"And she slapped me!" Santana waved her hands empathically. "So I slapped her back."
"You two." Mercedes meant to exclaim the statement but she couldn't. She didn't have it in her.
"What's going on with you?" Santana peered at her. It was after the competition and after everything had settled down, Santana had grabbed Mercedes and dragged her to her house for a little girl time. "You've been acting funny all day."
"Nothing's wrong." Mercedes blinked slowly. She leaned back against Santana's pillows and drew her legs closer to her chest.
"Yes, there is." Santana crawled over to Mercedes and wrapped her arms around her. "You can talk to me, Chica."
"You can't tell anyone!" Mercedes bit her lip.
"I promise."
"I slept with Mike."
"Whoa!" Santana reared back. "Why? When? What are you going to do? How was it? Was he big?"
"Santana!"
The girl stopped. "Sorry."
"This isn't the first time."
"No way!" Santana jumped up. "Tell me everything!"
Mercedes explained about growing up with Quinn and Mike. "But we had sex last night."
"How was it?" The old Santana asked but the new Santana continued, "How did it make you feel?"
"It was amazing. It always was." Mercedes reached for her toes and bent them. "But last night felt right. Like coming home after a long day or a warm shower after playing in the snow all day."
"I'm shocked a little by Q but if it felt good, what's the problem?"
"What to choose?! Tina. Sam. Where we live. Our friendship. Puck!" Mercedes covered her face.
"What does Puckerman have to do with anything?"
"He lives with me."
"No way!" Santana shouted. "Why didn't you tell us?"
"I didn't tell anyone but my parents and Quinn and Mike." Mercedes looked away.
"Don't you live in a dorm?"
Mercedes nodded.
"So how does that work?"
"He sleeps in my bed with me and it's like we live in an apartment together. As long as he leaves my roommate's stuff alone and don't bring women back to the room, she's good."
"He sleeps in the bed with you?" Santana smirked. "I bet he hates not being able to touch!"
"Who said he doesn't?"
Santana's eyes widened.
"The bed isn't that big, Santana."
"Oh!" The girl wiped her forehead as if wiping away sweat. "I thought you were saying you're having sex with Puck!"
"I am." Mercedes monotoned.
Santana screeched. "How? When? Why? What?!"
"I've been sleeping with Puck since sophomore year."
"You bitch!" Santana punched Mercedes' arm. "Why didn't you tell me?! We could have bonded!"
"We did bond, you lunatic!" Mercedes rubbed her arm. "We didn't do anything until after May though."
"So I was sleeping with him first?" Santana shrugged. "So you're worried about what exactly? Trouty Mouth is a jerk, who took my girlfriend. Girl Chang is losing her mind. Chicago isn't all that far from California so that's stupid. You slept with him all those years and remained friends. Why can't you do the same now? And Puckerman can't claim you. Can he?"
"Even if we got over the T/Sammy thing, we need to talk over what happened because it's different now. I don't know why but it just is. And next semester he's moving out to LA for school. He may even be in my dorm. It's coed. And I'm not with Puck per se but we have this understanding. It's kind of like we're this old married couple."
"So he'll be closer?" Santana clapped. "That's good. But you may have a point about Puckerman. If he lives with you and you guys bone on the regular, no guy is going to want that."
"Thank you!"
"You should go talk to him."
Mercedes nodded.
"Now!"
"What?"
"Yes, now! Go! Go talk to him now!" Santana shooed her out of her room.
M&MC
"Can we talk?"
Mike was shocked. He didn't expect to see Mercedes after last night. She had stayed far away from him all day. He thought they would ignore what had happened but to open his door and find her on his porch and asking to talk, confused him.
He opened the door wider and nodded. "Come in."
She walked through the portal. "It's about last night."
"I figured." He shut the door and led them to his room.
She moved to sit on the bed before remembering and took his desk chair. "We should talk about it."
He nodded once. "What do you want to say?"
"I don't know. Do you think it was a mistake?"
He shook his head. "No. That would demean the both of us."
"What do you think should be our next move?"
"What do you mean?" He sat on his bed.
"Are we going back to our old arrangement? Was that a one time thing? Do you want more?" The last was whispered.
"What do you want to do?" He shrugged but was very tense.
"Maybe it should be a one time thing?" She suggested. "We can't date. And you're still in Chicago for the time being."
"I don't really want to go back to the arrangement either." He admitted. "We're different people now."
She smiled. "We are."
"Why can't we date?" He frowned. What would be so bad about that?
"We're friends." She started.
"The best relationships start out that way. And weren't you friends with Sam and Shane?"
"Look how those relationships turned out!"
"I'm not them."
"Our friendship means the world to me. I couldn't bear to lose you."
"You will never lose me."
"Fine." She felt a warmth from his reassurance of their friendship but quickly tossed out another roadblock. "We can't date because of our exes."
"Forget them!" Mike snapped, actually angry. "They abandoned us!"
"But we can't do to them what they're doing to us."
"We can't treat them like dirt?!"
"Stop that, Mikey."
"What?! Why should we be alone when they've moved on? Why should our happiness be put on the back burner just because we don't want to date our ex's best friend or best friend's ex? We were together before we knew either of them existed!"
"I know! But I- I don't know. I feel like we'd just sum up everything they thought was true. That we went off and forgot about them."
"I'm not living for Tina." He stood up. "She is not my life and I refuse to let her dictate my actions. She will not hold my happiness hostage. You may like to base your future relationships on your past relationships but that's not me."
She jumped up. "I can't believe you just said that!"
"Why? The truth hurt?" He came closer. "I understood you taking that week or the next to think over your actions for kissing Sam but you clearly loved him but you couldn't get over your outrageous guilt that you missed out on months of being with him. When he first came back, you were so loyal to Shane that you cheated yourself out of happiness. Well I'm not into doing that."
"No, you're just into snaking your friends' girlfriends." She snapped.
"Excuse me?" His eyes narrowed.
She crossed her arms. "Artie."
"You helped me. Remember? And that was just once!"
"I'm sleeping with Puck!" She clapped her hands over her mouth.
"What?"
"I'm sorry. I- I didn't mean to blurt it out like that."
"What did you just say?" His voice was low.
"Puck and I just have a mature understanding. He lives with me for goodness sake! We sleep in the same bed. I'm still his SC. It makes sense!"
"It's cool for you to sleep with Puck but not okay for us to be together?" He asked quietly. "Puck is Sam's best friend, too but it's fine to have sex with him?"
"It's- that's- but- It's complicated!" She pulled on her hair. "Puck is there! We live in the same small space. We have two different relationships. The sexual one and the friend one. It's just different!"
"I don't see it." Mike's voice was raw. "I think you just don't want to try with me so you're coming up with excuses and clinging to Puck."
"I'm not!" She started to cry. Why is he taking all this so personally?! "It's just different!"
"I need to take a walk." His jaw clenched. "You can stay or leave. I don't really care."
"Mike!" She reached for him and he flinched. "Please don't go."
He walked away and she heard the door slam seconds later.