.-.-.-.
Warm With You
.-.-.-.
Sabrina whispers something unintelligible in his ear and giggles, but just the feeling of her breath against his skin is almost enough to drive him over the edge. He is starting to lose it. Lose it.
"Jake," Puck gripes, trying to push the barely lucid girl away from himself so he can think clearly for five seconds, "can't you drive this thing any faster?"
Jake scowls, increasing the speed of the windshield wiper blades to their max. "Not if we don't want to skid right off the road in this mess."
Puck takes a moment to glance out the window where a barrage of sleet, snow, and hail splatter against the car like a winter themed trail mix. They were already going at a near suicidal speed given the conditions, the tires squealing in protest every once in a while.
This situation, being snuggled by Sabrina Grimm of all people, driving through a horrible storm at one o'clock in the morning, is not how he expected his day to end. Or begin, he supposes, since this is technically a new day. Semantics aside, all that mattered was that all of this was her fault.
And now said her is fussing with his jacket strings, her soft fingertips sliding against his bare collarbone as the fabric gives way to her touch.
Something snaps deep in his stomach, burning.
"Let me drive," Puck insists in a sudden panic, sitting forward, one hand on the driver's seat in front of him.
Jake curses as some huge force sends ripples through the ground, causing the vehicle to bounce and slide. "Very funny!" he shouts in a strained voice. "Like we could even switch while that thing is trying to kill us."
Almost as if in response, a tremendous roar rips through the air.
Sabrina laughs, shifting and turning in her seat to look out the back window. "Just like a big frosty popsicle." Her eyes are wild, her pupils dilated to fat black discs.
Puck pulls her back into her seat, but almost immediately regrets it because now she's found great interest in his hair, sifting the golden tresses through her fingers. It feels...it feels rather nice.
He struggles to focus. "What exactly did that...whatever that stuff do to her again?"
"Frost Ogre breath, nasty stuff," Jake manages through gritted teeth. Puck has never seen him so tense while running away, white-knuckling the steering wheel, biting his lip. "It's like an inhaled poison. Makes you really loopy, drunken like. Some Russian brewsters will pay good money for a bottle of the distilled stuff to make into ridiculously strong vodka." He pauses, the tromping behind them seeming to grow closer. He risks pressing deeper on the accelerator. "It makes people really honest, so sometimes it's even used in truth potions."
"Okay, okay, that's great and all," Puck replies, giving in to her braiding his hair, even if she is pulling slightly since she isn't as coordinated as usual. "But why is it still chasing us?"
Jake frowns, furrowing his brow. "The fact that it used some of its precious breath on her means it was planning on eating her. It's mad that we took its lunch."
Puck almost chuckled. God, the luck of this family. It was just plain awful.
Today had been perfectly fine-at first, at least. Jake and Puck had taken a few weeks off item hunting to spend time in Ferryport Landing with the rest of the Grimms, and their first day back was shaping up well enough, but when a freak accident with the wrong ring and the wrong wand collided, a portal to an ice plain had opened, losing a ticked off twelve foot ogre who had immediately targeted Sabrina, the unequivocally, most undeniably, unluckiest of the Grimms. Once she'd been carried off, the family had split into search parties of two to go locate where it had taken her.
So of course, Puck and Jake (who was statistically the second unluckiest of the lot) had found her first and barely managed to secure her in their car before speeding off.
The frost ogre hadn't liked that.
Hence the horrible storm.
Hence the monster now chasing them.
Hence, well, everything that is happening right now.
Outside, if it was possible, the raging snow gets worse, reducing Jake's visibility to faith and memory.
The stomping steps of the ogre suddenly stop from behind them and Puck feels the knot between his shoulders ease. "Oh thank-"
A huge thud crunches ahead of them, and out of nowhere, a boulder appears through the whiteness, and Jake hardly manages to swerve out of its way, landing them roughly onto the muddy side of the road. He attempts to get them started again, frantically stomping and easing the gas pedal to no avail, the tires spinning out with an angry hiss.
Jake swears loudly, cutting the engine. From the passenger seat, he snatches his many-pocketed coat where he'd carelessly thrown it earlier in their haste to run away from the monster. "Stay here," he orders his seventeen year old charge. "Keep Sabrina safe no matter what happens. I'll be back as soon as I can."
"Are you nuts? I'll go fight the beastie," Puck exclaims, helpless as Jake leaps from the front seat while he is trapped in the middle in the back. "You should be the one staying here to babysit Stinky, not me!"
He fixes Puck with a stern look. "Stay, no arguments." Then he slams the door, racing out of view to take on the frost ogre by himself.
The two are left alone, the space suddenly quiet and muffled. The door light on the ceiling turns off, leaving them in near darkness. Sabrina puts her head down on Puck's shoulder, nearly causing him to let out an embarrassing shriek since he's so tense.
"Where'd uncle Jake go?" she slurs, placing her hands neatly in her lap, turning to look out the window.
Puck sighs through his nose, grateful that she's no longer touching him. Or unhappy. Or-who cares!
He considers her question. "He's out being an idiot," he decides.
She clicks her seat belt, undoing it. "Then we need to go get him," she urges, opening the door with a stiff crackle.
Puck snarls a weak curse and reaches across her to shut the door before they can both get stuck. "Stay put, if I don't get to go out there then you certainly don't. Besides, you're in no condition to fight. We have to trust him, as annoying as that is."
Sabrina goes quiet for a while. "What do you mean I can't fight?" she cocks her head like she can't fathom the idea.
Puck clips off his seat belt as well since it's probably gonna be awhile before Jake gets back. "You're sick," he explains. "Don't you remember? We were just talking about it."
She scrunched her face up like she's trying to access something deep in her mind. "No," she drawls, "I don't remember. I don't feel ill either."
Puck throws his head back against the headrest. This really was going to take awhile. "Frost ogre. Sorta drunken I guess."
She giggles for the second time that night and it's so strange to hear that from her that Puck considers recording it, if only to prove to her later that she did.
"That sounds ridiculous," she declares, but she doesn't go for the door again.
"You're telling me," he mutters, closing his eyes. "You might as well get some rest, it's probably the only way to get you to stop acting like this."
"Stop acting like what?" she pesters, poking him in the side.
He snatches her hand by the wrist and gives it back to her. He gorans, "Like this, Stinky. I know I'm awesome and all but all this touching is driving me crazy."
"Crazy how?" she asks, and Puck cracks one eye open to catch her expression. Her eyes still look mostly black and with her heavy lids pulled low, giving her gaze a dark quality that, if he didn't know that she was half delirious, could mean something very different.
There seems to be something short circuiting his speech, because words-his blessed, wonderful weapons-fail to squeeze out of his throat.
Luckily, Sabrina doesn't keep track of her own question and looks out the window where snow and ice is quickly piling up. She squints. "Is that another boulder?"
Puck hardly has the time to glance out the window to see a huge shadow streaking right at them. There's no time to flee out the door, so instead he grabs Sabrina, covering her more or less with himself.
An impact strikes the car with unbelievable force, sliding the vehicle a few feet, rocking the two teenagers. Sabrina squeaks from underneath him as they're squashed together before tumbling apart. The movement stops, and the car settles. Then, like someone pressed mute on the TV, there's only a muffled kind of silence.
Even their breathing sounds harsh now, left in complete darkness.
"Puck, are we dead?" Sabrina asks in the clearest voice she has since being captured by the ogre.
"No," he answers, gripping the lip of the back seat. Somehow, he'd fallen into the foot space, his head wedged against the front backrest. With a groan, he extricates himself. "But Jake is about to be for leaving us here."
Sabrina has enough sense left to search for the overhead light, clicking it on. It casts a yellow glow over the two of them.
Puck reaches for the door and pushes-then shoves-then slams his shoulder into it. The thing won't budge, trapped behind a wall of thick snow. Regardless, he tries a few more times, shouting for good measure. It's no use though, even with his enhanced Everafter strength. He supposes, for a moment, that he could transform into an elephant or something equally as big to knock the door out, but doing that might just backfire and snuff out the little air bubble with snow. Not to mention Puck had already wrecked one of Jake's cars and he was pretty sure if he messed up another one, the older man would never let him touch, let alone drive another car. And there was Sabrina to think about, God her-how had he forgotten? Any stunt like that would surely crush her.
Dumbfounded and numb, he sits back heavily, wiping one hand down his face. "We're trapped."
Sabrina's eyes go wide as saucers. "Trapped?" she breathes, then holds her throat. "Won't we suffocate?"
Puck looks at her seeing what looked like tears filling her eyes. No no no, he could not deal with freaking tears right now.
"It's alright, it's alright," he placates, willing the tears away. "This car is magically enhanced. Never runs out of gas or battery or fresh air." He scowls. "Just has piss all tires that can't handle a little ice." He pounds his fist against the window in irritation. "I never should have let Jake leave without us."
Sabrina shrugs, switching to very calm. "Oh well, at least we're alive."
"How optimistic," he mutters sarcastically. "Stuck in a car with you, no food, no water-great view." he waves his hand at the white stuff around them.
"It could be worse," she considers, "we could be stuck in a locker together or in a pickle."
"You're just spouting nonsense now, Grimm," he says, turning to face her, only to find her nose right there in front of his, her electric blue eyes right there. His toes curl. She must have moved over towards him while he was throwing his tantrum on the window. She's so close. So close all he would have to do is lean forward and make good on all of these feelings swirling around in his chest and gut. But that would be ridiculous. Forget about the last three years of slowly growing more and more attracted to her, or the infuriating wall she shoves between them. Forget all about how he feels when she touches him. What an absolute weakling he'd become-all for some girl who liked to play hard to get. Or hard to understand.
Carefully, he shuffles back, pressing himself to the door, where, despite the considerable amount of heat radiating off of him, cold is seeping in. He's grateful for the chill though, it grounds him. Sort of.
"How long will we be buried?" Sabrina asks, holding her hands in front of her face like they're wondrous things.
"Until Jake slays or captures that ogre." He crosses his arms in frustration. "I'm missing out on all of the fun."
Sabrina claps once. "We can still have fun. What about a game?"
Puck rubs at the bridge of his nose, a quirk that he'd picked up from Jake. "A game?"
"Yeah, there's this one called freeze where you give dares out to the group and if they can't do it they have to strip a piece of clothing off." she sits forward, grinning at him.
His pulse throbs in his throat. "No thanks, I'm not stripping down in here for your amusement."
"Oh come on, not even a little bit?" she's leaning forward now, her cheeks full and red. Her breath mists in the rapidly cooling air, her eyes nearly black in the dim light.
Puck blushes despite himself. She's far too pretty for her own good, and her loose attitude and lack of hostility makes it hard to ignore. "I..."
"Stop," she says, suddenly shifting across the seat towards him until she's fully in his personal space. "I need to see this."
"What's your problem?" he demands, gently shoving her away. "You're going through whiplash every five seconds."
She frowns. "You're such a pain."
It sounds like something she would say normally, and he moves off the door to see if her pupils are still dilated, perhaps this awful drunkenness had worn off. Within moments, it's clearly not a good idea.
She tackles him. Somehow she manages to push him onto his back, her warm weight settling on his hips and chest. His nerves are already shot, and this undoes him. "What are you doing?" he splutters, instinctively bringing his hands up to her shoulders in a weak attempt to push her off.
"Relax," she says as if this is something she would normally do to him. "It's your ears. And your neck. Every time you get embarrassed, you get flushed there. It's interesting."
"What?" he manages, shutting his eyes for even a moment of not seeing the pretty little parting of her lips as she speaks. His chest is heaving, hardly able to process air. It isn't fair, she's completely out of her mind and he might be too if she doesn't get off of him very soon.
"They're pointy," she insists, waving his hands from her shoulders before settling her chest on his, drawing her arms up against his shoulders. He can feel her steady pulse through his entire being.
His heart, on the other hand, thuds at a too fast tempo. He opens his eyes, but wishes he hadn't, because she's even closer than before, a bright twinkle in her eye. For the first time, he considers that maybe she wasn't actually hit with the frost ogre breath and she's just messing with him. He dismisses the thought though. She wouldn't be caught dead on top of him like this. Even if part of him wishes she would.
He wriggles underneath her but can't unseat her without flinging her into the door. His head flops back in defeat. "Is this some kind of cruel torture or pay back?"
She begins tracing a shape on his cheek and yawns. "Pay back for what?"
"For tease-teasing-" she runs the pad of her finger along the sensitive skin under his eye-"you all the time."
"I don't mind," she responds, voice thick. Her eyelids are drooping more and more with exhaustion.
"Nice joke."
"I'm not joking. I like it. It shows you care." She leans her chin over his shoulder and brings her thumb across his ear, slides it down the shell, tugging slightly on his earlobe.
Puck chokes. He'd never known he possessed this much self control. "Grimm, seriously. You've got to stop doing that or..."
He trails off, realizing that her heavy weight above him has slackened. He listens for a moment. Her breath hushes against his neck in a steady rhythm.
She fell asleep. Asleep!
After making him feel like he was going to implode, she'd fallen asleep. He couldn't believe it. "Sabrina?" he tries. Nothing. "Couldn't you have at least moved first?" Absolutely no response.
He grumbles a few choice words about her behavior, trying to shift out from beneath her weight but only manages to get one of his legs into the foot space, causing her thigh to slide against his own.
His mind freezes for a second. He swallows, takes a deep breath in, then breathes out in a whoosh of air. This was going to be a long night.
"I hate you," he grumbles, wrapping one arm around her lower back.
It's a flimsy lie, and he knows it.
.-.-.-.
Sabrina wakes up to the feeling of a steady heartbeat against her own. It's a warm feeling, and the cold pressing down on her back only makes it more inviting. Her head feels awful, like a swarm of bees decided to make her skull their home overnight.
She shifts against the heated surface of her bed. Weak light is pounding from the other side of her eyelids, but maybe if she just burrows further into her pillow, the dawn will leave her alone for a few more minutes of bliss.
She nuzzles her face into her pillow. It's soft and warm too, and something tickles her nose and ear. It feels...strangely irregularly shaped.
It takes most of her willpower, but she manages to open her eyes. Blurrily, she sees a smudge of gray and gold. Fear and confusion ripple through her. This is not her bed. This is not her pillow. She sits up on her elbows and something underneath her makes a small sound of protest. She has to blink a few times to clear her vision.
And when it does, she nearly has a heart attack. Shadowed by her own head, Puck of all people is there, breath even and low in his sleep. They're in the backseat of a car-Jake's she thinks-not her bed. And the light she thought was dawn is just the little one on the car's ceiling.
She's rendered speechless. She presses hard against the fog coating her brain. A fuzzy image of snow and a monster comes back to her, being shoved in a car by Puck before the yells of, gun it, gun it, gun it! She doesn't understand what it means altogether, only that the car must have been moving at some point and now it is certainly not.
She sits up, skimming the top of her head against the ceiling in her panic. This action backfires on her, because now she's not lying on Puck, but sitting on him-his hips specifically-a feeling so strange that gives her, well-too many feelings and sensations all at once-and she chokes on her own breath.
Scrambling, she tries to get away from him, but there's only so much room in the cramped back seat, and she smacks her elbow and already aching head into the door, landing inelegantly beside his legs.
Her commotion, loud and amplified by the small space rouses Puck, who rolls slightly onto his shoulder and groans. "Can't you stay still for five minutes?" he grumbles, stretching as much as he can in the limited space. "I've barely had two hours of sleep." One of his arms reaches out above him, but it flops back onto his chest. Realizing that Sabrina is no longer on top of him, he sits up, pulling his legs towards the middle seat. His eyes are slightly bloodshot and bright green, staring at her with a mixture of dread and resignation.
All the while she watches him, confusion and humiliation building in her throat. "What in the world is going on?" she blurts out, holding one hand against the driver's seat headrest and the other against the crux between the window and the door.
Puck cocks his head then looks at her hopefully. "Is the nightmare over then?" A little flash of white teeth with his grin.
"Nightmare?" she spouts back at him so utterly lost at this point that she doesn't care that she was just laying on him, she only wants to know why.
Puck rights himself and leans over her, suddenly far too close to her again.
Her first instinct is to push him away, but it feels like an impossible feat with his face so close to hers, making a hot burn hum under her skin, begging her to reach out and caress the edge of his mouth. Maybe she hit her head harder than she thought.
After a few moments of studying her eyes he sits back, his shoulders slumping gratefully. "Thank goodness, I'm not sure how much more of that I could handle."
"Are you going to ever tell me what's going on?" she demands, tone turning a tad hysterical. She reaches forward and grasps his forearm, and the touch sends a jolt through her. Vaguely, she can remember running her hand up his arm and then playing with his hair, which sounds ridiculous, but when she looks up there's a tangled little braid that seems awfully familiar.
Puck flinches at her touch, tugging away. "Don't you remember?"
She could laugh out loud. "No," she complains, "I can hardly recall what happened last night after dinner. My head feels terrible, like I'm hungover."
Puck snorts. "You are hungover."
"No I'm not!" she exclaims before sitting back, finally letting go of the seats on either side of her. Her head throbs, and she's not so sure anymore of the validity of her statement.
Puck groans and cracks his neck. "Looks like I'll have to explain this again."
Sabrina listens with an ever increasing headache as he talks about a frost ogre, bad breath, driving off with her in tow, and some form of magically induced intoxication.
"We're stuck in here?" she says once he's finished, frantically casting her eyes around their small space. Despite Puck's assurance that it won't work, she tries the door, which is still stuck tight.
"Welcome back to the real world," Puck drawls. "It's awful."
Sabrina sits back, holding her temples between her hands. Her head aches so much, and his obnoxious jibing isn't helping.
"Skull in bad shape?" He asks, sounding on the edge of concern.
She waits for the throbbing to ease before nodding, giving him a pitiful look.
He reaches out momentarily before pulling back, running his fingers through his hair instead. "Never get drunk," he advises. "You'd be a total lightweight."
She flushes despite herself. Arguing makes it easier to ignore the pain. "Like you could do any better."
"Unlike you," he crows, "I've had alcohol before. Don't see the big deal about it."
She gives him a surprised look, finally lowering her hands. "Jake let you drink?"
He laughs, crossing his arms. "No, when I was younger. Parties in fairie were revels for sure. Everyone in the courtier's party got the fanciest, oldest grape juice available."
Sabrina frowns. "You probably only drank it so you could spit it out at guests to stain their clothes."
"That," he says, lifting one eyebrow, pointing at her, "is a fantastic idea. Care to be the first guinea pig?"
Her frown deepens to a scowl and he laughs.
Then the full force of the implications of the situation hit her. "Did I," a feeling of mute horror creeps over her at the idea of all the things she could've done, "did I do anything stupid?" She could only imagine. She already did stupid things around him when she was fully sober-heavens knows she thinks some pretty vivid things about him anyways.
Puck laughs, crossing his arms behind his head and leans against the door. "Oh plenty. I would've saved it-for posterity you know-but unfortunately," he sighs in disappointment, "In our haste to come rescue your ungrateful butt I forgot my phone at the house."
Sabrina breathes out a quick sound of relief. The fact that he's teasing her about it means she didn't do anything too drastic.
Puck lifts an eyebrow at her. "You really should be less happy about that. We have no way of contacting the rest of the family or telling them where we are."
She rubs her face. "I'll worry about that later."
Puck shifts in his seat, drawing his jacket closer around himself. "What do you remember?"
She purses her lips. "I think I can remember the ogre. It was super ugly and it was really cold. Then we were in the car." Her brow creases in thought. "And then I was back here with you. Most of what I can remember is you."
Puck shakes his head tiredly and leans his head back. "Not surprising. You were touching me a lot, and I mean a lot."
"I was?"
"Yeah, couldn't get you off me."
Yet another terrible realization hits her. She almost doesn't want to ask, but can't keep the last question from spilling out. "Did I kiss you?"
He smirks.
Words tumble out of her mouth as her face turns a bright shade of crimson. "Oh my gosh, you're kidding, right?"
He laughs. "Ah, you seemed to enjoy it, Grimm."
She tries to dip down into her hazy memories of last night, but she's drawing too many blanks to properly disprove him. She punches him in the shoulder. "And you let me? I was practically wasted and you let me kiss you?"
He gives her a roguish grin. "Don't worry. I was the perfect gentleman. You, on the other hand..." he reaches out and draws his fingers along her jaw, leaving trails of fire in their wake that she tries in vain to ignore. "Well, let's just say you weren't nearly as restrained."
Her sluggish mind is already having a hard time moving, but this brings it to a grinding halt. Her mouth opens and closes dumbly like a fish. Them kissing wasn't exactly new, but at least she remembered the other times and had a handle on her state of mind. And what else could she have done? There was the fact that she'd been lying on him when she woke up. Oh dear God. Had they...? Had she-
Puck's face cracks and he begins to laugh in earnest. "You should see your face," he guffaws, actually slapping his knee in his mirth. "It's perfect."
Relief and irritation battle it out in her chest. "You're pranking me?"
He manages to stop chuckling. "Yeah, Stinky. You didn't kiss me."
"Good!" she squawks, trying to fight the embarrassment swirling in her belly. "Because that would have been terrible."
The humor on Puck's face drips away, leaving his expression closed. "What do you mean?"
She makes herself more comfortable on the seat, strangely unnerved by his stare. It's starting to feel more and more cold. "Just that it would've been a disaster."
"Yeah, I don't think I could've ever washed the ugly out if that happened," he sneers.
A pang of disappointment stings her chest, but she doesn't give him the satisfaction of riling her up into another argument. In the following silence, the creeping chill roots itself into her bones, making her shiver. "It's really cold," she points out stemming the awkward silence, wrapping her arms around her middle.
Puck rolls his eyes. "We're in the middle of a snowball, not exactly a tropical hot spot."
Sabrina holds out a hand and points to the front seat. "Sure, but we're also in a car. Can't we turn on the heaters?"
He rubs his jaw for a moment. "That's a good idea," he concedes, "but Jake took his keys with him and I left my set at home. With my phone."
"Oh," she says, already growing miserable from the chill. "That sucks." She frowns to herself. She hadn't been this cold when she woke up, but, of course, she'd been all over Puck when she woke up.
"Your jacket," she conjectures, "can you make room for me?"
"Freeze for all I care," he announces with a nasty edge to his voice.
"Puck," she says, much calmer. "C'mon, we're surrounded by snow. Don't be so petty."
He blows out a puff of crystallized air. "You're one of the denest people I've known, and that's saying something."
Frustration wells up in a bubble in her throat. She hates when he gets like this, all passive aggressive and impossible to read. "Well, you're the most insufferable person I've met," she bites back.
"I aim to please."
"Is this about how I acted last night?" she shoots back.
He's quiet for a moment. "Still find my ears interesting?" he asks suddenly, a slight tilt to his head.
She wonders if this is a trick question. "They're uh, fine I guess."
Puck ruffles his hair with a hand. "That's why you were lying on top of me. You wanted a closer look at my ears."
She blinks at him. "Seriously?" At least that was a more innocent reason than she'd been thinking.
He shrugs. "Something about how they turn red when I blush." His teeth snap together, regretting adding that last part.
"Well, they do," she confirms before leaning forward curiously. "Why were you blushing in the first place?"
"I don't remember," he says quickly, and as he does she thinks she can see a flush of red starting at the base of his neck, but he turns away from her before she can be sure.
"Really?" she presses. She doesn't usually have this much control over their teasing banter, but while she has it, she's going to make the most of it.
"Yeah."
"Uh huh."
"Yes!"
She grins at the back of his head. The tips of his ears are red.
He grimaces, turning to face her. "Alright, okay! You were off your rocker talking about some stripping game." He's definitely blushing now.
She snickers, holding one cold hand to her mouth. "You're kidding. Seems like your kind of thing, doesn't it-showing everything off and all that?" Her words have the desired effect, making the flush deepen. It's unbearably cute.
"Like you would've been sane enough to remember," he counters when he's found his tongue again.
She pauses, clenching her jaw tightly to keep her teeth from chattering. He seems in a good enough mood now. "Are you gonna let me in the jacket now?"
Puck gives her a sidelong glance then sighs, unzipping the garment. "Alright, alright. C'mere."
Gratefully, she scoots across the back and presses into his side as he brings the jacket around them. His heat immediately brings relief to her freezing skin, sending flurries of tingles down through her nerves. After a moment, he slides his arm around her back. She tenses for a moment, embarrassed by their closeness but then relaxes. He can tease her later all he wants, for now, staying warm is her top priority. And besides, his arm around her feels good and she rarely has an excuse to be against him like this.
The teenagers are quiet for a while, still except for Sabrina's subsiding shivers.
"Listen," she says at length, tightening her arms around her middle. "I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry if I did something that upset you while I was all..." She waves a hand in the air aimlessly, "all whatever."
Puck exhales through his nose. "I'm not upset."
She chuckles sardonically. "Could've fooled me."
He looks away, staring at the snow pressed against the window. "I'm not upset at the way you acted last night. Maybe I-maybe I-" he takes in a sharp breath, cutting himself off.
"You...you what?"
He looks away, mumbling the next bit. "Maybe I liked the way you acted."
The hard thump in her chest makes it hard to speak. "Because you found it funny?" she says weakly.
Puck turns his head back around, fixing her with an irritated scowl. He throws his hands up, nearly pushing her out of the jacket. "Scratch what I said earlier. Densest. Person. Alive."
Sabrina feels an angry blush creep up her cheeks. "Well sorry that I can't read your mind!"
He actually laughs, incredulous. "I can't believe you sometimes. You don't need to read my mind to know what I want."
The anger subsides, snuffed out, leaving curiosity and a twinge of yearning behind. Her heart does this little skippy, fluttering thing. "I...what do you want?"
He shifts until he's more or less facing her. "What do you think?"
The look in his eyes makes it hard for Sabrina to breathe. There's an intense note of challenge there, the shift of his shoulders intimidating. It's rare for him to get this serious, and his words take root in her head.
Maybe I liked the way you acted.
For a split second, her eyes flick down to his lips-something he must notice because one side of his mouth quirks up, and she's unable to help looking back down.
He chuckles, a low rumble deep in his chest. Lines of mirth appear around his eyes. "What? Finally figured it out?"
She's having a hard time thinking. They're supposed to be thinking of a way out not-not-flirting. Staying warm, not warming to the idea of-
She swallows, licking her lips nervously. Puck takes the chance to look down, and she likes the thrill it gives her. It's not the kind of feeling that she should have for him, not the way too indifferent people look at each other. She'd had a lot of practice pulling away from the twinges like this, spent countless hours pushing down the urge to come closer. But they're already close, and he's so warm-what could a little more warmth do?
They both lean forward. Heads tilted to the side, the kiss a warm press. Then another, and another, one of them gasps and Sabrina leans back, trying to inhale something that isn't him him him. But then he's back, finding her lips in another simmering kiss. One of his hands goes to her upper back and the other finds her jaw, drawing them closer together.
Sabrina's head spins. She didn't expect this amount of need to be there, the way his mouth could be so soft and insisting at the same time. She brings one hand up, sliding it up his arm, down his neck and side, and feels the bumps and sinew of his ribs. He shivers in response to her touch.
"Still not sure?" he teases lowly in her ear.
She feels like she's splitting apart. Somewhere between denying and believing. She decides it was easier being nebulous, hastening away from the warmth of his touch. But now that that is past-its all she can feel, packing into her like the snow around the car.
"I might get it," she muses, holding on to a shred of pride, of mischievousness. "But you know," she kisses the tip of his nose, "I might not, with how dense I am and all."
He grins.
.-.-.-.
When their family finds them a few hours later, excavating them from their frosty prison, they're still huddled in his jacket. Puck tells them it took them long enough, and Jake sheepishly retells how Relda had to save him from getting squashed. The Grimms had taken turns searching for the two of them, but it had been Daphne's idea to enchant a pair of glasses to search for heat under the piles of snow. It had then taken a good half hour of digging to find the car and clear away enough snow to open the door to reveal the tired, hungry teenagers.
Sabrina's parents are beside themselves from worrying, and Henry looks like he'd like to watch a recording of anything that could have possibly occurred in the secluded car.
Sabrina recognizes the look and sighs. She'd probably get grilled later.
Puck puts an arm around her which only makes the family stare even less discreetly.
Relda hands them each a warm thermos of hot chocolate. Sabrina handles it gratefully. They have questions for her, curious and worried about the effects of the frost ogre breath, but they're leaving her be for now, which she can appreciate, taking long soothing sips of the caramel colored liquid.
Then she's sputtering, surprised by a feather soft kiss on her cheek.
Puck laughs merrily at her reaction, giving her a fond look.
Her cheeks blaze, unable to look anywhere but the snowy ground which steams from the hot chocolate she'd spat out. What was he thinking? They were dead, no questions asked, no penance possible.
Puck rounds his attention to the rest of the family. "What?" he says to all of the dumbfounded-and one triumphant (Daphne)-faces. "What else do you think we could've done to entertain ourselves all this time?"
.-.-.-.
AN: So I have this problem where I love having Puck be frustrated out of his mind. It's just too fun to do with a character who usually tries to keep his feelings under his belt. And having Sabrina lying on him? Come on, this kind of stuff writes itself. This was a fun diversion, hope you enjoyed it too!
-Pinklily8