[fic] Your Make-up Stains My Pillowcase
Title: Your Make-up Stains My Pillowcase
Author: domfangirl
Rating: PG-13
Pairings/Characters: Puck/Quinn (but really it's Puck/everyone with a side of Quinn/Sam)
Warnings: Spoilers through 2x04 "Duets," with heavy speculation for what happens after (not based on any spoilers, however).
Word count: ~7800
Summary: This is basically how Quinn destroys Puck and how he finds his way back from the pit.
Author’s Notes: Here's what happens when my own personal angst that I will never get my OTP reaches dangerous levels. Title stolen from "Of All The Gin Joints In All The World" by Fall Out Boy. Where this ended up just boggles my mind. I can't explain it. So I won't try. (It has a happy ending, I think.)
Puck's flat on his back, eyes closed in orgasmic aftermath on Mrs. Jamison's bed. He's contemplating letting sleep pull him away when he hears her breathless words against his chest.
"I love you."
Now see, this is sort of funny (not funny: ha, ha), on like twenty different levels. One, they've been banging all summer (her pool is the cleanest in the tri-county area); two, he's aware that he doesn't love her; and three, he's known all along that he shouldn't be hooking up with her. She's not quite old enough to be a Cougar, so she doesn't really understand how these things are supposed to work. (It's a fling, not a relationship.)
"Fuck," he breathes out in a whisper as she slides off of him and flips her hair back to look him in the eye.
The other level of funny: he really wishes he didn't know what it felt like to tell someone you love them and have them not answer you back in kind.
But, it's not like he asked for this. He didn't want her to love him, and he sure as hell didn't ask her to tell him. It never even occurred to him that she would.
Quinn didn't, after all. A girl who'd given up her virginity to him without much of a fight (seriously two make out sessions and him showing up at her house with a six pack and a smile seemed like such an easy road when he considered that it had never happened again). Then she'd treated him like shit until the truth came out, and then treated him like shit some more after that.
And he'd let her.
But then, there they'd been, standing in the hallway outside the nursery at the hospital watching Beth in her little crib. She'd been the tiniest, most beautiful thing he'd ever laid eyes on, and he'd known he probably wouldn't get to hold her twice. When Quinn had asked him, "Did you love me?" he shouldn't have responded. All that had happened before that moment should have trained him on the exact reaction he needed to have.
But he'd answered honestly, because why the fuck not? What was left to lose? His kid would be gone by the end of the evening, Regionals had gone to Vocal Adrenaline again, and the only good thing that had happened that day other than Beth's birth was that Finn had put his hand on Puck's back while he was fucking crying into Schue's shoulder while the whole Glee Club stood there in the waiting room. (Call it a moment of weakness, witnessed by ten people.)
He watches Mrs. Jamison's eyes fill with tears and he curses under his breath again. "Look--" he tries.
She shakes her head vigorously and gets off the bed faster than he's ever seen her move. "You should probably go," she says, her voice trembling.
He sits up and reaches out to her. She's hella hot (that's why he's banging her, obviously), all wide hazel eyes and blonde hair, her body that 36, 24, 36 business that you only see in dirty magazines, and he'd had a hell of a summer with her. But as she wraps a blanket around her naked body and retreats into the bathroom, shouting, "Get out, Puck!" he knows it's all over now.
School doesn't start for three weeks. He's been counting the days for two reasons, one because he hasn't seen Quinn all summer, and two because he likes it that way. Having to see her every day, her body back to normal, no trace of their child visible at all, is going to be a special kind of torture.
The kind reserved for asshats like him who get their best friend's girl pregnant.
The kind who love a girl for no real reason, and then let her shit on them again and again, throwing the final blow with an uncertain smile and a little giggle when love is declared for the whole world to hear.
He gathers up his clothes, wishing he could say something to make it better for Mrs. Jamison.
In the end, he just does what he did with Quinn. He walks away. He forgets about it. He finds a bottle of Jack in his mom's stash in her bedroom and before he opens it, he takes his little sister over to her best friend's house for a sleepover. (It's summertime, suggestions like that are easily fulfilled.)
That night he gets sloppy drunk, and since he's alone, he doesn't get louder and handsier as the night goes on. He probably cries, but later when he's puking his guts up, he can blame his wet eyes on the acid burning his throat.
It's not until he checks his phone the next day that he realizes he drunk texted Quinn. Several times, apparently. He has this vivid but vague memory of her, there, with him, but hopes/thinks/fucking wishes he was just dreaming. He can't imagine that she'd come over for any reason. He knows she was there, though, because there are mascara smudges on his pillow case.
(She did that a lot when they lived together, fell asleep with her make-up still on. It was always all over everything.)
One hand crumples the white cloth in a fist while the other throws his phone across the room. God, he'd do anything to just not give a fuck anymore.
*
Santana comes over the night before school starts. She's been gone most of the summer; there was a family reunion in Puerto Rico, and then a month at her grandma's who lives in Massachusetts, and then cheerleading camp, and really that was the whole summer, gone before he could blink. When she comes over, she's not interested in finding out what he's been doing all summer, she just strips down to her underwear and gives him a look.
(Turns out part of her summer vacation involved a boob job, something that gets him super excited, his dick straining against the zipper of his jeans. When he cups her new, larger breasts in his hands, he's disappointed to find he thinks they feel weird.)
This is why he and Santana work, because they don't need all the other stuff. This is what it's about, just bodies and hunger, and an effort to fill a void that doesn't really work, but it sure is fun trying. She blows him before she leaves, but says from the doorway of his bedroom, "You better be okay with the war that I'll have going on with Quinn this year. And you better be on my side. I don't care if she had your kid."
He nods his head at her, because what else is going to do? It's not like he'll have to make a statement, he just won't say anything. Quinn can handle herself where San's concerned, and he'd point that out to her, but he knows it won't do any good.
Santana hates Quinn for a lot more reasons than a Cheerios uniform, though she'd never admit it. It's funny now because sometimes he hates Quinn for just the same reasons.
*
At their first Glee Club rehearsal, Quinn smiles at him. It's a knowing smirk, her eyebrow going up with a little flair. Everybody's seen the Jacob Ben-Israel interviews, and even though he broke the little perv's camera, it didn't destroy what he'd already recorded.
She sits next to Mercedes and they whisper all their stupid girl shit together, and he does his best to ignore them. It helps when Santana sits next to him and starts writing him notes about what they should do after school. (It's all sexual and involves the janitor's closet outside the boy's locker room.)
A few days later, at the season opener football game, the Cheerios do their routine with a perfection that is sort of attention grabbing. He'd never own up to being interested in anything except the jiggle and the flash of buttcheeks he sometimes gets from watching, but the truth is Quinn has obviously worked hard all summer to be ready for this, even though she hadn't known for sure she'd be let back on the squad.
He thinks that's my girl before he can even stop himself.
When he takes down the left tackle during the game with far more force than is necessary, Coach Beiste calls him off the field to to say, "Puckerman, you're a tight end. Quit acting like you're defending the endzone."
He thinks if he knew what a metaphor was, that would describe his life exactly.
*
"Hi, Puck," Quinn says.
He's playing Tetris on his phone, waiting for Glee to start, but he doesn't finish his game, just looks up at her as she takes up residence in the chair next to his. "Hey," he says.
"Did you get Shelby's email yesterday?" she asks.
He nods. Ms. Corcoran had been great, sending them regular updates about Beth, pictures and stories about her that made his chest feel tight and his eyes itchy. The day before she'd sent a video of Beth laying under a mobile of some sort. The baby was four months old now, and something about the movement over her head had made her giggle uncontrollably. The video was two and a half minutes long, just a continuous peal of laughter interrupted by the occasional need for air.
He'd watched it, like ten times.
"Funny, huh?" he says now, like he didn't get a few of his mom's beers out and guzzle them like a fucking wino. He'd had his fingers poised over the buttons on his phone, about to text Quinn when he remembered that he couldn't really remember what had happened the last time he'd done it. It was enough to keep him from humiliating himself again.
"Adorable," she says in agreement.
"She's a cute kid," he remarks, like she's not their kid, like she's not the most beautiful thing he's ever seen because she looks so much like Quinn. Like he hadn't wanted them to play house and be there in person for things like giggle fits. He didn't even know babies did shit like that, but he figures they're just like little people, and he had hysterics from time to time, even when he hadn't been smoking weed.
"Shelby called me yesterday, as well," Quinn says quietly. The other kids are getting there now, and he thinks maybe she doesn't want Rachel to hear her talking about Shelby. "She's leaving Ohio, you know, moving out to California. She wondered if we wanted to come say goodbye in person."
Puck feels this eruption of something in his chest. It's a hot rush that seizes his body and he wants to say hell yeah, but something in Quinn's face makes the words halt behind his lips. She asks, "Do you want to go?" and he knows what she wants him to say.
So he says it, even though he doesn't mean it. "...I, uh. No. I mean. We shouldn't, right?"
Quinn nods immediately. "I agree."
"Really?" he asks.
"Yes. It would just..."
"Suck," he fills in when she says nothing. He can't imagine what would hurt more, seeing Beth, holding her, and then letting her go again, or watching Quinn still not want her.
She nods again, more emphatically. "Yeah, it would just...hurt."
Puck's chest is so unbearably tight as he looks at her face, he can hardly breathe, much less take in enough air to say anything else. They stare at one another for a long moment, and he gets that it does hurt her, in some way. Probably not the same way as him, but it sort of makes him happy to know she feels something. Then she gets up, moving her chair back slightly, so they aren't sitting by each other anymore.
Rachel stands in front of the piano to share some schmoopy song that she dedicates to Finn. He can't help it, when about halfway through he turns and looks at Quinn over his shoulder. She's watching him intently, and she doesn't look away when their eyes meet.
It's all so fucked up, and even though he loves his daughter, and wishes he could have had a chance to be her daddy, he comes up against the fact that what he really wishes is that he'd done it all the right way from the beginning. That he'd asked Quinn out legit-like instead of chasing her down and letting them be a dirty secret. He wishes he'd told Finn right from the beginning that he had a thing for her, because if he had, Finn would so have stayed out of it.
More than anything, he wishes he had a fucking clue of how to make it right now, because he knows he can't change anything.
*
She comes over that night, just shows up on his doorstep, and Bekah goes nuts, because she loves Quinn but hasn't seen her in ages.
He stands back, watching her carefully. It's the first time since school started that he's seen her in something besides her Cheerios uniform. The soft, flowy shirt and slacks remind him of her "pregnant clothes" only they fit her closely, and it's obvious that she's not carrying any extra weight. He has no idea what she's doing there, but he's glad he's stone cold sober, so he won't do anything stupid. (Stupider.)
She makes nice with his sister, asking her questions about her summer vacation, and her new junior high school. Bekah prattles on forever until Puck makes her go take a bath. It's close to bed time and he's on duty since his mom's working the overnight shift.
He gets Quinn a soda and they stand in the kitchen. "What's up?" he finally asks, because it's like she's just hanging out, which is not a normal thing that they do. At least, it hasn't been ever since she moved out of his house before Beth was even born.
There for a while, it had been pretty dope. In the beginning, they'd been together, but when he realized it was "in name only" he'd called her on it, and she'd told him she didn't want to have sex. They'd had a screaming, yelling fight about what being in a relationship meant, but the fact that he couldn't get her pregnant again hadn't been a selling point. So he'd gone out and fucked one of the Cheerios who wasn't Santana. A week later he'd hooked up with Santana (he'd had to work for that one because he'd really been trying with Quinn, so he and Santana had been on the outs. Getting back into her good graces had not been easy), and after that, he'd moved on to Mercedes, though they hadn't ever done the nasty.
When she became best friends with Quinn, he was really glad they hadn't, though that was probably more because of Mercedes than him.
Quinn shrugs in response to his question and sips her soda. "I guess I just wanted to spend time with you. I miss you."
He has that feeling in his chest--the one that always gets him screwed five ways till Sunday when it comes to Quinn, so he doesn't trust it.
He doesn't trust her, at all. "I've been here, all along," he says, smirking at her.
She sets the soda can on the counter next to her. "I know," she says quietly, her voice full of something--maybe regret?--and he wants to shout at her, what the fuck do you want from me? "I guess, it's just the baby, and everything. I mean, we did the right thing, right?"
Puck's head suddenly throbs, the rush of blood to his temples and a tension headache not the normal visceral reaction he tends to have with Quinn. He can't help it, he just blurts out, "The fuck, Fabray?" and she starts bawling, literally, sobs falling out of her mouth and great huge tears dripping down her face.
He's frozen, across the kitchen from her, not knowing if he should try to hug her, or if it's catching, because his throat is really tight, and his eyes feel like he got into poison oak or something.
Somehow, he's got her in his arms, and he's telling her what she needs to hear (Yeah, baby, we did the right thing) even though he knows they have until Beth is six months old to change their minds, and he thinks about it every damn day. She presses her face against his shoulder, and he's pretty sure she wipes her nose on him, which helps him to start laughing a little, so he can't cry with her. (And that's a good thing.)
He finds that they're sitting awkwardly on the floor in the kitchen now, and he didn't even notice that they'd gone down. She tips her head back, and her soft chuckles join with his as she whispers, "Sorry about that."
In the stark overhead light, her face is pale, but her eyes look so green. Her lashes, coated with mascara, sweep upward dramatically, causing a familiar sensation in his stomach. Her face is unbelievably beautiful, her perfect bow lips and her pointed chin, the curve of her cheeks and the tilt at the corner of her eyes. He loves her face, everything about it, and with it right there, so close to his own, he doesn't even think twice when his lips brush against the edge of her jaw. She makes a little sound, and he shifts her, pushing her back just a bit so that his mouth can skate across hers.
"NOAH!" his little sister screams from the top of the stairs. "I'm ready for you to tuck me in!"
Quinn jerks herself out of his arms, scrambling to her feet so quickly, she jabs him in the stomach with one knee and nearly takes him out with the other one. He grunts as she nails his package and shifts away to prevent a full on assault. His hands surround her arms to help steady her so that she's standing over him when Bekah yells his name again.
"I need to go," she says, and then repeats it more loudly when Bekah calls for her, too.
He watches her practically run out the kitchen door into the garage, and then hears the door as it goes up. She still remembers all the little details of their house, how you can hit that button just right twice so the garage door goes up far enough and you have time to skid out under it before it comes back down again. He imagines she runs the whole way, down the driveway, and beyond, as though distance is going to solve anything.
*
So, he's been in Juvie twice. Once, when he was fourteen he got caught stealing, and was sentenced to six months. His mom begged and pleaded, and somehow he only spent a month inside. He thinks Rabbi Greenberg had something to do with it, because you know, all the Jew lawyers in Lima were in that guy's hip pocket. (And seriously, his mom couldn't make it without him. She's a single parent. Someone, somewhere had had mercy on her.)
This time, driving the car through the front of the convenience store isn't exactly part of the plan. He's a little drunk, and a lot crazy, and he sort of loses control of the car because he mixes up the gas and the brake. (It's just because he's drunk, not because Quinn hasn't talked to him in two weeks, and he just can't deal with going to school every day and facing her.)
He's spent way too much time thinking this week, what with Hummel's dad in the hospital and him and Nana saying special prayers for them both. He suspects it's an even bigger blow to his mother based on all that when she gets the phone call.
She wants a valid explanation from him, and she's not crying which sort of freaks him out. When he can't give her one, he knows she's gonna let him hang this time, because she can't handle whatever is going on with him.
(Neither can he.)
He feels like shit, but he doesn't know what else to say. Sorry certainly rings pretty hollow after the whole I-knocked-up-a-girl-but-didn't-tell-you-about-it-until-I-brought-the-girl-home-to-live-with-us. Driving the car without permission, and while drunk, is pretty much a left field offense at this point. When they gave Beth away his mother had been relieved, but she'd still cried so hard the next night as they sat on the couch watching the Grey's Anatomy season finale, he'd known she didn't care that much about that McDreamy guy dying. She'd wanted her grandbaby as much as he'd wanted his daughter.
When he goes into the Allen County facility, he doesn't even care what the length of the sentence is. Part of him thinks never going back to William McKinley is just what he needs, because no amount of plucky Jew-Artist song renditions is going to fill up that gaping hole within him.
*
It only takes two weeks of feeling sorry for himself to take its toll. He's so sick of being alone with himself (and going to school in the system sucks way more than he can communicate), that he starts the good behavior brigade with so much enthusiasm all the adults in the place watch him like he's a roadside bomb that no one can defuse.
*
It's only a month before he's back at home, and under a blood oath to be an upright citizen. (Okay, not really, but he'd never been as terrified of his mother as he was when she came into his bedroom with his Nana and made him swear all this ridiculous behavior was behind him now.)
Everyone in Glee Club seems happy to see him, and he's kinda jazzed to be back and see that Sam finally got the cajones to join up too. Until, you know, he sees Sam lean close to Quinn and Quinn totally lets him, their foreheads meeting gently as he says something Puck can't hear.
He looks around at Finn for confirmation, but it's Hummel who catches his eye first. The look of pity on the kid's face makes Puck sick to his stomach.
It's not like it matters; it's not like he thought he was ever going to be with Quinn, not really. That's why he'd stolen her virginity to begin with, because it was the only way to get what he wanted. But still. Before, when she wasn't with him, she wasn't with anyone, and that was fine.
This isn't fine.
But when Sam and Quinn get up and do a catchy little tune that's part of their assignment from the previous week about acoustical songs, Puck just about loses his shit right there in front of everyone. Quinn even plays the guitar a little, smiling as Sam helps her hold the instrument correctly. Puck watches, dumbfounded, and then he's on his feet without a thought. He shakes his head at Schue as he walks past him, and the teacher gives him a grimace of understanding that sends him right back to the day Beth was born.
In the lobby of the hospital, he'd hugged Puck and whispered in his ear, "You're more of a man right now than any of us because of this choice, Puck."
He thinks maybe it's all been bullshit all along, because he didn't feel like a man then as he cried like a baby, and he doesn't feel like one now as he walks home. (His mom's using his car since he totaled hers.)
Today would be the day to beat up some loser from homeroom, and bang a cougar or two, and then drink whatever he could get his hands on until none of it mattered anymore. What sucks the most is that he can't see any sense in any of it because after he's done all of that, Quinn will still be Sam's girl, and his baby will be moving to California, and he'll be without. Always without.
*
She approaches him at his locker the next day, but he doesn't notice her until she's right on him, so it's too late to walk away.
"Hi, Puck," she says.
"Hey," he responds, not looking at her fully. He pulls out his Spanish book and pretends to flip through it, as if he's looking for something. Luckily it's jammed with folded up assignments and papers, so he really looks like he's trying to find something.
"How was Juvie?" she asks. There's this little barb in her tone, and he knows she was going to be nice right up until he wouldn't look at her.
"It was totally awesome," he answers, flicking a glare at her.
"I thought you should know--"
"You've got a boyfriend? Yeah, I got the memo." He shuts his locker and turns away from her, but she reaches out and grabs his elbow, surprising him.
"I'm sorry." The worst part of her saying that? He thinks he hears sincerity in her voice.
"Fuck you," he says. He knows he hears pure venom in his own.
*
After that, there's just the dance of it. She tries to get him to look at her, but if he does it's just to deliver a vacant stare. Sometimes she'll say something provoking during Glee practice, and if Santana doesn't say something to shut her down, Puck might. But mostly, he just tries to seem like he doesn't care, because he's hoping to fake it until he makes. (God, he's got to make it.)
He's as nice as he can be to Sam, though. He knows what it's like to be that guy, and he doesn't have anything for him except pity (and sometimes jealousy). He doesn't want to pummel him though, and sometimes he wants to ask Finn if he ever hated Quinn, and if once he did, fully and without any lingering tenderness, that was when he was able to move on to Rachel. And forgive Puck, because he totally did at some point, and he can't quite figure it out.
(Besides, Sam is super cool, and Puck would totally be bros with him if he wasn't, you know, with Quinn all the fucking time.)
He has sex with Brittany one night for no other reason than they're waiting on Santana and she never shows up. Afterwards, lying on Britt's bed, she asks softly, "She doesn't love me, does she?" and he turns his head to look at her.
"No," he answers honestly, because this is what everyone has to face at some point. "She doesn't love me either," he says.
Brittany smiles sadly and then her hand touches his cheek gently. "No, Puck. You don't love her."
He didn't mean Santana, but it doesn't matter.
They're all fucked like some kind of incestuous family of singing morons. Maybe the price of him stealing every intimate moment he's ever had is that he'll never have what he really wants. The aching emptiness of all it seems to be the only reward.
*
He goes to Mrs. Jamison's house. It's almost December; if there's still water in her pool, it's frozen over by now, so she looks confused when she opens the door and sees him there.
"I just wanted to say I'm sorry," he says. He holds her gaze until he's really uncomfortable. Her lips tremble and she nods so slightly he barely sees it.
Walking down the sidewalk to his truck (his mom's got a new car finally), he feels something ease in his chest.
Yom Kippur is the Jewish day of Atonement. Maybe his has finally come, three months late.
*
It's Christmas Eve when Quinn shows up at his house again. His sister has spent all of the holiday break at his Nana's, and when his mom gets home from work, they're going over for a Turkey Dinner. (Nana likes the food traditions of the Christians, even if she thinks they're mostly meshugenahs.)
He doesn't even try to disguise his irritation. "The fuck do you want?" he demands.
She hands him a small wrapped package. "Merry Christmas," she says.
Before he can stop himself, he's holding it in his hands and he thinks about throwing it back at her, when what he should have done was not accept it to begin with. Instead he glares at it in his hand, and then he glares at her face.
"Puck, do you remember, how it was before? How we were friends? How we ended up...together, because of that in the first place? I just want to have my friend back. I want you to be my friend."
The moment before he'd just been thinking of throwing it at her, but the action materializes before he can stop himself. Her arms fly up and the small box bounces off the front of her puffy coat. It lands on the front step. "Quinn. God! Seriously. I fucking loved you! I never wanted to be friends. I always wanted to be more--"
"No, you didn't!" she interrupts loudly. "Because if you had, you would have been with me the way I needed you to be with me." She leans down and picks up the box again and thrusts it back at him. Stunned by her accusation, he takes it again automatically. She spins around and marches down the steps and he looks out and sees that Sam's sitting in his car at the curb. At the foot of the stairs, she whips back around and shouts up at him, "I forgive you, Puck. I forgive you for being stupid, and immature, and for talking me into something I knew I shouldn't do. But most of all, I forgive you for blaming me for all of this, like we ever had a real relationship. It's freaking Christmas, alright? I just want to put this all behind me, for good!"
"Great," he shouts back. "Put it behind you! And leave me the fuck alone!" He slams the door and throws himself down on the sofa. It takes about five minutes before his curiosity just won't let him be and he rips open the small package. Inside there are five really nice tortoiseshell guitar picks, all of which bear the inscription Beth, I hear you callin'.
Puck's fist closes tightly around them. He thinks about flinging them across the room, but instead he grips them until they're digging sharply into the flesh of his palm.
*
The rest of Christmas break becomes the fast track of the grief cycle for him. He alternates between denial of Quinn's pronouncements and anger at her for thinking she knew something she couldn't possibly know. Whether or not he loved her was his business, and only he could know for sure how he felt about her.
While arguing that out in his head, he realizes he's thinking of it in the past tense, regardless. (But he did fucking love her, and nobody can convince him otherwise.)
He had really loved her at some point, either before, during, or after that one night that had resulted in Beth, but that had happened over a year ago, and nothing had ever been normal between them. By the time she wasn't with Finn anymore, she'd been telling him that she was going to do it on her own, only to change her mind the very next day by telling him that she wanted to be with him.
Which, even if she'd really wanted it, she wanted it in a different way than he had. As he tries to work that out, he's assaulted by this sense of acceptance that he's never felt before. There's no negotiation, and there's not even any sadness, maybe because he's spent the last six months depressed about it.
But suddenly, it's just lifted. The whole thing seems so obvious.
He gets in his car and drives to the west side of Lima without calling Quinn and telling her his intentions.
When he knocks on Shelby's door, he can tell she's shocked to see him, but she lets him in anyway. "Hello, Noah," she says, directing him into the living room of her apartment. There are boxes everywhere, and he can tell she's almost ready to move.
"I should have emailed you first," he says, but it's a complete after thought.
"It's really fine," she says. "I was surprised you two didn't want to come say goodbye." They'd signed the final adoption papers via courier just a few weeks earlier. He and Quinn had never even discussed it. "I'm glad you came, even alone." Shelby says, touching his shoulder gently. "I just put Beth down, but I'm sure she's not asleep yet. Let me go get her."
He takes a deep breath. He doesn't think he'll start crying or anything, but if he's gonna lose it somewhere, here would probably be the best place.
When Shelby comes back a minute later, she hands the baby over immediately into his arms. The little girl smiles when she sees him, and he has no idea why other than she's just a happy baby. He feels himself smile in return. He plays with her for just a bit while Shelby recites statistics about her being in the ninetieth percentile (huh?) and that she's developing perfectly for a baby her age. Puck listens, and nods, though a lot of it goes over his head.
Beth is solid in his hands, her little body round and full, her cheeks puffy and her eyes darkening into the same hazel color he sees every time he looks in the mirror. She blows bubbles and flaps her arms, and she loves for him to hold her up so she can bounce on her legs. At one point she grabs his nose and pulls on it until she can gets her little mouth on it. He laughs, says, "Ew, gross," and hugs her little body to his chest.
He's been there about a half hour when he's just done. He's hit whatever wall was left to hit, and he hands Beth back to her mother. "Thanks," he says, getting to his feet.
"Will Quinn be coming too?" she asks as she follows him to the door.
He looks back at her, at the little blonde baby with her perfect bow lips. "No," he responds, and he's positive that's the right answer.
*
Mike and Tina throw a New Year's Eve party at Mike's house. His parents have gone away to some Asian Couples Retreat, so the house is adult free, and there's some free flowing booze, but mostly everyone's just having a good time dancing and talking, while some of the boys have a Halo tournament. (It's a good combination of jocks and Glee kids, minus of course Kawrofsky and Azimio, who are the only two who still slushie people.)
Puck kicks Sam's ass (who is on his own tonight because Quinn and her mother have gone out of town for New Year's), and struts around like winning Halo is equal to getting a gold medal at the Olympics. "Say it," he crows, giving Finn a fake beat down as he'd also kicked his ass the hour before he beat Sam.
Finn rolls his eyes, but complies. "You're the Champion of the World."
"That's right, bitches!" He laughs as he goes to get a beer in the kitchen.
Mercedes is already there, getting herself something to drink (non-alcoholic, she must have driven) and she gives him a look. "You doing okay, White Boy?" she asks.
He tips the bottle against his mouth and thinks about it for a second. "Yeah, Momma," he says with a wink. They'd dated for like four days months ago, but they still called each other by their pet names.
She comes closer to him, staring at his face. "You look better," she says. Leaning up, she kisses his cheek. "You need to tell Quinn you're sorry," she says.
He scoffs, and slants her a dark look. He starts to say I'm not sorry, but he finds he can't utter the lie.
"Think of it as setting yourself free," she says, bumping her shoulder against his.
"What do you know about it?" he asks, feeling a little creeped out, once again, by her clear cut assessment of his fucked up situation.
"I know you'll feel better if you do it," she says. As she walks away, she says, "Besides, I've got this song I wanna do in Glee Club with you, but I can't until you've made up, because she'll think I'm betraying her."
The smile she gives him as she leaves the kitchen adds to the simple happiness he feels, being in a place with his friends, just having a good time.
For the first time in a long time, he just feels like a regular kid. (Later, when Santana propositions him, he turns her down. He kisses her at midnight though, because everyone should have someone to kiss on New Year's.)
*
As they prepare for Regionals (they WILL win this year, or Rachel Berry will have all their heads), Schue decides they need to amp up their choreography. He wants Puck and Quinn to be partners, so Puck bites the bullet. He pulls her aside after their first run through.
"I wanted to say..." he begins, but the words are so hard to say, he pauses too long.
"I know you went to say goodbye to Beth," she says. "I'm glad you went. I just...couldn't."
"No, I know," he says, waving his hand in dismissal. "I knew you didn't want to go. It's cool. We had our moment, it's over. I'm sorry, Quinn. Like you were sorry, I'm sorry too. I just...I want it behind us too, okay?"
She looks surprised, and tears fill her green eyes. He starts to get nervous because he didn't expect her to have such a big reaction. Then she straightens her shoulders and nods, her ponytail bobbing professionally. "Friends?" she asks.
"Friends," he agrees.
He even believes it.
A week later, he and Mercedes do another Sammy Davis Jr. song together that Schue says they'll use at Nationals if they win Regionals.
*
They're standing sandwiched between Vocal Adrenaline and Aural Intensity again, and Puck can't help but remember this moment from a year before. He feels someone's hand slide into his as the head judge reveals the first runner up. He looks down and sees Quinn beside him, her hair up in a sparkly bun at the back of her head. Her fingers weave through his and tighten until he returns the pressure.
"...goes to Vocal Adrenaline!"
A moment later New Directions is awarded the Regional Championship and Puck hugs everyone, even Kurt. But Quinn hugs him twice.
*
School will be out in three days, and two days after that, they're all riding a bus to New York. Puck's never been outside of Ohio, so he's beyond excited, and the whole Glee Club is brimming with enthusiasm that borders on madness. Rachel has a meltdown in the choir room, which they're all witnesses to, but it seems to release some of the tension.
Schue gives them a speech about not needing to win to be actual winners, but Puck knows they all think that's bullshit. If they get all the way there, and don't win, they're going to be inconsolable.
As he's getting into his truck, he notices Sam and Quinn standing beside Sam's car. It's funny how much he doesn't see them anymore, how he's grown used to them as a pair. Most of the time he feels like he's over Quinn, but he still gets those occasional update emails from Shelby, and those are the times he knows the truth.
He'll never really get over it, he just doesn't let it rule his life anymore. (That was a good thing.) He only had one more year in Lima anyway, and then he was getting the hell out one way or another. That's when real life would start.
He doesn't realize he's still watching them until Quinn tries to walk away from Sam and he grabs her arm. There's something about the gesture, and though they are too far away for him to hear what's being said, he knows the content of the conversation.
His heart beats a little faster as he drives home.
*
New York City is everything he's ever imagined, plus about infinity. It's the fucking coolest place he's ever seen, the lights and the buildings, and the fucking energy invades all of them the minute they step off the bus.
He looks around at his fellow Glee Clubbers, and knows the sappy grin stretching Mercedes's face matches the one on his own.
They are in fucking New York City.
Schue had given them a lecture that boiled down to "go have fun, just don't do anything that will make you unable to perform tomorrow."
After nine hours on a public school bus, they're all starving, so they find a restaurant near their hotel. After they've eaten, they get into small groups, depending on where they want to go and what they want to see. Puck ends up with Finn and Rachel because Rachel seems to know absolutely everything about the city. He sees Quinn loop her arm through Mercedes', while Sam goes off with Artie, Santana, and Brittany.
Just as he glances away from them, he sees Mercedes wave her arm. He glances back just because the movement catches his attention. "Come on, White Boy," she hollers.
He hesitates, because seriously, bros before hos, right? He glances at Finn, who doesn't really look like he'd care if he's left alone with Rachel. It takes Puck a moment to remember that Finn and Rachel have been dating for a year now, and his best friend like, totally loves her or some shit. "Come on, Puck, come with us!"
Quinn's voice sounds so inviting, it's almost unrecognizable to him.
*
They go back to the hotel after a couple hours of walking around. Kurt, Mercedes, and Quinn are sharing a room, and Puck hangs out with them after he tries to go to his room and walks in on Finn and Rachel.
(Apparently, Berry gets her freak on when the biggest performance of her life looms before her.)
Quinn throws a pillow at him and pulls off the top blanket. "You can sleep on the floor," she says, which saves him the uncomfortable moment of saying he doesn't want to share a bed with Kurt. He smiles at her and she winks.
He's pretty sure he totally loves her again.
Once the lights are out and everything's really quiet in the room, Puck whispers her name. From the dim light shining in through a crack in the curtain he sees her head come over the side of the bed. "What?" she whispers back.
"Why'd you and Evans' call it quits?" he asks softly.
"None of your business," she says in a harsh whisper, enough to convey her annoyance.
He wants to ask her if it's because she wouldn't give it up to Sam, but then he really doesn't want to know if they did it or not. So he doesn't say anything.
Closing his eyes, he's almost fully relaxed when he hears the sound of her moving around on the bed. He thinks she's just making a big production of turning over and giving him the silent treatment, but then suddenly he feels her right next to him, and she's laying down beside him.
"What are you doing?" he asks, unable to keep his voice low enough that the other people in the room don't hear him.
"Oh, God," he hears Kurt say. "'Cedes, is he really that--" but Mercedes must hit him with something because he makes an "Ooof" sound and falls silent.
Quinn cuddles up next to him, and he seriously doesn't know what to make of it. He doesn't move, just lays very still. "Fabray?" he finally asks after an interminable silence of about thirty seconds.
"I broke up with him because I like someone else," she whispers.
Puck's positive he's drunk or dreaming, even though they'd all made a pact not to drink so they wouldn't be hung over for the competition, and he's pretty sure he hasn't quite managed to fall asleep yet.
He knows he's not dreaming as her face snuggles into his throat.
He thinks he should put up a fight, or demand something, but instead, he can't help enjoying the perfection of the moment.
Tomorrow it will all be different, and he'll have to go through it all again, but for this night, he's just going to believe that in New York, anything is possible.
*
The next day, after they've performed "Don't Stop Believin'" for a crowd of fifteen thousand people, and they've gotten a standing ovation, Puck is hugging Quinn backstage, her arms around his shoulders and her feet completely off the ground. She laughs gleefully, her head thrown back.
When their eyes meet again, he finally asks, "What changed?" because he knows it's really happening now, and he's powerless to stop it, but he at least needs to understand it.
Her fingers press into the back of his neck and she shakes her head a little. "I never wanted it to be you, Puck. Because I'm stupid, and I listen to my parents too much, and--" She breathes out a little sigh as he lets her slide down so her feet are on the floor again. "But it is you--"
"C'mon, guys, back to the stage!" Schue calls, and the herd starts moving them towards it, because they are somehow in the middle of the crowd.
She holds on to his arm as he's pulled away from her. "I messed everything up, I know, but..."
Finn's arm clips him on the shoulder, dragging him out and Quinn hurries to keep up. "I was awful to you, but it was just always--"
And then they're onstage, and whatever she was going to say stays unsaid. A hush falls over the assembled groups of students, and Puck wonders how the hell they can decide anything so fast, and he doesn't even care if they win or not. All he knows is he has suddenly got the thing right in front of him that he never had before. He worms his way between Mike and Tina to get to Quinn, who's on the other side of Artie's chair now in the tumult.
He leans down and whispers in her ear, "Quinn, will you go out with me?"
She looks up at him, and nods.
Somehow, it's all just the beginning.
*
A couple of months later, Puck wakes up on a Saturday morning to make-up smudges on his pillowcase. But it's all good because he can hear the shower running.
She's still there. Because she wants to be.
He thinks they might actually make it.
Author: domfangirl
Rating: PG-13
Pairings/Characters: Puck/Quinn (but really it's Puck/everyone with a side of Quinn/Sam)
Warnings: Spoilers through 2x04 "Duets," with heavy speculation for what happens after (not based on any spoilers, however).
Word count: ~7800
Summary: This is basically how Quinn destroys Puck and how he finds his way back from the pit.
Author’s Notes: Here's what happens when my own personal angst that I will never get my OTP reaches dangerous levels. Title stolen from "Of All The Gin Joints In All The World" by Fall Out Boy. Where this ended up just boggles my mind. I can't explain it. So I won't try. (It has a happy ending, I think.)
Puck's flat on his back, eyes closed in orgasmic aftermath on Mrs. Jamison's bed. He's contemplating letting sleep pull him away when he hears her breathless words against his chest.
"I love you."
Now see, this is sort of funny (not funny: ha, ha), on like twenty different levels. One, they've been banging all summer (her pool is the cleanest in the tri-county area); two, he's aware that he doesn't love her; and three, he's known all along that he shouldn't be hooking up with her. She's not quite old enough to be a Cougar, so she doesn't really understand how these things are supposed to work. (It's a fling, not a relationship.)
"Fuck," he breathes out in a whisper as she slides off of him and flips her hair back to look him in the eye.
The other level of funny: he really wishes he didn't know what it felt like to tell someone you love them and have them not answer you back in kind.
But, it's not like he asked for this. He didn't want her to love him, and he sure as hell didn't ask her to tell him. It never even occurred to him that she would.
Quinn didn't, after all. A girl who'd given up her virginity to him without much of a fight (seriously two make out sessions and him showing up at her house with a six pack and a smile seemed like such an easy road when he considered that it had never happened again). Then she'd treated him like shit until the truth came out, and then treated him like shit some more after that.
And he'd let her.
But then, there they'd been, standing in the hallway outside the nursery at the hospital watching Beth in her little crib. She'd been the tiniest, most beautiful thing he'd ever laid eyes on, and he'd known he probably wouldn't get to hold her twice. When Quinn had asked him, "Did you love me?" he shouldn't have responded. All that had happened before that moment should have trained him on the exact reaction he needed to have.
But he'd answered honestly, because why the fuck not? What was left to lose? His kid would be gone by the end of the evening, Regionals had gone to Vocal Adrenaline again, and the only good thing that had happened that day other than Beth's birth was that Finn had put his hand on Puck's back while he was fucking crying into Schue's shoulder while the whole Glee Club stood there in the waiting room. (Call it a moment of weakness, witnessed by ten people.)
He watches Mrs. Jamison's eyes fill with tears and he curses under his breath again. "Look--" he tries.
She shakes her head vigorously and gets off the bed faster than he's ever seen her move. "You should probably go," she says, her voice trembling.
He sits up and reaches out to her. She's hella hot (that's why he's banging her, obviously), all wide hazel eyes and blonde hair, her body that 36, 24, 36 business that you only see in dirty magazines, and he'd had a hell of a summer with her. But as she wraps a blanket around her naked body and retreats into the bathroom, shouting, "Get out, Puck!" he knows it's all over now.
School doesn't start for three weeks. He's been counting the days for two reasons, one because he hasn't seen Quinn all summer, and two because he likes it that way. Having to see her every day, her body back to normal, no trace of their child visible at all, is going to be a special kind of torture.
The kind reserved for asshats like him who get their best friend's girl pregnant.
The kind who love a girl for no real reason, and then let her shit on them again and again, throwing the final blow with an uncertain smile and a little giggle when love is declared for the whole world to hear.
He gathers up his clothes, wishing he could say something to make it better for Mrs. Jamison.
In the end, he just does what he did with Quinn. He walks away. He forgets about it. He finds a bottle of Jack in his mom's stash in her bedroom and before he opens it, he takes his little sister over to her best friend's house for a sleepover. (It's summertime, suggestions like that are easily fulfilled.)
That night he gets sloppy drunk, and since he's alone, he doesn't get louder and handsier as the night goes on. He probably cries, but later when he's puking his guts up, he can blame his wet eyes on the acid burning his throat.
It's not until he checks his phone the next day that he realizes he drunk texted Quinn. Several times, apparently. He has this vivid but vague memory of her, there, with him, but hopes/thinks/fucking wishes he was just dreaming. He can't imagine that she'd come over for any reason. He knows she was there, though, because there are mascara smudges on his pillow case.
(She did that a lot when they lived together, fell asleep with her make-up still on. It was always all over everything.)
One hand crumples the white cloth in a fist while the other throws his phone across the room. God, he'd do anything to just not give a fuck anymore.
*
Santana comes over the night before school starts. She's been gone most of the summer; there was a family reunion in Puerto Rico, and then a month at her grandma's who lives in Massachusetts, and then cheerleading camp, and really that was the whole summer, gone before he could blink. When she comes over, she's not interested in finding out what he's been doing all summer, she just strips down to her underwear and gives him a look.
(Turns out part of her summer vacation involved a boob job, something that gets him super excited, his dick straining against the zipper of his jeans. When he cups her new, larger breasts in his hands, he's disappointed to find he thinks they feel weird.)
This is why he and Santana work, because they don't need all the other stuff. This is what it's about, just bodies and hunger, and an effort to fill a void that doesn't really work, but it sure is fun trying. She blows him before she leaves, but says from the doorway of his bedroom, "You better be okay with the war that I'll have going on with Quinn this year. And you better be on my side. I don't care if she had your kid."
He nods his head at her, because what else is going to do? It's not like he'll have to make a statement, he just won't say anything. Quinn can handle herself where San's concerned, and he'd point that out to her, but he knows it won't do any good.
Santana hates Quinn for a lot more reasons than a Cheerios uniform, though she'd never admit it. It's funny now because sometimes he hates Quinn for just the same reasons.
*
At their first Glee Club rehearsal, Quinn smiles at him. It's a knowing smirk, her eyebrow going up with a little flair. Everybody's seen the Jacob Ben-Israel interviews, and even though he broke the little perv's camera, it didn't destroy what he'd already recorded.
She sits next to Mercedes and they whisper all their stupid girl shit together, and he does his best to ignore them. It helps when Santana sits next to him and starts writing him notes about what they should do after school. (It's all sexual and involves the janitor's closet outside the boy's locker room.)
A few days later, at the season opener football game, the Cheerios do their routine with a perfection that is sort of attention grabbing. He'd never own up to being interested in anything except the jiggle and the flash of buttcheeks he sometimes gets from watching, but the truth is Quinn has obviously worked hard all summer to be ready for this, even though she hadn't known for sure she'd be let back on the squad.
He thinks that's my girl before he can even stop himself.
When he takes down the left tackle during the game with far more force than is necessary, Coach Beiste calls him off the field to to say, "Puckerman, you're a tight end. Quit acting like you're defending the endzone."
He thinks if he knew what a metaphor was, that would describe his life exactly.
*
"Hi, Puck," Quinn says.
He's playing Tetris on his phone, waiting for Glee to start, but he doesn't finish his game, just looks up at her as she takes up residence in the chair next to his. "Hey," he says.
"Did you get Shelby's email yesterday?" she asks.
He nods. Ms. Corcoran had been great, sending them regular updates about Beth, pictures and stories about her that made his chest feel tight and his eyes itchy. The day before she'd sent a video of Beth laying under a mobile of some sort. The baby was four months old now, and something about the movement over her head had made her giggle uncontrollably. The video was two and a half minutes long, just a continuous peal of laughter interrupted by the occasional need for air.
He'd watched it, like ten times.
"Funny, huh?" he says now, like he didn't get a few of his mom's beers out and guzzle them like a fucking wino. He'd had his fingers poised over the buttons on his phone, about to text Quinn when he remembered that he couldn't really remember what had happened the last time he'd done it. It was enough to keep him from humiliating himself again.
"Adorable," she says in agreement.
"She's a cute kid," he remarks, like she's not their kid, like she's not the most beautiful thing he's ever seen because she looks so much like Quinn. Like he hadn't wanted them to play house and be there in person for things like giggle fits. He didn't even know babies did shit like that, but he figures they're just like little people, and he had hysterics from time to time, even when he hadn't been smoking weed.
"Shelby called me yesterday, as well," Quinn says quietly. The other kids are getting there now, and he thinks maybe she doesn't want Rachel to hear her talking about Shelby. "She's leaving Ohio, you know, moving out to California. She wondered if we wanted to come say goodbye in person."
Puck feels this eruption of something in his chest. It's a hot rush that seizes his body and he wants to say hell yeah, but something in Quinn's face makes the words halt behind his lips. She asks, "Do you want to go?" and he knows what she wants him to say.
So he says it, even though he doesn't mean it. "...I, uh. No. I mean. We shouldn't, right?"
Quinn nods immediately. "I agree."
"Really?" he asks.
"Yes. It would just..."
"Suck," he fills in when she says nothing. He can't imagine what would hurt more, seeing Beth, holding her, and then letting her go again, or watching Quinn still not want her.
She nods again, more emphatically. "Yeah, it would just...hurt."
Puck's chest is so unbearably tight as he looks at her face, he can hardly breathe, much less take in enough air to say anything else. They stare at one another for a long moment, and he gets that it does hurt her, in some way. Probably not the same way as him, but it sort of makes him happy to know she feels something. Then she gets up, moving her chair back slightly, so they aren't sitting by each other anymore.
Rachel stands in front of the piano to share some schmoopy song that she dedicates to Finn. He can't help it, when about halfway through he turns and looks at Quinn over his shoulder. She's watching him intently, and she doesn't look away when their eyes meet.
It's all so fucked up, and even though he loves his daughter, and wishes he could have had a chance to be her daddy, he comes up against the fact that what he really wishes is that he'd done it all the right way from the beginning. That he'd asked Quinn out legit-like instead of chasing her down and letting them be a dirty secret. He wishes he'd told Finn right from the beginning that he had a thing for her, because if he had, Finn would so have stayed out of it.
More than anything, he wishes he had a fucking clue of how to make it right now, because he knows he can't change anything.
*
She comes over that night, just shows up on his doorstep, and Bekah goes nuts, because she loves Quinn but hasn't seen her in ages.
He stands back, watching her carefully. It's the first time since school started that he's seen her in something besides her Cheerios uniform. The soft, flowy shirt and slacks remind him of her "pregnant clothes" only they fit her closely, and it's obvious that she's not carrying any extra weight. He has no idea what she's doing there, but he's glad he's stone cold sober, so he won't do anything stupid. (Stupider.)
She makes nice with his sister, asking her questions about her summer vacation, and her new junior high school. Bekah prattles on forever until Puck makes her go take a bath. It's close to bed time and he's on duty since his mom's working the overnight shift.
He gets Quinn a soda and they stand in the kitchen. "What's up?" he finally asks, because it's like she's just hanging out, which is not a normal thing that they do. At least, it hasn't been ever since she moved out of his house before Beth was even born.
There for a while, it had been pretty dope. In the beginning, they'd been together, but when he realized it was "in name only" he'd called her on it, and she'd told him she didn't want to have sex. They'd had a screaming, yelling fight about what being in a relationship meant, but the fact that he couldn't get her pregnant again hadn't been a selling point. So he'd gone out and fucked one of the Cheerios who wasn't Santana. A week later he'd hooked up with Santana (he'd had to work for that one because he'd really been trying with Quinn, so he and Santana had been on the outs. Getting back into her good graces had not been easy), and after that, he'd moved on to Mercedes, though they hadn't ever done the nasty.
When she became best friends with Quinn, he was really glad they hadn't, though that was probably more because of Mercedes than him.
Quinn shrugs in response to his question and sips her soda. "I guess I just wanted to spend time with you. I miss you."
He has that feeling in his chest--the one that always gets him screwed five ways till Sunday when it comes to Quinn, so he doesn't trust it.
He doesn't trust her, at all. "I've been here, all along," he says, smirking at her.
She sets the soda can on the counter next to her. "I know," she says quietly, her voice full of something--maybe regret?--and he wants to shout at her, what the fuck do you want from me? "I guess, it's just the baby, and everything. I mean, we did the right thing, right?"
Puck's head suddenly throbs, the rush of blood to his temples and a tension headache not the normal visceral reaction he tends to have with Quinn. He can't help it, he just blurts out, "The fuck, Fabray?" and she starts bawling, literally, sobs falling out of her mouth and great huge tears dripping down her face.
He's frozen, across the kitchen from her, not knowing if he should try to hug her, or if it's catching, because his throat is really tight, and his eyes feel like he got into poison oak or something.
Somehow, he's got her in his arms, and he's telling her what she needs to hear (Yeah, baby, we did the right thing) even though he knows they have until Beth is six months old to change their minds, and he thinks about it every damn day. She presses her face against his shoulder, and he's pretty sure she wipes her nose on him, which helps him to start laughing a little, so he can't cry with her. (And that's a good thing.)
He finds that they're sitting awkwardly on the floor in the kitchen now, and he didn't even notice that they'd gone down. She tips her head back, and her soft chuckles join with his as she whispers, "Sorry about that."
In the stark overhead light, her face is pale, but her eyes look so green. Her lashes, coated with mascara, sweep upward dramatically, causing a familiar sensation in his stomach. Her face is unbelievably beautiful, her perfect bow lips and her pointed chin, the curve of her cheeks and the tilt at the corner of her eyes. He loves her face, everything about it, and with it right there, so close to his own, he doesn't even think twice when his lips brush against the edge of her jaw. She makes a little sound, and he shifts her, pushing her back just a bit so that his mouth can skate across hers.
"NOAH!" his little sister screams from the top of the stairs. "I'm ready for you to tuck me in!"
Quinn jerks herself out of his arms, scrambling to her feet so quickly, she jabs him in the stomach with one knee and nearly takes him out with the other one. He grunts as she nails his package and shifts away to prevent a full on assault. His hands surround her arms to help steady her so that she's standing over him when Bekah yells his name again.
"I need to go," she says, and then repeats it more loudly when Bekah calls for her, too.
He watches her practically run out the kitchen door into the garage, and then hears the door as it goes up. She still remembers all the little details of their house, how you can hit that button just right twice so the garage door goes up far enough and you have time to skid out under it before it comes back down again. He imagines she runs the whole way, down the driveway, and beyond, as though distance is going to solve anything.
*
So, he's been in Juvie twice. Once, when he was fourteen he got caught stealing, and was sentenced to six months. His mom begged and pleaded, and somehow he only spent a month inside. He thinks Rabbi Greenberg had something to do with it, because you know, all the Jew lawyers in Lima were in that guy's hip pocket. (And seriously, his mom couldn't make it without him. She's a single parent. Someone, somewhere had had mercy on her.)
This time, driving the car through the front of the convenience store isn't exactly part of the plan. He's a little drunk, and a lot crazy, and he sort of loses control of the car because he mixes up the gas and the brake. (It's just because he's drunk, not because Quinn hasn't talked to him in two weeks, and he just can't deal with going to school every day and facing her.)
He's spent way too much time thinking this week, what with Hummel's dad in the hospital and him and Nana saying special prayers for them both. He suspects it's an even bigger blow to his mother based on all that when she gets the phone call.
She wants a valid explanation from him, and she's not crying which sort of freaks him out. When he can't give her one, he knows she's gonna let him hang this time, because she can't handle whatever is going on with him.
(Neither can he.)
He feels like shit, but he doesn't know what else to say. Sorry certainly rings pretty hollow after the whole I-knocked-up-a-girl-but-didn't-tell-you-about-it-until-I-brought-the-girl-home-to-live-with-us. Driving the car without permission, and while drunk, is pretty much a left field offense at this point. When they gave Beth away his mother had been relieved, but she'd still cried so hard the next night as they sat on the couch watching the Grey's Anatomy season finale, he'd known she didn't care that much about that McDreamy guy dying. She'd wanted her grandbaby as much as he'd wanted his daughter.
When he goes into the Allen County facility, he doesn't even care what the length of the sentence is. Part of him thinks never going back to William McKinley is just what he needs, because no amount of plucky Jew-Artist song renditions is going to fill up that gaping hole within him.
*
It only takes two weeks of feeling sorry for himself to take its toll. He's so sick of being alone with himself (and going to school in the system sucks way more than he can communicate), that he starts the good behavior brigade with so much enthusiasm all the adults in the place watch him like he's a roadside bomb that no one can defuse.
*
It's only a month before he's back at home, and under a blood oath to be an upright citizen. (Okay, not really, but he'd never been as terrified of his mother as he was when she came into his bedroom with his Nana and made him swear all this ridiculous behavior was behind him now.)
Everyone in Glee Club seems happy to see him, and he's kinda jazzed to be back and see that Sam finally got the cajones to join up too. Until, you know, he sees Sam lean close to Quinn and Quinn totally lets him, their foreheads meeting gently as he says something Puck can't hear.
He looks around at Finn for confirmation, but it's Hummel who catches his eye first. The look of pity on the kid's face makes Puck sick to his stomach.
It's not like it matters; it's not like he thought he was ever going to be with Quinn, not really. That's why he'd stolen her virginity to begin with, because it was the only way to get what he wanted. But still. Before, when she wasn't with him, she wasn't with anyone, and that was fine.
This isn't fine.
But when Sam and Quinn get up and do a catchy little tune that's part of their assignment from the previous week about acoustical songs, Puck just about loses his shit right there in front of everyone. Quinn even plays the guitar a little, smiling as Sam helps her hold the instrument correctly. Puck watches, dumbfounded, and then he's on his feet without a thought. He shakes his head at Schue as he walks past him, and the teacher gives him a grimace of understanding that sends him right back to the day Beth was born.
In the lobby of the hospital, he'd hugged Puck and whispered in his ear, "You're more of a man right now than any of us because of this choice, Puck."
He thinks maybe it's all been bullshit all along, because he didn't feel like a man then as he cried like a baby, and he doesn't feel like one now as he walks home. (His mom's using his car since he totaled hers.)
Today would be the day to beat up some loser from homeroom, and bang a cougar or two, and then drink whatever he could get his hands on until none of it mattered anymore. What sucks the most is that he can't see any sense in any of it because after he's done all of that, Quinn will still be Sam's girl, and his baby will be moving to California, and he'll be without. Always without.
*
She approaches him at his locker the next day, but he doesn't notice her until she's right on him, so it's too late to walk away.
"Hi, Puck," she says.
"Hey," he responds, not looking at her fully. He pulls out his Spanish book and pretends to flip through it, as if he's looking for something. Luckily it's jammed with folded up assignments and papers, so he really looks like he's trying to find something.
"How was Juvie?" she asks. There's this little barb in her tone, and he knows she was going to be nice right up until he wouldn't look at her.
"It was totally awesome," he answers, flicking a glare at her.
"I thought you should know--"
"You've got a boyfriend? Yeah, I got the memo." He shuts his locker and turns away from her, but she reaches out and grabs his elbow, surprising him.
"I'm sorry." The worst part of her saying that? He thinks he hears sincerity in her voice.
"Fuck you," he says. He knows he hears pure venom in his own.
*
After that, there's just the dance of it. She tries to get him to look at her, but if he does it's just to deliver a vacant stare. Sometimes she'll say something provoking during Glee practice, and if Santana doesn't say something to shut her down, Puck might. But mostly, he just tries to seem like he doesn't care, because he's hoping to fake it until he makes. (God, he's got to make it.)
He's as nice as he can be to Sam, though. He knows what it's like to be that guy, and he doesn't have anything for him except pity (and sometimes jealousy). He doesn't want to pummel him though, and sometimes he wants to ask Finn if he ever hated Quinn, and if once he did, fully and without any lingering tenderness, that was when he was able to move on to Rachel. And forgive Puck, because he totally did at some point, and he can't quite figure it out.
(Besides, Sam is super cool, and Puck would totally be bros with him if he wasn't, you know, with Quinn all the fucking time.)
He has sex with Brittany one night for no other reason than they're waiting on Santana and she never shows up. Afterwards, lying on Britt's bed, she asks softly, "She doesn't love me, does she?" and he turns his head to look at her.
"No," he answers honestly, because this is what everyone has to face at some point. "She doesn't love me either," he says.
Brittany smiles sadly and then her hand touches his cheek gently. "No, Puck. You don't love her."
He didn't mean Santana, but it doesn't matter.
They're all fucked like some kind of incestuous family of singing morons. Maybe the price of him stealing every intimate moment he's ever had is that he'll never have what he really wants. The aching emptiness of all it seems to be the only reward.
*
He goes to Mrs. Jamison's house. It's almost December; if there's still water in her pool, it's frozen over by now, so she looks confused when she opens the door and sees him there.
"I just wanted to say I'm sorry," he says. He holds her gaze until he's really uncomfortable. Her lips tremble and she nods so slightly he barely sees it.
Walking down the sidewalk to his truck (his mom's got a new car finally), he feels something ease in his chest.
Yom Kippur is the Jewish day of Atonement. Maybe his has finally come, three months late.
*
It's Christmas Eve when Quinn shows up at his house again. His sister has spent all of the holiday break at his Nana's, and when his mom gets home from work, they're going over for a Turkey Dinner. (Nana likes the food traditions of the Christians, even if she thinks they're mostly meshugenahs.)
He doesn't even try to disguise his irritation. "The fuck do you want?" he demands.
She hands him a small wrapped package. "Merry Christmas," she says.
Before he can stop himself, he's holding it in his hands and he thinks about throwing it back at her, when what he should have done was not accept it to begin with. Instead he glares at it in his hand, and then he glares at her face.
"Puck, do you remember, how it was before? How we were friends? How we ended up...together, because of that in the first place? I just want to have my friend back. I want you to be my friend."
The moment before he'd just been thinking of throwing it at her, but the action materializes before he can stop himself. Her arms fly up and the small box bounces off the front of her puffy coat. It lands on the front step. "Quinn. God! Seriously. I fucking loved you! I never wanted to be friends. I always wanted to be more--"
"No, you didn't!" she interrupts loudly. "Because if you had, you would have been with me the way I needed you to be with me." She leans down and picks up the box again and thrusts it back at him. Stunned by her accusation, he takes it again automatically. She spins around and marches down the steps and he looks out and sees that Sam's sitting in his car at the curb. At the foot of the stairs, she whips back around and shouts up at him, "I forgive you, Puck. I forgive you for being stupid, and immature, and for talking me into something I knew I shouldn't do. But most of all, I forgive you for blaming me for all of this, like we ever had a real relationship. It's freaking Christmas, alright? I just want to put this all behind me, for good!"
"Great," he shouts back. "Put it behind you! And leave me the fuck alone!" He slams the door and throws himself down on the sofa. It takes about five minutes before his curiosity just won't let him be and he rips open the small package. Inside there are five really nice tortoiseshell guitar picks, all of which bear the inscription Beth, I hear you callin'.
Puck's fist closes tightly around them. He thinks about flinging them across the room, but instead he grips them until they're digging sharply into the flesh of his palm.
*
The rest of Christmas break becomes the fast track of the grief cycle for him. He alternates between denial of Quinn's pronouncements and anger at her for thinking she knew something she couldn't possibly know. Whether or not he loved her was his business, and only he could know for sure how he felt about her.
While arguing that out in his head, he realizes he's thinking of it in the past tense, regardless. (But he did fucking love her, and nobody can convince him otherwise.)
He had really loved her at some point, either before, during, or after that one night that had resulted in Beth, but that had happened over a year ago, and nothing had ever been normal between them. By the time she wasn't with Finn anymore, she'd been telling him that she was going to do it on her own, only to change her mind the very next day by telling him that she wanted to be with him.
Which, even if she'd really wanted it, she wanted it in a different way than he had. As he tries to work that out, he's assaulted by this sense of acceptance that he's never felt before. There's no negotiation, and there's not even any sadness, maybe because he's spent the last six months depressed about it.
But suddenly, it's just lifted. The whole thing seems so obvious.
He gets in his car and drives to the west side of Lima without calling Quinn and telling her his intentions.
When he knocks on Shelby's door, he can tell she's shocked to see him, but she lets him in anyway. "Hello, Noah," she says, directing him into the living room of her apartment. There are boxes everywhere, and he can tell she's almost ready to move.
"I should have emailed you first," he says, but it's a complete after thought.
"It's really fine," she says. "I was surprised you two didn't want to come say goodbye." They'd signed the final adoption papers via courier just a few weeks earlier. He and Quinn had never even discussed it. "I'm glad you came, even alone." Shelby says, touching his shoulder gently. "I just put Beth down, but I'm sure she's not asleep yet. Let me go get her."
He takes a deep breath. He doesn't think he'll start crying or anything, but if he's gonna lose it somewhere, here would probably be the best place.
When Shelby comes back a minute later, she hands the baby over immediately into his arms. The little girl smiles when she sees him, and he has no idea why other than she's just a happy baby. He feels himself smile in return. He plays with her for just a bit while Shelby recites statistics about her being in the ninetieth percentile (huh?) and that she's developing perfectly for a baby her age. Puck listens, and nods, though a lot of it goes over his head.
Beth is solid in his hands, her little body round and full, her cheeks puffy and her eyes darkening into the same hazel color he sees every time he looks in the mirror. She blows bubbles and flaps her arms, and she loves for him to hold her up so she can bounce on her legs. At one point she grabs his nose and pulls on it until she can gets her little mouth on it. He laughs, says, "Ew, gross," and hugs her little body to his chest.
He's been there about a half hour when he's just done. He's hit whatever wall was left to hit, and he hands Beth back to her mother. "Thanks," he says, getting to his feet.
"Will Quinn be coming too?" she asks as she follows him to the door.
He looks back at her, at the little blonde baby with her perfect bow lips. "No," he responds, and he's positive that's the right answer.
*
Mike and Tina throw a New Year's Eve party at Mike's house. His parents have gone away to some Asian Couples Retreat, so the house is adult free, and there's some free flowing booze, but mostly everyone's just having a good time dancing and talking, while some of the boys have a Halo tournament. (It's a good combination of jocks and Glee kids, minus of course Kawrofsky and Azimio, who are the only two who still slushie people.)
Puck kicks Sam's ass (who is on his own tonight because Quinn and her mother have gone out of town for New Year's), and struts around like winning Halo is equal to getting a gold medal at the Olympics. "Say it," he crows, giving Finn a fake beat down as he'd also kicked his ass the hour before he beat Sam.
Finn rolls his eyes, but complies. "You're the Champion of the World."
"That's right, bitches!" He laughs as he goes to get a beer in the kitchen.
Mercedes is already there, getting herself something to drink (non-alcoholic, she must have driven) and she gives him a look. "You doing okay, White Boy?" she asks.
He tips the bottle against his mouth and thinks about it for a second. "Yeah, Momma," he says with a wink. They'd dated for like four days months ago, but they still called each other by their pet names.
She comes closer to him, staring at his face. "You look better," she says. Leaning up, she kisses his cheek. "You need to tell Quinn you're sorry," she says.
He scoffs, and slants her a dark look. He starts to say I'm not sorry, but he finds he can't utter the lie.
"Think of it as setting yourself free," she says, bumping her shoulder against his.
"What do you know about it?" he asks, feeling a little creeped out, once again, by her clear cut assessment of his fucked up situation.
"I know you'll feel better if you do it," she says. As she walks away, she says, "Besides, I've got this song I wanna do in Glee Club with you, but I can't until you've made up, because she'll think I'm betraying her."
The smile she gives him as she leaves the kitchen adds to the simple happiness he feels, being in a place with his friends, just having a good time.
For the first time in a long time, he just feels like a regular kid. (Later, when Santana propositions him, he turns her down. He kisses her at midnight though, because everyone should have someone to kiss on New Year's.)
*
As they prepare for Regionals (they WILL win this year, or Rachel Berry will have all their heads), Schue decides they need to amp up their choreography. He wants Puck and Quinn to be partners, so Puck bites the bullet. He pulls her aside after their first run through.
"I wanted to say..." he begins, but the words are so hard to say, he pauses too long.
"I know you went to say goodbye to Beth," she says. "I'm glad you went. I just...couldn't."
"No, I know," he says, waving his hand in dismissal. "I knew you didn't want to go. It's cool. We had our moment, it's over. I'm sorry, Quinn. Like you were sorry, I'm sorry too. I just...I want it behind us too, okay?"
She looks surprised, and tears fill her green eyes. He starts to get nervous because he didn't expect her to have such a big reaction. Then she straightens her shoulders and nods, her ponytail bobbing professionally. "Friends?" she asks.
"Friends," he agrees.
He even believes it.
A week later, he and Mercedes do another Sammy Davis Jr. song together that Schue says they'll use at Nationals if they win Regionals.
*
They're standing sandwiched between Vocal Adrenaline and Aural Intensity again, and Puck can't help but remember this moment from a year before. He feels someone's hand slide into his as the head judge reveals the first runner up. He looks down and sees Quinn beside him, her hair up in a sparkly bun at the back of her head. Her fingers weave through his and tighten until he returns the pressure.
"...goes to Vocal Adrenaline!"
A moment later New Directions is awarded the Regional Championship and Puck hugs everyone, even Kurt. But Quinn hugs him twice.
*
School will be out in three days, and two days after that, they're all riding a bus to New York. Puck's never been outside of Ohio, so he's beyond excited, and the whole Glee Club is brimming with enthusiasm that borders on madness. Rachel has a meltdown in the choir room, which they're all witnesses to, but it seems to release some of the tension.
Schue gives them a speech about not needing to win to be actual winners, but Puck knows they all think that's bullshit. If they get all the way there, and don't win, they're going to be inconsolable.
As he's getting into his truck, he notices Sam and Quinn standing beside Sam's car. It's funny how much he doesn't see them anymore, how he's grown used to them as a pair. Most of the time he feels like he's over Quinn, but he still gets those occasional update emails from Shelby, and those are the times he knows the truth.
He'll never really get over it, he just doesn't let it rule his life anymore. (That was a good thing.) He only had one more year in Lima anyway, and then he was getting the hell out one way or another. That's when real life would start.
He doesn't realize he's still watching them until Quinn tries to walk away from Sam and he grabs her arm. There's something about the gesture, and though they are too far away for him to hear what's being said, he knows the content of the conversation.
His heart beats a little faster as he drives home.
*
New York City is everything he's ever imagined, plus about infinity. It's the fucking coolest place he's ever seen, the lights and the buildings, and the fucking energy invades all of them the minute they step off the bus.
He looks around at his fellow Glee Clubbers, and knows the sappy grin stretching Mercedes's face matches the one on his own.
They are in fucking New York City.
Schue had given them a lecture that boiled down to "go have fun, just don't do anything that will make you unable to perform tomorrow."
After nine hours on a public school bus, they're all starving, so they find a restaurant near their hotel. After they've eaten, they get into small groups, depending on where they want to go and what they want to see. Puck ends up with Finn and Rachel because Rachel seems to know absolutely everything about the city. He sees Quinn loop her arm through Mercedes', while Sam goes off with Artie, Santana, and Brittany.
Just as he glances away from them, he sees Mercedes wave her arm. He glances back just because the movement catches his attention. "Come on, White Boy," she hollers.
He hesitates, because seriously, bros before hos, right? He glances at Finn, who doesn't really look like he'd care if he's left alone with Rachel. It takes Puck a moment to remember that Finn and Rachel have been dating for a year now, and his best friend like, totally loves her or some shit. "Come on, Puck, come with us!"
Quinn's voice sounds so inviting, it's almost unrecognizable to him.
*
They go back to the hotel after a couple hours of walking around. Kurt, Mercedes, and Quinn are sharing a room, and Puck hangs out with them after he tries to go to his room and walks in on Finn and Rachel.
(Apparently, Berry gets her freak on when the biggest performance of her life looms before her.)
Quinn throws a pillow at him and pulls off the top blanket. "You can sleep on the floor," she says, which saves him the uncomfortable moment of saying he doesn't want to share a bed with Kurt. He smiles at her and she winks.
He's pretty sure he totally loves her again.
Once the lights are out and everything's really quiet in the room, Puck whispers her name. From the dim light shining in through a crack in the curtain he sees her head come over the side of the bed. "What?" she whispers back.
"Why'd you and Evans' call it quits?" he asks softly.
"None of your business," she says in a harsh whisper, enough to convey her annoyance.
He wants to ask her if it's because she wouldn't give it up to Sam, but then he really doesn't want to know if they did it or not. So he doesn't say anything.
Closing his eyes, he's almost fully relaxed when he hears the sound of her moving around on the bed. He thinks she's just making a big production of turning over and giving him the silent treatment, but then suddenly he feels her right next to him, and she's laying down beside him.
"What are you doing?" he asks, unable to keep his voice low enough that the other people in the room don't hear him.
"Oh, God," he hears Kurt say. "'Cedes, is he really that--" but Mercedes must hit him with something because he makes an "Ooof" sound and falls silent.
Quinn cuddles up next to him, and he seriously doesn't know what to make of it. He doesn't move, just lays very still. "Fabray?" he finally asks after an interminable silence of about thirty seconds.
"I broke up with him because I like someone else," she whispers.
Puck's positive he's drunk or dreaming, even though they'd all made a pact not to drink so they wouldn't be hung over for the competition, and he's pretty sure he hasn't quite managed to fall asleep yet.
He knows he's not dreaming as her face snuggles into his throat.
He thinks he should put up a fight, or demand something, but instead, he can't help enjoying the perfection of the moment.
Tomorrow it will all be different, and he'll have to go through it all again, but for this night, he's just going to believe that in New York, anything is possible.
*
The next day, after they've performed "Don't Stop Believin'" for a crowd of fifteen thousand people, and they've gotten a standing ovation, Puck is hugging Quinn backstage, her arms around his shoulders and her feet completely off the ground. She laughs gleefully, her head thrown back.
When their eyes meet again, he finally asks, "What changed?" because he knows it's really happening now, and he's powerless to stop it, but he at least needs to understand it.
Her fingers press into the back of his neck and she shakes her head a little. "I never wanted it to be you, Puck. Because I'm stupid, and I listen to my parents too much, and--" She breathes out a little sigh as he lets her slide down so her feet are on the floor again. "But it is you--"
"C'mon, guys, back to the stage!" Schue calls, and the herd starts moving them towards it, because they are somehow in the middle of the crowd.
She holds on to his arm as he's pulled away from her. "I messed everything up, I know, but..."
Finn's arm clips him on the shoulder, dragging him out and Quinn hurries to keep up. "I was awful to you, but it was just always--"
And then they're onstage, and whatever she was going to say stays unsaid. A hush falls over the assembled groups of students, and Puck wonders how the hell they can decide anything so fast, and he doesn't even care if they win or not. All he knows is he has suddenly got the thing right in front of him that he never had before. He worms his way between Mike and Tina to get to Quinn, who's on the other side of Artie's chair now in the tumult.
He leans down and whispers in her ear, "Quinn, will you go out with me?"
She looks up at him, and nods.
Somehow, it's all just the beginning.
*
A couple of months later, Puck wakes up on a Saturday morning to make-up smudges on his pillowcase. But it's all good because he can hear the shower running.
She's still there. Because she wants to be.
He thinks they might actually make it.