrong,' Puck retorted, watching as Mike pushed his hand underneath the wig and scratched the side of his scalp.
'How could something so wrong feel so right?' Mike asked and Puck laughed at the blissful expression on the other boy's face. He stopped abruptly when the door up the hall opened and Rachel emerged behind Brittany and Santana. He took in the micro shorts and long, lean, tanned legs that stretched and stretched into a pair of Converse sneakers. Licking his lips, his eyes travelled up her torso and lingered over the v-neck of her white t-shirt.
'Those shorts are god,' Puck heard Mike say and couldn't agree more.
Rachel was muttering something under her breath and Puck looked at Brittany questioningly. The Dutch girl merely shrugged her shoulders as if to say she didn't know.
'Absolutely unnecessary and completely ridiculous,' Puck caught the tail end of Rachel's rant.
'It's just a song Rachel,' Puck interjected (because really, what else could she be upset about?) and found himself staring down into a pair of startled brown eyes. The corners of her lips were gravitating upwards and shaking.
Puck sighed, flicking a stray piece of hair behind his face. Good thing school was out. He knew he said he could make a dress look cool but that scenario had been entirely hypothetical.
'Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up,' he said under his breath sourly. Rachel was outright grinning now and he could see that she was trying to be polite.
'Well you do look a bit…odd,' she settled. He was staring at her legs and Rachel felt something rush into her cheeks and tinge it a healthy pink. Brittany had been especially insistent that she wear these particular pair of denim cutoffs.
'If you've got it, flaunt it,' the blonde had told her with a straight face. Catching sight of the mesmerized expression on Puck's face, Rachel couldn't help but think she was right.
Score one for feminine wiles.
'Alright guys. Let's go!' Mr Schue clapped his hands together, some of the eagerness dimming when he passed over Rachel. The self-proclaimed female lead of Glee crossed her arms, remembering how Mr Schue had all but admitted that he didn't think they were good enough without hairography to beat the Jane Adams girls. Rachel knew that Artie thought her diva storm outs lost their effect after a few times, but hearing the person who was supposed to have faith in them say in a roundabout way that he didn't had been upsetting.
When life hands you lemons, ask why they didn't give you limes, Mrs Randle always said and Rachel found she still didn't quite grasp the meaning behind the phrase. The elderly woman who Rachel looked upon as a grandmother had patted her hand, saying that when the time came she would understand.
They positioned themselves and as Beyonce's "Crazy In Love" came on Rachel forgot about Mr Schue, about James, about Puck or Finn and just immersed herself into the routine. There was something particularly freeing about whipping her hair about and strutting her stuff, Rachel had to admit. Hairography was perfect for lowering inhibitions in a sense because maybe all the movement was a way to hide all your mistakes, all your flaws.
Fuck, Puck thought when he saw Rachel about to line up in front of Finn. This was the part where the girls jumped on the guys and gyrated around. Casually, Puck inched forward the few extra centimeters. Finn stumbled slightly, just catching himself. The tall teen flashed Puck a disgruntled expression that was coloured with a hint of disapproval.
Rachel saw Puck standing there and held her breath. His eyes were dark and inviting. She couldn't look away. She did though in the end because looking into them was making her feel as if someone was suffocating her.
It's just a dance Rachel, nothing more.
She chanted that mantra through her head, ignoring the way Puck's muscles flexed underneath her legs or the gentle care he took as he grasped the curve of her waist. Warmth and electricity warred for dominance but Rachel didn't care. A quick flutter of her eyelids and she was on the floor again, short of breath as she lined up beside Brittany and Quinn.
Don't think about it. Just don't.
Their song came to an end and Rachel saw the skeptical expressions decorating the School for the Deaf. Before they took their seats, she stood next to Mr Schue and looked him in the eye defiantly.
'That didn't work at all, did it?'
He didn't have a reply to her words. Rachel shook her head and sat down heavily in the first available chair she could find.
I hope that embarrassing display made Mr Schue realize that we're more than what he just made us do, Rachel thought bitterly.
John Lennon's "Imagine" echoed throughout the music room and Rachel felt her eyes burn ever so slightly, watching the students from Haverbrook sign the lyrics. Mercedes started singing and soon they were threaded amongst them, Rachel smiling as the pretty brunette showed her how to move her hands.
'I'm sorry guys,' Mr Schue said after the Haverbrook visitors had departed. 'Rachel was right. You don't need to be anything other than yourselves to win. I'm…sorry I lost track of that.'
Puck nudged her shoulder and she couldn't temper the grin on her face.
'So how about we try "True Colours"? Tina?'
Tina's blue and black hair shimmered as she turned to see how Rachel would react. The action made her feel slightly hurt because Rachel thought she had showed remarkable poise in accepting the solos Mercedes and Artie had been getting. And yet here everyone was, holding their breath as if they expected her to rail and moan.
'Maybe we should dress up like a rainbow?' Rachel suggested and was surprised when Mr Schue sheepishly produced t-shirts to match her proposal. Grabbing a purple one off the pile (purple was the colour of royalty after all. There was nothing to stop her from broadcasting subliminal messages after all), she disappeared into the girl's bathroom and yanked it over her head savagely.
Don't cry. Don't cry. Dolly Parton said if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.
'Rachel?' Brittany's voice was tentative. Rachel sucked in a breath and wadded up the cotton shirt she had been wearing. When she opened the stall there was a wide smile plastered over her features.
'I'm ready,' she announced. Brittany regarded her as if she were a caged animal.
Rain, rain go away.
They made their way over towards the stage and Rachel perched herself next to Mike, who gave her a welcoming grin. Rachel returned the effort weakly, forcing herself to be more when Tina walked by and caught her eye.
Show me a smile then
Don't be unhappy
Can't remember when I last saw you laughing
If this world makes you crazy
And you've taken all you can bear
You call me up
Because you know I'll be there
Finn was looking her way, Rachel knew. She provided him the barest hint of acknowledgment before focusing on Mr Schue. Had it been only a short time ago (well it was more like a few months) that she had bent over backwards for Finn Hudson? For what? So that he could toy with her and make her feel less than she was? So that he could go back to Quinn?
You've seen his true colours…
Tina's voice was crystralline, clear, unique. It was sweet like a child's but conveyed such a depth that Rachel was in awe. Feeling something burning the side of her face, she glanced up and found Puck's eyes fixed on her.
This time she didn't look away.
He's seen your true colours and you've seen his. And yet, and yet…
Rachel was grateful that she was singing backup because Puck's stare was making her nervous and excited. The butterflies in her stomach were beating against the lining like a drum, steady and thrumming and loud.
As Mr Schue clapped from his perch high up in the auditorium, Rachel pulled herself away from Puck and clenched her fists.
Robert Frost's "Reluctance" came to mind (he was Daddy's favourite poet so Rachel had somewhat willingly read his work).
Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?
What she felt for Puck was real. It was more than what she had felt with James. What Puck inspired in her was heat, the hot flash of white-hot blue flame that seared. It singed her nerves and branded itself into her mind, her soul and quite possibly her heart.
Rachel lingered where the curtains fell to section off the backstage area, waiting.
She was tired of pretending, tired of acting like someone else because she wasn't ready to go against what her head was screaming at her to do.
Puck came into her line of vision.
No more yielding to the grace of reason.
She fisted her hands into the material of his shirt, pulling him behind the thick velvet fabric away from view.
'What the – Rachel? Why the fuck are you hiding back here like some kind of vampire? Because-'
Rachel looped her arms around his neck and pressed her lips against his. Puck stiffened and for a moment she panicked. What if she was wrong? What if that kiss in her bedroom had been a fluke, a one-off endeavour that wasn't likely to repeat itself?
But then he was catching her lips between his own and Rachel felt his fingers dance around the waistband of her jeans, calloused pads rubbing against the smooth skin and making her push closer. The warmth, the heat that she had thought about was stretching over her like a second layer.
I'm Rachel Berry and I'm not ready to bow just yet.
a/n: Wrote one-shot called 'Ironic'. Go check it out.
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