First Glee fanfic. I'm not 100% happy with it, but I had all these thoughts in my head and I had to get them down with words.
Reviews would be loved.
I don't own Glee or anything associated with it.
"Hey. Um, so I know you're avoiding me and shit, but I just want you to know that I do care. And you can talk to me if you need anything."
She would never admit it to anyone, especially him, but she replays his message every night before she goes to sleep. Every night, ever since he had left her the message two weeks after Regionals, two weeks after she gave birth to their baby, two weeks during which she tried to avoid him as best as she could.
Sure, he had said that he loved her. But his version of love is very different from hers. While his seems to consist of having sex, making out, and, well, having sex, she has always dreamed about lying in each other's arms under the night sky, talking to each other about feelings and maybe dancing to some cheesy love song.
Basically, he was substantially lacking in the romance department.
But she still kind of misses him, and she still gets butterflies in her stomach whenever she watches him sing in front of the group – she likes to imagine that he's singing to her, and to her only.
She likes to imagine that they still might actually have a future together, even though he had pretty much ruined her past.
But she doesn't do anything about these wishes, and he gives no indication that he's not over her. They don't even talk in Glee Club or anything – and when they do, it always seems to come back to the weather. All she has is this message, the same one that she's been playing for the last 10 months or so.
He's tried to ignore his feelings for her, tried to keep a stony face so that she doesn't know how much he misses her. After all, he likes her too much not to let her go, to make her own life and decisions and do her own things. He just watches her from afar, watches the way she bites her lip and raises her eyebrow and plays with her hair and all those little, insignificant things that makes him long for her so much that it hurts.
So he resists the urge to punch any guy that gets within a metre of her. And she has had things with other guys, even though she had once told him that she was going to be independent and focus on herself this year. Now he wonders if it was just an excuse not to give into him.
But even so, he doesn't quit thinking about what they could have been. He dreams about kissing her, holding her, sliding into her. He moans her name in his sleep, disappointed every morning when he gets up and she's not there beside him.
He learns that some things in life he can't have though, and so he makes do with kissing, holding, sliding into other girls, even though every single time it's her face that he pictures in front of him.
It's dark outside, but the moonlight seems to make up for it. She gives the older man a tense smile, wanting to walk away from the awkward silence that had come between them.
She had never really understood her sister's taste in men, but then again, who was she to be saying anything?
The large and intimidating man takes a not-so-subtle step towards her, closing the gap in between them. He looks down at her and smiles, baring his pointed teeth.
"You're very pretty," he says in that slimy, bone-chilling voice of his. She's not sure she really likes the way this conversation is going. She takes a quick step back, but his hand grabs her arm and he pulls her toward him. It becomes very clear that he wants to make the most of the time they have alone.
He leans closer to her and puts his hands on the side of her chest with his rough hands. "Frannie doesn't have to know about this," he whispers, licking his chapped lips.
She gasps and tries to get away, but his grip is too strong. He forces his lips down upon hers, smothering her against her protests.
She acts on instinct, and thrusts her knee up, satisfied when it collides with his crotch and he lets go of her. She sprints away without looking back, desperate to get away from the creep who had somehow charmed her sister into thinking he was actually a decent guy.
She keeps running, even after she finally looks back and there's no sight of him. She runs away, and all she thinks about is how she's made so many mistakes in her life and now she's stuck in the middle of nowhere and nobody cares and nobody is going to do anything about it. And maybe she deserves it too, because in a way she's brought this all upon herself.
If she had just said no that fateful day, she would never have gotten pregnant, would never have gotten kicked out of her house, would never have alienated her father, would never have made her sister feel sorry for her and therefore she would never have been in her current predicament.
But then again, she would never have had him either. And like it or not, he had always been a big part of her life, even though they never talked these days.
After a while, she stops running. She stops, sits down and looks at the full moon up in the sky. And even though she's lost, alone and cold, it gives her a sort of comfort anyways. After all, no matter where she goes, she'll still be able to see the moon.
I'm alone, I don't know if I can face the night
I'm in tears and the crying that I do is for you
I want your love, let's break the walls between us
Don't make it tough, I'll put away my pride
Enough's enough, I've suffered and I've seen the light
He's lying in some random girl's bed, some sophomore Cheerio whose name he doesn't quite remember when he gets the call. He would have ignored it, but it plays familiar lyrics that he's always associated with her.
Baby you're my angel, come and save me tonight.
This isn't his regular ringtone, it's the one he's set specially for her, even though she never calls him and he's not even sure if she still has his number saved. Even so, he throws the girl off of him and digs out his phone from his jean pockets – currently lying on the ground beside her bed. "Quinn?" he says with a sense of urgency, her name sounding somewhat unfamiliar coming from his lips.
"Puck," she replies breathlessly. "I need help. Do you know the old party store sign with the clown with boobs?"
He sure does. In fact, he was the one that drew the boobs on the clown back when he was just an eighth-grader.
"I'll be right there," he answers without hesitating. He puts his pants on in record time and books it out of the house without saying a word to the random Cheerio.
It's kind of refreshing to hear his voice again. It's even more refreshing to know that he's there for her, and soon she won't be waiting out in the cold.
She's made up reasons why he was the one that she called, not her mother and not her friends. First of all, he has a car. Well, in retrospect, he doesn't really, but it's easy for him to snatch his mom's car keys and go out for a midnight drive. Secondly, he's not opposed to driving above the speed limit. She wants to get out of here as fast as possible, god forbid if her sister's boyfriend somehow caught up to her.
But she knows deep down that she wasn't thinking about either of those two factors when she dialed his number. She was just thinking about his message, and how he had said that he cares. And after all, that's all that really matters.
It only takes him 20 minutes to find her at the edge of the road, in front of the abandoned party store that had run out of business two years previous. She's as gorgeous as ever, especially in the light of the moon. He smiles to himself and parks the car. He opens the door and runs up to her.
"Are you alright?" he asks, even though he's not sure that she would be stuck here if she wasn't.
She gives him a half smile, realizing that this is the first time that they've talked since...well, since he had gotten out of juvie. "Yes," she replies. "I am now."
He guides her into the car and gets in himself. "So, why are you out here anyways?"
She takes a small breath and he quickly realizes that maybe he shouldn't be asking this question. He's about to take it back when she starts mumbling.
"Umm, Frannie and her boyfriend, there was a bar, she was puking, he tried to kiss me so I sacked him and ran away," she replies quickly, looking down at her feet.
To her surprise, he takes on a more serious look. "He tried to kiss you? I'll fucking kill him...what's his name again?"
She laughs off his overprotectiveness, even though she finds it a bit endearing. "No you won't. Don't you think you've already ruined my life enough?"
She gasps when she processes what she has just said. She didn't mean to let that last part slip out – she wasn't even thinking about anything along those lines.
His eyes harden, and he turns away. "Whatever. I'll just take you home and not say a word, because I don't want to ruin your life even more."
She can tell that he's hurt, and she hates it. She hates herself for doing this to him. They had just been having their first decent conversation in ages, and she's gone ahead and ruined it for them. Her heart starts aching as he slowly opens the car door and steps out, not sure where he's going.
It's in these moments that she realizes that maybe she does love him after all, and she's not willing to just let go.
"No!" she says abruptly, stepping out of the car before he can do anything else. "No! Puck! I didn't mean that. You don't understand. I just wasn't thinking and..."
"And what?" he asks, still not looking back at her. "It just slipped out? Face it, Quinn. We both know it's true, but I don't need constant reminders every single fucking day."
He finally looks at her, but it's a lot more like a glare now. "You think I don't think about you? About us? About her?" he says, raising his voice. "We had a fucking baby together! And you don't talk to me at all, not about any of this! It's like you just want to forget about it all, like you want to deny every single thing that happened between us. And face it, it's not like I made your life any better. I don't know why you called me anyways. You could easily have reached any other fucking hate me."
She whimpers and a tear trickles down her cheek. "No, Puck. I don't hate you. I listen to your message every night before I go to sleep. You know the one...the one where you say that you care."
She's on the brink of sobbing now, and even though he's trying to will himself not to care, it's failing. He knows the message. But he hadn't known that she had ever listened to it, let along listen to it every single night.
He tries to smile, but he can't. "Why?" he croaks out.
"Because...because...I love you." She's shocked by her admission, but perhaps not as much as him. He widens his eyes in shock, and without thinking, leans over, takes her head and pulls her into him. He presses his lips onto hers gently, hoping that she doesn't pull away.
And she doesn't. She wraps her arms around him and deepens the kiss into something special, something romantic. After all, this is what she's always dreamt about, what she's always imagined a night with her Prince Charming would be.
She pulls away finally and looks him in the eyes. She smiles, and he smiles, and she thinks that maybe she could stay like this forever.