Or Maybe I'm Just Conjuring Some Romance I Read (Quinn/Mike)
Name: Or Maybe I'm Just Conjuring Some Romance I Read
Rating: PG-13
Length: 890
Spoilers: none
Summary: Mike has Tina. She's awesome, but when he looks at Quinn, he sees everything Tina isn't.
Author's Note: This was a fill for someone on Tumblr, thanks to a series of contests I'm running. Maybe I should set some up here? Anyway, the title is from the song "Two Strangers" from the awesome composing team Kerrigan-Lowdermilk. I advise you go hunt down all their stuff immediately.
It's stupid. It really is, and Mike knows it. He's got a great girlfriend. She's Asian, and she is sweet and nice, and awesome, and his mom approves. She eats what he eats. And that's nice, you know?
But when he looks at Quinn Fabray, he sees everything Tina isn't.
Quinn is something else entirely - ethereal, out-of-this-world. She's gorgeous, not that Tina isn't, but not in the way Quinn is - like she's made of porcelain and stardust. And she's awful, and she can be cruel, but she's nice to him, and sits next to him in their computer class.
He's awful at computer things, somehow (it seems wrong, because, you know, Asian) - the pages and pages of coding all over their textbook is like jibberish, but Quinn gets it, somehow. And she helps him sometimes, and she giggles when he gives up and plays slime soccer.
She's sweet, and then when she's frustrated with something that isn't working right in the script, she frowns and frowns some more, and hits at her desk with an open palm. Her palms get red so fast whenever that happens - they look like she just smashed her hand on a strawberry and it's leaking into her pores.
It makes Mike want to do ridiculous, chivalrous things like kiss her hands and clean them of pain.
And it's dumb. Because he sees how mean she is to Rachel, even when Rachel doesn't deserve it. He sees her push her boys Finn and Puck and Sam around like they're nothing, like they're Tonka trucks and she's a giant.
The prettiest giant Mike's ever seen but it's nothing. At least, it should be nothing.
And he watches in glee. And she loses herself in that, in the music, and she seems to forget that she's supposed to be angry, supposed to be sweet. She just is, and that's when Mike sees Quinn the most.
Quinn feels music like no one, at least no one Mike's ever seen. Brittany dances like she has a song in her heart, not playing through her ears. Rachel seems like she's reveling in something else, something other than music when she sings, like the spotlight. And the rest of them have fun, and just dance along or mouth the words.
But Quinn - oh, Quinn.
She cries and she smiles and she bounces. It looks like she feels every word, somewhere in the grooves of her heart.
And she goes up to the front of the room and sings the song, "Lucky," at the urging of the newest member of the club, Adrienne, and she bursts into tears somewhere around the third chorus.
The entire club seems stunned by it, like Quinn is incapable of emotion and they are confused. Rachel steps out of her seat with a hesitant hand, closely followed by Puck, who seems quite struck. But Quinn runs, and suddenly Mike is following.
"Hey."
Mike is met with more tears, when he finds Quinn tucked away in the dark computer lab - he somehow knew that's where she would be.
"I wish life had a code," Quinn mutters, and another round of tears bursts through her as she slides her fingers through the workbook next to her usual computer. Mike sees her fingers brush over them sort of reverently, softly.
He looks back to her and imagines he looks at her quite like that.
"It'd be easy. It'd all be there, and simple, and, and - "
She cries, and Mike is unsure of what to do. When Tina cries he waits until she calms and hugs her, and she touches his abs and then she's fine. It's a bit different than what he imagines a relationship should be, but that's fine. He loves Tina.
Mike reaches out to grip Quinn's hand, the one not on the workbook. She blinks down at it, and Mike starts to withdraw, but then she clenches her fingers and holds his hand.
"Mike, you're a good guy."
Mike is silent. Mike is almost always silent, but he has all these words, too many words, shuttering through his head at the sight of Quinn, sitting there looking at him with wet eyes and what seems like broken angel wings, if he squints.
"Tina's good. Tina's what you want."
Tina is what Mike wants, but he wants to fix Quinn, wants to make her smile, wants to make her laugh, and he'd figure out a code to sing her a song if that was what she wanted, since he can't.
It's stupid, Mike thinks, as Quinn squeezes his hand and kisses his cheek, and then one single press to his lips - enough to make Mike's brain forget everything it's ever learned, and all he wants to do is dance.
But it's stupid, because Quinn shudders away from him and smiles that broken angel smile and she stands up, and walks away. And Mike isn't mistaken when he realizes that it's a rejection.
And he hasn't even asked a question. He hasn't even said a word.