A/N: Yes, Tina even wears her gloves to bed. Because I say so, darn it! ...And all my references to the Madonna episode are from memory, so if I get a detail wrong, please don't murder me!

Pink Dresses

Tina was hurt by his comments.

Now that she thought about it, he was probably trying to flirt with her— very, very unsuccessfully. The fact that he'd never had a girlfriend before was the most likely reason for his outburst, but she couldn't really blame it on that, either. He had really been a jerk to her. (And he probably didn't even realise it.)

At first, she'd been really happy he'd forgiven her for lying about her stutter, or lack thereof. But then he had to go and say those horrible things about her wardrobe. The fact that "Goth" had gone "out" two years ago was not something she cared about, nor was her "vampire makeup" being out of style. She didn't care what people thought about her.

Artie had always respected her choices. He knew better than anyone that they stemmed from her emotional detachment to her parents, and she had grown to use them as a safety blanket. He knew better than anyone why she wore what she did, and how insecure she felt about herself. He knew. So why would he tell her that she needed to ditch her look?

Staring at herself in the mirror, she wondered if he was right. The dark eyeliner she had slept with on was running in messy, tear-filled streaks down her cheeks as she tried to pull herself together. The sight of herself like this wasn't helping in that mission. She was having a little bit of a mental break-down.

After he'd said those things to her, she'd wanted to say something along the lines of, "Where the hell do you come off telling me what to wear?!" or "Who do you think you are? My father?" or even, "If I need to get rid of the Goth, then you need to get rid of the wheelchair. It's not working for me, so if you want to 'get up on this,' you'd better ditch that." Instead, she'd ended up gently guiding his chair into the English room, her mouth set in a saddened frown. Not that he noticed.

Tina gingerly peeled off her fishnet gloves, setting them aside and staring at her black-painted fingernails. Sure, after the incident she'd had this epic moment of self-redeeming bitchiness at him— after she'd prepared a suitable speech in her head about her being a strong and independent woman, that is. Not that she really meant a word of it. The minute he was out of sight again, she was a snivelling mess in the girl's bathroom, perched delicately on the seat of a nasty school toilet and trying to hold back her sobs by biting down on her fist.

The fact that she wasn't the average girl was something she thought he admired in her. He usually told her as such when he used to play with the streaks in her hair, back when they were royal-blue. She'd thought about getting yellow this time around, his favourite colour, but had ultimately gone with violet so as not to look like a bumblebee. Her hair seemed dull and lack-lustre now, as she looked at it in the mirror, and she wished she had gone with yellow instead. Bumblebees be damned; if Artie wanted her to be girlier, she would just have to suck it up and go girlier. What other choice did she have?

After cleaning up the mess that was on her face, removing all traces of dark eye-shadow and liner, she crossed the hall to her bedroom quietly. It was early morning, and she was sure her parents would be sleeping still, so she practically tip-toed for the entire time she was in the open. After closing and locking the door to her bedroom, she began a thorough exploration of her closet for something suitable to wear to school.

Artie wanted colour, and tighter fitting clothing. She had none of that. Her clothes were all baggy, black and filled with rips and safety pins and sewn-on patches that she added herself. She ended up riffling through the back of her wardrobe, where all the Christmas sweaters and Grandma presents were tucked away, hoping she had something, anything that was different from her usual attire.

She wasn't going to wear a Rudolf sweater to school, or a red polka-dot skirt with dancing poodles on it. (Didn't they stop making those in the sixties?) The only thing she had that was (barely) presentable was a pink dress that looked like her Aunt Margaret had picked out. Tina didn't know who the gifter was (perhaps Aunt Margaret), but she was thankful anyway as she shed her black pyjamas and pulled it over her head.

One look in her bedroom mirror told her it was hideous. It hugged her in all the wrong places. It had a collar like her Grandmother would wear. Its accents were freaking grey. And it was pink, for God's sake!

She almost felt like crying again, but relented. No more tears over this. She could do it. The dress just needed... spicing up. A thin belt cinching in at the waist, an over-sized necklace, a dog-collar-style studded bracelet and a pair of knee-high lace-up boots later, Tina felt slightly more like Tina. Perhaps it was more of a Tina on "vitamins" (What the hell had Mrs. Shuster given them, anyway?) look, but she could live with it. After applying a fair amount of lightest eye-shadow she had and a hint of mascara, she knew she could face the day.

The whispers that followed her in the hallways were hard to hear, but she stomped through the day anyway. Her terrible morning mood had not been in any way healed by the day's events; murmurs of "What is she wearing?" "Is that the Goth chick? Dude, what happened?" and "That is a crime against fashion," sure didn't help her any. The last comment had been from Kurt, who offered to give her a "Madonna-make-over," but she declined very politely; her sudden change in style had obviously been a mistake. She would have to go shopping for "normal" clothes to correct it, and figured he'd be able to help her with that later.

When last period came around, she took her usual seat next to Artie. They hadn't spoken all day; he seemed to be avoiding her, and that did nothing to lift her spirits, either. Had her attempt at normality really been that hideous that he didn't even want to be seen with her? Her already fragile heart cracked a little more with that thought. What had she done?

Artie smiled at her. "You look really nice today, Tina," he said, and then turned to look at the board, where Mr. Parsons was writing about symbolism in To Kill a Mockingbird. Tina felt her breath catch as she stared at him, a look of wonder in his eyes. He liked what she was wearing? Had he gone insane?

When class was finished, he asked her to meet him in the choir room. She nodded and headed off to her locker, wondering why the hell he was interested all of a sudden; why he was being so nice, all of a sudden. Was wearing pink to school all it had taken to get him to like her? She would have done that ages ago, if she knew it would make him fall for her.

When she met him there, he looked at her with big, innocent eyes. After telling her to sit down, he propped an elbow up on the piano, and explained himself. Tina thought her heart might burst from the absolute joy she was experiencing. Her whole life felt like a love-story; and it ended with a make-up kiss. Short and sweet, the kiss was filled the promises.

He promised not to say anything sexist, and to be as respectful as he could. He promised that she could wear whatever she wanted, and he wouldn't be mad at her. He promised he would like her no matter how much makeup she wore, or how much she yelled at him.

She promised him she wouldn't lie to him, ever. She promised him that she'd still like him even though she was "normal." She promised not to compromise herself for anyone ever again. She promised she'd tell him if he was ever that mean to her or hurt her feelings unintentionally.

They promised each other that they'd go out on a "do-over" date.

The next morning, Tina woke up and put on a dark purple plaid skirt and thick black belt, a black band t-shirt and thick elbow-high black gloves. She wore too much black makeup, a lot of heavy accessories, and even wore fishnet stockings with her lace-up boots; Artie smiled when he saw her before the first bell rang, and told her she looked beautiful.

Tina was in love with Artie Abrams. He wasn't perfect, but neither was she— and if it took a few mistakes, misunderstandings, arguments and fashion disasters to keep them together in the long run, she didn't care. Because she was in love with Artie Abrams, and that was worth more than a few pink dresses.