Circle The Drain

Summary: She knew he was bad for her. He knew he wasn't the one she really wanted. They were both stuck. Jesse/Quinn

Musical Inspiration: Circle The Drain by Katy Perry

OOOO

"I thought you had some major part in some group."

"I thought you had a baby."

Quinn bit the inside of her cheek, "Everyone said you were going places, guess they were wrong."

"This coming from the girl who wouldn't date 'Lima losers', whose stuck here?" Jesse smirked.

"You are." She retorted, feeling blood rush to her face.

He was right though. She was stuck here to as some karmic punishment for hating Lima all these years. Everything that could have went wrong after high school, had went wrong, and now she was stuck here, with no glimpse of a better life.

"I'm not the only one, babe." He walked away.

She should quit. Get a job that doesn't require working alongside of Jesse St. James. Glee was over, high school was over, and he was still a dick. He was probably in the shittiest position that someone with his talent could be in, and he would act as though he was still king of the world. His ego was annoyed her.

She wanted to be a criminal lawyer. She wanted to go to OU. She wanted to graduate with honors and get into Harvard. That's about when the criminal lawyer thing would have come into play.

She was a waitress. She got paid seven-fifty and hour with a communal tip after every shift. She lived in a crappy house on the bad side of town with a cat, Mookie. She lived off of Golden Grahams and LeanCuisine. She was underweight for her size and majorly overworked.

Her life could be considered hell. That was the word she used to describe it. By now, she should be a semi-serious relationship with a future congressman. Damn, all the things that should be just pissed her off.

She was what she like to term as 'perpetually single', guys had stopped asking her on dates a year ago. The only guys that were left were the younger ones.

Puck had gotten a football scholarship to a private school in West Virginia, he was supposedly doing pretty well for himself. Finn was indecisive as usual in Rhode Island. But Jesse St. James was here-stuck up Quinn's ass, until hopefully he moved on.

The Glee rivalry had carried on, and she hated him. He was a dick, and claimed to hate her as well.

He was a dick, that basically summed up her thoughts on him. He always was messing up orders and blaming her for it. How was it her fault? His response usually was that she was distracting him. When she could argue back that she wasn't even near him, he would say something along the lines of "Yes, but I thought about you in that tight uniform and all my thoughts just went away."

That's how the game started.

OOOO

"You smoke?" She had been taking out the trash. He was leaning casually against the wall beside of the dumpster.

He inhaled his cigarette and then exhaled, Quinn turned from the white smoke.

"Only recently." He replied after several moments.

"Aren't you worried about screwing with your talent?" She frowned, the trash bag was heavy in her arms but she really didn't want to walk in the smoke, he was contributing to the air.

He tossed the cigarette down.

She stared at the half-used stick lying, flame inside dying.

He walked back inside.

OOOO

"Hi, my name is Quinn, I'll be your waitress the evening, so what I can I get you to drink?"

She didn't have to write drink orders anymore. Her short term memory had be expanded and she could now remember drink orders, she was working her way up to remembering the meals, but it was going to take a bit, because the people who always got in her section ordered everything different from the menu.

Jesse had already filled her drinks when she got to the counter. She would have thanked him, but he was talking to another waitress.

OOOO

He was smoking again. This time, he had one light and two snubbed into the ground.

"Are you stressed?" She knew it sounded stupid.

"No."

She wanted to know why he smoked. She wanted to know how he dealt with the stress of the kind of life they both were living. She wanted to know a lot.

But she wasn't weak enough to ask, and he wasn't strong enough to tell.

OOOO

"What are your plans for the rest of the evening?" He smiled. It didn't reach his eyes but it was still a smile.

They were locking up together. When no one else was around, he had two moods. He would either pretend she wasn't there or be sincerely nicer than usual.

She laughed, "The evening? Well, I plan on sleeping for a couple hours before I have to do this all over again."

"Sounds like fun."

It wasn't. But at least, tomorrow was his day off.

OOOO

Jesse didn't come into work for three days. Their manager had told her that he had called in sick. She had rolled her eyes at the time. He had to have been faking.

But when he came back in, with dark circles around his eyes, and overall down presence, she felt guilty.

That's why she made him soup. It was a recipe that Rachel had given to her during one of their stints as friends. It helped her, many times when she was actually sick or just down because of the state of her life.

OOOO

He didn't greet her when he opened the door. He just sighed and walked back into his home with the door open.

That was as much of a welcome she was going to receive.

He ate the soup without much talking. He uttered something that resembled 'thank you', but Quinn wasn't sure.

Every time she was about to leave, he would say something and they'd talk for a couple minutes and then it would return to silence, and then she'd try to leave again.

OOOO

She had fallen asleep on his couch. He had watched her, and not bothered to wake her. Her hair was a mess, and she felt wrinkled. Sometime during the night, because he had crashed on the opposite end of the couch, he had grabbed her hand.

With anyone else, this would be nothing. Just a meaningless gesture, but this was Jesse and Quinn. It scared her as she walked back to her crappy car. Her hand had been just as attached to his.

She had a shift in two hours and really shouldn't be thinking about this.

To be continued...

AN: I don't know about you guys, but I think this might be one of the darkest/best things that I have written.

I plan for this to be a two/three parter.

Hope you enjoyed it.

Review.