A/N: Not sure about this. I wrote it because I thought of it… haven't edited it or anything. It's really rough. I was thinking about maybe making one of these for each of the Glee characters? Not so much about watching people, but… well, I don't know. Review and tell me what you think.
watch, v.: to look carefully
Puck watches. Ever since everyone in the school excepting Glee stopped talking to him, he's made stupid comments less (okay, marginally less, but still) and opened his eyes more.
He watches Quinn and how when anyone walks too close to her or says something mean or bumps into her, she puts her hand over her belly. He watches the shadows under her eyes become darker as the days go by. He watches and thinks, there's a baby growing inside her and it's mine, and he wonders how something so complex and wonderful and beautiful can grow from being the size of a fingernail to a real baby, a person that breathes and thinks and acts. Quinn is his favorite to watch because she never watches him anymore.
He watches all the people he formerly thought were weird and later learned actually were weird (he also learned that everyone was different and what was the use of being a copy?) He watches Mercedes pretend to pay attention during American History and later ask Tina for the notes. (He knows what she's dreaming about, and it includes mazes of steel and cities where the stars lie in the gutters because the people shine brighter than they ever could.) He watches Tina and Artie fall in love and try not to acknowledge it. (He finds it ironic that Artie yearns to hold Tina when she cries but is the source of her pain. He thinks that some people's lives deserve to be fucked up and some don't.) He watches Kurt stick his chin up even when he's gotten slushy on his clothes and he keeps getting called fag and the smell of his mother is fading from her dresser. (He will never admit how he secretly admires Kurt; the confidence, the bravery, the strength it must take to put up with that. He knows he will never be like that.)
He watches; Mercedes as she dreams, Artie and Tina as they shyly love, Kurt as he perseveres, and he thinks, What a travesty.
He never watches Finn.
Sometimes he watches Rachel. He finds that a little harder because it seems as though she is always watching him. This shouldn't bother him, but when she looks at him it feels like she can see right through his mask; through the cheap facades he's so carefully put in place. He feels as though she looks and she knows, knows how sometimes he cries in the shower when his sister's at a friend's and his mom's out with boyfriend number whatever – maybe this one won't leave scars, who knows, no one cares anyway – he cries and the tears burn more than the water and she knows, goddamn it, that girl is so irritating he wants to throw himself into a volcano. And yet he finds himself dreaming about the smell of her hair and her cute hands and how her eyes sparkle when she smiles and he's never thought of a girl in ways like that before.
Sometimes he thinks he wants to get in his truck and never look back but then he remembers babies and dreamers and watching people fall in love and confidence and friendships that were and bright brown eyes and he thinks maybe I can learn something from these people.