A/N: Okay, so this is a first for me on many, many levels. If you aren't into Puck/Rachel or smut, don't read it, mmkay? It's rated M for a reason my friends. It just kind of poured out onto the page listening to Heartbreak Warfare by John Mayer; it's basically all AU though and probably set sometime in their senior year even though there is not much plot-specific in it. Happy reading—and happy replying (please!)

Disclaimer: I don't own it. Still.

There were few times in his life when he hadn't felt like a total fuck-up. The moments were far and few between, but at least they existed. Everyone needed something like that from one time to another, didn't they? He had usually attributed nailing Rachel Berry as one moment of his non-fuck-upitudes.

He groaned. She was so fucking crazy she had him making up new words and they didn't even fucking make sense anymore.

She was shaking her head and her voice was low and dangerous. "You couldn't even go? I mean…I know it was far away but… are you even listening to me?"

Puck sighed and dropped his head to the side, hanging it. "Yes, but you've been saying the same thing for a fucking hour."

So, yeah. Right now, dating Rachel didn't feel so much like a gold star as it felt like a punishment. Whatever. She'd been more pissed off before and he'd managed to calm her down. With her, it was just a combination of pushing the right buttons. Apparently, missing her annual performance in Fiddler on the Roof at the Columbus Jewish Center was not cool. Noted.

And apparently, letting his temper get the better of him was not as successful as turning charm on.

"I didn't ask for anything! You didn't even have to say anything nice about it afterward! I just wanted you to go!"

And there she went with the hands in the air… again. His mom was going to hear and his mom would totally take her side.

Again.

One of the things with being a badass was he never knew exactly when it was going to come out, and while she seemed to have a way to squash that part of him, she also seemed to have a way to magnify it. Like, at least five times and that was saying a lot for that much badassery. And he was about to go off on her and not in the good way.

He took a deep breath and focused on her face as a whole instead of her constantly moving mouth.

"…wanted a deadbeat for a boyfriend, I would've gone back to Finn when he asked."

Okay, hold up. Timeout.

She stopped. The fuck? Did he say that shit out loud? He looked down and his hands were actually forming a T like he was on the football field. Oh, she hated it when he did that.

"Stop!" He finally said, dropping his hands quickly as he stood up from the bed. "Don't even fucking talk about that to me. You drop his name again and this conversation is over."

"You're actually threatening to not talk to me?" She folded her arms tightly against her chest. "Way to be a grown up, Noah. I'm astounded at the progress you've made. I guess I should just be supremely grateful your knuckles aren't dragging on the ground."

He set his jaw and took a deep breath. Never hit a woman…never hit a woman. Of course he wouldn't. But he just thought when this was all over he might need to go the rounds with the punching bag in the weight room at school.

"Look," he said, holding a hand up. She stopped pacing and looked. Shit yeah. See… it was all about commanding. Even with a girl like Rachel. He knew this. He could totally do this. He had enough practice by now. "I'm sorry. I should've gone to your performance instead of going to play Halo with the guys."

"Wait…that's what you were doing? Your mom said you were sleeping."

"Oh." He said. Fuck it all. She shook her head and started pacing. It might've been the first time his mom had ever tried to actually cover him…did he really just blow it? Yes, yes he did. Fucking idiot. Maybe if he converted to Catholicism he should be one of those dudes that whip themselves with spikes. But he didn't really want to know if that was their religion what they did for fun. And whipping sounded a little too gay.

"It isn't like I expect a lot. I don't plot to ruin your life like Santana did. I don't trust you to come up with all the birth control. I don't make a million stupid demands because I've grown up. All I want is for us to spend time together. I know going to a musical isn't your favorite, but I had way better things planned for this afternoon to thank you. I offset all that other stuff," she offered a helpless shrug. "Is it really asking so much that I want you to put me before video games with the guys for one afternoon?"

His eyes slammed shut. Her voice was doing that high-pitched, wobbly thing it did before she cried. Damn it, he was a sucker for that voice. And she was still watching him, so he grumbled out the only answer he could come up with.

"No," he said in a flat tone. He looked down at his lap.

"So now that we're in agreement there, why did you lie to me about where you were?"

"I didn't. My mom did." He said simply.

And she was whipping out her phone—oh, hell. He had lied via text. He'd woken up kind of late and realized his mom was gone already for the long drive. Since they were down to one car (and since his stint in juvie two years ago, he was down to zero driving privileges until he was eighteen) it meant he didn't have a ride.

She shoved the phone in his face. "That message isn't from your mom. Unless your mom is also 'so sorry baby, I will make it up to you.' " Her tone and her posture, all of it was mocking him. Yeah, she was just winding up some more and her voice was probably going to hit that tone that made him want to light himself on fire—and not in the good way. Just to be clear, there were a couple of voices she had that lit him on fire. This was the not good one.

"Fuck, Rachel. What the hell do you want me to say? You've got me by the balls here."

She looked disgusted. "Lovely. That's just what I was after here, too, you..you…you asshole!" She spluttered out. On the rare occasion she squeaked out a swear word, it was usually cute. But this time her fists were clenched and her face was mad and it was scary as fuck.

She paced for a while and he didn't really know what to say and then she was back to being more like an injured bird. "I worked really hard, Noah. I just wish you thought that was important. Not because I expect you to love the theater or because it was a Jewish project—but because it was important to me. You have put up with me being gone for rehearsals, you have run lines with me-"

"—you swore you wouldn't tell anyone that I'm a good pretend ten year old—"

"—and then you didn't show up today, which makes me think you liked that I was gone. You liked the freedom of not having a girlfriend around, and you only did that other stuff so you could get into my pants." She finished, talking right over his interjection. She looked at him sadly. "If that's all the case, then your freedom can be easily arranged."

His jaw slackened as he watched her shake her head , then raise a hand to wipe at her nose with the back of it. Man, she must've really been upset because she normally didn't do shit like that at all…and was she talking about breaking up with him? She would really throw away almost two years (he was shocked admitting it had been that long even to himself, and even now) because he had missed a play?

She was reaching for her purse where it had fallen down in the small space between his double bed and the wall. There was just enough room for her to walk between the two, and the shortest distance from where he was to where she was going was with him crawling across the bed. He did it, then pushed the small black bag out of her hand.

"Come on, babe. I'm sorry. I already said that." He raised his eyebrows. "I know I missed the play and that makes me a bad boyfriend. You've put up with way worse shit from me." He took her hands, one in each of his. "If we break up over something like this, no one wins. I can do better. I did all that other stuff to help you out because I wanted to."

She didn't say anything, but she sniffled again. He dropped one of her hands and reached his free fingers up to swipe the tears from her cheeks. He dropped his voice to the one he knew made her knees weak and he cocked an eyebrow, laying it on a little thick but not really caring as long as they could fix the whole thing right now.

"I love you. I've done a lot of embarrassing shit because I love you so I shouldn't really have to prove myself anymore. I'm sorry I slept in. Once I did, I figured I should just go play video games and then we could hang now instead of then because I didn't have a ride."

"I wanted to look out in the audience and see you there," she sniffled. "One friend. One person I cared about. And you let me down."

Damn, he couldn't pretend that wasn't the most pathetic thing he'd heard in a long time. He knew she didn't have a lot of friends, and despite her drama, all she really ever wanted was support. Love. She liked to say she needed applause to live, but that wasn't entirely true. She needed love. He knew because he was the same way, deep down and way behind closed doors. Okay, well so maybe only with her was he like that. And he'd been like that with Quinn once upon a time. But it was just those two times—he would swear to it. But again, not really in public because even though he'd exclusively dated the same girl for two years (and she kept him from getting into a lot of trouble because her angry face scared him more than juvie ever would), he had a rep to protect.

He had been so willing to toss it out the window for her—that reputation, that life. As soon as he had any indication she was in it, he thought he would be bored with her in the snap of a finger (or… well… something that could be equally as short anyway). Instead, she had become the best thing in his life. He was still catching up to that one a little bit.

He didn't know what to say to her. His jaw flapped as he struggled to form a comeback of any kind. "I…I… well, I'll be at the next one."

She raised an eyebrow, folded her arms across her chest tightly and raised an eyebrow. Her jaw was set, her eyes was blazing. He wasn't sure if he was on the right path to undo all that at all.

"Because I mean, really," he started, his hands on her hips and smoothing over the fabric of her short skirt as he walked on his knees, right to the edge of the bed and lowered his voice. "What is this one play in the context of all the plays you're going to do? Huh?" He could actually hear her teeth grinding. "This one play is nothing, baby. You know I love you. I'll be there for all the other ones, the ones that aren't just community service. I'll pay for my tickets and I'll bring you dozens of roses."

Her breathing was speeding up and her posture had not relaxed. She still didn't look amused. She bent down to pick up the purse from the ground and held it by the thin shoulder strap as she looked at him.

It was time for him to bring the A-game. She was about ready to walk out the door. If she walked out the door, he had this sinking feeling they would never fix this and, even if they didn't break up, it would be one of those fights that would just come back to haunt him at the most inconvenient times. More than that, he knew it would just be the last in a long line of times he had let her down. He was genuinely sorry for each one and didn't want her to have the ammunition for their next war anyway.

"Fiddler on the Roof is a stupid play anyway, babe. You know it as well as I do because we rehearsed it together. Even though it's about a bunch of Jews, it is so not worth your time to keep doing this play anyway because it's far away and you can find even less cut-rate productions closer to home…"

She was shaking. He kept digging.

"I mean, I'm sure you did the best you could but it's one of those plays that makes everyone look ugly and sound stupid and—"

"This not about the fucking quality of the production!" She yelled. Goddamn that girl was fucking loud. And… really? He made her say fuck? Wow. It was like reaching a goal he never knew he had, although he wished it was under totally different circumstances.

"Shh, baby," he said, holding his hands out. "Please don't let my mom hear."

She let out a primal scream (okay, kind of hot but he liked it way better when her face wasn't totally contorted like an angry cage fighter) and took a swing with the purse. As it hit him right on the arm, and he held his arms up in defensive motions, she swung with more vigor and just what the fuck was in that thing, anyway? He was positive it was leaving marks on him from the mother fucking bricks or some shit.

She was yelling incoherent strings of words and he couldn't even understand her through the tears and the raised voice.

"—never thought the general consensus was true but you're nothing but a smarmy, egotistical, arrogant asshole who thinks he can just keep me in his back pocket for times when he's sexually frustrated and fuck if I don't just let—"

He wasn't proud of it even as it happened, but yeah. He totally snapped.

"Stop fucking hitting me with that goddamn thing!" He said, grabbing her purse with so much force the strap snapped as she tried to hang onto it. He flung it backwards, not exactly caring where it landed as long as it stopped running into his arm. He heard the smash of plastic against the far wall of his room but it was not the loudest thing in his head. The blood rushing through his ears was, and he thought his head might pop off or something. He wasn't sure he'd ever been quite that mad before. He grabbed her hard with one hand on each of her biceps and lifted her off the ground, finally kissing her with a hard, expertly moving mouth just to shut her the living fuck up.

She gasped and he just about blacked out from the sudden force of his erection as she used the leverage of his tight grasp to wrap her legs around his waist.

He used his torso to pin her against the wall, balancing himself precariously on the side of the bed as he raised one hand up to twine his fingers through her hair and pull, tugging hard enough to throw her head back so he could see the pulse point throbbing in her neck. Her breathing was as hard and ragged as his and he lowered his mouth to the beating point on the side of her neck. He darted his tongue across it experimentally when she groaned.

"More."

Well, there were certain times in his life he didn't mind taking orders, so he closed his lips around his tongue and sucked as hard as he could on the spot. He felt a warm rush of something wet where she was pressed against his waist. His untucked thermal shirt had ridden up with the force of her motion when she had flung her legs around him so quickly, so his bare stomach was pressed right to her.

Where he had her body pressed against the wall so tightly, he was free to use both his hands. While one was holding her hair so he could continue the assault on her neck, he lowered a hand to her breast and grabbed tightly, using his open palm to rub right against the perfect lump of flesh that was hidden underneath her black sweater. Suddenly, that was nowhere near fucking good enough as she let out something between a squeak and a moan that went right through him and made the hardest hard on he'd ever have even thicker.

His hips charged forward to hold her against the wall and he disconnected his lips from her neck, reaching blindly for the hem of her shirt before he yanked it over her head, tossing it behind him much like her purse. As her chest heaved underneath him in nothing but a blue and black lace bra, he surveyed the mark on her neck that was turning a deep purple. She was watching him with fire in her eyes but he thought she might be breathing too hard to speak. He only hesitated for a split second, suspended there and watching her raspy breath as he looked at her swollen lips and marked body, before he dove right back in to suck at the pulse point on the other side.

He felt her fingers grabbing at his head and then her hands insistently lowering his face to her breast. He eased his hands over the silky warmth of her back, pressed between him and the hard wall. He still wasn't quite close enough to her and so he slid one foot out and placed it on the ground, then the other so he was standing. He gave a hard thrust, watching her breasts bounce a little, but he wanted more.

He used the hands on her back to unhook her bra with practiced ease. Instead of throwing it behind him like he had her shirt, he guided it between them and released it from his fingers to fall to the floor once he got to the soaked crotch of her panties. He couldn't see them, pressed tight as they were together, so he hooked a finger inside and heard her breath catch before he twisted the thin fabric as much as he could and pulled, desperate to get it away from her body. The sound ripped through his room like their breath was ripping through them and she was still watching him, her eyes wild and her hands on his shoulders.

"I hate you," she growled. It was saying something that he didn't recognize her voice because he'd heard her talk, sing, and strut around on stage a fucking lot in the last two years.

His finger slid over her slick, bare skin. And he pulled back in surprise. It seemed like someone had gotten a little carried away at their last bikini waxing.

"No, you don't," he said confidently, pushing one, then two, then three fingers inside her. Her eyes closed and her breathing sped up. Her cheeks were flushed and he was caught between hoping she would pass out and wanting to hear every possible sound he could earn from her. "You love me and you know it." His words oozed confidence, but his actions were even more certain as he brushed his thumb over the sensitive bundle of nerves. Her eyes flew open body gave a violent shudder and thrust toward him, forcing his fingers all the way inside her.

"You're right," she panted, her eyes rolling back into her head. "Oh, God." She couldn't do anything else before she reared up, wrapping her arms around his neck, soaking his fingers until he felt all the evidence of her arousal starting to drip down his arm. Hell fucking yeah. It was him she was calling God. He only hoped she knew that.

He retracted his fingers and her eyes came open, barely slits and they looked almost black instead of their usual chocolate brown color. It wasn't exactly curiosity that drove him, but he pulled his fingers to his mouth and watched her as she watched him. The last fucking thing he ever expected was her strong grip on his wrist pulling his fingers to her mouth while those eyes still watched. His eyes widened at the sight. His hips were still moving against her, the motion getting more insistent as all the pressure from his anger and lust and love for her gathering right in the middle of his body. He couldn't stop moving, didn't know what would happen to him if he didn't relieve all that pressure.

Still watching her, still feeling her hot, wet tongue darting around his fingers even as her eyes were staying still and watching him, he lowered his free hand to undo his belt and flick the button on his cargo pants. Her feet guided them over the curve of his ass as much as she could, but he had to pull his hand away from her mouth to use both hands if he wanted to get them off.

Her legs were shaking, and he knew that even though she was freakishly strong, she had to be getting tired just from the force she'd been keeping up the whole time she'd been coming.

He finally pushed one hand against the wall for support, still pressing her there against the wall even as he bent his other arm and slid it under her ass to give her a little bit of relief as he pulled his hips back and then certainly pressed into her.

She always gasped a little when he did that as her body stretched and molded around him. Her gasp was a little sharper this time as he pressed harder than normal. He could already feel the huge surge of anger that had made him see red disappearing. He pulled back and pushed in again, dropping his head to her shoulder and placing a kiss at the end of her collarbone. He dragged his tongue along the slightly protruding bone and licked at the spot he had so brutally assaulted just moments before. His tongue continued its trail before he sucked her earlobe into his mouth, his teeth scraping and his tongue flipping at the tiny earring she wore.

Her heels were digging into his ass as she drove him, guiding his motion. His arm that was wrapped underneath her butt was starting to go numb as his mind short-circuited. As his arm slackened, she slipped down the wall a little bit and it forced him even further inside her. He hadn't known that possible and he couldn't keep his eyes open as she moaned his name and thrashed her head back and forth against the wall.

His breathing was starting to even out, at least just a little, from angry to just regular turned-on. He peeled her away from the wall, her slick, sweaty skin acting almost like tape. She vocalized her complaint, a slight noise.

"Sorry, babe," he said. His breathing had evened out, his temper was coming down, and he just wanted to love her now that the anger was draining. He turned around and laid her down, even as his arms wrapped all the way around her waist. Once she was settled on the bed, her eyes wide open and her chest flushed, he smiled at her. "Sorry. Seriously sorry." He buried his face in the hair that was stuck to her sweaty neck. "I love you so much."

His movements were slow at first, but she was grinding against him and making soft noises that made it impossible for him to focus.

She turned her head just enough to trace his ear with the very tip of her tongue, and even as he felt his strokes persisting, building and leading him toward the point of no return, he heard her sultry voice purring in his ear and he shuttered.

"You know I'm not done with you yet."

The double promise was more than he could handle and he gave one last, hard thrust before he came totally undone, suddenly aware of every small texture she offered—smooth, warm skin, her wet lips on that spot right under his ear, her tight nipples dragging like pebbles against his chest, and her heels rubbing against his naked ass as he pressed into her one last time with a shudder.

"Fuck, Berry," he groaned. His arms tightened even as the rest of his body fell slack.

As he pulled back, finally unwrapping an arm from her waist to brush his fingers over her forehead and move her bangs out of the way, he leaned forward and kissed her tenderly, letting his tongue do what his liquid body was no longer capable of handling.

After their kiss, he collapsed to the side. She took his hand and began tracing her fingers over his.

"You owe me a new purse," she finally said. She turned her head and he could see her small smile. "And new underwear."

He matched her smile with his. "It was worth it. Are we all good here?"

She sighed blissfully. "I don't know if I have the energy to be mad anymore. Just don't do it ever again."

He slid over and gave her another kiss before he pulled away with a smirk. "I'm not making any promises." He rolled to his side and threw his arm over her stomach so he could bury his face in her hair, where he could conceivably stay for the rest of the afternoon if she'd let him.

At least when they fought they always got it right in the end.