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“What’s wrong with Tina?”
Kurt gives Quinn a sideways look, fixing his hair in the mirror on his locker. “Tina Cohen Chang? Why are you asking about her?”
Quinn shrugs, trying to play innocent and nonchalant. “I haven’t seen her smile in months.” Because since the beginning of the year, Tina always smiled at her as she walked into their first class and the only one they share, but now she doesn’t, if she even comes to class on time at all.
Kurt looks at her knowingly and Quinn pushes his arm lightly. “Shut up,” she grumbles. “I’m serious.”
“I’ve noticed it, too,” Kurt says after a moment, following Quinn’s gaze to Tina arriving at her locker. They watch as she hurriedly puts some books in her bag and quickly walks off again, head down and giving a wide berth to everyone she passes.
“Yeah, and that,” Quinn says, “it’s like she’s… scared or something.” She looks at Kurt whose jaw has tightened. Quinn squeezes his arm lightly and he smiles a little at her.
“I can ask Mercedes,” he says reluctantly as he shuts his locker and they start walking down the hall. “She’d know more than me, but… yeah, I don’t think she’s even been in glee lately.”
Quinn’s barely paying attention and almost runs into another student before Kurt pulls her out of the way. “You know, it’s a little creepy that you noticed this at all,” he teases, a glimmer in his eye, and Quinn elbows him and follows him into their next class.
-
Mercedes doesn’t give them any new information, and then Quinn – Quinn wants to forget about it, but she can’t. She keeps stealing glances at Tina in the halls, during class, at lunch. She knows Kurt’s right, that it is a little creepy, but…
They’ve been around each other’s circles since the beginning of high school, and a friendly wave from Tina one morning was the only thing keeping Quinn feeling normal when the least normal thing possible had happened to her the night before. She didn’t have Kurt yet, she barely had any friends because of her work to uphold her status as the ice-cold head Cheerio. Tina was kind to her when she was spiraling after her world had turned upside down and no one was around to support her, to turn it back around.
So she just wants to know if Tina’s okay. Because of that. No other reason.
-
Quinn gets her chance a week later.
She doesn’t expect to see Tina today – she isn’t in English and hadn’t been for a few days. Quinn tries to ignore her growing concern; after all, she still doesn’t actually know anything about Tina’s life.
When Mrs. Harrison splits them off into groups of two for a new project, Quinn is last to pick her partner and everyone else has already paired off.
“Tina’s absent today, I’ll work with her,” Quinn says airily, playing with the end of her ponytail and tapping her pencil on the desk. She acts like she doesn’t care (why would Quinn Fabray have any reaction to getting paired with a relative social nobody for a project?) but part of her is… looking forward to it. Not only because of her persisting concern about what’s going on with Tina, but also because she does genuinely want to spend time with her. So maybe this is her chance.
She tells Kurt about it at his locker between classes and he rolls his eyes and smiles fondly at her.
It’s the end of the day when Quinn realizes she doesn’t actually have Tina’s number to contact her; it’s too late to ask Kurt or Cedes, she stayed after school to retake a math test and she’s the only one here, as far as she knows.
Except she’s not. There’s another car in the student lot. Quinn glances at it and stops when she realizes someone is sitting in the driver’s seat – Tina. Before she can talk herself out of it, Quinn walks over and taps on her window.
Maybe she should’ve talked herself out of it, she thinks as Tina jumps and seems to steel herself before rolling down her window. Quinn smiles a little, apologetically. A wave of warm air comes from inside the car, like Tina’s been blasting the heat even in the relatively warm spring weather.
“Um, hey,” Quinn says awkwardly. “So… you weren’t in English today, but we’re doing a project and you and I are partners.” Her voice goes up at the end as if it’s a question. She’s really doubting this now. Tina looks like she’s sick and she’s gripping the steering wheel and not meeting Quinn’s eyes. “Or…” Quinn clears her throat slightly, putting her head Cheerio, most popular girl in school mask back on. “It’s fine if you don’t. Just tell Mrs. Harrison. I’ll do it myself.”
“No,” Tina says, looking up at her finally, and Quinn thinks there’s something different about her eye color. Her smile is tight and forced. “Sounds good.”
Quinn raises an eyebrow. “You sure? Doesn’t sound like it sounds good.”
Tina clenches her jaw. “Yeah, it’s good, sorry, I’m just tired,” she says in one breath. “Here, I’ll, um – ” She fumbles with her phone and offers it to Quinn. “Put your number in, I’ll text you.”
Quinn’s fingers brush Tina’s when she takes the phone and she almost jumps at how cold her skin is, despite the warmth emanating from the car. Even Kurt, who runs cold, isn’t nearly this cold to Quinn’s own unnaturally warm body temperature…. Her concern grows and she watches Tina for another moment, who’s closed her eyes and leaned back in her seat.
“Are you… okay?” Quinn asks hesitantly.
“I’m fine.”
“Forgive me for saying this? But you… don’t look fine.”
Tina gives her a sideways look. “Yeah, well.” She closes her eyes again.
Quinn enters her number but doesn’t give Tina’s phone back when she’s done. “Hey, seriously, I – what’s wrong?”
Tina just exhales defeatedly. “I can’t tell you.”
“Try me.”
She shakes her head.
“Your skin is fucking freezing, you have the heat on high in the car in almost 70-degree weather, you look different and not in a good way. I know – I know we don’t talk much, Tina, but please, let me help you.” Quinn even surprises herself with the last part. It’s far from the hard facade she hides behind at school in her Cheerios uniform, even though she’s still wearing that right now.
Tina stays still and silent and Quinn fidgets with her phone.
“I really don’t know what to do here,” Tina says softly, opening her eyes, glancing at Quinn again then back away. “I literally… have no. Fucking. Clue.” It sounds like she’s talking to herself more than anything and Quinn isn’t sure how to respond.
“Well, I… whatever I can do – ”
“Have you ever had something… absolutely, absolutely insane happen to you? Like… you would never believe it yourself but it happened to you and you have to fucking deal with it so you have to believe it.” Tina’s breaths come more quickly as she continues, her fists curling tighter around the steering wheel. “And I don’t know how to fucking deal with it, but I fucking have to because – because I have to and I’m this thing now – ”
“Hey, Tina, hey, breathe,” Quinn says hurriedly, trying to put a hand on her shoulder but the angle from outside the car window is awkward and she doesn’t know if it would be appreciated. Her mind spins with those words – you have to believe it, I’m this thing now – and it’s scarily similar to Quinn’s own thoughts when she first… turned, over three years ago.
But Tina can’t be a werewolf too, her skin… Quinn thinks. Thankfully Tina’s breathing has mostly gone back to normal and she just looks exhausted again, her forehead resting on the steering wheel and hands loose in her lap now. What the fuck. What the fuck am I about to do.
Despite all her instincts and rationale screaming at her not to do it, Quinn says shakily, “I think I get it,” and when Tina turns to look at her, she inhales and says in a whisper, so quiet she’s not sure if Tina can hear, “I’m a werewolf.”
Tina stares and Quinn starts thinking and thinking about how she can take it back, it was a joke, there’s obviously no such thing as werewolves, what the fuck was she saying, what was she thinking revealing this to a near stranger –
“I think… I think I’m technically a vampire.”
Oh. Quinn stares back at her.
Some of the tension seems to have gone out of Tina’s body. There’s another silence. “Can I trust you?” Tina asks quietly.
“What – ? I mean, yeah…” Quinn swallows. “Yes, you can. Of course. I think if there’s one person you could trust with this, it’s me.”
Please trust me.
“Thank you,” Tina whispers, like she just has no energy to speak louder. “I just can’t think right now, I think I need… like, fucking blood, probably, I don’t know…” She looks down at her hands hopelessly. “I think I might be dying.” She laughs humorlessly. “Again, I guess.”
Quinn thinks for a moment, taking in the almost metallic pallor of Tina’s skin and the difference in her irises that she noticed earlier. “How long have you… been a vampire?”
Is this the answer to what she’s been wondering about?
“A few months, I guess.” (There it is… Quinn wonders if anyone might have noticed something different in her for the months after her first night as a wolf.) “There was another vampire – nicer than the one who bit me – ” her voice goes hard and tight on bit – “who gave me some blood for a while. But I don’t know where they are now. They said they never stayed in one place for a long time. So I guess I’m starving to death. I don’t know.”
“Can’t you, like, get blood… somewhere?”
“I can barely stand talking to you right now, to be honest,” Tina says. “I don’t think I could go near other people right now.”
Right. Quinn curses her complete lack of knowledge on vampires besides that from popular media, which probably doesn’t apply very well to this situation. This feels absolutely ridiculous, though she’s been through weirder herself… still. Her first full moon was a disaster and she doesn’t know how to deal with this either. But…
“I might be able to help,” she says, standing up straighter and finally handing Tina’s phone back to her. Tina pauses before taking it, as if she forgot about it; Quinn has, too, for the most part. The project is definitely not a priority now. “I know absolutely nothing about vampires,” Quinn continues, “but I have my own needs as a werewolf. I know a place – it’s where I hunt. Animals.”
Tina seems to wince at the words. Quinn vaguely remembers hearing about how Tina doesn’t eat meat, for the most part. She could probably avoid thinking about it when someone else was getting her blood, but this will be direct. This will be a change.
Quinn presses on. “You need blood. Everything in history about vampires says that – they can’t all be wrong. Please let me help you.”
“Okay,” Tina says weakly, nodding a little. “Give me the address, or whatever – ”
“I’m driving you. In this car. And staying with you.” Quinn doesn’t back down as Tina’s eyes snap to hers, and her mouth opens to protest. “Seriously. I’m helping you with this. And you’ll crash the car if you drive yourself.”
Her head falls back against the headrest. “You’re lucky I’m exhausted and dying, Fabray,” she grumbles. She gets out and goes around the front of the car into the passenger seat, and Quinn slides into the driver’s seat, putting her bag in the back. She instinctively reaches to turn down the heat, but remembers Tina’s freezing skin.
“You can turn it down,” Tina says. “I don’t even feel cold. I just wanted my skin to feel normal to other people, which clearly wasn’t working.” Quinn gives her a glance to make sure, but Tina is just leaned against the window, body slumped and tired.
She turns it down just a little.
Then remembering something else Tina said earlier, Quinn asks warily, “Are you okay with me in the car right now? I know you said earlier you could barely stand it…”
Tina shrugs. “I mean, I have to be, don’t I?” Quinn doesn’t answer, and Tina looks over at her and chuckles a little. “Don’t worry, Fabray, I won’t kill you and drain your blood. Although it does sound… appetizing right now.”
“Haven’t you read Twilight? My blood tastes awful to vampires,” Quinn jokes, trying to lighten the mood as she pulls the car out of the school parking lot.
“Is that really a thing?”
Quinn laughs lightly. “I think so, I don’t know. But that is something I’m thinking about when it comes to vampires, so I must’ve heard it somewhere.”
Tina hums. “I never read or watched Twilight. My parents wouldn’t let me; my mom said she thought Kristen Stewart seemed like a bitch.” She lets out a short laugh. “The irony.”
“Do your parents know?”
“No. Yours?”
“No.” It’s honestly too easy for Quinn to hide it from her mom and her mom’s boyfriend. They’re never home and when they are, they leave Quinn alone, which is fine by her, especially on full moons or random weird days when she needs to leave. She does whatever the fuck she wants; they don’t question it. She supposes there are worse ways to live, especially while being a werewolf.
“How am I supposed to tell them?” Tina asks, looking out the window. “I thought I’d have to worry about telling them I thought Kristen Stewart was hot, not that I had basically become her – or, her character.”
“Well, you could lead with the first thing? Maybe that’ll make it a little easier to accept. Or you could lead with the second, and while they’re freaking out about that, just drop in that you like girls.”
“Ha ha.”
“It’s good advice, I just might follow it myself,” Quinn jokes.
“…You like girls?” Tina asks. “Or – you don’t have to answer that, sorry – ”
Quinn glances at her. “Yeah.”
“Cool. Let me know how it goes, if you do follow that advice,” Tina teases lightly.
Quinn laughs harshly at the mere thought of coming out to her mom. She might’ve been able to come around about her teenage pregnancy, but Quinn doesn’t miss the tone her voice takes on when she asks about Kurt or when Quinn mentions him, when Quinn’s watching something on TV or reading a book, when she sees something in the news.
“Well I’m not coming out anytime soon.”
“That’s fine,” Tina says, her voice soft and tired but sincere.
“Kurt’s the only other person who knows, though, so… yeah, you know… trust thing.”
“Of course. Thanks for telling me.”
And Quinn does trust Tina, with this, with the werewolf thing… she’s wondering how Tina managed to win her trust so quickly… and friendship.
Hopefully, Tina trusts her enough for what they’re about to do.
“We’re here,” Quinn says, pulling into a dirt area surrounded by woods. She puts the car in park and hears Tina take a deep breath. She looks nervous and Quinn doesn’t need to imagine to have an idea of what’s going through her head right now. She takes one of her freezing hands in her own, holds it between them. “Tina. I’ll be here for you, okay? I’ll help you. Are you ready?”
“Absolutely not. Do you know anything about vampires hunting?”
“Is it so different from turning into a wolf and hunting?” Quinn jokes, then asks seriously, “Do you need a minute?”
“No.” Tina removes her hand to open the door and Quinn misses the contact, the… warmth, even from her cold skin.
When she gets out of the car and comes up next to her, Tina shoots her a grateful smile – small, but genuine. Something Quinn hasn’t seen in months. She’s missed it.
(Shit, Kurt was right, she thinks, and if this is any indication, she won’t ever get tired of that smile.)
“Thank you, Quinn, for helping me with this.”
“Of course.”
Quinn’s hand suddenly finds itself in Tina’s again, and she can feel Tina’s hand shaking a little. Quinn gives her a small, reassuring squeeze. “Let’s go.”