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storypaint) wrote2009-12-20 02:03 am
storypaint) wrote2009-12-20 02:03 am
Entry tags:
Freedom Lived (Quinn/Tina)
Title: Freedom Lived
Fandom: Glee
Length: 1306 words
Prompt: Glee Fic!Battle: Quinn/Tina, Dyeing Quinn's hair as a stand, Any
Pairing: slight Quinn/Tina; mentions of Finn/Quinn and Artie/Tina
Other: Set post Sectionals, some small spoilers. Title from a quote by John Dos Passos.
Excerpt: "Come home with me," Tina says simply, not stuttering, actually looking Quinn in the eye.
When she leaves Finn's house, Quinn is passed around the Glee Club uncomfortably. It isn't that she's ungrateful, not at all, but she doesn't fit any of these places, as hard as the kids are trying. Even the most understanding parent doesn't want to keep her more than a couple of weeks, and she refuses to go to Puck's. Even when Finn forgives her, she can't go back there.
She spends a week with Artie and a weekend with Kurt (they just can't get along, even through their mutual distaste for Rachel). Rachel is just hopeless. Mercedes allows her to stay for a couple of days, and by this point, even Will is offering, but with his wife gone that would just be weird and inappropriate. She doesn't think that he would actually do anything, but Sue has spies everywhere and probably even the offer would be reported straight to Figgins as inappropriate conduct. She stays with Brittany for a week before Brittany's mother seems to realize they have a guest, and Santana utterly refuses to keep her more than a day. By this point, Quinn is thinking about spending all the money she has on a really cheap car and just sleeping in it. She can't deal with all this moving.
Tina is one of the last people to offer. Quinn has spent a great deal of time making fun of her clothes and her stutter, and even though this has stopped since Quinn joined Glee, she's still a little surprised that Tina is willing.
"Come home with me," Tina says simply, not stuttering, actually looking Quinn in the eye. Quinn is still the queen of gossip and she's noticed that the way that Tina and Artie look at each other has changed recently; they used to moon over each other when they thought the other wasn't looking, but something had happened after rehearsal a few months ago. They are still friends, but they don't look at each other like that anymore. And Tina hasn't been stuttering at all, even when she isn't singing.
So this is probably a good thing, Quinn thinks, because some of the best decisions are the hard ones, like her decision to give up this baby.
"My brother moved out last week and my mom says it's okay if you stay a while," Tina continues. Quinn nods.
"Thank you," she says, looking at the floor, looking at the scuffed black combat boots that Tina is wearing.
Actually, they're kinda cool.
*
Tina has a little sister who is six and her parents have been married for twenty-five years. They talk to each other at the dinner table in Chinese, something which makes Quinn stare at first, because Tina's mother is a tall, curly-haired, blue-eyed woman and her easy grasp of the language seems strange.
Tina and Nikki ignore it, even the random giggling when Tina's dad says something funny. Afterward, Tina takes Quinn upstairs and shows her the room. The others have given her their couches or their futons or their guest rooms. This is the first room that feels lived in, feels livable. Quinn can see the rectangles on the walls where posters or pictures have been removed. The bedclothes have Spiderman on them. When Quinn turns to look at Tina, Tina laughs.
"My brother wasn't very good at growing up. His wife wouldn't let him take those, though."
Quinn laughs. "What were your parents talking about at dinner?" she asks.
Tina waves a hand and rolls her eyes. "They're always flirting. You don't even want to know."
"It's cool that you know Chinese," she blurts out.
"Thanks," Tina answers. They stand there a moment longer in silence before Tina tells her good night and slips off to her own room.
*
Somehow this works better than it had with any of the others. Quinn likes Tina's little sister. She likes the way that Tina's dad dances around the kitchen, humming under his breath when he makes dinner. She likes Tina's mother's dramatic reenactments of the soap operas she tapes and watches every evening.
And she even likes Tina. Tina is smart, and funny, and she watches all this really cool television, this obscure sci-fi stuff that Quinn finds herself hooked on in short order. They marathon the Batman movies one weekend, even the bad ones, and in the middle of Batman Forever they start making redubs over the corny dialogue and can't stop laughing.
And it's Tina's idea, the month before the baby is due, when Quinn is tired all the time and she can't see her feet anymore, to dye Quinn's hair.
"I think you'd feel pretty with a bright red streak in your hair," she says one day when they are taking a break between episodes of Firefly.
"I feel like a balloon," she answers, leaning back against Tina's bed and wishing her back would stop hurting.
"Then you should feel like a red one," Tina answers, and she starts singing "99 Red Balloons" in German. It's incongruous hearing the slurring German sounds from Tina's mouth, but Quinn isn't entirely surprised. Tina has layers. She asks questions and writes poetry and reads everything. Every week she writes a letter to the school PTA about making the campus more wheelchair-accessible. Then she writes another one to ABC asking them to revive "Pushing Daisies." Neither letter has ever gotten an answer, but she writes them anyway, different ones each time.
"Okay," Quinn says. Miss Sylvester wouldn't have allowed it because nothing should distract from a cheerleading team's choreography, and her parents would have pitched a fit if she'd asked to dye her hair.
But Quinn thinks that a red streak is just what she needs.
*
When she steps into the high school the next day, she gets more stares than usual, but most of them are directed at her hair. The streak is no more subtle than the blue streak in Tina's hair is. Miss Sylvester makes a disapproving noise when she sees her, but says nothing.
"That is going to be awful to accessorize," Kurt says at Glee, but the rest of them seem to approve of the idea. Finn acts like he wants to run a hand through her hair, but catches himself and stops. The gesture hurts more than she expected it to; she cuts the last twenty minutes of practice to go to the bathroom and throw up her lunch and cry.
No one follows her, but Tina shows up when practice ends, and she has a breath mint and a small smile. She wipes the tears from Quinn's cheeks and gives her the breath mint, and lets Quinn sit on the toilet and sob against her chest. Quinn cries herself out, her cheek pressed to the cool metal of Tina's studded jacket. Tina brushes a hand through Quinn's hair, her hand gentle, and when Quinn gets uncomfortably to her feet, she helps steady her.
"You're so nice to me," Quinn says, trying not to sniffle. She wouldn't normally allow herself to break down so thoroughly at school, but Tina's seen her in all of her worst moments, these past months. She's taken her shoe-shopping when her feet got too fat for her favorite sneakers, and she's held Quinn's hair when she got food poisoning, and she's fallen asleep next to her on the couch and totally ignored her snoring.
"You needed someone," Tina says easily, with a shrug, as if it's not a big deal, and before Quinn can protest that it is, Tina smiles. "And I like you. You're not so bad when you don't think you have to be."
Tina takes her hand to help her into her mom's van, when they leave, and Quinn is glad she doesn't have to be so bad anymore.
Fandom: Glee
Length: 1306 words
Prompt: Glee Fic!Battle: Quinn/Tina, Dyeing Quinn's hair as a stand, Any
Pairing: slight Quinn/Tina; mentions of Finn/Quinn and Artie/Tina
Other: Set post Sectionals, some small spoilers. Title from a quote by John Dos Passos.
Excerpt: "Come home with me," Tina says simply, not stuttering, actually looking Quinn in the eye.
If you wake up at a different time, in a different place, could you wake up as a different person? -Chuck Palahniuk
When she leaves Finn's house, Quinn is passed around the Glee Club uncomfortably. It isn't that she's ungrateful, not at all, but she doesn't fit any of these places, as hard as the kids are trying. Even the most understanding parent doesn't want to keep her more than a couple of weeks, and she refuses to go to Puck's. Even when Finn forgives her, she can't go back there.
She spends a week with Artie and a weekend with Kurt (they just can't get along, even through their mutual distaste for Rachel). Rachel is just hopeless. Mercedes allows her to stay for a couple of days, and by this point, even Will is offering, but with his wife gone that would just be weird and inappropriate. She doesn't think that he would actually do anything, but Sue has spies everywhere and probably even the offer would be reported straight to Figgins as inappropriate conduct. She stays with Brittany for a week before Brittany's mother seems to realize they have a guest, and Santana utterly refuses to keep her more than a day. By this point, Quinn is thinking about spending all the money she has on a really cheap car and just sleeping in it. She can't deal with all this moving.
Tina is one of the last people to offer. Quinn has spent a great deal of time making fun of her clothes and her stutter, and even though this has stopped since Quinn joined Glee, she's still a little surprised that Tina is willing.
"Come home with me," Tina says simply, not stuttering, actually looking Quinn in the eye. Quinn is still the queen of gossip and she's noticed that the way that Tina and Artie look at each other has changed recently; they used to moon over each other when they thought the other wasn't looking, but something had happened after rehearsal a few months ago. They are still friends, but they don't look at each other like that anymore. And Tina hasn't been stuttering at all, even when she isn't singing.
So this is probably a good thing, Quinn thinks, because some of the best decisions are the hard ones, like her decision to give up this baby.
"My brother moved out last week and my mom says it's okay if you stay a while," Tina continues. Quinn nods.
"Thank you," she says, looking at the floor, looking at the scuffed black combat boots that Tina is wearing.
Actually, they're kinda cool.
*
Tina has a little sister who is six and her parents have been married for twenty-five years. They talk to each other at the dinner table in Chinese, something which makes Quinn stare at first, because Tina's mother is a tall, curly-haired, blue-eyed woman and her easy grasp of the language seems strange.
Tina and Nikki ignore it, even the random giggling when Tina's dad says something funny. Afterward, Tina takes Quinn upstairs and shows her the room. The others have given her their couches or their futons or their guest rooms. This is the first room that feels lived in, feels livable. Quinn can see the rectangles on the walls where posters or pictures have been removed. The bedclothes have Spiderman on them. When Quinn turns to look at Tina, Tina laughs.
"My brother wasn't very good at growing up. His wife wouldn't let him take those, though."
Quinn laughs. "What were your parents talking about at dinner?" she asks.
Tina waves a hand and rolls her eyes. "They're always flirting. You don't even want to know."
"It's cool that you know Chinese," she blurts out.
"Thanks," Tina answers. They stand there a moment longer in silence before Tina tells her good night and slips off to her own room.
*
Somehow this works better than it had with any of the others. Quinn likes Tina's little sister. She likes the way that Tina's dad dances around the kitchen, humming under his breath when he makes dinner. She likes Tina's mother's dramatic reenactments of the soap operas she tapes and watches every evening.
And she even likes Tina. Tina is smart, and funny, and she watches all this really cool television, this obscure sci-fi stuff that Quinn finds herself hooked on in short order. They marathon the Batman movies one weekend, even the bad ones, and in the middle of Batman Forever they start making redubs over the corny dialogue and can't stop laughing.
And it's Tina's idea, the month before the baby is due, when Quinn is tired all the time and she can't see her feet anymore, to dye Quinn's hair.
"I think you'd feel pretty with a bright red streak in your hair," she says one day when they are taking a break between episodes of Firefly.
"I feel like a balloon," she answers, leaning back against Tina's bed and wishing her back would stop hurting.
"Then you should feel like a red one," Tina answers, and she starts singing "99 Red Balloons" in German. It's incongruous hearing the slurring German sounds from Tina's mouth, but Quinn isn't entirely surprised. Tina has layers. She asks questions and writes poetry and reads everything. Every week she writes a letter to the school PTA about making the campus more wheelchair-accessible. Then she writes another one to ABC asking them to revive "Pushing Daisies." Neither letter has ever gotten an answer, but she writes them anyway, different ones each time.
"Okay," Quinn says. Miss Sylvester wouldn't have allowed it because nothing should distract from a cheerleading team's choreography, and her parents would have pitched a fit if she'd asked to dye her hair.
But Quinn thinks that a red streak is just what she needs.
*
When she steps into the high school the next day, she gets more stares than usual, but most of them are directed at her hair. The streak is no more subtle than the blue streak in Tina's hair is. Miss Sylvester makes a disapproving noise when she sees her, but says nothing.
"That is going to be awful to accessorize," Kurt says at Glee, but the rest of them seem to approve of the idea. Finn acts like he wants to run a hand through her hair, but catches himself and stops. The gesture hurts more than she expected it to; she cuts the last twenty minutes of practice to go to the bathroom and throw up her lunch and cry.
No one follows her, but Tina shows up when practice ends, and she has a breath mint and a small smile. She wipes the tears from Quinn's cheeks and gives her the breath mint, and lets Quinn sit on the toilet and sob against her chest. Quinn cries herself out, her cheek pressed to the cool metal of Tina's studded jacket. Tina brushes a hand through Quinn's hair, her hand gentle, and when Quinn gets uncomfortably to her feet, she helps steady her.
"You're so nice to me," Quinn says, trying not to sniffle. She wouldn't normally allow herself to break down so thoroughly at school, but Tina's seen her in all of her worst moments, these past months. She's taken her shoe-shopping when her feet got too fat for her favorite sneakers, and she's held Quinn's hair when she got food poisoning, and she's fallen asleep next to her on the couch and totally ignored her snoring.
"You needed someone," Tina says easily, with a shrug, as if it's not a big deal, and before Quinn can protest that it is, Tina smiles. "And I like you. You're not so bad when you don't think you have to be."
Tina takes her hand to help her into her mom's van, when they leave, and Quinn is glad she doesn't have to be so bad anymore.
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Go Tina for being awesome.
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She is awesome. And thanks.
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The hairdying and watching Firefly make me grin.
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I vote for sub-stories pertaining to the aforementioned shoe-shopping, food poisioning and couch naps PLZ <3
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|D If I ever write them, I'll let you know.
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*****
Tina takes her to buy shoes that don't feel like they're slowly squeezing her feet to death. Quinn had never realized that every part of you grew when you were having a baby. Except maybe her arms; they were as lean as ever, but she felt like the Tyrannosaurus in that kiddie Pixar film they'd watched two weeks ago. "I have a a big head (a big everything) and little arms. I'm just not sure how well this plan was thought through."
Tina's plan was thought through, though. She took Quinn to Sears and ignored the stares of the saleslady, who clearly thought that Tina should have stayed in Hot Topic, and when Quinn decided to get an attitude in return, they both fled, giggling like little girls who had done more than insult a salesperson. They paused outside a thrift store for Quinn to put her old shoes back on (wincing). When she looked up again, she mentally compared the store displays to Tina's wardrobe, and then linked arms with the Asian girl and pulled her in.
It smelled strange in here. She'd been in thrift stores a couple of times when her mom had bags of donations to drop off, but this was almost more of an organic smell than a used-clothing smell. Quinn wrinkled her nose. Tina leaned over and whispered in her ear, her dark hair tangling with Quinn's blonde.
"I think it's incense." She lifted her eyebrows. "I think."
Quinn walked out of there with her first pair of scuffed-up combat boots, feeling oddly proud of herself. Why shouldn't she wear them? She felt like she was walking into war every day. Plus, Tina was right. They were totally comfortable.
When they got home (and a more "normal" pair of shoes had been purchased from a local Pay-Less), Quinn kicked off her old shoes with a groan of satisfaction and stepped into the combat boots. With a little careful maneuvering, she was able to tie them (that sort of thing wouldn't be happening for much longer, though). She clicked her heels together and looked at Tina.
"Where am I supposed to wear these?"
Tina giggled. "To life, I suppose," she answered. "You look cute."
Quinn smiled.
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