the hand that feeds
White noise.
She heaved again, her body trembling as she fell to her knees on the grass.
"Hey girlie, you ok?" A man's voice filtered through the sound of blood rushing past ears.
"Oh she's fine don't worry. She's just sprung s'all," Mack answered for her.
She winced at the acidic taste in her mouth, and coughed. "Sprung?" she said weakly at the chorus of "ahhs" and snickers behind her back.
A hand shook her shoulder none too gently, "You ok, Fabray?"
She shrugged off Mack's hand, and fought to control her breathing. "What – is – sprung?"
"Uhm…drug newbie?" she heard another guy say, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, and she froze.
"W-what…"she stuttered, and her body trembled.
"Damn, yo."
"Think she's gonna pass out?"
"Probably man, she looks one of those immortal things with the teeth – "
"Vampire?"
"Yeah, that thing."
"Pale as fuck."
"Sucks balls that a hot chick like that can't hold her shit."
"Eh, I'd still hit that."
"Shut the fuck up, all of you! Quinn?"
With a shaky exhale, she slowly moved to her feet, and the world decided to twitch and tip swaying on the spot. She blinked her blurry eyes, and looked around to see a group of people hanging outside the three story building, staring at her with mocking grins and smirks.
She looked to Ronnie and Sheena who were leaning against the front porch for reassurance, but was only met with amused grins.
"Mack, please tell me you didn't fucking drugged her," spoke a familiar feminine voice. Quinn glanced away from the girls to the frowning woman standing next to them. Quinn could feel her stomach plummet from her stomach to six feet under the ground when Sarah, an older Lima loser who had taken a liking to Quinn, looked at her with unwarranted worry.
She blinked her eyes away with her chest heaving heavily, and looked to Mack who for all the world looked like she didn't care about anything. "You – you drugged me."
It wasn't a question, it was a statement, and it was confirmed by Mack's immediate trademark smirk. "I told you – you're easy to fuck with. Surprisingly, considering you were the Head Cheerio and all that shit."
"W-when? How?"
"When we first got here annnnd…." Mack scrunched up her face as if trying to remember before shrugging. "I don't know…couple hours ago."
Quinn could feel her body shaking now. She swallowed heavily and again felt darkness closing in on her. Clenching her eyes shut, she exhaled once more. "I'm going home."
She turned on her heels and began her trek down the driveway as laughter trailed behind her. "Oh, come on Fabray. Don't be like that. Don't be a pussy! Be grateful, that was some quality shit I gave you!"
She spun on her heel, "Grateful? You drugged me, you bitch!"
That send the group into a chorus of laughter, and her panting grew faster. "Aha! That's what I'm talking about!" Mack's devious cackle the loudest of them.
Her eyes flickered to all of them, back and forth. Oh god, they're all laughing at me. She blinked rapidly, and felt her heartbeat pick up at the sight of the silhouetted figures, shadowed by the porch light, blur and flicker.
"I'm going home," she repeated loudly with a quiver and staggered back slightly.
"Oh so that's it huh? I don't get a fucking thank you?"
She gritted her teeth and rubbed at her eyes viciously.
"Fabray, I'm fucking talking to you! Look, it was a bet okay? We just wanted to see if you were really hiding your flamboyantly gay badass alter-ego behind your Cheerio goodie two-shoes for fuck knows how long."
She froze at the admission and dropped her trembling hands. "W-what?"
"I just really wanted to prove that you and I aren't so different, you know? We're the same, you and me."
"I'm not you," she heard her voice say but didn't feel her mouth speak.
Mack snorted, "Oh, really? What am I then? And who's Rach? Rachel Berry, isn't it? That hot chicks name you called out just seconds after you made yourself come on my leg? Isn't she not the gayest gay to ever gay on this side of Ohio? Oh no, wait. That's you."
A sudden indignation swelled within her, raising her hackles. "Don't you dare," she seethed. "Don't you dare call me that!"
Mack snorted, "Why the fuck not? You do remember what just happened right? You just came on my leg. That sounds pretty gay to me. I mean, what's so bad about it? Think Mommy Fabray'll kick you out again?"
Quinn's feet moved faster than she could stop them, and she found herself inches away from Mack's face. "Say one more word…" she snarled.
"Why? Did that hit too close to home? Have you grown that helpless? So you were homeless for a couple months for being preggers, so fucking what. As far as you're concerned Fabray, you're fated to be just a pretty faced Lima Loser, like the rest of us. Get used to it."
The words felt like a slap on the face. They did hit too close for home, far too close for Quinn's comfort, and panic had her forcing herself to take deep breaths. "What is wrong with you?" She breathed out.
Mack just laughed with a shrug. "I can ask you the same question, but then that'd be like me asking myself that question."
Her brow furrowed in confusion, and a mischievous grin formed on Mack's lips. "Dye your hair black, get a dark tan, ask yourself that question and see if you can answer it, Fabray," she said, poking Quinn in the chest.
Quinn smacked her hand away, "Don't touch me!"
"Sorry to break it to you, but you literally just fucked me against the kitchen countertop, so –"
"No, no," she shook her head, and suddenly an overwhelming rush of blood ran to her head at the words, rushing past her ears until her head felt like a pulsating bomb. "I'd never touch the likes of you. Who would even touch you? You're disgusting, and – and you're fucking crazy!"
She was panting by the time she was done, and something flickered in Mack's eyes that darkened considerably, "And you think you're any better? Look at you, with your fucking crazy eyes."
"Mack…" she could hear Sarah's voice warning from behind them, but Mack waved her away with a laugh that didn't match the anger brewing in her eyes.
"Nonono. Let's talk about this. If Young Fabray here thinks she's so sane and perfect and loved, she needs a fucking lesson from Master Yoda. You think you're friends or boyfriends give a shit about you? Please. Rumour has it you can't keep a boy toy because of your lying and cheating ass, which unsurprisingly in effect got you knocked up. Now I'm not calling you a whore or anything cause I fucking hate that word, but holy shit woman. It's no fucking wonder sometimes why everyone gave up on you."
A beast, low and deep within her chest pounded against its cages, and the pulsating grew louder and louder, with red shadows overtaking the corners of her vision.
"And what did mommy and daddy do? Oh that's, right. They kicked you out. They didn't give a shit about you, and they still don't. You said it yourself the other day at Sheena's when you were drunk off your rotting ass, daddy left you and mommy with nothing, and now dear Mommy Fabray drinks herself into a stupor every night. Like mother like daughter."
She was incapable of speaking, she couldn't. Not with the beast breaking its way through the barriers, weakened by alcohol and the mysterious drugs. She was shaking, and teary red pooled into her eyes.
"And the best part, the best, is when you come back from your precious show choir shit with your hair all cut all nice and butch. Now everyone knows of your reputation of having a stick far up your ass, but I still thought maybe you'd be an easy freebie with how depressed you looked. So I offer you one cigarette, one, and what do you do? You came running back to me the next day for more because no one else gave a shit. Now what does that say Fabray?"
She fought against the pounding in her head, barely holding herself back, digging her nails into her palms in trembling fists.
"You know, you're not special Quinn. You're nothing, just like the rest of us. So do us all a favor, grow a fucking vagina and get the fuck over it."
"Fuck you," burst through her gritted teeth.
Abruptly, Mack broke out into an incredulous grin. "That's all you got? Come on, Fabray, if you're gonna shut my ass down; I know you can do better than that."
And in a blink of an eye, her fist was throbbing and Mack's head was snapped to the side, laughing and spitting blood to the ground with the sounds of jeering and dull music blaring distortedly in the background.
"That's much better," Mack grinned at her with red teeth and her fist viciously connected to Quinn's face.
Her head snapped back, and the vicious growling erupted from the depths of her throat, exploding in red fury, and before she knew it, the world tipped on its axis when her body talked Mack in a heap to the ground.
Her head felt like she was floating, disconnected from her body as the rage took over, and the girl beneath her laughed. "That's right Fabray; I'm doing you a fucking favor. Let it all out and hit me."
Darkness overcame her, pulsing in her ears with a steady beat as her fists started to fly. Everything around began to spin like a carousal, faster and faster. The bellowing sounds of the crowd surrounding them grew dim. Her blood was boiling and rushing past her ears at an unsettling pace. It was all she could hear next to the stomach-turning noise of skin pounding skin.
She could barely feel the pain when her head was knocked to the side and air was rushing out of her lungs when a sharp pressure was pushed against it. Instead, she felt like she was on fire, her throat burned and shocks of tension ran up and down her body. She felt herself being hit without the feeling of pain.
Strong arms wrapped around her waist and she was abruptly lifted in the air. Animalistic screaming could still be heard while her arms and legs continued to flail. Before she could even realize that the sounds were coming from her, she was dropped unceremoniously to the ground when her fist connected once again to her perpetrators body. The hard impact brought her back out of the darkness with a grunt, the beast tucking itself away with an assured huff.
Face first in the grass and breathing hard, she could feel the stiffness in her body, but what sent her head spinning briefly again was that it didn't hurt. Opening her eyes, the green grass close up in her sight, it looked like they were swirling and dancing without the use of wind. Grimacing, she coughed and felt hot liquid spew from her mouth and nose. She watched as copper liquid landed on the swirling green grass, creating a swirl of colours.
She was entranced for a moment, but like a vacuum sucking on air, sound disrupted her and burst through her ears. At the sounds of drunken cheering and laughing invaded her senses, she looked around from her spot on the ground to see a bloody and bruised Mack being held up by Sheena and Ronnie, bent over laughing, "That's my fucking girl!"
She groaned when she shifted on her back, a blanket of the dark night sky looking down on her. Through her blurry vision, the stars twinkled down at her. A deprecating chuckle shook her body, the stars reminding her of just who's name she called out in the kitchen. Her chest felt tight and restricted, yet the longer she stared, the harder she laughed until it was bordering on hysterical.
Her vision of the sky was suddenly blocked by a worried Sarah, blurry around the edges. "Hey, you okay?"
Her laughter came to abrupt halt, her smile dropping from her face, and she blinked up at the older woman, Sarah only nodded at her nonverbal response and bent down to wrap her arms around her. With arms gently lifting her up to her feet, her head spun on her shoulders when she stood upright.
She exhaled slowly, only with a little difficulty. There was still no pain, just a strange stiffness.
"You okay?" She heard again in ears, and her heart jumped at the loud proximity of it.
Flinching with a sudden panic, she shrugged off the arm that was around her shoulders. "Get off me," she muttered and staggered a few feet backwards.
The laughter was becoming louder, and her breathing was once again beginning to shorten, "Fabray, you bitch! That's what I call a damn fight!"
She turned again to glance at Mack and the group of twitching shadows that loomed around her, and quickly spun around to stagger her way down the driveway. She kept forcing her legs to move down the sidewalk, even as Mack continued to call at her. With the music blasting from the house getting fainter and fainter, she couldn't find herself caring that she was miles from home and it was dead of night. She wrapped her stiff arms around herself, and quickened her pace in the direction of where she knew her home was when shadows from underneath lampposts began to loom closer to her with claws outstretched
"Leave me alone," she muttered to them, her heart racing.
"Quinn," she heard them call her name.
She just moved faster.
"Quinn," they called again unrelenting.
Frustrated tears blurred her vision, "Quinn…"
She spun on her heels. "Leave me alone!"
But she froze at the sight of Sarah pushing towards her on a skateboard, with a jacket in hand and worry on her thin, pale features. Quinn's stomach lurched again; she stumbled over to the edge of the sidewalk and heaved violently.
She could sense Sarah pausing next to her, and felt a warm hand smoothing over her back. When it felt like she didn't need to heave any more vomit and additional blood, she straightened wiping her mouth with the back of her hand only to have to wipe the excess blood she rubbed off on her clothes. Feeling considerably more sober, she refused to meet Sarah's eyes.
"You okay, kiddo?" asked Sarah, handing Quinn her jacket that been left behind at the party.
Quinn shot her a glare. "I keep telling you, stop calling me kiddo," Quinn snapped, roughly putting the jacket on and grimaced at the movement of her uncomfortable stiff limbs.
Sarah only gave her a wry, knowing smile. "I'll stop calling you kiddo when you stop acting like one."
Barely suppressing a growl, she ignored the implications in that sentence and continued to walk home.
"Hey! Come on – hey Quinn!"
She could hear Sarah catch up to her quick pace with her skateboard underneath her arm. Passing under another lamppost, the lights twitched for a split second and she almost faltered in her steps.
"Look, let me walk you home," she heard Sarah say but she was more preoccupied with her surroundings, her eyes flickering over everything rapidly.
"I don't see why you care," she muttered distantly.
"You're obviously out of your mind right now –"
"Again, I don't see why you care."
"I've been drugged before."
"Was that before or after you lost your scholarship?"
"Hey!" A hand grabbed her by the elbow, interrupting her scanning of the street and turned her around. "I know what you're going through okay, just don't make this about me."
She pulled her arm from Sarah's grip with a glare at the older woman, and continued to walk.
"And honestly right now, you're not in the best shape to be walking around here alone at night. You might not feel the pain, but have you taken a good look at yourself yet? You look like hell."
Involuntarily, Quinn glanced down at herself and her bloody clothes.
"Oh," was all she said before looking back up, continuing to scout the shadows again.
She idly wondered if maybe those shadows looming around wouldn't be able swallow her whole if she started to run.
"I seriously thought you two were going to kill each other with the way you were going at it."
Her head was in too much of a haze to care that she and Mack almost pummeled each other to death. It wasn't that bad. She rolled her shoulders, she didn't feel any pain.
Yet Sarah continued to walk with her, "You sure you're okay?"
No, the shadows were twitching ten feet to her left.
"Yes," she clenched her teeth.
"I really think you shouldn't be coming back here, Quinn."
"Why?"
"Did you not hear Mack? She's fucked up, big time."
She thought for a moment, allowing Mack taunting and provoking to run through her head, and smiled derisively. "Maybe she was doing me a favor."
"What? By antagonizing you?"
By voicing what was always running through her head.
"Okay yeah, so maybe you two might have seriously way too much in common, but you think you know her, but you don't. Once you get closer to her, she's going turn around and stab you in the back."
"Literally or figuratively?"
"I'm being serious."
"So am I."
"Jesus, how hard did she hit you in the head?"
She wasn't sure with the lack of pain she felt in the rest of her stiff body. It was strange, her skin almost felt numb to the touch when she rubbed her fingers over her palms. It sent waves of tingles up her arms that turned into tremors.
"She's going to drag you down."
"I thought I was already on my way down."
"God damn it, Quinn. Look, I admit I only know half the shit of what you are going through, probably even less still. But that doesn't mean this place is the best for you to hang around, or what Mack said was true. She might talk all high and mighty about this place and that you two are one of the same or whatever, but you don't know Mack like I do."
Her eyes narrowed. "Right, you would know because you're the one who's spent last ten years living vicariously through teenaged stoners."
She was shaking again, the blurriness around the corners of her vision was beginning to grow and fester.
"Okay, you know what? Fine, fuck you. If coming back to this shit hole is what you keep on planning to do, whatever, but don't think for a second that I'm going be watching your back next time around."
"I didn't need anyone watching my back in the first place."
Quinn didn't slow her pace at the sound of a frustrated exhale, nor did she turn to glance at Sarah who spun around and skated back to the house. She wrapped her stiff arms tighter around herself with her eyes darting everywhere and just walked faster.