"You have a lot of trophies," Noah stated, his voice a monotone as he surveyed the golden trophies and ribbons that were piled high upon a shelf in Rachel's room. A low whistle of shock accompanied the dull statement. He supposed he shouldn't really be surprised. This was Rachel Berry's room, after all. What she lacked in popularity skills she made up with the drive to be perfect and long legs. Smooth, long legs, to be more specific. His gaze wandered to her knee, noticing she even got the supposedly hard spot to shave. His mother had cut herself there more than once while attempting to rid herself of prickly cactus hairs.
Rachel cleared her throat, bringing his eyes back up to her face. "I'm sure you have a lot of trophies."
He stared at her. Him, trophies? For what? Being a loser award? World's Greatest Father? "For what?" he asked, his tone incredulous. Didn't she know who he was? He was Noah Puckerman. His claim to fame was the fact that he banged cougars and had a mohawk. And impregnated a cheerleader, but... no one knew that yet.
"Uh, football?" she guessed. Her tone revealed that she didn't really know anything about football and hadn't kept a track record of how many times their football team had won anything.
"Uh, no?" he mimicked, rolling his eyes as he took a lap around her room. It was everything he thought it'd be. Not that he had been imagining Rachel Berry's room, but... on the way to her house he had a sort of prediction going as to what it would look like. The real thing was pretty close. "We suck, if you haven't noticed."
"You won that game with Kurt," Rachel protested, smoothing her skirt over her knees. Her smooth knees, which led to smooth calves which led to smooth and slender ankles. He needed to get out of here.
"Yeah, but that was all," he said, rubbing his face with his hand. "Look, I have other things to do, so if I could just get my jacket I'll be outta your hair. I'm sure your parents don't want to come home and see their daughter alone with some guy."
He knew Rachel had two fathers, since that was common knowledge around the school. It wasn't scandalous or gross, just a fact. Sometimes it made him angry to see how readily people would accept two gay guys but not their over-achieving daughter. "I think they'd be relieved, actually," Rachel said quietly, standing from her bed and smoothing the wrinkle she had created in the bedspread. "They're supportive of my singing and Glee club and theater, but they still want me to be-"
"Sexually active?" he guessed, interrupting her.
"- Not a loser."
A silence fell over the two for a moment, as they both took in what the other had said. Finally, Rachel laughed lightly. "We should go check to see if your jacket's done drying..." His jacket, as big and thick as it was, needed to run through two drying cycles to be completely dry. Rachel hadn't realized this until she had pulled it from the dryer and found it to be damp between her fingers. So the two had headed to her nearby bedroom to wait for the jacket to finish running through the second cycle.
"You're not a loser," he offered as they walked down the hallway and into the laundry room. It was sort of a lie, but he felt guilty and so he was willing to let it slip from between his lips.
Rachel wasn't impressed with his ability to lie to her. "Yes, I am," she said, shrugging as she flicked on the lightswitch. "I don't care."
Puck wasn't impressed with her lying, either. He raised an eyebrow, giving her a look that plainly said he knew she wasn't telling the truth.
"Much," she amended, pulling the dryer door open and fishing out his jacket. She rubbed the materials between her fingers, looking dissatisfied with the job it had done. "Does this feel done to you?"
He briefly squeezed a leather sleeve of the letterman jacket. "No," he said, groaning. How long was this going to take? Rachel was being nice to him, but it still felt awkward to be here. The way they were talking was... weird. He wanted to get back to the high school, where he didn't feel the need to assure her that she wasn't some kind of reject... the place where he didn't spend three straight minutes staring at the smooth skin of her legs.
I'm sorry this is all I have to offer you. :( I've become lame and haven't updated as much as I've wanted to. I blame it on the fact that my PC crashed and I have to resort to typing on my laptop where all I have is Wordpad. I MISS YOU, MICROSOFT WORD. Sob. Anyway. I'll try to update this weekend. Because this was too short and dissatisfying.