Fic: Pressure - Chapter 3 (Quinn/Puck, Quinn/Finn) R

May 13, 2010 22:52

Title: Pressure
Author: glasheen25
Fandom: Glee
Characters/Pairings: Quinn/Puck, Quinn/Finn, Brittany,
Word Count: 2554
Rating: R
Spoilers: For all episodes through to Sectionals.
Summary: Snapshots of Puck and Quinn’s life together. Sequel to Spring Break



Quinn hadn’t spoken to Puck in over a week. At school she was a frosty ice-princess, tossing her pale-blonde hair with a haughty sneer and glowering, whenever Puck even so much as dared occupy the same room as her. Which was a problem, considering they shared a first period French class together, adjacent lockers and a daughter, Ella.

Ella, a wriggling pink bundle of wispy, blonde curls was blissfully ignorant of the rift between her parents and instead contented herself with the pastel colored mobile that hung from her crib; her curious eyes following the circling crew of pink-and-purple horses with such intent that Quinn couldn’t help but smile in response.

Puck still saw his daughter everyday; Quinn’s arrangement with Mrs. Puckerman to take care of Ella while she is at school ensures this. Besides, Quinn would never deprive Puck of the opportunity to see his daughter. Being shunned by her parents and left to fend for herself, pregnant and alone, has taught Quinn a lot about the importance of family. Puck is a wonderful father to Ella, so even though the mere thought of her ex-boyfriend inspires a red-hot, furious anger in Quinn, the truth is that, she still can’t deny that fact. So, Quinn purposely dawdles on the way home from school, peering longingly in shop windows and admiring the impossibly gorgeous dresses draped teasingly on mannequins, that she knows damn well she could never afford, all to allow Puck the precious extra moments to spend with his daughter.

Glancing in the mirror, Quinn was happily smug, seeing the reflection smiling back at her. The half an hour snatched from the morning, while Ella slumbered contentedly in her crib, had resulted in soft waves of silvery-blonde that trailed loosely down her back. The gleaming white dress she had slipped carefully over her head was a favorite of Puck’s, she knew and that was important. Puck may be a despicable, hardhearted bastard but that still didn’t mean that Quinn doesn’t want him looking at her, when she saunters through the hallways with her head held high and her wide smile belying the emptiness that lay inside.

--

The day was glorious. Teased by the impossible blue peeking in through the window of the classroom, Quinn ate her lunch outside on the grass, picking distractedly at the wilted salad leaves heaped on her plate.

“It’s so goddamn hot,” Brittany moaned unhappily beside her as she scraped back her blonde hair into a sleek ponytail. “I’m going to turn into a lobster, if I don’t get out of this sun soon.”

“How the hell can you hate the sun, Brittany?” Quinn responded incredulously, the straps of her white sundress tugged down and her long bare legs sprawled out in front of her on the grass. A few days into summer and Quinn’s skin was already gleaming with a sun kissed glow, the tan setting off her pastel rainbow of clothes perfectly.

“I don’t hate the sun. I just hate what it does to my skin,” Brittany sighed dramatically, withdrawing a bottle of sunscreen from her bag and applying a generous layer to her already reddening skin.

Taking a long drink from her bottle of water, Quinn lay back on the grass, reveling in the relative cool of the grass against her skin.

The feeling of sheer freedom was bliss.

Though Quinn had once reigned as queen of McKinley High, school had always seemed like a chore; juggling Glee Club, the Cheerios and a full social schedule rendering her seemingly exhausted. Parenthood certainly changed her perspective on that. Nights spent pacing the worn carpet of her room, while Ella wailed miserably in her arms was exhausting. Nursing a sick, cranky baby for six whole days was exhausting. Attending class at McKinley High was most certainly not; Quinn simply happy to be released from the monotony of preparing bottles and changing diapers for a few hours.

“Puck misses you, you know,”

Hearing the uncharacteristically sage words flow from her friend’s mouth, Quinn first stares at Brittany in surprise before turning over on her side to avoid the inevitable questioning that would ensue. She isn’t ready to talk yet about the horrendous ruins that is her relationship with Puck.

“That’s good to know,” Quinn snaps back fiercely, in a tone that makes it clear that the conversation is over.

Pushing her sunglasses up a little higher on her nose, Quinn was about to reach for her bottle of water when she is conscious of the weight of someone’s gaze resting on her.

Sitting up curiously, Quinn dusts the smattering of crumbs from her dress, sighing when her hazel eyes meet Finn’s.

“What do you want?”

--

Fuck, Quinn was hot.

Stretched out on the grass, her tight cotton dress clung to her every curve and made her perfectly pert breasts all the more appealing. Seeing her, Puck was struck with the sudden urge to walk over to her and pull her into his arms and kiss her until she forgot all about Santana and prom night. Knowing Quinn would probably kick him in the balls, if he so much as even dared step onto the grass beside her, Puck immediately reconsidered and instead joined the Mike and the guys who were sitting at a lunch table,

“What was up with Coach Tanaka yesterday? He nearly killed us during practice.”

Puck answered something back noncommittally, pretending to be eating his hamburger but really he was watching Quinn. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her. Jason was muttering something in a lecherous tone about a hot redhead who wasn’t wearing a bra and he could swear he could see her nipples through her thin white shirt. Usually that was information, Puck would be interested in, would attend to with far more enthusiasm than he was now. But Quinn had just turned over on her side, the act having unknowingly hoisted the white dress almost the entire way up her thigh and the sight of her glistening, tanned skin was almost more than he could bear.

He had to talk to her. Had to try to make her understand.

Because if he spent another minute staring at Quinn, Puck was certain he was going to explode.

Balling up the remains of his sandwich and empty bottle of water, Puck made to stand up when Mike fixed him with an openly curious look. “Where are you off to?”

“What’s it to you?” Puck grunts back, tossing the waste into the garbage can with an angry slam.

“It’s just if you’re going to talk to Quinn, I wouldn’t bother,” he retorted with a sly grin, chuckling under his breath and shaking his head knowingly as he gestured towards the patch of grass where Puck knew Quinn was lying. “It looks like someone else got there first,”

Glancing over his shoulder, Puck felt as though he had been sucker punched in the stomach seeing Finn sitting down on the grass beside Quinn.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. This was bad.

Quinn was doing that cute, hair flip thing she always did when she was being flirty. And Finn was his usual, hapless self, his face radiating adoration as he chatted politely with Quinn. Finn had always been slick with ladies, buying them flowers and writing them poems, doing all that shit that girls love. Finn was the anti-Puck and that might be just the thing Quinn was looking for now.

Puck had to get Quinn back. He needed a plan. His hand shoved deep in his pockets, Puck shuffled away thoughtfully, his mind already turning over the bare beginnings of a plan to win Quinn back.

--

“I heard about what happened with Puck,” Finn began with a shrug, his tone annoyingly matter-of-fact as though Puck committing an indiscretion had been just simply a matter of time.

“And what? You came here to gloat? Quinn shot back angrily, her cheeks reddening at the reminder that Puck had completely fucked her over. He’d tricked her, with his sweet words and his tender kisses, making Quinn believe that Puck was a better person than all the whispering gossip and knowing conversations in the locker rooms would have had her believe.

“No,” Finn replied defensively, the expression on his face genuinely stricken when he realized that he had upset Quinn. “I just came to see if you are okay,”

“Why do you even care,” Quinn sighed in exasperation, the knowledge that everyone in school was probably gossiping about her, weighing on her heavily.

The news that the ‘head of the celibacy club’ Cheerio had fallen pregnant had been positively scandalous, while the further revelation that Puck and not Finn was the father of her baby, had been juicy enough to fuel conversations for weeks. This new development in the saga would set the tongues wagging again and Quinn wasn’t sure how much more of the snide whispering and gossiping she could take. “I was a horrible bitch to you. If I were you, I would be absolutely delighted,”

“Well, I guess it’s lucky, I’m not you then,” Finn smiled sweetly and despite herself Quinn couldn’t help but laugh. Finn had always been so good to her. He had a wonderful way of making everything seem like it was going to be okay. She’d forgotten how easy and fun their relationship had been.

Finn didn’t mention Ella. And sitting on the grass beside him, with her long legs stretched out in front of her, Quinn was reminded of how things used to be before she got pregnant and kicked off the Cheerios and got into this whole fucked up mess with Puck.

“Do you want to come with me to the carnival on Saturday night?” Finn blurted out before hastily adding the amendment that they would only be going as friends.

“Of course,” Quinn agreed sweetly, though inwardly she knew that was total bullshit. Saturday night was date night. Everybody knew that. And Finn had been eyeing her for weeks, his cool gaze following Quinn curiously at Glee club and in class, when he was supposed to be working at conjugating the passé composé in French.

“What time are you going to pick me up?” Quinn demanded with a winning smile and it was as easy as that.

--

Some of the guys from the football team were planning to head down to the river after football practice and drink some of the bottles of beer that Matt had managed to snatch from a party the previous week. The offer was tempting; Puck needing to blow off some serious steam after witnessing the worrying sight of Finn and Quinn engaging in the kind of cutesy flirting that under normal circumstances would just prompt Puck to call his friend a homo before possibly shaving off an eyebrow for good measure.

The sun was beating down furiously from the sky and Puck suddenly relished the idea of a day spent outside with the guys, talking shit and getting pissed on cheap beer. But Ella was waiting for him at home, waiting to be rocked and sang to and she wouldn’t appreciate being kept waiting just because her asshole of a father decided to get drunk with his friends.

Negotiating the short distance to his house, Puck began to determinedly construct the bare outline of a plan to win back Quinn Fabray. It would involve flowers somehow, that much he knew and perhaps a fancy dinner. That Puck had only seven dollars to his name, the sum of money composed mostly of nickels and dimes collected in a dusty glass and that he could barely boil an egg were both facts he was willing to overlook for the moment. He had to, if he was going to stand any chance of winning Quinn back.

Well fuck, Santana, anyway, he fumed, his driving growing more steadily erratic as he allowed his mind to drift back to prom night.

Puck felt like punching something anytime he thinks about the sultry Cheerio. Drunk on whiskey, he was easy prey and her request to help remove an eyelash from her eye had seemed perfectly innocent at the time. What a fool he’d been. They’d barely stepped out of the function room when Santana had wrapped herself around him, her chest practically shoved into his face. And of course Quinn had chosen that exact moment to come looking for him.

Pulling into the driveway of his house, Puck forces himself to calm down when he sees his sister skipping out of the house, a blonde-haired friend in tow.

It was time to relinquish his role as the asshole boyfriend Puck for a few hours and turn into Noah, the guy who, if nothing else, was at least a good father to his daughter.

--

The fairground was a garish tangle of lights, the air scented with the smell of buttery, greasy popcorn mingled with sickly-sweet candy floss. Discarded food containers and crumpled tickets littered the ground and the night was alive with the excited screams of the McKinley High students who had braved the gravity defying loops of the towering roller coaster. Though the day had been almost suffocatingly hot, the night was relatively cool in comparison, Quinn already regretting her decision not to wear a sweater.

“You’re freezing,” Finn observed softly, seeing the goose pimple rise on Quinn’s bare forearms and draping his jacket impulsively over her shoulders. It was such a Finn thing to do and pulling the familiar weight of his letter jacket a little tighter around her, Quinn couldn’t help but be warmed by the sweetness of the act.

“Thanks Finn,” Quinn smiled, pulling her golden hair free from the tight confines of her ponytail and shaking it so it hung in loose waves around her shoulders. Finn always had loved her hair like that.

Though Finn had protested profusely to the fact that the night was a date, to Quinn it certainly felt like one. They had shared an ice-cream, split a fries and had taken a ride on the Ferris wheel twice. She could feel Finn’s eyes on her when he thought she wasn’t looking and he found any excuse to take her hand, wrap an arm around her shoulder, or drag her onto a predictably scary ride, where he knew Quinn would be clinging to him for dear life.

The realization that she could have Finn back, that she could strut into McKinley High on Monday on the arm of quarterback Finn Hudson was intoxicating. Puck would implode with anger, she knew and that was mostly the attraction.

Mostly. Finn was sweet and kind and was the kind of boyfriend that most girls dreamed of having.

“Quinn, I think, I still kind-of like you,”

His words gushing out in one jumbled, red-faced rush, Quinn looked at Finn sadly. This would be too easy. With a wide smile and a strawberry lip gloss laden kiss, Finn would be hers in a heartbeat but she had fucked with him enough. Finn wasn’t the one she wanted and she knew it.

“I’m sorry, Finn,” Quinn sighed, turning on her heels and running, her sandals slapping noisily against the hard asphalt with her every step.

Pressure Chapter 1

Pressure Chapter 2

brittany, quinn/puck, glee, quinn/finn, r, fanfic, quinn

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