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"Hey there, dollface," he says to her and she resists the urge to roll her eyes, barging past him and into the apartment. "What're you doing?" he demands to know, taking long strides to catch up with her.

"Quinn dropped me off," she says, a little bitterly, "and I'm spending the night, "she gestures to the bag over her shoulder, "so why don't you be a lovely little host and show me around you apartment?"

He gapes at her. "You're staying here tonight?"

"All night," she nods, "unfortunately. If you hadn't pulled that little stunt with the kiss then we wouldn't have to do this but no! You ruined the whole plan." They're still in the hallway, Finn a little too close to her for her liking. "So now we have to make it look like we're spending a romantic evening together at your apartment while I'm sure that I'll be slowly losing the will to live with you as company for at least the next twelve hours."

Finn glares at her, raising his brow, "harsh much?"

She folds her arms across her chest, jaw locked. "Believe me, Finn Hudson, I can be much worse than that."

"Is that a threat?" he smirks, leaning nearer to the woman. She tries to push him back, a look of disgust on her face as her hands exert a small force onto his surprisingly solid chest.

Before anything else can be said, there's a third party in the room, a man with the most ridiculous hair she's ever seen. He stops when he sees them, a sly smile sliding onto his tanned face, "it's your little kissing buddy." He walks through the archway leading to the open living kitchen. She half expects it to be beyond messy but then, she can't ever imagine Finn Hudson cooking for himself and so isn't too shocked when it's actually quite tidy.

She watches as the man pulls a beer out of the fridge, "want one Hudson?"

Finn eyes her, something which she doesn't miss, before shaking his head. "Dude," the man starts, "I'm sure that your girl won't mind." He winks at Rachel and she feels Finn stiffen beneath her hands, which are still on his chest. Yes, she should definitely move those. The man smiles at Rachel, "how about you, gorgeous?"

"I don't drink beer," she tells him with a look of distaste. He just shrugs, staring at Finn until he introduces them. The man doesn't seem to realize and she clears her throat loudly, nudging her head in his friend's direction.

"Oh," he says, "Rach, this is Puck – the guitarist of Ohio boys, and Puck, this is Rachel…my girlfriend." He says girlfriend as though it's a foreign word before wrapping his arm around her shoulder and she instinctively slides her own around his waist.

Puck grins, "girlfriend? Look at you, actually in a relationship. An open relationship, I hope?" He wiggles his eyebrow at Rachel who scrunches her face up in disgust.

"No!" she huffs, "it's very exclusive."

She glares up at Finn in order for him to confirm her words. "Right," he agrees, loosening the arm from her shoulder to slap her ass, and this causes the woman to jump, "she's all mine."

His friend shrugs, holding up his hands. "Fine, fine. I get it, you're not willing to share. But as soon as you two break up that hot body is mine." He sends her a sultry look before taking a swig of his beer and swaying out of the room. She notices Finn roll his eyes yet he doesn't say much else about it.

"Your friend is almost as crude as you," she comments, removing her arm from him like he's covered in a disease, "I'm glad to see that you surround yourself with such pleasant company."

"At least they're not as dull as you!"

"Hey!" she gasps, the offence clear on her face, "I am not boring. I simple live my life by plans and order."

"AKA – boring." He smiles, a little proud of himself to have the upper hand on her for once. She has all these awards and not a single stain to her name, but he's lived and led a spontaneous few years – he definitely is the complete opposite of dollface over here.

Rachel smacks his chest, fury reigning in her chocolate brown eyes. "Stop calling me boring!" she cries, "I'm not." He finds himself laughing, though still cowers away from her tiny but powerful fists. "I will make you regret saying that – I mean it," the woman warns and he actually believes her a little.

He offers a smile, a tiny mercy. "Look, as you said, we've gotta spend a lot of hours together now, so how about we actually be nice to each other for a while?" Finn doesn't actually want to be nice, well maybe a little, but pushing her buttons is just as fun and he gets a kick out of seeing her distressed little face as he angers her. Still, they've got to convince his band mates – the people who he is closest to – that they're happy and dating. And they can't do that if they're insulting each other all night.

She quirks her eyebrow, lips pursed together. "Do you actually have the capacity to be nice?" she questions, "I thought that you were ten percent flirt and ninety percent douchebag."

"Hah hah," he sneers, "you think that you're so funny."

"Well, actually," she begins but he doesn't let her finish the sentence and starts to move in the same direction in which Puck had gone. "Hey! Where're you going?"

"…to the living room."

Rachel rolls her eyes, "well, yes, but I wasn't finished talking to you!"

"It's okay. When you talk, I just hear squeaky little noise in my head. I kind of just made up the words that you're saying to make it more interesting."

She literally growls, "why do you say things like that? You could really hurt someone's feelings." For a moment, he almost looks like he's thinking about the words and is affected by what she's saying. However, his thoughtful expression soon drops. When he shrugs, she storms after him, "Finn!"

The man spins around, "what?" He's clearly pissed and this, alongside his height and build, intimidates the 5ft 2" star.

"I-I was just wondering where to put my bag," she stutters, staring at him with the widest eyes he's ever seen. They're kind of pretty, too – not that he cares about that or anything.

"I'll put it in my room for now," he sighs, "and then you can sleep in the guest room tonight."

"Fine," she says, her shoulders slumping as she doesn't have the effort to argue with him now. She slowly follows him through his apartment, finding herself being the center of attention of three men, one including Puck. "Hi," she puts on a show smile, "you must be the remaining members of Ohio Boys. I'm Rachel – it's very nice to meet you."

Finn looks awkwardly between her and his friends. "Rach, this is Mike," he points to the attractive Asian man, then to the blonde, "and that's Sam. Guys, meet my girlfriend Rachel."

"You're dating Rachel Berry?" Mike asks incredulously, "I thought that it was just rumors." To Rachel, he says, "my mom is a huge fan of yours. She's been to every one of your plays, has every single album and has read your autobiography." Finn rolls his eyes – of course she has an autobiography, no doubt brimming with reasons as to why she's so wonderful.

"Thank you!" Rachel beams at the attention, "and tell your mother that everything is greatly appreciated."

She's about to go on when Finn tugs on her arm. "Come on babe, let's go and sort out your stuff." It's a shock to hear him call her babe, but she ignores the way her heart seems to skip at the sound of it. With a small wave to the boys, she follows him into his room.

He shuts the door behind her loudly and the girl jumps, clutching her bag to her chest for protection. She peers timidly around his bedroom, staring at his personal items with interest – it's the first time that he's seen her completely out of her comfort zone. Even she's not that good of an actress. He moves further into the room and places a hand on her shoulder, "sorry about the mess."

The sincerity in his voice catches her off guard. "Where should I put my things?"

Finn glances around in search of a safe place though eventually just points to the bed. "You can get it back when the guys go." She does so, looking cautious as she places the black bag down on his soft bed sheets.

"Okay," she says, "how long are they staying? Because I need to be asleep by ten at the latest."

"What?" he doesn't know whether to laugh or just stare at her like she's crazy. He ends up doing both. "Are you serious? You're twenty five, right?"

She corrects him quietly, "twenty four."

"Dude, I didn't go to bed at ten when I was like, twelve. You're twice that age!"

Rachel glares, "firstly, I am not your dude, so never say that again." She huffs, "and I need my sleep so that I can maintain my bubbly personality."

"Sure," he says sarcastically.

"And what time do you plan on going to sleep?"

He shrugs, moving towards the door, "about two, maybe three. Depends what time I pass out really."

"That's completely unhealthy, you know?" she taps her foot impatiently though he's not quite sure why. They continue their glaring contest, daring the other to stop. He has no idea how they're supposed to survive the night, in front of his friends, too. Running a hand through his hair, he mentally prepares himself for a night with probably the most outspoken woman he's ever met in his life.

Rachel sizes him up too, wondering what's going through his mind.

She may never admit it to anyone, perhaps Quinn on a whim, but she's a little insecure. Sure, she has thousands of fans who support her career yet there's always doubt in her mind. Is she good enough? Is she doing everything right? And she's certainly worst around men. Now, she knows that she's not perfect and she loves how she looks, she really does, though sometimes it'd just be easier if she could be the conventional star with the perfect body and face – and a nose that isn't too big.

So, with Finn staring at her like this, she's not sure what to think and those insecurities are slipping in once more.

"You ready for this then?" he asks, taking a step closer with a smirk. She's used to that look by now. His eyes always squint a little when he pulls it and his mouth closes tightly together.

"Sorry, what?" she frowns, snapping out of her thoughts.

Finn rolls his eyes, "Were you too occupied with yourself for a minute there, dollface? I said, are you ready? For being my girlfriend and all in front of the guys?""

Her hands go to her hips and she has those determined eyes. "I was born ready!"

"Okay," he smiles, "just, before we go out, mess your hair up a little."

"Why?"

"We gotta make it look like we did something," he claims as though it's obvious, "we're been in here for about five minutes. They'll expect that there was at least some making out."

She shakes her head stubbornly and flinches back when he actually tries to mess up her hair himself. "Finn!" she squeals, trying to push him back, "don't touch me!" He begins to laugh at her, his long arms encasing her tiny little body. Finn finds himself staring into her impossibly large eyes, lost in the deep brown of them. "What are you…" she trails off, herself engrossed in his face.

Time passes by – neither is sure how much – but it's long enough for the others to wonder where they've gone and open to the door, finding the pair in an apparent trance.

"Finn? Rachel?"

Both blink and Rachel shakes her head lightly, resisting the urge to recoil away from Finn. They slip into a comfortable position, Rachel resting beneath the crook of his arm in a perfect fit.

"Yes?" Finn questions, his hand very noticeably sliding down to her ass once more and she tenses up, trying to subtly remove it.

Sam smiles, "we're kinda hungry and were going to order in? Do you guys want something or do you have other…plans?" Rachel blushes at this while Finn tightens his grip on her.

"We'll just have whatever you're getting."

"Or," she interjects, "I could cook you something. I know that you boys may be lacking in the culinary skills. but I am almost at a professional level and it would be such a shame if you don't get to sample my cooking, right Finn?"

He grits his teeth, "sure honey." All he wants is a burger or kebab, but he knows that she'll persuade him into it eventually and just doesn't bother wasting the energy.

"Fantastic!" she clasps her hands together and practically bounces out of his grasp, past Sam to the kitchen.

He's pretty sure that she's going to poison the food or something.


Half an hour later he saunters into the kitchen as he follows the delicious smell. After leaving Rachel to her own devices for a while, he supposes that he should make sure that she's okay and content. Not that he cares or anything – it's just that she'll make a fuss if he doesn't.

He watches as she glides around his kitchen with ease, her face super concentrated though with a twinkle in her eyes. The woman's a little flustered but it doesn't really matter because she looks pretty much in her element, counteracting to the fact that she's in a complete stranger's apartment.

"Hey," he says, going to take a seat at the table. It's quite quaint actually. She's laid out plates and napkins and more than one knife and fork for each person. He didn't know that he even had any of this stuff – not that he ventures into the kitchen a lot. It's mostly likely well stocked up in case Kurt visits and wants to make himself something. "You doin' okay?"

Rachel stares at him curiously, slowing in her movement, "you're actually concerned about my wellbeing?" She quirks her eyebrow, "what do you want?"

"So I have to want something?"

"Yes," she nods, "because there's no way that you would be nice without an ulterior motive."

"And how do you know that?" he snaps, "you've known me for what? A couple of days? You can't judge me from that Rachel."

Guilt overwhelms her as she realizes that she's been basing all of her thoughts of him from the news and magazines in which she's read, which honestly isn't the best idea. "I'm sorry," she says quietly, "I didn't realizw." She turns to the oven to occupy herself with something as Finn glares at the ground, his jaw locked. "I'm fine, by the way," she adds, "thanks for asking."

"Good," he says a little tensely.

She bites her lip, wondering whether to say something. Normally she can't shut up, yet for some reason she can't seem to get her words out today. The oven beeper goes off and she jumps to action, carefully removing the dish from the warm oven before placing it on the side. Rachel can feel Finn's eyes on her, but shakes it off and carries on with her meal.

The aroma of her lasagne is wonderful and she smiles to herself, moving the side dishes onto a plate before going over to the table to finish off the meal. In her peripheral, she can see that the three other men have slowly entered, following the smell of food. "Lasagne with homemade garlic bread," she beams, gesturing to it.

With a mumble of thanks, the hungry army move to the table and all sit around. Finn thinks that it's a little strange, having only used this table with his family, but he's sure that Rachel would be distraught at the thought of them eating in the living room.

"It smells good," Puck grins like a happy child as he eyes the lasagna. Rachel dishes him out a serving, as she does with the others, and he makes a noise of pure happiness as he sloppily stuffs it into his mouth, "My God woman, where did you learn to cook like that?"

"Did you just call me woman?" she halts, annoyance filtering into her voice. Finn is glad not to be at the receiving end of that glare.

Puck swallows the food, "yeah, I did. And you are the best damn cook that I've ever met. Finn, if you don't marry that girl, I will!"

"I don't think that that's up to you," Mike chuckles, himself contently eating at his food.

Finn wants some of this action, since the food has left the other three pretty much silent, and that's kind of rare for them. He gets a healthy forkful before eating it quickly and wondering how the hell she can make such a boring dish taste so good. Seriously, is she like a witch or something? He watches her as she takes a bite of her garlic bread and nibbles on her own vegetarian lasagna.

But his attention is drawn away by Sam, who's only minutes away from going for a second helping, "how do you two meet then?"

They both freeze, lifting their heads up to look at each other and to see which one is going to delve into the story. "We met at the after party at the PCA's," Finn explains simply, "I wasn't going to originally go, but Kurt convinced me and now I'm glad that I went." He finds himself placing his hand over hers on the table for a brief few seconds and he doesn't miss how she blushes.

"That's it?" Puck questions, unimpressed.

"Oh," Rachel says, "Finn was being quite the charmer, surprisingly."

"Hey!"

"Have you slept together yet?" Of course Puck would be asking these questions.

Rachel groans and rolls her eyes. "I don't think that that's any of your business!"

"Well," he begins, his voice a little excited, "if you ever wanted to spice things up in the bedroom, I'm always here to provide my services." Finn shakes his head at his friend and almost feels protective of Rachel, especially from Puck. He may be bad, but Puck is probably the worst guy that there is for one night stands.


After the success of dinner, Finn finds himself actually helping Rachel with the cleaning up. Puck's snoozing in the living room while Sam and Mike left a while ago, leaving just him, Rachel and a huge pile of dishes. They, however, can't exactly agree on who should do them.

"I cooked dinner!" she argues, "the least that you can do is wash the dishes, Finn."

"I wanted to order in so that there wouldn't be any dishes to do," the man counters, nevertheless still carrying the dirty dishes to the spot beside the sink. Rachel scrapes the leftovers in the trash and adds the final plate to the top with a glare sent his way. "No one made you cook, dollface."

She huffs and stomps her foot like an upset child. "Finn, I'm not doing it." And that's clearly her final say in it as she walks over to the table with a damp cloth and begins to clean that mess that Sam and Mike made fighting over the last piece.

So he guesses he's doing the damn dishes.

He fills the sink with warm, soapy water and gives a loud sigh so that she can hear it as he starts to scrub at the first plate.

"I feel so…" he frowns, "domestic. I don't like it."

"Don't worry honey," she grins, obviously enjoying his torture, "I'll do the dishes next time."

Finn follows her with his eyes as she joins him by the sink, "you having fun watching me slave over this? It's all just some big joke to you."

"Maybe," she smiles, "it's just nice to see you acting like a normal man rather than trying to impress me with that bad boy act."

"What act?" he says, "that's all me, baby." Her words rerun in his mind, "wait, did you say that I was trying to impress you?" He laughs heartily, "dollface, if I was trying to impress you, you'd know about it."

She rolls her eyes, not so accidentally hitting him over the head with the kitchen towel before beginning to dry the plates which he's just cleaned. For once, even if it's over something small like the dishes, they're working as a team, with the perfect timing going on. "Whatever you say, Finn," she smiles, "if you aren't trying to impress me, then why are you doing the dishes for me?"

Finn gapes at her. "You think that this," he points to the half washed plate, "is some sort of romantic gesture."

"For you," she says, "it's certainly something. And I'm willing to bet that you wouldn't do it for just anybody, right?" He wants to tell her that, of course, he'd do it for lots of people. He's just a nice guy like that, but he isn't a nice guy and he barely does this for Kurt – never mind following her orders pretty much as soon as she asked him to. "My point exactly," Rachel grins when he's been silent for a few minutes, seething to himself.

He shakes his head at her as he finishes the last plate. "There you go," he says in a sickly sweet voice as he passes it over, their hands brushing for the slightest of moments. He looks for the dishtowel before realizing that Rachel is still using it, and she's being way too slow for his liking, "Rach, come on!"

He sees her smirk for the first time and it almost leaves him powerless. "One second sweetie," she grins at his gormless expression and eventually hands over the towel, "and don't worry, I won't tell anyone about you being a good little boyfriend and doing the dishes for me." And then she pats his head and stalks to the living room

Finn only stares. If this is payback for him acting that way with her, then Karma's a bitch.


Rachel hears Finn's footsteps a couple of minutes later and looks up to see a pretty pissed looking Finn. She didn't exactly enjoy being a bit snarky with him, but maybe a taste of his own medicine will be good for the man.

"Where's Puck?" he asks, noticing the lack of his friend.

She points to the door opposite them, "he went in there."

Finn raises an eyebrow, "the guest bedroom? You know, that's where you're supposed to be sleeping tonight."

She shoots up in her seat. "What?" she shrieks, her eyes desperate, "you have to get him out of there!"

"Trust me," Finn comes to sit beside her, "one he's asleep, you're not going to wake him up for at least another ten hours. He can sleep through anything."

"What am I going to do then?"


She should never have asked!

And she can't believe that it's come to this. Where is the dignity in it? She insists on sleeping in his bed because there's no way that she can go on the floor and, to her shock, Finn seems pretty okay with it. For now. He was originally going to sleep on the couch before he remembered that Puck occasionally has midnight snacks and would be wandering through the apartment and, if he saw Finn not in his room while Rachel was, suspicions would arise.

Finn comes out of the bathroom after she tells him that she's changed and she ignores the smirk when he sees her puppy dog pajamas. "Nice choice," he chuckles to himself.

"Shut up," she mumbles, picking up her bag and searching for the required item.

"What're you doing?" he groans because it's making too much noise for him to sleep. He grabs his pillow of the makeshift bed and hides his head under it.

"I'm just getting Gumby."

He peeks from beneath the pillow, "what the hell is a Gumby?"

"My stuffed bear," she says with a childlike grin and Finn has no idea what to say to that. She's a twenty four year old who still has a stuffed animal, who also sleeps with it. That's kinda sad. He hears the rustling of the sheets and looks up to see her finally in bed, the cover pulled over her and some old, dirty looking bear. "Goodnight."

"Night," he says into the pillow until a thought pops into his mind. "Rach," he catches her attention, "I, err – I sometimes sleepwalk and stuff, so if you see me get up in the night, it's fine,'kay?"

The woman nods, reaching over and turning off the lamp so that the room plummets into blackness. Finn doesn't go to sleep right away, seeing as it's only eleven but Rachel drops right off the face of the Earth the moment that her head touches the pillow, and he allows himself to listen to her soft, rhythmic breathing.

It's almost soothing to do so and begins to sleepily close his eyes, the events of the day rolling through his mind.


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