Author's Notes / Content Warning: sexual assault
This one was rough, you guys.
Let's have a conversation about consent for a second, shall we? If there is a "no," anything that follows is rape. If a person is under the influence of alcohol, they cannot consent, and anything that follows is rape. If a person has to be talked into sex, they don't want to, and whatever follows is rape. If a person begrudgingly relents based on a condition that is then violated by the other party, what follows is rape. That's what this is, and we're all going to call it that. However, I will largely not be dealing with this in an after-school special way. Please be aware that this is not an attempt to normalize this behavior, but I am rather making a commentary on the pervasiveness of rape culture (it even exists in Glee canon, and no one bats an eye). I have spoken with several survivors (and am one, myself), and my general understanding is that everyone deals with their situation differently, and sometimes, not doing much is a valid choice depending on the circumstances. Please remember, however, that just because the character is not dealing with this in a direct way, this does not negate the fact that this is a rape. It will still be a rape even if it's ignored for ten chapters.
Building Fences Out of Tense Moments
Chapter 04
Sic Transit Gloria…
Finn's never been good at math.
He makes a good show of it for Quinn—he thinks, anyway—but after fifteen minutes, his brain feels like mush. When is he ever going to need to know this much about triangles in his life?
Of course, his concentration isn't at all helped by the fact that he's currently alone in his room—on his bed!—with Quinn. He's lucky to be able to form complete sentences in this situation, much less make heads or tails of the Pythagorean theorem. What's a "theorem," anyway?
"I need a break," Finn says abruptly, halfway through a problem. He'll have no idea what he was doing when he comes back to it, but he doesn't really care. He sets his pencil between the pages of his geometry book and tosses both it and his notebook on the floor, stretching out on his bed and looking at Quinn expectantly.
She only says, "Okay," without looking up from her own homework, though, and when it becomes apparent that Quinn has no desire to pause her own work, Finn sits up.
"Is it cool if Puck comes over?" he asks, checking his phone and finding a text from Puck.
"I guess?" she says, finally looking up with a vaguely confused expression before going back to whatever problem she's working on.
The questioning intonation throws him, but taking Quinn at face value has worked for him so far, so he just responds to Puck's text and invites him over. Approximately fifteen minutes later, Puck is letting himself into Finn's room with a six-pack of Keystone tucked under his arm.
"Well, hey, Pretty Lady," he greets Quinn as he tosses a can to Finn.
It's a comment that sparks more jealousy in Finn than he wants to admit; it's not like Puck is flirting with Quinn in any serious way. Finn trusts Puck, and he knows that despite all of his bravado, Puck would never actually do anything to hurt him, and this is probably just his way of attempting to welcome Quinn into their circle.
So Finn settles with tossing a half-hearted, "Hey, man, that's my girlfriend," over his shoulder as he turns on his X-Box.
He waits for any sign of protest from Quinn. It's not like they've talked about and defined what they are to each other, but she only arches a challenging eyebrow in Puck's direction, so Finn supposes she's on board.
"Alright, alright, I was just being nice," Puck says, setting the six-pack next to the bed and holding his hands up defensively. "Don't get all weird."
And just like that, Finn feels on top of the world. He's got confirmation that Puck isn't actually after his girlfriend, and he has a girlfriend at all.
So he shrugs off Puck's defensiveness and tells him to stop being a jerk before tossing him the spare controller with an invitation to play Call of Duty.
"Yeah, alright, man," Puck says, taking a seat at the foot of the bed next to Quinn and offering her a beer.
She basically just stares at him, though, and while Finn's smart enough to recognize that Quinn doesn't seem to care much for Puck, he's not sure why. It's not like Puck has ever been anything but nice to her. So, as the game loads, Finn decides to find a way to get his girlfriend and his best friend to spend more time together.
Her first pep rally goes off without a hitch, and Quinn's almost reveling in social superiority as she follows Santana and Puck out of the gym with Finn's arm wrapped securely around her shoulders.
That's something she's having to get used to more quickly than she'd like, and she admittedly has to remind herself over and over again that Finn is exactly the kind of boy that she set out to couple with. She should be ecstatic, and she can't figure out why she's just not.
"Dude, we're gonna kill this game," Finn's practically yelling next to her, clearly talking to Puck up ahead.
Puck doesn't respond, though, because Santana stops them when something catches her eye across the parking lot, and she snarls out a, "Perfect," in that maniacally gleeful tone Quinn's only heard her use while tormenting one of the geeks.
Quinn's gaze follows Santana's pointed finger to land on Kurt and Rachel coming out of the side entrance of the auditorium, obviously having just skipped the pep rally.
She hears Santana tell Puck to "keep them busy," before she's off on a jog toward the convenient store across the street. Quinn's not sure if she's supposed to follow her or not, but it turns out not to matter as she's pulled along the parking lot after Puck and Finn.
"Well, look who missed the festivities!" Puck calls out with false joy as he approaches Kurt and Rachel, looking between them and rubbing his hands together in delight. "Sure is a shame you guys had to miss the pep rally."
"What do you want, Puck?" Kurt asks, keeping his tone neutral, though his body language screams defensiveness.
"Now, Puck, I don't think they missed it on accident," Finn says, and the line between Finn's understanding and general simplicity is so fine that Quinn honestly can't figure out if he's being genuine or if he's playing along with Puck's set-up.
It doesn't matter, though, because while Kurt's attention is bouncing back and forth between the two boys—anticipating an attack from either or both of them—Rachel is just staring at her as though Quinn has any control over either of them.
Puck brings a hand to his chest dramatically and says, "I'm hurt, you guys. Where's the school spirit? Where's the love?"
"Yeah, you know, that pep rally really would have fixed the participation problem you have," Finn says, stepping closer to Kurt. "It really promoted a sense of togetherness and brotherhood, wouldn't you say, Puck?"
"Oh, definitely," Puck agrees, closing the distance between himself and Kurt. "That's a nice jacket," he says, fingering the lapel on Kurt's coat. "You should probably take it off."
It's only when Puck shoves him—gently for Puck, but Kurt has to take a few steps back in order to stay on his feet—that Rachel's attention is finally torn from Quinn and onto the confrontation between the boys that's very quickly turning physical.
"No," Rachel protests, but it falls on deaf ears as Puck explains that Kurt can either do this the easy way or the hard way, and Quinn watches as Puck all but ignores the half-hearted punches Rachel's landing on his shoulder.
Kurt does it, though. He takes his jacket off and resigns himself to their fate, and Quinn is so caught up in the spectacle that she doesn't notice Santana's return until she's pushing a fresh red slushie into Quinn's hand.
"We don't really can girls here," Santana's explaining to her in a low voice. "But that's why slushies are a thing," she says, arching a challenging eyebrow at Quinn and nodding vaguely in Rachel's direction, and it takes Quinn a few moments to realize she's expected to participate in this grotesquely outnumbered scene.
Name calling is one thing. She knows it's not harmless—more intimately than she ever plans on admitting to anyone again, ever—but it's also just a part of high school, and so Quinn's mostly been able to reconcile the way she's been treating Rachel with her conscience. Quinn's never instigated any of it, and she's fairly sure Rachel recognizes that she's just following an unspoken social contract. What Santana's suggesting, however, is on a completely different level. She's asking Quinn to violate Rachel's person in a way she's sure she's not comfortable with.
She hears Kurt's body land in the dumpster off to her left and registers Puck's and Finn's laughter, and the only thing Quinn can do is stare at Santana in disbelief.
"Look, you wanna run with the cool crowd?" Santana asks, her patience obviously waning. "This. Is what. We do."
The drink in her hand is cold and makes her palm itch as beads of condensation start to form between her fingers. She's vaguely aware of an internal timer on the scene, and she knows she's running out of time. This isn't what she wants to do, but she has to; because people are watching, and the longer she delays, the more suspicious she's going to look.
She takes a deep breath and strides purposefully across the parking lot to where Rachel is trying to help Kurt out of the dumpster. It helps, a little, that Rachel's not paying attention to her. Quinn's not sure she could go through with this if she had to look at her.
Except Santana's right behind her, and asking Rachel why she "couldn't even be bothered to wear school colors," and instead of Rachel focusing her attention on Santana, her eyes lock with Quinn's and Quinn almost forgets how to breathe.
But then she hears Santana say, "I think we can fix that," and the imaginary timer in her head goes off, and whatever moment she's having with Rachel abruptly ends as Quinn jerks her arm in Rachel's general direction, and tosses the empty cup away as though it were scalding.
It's half-hearted, and everyone knows it. Only half of it made it onto Rachel at all, and it's confined to below the neck, but the fact that she completed the act is enough for her new friends to accept her, and for Rachel to shut down completely.
As Santana quietly congratulates her and jogs off to where the boys are gleefully retreating, Quinn watches Rachel's lips shift into a tight line as she maintains eye contact. Quinn understands the implied message in Rachel's subtle chin lift loud and clear:
You cannot break me.
And Quinn's... relieved.
She opens her mouth to speak, but she knows there's nothing to say. Any chance of a friendship she might have had with Rachel—no matter how small—is gone, and Quinn knows she destroyed it.
She thinks she says, "I'm sorry," but she can't be sure of her voice's reliability, and Rachel gives no indication that she hears her. She can't stay here, though, and so she turns helplessly away to catch up with her friends.
"Why are we here, again?" Kurt asks, as though he wasn't the one with the initial idea.
"Because you practically begged me to come with you," Rachel says, her eyes trained toward the field where the football game is happening.
"Unnecessarily," he points out, as though that has anything to do with the argument at hand. "But why are we here after what happened this afternoon?"
She shrugs and continues to refuse to meet his gaze.
"You totally just want to watch Quinn bounce around in her Cheerio uniform," he says, and if he hadn't previously alluded to his suspicions a few days earlier, his explicitness might have surprised her.
Instead, she just turns to him slowly and points out that he's, "been staring at Finn for the last two hours." She's deflecting, and she knows it, but she hopes that he doesn't.
No such luck, though, because while Kurt isn't the brilliant philosopher he thinks comes along with being the only openly queer kid in school, he's still smarter than most of their peers. It really doesn't come as a shock when he dismisses her point entirely.
"We already know I like boys," he says. "That's not news. What's way more interesting is your sudden interest in girls."
"I'm not gay," she says simply, holding his gaze long enough to prove she's not trying to dodge him.
"So you haven't been fixated on the newest blonde addition to the Cheerios since before the game even started?" he pushes.
She sighs and turns away from him, because she doesn't want to be having this conversation. She's not exactly ashamed of what's going on with her—regardless of how little it makes sense—but Rachel knows that part of this isn't hers to talk about. Rachel doesn't know what she is, because she just can't figure out Quinn, and that's not any of Kurt's business.
"I'm not having this conversation," she says, and she half-heartedly hopes he'll let it go. She knows it's an empty wish, though.
"I'll take your complete lack of denial as an affirmative," he says smugly, and luckily, she never has to know if he had a follow-up, because she's up with the rest of the crowd in their excitement as Finn tosses the ball down to Puck. It sails smoothly into his arms and he sprints the last few yards into the end zone, and one pathetic play later sees McKinley its first win of the season.
But, of course, as the clock runs down and the cheering calms, Kurt's hand is on her arm and demanding her attention.
"Okay, look, sexuality questions aside, why would you even be interested in Quinn after what she did to you today?" he asks, and it's possibly the most hypocritical thing he's ever said, and she wastes zero time pointing that fact out to him.
"Why do you keep crushing on Finn even though he repeatedly tosses you in trash cans?"
Kurt doesn't have an immediate comeback for that question, and instead looks across the field where the football team is finishing up their parade of good sport hand shakes, and when Rachel follows suit, her eyes immediately find Quinn's, and their ability to lock eyes from this distance and in this much confusion is jarring.
It's jarring, because the way Quinn's looking at her makes her feel more connected to anyone than she's ever felt, and for just a second, she thinks she sees the person she met in the auditorium before school started.
Except then it's broken when Quinn's head gets pulled back into a kiss with Finn that doesn't look even a little comfortable, and it snaps them all out of their melancholy.
"Whatever, I guess people don't always make sense," Kurt says, looking away from the scene on the field and back to Rachel in one of the the most overt admissions that he doesn't know everything she's ever seen from him.
"Yeah," she agrees, turning away and heading down the stairs. "Let's get out of here."
"Don't think I'm letting you off the hook," he says as they exit the stadium. "We still have things to discuss."
She just rolls her eyes, though, because it's not like she has much more to tell.
Santana's reached that pleasant level of drunkenness where she feels warm, but not out of control; though with Brittany sitting as close as she is, that could change any minute, now.
The party was inevitable. Whether they won or lost, it was the first game of the season, so there was either going to be a victory party or a consolation party. Santana genuinely doesn't have a preference, because either one offers her a social opportunity to be seen with Puck and enough confusion to get some time in with Brittany, since alcohol offers the perfect alibi for her curious peers.
Plausible deniability, she thinks it's called.
She and Brittany probably would have sneaked away by now, but Quinn won't stop watching them. It'd be annoying, if Quinn were sober, but Puck's been replacing her drink every time it gets low, and so Santana's at least entertained by watching Quinn's gaze shift from curious to confused. It's almost like the drunker she gets, the less she understands the scene in front of her.
Not that Santana can blame her. For all intents and purposes, she and Puck appear the epitome of teenage heterosexual love; at least, in this particular moment in time. She's stretched across the couch in Brittany's den curled up in Puck's arm, but the keen observer—or drunk Quinn—can also see the subtle game of footsie she's playing with Brittany on the other side of her. Quinn's gaze keeps sliding along the length of the couch, and Santana's almost certain she's trying and failing to reconcile the two messages.
She'd also probably be more annoyed if it were anyone but Quinn, but at this point, she thinks Quinn knows more than she's letting on, and the fact that she's not letting on is fairly positive. There's still something strangely off about the newcomer, so Santana doesn't completely trust her and she doesn't think that will ever change; but she's starting to doubt Quinn's level of downright maliciousness.
Puck's chest rumbles with laughter at whatever moronic thing just came out of Finn's mouth—she could never pay attention to them when they get together for longer than about ten minutes—and she's jostled uncomfortably. She takes his engagement with Finn as the opportunity it is, though, and sits up, untangling herself from Puck's arm.
For the life of her, she can't figure out who she's putting on a show for; it's certainly not Quinn, and even though she and Puck have never actually talked about their arrangement, there's always been an unspoken understanding of how they work, so she only performs for him in an abstract way. Still, she makes it a point to lean into him, pressing her breast against his chest as she tells him she's going to go lie down and leaving a wet kiss on his cheek.
It's not like she doesn't know what Puck gets out of their relationship.
Quinn's still watching, and even though she'll probably regret it in the morning, Santana mostly just doesn't fucking care. She steps purposefully past Brittany, but lightly drags her nails along her arm and shoulder as she rounds the couch and heads back to Brittany's room. They've known each other and have been doing this long enough that Santana can count the breaths it takes for Brittany to join her. Exactly nine deep, even breaths later and Brittany's bedroom door is opening and she's joining Santana in the bed.
It's familiar and it's routine, and those things are probably supposed to scare her, but it really only makes it better, and when Brittany pulls her on top of her, Santana mostly knows who she is.
It takes all of his willpower for Puck to keep from rolling his eyes at Santana's staged exit. It's not like he hasn't memorized this routine by now, and even if he hadn't, he's definitely aware of the difference in the way Santana acts around him when they're alone and when they're in public. She's always been physically... affectionate, but she only seems to mean it when other people are watching.
It's not even that he minds it, necessarily. Being connected to Santana stabilizes his social clout, and her lack of investment in the relationship makes it easy to entertain his wandering interests. Plus, Puck gets to reap all of the fun benefits of a girlfriend without having to put in any work. Santana comes and goes when she pleases, but she always makes sure that he comes before she goes, and he's not even expected to do anything outside of exist as arm candy at social events.
It's a pretty sweet deal, as far as girlfriends go.
If he had met Santana a year ago, this would all be okay. But he didn't. They've known each other since kindergarten and been friends just as long. It's not like he doesn't know why she disappears with Brittany, or turns it on for an audience. He doesn't even care—not that she's sleeping with Brittany, anyway—but he wishes that she'd talk to him about it.
He doesn't mind being her beard. He wouldn't mind being her beard even if it didn't come with all of the perks that it does, because he's her friend. But they've never had a conversation about it. They've never talked about their arrangement, and so she's let him sit in uncertainty as he watched the girl he thought he loved fall out of love with him. He hoped he was at least important enough to acknowledge the reality of their situation, but the longer Santana goes without telling him the truth, the more he feels used.
So he preoccupies himself with keeping Quinn's drink filled, since he knows such attention would be wasted on his own girlfriend. And even if Quinn doesn't appreciate it, Finn just might. And it's the thought of helping his friend get laid that mostly makes it okay when Brittany follows Santana down the hall. It gives him a nobler purpose, in a way.
His decision to focus on fraternity for the night gets affirmed when Finn stops talking and takes a long look at him after Santana and Brittany excuse themselves. Puck knows that Finn has no clue about the details of his relationship with Santana, but he knows enough to know it's less than perfect. Still, Puck's warmly surprised when Finn flashes that goofy smile he has and challenges Puck to a game of beer pong. His enthusiasm is contagious, and as Finn pulls him off the couch, he thinks Finn's kind of willful ignorance might be just what he needs.
It's not hard for him to pause in the doorway to the kitchen and grab a fresh wine cooler from the chest. It's not hard for him to take the few steps back to the coffee table and swap out Quinn's nearly empty bottle with this new one.
At least this night might be good for someone.
Puck's better than Finn at a lot of things—talking to girls, video games; hell, he even runs faster—but Finn's always been the better thrower, which makes beer pong one of his favorite games to play with Puck.
Unfortunately, beer pong isn't exactly the game you want to be good at. If the entire point of the game is the get hammered, Finn's not sure there are real bragging rights tied to the title of "Beer Pong Champion."
Fortunately, Finn has a head start on the whole, "getting drunk" thing—he's used to Quinn's elusiveness, but she seems even colder than usual, tonight—and so he's not nearly as good as he usually is. Puck's actually managing to keep up with him, which is exactly the opposite of what Finn had in mind when he challenged his friend to a game in the first place. He doesn't exactly know what's going on between Puck and Santana, but he knows it's generally not good, and so when Finn saw the look on Puck's face as Santana left, he was hoping that by beating him at beer pong, he could get Puck drunk enough to take his mind off of it.
But they're both down to three cups, and Puck easily sinks another after asking for a quick rearrangement. They never get to know who the winner would have been, though, because the call comes while Finn downs his penalty drink.
He catches Puck's nod of acknowledgment as he holds a hand up and reaches into his pocket for his phone. Normally, he'd put it on silent and return to the festivities, except it's his mother and he's felt her wrath for ignoring her calls enough times to be adequately afraid of doing so now.
"Hey, mom," he says, keeping the annoyance at her interruption out of his voice. She knows he's celebrating with the team, and so somewhere, underneath the alcohol, he knows that this phone call is important, and it wouldn't do to let his impatience creep in from the start.
"I just had a conversation with Burt," she says, and her voice is so low and deliberate that his heart drops into his stomach.
He makes a noise of acknowledgment, unsure of what kind of response his mother is looking for. It turns out not to matter, though, because she continues anyway.
"What is this about you throwing Kurt into a dumpster this afternoon?"
Shit.
He fucking hates Kurt. It's bad enough that Finn has to deal with his mom dating again. Despite all of the conversations he's had with her about it—about how she deserves to be happy with someone—it still feels like a betrayal to his father. It's bad enough that he has to deal with his mom getting serious with the father of one of the biggest losers in school. Now he has to deal with the fact that his mother's relationship is dictating his social life.
And even though he can't articulate it, he knows it's fucking Kurt's fault.
He's inevitably fucked, and he knows it, but maybe he can postpone the shit-storm until tomorrow morning (though it might not be any easier to deal with hung over).
"Look, Mom, can we talk about this later, please? I'm with the guys."
"I know exactly where you are, and I also know that you're coming home now," she says shortly before hanging up on him, and he figures he has maybe half an hour to get home before she comes to find him and makes a scene.
He pockets his phone and sighs, shooting Puck an apologetic look.
"Sorry, man, that was my mom. I gotta go," he says, walking around the beer pong table and clasping Puck's hand briefly. "Guess I'd better find Quinn."
"You think that's such a good idea?" Puck asks, pressing his fingers against Finn's chest and halting his progress into the house.
Finn furrows his brow at him in obvious confusion and asks, "What do you mean? I have to go, and I can't just leave her."
Puck removes his hand from Finn's chest only to place it heavily on his shoulder and shakes his head. "Nah, man. You're drunk," he points out, using his free hand to poke Finn in the chest. "And you're about to walk into a battlefield at home," he says, stretching his arm in an arbitrary direction to signal home. "Do you really think you're going to impress her or her father in this state?"
"What other choice do I have?"
"Leave her with me," Puck says with a shrug. "I'll take care of her."
And there it is. Puck's reasoning is perfectly sound, and after a moment of contemplation, Finn smiles at his friend. Leave it to Puck to think of everything and look out for him.
Finn glances through the kitchen window and spots Quinn with a small group of cheerleaders, smiling vaguely at one of them and sipping on a wine cooler and decides that he doesn't particularly want to spoil her fun, anyway. Despite the fact that every boy wants to date her and she's surrounded by other cheerleaders half of the time, Finn's noticed that Quinn still hasn't seemed to form any actual friendships. And if he's honest with himself, his own relationship with her sometimes feels forced.
"Yeah," he says, making up his mind and turning back to Puck. "Tell her I'm sorry and to have a good time."
"Yeah, of course," Puck reassures him, and then Finn starts the death march to his car.
Quinn doesn't like wine coolers. Not that she's a fan of the only present alternative—a cheap light beer of which the boys boast about being able to drink large quantities (like that's even impressive)—but she'd much prefer it over having the force this pink syrupy mess down her throat.
She's around people, though, and that means she has a role to fill. She knows that the drink she chooses says a lot about her personality, and beer is just too harsh and bitter to coincide with the delicate femininity she's so carefully cultivated.
So now she's stuck swallowing this abomination of a drink, which, for a while, seemed to be never-ending. Puck had been very attentive to her beverage needs in the first hour or so of the party, but then Quinn had been distracted by Santana's daring display with Brittany, and she's a little ashamed to admit that she's not sure how much she's had to drink.
And now she's alone, and her bottle is finally empty, and since Finn is presently occupied with Puck, Quinn makes her way into the kitchen where most of the cheerleaders have congregated.
It quickly becomes obvious, however, that Quinn should have found Finn instead of joining her peers as she nudges her way into the circle. The girls are in the middle of what appears to be a grotesque display of body comparison as one after another of her peers dissect themselves into flawed body parts.
She knows she's drunk, and it makes it hard for her to cover the grimace on her face as Lacy pushes angrily against her nose, claiming it's too bulbous (if it is, Quinn hasn't noticed). She doesn't have time to dwell on the flashbacks that particular complaint triggers, however, because Amy's quick to insist that Lacy's nose can't compare to her own waistline. It just exacerbates the problem, though, because this statement is accompanied by Amy pinching the flesh around her hips—as though every girl in the room doesn't have the same type of curves—so hard her cuticles turn white, and Quinn's world spins.
She remembers standing in front of her mirror and pinching her own body—which, back then, really was a vast battleground of valleys and slopes—into unnatural contortions in an attempt to find whatever beauty was supposed to exist in it. These girls have never had to do that, and probably never will. They've never known what it's like to develop an elastic line before the onset of puberty, and they've certainly never been isolated because they weren't pretty enough, and it's hard not to take their discontent personally.
She feels something starting to build inside of her and she's not sure she can keep it from coming out. She wants to scream or hit something, maybe, but she knows she can't do any of those things. She can't do anything at all, and so she excuses herself, half stumbling—she's not sure if it's due to the alcohol or whatever it is she's currently experiencing—down the hall and to the bathroom.
The room tilts uncomfortably and then rights itself again, and Quinn braces herself against the sink, since she's not sure she can handle kneeling for the toilet. It's okay, though, because after a few long moments of staring at the white porcelain against her fingers and focusing on her breathing, she feels the pressure in her stomach ease
When she's sure she's not going to be sick, she turns on the tap and splashes water on her face, hoping the chill will ground her, somehow, but she doesn't recognize herself when she meets her reflection in the mirror. She looks sallow and exhausted, and there's a tension in her eyes she hasn't felt since...
She shakes her head, willing something more familiar to appear in front of her. It backfires, though, because as she stares at her reflection, images of Lucy keep flashing across her vision, and she has to look away before echoes of "Lucy Caboosey" can start ringing in her ears.
Without thinking, she balls her hand up into a fist and brings it down hard against her thigh. The pain is jolting, and it serves to bring her back to the here and now and remind her of who she is. She's Quinn Fabray. She's not Lucy and she never will be again, and it's with that thought that a forced calm washes over her.
It's time to find Finn. She needs to go home.
Puck's waiting outside the bathroom when she comes out, though, and she blinks blearily at him a few times before she realizes that he must have been waiting for her.
"What are you doing? Where's Finn?"
"His mom called," Puck says. "He told me to look out for you."
"He left?" she asks, the information not processing correctly. She practically has Finn wrapped around her finger, and can't figure out why he'd think it's okay to leave her alone at a party.
"Yeah, but I'll take you home when you're ready," he says with a smile on his face, and Quinn doesn't know if he's ignoring her discomfort or simply oblivious to it.
"I'm ready," she says softly but firmly, leaning against the wall and crossing her arms over her chest.
"Yeah, I don't think so," he says, shaking his head, and she can't figure out why he's smiling at her like that. "From what I hear, your folks are sitting on some pretty big sticks, and you're way too drunk to be able to hide it from them."
He's... got a point, but she can't tell him that, and so she just stares him down. The alcohol must lessen the effect, though, because he just holds a hand out to her and asks her if she wants to go lie down.
"Yeah," she says, pushing off from the wall and ignoring his help. She wobbles a little though, and she catches him shake his head in amusement from the corner of her eye.
"Come on," he says, slipping a hand around her shoulders and leading her further down the hall and into what looks like a spare bedroom.
She moves to the far side of the bed, sitting on the edge and keeping her back to him. After a few minutes, she hears the door close and she thinks he's left. She sighs and presses her face into her hands, wondering how she wound up alone and stranded at a party filled with people she doesn't particularly like.
And then she feels the bed dip and a hand slides up her back and to her shoulder, applying enough pressure to ease her down onto the bed. It's hard to tell if she rolls onto her back on her own, or if he does it for her, but her brow furrows angrily when she comes face to face with Puck.
She doesn't get a chance to say anything, though, because his lips are on hers, and his tongue is pushing into her mouth. Her hand presses hard against the flat of his chest, but he only pulls away to rake his eyes over her body.
"No, I can't," she tells him, keeping her fingers pressed to his chest in an attempt to keep him at bay.
"Do you want another wine cooler?" he asks, and she's confused by the question. It doesn't seem relevant.
Again, though, she doesn't get to say anything, because he produces a fresh bottle seemingly by magic and clumsily presses it against her mouth. She inevitably swallows a few gulps and takes it away from him, but his mouth his on her neck as soon as his hands are free.
He barely waits for her to set the bottle on the nightstand before he's on top of her, and... he's heavy. She feels trapped underneath him, and she's afraid he's going to crush her as he settles his body on top of hers. His hands start to travel down her body, and she digs her nails into his shoulders in protest. He must take it for encouragement, though, because the next thing she hears is his zipper and she immediately regrets wearing a skirt to this party.
It's quick, at least, but he's clumsy and not very gentle, and so she's sore by the time he's finished, anyway. Then he rolls off of her, zips himself up, and asks her if she's ready to go home.