two strangers learn to fall in love again (3/3)
Title: two strangers learn to fall in love again (3/3)
Rating: NC-17
Starring: Puck, Quinn, other original characters
Pairings: Puck/Quinn
Category/Warning: Future!fic; mostly fluffy, a bit of resolved angst
Word count: ~6800
Author: domfangirl
Summary: A month goes by, and he listens to Quinn's message too many times, wondering what he expects to hear in those seven words that will set him on the right course.
Author’s Notes: This is the follow up to You Make It Hard To Be Faithful. Part One / Part Two
Additional A/N: So there's totally a deleted scene for this fic that I am not going to write, because this has already gone on about 12k words longer than I thought it would. Just know in the deleted scene, Puck finds this old mixed CD that he made for Quinn back in high school and it had obnoxious songs on it like Ke$ha's "Your Love is My Drug" and the Black Eyed Peas' "I Gotta Feeling" that high school!Puck (and most likely grown up!Puck) would have loved and thought were apt descriptions of their relationship, but it would also have have Ray LaMontagne's "Trouble" and P!nk's "Crystal Ball" and a few other songs that would show that he did know Quinn (and I've always imagined Quinn likes P!nk because P!nk is also a furious chick). I guess what it comes down to is I need to make a Fan Mix to go along with this fic, huh? Anyway....
On Thursdays, Quinn teaches two ballet classes; one at 11am and another at 1pm, so it's her late day. She usually doesn't arrive at the studio until right before her first class starts. Afterwards, she'll handle any paperwork that's floated her way and return phone calls.
But today, she's just sitting in her office staring into space, and she jumps when Lyndon's knock brings her back to her surroundings.
She can't help it if all she can think about is a man who is probably driving somewhere in Pennsylvania right now.
When Pennsylvania pops in her head, she thinks of Alicia, and wonders if the route he's chosen might take him near their daughter. Then she realizes that she thought of her as Alicia and she stops, her eyes locking with Lyndon's as he lets himself into her office and takes a seat in the chair up against the far wall. "Confession time," he says, crossing his arms over his chest. "You totally slept with him, didn't you?"
Quinn can't stop the tears that sting her eyes, and she says, "Lyndon, I think I'm getting over it."
He looks concerned, and a bit confused. "Getting over what? That gorgeous cretin? That would be fabulous."
She shakes her head. "No, I'm getting over my baby girl."
He doesn't say anything, he just watches her and Quinn's eyes overflow with tears. "Oh, my god, Lyndon." She covers her face with her hands and rests her elbows on her desk. "I never thought this could happen," she says, sobs choking the words so much she's sure she's the only one who can understand them. "I never thought I would think about her and not be brokenhearted. But...but," and then his arms are around her and she's crying into his scarf (not the one he'd worn to the ultrasound, but another, because he has a million of them).
"Shhhh, shhhh, Momma," he whispers into her ear. "It's okay, it's okay. Quinn," he rubs her shoulders and pats her back, holding her close to him.
It's only when she starts laughing that he lets go of her and when they're looking into each other's eyes, she knows he thinks she gone around the bend. She reaches up and puts her tears-wet hands on his face and pulls his mouth to hers. She kisses him soundly and continues to laugh as she says, "It only took ten and a half years, but I finally thought of her by her name--by the name her parents gave her."
Lyndon stands up straight, but keeps one hand on her shoulder. She reaches her own hand up to squeeze his and says, "I did sleep with him, but I didn't have sex with him," to remind him of the original question.
An expression of relief crosses his face and he goes back to his seat by the wall. Once he's away from her, she asks with a giggle, "Well, does a handjob count as sex? Because I totally gave him one. But I didn't let him do anything but kiss me." She laughs really hard when she realizes her best friend is speechless. Because that? It's never happened in the 6+ years that she's known him. The baby flutters keep getting stronger, and as she's nearly hysterical, they come again, as if her little boy is swimming around in the joy she feels coursing through her body.
Lyndon, ever ready to assist in a psychoanalysis, quickly asks, "What did you hope to achieve with giving him a favor, but not accepting one in return?"
Quinn pauses, rubbing her hand over her stomach. The truth smacks her broadside, and the sensation is so wonderful as it comes out of her mouth. "I wanted him to know I love him. But I wasn't ready to say it yet. So I showed him."
"You love him?" Lyndon asks in disbelief. He scoffs, but then looks rather resigned, as though he knew it was coming.
"I've loved him since I was 16 years old, and we gave away our baby. It's always been there, this shadow over everything in my life. I thought it was mostly her--Alicia--but it was both of them, equally. And we did the right thing, giving her away. It was what was best for her. I have always known that logically, in my brain." She presses her fingers to her forehead, pondering on that for a long moment. "But I never felt it in my heart. Not until now. Not until I could see that I've changed, and he's changed."
"How is it a change, if you've caused history to repeat itself, and you're sitting in your office crying?" Lyndon asks.
She just smiles at him. "Because I want it, and he wants it, and we're choosing it."
He's quiet. Quinn watches him for some sign, because really, what he thinks matters to her. Besides her parents, whom she sees a few times a year, he's the only person in her life that has consistently been there. And he's definitely the only person who has ever loved her unconditionally.
She knows the course she's on, and where it's leading, but she still wants--needs--his support if it's going to be successful in the way she wants it to be.
Girlfriends have come and gone, but her gay husband has never let her down. Her grin gets bigger as she thinks of Puck's jealousy over that. There is room for both of them in her life. She just has to make them each see that.
"Quinn, I want you to be happy, you know that, right?"
"Of course."
"Just like when I met Gregory, and we started dating, you wanted some assurances that he was treating me right. Remember?"
"Yes, Lyndon. Did you just hear what I said? He didn't try anything. I know you don't know him, but trust me, that's growth. Just the fact that he tried to stop me when I started something is epic. And when he was leaving this morning--there was this moment. He was holding me, and kissing me goodbye, and... God, it hurt so good. I mean, the ache of him leaving--we were both feeling it, and I just...I could see it in his eyes. It's everything it was when we were young, plus everything it wasn't. All the things we were incapable of then, now we have it. Now, we can do it."
He chews on his bottom lip thoughtfully. "You've discussed the cheating?" he asks.
Quinn should have known that was coming, but she actually had a plan when it came to that topic, so she doesn't let it deflate her spirits. "Not yet. But we will discuss it."
"It's difficult for a leopard to change its spots, you know," he says, giving her his superior look.
"Don't start cliché-ing me to death. Puck is a man, he's not an animal." She glances away, and makes a confession that's hard to utter. "A lot of the blame for that lies with me."
"Oh, God, Quinn! No, you cannot be the woman who sits around bemoaning that she deserves a man who can't keep it in his pants. Who are you, and what have you done with my best friend?"
"Lyndon," she presses her hand against the air between them, as though she can contain his annoyance. "I'm not saying he wasn't responsible, he was. He is. But even you have pointed out to me, in the past, how my behavior in New York was--well. My point is, he didn't do it all by himself. And we will talk about it, but really, it's between him and me." She tilts her head in apology. "Look, if this is going to work, he's got to know that there aren't three people in this relationship. What you already know, I can't take back. But from here on out--well, some of this just has to be sacred."
"Like handjobs?" he asks with a smirk.
Quinn smiles again, feeling positively giddy. Head cheerleader and Celibacy Club President be damned, loving a man and being loved in return is a much better power trip. "Okay, maybe I shouldn't tell you that stuff either, but it made me proud. You know, that I could make him feel that way."
"You have been celibate for too long."
Quinn sticks her tongue out at him. "I never wanted anyone but him." And that's the truth. It's been the truth on her plate for ten long years, eight of which she'd spent without him. But that's over now, and she rejoices. Grabbing her purse from the table behind her desk, she pulls out her cell phone to send him a text. Miss you already she types in quickly.
Lyndon stands up, and Quinn looks anxiously at his face. She can see it will take a little more time, but his expression is already softer than it was when he came in. "As long as he treats you well, he and I will get along fine. But the minute he steps out of line, I don't care if he can break my perfectly shaped nose with one well-placed punch, I will have to confront him."
Quinn laughs, and says, "I hope it won't come to that."
Lyndon touches his nose carefully. "You and me both."
*
Puck stops to get gas halfway through Pennsylvania. He's been on the road about five hours, and he already knows he's going to move to Columbus. It's the only thing that makes sense, really. He can be a fireman anywhere (he got his Fire Science degree just for that purpose), and he doesn't own anything in New York. The apartment he's been waiting to get into won't open up until the beginning of December, and his buddy Phil, who's been letting him crash on his couch, will be thrilled if he's out of there before that.
Of course, it's not like Quinn's gonna ask him to move in with her, but it's probably easier to find a place to rent in Columbus than it is in New York City.
He grabs a deli sandwich and a soda after he pays for the fill-up and when he gets back in his truck, he pulls his phone out of the glovebox. He just wants to send her a little thought, some cheesy romantic thinking about you, baby kind of thing. He doesn't care, there's no one around to see him act like a pussy, so it's all good. He sees that he's missed a couple of calls and a text message. The calls are from Phil, and his mother, respectively, who'd had no idea he was in Columbus. She would not be pleased to know that he'd been less than two hours from home and he hadn't come to see her. She also wouldn't be thrilled to know he had impregnated a Gentile (again), but at least Quinn doesn't eat pork anymore, so that's a plus.
When he sees a text from her, he actually has a melting sensation in his chest. If the message didn't make him a little randy, he might need to check and see if his junk was still attached. Because, seriously? What is she doing to him? He tried to turn down sex from her (as one-sided as it was, it was still more action than he's had in too fucking long), and now he's practically crying because she misses him.
But fuck, he misses her too, like crazy. He just wants it all worked out, like yesterday, so that he's with her all the time. He doesn't want the next time they plan to see each other to be a whole month away--for her six month check-up, but that's the best they could come up with for now.
If he hadn't been able to tell how it killed them both equally to say goodbye this morning, he'd probably be planning a great big get-drunk-and-be-pitiful party when he got back to Phil's (though Phil would probably throw him out for pulling shit like that). Knowing she's just as messed up as him is a very soothing consolation, and as he punches in a little response to her text, he has to physically make his fingers choose letters that don't involve I love you. It's way harder than you'd think, and as he hits send at the end of baby, I miss you too, he knows it's all over for him. He has reached the end of the line.
Ironically, he wishes he could tell Maria, because meeting her helped him get to the place where he could be ready for this, but he's fairly certain she wouldn't appreciate that knowledge. He has the answer now to her question, Where did you go, Puck?
He'd left his heart in Ohio, about eight years ago. Now that he's got it back, he knows exactly where he is, and what he's doing. It's terrifying, and liberating all at the same time.
As he crosses the state line back into New York, and the sign says Come visit Pennsylvania again, he thinks about Alicia. He wonders if in eight more years, she might want to meet her biological parents. Then he considers how it might make that little girl feel to know her parents somehow ended up together, even though they didn't keep her. He can't say for sure, obviously, but he hopes it would make her happy.
*
Over the course of the next few weeks, they talk on the phone every day. They fight, they make up, they laugh (and one time, they even have phone sex, only because Phil happens to not be home for once), and Puck finds that a real relationship consists of all those things. Even when they disagree about something, he discovers he's not worried she's going to end things between them, because they have crossed some invisible barrier where that's not an option anymore.
They work it out, or they put it on the shelf until they've had time to think about it. They never hang up on each other, and they never, absolutely never, end the conversation while either of them is angry. Frustrated, sure, missing each other badly, every fucking time, but they don't exchange insults they way they would have when they were teenagers.
She tells him about Alicia, and how she feels about it now, and he tells her that he thinks it will be stellar when she comes to meet them some day and they have a little brother for her. (They both cry as they talk about that, but Puck won't confirm or deny it when Quinn insists that he's crying too.)
They talk about the reasons that they broke up originally. It starts relatively simple; she reminds him that he wouldn't even apply at Ohio State (where she had been accepted) and he tells her he just couldn't go with her, not when they fought so much, and he felt like she hated him most of the time.
It had been a natural progression. They'd had to break up or they would have just stayed in the same awful rut they'd been in since they'd given their daughter up. They both acknowledge it and there's this moment of silence, like all that they had gone through then is finally being put to rest.
Then Quinn breaches the last tender spot, her voice quavering as she says, "I was mad at you for a long time, and I blamed you. I would think things like, if he'd have been faithful I would have given up OSU and gone with him to New York. But who knows if that's even true. I don't know what I would have done. All I did know was I couldn't stay with you, not when you..." She doesn't finish the thought, and he doesn't need her to.
"I know," he responds. He has no defense, and he doesn't want one. He'd spent a lot of time banging girls who didn't matter to him at all to make himself feel better (both during and after Quinn), but it had never lasted much beyond the orgasm. They had been fleeting moments of pleasure with no lasting happiness, and now he knows it's unacceptable behavior. He can't explain just why he's certain he wouldn't do it again, not to Quinn. It has to do with the fact that it all means something different to him now, and obviously it does to her too. When they have sex again, he thinks it will be symbolic of what happens every day between them as they talk on the phone. They will be together in a way that invites no one else. And as much as Puck just wants her, and needs to find release inside her body, he needs what it means too. That he belongs to her, and she belongs to him, and that they only want each other.
"You wanna hear something funny?" she asks, her tone indicating that she doesn't mean funny ha ha.
"What?" he asks, holding the phone more tightly to his ear.
"A few years after high school, I was watching TV one day, just flipping through the channels, and I came to an old rerun of That 70s Show. I stopped because I remembered how you loved that show. I was just sitting there thinking of you, feeling that combination of bitter and sweet, loving you and hating you at the same time, and then I got into the episode. I wanted to know what was gonna happen.
"It was the one where Jackie and Kelso were breaking up, and they're confronting each other with the reasons why their relationship never worked. There's this one part where Kelso tells her that he cheated on her all the time because she always made him feel bad about himself."
She pauses, but not long enough to give him a chance to say anything. "It's kinda creepy when you see yourself, so plainly, and it's really not flattering, at all."
Puck's grip on the phone gets harder, and one of the buttons depresses under his cheek, making a beeping sound into the receiver.
He doesn't know what to say, but he knows she's right. He'd never thought about what was making him unhappy, but there is no denying the toxicity that had existed between them then, and the reality that he had spent a lot of time drinking and making it with other chicks. It was a pattern that had tapered off the older he got, and the longer he lived in New York. He'd had the distinct thought of wanting to be a grown-up when he'd met Maria.
"After that," Quinn continues, "I was mad at myself for a long time. It's really hard to change, Puck. Even when you know you should, that you need to. And even after I had changed, I still had a hard time apologizing to you. Every time I called you on her birthday, I would promise myself that I'd say I was sorry, but I never did. Lyndon pointed this out to me recently--after I got pregnant. We were talking about it, rehashing it all over again, and he made me see that even when I went to New York, I was basically forcing you into the same situation, only I'd made myself the other woman."
"Quinn..." He doesn't like it, the idea that somehow she's the only one playing in this game.
"God!" she says on a burst of sound. "The psychology of it all--it's like someone should write a book about me and how messed up I am."
"How fucked we both are," he mutters, but he sits up, as though laying on the sofa in Phil's apartment is not the appropriate position for this conversation. "I don't know about stuff like that, baby. I mean, yeah, there's some obvious fucked up shit between us. So maybe we should all be in therapy. My buddy, Phil, he's in the Program, you know, for alcohol? AA? Anyway, one of the things he told me that he learned when he was in recovery was taking responsibility for what you've done. Owning it, even the bad stuff. I always thought I did that, you know. Or at least I tried, and I still think I do. I'm an asshole sometimes, yeah. I do shitty things. I've cheated on girls. But here's where we've gotta meet in the middle somewhere. You made an offer, and I took you up on it. Period. And yeah, you've got power over me, always and forever, Quinn, but that's just because...you're like the only girl I've ever really loved. And I guess I did a lot of crazy shit to you back in the day because I never really knew how to just love you and make it good. I was never going to be enough, and I knew it, so that's why I didn't go with you to Columbus."
He takes a breath, feeling a little light-headed, whether it was just from the weight of unloading, or whatever, he doesn't know. He can tell Quinn's crying again, the little sniffles coming through the phone loud and clear. "We had to be apart to figure it out, I think," she says.
"Maybe," he says, still not sure if she's taking way more blame than she should. "I'm sorry, Q. I'm sorry for all of it, for hurting you, and being stupid, and not knowing how to--just be okay."
"I'm sorry, too, Puck. I'm so sorry. I don't ever want to hurt you like that ever again."
"Me, either," he says and then they're sort of talking over one another and laughing and he'd give his left nut if they were actually in the same state right now. He just wants her, so bad, and he feels like only kissing her all over could really show what he means.
"Never again--"
"No, I promise--"
"You're the only boy I've ever loved--"
"You've owned my ass since eighth grade math--"
Both at the same time: "Really?"
Quinn's laughter in his ear seems to have the same effect currently as thoughts of her naked body and Puck blurts out, "I'm moving there."
The giggles die abruptly, and then she whispers, "Are you sure?"
"Yes. I'm positive. I can't stand this. I want to be with you, so bad."
"I want you, so bad, too," she says, her voice stronger. "When, when are you coming?"
Their plan had been for him to come back to Columbus in a week and a half anyway, so really he should just make the one trip. His commander might be pissed when he doesn't give two full weeks notice, but he doesn't give a shit. "As soon as I can--I'll give notice, and I'll find a place to stay there, and when I come for the baby check up, I'll just stay." He realizes his hand that's not holding the phone to his ear is fisted in the spare blanket laying on the back of the couch. "Is that too soon?"
"No, it's not soon enough!" Quinn says, laughing again. "Puck, you don't have to--I mean, you can stay here--you should. Arrrgghh! What I'm trying to say is, you should live with me."
"My mom's gonna fucking kill me, you know. I only called her two weeks ago to tell her she's gonna be a grandma, and now I'm moving back to Ohio, and shacking up with you, so she'll be happy and pissed at the same time."
"She can start a support group with my parents!" Quinn says, and the sheer hilarity of it all hits them both so that they're gasping for air in one another's ears.
As they both calm down, Puck flops back on the couch. This is all too fast, and not enough, and so much at the same time. His head spins, and the emotion rocketing through him feels surreal.
It's all a fucking dream he never let himself imagine.
"Baby?" he says.
"What?"
"This is real, you know. It's totally happening."
She makes a happy sound in her throat. "I know, believe me. I know. And I'm so glad."
*
Eight days later, Quinn is just putting her dinner dishes into the dishwasher and wiping down the counter. Her house is in a state of disarray because she's been getting rid of things she doesn't need and going through old boxes of stuff that need to be tossed out.
She's making room for a roommate. Or the baby daddy as he insists fairly often on being called. He says he doesn't have that much shit but she assumes he is low balling her. It's a man thing, she's sure of it.
He'll be arriving the next day, though, and she's nearly bursting out of her skin at the thought. He was coming a day earlier than they originally planned, but it was still too long. Every day that she isn't with him feels like the longest one of her life.
She settles on her sofa, for the last time as a single woman, puts her feet up on the coffee table and rests her hands on her ever expanding belly. She can feel the flutters more and more often, though today he's been fairly silent. She can't wait until he's big enough to make movement Puck will be able to feel.
(There are still those moments when she feels guilty for the way she'd handled things when she was young.)
At some point she startles awake, not even aware she'd fallen to sleep, or what had woken her. She looks around the living room, and then sits up slowly. She sees something just past the blinds on her window and then there's a knock at the door. Getting to her feet, she walks to the door, wondering if Lyndon's just stopping by to try to talk some sense into her again.
She can't be talked out of it. She wants it too badly. That's why she rubs her eyes after she opens the door, because she can't quite believe that Puck is on her doorstep. "What...?"
He steps over the threshold and his arms surround her middle and she's being kissed like she hasn't been kissed in 29 long days. Her mouth opens, her head drops back, and her arms swirl around his neck, holding him close. Maybe it's a dream, but that's fine because it's the best dream ever and she doesn't want to wake up anyway.
When he pulls back and she has to gasp for oxygen she accepts that he's real, and here, even earlier than she expected. "Hi," he says, a little smile teasing the corners of his beautiful mouth.
"You're early," she whispers.
"Don't get used to it," he says, the words lost against her lips as he kisses her again. Then he lifts his head again and scoots them inside the door so that he can shut it behind him. "I couldn't wait any longer. I couldn't take one more fuckin' day withou--"
She laughs in her throat because he cuts himself off to kiss her again, only this kiss is so much more, deeper and languid, and he starts walking her backward.
She knows where they're going, and she doesn't have a problem with it, except--"Wait," she gasps, throwing an arm out so her fingers can find purchase on the wall of the hallway.
"Nope, can't do it," he breathes, his lips fastening on to her neck.
Quinn can feel it all happening so quickly, her thighs already feel like they're on fire, but she still manages to say, "Look out for the boxes," just in time for him to scoop her up and step over two boxes on the floor of her bedroom.
He deposits her gently by the bed and then stands in front of her. His eyes are dark with arousal, looking more brown than hazel, and Quinn can't help but ask, "What did you think about the whole way here?"
His hands cup her breasts over her shirt, but his thumbs find her nipples quickly through the material of her blouse and bra. "I tried not to think about it because I didn't want to be hard for nine fucking hours." His lips pass over her mouth again and drift down her chin. He strums her nipples and she pushes herself more fully into his hands. "But I've been thinking about this since the night we made him," he says, dropping a hand down to cover her belly. "You're bigger," he says, awe in his voice.
"Every day," she agrees.
"So fuckin' beautiful," he murmurs, tugging her shirt up.
Quinn lifts her hands to the buttons and quickly undoes the shirt. He helps her when he realizes what she's doing and then she's standing in front of him in just her skirt and her bra.
"This okay?" he asks, and she can see the effort it is for him to drag his gaze to her face. His fascination with her body makes her feel beautiful, makes her love him even more if possible, and she wants to cry from the sweetness of it.
She nods, but she can see he needs words. Using her right hand, she cups his jaw and brings his mouth back to hers. "I want you, Puck. I want you."
"How do we do it?" he asks, and then they both start laughing. Quinn doesn't know what's funnier, just them in general, or the idea that Puck is in a sexual situation he doesn't know how to navigate.
"Me, on top," she says, running her lips over his earlobe.
"Oh, fuck, yeah," he breathes and he pushes her skirt and panties down in one smooth motion. With his hands covering her buttcheeks, he pulls her as tight against him as her belly will allow and their foreheads meet gently. "I'm crazy in love with you, Quinn Fabray."
"I know," she says, and they kiss again. She pulls back so she can get her hands under his shirt. She knows he's been dying to see her body since he's told her fairly often during their phone conversations, but he has no idea how much she's been looking forward to seeing his body again.
Because, good lord.
She runs her fingers over his abs, and his stomach quivers. He's hard and warm, and so gorgeous, if she weren't so breathless and caught up in his godlike physique, she might feel inferior. She draws a single digit through the downy line of hair above and beneath his belly button and she literally sees the zipper of his jeans strain a bit more. His hand grabs her wrist and keeps her from touching the snap just below that. "Un-uh," he says softly. "I need some barriers between me and you, otherwise--BAM Fourth of July comes early."
She laces their fingers and slides her tongue over his bottom lip. "Baby, it's November 3rd."
He moans, and the arm around her waist draws her back tighter to him. "Quinn, if you make me come in my jeans again, I will never forgive you."
She smiles and turns to shove him down on the bed. "You're a filthy liar, you know that, right?"
He lays crosswise, smirking at her as he reaches for one of her pillows to tuck under his head. "All right then, this is your show." He just watches her, his gaze hungry and feral, and Quinn can feel the dampness between her thighs. She removes her bra, and his eyes dilate even more. She unbuttons his jeans and unzips him, gently sliding her hands inside them on either side of his hips. He's kicking off his shoes and lifting his backside off the bed as she's pulling the jeans off and she purposely brushes her mouth over the head of his cock since it's right in front of her. The sound he makes causes a smile to stretch her lips wide and after she drops his jeans on the floor, she runs her hands up his thighs as she climbs on the bed next to him.
"Quinn, seriously..." he pants, his eyes looking as desperate as his voice sounds.
Leaning over him, she presses her lips to his and his hands grip her neck, pulling her down to him. "Shhhh," she whispers. Lifting her leg, she straddles his upper legs, but makes sure she doesn't touch his cock. He pulses with life, and the temptation to wrap her hand around him and reduce him to nothing in two seconds flat is almost too much to resist.
His eyes flutter shut and his hands drop away from her neck. She captures them to bring them against her breasts, and the texture of his callused palms against her sensitive nipples makes her critically aware that she's as close as he is. It's just that should the party end too quickly for her, it won't be so obvious.
His thumbs move expertly over her and she sighs out a moan that only seems to infuriate him. "I'm not shitting you, Quinn, it's now or never, because my mother fucking heart is about to explode."
She nods and suppresses a smile, though part of her wants to remind him that he said this was her show. The reality is that it's always been his show, at least when it came to this, and it's enough for her that he needs her so much. She slides forward and reaches for him, but he groans out, "No, no," and his hands land on her inner thighs, spreading her so that he needs no guidance.
As she moves down on him, the pressure feels immense and she tosses her head back on a gasping breath as she remembers what the pregnancy book said about the blood flow in her vagina possibly making this the best sex she'd ever have. He's a big man, and his penis is proportionate to the rest of him, but she's never felt him so deeply, so fully as she does right now. A trembly little "yes" falls out of her mouth and she barely moves at all before the electricity shoots through her.
He swears colorfully, his hands clamp on her hips and he thrusts three times, and then it's over for both of them. They've engaged in so much foreplay for the last month it's really no wonder that BAM as he said. She turns boneless, sliding off of him to lie next to him on the bed and she mutters breathlessly, "Happy Fourth of July."
He gives a half-hearted laugh and the arm around her pulls her tight against his side while his other hand caresses a breast, her belly, and the apex of her thighs in one sweeping gesture.
"I might be dead," he murmurs. "And I'm fine with that."
Quinn presses her lips to his chest and closes her eyes. She tries to say, "Me, too," but nothing comes out. They fall asleep simultaneously.
*
He wakes her with soft kisses on her belly, and he makes love to her again slowly, and only gets crazy urgent at the very end. He hopes this is him calming down, because he doesn't think he can endure much of what they went through the first time.
They lay together in the sweaty aftermath, talking softly and kissing. He keeps touching her breasts, and her belly just because he can, but also because he's realizing he's kind of kinky about pregnant women. (Or at least women he's impregnated.) He can't get enough of her, but he figures that's okay since he doesn't have to. He gets to have her all the time, and it really has nothing to do with the sex (though the sex is, like, the best he's ever had). He just never has to stop touching her, he's not on a timeline, and she wants him to.
It's fucking amazing, and he can't quit grinning.
Her hand keeps moving over his pecs, playing the smattering of hair that's there, and he's got his eyes closed, just content to be holding her. Her bed is comfortable, and even long enough for him if he lays sort of diagonally. His eyes pop open when he remembers something he wanted to ask her.
Glancing down, he sees that she's just looking at him, and he gets embarrassed because he didn't realize she was doing that. "Hey," he says, and she smiles and kisses him and he has that melty sensation in his chest again. "I wondered something."
"What's that?" she asks.
"Did you have plans for what you were gonna name this kid? I mean, it's kinda crazy that we haven't talked about that yet."
"Oh, yeah. I always knew what I would name him, if he were a boy."
"Really?" He scoots over just a bit so he can turn on his side. He adjusts the pillow so that they can both lay comfortably facing each other. "What?"
"Noah, of course."
"What? No!" he cries in genuine shock. "No, Quinn. I mean, I don't even like my name--I don't even go by that name--why would you--"
"Because it's a good name! Just because you're not a Noah doesn't mean it's not a good name. Besides, you want me to call him Ephraim?"
He makes a face at her. "He doesn't need any of my names, first, middle, or last for that matter."
"I'm naming him Noah, Puck. And of course he's going to have your last name. He's your son."
He goes quiet for a moment because he can hear that tone in her voice. There are a few things that Quinn is dead set on, and he can tell this is one of them. It seems strange, since she'd never called him Noah, or attempted to make him go by his given name (unlike his mother and various other people throughout his life), but he'd never known that she liked the name. It makes him look at it with a new appreciation. "Noah what?" he asks.
She looks at him silently for a moment. "Noah James." She pauses again. "James is Lyndon's middle name."
"Oh."
She arches an eyebrow at him and repeats, "Oh? Oh is all you have to say?"
He kisses her mouth chastely. "I suppose it will win me points with him if we name our kid for him, right?"
She smiles. "You're concerned about 'winning points'?"
"I don't want the guy to hate me, obviously. And that would suck for you, you know. So, I can be nice. I can be...whatever. Friendly."
This time she kisses him, and it's not so chaste as her tongue strokes over his. When she pulls back, Puck is starting to think about round three, and all the things he wants to try with her in her current condition, but he forces himself to focus on the conversation he started. "So, Noah James Fabray-Puckerman?"
One of her hands rests on his shoulder now and her fingers dance over his skin. "Could just be Noah James Puckerman. I mean, hyphens get confusing, and the poor kid doesn't really need two last names, does he?"
Puck shrugs. "Whatever you want."
"I think Puckerman's all the last name he needs."
"What about you?" he asks.
"What about me?"
"Puckerman might be a good last name for you, too. You know. If you wanted it to be."
The severity of her smile makes her words less effective. "Is this a proposal?"
He knows she knows what he's saying. So he just presses his mouth to hers and turns her on to her back. Carefully, he makes sure none of his weight is on her belly, but keeps kissing her until her hands are greedily roaming his body and he's groaning in response to their travels. "Everyone already thinks we're crazy, right? Why not really trip them out?" he asks when he comes up for air.
"I suppose that's as good a reason as any to get married," Quinn says, faint sarcasm lacing her words.
"How about, just because I love you?" he suggests.
She blinks quickly, and he knows he's managed to make her cry again, but in a good way. "How about, because I love you?" she offers. "Because I do. I always have, and I always will. And, well, it's easier to live with you than without you."
"That's not saying much, though, is it?" he asks with a grin.
She kisses him again and shakes her head. "It's saying everything, actually."
"We'll have to go to Lima, do this old school," he says. "I should, you know, talk to your dad. And then I'll have to apologize to my mom, and go to Temple with her."
Quinn smiles. "Maybe we can buy some rings or something."
Puck nods. "Yeah, that's probably a good idea."
They kiss again and Puck whispers for her to turn over so her back is to him. He's got plans for now. The rest will wait until he's gotten his fill.
Fanmix and Epilogue
Rating: NC-17
Starring: Puck, Quinn, other original characters
Pairings: Puck/Quinn
Category/Warning: Future!fic; mostly fluffy, a bit of resolved angst
Word count: ~6800
Author: domfangirl
Summary: A month goes by, and he listens to Quinn's message too many times, wondering what he expects to hear in those seven words that will set him on the right course.
Author’s Notes: This is the follow up to You Make It Hard To Be Faithful. Part One / Part Two
Additional A/N: So there's totally a deleted scene for this fic that I am not going to write, because this has already gone on about 12k words longer than I thought it would. Just know in the deleted scene, Puck finds this old mixed CD that he made for Quinn back in high school and it had obnoxious songs on it like Ke$ha's "Your Love is My Drug" and the Black Eyed Peas' "I Gotta Feeling" that high school!Puck (and most likely grown up!Puck) would have loved and thought were apt descriptions of their relationship, but it would also have have Ray LaMontagne's "Trouble" and P!nk's "Crystal Ball" and a few other songs that would show that he did know Quinn (and I've always imagined Quinn likes P!nk because P!nk is also a furious chick). I guess what it comes down to is I need to make a Fan Mix to go along with this fic, huh? Anyway....
On Thursdays, Quinn teaches two ballet classes; one at 11am and another at 1pm, so it's her late day. She usually doesn't arrive at the studio until right before her first class starts. Afterwards, she'll handle any paperwork that's floated her way and return phone calls.
But today, she's just sitting in her office staring into space, and she jumps when Lyndon's knock brings her back to her surroundings.
She can't help it if all she can think about is a man who is probably driving somewhere in Pennsylvania right now.
When Pennsylvania pops in her head, she thinks of Alicia, and wonders if the route he's chosen might take him near their daughter. Then she realizes that she thought of her as Alicia and she stops, her eyes locking with Lyndon's as he lets himself into her office and takes a seat in the chair up against the far wall. "Confession time," he says, crossing his arms over his chest. "You totally slept with him, didn't you?"
Quinn can't stop the tears that sting her eyes, and she says, "Lyndon, I think I'm getting over it."
He looks concerned, and a bit confused. "Getting over what? That gorgeous cretin? That would be fabulous."
She shakes her head. "No, I'm getting over my baby girl."
He doesn't say anything, he just watches her and Quinn's eyes overflow with tears. "Oh, my god, Lyndon." She covers her face with her hands and rests her elbows on her desk. "I never thought this could happen," she says, sobs choking the words so much she's sure she's the only one who can understand them. "I never thought I would think about her and not be brokenhearted. But...but," and then his arms are around her and she's crying into his scarf (not the one he'd worn to the ultrasound, but another, because he has a million of them).
"Shhhh, shhhh, Momma," he whispers into her ear. "It's okay, it's okay. Quinn," he rubs her shoulders and pats her back, holding her close to him.
It's only when she starts laughing that he lets go of her and when they're looking into each other's eyes, she knows he thinks she gone around the bend. She reaches up and puts her tears-wet hands on his face and pulls his mouth to hers. She kisses him soundly and continues to laugh as she says, "It only took ten and a half years, but I finally thought of her by her name--by the name her parents gave her."
Lyndon stands up straight, but keeps one hand on her shoulder. She reaches her own hand up to squeeze his and says, "I did sleep with him, but I didn't have sex with him," to remind him of the original question.
An expression of relief crosses his face and he goes back to his seat by the wall. Once he's away from her, she asks with a giggle, "Well, does a handjob count as sex? Because I totally gave him one. But I didn't let him do anything but kiss me." She laughs really hard when she realizes her best friend is speechless. Because that? It's never happened in the 6+ years that she's known him. The baby flutters keep getting stronger, and as she's nearly hysterical, they come again, as if her little boy is swimming around in the joy she feels coursing through her body.
Lyndon, ever ready to assist in a psychoanalysis, quickly asks, "What did you hope to achieve with giving him a favor, but not accepting one in return?"
Quinn pauses, rubbing her hand over her stomach. The truth smacks her broadside, and the sensation is so wonderful as it comes out of her mouth. "I wanted him to know I love him. But I wasn't ready to say it yet. So I showed him."
"You love him?" Lyndon asks in disbelief. He scoffs, but then looks rather resigned, as though he knew it was coming.
"I've loved him since I was 16 years old, and we gave away our baby. It's always been there, this shadow over everything in my life. I thought it was mostly her--Alicia--but it was both of them, equally. And we did the right thing, giving her away. It was what was best for her. I have always known that logically, in my brain." She presses her fingers to her forehead, pondering on that for a long moment. "But I never felt it in my heart. Not until now. Not until I could see that I've changed, and he's changed."
"How is it a change, if you've caused history to repeat itself, and you're sitting in your office crying?" Lyndon asks.
She just smiles at him. "Because I want it, and he wants it, and we're choosing it."
He's quiet. Quinn watches him for some sign, because really, what he thinks matters to her. Besides her parents, whom she sees a few times a year, he's the only person in her life that has consistently been there. And he's definitely the only person who has ever loved her unconditionally.
She knows the course she's on, and where it's leading, but she still wants--needs--his support if it's going to be successful in the way she wants it to be.
Girlfriends have come and gone, but her gay husband has never let her down. Her grin gets bigger as she thinks of Puck's jealousy over that. There is room for both of them in her life. She just has to make them each see that.
"Quinn, I want you to be happy, you know that, right?"
"Of course."
"Just like when I met Gregory, and we started dating, you wanted some assurances that he was treating me right. Remember?"
"Yes, Lyndon. Did you just hear what I said? He didn't try anything. I know you don't know him, but trust me, that's growth. Just the fact that he tried to stop me when I started something is epic. And when he was leaving this morning--there was this moment. He was holding me, and kissing me goodbye, and... God, it hurt so good. I mean, the ache of him leaving--we were both feeling it, and I just...I could see it in his eyes. It's everything it was when we were young, plus everything it wasn't. All the things we were incapable of then, now we have it. Now, we can do it."
He chews on his bottom lip thoughtfully. "You've discussed the cheating?" he asks.
Quinn should have known that was coming, but she actually had a plan when it came to that topic, so she doesn't let it deflate her spirits. "Not yet. But we will discuss it."
"It's difficult for a leopard to change its spots, you know," he says, giving her his superior look.
"Don't start cliché-ing me to death. Puck is a man, he's not an animal." She glances away, and makes a confession that's hard to utter. "A lot of the blame for that lies with me."
"Oh, God, Quinn! No, you cannot be the woman who sits around bemoaning that she deserves a man who can't keep it in his pants. Who are you, and what have you done with my best friend?"
"Lyndon," she presses her hand against the air between them, as though she can contain his annoyance. "I'm not saying he wasn't responsible, he was. He is. But even you have pointed out to me, in the past, how my behavior in New York was--well. My point is, he didn't do it all by himself. And we will talk about it, but really, it's between him and me." She tilts her head in apology. "Look, if this is going to work, he's got to know that there aren't three people in this relationship. What you already know, I can't take back. But from here on out--well, some of this just has to be sacred."
"Like handjobs?" he asks with a smirk.
Quinn smiles again, feeling positively giddy. Head cheerleader and Celibacy Club President be damned, loving a man and being loved in return is a much better power trip. "Okay, maybe I shouldn't tell you that stuff either, but it made me proud. You know, that I could make him feel that way."
"You have been celibate for too long."
Quinn sticks her tongue out at him. "I never wanted anyone but him." And that's the truth. It's been the truth on her plate for ten long years, eight of which she'd spent without him. But that's over now, and she rejoices. Grabbing her purse from the table behind her desk, she pulls out her cell phone to send him a text. Miss you already she types in quickly.
Lyndon stands up, and Quinn looks anxiously at his face. She can see it will take a little more time, but his expression is already softer than it was when he came in. "As long as he treats you well, he and I will get along fine. But the minute he steps out of line, I don't care if he can break my perfectly shaped nose with one well-placed punch, I will have to confront him."
Quinn laughs, and says, "I hope it won't come to that."
Lyndon touches his nose carefully. "You and me both."
*
Puck stops to get gas halfway through Pennsylvania. He's been on the road about five hours, and he already knows he's going to move to Columbus. It's the only thing that makes sense, really. He can be a fireman anywhere (he got his Fire Science degree just for that purpose), and he doesn't own anything in New York. The apartment he's been waiting to get into won't open up until the beginning of December, and his buddy Phil, who's been letting him crash on his couch, will be thrilled if he's out of there before that.
Of course, it's not like Quinn's gonna ask him to move in with her, but it's probably easier to find a place to rent in Columbus than it is in New York City.
He grabs a deli sandwich and a soda after he pays for the fill-up and when he gets back in his truck, he pulls his phone out of the glovebox. He just wants to send her a little thought, some cheesy romantic thinking about you, baby kind of thing. He doesn't care, there's no one around to see him act like a pussy, so it's all good. He sees that he's missed a couple of calls and a text message. The calls are from Phil, and his mother, respectively, who'd had no idea he was in Columbus. She would not be pleased to know that he'd been less than two hours from home and he hadn't come to see her. She also wouldn't be thrilled to know he had impregnated a Gentile (again), but at least Quinn doesn't eat pork anymore, so that's a plus.
When he sees a text from her, he actually has a melting sensation in his chest. If the message didn't make him a little randy, he might need to check and see if his junk was still attached. Because, seriously? What is she doing to him? He tried to turn down sex from her (as one-sided as it was, it was still more action than he's had in too fucking long), and now he's practically crying because she misses him.
But fuck, he misses her too, like crazy. He just wants it all worked out, like yesterday, so that he's with her all the time. He doesn't want the next time they plan to see each other to be a whole month away--for her six month check-up, but that's the best they could come up with for now.
If he hadn't been able to tell how it killed them both equally to say goodbye this morning, he'd probably be planning a great big get-drunk-and-be-pitiful party when he got back to Phil's (though Phil would probably throw him out for pulling shit like that). Knowing she's just as messed up as him is a very soothing consolation, and as he punches in a little response to her text, he has to physically make his fingers choose letters that don't involve I love you. It's way harder than you'd think, and as he hits send at the end of baby, I miss you too, he knows it's all over for him. He has reached the end of the line.
Ironically, he wishes he could tell Maria, because meeting her helped him get to the place where he could be ready for this, but he's fairly certain she wouldn't appreciate that knowledge. He has the answer now to her question, Where did you go, Puck?
He'd left his heart in Ohio, about eight years ago. Now that he's got it back, he knows exactly where he is, and what he's doing. It's terrifying, and liberating all at the same time.
As he crosses the state line back into New York, and the sign says Come visit Pennsylvania again, he thinks about Alicia. He wonders if in eight more years, she might want to meet her biological parents. Then he considers how it might make that little girl feel to know her parents somehow ended up together, even though they didn't keep her. He can't say for sure, obviously, but he hopes it would make her happy.
*
Over the course of the next few weeks, they talk on the phone every day. They fight, they make up, they laugh (and one time, they even have phone sex, only because Phil happens to not be home for once), and Puck finds that a real relationship consists of all those things. Even when they disagree about something, he discovers he's not worried she's going to end things between them, because they have crossed some invisible barrier where that's not an option anymore.
They work it out, or they put it on the shelf until they've had time to think about it. They never hang up on each other, and they never, absolutely never, end the conversation while either of them is angry. Frustrated, sure, missing each other badly, every fucking time, but they don't exchange insults they way they would have when they were teenagers.
She tells him about Alicia, and how she feels about it now, and he tells her that he thinks it will be stellar when she comes to meet them some day and they have a little brother for her. (They both cry as they talk about that, but Puck won't confirm or deny it when Quinn insists that he's crying too.)
They talk about the reasons that they broke up originally. It starts relatively simple; she reminds him that he wouldn't even apply at Ohio State (where she had been accepted) and he tells her he just couldn't go with her, not when they fought so much, and he felt like she hated him most of the time.
It had been a natural progression. They'd had to break up or they would have just stayed in the same awful rut they'd been in since they'd given their daughter up. They both acknowledge it and there's this moment of silence, like all that they had gone through then is finally being put to rest.
Then Quinn breaches the last tender spot, her voice quavering as she says, "I was mad at you for a long time, and I blamed you. I would think things like, if he'd have been faithful I would have given up OSU and gone with him to New York. But who knows if that's even true. I don't know what I would have done. All I did know was I couldn't stay with you, not when you..." She doesn't finish the thought, and he doesn't need her to.
"I know," he responds. He has no defense, and he doesn't want one. He'd spent a lot of time banging girls who didn't matter to him at all to make himself feel better (both during and after Quinn), but it had never lasted much beyond the orgasm. They had been fleeting moments of pleasure with no lasting happiness, and now he knows it's unacceptable behavior. He can't explain just why he's certain he wouldn't do it again, not to Quinn. It has to do with the fact that it all means something different to him now, and obviously it does to her too. When they have sex again, he thinks it will be symbolic of what happens every day between them as they talk on the phone. They will be together in a way that invites no one else. And as much as Puck just wants her, and needs to find release inside her body, he needs what it means too. That he belongs to her, and she belongs to him, and that they only want each other.
"You wanna hear something funny?" she asks, her tone indicating that she doesn't mean funny ha ha.
"What?" he asks, holding the phone more tightly to his ear.
"A few years after high school, I was watching TV one day, just flipping through the channels, and I came to an old rerun of That 70s Show. I stopped because I remembered how you loved that show. I was just sitting there thinking of you, feeling that combination of bitter and sweet, loving you and hating you at the same time, and then I got into the episode. I wanted to know what was gonna happen.
"It was the one where Jackie and Kelso were breaking up, and they're confronting each other with the reasons why their relationship never worked. There's this one part where Kelso tells her that he cheated on her all the time because she always made him feel bad about himself."
She pauses, but not long enough to give him a chance to say anything. "It's kinda creepy when you see yourself, so plainly, and it's really not flattering, at all."
Puck's grip on the phone gets harder, and one of the buttons depresses under his cheek, making a beeping sound into the receiver.
He doesn't know what to say, but he knows she's right. He'd never thought about what was making him unhappy, but there is no denying the toxicity that had existed between them then, and the reality that he had spent a lot of time drinking and making it with other chicks. It was a pattern that had tapered off the older he got, and the longer he lived in New York. He'd had the distinct thought of wanting to be a grown-up when he'd met Maria.
"After that," Quinn continues, "I was mad at myself for a long time. It's really hard to change, Puck. Even when you know you should, that you need to. And even after I had changed, I still had a hard time apologizing to you. Every time I called you on her birthday, I would promise myself that I'd say I was sorry, but I never did. Lyndon pointed this out to me recently--after I got pregnant. We were talking about it, rehashing it all over again, and he made me see that even when I went to New York, I was basically forcing you into the same situation, only I'd made myself the other woman."
"Quinn..." He doesn't like it, the idea that somehow she's the only one playing in this game.
"God!" she says on a burst of sound. "The psychology of it all--it's like someone should write a book about me and how messed up I am."
"How fucked we both are," he mutters, but he sits up, as though laying on the sofa in Phil's apartment is not the appropriate position for this conversation. "I don't know about stuff like that, baby. I mean, yeah, there's some obvious fucked up shit between us. So maybe we should all be in therapy. My buddy, Phil, he's in the Program, you know, for alcohol? AA? Anyway, one of the things he told me that he learned when he was in recovery was taking responsibility for what you've done. Owning it, even the bad stuff. I always thought I did that, you know. Or at least I tried, and I still think I do. I'm an asshole sometimes, yeah. I do shitty things. I've cheated on girls. But here's where we've gotta meet in the middle somewhere. You made an offer, and I took you up on it. Period. And yeah, you've got power over me, always and forever, Quinn, but that's just because...you're like the only girl I've ever really loved. And I guess I did a lot of crazy shit to you back in the day because I never really knew how to just love you and make it good. I was never going to be enough, and I knew it, so that's why I didn't go with you to Columbus."
He takes a breath, feeling a little light-headed, whether it was just from the weight of unloading, or whatever, he doesn't know. He can tell Quinn's crying again, the little sniffles coming through the phone loud and clear. "We had to be apart to figure it out, I think," she says.
"Maybe," he says, still not sure if she's taking way more blame than she should. "I'm sorry, Q. I'm sorry for all of it, for hurting you, and being stupid, and not knowing how to--just be okay."
"I'm sorry, too, Puck. I'm so sorry. I don't ever want to hurt you like that ever again."
"Me, either," he says and then they're sort of talking over one another and laughing and he'd give his left nut if they were actually in the same state right now. He just wants her, so bad, and he feels like only kissing her all over could really show what he means.
"Never again--"
"No, I promise--"
"You're the only boy I've ever loved--"
"You've owned my ass since eighth grade math--"
Both at the same time: "Really?"
Quinn's laughter in his ear seems to have the same effect currently as thoughts of her naked body and Puck blurts out, "I'm moving there."
The giggles die abruptly, and then she whispers, "Are you sure?"
"Yes. I'm positive. I can't stand this. I want to be with you, so bad."
"I want you, so bad, too," she says, her voice stronger. "When, when are you coming?"
Their plan had been for him to come back to Columbus in a week and a half anyway, so really he should just make the one trip. His commander might be pissed when he doesn't give two full weeks notice, but he doesn't give a shit. "As soon as I can--I'll give notice, and I'll find a place to stay there, and when I come for the baby check up, I'll just stay." He realizes his hand that's not holding the phone to his ear is fisted in the spare blanket laying on the back of the couch. "Is that too soon?"
"No, it's not soon enough!" Quinn says, laughing again. "Puck, you don't have to--I mean, you can stay here--you should. Arrrgghh! What I'm trying to say is, you should live with me."
"My mom's gonna fucking kill me, you know. I only called her two weeks ago to tell her she's gonna be a grandma, and now I'm moving back to Ohio, and shacking up with you, so she'll be happy and pissed at the same time."
"She can start a support group with my parents!" Quinn says, and the sheer hilarity of it all hits them both so that they're gasping for air in one another's ears.
As they both calm down, Puck flops back on the couch. This is all too fast, and not enough, and so much at the same time. His head spins, and the emotion rocketing through him feels surreal.
It's all a fucking dream he never let himself imagine.
"Baby?" he says.
"What?"
"This is real, you know. It's totally happening."
She makes a happy sound in her throat. "I know, believe me. I know. And I'm so glad."
*
Eight days later, Quinn is just putting her dinner dishes into the dishwasher and wiping down the counter. Her house is in a state of disarray because she's been getting rid of things she doesn't need and going through old boxes of stuff that need to be tossed out.
She's making room for a roommate. Or the baby daddy as he insists fairly often on being called. He says he doesn't have that much shit but she assumes he is low balling her. It's a man thing, she's sure of it.
He'll be arriving the next day, though, and she's nearly bursting out of her skin at the thought. He was coming a day earlier than they originally planned, but it was still too long. Every day that she isn't with him feels like the longest one of her life.
She settles on her sofa, for the last time as a single woman, puts her feet up on the coffee table and rests her hands on her ever expanding belly. She can feel the flutters more and more often, though today he's been fairly silent. She can't wait until he's big enough to make movement Puck will be able to feel.
(There are still those moments when she feels guilty for the way she'd handled things when she was young.)
At some point she startles awake, not even aware she'd fallen to sleep, or what had woken her. She looks around the living room, and then sits up slowly. She sees something just past the blinds on her window and then there's a knock at the door. Getting to her feet, she walks to the door, wondering if Lyndon's just stopping by to try to talk some sense into her again.
She can't be talked out of it. She wants it too badly. That's why she rubs her eyes after she opens the door, because she can't quite believe that Puck is on her doorstep. "What...?"
He steps over the threshold and his arms surround her middle and she's being kissed like she hasn't been kissed in 29 long days. Her mouth opens, her head drops back, and her arms swirl around his neck, holding him close. Maybe it's a dream, but that's fine because it's the best dream ever and she doesn't want to wake up anyway.
When he pulls back and she has to gasp for oxygen she accepts that he's real, and here, even earlier than she expected. "Hi," he says, a little smile teasing the corners of his beautiful mouth.
"You're early," she whispers.
"Don't get used to it," he says, the words lost against her lips as he kisses her again. Then he lifts his head again and scoots them inside the door so that he can shut it behind him. "I couldn't wait any longer. I couldn't take one more fuckin' day withou--"
She laughs in her throat because he cuts himself off to kiss her again, only this kiss is so much more, deeper and languid, and he starts walking her backward.
She knows where they're going, and she doesn't have a problem with it, except--"Wait," she gasps, throwing an arm out so her fingers can find purchase on the wall of the hallway.
"Nope, can't do it," he breathes, his lips fastening on to her neck.
Quinn can feel it all happening so quickly, her thighs already feel like they're on fire, but she still manages to say, "Look out for the boxes," just in time for him to scoop her up and step over two boxes on the floor of her bedroom.
He deposits her gently by the bed and then stands in front of her. His eyes are dark with arousal, looking more brown than hazel, and Quinn can't help but ask, "What did you think about the whole way here?"
His hands cup her breasts over her shirt, but his thumbs find her nipples quickly through the material of her blouse and bra. "I tried not to think about it because I didn't want to be hard for nine fucking hours." His lips pass over her mouth again and drift down her chin. He strums her nipples and she pushes herself more fully into his hands. "But I've been thinking about this since the night we made him," he says, dropping a hand down to cover her belly. "You're bigger," he says, awe in his voice.
"Every day," she agrees.
"So fuckin' beautiful," he murmurs, tugging her shirt up.
Quinn lifts her hands to the buttons and quickly undoes the shirt. He helps her when he realizes what she's doing and then she's standing in front of him in just her skirt and her bra.
"This okay?" he asks, and she can see the effort it is for him to drag his gaze to her face. His fascination with her body makes her feel beautiful, makes her love him even more if possible, and she wants to cry from the sweetness of it.
She nods, but she can see he needs words. Using her right hand, she cups his jaw and brings his mouth back to hers. "I want you, Puck. I want you."
"How do we do it?" he asks, and then they both start laughing. Quinn doesn't know what's funnier, just them in general, or the idea that Puck is in a sexual situation he doesn't know how to navigate.
"Me, on top," she says, running her lips over his earlobe.
"Oh, fuck, yeah," he breathes and he pushes her skirt and panties down in one smooth motion. With his hands covering her buttcheeks, he pulls her as tight against him as her belly will allow and their foreheads meet gently. "I'm crazy in love with you, Quinn Fabray."
"I know," she says, and they kiss again. She pulls back so she can get her hands under his shirt. She knows he's been dying to see her body since he's told her fairly often during their phone conversations, but he has no idea how much she's been looking forward to seeing his body again.
Because, good lord.
She runs her fingers over his abs, and his stomach quivers. He's hard and warm, and so gorgeous, if she weren't so breathless and caught up in his godlike physique, she might feel inferior. She draws a single digit through the downy line of hair above and beneath his belly button and she literally sees the zipper of his jeans strain a bit more. His hand grabs her wrist and keeps her from touching the snap just below that. "Un-uh," he says softly. "I need some barriers between me and you, otherwise--BAM Fourth of July comes early."
She laces their fingers and slides her tongue over his bottom lip. "Baby, it's November 3rd."
He moans, and the arm around her waist draws her back tighter to him. "Quinn, if you make me come in my jeans again, I will never forgive you."
She smiles and turns to shove him down on the bed. "You're a filthy liar, you know that, right?"
He lays crosswise, smirking at her as he reaches for one of her pillows to tuck under his head. "All right then, this is your show." He just watches her, his gaze hungry and feral, and Quinn can feel the dampness between her thighs. She removes her bra, and his eyes dilate even more. She unbuttons his jeans and unzips him, gently sliding her hands inside them on either side of his hips. He's kicking off his shoes and lifting his backside off the bed as she's pulling the jeans off and she purposely brushes her mouth over the head of his cock since it's right in front of her. The sound he makes causes a smile to stretch her lips wide and after she drops his jeans on the floor, she runs her hands up his thighs as she climbs on the bed next to him.
"Quinn, seriously..." he pants, his eyes looking as desperate as his voice sounds.
Leaning over him, she presses her lips to his and his hands grip her neck, pulling her down to him. "Shhhh," she whispers. Lifting her leg, she straddles his upper legs, but makes sure she doesn't touch his cock. He pulses with life, and the temptation to wrap her hand around him and reduce him to nothing in two seconds flat is almost too much to resist.
His eyes flutter shut and his hands drop away from her neck. She captures them to bring them against her breasts, and the texture of his callused palms against her sensitive nipples makes her critically aware that she's as close as he is. It's just that should the party end too quickly for her, it won't be so obvious.
His thumbs move expertly over her and she sighs out a moan that only seems to infuriate him. "I'm not shitting you, Quinn, it's now or never, because my mother fucking heart is about to explode."
She nods and suppresses a smile, though part of her wants to remind him that he said this was her show. The reality is that it's always been his show, at least when it came to this, and it's enough for her that he needs her so much. She slides forward and reaches for him, but he groans out, "No, no," and his hands land on her inner thighs, spreading her so that he needs no guidance.
As she moves down on him, the pressure feels immense and she tosses her head back on a gasping breath as she remembers what the pregnancy book said about the blood flow in her vagina possibly making this the best sex she'd ever have. He's a big man, and his penis is proportionate to the rest of him, but she's never felt him so deeply, so fully as she does right now. A trembly little "yes" falls out of her mouth and she barely moves at all before the electricity shoots through her.
He swears colorfully, his hands clamp on her hips and he thrusts three times, and then it's over for both of them. They've engaged in so much foreplay for the last month it's really no wonder that BAM as he said. She turns boneless, sliding off of him to lie next to him on the bed and she mutters breathlessly, "Happy Fourth of July."
He gives a half-hearted laugh and the arm around her pulls her tight against his side while his other hand caresses a breast, her belly, and the apex of her thighs in one sweeping gesture.
"I might be dead," he murmurs. "And I'm fine with that."
Quinn presses her lips to his chest and closes her eyes. She tries to say, "Me, too," but nothing comes out. They fall asleep simultaneously.
*
He wakes her with soft kisses on her belly, and he makes love to her again slowly, and only gets crazy urgent at the very end. He hopes this is him calming down, because he doesn't think he can endure much of what they went through the first time.
They lay together in the sweaty aftermath, talking softly and kissing. He keeps touching her breasts, and her belly just because he can, but also because he's realizing he's kind of kinky about pregnant women. (Or at least women he's impregnated.) He can't get enough of her, but he figures that's okay since he doesn't have to. He gets to have her all the time, and it really has nothing to do with the sex (though the sex is, like, the best he's ever had). He just never has to stop touching her, he's not on a timeline, and she wants him to.
It's fucking amazing, and he can't quit grinning.
Her hand keeps moving over his pecs, playing the smattering of hair that's there, and he's got his eyes closed, just content to be holding her. Her bed is comfortable, and even long enough for him if he lays sort of diagonally. His eyes pop open when he remembers something he wanted to ask her.
Glancing down, he sees that she's just looking at him, and he gets embarrassed because he didn't realize she was doing that. "Hey," he says, and she smiles and kisses him and he has that melty sensation in his chest again. "I wondered something."
"What's that?" she asks.
"Did you have plans for what you were gonna name this kid? I mean, it's kinda crazy that we haven't talked about that yet."
"Oh, yeah. I always knew what I would name him, if he were a boy."
"Really?" He scoots over just a bit so he can turn on his side. He adjusts the pillow so that they can both lay comfortably facing each other. "What?"
"Noah, of course."
"What? No!" he cries in genuine shock. "No, Quinn. I mean, I don't even like my name--I don't even go by that name--why would you--"
"Because it's a good name! Just because you're not a Noah doesn't mean it's not a good name. Besides, you want me to call him Ephraim?"
He makes a face at her. "He doesn't need any of my names, first, middle, or last for that matter."
"I'm naming him Noah, Puck. And of course he's going to have your last name. He's your son."
He goes quiet for a moment because he can hear that tone in her voice. There are a few things that Quinn is dead set on, and he can tell this is one of them. It seems strange, since she'd never called him Noah, or attempted to make him go by his given name (unlike his mother and various other people throughout his life), but he'd never known that she liked the name. It makes him look at it with a new appreciation. "Noah what?" he asks.
She looks at him silently for a moment. "Noah James." She pauses again. "James is Lyndon's middle name."
"Oh."
She arches an eyebrow at him and repeats, "Oh? Oh is all you have to say?"
He kisses her mouth chastely. "I suppose it will win me points with him if we name our kid for him, right?"
She smiles. "You're concerned about 'winning points'?"
"I don't want the guy to hate me, obviously. And that would suck for you, you know. So, I can be nice. I can be...whatever. Friendly."
This time she kisses him, and it's not so chaste as her tongue strokes over his. When she pulls back, Puck is starting to think about round three, and all the things he wants to try with her in her current condition, but he forces himself to focus on the conversation he started. "So, Noah James Fabray-Puckerman?"
One of her hands rests on his shoulder now and her fingers dance over his skin. "Could just be Noah James Puckerman. I mean, hyphens get confusing, and the poor kid doesn't really need two last names, does he?"
Puck shrugs. "Whatever you want."
"I think Puckerman's all the last name he needs."
"What about you?" he asks.
"What about me?"
"Puckerman might be a good last name for you, too. You know. If you wanted it to be."
The severity of her smile makes her words less effective. "Is this a proposal?"
He knows she knows what he's saying. So he just presses his mouth to hers and turns her on to her back. Carefully, he makes sure none of his weight is on her belly, but keeps kissing her until her hands are greedily roaming his body and he's groaning in response to their travels. "Everyone already thinks we're crazy, right? Why not really trip them out?" he asks when he comes up for air.
"I suppose that's as good a reason as any to get married," Quinn says, faint sarcasm lacing her words.
"How about, just because I love you?" he suggests.
She blinks quickly, and he knows he's managed to make her cry again, but in a good way. "How about, because I love you?" she offers. "Because I do. I always have, and I always will. And, well, it's easier to live with you than without you."
"That's not saying much, though, is it?" he asks with a grin.
She kisses him again and shakes her head. "It's saying everything, actually."
"We'll have to go to Lima, do this old school," he says. "I should, you know, talk to your dad. And then I'll have to apologize to my mom, and go to Temple with her."
Quinn smiles. "Maybe we can buy some rings or something."
Puck nods. "Yeah, that's probably a good idea."
They kiss again and Puck whispers for her to turn over so her back is to him. He's got plans for now. The rest will wait until he's gotten his fill.
Fanmix and Epilogue