Disclaimer: I don't own the characters.
For Hope (AccioHope), for being my Glee twin, for loving Rachel/Sam and Puck/Quinn, and for betaing this for me and giving me confidence and generally being awesome. Love you, Hope! :D
No spoilers, really, just my wishful thinking of what might happen at Nationals :)
Dusk glimmers pink and gold outside the window, and inside the hotel room, the smell of honeysuckle lingers in the air, perfume swirling around the room until everything seemed awash in the sweet fragrance. She's not normally one for poetry, but everything about the coming night, from the scent in the air to the moonshine in the sky, just screams that it's going to be special.
And she's Quinn Fabray, and all she's ever wanted is special.
Not special like Rachel and Kurt, though, she muses as she glosses her lips with roses, not special in the sense of being crazy talented and destined to be a star. That's not her kind of special. Her kind of special isn't Broadway darling, it's prom queen (complete with prom king, of course); not shooting for the stars but watching them die.
Behind her, the door swings open, and she turns around to greet Mercedes, but it's most certainly not Mercedes in the doorway.
"What are you doing here?" she demands of him, her lip gloss clattering to the counter, forgotten by his presence.
"Relax, would you? I'm not here for some sort of ulterior motive," Puck scoffs, as if the idea is absurd, and saunters further into the room. "Just wanted to check and see if you were ready."
Quinn regains her usual icy exterior quickly and rolls her eyes. "Of course I am. I was just putting the finishing touches on my make-up."
"Right," he drawls, hands finding their way into his pockets. "Wouldn't want Quinn Fabray to look anything less than perfect, now, would we?"
She sighs, turning back to the mirror and reaching for an extra clip to tame one stray curl. "What is the matter with you?"
Puck leans against the wall and sends her a look, appearing to be the quintessential bad boy with his languid posture and darkdark eyes under the ceiling lights, and she'd be lying through her teeth if she said she wasn't more than a little bit attracted to him (but she can't be, because he's Puck and she's Quinn, and they don't do this – anymore).
"Nothing," he says. "Why? Does it seem like there's something the matter with me?"
"Yes," she informs him primly, whirling around after having successfully pinned the flyaway blond curl back. "You never talk to me anymore, and suddenly you're in my room, the night before Nationals, to – what, exactly? Check on me? Any of the others are perfectly capable of doing that. Why are you here, and why are you talking to me?"
Puck takes a moment to react, and then he smirks. "Maybe I just wanted to spend time with the mother of my baby."
His words settle into the honeysuckle-scented air which suddenly doesn't seem as sweet anymore, not when her breath's caught in her throat and she doesn't know what to say because he's sending her that look, the one that he gave her at that party last year, the one that makes her feel ohsopretty, the one that effectively ruined her life once before, and how, exactly, has she never noticed how amazing he looks in this light?
Quinn steps back, attraction and affection warring with her desire to dislike him. "Stop that," she warns him, trying to sound authoritative. "Stop looking at me like that. You've never once brought up B—what happened last year, this year. What's gotten into you? Why are you doing this?"
But maybe it's not so much that he is doing this, pushing her buttons, dancing on every last nerve of hers, but that she's maybekindasorta remembering why she lo—liked him before. Remembering how special he made her feel the night of the party, when he serenaded her, when he gazed at her while holding Beth in his arms with a look of such adoring love that she almost melted in her hospital bed.
"Maybe this whole mess with you and Finn and Rachel made me grow up, Quinn," Puck tells her, his words slow and his voice husky. "Have you ever considered that it's possible for me to grow, to learn, to become a better person? Or are you still so caught up in your illusion of you and Finn being this perfect couple that you haven't noticed me at all?"
"Oh, that's rich," she replies, trying to ignore the tripled beat-beat-beating of her heart when he steps closer. "Me not notice you? You're the one who's been so wrapped up in Lauren that you've never taken the time to come talk to me about – about this supposed growing up you did in juvie, or about our daughter – "
"Lauren and I broke up," he informs her, cutting across her retort. "This morning, on the ride to New York. And Quinn? It takes two to talk. You've never once brought up Beth, either. Don't try to blame this on me. Not everything's my fault, and our relationship falling apart because you were so distracted with Evans or Finn certainly isn't."
"What relationship?" she demands, purposely not thinking about how ridiculously happy the news of his break-up with Lauren made her. "We slept together. It was a mistake. We had a daughter. We gave her away. That's it. Don't make this into something it's not."
"Damn it, Quinn," he hisses. "This is everything I'm making it into, and don't pretend you don't know it."
"You're being stupid," she tells him, but the truth is, he's not, and this – whatever it is that's blazing between them right now – this has been a long time coming. "We're not – you can't possibly – it's been an entire year since – don't do this to me!"
"Do what?" Puck asks, suddenly standing right in front of her. "Upset the delicate balance that is Quinn Fabray's life? Look, the only reason I came in here tonight was to talk to you."
"Talk to me about what?" she challenges, crossing her arms and turning determinedly away from him, looking back at the mirror and trying not to cry, because ever since they gave Beth away, the one constant in her whirling mind has been Puck and his smile and the way he told her he loved her, and all the distractions in the world – Sam, Finn, Rachel, Santana – can't cure her of this whatever that's between them. "All you've done is antagonize me since you came in here. If you have something to say, say it."
Puck exhales, his breath coming out in a sigh, and runs a hand through his mohawk. "You look beautiful."
Quinn spins around, tears forgotten, bewildered at the statement. To be perfectly honest, she'd been expecting (wanting) something like I love you, not as anticlimactic as You look beautiful. "Um, what?"
His hand's on the doorknob, ready to turn. "That's it," he murmurs. "Since I'm clearly not wanted here – "
"Don't," she breathes, hardly able to bear the thought of him leaving – maybe for good. "Wait."
"For what?" he demands. "For you to wake the hell up and realize that you're not going to get your sugary-sweet happily-ever-after with Finn or with Evans? For you to realize that Lauren was just a distraction because I was waiting for you? For you to understand that I'm in love with you?"
That icy exterior crumbles quickly when she runs. And suddenly she's in his arms, her body pressed up against his, her hands twining around his neck and tugging him down even as he backs up into the wall and pulls her even closer. His hands run down the aquamarine silk of her dress, and his face nears her own, closer, closer, closer, until his lips meet hers.
Quinn breathes once against his mouth, inhaling the ohsofamiliar scent of his woodsy cologne, before letting herself become absorbed in a kind of kiss she hadn't experienced in far too long. It starts out gentle, but because it's her and Puck, it escalates into a proper kiss, and his mouth is warm on hers, sweet and hot and amazing, and she finds it hard to believe she'd let a whole year go by before doing this again.
Puck draws back, breathing intensely, and leans his forehead on hers. "Quinn," he whispers, his breath ghosting over her cheek, "will you be my girlfriend? My real girlfriend?"
She might not win prom queen if she attends on the arm of Noah Puckerman, and Quinn fully understands that when she answers.
"Yes."
He grins and tugs her back in for another kiss. They have to perform on stage in half an hour, and she just knows her hair is going to get messy if he keeps touching it, and her carefully-applied lip gloss is certainly history with the way he's kissing her, but she's finding it hard to care at the moment.
Because if there's one thing she's learned in Glee club, it's that there are moments to sing for and moments to live for, and this is definitely one of them.
Author's Notes: I might die if this actually happens. But considering what's happened to Quick this season (uh, nothing), I doubt it. Still, I do hope you guys liked this - it's my first foray into Glee, and I really enjoyed writing it! If you read it, please drop me a review to tell me what you thought! :)
Don't favorite without reviewing, please and thank you :)