fic; love comes close
Title: Love Comes Close
Pairing: Quinn/Brittany
Rating: R
Summary: Quinn rolls over, her sheets twisting around her body as she settles on her side, watching Brittany slip effortlessly through the window.
Spoilers: Audition
Note: For zerodetorres
It's almost three-thirty in the morning, but when her half-opened window rolls up with a soft creak and the drapes flutter in the non-existent breeze of another humid Ohio night, Quinn rolls over, her sheets twisting around her body as she settles on her side, watching Brittany slip effortlessly through the window.
She kicks the covers off as Brittany steps out of her flip-flops and sheds clothes on her way across the room, the twin-sized mattress dipping as she settles next to her on her back in nothing more than shorts.
It's too hot to curl up together, but Quinn moves closer and rests her head on Brittany's shoulder as she slides a hand up the other girl's stomach, fingers slipping over skin that's damp with sweat until her hand is cupped over a breast, a nipple hard against her palm. Brittany's arm settles over her shoulder, easy and carefree like Quinn knows she could never be.
Brittany smells like sex and the jasmine she crushed on her way up the trellis.
-
She's tried her hardest to avoid seeing Santana again, even going out of her way to skip the hallway she knows Brittany and Santana take to lunch. She runs into Rachel on her way to the cafeteria, and it gets an arched brow and questioning look from her as she shuts her locker, books clasped to her chest.
She never comes this way, and Rachel knows it.
Quinn keeps it up, barely speaking to Santana outside of glee or Cheerios, until Brittany invites her over. With Brittany's parents out for the night, Quinn lets herself into the house to find Brittany and Santana on the couch together, watching Sleepy Hollow for the millionth time. She considers turning and leaving, like maybe Brittany forgot she invited her and Santana over, but Brittany turns before she can leave, catching her eye and waving her over with a smile.
She settles tentatively on Brittany's other side, and Santana says nothing.
They get a little over halfway through the movie without anything happening. They're all comfortable and fairly quiet, and Brittany's got her hand in her lap, absently stroking up and down her arm with her fingertips, when she turns to kiss Santana right as Johnny Depp wakes up to find Miranda Richardson watching him.
Quinn flushes, feeling heat prickle over her body as Santana makes a soft, breathless noise and the couch creaks audibly as she shifts closer. Quinn slips her hand out of Brittany's now-loose grip, crossing her arms over her chest and trying to focus on the movie, except that there's a murmur from the other side of the couch and Brittany's pressing up against her shoulder and kissing her jaw now, working her way across until their lips meet.
The rest of the movie's a blur, even though she's seen it enough times to have it down perfectly. The only thing Quinn really remembers is that Santana says nothing and neither does she, and it works.
-
Sometimes she wonders what her life would be like if she'd kept her. But she buries the thought as quickly as she can whenever it comes up, like most of her other what if scenarios.
What if she had kept the baby. What if Ms. Sylvester hadn't let her back on the Cheerios and her one shot to get out of Lima was gone forever-again. What if her mother stopped looking at her like she didn't know her own daughter.
There are morals in books and movies about life and how it changes. You can resist it, or you can accept it. She's okay with how things have turned out. Not happy, because she could have done without the pregnancy and the social isolation that the fall from grace came with, but she's made the best out of what God has given her, and that's all she can do.
Maybe it's resignation, but she likes to think it's acceptance.
-
She is completely out of her element. The banks on either side of the river are narrow and suck at her sandals, a mixture of mud and sand, and the very air seems to reek. Quinn supposes the scent is natural, but Fabrays have never prided themselves on any outdoor activity other than cheerleading or football.
But it is pretty. The sunlight comes through the overhanging trees and ends up mottled on what little solid ground there is, and the stream is clear and bubbles quietly. Brittany splashes across it bare-footed, her flip-flops hooked on a finger and her jeans rolled up to her knees.
“I found this place on my way out of the sewers,” Brittany says over her shoulder as she starts walking up the stream, and Quinn follows her on the banks, a hand flicking out at gnats that wander too close and picking her way over uneven ground.
Avoiding the water works until the stream widens and bends around a corner, winding through steep-sided walls of sand it's cut out of the banks. The shifting ground she's been walking on disappears and all that's left is a tangled mess of tree roots sticking out of the water. Trying to walk on it is asking for a twisted ankle.
Sandals in hand, Quinn steps into the stream and follows Brittany, wading carefully. They make their way a couple of yards through water, and she's never happier to see solid ground. She sits at the edge of the water and dips her feet into the stream, letting the grit and silt wash away.
Brittany kisses her cheek like she's saying good job, the batting of her eyelashes on her skin almost too soft to notice, and Quinn turns her head, catching her mouth and kissing back hungrily.
The spontaneity and need surprise her.
She lies back, suppressing a shiver as she hits cold, gritty sand and Brittany settles between her legs, the kiss deepening. Her hands smooth over Brittany's sides, up to her back where she scrabbles for a decent grip as a hand slides under her skirt and up her thigh slowly, waiting for any sign that this isn't okay.
Thoughts of what happened the last time she did this run through her mind, but Quinn ignores them. She's known what a fat day really is, and she's dealt with wanting something she can't have. She's burdened herself with enough guilt, deserved and undeserved, to last half a lifetime.
She tilts her hips up, inviting.
Her eyes close as Brittany's fingers slip inside her, her grip on the back of Brittany's shirt tightening, but Quinn opens them to see leafy branches and blue sky and Brittany smiling down at her as they slowly begin to move together, and she finds that she's still a little bit in awe of how much her life has changed.
-
She remembers like it was yesterday.
It's only a week into summer vacation and two weeks since she's left the hospital, but she's already dreading the next two and a half months.
Once she feels well enough and her mother's gone back to work-to pick up the difference of having one less income and the cost of delivering a baby-she pulls on Cheerio standard sweats and a gray McKinley High shirt and walks to school.
It's too early for football or Cheerio practice to start up again, and when she wanders onto the dirt track, she finds that she has it to herself. There's no one else around, so she runs.
She's never been exceptional at it, and the only time she'd run is when Coach Sylvester had them do laps when their pyramids weren't straight enough, but having no one watching, no one judging or timing on a stopwatch with a bullhorn in hand, is liberating. The baby weight it burns off doesn't hurt, either.
Brittany shows up on the track the fourth week of summer. It nearly puts Quinn off running, finding someone sitting on the bleachers watching, but it's Brittany, and so she stays. Their conversation is broken, coming in bits and pieces as Quinn runs laps and Brittany sits, but by the fourth week, Brittany's running alongside her, sometimes talking and sometimes silent.
When June ends and July really starts to heat up, they switch from mid-morning to late afternoon runs.
They get a late start one day and run well until after the sun's started to set, and they collapse on the field after their third mile, panting and dusty with the dirt they've kicked up. It's then, laying side by side on the grass as the sprinklers start to go off and the sky starts to go dark, that Brittany sits up, leaning back on her elbows, and smiles before rolling onto her side and kissing her.
When Quinn thinks back on the summer, the loneliness of a too-quiet house and a mother who treats her like glass, the discomfort of a body that feels tender all over because of a baby and how hard she pushes herself, the knowledge that nothing's ever going to be the same again, is all forgotten.
-
The name she picks out of the hat is Mike's. They meet in the Lima public library after school to flip through whatever sheet music they have, and after they decide on the least complicated duet to sing together, he gives her a ride home on the handlebars of his bike.
Later at night, in bed together, she feels herself blush as Brittany smiles knowingly beside her. They spend the night talking more than anything else, and Brittany doesn't show up the next night, but the bed doesn't feel empty.
She hasn't forgotten Mercedes, and they go out for ice cream after school on a Wednesday. It turns into an invitation to join her and Kurt for their weekly spa session-really, to sweat it out in Kurt's jacuzzi and give themselves pedicures after while watching Project Runway.
For maybe the first time in her life, she doesn't go straight home after Cheerio practice to do homework alone and then fall sleep, exhausted.
It's startling and somewhat bittersweet when she realizes she's actually happy.
-
She's never thought that she was the only one. There were people there before her, like Santana, and there will be people after her.
Quinn knows it's never been a competition. Puck and Mike and Tina, Matt before he transferred, half the volleyball team, and most of McKinley High can all agree that it's never been a competition. Santana is always the one Brittany goes back to, eventually.
She's grateful for a lot of things, like knowing her baby will grow up with a better family than two teenagers who can barely take care of themselves, or realizing that there was something there, superficial but there, between her and her mother, and that she can build on it and make it better. Annoying though she is, being there to witness what Rachel Berry goes through on a daily basis has helped her see the other side of things. And with her lips and hands and carefree attitude, so has Brittany. Mike, too.
As painful as it was in places, she's grateful for the chance to learn and to change.
When Brittany looks over her shoulder to smile and wave with the one hand that's not clasped with Santana's as the two of them head out of the glee room together, Quinn feels herself smile and waves back.
Pairing: Quinn/Brittany
Rating: R
Summary: Quinn rolls over, her sheets twisting around her body as she settles on her side, watching Brittany slip effortlessly through the window.
Spoilers: Audition
Note: For zerodetorres
It's almost three-thirty in the morning, but when her half-opened window rolls up with a soft creak and the drapes flutter in the non-existent breeze of another humid Ohio night, Quinn rolls over, her sheets twisting around her body as she settles on her side, watching Brittany slip effortlessly through the window.
She kicks the covers off as Brittany steps out of her flip-flops and sheds clothes on her way across the room, the twin-sized mattress dipping as she settles next to her on her back in nothing more than shorts.
It's too hot to curl up together, but Quinn moves closer and rests her head on Brittany's shoulder as she slides a hand up the other girl's stomach, fingers slipping over skin that's damp with sweat until her hand is cupped over a breast, a nipple hard against her palm. Brittany's arm settles over her shoulder, easy and carefree like Quinn knows she could never be.
Brittany smells like sex and the jasmine she crushed on her way up the trellis.
-
She's tried her hardest to avoid seeing Santana again, even going out of her way to skip the hallway she knows Brittany and Santana take to lunch. She runs into Rachel on her way to the cafeteria, and it gets an arched brow and questioning look from her as she shuts her locker, books clasped to her chest.
She never comes this way, and Rachel knows it.
Quinn keeps it up, barely speaking to Santana outside of glee or Cheerios, until Brittany invites her over. With Brittany's parents out for the night, Quinn lets herself into the house to find Brittany and Santana on the couch together, watching Sleepy Hollow for the millionth time. She considers turning and leaving, like maybe Brittany forgot she invited her and Santana over, but Brittany turns before she can leave, catching her eye and waving her over with a smile.
She settles tentatively on Brittany's other side, and Santana says nothing.
They get a little over halfway through the movie without anything happening. They're all comfortable and fairly quiet, and Brittany's got her hand in her lap, absently stroking up and down her arm with her fingertips, when she turns to kiss Santana right as Johnny Depp wakes up to find Miranda Richardson watching him.
Quinn flushes, feeling heat prickle over her body as Santana makes a soft, breathless noise and the couch creaks audibly as she shifts closer. Quinn slips her hand out of Brittany's now-loose grip, crossing her arms over her chest and trying to focus on the movie, except that there's a murmur from the other side of the couch and Brittany's pressing up against her shoulder and kissing her jaw now, working her way across until their lips meet.
The rest of the movie's a blur, even though she's seen it enough times to have it down perfectly. The only thing Quinn really remembers is that Santana says nothing and neither does she, and it works.
-
Sometimes she wonders what her life would be like if she'd kept her. But she buries the thought as quickly as she can whenever it comes up, like most of her other what if scenarios.
What if she had kept the baby. What if Ms. Sylvester hadn't let her back on the Cheerios and her one shot to get out of Lima was gone forever-again. What if her mother stopped looking at her like she didn't know her own daughter.
There are morals in books and movies about life and how it changes. You can resist it, or you can accept it. She's okay with how things have turned out. Not happy, because she could have done without the pregnancy and the social isolation that the fall from grace came with, but she's made the best out of what God has given her, and that's all she can do.
Maybe it's resignation, but she likes to think it's acceptance.
-
She is completely out of her element. The banks on either side of the river are narrow and suck at her sandals, a mixture of mud and sand, and the very air seems to reek. Quinn supposes the scent is natural, but Fabrays have never prided themselves on any outdoor activity other than cheerleading or football.
But it is pretty. The sunlight comes through the overhanging trees and ends up mottled on what little solid ground there is, and the stream is clear and bubbles quietly. Brittany splashes across it bare-footed, her flip-flops hooked on a finger and her jeans rolled up to her knees.
“I found this place on my way out of the sewers,” Brittany says over her shoulder as she starts walking up the stream, and Quinn follows her on the banks, a hand flicking out at gnats that wander too close and picking her way over uneven ground.
Avoiding the water works until the stream widens and bends around a corner, winding through steep-sided walls of sand it's cut out of the banks. The shifting ground she's been walking on disappears and all that's left is a tangled mess of tree roots sticking out of the water. Trying to walk on it is asking for a twisted ankle.
Sandals in hand, Quinn steps into the stream and follows Brittany, wading carefully. They make their way a couple of yards through water, and she's never happier to see solid ground. She sits at the edge of the water and dips her feet into the stream, letting the grit and silt wash away.
Brittany kisses her cheek like she's saying good job, the batting of her eyelashes on her skin almost too soft to notice, and Quinn turns her head, catching her mouth and kissing back hungrily.
The spontaneity and need surprise her.
She lies back, suppressing a shiver as she hits cold, gritty sand and Brittany settles between her legs, the kiss deepening. Her hands smooth over Brittany's sides, up to her back where she scrabbles for a decent grip as a hand slides under her skirt and up her thigh slowly, waiting for any sign that this isn't okay.
Thoughts of what happened the last time she did this run through her mind, but Quinn ignores them. She's known what a fat day really is, and she's dealt with wanting something she can't have. She's burdened herself with enough guilt, deserved and undeserved, to last half a lifetime.
She tilts her hips up, inviting.
Her eyes close as Brittany's fingers slip inside her, her grip on the back of Brittany's shirt tightening, but Quinn opens them to see leafy branches and blue sky and Brittany smiling down at her as they slowly begin to move together, and she finds that she's still a little bit in awe of how much her life has changed.
-
She remembers like it was yesterday.
It's only a week into summer vacation and two weeks since she's left the hospital, but she's already dreading the next two and a half months.
Once she feels well enough and her mother's gone back to work-to pick up the difference of having one less income and the cost of delivering a baby-she pulls on Cheerio standard sweats and a gray McKinley High shirt and walks to school.
It's too early for football or Cheerio practice to start up again, and when she wanders onto the dirt track, she finds that she has it to herself. There's no one else around, so she runs.
She's never been exceptional at it, and the only time she'd run is when Coach Sylvester had them do laps when their pyramids weren't straight enough, but having no one watching, no one judging or timing on a stopwatch with a bullhorn in hand, is liberating. The baby weight it burns off doesn't hurt, either.
Brittany shows up on the track the fourth week of summer. It nearly puts Quinn off running, finding someone sitting on the bleachers watching, but it's Brittany, and so she stays. Their conversation is broken, coming in bits and pieces as Quinn runs laps and Brittany sits, but by the fourth week, Brittany's running alongside her, sometimes talking and sometimes silent.
When June ends and July really starts to heat up, they switch from mid-morning to late afternoon runs.
They get a late start one day and run well until after the sun's started to set, and they collapse on the field after their third mile, panting and dusty with the dirt they've kicked up. It's then, laying side by side on the grass as the sprinklers start to go off and the sky starts to go dark, that Brittany sits up, leaning back on her elbows, and smiles before rolling onto her side and kissing her.
When Quinn thinks back on the summer, the loneliness of a too-quiet house and a mother who treats her like glass, the discomfort of a body that feels tender all over because of a baby and how hard she pushes herself, the knowledge that nothing's ever going to be the same again, is all forgotten.
-
The name she picks out of the hat is Mike's. They meet in the Lima public library after school to flip through whatever sheet music they have, and after they decide on the least complicated duet to sing together, he gives her a ride home on the handlebars of his bike.
Later at night, in bed together, she feels herself blush as Brittany smiles knowingly beside her. They spend the night talking more than anything else, and Brittany doesn't show up the next night, but the bed doesn't feel empty.
She hasn't forgotten Mercedes, and they go out for ice cream after school on a Wednesday. It turns into an invitation to join her and Kurt for their weekly spa session-really, to sweat it out in Kurt's jacuzzi and give themselves pedicures after while watching Project Runway.
For maybe the first time in her life, she doesn't go straight home after Cheerio practice to do homework alone and then fall sleep, exhausted.
It's startling and somewhat bittersweet when she realizes she's actually happy.
-
She's never thought that she was the only one. There were people there before her, like Santana, and there will be people after her.
Quinn knows it's never been a competition. Puck and Mike and Tina, Matt before he transferred, half the volleyball team, and most of McKinley High can all agree that it's never been a competition. Santana is always the one Brittany goes back to, eventually.
She's grateful for a lot of things, like knowing her baby will grow up with a better family than two teenagers who can barely take care of themselves, or realizing that there was something there, superficial but there, between her and her mother, and that she can build on it and make it better. Annoying though she is, being there to witness what Rachel Berry goes through on a daily basis has helped her see the other side of things. And with her lips and hands and carefree attitude, so has Brittany. Mike, too.
As painful as it was in places, she's grateful for the chance to learn and to change.
When Brittany looks over her shoulder to smile and wave with the one hand that's not clasped with Santana's as the two of them head out of the glee room together, Quinn feels herself smile and waves back.