"Rachel," Mike called to her as he pulled his bag up off the tiled floor. Rachel – purposefully – hadn't heard and her pace only sped up as she tried to get out of the choir room as fast as she could, without running or bouncing forward like she had so greatly desired to.

She knew that her futile attempts at trying to run away from him weren't going to work forever. She lucked out in the morning in the parking lot, when Finn had swooped in and offered to pull her bag for her as he told her about all the horrible and brain damaging experience he went through the night before involving the living room couch, his step brother and his step brother's boyfriend. Lunch period was an even closer call. Mike had gotten as close as sitting down next to her before Brittany came along and dragged him to where the cheerleaders were, asking if he'd be so kind to show them a few of his signature dance moves. By the time Tina had gotten up from her seat to give the pom-pom carrying students a piece of her mind, Rachel had managed to get out of the cafeteria undetected.

The hallway was virtually empty, and her locker was around the next corner. His footsteps seemed to get louder and louder with each passing second and for a moment, she was tempted to sprint around the school to get to the exit and to her car as fast as she possibly could. But as much as she would have liked them too, things didn't always work out the way Rachel wanted them to. This was one of those times.

"Rachel." He said again, his voice almost pleading.

She would have continued to ignore him had his hand not made its way onto her shoulder. She stopped in her tracks, the grip she had on the file in her arms tightening as her entire body tensed.

It was warm outside, that Friday night, but the moon was a gorgeous shade of grayish blue and the stars littering the night sky were calling out to her. Stumbling out of the front door of Puck's home, Rachel found her feet leading her to the porch steps. She sat her wine cooler down beside her before taking a seat herself. Her body drank in the light breeze as her hair tickled the back of her neck, and she released a sigh of unadulterated bliss.

In that moment it didn't matter that Finn had given her a kiss on the cheek and practically ditched her for the rest of the night, only waving over at her if their eyes met.

It didn't matter that Puck had been trying to wedge her off himself for the entire night. 'Don't get me wrong, Berry, I love the attention, but I'm trying to host a kick-ass party here and you're kind of throwing me off my game. Maybe you can glue yourself to me later, princess.'

It didn't matter that the skirt of her dress had been torn while she was reaching for a jar of jellybeans when she was going through the cabinets of the Puckerman kitchen. It didn't even matter that she had no idea how it happened, and it was probably never going to look the same again, and that the dress was one of her absolute favorites.

None of it mattered because she was being one with nature and her fellow stars above.
And the alcohol running through her system tended to make her mellow when she had no way to burn off her energy.

It only lasted for a moment, though.

Her hands cupped over her knee caps and she bent over with a heavy sigh, her hair curtaining her face. She wasn't going to cry, there was no real need for that. She and Finn were fine, had been for a good four months. It was one stupid party, with a group of people they both called friends. If anything, she should have been scolding herself for wanting to spend more time with him when he had other people to pay attention to. But then she'd see Kurt and the boy that didn't even go to McKinley nuzzling their noses together in the corner, and her eyes would sometimes flash over Santana crying over the fact that Brittany hadn't been tearing her clothes off fast enough, and then her eyes would finally settle on Mike and Tina dancing like idiots in the middle of all the chaos, singing the song playing from Puck's playlist completely off-key and not giving a damn about it.

Rachel knew it wasn't too much to ask for her and Finn to do the same, or to do anything, really, together for a change. They hadn't seen each other in ten days. Ten days was a long time span for no physical contact and she had her doubts that Puck would spend eight of those ten days with Finn playing a video game of some sort, like Finn had told her whenever he'd reject the invitations to the Berry household. The mohawked boy did have a little sister he had to take care of, and his mother gave herself a little time off during the summer meaning Puck would have to babysit and help around the house quite a bit more than he normally would. She knows this because he called her, in the third week of their vacation, begging her to save him because his sister was pelting him with really hard skinned dolls and it hurt like absolute hell.

Going to a party together after ten days physically apart seemed like a great idea. The perfect way to forget her worries and have Finn reassure her that they were perfectly okay, and that he still loved her as much as he did that night at Nationals the year before, and that she was just going through one of her it's-the-worst-case-scenario-and-I'm-going-to-lose-everything stages in their relationship.

The party wasn't supposed to make her feel worse.

"Find h-eeer." She heard someone slur behind her before the front door was slammed closed, and she turned her head to see Mike staggering up to her.
He said nothing, and neither did she. She had a theory that he would speak up first if he wanted conversation and if you didn't have something important to say, you shouldn't say anything at all. It was a little unnerving having him stare at you with that questioning look on his face as you went on and on about basically nothing at all just to fill up the inevitable awkward silence that would follow if you didn't keep talking or if someone else didn't show up. She recalls getting that look more than a few times before the summer, when she would run into him at the grocery store or would happen to be walking home using the same path that he was.

She still isn't sure if he found her stories about her first two ballet recitals entertaining or not.

"Hey—" he pauses, a hand moving up to his mouth to muffle his relatively quiet burp. "Rachel."

She giggles.

Her hands tingle.

And he's sitting down beside her.

She can't help but notice the muscles on his arms. His clavicles are also beginning to look incredibly lick-able.

She chooses to simply focus on his arms, and his eyes; his really, really chocolaty, big brown eyes.

"Who'd you lose?"

"Hm?"

The crinkle of confusion between his furrowed eyebrows steals her attention for a second or two. Probably five, she guesses.

"You asked someone to find her, who's 'Her'?"

The little 'o' of realization his lips form is kind of really cute.

"Red."

"Red?"

"Puck's pillow. I put her down for like, two seconds, and she just vanished into nothingness. Like those really rude Pokémon that won't let you catch 'em. I haven't come across one before, but I'm pretty sure they exist. Pokémon are kind of like people, so there as to be at least one naturally annoying, rude, disrespectful one somewhere."

"I agree."

She had an extremely vague idea of what he just said. The only thing she knows about video games is that they're violent, because Finn's always going on about killing one solider or this enemy or that zombie. And the only cartoon programs she knows are the Powerpuff Girls, Kim Possible and a wide variety of superhero focused shows that she learned about from Finn.

She still believes Pokémon has something to do with poking, she just doesn't know what's being poked.

They sit there, on the first porch step, under the starlight, with the faint sound of a Nicki Minja song playing in the background. Her body can't help but shift closer to him and when she wraps her arms around his waist, she's glad she didn't choose to stay inside and force herself to suffer further. When his arm drapes over her shoulder, the corners of her lips curl into a small smile.

The silence is refreshing, rejuvenating and relaxing. When his other arm decides to wind its way around her waist, she allows herself to close her eyes and sink into his embrace and just enjoy it.

It's not Finn, or Noah, or even the long lost memory of Jesse, but it'll do.

She decides a lie would be best in this situation. "If you would please excuse me, Michael, I have an urgent appointment I need to get to."
She just wants his hand to leave her shoulder, because the memory terrifies her but more than anything, it makes her feel sick and dirty. She makes a weak attempt at shrugging it off, and he gets the message and allows his hand to fall back to his side. She thinks he's going to give up the chase and simply let her be.

He doesn't.

"I'll walk you out while we talk—"

Cold and stone-like, that's her best bet in this situation. She takes these words of advice and uses them in practice.

"There's nothing to talk about."

They turn the corner and she forgets to go to her locker and get out the books she'll need for her homework assignments, still stuck on wondering whether or not running would be a good ide, still trying to walk away from him, still having him follow her.

She would have been impressed by his persistence, had she not been so annoyed.

"You can't just pretend nothing happened."

"Yes I can, because nothing happened."

With those words she turned on her heel and faced him head-on for the first time since that night, her arms folded tightly over her pink colored file with her jaw clenched.

"It was a mistake, Michael," she spits out. Her words taste like metal on her tongue. "Everything about that was a drunken mistake and I will not have you trying to morph this into something bigger than it actually is. I don't know what you think you'll gain by trying to shove this down my throat for the rest of eternity but I am asking you politely to stop right this instant, because frankly, you're embarrassing yourself by getting worked up over such a trivial matter."

His shoulders slumped and his lips parted, aching to ask so many questions and say so many things but being unable to because they had found a way to dry up. An incredibly pained expression painted his features and nothing but disbelief glowed in his eyes.

"Now, if you'll excuse me."

Flashing him a pleasant smile, she continued her journey to the exit of the school building, efficiently leaving him in the middle of the hall, her words rotating in his mind and repeating like a sickening mantra that made him feel ill.

"Have I ever told you how great you are?" She asks, randomly. This brings his attention to the hand that had managed to tangle itself up in the material of his black shirt, currently tugging it up ever-so-slightly.

He tilts his head down to look at her, his bottom lip pouted in concentration as he tries to recall ever hearing those words coming out of anyone's mouth in direction to him before. He can't seem to remember it happening. Unsure of whether or not his mouth is going to betray him and ruin whatever this moment was by questioning her on why one of his buttons was undone, he only shakes his head 'no'.

She's warm, pleasantly warm, like a compliment to the summer evening, and her hair smells like apples with the slightest hint of lavender, and her skin is soft and the way her petite body feels in his arms is unbelievable.

And then, all of a sudden, her lips are softer than her skin and her hands have decided to tangle themselves up in his hair and her body is so close to his own that the only heat he feels is radiating off of her and he can't help but clutch onto her and pull her in more because the entire thing is making his head spin and his hormones crazy and before he knows it, he's craving for more.

A needy, greedy, desperate whimper slips past his lips and the party's over.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

She repeats those words in a panicked state as she removes herself from him and gets back onto her feet, dusting off the back of her skirt before rushing back inside the house without so much as a glance over her shoulder, knocking her abandoned wine cooler down in the process.

He doesn't make much of an effort to show that he wasn't okay with that. Even with a slightly more sobered mind to back him up, he still wants her to come back.

She does return, fifteen minutes later, her limbs hooked securely around Finn's body as he kept her in place on his back and walked over to his car, casually bidding Mike farewell on his way.

He notices her face buried against her boyfriend's neck, hiding her eyes from his gaze.

He doesn't know why he didn't chase after her then.

It's probably why he wasn't chasing after her now.

Matt Rutherford was a cheater. There was no doubt whatsoever about that. This must be distinctly understood. Ever since he and Mike started playing video games together, that was an easily recognizable fact. While sitting side by side on a couch, crouched over controllers, elbows were always bumping and feet would be kicking. Mike had learned to defend himself, if an elbow went up on Matt's side, he threw one up as well. He wanted to try and kick his leg? A bump with the shoulder would be a sufficient rebuttal. His favorite trick was what they both dubbed, "The Reach and Mash" where you reach blindly across to the other man's controllers and mash buttons like there's no tomorrow. Not only did he use physical attacks, mental were probably his favorite.

His intensity didn't depend on the game either. They could be playing Scrabble and Matt would be trying to convince Mike to play the wrong words. Not that they ever did play Scrabble, first person shooters were more their genre. Along with any of the Mario games, Portal, Call of Duty, Just Dance, okay, really anything but Scrabble. And not to mention the fact that he was a sore loser, and would often bet a couple bucks on a game just for the hell of it.

Today the wager was ten bucks. The total win as sitting on the glass coffee table in front of them, guaranteed to go to the winner of whatever they decided to compete in.

After debating and internal strategies on both their parts, or lack of it on Mike's, the game of choice was Mario Kart and although that was one of Mike's favorites games, along with one of the ones they had developed the most skill at Matt didn't even have to attempt to throw his friend off his game. Mike's driving was swerving more than usual and he seemed to keep attempting turns at impossible times, hitting things or spinning out. After Mike got hit by a blue shell for about the fifth time Matt paused the game, turning to his friend.

"What's up with you today, man? You're like in second to last place." Matt commented. Mike grimaced and sat up straight, setting his controller on his knee and stretching his arms over his head and then out in front of him. He almost decided to snatch the ten dollars sitting on the table in front of them before realizing that would be a direct violation of the bro code, so he pulled his hands back to pick up his controller.

"Peach must have bulked up over the summer," he deadpanned and reached over to Matt's controller, pressing play before he could even respond. Mike turned a sharp corner, now passing Matt's paused character, as he didn't even attempt to play. He watched his friend's eyebrows furrow once more in concentration, unfaltering focus, like he hadn't even noticed that anything was different than when they were playing moments before.

"Dude, what the hell is wrong with you?" Mike wasn't usually on for snippy remarks unless it regarded their attempts at trash talk. Those normally weren't so intimidating either, so the fact that Mike showed any kind of bitterness was a new thing to him. Well, not necessarily new as Mike was really good at coming up with sarcastic remarks to some of Matt's antics. Sometimes. Only sometimes.

"Dude," He said with an exaggerated tone, like the word itself just annoyed him. "Something must be wrong with you. I'm killing you here." He finished flatly, his eyes not straying from the flickering screen that flooded his mind with bright colors and distracting animations. Anything to keep his thoughts from straying to what was really bothering him.

"Not even playing," Matt noted and tossed his controls at Mike's feet that were about shoulder length apart and his elbows rested on his knees. His eyes flashed down to it for just a moment before shrugging, even if Matt wasn't playing, he was still playing, he didn't need to talk about anything now. At least not with him.

"Well, you should or else you're going to be paying for my combo meal at Taco Bell," Mike replied once more and it interested Matt as to how Mike could still keep playing the game when he was talking to him, as if he weren't really focused on either thing and maybe something in the middle.

"Not like I haven't before," he said pointedly and then continued with his actual concern. "Come on, man. Is it Tina?" He asked and Mike just gritted his teeth. Of course it wasn't Tina, Tina and his relationship was stable at the moment except there was this little intruding force in his brain. Of course, she was actually little and it was like a nagging, just a pestering like that person that stands with their finger next to your face and continually repeats, "I'm not touching you." Like that, but worse because others couldn't see, and he wouldn't let them see, why he was frustrated.

"No, it's nothing. Just pick up the controller and drive your kart before I lap you," he said still watching as the scenery flew past the character he was playing. "I mean, I like beating you man, but humiliating is completely different." Matt rolled his eyes and Mike kicked the small plastic controller in his direction and he scooped it up.

"Don't think I'm done. Just because you're acting like a douche bag, doesn't mean I'm going to let this go," Matt said, kicking up the gas on his kart, having no trouble maneuvering seeing as most of the rest of the competitors were far ahead of him, including Mike.

"Not a douche bag," Mike replied simply. "Just a…" He dragged out the one letter word, swerving the kart drastically. "Hold on…wait for it…" He said and Matt rolled his eyes, knowing exactly what was coming and yet he still continued to drive forward, with the hope that maybe, with some luck Mike would crash before the finish line.

"Winner!" Mike grinned and tossed the controller on to the couch beside him and stood up, taking the ten bucks on the table with him. "Come on, man. Taco Bell's on me." He said grabbing his keys off the counter as he walked to the door, gesturing for Matt to follow.

As much as Mike probably didn't want Matt to figure out what kept him occupied, he probably would. He usually did.