"My realm" for TVRealm
Another entry for tvrealm that I'm not particularly proud of, but at least it's done. Same old "warring sides" story, but with Glee characters.
The feud between Lima Heights and Bontempo Heights has been one that hasn’t stopped for decades. Deeply rooted between the Fabray and Puckerman families, each side of the railroad tracks has their own definitions on life, what’s important, and how to make it in the world. A debate over whether Lima, Ohio should remain one city united across the tracks, or become two cities divided because of the tracks, led to a feud that many families didn’t see coming. A rivalry between each side ensued, and ever since, the class disparity between each side has only grown more and more.
In Bontempo Heights, the Fabray family settled. Their house sits atop a hill, acres of land surrounding their “fortress” of sorts. Now thrust into the twenty-first century, the Fabray home has the best of everything. Televisions, a pool, and everything their daughters could ask for adorned that home on the hill, and all of the surrounding families strived to remain in the Fabray family’s good graces. Across the tracks, the Puckerman family and their team of badasses defended the not-so-great reputation of Lima Heights. Filled with dropouts, druggies, and promiscuous women, they struggled to keep afloat. They lived paycheck to paycheck, whereas those in Bontempo Heights had everything handed to them.
The two sides are thrust together for schooling, and trouble follows the teens wherever they go. Most of the tension between the low class Lima Heights students and the high class Bontempo Heights students had died down over the years, but things had changed recently. When Noah Puckerman approached Quinn Fabray with honorable intentions, it caused wild uproar. Fraternizing with the other side, especially on a romantic front, was absolutely unheard of. As a result, tensions became higher than they’d ever been before, and only the worst could follow.
- [meta] words: 300
LIMA HEIGHTS
BONTEMPO HEIGHTS
It was the first day of school. Noah had half a mind to skip because school was for suckers, but he showed up anyway. Little did he know, it was going to be totally worth it. He wasn’t even expecting something exciting to happen, but it did. Their eyes met across the hallway. Segregated lockers meant fewer chances to stare, but Noah took advantage anyway. The blonde beauty had recently moved lockers, avoiding some preppy ex-boyfriend or something. Noah didn’t really care. Her eyes went wide when they caught each other staring, and Noah just smirked. Quinn didn’t know what to think, and busied herself with her books.
The rest of the day, she couldn’t get his gaze out of her head. Quinn didn’t know what it meant, and she didn’t dwell on it. Noah, on the other hand, was already scheming. It was go time for the Puckmeister, and he knew who he was aiming for next. He was always the player type, but this time it was different. Instead of squirming his way into some panties from Lima Heights, he was eyeing up a girl from Bontempo Heights. He’d had a lot of girls in his life, but never one from that side of the tracks. They were always off limits, with their noses high in the air and eyes averted away from the scum of Lima Heights.
But this Quinn girl looked at him. She looked him straight in the eyes and she didn’t look like she was going to vomit. That planted a seed in Noah’s head that he couldn’t get rid of. It kept growing, morphing into all of these images of the two of them actually getting along, and for Noah it was the most exciting thing. Quinn was going to be his, no matter what. He was a pro at getting under girls’ skin, and he didn’t see why doing the same to Quinn couldn’t be a piece of cake. The fact that she was the mayor’s daughter and the most popular girl at school only fueled his fire until Noah couldn’t get any other ideas in his head. Quinn consumed his thoughts, occupied all the spaces where schoolwork and nun chucks and dip should occupy instead. His planning never ceased, and by the time the first day of school ended, he already knew what he had to do. Noah was going to make Quinn his.
- [drabble] words: 403
LIMA HEIGHTS KIDS
“We can’t do this.”
Quinn Fabray found herself pressed against the back wall of McKinley High. Everyone else was in class, but Quinn had shown up late. Her family had a very important merger to make, and family to family meant that Quinn was excused to have brunch with insufferable rich people. The matchmaking process was boring and she’d been annoyed for most of it. Acting was an acquired skill Quinn had learned young, but now she wasn’t acting. Now she was pinned to the wall by Noah Puckerman and couldn’t find a single reason to scoot away.
Quinn had been raised to avoid guys like him, told that they were bad news and that people from that side of the tracks couldn’t be trusted. They were scum, and dirty, and they weren’t worth Quinn’s time, according to her parents. However, Quinn didn’t really believe them. She had, but then Noah had locked eyes with her on the first day of school in the hallway and he filled her mind. Quinn’s brain had been plagued with thoughts of Noah, what he’d do if he could actually talk to her, and even though he was trouble, she was exactly what she wanted. Quinn was bored with her life and needed excitement.
“Come on, babe. We’re just talking.”
Noah smirked at her, spotting the way her eyes darted around to check and see if they were alone. He loved the way he could get under her skin and make her squirm. Something about this girl intrigued him and Noah didn’t often find a girl interesting. He’d slept with every girl in Lima Heights, some more than once, and that left the girls in Bontempo Heights, across the tracks. They’d be more of a battle to get with, but for Noah, that was part of the fun. It made Lima not so horrible.
“Well maybe I don’t want to talk to you,” Quinn argued.
Her eyebrow arched and she pursed her lips in a challenge. Quinn’s gaze never broke with Noah’s as she watched and waited for his answer. “Look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t want to talk to me,” Noah challenged her with his smirk wide.
His eyes were full of mischief and the intensity of their gaze was something that neither could ignore. Quinn was filled with the urge to tell him that he was disgusting, that she believed everything her parents had ever told her, but she couldn’t. Noah was intriguing and she couldn’t look away. His smirk grew even wider when Quinn couldn’t say otherwise, and he nodded. “I knew it,” he said with satisfaction.
“Don’t let it go to your head,” Quinn remarked as she rolled her eyes. “You’re better conversation than those Neanderthals than I had to deal with at brunch, that’s all.”
Quinn was back in her Cheerios uniform, but during brunch she’d had to dress the part. She had to wear her hair in perfect curls, a modest outfit similar to a private school uniform, and manners that had been primed to the tee since before she could even speak. Being around Noah was different. She could wear sweatpants and an oversized tee shirt and probably still be okay around him. He wouldn’t judge her. He hadn’t already and that was something Quinn had been surprised by.
Most kids from Lima Heights judged her before they met her. To them, she was a privileged rich girl and nothing more. Noah seemed to see something else though, and she didn’t know why that made her so unbelievably happy. “Sounds like someone had a rough morning,” Noah said sarcastically.
Quinn scoffed and looked aside. She was still cornered, back to the brick wall of the school, his hands planted on the wall on either side of her and his body hovering just barely against her own. She could feel his body heat and her brain was short-circuiting as he leaned just a tiny bit closer to her. “It was boring,” Quinn replied flatly.
“So,” Noah began with interest. He kept Quinn pinned gently to the wall and said, “Want to explain to me why you’re late? I didn’t expect to see you around here at this time. A good little girl like you should be in class.”
Quinn’s eyes rolled again at the blatant stereotyping. “I had a very important brunch with my family,” she said matter-of-factly.
“So that means you can take the rest of the day off with me,” Noah added.
He knew that he was under her skin. Noah positively oozed confidence and the way Quinn didn’t deny him at the very instant he finished speaking told him that she was seriously considering it. “You make it sound like you think I want to spend time with you, Mister Puckerman,” Quinn teased.
Noah let his arm bend, his face now inches above hers. Their noses brushed and his voice deepened, lower and huskier. “I know you want to spend time with me, Miss Fabray,” he replied.
Quinn hated the way Noah got under her skin, but she couldn’t find a single reason why she couldn’t go spend the day with him. Quinn could get away with nearly anything in town, least of all skipping class. Everyone would assume she was still at the country club, so rumors wouldn’t fly. They could get away with one day alone and nobody would know. “Nobody can know,” Quinn said firmly.
The class system in Lima was very strict. Straying would destroy everything that families had built for centuries. Quinn knew that it was a risk, agreeing to spend a day with Noah, but one day wouldn’t hurt anything. Afterwards she could go back to pretending that he didn’t exist. “Promise,” Noah agreed.
Quinn swore she saw something akin to hurt in his eyes for a brief, fleeting moment, but he turned away and walked towards his beat up Chevy truck before she could do a double take. Noah raised his eyebrow, silently asking if she was sure about what they were about to do. To prove that she was, Quinn just gave him a smirk to rival his own and climbed into the passenger’s seat. She wasn’t afraid of anything.
- [ficlet] words: 1,037
BONTEMPO HEIGHTS KIDS
They always ended up meeting behind the school. That brick wall always helped Noah trap Quinn in his grasp. His charm and his muscles boxed her in and she couldn’t escape. Usually that sort of thing would turn her on, but now things were different. The entire situation had changed and she was about to burst.
Dark clouds were rolling in, fitting for her mood and for the shift between herself and Noah. Quinn knew he’d be there. She hadn’t been at the country club that morning but she could get away with anything. She was Quinn Fabray, mayor’s daughter and the richest girl in Lima. She heard footsteps, closed her eyes, and just like usual she was up against that brick wall, his arms on either side of her body and his body within her personal space. “I knew you’d be here,” she remarked before she’d even opened her eyes.
“Oh, so you’re looking for me now?” Noah teased.
He could sense the shift in Quinn’s mood, though. Something was up and he didn’t know what it was, but it was unsettling. That look on her face made his stomach drop, and Noah let his arms fall to his sides. “What’s going on?” he asked suddenly.
Quinn’s eyes welled with tears as she thought about everything that had unfolded in the last twenty-four hours. Her parents asked her why her teachers were reporting that she’d been missing classes. They wanted to know why Coach Sue only had Quinn on the second tier of the stunts in cheerleading, not up at the top of the pyramid. Worst of all, they asked why people were trying to convince her parents that Quinn was hanging out on the other side of the tracks.
She thought they were safe. She thought that Noah knew what he was doing. They went to the other side during the day, in his truck, and she didn’t even dress like herself. Quinn had a duffle bag in the back of his truck, filled with dark clothes and hats and makeup and everything else that she’d need to blend in to that environment. They had been trying so hard to keep their budding relationship hidden but someone, some anonymous person out there, was trying to get her in trouble.
Quinn wasn’t sure what bothered her more: the fact that someone had found them out, or because that someone was trying to rat her out to her parents. She had worked her whole life to try to be the one on top: she was popular, the president of the Celibacy Club, the captain of the Cheerios squad, and she worked so hard to get there. Noah was supposed to be a fling, a one-off that turned into more. Now he was under her skin and in her blood and they were trapped. Someone knew and now they were in too deep.
“Someone knows.”
Noah’s face morphed from a confident smirk into a worried frown within seconds. His entire body language changed. Never before had Quinn seen him look so reserved and so terrified. The weight of the situation had apparently hit him just as hard as it hit her, and he knew that they were screwed. “I can’t see you anymore,” Quinn said.
She shook her head and tried to walk away, but a strong hand on her wrist kept her from leaving that empty back lot. Instead, it tugged her around, spun her to face him, and she found herself far closer to him than she should have been. “Who cares,” he challenged.
“I do,” Quinn shot angrily as she tugged her arm away.
Noah let go of her, but his gaze only intensified. “Why don’t we just tell them? Beat that sucker to the punch?” he asked her. His voice was rough, heavier and filled with more anger than Quinn had heard before.
“I don’t want to!” she shouted.
Noah scoffed and crossed his arms. “Too scared of losing your popularity over some piece of trash like me?” he asked.
He used the bluntest of terms, the roughest wording he could think of. Noah knew how all the people from Bontempo Heights thought of him. It was the same way they thought of everyone in his trailer park, everyone on that side of the tracks. “So what if I am?” Quinn asked, spinning on her heels to face Noah.
The two of them stood toe to toe, eyes filled with so much tension and intensity that they could have burst. “So I’m just a booty call to you?” Noah asked.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Quinn said with a dry laugh. “You hardly got past first base. What a charmer.”
“Says the prude,” Noah countered.
Without hesitation, Quinn reached up and slapped Noah right across the face. His head turned with the blow, and when she looked up at him, breathing heavily, rage emanating from every pore, she noticed the pink cheek and said, “You’re insufferable.”
“You love me,” he teased, though his usual confidence and amusement was alarmingly absent.
Quinn never moved, and neither did Noah. Their eyes just met again between themselves and Quinn sighed. “So what do we do?” she asked.
She was in too deep. Leaving Noah and ditching him now left an ache and an emptiness in her chest that Quinn wasn’t prepared to deal with. She didn’t want to deal with it. Noah just sighed and shook his head. “We call it off, isn’t that what you want?” he asked.
His voice was full of anger and frustration and Quinn didn’t miss a beat of it. “You and I both know that’s easier said than done,” she replied.
“So what? We run away? We elope? We can’t pull that shit,” Noah shook his head. “Your dad would have both of our heads on platters and you know it.”
Quinn frowned and bit her lip. She glanced at his truck, and then back up at him. “I think I have an idea,” she said.
Noah’s face morphed into the same smirk that was forming on Quinn’s face, and without another word, they disappeared into his truck, driving away over the hill. Driving from their problems for the day might cause them more trouble in the long run, but it was all they could think of to do in that moment. It was necessary, and it was good for them.
They both just needed time to think.
- [ficlet] words: 1,072
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