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jeffersonlafayettes-blog · 8 years ago

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Hey, @danverolsens -- it’s your BIRTHDAY!! I’m not really good at mushy stuff so I’m just going to go ahead and say I’m so lucky to have a friend like you in my life. Since you gave me such an awesome gift, I decided to return the favor. Here’s five possible scene starters. HAPPY BIRTHDAY and I hope you like them!

WITH THIS RING

Growing up in a small town, everyone knew everyone. Kids went through school together before either enlisting or getting work. A few from each grade left for college but most of the kids stayed around and got jobs in town or out on one of the farms.

Marley was one of the ones who got a job in town. She’d moved around a lot when she was a kid but when she was in fifth grade, she and her mom moved to town to live with her grandparents. It was a good arrangement and after the initial shock of having a new kid in town, she made lots of friends.

When she got to high school and discovered that boys were good for more than playing baseball with, she started having more-than-friendly feelings for one of the guys who let her join their pick up games in the summer.

Puck was a year older and probably the most handsome boy she’d ever seen. He was athletic and good-looking and really nice to her. For a while, her best friend convinced her that he was crushing on her and then swore up and down that he was going to ask her to homecoming.

It never happened, though. Instead, he asked Quinn Fabray. She was smart and pretty and a cheerleader and practically perfect. She was a good girl from a good family and every guy in school wanted to be with her. So, of course, when she decided she wanted to be with Puck, he was more than happy to be her boyfriend.

After Puck and Quinn graduated, they left town, Quinn wanting to be a realtor in an expanding area and Puck wanting to be with Quinn.

When Marley graduated, she enrolled in community college and started working full time at the jewelers she did part time work for in high school. It was pretty boring most of the time and the owner let her study when there was no one in the store.

She was going through her macroeconomics study guide when the bell rang to signal a customer, so she shut the book and stood up straight, tugging slightly on her blazer to remove any wrinkles.

Her eyes went to the customer and she frowned slightly because his form looked vaguely familiar but she couldn’t place him. He had broad shoulders that were covered in a button down and a sweater vest over it. His pants were clean and pressed and he certainly didn’t look like he was from around here.

After giving him a minute or two to look around, she cleared her throat and stepped out from behind the counter. “Good afternoon. Are you looking for anything in particular that I might be able to help you find?”

The man looked over at her and she was struck by how wrong he looked. “Hey, Marls,” Puck said with a grin. “Didn’t expect you to be still hanging around here.”

She stared at him for a minute, her eyes running over his form, before she shook herself out of it and pasted on a smile. “Puck. Wow. I didn’t know you were back.”

He nodded and let his eyes dart around the items in one of the displays. “Yeah, it was time to come home.”

“Well it’s great to have you back. What’re you looking for today?”

His face got tight for a split second before he pasted on a fake smile and said with, in Marley’s opinion, forced enthusiasm, “An engagement ring for Quinn.”

BOMBSHELL

Marley never imagined herself on Broadway. It wasn’t a direction she wanted to go in, not ever, but after her first album went to Number One on the iTunes chart, her agent started talking up doing something more. Marley suggested a tour; Mercedes decided on a new musical.

She was an indie-pop artist with only high school stage experience but that was apparently what the producer was looking for. She didn’t walk into the role like Mercedes had expected but the audition process wasn’t as hard as Marley had.

It was a huge role, playing Marilyn Monroe, but once she got into the grove of it, she thought it was just like playing Sandy in high school. Just on a much, much larger scale.

Her co-star, her Joe DiMaggio, was an acting veteran but not someone who’d been on stage before. He was impressive and focused and really very handsome.

And, it turned out, quite excellent in bed.

She hadn’t planned on getting involved with Noah Puckerman but she couldn’t say she regretted it. Their chemistry was too intense to ignore and it got to a point where they either needed to fight it out or work it out in another way. They chose the latter and, in her own opinion, it made their on-stage chemistry even better.

They would spend their days working on the show and some of their nights together working on their chemistry. They didn’t really define their relationship but neither really needed to. It worked for them and that was all that mattered.

Everything was going great until two weeks before previews were set to start and she got called into a meeting with the producer, a very angry-looking Mercedes, an equally angry director and someone who looked eerily like Rachel Berry.

It turned out that it wasn’t a Berry look-alike but the real thing. And the new Marilyn. They hadn’t sold enough tickets for the backers to feel comfortable so they decided to bring in a veteran – a well-loved in the theatre world veteran – to try to boost sales.

She couldn’t blame them, not really, but it hurt like hell being told that she was going to be the understudy for the role she’d spent months learning and perfecting. It was embarrassing and demoralizing and she hated that she secretly wanted to claw Rachel Berry’s eyes out so she couldn’t steal her role. But almost as bad as losing her part was remembering that Rachel Berry and Noah Puckerman used to be quite an item. And now she was going to have to watch the guy she was sleeping with fall in love with his ex at least six times in the foreseeable future. And if they got a Broadway theater? Hell, she’d be watching it eight times a week.

She really wished, as she watched Rachel sidle up to Puck and shoot him her winning, perfect, beautiful smile, that Mercedes had just let her go on tour.

EVERYBODY DIES FAMOUS IN A SMALL TOWN

Being a cop was a no-brainer for Puck. He’d always thought it would be kickass to carry a gun and a taser and arrest the jackasses that used to date his mom. He grew up playing Cops and Robbers with Finn and when his buddy joined the army, Puck took the test and went to the police academy. He was lucky enough to be assigned to his hometown since the force was small and one of the older guys was retiring.

It turned out that being a cop wasn’t all that exciting most of the time. The majority of his arrests were for public intoxication or public urination, both of which came with pain in the ass townies who couldn’t get over the fact that they peaked in high school, or high school kids who thought they were cooler than they were.

Tonight it turned out to be the latter, led by his dipshit younger half-brother and his crew. It was Friday night and the football game was over so all the kids usually went to parties. Jake and his friends thought they were too cool for that or some bullshit so they usually wandered around, drinking and smoking and generally being idiots.

Jake and his girlfriend Kitty were “in charge” so they always dictated what the plan for the night was. She was a cheerleader because her mom made her be, which was why she was easy to pick out in the crowd of kids on Main Street being loud and obnoxious. She had his brother’s leather jacket on and was walking down the middle of the street, a bottle of something in her hand. Four other kids, including his brother, were walking in the right lane and one was walking on the sidewalk, hands in her pockets as she looked over at the group. His brother’s best friend tried to entice her into the street but she stayed put.

Once Kitty brought the bottle to her lips, Puck sighed and threw on his lights and sirens, slowly rolling up behind the group. He called for back up as soon as he realized they all had bottles in their hands – well, all the ones in the street – and they would have to be brought in. Alicia was going to be pissed; his mom would probably make him a full brisket dinner.

The kids stopped and looked defiant until Puck stepped out of the car. Jake groaned and everyone but the girl on the sidewalk took a swing at him as if it was his fault they were busted. Personally, he would have blamed the mouthy blonde with an attitude as wide as the Pacific.

He told them all to stay where they were and then indicated that the girl on the sidewalk should come over too. She was obedient and didn’t fight, instead moving towards the crowd right away. When she stood in the streetlight, he noticed that it was Marley Rose. She was a pretty girl, smart and not a trouble-maker in the least and he felt kind of bad that she was getting wrapped up in this.

“On the sidewalk so you don’t block traffic,” he ordered and they all shuffled over, eyes rolling the whole time. Except Marley. She followed his order and stood quietly, her hands clasped in front of her as she waited for more direction.

“You’re not serious with this,” his brother stated. “We’re not doing anything wrong!”

Puck rolled his eyes and just stood there, not saying anything, just waiting for the second car to get there. His eyes kept skirting over to Marley, who looked both terrified and resigned. He wanted to get the full story from her, find out if she was drinking or smoking too, but kids in this town sucked and if she narced on them, that would be it for her. He could only hope that she was going to get the hell out of here and never come back.

As the second squad car pulled up, he vowed to talk to Marley separately and see if he could keep her out of trouble. As long as she didn’t do anything wrong, of course. He was all for getting the bad folks as long as they were really bad. Something told him Marley was just a good kid caught up with a bad crowd.

A BIG STEP

Growing up in Cleveland wasn’t as bad as people on the news seemed to make it but it wasn’t the best. Things were hard since it was just her and her mom but they got by. Her mom worked a couple of jobs and when Marley was fifteen, she started working in the local movie theater. The money was crap but she got two free tickets a week so it kind of evened out.

She never knew her dad and her mom never really talked about him. She knew he was a Sergeant in the Army and that he didn’t stick around after her mom got pregnant but that was it. She didn’t like to ask a lot about him because she was worried that her mother would think that she wasn’t happy or didn’t think she was enough.

Just before she turned 17, they moved to a town called Lima. Her mom got a job in the school cafeteria and it had pretty good benefits and stuff so her mom couldn’t really turn it down.

A couple of days after moving into a small house in a quiet neighborhood, her mother decided it was time to do a huge shopping trip to stock the house. It was summer so she was able to get the lay of the land without being thrust into classes and high school hierarchy as well. She didn’t get a job right away because she wanted to settle in but she was sure she would have one by the time July 1st rolled around.

She was thinking about where she might look for a job when she heard her mother gasp and drop the can of creamed corn she was holding. Her mother shook it off and said she thought she saw a spider on the can. Marley knew it was a lie but she wasn’t about to call her mom on it. Not in public, at least.

When they got home, however, she started asking questions. Her mother dodged them expertly, something she started noticing recently but hadn’t mentioned. Marley wouldn’t give up, though, and eventually her mother admitted that she thought she saw a younger version of her father.

That was when the whole story came out. Her father’s name was Christopher Hudson from Lima and he’d been married with a child when they’d met. He was home from the war and trying to get his life together. Mille told Marley that he told her that he’d gotten a divorce and moved to Cleveland to start over. She told her that he was sick, troubled with the ghosts of his time in the Middle East, and that it ultimately got the best of him.

Honestly, Marley wished she didn’t know. But knowing that she was in the town her father was from and knowing he had a child made Marley realize she wasn’t an only child; she had a sibling and he or she could be right here in town.

After that, Marley started spending her days wandering the town, trying to find out as much information as she could. It took a while but finally someone pointed her in the direction of Carole Hummel. She’d lost her husband and had a son named Finn. She found out Finn worked at the grocery store, which made sense, and headed there to see him. He was off but another kid gave her his address.

It took a little over two hours for her to work up the courage but shortly after four, she found the largish-sized house and knocked on the door. A man with a square jaw and strong arms opened the door and checked her out. She thought it was a little weird but, then again, he probably didn’t know they had the same dad.

“Uh, hi. Are you – are you Finn?”

The man pulled a face and shook his head. “No, thank god. He’s upstairs. Who’re you?”

She licked her lips and took a deep breath. “I’m Marley. And I – I’d really just like to see Finn. Could you please get him?”

He surveyed her for a minute before steeping aside and nodding for her to come in. “Living room’s through there,” he nodded to the left. “I’ll go get him.”

Marley nodded and went into the room the other man indicated, her eyes skimming over the photos on the walls and mantle. His family looked happy, full, and didn’t include the man who answered the door. A photo of the man and a tall guy with floppy hair made her realize they were probably friends from school.

“Uh … hello?”

Marley turned around to see the floppy-haired guy standing in the entryway to the room she was in. He was tall – taller than the other man – and looked confused and maybe nervous.

“Hi,” she breathed. “I’m Marley and I’m sorry to barge into your lovely home unannounced but I just needed – I needed to meet you.”

“Should – I mean … thanks?” He laughed a little nervously and rubbed his right hand over the back of his neck. “Can I ask why?”

“Oh! Right. Of course.” She swallowed thickly and shifted on her feet, not really knowing how to tell him. He probably wouldn’t believe her and would likely kick her out but she kind of wanted to tell him anyway. She felt like she needed to. While she was trying to think of the right words, her mouth took matters into its own hands and spoke. “I think I’m you’re sister.”

“Oh shit!” The voice didn’t come from Finn but from the other man. Both she and Finn looked at him and he shrugged, obviously unapologetic. “What? As if you weren’t thinking the same thing.”

VERY TRULY YOURS

It started out innocently enough. They were both twelve when their parents set them up as pen pals. She was in New York and he was in her father’s hometown of Lima, OH. It was a Jewish thing, her grandmother told her. She wasn’t quite sure if she believed that but she always had a lot to say and didn’t have many friends to listen to her. As pathetic as it sounded, he had to reply so she was getting social interactions in one way.

When they were fifteen, he started opening up to her a little more. He talked about himself, about his family. He talked about how his dad came back for a while but then took off again and found himself another family. He talked about this girl that he liked but she was in love with his best friend and he didn’t know if it would be wrong to sleep with her anyway.

Rachel turned into his moral compass while he turned into the devil on her shoulder.

After reading stories from Puck, she decided to put herself out there more. She stopped pointing out how talented she was and let her voice speak for itself. She let herself act like a teenager, let herself get a crush on a boy, went to parties, socially drank and just became less of a “prude”, as he’d called her more than once.

Their letters were less frequent during their junior and senior years but they were both busy and understood why they didn’t communicate as much. They never exchanged numbers or e-mails, both keeping with the tradition or whatever it was that their parents had wanted.

For all that they talked about, they never really discussed college. Sure, Noah had mentioned that he didn’t know if college was for him and Rachel had been determined to go straight from the high school stage to Broadway but when senior year came around, they stopped discussing it.

Rachel’s fathers decided she was either going to go to college or she wasn’t going to have their financial assistance so she got accepted to The New School and moved into dorm housing. It was a stubborn move but she thought she was making a point. Not that she really knew what it was.

Just before Christmas break her freshman year, she was in her dorm working on her monologue for the Shakespeare class she was taking when there was a knock on her door. One of the girls who lived on her floor was going to the mailbox and had promised to grab Rachel’s as well. She was due to have a letter from Noah any day now so she smiled and pulled open the door.

The man on the other side was definitely not Mandy. “Uh, can I help you?”

He grinned and walked in, dropping a rather large duffle bag on the floor. “Is that how you greet a guy you’ve known since you were an obnoxious twelve year old?”

She stared at him in shock for what felt like hours before she was able to force out, “Noah?”

Laughing, he pulled her into a hug. After a moment he pulled back and gave her a smile. “So what’s your school’s policy on co-ed sleepovers?”

#danverolsens #p: otp

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