Drummer!Finn Chapter Nineteen: Dream On
Jun. 13th, 2012 06:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mzminolaTitle: Drummer Boy
Author: mzminola
Fandom: Glee!
Genre: Alternate Universe
Premise: What if Finn never sang in Glee club, because he was already in Jazz Band?
Rating: As high as the show itself, plus extra for swearing, and violence in this chapter.
Warnings for the fic as a whole: Anything the show has is likely to show up here, so pretty much all of the bullying and phobias and barfing and other issues. If you are worried about specific triggers please let me know and I can give you a heads up.
Chapter specific warning: violence described loosely.
Tina Cohen-Chang paused by the trash can in the choir room, and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper.
It had the word dancer written across it.
~
When Jesse wrote in his daily e-mail that he’d successfully planted the tape, but that Rachel refused to listen to it, he got a text from Shelby on his way to class, saying they needed to talk in person.
~
After getting back into his wheelchair, Artie spent the next half hour ramming himself into the wall.
~
After the tape Jesse found in her baby stuff finished played, Rachel uncurled from her chair long enough to rewind it, and listen again.
On the third listen, Rachel started singing along.
~
Finn’s glad Bryan Ryan is done with his assessment, and that the club gets to keep its funding. Finn didn’t like Bryan Ryan; he made Artie’s Goth girlfriend cry, and he ripped that denim jacket out of Kurt’s hands, and he just kind of seems like a jerk.
The next day in Jazz Band, Susie Saunders keeps giving Finn these looks, and when they’re packing up their instruments, Johnny pats him on the shoulder and says “I’m sorry, dude.”
“For what?” Finn asks, confused.
“Um…” Johnny and Saunders trade a look, and then both look at Finn. “You didn’t read Jacob ben Israel’s latest?”
“He creeps me out,” Finn says, shrugging.
“Me too,” Tracer says. Brad’s gotten his sheet music packed up and already left, and Artie packed up faster than everyone else, dashing off to a History test.
Saunders and Johnny trade another look, and then Johnny says “You should…you need to read this one, okay?”
Finn rolls his eyes and says he’ll go read it during lunch. Saunders and Johnny and Tracer all meet Finn outside the cafeteria at the start of their lunch period, since Finn forgot about it, and the four of them go the computer lab. Susie Saunders has the web address of Jacob’s blog locked in her finger’s muscle memory, and after she types it in she gets up and gestures for Finn to take the chair.
Tracer reads over his shoulder.
~
“Oh my god oh my god oh my god,” Tracer was saying, hands going wild. “Oh my god oh my god oh my god-”
“Um…”Johnny said, looking at Susie Saunders. “Should we…follow him?”
Finn had sat quietly for a moment after reading the blog post, then very calmly stood up.
Then he kicked the chair over and left the computer lab, strides getting longer and faster the further he got from the computer.
“He’s gonna kill him,” Tracer wailed.
“We should probably stop him, yes,” Susie Saunders said, and the three of them ran out of the computer lab, ignoring the librarian that was giving them a dirty look.
They got to the hallway leading to the cafeteria at the same moment Finn burst through the cafeteria doors, shouting “YOU SON OF A BITCH!”
They sped up.
~
Everyone scattered out of the way as Finn Hudson tackled Noah Puckerman to the ground and started punching him. A circle formed at lightning speed, with a lot of kids chanting “fight, fight, fight!” and some jocks ran to the doors to make sure there weren’t any teachers around.
The lunch-food servers sighed, and stayed behind the counter.
Artie exchanged a panicked look with Mercedes, Tina, and Trent, who were eating lunch with him.
“Stop it!” Quinn yelled, pushing her way through the circle, but the two boys on the ground ignored her. Matt and Mike pushed through the crowd too, just as Susie Saunders, Johnny, and Tracer did so on the other side. The five of them dove for Finn and Puck and pulled them apart, Matt and Mike holding back Puck’s arms, Johnny, Tracer, and Saunders holding on to Finn.
“What the hell, guys,” Artie said, after Tina shoved a couple of students out of their way so Artie could wheel into the open circle.
“You know what the hell!” Finn yelled, struggling against his Jazz Band cohorts grip on him. “You all knew! All of you!”
“Knew what?” Artie asked, and Finn glared at him. Matt and Mike had let go of Puck, who was keeping his distance from Finn. Mercedes had wrapped an arm around Quinn’s shoulders.
“Puck slept with Quinn!” Finn yelled. He was struggling less, but Johnny and Susie Saunders kept their grips firm. Tracer had let go. “He’s the dad!”
“Duh,” Santana said, stepping into the circle with Brittany.
“Duh?” Finn repeated, incredulously. “Duh? ”
Quinn was crying now, and Santana and Brittany stood in between her and Finn, breaking that line of sight. The rest of the cafeteria was deathly silent, and Santana’s words fell like a shovel striking gravedirt, cold and final. “Did you honestly believe you could get someone pregnant without even fucking? By losing it early in a hot tub? Please.”
~
“Kurt?” Rachel called, craning her neck up to look at her fellow Glee clubber. “What are you doing?” Jesse had his arm wrapped around Rachel’s shoulders, and was carrying her bag in his other hand.
“Eating lunch,” Kurt said. He was perched in a high window ledge, leaning against his satchel, and folding away the remains of his meal. “Or rather, I was.”
“How did you get up there?” Rachel asked.
“I have my ways,” Kurt said. He peered down at her and Jesse. “Can I help you?”
“I just got a text from Tina saying we all need to meet in the choir room,” Rachel said. “I was on my way there. Didn’t you get it too?”
“Hm,” he said. Kurt pulled his satchel out from behind himself and pulled his phone out. Then he turned it on, and Rachel heard the chime of a text message notification.
When the three of them arrived at the choir room, they were greeted by the sight of all the other kids in New Directions except Artie spread throughout the room. Quinn was in a chair in the middle of the front row of risers, with Mercedes curled protectively around her, and Puck in the chair on Quinn’s over side, hunched in on himself.
Beside her, Kurt stiffened as they stepped into the room. He walked quickly over to Quinn, who looked up after a moment and started crying silently when she saw him. Her eyes were already red.
Tina stepped up to Rachel and Jesse. “What’s going on?” Rachel asked her. Over in the risers, Kurt was kicking Puck out of his chair and sitting down.
“Okay,” Tina said, in a hushed voice. “Quinn’s quarterback boyfriend isn’t the one who got her knocked up, it was Puck. And Jacob ben Israel wrote about it on his horrible blog and Quinn’s boyfriend punched Puck in the middle of the cafeteria and yelled a lot and so everyone at school knows.”
“Wow,” Jesse said, his tone sarcastic. “How tragic.”
“It is tragic,” Tina said, glaring. She focused her attention on Rachel. “Mercedes called her parents, and they’re gonna put Quinn up at their place, since her big brother’s at college, but they want to get his room empty of his stuff first. So can Quinn stay with you for a couple of days? No one else has room except Puck, and Quinn won’t stay with him.”
“Of course,” Rachel said, reeling a little from the flood of information. Tina nodded, and walked back over to Quinn. Trent, Matt, and Mike had formed a pocket of bewildered misery in the corner, where they’d been joined by Puck.
Jesse tucked his head against Rachel’s, and nuzzled his way through her hair to press his lips against his ear. “You know having her in the house is going to put a serious damper on our intimacy, right?” Jesse whispered.
A shiver ran through her, like it always did when Jesse used that particular voice, but Rachel pushed steel into her spine and said “She needs my help.”
“All right,” Jesse said. He kissed the curve of her ear, before sliding his arm off of her shoulders and pulling back. “I’ve got class, so…”
He left.
~
Kurt really, really, really did not know what to say, as Mercedes quietly told him what had happened in the cafeteria, so he clutched the strap of his satchel hard enough to turn his knuckles white and stared at Quinn’s hair until she looked up at him.
Then she started crying, and Kurt cast his eyes down and around and shoo’d Puck out of his chair, so Kurt could sit down next to Quinn and not have to watch her cry while they talked.
“I can’t face Carole,” Quinn said. Mercedes was rubbing circles on her back. “I can’t go back to there, I just can’t.”
“Your stuff’s there,” Kurt said, and promptly blushed, but Quinn was just nodding.
“Could you…” she trailed off and gulped, then wiped away some tears.
“Yeah,” Kurt said, nodding. “I can…I can get it. Where should I…?”
“She’s gonna stay with Rachel for a few days,” Mercedes said. “And then move in with me.”
“I’ve never been to Rachel’s,” Kurt said.
“You can bring it to school tomorrow,” Quinn said. She wiped away a few more tears, and then straightened up in her chair. “I’ve got spare clothes in my locker anyways, you know, for Slushies.”
Kurt nodded; he did the same thing. Most of them did, in Glee club.
~
Artie had never skipped class before, but his study-partner in Math is in AV club with him, so wasn’t involved in today’s drama, and the teacher never took attendance anyway.
They aren’t in the choir room, that wasn’t an option for this, but Susie Saunders reminded them that the orchestra and marching band had a rehearsal space behind the auditorium. So after hustling Finn out of the cafeteria, the five of them had gone there.
Now Tracer was eating his lunch, Saunders and Johnny were splitting Johnny’s, because Susie had meant to get lunch from the cafeteria that day and never gotten the chance, Artie was keeping his hands on his knees so he wouldn’t grab his wheels and ram himself into the wall, and Finn was pacing.
Finn was also occasionally kicking over chairs and music stands, which got Susie Saunders to sigh pointedly each time, but Finn was ignoring her.
“Jacob says you guys knew,” Finn said, after a particularly loud crash of furnishings. “That everybody in Glee club knew.”
“Not everyone,” Artie said, with a shrug. Rachel hadn’t known, or Jesse, and Mr. Schuester was out of the loop too. Artie didn’t think it was a good idea to list who did or didn’t know in full, though. He’d have to read Jacob’s blog post to find out what was public knowledge later, distasteful as that thought was.
Finn half-heartedly kicked out a music stand, which wobbled and fell onto a nearby chair. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Finn asked, stopping his pacing to spin towards Artie.
“Seemed better to keep our mouths shut,” Artie said. “Quinn being pregnant got around the school because of Jacob ben Israel. Nobody wanted to be the one to take another announcement out of her hands.”
Finn flopped into a chair and rubbed at his face with his hands.
“Finding out through Jacob’s blog sucks,” Johnny said. “Woulda been better to hear it from you.”
“It sucks no matter what,” Artie said, giving Johnny a dirty look. Johnny shrugged and took a bite out of his peanut butter and jelly sandwich. “I’m sorry it turned out like this,” Artie said to Finn.
“You coulda told me,” Finn muttered, hands still over his face.
“We found out around the time her parents kicked her out,” Artie said.
“I wouldn’t have-”
“Oh, so you want her to come back to your house now?” Artie cut in, before Finn could finish that sentence and make a liar out of himself. “If we’d come up to you and said by the way, Quinn cheated on you with Puck, the kids’ his, you woulda let her keep sleeping on your couch?”
Artie crossed his arms and looked Finn up and down, then shook his head. “Were you even thinking about her when you punched out Puck? Are you thinking about her now? Or are you just mad that Jacob wrote about you like you were a fool?”
Finn shoved his hands down to his knees and looked up, and Artie dug out his cellphone. “Got a text from my girlfriend while you were kicking over chairs. The girls already made plans for where Quinn’s gonna stay, how she’s gonna get to school, all that. ‘cause all of them assumed she isn’t welcome at your house anymore.”
Artie held his phone up and stared at Finn. “Now,” Artie said. “Do you want me to text them back, tell ‘em to cancel all those plans, because Quinn’s welcome to come home with you? Or were they right?”
Finn stared at the phone.
~
“Hi, Carole,” Kurt said, when Carole opened the door. He’d debated coming right after school, or waiting until after dinner, and if he should call first, and wound up arriving around 4:30 in the afternoon, unannounced. He had rung the bell once, and started counting seconds to keep himself from running away. “I’m here for Quinn’s things.”
“Why?” Carole asked, stepping aside so Kurt could come in, and at that single-word question, his stomach dropped.
“Finn didn’t tell you?” Kurt asked, putting off the answer.
“He just came home straight from school and went up to his room,” Carole said. Now that Kurt was in the house, he could hear a bass-beat and video-game sounds coming from above.
Kurt took in a deep breath through his nose. “Quinn’s moving in with our friend Mercedes,” Kurt said. He took another deep breath and shoved the rest of the information out before Carole could say “Why?” again. “Because no one thought it was a good idea for her to live with Puck, especially Quinn, and since Finn’s not really the dad and Puck is and since that piece of information came out rather messily at school today no one really thought it was a good idea for her to live here anymore.”
A nervous giggle escaped when he finished, and Kurt pressed his lips tight to keep any more from coming out.
Carole stared at him. Then turned to stare at the wall. And she started to sort of sink, slowly, and Kurt added quickly “If I could get her stuff, please, that would be good?” and she stopped sinking.
Quinn Fabray had more stuff at the end of her time with the Hudsons than she’d had at the beginning, though not much, all of it elastic-banded skirts and loose baby-doll blouses and dresses bought in anticipation of the later term of her pregnancy.
Quinn’s old things fit in her old bags, and Kurt carefully folded her newer clothes into paper shopping bags wordlessly provided by Carole Hudson, and the two of them loaded the bags into Kurt’s Navigator.
Then Kurt drove away.
Author: mzminola
Fandom: Glee!
Genre: Alternate Universe
Premise: What if Finn never sang in Glee club, because he was already in Jazz Band?
Rating: As high as the show itself, plus extra for swearing, and violence in this chapter.
Warnings for the fic as a whole: Anything the show has is likely to show up here, so pretty much all of the bullying and phobias and barfing and other issues. If you are worried about specific triggers please let me know and I can give you a heads up.
Chapter specific warning: violence described loosely.
Tina Cohen-Chang paused by the trash can in the choir room, and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper.
It had the word dancer written across it.
~
When Jesse wrote in his daily e-mail that he’d successfully planted the tape, but that Rachel refused to listen to it, he got a text from Shelby on his way to class, saying they needed to talk in person.
~
After getting back into his wheelchair, Artie spent the next half hour ramming himself into the wall.
~
After the tape Jesse found in her baby stuff finished played, Rachel uncurled from her chair long enough to rewind it, and listen again.
On the third listen, Rachel started singing along.
~
Finn’s glad Bryan Ryan is done with his assessment, and that the club gets to keep its funding. Finn didn’t like Bryan Ryan; he made Artie’s Goth girlfriend cry, and he ripped that denim jacket out of Kurt’s hands, and he just kind of seems like a jerk.
The next day in Jazz Band, Susie Saunders keeps giving Finn these looks, and when they’re packing up their instruments, Johnny pats him on the shoulder and says “I’m sorry, dude.”
“For what?” Finn asks, confused.
“Um…” Johnny and Saunders trade a look, and then both look at Finn. “You didn’t read Jacob ben Israel’s latest?”
“He creeps me out,” Finn says, shrugging.
“Me too,” Tracer says. Brad’s gotten his sheet music packed up and already left, and Artie packed up faster than everyone else, dashing off to a History test.
Saunders and Johnny trade another look, and then Johnny says “You should…you need to read this one, okay?”
Finn rolls his eyes and says he’ll go read it during lunch. Saunders and Johnny and Tracer all meet Finn outside the cafeteria at the start of their lunch period, since Finn forgot about it, and the four of them go the computer lab. Susie Saunders has the web address of Jacob’s blog locked in her finger’s muscle memory, and after she types it in she gets up and gestures for Finn to take the chair.
Tracer reads over his shoulder.
~
“Oh my god oh my god oh my god,” Tracer was saying, hands going wild. “Oh my god oh my god oh my god-”
“Um…”Johnny said, looking at Susie Saunders. “Should we…follow him?”
Finn had sat quietly for a moment after reading the blog post, then very calmly stood up.
Then he kicked the chair over and left the computer lab, strides getting longer and faster the further he got from the computer.
“He’s gonna kill him,” Tracer wailed.
“We should probably stop him, yes,” Susie Saunders said, and the three of them ran out of the computer lab, ignoring the librarian that was giving them a dirty look.
They got to the hallway leading to the cafeteria at the same moment Finn burst through the cafeteria doors, shouting “YOU SON OF A BITCH!”
They sped up.
~
Everyone scattered out of the way as Finn Hudson tackled Noah Puckerman to the ground and started punching him. A circle formed at lightning speed, with a lot of kids chanting “fight, fight, fight!” and some jocks ran to the doors to make sure there weren’t any teachers around.
The lunch-food servers sighed, and stayed behind the counter.
Artie exchanged a panicked look with Mercedes, Tina, and Trent, who were eating lunch with him.
“Stop it!” Quinn yelled, pushing her way through the circle, but the two boys on the ground ignored her. Matt and Mike pushed through the crowd too, just as Susie Saunders, Johnny, and Tracer did so on the other side. The five of them dove for Finn and Puck and pulled them apart, Matt and Mike holding back Puck’s arms, Johnny, Tracer, and Saunders holding on to Finn.
“What the hell, guys,” Artie said, after Tina shoved a couple of students out of their way so Artie could wheel into the open circle.
“You know what the hell!” Finn yelled, struggling against his Jazz Band cohorts grip on him. “You all knew! All of you!”
“Knew what?” Artie asked, and Finn glared at him. Matt and Mike had let go of Puck, who was keeping his distance from Finn. Mercedes had wrapped an arm around Quinn’s shoulders.
“Puck slept with Quinn!” Finn yelled. He was struggling less, but Johnny and Susie Saunders kept their grips firm. Tracer had let go. “He’s the dad!”
“Duh,” Santana said, stepping into the circle with Brittany.
“Duh?” Finn repeated, incredulously. “Duh? ”
Quinn was crying now, and Santana and Brittany stood in between her and Finn, breaking that line of sight. The rest of the cafeteria was deathly silent, and Santana’s words fell like a shovel striking gravedirt, cold and final. “Did you honestly believe you could get someone pregnant without even fucking? By losing it early in a hot tub? Please.”
~
“Kurt?” Rachel called, craning her neck up to look at her fellow Glee clubber. “What are you doing?” Jesse had his arm wrapped around Rachel’s shoulders, and was carrying her bag in his other hand.
“Eating lunch,” Kurt said. He was perched in a high window ledge, leaning against his satchel, and folding away the remains of his meal. “Or rather, I was.”
“How did you get up there?” Rachel asked.
“I have my ways,” Kurt said. He peered down at her and Jesse. “Can I help you?”
“I just got a text from Tina saying we all need to meet in the choir room,” Rachel said. “I was on my way there. Didn’t you get it too?”
“Hm,” he said. Kurt pulled his satchel out from behind himself and pulled his phone out. Then he turned it on, and Rachel heard the chime of a text message notification.
When the three of them arrived at the choir room, they were greeted by the sight of all the other kids in New Directions except Artie spread throughout the room. Quinn was in a chair in the middle of the front row of risers, with Mercedes curled protectively around her, and Puck in the chair on Quinn’s over side, hunched in on himself.
Beside her, Kurt stiffened as they stepped into the room. He walked quickly over to Quinn, who looked up after a moment and started crying silently when she saw him. Her eyes were already red.
Tina stepped up to Rachel and Jesse. “What’s going on?” Rachel asked her. Over in the risers, Kurt was kicking Puck out of his chair and sitting down.
“Okay,” Tina said, in a hushed voice. “Quinn’s quarterback boyfriend isn’t the one who got her knocked up, it was Puck. And Jacob ben Israel wrote about it on his horrible blog and Quinn’s boyfriend punched Puck in the middle of the cafeteria and yelled a lot and so everyone at school knows.”
“Wow,” Jesse said, his tone sarcastic. “How tragic.”
“It is tragic,” Tina said, glaring. She focused her attention on Rachel. “Mercedes called her parents, and they’re gonna put Quinn up at their place, since her big brother’s at college, but they want to get his room empty of his stuff first. So can Quinn stay with you for a couple of days? No one else has room except Puck, and Quinn won’t stay with him.”
“Of course,” Rachel said, reeling a little from the flood of information. Tina nodded, and walked back over to Quinn. Trent, Matt, and Mike had formed a pocket of bewildered misery in the corner, where they’d been joined by Puck.
Jesse tucked his head against Rachel’s, and nuzzled his way through her hair to press his lips against his ear. “You know having her in the house is going to put a serious damper on our intimacy, right?” Jesse whispered.
A shiver ran through her, like it always did when Jesse used that particular voice, but Rachel pushed steel into her spine and said “She needs my help.”
“All right,” Jesse said. He kissed the curve of her ear, before sliding his arm off of her shoulders and pulling back. “I’ve got class, so…”
He left.
~
Kurt really, really, really did not know what to say, as Mercedes quietly told him what had happened in the cafeteria, so he clutched the strap of his satchel hard enough to turn his knuckles white and stared at Quinn’s hair until she looked up at him.
Then she started crying, and Kurt cast his eyes down and around and shoo’d Puck out of his chair, so Kurt could sit down next to Quinn and not have to watch her cry while they talked.
“I can’t face Carole,” Quinn said. Mercedes was rubbing circles on her back. “I can’t go back to there, I just can’t.”
“Your stuff’s there,” Kurt said, and promptly blushed, but Quinn was just nodding.
“Could you…” she trailed off and gulped, then wiped away some tears.
“Yeah,” Kurt said, nodding. “I can…I can get it. Where should I…?”
“She’s gonna stay with Rachel for a few days,” Mercedes said. “And then move in with me.”
“I’ve never been to Rachel’s,” Kurt said.
“You can bring it to school tomorrow,” Quinn said. She wiped away a few more tears, and then straightened up in her chair. “I’ve got spare clothes in my locker anyways, you know, for Slushies.”
Kurt nodded; he did the same thing. Most of them did, in Glee club.
~
Artie had never skipped class before, but his study-partner in Math is in AV club with him, so wasn’t involved in today’s drama, and the teacher never took attendance anyway.
They aren’t in the choir room, that wasn’t an option for this, but Susie Saunders reminded them that the orchestra and marching band had a rehearsal space behind the auditorium. So after hustling Finn out of the cafeteria, the five of them had gone there.
Now Tracer was eating his lunch, Saunders and Johnny were splitting Johnny’s, because Susie had meant to get lunch from the cafeteria that day and never gotten the chance, Artie was keeping his hands on his knees so he wouldn’t grab his wheels and ram himself into the wall, and Finn was pacing.
Finn was also occasionally kicking over chairs and music stands, which got Susie Saunders to sigh pointedly each time, but Finn was ignoring her.
“Jacob says you guys knew,” Finn said, after a particularly loud crash of furnishings. “That everybody in Glee club knew.”
“Not everyone,” Artie said, with a shrug. Rachel hadn’t known, or Jesse, and Mr. Schuester was out of the loop too. Artie didn’t think it was a good idea to list who did or didn’t know in full, though. He’d have to read Jacob’s blog post to find out what was public knowledge later, distasteful as that thought was.
Finn half-heartedly kicked out a music stand, which wobbled and fell onto a nearby chair. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Finn asked, stopping his pacing to spin towards Artie.
“Seemed better to keep our mouths shut,” Artie said. “Quinn being pregnant got around the school because of Jacob ben Israel. Nobody wanted to be the one to take another announcement out of her hands.”
Finn flopped into a chair and rubbed at his face with his hands.
“Finding out through Jacob’s blog sucks,” Johnny said. “Woulda been better to hear it from you.”
“It sucks no matter what,” Artie said, giving Johnny a dirty look. Johnny shrugged and took a bite out of his peanut butter and jelly sandwich. “I’m sorry it turned out like this,” Artie said to Finn.
“You coulda told me,” Finn muttered, hands still over his face.
“We found out around the time her parents kicked her out,” Artie said.
“I wouldn’t have-”
“Oh, so you want her to come back to your house now?” Artie cut in, before Finn could finish that sentence and make a liar out of himself. “If we’d come up to you and said by the way, Quinn cheated on you with Puck, the kids’ his, you woulda let her keep sleeping on your couch?”
Artie crossed his arms and looked Finn up and down, then shook his head. “Were you even thinking about her when you punched out Puck? Are you thinking about her now? Or are you just mad that Jacob wrote about you like you were a fool?”
Finn shoved his hands down to his knees and looked up, and Artie dug out his cellphone. “Got a text from my girlfriend while you were kicking over chairs. The girls already made plans for where Quinn’s gonna stay, how she’s gonna get to school, all that. ‘cause all of them assumed she isn’t welcome at your house anymore.”
Artie held his phone up and stared at Finn. “Now,” Artie said. “Do you want me to text them back, tell ‘em to cancel all those plans, because Quinn’s welcome to come home with you? Or were they right?”
Finn stared at the phone.
~
“Hi, Carole,” Kurt said, when Carole opened the door. He’d debated coming right after school, or waiting until after dinner, and if he should call first, and wound up arriving around 4:30 in the afternoon, unannounced. He had rung the bell once, and started counting seconds to keep himself from running away. “I’m here for Quinn’s things.”
“Why?” Carole asked, stepping aside so Kurt could come in, and at that single-word question, his stomach dropped.
“Finn didn’t tell you?” Kurt asked, putting off the answer.
“He just came home straight from school and went up to his room,” Carole said. Now that Kurt was in the house, he could hear a bass-beat and video-game sounds coming from above.
Kurt took in a deep breath through his nose. “Quinn’s moving in with our friend Mercedes,” Kurt said. He took another deep breath and shoved the rest of the information out before Carole could say “Why?” again. “Because no one thought it was a good idea for her to live with Puck, especially Quinn, and since Finn’s not really the dad and Puck is and since that piece of information came out rather messily at school today no one really thought it was a good idea for her to live here anymore.”
A nervous giggle escaped when he finished, and Kurt pressed his lips tight to keep any more from coming out.
Carole stared at him. Then turned to stare at the wall. And she started to sort of sink, slowly, and Kurt added quickly “If I could get her stuff, please, that would be good?” and she stopped sinking.
Quinn Fabray had more stuff at the end of her time with the Hudsons than she’d had at the beginning, though not much, all of it elastic-banded skirts and loose baby-doll blouses and dresses bought in anticipation of the later term of her pregnancy.
Quinn’s old things fit in her old bags, and Kurt carefully folded her newer clothes into paper shopping bags wordlessly provided by Carole Hudson, and the two of them loaded the bags into Kurt’s Navigator.
Then Kurt drove away.
