Heavy (In Your Arms), Part IV
Heavy (In Your Arms), Part IV
Massive Attack, "Protection"
I know you want to live yourself/But could you just forgive yourself
It’s their last glee club rehearsal together-the original twelve, that is. They’re all about to head off to college after just barely-barely-losing out for second at Nationals. As bummed as they all are (Quinn is surprised that Rachel has even dragged herself out of bed) about letting Vocal Adrenaline take back the title they’d earned the year before, they still had a great run. The club is twice the size it was initially, though still at the bottom of the social ladder, and they’d somehow stayed a somewhat cohesive unit after the Babygate drama, the Jesse drama, the Kurt-dating-a-boy-from-another-glee-club drama, the apocalyptic Quinn-and-Rachel-and-Santana-and-Brittany-and-Finn-and-Puck-are-all-best-friends insanity. And now, halfway through July after they’ve graduated high school, the original twelve are together for one last jam session.
“Everyone,” Rachel says clearly, her voice ringing above everyone else’s like it always does. “I have something I’d like to say.”
“Of course you do,” Quinn and Puck muttered in unison. Santana smirked and held her hands up over her shoulders for the two of them, standing behind her, to high five. Finn grins good naturedly at their antics and shrugs at Rachel, and Brittany smiles widely and gestures for her to go on; Rachel sighs, rolling her eyes indulgently at her friends’ antics, before continuing. “As this is our last group gathering before we all go our separate ways for college-though several of us are ending up in the same city, and a few even at the same school-”
“On with it, Berry!” Santana catcalls. Rachel sticks her tongue out at the cheerleader-who, really, was no longer a Cheerio; no one was quite used to seeing Brittany and Santana out and about in regular clothes yet-and Mr. Scheuster half-heartedly admonishes Santana, who sticks her tongue out right back at Rachel.
“Anyways,” Rachel says loudly. “If we can set the childish antics aside, I have a song I would like to sing.”
“Of course you do,” Quinn and Puck mutter again. This time, Brittany giggles and claps delightedly at their delivery, and Rachel merely spins on her heel and settles herself at the piano.
“If I may?” she asks threateningly, glaring at Quinn and Puck.
“You may,” Quinn says. A soft smile graces her lips, and she holds her hands up in surrender, obediently settling back in her seat and folding her arms into her lap, attention focusing on Rachel intently. Puck grumbled and sat back in his own chair, but Rachel’s eyes remained locked on Quinn’s; the brunette flushed just barely visibly-obvious only to the five who had spent more time than all the others with her-and coughed before turning her attention to the opening notes she was playing.
“This girl I know,” Rachel starts softly, and Quinn immediately stiffens imperceptibly. “Needs some shelter. She don’t believe anyone can help her.”
Quinn feels heat spread across her cheeks, unbidden memory flashing through her mind of a night they had all passed out drunk on the living room floor in Rachel’s house, her parents out of town for the weekend.
Puck had been sprawled under the coffee table, an X-Box controller digging into his side; Finn was curled up girlishly on the sofa, clutching a pillow under his head. Brittany and Santana, unsurprisingly, were wrapped around one another in the middle of the floor, and Quinn was half-drunk and half-asleep with her head in Rachel’s lap, Rachel’s fingers sliding clumsily, tiredly through blonde hair.
“Finn is such a lightweight,” Quinn mumbled, turning onto her side and letting her eyes slip shut.
“He really is,” Rachel said. She yawned, her hand leaving Quinn’s hair as she stretched. “Oh, God, it’s four in the morning,” she muttered.
“Sleepy time,” Quinn said drowsily.
“Exactly,” Rachel responded. She nudged the back of Quinn’s head. “I’m going to go to bed.”
“What?” Quinn asked, alarmed. “You can’t move! You’re my pillow.”
“Quinn, I am not sleeping on the living room floor when I have a perfectly comfortable bed upstairs.” Her words, usually so perfectly annunciated, slurred together slightly in her intoxication, and Quinn giggled.
“But you’re my pillow,” Quinn repeated. “I’m not drunk enough to sleep without a pillow.” Clearly, though, she was drunk enough to find perfect sense in convincing Rachel sleep on the floor with the rest of them.
“That’s ridiculous,” Rachel said. “I’m going to bed. You can stay here, or you can come upstairs and sleep there. But I’m not sleeping on the floor.”
“Well, fine then,” Quinn muttered. She hauled herself up off the floor, pausing momentarily to find her balance through the haze of vodka, and leaned on Rachel to be sure she didn’t fall. “Let’s go, then.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Rachel said sullenly, and Quinn giggled again at her tone, poking her in the side.
Upstairs, Quinn flopped face-down onto Rachel’s bed with a sigh. “Oh, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” she murmured. “Have I ever told you that I love your bed?”
“You sound like Puck,” Rachel said. Her voice sounded fuzzy and distant, and Quinn grinned sleepily into the pillow.
“It happens to the best of us,” she offered, rolling over as Rachel laid down and pulled the blankets over them. It was far from the first time they had shared a bed, the past year of their unusual orgy-friendship (as Santana had dubbed it, and then immediately retracted after Brittany thought that it meant that they would all be having sex with each other, which Santana vehemently shot down in a split second) filled with drunken nights just like this one. Quinn had no idea how many times since Beth was born and their strange six-way friendship had started to develop that she had slept peacefully next to Rachel, or Finn, or Puck, or between Brittany and Santana. Each experience was distinct and different, with Rachel curling into her side like a cat, Finn slinging a long arm around her waist protectively from behind, Puck pulling her into his side and kissing the top of her head, Brittany snuggling into her chest while Santana somehow managed to tangle her legs through both of theirs.
“Rachel,” Quinn whispered after long minutes had ticked past. The brunette was peacefully asleep, and Quinn couldn’t get back to sleep to save her life. She reached out and poked Rachel in the side with her free arm, the one around Rachel’s shoulders jostling the other girl lightly.
“Go ‘way,” Rachel mumbled in her sleep, curling around Quinn’s side more tightly.
“Rachel!” Quinn whined insistently. She poked Rachel again. “I can’t sleep.”
“Urgh,” Rachel muttered. Her eyes fluttered open. “Dammit, Quinn, I was asleep.”
“And I wasn’t!”
“Not my problem!”
“It’s going to be if you don’t fix it,” Quinn shot back snarkily.
“What in the world do you want me to do about it?” Rachel asked incredulously.
Quinn shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said, flushing slightly in the dark. “Count sheep with me? Tell me a bedtime story? Sing to me?” She ticked off the drunken suggestions, her fingers tapping against the bare skin of Rachel’s arm each time.
“I’ll sing you one song,” Rachel said grumpily.
“Better be a good one,” Quinn said with a sleepy smirk. Rachel swatted at her arm blindly before she sat up to grab the water bottle from her bedside. Quinn swallowed the comment about Rachel’s insistence on staying so well hydrated and waited, curled on her side and watching as Rachel thought for a moment.
“This girl I know,” she sang quietly, staring at the ceiling. “Needs some shelter. Don’t believe that anyone can help her.” The words slipped out of her quietly, wrapping around Quinn’s suddenly completely sober and awake mind.
“Sometimes you look so small,” she continued into another verse, and finally glanced over at Quinn, who was staring up at her, enraptured. “You’ve got a baby of your own.”
Quinn’s breath caught in her throat, and she missed a series of lines, staring wide-eyed up at Rachel.
“I stand in front of you,” Rachel finished softly. “I’ll take the force of the blow.” She laid back down, a confused look in her eyes as she met Quinn’s gaze.
“You’re still awake,” she observed. “I’m sorry. I’m not a very good drunk singer.”
“It’s okay,” Quinn said softly. Suddenly, clumsily, catching both of them off-guard in their fatigue and intoxication, she leaned forward and pressed her lips against Rachel’s. “Thanks,” she mumbled, before burying her head in Rachel’s neck and curling into her side.
They never talked about it.
“Sometimes you look so small,” Rachel sings. Her eyes are half-shut, hands moving over the piano keys blindly; Quinn stares openly, knowing and not caring that the other ten members of glee, plus Mr. Scheu, are all staring at her. All she can think of is how very well she remembers the first time Rachel had sung this song to her, how she had reacted, how it had felt to hear the words directed at her. “Need some shelter. Just runnin’ round and round, helter skelter.”
Rachel finally opens her eyes the rest of the way, scanning across the eleven faces in the room until she finds Quinn’s gaze. The blonde gapes at her, biting down on her lower lip with wide eyes and a delicate flush gracing her cheekbones.
“I stand in front of you,” Rachel finishes, her voice quiet. “I’ll take the force of the blow.”
As the last echoing chords of the piano fade away, the silent reverie that had overtaken the room passes, and the expected applause starts up. Mr. Scheu compliments Rachel’s piano playing, and Santana cracks a joke with Puck while Brittany gushes and Mike and Matt are stoic and silent as always; Mercedes is grudgingly complimenting Rachel and Artie is commenting on Rachel’s surprisingly cosmopolitan music tastes, but Rachel was just nods absently and stares intently at Quinn, who has yet to move.
Mr. Scheu, slow as always to catch on but as good-hearted as usual when he did, not at all subtly corralls the rest of the room out into the hallway, leaving the two of them alone. Quinn remains in her chair on the back riser, staring down to where Rachel stands nervously.
Rachel finally breaks the silence. “We’re both going to be in New York,” she starts. “And I think-”
Quinn holds up a hand, cutting her off. Rachel’s mouth snaps shut immediately, and Quinn slowly makes her way to her feet, delicately navigating her way through the maze of chairs down to the floor. In front of Rachel, she looks thoughtfully down at the girl in front of her.
“Just kiss her already!” Puck bellows from outside the door, staring through the glass enthusiastically.
Rachel flushes almost purple, and Quinn laughs loudly and unexpectedly when she sees Santana’s tan hand grabbing ahold of the collar of his t-shirt and yanking him away; taking his advice, she turns to a violently blushing Rachel and leans down to kiss her soundly.