Funny, in a certain light, how we all look the same, ensemble, PG (3/4)
Title: Funny, in a certain light, how we all look the same
Chapter: (3/4) Lost and insecure, you found me or Day Three
Fandom: Glee
Characters/Pairings: ensemble, pairings include [deep breath]: Puck/Quinn, Finn/Rachel, Tina/Artie, Brittany/Santana, Will/Emma, Mercedes/Matt (squint and you'll see Will/Rachel, Finn/Brittany, Puck/Rachel, and canon-references to Finn/Quinn, Matt/Santana, Puck/Santana, Will/Terri, one-sided Kurt/Finn etcetera.)
Genre: angst/romance/friendship/campfire fun
Rating: PG-13
Warnings/Spoilers: If you're up-to-date with Glee, you're golden.
Word Count: 9100, approx.
Summary: Bags are shrugged onto shoulders, faces dropped as they realise that no, Mr Schue really wasn’t joking when he said the words team-building weekend.
In which Sectionals leaves Glee Club broken, and looking to be fixed.
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libellous, defamatory, or in any way factual. All song-lyrics mentioned belong to their respective owners, not to me.
Author’s Note: written for the wonderful _takemeaway_ who bought me for help_haiti, and only abused her power a little, but then it turned out I kind of liked it, so there we go. Beta’d by the splendid waltzmatidah and yesssirrr, who I am fairly indebted to.
I suggest you read the first part, you know, first: I love the rain the most, when it stops or Day One-- And then the second, I am damaged at best, like you've already figured out or Day Two just so you have a clue about what’s going on.
Please, read and review, but be gentle. I bruise like bad fruit.
Lost and insecure, you found me
Or Day Three
(On Day Three, time becomes important. There just isn’t enough.)
---
“Rachel…” Mercedes groans into her pillow. “If you wake me up with that damn vanilla song from Singin’ In The Rain again, I will end you.”
“What--” Kurt murmurs, voice thick with sleep. His face looks paler than usual, apparently his blusher isn’t pillow-proof. Rachel stares at him for a little while, trying to figure out how he managed to get into their tent without her realising. “What’s happening?” He blinks too much, adjusting to the light, and his hair’s fluffy without gel. He looks almost human in this state.
His pyjamas are probably more fashionable than her day clothes. Scratch that, definitely.
Rachel clears her throat. “I wasn’t going to sing.”
“What’s happening?” Kurt repeats, a little clearer now.
“I just…” She brings her knees to her chin, “I just wanted to talk to you. Both of you, I guess”
Mercedes rolls over, her face half-buried in the pillow. “At six in the morning?”
“I haven’t slept.”
Merecedes thinks about it for a second, about how easy it might be to roll back over and pretend she isn’t the least bit curious about what was so important that Rachel actually went without her eight hours. Her pillow is just soft and cool enough to still be inviting and she’s finally managed to find a comfortable spot. But the thing is, Mercedes is nicer than she makes out to be. “So talk, Rach.”
“I’ve been trying to word this so that I won’t offend anyone. I know everyone hates me. I don’t…” She sighs, her lungs well-practised at taking deep breaths. “I know that I don’t think before I speak a lot of the time, but you guys are always waiting for me to make a mistake so you can jump all over it.”
“Yeah, well--” Mercedes purses her lips. “It’s not like you’ve never given us a reason to.”
“I know…” Her voice trails off. “And I’m not blaming anyone, but I don’t know how things are going to work with glee if we can’t get over our differences and just learn to accept-- accept the things about each other that aren’t going to change. I’m always going to put my foot in my mouth, Kurt’s always going to be sarcastic, Quinn’s always going to be the person who lied about her baby-- but we’re also always going to have glee.” She nods once. “I just want you guys to… accept me.”
Mercedes sucks her cheeks in. “How many times did you practise that?”
“That version? Thirty-one.”
Kurt shrugs, “It’s good.”
“It is?”
“Yeah,” Mercedes smiles. “It’s good, Rach.”
---
Santana sleeps curled against Mike’s rucksack. She wakes up about half an hour before him and moves back to where she started: dead-bang in the middle of the tent. Puck could not be pushed against the zip anymore if he tried and he’ll wake up with ‘Made in China’ stamped somewhere on him.
(He fell asleep to Quinn again, no cheerleading routine, just her hazel eyes sparkling against the fire and the cool trickle of tears down her cheeks.)
“I need to sleep in your tent tonight.” Santana murmurs, moving the dirt with the toe of her shoe.
Mike eyes her dubiously. “Why?”
She sighs. “Because… I do. And you two should be thanking me. Glee Club and no dating means your reputation as studs is long gone.” Really, this is just something to get her foot in the door, like flashing a bouncer when your fake ID doesn’t work (someone misprinted and apparently you’re forty).
Punk grunts. “Fine.”
She wraps the drawstring of her bag around her hands a few times, slumps past them. Doesn’t attempt anything with either of them, or even think about it.
Puck’s voice is gruff, unpractised at this early hour, “Santana, is that you awake?”
She waits a second before replying. “…Yeah.”
“Hey…” If she wasn’t listening to Puck, she’d swear he sounded small. “Is my reputation really gone?”
He lies his hands flat on his stomach, clenches them as she whispers, “With most people, yeah. Now you’re just a sexually-confused douche who expresses himself.”
“And what about…” He clears his throat, “other people?”
“You’re the guy who sexts when you’re meant to be a dad.”
“Yeah.”
---
And because most people would be curious, the showers work like this.
At 06:17 of the second day, Emma presses her back to the cabin and listens to the sound of people inside, there are two. They sing into the showerhead, she clutches her wash-bag (which is at least six times bigger than the average wash-bag and may or may not include heavy duty scouring sponges and bleach and vast quantities of both).
At 6:38, the woman coming out shrieks and places a hand on her chest to catch her breath, Emma apologises and asks her if there’s anyone else in there. She replies, deadpan, yes. Emma says okay, she waits five seconds, asks will she be out soon. Yes. Met by a breathy reply along the lines of ‘great, great, would it be okay if I went into your time-- I need to clean.’. The woman pauses, glances down at this stranger’s white knuckles around her bag’s handle and says ‘no problem, it’s just the two of us anyway’.
At 6:53, the other woman comes out and they leave together. Emma says goodbye to the first woman (Harriet, just in case you wondered) who she now knows takes a camping trip up here at least three times a year with her wife-in-everything-but-paper because they like the sights and the time alone. She has sparkly eyes even in the morning light and informs Emma that the cold doesn’t matter when you have someone next to you. She tells her that they take the early shower slot because they hike in the day and sometimes into the night. She raises her hand and says ‘I guess I’ll see you tomorrow’ with a smirk and a second glance to Emma’s bag.
Until 7:21, Emma scrubs so hard the tile comes off in flecks on her sponge. It’s not even that dirty, she thinks, her knees pressed into the floor. She doesn’t know why she has to do this, she hates that she does. Her hands red-raw, she continues, they sting under the running water when she actually gets to her shower. Her small cubicle gleams back at her. She’s never felt so trapped, a perfect square of everything wrong with her life. She peels off her clothes (the protective wear she had on while she cleaned, the regular ones underneath), and turns on the shower, the steam billows out from under the door, the water swirls down the plug, everything works fine. Her time is limited, so her routine takes on the precision (potentially more) of a military operation. Limb by limb, inch of skin by inch of skin. The watch she propped up on the soap dish beeps 7:30 at her. Her time is up. She switches it off. She dries methodically, layers up her clothes.
Tina and Quinn are the first to come in. They shuffle in silence, they leave a courtesy cubicle between them.
By the time the rest of the girls are in, she’s just combing through her hair, flicking the bangs up like she always does. Her skin is still blotchy from the (too) hot shower but it calms down when she goes outside. She’s back at camp by 7:45, Will kisses her cheek on the way and tells her that he can’t believe she got ready in fifteen minutes.
And the rest of it goes like this:
There is a simultaneous shared sigh of relief between the girls (and Kurt) when they discover that for a quarter, they get five minutes of blow drying. There’s a glorious clank of metal as they all empty their purses.
There is a similar reaction when the boys discover that there are cubicles, but they’re always easier to please.
In terms of stats, Santana takes the longest, Finn the shortest. Artie sticks out as the anomaly when he comes somewhere in the middle and everyone feels bad for assuming he wouldn’t.
No one makes a ‘dropping the soap’ joke. Kurt appreciates this. There are no Carrie moments. No throwing tampons.
Puck, Mike and Matt run in on their way back to camp and shout random words (including, but not limited to: “boobs!”) and run, laughing at the way the girls scream ‘GET OUT’. They didn’t see anything. But they tell the girls they did.
And it happens exactly like that for all three days.
---
Mike and Matt dawdle leisurely back to the campsite, their faces gleaming from the hot shower.
Matt runs his tongue over his teeth in thought. “…I’m gonna go with a sawed-off shotgun. Yeah. Zombie apocalypse. Shotgun.”
“Where are you gonna get a shotgun in the woods?”
“No, we’re in the mall.”
Mike stops walking. “When did we get to the mall?”
“Dude, it’s zombies. We have to get to a mall.”
“I guess,” Mike shrugs, continuing down the path.
“Either way, man,” he grins, arm poised for a high five. “I’m getting a chainsaw arm!”
---
Finn helps Artie roll over to the communal area, like he once did off of a football field. Both boys are still damp from where they pulled on their clothes without drying properly after their shower, and the cool morning air feels colder than it actually is. Artie’s wheels crunch over twigs and stones, until he’s wheeled to the sandier, paler ground and he can manage it himself.
“Thanks, Finn.”
“It’s no problem.”
Finn taps his hands on Artie’s handles once and then steps to the side, they walk the rest side-by-side.
“How’re you feeling today?” Artie mutters, adjusting his glasses.
“Uh, better-- better, I think. Things are still a little… confusing.”
“Sure.”
“But better.” Finn nods too much, too quickly. He sits down on a bench, his knees practically reaching his chin without even trying.
Mr. Schue is cooking something over the campfire. There’s a splutter as (what turns out to be) oatmeal bubbles away quietly. The place slowly fills with everybody. It’s quiet, but not uncomfortable. No one’s waiting for anyone to explode or a punch to get thrown or a new secret to come out. Everyone’s just tired and missing their beds and trying to remember what they used to love about the others.
“Breakfast,” Mr. Schue announces. “Everyone grab a bowl. Oh, and uh, Ms. Pillsbury‘s gonna figure out something for us to do while we eat.”
---
Puck clears his throat. “You speak to him yet?”
The pronoun in that question could be filled in by anyone who’s looking at Rachel, by anyone who cares enough to follow her eyeline all the way through the other people to Finn’s face.
“I’m giving him his space,” she says, lips pouting.
“You think he needs it?”
“The situation is complicated, Noah. You wouldn’t understand.”
“I don’t know complicated?”
“Oh…” she ignores his glare, she’s good at that, “Finn and I haven’t exactly spoken about what this means for our relationship.” and then this breath that belongs in Merchant Ivory films gets let out (all wistful, subtle- her hand should be pressed against the window of an old English house, a faint drizzle misting her reflection; don‘t ask him how he knows about this kind of thing. Blame his mother.). “He tells me I have nice pyjamas and then he doesn’t talk, and then he defends my honour and then he yells at me, and then he kisses me and now he’s just… not talking to me. I swear, guys have some sort of pre-menstrual tension that they don’t ever talk about.”
He bends down to tie his shoelace, “I don’t really know how to do chick-talk, Rachel. Maybe Kurt can help you out.”
“Things are weird between us when it comes to Finn.”
“Isn’t that what this whole weekend’s about?” He stands back up, “It was your e-mail.”
“I’m really starting to hate that thing,” she mutters under her breath.
Puck smiles, placing his hand on her shoulder, “Just go do it, Rach. For everyone’s sake.”
---
Emma’s clipboard has by this point become another appendage, like arms and legs, she’d look weird without it. Her hands gripped tight to the sides, fumbling at the corners, smoothing down things that are already smooth. The pen is on a piece of string that she lifts at regular intervals, lets it hover a few millimetres from the page, doesn’t make a mark and then clips it back to the top. She nibbles on the cereal bar she brought with her as she stares over the long list of activities that she downloaded from some internet sites that specialized in ‘good, clean fun’.
“I guess, maybe we could do the banana pass?”
(And if any words are going to make twelve teenagers look up from their cereal and toast crusts simultaneously, that combination is probably in the top ten.)
Matt grins. “It sounds dirty.”
Artie adjusts his glasses, one finger to the bridge of his nose. “It sounds like some kind of hazing ritual.”
Emma shakes her head, “It’s--”
Puck smirks. “Maybe Kurt can tell us?”
Kurt twists his lips into a flat smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, “Your wit never ceases to amaze me. I hope you find good use for it when you’re cleaning the side of the road.”
Ms. Pillsbury makes a hard horizontal line through the two words with her black pen.
“Maybe not the banana pass.”
---
Rachel dips her spoon into her bowl, and takes a small mouthful, her teeth gently clanging against the metal while Finn chews and gulps next to her. She grins as she considers that maybe this is what it’s like to be married to him, breakfast in bed, and comfortable silences.
“You know, you were right.”
Her voice catches in her throat briefly. “I was?”
“Oatmeal’s pretty good.”
She smiles. “Sometimes it just takes a little getting used to.”
“Yeah, exactly.” He swallows. “Like, when I first tried it, it kinda reminded me of wallpaper paste and I threw half of it away and made bacon and eggs. But then you said it gives you energy and I was coming off of Vitamin D and now I kinda like it.”
“I’m glad, Finn.” She picks up her bowl and takes another spoonful. “It’s filled with all these starches
and natural sugars.” She takes another mouthful. “It’s good for you.” I could be good for you. “Better than all that junk food you cram in.”
“Yeah, my mom says that stuff rots your insides anyway. And you know, I’m kind of off Slushies since having to clean them out of my pants. Anything bright blue actually.”
She smiles into her bowl, scraping her spoon along the sides. The last mouthful goes in for both of them.
---
Everyone gathers around, cutlery clinking as they drift as far as away from each other as possible to something resembling a group. Maybe they all came together, maybe they used to be friends.
The rules are:
1) Everyone gets a pen, everyone gets strips of paper. (Some people use more than others.)
2) Everyone writes down things that they have done- wrong or right, good or bad- what they can do, what they can’t. (There are a lot of ‘wrong’s, ‘bad’s, ‘can’t’s.)
3) There’s this hat that always seems to appear out of nowhere for the purpose of games like these, and everyone’s gets put into it. (It’s Kurt’s. It’s a fedora. It matches his shoes. Huh.)
4) Everyone takes it in turns to take one out and read it. (There’s stuttering and hesitating, and everyone braces themselves in case its theirs.)
5) If you’ve done it, if it means something to you, if you’re the same, if it’s yours, you put your hand up. (No one talks.)
Quinn passes up toast for the second morning in a row, and nearly barfs when the oatmeal’s presented to her, but she does take three scraps of paper and hold them precariously in her long fingers, running them past her thumb so that it makes a whispering kind of scrape against the skin. She mentally lists all the sins she’d tell anyone who’d listen- she thinks of a God that would turn away from her in disgust, a priest who would roll his eyes, a daughter who’d lock herself in her room.
Rachel comes close with a ballpoint in her hand and a can-do attitude Quinn thinks she can smell from there.
“Here’s a pen, Quinn.”
Something surges in her, a white hot anger that bubbles in her stomach. “Aren’t you sick of always being where you’re not wanted?” And then it’s gone.
Rachel just sucks in her lips momentarily. “It’s got a rubber grip. In case you’re fingers are swollen.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s okay.”
The two girls scrawl in meditated silence.
---
“So I would say--” Ms. Pillsbury holds up one, “I would say, “My hair never looks how I want it to”-- Oh, that’s not really-- but I guess… So if you agree with that one, you just--” A whole bunch of hands shoot up in the air. “Well, there we go. Maybe that person, whoever they are, felt alone, like they were the only one with… hair issues. Now they know they’re not.” She rolls it up into a tiny ball. “Next person?”
Artie’s first. “Erm… So this one says, “I’m scared I’ll never get to where I want to go”, uh, me too.” He sticks up his hand, it’s greeted by eight others.
“I never feel good enough.”
Nine hands.
“I can pop and lock.”
One hand.
“I keep making the same mistakes.”
Seven hands.
“I cheated on a Spanish quiz. Sorry, Mr Shue. and there’s this, like, smiley face.”
Three hands.
“I lied. A lot.”
Twelve hands.
“I listen to Britney Spears, and not in an ironic way.”
Four (reluctant) hands.
“Right now, I don’t recognise myself.”
Eight.
“I never found out where that bird went.”
No hands. Then one hand.
“I’m sorry.”
Twelve.
---
“Rachel,” Mercedes says, pulling a strand of hair from her lip gloss. “I was thinking of going for a walk, you wanna come?”
“Sure, and maybe we could take a look at your--” Mercedes face falls slowly. Rachel adjusts quickly, “I mean, that’d be nice.”
“Great, I’m just gonna grab a jacket. Five minutes, okay?”
“Okay.”
The greatest stars always respond to their audience.
---
You could time your watch to Quinn’s morning sickness. Which, so far, appears to be less of a morning thing and more of an ‘on the hour, every hour’ thing- but she manages to schedule the worst of it (the worst of it is an hour straight) around 11.30.
11.37, if you look, which he did.
Puck shoves his hands in his pockets and waits for Tina to eventually leave, she walks a little ahead; Quinn collects her shoes from the ground, her polka-dot socks peeking through the grass. She’s kind of messy, but she still looks like one of those shampoo commercials- with waterfalls and inappropriate ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ for daytime TV.
He shoves his hands deep into his pockets. “You alright?”
“Oh, uh, yeah. I’m fine.”
“You were puking pretty hard.”
“You heard?”
“Everyone kind of heard.”
She rolls her eyes. “Great.”
“Anyway, so I thought you might--” He holds out this (he now thinks kind of pathetic) packet of crackers, the wrapper glinting in the sunlight. “I thought you might be hungry. I’m always starving when I ralph like that.”
“Uh…”
“I took them from Schue’s bag. I know you don’t want me around, but--”
She eyes him for a second, for any sign that isn’t exactly what he says it is.
“Thank you.” Her fingers graze against his when she takes them, because small felonies is pretty much Noah Puckerman’s version of a balcony scene, and she kind of likes feeling like a Juliet even with this massive stomach and the glow of sweat across her face. So what if her Romeo has a Mohawk. She breaks off half, and crunches down; she hasn’t eaten properly for a while and it wouldn’t matter if she had, it’s all just going to come back up anyway.
“You want some more?” He reaches into his back-pocket and takes out a handful, the same crinkle of plastic. She reaches out and takes them, nodding through two filled cheeks and crumbs on her blouse. It’s white, with this flower stitching, and less about hiding her stomach than the rest of her clothes.
“Oh my God…” She sighs, takes more sips of water. “Thank you.”
“No problem.” Then there’s this silence. This gap between them that’s filled with a baby bump they’re both responsible for. In Quinn’s mind, it takes up too much space. In Puck’s, not enough. She instinctively rests her hand on it now, he’s noticed. Before she didn’t- she just kept her fists clenched or her fingers busy because she didn’t want to do exactly that. No mothering instinct, no mother.
“You okay?” he says finally.
“Yeah, just… embarrassed. Humiliated.” She looks up at him, “Stupid.”
“You’re like the smartest person I know.”
“Geniuses don’t get knocked up.”
He puts his hands in his pockets again and shrugs. “Only ’cause most of the time, they’re too ugly to get someone to do it with them in the first place.” When she smiles, it lights up her whole face like it used to.
“I just wanted to say I’m sorry about yesterday… again.” Her voice is tentative. “I’m pretty much blaming most of my conversations on hormones lately anyway.” He shrugs, he’s not exactly sure what the better response would be but he thinks there is one. The air stays thick with unsaid things between them. She takes a step backwards, and then he knows there’s one. “Okay, so I’ll… see you around. Thanks--” She gestures to her empty wrapper. “For this.” For everything.
She turns her head and he makes out the faint blush on her cheek quick enough to catch her elbow and whisper close, “I…” He keeps his eyes settled on her arm, on where his hand is resting. “…didn’t sleep with Mrs. Goldfarb. I just-- I cleaned her pool. That was it.” He’s near enough to hear her breath catch in her throat. He laughs quietly, because this just feels like the weirdest situation to be in with your pregnant ex-best friend’s ex-girlfriend. “So you can tell your hormones… that.”
She doesn’t breathe again until she’s back in her tent. That can’t be good for the baby.
---
Artie wheels up to Kurt- legs crossed at a comfortable angle, shoes knowingly displayed- who’s looking seriously into the middle distance.
“So you gave your opinion on one of my problems, maybe I can help you out with one of yours.”
Kurt half-smiles delicately. “Sorry, Artie. But my problems can’t be fixed with a cheery attitude and an episode of Oprah.”
“Come on, Kurt.”
He clenches his jaw and shakes his head. His eyes glisten as he thinks about telling Artie how much it sucks being the someone that the person you love will never love back. How a gender shouldn’t mean that much, but it ends up meaning everything. And how some little fake stutter is a pretty easy thing to get over in the grand scheme of things.
He sighs, blowing up into his fringe, which stays pretty much in the exact same spot. “Why do you wear suspenders and a belt?”
Artie’s eyes slowly trace down his own body, like maybe the answer to this out-of-left-field question is written somewhere on him. “I don’t know. I just always have.” He adjusts his glasses. “I think I thought I wouldn’t get pantsed as much if I did.”
“It’s a good plan. Does it work?”
“Not… entirely.”
---
Everyone’s finishing their lunch (check the clock, see 12:23pm) when Ms. Pillsbury finally comes up with something else to do.
“Trust walk.”
Great. Everyone lines up.
“We did this at Cheer Camp,” Brittany announces cheerfully. She briefly looks up at Santana who’s looking at her shoes with a fierce determination she reserves for competitions and when she’s trying to get a guy.
Kurt looks up, “You know, I always wanted to go to one of those.”
Ms. Pillsbury’s reasoning is essentially that everyone’s got their issues out in the open, that everyone knows exactly how they’ve been wronged and how they’ve wronged others, and everyone is dealing with the simple fact that these things are unchangeable. The next part, she murmurs breathily, is about living with that. “So you’ll be in pairs… Uh--We’ll choose.” And then there’s the obligatory exchange of glances as everyone tries to guess who they’re going to be paired with, and then there’s the way they’re not listening anymore. And Emma just carries on.
Five minutes later, Rachel’s shaking her head. “I appreciate the exercise but I really don’t want to be responsible for Quinn and her unborn child.”
“It’ll be fine,” Quinn whispers, taking the blindfold off of Ms. Pillsbury. “I can still walk.”
“I’d like to sign some form of contract legally absolving me from blame in case you trip and land on your stomach--”
“I’m not defective, Rachel. I’m not going to fall.”
She doesn’t; neither does Rachel when it’s her turn.
---
And then it’s Artie’s turn.
“Now go right--”
“Okay…” Tina takes a few tentative steps to the side, murmuring “Oh, my God…” under her breath.
“You’re fine, you’re nowhere near anything.”
She lets out a shaky breath. “Okay--”
“So now you gotta step up onto the bench and walk along it.”
“I’ve-- what?!”
“You just… Lift your left leg and feel for the bench.” She does. “Now your foot’s on it fine, you just have to step up and put your other one on it.” He laughs, “I’ve never had to tell anyone how to walk before.”
She smiles, he can’t see her eyes but he knows they’re open and wide, she bites down on her lip. “Okay--” she steps up, there’s a small resounding clap from the group a few feet away. “Yeah, let’s see you try and get your chair up here.”
Her footsteps are small and nimble, and it may be the slowest journey in the history of the ‘trust walk’ but she makes it across with no major damage points, she just shuffles. “You’re at the end now, just jump off.” She lifts her leg off, shakes a little, and feels his hand clasp around hers; he’s warm through his gloves, his fingertips brush against her palm. She jumps, lands. He lets go as quickly as he grabbed hold.
Ms. Pillsbury raises a pale finger to her lips when Rachel goes to remind them of the rules ‘no touching’.
“Now just walk forward a few steps.” She steps into a circle of Mr. Schuester’s old jacket and Matt’s faded jeans. “We’re done.” Her lips part to say something, get cut off by: “You can take the blindfold off now, Tina.”
She clutches the blindfold, pulling it down and around her neck before untying it. “Thanks.”
---
Arms folded, “I’m not doing this with him.”
“Come on, Finn.”
“No, he’s the last person I’d trust.”
“That’s the whole point, dumbass.” Puck stands up, stares right back at Finn just as hard. “Let’s just get this over with.”
“No way.”
“Look, you’re gonna be blindfolded-- don’t even have to look at me.”
Finn juts his chin out slightly, lets them put the handkerchief over his eyes in silence, and Mr. Schue walks him- one hand on each shoulder, because he’s stupid enough to try and run when he can’t see and he‘s not the most co-ordinated person anyway- to the invisible ‘X’ on the ground. There’s turned over buckets and logs and coats draped into lines and Finn is expected to be led around with just Puck to guide him- no touching (no problem), just his voice. The biggest challenge with these two is going to be the holding of a conversation that consists of more than grunts (some boys’ Morse-code that no one’s deciphered yet).
“Just keep going straight-- straight-- straight. Stop. Now you have to step over one of those benches. So lift your leg, that‘s-- now you can step down. Now lift the other leg. Okay, now keep going forward.” This happens for the next three benches. “So now you gotta go around those buckets,”
He shoves his hands into his pockets. “Which way?”
“Left.”
“What?”
“Left, dude.”
“Uh…”
“Remember when you got bit by that huge rottweiler, sneaking out of Quinn’s…” Everyone grits their teeth in the background, “…house one night?”
“…Yeah.”
“That leg. That’s your left.”
“Right.”
He steps forward, around the first bucket, “Now left,” and manages to swerve himself around four buckets and over another log.
When it’s Finn’s turn to lead, he lets Puck walk right into the first bench- there’s a (tiny-bit satisfying) grunt in the air. “Dude, what the hell?”
“You slept with my girlfriend.”
He shrugs. “Yeah.” He lifts his leg up onto the bench. “Is that it now? Just not bros?”
“That’s it.” He brings his shoulders up. “Go left.”
“Actually left, or fall off the end and break my leg left?”
“…Go right.”
He sticks both his arms out to balance, he knows full-well that Finn isn’t about to hold his hand. “You know, I know I was a crappy friend.”
“Even crappy friends don’t sleep with their best friend’s girlfriend.”
“Okay, so I was a worse than crappy friend. But I was there.” He jumps off when he feels the end. “I’m still there.” He sounds corny, he doesn’t care.
“Keep going straight ahead.” Finn sighs, “Yeah, well, maybe I don’t want you here.”
“Doesn’t matter-- Where am I going now?”
“Just straight, there’s nothing ahead for a while- What do you mean it doesn’t matter?”
“Still bros.”
“We’re not bros-- Go right, and then straight.”
“So what-- we just ignore each other in Glee, football. You don’t talk to me, I don’t talk to you. One of us is on fire, the other one doesn’t even spit?”
“Stop. Lift your feet, you’re coming to a bucket.” Puck’s boots feel heavier, they scrape against the plastic and then over the top. “I don’t know what we do. I’m just working on not punching you in the face every time I see you.”
“Thanks.”
“Another bucket.” The silence stretches out between the two of them. “You like her?” Finn eventually mutters.
“Of course, man, you know that.”
“I do?”
“Hey, I liked her before you.”
“You did?”
“…Yep.” The last letter pops between his lips.
“Left. Left. Left. Over the next bucket. Why didn’t you do something about it then?”
“Because-- Because then you liked her and there’s that whole bro’s over hoes thing.” He smirks, “And besides, I thought it’d be best if I waited until we were both drunk and then knocked her up.”
“Not funny, Puck.”
Puck stands still for a moment. “First part’s true though.”
Finn chews on his lip for a while, running his tongue over them. “Right-- Right-- No wait, left. The one with the bite.” He glances over at Quinn, her stomach filling her palm. “You scared of being a dad?”
“Hell yeah, I am.” Puck smiles, a strip of white underneath the blindfold. “You know, I’m more scared of Quinn letting me become my dad.” Finn clears his throat. “Whatever-- we don‘t have to talk about this, Finn. Just get me around the buckets, we can go back to not talking.”
“When I found out about Quinn, I nearly had a heart attack.” He shifts his gaze to anywhere but her stomach. “But you were… you were a really great friend. And-- Were you just doing that to get, you know, close to her?”
“Truth?”
“…Yeah. Truth.”
“I wanted to show her I could be a good dad. And then- when I knew she wasn’t going to choose me- I just wanted you to be a good dad. I screwed things up, man.”
And suddenly Puck is a totally different person to him.
“We’re at the end.”
“What?”
“Of the… trust walk.”
“Oh, right.” He takes off his blindfold, balls it up in his hands. “So we’re done?”
“I don’t know.”
“Sure.” He holds out his hand. “I’m still your bro. Whether you’re mine or not.”
Finn nods, a silent “I’m thinking about it, okay?” that Puck gets because that’s the kind of thing you hear when you’ve been friends since pre-school. They both start walking back towards the crowd, the distance already setting in as their steps get further and further apart. Puck stands awkwardly behind Quinn and then takes a step back because the smell of her drives him crazy and he’s working on that not happening so much.
Will smiles at Emma. “This wasn’t such a bad idea.”
---
Santana Lopez sits down next to Quinn Fabray (full names because this is high school and things like that matter) and asks her when they’ll know if they made the team. Quinn tells her she doesn’t know. They stay looking forward. They both twitch their heads at the same time, Sue walks past and wordlessly pins up the notice. They rise to their feet immediately, she raises a finger (no, not that one), “Wait. Girls, I want you to take in this moment. You are walking the fine line between an international cheerleading career and the realisation that your co-ordination is borderline retarded. Whoever makes it, gym in five minutes.”
Santana slides in front of Quinn. “I want you to know, if I make it and you don’t, I’ll think of you.”
“Thanks but,” she points. “Made it. I’ll think of you.”
Eyebrow raised, “No need. Made it too.”
The girls smile briefly at each other. Brittany makes this squeal between the two of them, “I’m in!” She kicks her leg in the air, holds it in place, apologises to the girl in front for hitting her, smiles some more.
---
Santana sits down next to Quinn again (first names only this time, because they’re way past high school). “You know I don’t really care about Puck, right?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s not about that.”
Quinn wrinkles her nose slightly. “Don’t… start quoting sections of ‘The Girl Code’ or something.”
She smiles. “I’m not even that angry at you.” When Quinn looks vaguely in her direction, she just shrugs. “It was just more fun being pissed. I liked being Queen Bee for a little while, I don’t care what that says about me.”
The corners of Quinn’s mouth curl up slightly, she nods to the side of Santana’s face. “I’m still sorry.”
“Yeah, me too.” She pulls her hair out of the ponytail she put in especially for this conversation. “How many apologies is that?”
“I think you’re like… fourth.”
She braces her hands on the bench to stand up, “I’d better let you get back to them.”
“Hey, where’s Britt? Isn’t she normally stuck to your hip or something?”
Santana’s face falls. The bite back in her tone, “We do just fine without each other.”
“Of course you do,” she replies bluntly.
“We’re just, you know…” She shrugs too many times, “…friends.”
Quinn doesn’t mention how young and wide-eyed she looks, how small, how strange it is to see her like this. Instead she watches Santana fidget for a little while until she stands up, brushing the creases out of her skirt. “You know, when you pop that thing out, you’re probably gonna have to poop in front of a load of strangers.”
“Yeah.”
Santana grins. “See ya.”
They’ll be fine.
---
Mike decides that dinnertime is the appropriate moment to showcase this new double back flip he’s been working on. It’s impressive the first time, even more the second, and the third involves flicking a pan of (thankfully, still cold) spaghetti hoops over Mr. Schuester, Santana and Mercedes. The girls scream, everyone laughs, Mike gets a handful chucked at him.
Puck runs a finger over Santana’s forehead and licks it. “You taste better than I remember, Lopez.”
“Shut up.” She glares at him from the sauce slowly dripping down her forehead, a faint hint of a smile twitching around her mouth that she fights back.
“I am so sorry!” Mike laughs.
She glides her palm over her hair. “Yeah, you will be.”
She runs towards him, devious grin spreading across her face. He backs away, gradually speeding up, his hands locked in a defensive gesture, palms facing her. She tackles him to the ground, laughing as she wipes it over his mouth and across his cheeks. “How’s that taste?!”
Kurt holds out his hand, “Five on the Latina.”
Matt slaps down on it, “I’m in.”
Tina smiles, raising her hand to join. “Someone has to stick up for Other Asian.”
---
Finn shuffles quietly. The bench is digging into his back and his underwear’s halfway up his butt but he likes being this close to Rachel, her shins just a few inches from his cheek so if he turned he’d bump his nose on them. Her skin smells like suntan lotion (“because strong roles for older females are hard to come by without unnecessary skin damage”) even though it’s night time and it shimmers like she’s wearing this body glitter his mom used to wear when she would go out.
“I like the way your boots match your skirt.” His mouth pulls into a little half-smile. “Purple.”
“I don’t think I can do this anymore,” she blurts out, answering a question she asked herself.
“Huh?”
“I mean,” her eyebrows arch up. “I don’t think I can do… this anymore.”
His expression is blank. “What are you--”
“I have made my feelings for you perfectly clear, and--”
Finally getting it, he screws up his face. “I know, I--”
“And in the past I have done some… questionable things just to get your attention, to make you like me back. But I won’t be your punching bag. You can’t treat me nicely and then treat me like crap or just completely ignore me in the same day. It’s not fair.” She gets up, and now her legs mean something entirely different. “I think it‘d be best if I got over you, Finn.”
“Rachel, please.”
She’s wiping her cheeks and turning away from him, mumbling “I have to go” into her hands.
“Wait,” falls on ears that aren’t listening, and a back that’s really trying to stay turned. He sighs, watching her purple skirt quiver around her legs and get further and further away.
Brittany’s singing to her shoes a few feet away, feeling the damp come through her skirt and doing nothing to change that fact.
“I guess you didn’t see that either, Britt?”
Her voice comes out still in song, breaking the last word into two syllables. “She’s ri-ight.”
“I know she’s right, I just… I don’t even know anymore.” He rubs his hands over his face, pushing his palms into his eyes briefly. He doesn’t look at her even though he knows he could see up her skirt if he tilted his head a certain way. “I don’t wanna talk about it.”
She nods, tapping out some inconsistent beat on the backs of her thighs.
“Hey, I always wondered,” he starts to say. She looks up at him, curious. “How are you such a good dancer when you can’t tell your left from right?”
She holds out her thumb and forefinger on each hand, her eyes big and smile wide between the two L’s she’s made.
“Santana taught me.”
---
“Miss Pillsbury asked me to bring you this,” Rachel holds out a towel. “I think she felt she couldn’t handle the mess.”
Mr. Schue lets out a quiet laugh. “She’s doing better than I thought she would,” he says sincerely. “Honestly, I thought she was gonna turn around and run in the parking lot.”
“But she didn’t.”
“No,” he smiles. “She didn’t.” He wipes across his forehead- an orange streak appearing across the white towel. He chuckles softly, “But I can see why she wouldn’t want to deal with this.” He glances up at her straight face, tears lingering in her eyes, her lips pressed together. Knowing the answer already, he asks, “You okay, Rachel?”
She shakes her head. “Not exactly.”
“You want to talk about it?” She sighs. “Life at the top lonely?”
She smiles sadly, sucking in her lips. “Sometimes I think my crush on you was less complicated.” He lets that one go. “Things with Finn have just got too much…” She glances up at Mr. Schue, his brown eyes sympathetic. She props up her chin slightly. “I decided to end it.”
“Yeah?”
She nods, fresh tears falling down her face. “I just think he needs some time.”
“And you?”
“I need someone who’ll want me back.”
He nods to his knees. “Sure.”
“Do you think I’ve made a mistake, Mr. Schue? Just… Giving up.”
“I can’t tell you what’s wrong or right, Rachel. Or what decision to make.”
“Aren’t you meant to teach me, sir?” She says, half-joking.
He just shakes his head, “For what it’s worth, I think you’re really brave.”
She wrinkles her nose. “I’m running away.”
“You’re protecting yourself.” He sighs. She turns to face him, her worried expression still well set. “I don’t know if you and Finn are done. Maybe you’ll make up, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’re soul mates, and in ten years time we’ll see you with four kids, or maybe he’s just a high school crush that you’ll be telling your husband about. But right now? Right now, you’re doing what’s best for you.” She smiles. “It’s very mature, Rachel.”
She wipes her face, pressing her fingers over her cheeks and swiping the tears. “I’ve already decided that two’s my limit, sir. Maybe three if I decide to adopt like Madonna.” She smiles, “But thank you.”
He gently places a hand on her shoulder and squeezes once. “It’s no problem.”
---
“You know,” Matt leans over, his voice straining slightly, “I never noticed how appetising you are.”
Mercedes’ mouth drops open slightly, “Excuse me?” He smiles and pulls the pasta out of her hair, flicking it away onto the grass. “Oh, right,” she laughs nervously. “I gotcha.”
“You look pretty… All noodled up.”
“Uh, thanks.”
He grins. “No problem.”
---
Tina watches Artie and Kurt make their way back to their tent, their shadows following a few seconds behind.
“I’m… So sorry,” she whispers into the dark. “I’m really sorry.”
The more she says it, the less it gets caught in her throat.
---
Santana and Brittany are sleeping in separate cabins at Cheer Camp.
The door creaks one night and Santana’s roommate rolls over, she makes out the silhouette and says “Your dumb friend’s here.”
Santana jams her heel up into the bunk above. “Hey, World’s-Fattest. Shut up.”
Brittany whispers something about not liking the girls in her room and how Quinn’s cabin is too far away and it all doesn’t really matter because she’s sliding into bed with Santana before she can tell her to go away. She kicks off her shoes and pulls them under the covers.
“Britt, your feet are freezing!” Brittany smiles and pushes them onto the back of Santana’s thighs. “Hey!” She slaps them away, laughing. “Okay, okay. You can stay. Just-- Stop doing that.”
“Thank you,” Brittany sighs against her neck, her eyes fluttering shut.
“Hey, Britt?” she whispers to the wall.
“Yeah?”
Santana turns on the wafer-thin mattress to look at her, Brittany’s eyes are shut, one cheek squashed against the pillow. Her breath is warm on Santana’s tanned shoulder. “Britt?”
Her eyes shoot open. “Hm?”
“I was thinking…” Santana bites her lip. “While you’re here.” Brittany rolls her eyes. “Come on, it’s been like a week or something! All the guy cheerleaders are gay here anyway. You’re my last hope.”
Brittany sucks in her cheeks. “That doesn’t sound so sexy.” Santana moves a little closer. “We have early practice tomorrow.”
“Quick?” she says, just a few inches from Brittany’s face.
“What about her?” Brittany’s finger jabs up through the quilt to point at the girl above.
“She’s asleep.”
“I’m tired,” she groans, and she knows her tone is wavering. Santana smoothes a hand between Brittany’s legs- the blonde’s breath catches in her throat. She leans in and parts her mouth right at Santana’s collarbone. “If I get in trouble tomorrow, it’s your fault.”
“Fine.”
Santana convinces herself that all she needs is a pair of hands, and lips as a bonus. That who they belong to isn’t important. And this lie works until it doesn’t.
---
Quinn’s propped her head on her duffel bag (one she borrowed from one of Brittany’s brothers- nothing’s really ‘hers’ at the moment), the rest of her body flat to the floor, her sweatpants collecting dirt. The fire crackles, fading before her very eyes.
Puck makes the slowest journey of his life from his side of the campsite to hers, the fire warming one side of his body. She watches him cautiously, eyes following him as he gets closer and closer to her. Eventually she looks back down at her lap when he’s behind her. He sits and rocks back onto his hands, digging his heels into the ground.
She looks up briefly and sees the shadow of his long eyelashes down his cheeks. “Can’t sleep?” she throws over her shoulder. He shakes his head. “Me neither.”
“Yeah, I noticed you out here these past two nights.”
“I just can’t seem to shut off lately.”
He clears his throat. “Well, you’ve got a lot on your mind, I guess.”
“You don’t?” she whispers.
He straightens up slightly. “I’m not exactly allowed to talk about what’s on my mind.”
“What?”
“Finn can yell all he wants, he’s the guy that got screwed over. And you-- You’ve got a baby and stretch marks and swollen ankles to bitch about and no one’s going to tell you you can’t. But, come on, the guy who knocked up his best friend’s girl?” He runs his hand over his Mohawk. “I mean-- Who the hell am I to say anything?”
“I--” Their hands brush against each other briefly and she pulls hers back in to her lap, watching his still on the ground.
He shrugs. “Whatever, you know.”
She nods, her eyebrows pulled up together and close to her hairline as she remembers that a triangle has three sides.
---
Mike shakes his head. “Nah, you can’t have it.”
Finn’s face drops, “Why not?”
“Chainsaw arm’s taken.”
Finn shrugs in the dark. “Maybe something big that I can hit them with?”
Matt looks at him, dead serious for a second, “Like what?”
“Like, I don’t know, a crowbar?”
Matt’s face returns to normal, smiling. “Nice.”
Mike nods in agreement, “Heavy.”
“Hey, what about a crossbow or something?” Finn asks, inspiration flashing across his face.
Mike shakes his head in disbelief, laughing quietly. “Where are you getting a crossbow?”
Finn looks concerned. “Aren’t we in the mall?”
“He’s right.”
---
Rachel sits bolt upright, starts winding up her torch. “What’s that?!” Mercedes groans in her sleep. “Mercedes!” She reaches over and shakes her, “Mercedes, can you hear that?”
“What… are you talking about?”
“Someone’s trying to get in. Oh my God, it’s a cougar or something-- I never even got to play Eliza Doolittle. I never got a Tony, maybe a collection of my work can be presented posthumously or--”
“Rachel, how many cougars do you know can work a zipper?”
“You think it’s a serial killer?!” She clambers onto her knees. “They’re coming in!”
A small voice cuts through the dark. “Hi…”
“It’s Brittany.”
Mercedes sits up. “What are you doing here?”
“I heard a bear.”
“What?”
Brittany looks so tiny in the dim glow from the campfire. “Santana’s staying somewhere else and-- I thought I heard something.”
“So you came outside?”
She shrugs in the soft light of Rachel’s torch, clutches her sleeping bag closer to herself. “Can I stay with you guys for the last night?”
The two exchange a glance and then move further apart to make room for her. “Sure you can, Britt,” Mercedes nods.
Rachel flattens out Brittany’s sleeping bag, Mercedes smiles and moves her pillow to make room.
“Thanks,” she mumbles, wriggling between the two of them.
“It’s okay.”
Brittany lies with her eyes wide open trying to make out the shapes of leaves that have fallen on the tent roof. “Puck’s with Quinn,” she breathes out. “Out there, by the fire.”
Mercedes voice perks up with the hint of gossip, “Yeah?”
“They’re just talking.”
Not as interesting as she wanted. “Oh.”
“Santana’s weekend didn’t get any better,” she mutters. “Not if he’s with Quinn.”
“What do you mean, Britt?”
“Nothing.” She closes her eyes. “I just think Santana’s mad at me.”
“Why would she be?” Mercedes asks.
“I don’t know.”
Rachel moves her arms over Brittany and gives her a hug, Mercedes is doing the same. “I’m sure things’ll work out, Brittany.”
The two girls fall asleep and Brittany just after. No one knows that Santana sleeps in the minibus that night.
---
Quinn sits up slowly, still facing away from him. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“With the baby?”
She nods silently. “I mean, do I keep it? Do I-- Do I give up everything my life could be?” She looks back briefly over her shoulder, locking her eyes with his. “Feed her while I’m taking pop quizzes?”
He shuffles a little closer to her while she turns away from him again. “Whatever you decide, it’s okay.”
She half-smiles, “Except it’s not, is it? No matter what happens, I hurt someone.”
“We’ve pretty much broken everything we ever touched,” he mutters, close enough now that he barely has to talk. “I don’t know how much more damage we could do anyway.”
“I’m young, and I can’t keep myself together half the time,” she whispers. “I’d be a horrible mother.”
“Hey--”
“But, all I can think about is baby names, and what kind of dresses she’d wear.” A tear trickles over her cheeks, catching the light on its journey down. “And whether she’d want to be a cheerleader.”
This time when her hand brushes over his, she keeps it there.
“Keeping her is the most selfish thing I could do,” she says, all final and stinging as it slips out of her throat.
She leans back onto his arm, resting there for a little while. She rocks her head back slightly, trying desperately to stop the tears carving out silent tracks over her cheekbones and down her neck. He leans his forehead onto her shoulder, smells her clean and tired skin, staying there until she tells him to leave.
They sit exactly like this, quiet and still, until the morning.
---
Will’s lying awake, his breathing regular and this moment right here is one that he’d like to keep for as long as possible. No ex-wives or Sue Sylvester or obligations. Just him and the canvas over his head and the breeze.
Emma’s about three feet away, her eyes open just as wide. Her body is flat and rigid and cold, her small chest bobbing up and down in quick breaths. She’s using this technique she once got taught where you imagine the things you love, the things that make you feel comfortable, to distract yourself from whatever you need distracting from. (Right now, it’s just all location, location, location.)
Scouring sponges. The smell of bleach. The plastic you peel off of a new soap. Club soda taking off of a stain. Pencils arranged in height order, and pens from most ink to less ink.
He hears her move from across the tent, figures she’s just rolling over and bringing her knees to her chest like he’s noticed she does when she finally drifts off. He thinks about her hair spread against the pillow, her nose wrinkling in a dream, the tiny movements she makes with her mouth that look like talking.
The sound of her moving is closer now, and he realises what she’s doing exactly as she does it. He turns on his side and lets her press her back against his chest, curling her legs up slightly as he fits behind perfectly. She sighs shakily, her lips trembling over the noise. There are layers of sleeping bag between the two of them but she can still feel how warm he is, how careful and wonderful he is. She bows her head over slightly, almost in relief, exposing the nape of her neck a little. She feels his breath against her skin now, the soft, regular draughts reminding her that he’s right there and he’s not going and he’s not pushing. That maybe some things are okay.
She reaches back over herself and over him and finds his hand. He laces his fingers between hers.
This moment right here is one that he’d like to keep for as long as possible.
And I'll learn to get by, with little victories or Day Four
Chapter: (3/4) Lost and insecure, you found me or Day Three
Fandom: Glee
Characters/Pairings: ensemble, pairings include [deep breath]: Puck/Quinn, Finn/Rachel, Tina/Artie, Brittany/Santana, Will/Emma, Mercedes/Matt (squint and you'll see Will/Rachel, Finn/Brittany, Puck/Rachel, and canon-references to Finn/Quinn, Matt/Santana, Puck/Santana, Will/Terri, one-sided Kurt/Finn etcetera.)
Genre: angst/romance/friendship/campfire fun
Rating: PG-13
Warnings/Spoilers: If you're up-to-date with Glee, you're golden.
Word Count: 9100, approx.
Summary: Bags are shrugged onto shoulders, faces dropped as they realise that no, Mr Schue really wasn’t joking when he said the words team-building weekend.
In which Sectionals leaves Glee Club broken, and looking to be fixed.
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libellous, defamatory, or in any way factual. All song-lyrics mentioned belong to their respective owners, not to me.
Author’s Note: written for the wonderful _takemeaway_ who bought me for help_haiti, and only abused her power a little, but then it turned out I kind of liked it, so there we go. Beta’d by the splendid waltzmatidah and yesssirrr, who I am fairly indebted to.
I suggest you read the first part, you know, first: I love the rain the most, when it stops or Day One-- And then the second, I am damaged at best, like you've already figured out or Day Two just so you have a clue about what’s going on.
Please, read and review, but be gentle. I bruise like bad fruit.
Lost and insecure, you found me
Or Day Three
(On Day Three, time becomes important. There just isn’t enough.)
---
“Rachel…” Mercedes groans into her pillow. “If you wake me up with that damn vanilla song from Singin’ In The Rain again, I will end you.”
“What--” Kurt murmurs, voice thick with sleep. His face looks paler than usual, apparently his blusher isn’t pillow-proof. Rachel stares at him for a little while, trying to figure out how he managed to get into their tent without her realising. “What’s happening?” He blinks too much, adjusting to the light, and his hair’s fluffy without gel. He looks almost human in this state.
His pyjamas are probably more fashionable than her day clothes. Scratch that, definitely.
Rachel clears her throat. “I wasn’t going to sing.”
“What’s happening?” Kurt repeats, a little clearer now.
“I just…” She brings her knees to her chin, “I just wanted to talk to you. Both of you, I guess”
Mercedes rolls over, her face half-buried in the pillow. “At six in the morning?”
“I haven’t slept.”
Merecedes thinks about it for a second, about how easy it might be to roll back over and pretend she isn’t the least bit curious about what was so important that Rachel actually went without her eight hours. Her pillow is just soft and cool enough to still be inviting and she’s finally managed to find a comfortable spot. But the thing is, Mercedes is nicer than she makes out to be. “So talk, Rach.”
“I’ve been trying to word this so that I won’t offend anyone. I know everyone hates me. I don’t…” She sighs, her lungs well-practised at taking deep breaths. “I know that I don’t think before I speak a lot of the time, but you guys are always waiting for me to make a mistake so you can jump all over it.”
“Yeah, well--” Mercedes purses her lips. “It’s not like you’ve never given us a reason to.”
“I know…” Her voice trails off. “And I’m not blaming anyone, but I don’t know how things are going to work with glee if we can’t get over our differences and just learn to accept-- accept the things about each other that aren’t going to change. I’m always going to put my foot in my mouth, Kurt’s always going to be sarcastic, Quinn’s always going to be the person who lied about her baby-- but we’re also always going to have glee.” She nods once. “I just want you guys to… accept me.”
Mercedes sucks her cheeks in. “How many times did you practise that?”
“That version? Thirty-one.”
Kurt shrugs, “It’s good.”
“It is?”
“Yeah,” Mercedes smiles. “It’s good, Rach.”
---
Santana sleeps curled against Mike’s rucksack. She wakes up about half an hour before him and moves back to where she started: dead-bang in the middle of the tent. Puck could not be pushed against the zip anymore if he tried and he’ll wake up with ‘Made in China’ stamped somewhere on him.
(He fell asleep to Quinn again, no cheerleading routine, just her hazel eyes sparkling against the fire and the cool trickle of tears down her cheeks.)
“I need to sleep in your tent tonight.” Santana murmurs, moving the dirt with the toe of her shoe.
Mike eyes her dubiously. “Why?”
She sighs. “Because… I do. And you two should be thanking me. Glee Club and no dating means your reputation as studs is long gone.” Really, this is just something to get her foot in the door, like flashing a bouncer when your fake ID doesn’t work (someone misprinted and apparently you’re forty).
Punk grunts. “Fine.”
She wraps the drawstring of her bag around her hands a few times, slumps past them. Doesn’t attempt anything with either of them, or even think about it.
Puck’s voice is gruff, unpractised at this early hour, “Santana, is that you awake?”
She waits a second before replying. “…Yeah.”
“Hey…” If she wasn’t listening to Puck, she’d swear he sounded small. “Is my reputation really gone?”
He lies his hands flat on his stomach, clenches them as she whispers, “With most people, yeah. Now you’re just a sexually-confused douche who expresses himself.”
“And what about…” He clears his throat, “other people?”
“You’re the guy who sexts when you’re meant to be a dad.”
“Yeah.”
---
And because most people would be curious, the showers work like this.
At 06:17 of the second day, Emma presses her back to the cabin and listens to the sound of people inside, there are two. They sing into the showerhead, she clutches her wash-bag (which is at least six times bigger than the average wash-bag and may or may not include heavy duty scouring sponges and bleach and vast quantities of both).
At 6:38, the woman coming out shrieks and places a hand on her chest to catch her breath, Emma apologises and asks her if there’s anyone else in there. She replies, deadpan, yes. Emma says okay, she waits five seconds, asks will she be out soon. Yes. Met by a breathy reply along the lines of ‘great, great, would it be okay if I went into your time-- I need to clean.’. The woman pauses, glances down at this stranger’s white knuckles around her bag’s handle and says ‘no problem, it’s just the two of us anyway’.
At 6:53, the other woman comes out and they leave together. Emma says goodbye to the first woman (Harriet, just in case you wondered) who she now knows takes a camping trip up here at least three times a year with her wife-in-everything-but-paper because they like the sights and the time alone. She has sparkly eyes even in the morning light and informs Emma that the cold doesn’t matter when you have someone next to you. She tells her that they take the early shower slot because they hike in the day and sometimes into the night. She raises her hand and says ‘I guess I’ll see you tomorrow’ with a smirk and a second glance to Emma’s bag.
Until 7:21, Emma scrubs so hard the tile comes off in flecks on her sponge. It’s not even that dirty, she thinks, her knees pressed into the floor. She doesn’t know why she has to do this, she hates that she does. Her hands red-raw, she continues, they sting under the running water when she actually gets to her shower. Her small cubicle gleams back at her. She’s never felt so trapped, a perfect square of everything wrong with her life. She peels off her clothes (the protective wear she had on while she cleaned, the regular ones underneath), and turns on the shower, the steam billows out from under the door, the water swirls down the plug, everything works fine. Her time is limited, so her routine takes on the precision (potentially more) of a military operation. Limb by limb, inch of skin by inch of skin. The watch she propped up on the soap dish beeps 7:30 at her. Her time is up. She switches it off. She dries methodically, layers up her clothes.
Tina and Quinn are the first to come in. They shuffle in silence, they leave a courtesy cubicle between them.
By the time the rest of the girls are in, she’s just combing through her hair, flicking the bangs up like she always does. Her skin is still blotchy from the (too) hot shower but it calms down when she goes outside. She’s back at camp by 7:45, Will kisses her cheek on the way and tells her that he can’t believe she got ready in fifteen minutes.
And the rest of it goes like this:
There is a simultaneous shared sigh of relief between the girls (and Kurt) when they discover that for a quarter, they get five minutes of blow drying. There’s a glorious clank of metal as they all empty their purses.
There is a similar reaction when the boys discover that there are cubicles, but they’re always easier to please.
In terms of stats, Santana takes the longest, Finn the shortest. Artie sticks out as the anomaly when he comes somewhere in the middle and everyone feels bad for assuming he wouldn’t.
No one makes a ‘dropping the soap’ joke. Kurt appreciates this. There are no Carrie moments. No throwing tampons.
Puck, Mike and Matt run in on their way back to camp and shout random words (including, but not limited to: “boobs!”) and run, laughing at the way the girls scream ‘GET OUT’. They didn’t see anything. But they tell the girls they did.
And it happens exactly like that for all three days.
---
Mike and Matt dawdle leisurely back to the campsite, their faces gleaming from the hot shower.
Matt runs his tongue over his teeth in thought. “…I’m gonna go with a sawed-off shotgun. Yeah. Zombie apocalypse. Shotgun.”
“Where are you gonna get a shotgun in the woods?”
“No, we’re in the mall.”
Mike stops walking. “When did we get to the mall?”
“Dude, it’s zombies. We have to get to a mall.”
“I guess,” Mike shrugs, continuing down the path.
“Either way, man,” he grins, arm poised for a high five. “I’m getting a chainsaw arm!”
---
Finn helps Artie roll over to the communal area, like he once did off of a football field. Both boys are still damp from where they pulled on their clothes without drying properly after their shower, and the cool morning air feels colder than it actually is. Artie’s wheels crunch over twigs and stones, until he’s wheeled to the sandier, paler ground and he can manage it himself.
“Thanks, Finn.”
“It’s no problem.”
Finn taps his hands on Artie’s handles once and then steps to the side, they walk the rest side-by-side.
“How’re you feeling today?” Artie mutters, adjusting his glasses.
“Uh, better-- better, I think. Things are still a little… confusing.”
“Sure.”
“But better.” Finn nods too much, too quickly. He sits down on a bench, his knees practically reaching his chin without even trying.
Mr. Schue is cooking something over the campfire. There’s a splutter as (what turns out to be) oatmeal bubbles away quietly. The place slowly fills with everybody. It’s quiet, but not uncomfortable. No one’s waiting for anyone to explode or a punch to get thrown or a new secret to come out. Everyone’s just tired and missing their beds and trying to remember what they used to love about the others.
“Breakfast,” Mr. Schue announces. “Everyone grab a bowl. Oh, and uh, Ms. Pillsbury‘s gonna figure out something for us to do while we eat.”
---
Puck clears his throat. “You speak to him yet?”
The pronoun in that question could be filled in by anyone who’s looking at Rachel, by anyone who cares enough to follow her eyeline all the way through the other people to Finn’s face.
“I’m giving him his space,” she says, lips pouting.
“You think he needs it?”
“The situation is complicated, Noah. You wouldn’t understand.”
“I don’t know complicated?”
“Oh…” she ignores his glare, she’s good at that, “Finn and I haven’t exactly spoken about what this means for our relationship.” and then this breath that belongs in Merchant Ivory films gets let out (all wistful, subtle- her hand should be pressed against the window of an old English house, a faint drizzle misting her reflection; don‘t ask him how he knows about this kind of thing. Blame his mother.). “He tells me I have nice pyjamas and then he doesn’t talk, and then he defends my honour and then he yells at me, and then he kisses me and now he’s just… not talking to me. I swear, guys have some sort of pre-menstrual tension that they don’t ever talk about.”
He bends down to tie his shoelace, “I don’t really know how to do chick-talk, Rachel. Maybe Kurt can help you out.”
“Things are weird between us when it comes to Finn.”
“Isn’t that what this whole weekend’s about?” He stands back up, “It was your e-mail.”
“I’m really starting to hate that thing,” she mutters under her breath.
Puck smiles, placing his hand on her shoulder, “Just go do it, Rach. For everyone’s sake.”
---
Emma’s clipboard has by this point become another appendage, like arms and legs, she’d look weird without it. Her hands gripped tight to the sides, fumbling at the corners, smoothing down things that are already smooth. The pen is on a piece of string that she lifts at regular intervals, lets it hover a few millimetres from the page, doesn’t make a mark and then clips it back to the top. She nibbles on the cereal bar she brought with her as she stares over the long list of activities that she downloaded from some internet sites that specialized in ‘good, clean fun’.
“I guess, maybe we could do the banana pass?”
(And if any words are going to make twelve teenagers look up from their cereal and toast crusts simultaneously, that combination is probably in the top ten.)
Matt grins. “It sounds dirty.”
Artie adjusts his glasses, one finger to the bridge of his nose. “It sounds like some kind of hazing ritual.”
Emma shakes her head, “It’s--”
Puck smirks. “Maybe Kurt can tell us?”
Kurt twists his lips into a flat smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, “Your wit never ceases to amaze me. I hope you find good use for it when you’re cleaning the side of the road.”
Ms. Pillsbury makes a hard horizontal line through the two words with her black pen.
“Maybe not the banana pass.”
---
Rachel dips her spoon into her bowl, and takes a small mouthful, her teeth gently clanging against the metal while Finn chews and gulps next to her. She grins as she considers that maybe this is what it’s like to be married to him, breakfast in bed, and comfortable silences.
“You know, you were right.”
Her voice catches in her throat briefly. “I was?”
“Oatmeal’s pretty good.”
She smiles. “Sometimes it just takes a little getting used to.”
“Yeah, exactly.” He swallows. “Like, when I first tried it, it kinda reminded me of wallpaper paste and I threw half of it away and made bacon and eggs. But then you said it gives you energy and I was coming off of Vitamin D and now I kinda like it.”
“I’m glad, Finn.” She picks up her bowl and takes another spoonful. “It’s filled with all these starches
and natural sugars.” She takes another mouthful. “It’s good for you.” I could be good for you. “Better than all that junk food you cram in.”
“Yeah, my mom says that stuff rots your insides anyway. And you know, I’m kind of off Slushies since having to clean them out of my pants. Anything bright blue actually.”
She smiles into her bowl, scraping her spoon along the sides. The last mouthful goes in for both of them.
---
Everyone gathers around, cutlery clinking as they drift as far as away from each other as possible to something resembling a group. Maybe they all came together, maybe they used to be friends.
The rules are:
1) Everyone gets a pen, everyone gets strips of paper. (Some people use more than others.)
2) Everyone writes down things that they have done- wrong or right, good or bad- what they can do, what they can’t. (There are a lot of ‘wrong’s, ‘bad’s, ‘can’t’s.)
3) There’s this hat that always seems to appear out of nowhere for the purpose of games like these, and everyone’s gets put into it. (It’s Kurt’s. It’s a fedora. It matches his shoes. Huh.)
4) Everyone takes it in turns to take one out and read it. (There’s stuttering and hesitating, and everyone braces themselves in case its theirs.)
5) If you’ve done it, if it means something to you, if you’re the same, if it’s yours, you put your hand up. (No one talks.)
Quinn passes up toast for the second morning in a row, and nearly barfs when the oatmeal’s presented to her, but she does take three scraps of paper and hold them precariously in her long fingers, running them past her thumb so that it makes a whispering kind of scrape against the skin. She mentally lists all the sins she’d tell anyone who’d listen- she thinks of a God that would turn away from her in disgust, a priest who would roll his eyes, a daughter who’d lock herself in her room.
Rachel comes close with a ballpoint in her hand and a can-do attitude Quinn thinks she can smell from there.
“Here’s a pen, Quinn.”
Something surges in her, a white hot anger that bubbles in her stomach. “Aren’t you sick of always being where you’re not wanted?” And then it’s gone.
Rachel just sucks in her lips momentarily. “It’s got a rubber grip. In case you’re fingers are swollen.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s okay.”
The two girls scrawl in meditated silence.
---
“So I would say--” Ms. Pillsbury holds up one, “I would say, “My hair never looks how I want it to”-- Oh, that’s not really-- but I guess… So if you agree with that one, you just--” A whole bunch of hands shoot up in the air. “Well, there we go. Maybe that person, whoever they are, felt alone, like they were the only one with… hair issues. Now they know they’re not.” She rolls it up into a tiny ball. “Next person?”
Artie’s first. “Erm… So this one says, “I’m scared I’ll never get to where I want to go”, uh, me too.” He sticks up his hand, it’s greeted by eight others.
“I never feel good enough.”
Nine hands.
“I can pop and lock.”
One hand.
“I keep making the same mistakes.”
Seven hands.
“I cheated on a Spanish quiz. Sorry, Mr Shue. and there’s this, like, smiley face.”
Three hands.
“I lied. A lot.”
Twelve hands.
“I listen to Britney Spears, and not in an ironic way.”
Four (reluctant) hands.
“Right now, I don’t recognise myself.”
Eight.
“I never found out where that bird went.”
No hands. Then one hand.
“I’m sorry.”
Twelve.
---
“Rachel,” Mercedes says, pulling a strand of hair from her lip gloss. “I was thinking of going for a walk, you wanna come?”
“Sure, and maybe we could take a look at your--” Mercedes face falls slowly. Rachel adjusts quickly, “I mean, that’d be nice.”
“Great, I’m just gonna grab a jacket. Five minutes, okay?”
“Okay.”
The greatest stars always respond to their audience.
---
You could time your watch to Quinn’s morning sickness. Which, so far, appears to be less of a morning thing and more of an ‘on the hour, every hour’ thing- but she manages to schedule the worst of it (the worst of it is an hour straight) around 11.30.
11.37, if you look, which he did.
Puck shoves his hands in his pockets and waits for Tina to eventually leave, she walks a little ahead; Quinn collects her shoes from the ground, her polka-dot socks peeking through the grass. She’s kind of messy, but she still looks like one of those shampoo commercials- with waterfalls and inappropriate ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ for daytime TV.
He shoves his hands deep into his pockets. “You alright?”
“Oh, uh, yeah. I’m fine.”
“You were puking pretty hard.”
“You heard?”
“Everyone kind of heard.”
She rolls her eyes. “Great.”
“Anyway, so I thought you might--” He holds out this (he now thinks kind of pathetic) packet of crackers, the wrapper glinting in the sunlight. “I thought you might be hungry. I’m always starving when I ralph like that.”
“Uh…”
“I took them from Schue’s bag. I know you don’t want me around, but--”
She eyes him for a second, for any sign that isn’t exactly what he says it is.
“Thank you.” Her fingers graze against his when she takes them, because small felonies is pretty much Noah Puckerman’s version of a balcony scene, and she kind of likes feeling like a Juliet even with this massive stomach and the glow of sweat across her face. So what if her Romeo has a Mohawk. She breaks off half, and crunches down; she hasn’t eaten properly for a while and it wouldn’t matter if she had, it’s all just going to come back up anyway.
“You want some more?” He reaches into his back-pocket and takes out a handful, the same crinkle of plastic. She reaches out and takes them, nodding through two filled cheeks and crumbs on her blouse. It’s white, with this flower stitching, and less about hiding her stomach than the rest of her clothes.
“Oh my God…” She sighs, takes more sips of water. “Thank you.”
“No problem.” Then there’s this silence. This gap between them that’s filled with a baby bump they’re both responsible for. In Quinn’s mind, it takes up too much space. In Puck’s, not enough. She instinctively rests her hand on it now, he’s noticed. Before she didn’t- she just kept her fists clenched or her fingers busy because she didn’t want to do exactly that. No mothering instinct, no mother.
“You okay?” he says finally.
“Yeah, just… embarrassed. Humiliated.” She looks up at him, “Stupid.”
“You’re like the smartest person I know.”
“Geniuses don’t get knocked up.”
He puts his hands in his pockets again and shrugs. “Only ’cause most of the time, they’re too ugly to get someone to do it with them in the first place.” When she smiles, it lights up her whole face like it used to.
“I just wanted to say I’m sorry about yesterday… again.” Her voice is tentative. “I’m pretty much blaming most of my conversations on hormones lately anyway.” He shrugs, he’s not exactly sure what the better response would be but he thinks there is one. The air stays thick with unsaid things between them. She takes a step backwards, and then he knows there’s one. “Okay, so I’ll… see you around. Thanks--” She gestures to her empty wrapper. “For this.” For everything.
She turns her head and he makes out the faint blush on her cheek quick enough to catch her elbow and whisper close, “I…” He keeps his eyes settled on her arm, on where his hand is resting. “…didn’t sleep with Mrs. Goldfarb. I just-- I cleaned her pool. That was it.” He’s near enough to hear her breath catch in her throat. He laughs quietly, because this just feels like the weirdest situation to be in with your pregnant ex-best friend’s ex-girlfriend. “So you can tell your hormones… that.”
She doesn’t breathe again until she’s back in her tent. That can’t be good for the baby.
---
Artie wheels up to Kurt- legs crossed at a comfortable angle, shoes knowingly displayed- who’s looking seriously into the middle distance.
“So you gave your opinion on one of my problems, maybe I can help you out with one of yours.”
Kurt half-smiles delicately. “Sorry, Artie. But my problems can’t be fixed with a cheery attitude and an episode of Oprah.”
“Come on, Kurt.”
He clenches his jaw and shakes his head. His eyes glisten as he thinks about telling Artie how much it sucks being the someone that the person you love will never love back. How a gender shouldn’t mean that much, but it ends up meaning everything. And how some little fake stutter is a pretty easy thing to get over in the grand scheme of things.
He sighs, blowing up into his fringe, which stays pretty much in the exact same spot. “Why do you wear suspenders and a belt?”
Artie’s eyes slowly trace down his own body, like maybe the answer to this out-of-left-field question is written somewhere on him. “I don’t know. I just always have.” He adjusts his glasses. “I think I thought I wouldn’t get pantsed as much if I did.”
“It’s a good plan. Does it work?”
“Not… entirely.”
---
Everyone’s finishing their lunch (check the clock, see 12:23pm) when Ms. Pillsbury finally comes up with something else to do.
“Trust walk.”
Great. Everyone lines up.
“We did this at Cheer Camp,” Brittany announces cheerfully. She briefly looks up at Santana who’s looking at her shoes with a fierce determination she reserves for competitions and when she’s trying to get a guy.
Kurt looks up, “You know, I always wanted to go to one of those.”
Ms. Pillsbury’s reasoning is essentially that everyone’s got their issues out in the open, that everyone knows exactly how they’ve been wronged and how they’ve wronged others, and everyone is dealing with the simple fact that these things are unchangeable. The next part, she murmurs breathily, is about living with that. “So you’ll be in pairs… Uh--We’ll choose.” And then there’s the obligatory exchange of glances as everyone tries to guess who they’re going to be paired with, and then there’s the way they’re not listening anymore. And Emma just carries on.
Five minutes later, Rachel’s shaking her head. “I appreciate the exercise but I really don’t want to be responsible for Quinn and her unborn child.”
“It’ll be fine,” Quinn whispers, taking the blindfold off of Ms. Pillsbury. “I can still walk.”
“I’d like to sign some form of contract legally absolving me from blame in case you trip and land on your stomach--”
“I’m not defective, Rachel. I’m not going to fall.”
She doesn’t; neither does Rachel when it’s her turn.
---
And then it’s Artie’s turn.
“Now go right--”
“Okay…” Tina takes a few tentative steps to the side, murmuring “Oh, my God…” under her breath.
“You’re fine, you’re nowhere near anything.”
She lets out a shaky breath. “Okay--”
“So now you gotta step up onto the bench and walk along it.”
“I’ve-- what?!”
“You just… Lift your left leg and feel for the bench.” She does. “Now your foot’s on it fine, you just have to step up and put your other one on it.” He laughs, “I’ve never had to tell anyone how to walk before.”
She smiles, he can’t see her eyes but he knows they’re open and wide, she bites down on her lip. “Okay--” she steps up, there’s a small resounding clap from the group a few feet away. “Yeah, let’s see you try and get your chair up here.”
Her footsteps are small and nimble, and it may be the slowest journey in the history of the ‘trust walk’ but she makes it across with no major damage points, she just shuffles. “You’re at the end now, just jump off.” She lifts her leg off, shakes a little, and feels his hand clasp around hers; he’s warm through his gloves, his fingertips brush against her palm. She jumps, lands. He lets go as quickly as he grabbed hold.
Ms. Pillsbury raises a pale finger to her lips when Rachel goes to remind them of the rules ‘no touching’.
“Now just walk forward a few steps.” She steps into a circle of Mr. Schuester’s old jacket and Matt’s faded jeans. “We’re done.” Her lips part to say something, get cut off by: “You can take the blindfold off now, Tina.”
She clutches the blindfold, pulling it down and around her neck before untying it. “Thanks.”
---
Arms folded, “I’m not doing this with him.”
“Come on, Finn.”
“No, he’s the last person I’d trust.”
“That’s the whole point, dumbass.” Puck stands up, stares right back at Finn just as hard. “Let’s just get this over with.”
“No way.”
“Look, you’re gonna be blindfolded-- don’t even have to look at me.”
Finn juts his chin out slightly, lets them put the handkerchief over his eyes in silence, and Mr. Schue walks him- one hand on each shoulder, because he’s stupid enough to try and run when he can’t see and he‘s not the most co-ordinated person anyway- to the invisible ‘X’ on the ground. There’s turned over buckets and logs and coats draped into lines and Finn is expected to be led around with just Puck to guide him- no touching (no problem), just his voice. The biggest challenge with these two is going to be the holding of a conversation that consists of more than grunts (some boys’ Morse-code that no one’s deciphered yet).
“Just keep going straight-- straight-- straight. Stop. Now you have to step over one of those benches. So lift your leg, that‘s-- now you can step down. Now lift the other leg. Okay, now keep going forward.” This happens for the next three benches. “So now you gotta go around those buckets,”
He shoves his hands into his pockets. “Which way?”
“Left.”
“What?”
“Left, dude.”
“Uh…”
“Remember when you got bit by that huge rottweiler, sneaking out of Quinn’s…” Everyone grits their teeth in the background, “…house one night?”
“…Yeah.”
“That leg. That’s your left.”
“Right.”
He steps forward, around the first bucket, “Now left,” and manages to swerve himself around four buckets and over another log.
When it’s Finn’s turn to lead, he lets Puck walk right into the first bench- there’s a (tiny-bit satisfying) grunt in the air. “Dude, what the hell?”
“You slept with my girlfriend.”
He shrugs. “Yeah.” He lifts his leg up onto the bench. “Is that it now? Just not bros?”
“That’s it.” He brings his shoulders up. “Go left.”
“Actually left, or fall off the end and break my leg left?”
“…Go right.”
He sticks both his arms out to balance, he knows full-well that Finn isn’t about to hold his hand. “You know, I know I was a crappy friend.”
“Even crappy friends don’t sleep with their best friend’s girlfriend.”
“Okay, so I was a worse than crappy friend. But I was there.” He jumps off when he feels the end. “I’m still there.” He sounds corny, he doesn’t care.
“Keep going straight ahead.” Finn sighs, “Yeah, well, maybe I don’t want you here.”
“Doesn’t matter-- Where am I going now?”
“Just straight, there’s nothing ahead for a while- What do you mean it doesn’t matter?”
“Still bros.”
“We’re not bros-- Go right, and then straight.”
“So what-- we just ignore each other in Glee, football. You don’t talk to me, I don’t talk to you. One of us is on fire, the other one doesn’t even spit?”
“Stop. Lift your feet, you’re coming to a bucket.” Puck’s boots feel heavier, they scrape against the plastic and then over the top. “I don’t know what we do. I’m just working on not punching you in the face every time I see you.”
“Thanks.”
“Another bucket.” The silence stretches out between the two of them. “You like her?” Finn eventually mutters.
“Of course, man, you know that.”
“I do?”
“Hey, I liked her before you.”
“You did?”
“…Yep.” The last letter pops between his lips.
“Left. Left. Left. Over the next bucket. Why didn’t you do something about it then?”
“Because-- Because then you liked her and there’s that whole bro’s over hoes thing.” He smirks, “And besides, I thought it’d be best if I waited until we were both drunk and then knocked her up.”
“Not funny, Puck.”
Puck stands still for a moment. “First part’s true though.”
Finn chews on his lip for a while, running his tongue over them. “Right-- Right-- No wait, left. The one with the bite.” He glances over at Quinn, her stomach filling her palm. “You scared of being a dad?”
“Hell yeah, I am.” Puck smiles, a strip of white underneath the blindfold. “You know, I’m more scared of Quinn letting me become my dad.” Finn clears his throat. “Whatever-- we don‘t have to talk about this, Finn. Just get me around the buckets, we can go back to not talking.”
“When I found out about Quinn, I nearly had a heart attack.” He shifts his gaze to anywhere but her stomach. “But you were… you were a really great friend. And-- Were you just doing that to get, you know, close to her?”
“Truth?”
“…Yeah. Truth.”
“I wanted to show her I could be a good dad. And then- when I knew she wasn’t going to choose me- I just wanted you to be a good dad. I screwed things up, man.”
And suddenly Puck is a totally different person to him.
“We’re at the end.”
“What?”
“Of the… trust walk.”
“Oh, right.” He takes off his blindfold, balls it up in his hands. “So we’re done?”
“I don’t know.”
“Sure.” He holds out his hand. “I’m still your bro. Whether you’re mine or not.”
Finn nods, a silent “I’m thinking about it, okay?” that Puck gets because that’s the kind of thing you hear when you’ve been friends since pre-school. They both start walking back towards the crowd, the distance already setting in as their steps get further and further apart. Puck stands awkwardly behind Quinn and then takes a step back because the smell of her drives him crazy and he’s working on that not happening so much.
Will smiles at Emma. “This wasn’t such a bad idea.”
---
Santana Lopez sits down next to Quinn Fabray (full names because this is high school and things like that matter) and asks her when they’ll know if they made the team. Quinn tells her she doesn’t know. They stay looking forward. They both twitch their heads at the same time, Sue walks past and wordlessly pins up the notice. They rise to their feet immediately, she raises a finger (no, not that one), “Wait. Girls, I want you to take in this moment. You are walking the fine line between an international cheerleading career and the realisation that your co-ordination is borderline retarded. Whoever makes it, gym in five minutes.”
Santana slides in front of Quinn. “I want you to know, if I make it and you don’t, I’ll think of you.”
“Thanks but,” she points. “Made it. I’ll think of you.”
Eyebrow raised, “No need. Made it too.”
The girls smile briefly at each other. Brittany makes this squeal between the two of them, “I’m in!” She kicks her leg in the air, holds it in place, apologises to the girl in front for hitting her, smiles some more.
---
Santana sits down next to Quinn again (first names only this time, because they’re way past high school). “You know I don’t really care about Puck, right?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s not about that.”
Quinn wrinkles her nose slightly. “Don’t… start quoting sections of ‘The Girl Code’ or something.”
She smiles. “I’m not even that angry at you.” When Quinn looks vaguely in her direction, she just shrugs. “It was just more fun being pissed. I liked being Queen Bee for a little while, I don’t care what that says about me.”
The corners of Quinn’s mouth curl up slightly, she nods to the side of Santana’s face. “I’m still sorry.”
“Yeah, me too.” She pulls her hair out of the ponytail she put in especially for this conversation. “How many apologies is that?”
“I think you’re like… fourth.”
She braces her hands on the bench to stand up, “I’d better let you get back to them.”
“Hey, where’s Britt? Isn’t she normally stuck to your hip or something?”
Santana’s face falls. The bite back in her tone, “We do just fine without each other.”
“Of course you do,” she replies bluntly.
“We’re just, you know…” She shrugs too many times, “…friends.”
Quinn doesn’t mention how young and wide-eyed she looks, how small, how strange it is to see her like this. Instead she watches Santana fidget for a little while until she stands up, brushing the creases out of her skirt. “You know, when you pop that thing out, you’re probably gonna have to poop in front of a load of strangers.”
“Yeah.”
Santana grins. “See ya.”
They’ll be fine.
---
Mike decides that dinnertime is the appropriate moment to showcase this new double back flip he’s been working on. It’s impressive the first time, even more the second, and the third involves flicking a pan of (thankfully, still cold) spaghetti hoops over Mr. Schuester, Santana and Mercedes. The girls scream, everyone laughs, Mike gets a handful chucked at him.
Puck runs a finger over Santana’s forehead and licks it. “You taste better than I remember, Lopez.”
“Shut up.” She glares at him from the sauce slowly dripping down her forehead, a faint hint of a smile twitching around her mouth that she fights back.
“I am so sorry!” Mike laughs.
She glides her palm over her hair. “Yeah, you will be.”
She runs towards him, devious grin spreading across her face. He backs away, gradually speeding up, his hands locked in a defensive gesture, palms facing her. She tackles him to the ground, laughing as she wipes it over his mouth and across his cheeks. “How’s that taste?!”
Kurt holds out his hand, “Five on the Latina.”
Matt slaps down on it, “I’m in.”
Tina smiles, raising her hand to join. “Someone has to stick up for Other Asian.”
---
Finn shuffles quietly. The bench is digging into his back and his underwear’s halfway up his butt but he likes being this close to Rachel, her shins just a few inches from his cheek so if he turned he’d bump his nose on them. Her skin smells like suntan lotion (“because strong roles for older females are hard to come by without unnecessary skin damage”) even though it’s night time and it shimmers like she’s wearing this body glitter his mom used to wear when she would go out.
“I like the way your boots match your skirt.” His mouth pulls into a little half-smile. “Purple.”
“I don’t think I can do this anymore,” she blurts out, answering a question she asked herself.
“Huh?”
“I mean,” her eyebrows arch up. “I don’t think I can do… this anymore.”
His expression is blank. “What are you--”
“I have made my feelings for you perfectly clear, and--”
Finally getting it, he screws up his face. “I know, I--”
“And in the past I have done some… questionable things just to get your attention, to make you like me back. But I won’t be your punching bag. You can’t treat me nicely and then treat me like crap or just completely ignore me in the same day. It’s not fair.” She gets up, and now her legs mean something entirely different. “I think it‘d be best if I got over you, Finn.”
“Rachel, please.”
She’s wiping her cheeks and turning away from him, mumbling “I have to go” into her hands.
“Wait,” falls on ears that aren’t listening, and a back that’s really trying to stay turned. He sighs, watching her purple skirt quiver around her legs and get further and further away.
Brittany’s singing to her shoes a few feet away, feeling the damp come through her skirt and doing nothing to change that fact.
“I guess you didn’t see that either, Britt?”
Her voice comes out still in song, breaking the last word into two syllables. “She’s ri-ight.”
“I know she’s right, I just… I don’t even know anymore.” He rubs his hands over his face, pushing his palms into his eyes briefly. He doesn’t look at her even though he knows he could see up her skirt if he tilted his head a certain way. “I don’t wanna talk about it.”
She nods, tapping out some inconsistent beat on the backs of her thighs.
“Hey, I always wondered,” he starts to say. She looks up at him, curious. “How are you such a good dancer when you can’t tell your left from right?”
She holds out her thumb and forefinger on each hand, her eyes big and smile wide between the two L’s she’s made.
“Santana taught me.”
---
“Miss Pillsbury asked me to bring you this,” Rachel holds out a towel. “I think she felt she couldn’t handle the mess.”
Mr. Schue lets out a quiet laugh. “She’s doing better than I thought she would,” he says sincerely. “Honestly, I thought she was gonna turn around and run in the parking lot.”
“But she didn’t.”
“No,” he smiles. “She didn’t.” He wipes across his forehead- an orange streak appearing across the white towel. He chuckles softly, “But I can see why she wouldn’t want to deal with this.” He glances up at her straight face, tears lingering in her eyes, her lips pressed together. Knowing the answer already, he asks, “You okay, Rachel?”
She shakes her head. “Not exactly.”
“You want to talk about it?” She sighs. “Life at the top lonely?”
She smiles sadly, sucking in her lips. “Sometimes I think my crush on you was less complicated.” He lets that one go. “Things with Finn have just got too much…” She glances up at Mr. Schue, his brown eyes sympathetic. She props up her chin slightly. “I decided to end it.”
“Yeah?”
She nods, fresh tears falling down her face. “I just think he needs some time.”
“And you?”
“I need someone who’ll want me back.”
He nods to his knees. “Sure.”
“Do you think I’ve made a mistake, Mr. Schue? Just… Giving up.”
“I can’t tell you what’s wrong or right, Rachel. Or what decision to make.”
“Aren’t you meant to teach me, sir?” She says, half-joking.
He just shakes his head, “For what it’s worth, I think you’re really brave.”
She wrinkles her nose. “I’m running away.”
“You’re protecting yourself.” He sighs. She turns to face him, her worried expression still well set. “I don’t know if you and Finn are done. Maybe you’ll make up, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’re soul mates, and in ten years time we’ll see you with four kids, or maybe he’s just a high school crush that you’ll be telling your husband about. But right now? Right now, you’re doing what’s best for you.” She smiles. “It’s very mature, Rachel.”
She wipes her face, pressing her fingers over her cheeks and swiping the tears. “I’ve already decided that two’s my limit, sir. Maybe three if I decide to adopt like Madonna.” She smiles, “But thank you.”
He gently places a hand on her shoulder and squeezes once. “It’s no problem.”
---
“You know,” Matt leans over, his voice straining slightly, “I never noticed how appetising you are.”
Mercedes’ mouth drops open slightly, “Excuse me?” He smiles and pulls the pasta out of her hair, flicking it away onto the grass. “Oh, right,” she laughs nervously. “I gotcha.”
“You look pretty… All noodled up.”
“Uh, thanks.”
He grins. “No problem.”
---
Tina watches Artie and Kurt make their way back to their tent, their shadows following a few seconds behind.
“I’m… So sorry,” she whispers into the dark. “I’m really sorry.”
The more she says it, the less it gets caught in her throat.
---
Santana and Brittany are sleeping in separate cabins at Cheer Camp.
The door creaks one night and Santana’s roommate rolls over, she makes out the silhouette and says “Your dumb friend’s here.”
Santana jams her heel up into the bunk above. “Hey, World’s-Fattest. Shut up.”
Brittany whispers something about not liking the girls in her room and how Quinn’s cabin is too far away and it all doesn’t really matter because she’s sliding into bed with Santana before she can tell her to go away. She kicks off her shoes and pulls them under the covers.
“Britt, your feet are freezing!” Brittany smiles and pushes them onto the back of Santana’s thighs. “Hey!” She slaps them away, laughing. “Okay, okay. You can stay. Just-- Stop doing that.”
“Thank you,” Brittany sighs against her neck, her eyes fluttering shut.
“Hey, Britt?” she whispers to the wall.
“Yeah?”
Santana turns on the wafer-thin mattress to look at her, Brittany’s eyes are shut, one cheek squashed against the pillow. Her breath is warm on Santana’s tanned shoulder. “Britt?”
Her eyes shoot open. “Hm?”
“I was thinking…” Santana bites her lip. “While you’re here.” Brittany rolls her eyes. “Come on, it’s been like a week or something! All the guy cheerleaders are gay here anyway. You’re my last hope.”
Brittany sucks in her cheeks. “That doesn’t sound so sexy.” Santana moves a little closer. “We have early practice tomorrow.”
“Quick?” she says, just a few inches from Brittany’s face.
“What about her?” Brittany’s finger jabs up through the quilt to point at the girl above.
“She’s asleep.”
“I’m tired,” she groans, and she knows her tone is wavering. Santana smoothes a hand between Brittany’s legs- the blonde’s breath catches in her throat. She leans in and parts her mouth right at Santana’s collarbone. “If I get in trouble tomorrow, it’s your fault.”
“Fine.”
Santana convinces herself that all she needs is a pair of hands, and lips as a bonus. That who they belong to isn’t important. And this lie works until it doesn’t.
---
Quinn’s propped her head on her duffel bag (one she borrowed from one of Brittany’s brothers- nothing’s really ‘hers’ at the moment), the rest of her body flat to the floor, her sweatpants collecting dirt. The fire crackles, fading before her very eyes.
Puck makes the slowest journey of his life from his side of the campsite to hers, the fire warming one side of his body. She watches him cautiously, eyes following him as he gets closer and closer to her. Eventually she looks back down at her lap when he’s behind her. He sits and rocks back onto his hands, digging his heels into the ground.
She looks up briefly and sees the shadow of his long eyelashes down his cheeks. “Can’t sleep?” she throws over her shoulder. He shakes his head. “Me neither.”
“Yeah, I noticed you out here these past two nights.”
“I just can’t seem to shut off lately.”
He clears his throat. “Well, you’ve got a lot on your mind, I guess.”
“You don’t?” she whispers.
He straightens up slightly. “I’m not exactly allowed to talk about what’s on my mind.”
“What?”
“Finn can yell all he wants, he’s the guy that got screwed over. And you-- You’ve got a baby and stretch marks and swollen ankles to bitch about and no one’s going to tell you you can’t. But, come on, the guy who knocked up his best friend’s girl?” He runs his hand over his Mohawk. “I mean-- Who the hell am I to say anything?”
“I--” Their hands brush against each other briefly and she pulls hers back in to her lap, watching his still on the ground.
He shrugs. “Whatever, you know.”
She nods, her eyebrows pulled up together and close to her hairline as she remembers that a triangle has three sides.
---
Mike shakes his head. “Nah, you can’t have it.”
Finn’s face drops, “Why not?”
“Chainsaw arm’s taken.”
Finn shrugs in the dark. “Maybe something big that I can hit them with?”
Matt looks at him, dead serious for a second, “Like what?”
“Like, I don’t know, a crowbar?”
Matt’s face returns to normal, smiling. “Nice.”
Mike nods in agreement, “Heavy.”
“Hey, what about a crossbow or something?” Finn asks, inspiration flashing across his face.
Mike shakes his head in disbelief, laughing quietly. “Where are you getting a crossbow?”
Finn looks concerned. “Aren’t we in the mall?”
“He’s right.”
---
Rachel sits bolt upright, starts winding up her torch. “What’s that?!” Mercedes groans in her sleep. “Mercedes!” She reaches over and shakes her, “Mercedes, can you hear that?”
“What… are you talking about?”
“Someone’s trying to get in. Oh my God, it’s a cougar or something-- I never even got to play Eliza Doolittle. I never got a Tony, maybe a collection of my work can be presented posthumously or--”
“Rachel, how many cougars do you know can work a zipper?”
“You think it’s a serial killer?!” She clambers onto her knees. “They’re coming in!”
A small voice cuts through the dark. “Hi…”
“It’s Brittany.”
Mercedes sits up. “What are you doing here?”
“I heard a bear.”
“What?”
Brittany looks so tiny in the dim glow from the campfire. “Santana’s staying somewhere else and-- I thought I heard something.”
“So you came outside?”
She shrugs in the soft light of Rachel’s torch, clutches her sleeping bag closer to herself. “Can I stay with you guys for the last night?”
The two exchange a glance and then move further apart to make room for her. “Sure you can, Britt,” Mercedes nods.
Rachel flattens out Brittany’s sleeping bag, Mercedes smiles and moves her pillow to make room.
“Thanks,” she mumbles, wriggling between the two of them.
“It’s okay.”
Brittany lies with her eyes wide open trying to make out the shapes of leaves that have fallen on the tent roof. “Puck’s with Quinn,” she breathes out. “Out there, by the fire.”
Mercedes voice perks up with the hint of gossip, “Yeah?”
“They’re just talking.”
Not as interesting as she wanted. “Oh.”
“Santana’s weekend didn’t get any better,” she mutters. “Not if he’s with Quinn.”
“What do you mean, Britt?”
“Nothing.” She closes her eyes. “I just think Santana’s mad at me.”
“Why would she be?” Mercedes asks.
“I don’t know.”
Rachel moves her arms over Brittany and gives her a hug, Mercedes is doing the same. “I’m sure things’ll work out, Brittany.”
The two girls fall asleep and Brittany just after. No one knows that Santana sleeps in the minibus that night.
---
Quinn sits up slowly, still facing away from him. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“With the baby?”
She nods silently. “I mean, do I keep it? Do I-- Do I give up everything my life could be?” She looks back briefly over her shoulder, locking her eyes with his. “Feed her while I’m taking pop quizzes?”
He shuffles a little closer to her while she turns away from him again. “Whatever you decide, it’s okay.”
She half-smiles, “Except it’s not, is it? No matter what happens, I hurt someone.”
“We’ve pretty much broken everything we ever touched,” he mutters, close enough now that he barely has to talk. “I don’t know how much more damage we could do anyway.”
“I’m young, and I can’t keep myself together half the time,” she whispers. “I’d be a horrible mother.”
“Hey--”
“But, all I can think about is baby names, and what kind of dresses she’d wear.” A tear trickles over her cheeks, catching the light on its journey down. “And whether she’d want to be a cheerleader.”
This time when her hand brushes over his, she keeps it there.
“Keeping her is the most selfish thing I could do,” she says, all final and stinging as it slips out of her throat.
She leans back onto his arm, resting there for a little while. She rocks her head back slightly, trying desperately to stop the tears carving out silent tracks over her cheekbones and down her neck. He leans his forehead onto her shoulder, smells her clean and tired skin, staying there until she tells him to leave.
They sit exactly like this, quiet and still, until the morning.
---
Will’s lying awake, his breathing regular and this moment right here is one that he’d like to keep for as long as possible. No ex-wives or Sue Sylvester or obligations. Just him and the canvas over his head and the breeze.
Emma’s about three feet away, her eyes open just as wide. Her body is flat and rigid and cold, her small chest bobbing up and down in quick breaths. She’s using this technique she once got taught where you imagine the things you love, the things that make you feel comfortable, to distract yourself from whatever you need distracting from. (Right now, it’s just all location, location, location.)
Scouring sponges. The smell of bleach. The plastic you peel off of a new soap. Club soda taking off of a stain. Pencils arranged in height order, and pens from most ink to less ink.
He hears her move from across the tent, figures she’s just rolling over and bringing her knees to her chest like he’s noticed she does when she finally drifts off. He thinks about her hair spread against the pillow, her nose wrinkling in a dream, the tiny movements she makes with her mouth that look like talking.
The sound of her moving is closer now, and he realises what she’s doing exactly as she does it. He turns on his side and lets her press her back against his chest, curling her legs up slightly as he fits behind perfectly. She sighs shakily, her lips trembling over the noise. There are layers of sleeping bag between the two of them but she can still feel how warm he is, how careful and wonderful he is. She bows her head over slightly, almost in relief, exposing the nape of her neck a little. She feels his breath against her skin now, the soft, regular draughts reminding her that he’s right there and he’s not going and he’s not pushing. That maybe some things are okay.
She reaches back over herself and over him and finds his hand. He laces his fingers between hers.
This moment right here is one that he’d like to keep for as long as possible.
And I'll learn to get by, with little victories or Day Four