A/N: I had a writer's block for WIME one day—for chapter 40, actually—and I started writing something entirely new that sort of didn't go anywhere but it helped clear my head. However, when I got started with this, I ended up falling in love with it and I realized that I needed to finish this story. It's a 4-parter, and it's done, so it shouldn't hinder too much progress for my other stories.
Enjoy!
xXx
CeruleanBlues
All I Need
Part 1
I'm dying to catch my breath
Oh why don't I ever learn?
I've lost all my trust,
Though I've surely tried to turn it around
There were no warnings; no initial signs of things spiraling down the path of devastation, but I suppose I shouldn't have been so fucking naïve to think that Brittany and I could last through our first frat party without screwing things up. I loved a good rave as much as the next guy; all the booze and smoke—it always took my mind off the shit happening in my life—something about the haze that comforted me.
We were still in that fragile state—that honeymoon period—so when she'd left my side to be lured away by her sorority sisters or whatever, I hadn't expected to find her stumbling into the kitchen an hour later, drunk as fuck with half a top barely hanging by her boobs, and throwing herself at me. I liked her, I really do, and in all honesty, she was great to be with, especially since being with her made me feel less of a failure.
"Sam, Sam, Sam," she slurred, her eyes drowsy and glazed over, a goofy smile on her lipstick-smudged lips. "You're a good guy, you hear me? A good, good guy."
She tried to suppress a hiccup, but the all-too-familiar whiff of alcohol in her breath reminded me too much of myself—of the lonely nights I'd spent in the company of those friendly glass bottles—and I realized how incredibly unattractive it was.
"Britt, you're totally wasted, babe."
"I know, I know," she giggles, swaying on her feet. "You're a good guy, but God forbid, you're such a fucking bore, Sam Evans."
That had to be the vodka talking because Brittany hardly ever swore.
"You're always in the damn library all the time, and when—when you're—shit, everything is spinning—not there, you're just cooped up in your room and drinking yourself to obvious—obviously—obliviously—oblivion, yeah."
I stared down at her even as I tried to hold her up before she hurt herself or anything, but I couldn't form the right words in my slightly intoxicated state. Her confession sank in slowly and surely, and I couldn't deny the truth. I marveled in the companionship of liquor and hooch more than I did my own girlfriend.
"Santana said—she said—that I deserve more than this," she babbled on, and then sloppily patted me on my cheek. "And I have to agree, Sammy boy, so I've made my decision; I'm dumping your sorry ass. Bye-bye."
The arms that I had wrapped around her waist instantly dropped in their own accord as the news shattered around me like sheds of glass, too stunned to even noticed that my ex-girlfriend had already staggered back to the raging music and hoard of sweaty bodies. There was a sharp stabbing in my chest, the bitter taste of loneliness. It fucking hurt, and I was by no means a masochist, so it had to stop.
And there was only one thing I could rely on.
One thing that I needed.
Sitting on the countertop were the sweet bottles of promises—singing, laughing—in all shapes and sizes. Imaginary fingers beckoned me forward to the heavenly land of inebriation, and with a familiar burst of excitement, I succumbed to their allure. Grabbing a bottle of Jack, I popped it open and began draining its contents down my throat. The burning sensation was a welcoming treat and when the last drop emptied out, I reached for another.
I felt my senses dull noticeably after a couple more gulps, and by the third bottle, I didn't even know what I was consuming anymore. All I cared about was the escape—the fading of the pain—but the heavy thumping of bass became a bitch all of a sudden. I needed my solitude away from people—away from all of them.
Snatching as many bottles as I could carry in my hands, I dodged my way out of the pest house and headed straight for my car—that old second hand piece of shit—but the fucking key just wouldn't open the damn door. The struggle took ten whole minutes before I was safely inside the driver's seat, and then another five for me to start the bloody engine. It sputtered and coughed out in submission as I gunned down the accelerator, going about an eighty down campus grounds.
The speed felt good with the wind in my hair, but unfortunately it sobered me up too quickly for my liking. One hand on the wheel, I popped another bottle.
And then of course, with my luck—or a lack thereof—I heard the distant blaring of sirens. The red and blue lights appeared in my rearview mirror, closer and closer till the police car signals for my to pull over.
Shit.
"Alright, son, I'm afraid I'll have to take you in for driving under the influence of alcohol."
The cop was a big burly man—one of those had-been wrestlers, perhaps—and he had a thick moustache to match his imposing demeanor. He ran through protocol, sticking me with the Breathalyzer while his partner scavenged the interior of my car for the rest of the evidence before strapping me with the cuffs.
This was nothing new to me, and seeing that I knew the police station better than my own lecture theatre, I was surprised the officer hadn't known my name. I half expected a photograph of me framed up on the wall too, and when they sat me down by a desk for questioning, I had thought the lady cop was going to roll her eyes.
"You again, Mr. Evans?" she deadpanned, glaring me dead in the center. "What is this; the fourth time?"
"What can I say; I missed you," I gurgled inarticulately.
"Cut the crap, Sam," she snapped. "You know the drill. We'll keep you for the night and have your student counselor pick you up tomorrow morning. I'm sure the school will deal with you after."
"Yeah, yeah."
An apologetic call to my dad, slap him with some empty promises, have him sign a cheque to the dean, and all would be forgotten soon enough.
"Mr. Evans, it has come to my attention that this is the fifth time in which you have been caught tempering with the law based on the same offence—drinking and driving—and with serious consideration, the school have decided that you acknowledge its consequences."
The student counselor was a straight-assed prick, and he came in the form of William Schuester. He wore clothes as old as his closet-sized office—lots of argyle, woolen sweater vests and mismatched ties—and talked as pretentiously as his antique bookshelf. My buddy Puck liked him some, but I couldn't see the appeal, because he always carried himself with a holier-than-thou self-righteousness.
"Why don't you just skip the formalities and tell me exactly what you mean?"
"Actions will be taken against you for your lapse in judgment," he explained, leaning his elbows on the huge-ass desk.
I scoffed at the prospect and took a moment to amuse myself with an image of serving community service. It was hilarious, really. "I'm sure my dad will have something to say about that."
"As a matter of fact, your father called, actually." The cocky bastard cracked a smirk, pleased as peaches, and I have half the ass to get him fired. "Conforming to the rules, we had him notified of your ill behavior, and it pleases me to inform you that he is not having it this time, and neither is the dean. You won't be able to weasel your way out of this one, so I suggest you wipe that attitude from your face and listen up."
He retrieved a russet brown folder from the side drawer and began flipping through the papers as I made a mental note to spend a little extra on my beloved father's credit card this month. Two could play the game, and the old man knew better than to aggravate me as such. Mom wouldn't hear the end of it, rest assured; she wouldn't allow for her only son to suffer in silence.
"Now, as your student counselor, I can't help but notice the slip in your grades relating directly after your first arrest with alcohol abuse—"
"Abuse is kind of a strong word, don't you think?" I retort, narrowing my eyelids to slits.
Still, he made no attempts to correct himself and promptly ignored my biting remark. "After several counseling sessions with student therapists—some of whom had commented on how you were uncooperative in every way possible—"
I punctuated his statement with a dismissive snort.
"And concluded with a diagnosis of an early stage of addiction to alcohol," he finished reciting the multiple reports. "Mr. Evans, you are by far the worst student I've ever encountered, and don't you dare use the 'I'm dyslexic' line to plead your case. You are here because clearly the school sees something in you—something promising of a young man—but I just can't seem to understand why you'd want to throw it all away for nothing."
Who the fuck granted him permission to lecture me like I was a six-year-old idiot? He clearly didn't know anything about my damn life, so he had no right coming in my face like he just did and pissing all over it.
"Whatever."
William's hard gaze bore into me for a long five minutes, but there was absolutely no way in fucking hell was I backing down from the challenge. I stared right back, wanting him to know that I wasn't the least bit intimidated by a man who used a crimson heart-shaped rock as paperweight.
"I'm going to put you under the school's recovery program," he notified, as though somehow I'd be rattled by such petty news. "It's relatively new; its aim is to help students like yourself rehabilitate without the need to forgo their studies. For a month—or longer, depending on your progress—you will be attached to a sober companion, and he or she will ensure your sobriety state at all times. I will be given daily reports, and should you refuse the assistance, I would have no other choice but to file an appeal to the dean for temporary expulsion."
What the fuck, dude?
"You are a danger and hazard to your fellow peers, Mr. Evans, and my priority in this campus is to provide a safe learning environment for everybody. Don't hate me for that."
In his last parting words, he held a manila envelop out for me to take and said, "You need this, believe me."
Yeah, right.
Naturally, the first thing I did proceeding to that shit-hole was to ring up my folks—no matter the time zone in sunny Shanghai—and I couldn't give a fuck whether or not Dwight Evans was in an important business meeting. Whatever multi-million-dollar deal he was closing could wait, I was sure.
"Hey, dad."
His reply was curt and emotionless. "Son."
"What the hell are you doing?" I spat out. "A recovery program? Why don't you just dump me in the middle of the Sahara Dessert?"
"It's for the best."
And then he hung up on me.
Son of a bitch.
"That sucks big time, dude," Puck said, taking a swig of his beer even though his eyes were fixated on the exposed set of boobs on the television. "It's like having a fucking chaperone everywhere you go."
"Don't remind me," I muttered under my breath before polishing off my own bottle of malt. Waiting for the buzz that didn't seem to be happening, I reached for a can of Bud Light instead.
Fuck William Schuester and his rules. After today, I probably wouldn't be able to go within a ten-mile radius of a single bar or liquor store without being escorted by a babysitter, and if all hell was going to break loose tomorrow, then by all means I was going to make the best of it when I could. Celebrate my last chance at being shit-faced wasted, I was going to pump in so much alcohol in my bloodstream, Puck would have to ship me to the hospital to cleanse it all when I was done.
"Should you even be drinking right now?" he pointed out with a tilt of his head.
"Do I look like I give a rat's ass?"
"Seriously, man, you're already in enough shit. I'm sure you don't want your sober companion reporting you for showing up with a hangover."
On the big screen, the dark-haired whore was just about to get her ass screwed doggy-style, and I wondered when it was that porn had started to grow stale. Puck reached over for the remote to mute the shrill over-exaggerated screams. If ever a girl shrieked like that in my ear, I'd probably throw her out of the window.
"At least I'd show up, right?"
Puck arched an eyebrow. "As opposed to not showing up at all?"
"Precisely."
The instructions found in the envelope were thorough, comprising of a logbook, some tacky brochures and a perfect-bound self-help manual of some sort, and I hated it. Everything in there only served to amplify what I already knew was an ill-fated month of non-privacy in my life.
Reluctantly trudging towards the Student Affairs building, I scowled at passing students, cursing their existence if only to relive some pent-up frustration in mine. It felt like a walk to self-purgatory, and somewhere in Asia, I just hoped that my dad was satisfied. Glancing down at the strip of paper in my hand, I took a deep breath, braced myself for the worst, and entered through the door.
I stopped short, taking in what appeared to be some kind of hotline operations, where everybody sat in tiny cubicles with headphones permanently implanted to their skulls. The light chatter that hung in the air buffered the otherwise clinical appeal of the interior.
Okay, what now?
"Excuse me, may I help you?"
I jumped a little, startled by the woman's sudden appearance—a brunette with straight bangs and an all-too-wide grin that showcased all the teeth in her mouth—and blinked at the intrusion.
"Jesus," I breathed, then cleared my throat to regain a semblance of coolness. "Yeah, I'm here to see Quinn Fabray?"
"Of course!" she chirped enthusiastically, probably from a little too much Prozac in her veins. "Down the hall there, to the right, second room. It's the door that looks like a Tardis."
"You watch Dr. Who?"
Her smile didn't falter even as her eyes turned into a look of confusion. "Doctor what?"
"Dr. Who," I repeated, enunciating each syllable. "You mentioned the Tardis."
"Oh, right," she nodded, finally getting it. "No, I don't, but Quinn probably does. I'm Rachel, by the way."
I shook her outstretched hand, and just as abruptly as she came, she was gone.
God, some people were just so fucking weird.
Following her directions, I chanced upon the one I was looking for and smiled in appreciation at the creative décor, but then the reality of the situation came crashing down again, renewing my disdain for this meeting. Begrudgingly, I lifted my hand and gave the door a couple of hard raps, throwing basic courtesy out of the window.
"Come in."
And then I saw her—the most beautiful person I had ever met. Blonde shoulder-length hair curtained her porcelain face like a ring of halo, clipped to the side to hold back the wisps from falling into her gorgeous almond-shaped hazel eyes.
"Can I help you?" Her voice was firm and professional, yet soothing and delicate, but I wasn't convinced that the school would send someone of her experience to do their dirty work. Frankly, I was insulted. William might as well hire my Puerto Rican nanny.
"Shouldn't you be, like, older, or something?"
She blinked at my offensive statement and her long lashes flickered to narrowed slits. "Excuse me?"
Nice. I've always liked them feisty.
Languidly sauntering into the tiny office, I was sorely disappointed with the mundane interior—the plain peach-colored walls and subpar furniture with vinyl blinds that were half opened to allow streams of sunlight to filter in. Save for the Game of Thrones mug on the table, nothing in that room actually had character. "What happened to the inside of the Tardis?"
"It's under construction," she replied in a clipped tone as she rose to her feet. "How may I help you, sir?"
I ran my index finger over the leather couch situated in front of her desk. "A great tribute to pop culture, by the way."
"Thank you. How may I help you?"
My gaze snapped up to meet hers when I detected the annoyance laced in her words. This was going to be easy. She would probably run out of here crying in ten minutes. "Are you Quinn Fabray?"
"Depends on what you're here for," she retorted, folding her arms across her supple chest.
"A sober companion."
Realization dawned on her flawless features and her piercing glare softened considerably, the burning fire that had been present in her golden orbs simmered to a harmless flame. She circled the table to stand an arm's length away from me and in the close proximity, the sweet scent of her perfume wafted into my nose. "I see; so you're Sam Evans, I take it?"
"You've heard of me?" I smirked.
"Has anybody mentioned to you how your cockiness is such a turn off?"
Gutsy and blunt, too. Perfect.
"I've never had any complains about my cock before."
A crimson flush exploded in her porcelain cheeks, and I knew that my crude words were having an effect on her. In my defense, she actually walked right into that one; she must've known what she was getting herself into. To her credit, though, instead of cowering away in a flustered mess, she stayed rooted on the spot and tried to maintain some pretense of control.
"Take a seat, Mr. Evans, we have much on our plates."
"Just Sam will do," I told her. "Mr. Evans is my bastard of a dad."
She paused for a short moment in mid-reach for the folder on the tray, but otherwise didn't offer to correct my lack of respect for my parental unit. Smart move, for if she had poked at it, I probably would have her pinned to the wall in a single blink.
"First of all, I'm going to ignore the small indiscretion whereby you were obviously intoxicated last night—"
"I'm impressed—"
"Secondly," she swiftly and primly interjected without looking up from the documents. "I don't take bullshit. I don't take degrading comments about my gender or your objectification of women. You don't fuck with me, and I won't fuck with you, deal?"
Didn't say I couldn't fuck her.
I offered her a nonchalant shrug. "Whatever."
"Effective, immediately."
"Yes, ma'am."
She slapped the folder shut. "And thirdly, I'm not your babysitter, I'm your companion, which means that I won't dictate your every move. You are free to go whenever and wherever you like. However, I am obligated to give you a call once every hour to check up on you. If you do not, under any circumstances, pick up your phone, I'll have it tracked to your location and when I get there, you'd better be sober. If I find you with a red solo in your hands, make sure you're prepared to get your ass kicked because I'll flush out every last drop of alcohol from your body."
That was a joke, right?
Did she honestly think I was going to be intimidated by a woman—specifically someone who looked like she ought to be waving pom-poms at a football game?
"Whenever possible, I'll be your shadow to ensure that you do not, under my watch, relapse into your bad drinking habits. I'll be available to you twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Should the need or urge to consume alcohol arises, give me a call and I'll be there. Any questions?"
I pondered over it for a moment.
Just one: Can I take you right now on that table?
"No, not at all."
Being in the recovery program meant that I wasn't allowed—with or without permission—to possess alcohol at all times. Boo-fucking-hoo. In another words, Quinn had been thrust with the authority to raid my dorm room as if being dog tailed around wasn't punishment enough. Given the short notice, I hadn't bothered to clean up prior to this impromptu visit. Besides, there wasn't much left to salvage when she'd already discovered the vulgar magazines scattered about on the coffee table accompanying all the porn DVDs.
Just out of spite, she held one up, to my utter glee.
"Pam and Pim in Pussytown?"
"Judge me all you want but I think the red-head gives good head."
She dropped the case as though it was laden with diseases before discreetly wiping her hands on her raven-dyed skinny jeans. "That's just disgusting," she muttered under her breath as she headed for the small refrigerator beside the television set. Fortunately, the obscene amount of empty beer bottles strewn about the night before had been cleared, but there was still a cooler full and she was about to find them. "I take it this is your only stash?"
Not even close.
"Yeah," I lied, nodding at the dozen bottles of Heineken.
"Okay, so here's what we're going to do today," she announced, pulling one out and expertly tossing it in my direction. "You're going to make some people very happy with your generosity."
I glanced down at the booze. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"We're going to a bar—pick your favorite one—and we're going to drop these off for free."
"The fuck—" I cried out. "But why—"
"Because you don't need it."
"Well, that wasn't so hard, was it?"
I scorned at her smugness, cursing her name nine ways till Sunday. "You're a hypocritical bitch, you know that?"
She quirked an eyebrow in that uncanny way of hers. "Oh, yeah? How so?"
"You're giving away free beer to the one place that catered the happiest to people like me," I pointed out sourly. "That's akin to advocating the harmfulness of drinking."
"I like how you always blabber shit about the things I don't give a care about," she crooned in amusement. "My job is to ensure that you're clean—you, and you alone. What other people choose to do with their lives is none of my concern, and it shouldn't be yours either."
"Shouldn't there be karma points for that—"
"You can find all the excuses in the world, Sam Evans, but I dare you to walk away from this right now. Turn around, and let your friends go."
I stayed unmoving as I tried to mentally blow her head up with my non-existent powers. My hands were twitching, itching to grab all twelve bottles and split because this was a holocaust to the legion in which I had pledged to the college life of booze and boobs. She was butchering my life, here.
"I fucking hate you right now."
"Well, then I'm doing my job right. Go on," she gestured to the abandoned bottles on the ground. "Walk away from that. I dare you."
Alright, if that was how she wanted to play it, then it would take two to tango.
Challenge accepted.
I heard the blood-curling scream even before I arrived at the door and immediately barged into the room. Puck spun around on his heel, a mortified expression on his face but otherwise he seemed unharmed. He stood frozen as I did a quick inventory of the space, trying to spot anything that was amiss, until my eyes landed on the empty mini refrigerator.
"Where the fuck are they?" he screeched in an uncanny high-pitch tone. Somewhere in the neighborhood, I reckoned the dogs could've heard him. "What happened to my babies?"
"Relax, Puck, they're not all gone," I calmly told him before pulling out a six-pack from underneath my bed—my own personal emergency kit. "I managed to save these."
"Sweet victory," Puck cheered as I pitched the can in his direction. "Dude, what the fuck is going on? Why are the bottles all gone?"
I took a satisfying gulp of the warm beer and plopped down on the rounded beanbag chair, sighing in relief at the breath of fresh air. "As part of the recovery program, I'm technically not allowed to be in possession of alcohol—or even in the presence of it—so the first thing that damn sober companion did was to conduct a raid, and of course, she found the Heineken."
"What did she do with them?"
"Dropped them off at Five Clovers—for free."
Puck almost choked on the booze. "What the hell—but those are mine too. I could've finished it all."
Rolling my eyes, I threw the empty beer can into the trash bin and opened another. "Let me connect you to my sober companion and you can go cry to her about it, okay?" I paused to swallow a mouthful. "The bitch is a fucking nightmare. She threatened to kick my ass if she ever caught me holding a red solo."
"Is she hot, though?"
An image of her popped in my head—those kissable rose-tinted lips—and despite our mutual loathing for each other, I cracked a smile.
"Smoking."
"Maybe she just needs to get laid."
Noah Puckerman, ladies and gentlemen; always thinking of sex.
"I'd bang her already if she wasn't such a prissy brat," I snorted, reaching for the miniature rubber basketball on the floor and juggling it in my hands.
As if on cue, my cellphone started vibrating in my pocket. I fished it out, saw the name flashing on the screen and snickered. "Speak of the devil," I mumbled. My thumb hovered over the button as I contemplated whether or not I ought to answer it. Perhaps I could test a theory. After all, she did mention that she would hunt me down; why not see if it was true?
"You're not going to answer that?" Puck asked, punctuating his question with a burp.
"I think I'm going to let her sweat it out for a bit."
An hour later—with the six-pack long gone, and then followed by the couple of bottles of Vodka we bought off Finn Hudson from a floor down—someone was banging on the door. Lifting my arm from my face, I turned my head to find my roommate out cold on the floor, hugging a copy of Hooters to his chest, snoring with a string of drool trailing down his chin. If I weren't so bat-shit wasted myself, I probably would've snapped a photo for blackmail.
I threw the door wide open, only to find myself face-to-face with a fuming Quinn Fabray.
Oh, fuck.
She looked wild with rage, her hazel eyes blazing as she took in my inebriated state and then shoved past me to storm into the room.
"I turn my back on you for ninety minutes and you've already managed to break the rules," she flared up. "What the hell is wrong with you? You didn't think I meant what I said, did you?"
Still relatively drunk, it took me three whole seconds to process that. "No."
"Well, joke's on you, Evans, because you've just lost your trust privileges," she spat out, carefully sidestepping the still-sleeping Puckerman.
"My what?"
"If you can't do this on your own, then that just leaves me with no other choice." Furiously, she stripped out of her bright yellow pea coat and toed off her Oxford booties. Momentarily confused, I stood gaping at her, my mouth hanging open as she climbed into my bed. "Don't get any ideas, pervert. You're sleeping on Noah's bed since he's just so comfortable on the carpet. We'll discuss this in the morning."
Damn, she looked so hot when she was bossy.
"Yes, ma'am."
Quinn woke me up in the most unconventional way possible—she grabbed my junk and gave it a tight squeeze, almost crushing my erected penis in her vice-like grip.
"Jesus!" I gasped, springing upright, only to be held down as she straddled my torso and sat down on my chest. "What the—"
"Good morning," she sneered.
"Shit," I groaned, letting my head fall back onto the pillow. "Are you going to kill me?"
"No, but I probably should." Her perfectly round derrière provided for a soft cushion even as she shifted on top of me, and it was then that I noticed all of a sudden how blatantly sexual the position was. In fact, I was half-expecting that Puck was probably filming this right now, if only to see how good we would look together when I make love to her. "You have three seconds to explain yourself."
That was a total burst of my bubble, because those words, they went straight to my gut as though I've swallowed a bucket full of slugs. There was only one person in my life that I would ever owe an explanation to.
I glared up at the blonde. "You're not my fucking mom, Quinn."
"But I'm your sober companion," she argued defiantly.
I was officially pissed and utterly hung over, and it was just unfortunate that she'd pushed the wrong button. Fueled by a burst of agitation, I flipped us over, pinning her to the mattress as I brought my nose a scant of breath away from hers. There was a flicker of fear in her striking hazel eyes as she whimpered ruefully beneath my half-naked body. It was empowering—liberating, almost—to know that I had such control over a woman as dominating as Quinn Fabray.
"Let me repeat myself: You're not my fucking mom."
"Then get off me," she said through gritted teeth, a murderous hint in her molten hazel orbs as they bore into mine.
Just like that, she was back in charge; the change so abrupt, I didn't have time to comprehend it before she had me landing on my back on the carpet floor. Talk about a rude awakening. I barely recovered before she stood hovering over me.
"Fuck you, Sam. I'm here to help you, so the least you can do is to try and work with me."
"I don't need your help," I snapped. "Save yourself the trouble and leave me alone."
Can you still see the heart of me?
All my agony fades away
When you hold me in your embrace
A/N: So there it is! Part one! I know this isn't the conventional type of stories that I've written, it's really different in terms of the style in writing, as well as characterization, but I'm really excited about this one.
Just to clear some things up before I move on: Sam is NOT an addict. He's just abusing alcohol, so nothing in this story is going to delve too deep into that issue of addiction. I don't want to dig a grave for myself by bringing in topics that are too heavy for me to carry—especially so soon after the tragedy in the Glee fandom—so I'm just saying this to be sure. I wrote this way before Cory's passing, so any semblance is purely coincidental. I do, however, would like to share with people that alcohol is not the solution to any problems, and hopefully, with this story, my message would come across.
On the bright side, I'm still completing chapter 45 of WIME, so that should be up shortly.
Song used: "All I Need" by Within Temptation