Puck laughed lightly as he led her into his bedroom. The walls were bare, and the floor was clean for a guy like him, and there were beer bottles sprinkled around the place. Looking around his room, it looks like the right place for a guy as ‘tough’ as Puck. But it was when he closed his bedroom door, that the real him came out. The back of his door was covered from top to bottom with photos of the people he called his friends. Pictures of his dad, his little sister, his mom… Pictures that defined the real him, and his life. When his eyes ran over the pictures, as he closed the door - Puck blushed slightly. As he moved to grab his first aid kit and his big bottle of jack, he contemplated covering it - deciding against it when the urgency to tend to Quinn’s wounds smacked him in the face.
He moved over to her, sitting down on his bed. “I do mean literally.” He set the kit down on his bed, and pushed the booze into her hands. “My Ma taught me how. And she’s a nurse. She does this shit all the time, Q. Don’t worry.” He smiled slightly. “How do you think I get stitched up after a fight when I don’t want my Ma findin’ out?” Puck very rarely went to the hospital. His Ma constantly restocked the house with sterile tools and since he knew how to do it… Why get his mother up in arms about a stupid little cut? Puck opened the kit, and began preparing a needle. He froze, and motioned to the bottle he pushed to her. “Hurts less when you’ve had a couple drinks, babe.”
He was laughing. After all of the shit that they just finished up with, he as laughing. Maybe he really was just a sadistic street fighter who got his kicks out of seeing people bleed. In any other situation, she would’ve found it unnerving, but this was child’s play in comparison. She was a bit taken aback by his bedroom, though. She’d expected a trainwreck, with clothes and cigarette butts and half-eaten food. The only hint that it was a boy’s room at all was the beer bottles, and even then, things still looked neat. It was the photos, though, that really intrigued her. She’d seen his pictures before, when he got back from Vegas, but she would have never guessed that it was a regular thing for him to document his family. Gingerly, she settled herself down on his bed and slid off her jacket, then her sweater, for him to get a better look at the cut. She still had a camisole underneath, but it was undeniably unsettling to be sitting in a boy’s room, taking any amount of clothing off.
But that was nothing compared to the idea of him taking a needle to her skin. Her stomach twisted, and she her fingers tightened around the neck of the bottle. “Just because your mother knows how to do it doesn’t make you a licensed doctor.” The opposition was weaker than Quinn had intended, and, to lessen the anxiety of the makeshift operation, she took a small shot of jack. She felt it slide down the back of her throat, like a line of gasoline lit on fire. A coughing fit followed, and she braced herself before she took another swig. It was a small price to pay to not feel herself getting stitched back together. “Just one thing, though,” Quinn’s eyes flashed up to meet his, “I’m not your babe.” Such a trivial thing to point out, really. But it was a pet peeve of her’s. She wasn’t anyone’s ‘babe’. She was Quinn, or Q, if he really insisted on a nickname. Babe was so derogatory, and after everything she’d been through, the last thing she needed was to be talked down to.
Puck’s eyes stayed on the road in front of him the entire time he drove. His mind was so fogged up, that he couldn’t risk looking anywhere but straight ahead - he’d probably crash and then their ‘clean getaway’ would be tragically dirty. He’d been in situations like this before, so it wasn’t hard to calm himself down. But he always had that initial feeling of panic and paranoia at the thought of the police following after him. It was only when he saw his block that Puck chanced a look back, and slowed down.
As he pulled into his driveway, Puck looked over at Quinn, silently before getting out of his car and going over to the passenger side. He opened her door and held a hand out to her, to help her out. It was only when he did that, that he noticed her battle wounds. He couldn’t hold back to smirk that jumped onto his face. Here was the chick that everybody bitched about when she’d first showed up in Lima. The girl San and Sugar had unreasonable hate for because of how pristine she was. The girl Rachel Berry thought was a prude. And she was the only one who’d ever insisted on being involved in a showdown with him. The other girls were constantly complaining when a fight was about to go down. Hell, Sugar sat on the sidelines most of the time. As did Rachel. Quinn Fabray had just out badassed all of them - they should be ashamed. Puck unlocked the front door to his house and closed it behind Quinn before leading her upstairs and to his room. “You’re takin’ that gash pretty damn well.” He said, finally breaking the silence. “I gotta stitch you up, ya know…”
Throughout the entire car ride, Quinn held on to the door handle with shaking white knuckles. The fight had left her so wired that she could barely think straight, or maybe it was being knocked in the head. Or the blood. The lights outside of her window had begun to blur together, and she squeezed her eyes shut. I’m just coming down from the adrenaline, she told herself in a vain attempt to stay calm. The more that she freaked out about the fight or her wounds, she weaker she would seem. She would not be weak in front of him.
As the car lurched to a stop in front of his house, Quinn dared to open her eyes. The wave of dizziness had subsided, and she watched carefully as he walked around to open her door. She was suddenly grateful that he was holding out his hand, because there was a nagging feeling that she probably wouldn’t have trusted herself to walk in a straight line. Underneath all of the hair dye and black eyeliner, she was still scared little Quinnie, afraid of a little blood and ready to be scolded for fighting. Two weeks ago, she would’ve done everything in her power to keep him out of the fray. She would have suggested a nice drive-in or maybe a date to Annie’s to get his mind off of it. There was no way in hell that she would ever offer to come along. She wouldn’t dare to have agreed to fight, or pull a knife. If she had been hurt in the same manner, she would have fallen apart and cried. But now, she couldn’t bring herself to feel any sort of remorse. Her body was reacting in one way, but her emotions wouldn’t comply. If anything, Quinn felt strong. She felt like a fighter. Despite that, she clung to his hand as he led her upstairs. “Please just don’t talk about it.” Her voice betrayed her sudden change of attitude. “I really hope you don’t mean literally.” Something told her that he had neither the proper tools nor the proper medical degree to give her stitches.
The Scorpions were no joke. Puck knew this, very well from multiple run-ins with the bastards. So, he tired his best to keep an eye on Quinn while the two remaining dudes came at him. From the corner of his eye, he saw her being grabbed up by one of the guys and it made him turn to her - perfect timing for one of the Scorps to send a punch right at his jaw. Puck took a second to recover, then cocked his fist back and sent it flying towards the other guy. He could taste the familiar metallic taste building up in his mouth, but he didn’t dare stop to wipe it away.
The fight seemed to go quicker than he’d expected. Sometime during it, he’d pulled out a knife, and sent one of the other guys to the floor with a knife wound - leaving it a two on two fight. Puck’s eyes found their way over to Quinn over and over again, as he fought - making sure the Pink Lady wasn’t being overpowered or hurt too badly. But his attention was always quickly brought back to the fight at hand. This was why he didn’t fight with chicks around - he always seemed to slack on his game because he was watching out for her. It wasn’t until the old man that owned the bar came running out announcing that he’d called the cops that Puck thought they’d better make a run for it. But the fight went on, until Puck succeeded in sending the last asshole up against him down to the ground, clutching his balls for dear life. Puck heard the sirens from the police cars in the distance, and without hesitating, he grabbed Quinn’s hand and pulled her towards the door. “We gotta get out before the cops come.” He told her, his voice low as he pulled her out the door and towards the car. When he made it to his car, he finally let her hand go and chanced a glance toward the door to see the Scorpions dragging themselves out before they were picked up by the cops, too. With the passenger door opened for Quinn, Puck rushed over to the driver’s side of his T-Bird and started the car up - zooming off as soon as he heard Q’s door close.
Quinn had obviously made the wrong judgment when she assumed that, because she’d found them in a bar, that the Scorpions would’ve been completely inebriated. She was now seeing the error of her ways. These guys knew how to fight. They weren’t necessarily black belts, but they had strength on their side, and they obviously knew enough from previous scuffles what to do and what to avoid. That meant that they had a clear leg-up on the pink-haired girl, who was just now getting into her first fight. It was a struggle just to keep in the proper stance and stay with the rhythm of the swings, like some sick dance.
She barely had time to get a good look at how Puck was holding up; the man that she’d headbutted was on the ground, but another had stepped into his place. This one was smaller, but lighter on his feet. The quicker that he managed to strike, the less her mind was able to compute it all; the edges of her vision were a little fuzzy, but she forced herself to keep up. Like with the first Scorpion, she swung out to hit him in the side of the face. He stumbled back a bit, but there hadn’t been enough force to knock him out. Something flashed against the black of his jacket, and it wasn’t until he’d completely unsheathed it that it truly registered: a knife. This was a knife fight now, not just a ‘throw a few punches and that’s that’ fight. She was slow to draw out her own, giving him the time to get a good slash at her. A gasp bubbled in her throat once she felt the blade against her skin. He’d nicked her neck, about an inch up from her collar bone, on the left side. She felt no blood. She was too busy readying herself to jump him completely, when a hand grabbed hold of her. That was when she screamed. There couldn’t have been more Scorpions; there hadn’t even been that many when they’d come in, not enough for there to be one more to fight. But there wasn’t. It was Puck, urging her to leave before the cops came. She allowed herself to be pulled as she did her best to keep up, and didn’t slow until she was nestled safely into the passenger’s seat. She reached up tentatively to touch the cut. There was definitely a gash, and when she pulled her hand away, it was wet. But she was alive.
His eyebrow raised almost immediately in response, but his eyes stayed ahead. He took a few drags from his cigarette, listening to Quinn talk but not responding. Sorry, dear - tonight was not the night to be all soft. It was a night for business - meaning, Puck was not in the mood to be nice. He was in a mindset where the only thing that could make him smile would be seeing each of the fucks that put him in the hospital bleeding out onto the ground.
Puck’s cigarette was smoked quickly as he drove relatively slow, in comparison to how he usually drove, towards the ‘neutral’ area his fight had gone down at. They’d be at the bar, no fucking doubt. So he didn’t have to worry about going on a hike to find them. As soon as he got there, and parked - Puck reached over Quinn and pulled out a pair of brass knuckles. He glanced up at her, and handed her one. “Makes your punches hurt more. If you hit all the places I showed you with all you’ve got, and with that bad-boy on - you’ll do some damage.” He nodded briefly, then looked back at the gun in his glove compartment. Should he, or shouldn’t he? That was the big question in his head as of now, and it was a tough one. On one hand, he’d always felt bringing a gun to a knife fight was a pansy move. But so was bringing four other people to fight with you. So - his real dilemma was whether he’d stoop down to their level or not. And then Quinn was around and what if… Puck shook his head slightly, and slammed the glove compartment shut without taking the gun. Too fucking risky. The mohawked Jew jumped out of his car and waited for Quinn to get out before walking towards the bar. Through the window, four of the five guys sat there drinking and palling around. Puck smirked menacingly before looking back to Q. “No questions, no words.” He told her, before opening the door to the bar and walking up to the table that the Scorpions sat around. Without stopping, or warning - Puck slipped on his brass knuckles and punched the first one right in the face with all his force; succeeding in knocking the bastard out before the others jumped up to start a fight.
Quinn waited a few beats before giving up on the hope of him answering. So he didn’t want to talk - probably working on the whole ‘tough guy’ routine. On second thought, maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea. Her eyes were drawn to the buildings that they passed as she started to psych herself up. A good seventy percent of intimidation was how someone held themselves, and looking like some scared little girl wasn’t going to get her anywhere but knocked to the pavement.
Hopefully Puck knew the area well, or at least enough that they could make a getaway if things got messy. At the speed he was driving, she could get a good look at the storefronts and street signs. Now would certainly be a great time for any sort of photographic memory skill to surface. The car crawled to a stop, and she watched with gritted teeth as he reached over her to grab something. Brass knuckles? Against her better judgment, she slipped her fingers through the holes as he gave his brief explanation. They were heavy against her knuckles; they could definitely do some damage. She snapped back to attention when he started to look through the glove compartment and saw it. The gun. By then, her teeth were clenched together so hard that she thought that they would shatter. He had mentioned wanting to hurt them, but.. Not anything that required a gun. Sure, it would’ve given some sick sense of security to have one on their side, but they were walking a fine line between assault and murder. She followed him out, and stayed as close as she could to him as they walked into the bar. Before she knew what was happening, the first punch had been doled out and a Scorpion was on the ground. Every muscle in her body was screaming for her to get out, to run and curl up in the back seat of Puck’s car, but it was too late for that. One particularly slimy-looking gang member was advancing towards her, with a scowl that made her blood run cold. She mimicked Puck’s move, aiming a punch for his jaw, but his hand curled around her wrist. In an instant, she was being held with her arm twisted between her shoulder blades. His breath, thick with an alcohol she couldn’t put a name to, was hot on her neck. She squeezed her eyes shut, braced herself, brought her head forward and snapped it back hard enough that she felt something crack - his nose? - against the back of her skull. The impact loosened his grip enough for her to slip out and connect her fist to his jaw.
Puck didn’t know what he was thinking - telling Quinn where he was going. Fucking shit. He should’ve just kept it to himself and went alone. But now, she was coming with him to handle his battle. Fuck. Puckerman armed himself with his lucky knife, and something he never thought he’d have to use - the handgun his father gave him before he left Vegas. He’d… put it in his glove compartment. If things got too bad, him and Q could hop in his car and ride off - few shots in the distance and they wouldn’t dare follow him. Puck took a moment to sit down on the edge of his bed, and check to make sure the gun was loaded and the safety was on. He looked to his bedroom door briefly, telling himself to get up and go - but he couldn’t help but think how leaving here tonight, with Quinn, could be a fucked up situation. They could get beat, and left to die. Or killed, on sight. It was the rowdy animal inside of Puck that forced him up - reminding him that he was the superior fighter. And what they’d done to him. A couple seconds of that, and Puck was walking out of his room and down to his car - a scowl comfortable on his face.
He heard the knock on the door just as he reached the end of the stairs. Puck pulled the door opened as he walked past, letting Quinn in while he went to the small table next to the stairs. He picked up one of the pens, and scribbled out a quick note to his mom - Handling business. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. I love you. - Puck. He left the note beside the phone before motioning for Quinn to follow him out and to his car. He opened the passenger door first - and slipped the handgun into the compartment before letting Quinn get in and going around to get in, and start up the car. “Don’t try and be… Don’t run your mouth, alright? Every insult you shoot out’ll be another hit to hand off to you.” He warned her as he sparked up a cigarette at the stoplight.
Quinn took a few steps inside, waiting for him to lead them out to his car. She was nervous - who wouldn’t, preparing for a fight that could possibly leave them dead? - but being inside of his house was almost a comfort. It was so different from her own, all angles and crisp linens and blacks and whites. Puck’s house actually looked like it was a home. It looked lived-in. She leaned against the arm of his couch in an attempt to look nonchalant; there was no way that she would let him catch onto her nerves. It was just a little case of the jitters, really. She knew what to do, they’d gone over the maneuvers like dance moves. She could practically do them in her sleep. Considering the dreams that she’d been having the past few nights, she nearly had to. All of them ended the same way: with him on the ground and her left watching the bloody faces of the Scorpions descend on her like wolves. It was hard to tell which aspect was really the one that haunted her. She knew that Puck wouldn’t let anything happen to her, not if he had anything to do with it. But it was her job to not be a dead weight. She had to cover him. Craning her neck, she caught a glimpse of the note that he had left his mother. Handling Business. She couldn’t help but wonder if Mrs. Puckerman would think anything of it. How many times before had he written vague little notes like that?
“Nice to see you, too.” She narrowed her eyes at him, slipping into the passenger’s seat. Maybe that hadn’t been the best reply, but sarcasm was her way of diffusing the nerves that were making her muscles vibrate. He was only telling these things to keep her alive. She shook her head a little. “I know. I won’t. Thing is, it’s not like there are gonna be a ton of opportunities for me to talk anyway. A couple’a punches here, maybe a little slash here or there for gusto,” as if suddenly reminded of it, she felt against her ribcage for where her knife was tucked away. It was still there. “And we’re out of there.” If we’re lucky. She decided to keep things lighthearted for her own sake. The smell of cigarette smoke, one that had become synonymous with Puck, helped calm her nerves a bit, though.
If she were to be perfectly honest, Quinn couldn’t fathom what she had just gotten herself into. It was one thing to want to support Puck as he went and faced the group that had almost killed him. That was his own issue. But he’d gone and been all possessive over her, calling her his Q. In her own slightly-twisted mind, that had signified something- that she would be the one going down with him in the fight. It was bad enough that she barely knew what had happened last time. This was her way of repaying her. She wasn’t totally helpless, either. Not anymore. He’d shown her how to defend herself, how to hold a knife, where to strike. Looking in the mirror, she couldn’t recognize the innocent little girl that she used to see. Instead, there was someone older, colder, more dangerous, with eyes blackened with kohl and eyes dark with anxiety and forced solidness. She had dressed herself strategically; in layers, thin enough to move around easily in, with her black leather jacket over everything.
She decided early on not to take much with her. Her keys, some money, and the knives that Puck had given her. After a moment of indecision, she sifted through her dresser (still neat as a pin) to retrieve her gold cross necklace. It had been a gift from her First Communion - it was blessed and everything. God would be a good person to have on her side today. She fastened it around her neck and tucked it under her shirt. There was no other thing to dawdle on now; it was do or die. Both of her parents were out for the night. She left them a note, though, signing it with love and everything. Just like how they had on the day she’d gone to see him in the hospital, her hands were shaking as she turned on her car. The drive wasn’t a long one, not as long as she would’ve liked. She was parked outside of the Puckerman house in a matter of minutes. Squaring her shoulders, she rapped her knuckles against the front door.
Totally gonna keep trying.
You’ll get bored eventually.
Phonecall || Quick
- Quinn:You can teach me. Then, I'll get hit. I'll hit back. Technically, wouldn't that be s'more motivation for you to fight?
- Puck:Teach you? Sweet Jehovah, woman. [he goes silent to think it all over] You really wanna do this?
- Quinn:More than anything. Please? -quietly, as if driven by instinct- I won't let you down..
- Puck:Fine. Get over here.
- Quinn:-unable to hide the excitement in her voice- Thank you thank you thank you! -clears throat, returning to her usual voice- I'll be right over.
