You Make It Hard To Be Faithful
Title: You Make It Hard To Be Faithful
Rating: NC-17
Pairings/Characters: Puck/Quinn, Puck/OFC
Warnings: Spoilers for all aired episodes with a little speculation for the last five. Future!fic.
Word count: ~4900
Author: domfangirl
Summary: Puck and Quinn celebrate a birthday in a totally weird, dysfunctional way!
Author’s Notes: This fic is loosely based on the lyrics from Hinder’s “Lips of an Angel,” and the title is stolen from it. Once again, if it weren't for the amazing and wonderful becca_radcgg this piece would be pretty messy in places. I so appreciate that second perspective and your ability to say "quit talking so much." YOU'RE DA BOMB, MAN. Written for the gleefics Birthday Challenge. Also, I totally used the gleefics birthday date in this story because I'm a total frigging kiss-up. :D
"Babe, your phone's ringing!"
Noah Puckerman looks up from the television, visualizing his phone and keys on the bureau in the hallway where he'd tossed them when he came home about 45 minutes earlier. It's May 21st, and he knows that he can't miss an incoming call today.
It might be her. It should be her. She's never not called him on this day.
Still, there's a first time for everything; he is, after all, sharing an apartment with his girlfriend in Brooklyn, and that woman is a die-hard latina Catholic, and yet his mother adores her. Life is funny that way.
Maria appears in the doorway of their bedroom and tosses him the phone that's already quit ringing. He catches it with one hand and she smiles, all white teeth and sex appeal, and says, "Remember, my parents are going to be here in an hour, okay?" His job sometimes interferes with their plans, but that won't be the problem tonight.
He nods at her, and says, "I'll get out of it, I promise."
She disappears from the doorway and he looks down at his phone. The call has gone to voicemail, but a familiar name pops up with the missed call, so he quickly retrieves it. He gets off the bed and goes into the bathroom off their bedroom. With Maria's parents set to arrive, he'll just have to keep the phone call short.
"Hi, Puck," Quinn's voice sounds a little shaky, and he can't help but wonder why it never heals. It's almost like it was just last year that they went through this, instead of...he shakes his head as her voice continues in his ear. It's been ten years. Ten fucking years. "I was hoping to catch you. I know this is really short notice, but I'm here, in New York. Maybe...maybe we could meet?" There's a long pause, and then she continues, "If not, I understand. I just-well, you know. I had to call. Thinking of you."
She leaves her number, even though he already has it, and the message ends.
He stares at his phone for a good five minutes, contemplating.
She's here? He hasn't seen her...since, well, graduation, he's pretty sure. Whenever he's been back in Lima, which hasn't been often, he's never caught up with her. They just had their traditional once-a-year phone call.
Usually, it was the longest he spent on the phone all year, and he always ached by the end of it, body, mind, and spirit. It was the worst day of the year, for sure, but also the best, because when he talked to her, the years dropped away, and he was just a juvenile delinquent with a hard-on for the most pristine girl in the whole school. He really loved that image for some reason, the idea that his hands had somehow left smudge marks on her.
God knew she'd left marks on him, too. They'd spent two years together, most of that time after the baby had been born. There had never been any tenderness, and rarely any kindness, between them. That had come later, with the phone calls, like talking to each other when they couldn't actually see each other made it easier to be generous.
Sometimes he thought maybe they'd be a lot better for each other now than they had been when they were dumb kids who'd made a huge-ass mistake. They'd spent that time together trying to make it okay, but nothing ever could.
Nothing ever would. No one should ever have to give their kid away, but that's what he and Quinn Fabray had done.
Then they'd punished each other at the same time they tried to make it up to each other, the toxicity of their relationship one of those things that kept him single for a long time afterwards. It wasn't until he met Maria about nine months ago that he finally decided an adult should have something more meaningful and lasting than picking up girls at a club and hoping to God they didn't wake up as he snuck out before morning came.
It had been one of those things where he didn't realize how lonely he was until he saw the echo of it within another person. He had rescued Maria from her burning apartment building, and she developed a bit a hero-complex for him. (At FDNY they were always warned not to get mixed up in that stuff, but when had Puck ever listened to cautionary tales?) He'd become a knight in shining armor that day, and every day since, for her.
Six months later, he moved into her new apartment in Brooklyn, and they were happy. Really, fucking crazy happy. Happy in a way Noah Puckerman suspected he didn't quite deserve. Every damn day that he woke up to her mass of dark curly hair and warm chocolate eyes, he thanked God for her.
He loved Maria, but he couldn't not return this phone call. When he found out Quinn was staying at the Four Seasons in Manhattan (of course), he checked his watch. He could be back in the city within an hour or less depending on how bad traffic was.
"I don't want to interrupt whatever you've got going on," she says, her voice difficult to hear because of the low pitch.
He snorts. "Don't lie, Quinn. You want to see if I'll drop everything and come running, tell the truth."
"It's her birthday," she says, her tone sharp, her voice just a bit stronger. The spark lights along his nerve endings. There's no way he could say no, even if he wanted to. And he sure as fuck doesn't want to.
"I'll see you in an hour." He snaps his phone shut and pulls his shirt off. He needs a shower, and a good story to tell Maria so she won't castrate him for missing dinner with her parents.
*
"Here you go, Miss Fabray," the hostess says as she seats Quinn at the bar.
"Thank you," Quinn murmurs already signaling the bartender over. "I'll have a Cosmo, please."
She sits so she can see the door, waiting for him to walk in. She'd spoken to him about twenty minutes earlier, and figured she'd be sitting there for a while, so why not indulge in a little liquid courage? She could down a few Cosmos before he even arrived if she paced herself just right.
She's startled when he comes in only five minutes later, but she's sure it's him as soon he crosses the threshold. Some things are indelibly imprinted on a woman's physical and spiritual being and the man who took her virginity, gave her a baby, and then spent two years nearly tearing her apart is one of those things. She knows she would recognize him in a crowded room even if she hasn't seen him in almost eight years; even though he looked bigger, his shoulders wider than she remembered--they'd always been ten feet wide as it was--and his hair longer. Still closely cropped, but not the shaved look he'd sported through their dating years.
He was always too good looking, which is why she'd gotten into trouble in the first place. The hostess escorts him to the bar, and his eyes don't find her immediately because he's busy chatting up the girl as she walks with him towards the bar. That gives Quinn a chance to look at his clothes. He's wearing jeans and a nice v-necked sweater, nothing fancy, but she still gets the impression he'd cleaned up for her. When he gets within smelling distance, she's sure of it. The spicy scent of his cologne reaches out to her and his face lights up when their eyes meet.
"There you are, Fabray," he says, scooping her right off her stool into a fierce embrace.
Her arms circle his neck and her nose presses into his ear. She hugs him tightly, and blinks back more of the tears that have dogged her since the moment she woke this morning. The hardness of his chest and his arms tight around her distract a little, but even that steely warmth doesn't change why she's with him today.
Baby Girl Puckerman-Fabray turns ten today. She lives in Pennsylvania with her adoptive parents and goes by the name Alicia Anne Warrick. Quinn can't help it, she has always thought of her as Baby Girl Puckerman-Fabray. They'd had two days in a hospital in Lima, and that entire time she'd had a name longer than her tiny body. It was the only name she'd had when Puck had to forcibly remove her from Quinn's arms, and they'd both been crying, and she'd believed she'd never recover from it.
She'd been right.
"You look amazing," he says softly, putting her back on the stool with hardly any effort. His eyes sweep over her face, down her body and back again, and he grins, full and wide. "Wow. You're like fine wine, baby, only better with age."
She'd return the compliment, but she's still choking back tears and then the hostess reminds them of her presence. "Let me show you to your table," she says.
Puck looks at her, then back at Quinn, something flashing over his face rapidly. "We don't need a table," he says, and Quinn doesn't disagree. She won't be able to eat anything anyway. "We'll just stay at the bar."
He smiles and touches the hostess's elbow; she practically glows under his attention.
Quinn can't help the smile that fights its way on to her face. Same old Puck. Some things never changed, and even though his wandering eye had always given her fits of rage when they were younger, there was some sense of comfort in it now. She could count on him to always be the same.
He orders a beer and then checks his phone before setting it on the bar top. "So," he says, looking back at her. "You okay?"
"It's the same as it always is."
He bites his bottom lip and shakes his head at her. "Quinn. It's been ten years. Alicia is a happy little girl. You can let it go." The bartender slides a mug in front of Puck and he grabs it, downing half of it without flinching.
Quinn thinks maybe he's not as nonchalant about the whole thing as he appears.
"I know she's happy. Have you seen the most recent pictures?" She reaches for her drink, sipping more slowly than he had.
He shakes his head again, only this time it's not with a pitiful look on his face. He looks like he's been caught doing something he shouldn't. Then he shrugs and she realizes what it is right before he says, "I quit communicating with them a couple years ago." Quinn narrows her eyes at him wondering how he could ever stop thinking about their child, or needing to know how she was. "It was just too hard to look at her and see us, and not be a part of it. It was better for me to just let it go." He gives her a pointed look. "I'd advise you to do the same thing instead of living in the past."
She could always read him so easily, she always knew when he'd cheated on her, or when an unkind word would hit him just right and agitate him exponentially. Years apart have not changed that, and she can't help but blurt, "You're married, aren't you?" because he's happy, there's an air of peace around him she hadn't anticipated.
He chuckles as he raises his beer to his lips again. "Not yet," he murmurs, winking at her.
*
Quinn asks a million questions about Maria. At first it's cool, because he loves talking about his girl, but then it starts to get tense, so he changes the subject by asking if she's dating anyone.
As she says she's not seeing anyone special right now, they both order another drink. Quinn sticks with the Cosmopolitan, but Puck goes harder than beer by ordering two shots of Jack Daniels. He's gonna need something much stronger than what they have on tap here to get through this evening. Quinn lifts an eyebrow at him, but says nothing. Under all that misery is the firecracker he'd known, and it churns in his gut in a really inappropriate way.
He hadn't been lying when he said she was like fine wine. The absolute finest, actually, and he knows jack shit about wine. She's more beautiful than he remembered, her eyelashes sweeping her cheeks as she blinks back tears at different intervals. The determined curiosity in her green eyes as she asked about Maria unsettled him after a bit which is why he'd turned it around on her. He doesn't know why he wishes she was married, or at least had a boyfriend. (Okay, he knows why, but he doesn't want to know why. He didn't come here for that.)
She's always been so pretty-fucking gorgeous-and capable of turning him on without any effort, and he supposes he'd come here tonight to see if anything had changed. Part of him really hoped it had. Downing his first shot, he hisses as the liquid burns his throat and makes his eyes water. He doesn't drink whiskey very often, but at least he doesn't choke on it.
"Really, Quinn," he says, clearing his throat, and changing the subject slightly from her non-dating life to the past she's clinging to for some bizarre reason. "It's time to move on. And to be okay with things. We did the right thing, no matter how much it hurt. I think, after a while, that's what took the sting out of it for me."
"I would be a good mother," she says, her voice soft again, like it had been on the phone.
He fiddles with the second shot of whiskey and watches her carefully. "Now? Sure you would. But then? Then you were too immature, and angry, and in a terrible relationship with a douchebag. Imagine what Alicia would have gone through when we finally split up."
Quinn stares at him and then nods her head. A little shudder wracks her body and she reaches out, her fingers settling against the material of his long-sleeved shirt. "You're right. Absolutely. We were a mess together."
He feels mesmerized by her pale fingers against his clothing for some inexplicable reason. There's a fire banked low in his belly, and if he were really a good fireman, he'd get out of there before he lost control of it. "We had some fun times," he argues, almost automatically. He lifts his eyes to hers and a smile cracks her stoic expression.
"Some," she murmurs, taking her hand from his arm to reach for her drink.
He downs the other shot like someone's got a gun to his head. Her leg moves and her sandaled foot slides up his calf, just inside his pants. "Oh, sorry," she says, looking at him over the rim of her glass.
In high school, Quinn had been the hot girl, the one who could command cocks everywhere with just a downward turn of her eyes, or with the curve of her lips. She was far more dangerous because she knew she had this ability, and Puck hadn't figured out for a long time just who held the power in their relationship.
But he knew now. He hadn't stood a chance, not from the words I'm here, in New York.
She's not sorry, and he can see that like the writing on the wall. He'd told Maria he had to cover an overnighter at the last minute because someone called in sick. She'd been disappointed, but understanding.
That's a pretty big lie for someone who just intends to have a drink with an old friend.
*
Quinn should have realized he'd be on the same page as her instantaneously. She won't have to talk him into anything. It's almost too easy.
But then again, that was the best way to describe Noah Puckerman. Always thinking with his little head. (Only he wasn't so little by her recollection.) For all the fighting that they'd done, he taught her everything she knows about sex, and for the most part that was a positive thing.
The flutters in her stomach swell up, butterflies in combat boots, so she takes a bigger gulp of her drink. She's going to have to be a little drunker to see this through. "Want to come up to my room?" she asks.
His eyes are suddenly heavy lidded, and she can see that, yes, in fact, he'd like to. But he responds with, "I'm with someone, Q."
She cocks her head slightly. "You had no problem cheating on me once or twenty times, but now you won't cheat with me?" She can't hold back the venom, doesn't even want to. Seduction is one thing, but him playing the morality card is simply ridiculous.
"Give me some credit. It's been eight years. Can't a man change? Grow up?" He actually sounds offended, and Quinn has the strong urge to punch him right in the face.
"I don't know, can he?" she asks nastily. "Does your precious Maria know where you are right now?" He flushes, and even in the dim light within the restaurant she knows the answer without him saying anything. "Why did you come here, Puck?"
"Why did you come here?" he counters, his tone angry.
"To fuck you," she says candidly. The surprise on his face is almost comical, but she isn't even tempted to laugh.
She flew from Ohio to New York with a wild idea. As the weeks had narrowed and her daughter's tenth birthday loomed on the horizon, the only thing she'd wanted became more and more obvious. She'd known Puck was living in New York and that he was a fireman. She'd run into his mother the last time she'd been in Lima (she lives in Columbus now) to visit her own parents, and she'd gotten the information then that it seemed his life had settled into something relatively good; though at the time his mother hadn't mentioned that he lived with his girlfriend, so that must be a fairly new development.
Her own life wasn't bad; she had a Master's Degree in Voice and Dance, and she co-owned an Arts Studio with her best friend from college. She’d been successful in business, and she’d become a good vocal coach and dance teacher. But the love aspect had never quite worked out for her. Every time she met someone, she came up against this-ghost, for lack of a better term-from her past. Puck was always there, and her Baby Girl, of course, and there seemed only one logical path.
She had to exorcise this whole thing. Tonight. Here. On her daughter's birthday.
"Well, then," he drawls. He pulls out his wallet and throws money down on the bar, enough for his drinks and hers. Getting to his feet, he leans a little closer to her, intimidating her slightly, just enough that she leans away from him, her back touching the edge of the bar. "Let's get on with it, shall we?"
*
He's not sure why he's so angry. Her cavalier attitude is distinctly at odds with the tears that seem to start with hardly any prompting, and he knows he shouldn't put his hands on her-for so many reasons. Loyalty to Maria ought to be foremost in his mind, but in reality it's the knowledge that no man should touch a woman when so much volatile energy flows through him.
He might hurt her, and he doesn't really care, because for all that her pain is wrapped up in the child she didn't get to raise, his has always been more about Quinn herself. He'd loved her, wanted to do right by her, wished that things could have been good and right between them, but it never had. Right from day one until the very bitter end when she'd thrown a framed photo of them at him and screamed that she hated him for what he'd done to her.
He hated it, too. That's why he's here, bordering on his late 20s with the emotional maturity of that teenage boy who’d wanted a girl he should never, ever have had. He'd made sure he never deserved her by every outward action, and eventually she'd gotten tired of putting up with him.
In the elevator up to her hotel room, she doesn't say anything, she just tugs at the hem of her black cocktail dress. He looks at her, imagining just shoving her up against the back mirrored wall and fucking her into oblivion.
He tells himself it's what she wants, what she's asking for. But when their eyes meet, and he sees her wariness, he knows she has no idea what she's asking for, much less what he's capable of doing to her. He could use this night to pay her back for all the pain she's caused him, the things that he couldn't get over, things he'd never told Maria about. She didn't know about Quinn, or Alicia, or any of it.
As they step out of the elevator, Quinn's hand slides up his arm, wrapping around his elbow gently, as though he might suddenly change his mind and bolt the other way.
That's what he should do, fuck him. But he won’t, and they both know it.
She slips her key card into the slot, and the half-arousal that had assaulted him downstairs in the bar rushes under his skin, engulfing every part of him.
She pushes the door open, glances over her shoulder to make sure he's following her, and before the door even snaps shut, he's spun her around and planted her against it. His hands hold her shoulders pinned to the dark wood, and he stares into her eyes for a long moment before settling his mouth over hers. It's her last chance to change her mind, and he offers it to her by restraining himself for what feels like the longest minute of his life.
She reaches for the waistband of his jeans, and he quits trying to convince himself that he came here for any other reason.
*
His mouth on hers for the first time in so many years makes tears build up under her eyelashes. She squeezes her eyes tightly shut and opens her mouth to him. Just like the first time, when wine coolers had lowered her inhibitions and changed her whole life, she feels more drunk on his taste than she ever had from the actual alcohol. Something about him specifically altered everything so that now the only way any of this felt right to Quinn was if he was doing it. Only Puck, just him, always him.
He undresses her quickly, his fingers fumbling and rough, but Quinn's clothes are all on the floor within five minutes of getting inside the room. Dress, bra, slip, and panties decorating the carpet in black patches. He kisses her mouth, and face, and neck with no particular purpose, everything about it messy and wet, and his 5 o'clock shadow scrapes her skin raw. His hands burn her with their heat, running up over her breasts, and cupping her hips and then sliding between her legs. His breath beats against her bare skin, and his hungry growl morphs into a whimper when her hand sinks inside the front of his jeans to wrap around him.
They make it to the bed, which Quinn is grateful for. She'd been afraid he'd just nail her to the wall with his urgency, and she wanted there to be some sense of romance in it even though his actions are too turbulent for her to feel anything except need and want, rushing, rushing, sweeping her away. His desperation surges through her, and it feels like there's too much to be contained by her skin as he shoves her thighs apart and rams himself into her. She cries out and her hands clutch at his back. He can't know everything she hopes and desires as it happens, but she doesn't go with him when after a few rapid, unschooled thrusts he comes. His release flows through her, cleansing everything, making it all right.
He collapses against her, his shoulders so massive they block out the overhead light. She wasn't wrong when she thought he looked bigger; it must be because of his job, but his arms and chest are thicker too, corded with muscle not borne of hours in the gym, but instead the hard physical labor of carrying heavy equipment. She lays beneath his trembling body and thinks of all the things she wants to know about him, about his life, stuff she'll never have a chance to learn because if she were to ask now, it would seem silly.
She'd gotten what she came for, really. She doesn't even need to get off, though the disappointment of being so close with no finale throbs through her body as he pulls out and rolls away.
He swears filthily, taking Jesus' name in vain, and she can't help but flinch under the violence in his voice. Then he turns to her, cradling her against his chest, his lips whispering over her cheek and hairline, apologetic murmurs tumbling from his tongue. His hands smooth over her, and she feels more tears surface, but then he slides down the bed and pulls her legs apart again. His mouth drifts up the inside of her thigh softly, but the scrape of his bristly chin against that delicate skin causes her to gasp and her hands automatically grasp at his shoulders.
Then his tongue arrows in on her clitoris and she'd have shot off the bed entirely if he hadn't been holding her down. Minutes later she orgasms so hard, she erupts right into sobs as she comes down from the high of it. She becomes aware of how hard she's crying some time later when he's holding her to his chest and whispering to her that it's not her fault, and that she'd done the right thing, and that she should never regret anything, because their baby is happy and healthy and that's all that matters.
She falls asleep in the puddles of moisture on his skin, a combination of her tears and his sweat, and slumbers more peacefully than she has in years.
*
He leaves before she wakes up, only because he can't stand to look into her eyes and walk away again. It had been the hardest thing he'd ever done as an 18-year-old kid, and now that he's a man, he knows he doesn't possess the strength of character to do what's right if he has to look at her while he does it.
So he slinks out like the cheating bastard he's always been. He doesn't even leave a note.
*
She flies back to Ohio with a euphoric sense of accomplishment. Once in a while, something happens in her life and she feels that Quinn Fabray, Head Cheerleader, President of the Celibacy Club power wash over her again. Holding all the power and wielding it with no regard for anyone around her; it's a double-edged sword, she knows, because that kind of pride begged for a huge tumbling fall.
But she'd survived it all before, so she glories in it for the short space of time that it burdens her.
*
He's at work polishing the chrome accents of Engine Number 12 on a bright morning near the end of July. The sun is high in the eastern sky, and the promise of a blistering New York summer day kisses the air around him.
He goes into the locker room when he's finished sprucing up the truck and gets his phone out of his locker. He plans on calling Maria to see if she'll be in the city around lunchtime because he'd had the overnighter, and hasn't been home for 24 hours. He sees a missed call when he flips it open, and when Quinn's name pops up on the screen he feels everything inside him go still.
She's never called him, in all the years since he left Lima, except for every May 21st. Something akin to panic shoots through him, and he wonders if something has happened, if she's okay, or if there's news about their daughter that she feels he needs to know. He hesitates in retrieving the voice mail because ignorance is bliss, but he finally proceeds, looking around the locker room to see a few of the guys in his department coming in for the morning shift.
She doesn't say hello, she doesn't ask him how he is, or call him names for leaving her sleeping at the Four Seasons. All she says is, "I thought you should know I'm pregnant," and his world rocks sideways.
two strangers learn to fall in love again
Rating: NC-17
Pairings/Characters: Puck/Quinn, Puck/OFC
Warnings: Spoilers for all aired episodes with a little speculation for the last five. Future!fic.
Word count: ~4900
Author: domfangirl
Summary: Puck and Quinn celebrate a birthday in a totally weird, dysfunctional way!
Author’s Notes: This fic is loosely based on the lyrics from Hinder’s “Lips of an Angel,” and the title is stolen from it. Once again, if it weren't for the amazing and wonderful becca_radcgg this piece would be pretty messy in places. I so appreciate that second perspective and your ability to say "quit talking so much." YOU'RE DA BOMB, MAN. Written for the gleefics Birthday Challenge. Also, I totally used the gleefics birthday date in this story because I'm a total frigging kiss-up. :D
"Babe, your phone's ringing!"
Noah Puckerman looks up from the television, visualizing his phone and keys on the bureau in the hallway where he'd tossed them when he came home about 45 minutes earlier. It's May 21st, and he knows that he can't miss an incoming call today.
It might be her. It should be her. She's never not called him on this day.
Still, there's a first time for everything; he is, after all, sharing an apartment with his girlfriend in Brooklyn, and that woman is a die-hard latina Catholic, and yet his mother adores her. Life is funny that way.
Maria appears in the doorway of their bedroom and tosses him the phone that's already quit ringing. He catches it with one hand and she smiles, all white teeth and sex appeal, and says, "Remember, my parents are going to be here in an hour, okay?" His job sometimes interferes with their plans, but that won't be the problem tonight.
He nods at her, and says, "I'll get out of it, I promise."
She disappears from the doorway and he looks down at his phone. The call has gone to voicemail, but a familiar name pops up with the missed call, so he quickly retrieves it. He gets off the bed and goes into the bathroom off their bedroom. With Maria's parents set to arrive, he'll just have to keep the phone call short.
"Hi, Puck," Quinn's voice sounds a little shaky, and he can't help but wonder why it never heals. It's almost like it was just last year that they went through this, instead of...he shakes his head as her voice continues in his ear. It's been ten years. Ten fucking years. "I was hoping to catch you. I know this is really short notice, but I'm here, in New York. Maybe...maybe we could meet?" There's a long pause, and then she continues, "If not, I understand. I just-well, you know. I had to call. Thinking of you."
She leaves her number, even though he already has it, and the message ends.
He stares at his phone for a good five minutes, contemplating.
She's here? He hasn't seen her...since, well, graduation, he's pretty sure. Whenever he's been back in Lima, which hasn't been often, he's never caught up with her. They just had their traditional once-a-year phone call.
Usually, it was the longest he spent on the phone all year, and he always ached by the end of it, body, mind, and spirit. It was the worst day of the year, for sure, but also the best, because when he talked to her, the years dropped away, and he was just a juvenile delinquent with a hard-on for the most pristine girl in the whole school. He really loved that image for some reason, the idea that his hands had somehow left smudge marks on her.
God knew she'd left marks on him, too. They'd spent two years together, most of that time after the baby had been born. There had never been any tenderness, and rarely any kindness, between them. That had come later, with the phone calls, like talking to each other when they couldn't actually see each other made it easier to be generous.
Sometimes he thought maybe they'd be a lot better for each other now than they had been when they were dumb kids who'd made a huge-ass mistake. They'd spent that time together trying to make it okay, but nothing ever could.
Nothing ever would. No one should ever have to give their kid away, but that's what he and Quinn Fabray had done.
Then they'd punished each other at the same time they tried to make it up to each other, the toxicity of their relationship one of those things that kept him single for a long time afterwards. It wasn't until he met Maria about nine months ago that he finally decided an adult should have something more meaningful and lasting than picking up girls at a club and hoping to God they didn't wake up as he snuck out before morning came.
It had been one of those things where he didn't realize how lonely he was until he saw the echo of it within another person. He had rescued Maria from her burning apartment building, and she developed a bit a hero-complex for him. (At FDNY they were always warned not to get mixed up in that stuff, but when had Puck ever listened to cautionary tales?) He'd become a knight in shining armor that day, and every day since, for her.
Six months later, he moved into her new apartment in Brooklyn, and they were happy. Really, fucking crazy happy. Happy in a way Noah Puckerman suspected he didn't quite deserve. Every damn day that he woke up to her mass of dark curly hair and warm chocolate eyes, he thanked God for her.
He loved Maria, but he couldn't not return this phone call. When he found out Quinn was staying at the Four Seasons in Manhattan (of course), he checked his watch. He could be back in the city within an hour or less depending on how bad traffic was.
"I don't want to interrupt whatever you've got going on," she says, her voice difficult to hear because of the low pitch.
He snorts. "Don't lie, Quinn. You want to see if I'll drop everything and come running, tell the truth."
"It's her birthday," she says, her tone sharp, her voice just a bit stronger. The spark lights along his nerve endings. There's no way he could say no, even if he wanted to. And he sure as fuck doesn't want to.
"I'll see you in an hour." He snaps his phone shut and pulls his shirt off. He needs a shower, and a good story to tell Maria so she won't castrate him for missing dinner with her parents.
*
"Here you go, Miss Fabray," the hostess says as she seats Quinn at the bar.
"Thank you," Quinn murmurs already signaling the bartender over. "I'll have a Cosmo, please."
She sits so she can see the door, waiting for him to walk in. She'd spoken to him about twenty minutes earlier, and figured she'd be sitting there for a while, so why not indulge in a little liquid courage? She could down a few Cosmos before he even arrived if she paced herself just right.
She's startled when he comes in only five minutes later, but she's sure it's him as soon he crosses the threshold. Some things are indelibly imprinted on a woman's physical and spiritual being and the man who took her virginity, gave her a baby, and then spent two years nearly tearing her apart is one of those things. She knows she would recognize him in a crowded room even if she hasn't seen him in almost eight years; even though he looked bigger, his shoulders wider than she remembered--they'd always been ten feet wide as it was--and his hair longer. Still closely cropped, but not the shaved look he'd sported through their dating years.
He was always too good looking, which is why she'd gotten into trouble in the first place. The hostess escorts him to the bar, and his eyes don't find her immediately because he's busy chatting up the girl as she walks with him towards the bar. That gives Quinn a chance to look at his clothes. He's wearing jeans and a nice v-necked sweater, nothing fancy, but she still gets the impression he'd cleaned up for her. When he gets within smelling distance, she's sure of it. The spicy scent of his cologne reaches out to her and his face lights up when their eyes meet.
"There you are, Fabray," he says, scooping her right off her stool into a fierce embrace.
Her arms circle his neck and her nose presses into his ear. She hugs him tightly, and blinks back more of the tears that have dogged her since the moment she woke this morning. The hardness of his chest and his arms tight around her distract a little, but even that steely warmth doesn't change why she's with him today.
Baby Girl Puckerman-Fabray turns ten today. She lives in Pennsylvania with her adoptive parents and goes by the name Alicia Anne Warrick. Quinn can't help it, she has always thought of her as Baby Girl Puckerman-Fabray. They'd had two days in a hospital in Lima, and that entire time she'd had a name longer than her tiny body. It was the only name she'd had when Puck had to forcibly remove her from Quinn's arms, and they'd both been crying, and she'd believed she'd never recover from it.
She'd been right.
"You look amazing," he says softly, putting her back on the stool with hardly any effort. His eyes sweep over her face, down her body and back again, and he grins, full and wide. "Wow. You're like fine wine, baby, only better with age."
She'd return the compliment, but she's still choking back tears and then the hostess reminds them of her presence. "Let me show you to your table," she says.
Puck looks at her, then back at Quinn, something flashing over his face rapidly. "We don't need a table," he says, and Quinn doesn't disagree. She won't be able to eat anything anyway. "We'll just stay at the bar."
He smiles and touches the hostess's elbow; she practically glows under his attention.
Quinn can't help the smile that fights its way on to her face. Same old Puck. Some things never changed, and even though his wandering eye had always given her fits of rage when they were younger, there was some sense of comfort in it now. She could count on him to always be the same.
He orders a beer and then checks his phone before setting it on the bar top. "So," he says, looking back at her. "You okay?"
"It's the same as it always is."
He bites his bottom lip and shakes his head at her. "Quinn. It's been ten years. Alicia is a happy little girl. You can let it go." The bartender slides a mug in front of Puck and he grabs it, downing half of it without flinching.
Quinn thinks maybe he's not as nonchalant about the whole thing as he appears.
"I know she's happy. Have you seen the most recent pictures?" She reaches for her drink, sipping more slowly than he had.
He shakes his head again, only this time it's not with a pitiful look on his face. He looks like he's been caught doing something he shouldn't. Then he shrugs and she realizes what it is right before he says, "I quit communicating with them a couple years ago." Quinn narrows her eyes at him wondering how he could ever stop thinking about their child, or needing to know how she was. "It was just too hard to look at her and see us, and not be a part of it. It was better for me to just let it go." He gives her a pointed look. "I'd advise you to do the same thing instead of living in the past."
She could always read him so easily, she always knew when he'd cheated on her, or when an unkind word would hit him just right and agitate him exponentially. Years apart have not changed that, and she can't help but blurt, "You're married, aren't you?" because he's happy, there's an air of peace around him she hadn't anticipated.
He chuckles as he raises his beer to his lips again. "Not yet," he murmurs, winking at her.
*
Quinn asks a million questions about Maria. At first it's cool, because he loves talking about his girl, but then it starts to get tense, so he changes the subject by asking if she's dating anyone.
As she says she's not seeing anyone special right now, they both order another drink. Quinn sticks with the Cosmopolitan, but Puck goes harder than beer by ordering two shots of Jack Daniels. He's gonna need something much stronger than what they have on tap here to get through this evening. Quinn lifts an eyebrow at him, but says nothing. Under all that misery is the firecracker he'd known, and it churns in his gut in a really inappropriate way.
He hadn't been lying when he said she was like fine wine. The absolute finest, actually, and he knows jack shit about wine. She's more beautiful than he remembered, her eyelashes sweeping her cheeks as she blinks back tears at different intervals. The determined curiosity in her green eyes as she asked about Maria unsettled him after a bit which is why he'd turned it around on her. He doesn't know why he wishes she was married, or at least had a boyfriend. (Okay, he knows why, but he doesn't want to know why. He didn't come here for that.)
She's always been so pretty-fucking gorgeous-and capable of turning him on without any effort, and he supposes he'd come here tonight to see if anything had changed. Part of him really hoped it had. Downing his first shot, he hisses as the liquid burns his throat and makes his eyes water. He doesn't drink whiskey very often, but at least he doesn't choke on it.
"Really, Quinn," he says, clearing his throat, and changing the subject slightly from her non-dating life to the past she's clinging to for some bizarre reason. "It's time to move on. And to be okay with things. We did the right thing, no matter how much it hurt. I think, after a while, that's what took the sting out of it for me."
"I would be a good mother," she says, her voice soft again, like it had been on the phone.
He fiddles with the second shot of whiskey and watches her carefully. "Now? Sure you would. But then? Then you were too immature, and angry, and in a terrible relationship with a douchebag. Imagine what Alicia would have gone through when we finally split up."
Quinn stares at him and then nods her head. A little shudder wracks her body and she reaches out, her fingers settling against the material of his long-sleeved shirt. "You're right. Absolutely. We were a mess together."
He feels mesmerized by her pale fingers against his clothing for some inexplicable reason. There's a fire banked low in his belly, and if he were really a good fireman, he'd get out of there before he lost control of it. "We had some fun times," he argues, almost automatically. He lifts his eyes to hers and a smile cracks her stoic expression.
"Some," she murmurs, taking her hand from his arm to reach for her drink.
He downs the other shot like someone's got a gun to his head. Her leg moves and her sandaled foot slides up his calf, just inside his pants. "Oh, sorry," she says, looking at him over the rim of her glass.
In high school, Quinn had been the hot girl, the one who could command cocks everywhere with just a downward turn of her eyes, or with the curve of her lips. She was far more dangerous because she knew she had this ability, and Puck hadn't figured out for a long time just who held the power in their relationship.
But he knew now. He hadn't stood a chance, not from the words I'm here, in New York.
She's not sorry, and he can see that like the writing on the wall. He'd told Maria he had to cover an overnighter at the last minute because someone called in sick. She'd been disappointed, but understanding.
That's a pretty big lie for someone who just intends to have a drink with an old friend.
*
Quinn should have realized he'd be on the same page as her instantaneously. She won't have to talk him into anything. It's almost too easy.
But then again, that was the best way to describe Noah Puckerman. Always thinking with his little head. (Only he wasn't so little by her recollection.) For all the fighting that they'd done, he taught her everything she knows about sex, and for the most part that was a positive thing.
The flutters in her stomach swell up, butterflies in combat boots, so she takes a bigger gulp of her drink. She's going to have to be a little drunker to see this through. "Want to come up to my room?" she asks.
His eyes are suddenly heavy lidded, and she can see that, yes, in fact, he'd like to. But he responds with, "I'm with someone, Q."
She cocks her head slightly. "You had no problem cheating on me once or twenty times, but now you won't cheat with me?" She can't hold back the venom, doesn't even want to. Seduction is one thing, but him playing the morality card is simply ridiculous.
"Give me some credit. It's been eight years. Can't a man change? Grow up?" He actually sounds offended, and Quinn has the strong urge to punch him right in the face.
"I don't know, can he?" she asks nastily. "Does your precious Maria know where you are right now?" He flushes, and even in the dim light within the restaurant she knows the answer without him saying anything. "Why did you come here, Puck?"
"Why did you come here?" he counters, his tone angry.
"To fuck you," she says candidly. The surprise on his face is almost comical, but she isn't even tempted to laugh.
She flew from Ohio to New York with a wild idea. As the weeks had narrowed and her daughter's tenth birthday loomed on the horizon, the only thing she'd wanted became more and more obvious. She'd known Puck was living in New York and that he was a fireman. She'd run into his mother the last time she'd been in Lima (she lives in Columbus now) to visit her own parents, and she'd gotten the information then that it seemed his life had settled into something relatively good; though at the time his mother hadn't mentioned that he lived with his girlfriend, so that must be a fairly new development.
Her own life wasn't bad; she had a Master's Degree in Voice and Dance, and she co-owned an Arts Studio with her best friend from college. She’d been successful in business, and she’d become a good vocal coach and dance teacher. But the love aspect had never quite worked out for her. Every time she met someone, she came up against this-ghost, for lack of a better term-from her past. Puck was always there, and her Baby Girl, of course, and there seemed only one logical path.
She had to exorcise this whole thing. Tonight. Here. On her daughter's birthday.
"Well, then," he drawls. He pulls out his wallet and throws money down on the bar, enough for his drinks and hers. Getting to his feet, he leans a little closer to her, intimidating her slightly, just enough that she leans away from him, her back touching the edge of the bar. "Let's get on with it, shall we?"
*
He's not sure why he's so angry. Her cavalier attitude is distinctly at odds with the tears that seem to start with hardly any prompting, and he knows he shouldn't put his hands on her-for so many reasons. Loyalty to Maria ought to be foremost in his mind, but in reality it's the knowledge that no man should touch a woman when so much volatile energy flows through him.
He might hurt her, and he doesn't really care, because for all that her pain is wrapped up in the child she didn't get to raise, his has always been more about Quinn herself. He'd loved her, wanted to do right by her, wished that things could have been good and right between them, but it never had. Right from day one until the very bitter end when she'd thrown a framed photo of them at him and screamed that she hated him for what he'd done to her.
He hated it, too. That's why he's here, bordering on his late 20s with the emotional maturity of that teenage boy who’d wanted a girl he should never, ever have had. He'd made sure he never deserved her by every outward action, and eventually she'd gotten tired of putting up with him.
In the elevator up to her hotel room, she doesn't say anything, she just tugs at the hem of her black cocktail dress. He looks at her, imagining just shoving her up against the back mirrored wall and fucking her into oblivion.
He tells himself it's what she wants, what she's asking for. But when their eyes meet, and he sees her wariness, he knows she has no idea what she's asking for, much less what he's capable of doing to her. He could use this night to pay her back for all the pain she's caused him, the things that he couldn't get over, things he'd never told Maria about. She didn't know about Quinn, or Alicia, or any of it.
As they step out of the elevator, Quinn's hand slides up his arm, wrapping around his elbow gently, as though he might suddenly change his mind and bolt the other way.
That's what he should do, fuck him. But he won’t, and they both know it.
She slips her key card into the slot, and the half-arousal that had assaulted him downstairs in the bar rushes under his skin, engulfing every part of him.
She pushes the door open, glances over her shoulder to make sure he's following her, and before the door even snaps shut, he's spun her around and planted her against it. His hands hold her shoulders pinned to the dark wood, and he stares into her eyes for a long moment before settling his mouth over hers. It's her last chance to change her mind, and he offers it to her by restraining himself for what feels like the longest minute of his life.
She reaches for the waistband of his jeans, and he quits trying to convince himself that he came here for any other reason.
*
His mouth on hers for the first time in so many years makes tears build up under her eyelashes. She squeezes her eyes tightly shut and opens her mouth to him. Just like the first time, when wine coolers had lowered her inhibitions and changed her whole life, she feels more drunk on his taste than she ever had from the actual alcohol. Something about him specifically altered everything so that now the only way any of this felt right to Quinn was if he was doing it. Only Puck, just him, always him.
He undresses her quickly, his fingers fumbling and rough, but Quinn's clothes are all on the floor within five minutes of getting inside the room. Dress, bra, slip, and panties decorating the carpet in black patches. He kisses her mouth, and face, and neck with no particular purpose, everything about it messy and wet, and his 5 o'clock shadow scrapes her skin raw. His hands burn her with their heat, running up over her breasts, and cupping her hips and then sliding between her legs. His breath beats against her bare skin, and his hungry growl morphs into a whimper when her hand sinks inside the front of his jeans to wrap around him.
They make it to the bed, which Quinn is grateful for. She'd been afraid he'd just nail her to the wall with his urgency, and she wanted there to be some sense of romance in it even though his actions are too turbulent for her to feel anything except need and want, rushing, rushing, sweeping her away. His desperation surges through her, and it feels like there's too much to be contained by her skin as he shoves her thighs apart and rams himself into her. She cries out and her hands clutch at his back. He can't know everything she hopes and desires as it happens, but she doesn't go with him when after a few rapid, unschooled thrusts he comes. His release flows through her, cleansing everything, making it all right.
He collapses against her, his shoulders so massive they block out the overhead light. She wasn't wrong when she thought he looked bigger; it must be because of his job, but his arms and chest are thicker too, corded with muscle not borne of hours in the gym, but instead the hard physical labor of carrying heavy equipment. She lays beneath his trembling body and thinks of all the things she wants to know about him, about his life, stuff she'll never have a chance to learn because if she were to ask now, it would seem silly.
She'd gotten what she came for, really. She doesn't even need to get off, though the disappointment of being so close with no finale throbs through her body as he pulls out and rolls away.
He swears filthily, taking Jesus' name in vain, and she can't help but flinch under the violence in his voice. Then he turns to her, cradling her against his chest, his lips whispering over her cheek and hairline, apologetic murmurs tumbling from his tongue. His hands smooth over her, and she feels more tears surface, but then he slides down the bed and pulls her legs apart again. His mouth drifts up the inside of her thigh softly, but the scrape of his bristly chin against that delicate skin causes her to gasp and her hands automatically grasp at his shoulders.
Then his tongue arrows in on her clitoris and she'd have shot off the bed entirely if he hadn't been holding her down. Minutes later she orgasms so hard, she erupts right into sobs as she comes down from the high of it. She becomes aware of how hard she's crying some time later when he's holding her to his chest and whispering to her that it's not her fault, and that she'd done the right thing, and that she should never regret anything, because their baby is happy and healthy and that's all that matters.
She falls asleep in the puddles of moisture on his skin, a combination of her tears and his sweat, and slumbers more peacefully than she has in years.
*
He leaves before she wakes up, only because he can't stand to look into her eyes and walk away again. It had been the hardest thing he'd ever done as an 18-year-old kid, and now that he's a man, he knows he doesn't possess the strength of character to do what's right if he has to look at her while he does it.
So he slinks out like the cheating bastard he's always been. He doesn't even leave a note.
*
She flies back to Ohio with a euphoric sense of accomplishment. Once in a while, something happens in her life and she feels that Quinn Fabray, Head Cheerleader, President of the Celibacy Club power wash over her again. Holding all the power and wielding it with no regard for anyone around her; it's a double-edged sword, she knows, because that kind of pride begged for a huge tumbling fall.
But she'd survived it all before, so she glories in it for the short space of time that it burdens her.
*
He's at work polishing the chrome accents of Engine Number 12 on a bright morning near the end of July. The sun is high in the eastern sky, and the promise of a blistering New York summer day kisses the air around him.
He goes into the locker room when he's finished sprucing up the truck and gets his phone out of his locker. He plans on calling Maria to see if she'll be in the city around lunchtime because he'd had the overnighter, and hasn't been home for 24 hours. He sees a missed call when he flips it open, and when Quinn's name pops up on the screen he feels everything inside him go still.
She's never called him, in all the years since he left Lima, except for every May 21st. Something akin to panic shoots through him, and he wonders if something has happened, if she's okay, or if there's news about their daughter that she feels he needs to know. He hesitates in retrieving the voice mail because ignorance is bliss, but he finally proceeds, looking around the locker room to see a few of the guys in his department coming in for the morning shift.
She doesn't say hello, she doesn't ask him how he is, or call him names for leaving her sleeping at the Four Seasons. All she says is, "I thought you should know I'm pregnant," and his world rocks sideways.
two strangers learn to fall in love again