Little Red and the Big Bad Wolf

“Okay!” I exclaimed as I came through the Hudson/Hummel household, trying to keep from bumping into the banister. It was harder than it looked, since I had about a million bags on my arm, looking like they were growing from my sides. “I’m back! We can start now!”

Finn came up from the basement and laughed at my awkward situation. Though I pouted at him, he ignored me and just took about half the bags from my hands. “Come on. We’ll put these in the basement.”

“After you,” I allowed, moving the bags away from the front of my face so I could see the stairs under me.

By some miracle, I made it into the basement without tripping over something, and I threw all the bags onto Kurt’s bed and let out a loud sigh. “Kurt drives me crazy sometimes.”

“He does that to everyone,” Finn empathized, gaping a little at the amount of clothes. “Holy shit, did you actually get that many clothes?”

“Oh, yes. When Kurt sets his mind to something, it gets done.” I laughed and turned to the computer. “Want to do a warmup before Puck gets here?”

“He agreed to be in the scene? He and Santana aren’t doing their project today?”

“Yeah, of course he agreed. And nope. He and Santana worked until late last night so that they could get the whole thing over with.”

“Well, that works.” Finn smiled at me for a second before turning around and leading the way to the computer.

We went through the song a couple of times through before there was a knock on the door. “I’ll get it,” I announced, figuring that it was Puck.

Of course, I was right. “Wow,” I greeted, smiling at him. “I’m shocked that you didn’t just waltz right in, acting like the place was all your own.”

“No,” he shook his head, looking around the place. “I just do that for special people.” He winked at me before nodding toward the basement door. “That where we’re going?”

“Nope. You can go into the kitchen. Kurt’s waiting to make you look good for the scene.”

Puck scoffed at me. “I hate to tell you, babe, but have you seen me? I don’t need anyone to make me look good.”

“And I don’t need anyone to help me knock you upside the head.” I smiled at him threateningly, scrunching up my nose for a second, before pointing to the kitchen. “Go! Before I ask Kurt to sit in for you instead.”

Puck shook his head and walked away, and I hurried back down into the basement.

Finn was down there, staring into his closet, as if waiting for something or someone. “Need help?” I questioned, a teasing tone in my voice.

“What the hell am I supposed to wear when I’m shaking my head at you?” Finn turned around to look at me, kind of hopeless.

Chuckling lightly, I walked over to help him, going through his stuff. Finally, I tossed a dark t-shirt and jeans. “There ya go. Now you look like you’re lurking in the shadows where I could never possibly see you creeping on me.”

“Great,” he replied sarcastically.

Laughing again, I went through all the stuff that Kurt had bought previously and what I had bought that day, looking for something that could actually pass as something that a woman would wear to a bar. Which, obviously, I didn’t have a lot of experience as to what that was supposed to be.

Finally, I just decided on a plain, dark green dress, and hoped that it would work well enough.

When I was dressed, I went upstairs and sat at the kitchen table while Kurt did my makeup. It didn’t take him as long as I’d expected, and when he was done, he handed over a mirror.

“Wow,” I expressed, looking at my face from all angles. “I don’t even look like me.”

Kurt shrugged his shoulders before grinning at me. “I think you do. You just look a hundred times better.”

“Thanks…” I laughed, sneaking a peek at Puck, who was grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge. I really hoped that he had asked before he just took something, but me asking would just draw more attention to the situation.

When Puck came back to the kitchen table, he stared at me for a second. “Whoa, Red…you look…hot.”

“Thanks,” I repeated, smiling.

“I’m going to do Finn’s makeup,” Kurt announced, scampering down the stairs.

Puck was still staring at me, pulling his chair up close to mine. “Wow,” was all his simple mind could say.

“Intelligent,” I joked, tapping the top of his head.

He leaned in to kiss me, but I pushed him away. “Honestly, the last thing I want to do is mess up all of Kurt’s hard work.” Then, I leaned in and whispered, “Plus, there will be time for that later, okay?”

A few minutes later, Finn and Kurt were upstairs, and everyone got into their positions. We decided that Puck was going to be sitting at the bar, and I was going to wink at him just as I walked in and we made eye contact. Finn was going to be standing off to the side, doing his little, ‘I’m so disappointed in Ellie’ thing.

Finn started singing his verse, and we did everything as rehearsed. Of course, I had to mess up the whole thing when I tripped over a chair leg. It would be one thing if I had just stumbled, but I fell on my elbow, and the chair landed on top of me.

“Ugh…” I groaned before laughing loudly. “That was just bad. Take two?”

“Yeah,” Kurt sighed, rewinding the camera so that he could tape over the crap. “And…places!”

We couldn’t start right then, since Finn and Puck were still laughing at me (meanies…), but soon enough, they calmed themselves down.

The second take was a lot better, and everything from there was just smooth sailing. We never had to take more than three takes for a scene, and even the scenes that we did mess up on were not major mistakes.

Finally, we taped the last part, where Finn and I were screaming at each other in the basement. We stood in the middle of the basement floor, both in jeans and t-shirts, my hair in a messy ponytail. Kurt had done my makeup so it looked like I had been crying and screaming and carrying on. I had to fight to keep from smiling by the feeling in the pit of my stomach that this movie was going to come out awesomely.

“And…action!” Kurt called, pressing the record button.

“’Cause all we had is broken like shattered glass,” I sang, making sure that Finn and I finished being right in each other’s faces, breathing heavily like we had just screamed our lungs out.

Kurt called cut, and he made a weird face. “That just doesn’t look right.”

Right when I said that, I realized what it was missing: passion. Both songs were talking about deep roots of betrayal that happens when a person puts all their trust and love in a single person, only to have that person treat them like shit. So we were missing a major part of the love cycle: having huge fights that end up not mattering at all.

That meant that Finn and I were going to have to kiss, but there were a couple flaws to that plan: I didn’t want to kiss Finn, he didn’t want to kiss me, and Puck was watching the two of us film.

“I think you guys should kiss or something,” Kurt finally spoke.

I shot him a look showing that he was the creepiest human being on the planet for reading my mind, but it was only brief. After all, I wanted to see Finn’s reaction first.

The bad thing was that Finn’s face hadn’t changed at all. “I don’t know about that,” he finally expressed, but his voice was flat.

Puck, on the other hand, looked like he was going to kill someone. “That’s not a good idea,” he stated through clenched teeth, trying to hold back his temper.

Sighing, I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him aside. “Look,” I whispered, “I don’t want to kiss Finn. You know that, right?” Puck nodded. “But I think that it’s what the end of the movie needs. It just works with our concept. It won’t mean anything, obviously, and you know that you’re the only guy that I have any kind of feelings for. It’s just going to be acting.”

Puck grumbled to himself for a minute before running a hand down his face in irritation. “Fine. But I’m not watching.”

I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him. “Thank you for understanding. You won’t regret it.” Winking at him, I appeared back in the room and told everyone that Puck had said it was alright.

Finn shrugged and took a deep breath. “Then alright.”

“Don’t you want to call Rachel or something?”

“No. She’ll get that it’s acting.”

Although I nodded, I tried to keep from laughing. Finn, Kurt, and I all knew that Rachel was not going to understand at all, but it was better to pretend for just a couple minutes.

“Okay, positions!” Kurt called out, waving his arms around. “And…action!”

“’Cause all we had,” I started, walking right up to Finn, “is broken like shattered glass.”

We were really close, so all Finn had to do was lean down and kiss me, wrapping his arms around my waist.

Right when our lips connected, I regretted even accepting the idea, never mind kind of thinking of it myself. Kissing Finn felt really weird and uncomfortable.

“That was great!” Kurt expressed, grinning from ear-to-ear. I took a couple steps back, my face blushing fiercely. “Yeah, that’s a wrap.”

“Great,” I smiled, going over to collect all my stuff. “So, Finn, you’re going to do the editing, right?”

“Yeah,” he agreed, running a hand through his hair. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow at school.”

“Definitely.” Nodding, I hurried to the doorway, where Puck was standing with his arms crossed, looking angry.

When he saw my face, he laughed and opened the door. Once it was closed (thank God he had some tact), he asked, “Didn’t like the kiss?”

“Ughhh…” was my only answer.