Fandom: Glee
Pairing: Quinn Fabray x Will Schuester
Theme set: Beta
Title: The Art Teacher
Rating: G, PG at the most for some mentions of alcohol.
Warning[s]: Slight mentions of alcohol, minor spoilers that are in no way spoilerish.
Notes: Set canonically AFTER Glee's Season 2 (some sentences would be written into some Season 2 episodes, namely 6 & 10), but I'm setting these for when Quinn's older.
Disclaimer: I don't own Glee or it's characters, or any of the songs mentioned here, or Brown.
#01 - Walking
There's the way the air, everything seems to stand still while she's in motion, crowds parting like the red sea upon her presence.
#02 - Waltz
He dances across the room when he's in one of those moods: the pace changes abruptly when he's about to spin her, and she could swear he hesitates before dipping her, one arm circling her waist to hold her upright-and she's pretty sure she forgot how to swallow.
#03 - Wishes
He thinks of her (when he allows himself to), of how it would be in a different time and place, a different situation-but if everything one wanted could come true, he's positive she wouldn't be in his league even then.
#04 - Wonder
He's SUCH a good performer; her eyes are wide, cheeks flushed, and just for this once she doesn't care that she's only one between half a dozen girls who get to watch him do what he loves.
#05 - Worry
One day, he fears he'll do something-definitely step over that line, that boundary-and someone'll just SEE what he can't repress any longer.
#06 - Whimsy
He's doing nothing else but passing out sheets, lecturing one way or another, but she completely misses out on whatever he says when he leans down towards her and his manly, musky cologne invades her senses and she has to blink to regain reality.
#07 - Waste/Wasteland
They're really but two weeks from Sectionals and he feels he should lay down the rule and have everybody working on their set-list, but there's a hazel-eyed blonde Cheerio blinking up at him, and he feels he'd rather they have a jam-session after all.
#08 - Whiskey and rum
She would really like to start blaming the fact that she's noticed how beautiful Mr. Schue's eyes are to the Valentine's Days non-virgin chocolates Brittany brought.
#09 - War
Sue Sylvester has always hated him one way or another, but it's not until her prized Head-Cheerio quits in her Senior Year to fully devote herself to other activities (and Glee Club), that a rage of epic proportions emerges-and it probably has something to do with the fact that she once saw him and said Cheerio alone in his car.
#10 - Weddings
He's not even wearing a tux-it's just some suit not unlike the ones he wears to their big performances-but there's something in the way he looks (and sings, and moves) that has her thinking of a sexy Antonio Banderas and some perfume commercial and she thinks they should perform like this more often.
#11 - Birthday
Rachel Berry knew of it-she always does know everything, apparently-and somehow she finds herself volunteering to bake the cake; a hundred awkward questions from her mother later (why doesn't she just buy one?) some semi-permanent burnt smell on their kitchen and after some fumbled concoctions, the smile on his face when he blows the candle makes it all worth it.
#12 - Blessing
He first looks at her and thinks "Daddy's little girl", but she's so much stronger than that (and technically she isn't, anymore), so he's kinda glad in that aspect that-when the time comes-he'll have one less thing to worry about, even if he is old-fashioned in every sense of the word.
#13 - Bias
She can only do so much at one time in order to keep the perfect GPA she needs, so when it comes to dropping one of her time-consuming extracurricular activities, it doesn't take that much of a thought (and that long talk they had when he drove her home in the rain one night has NOTHING to do with it, nor does the way he smiles at her).
#14 - Burning
It's only normal that they are to dance with partners, it is a Glee Club, but something in the way her blond ex looks with his arm around her makes him wish for days when a boy misses Glee and he replaces whoever it was, so no one else gets to touch her (and Quinn wouldn't admit it, but she likes to think that there's something heating up in his eyes whenever Sam touches her during dancing).
#15 - Breathing
Oxygen becomes a problem and, when he inhales, there's that wet-ground smell he loves after a good rain, and the vanilla-coconut mixture of the girl (young woman) sitting on his passenger seat (but he tries not to think when his giving her a ride became a custom).
#16 - Breaking
"It's ok, Mr. Schue, it won't happen again," she nods but doesn't look into his eyes, and he wonders (not too hard) why it feels wrong for her to catch a ride with Mercedes from that day onwards.
#17 - Belief
"Because I am close to my God, and I couldn't understand if something like this could ever possibly BE wrong to His eyes."
#18 - Balloon
Somehow, he was talked into decorating the entire room in white, red and pink (he suspects it was Brittany), but after some serenades and love songs, the whole Club gets together to dismantle everything; most voices become high-pitched thanks to the helium, and he thinks he's never seen anybody look so beautiful as she is when she laughs.
#19 - Balcony
When she was little, she used to dream that she was a princess and stood outside to wait for her prince, her Romeo, for a confession under the stars; now that she's older, wiser (she hopes) a slightly awkward kiss where her arm is stuck in the wrong position between their bodies and his holding her car-door shut feels almost like the most romantic scenario ever (only second to his second attempt, after hours, in the Glee Club room).
#20 - Bane
"I know this is probably the last thing you want right now, but I love you, Will," she whispers in her sweet voice and he really, really, didn't want to hear that, and it's his ruin because how can he hold back now?
#21 - Quiet
He tries to kid himself that it wasn't his blowing off the kiss that did it, but she's less of herself when she shows up for Glee practice and he doesn't really like it; when he has her stay behind to talk, he's doing it all over again (what got them into this mess in the first place) and her lips remain closed but this time she's smiling and it's for a much better cause.
#22 - Quirks
She notices that he always-ALWAYS-taps his left foot when there's music (the same way Finn drummed on his own legs whenever he heard a particular song on the radio or Kurt checked out his hair-do as they walked in front of a mirror), but his favorite thing she does is smile whenever their eyes seem to meet-and, not that she would admit it, she kinda does, too.
#23 - Question
It was only an innocent offering, but rehearsal had run late and it was dark out and he couldn't allow himself to let one of his female students (even if it was Lima, Ohio) walk alone to her home, so he pulled up his car and said "need a ride?"; she nodded, and that was just how most of it began (the rest had started way before, years ago, when he thought of directing Glee Club).
#24 - Quarrel
He calls out that she's acting childish, and it all goes downhill from there-it's two weeks of cold shoulders and she's not one to give up easy-until he finally, FINALLY, admits that maybe meeting up with Emma Pillsbury-Howell for dinner isn't the right thing to do, and instead asks the Club to join him at his apartment for pizzas (in all honesty, he'd thought she'd be too busy to want to visit him for New Years-after wards, Quinn is the last to leave).
#25 - Quitting
She finds herself staring up at him as he speaks-and completely missing Puck's offensive comment, plus Rachel's offended-diva response-and then she's giving up because, yeah, she's completely mad over him.
#26 - Jump
College applications are sent and received and everywhere there's ruckus (his original Glee Club members are graduating), and he doesn't really give it that much of a thought beyond that until she mentions she's applied to Brown as her top choice-something starts in his brain and don't her eyes look particularly beautiful at night?-but he doesn't dwell on that path for too long because he has no idea how he got there in the first place.
#27 - Jester
He admits to feeling somewhat ridiculous whenever he raps-are they laughing with him or at him?-but she reassures him that their classes wouldn't be the same if he didn't get to have fun performing as well.
#28 - Jousting
There's only so much a man can do when confronted with his own feelings and those of the young woman with her strength and such amazing eyes as hers.
#29 - Jewel
She's too good for their small town of Lima-and he knows she'd do most anything to get out-so he tries his best not to be something to anchor her down (though he does cave in when she tells him he's being stupid and there's the biggest diamond he could afford on his salary on the ring around her finger when she moves away to College).
#30 - Just
She knows his feelings (and he, hers), so it's very noble of him to treat her the same way he does his other students-though, not really-, and she doesn't protest once when he lets Tina have the Madonna solo (she sings it once while she's doing the dishes on his sick-day leave, and that's all of the audience she thinks she needs).
#31 - Smirk
He's running them through a new choreography-their last-and it slips up as he's telling everybody where to stand; he doesn't notice it, but there's no way she can pass up 'honey' as her own name, and Puck's face tells her that (although privately) she'll never live that down.
#32 - Sorrow
It's a strange feeling, that they're graduating, and even though there'll be less of a stigma to THEM, she can't help but cry during their last group number-a tearjerker rendition of 'Seasons of Love'.
#33 - Stupidity
She falls asleep over one night-nothing dirty, just a double feature of Singing in the Rain and Footloose, and they're sleeping together on his couch when the cellphone rings; he grumbles out a groggy hello, and Santana's confused voice is on the other line (she believes his line that somebody'd left the cellphone behind and he'd taken it home, berates himself the entire weekend).
#34 - Serenade
Quinn sighs at certain points of the movies-really, it's his duty to notice-and so he blames in no way the alcohol when he shows up at her house on the weekend her mother's out of town and starts singing up to her window (the fact that she comes down to shush him and he instead kisses her was just a plus and, he repeats, he was NOT drunk).
#35 - Sarcasm
"Well, excuse me for wanting to harmonize in the background (not)," she snarks, hazel eyes flashing, and more than one stare turns towards her; Will knows there'll be hell to pay if he doesn't agree to let his graduating gleeks-other than Rachel Berry-get more solos in their songs.
#36 - Sordid
There's too many reports on the news on teacher-student relationships (set to the Police's Don't Stand So Close To Me), and they sit together on his couch, eyes glued to the screen, wonder how somebody could make something good sound so dirty-it's no coincidence that Sue's Corner dedicates her entire segment, and an extra 15 minutes, to the topic.
#37 - Soliloquy
It's not that she really cares, not anymore, when Rachel stands up in front of the class and spends 20 minutes devoted to herself and which solos she wants to perform before she graduates-that night she makes him some easy pasta while he sets up the DVD player and table, and Will only nods along as she mumbles on how MAYBE some other people would like a chance to sing, too.
#38 - Sojourn
He looks it up-he really does google the distance-and one of the last days of his Summer Break sets off to Providence, RI (it doesn't take much more than 20 minutes with luck on his side); her roommate's not even there yet, so he ends up spending the weekend on the still un-used bed.
#39 - Share
She's teasing-not really-when she says she's had a crush on him since her Sophomore Year, but he goes very white and stutters (it was his idea to talk about it on the first place, though she's kinda glad she hasn't told him that, really, the crush may've been started since she wrote the Glist).
#40 - Solitary
He has to go-real life, work, more real life-and her roommate finally got there (surprisingly, she reminds her of a more obnoxious Rachel Berry so she starts missing the original), and she only hopes that, once classes start, she won't feel his not being there as much.
#41 - Nowhere
He can't think of a place he'd rather be than by her side as he walks down to his first classroom of the school year.
#42 - Neutral
She drops by one day, while he's in the middle of class, and he loses his train of thought to the point where he stops talking; by the time the bell rings, she's already been swept up by Sue Sylvester (but, she should be rewarded by the way she remains quiet upon Sue's never-ending rant on how Glee Club is STILL stealing from her budget).
#43 - Nuance
It's only been a couple of months (she's a full-on Brown student now), but he can't help to think of how far they've come from Sue Sylvester's Head Cheerio to the now, with the both of them sitting and talking about her classes while over takeout Chinese and he can only listen to the growth that's present on her voice-it's not too much of a change so that he doesn't recognize her, but the small, subtle distinction between a more matured woman and her High School counterpart.
#44 - Near
They're re-doing 'Somebody to Love' (it's a real crowd-pleaser) but their numbers aren't even with Mike Chang being absent so-after some prodding from the kids-he ends up performing Mike's part (and if Mike was the one who got to dance with Quinn, well, he honestly didn't remember that).
#45 - Natural
Her fingers twine with his (he fumbles, misses a step) but, if not for the presence of the entire Club, he knows he wouldn't have noticed (he's too used to the feel, the familiarity of their hands together).
#46 - Horizon
She's falling asleep on his lap, with his arms pressed around her, and he feels her sigh as he sits straight, eyes lost far away on everything that's yet to come.
#47 - Valiant
Quinn was first to admit her feelings, yes, but he was the one-albeit completely involuntary-first step to bring them closer together when he couldn't allow himself to let her walk out the Club, out of his life.
#48 - Virtuous
He finds her one evening, fingers moving deftly across the piano keys, and she smiles his way as she sings; "a singer in a smokey room, a smell of wine and cheap perfume..." he's once again reminded of how beautiful and talented his student is (the only thing he thinks missing from that scene was her wearing a white dress).
#49 - Victory
Rachel gets the entire Club together just a few years after they've all graduated, and she claims she's not the least bit surprised when he and Quinn show up hand in hand; it's their small victory, the freedom to walk together after all, with no fear that anybody could say anything.
#50 - Defeat
It's in their 2nd year as a consolidated group that they make it to Sectionals, but only place, and it's again the same as it was the year before with the broken spirits (the next year they go to Nationals and win, twice in a row).
On #10, I'm talking about the commercial for Antonio Banderas' "Blue Seduction", which happens to use the song "Sway".
And, I fail at sarcasm.