[Fic] Like It's Dinomite (Glee)

Sep 05, 2010 10:49

Title: Like It’s Dinomite
Author: kleenexcow
Summary: A difference in interests leads to a rift between Artie and Tina, so he decides to try to mend things with an offbeat date.
Rating: PG
For: doodles357 at the Artina ficathon.
Prompt: Artie and Tina geeking out over something together (e.g. Harry Potter, Star Wars, etc.)
Author’s Note: I’m not particularly knowledgeable about either of the two works suggested, so I decided to go in another direction. But fandoms can be so touchy…I didn’t want to write about something the prompter has no interest in. So I decided they’d geek out about something non-fandom. Set slightly in the future because I think it’s just a matter of time before Artie learns to drive. Enjoy!



“You could have least pretended to be interested,” she said one day as they exited the tiny modern art wing of Lima’s art museum. Tiny-but still large enough to be the longest two hours of Artie’s life.

“Like you did at the Hank Mobley tribute concert?” he asked.

“That’s different,” she said.

“How?” He asked as they dropped their clip-on museum passes in the collection bowl by the door.

“That was boring,” she said. Her tone was light, joking, but they both knew she thought it was true.

“More boring than spending ten minutes contemplating the artistic value of some Cheetos in a vacuum-sealed tube?” She looked at him sharply, and he realized that maybe he'd gone too far. “Sorry,” he said. “I’ll try to be better next time.”

“Maybe,” she said with a little sigh, “maybe next time we should skip the date part and go straight to making out at my place.”

“I wouldn’t complain,” he said.

No one really suspected how difficult it was for Artie and Tina to agree on date activities. They were both geeks, that much was obvious, but they were wildly different species of geek. His variety was more pure: old-school and clean-cut. She, on the other hand, was dark and gothy and obscure. Where Tina was LOST, Artie was Battlestar Galactica. Where Artie was Alfred Hitchcock and Star Trek and robots, Tina was Waking Life and urban fantasy novels and Shepard Fairey.

Pretty much the only things they could agree on were gloves and glee club and the right amount of tongue.

Unfortunately, the idea of spending all their time making out proved less satisfying in practice. He wasn’t just dating her because she was hot. She was, undeniably, but the fact remained that he plain liked spending time with her, and she with him. Artie could always call Zizes if he wanted to go watch some classic arthouse film, and Mercedes was always up for an impromptu combat boot shopping session with Tina.

But he liked sharing popcorn with her. She liked making him laugh. They liked holding hands. Together. And even though it was her idea in the first place, she was starting to fear that they were devolving into booty call. Something was missing. Suddenly they had another thing to agree on: that dating was no longer awesome.

So she was pleasantly surprised when he asked her one Thursday as they left glee practice if she’d be free Saturday morning. She stopped and indicated with her hand that Kurt and Mercedes should keep walking without them. “A breakfast date?” she asked.

“We can stop for breakfast if you want,” he said. “But that’s not the objective.”

She thought for a moment. Saturday morning wasn’t exactly their usual makeout-o’clock. Clearly he had different plans. “I’m free,” she said.

“Cool,” he replied. “See you at eight.”

“Eight a.m.?” she squeaked.

He didn’t acknowledge her protest with anything more than a sly wink. “Tell your mom you’ll be gone the whole day.”

Saturday morning at 8:03 (yes, a.m.), she found herself looking out the window when Artie pulled up. She raced to her front door and opened it so that he wouldn’t honk. “Bye, mom!”

“Call if you’ll be later than ten tonight!” her mom yelled from the kitchen.

“But it’s a weekend!” she protested.

“I still want you to call!” was Mrs. Cohen-Chang’s reply.

Tina checked her hair in the hall mirror and smoothed an aqua streak behind her ear. She picked up her bag and exited the house, closing the door behind her with an enthusiastic slam.

“So where are we going?” she asked, sliding into the passenger seat of his car.

He grinned as he threw the car out of park and pressed a thumb against the accelerator pedal in his lap. “I guess you’ll just have to find out when we get there.”

The reverse wouldn’t have worked: he hated surprises. She, however, didn’t mind them so much. Except that the last time he surprised her, they’d ended up at an Orson Scott Card book signing, which she had been less than thrilled about.

They drove for awhile, and then Artie got on the interstate toward Cincinnati. Tina had the feeling that this was going to be a long trip, and she was already bored of Taio Cruz, so she rifled through his CDs-mostly jazz and R&B, ugh-until she found the mix she’d burned a few weeks ago and hid in his collection.

“What are you putting in?” he asked.

“15 Cent,” she lied.

He quirked an eyebrow but didn’t correct her. She leaned back and closed her eyes as the car filled with sweet, sweet Katy Perry.

“Hey!” he exclaimed and punched into cruise control so that he’d have a hand free. She grabbed his hand a millisecond before he hit the eject button.

He rotated his wrist in her grasp, and they held hands for several long seconds. “Why aren’t you letting go?” he asked sweetly, swinging their hands slightly.

“Because I like you,” she replied, just as saccharine.

“Hm,” he said. “Interesting.” He pulled both of their hands toward him, and kissed the back of hers. She smiled. He tried to use the distraction to fight his way free, but she held tight, giggling.

New tactic. “I need both hands to drive!” he exclaimed and wobbled the wheel a bit with his left hand for effect. Realizing actual safety was at stake, she shrieked and dropped his hand. “Sucka!” he shouted, pressing eject.

One near miss with a legitimate accident and a pull-over at a truck stop for groping later, they settled on the Black Eyed Peas. The Fergie/Will.i.am compromise proved an acceptable musical background for the random, easy conversation that had made them best friends in the first place. Starting with their mutual agreement that “Boom Boom Pow” would be a cool number to do in glee club, two hours later the giggle-worthy discussion had also breezed past Canada, Tina’s hatred of cowboy hats, and their theories on why Santa Claus might actually be a zombie.

Tina had just finished her rendition of “Jingle Brains” when Artie pulled into a parking lot. She had figured they were close ever since they’d entered downtown Cincinnati, but up until that moment the exact destination had still been a surprise.

“It’s a museum,” she said. “You hate museums.”

“I hate art museums,” he said. “I like natural history museums. And besides, we’re not here to look at the exhibits. I mean, we can, but I’m taking you out to the movies first.”

“Oh, you are?” she asked.

“Yep.”

“Isn’t Cincinnati a little far to go for a movie date?” she asked.

“The IMAX here is the closest theater to Lima showing Colossal Dinosaurs.” He paused. “I’m not off-base, right? You like dinosaurs?”

“Everybody loves dinosaurs,” she said. “Especially in giant-sized, computer-animated educational films.”

“So we’re on?”

“We’re on.”

After they parked, she got out of her passenger seat and scooted it all the way forward so that he could more easily reach the disassembled parts of his wheelchair in the back. She fixed her lipstick in a sideview mirror while he put together his chair and transferred out. The wait wasn’t long-the process had gotten noticeably shorter in the months since Artie’s sixteenth birthday.

In Artie’s experience, accessible spaces for his chair in movie theaters either really rocked or really sucked. Luckily, the ones in the Cincinnati IMAX rocked. After they settled, he reached across and took her hand, and this time it wasn’t for play. Then the movie started, and they were both captivated. They could barely contain themselves as they left the theater. “That was worth the drive!” she exclaimed.

“How cool was it when the T-Rex fought the Spinosaurus?” Artie asked.

“Amazing!” she said. “But my heart will always belong to the Plesiosaurs.”

“I’m a Triceratops guy myself,” he said.

“I can respect that,” she replied.

“You know, I think the title Colossal Dinosaurs was a little misleading considering the scene with the Mircoraptors-”

“-but they were one of the best parts!” she protested.

“Whoa, whoa, trigger. If you’d let me finish, I was going to say, the title was a little misleading but I’m not upset because the Microraptors were badass.”

“Right,” she said, sheepishly. “Totally.”

They looked at each other and grinned. “Want to check out the exhibit?” he asked.

“Heck yes,” she said.

Of course there were other things on display at the Natural History Museum, but they were still irresistibly attracted to the dinosaurs. They read every plaque aloud to each other, her in an snooty British accent, and him in an impersonation of various faculty and students of William McKinley. His Jacob Ben Israel was pretty good, but his Coach Sylvester made her double over, gripping her sides as she struggled to stop giggling long enough to breathe. (“You think this is hard? Try being fossilized in a sinkhole in Mongolia for sixty-five million years, that’s hard!”)

“Cool!” he said, breaking character and wheeling over to one of the massive fossils. “Will you take my picture with the Brachiosaurus head?” he asked.

“Giraffatitan,” she corrected absently.

“Geez, woman!” he shouted. She looked down at him, startled. “No, I’m kidding,” he said with a laugh. “I’m stoked we’re both having so much fun, you know, at the same time.”

“I like this feeling too,” she said. She didn’t end up taking his picture. They found a nice older couple, instead, who were willing to take a picture of them both. She sat practically on him, and he put an arm around her waist and drew her closer. The Giraffatitan loomed over them as they beamed in one shot and pretended to be terrified in another.

He bought a tiny Plesiosaur figurine in the gift shop; she bought a Triceratops. She glued them side-by-side to the dashboard of his car with some “Amazing Glue!” she found in the Fun with Chemistry subsection of the store.

“I’m going to have a hard time prying those off if my parents ever decide to sell this car,” Artie said.

“You love it.”

“I love it.”

They spent the afternoon lying in the sun in a park. There was nothing special, inherently, about this park. But he played his harmonica, and they threw a stick for a dog that kept trying to lick their faces, and she painted his nails black with a bottle of polish she found in her bag. As the sun set, they found a theme diner where they ate greasy food and programmed the jukebox with old songs with unintentionally hilarious titles. And then they began the ride home, making it into her driveway just minutes before her call curfew.

She put her hand on the door handle and hesitated. She turned back to face him. “I had a really fun day today,” she said.

“Me too,” he replied. “It was awesome.”

She touched the side of his face, and they leaned across the gap between the seats and kissed. It was close-lipped, but there was something more heartfelt and tender than any kiss they’d had in the recent weeks. They separated, though their face remained close.

“I’ll stop dragging you to things that I love and you hate,” he promised.

“Same here,” she said.

“It’s best if we settle on things we both, you know, just like.”

“Being around you is what I love the most,” she said, only slightly embarrassed by how girly she sounded.

“Being together is the most important part,” he agreed.

“But I’m not going to watch Avatar again.”

They laughed and kissed once more, briefly. “See you in glee Monday,” she said.

“Looking forward to it, girl.”

She got out of the car. He lingered, watching her go inside the house before starting the ignition. And then, he flipped through his CDs and popped in her girly pop mix. He thought of her all the way home.

fic, artie/tina, glee

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