Author's Note / Summary: This is the LAST instalment in the series; I know – very short! But I only ever intended it to be around four chapters long. Don't worry though, I'm not done with Puck/Rachel. I'm just done with them in this 'verse. :)

The next few hours passed painfully for Puck. Finn didn't keep his stupid mouth quiet, and so all manner of text messages and attempted (but screened) phone calls had found their way to him, even though he was resolutely not attending rehearsals, and sitting at a shitty park he'd found nearby, which was more brown grass and graffiti than anything else.

Not one of those messages or calls had come from Rachel, and he wondered what she was doing. He thought maybe she was trying to rehearse, but seriously, that group and their fucked up love of gossip? Maybe she wasn't.

He hadn't been assed to put an icepack on his stupid bruise, deciding to let the world see what Finn was capable of. Let Quinn see it, and stuff looking good for rehearsals. This whole thing had become a mess in a ridiculously short amount of time, and he'd only wanted someone to tease, make fun of, make out with (in that way, Rachel was the complete package, though she might not agree). He never expected it to turn into this.

Usually, he'd handle this situation the way he handled any situation that involved other people. Put the other people down (or in their place, as he liked to think), and then get on with life. It was easy, it was straightforward, it could even feel good if the sledge landed just right.

But Puck couldn't hide from the fact that he actually liked Rachel. More than a body to throw slushies at, more than a quick lay, more than someone to verbally spar with until he landed the bullseye and walked away. The more he looked at them both as people, the more he was confused and puzzled to realise that they actually weren't so different. She did cut people down, but in a different way, using her intelligence to make it less obvious. He didn't understand why he liked that about her, but he did.

He wasn't looking to go steady with anyone, though. He didn't want a girlfriend. He didn't want a baby. He didn't want to get married. All that stuff was the kind of fucked up shit that had destroyed his parent's lives and he wasn't interested in that. He'd rather be a player and fuck other people over, than fuck himself over.

He sighed and squinted up at the sky. Rehearsals would still be going, and he supposed, in a weird way, he did care about this Sectionals shit. He got up and made his way back to the hotel, wondering what would greet him when he got there.

It was Mr. Schuester who pulled him aside when he got back to the carpark. None of the Glee kids were around, but Schue had that stressed kicked puppy look in his face. Puck rolled his eyes. He didn't really have a great deal of time for 'dance your feelings out' Mr. Schue, who had taken poor, bruised Finn under his wing, like that was some kind of awesome charity act. Puck knew that Finn didn't even know the tip of the 'my family is shit' iceberg. Hell, he knew – from his own cousin's life story – that even he didn't know. There was serious tragedy out there, and a father leaving a child? Jesus. Big deal, man, get over it.

'Do you have any idea how much trouble we could all be in?' Mr. Schuester said. He shook his head, looked past Puck. 'To have two students sleeping together on a school excursion, under my supervision? We could be disqualified, for a start.'

'It's just rumours.' Puck drawled, and Mr. Schuester's face set.

'Really? Because when I heard those rumours, Rachel actually drew me aside to explain her situation, and she seems to think it happened. Maybe you take sex lightly, Noah, but not everyone does.'

'Fucking hell, it's not like we have to tell anyone! We'd obviously kept it pretty fucking quiet until Finn opened his big fucking mouth, and I know it was him. Seriously. How about we keep not telling anyone, and if it comes up, we just say it didn't happen? It's not like I want to broadcast to the world that I fucked the world's biggest Gleek.'

Puck realised that he may have said the wrong thing, by the hardening of Mr. Schuester's face, the way his lips thinned. Mr. Schuester pointed to an unoccupied bench, and Puck went over to sit on it, with the teacher following him.

'Look,' Schuester started off, looking down at the bench, 'I know Rachel can be hard to take, but beneath that, she's just a young woman with a heart that can be broken. Just like I know that you're a young man in the same situation, for all you pretend you're not. I know you think that I just want to get us through Sectionals in one piece, and I do, but I'm concerned that you're both in a situation where you're not ready to be dealing with the responsibilities of an actual serious sexual relationship. I mean no offence, Puck, but you seem to struggle with maintaining basic friendships.'

Puck schooled his expression so that it didn't change. Inside he was confused, because it wasn't often anyone actually indicated that he might just be a teenager with a heart that was breakable. And having the teacher who never seemed to see him, lay this out in a way that was patient, and calm, and maybe even nice, was difficult to take.

'If you're planning on discarding Rachel,' which Mr. Schuester said in an understanding tone, 'maybe just try a little compassion when you do.'

'Whatever. You don't know me,' Puck said quietly, 'and you don't know us. Like she's the gentle one being taken along for a ride. What is that? Do none of you see what a shark she is? She can hold her own.'

Mr. Schuester looked up, smiled a little, and Puck realised that Mr. Schuester knew. When did that happen?

'I know it's never black and white, Noah. I know that. I also know that if you keep putting her down publicly, I will report you to the Principal. And if she does the same to you, you can bet she'll be in the same boat too.'

'You're not gonna tell anyone about the sex thing?' Puck said, suddenly, because he did want to perform in Sectionals and it would be nice if they weren't disqualified at this point, because fuck, he'd be putting up with petty bullshit from the Gleeks for the next few years for that. Probably even if he moved state.

'I'll tell the Guidance Counsellor, and it will be her call, but I'll wait until after Sectionals. It's the best I can do, sorry Noah.'

Puck said nothing, because he actually thought overall, that was a pretty good offer. Mr. Schuester waited, and then stood up and clapped him on the shoulder. He had turned to walk away, when Puck stopped him.

'Aren't they rehearsing?'

'Yeah, I've got Rachel on it. As you said, she can hold her own.'

Puck smirked, shook his head, stayed on the bench a little longer left to his own thoughts. An idea was growing.

He caught the last thirty minutes of rehearsals, with Mr. Schuester back in control, and the Glee kids mostly too caught up in movements and costume and pitch and cues to do more than shoot him curious looks. Finn glowered at him, and Puck motioned a fake kiss in his direction, which made Finn miss his cue and Puck feel all warm inside. Rachel didn't look at him, and in her strenuous continuation to ignore him for the rest of the rehearsal, he knew that she couldn't stop thinking about him.

After rehearsals, however, Kurt drew him aside and started babbling in malicious glee about something to do with Rachel, and poor fashion, and Puck's ability to discard women, and about ten other things that just had him thinking, Jesus, there is no way I could do as much damage to that girl as this guy could. In the end he pushed Kurt away, one hand on one shoulder.

'It's not like that.' He said, as Kurt looked at him, stunned. 'And if that's what you're telling the other Gleeks,' he said under his breath, 'you better fucking knock it off, or I will make everything else I've ever fucking done to you seem like a walk in the park once I'm through with you.'

'Understood.' Kurt said quietly, still shocked, and walking off to the rest of the Glee kids in a daze.

After that, he had to field Quinn drawling something about how he'd probably need to take acid baths to wash off the stench, and Santana saying; 'don't think I'll ever let you touch me again now that you've touched that.'

And in about twenty minutes, Puck suddenly knew exactly what Rachel meant when she said it was never just one insult. Never just one person, or one thing to deal with. If he wanted to, in the space of half an hour he could have well and truly destroyed her and everyone else would have bought it. Not only that, they were giving him insults he hadn't even thought of. He wondered what they'd said to Rachel, what they were planning on saying to her.

It pissed him off. There was only one person he wanted to talk to, and she wasn't there. He left the rest of them milling in their nerves, excitement and gossip, and went to find her.

He tried her room. The foyer. The eating area. His room. But eventually he found her at the payphones, talking to one of her fathers (something he could never work out, didn't they get confused with her calling both of them Dad?) He approached from behind, so she didn't see him, and the crappy hotel carpet muffled the sound of his feet. He could hear the catch in her voice though, the tears, even though she was being pretty quiet.

'...No, no, Dad, it's okay. I just wanted to see how you were going, really. I hope your closing argument goes well. No, really, Dad, everything is okay. You know, just the usual stress of competition, but I've always been able to handle that. Yeah...' she laughed a little, '...yeah, exactly. Well you know, I'd rather the nerves come out now than during the actual performance!'

A bit more small talk, a lot of lies about how fine she was really doing, and she hung up the phone. For a moment, she just stood there, he could see her shoulders heaving, deep and even, like she was steadying herself. And when she turned around and saw him, he could see a tear glittering in the corner of one of her eyes.

'Look. I'm sorry.' He said abruptly. 'I'm a total shit. Can we talk?'

'Here?'

'No. Somewhere more private.'

'Oh. Okay.' She said, shrugging minutely.

They ended up in his room. She sat on the floor, and he sat on his bed, wondering where he should start. Finally, as he watched her looking fixedly at the carpet, he decided he should just start.

'I don't want a relationship with you, not because you're you, but because I'm not into that shit. I didn't tell them in there,' he indicated rehearsals, 'that you were awful, or bad, or any of the shit I said or kind of said to Finn. Finn makes me crazy, and that's not you, that's just...Finn and me. So you don't have to worry about what I said to the other gossip-hungry Gleeks. Though, really, I reckon they don't need me to come up with ways to say you're awful or bad.'

Rachel smiled a little, breathed out a laugh.

'But I like you,' he said, and Rachel looked up, eyes wide. 'I mean I think you're hot, but you're also a bit of a dick, like me. Just...smarter about it. I think,' Puck paused and swore twice, 'I've never had a friend before. I mean I know you think Finn and the boys but that's not real. It's not something I can depend on. Especially now that I – you know – sing and shit.'

'Would we have to stop having sex?' Rachel said slowly, like she couldn't believe what he was saying.

Puck stared at her, felt a buzz of heat go through him. This girl, he thought, was just surprising in ways that he couldn't predict. Sometimes that was a bad thing, but sometimes it really wasn't.

'Well I can do friends with benefits, but I don't know if you can. Chicks can't, sometimes. Some guys too.' He added.

'We could just find that one out the hard way, I mean this is going to be kind of a disaster either way, right?' Rachel said with a half smile, and then shrugged.

'Look,' she said, 'you're right. I can be a bully. I do cut people down. I try and catch myself at it, but honestly, I've been raised to...be the best, knock the competition down, and I have to admit I like to win, it would be naive of me not to acknowledge that. I don't want to be this person for the rest of my life, and I don't want to be with someone who celebrates other people's pain. And...' she paused, took a deep breath, 'I also like you. I think there could be some mutual benefits to a friendship.'

She stood, walked over the bed, and sat down next to him, taking his hand in her own. He threaded his fingers through hers, and squeezed a little.

'I've never had a successful friendship before, I should warn you.' She said. He laughed.

'Not even with Finn?'

'Are you kidding?' She laughed. 'We're always manipulating each other! He wants something from me. I want something from him. He hides something from me. I hide something from him. I keep thinking that beneath that all he wants to do is...be nice to me. And maybe that's true, but the reality is that-'

'-he's a dick.' Puck interrupted.

'No, the reality is that he's...Quinn's dick.' Rachel said, trying out the word on her tongue awkwardly. Puck grinned, knocked her with his shoulder.

'I'll knock the polish off you yet.'

She sniffed imperiously.

'Only if it transfers to you, I can't spend all my time with a philistine.'

He turned, shrugged, found her face with his fingers, and kissed her the way he wanted to earlier, before Finn had found them in the closet, before she had jerked away and asked him what he was doing. His lips skated across hers, gently, and she was opening her mouth to him before he did the same, finding her tongue, letting his mouth slant across hers. His fingers pressed against the warmth of her scalp, hair cascading between his fingers. He felt a shiver go through her, and couldn't resist smirking, man, he so had it.

He went to push her back down onto the bed, but she matched him for the motion, so they ended up toppling down side by side. He pulled them up the mattress, and she went with him, but then her eyes flickered to the to the door uncertainly.

'I didn't lock it.' She said, and he snickered to himself. Pressed his lips against hers, and dragged her over him so that she was straddling him, legs on either side of his torso, heat pressed against him. Not in quite the right spot, but he had plenty of time to correct that later.

'P-Puck.' She said breathlessly, and she moved her hips against him uncertainly, and then pressed down, breath hitching. With his hands and her help, they moved her so that she was pressed directly against his hard on, and then he grinned, because he couldn't help himself. If this was what their friendship was going to be, he thought he could more than handle that. He ground up into her and her head fell forward, her mouth fell open.

'Door still isn't locked.' She said, and then was reaching between them to undo the fly of his jeans. He shifted to give her better access and looked over at the door. Anyone could walk in. He thought that could possibly be terrible, but...Mr. Schuester already knew, Finn knew, the other Gleekers could go die in a fire for all he cared. He'd love to see the look on Finn's face if he walked in, but that was tired, hadn't that already happened with the janitor's closet earlier in the day?

Puck thanked his own awesomeness that he actually did have condoms in his room, nearby even.

'I bet you'd like that, the door unlocked, wouldn't you?' He said, as he shifted enough that he could get his jeans off where they fell over the bed somewhere. Rachel started to take her skirt off, but he grabbed her wrist and she turned to him, uncertainly.

'Leave the skirt on.' He said, and her eyes widened, and unexpectedly, the corners of her mouth turned up into a smirk.

'I can do that.' She said, shimmying out of her underwear and then springing off the bed to lock the door before he could stop her. If he had it his way, he would have fucked her with the door open, with cameras, and an audience, so that he could show everyone how awesome the sex was, and how much they weren't getting any of it. Rachel with clothes on and walking down school halls was a pocket-sized migraine trigger. Rachel during sex? Different story.

He pulled her back on the bed when she approached and once more she was straddling him. They kissed, fervently, and her small hands and nails delicately resting against his ribs shot little pinpricks of heat all the way down to his dick. Oh yeah, he thought, this was almost like a friendship with Santana, except that Rachel was better at the actual friendship part.

He twisted beneath her, and the friction against her underwear made her exhale hard, but he wasn't even trying to get her off. Instead he groped for his wallet, found it, and extracted a condom. He handed it to her.

'Put it on me.' He said, more direct than usual, chancing it. She blushed immediately, her eyes took on that little girl look that made it so wrong and so much better and then she mumbled something about having to take her underwear off and maybe he should take his off too because the mechanics might go a little better, and he zoned out while she kept rambling, and kicked his boxers off because fuck, she did have a point there. And then she was opening the condom and looking at it in that way that suggested she was trying to run through every sex education class, seminar, YouTube video she had ever seen about it so she could get it just right.

'I have others, you know, this isn't the part where you're supposed to have performance anxiety.' He said, and she laughed under her breath and then, with the kind of skill that suggested she really did pay attention in health class, she rolled on the condom, all efficiency, showing no signs of intimidation at all, none of the awkwardness he expected.

'Come here.' He said, and pulled her over him with one arm, using his hand to grab a handful of her hair in the other to get the right angle to kiss her properly. He knew the moment she went from hesitation to 'okay, I'm into it.' She made small noises that made him think he should get inside her quickly, and he'd had all these plans to be slower this time, gentle, even though it was nothing like him. He just wanted to try it, but now she was on top of him in her fucking knee high skirt and his dick was against her thigh and he decided whoever would be lame enough to take it slow, had to be retarded.

He reached between them, grasped himself, kept kissing her as he slid himself up and down between her folds, slicking himself up with a seriously hot amount of wetness. She was starting to draw away to say something, when he found the right angle and pushed up into her. And then he could move his hand away, grasp her hip, and encourage her to sink down, down onto him.

He made a sound somewhere between a grunt and a groan, and Rachel's eyes had practically rolled into the back of her head and she moaned low, deep down in her chest, and he cupped her breast like he could find that sound again, feel it thrumming through her sternum.

She was hardly moving, once he was all the way inside of her, hot and tight against him. He almost thought that she was in pain, but eventually she opened her eyes, dazed, and stared at him in shock.

'This is terribly unfair. It feels so good, Noah. I can't concentrate in this position.' She managed, gasping between syllables and words, and making him twitch inside of her, at which she closed her eyes and ground her hips down between them.

They both groaned at that.

'If you can talk, you can move.' He said, and guided her up with the hand on her hip, and then back down again. Rachel moved again of her own volition, and then again, and then had established a slow and uncertain rhythm that still felt epic.

Rachel had braced herself against his chest, lightly scraping her fingernails over his pecs and probably not even realising that her right ring finger was getting his erect nipple every time. It felt awesome. Her eyes were shut tightly, and she clearly was having to concentrate very hard, and he felt like there was a furnace between his legs, around him, and it was burning him up. Every now and then she'd start to mouth something, a word perhaps, some lecture that she'd been saving for the worst possible time, the name of God, or Noah, but all that came out was the occasional moan or gasp.

'You speechless is fucking great,' he managed. 'You speechless because I'm fucking you senseless is like the greatest fucking thing in the world.'

She managed to open her eyes to throw a half-hearted glare at him, but he placed both his hands on her hips and controlled more of the rhythm, faster, deeper, arching his hips up so that he could hopefully drag against the inside of her better. It seemed to work, and the arms she was using to brace against him actually buckled. He was about to say something about how awesome he was, when her lips pressed clumsily against his, mouth open, breath puffing against his lips.

Jesus. He thought. Maybe she isn't the only one being fucked senseless here.

He reached a hand between her, managed to find her clitoris despite not having much coordination working for him, but it didn't seem to matter. When she realised what he was doing, she reached her own hand between them, tangled her fingers in his own affectionately before moving his hand away and then she moved her hand back between her legs and he knew what she was doing. Puck actually opened his eyes and wished he could see, because oh god, she was touching herself while he was fucking her.

But he couldn't see shit, so he closed his eyes again, brought the hand he was going to use to get her off up to her face so he could touch the skin there, trace her ear, grasp at the back of her neck.

'Oh my god, Rachel,' he said, when she whimpered and started tightening around him. He knew she wasn't there yet, but he hoped she would be soon, because he was starting to have to think about maths and ugly people and politics and all sorts of crap to keep up.

'All friendships should be this way,' he said, breathless, and he felt her smile against his cheek.

'Yeah,' she said, floaty and high, 'yeah...this was such a good idea of mine, I have the best...'

She cried out, started clenching against him more and more, and fuck, he couldn't last. He was not going to last. And she was so close, but not quite there yet. The pace was urgent, tense, and he could feel her fingers frantic and occasionally brushing against the base of him when he withdrew. Politics wasn't cutting it, and he felt the clenching of his own muscles, gathering in his lower thighs, across his abdomen, he was going to come.

'Fucking...' he gasped, 'gold stars, Rachel. You get-'

And her lips smashed against his so hard that he cut the inside of his lip on a tooth but it didn't matter, because he was coming, and she was clenched so hard around him, keening a desperate vibration into his mouth as she came too, digging nails into his shoulders.

It seemed to last forever, but it didn't, and by the time he was able to gather his thoughts together, she was pressed against him, resting her head in the crook of his shoulder, and he unexpectedly had one hand soothing across her upper back, and the other against her hair. They were both breathing hard, her exhales cooled his skin. He licked blood off the inside of his lip, but the cut didn't feel like anything serious.

Eventually she rolled off him to lie on her back, eyes closed, breathing; and he removed the condom, again tying it a knot and throwing it into some corner of the room.

'I have a performance tonight.' She said, and he couldn't detect the tone, was she serious? Disappointed? Happy? Maybe it was just a neutral statement.

'We have a performance tonight.' He amended, and she looked at him, an unexpected twinkle in her eyes, a smile glimmering.

'My first big performance with the Glee club,' she said, speculatively. 'I think we should celebrate, afterwards, don't you?'

He nodded, vaguely, and then realised she was looking at him hungrily, seriously, and that she totally wanted to sex him up. Already.

'Fuck me, Rachel, I hope I can keep up with you.' He said, grinning at her.

'I hope you can too, Noah.' She said, the genuine smile that he so rarely saw brightening her face. And when she pressed herself into his bare body and began to fall asleep, he didn't feel a need to walk away, or say something awful, or get dressed even. He was just okay lying there, thinking about the performance, and more importantly, all the ways they could 'celebrate' that performance together.

He did briefly think about taking a photo of them both lying together and sending it to Finn, though, because that's just the kind of guy he was.