The Road to California
A/N: This was supposed to be a oneshot, but I had to break it up into chapters to upload it. If you have the time and the patience, I think it reads best in one sitting.
Chapter One
Sam's mother told him that if he didn't straighten things up in his room, Quinn wouldn't be allowed to come over later. He knew the threat was empty; Quinn's mom and dad always went out for date night every other Thursday. They stayed out late, smoochin', Quinn said, so she always spent the night and went to school with him in the morning. With Stupid Stevie always crying and wailing and pooping his diapers, Sam's parents didn't get a date night, though he got to go to Quinn's house all the time during the day. Her parents were smart; you didn't see them having more babies.
When Quinn arrived, Sam was still cleaning his room, meaning that he was arranging his Star Wars action figures by the characters' organizational allegiance. This was a pretty complex chore – a novice might argue that you had the dark side and the light, but boy, would they be wrong. Some of Sam's action figures belonged to the Bounty Hunter's Guild, some to the Trade Federation, and a few even to various Hutt crime syndicates. Harder to decide were the Ewoks; they always gave Sam the most trouble, though he usually ended up assigning them to the Rebel Alliance's box, for better or worse.
His blonde best friend sighed when she walked into his room like she owned the place. Quinn tossed her purse on the floor and flopped down onto his bed, totally ignoring Sam. He'd never been able to figure out what an eight year old girl needed with a purse. His mom carried money and sometimes snacks in hers, but Quinn didn't have money, and if he ever said he was hungry, she never offered anything, not even animal crackers.
"My life is over," she moaned dramatically through the Spiderman pillow she was holding over her face.
She was still yapping, so Sam figured she wasn't dead yet. He finished organizing his figurines by placing Han Solo in last; he always saved Han for last. Another mournful sigh from the bed demanded a response. "What?" he finally asked. Girls could be so needy.
"My mom hates me!" Quinn wailed dramatically.
Sam didn't know anything about that; Mrs. Fabray seemed okay. What really concerned him was that Quinn might be getting spit on his pillow. "How come?"
That was all the opening she needed to lunge forward, filled with as close to righteous indignation as an eight year old could muster. "Santana's mom bought her a cell phone! I asked mom for one, too, and she said no! Can you believe that? No!"
If there were going to be any big purchases in the Evans house, Sam probably would have asked for the Lego Death Star. God, just the thought of all those pieces working in tandem to make the universe's ultimate weapon made his fingers twitch. But a phone? Who cares? His mom had a phone, and he could use it anytime he wanted.
"What do you want a phone for? Who would you call?"
Quinn looked annoyed. "Maybe I'd call you."
Sam snorted. "Like you ever listen to me, anyway."
"Shut up."
"See!"
The thing with girls was, they didn't like for you to call 'em out, even when you're right. Especially when you're right, Sam had found. The best thing to do was to just ignore them, let them cool down a little. So, he brought out his Legos.
Quinn quickly noticed.
"What're you doing?"
Without sparing her a glance, Sam explained. "I built that Star Destroyer set that you got me for my birthday last year, but then I dropped it like, a long time ago." He didn't remember how long. An hour was a long time for an eight year old. "So now I just make up stuff to build." Sam connected a grey piece to a larger blue component. "I think I'm gonna try to make a lair for the Green Goblin, something totally awesome and –"
Quinn just sighed. Boys . . .
XxXxX
They were supposed to be sleeping, and Sam would have been perfectly fine with that, but as usual, Quinn was still awake. She was jabbering about what Marcie Brown and Sarah Sanders were going to wear to the Christmas party their class was having next week. Twice already, his mom had walked by in the hallway and told them to quiet down and get to sleep, but his best friend just waited until the footsteps had faded in the hall before starting in again about clothes.
"And I told my mom that I needed the shirt with the Christmas tree on it, but she said that the shirt with the reindeer that I already have will be fine, but it's like she doesn't even care that all the other girls will be wearing shirts that have trees on them, and so she must hate me, and she wants everyone else to hate me, and sometimes –"
He missed most of that. Sometimes when he couldn't sleep, Sam stared at the glow in the dark stars that his dad had put on the ceiling. He pictured faraway galaxies, and all the different kinds of space denizens that lived there. There'd be slug people, of that he was sure, but also humanoids with two heads, and maybe hominids that had reptilian qualities. Someday, they'd come up with spaceships that you got when you were sixteen, instead of just a dumb old car, and he'd get one, and he'd fly to the stars.
"Are you even listening to me?" Quinn's shrill whisper interrupted his thoughts.
"What?"
"I was saying," she huffed, annoyed, "that if I don't have the right shirt, no one is going to want to sit with me at the Christmas party!"
Sam rolled his eyes. "I'll sit with you." He always sat with her; they'd been in the same class since preschool, and he sat next to her every single time they got to pick seats.
"And what are you going to wear?"
Probably whatever his mom told him to. "I dunno. A t-shirt, I guess. I'll tell mom I want the one with the Tyrannosaurus Rex on it." That was without a doubt his coolest shirt.
"Wear something that will look good with my stupid reindeer shirt."
"What looks good with a reindeer?" Sam couldn't imagine, but then, he wasn't a girl. His mom was always talking about "matching." Sometimes she yelled at dad when he didn't put "matching" clothes on Stevie. Sam doubted that Stevie cared much – he'd poop in anything.
Evidently, Quinn was tired of talking about it. "When we trade presents at school, I bet I'll get something dumb." For their class Christmas party, all the boys would bring one gift for a boy, and all the girls would bring a gift for a girl. You drew a number to see which gift you got.
Sam sorta thought that all the girl gifts were dumb, but he knew better than to tell her that. "I hope I get the new Batmobile." This was unlikely, considering that parents weren't supposed to spend more than ten dollars on the gifts.
"I'll probably get more fake nails. How tacky."
Quinn was always saying things were tacky. Sam didn't know what that meant, either, but he guessed it was just anything that she didn't like. She never called him tacky, so he felt ok about that.
"What if Finn asks to sit by you?"
She flipped her head, her ponytail hitting him in the face, much to her pleasure, Sam knew. "He won't if I'm wearing that stupid shirt."
"Do you want him to?" Finn was Sam's best guy friend, but he'd rather Quinn stay over than Finn.
"Maybe."
"Would you make me move if he wanted my spot?" She'd been talking about Finn an awful lot lately, and he just wondered . . . It wasn't like it made any sense; Finn wasn't nearly as good as he was at video games, and if Quinn started jabbering like she did, he'd probably wander off, whereas Sam would at least pretend to listen, mostly.
"Of course not," Quinn answered, sounding somewhat offended. "He could sit on the other side."
That made him feel better. Sam knew he'd have to wear a cooler shirt than Finn's to the Christmas party. Quinn's weird, and she gets worked up over weird stuff, but she's also his best friend. Finn's his second best friend, but not like Quinn.
"Maybe I should wear a tie?" He'd never worn a tie before, but his dad had a bunch. When his dad wore ties, his mom always said that he was "very handsome." If Quinn cared so much about what they were wearing to the class Christmas party, she'd probably like it he wore a tie. He'd have to ask him mom to find one that matched his T-Rex shirt.
"Oh, that would be great!" Quinn clapped a hand over her mouth, obviously hoping that his mom wasn't on her way back down the hall to tell them to go to sleep. After deciding the coast was clear, she whispered, "We'll get to see how you'll look when we get married!"
This was new.
"Huh?"
She rolled her eyes. "Duh, you'll be wearing a tie then, and now I'll know what you'll look like. On the day we get married," she clarified.
Sam knew almost nothing about marriage. He knew that all the married people he knew were super old, like his parents, and from TV he sorta thought that you were supposed to ask to get married. He didn't remember anyone asking him about that stuff.
"Um," he didn't want to sound dumb, but . . . "When are we getting married?" He had camp in the summer, and they were going back to Tennessee soon to visit his grandparents, so he wasn't sure when he was supposed to show up for this. He figured Quinn would be mad if he was late.
She brushed it off. "I dunno, when we're old. Probably eighteen or something."
Oh. Well, that didn't sound so bad. Eighteen was forever away, he couldn't even picture how long it would be be till he was eighteen. Might as well get married then, for all he knew. But it was still kinda funny, that she knew all about this and he didn't. Yeah, he knew Quinn was smarter than him, but still. "Why are we getting married?"
"Because it's what you're supposed to do. I like you," she said, and that made him happy to hear, because sometimes she could be bossy, "and you like me," which was true, "so we have to get married."
He had to admit the logic was sound, and now that he thought about it, Sam didn't have a problem marrying her, especially since it was forever away and his mom would probably still be there to take care of both of them. But there was something kinda bothering him.
"Do you like Finn?"
Quinn had an easy answer. "Yes, but I've known you longer, and we go to church together. I'll have to marry you."
"Oh, okay." She had the whole thing worked out so he didn't have to worry about it. Now that he thought about it, he'd gone to a wedding with his parents, and there'd been presents. Maybe he'd get the Lego Death Star. But'd he'd have to wait until he was eighteen.
His mother came in after that and told them that if they didn't quiet down she'd separate them and he'd have to sleep in Stevie's room. That would be the worst thing ever because that room smelled like diapers and Stevie cries all night, so Sam shut up and hoped Quinn would, too.
He'd ask his dad about a tie in the morning.
Ten Years Later
If they leave soon, they'll probably make good time today, cover a lot of highway. But they won't, because Quinn hasn't even started getting ready yet. It's the same as yesterday, when she took like, forever, to do her makeup, and then she wanted to actually go inside a restaurant to have breakfast because no, she just couldn't eat the bananas he packed, and then she'd wanted to check her makeup again, even though he was driving so she could totally do that in the car. At this rate they are never going to make it to LA.
"Quinn, c'mon."
She's still in her bed, but awake, sitting up, looking at her phone. She's not happy. "God, I hate him," she said through clenched teeth.
Even though the motel room is technically half his, it's her stuff that's littering most surfaces and the floor. It looks like they've been there for a week already, instead of just lumbering in, exhausted from the road, at eleven last night. All this stuff needs to be packed before they can leave, meaning more delays.
Sam sits down on the edge of her bed. "Q, just ignore it."
She doesn't. Her thumb's going a hundred miles an hour, scrolling down her Facebook feed. "He's just such a, such a," she tosses the phone, but Sam's quick and manages to catch it before it hits the wall and shatters. "He's such a dick!"
He's not going to argue with that. He knew Finn Hudson was a dick back in third grade, back when the taller boy had gone to the teacher and asked to be Quinn's partner for the science fair, even though Sam had been her partner in everything for forever.
"Yeah, he is." You'd have to be a dick to break up with your girlfriend, via phone, the day before she was supposed to leave for a cross country trip to Los Angeles to interview at one of the most prestigious, most expensive, colleges in the country. A real dick, but again, Sam had known that for years.
"And he's putting pictures of his new whore all over Facebook."
Sam didn't actually think that Rachel Berry was that bad, but he's definitely not going to say that to Quinn right this minute.
"Everyone seeing those pictures knows he's being a douchebag," Sam tries. Finn breaking up with her like did was awful, but Sam knew she was most bothered by the public humiliation aspect. Everyone in their school had known about Quinn and Finn, McKinley's power couple. And now the guy is posting pictures of himself with another girl a day after ending things with Quinn? He's a fucker, or at least that's Sam's opinion.
"I really, really want to kill him."
"I know." And he does, because she's talked of little else for the past couple days. Finn was supposed to be on this trip instead of Sam. They'd planned on a road trip to LA instead of her just flying. It was supposed to be the capstone of their last year in high school, a celebration of a relationship lasting since freshman year. And then he'd dumped her less than twenty-four hours before they were supposed to leave. That's when Sam's phone had vibrated and he'd answered to hear her crying on the other line.
He climbs to the head of the bed and sits beside her, slinging his arm around her shoulder. "You're better than him, Quinn. You've got a great future on the horizon." But it's not going to mean anything if we miss that interview because you won't get out bed, he wants to say, but he doesn't. It's 2,230 miles from Lima to Los Angeles, and even though they left yesterday, they're not even through Indiana yet.
She leans into him, and he feels kinda bad for loving it. He also feels kinda bad for not feeling really bad that Finn dumped her, but that's another thing that he has no plans to bring up at present. "It's his loss and he's stupid, you know?"
Quinn sighs and put her hand over his. "It's just embarrassing. Everybody knows."
He lets her mope over her dickhead ex, but seriously, it's nearly ten in the morning. She'd asked him to get her to that interview, and he intends to do just that. When she finally gets in the shower he packs her stuff away, hoping to get on the road as soon as possible. His stomach flips a little when he finds condoms in her bag, open so he could put away some of her clothes. As awful as the thought of her using those with Finn is, at least he knows that particular scenario will never play out. Thank God.
When she finally comes out of the bathroom, dressed and ready, he can't help but smile. She's beautiful and the sight of her has made his chest ache for most of the last decade.
"Ready?"
XxXxX
He doesn't know how long he's been in love with Quinn Fabray, he just knows that he can't remember a time when he wasn't.
Their moms have pictures of them playing together as babies, pictures of toddler Quinn leading toddler Sam around by the hand. Their parents loved to joke about "Sammy's little girlfriend," until he turned six or so and discovered that girls were gross. But even when'd he'd been sure that having anything to do with girls would lead to the most debilitating case of cooties, his subconscious had made allowances for Quinn. They'd always been side by side. For a long time he hadn't really thought of her as a girl. But then one day he suddenly really did start thinking of her as a girl, in a big way.
She's asleep in the passenger seat right now, looking beautiful as usual. Her eyelashes rest so gracefully against her cheekbones, her lips just barely parted in easy sleep. Sam knows he's an idiot for thinking of her like she's a Renaissance painting, but he can't help it. It would be different if she'd ever given even the slightest indication that she might feel the same way. But she never has.
He reaches across the front seat and fixes her blanket with his free hand, not wanting her to get too cold under the car's vents. His life's story can be told in little snippets about the small considerate things he's done, things that she's never noticed.
Such is love.
XxXxX
He's never seen anyone look so out of place as Quinn does in this restaurant. They're in some no name town in central Iowa, and the options for dinner aren't that great. Driving around he'd found this dinner, and the place doesn't exactly look like it's got many Michelin stars. Most of the guys eating don't have sleeves, and more than one person has the Confederate flag emblazoned brightly on his shirt. Most of the women looked pretty similar to most of the men.
And then there's Quinn. Her hair's down across her shoulders, a golden cascade that glimmers in the fluorescent lighting. Her lips curve in the most perfect bow, and her eyebrows arch in the most alluring angle. And no offense to their fellow diners, good Americans all, Sam is sure, but Quinn's too beautiful to be here, and she kinda looks like she knows it. It makes him smile.
"What?"
She's put the menu down, evidently having decided between various fried meats and various fried vegetables. For himself, Sam's going with the fried chicken, so at least he can pull off the breading and hope their hotel tonight has an exercise room.
"Nothing," he answers, but her face shows that she's not going to let him get away. "You just look a little out of place is all."
He gets a smile so she obviously takes it as a compliment, but then she's scrolling through her phone and her face darkens. Sam can see she's on Instagram; he assumes Finn's posting again.
"Hey." He leans across and puts his hand over hers. "Don't give him another thought." When she starts to protest, Sam says, "You're on your way to Los Angeles, California, Quinn." He doesn't move his hand away from the screen. "You're going to ace that entrance interview and you're going to go to college at the University of Southern California. You're gonna live in freakin' LA, Quinn. Finn's small potatoes."
Her face is tilted down, towards the phone, but her eyes look up and find his. "You're right."
"Duh."
Their food arrives and it smells really good. This is the kind of stuff that he never allows himself to eat, the kind of stuff that his grandmother makes when they go back to Tennessee to visit. Sam's proud of himself when he follows through and pulls the fried skin, deliciously greasy, from the chicken before eating it.
"Do you think you'll come and visit me?"
A lot of the time Quinn's kinda facetious; they've been friends forever so they pick at each other a lot, but he doesn't hear that now.
"You mean in LA?"
She nods, not paying attention to the food she's poking with her fork.
"All the time! You're gonna be like, 'Sam, leave me alone, I've got to study," and I'll be like, 'No, I wanna go clubbing and whatever LA people do,' and I'll know what LA people do," he says, really happy with the way her smile looks really, really real, "because the hottest LA chick is my best friend, and I've known her forever, and there's never going to be a time when she's not my best friend." Sam squeezes her hand. "Right?"
She laughs really loudly, and neither of them care that pretty much everyone in the restaurant turns to look at them.
XxXxX
He was going to ask her out, like for real, in the ninth grade. Freshman year, new school, new opportunities, new girlfriend. That had been his plan. He'd waited for the right moment, planned it out, smothered his fears and reservations. He'd made reservations in fact, at Breadstix, and had his mom on standby to drive them. It was going to be a big deal; he'd bought a new shirt, an awesome pair of Chuck Taylors, and a promise ring. The promise ring was going to seal the deal. It symbolized his promise to be true, which wasn't hard for him because Quinn was the only person he'd ever, ever in his thirteen years of life, wanted. And she'd wear his ring on her finger and she'd feel proud to point down the hall and say, "that dude's my boyfriend."
But it never happened.
He'd been psyching himself up in front of the restroom mirror when Finn Hudson had walked in with a dopey grin on his face.
"Hey, man. What's up?"
"I just scored a date with Quinn!"
And Sam had spent the next hour in the nurse's office, ignoring the old lady as she listed off the symptoms of constipation, while he waited for his mom to pick him up.
XxXxX
"Have you ever had sex?"
They're driving through Nebraska and there's not much to see. There's a lot of grass, a lot of wheat, and a fair number of cows. Otherwise, there's not much to draw the eye. And the eye gets tired of grass, wheat, and cows pretty quickly.
"What the hell, Quinn?" She's always been really forward, as much as you can be forward with someone you've known all you life, but dude, who asks something like that?
"What?" She's been thumbing through a book of potential admissions interview questions, but evidently that's not riveting enough to keep her attention.
"You don't just ask someone about their sex life."
She perks up at that, an interested looking grin spreading across her face. She slides the book down between her legs to the floorboard. "So you have a sex life, do you?"
"It's not very ladylike to ask."
Quinn unbuckles her seatbelt to turn in her seat and face him. It's clear that she'd only asked to get a rise out him; the road is pretty boring. But now that he's hinted that maybe he actually has done the nasty?
"C'mon, tell me."
"I'm trying to concentrate on the road, thank you." Suddenly his hands feel really clammy. This is so her, asking uncomfortable questions. Seriously, who does that?
"But you have had sex?"
"Why would you care?" It's not like they're dating of anything, despite what he's always wanted but always been afraid to ask for. Really, what if he told her he loved her and she didn't love him back? After something like that, you can't be friends, and then he wouldn't have anything.
"I care because you're my friend and I want to know." His arm has been resting on the center console. She finds it and intertwines her fingers with his. "Sam, tell me."
He knows Quinn, probably better than anyone knows her. He knows she can be like a little Chihuahua that's bitten into someone's ankle; she's not going to let go.
"Fine. I have." Case closed, surely.
She gasps. "No! With who?"
Her surprise is a little offensive. "Why are you so surprised that I've had sex?" Thanks to all that time in the gym, he's kind of a hot piece of ass, at least in his own opinion. Surely it's not farfetched that some girl would want to bang him.
Her eyes are still wide. "You're Sam. You're not supposed to just have sex and then not tell me about it."
"Huh, I must have missed that rule."
"Who'd you have sex with?"
"That's none of your business."
Maybe she reads something in his tone, because she doesn't press him this time. But she starts to pout. He hates it when she does that. It's not crying, because she's not a child who cries to get what she wants. The pout is worse. It's quiet, and she bites her lip, she looks down. She looks miserable.
He knows it's just an act, and he can't believe that he's going to tell her. "Santana. Happy?"
And the pout disappears. Her eyes are wide again. "Santana Lopez?"
"How many Santanas do we know?"
She ignores that. "When? Where?"
Sam concentrates on passing the truck in front of them, giving him a few seconds more to decide if he really wants to tell her the details. He doesn't, but figures he can't back down now.
"At Puck's party a couple months ago. She pulled me into the hall closet."
"You had sex in a closet?"
Her tone, like she was just learning he's a totally different person, kinda amuses him. "I didn't stutter." When she doesn't say anything else Sam adds, "She yanked me in there. When it was over she said something about a bucket list and crossing me off. I dunno what the whole thing was about."
"Wow." Quinn picks up her interview book from the floor. "I just expected you to say you were a virgin."
He doesn't know why he tells her more, but Sam says, "I've only done it the one time." He probably wouldn't even have done it once, not with any one other than Quinn. But that would sound creepy if he said it aloud.
He doesn't go mono a mono and turn her question back on her. The last thing he wants to hear about is her having sex with Finn. But he doesn't have to ask.
"I've never done it," she says, her eyes locked to the book back in her lap.
He should probably pull the car over, the way his heart's beating. He knows Quinn, and he knows when she's lying and when she's telling the truth. He'd always figured, dreaded really, that she and Finn had sex. They'd been dating all through high school. The thought had made him sick more than once.
He reaches over and takes her hand, as she'd taken his before, though he isn't trying to tease out salacious information. "That's not a bad thing. You should only do it with the right person, someone you love, you know?" The heavy moment seems to be over when she smirks at his little speech, but he's not done yet; she's always inspired him to be protective, and he's just received some pretty good news. "It's about respect."
"Thanks, dad," she says, laughing at him before looking back out the window, a smile still on her lips.
He doesn't care. He's just learned that she never let Finn touch her. He's marking this down as a good day.
"I can't believe you let Santana boink you."
"Shut up."