(no subject)
Title: Royalty
Author: xfindyourlight
Rating: G
Pairing: Quinn/Artie friendship/pre-relationship. Depends on how you read it.
Summary: Quinn isn't used to not being Queen
Warning: none. Spoilers for 1x13 if you haven't seen it or know what happens.
Disclaimer: If it were mine, I would be in it.
Word Count: 1303
Quinn is the Ice Queen and she is proud of that title. She loves to scorn Man Hands and laugh at the losers, the peasants of her kingdom. It feels good to strut down the halls looking hot in her Cheerio’s uniform and receive gawks from the male student body without giving them the time of day. Yes, it’s good to be Queen.
But things have been kinda tough lately. Her scandals have been outed and her smirk doesn’t fit quite as well as it used to. She’s been pulled, roughly might she add, from her throne and thrown to the ground, now level with those she used to scorn.
But Quinn Fabray is the Ice Queen and, naturally, she gets back up and struts as she always has. People don’t gawk anymore. People whisper with harsh words and mocking eyes. And she sort of sympathizes with other people now. She longs for Kurt’s strength and Rachel’s determination. She even walks with Mercedes to some of her classes.
(Somewhere, way back in her sharp little mind, she realizes that she is neither Queen nor Ice any longer.)
She hides it though. She puts on the façade of grandeur and turns her nose up at the golf players (and pretends she doesn’t hear them laughing at her). Heck, she even buys Karofsky a slushie or four to win herself back into the hockey team’s favor. After he overhears some Mathlete making a nasty comment about her and bullies him to the point of crying like a small child in the middle of homeroom, Quinn knows that she’s back in a good place. People don’t openly mock her anymore.
(But they still mock her.)
She doesn’t let anyone get too close to her. People are to be used, not trusted. She’s built a little wall to encase her. It looks sturdy and secure and she’s fairly certain she can live with it. And with the football team standing guard, she’s certain that she can still be Ice Queen to the rest of the school.
Until she can’t. A girl in a cat sweater, a cat sweater, purposefully knocks into her one day as she’s heading to her locker after class (“Loser.”) and all of Quinn’s belongings, her textbooks, her craved peanut butter and pickles, her Bible, scatter to the ground as she slams into a locker. She falls to the ground, attempting to salvage her things and her broken wall as quickly as possible. As she shakily moves to stand, the objects fall from her grip and return to the floor.
Little tears trace rivers down her face this time as she collects her things, isolated, alone, exposed. No one is around to defend her. People just stare. Quinn is embarrassed and flustered to be revealing to the student body that she, Ice Queen, (ex) head Cheerio, has emotions. And she’s just about to give up and run away from her failure when a pair of wheels pull up near her. She freezes. With gentle care and extreme muscular coordination, Artie Abrams, the boy she used to mercilessly tease, lowers himself out of his chair and down to the ground. He collects her things and puts them in a neat pile. She quickly wipes her face to hesitantly meet his eyes. Blue eyes are (unfamiliarly) kind and he has a little smile with a thousand meanings. He pushes the stack toward her.
“Thank you,” she mumbles, just under a whisper. There’s no one in the hallway now, so she’s not sure why she’s being so quiet. (Maybe she’s trying to hide her broken state.) “You didn’t have to help, you know.” Yes, maybe he’ll learn that she’s still the Ice Queen and leave her alone. (She wants him to stay.)
“I know.” His voice is warm but hesitant. “But we all need help sometimes.” (Oh, gosh, he knows. He knows she’s human.)
She nods and stands. He hands her stack up to her and begins to return to his chair. Her stomach squirms and she knows she should do something. (She wants to do something.)
“Do you need…?”
“No, I’m okay.” He smiles at her once he’s safely in his chair. “Thank you though.”
She nods again, because she doesn’t know what to say. They start down the hall at a slow pace.
“Need a ride home?”
“Oh. No, no, that’s okay.” Quinn stays with different friends randomly. She won’t admit she’s homeless and her friends don’t call her out on it, so she’s okay with it. But explaining that to Artie? No, thank you.
“The weather’s really bad. I’d feel awful letting you walk home.” He’s got this look on his face like he really means it and her heart drops, because he’s the first person who’s really seemed to care about her since Finn.
“I… Artie, it’s really okay.” Her Ice is gone and she feels like she should miss it. “I’ll be fine. I’m fine.”
He looks upset. Well, no. He looks the way she knows she looks when she’s smirking like nothing’s wrong when she feels like the entire world is falling apart. They continue in silence until they reach the school’s front doors.
“So, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow, Quinn.” It’s the look on his face as he turns to leave, that stupid look on his face, that makes her feel the need to justify herself, that it isn’t him, that it’s her, it’s her.
“Artie, wait.” He does. “It’s not that I don’t want to be around you. I just… I don’t have a home, okay? Don’t make me say it again and don’t repeat it or I’ll have Azimio lock you in the portipotty for days.”
Artie doesn’t look shocked. He looks sympathetic and Quinn’s blood begins to boil, because she hates being the object of pity. She has (had) everything. If anyone should pity someone, she should be pitying everyone else for not being her.
“My cousin,” he starts slowly and thoughtfully, “was staying with my family, because of some custody battles. She just moved about two weeks ago.” He pauses and Quinn forgets that she’s annoyed, because she’s caught up in what he’s saying (and hopeful, so hopeful). “My mom seems to miss having a girl around the house. She gets lonely with just my dad and me.” He laughs softly and, when he looks at her again, his eyes intense. She can’t look away. “I think she would like to have another girl in the house.” The question is clear in his tone and his eyes, but Quinn’s voice is stuck. Her lips falter for words, but he just keeps staring at her.
It’s a moment of epiphany for her. She’s standing there in the doorway of the school with Artie Abrams, school joke, (kind boy), who is offering her his help. It’s then that she realizes that it’s silly, her whole way of looking at things. She needed to close herself off, because she was around all the wrong people. There are good people, honest people, loving people that won’t use her for what she is but befriend her for who she is. It’s sappy and dumb, but Artie’s waiting for an answer and it’s this that makes her nod.
His smile after is the first thing that warms her in weeks.
“Come on.”
So they make their way through the downpour as fast as they can and, when they make it to Artie’s car, wheelchair and all, they sit for a moment looking at each other before bursting into hysterical and random laughter. It feels good to not have to worry about what people will think and to just live.
She takes a moment to thank God as Artie turns on the car for the realization that maybe she doesn’t need her throne anymore.