A/N: This is a slightly AU fic in which Puck is kind of a creeper. I know it's a little something different from me, but I pulled it from my archives and I hope you enjoy it nonetheless. As always, thank you so much for reading and please, let me know what you think and review!
Quinn Fabray was an unhappy traveler. The black patent leather of her heels had carved a groove in her right foot, and one fingernail still bled weakly after being demolished by her overweight carry-on. A run in her nude hose nagged at her senses, although it, at least, had been secured at the mid-thigh level by an emergency application of clear nail enamel. She eyed the upholstery of one of the few available seats with apprehension – the dark stain flowering across the rough, blue-grey fabric might have been coffee, blood, or far worse – before gingerly tucking her sky-blue pencil skirt beneath her with shrimp-red talons.
The red LED letters scrolling monotonously across the information desk screen gave the time: 8:19 P.M. A New York accent announced over the loudspeaker that flight such-and-such to who-knows-where had been delayed due to inclement weather at the plane's originating point. Two gates over, a small chorus of groans resounded.
Quinn was unconcerned. Flights to Orlando were very rarely cancelled due to inclement weather. She pinned a loose honey-gold curl back into her updo with a spare bobby pin and smoothed the wrinkles in her jacket, neat ad nauseam as always. Quinn had an icily pale, slender neck and peridot eyes; she was beautiful, slightly cold, no longer a woman to be trifled with. Men never met her eyes for long, but their gaze lingered on her tall, thin form long after she had passed.
Her arrival in the slightly crowded gate had already caused a bit of a ruckus amongst the less firmly devoted men. She was classic hourglass, a fact that she took ready advantage of with her bright, tailored suit jacket and stream-lined skirt. An ample chest peeked tantalizingly from her lacy shell. Her thick, pouty lips were painted a soft coral color and ethereal strands of her spun-gold hair framed her oval face. Quinn barely noticed the eyes that suddenly roved after her; she had grown used to the constant attention after twenty-one years of being the tallest and prettiest woman in a room.
She should have paid closer attention.
Legs crossed, Quinn leaned over the black plastic armrest of the chair to pull a folder from the front pocket of her carry-on. She deftly gutted the folder, spilling its contents across her lap. The proposal was all her own work, she mused smugly – she refused to present what she had not written. The work was exemplary; the opportunity to advocate it at Florida's national conference, once-in-a-lifetime. Her boss knew the lethal Fabray combination of effervescent charm, dazzling looks, and disarming wit. Quinn had closed more enormous deals in the past two years than most veterans did in a lifetime. She became engrossed in her sheaf of papers, and the dull noise and unpleasant odor of the airport evaporated around her.
Across the aisle, hazel eyes skittered across the planes of Quinn's long legs and tiny waist. They skated merrily down her perfect nose, rolled unabashedly in her peaches-n-cream cheeks, and caressed each soft crevice in her coral pout. The owner of said eyes felt blood flush into his own cheeks, where it flamed red like an exploding spider web. A bizarre cocktail of sensations pulsated through him, radiating out from his core to his extremities.
Quinn Fabray made him feel at once peaceful and desperate - at once, quiescent and longing. She alone silenced the crash of hurricane waves inside him. He basked in her presence, a loyal worshipper of his personal sun goddess. But when she was gone, he could think of nothing but the void she left behind and the resumed striking of lightning in his rib cage. He was a junkie, addicted to her very presence and wracked with withdrawal the moment of her absence. But he had never been able to admit any of that to himself. It was too weak of him to feel so much for a woman.
Several times he had found himself vibrating with bloodlust, fists tight, veins bulging, only to find Quinn near. Beneath her once-innocent gaze he was utterly powerless. His anger crumbled into dust and a hazy warmth enveloped him until he found himself spewing to her the secrets of his heart. There had been a time when her youthful face drew with concern and her answering words were kind. By the eighth time he had told her, with the passion of his eighteen years and the hot blood of his shattering heart dripping from every word, that he loved her more dearly than life itself, her revulsion was a steel rose, thrust through his shoulder with the callousness of a mercenary. Metal thorns rent the weak fabric of his sanity with each breath, while the ghastly figure of a frozen bloom on his breast signified to the world that he had loved to the fullest extent of his ability - and received only rejection, utterly devoid of remorse. And Beth – the child they had created together – meant nothing to her. That was the hardest thing of all, the toughest blow to take.
And now Quinn Fabray was such a different creature. Twelve years after she had walked into his life, her naivety and kindness were forgotten ghosts. In her powerful world of business and politics, such traits had no purpose and were thus extinguished. Although he longed for the young, sweet girl of sixteen who had ruled supreme in his life for that short time, he was thankful for her transformation. At long last, the pain he had carried with him for all of these years did not stem at the sight of her, and the heated blood in his arteries iced as the deep-seated memories of rejection – of indifference to the life she had carried within her, the life he'd helped create – flooded over him.
He knew that if he did not erase the memory of that soul-splitting hurt today, he would never bring himself to do it.
A bored voice announced that Quinn's Orlando flight was boarding zones one and two. She reassembled her proposal, slid it into her carry-on pocket, and rolled the luggage up to the desk, fumbling in her laptop bag for her boarding pass. The desk employee scanned her pass and waved her on.
A tall older gentleman gave her a benevolent smile and stowed her carry-on overhead. Quinn thanked him profusely, then arranged herself in the second row of business class by the window. She brushed off the flight attendant who asked if she wanted a drink and pulled her slim computer from its bag. In moments, her long fingers were flying across the keys, spinning eventual e-mails to her boss and contacts in Florida. Other passengers filed past; many were families, pulling their mouse-ear bedecked children along behind them. Quinn paid them no attention, focused intently on getting as much work as possible completed before their departure.
Her seat mate had no luggage save a canvas bag that he shoved underneath the seat in front of him. Quinn continued tapping away as he sunk into the cushion of the chair and stretched, yawning loudly. In fact, she did not even look at him until the captain turned on the fasten seat-belt sign and his corpse-like hand brushed her leg while he sought his seat-belt. Then she reflexively turned to the pretentious passenger, and looked into hauntingly familiar hazel eyes. A cold gasp erupted from her chest. He smirked at her, broken and unblinking, a nightmare from another time.
"Hello, Quinn. It's been a while, hasn't it?"
Beneath them, the plane whirred and lurched into flight.