It is Love (Quinn/Rachel)
Name: It is Love
Rating: R
Summary: The soundtrack of a life can hit a lot of notes.
A/N: This story/fanmix has been floating around in my head for ages and ages and ages and I finally got around to writing it and throwing the soundtrack together. So first things first. Thank you so much to putakeepareyou for making me my pretty fanmix :D
the soundtrack lives here
black kids // i'm not gonna teach your boyfriend how to dance with you
you are the girl that i've been dreaming of ever since i was a little girl...the word's on the street and it's on the news, i'm not gonna teach him how to dance with you, he's got two left feet and he bites my moves
Dance lessons became required in gym class when Rachel was in the eighth grade. No one cared much about them.
Except Finn Hudson, who came up to her one day after class and glanced around for people who could spend the day talking about the once and future social king ducking to Rachel Berry's level.
Literally and figuratively, Rachel supposes as she looks up into him. He's always been a bit adorable, but he's never been much more than that cute boy.
She wasn't much interested in him, and especially not people who would take the chance to notice her.
He asks her if he can teach her how to dance without stepping on a girl's feet - he had noticed how good she was and wanted help because Quinn Fabray wanted to dance with him at the spring dance and he wanted to keep her feet safe because she was joining the Cheerios at the high school over the summer.
Rachel said no, despite the hesitant and charming smile stretched across the boy's face.
As she walked away she passed Quinn Fabray and her court of girls at her locker - the girl didn't give a look.
No, Rachel Berry wasn't interested anyone. And especially not Quinn Fabray, the girl who couldn't be bothered to turn her head when Rachel walked past.
cold war kids // something is not right with me
something is not right with me, trying not to let it show...
Quinn remembers the first time she ever had a dream about a girl.
She was at Cheerios camp and they had been practicing in almost melting heat - they had gotten down to their sports bras and the shortest shorts that could be imagined.
The hotel they were staying in was cool and the bed was soft - she had sunk into bed next to Christy Allen and fallen straight asleep.
The girl in her dream had kissed her until Quinn had woken up gasping for breath and with a strange feeling of dampness permeating her body and centering down...well, at her center.
She told herself it was a dream, or a nightmare, really. She told herself to go back to sleep and tomorrow would be another day and she could move on and forget about it.
A year and a half later, and she was in the middle of her pregnancy and the only thing that could succeed in pushing away the insistent feeling of sensitivity was the thoughts laced with short skirts and tight abs and swells and valleys -
It was only an affirmation of how wrong she was, that in the lowest of lows she could only manage to sink lower.
the airborne toxic event // wishing well
but you were always a mess, you were always aloof, it's awful i guess, but it's the awful truth, it was true from the first to the last that she read
Everything reminds her of the girl she gave away. That is how she ends up in JC Penney's bathroom, crying her eyes out, thanks to a baby clothing sighting.
The strangest thing happens, though, when Rachel Berry comes through the door and stops short, a slushy clutched in her hand. Her hair is newly cut, with a flop of bangs on her forehead. Rachel has been featuring lately in Quinn's dreams - she's been wondering about her fellow glee clubbers and their whereabouts and Rachel apparently manages to hog the spotlight even in Quinn's subconscious.
It's not entirely relevant that the last dream featuring Rachel involved little else that a bikini and a poolside rendevouz involving sunscreen, Quinn is sure. But the memory of the dream springs immediately to mind and her tears dry as suddenly as they started.
Rachel slowly opens her mouth to speak, before she shuts it, obviously unsure what to say.
Quinn clears her throat against the sticky feeling left over from the crying, or from the sight of Rachel Berry's tanned legs and petite body right in front of her. She couldn't say. She couldn't really care either, because Rachel was slowly smiling at Quinn.
"Hello, Quinn," she says, smiling brightly. "Would you like to shop with me?"
And the summer officially begins as Quinn nods and lets herself be led out of the store and through the rest of the mall, with Rachel Berry at her side.
metric // gimme sympathy
we're so close to something better left unknown, i can feel it in my bones, gimme sympathy after all of this is gone, who'd you rather be, the Beatles or the Rolling Stones?...come on baby play me something like Here Comes the Sun...
When Rachel sings, everything about her feels alive. But tonight she is singing, playing Rock Band with Quinn, and she can feel her whole body hum with some new level of awareness. She's standing in front of the television, with Quinn off to the side and the mini plastic guitar slung on her shoulder. Finn is sitting on the couch, tapping out the slow rhythm of the song while Puck is draped over the armchair, his own guitar clicking along to the dots on the screen.
Rachel glances to the side and sees Quinn looking right back at her, smiling as she sings through the harmony required of her.
Rachel hesitantly smiles back, and suddenly there isn't much more than Quinn Fabray and the sound of Rachel's own heartbeat. She keeps singing through it, of course, but it's unnerving. Nothing has never made her feel so alive than the shining quality of Quinn's beautiful face.
She doesn't know what any of it means, but it keeps happening. Quinn finds the time to fit Rachel into her suddenly busy again life - and Rachel welcomes her with open arms. But it isn't quite right, the way it works for them. Rachel feels as if she's hitting a note that's almost there - right on the edge of lighting the room on fire with praise for her.
They're close to something, Rachel can feel it. And from the way her heart beats in her ears and the way everything rushes around in overdrive in her head - she has a very good feeling of what it is.
arctic monkeys // baby i'm yours
in other words, until i die, baby, i'm yours
Quinn is the one who kisses Rachel, not the other way around. Quinn has just been named captain, again, despite the last year of her life, and she has dragged Rachel to a small ice cream shop on the outskirts of Lima, which is pretty near the middle of the town in the first place.
It's nearing the end of summer and the sky is darkening more quickly every day. It's eight on this day and the lighting is beautiful - with the sunset hovering almost impossibly on the horizon, obscured by trees and buildings. The sky is a dusky blue, hovering in between day and night. It feels like time is slowing all around them, just for them.
And Quinn watches as Rachel sets down her ice cream and bounds out into the newly cut corn field next to the ice cream shop, spinning pirouettes into the night, and laughs when the girl stops suddenly and turns back to face Quinn, her face shaded and thrown in contrast.
Quinn throws away her ice cream and meets Rachel in the field, giggling when Rachel pulls them both down into the browning corn stalks left behind and she sprawls out, looking up at the sky and sighing.
She isn't sure she's ready to return to school, not when this summer has been so good. But nothing feels so bad when Quinn has Rachel around. Even if it's not just a friendship for her, even if Rachel inhabits Quinn's dreams exclusively these days.
Rachel lays out next to her, the length of her body pressing against Quinn's. There's a star just beginning to make it's arrival known, dimly announcing its presence to the earth and twinkling down at the two of them.
Quinn turns to look at Rachel and blinks, knowing that a far brighter star is right at her side, and when Rachel turns her head to look back at Quinn and smiles softly, Quinn kisses her.
It feels just like a dream, with the sun and the stars sharing the same sky above them.
kings of leon // sex on fire
girl, your sex is on fire, consumed with what's to transpire, hot as a fever, rattling bones, i could just taste it, if it's not forever, if it's just tonight, it's still the greatest
The first time they have sex is simple and Quinn feels ecstatic most of the time. It's sweet and loving and in the back of her head she knows it's much better than her first time, and she wants to make Rachel's great.
She had used her best google fu to get the techniques down, somewhat embarassed and constantly deleting her search histories on her computer, but she had figured it out, and apparently it was working.
Because, she currently had one hand inside Rachel's pants, and it was hotter than the surface of the sun. On the level of, "Holy hell, this is really hot," but also on the level of, "Holy hell, Rachel's really, really hot, temperature-wise."
It was a month or two into the school year and Rachel and Finn had broken up long ago. No one knew about them - neither of them had much cared to tell anyone. It was their thing, their secret. It was just them.
Rachel kissed her right as Quinn felt the smaller girl break in her arms, shivering and moaning.
It felt like a long time coming, and when Rachel settled into her arms once more, much later that night, Quinn knew it was the greatest of her life.
She just didn't know if it was enough anymore.
death cab for cutie // cath
cath she stands with a well-intentioned man but she can't relax with his hand on the small of her back, as the flashbulbs burst she holds a smile as someone would hold a crying child
Rachel watches as Quinn and Puck are inaguarated as Prom Queen and King, their hands clasped. She knows, of course, that neither of them are in the relationship. It isn't even a relationship, really. Quinn had mentioned Puck asking her to prom a long time ago, back in March, around their own seven month anniversary.
They were still very much a secret, but it was getting harder and harder for Rachel to understand just why that was. Quinn loved her, Rachel loved Quinn. It seemed like it would be easy, but they were slowly breaking apart as Quinn became more and more interested in cover-ups and secrecy, when all Rachel wanted to do was shout from the rooftops. And it was some new form of torture, watching Quinn with the boy who was the father of her child, watching them up on the stage as Quinn looked for all the world to Rachel as if she would die to be anywhere else. Maybe this was really the beginning of the end.
It was love. It was supposed to be easy.
But nothing was ever easy for Rachel Berry.
the gaslight anthem // here's looking at you, kid
you can tell gail if she calls that i'm famous for all these rock and roll songs and even if that's a lie she should've given me a try...when we were kids on the field on the first day of school, i woulda been her fool, and i woulda sang out your name in all those old high school halls
Rachel breaks up with her on the day of their eight month (secret) anniversary. With a song, just as Rachel Berry would do.
It isn't familiar, but the way Rachel sings it aches with regret and there are tears in her eyes as she sings of all the things she could've done and would've for Quinn. Quinn stares her down and clutches her hands into fists as Finn rushes down the risers and wraps his arms around her ex-girlfriend, as she cries at the end of her performance.
When Quinn shows up at Rachel's doorstep later that night with her hands shaking and her eyes heavy, Rachel simply looks at her and nods through Quinn's rambling apologies. Quinn doesn't really know what she's apologizing for, but she keeps doing it until Rachel is leaning against her doorframe and crying, nodding through her closed eyes and not saying a word.
Quinn stops then, her eyes tracing over Rachel's tired body. Rachel's eyes jerk open at the absence of sound, and they're rimmed with red and puffy in the bright sun. Quinn frowns and reaches forward, only earning a shake of the head that halts her hand in midair.
"You love me," Rachel whispers, her voice tired and so un-Rachel that Quinn hates herself for causing it. But she nods, and nods some more.
"I love you," Rachel adds. Quinn nods again, reaches forward again. Rachel stops her.
"Please don't."
And then the door is softly closing in Quinn's face, the click of the lock clearly heard through the thick wood.
yeah yeah yeahs // maps
wait, they don't love you like i love you
It replays in her head for days. Rachel whispering, You love me, I love you over and over. And it's true. They love each other.
But somewhere along the way, Quinn made a mistake, and she knows it.
But in the end, all she can do is fight to win Rachel back.
And so she does.
hellogoodbye // oh, it is love
from the first moment i set my eyes on yours thinking, "oh, it is love."
Rachel stares at Quinn as she sings along to the plucky guitar that she's coerced Puck into using. Quinn can barely hear it over the rushing in her ears, to be honest, but she forces the words out of her mouth and hopes they sound out what she wants to say, what she should've said. What she means, in the end.
She finishes singing on a quiet note, wondering if Rachel even understands or cares or anything, but Rachel is moving quickly down the risers, bounding up to Quinn and stopping a foot away, her eyes wide and bright.
Quinn smiles slowly, whispering, "I love you."
The entire room freezes in the middle of its already stunned silence, but Quinn doesn't notice because Rachel is smiling.
And then Rachel is in the circle of Quinn's arms, her arms wrapping around Quinn's back and kissing Quinn like they're in the middle of an empty cornfield or an empty bed in an empty house. And it's love.
the end
Rating: R
Summary: The soundtrack of a life can hit a lot of notes.
A/N: This story/fanmix has been floating around in my head for ages and ages and ages and I finally got around to writing it and throwing the soundtrack together. So first things first. Thank you so much to putakeepareyou for making me my pretty fanmix :D
the soundtrack lives here
black kids // i'm not gonna teach your boyfriend how to dance with you
you are the girl that i've been dreaming of ever since i was a little girl...the word's on the street and it's on the news, i'm not gonna teach him how to dance with you, he's got two left feet and he bites my moves
Dance lessons became required in gym class when Rachel was in the eighth grade. No one cared much about them.
Except Finn Hudson, who came up to her one day after class and glanced around for people who could spend the day talking about the once and future social king ducking to Rachel Berry's level.
Literally and figuratively, Rachel supposes as she looks up into him. He's always been a bit adorable, but he's never been much more than that cute boy.
She wasn't much interested in him, and especially not people who would take the chance to notice her.
He asks her if he can teach her how to dance without stepping on a girl's feet - he had noticed how good she was and wanted help because Quinn Fabray wanted to dance with him at the spring dance and he wanted to keep her feet safe because she was joining the Cheerios at the high school over the summer.
Rachel said no, despite the hesitant and charming smile stretched across the boy's face.
As she walked away she passed Quinn Fabray and her court of girls at her locker - the girl didn't give a look.
No, Rachel Berry wasn't interested anyone. And especially not Quinn Fabray, the girl who couldn't be bothered to turn her head when Rachel walked past.
cold war kids // something is not right with me
something is not right with me, trying not to let it show...
Quinn remembers the first time she ever had a dream about a girl.
She was at Cheerios camp and they had been practicing in almost melting heat - they had gotten down to their sports bras and the shortest shorts that could be imagined.
The hotel they were staying in was cool and the bed was soft - she had sunk into bed next to Christy Allen and fallen straight asleep.
The girl in her dream had kissed her until Quinn had woken up gasping for breath and with a strange feeling of dampness permeating her body and centering down...well, at her center.
She told herself it was a dream, or a nightmare, really. She told herself to go back to sleep and tomorrow would be another day and she could move on and forget about it.
A year and a half later, and she was in the middle of her pregnancy and the only thing that could succeed in pushing away the insistent feeling of sensitivity was the thoughts laced with short skirts and tight abs and swells and valleys -
It was only an affirmation of how wrong she was, that in the lowest of lows she could only manage to sink lower.
the airborne toxic event // wishing well
but you were always a mess, you were always aloof, it's awful i guess, but it's the awful truth, it was true from the first to the last that she read
Everything reminds her of the girl she gave away. That is how she ends up in JC Penney's bathroom, crying her eyes out, thanks to a baby clothing sighting.
The strangest thing happens, though, when Rachel Berry comes through the door and stops short, a slushy clutched in her hand. Her hair is newly cut, with a flop of bangs on her forehead. Rachel has been featuring lately in Quinn's dreams - she's been wondering about her fellow glee clubbers and their whereabouts and Rachel apparently manages to hog the spotlight even in Quinn's subconscious.
It's not entirely relevant that the last dream featuring Rachel involved little else that a bikini and a poolside rendevouz involving sunscreen, Quinn is sure. But the memory of the dream springs immediately to mind and her tears dry as suddenly as they started.
Rachel slowly opens her mouth to speak, before she shuts it, obviously unsure what to say.
Quinn clears her throat against the sticky feeling left over from the crying, or from the sight of Rachel Berry's tanned legs and petite body right in front of her. She couldn't say. She couldn't really care either, because Rachel was slowly smiling at Quinn.
"Hello, Quinn," she says, smiling brightly. "Would you like to shop with me?"
And the summer officially begins as Quinn nods and lets herself be led out of the store and through the rest of the mall, with Rachel Berry at her side.
metric // gimme sympathy
we're so close to something better left unknown, i can feel it in my bones, gimme sympathy after all of this is gone, who'd you rather be, the Beatles or the Rolling Stones?...come on baby play me something like Here Comes the Sun...
When Rachel sings, everything about her feels alive. But tonight she is singing, playing Rock Band with Quinn, and she can feel her whole body hum with some new level of awareness. She's standing in front of the television, with Quinn off to the side and the mini plastic guitar slung on her shoulder. Finn is sitting on the couch, tapping out the slow rhythm of the song while Puck is draped over the armchair, his own guitar clicking along to the dots on the screen.
Rachel glances to the side and sees Quinn looking right back at her, smiling as she sings through the harmony required of her.
Rachel hesitantly smiles back, and suddenly there isn't much more than Quinn Fabray and the sound of Rachel's own heartbeat. She keeps singing through it, of course, but it's unnerving. Nothing has never made her feel so alive than the shining quality of Quinn's beautiful face.
She doesn't know what any of it means, but it keeps happening. Quinn finds the time to fit Rachel into her suddenly busy again life - and Rachel welcomes her with open arms. But it isn't quite right, the way it works for them. Rachel feels as if she's hitting a note that's almost there - right on the edge of lighting the room on fire with praise for her.
They're close to something, Rachel can feel it. And from the way her heart beats in her ears and the way everything rushes around in overdrive in her head - she has a very good feeling of what it is.
arctic monkeys // baby i'm yours
in other words, until i die, baby, i'm yours
Quinn is the one who kisses Rachel, not the other way around. Quinn has just been named captain, again, despite the last year of her life, and she has dragged Rachel to a small ice cream shop on the outskirts of Lima, which is pretty near the middle of the town in the first place.
It's nearing the end of summer and the sky is darkening more quickly every day. It's eight on this day and the lighting is beautiful - with the sunset hovering almost impossibly on the horizon, obscured by trees and buildings. The sky is a dusky blue, hovering in between day and night. It feels like time is slowing all around them, just for them.
And Quinn watches as Rachel sets down her ice cream and bounds out into the newly cut corn field next to the ice cream shop, spinning pirouettes into the night, and laughs when the girl stops suddenly and turns back to face Quinn, her face shaded and thrown in contrast.
Quinn throws away her ice cream and meets Rachel in the field, giggling when Rachel pulls them both down into the browning corn stalks left behind and she sprawls out, looking up at the sky and sighing.
She isn't sure she's ready to return to school, not when this summer has been so good. But nothing feels so bad when Quinn has Rachel around. Even if it's not just a friendship for her, even if Rachel inhabits Quinn's dreams exclusively these days.
Rachel lays out next to her, the length of her body pressing against Quinn's. There's a star just beginning to make it's arrival known, dimly announcing its presence to the earth and twinkling down at the two of them.
Quinn turns to look at Rachel and blinks, knowing that a far brighter star is right at her side, and when Rachel turns her head to look back at Quinn and smiles softly, Quinn kisses her.
It feels just like a dream, with the sun and the stars sharing the same sky above them.
kings of leon // sex on fire
girl, your sex is on fire, consumed with what's to transpire, hot as a fever, rattling bones, i could just taste it, if it's not forever, if it's just tonight, it's still the greatest
The first time they have sex is simple and Quinn feels ecstatic most of the time. It's sweet and loving and in the back of her head she knows it's much better than her first time, and she wants to make Rachel's great.
She had used her best google fu to get the techniques down, somewhat embarassed and constantly deleting her search histories on her computer, but she had figured it out, and apparently it was working.
Because, she currently had one hand inside Rachel's pants, and it was hotter than the surface of the sun. On the level of, "Holy hell, this is really hot," but also on the level of, "Holy hell, Rachel's really, really hot, temperature-wise."
It was a month or two into the school year and Rachel and Finn had broken up long ago. No one knew about them - neither of them had much cared to tell anyone. It was their thing, their secret. It was just them.
Rachel kissed her right as Quinn felt the smaller girl break in her arms, shivering and moaning.
It felt like a long time coming, and when Rachel settled into her arms once more, much later that night, Quinn knew it was the greatest of her life.
She just didn't know if it was enough anymore.
death cab for cutie // cath
cath she stands with a well-intentioned man but she can't relax with his hand on the small of her back, as the flashbulbs burst she holds a smile as someone would hold a crying child
Rachel watches as Quinn and Puck are inaguarated as Prom Queen and King, their hands clasped. She knows, of course, that neither of them are in the relationship. It isn't even a relationship, really. Quinn had mentioned Puck asking her to prom a long time ago, back in March, around their own seven month anniversary.
They were still very much a secret, but it was getting harder and harder for Rachel to understand just why that was. Quinn loved her, Rachel loved Quinn. It seemed like it would be easy, but they were slowly breaking apart as Quinn became more and more interested in cover-ups and secrecy, when all Rachel wanted to do was shout from the rooftops. And it was some new form of torture, watching Quinn with the boy who was the father of her child, watching them up on the stage as Quinn looked for all the world to Rachel as if she would die to be anywhere else. Maybe this was really the beginning of the end.
It was love. It was supposed to be easy.
But nothing was ever easy for Rachel Berry.
the gaslight anthem // here's looking at you, kid
you can tell gail if she calls that i'm famous for all these rock and roll songs and even if that's a lie she should've given me a try...when we were kids on the field on the first day of school, i woulda been her fool, and i woulda sang out your name in all those old high school halls
Rachel breaks up with her on the day of their eight month (secret) anniversary. With a song, just as Rachel Berry would do.
It isn't familiar, but the way Rachel sings it aches with regret and there are tears in her eyes as she sings of all the things she could've done and would've for Quinn. Quinn stares her down and clutches her hands into fists as Finn rushes down the risers and wraps his arms around her ex-girlfriend, as she cries at the end of her performance.
When Quinn shows up at Rachel's doorstep later that night with her hands shaking and her eyes heavy, Rachel simply looks at her and nods through Quinn's rambling apologies. Quinn doesn't really know what she's apologizing for, but she keeps doing it until Rachel is leaning against her doorframe and crying, nodding through her closed eyes and not saying a word.
Quinn stops then, her eyes tracing over Rachel's tired body. Rachel's eyes jerk open at the absence of sound, and they're rimmed with red and puffy in the bright sun. Quinn frowns and reaches forward, only earning a shake of the head that halts her hand in midair.
"You love me," Rachel whispers, her voice tired and so un-Rachel that Quinn hates herself for causing it. But she nods, and nods some more.
"I love you," Rachel adds. Quinn nods again, reaches forward again. Rachel stops her.
"Please don't."
And then the door is softly closing in Quinn's face, the click of the lock clearly heard through the thick wood.
yeah yeah yeahs // maps
wait, they don't love you like i love you
It replays in her head for days. Rachel whispering, You love me, I love you over and over. And it's true. They love each other.
But somewhere along the way, Quinn made a mistake, and she knows it.
But in the end, all she can do is fight to win Rachel back.
And so she does.
hellogoodbye // oh, it is love
from the first moment i set my eyes on yours thinking, "oh, it is love."
Rachel stares at Quinn as she sings along to the plucky guitar that she's coerced Puck into using. Quinn can barely hear it over the rushing in her ears, to be honest, but she forces the words out of her mouth and hopes they sound out what she wants to say, what she should've said. What she means, in the end.
She finishes singing on a quiet note, wondering if Rachel even understands or cares or anything, but Rachel is moving quickly down the risers, bounding up to Quinn and stopping a foot away, her eyes wide and bright.
Quinn smiles slowly, whispering, "I love you."
The entire room freezes in the middle of its already stunned silence, but Quinn doesn't notice because Rachel is smiling.
And then Rachel is in the circle of Quinn's arms, her arms wrapping around Quinn's back and kissing Quinn like they're in the middle of an empty cornfield or an empty bed in an empty house. And it's love.
the end