Project for Improvement [1→3]
Title: Project for Improvement
Author: rainbombz
Rating: PG-13 at the moment.
Length: ~7500
Spoilers: Almost entirely AU, so there shouldn't be any.
Summary: Quinn Fabray is a pokémon trainer throwing herself into battles to hide from the fact that she has no friends; Rachel Berry is determined to show her that there is more to life than fighting.
A/N: Just want to say a quick thanks to the people who've commented so far - I'm sorry I haven't had time to reply to them individually, like I usually do.
Very few things came as second nature to Quinn Fabray - particularly not the activities that her parents longed for her to thrive at. The hobbies Mr and Mrs Fabray had given their seal of approval were far from appealing to sixteen-year-old girl. Cooking, they said, would impress the young men of Lima and have them falling over each other in a desperate bid for her hand - they were half right: the young men of Lima were falling over each other…in gales of laughter, as they watched smoke billow out of every window and door in the Fabray house and cast their eyes over the charred Charmander Chilli Chews that the then fourteen-year-old had flung out onto the lawn in disgust. Her mother had just stopped programming the recipes into her PokéGear after that.
Their next suggestion was music, the only one that Quinn didn't struggle to find an interest in. Down from the attic came an old, exquisitely carved case containing her long dead grandmother's now antique PokéFlute. Music was something that the teenager found she could lose herself in, and her parents were only too pleased to have her lost. For a month, it was perfect - for a month, Quinn painstakingly taught herself everything there was to know of the small wooden instrument. In the space of two weeks, she could slur her way through three octaves - backwards, if you asked nicely - and was already well on her way to perfecting the art of flutter tonguing. If the Fabrays were pleased for their daughter to have a nice, respectable hobby then they were nothing short of ecstatic when they found it could be put to use and shown off to the entire community.
"A snorlax outside the town hall!" Russell had cried, with far more gusto than the situation warranted, "Did you hear that Judy? A snorlax!"
And so Quinn was marched out, PokéFlute in hand, to face the sleeping pokémon. As it turned out, Snorlax didn't like the pop-punk melodies of Luxrays Ate My Baby: instead of moving from his spot as expected, he instead slumped back, lulling his head onto the pillow he had made of the town hall, which now crumbled and cracked under his pressure. When Quinn was marched back, it was much less glorious.
In a final attempt to find themselves a normal daughter, her parents forced her to take up swimming - even trading away her father’s prized Electabuzz in exchange for a hulking, foreboding Tentacruel. Quinn didn’t like Tentacruel. The steely gaze he always cast in her direction suggested that he wasn't her biggest fan either. Eventually, upon returning home in a startling combination of frazzled and bedraggled in appearance, even Russell and Judy Fabray -masters of ignorance- couldn't deny that this pokémon had taken an unmistakeable dislike to the young blonde girl they called a daughter. As Michael made his way to the Global Trade Centre in Goldenrod, he didn't think he could blame him.
Quinn had always been a difficult child. Well, Quinn had always been told she was a difficult child. The truth was, Quinn had difficult parents. They expected too much from her - they wanted her to be good at the things that they were, the things had made their own parents practically quake with pride. So far, the only thing Quinn had found an aptitude for (besides the PokéFlute that was promptly taken from her after the Snorlax incident) was pokémon training. Her pokémon grew more experienced by the second, picking up six new moves in the time it took her classmates' to master one.
Luxray, her unofficial favourite, was the one that her teacher liked to keep a close watch on. Every day that she walked into the academy in Violet City, jumping off her bike and chaining it to a nearby pole (her parents refused to pay for a foldaway bike) Mr Schuester's eyes seemed to light up in wonder. "Must be near level 56 now, eh, Quinn?" he would say, grinning as he ruffled the patch of hair on the electric-type's chest. The pupil would nod, although she didn't really care for levels - she didn't need a number to tell her her pokémon was strong, superior to all others she had met. He was her best friend - of course she knew that.
Today was no different, Mr Schue singing the praises of the pokémon he gazed at longingly. Quinn could tell he thought Luxray was wasted on her. She could tell that he thought, along with his peers, that she pushed him too hard and would amount to nothing more than a pokémon bullying Rocket grunt. They didn't see Luxray play tig with her all throughout the house while they anxiously eyed the door to see if Russell and Judy were home. They didn't see him nuzzle her hand under the table at school as her face fell when her classmates left her out - again. They didn't see the special bond that she shared with her pokémon. But she didn't mind that. She didn't need them, any of them - this time next year she would be the pokémon league champion and send all of these people away with fits of tears and wounded pokémon.
Judy Fabray didn't like this ambition - she said that a desire to crush people's dreams was far from ladylike. Quinn laughed coldly at the hypocrisy. Russell stated simply, when his wife told him of their daughter's plans, that as long as she no longer lived at home he didn't really care. Well, that was fine she thought sullenly, slouching down in her window seat at school. It wasn't like she needed them anyway. She didn't need people - she needed pokémon.
The teacher had been droning for ten minutes when chocolate brown eyes darted towards her from the front of class, and Quinn’s own rose to meet them for the briefest of seconds. Then the other girl moved her gaze and attention back towards the teacher, leaving the blonde to ponder idly why one of the most popular girls in school was catching her eye in class. Rachel, she remembered her name as. Stupid perfect Rachel, who did everything right and whose parents were proud of her and supported her every endeavour. Perfect Rachel who got the attention of half of the boys in class - the ones her mother had told her she could have, once upon a time. Quinn sighed quietly to herself, now redirecting her glare from the back of the other girl's head to the world outside her window. From here, she could see the tower, a hulking mass that cast a shadow that almost reached the very seat she sat in. A few ghastleys floated their way around the building, weaving an intricate dance amongst the pillars and beams and the teenager watched with interest. 'That,' she thought to herself sullenly, 'is where I can learn about pokémon. Not here.'
A wet nose against her palm brought her back to reality, and she glanced beneath the desk to find her Luxray gazing up at her knowingly. Automatically, she flattened her palm against his head, running her hands through the course dark hair that sprouted all over his body. He gave a slight whine of contentment, and she shushed him as quietly as she could while looking up to see if Mr Schuester had heard - the man carried on unperturbed, rambling on about Weedles and Caterpies and the properties of an antidote. Did he think they were five?
She found her attention flickering back to Rachel periodically, whom she was surprised to find was taking notes now that the teacher had moved onto the more complex parts of the day's lesson. Really, there was something she didn't know? All the class did was express enthusiasm for her vast knowledge. Quite frankly, it got on Quinn's nerves. Other people knew things too - just not everyone felt the need to voice absolutely every "interesting" fact they had learned, and instead simply stored it for future use. Other people like Quinn.
The blonde now glanced at the pen in her own hand, one had that had not graced the notebook in front of her with any words. She set it down on top of the lined paper, deciding that, having zoned out of more than half of the lesson, it really wasn't worth starting to listen now. Instead, she devoted the remainder of her time to stroking the pokémon settled comfortably between her knees.
After what felt like an eternity for Quinn, the lecture was over and she was free to go outside and breathe some fresh air. She was still debating internally whether or not to come back after break, when she knew there would be a group of trainers by the water in New Bark Town raring for a battle at this time. Just as she was about to grab her bags and use the interval as a cover for her leaving, she heard a voice above her and she looked up to meet the same eyes as she had earlier.
“I, um, made a copy of some notes for you. Just in case you wanted to learn more about it - there are footnotes of additional information that I thought you might,” the girl’s flurry of words stopped, as though she had just noticed that Quinn was glaring openly at her, and she finished weakly, “…find interesting.”
As the words the other girl said registered, Quinn's eyes furrowed into a frown that she directed first at the notecards and then to Rachel. What did this girl think she was, some charity case? She tried not to give a visible reaction to her classmate, but the way she stood abruptly blatantly betrayed her annoyance. Picking up the notes from her desk, she thrust them back into Rachel's chest and allowed them to flutter to the floor as she released them. "I don't need your help." Her lips almost betrayed her with a smile as she saw Rachel’s mouth drop open in shock at her unabashed rudeness. She hiked her rucksack higher onto her shoulder and let a defiant hand settle on her hip. "Okay?"
After a few brief seconds to evaluate the girl opposite her Quinn turned to walk both away from her and away from the classroom. As she did so, the school bell rang, signalling the end of the five minute break and the teacher requested that they all take their seats.
"Great." Quinn grumbled, casting a dark look at Rachel while she slumped back into her seat, "Just fucking great." It looked like she would be saying for the after-break lessons after all.
The trainer watched with a sour expression as the other girl offered a diluted smile followed by a sheepish, “Sorry.” For a brief second, she almost a small sliver of remorse for snapping so harshly at a girl who had only tried to do something nice for her - and then the second was over, and her steely demeanour was swiftly back in place.
“Just keep them, yes? It’s no problem,” the brunette continued to ramble, despite Quinn's obvious annoyance at her presence and the notes she had tried to pass on. Rachel still left the papers on her desk and insisted again -irritatingly- that she kept them. The blonde grumbled a reluctant agreement and scooped the papers, unread, into her bag. “You can thank me later!” was called back in a sing-song voice as the perfect student found her seat at the front of the class.
Quinn’s eyes didn't find the other girl again until a figure at her desk caught her eye, and Rachel's too she imagined. She watched with mild interest as Rachel's cheeks pinked, in an oddly cute fashion, as Finn Hudson left a note on her desk; she then forced her eyes away. The very last thing she needed was this girl in her life, messing things up. She didn’t care if Finn was professing his love for Rachel Berry by note in class - although she doubted he could even spell ‘love’. Still, she didn’t care. She didn’t. The whole "liking girls" thing was something she was trying to purge her system of, before her parents managed to get their hands on the information. Inviting a girl to be close to her was not working it out of her system. Still, she couldn't help but feel -just the teensiest, tiniest bit- that this wasn't something she could cure. Maybe she just had to accept life as a...lesbian. God, she hated that word. No, she wouldn't do it. No matter how many irresistibly cute girls passed lecture notes her way, she would not succumb to this...this sin. But, there was no harm in looking - was there?
And so look she did, for the remainder of the lesson, the teacher's imparted wisdom falling upon deaf ears. Rachel, she deducted (purely for analytical reasons), was reasonably attractive. A good few inches shy of herself, hair a gorgeous chestnut brown to combat her own blonde locks, eyes a warm shade of brown rather than her own steely gaze of hazel - everything about her just exuded warmth and comfort, a sharp contrast to the cool exterior that Quinn showed the world. As the class ended, Quinn quickly averted her eyes from the unknowing subject of her gaze; she leaned back, cracking her knuckles, and made a point of showing no interest in anyone in the classroom - particularly not a certain brunette suck-up.
“I know we don’t know each other very well,” the other girl started and Quinn snorted derisively.
“And don’t you think there’s a reason for that?” the blonde asked and again, she stood to find said brunette suck-up looking at her and again offering kind words.
“We don’t know each other,” Rachel continued, as though Quinn hadn’t spoken, but the blonde could see that her open hostility had shaken a girl who was used to only kindness from the world. Maybe, Quinn thought, I’m the harsh reality check that she needs. “But, I think it would be nice if we did get to know each other. Don’t you?”
Silently, Quinn approved. Silently, she liked that Rachel was willing to try so hard to befriend her. Outwardly, she showed nothing but indifference and began grabbing her things and shoving them into her bag to actually get to leave for once. “Not really, no.”
“Come on, what harm could it do? I know for a fact you have no other friends.” Almost instantly, Rachel’s hand clapped across her mouth - she hadn’t meant to say that. Quinn hoped she didn’t notice the brief flash of hurt that had flittered across her face. She didn’t care what Rachel said, she didn’t care that she had no friends - she just didn’t care, goddamnit. “I’m sorry, Quinn, I didn’t-“
“Don’t say you didn’t mean it,” Quinn interrupted snappily, “we both know damn well you did.” She glowered at her companion and then shook her head. “It’s true anyway, isn’t it?” the blonde continued with a flippant shrug - if Rachel noticed the hurt in her tone she knew better than to mention it. “So, is that all you wanted to tell me? That no one likes me? Got that memo, thanks.”
“I like you.” The words were open, honest as were the muddy depths of her fellow pupil’s eyes when she glanced up to meet them.
“You don’t even know me,” Quinn argued, slinging her bag over her shoulder as she did so.
“But I think we’ve covered that I’d like to, don’t you?” Rachel said, her voice bordering on exasperation - the first emotion other than kindness that Quinn had heard from her today. “Please, Quinn.”
“Why does it mean so much to you?” Quinn questioned, looking past Rachel to the door that she is so desperate to leave through. She didn’t miss the shifty, guilt-stricken look that appeared fleetingly on the other girl’s features when she turned her attention back.
“I think there’s more to you than other people give you credit for, Quinn. They just need to scratch the surface.” Something about the words touched Quinn - not so much that she wants to befriend Rachel, but enough to leave her more open to the idea. When she next looked to the other girl, a thoughtful look had spread across her features.
"Tell you what," she said, gesturing for Rachel to follow her from the classroom, "we'll have a battle. Right now." She nodded, deciding for herself that this was the best course of action. "If I win," 'Which I will,' she added in her head, "then you will back the hell off and leave me alone. And if you win, I'll go on a little...friend date or whatever with you. Agreed?" Then, without waiting for an answer, she continued, "Good."
“Wait, what?! A battle?! Quinn, do you really think that’s the best course of action? Surely there is some other, non-violent, way we could resolve this issue?”
“No. There isn’t,” Quinn answered simply. “You battle me, or you don’t. Your choice.”
“I still think-“
“I don’t care what you think.”
“But, but, a battle-“
"Yes, a battle," Quinn shot back almost mockingly, "That is what we breed pokémon for, right?" The question was blatantly rhetorical - of course that was what pokémon were bred for. As she listened to the rest of what Rachel had to say, the blonde found that her hand strayed instinctively to the cool metal of the balls strapped to her waist, itching to throw one to the centre of the miniature stadium they now stood at the entrance of.
“I don’t know…” Rachel said, biting her lip, “maybe we could just talk it out over tea?”
"’Talk it out over tea?’ Are you eighty?" Quinn demanded, annoyed that Rachel seemed so against her idea.
“Don’t you think your pokémon get tired fighting all the time?” Rachel accused, “They need to rest, Quinn!”
Her annoyance then escalated to fully-blown anger, her eyebrows narrowing at the suggestion that she didn't treat her pokémon fairly. Her fists clenched, her jaw set rigidly and she had to remind herself that it was pokémon that were supposed to fight - it didn't make the over-whelming urge to hurt the perfect pupil in front of her any less. She could, however, inflict a great deal of damage to her pokémon with ease.
Quinn knew that other people hailed Rachel as the best trainer in the class - Quinn also knew that they were wrong. When it came to raising her pokémon, moulding them into the perfect warriors and companions, she was superior. There was no doubt in her mind, even though there was a lot in everyone else's when it came to Quinn Fabray. She didn't understand why everyone looked down on her so much, putting the dampener on her dreams and aspirations - what had she done in the past to make people believe she was incapable? That she was the bad seed of the academy, besmirching its name? Internally, she found the irritating voice of wisdom telling her that Rachel hadn't said such a thing yet.
“Well, I didn’t mean just your pokémon of course!” the brunette tried to backtrack, “Everyone’s pokémon should rest! In fact, my pokémon should rest too! I bet they’re famished, sitting in the pokéball while I’m busy all day exercising my grey matter! Don’t you think? And anyway, maybe our pokémon would like to be friends!”
Sick of listening to the other girl try to dig herself out of the hole she had just dug for herself, Quinn found her infuriation with her grew even further. "A battle. Now." The words came out almost as a snarl, followed by a growl of, "Or you can just go, and leave me alone - without trying." She sneered at the shorter girl. "How..." the teen made a show of searching for the right word, finally saying, with as much venom as she could muster, "pathetic."
Her eyes strayed over the other girl as she waited to see if Rachel would take the bait. Despite herself, she found that she quietly approved of what she saw. A lean, not quite svelte figure and big puppy dog eyes that were sure to melt even the coldest of hearts - well, Quinn would be damned before it thawed her's.
“Fine,” Rachel retorted, pulling herself up to her full height -which wasn’t particularly high-, “fine. I’ll show you how a real trainer battles.” She unhooks a ball from her belt and throws it to the middle of the arena, “Go, Jolteon!” Despite the authority in her voice, she didn’t look particularly at ease with the situation.
Watching Rachel Berry’s obvious discomfort, Quinn allowed a small smirk to flit across her face before turning to the Luxray standing at her side. She knelt to her pokemon, running a hand across its head - a gesture he knew to be loving. "Okay, Luxray, you can do this. Take that stupid little furball out." She then stood, watching her pokémon saunter to its starter line and settle its haunches. A glance at her opponent and a deep breath later, and Quinn was ready to call her first command.
"Luxray, thunderfang!"
The teenager looked on in awe as Luxray did nothing of the sort. "Thunderfang!" she repeated, her voice even sharper."Thunderfang!" Nothing, not even a glance of recognition from the pokémon in the arena. From her place on the other side, Quinn thought she could see her opponent stifle a laugh.
Quinn's eyebrows furrowed - did pokémon forget their moves often? The trainer couldn't recall, ironically, but she was fairly certain that amnesia wasn't common in Luxrays and particularly not instantaneously. She sighed noticeably, before crying out the name of another move to the stoic pokémon: "Crunch!" The canine made no indication that he had heard. 'Is he deaf?' Quinn thought to herself angrily, repeating herself in an even louder voice, "Crunch!" There was an almost imperceptible twitch of a furry black ear.
A wave of realisation washed over the young trainer as she looked into the deep brown eyes of her best friend, who had now turned his head towards her. 'You want me to give her a chance, don't you boy?' Her expression changed slowly from enraged to thoughtful - she wasn't sure whether to feel betrayed by the creature's actions or touched. While his refusal to fight was irksome, Quinn took it as further proof to what no one else seemed to believe: she and her pokémon had a bond. He was trying to do the best for her, as she tried to do the best for him. She gave a slight nod, one that Luxray recognised as an agreement and he quickly stood. Win or lose, Quinn would talk to her challenger - maybe even befriend her. She knew that, and he knew that. The teenager trusted her pokémon and his judgement more than she trusted herself.
"We don't have to fight if you don't want to," Quinn offered, after a few moments of watching her pokémon from the sidelines. These were the first friendly words she had directed to Rachel Berry. She felt almost like she should be embarrassed by Luxray's unwillingness to fight, particularly after the accusation that her classmate had just made, but she couldn't bring herself to be. He was her pokémon, and she was proud of all of his actions regardless of whether or not she had asked for them. Her lips quirked into the slightest smile and she called across, "It looks like you were right. Maybe my pokémon want to be friends with yours."
Rachel’s mouth was set. “But you won’t talk to me if I don’t.”
“An hour. Pick me up tonight, and you have an hour.”
Rachel’s face split into a wide grin. “Okay.”
She quickly programmed her address and number into the other girl’s PokéGear, an odd feeling of butterflies overtaking her as she does so. Shaking them off Quinn began to walk away, but paused just at the entrance to the stadium. “Don’t bring anyone else.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” the brunette admitted, far too quietly for Quinn to hear.
Although she would be loath to admit it, Quinn spent almost double the time she was going to spend with Rachel getting ready and that same time panicking about what the evening would entail. What did friends actually do? Unlike Luxray, Quinn didn’t think this companion would settle for nothing more than a belly-rub and a biscuit.
She considered, briefly, asking her parents what friends should do - it was almost instantly that she thought better of it. Neither of them would even believe that she had a friend. The saddest part was that they were right: Rachel was not her friend - they were associates at best. So why, oh why, was she stressing herself so much over nothing at all? She looked over her outfit - it wasn’t a great deal different from the one she had worn to school, except a tad less scruffy. A pair of worn grey jeans and an old band t-shirt from a concert she’d been to in Goldenrod, completed, of course, with her trusty pokéball belt. It wasn’t an especially classy outfit but what did it matter? It wasn’t like this was a date or anything. Far from it. Then why was she so damn nervous?
She pacing round her room for the fourth consecutive time when she heard a complex rhythm beat against her front door - what was wrong with three plain knocks like everyone else? “Hi, I’m here for Quinn?” the teenager heard drift up the stairs, muffled by the closed door, and she tore out of her room and bounded down the stairs like her life depended on it.
“What has she done this time?” she was in time to hear Judy Fabray ask, slurring her words together only slightly despite the almost empty martini glass in her hand. “I swear that girl is nothing but trouble. Quinn. Quinn!”
The young trainer winced at her mother’s shrill shriek up the stairs, muttering, “I’m right here, mom.”
“Don’t get lippy with me, Quinn Fabray,” the older blonde snapped, taking a hefty swig from her drink. “Why do we have school people here again? I thought we sorted this nonsense.”
“Oh, no! I’m not-“ Rachel began to explain, but Judy continued to talk to her daughter as though the stranger to her home was no longer there.
“You know what your father said!” the adult warned, brandishing a finger at her daughter, “If, if…sorry, what’s your name again?”
“Rachel,” the teenager answered, “but-“
“That’s right! Rachel! If she came around again, you’d be going to school in Kanto!”
“But Mrs Fabray, I’ve never been here before.”
Judy waved a hand at the information. “Details, details!” She leaned into the brunette conspiratorially and stage-whispered, “The sooner she’s gone the better to be honest.” Rachel’s expression was a mingling of shock and horror - she could never imagine either of her fathers saying such cruel things about her, and especially not in company!
“Mrs Fabray-“
“Don’t bother, Rachel,” Quinn finally spoke, quietly but without any hint of surprise or upset at her mother’s words. “Let’s just go.” The brunette nodded, glancing between mother and daughter confusedly with her eyebrows furrowed. She had been taught not to be a rude guest, but she had also been taught not to lie - there was no way she could say it had been nice to meet Quinn’s mother, but she also couldn’t leave without a word.
“It was certainly…interesting to meet you, Mrs Fabray,” Rachel offered, but the woman only sniffed without a glance in her direction. The teenager raised a questioning eyebrow at her daughter, but got only a shrug in return. It was almost as though this was nothing out of the ordinary - but then, she supposed it probably wasn’t. Following the shrug was a nod towards the door, and so both of the teenagers turned and left - Quinn not uttering a word to her mother.
It was the blonde who first broke the silence once they were at the water’s edge, the tense atmosphere having followed them for the whole kilometre walk. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”
“I’m sorry it happened,” Rachel answered back almost immediately, and was met by yet another shrug from Quinn.
“I should’ve asked you to meet me outside, I just wasn’t thinking I guess. I don’t usually have…” she had been going to ‘friends’ but the word seemed to catch on her tongue before she had a chance to spit it out, “people over.”
The popular girl nodded understandingly, and Quinn shrugged again. “You are allowed to talk to me, you know,” Rachel informed her strangely stoic companion, only half in jest. “I think we could be friends.”
There was that word again: friends. What did it mean, that was what Quinn wondered. Would they have slumber parties? Braid each other’s hair and talk about boys until the early hours of the morning? It didn’t sound at all appealing to Quinn. However, she got the feeling that she shouldn’t say that they wouldn’t be - something about Rachel told her that they could be close, maybe, if she let down her walls a little. Plus, she also got the feeling that the brunette had a perfect pout to whip out as soon as the need arose. Everything else about her was perfect after all - and she was beginning to resent that less and less.
“Sure,” Quinn conceded, not looking at Rachel but at their reflections in the water where she kneeled to swish her fingers through it, “maybe we could be.” The watery Rachel beamed widely and joined her on the grass, curling her legs beneath her in a ladylike fashion. Quinn watched with the smallest of smiles - they were so different that this companionship should never ever work, what with Quinn’s legs sprawled across the riverbank without a second thought. It should be a sign that that they were doomed to fail from their very beginning; despite her initial instincts, the future champion hoped that they wouldn’t be.
They spent hours at the water, sometimes making small talk, other times letting a comfortable silence wash over them. The one hour they had agreed to spend together stretched into three, and then four but Quinn still didn’t want to leave. Mostly, she didn’t want to go back home to her reality - a friendless life, with only her pokémon for company. Although she was having a wonderful time with Rachel, she couldn’t help but have the niggling thought in the back of her mind that the other teenager was doing this only out of sympathy. She probably didn’t even like her. That thought made Quinn feel especially, inexplicably sad.
It was midnight before they finally went their separate ways, after spending almost an hour pointing out shapes in the stars. “Look,” Rachel had said, bubbling with her usual bright enthusiasm, “there’s a psyduck. Oh, and a squirtle!” After a few more minutes of star-gazing and shouting out the wondrous shapes that the night lights brought to her mind, Rachel rolled over to face the blonde girl lying comfortably next to her. “Quinn?”
“Mhmm?” the other girl answered drowsily, bringing the most adorable smile to the brunette’s lips.
“What do you see?”
“Where?” she asked, and for the first time Rachel noticed, with a bit of playful annoyance, that her companion’s eyes were shut. One eye cracked open and she arched a golden eyebrow skyward, “Oh, are you still going on about all that star shit?”
“Quinn!” Rachel scolded, “This is meant to be a bonding activity!”
The blonde rolled her eyes, but in the end did point them into the heavens. “There, look,” she whispered, almost ten minutes later, “a heart.”
Rachel squinted this way and that, but eventually had to shake her head. “Nope, Quinn, I just don’t see it.”
Sighing exaggeratedly, Quinn grabbed Rachel’s arm and slowly traced the outline of the heart she had found in the sky. Finally able to see it for herself, she smiled gently as she gazed up at it. “Right above us. What are the chances?”
“Yeah, right,” Quinn agreed, instantly tearing her hand away from the other girl’s wrist as though it had begun to burn, “what are the chances?”
Rachel was seemingly too busy checking the time on her PokéGear to notice the almost dejected tone to her voice. “Oh shit!” the brunette muttered, the first swear that Quinn had heard her utter, “It’s half-past twelve already! Dad and daddy will be so mad.”
‘Dad and daddy?’ Quinn thought to herself, but didn’t say a word about it. “Yeah, I should getting going too, I guess,” she admitted, standing heavily on numb legs before offering her hand to Rachel.
“You guess?” Rachel questioned as she was pulled up, “You mean, your parents don’t mind that you’re out this late?” As soon as she had asked it, she knew it was a stupid question. Of course Quinn’s parents didn’t care - Rachel had met one half only a handful of hours before, and had been far from impressed by her parenting skills. Maybe, she concluded, Quinn had reason to be so introverted, no matter how infuriating it was to her.
“No,” Quinn answered quietly, “They don’t.”
Foot meet mouth, Rachel berated inside her head, instantly regretting causing the sadness that crept into her new friend’s tone. At least, she thought they were friends.
The walk back to Quinn’s house was quiet, but not unpleasantly so. There was the odd mewl of pokémon, or the buzz of Rachel’s PokéGear as her parents checked up on her whereabouts - nothing of the sort for Quinn, who would be lucky if her parents had even remembered to leave the door unlocked for her. When they reached the doorstep the first uneasy silence they had experienced crept over them. “So, goodnight then,” Rachel managed, although neither of them really wanted to say it.
“Yeah, goodnight,” Quinn repeated, staring at the space between them awkwardly - should they hug? The blonde wasn’t quite sure. Rachel made the decision for her, wrapping her arms very lightly around her friend’s waist as though she wasn’t certain it was appropriate. When Quinn reciprocated she relaxed slightly, allowing herself to breathe in the intoxicating scent of her fellow student. After what felt like it could have been an eternity but had really only been a few short seconds, the brunette pulled away from the hug with a slight tint to her cheeks that hadn’t been there before. Quinn assumed it was from the cold. “So, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Quinn said, adding, “at school,” though it wasn’t really necessary.
“Yeah.”
“Save me a seat.” The smile Rachel wore almost cut her face in half.
“I had a really good time tonight,” the brunette admitted shyly, “Who knew badass Quinn Fabray would be able to find hearts in the sky?”
“I know,” agreed the older trainer with a laugh, adding just before she finally shut the door to go inside: “It could have been so romantic.”
Rachel sighed as she made her way down the porch steps. “I thought it was,” she told the solid oak separating her from the girl she now called a friend.
True to her word, as always, Rachel kept the seat next to her empty for Quinn when she arrived. It had surprised her how easy it was to get Finn to agree to move to the back, and sit at the spare desk beside Kurt Hummel. She raised an eyebrow as the pair began to make animated conversation behind her - she didn't know they were friends. Yet they obviously were, Finn's usual dopey words bringing out high-pitched eruptions of laughter from the smaller boy whose eyes sparkled every time the sportsman so much as glanced in his direction. Slowly, the brunette felt her lips tug into a smile; maybe there was more to the two boys than met the eye. She didn't have too long to speculate on it because soon there was a warm body sitting next to her and she turned, grinning fully, to face a grumpy, early morning Fabray like she'd seen on so many school days before. Surprisingly, so much so that even Mr Schuester looked up from his desk and gave Rachel a subtle thumbs up, the blonde was smiling. It wasn't a huge smile, or even particularly warm, but there was something in it - a shy reservation - that made the other student's heart melt instantly.
"Good morning!" Rachel greeted, as soon as she had managed to get her brain and mouth connected again. Several students looked around at the exuberant, chipper display of character with mild disgust - who could be so…happy at this time in the morning?
"Morning," Quinn replied, much less jovially but lacking none of the enthusiasm for seeing her fellow pupil. Her voice was hoarse, a quality that Rachel suspected came from rolling out of bed ten minutes before school began, but still retained its same husky tone from her ordinary speech.
"Thanks for saving me a seat…" the blonde bit her lip, insecurity shining through her the chinks in her tough exterior, "This seat was for me, right?"
Rachel laughed, and nodded. "Yes," she assured her friend, "That seat was for you."
"Good," Quinn said, relieved, and she became more at ease in the situation. "Where's what's his name? Tall guy, funky haircut?"
Rachel laughed again, a sound that brought attention to the pair again from the rest of the class. Quinn felt her ears turn pink - was it something she said? Their fellow students were thinking exactly the same thing - surely it wasn't Quinn Fabray making popular and pretty Rachel Berry laugh? It couldn't be possible. "Finn?" asked, once her laughter was again under control, "He's sitting at the back for today."
"Oh," Quinn murmured, glancing around to see where the boy was indeed sitting at the back of the classroom, deep in conversation with a perfectly-quaffed boy whom she didn't know. "So, he didn't mind moving? Even though he's your boyfriend?"
If there had been laughter before, it was nothing compared to the uproarious sound the brunette was making now. "My-my b-boyfriend?" she snorted out between giggles, leaving Quinn feeling stupid and awkward at the sideline. All Rachel seemed to be doing this morning was laughing at her - was she wrong about them being friends? "Sorry, Quinn," Rachel managed, noticing that the blonde didn't really seem to be finding it quite so funny as she did, "I shouldn't laugh but-" The thought was cut off as the girl dissolved into another fit of giggles. "Honestly, Quinn where did you get that idea?"
Quinn shrugged, acutely aware of the fact that all eyes in the room were now on her. "I don't know," she murmured, embarrassed, "you guys just always looked so…"
"Finn's gay, Quinn," Rachel informed the girl so out of the social loop.
"Gay?" Quinn semi-whispered, shocked, turning in her seat to look back at the boy undisturbed from his conversation. "And he tells people? ...And they don't hate him?"
Rachel's eyebrows furrowed in confusion, "Uhh, yeah? We don't live in the stone age, Quinn." She couldn't help but feel that this hit home particularly close for the blonde, but she couldn't say how. All she knew was that the girl now had a thoughtful expression, looking down at her notepad on the desk. "You okay?"
"Yeah," Quinn assured with a nod, and a smile slowly spread across her face, "Yeah, I am."
Before Rachel could say another word, Mr Schuester stood and began writing his notes on the blackboard and all conversation had to be left until the end of class. The lesson seemed to drag on even longer than usual for Quinn, now that she had someone she could be talking to during it, and she found herself hard pressed to care about the optimal time to use super potions in order to be cost effective. Rachel, however, was writing everything the teacher said down neatly - colour-coded, in order of helpfulness. She glanced up from her page only once, apparently feeling Quinn's gaze on her; she gave only a quick smile, before returning swiftly to her learning.
The blonde looked down at her jotter, at her own notes. They were an untidy, very barely legible scrawl. Her eyes sneaked across to Rachel's page again - maybe she should use the notes she was given yesterday.
"And remember guys: homework due Monday! A two page essay on the importance of stocking up," Mr Schue said to tie up the lesson, turning to wipe chalk from his clothes before he returned home to Emma. Pupils left the classroom in dribs and drabs, until only Rachel, Quinn and a handful of other students were left present.
"So, do you maybe wanna grab something to eat? Or check out the gym battle on TV? It's an international, from Petalburg," Quinn asked, trying not to show how desperate she was to spend time with the brunette. This whole friend thing was a little addictive, she found.
"Quinn, I'd love to," the blonde's face lit up, "but I have Contest Club." Her features promptly fell.
"Contest Club?" Quinn question, a perfectly sculpted eyebrow arched, "Seriously?"
"Yes, seriously!" Rachel informed her with a laugh as she packed her things away, "We work on the best ways to dress up our pokémon, and teach them to dance and make them learn the prettiest moves we can!"
Quinn couldn't help but smile at the way the brunette's eyes had begun to sparkle, but she still shook her head disbelievingly. "Only you would go to Contest Club."
"No," Rachel disagreed with a pout, "Lots of people go." There was the tiniest trace of genuine hurt in her tone, but it was quickly replaced with pride when she added, "Mr Schue says some people just go to hear me sing." She smiled, running a hand over one of her pokéballs affectionately, "Skitty only dances when I sing."
"Alright, I get it," Quinn said to interrupt Rachel's reverie, with a playful roll of her eyes, "It's great. So, go sing them some…whatever it is you sing, and then maybe call me later?"
"I will, definitely, call you later," the singer assured her, while pushing their desks back against the wall to make room for the club.
"Awesome, so I'll see you later, maybe," Quinn said before turning to leave the classroom.
"Definitely," Rachel repeated, now moving another set of desks. "Wait, Quinn…"
"What?" the older trainer asked, pausing on her way out of the building.
"Well, why don't you stay for Contest Club?"
Quinn fought the urge to laugh out loud at the idea, trying to picture her pokémon decked out in contest gear: Luxray with a bow on his tail, Sneasel covered in the several ludicrously coloured pom-poms littering one girl's desk. "Maybe next week?" she tried.
"Definitely next week," Rachel corrected her for the third time.
Quinn rolled her eyes, "Definitely next week. Later, Berry."
The brunette grinned at the affectionate use of her last name, and reiterated the sentiment. "Yeah, later."
As Quinn left, she saw Rachel beginning an in-depth discussion with Mr Schuester and watched as the other girl glanced furtively in the direction of the door she had just left through. She had thought they were talking about contests, but now the blonde wasn't so sure. She had the feeling, a gut instinct, that they were talking about her. The question was: why?
Author: rainbombz
Rating: PG-13 at the moment.
Length: ~7500
Spoilers: Almost entirely AU, so there shouldn't be any.
Summary: Quinn Fabray is a pokémon trainer throwing herself into battles to hide from the fact that she has no friends; Rachel Berry is determined to show her that there is more to life than fighting.
A/N: Just want to say a quick thanks to the people who've commented so far - I'm sorry I haven't had time to reply to them individually, like I usually do.
Very few things came as second nature to Quinn Fabray - particularly not the activities that her parents longed for her to thrive at. The hobbies Mr and Mrs Fabray had given their seal of approval were far from appealing to sixteen-year-old girl. Cooking, they said, would impress the young men of Lima and have them falling over each other in a desperate bid for her hand - they were half right: the young men of Lima were falling over each other…in gales of laughter, as they watched smoke billow out of every window and door in the Fabray house and cast their eyes over the charred Charmander Chilli Chews that the then fourteen-year-old had flung out onto the lawn in disgust. Her mother had just stopped programming the recipes into her PokéGear after that.
Their next suggestion was music, the only one that Quinn didn't struggle to find an interest in. Down from the attic came an old, exquisitely carved case containing her long dead grandmother's now antique PokéFlute. Music was something that the teenager found she could lose herself in, and her parents were only too pleased to have her lost. For a month, it was perfect - for a month, Quinn painstakingly taught herself everything there was to know of the small wooden instrument. In the space of two weeks, she could slur her way through three octaves - backwards, if you asked nicely - and was already well on her way to perfecting the art of flutter tonguing. If the Fabrays were pleased for their daughter to have a nice, respectable hobby then they were nothing short of ecstatic when they found it could be put to use and shown off to the entire community.
"A snorlax outside the town hall!" Russell had cried, with far more gusto than the situation warranted, "Did you hear that Judy? A snorlax!"
And so Quinn was marched out, PokéFlute in hand, to face the sleeping pokémon. As it turned out, Snorlax didn't like the pop-punk melodies of Luxrays Ate My Baby: instead of moving from his spot as expected, he instead slumped back, lulling his head onto the pillow he had made of the town hall, which now crumbled and cracked under his pressure. When Quinn was marched back, it was much less glorious.
In a final attempt to find themselves a normal daughter, her parents forced her to take up swimming - even trading away her father’s prized Electabuzz in exchange for a hulking, foreboding Tentacruel. Quinn didn’t like Tentacruel. The steely gaze he always cast in her direction suggested that he wasn't her biggest fan either. Eventually, upon returning home in a startling combination of frazzled and bedraggled in appearance, even Russell and Judy Fabray -masters of ignorance- couldn't deny that this pokémon had taken an unmistakeable dislike to the young blonde girl they called a daughter. As Michael made his way to the Global Trade Centre in Goldenrod, he didn't think he could blame him.
Quinn had always been a difficult child. Well, Quinn had always been told she was a difficult child. The truth was, Quinn had difficult parents. They expected too much from her - they wanted her to be good at the things that they were, the things had made their own parents practically quake with pride. So far, the only thing Quinn had found an aptitude for (besides the PokéFlute that was promptly taken from her after the Snorlax incident) was pokémon training. Her pokémon grew more experienced by the second, picking up six new moves in the time it took her classmates' to master one.
Luxray, her unofficial favourite, was the one that her teacher liked to keep a close watch on. Every day that she walked into the academy in Violet City, jumping off her bike and chaining it to a nearby pole (her parents refused to pay for a foldaway bike) Mr Schuester's eyes seemed to light up in wonder. "Must be near level 56 now, eh, Quinn?" he would say, grinning as he ruffled the patch of hair on the electric-type's chest. The pupil would nod, although she didn't really care for levels - she didn't need a number to tell her her pokémon was strong, superior to all others she had met. He was her best friend - of course she knew that.
Today was no different, Mr Schue singing the praises of the pokémon he gazed at longingly. Quinn could tell he thought Luxray was wasted on her. She could tell that he thought, along with his peers, that she pushed him too hard and would amount to nothing more than a pokémon bullying Rocket grunt. They didn't see Luxray play tig with her all throughout the house while they anxiously eyed the door to see if Russell and Judy were home. They didn't see him nuzzle her hand under the table at school as her face fell when her classmates left her out - again. They didn't see the special bond that she shared with her pokémon. But she didn't mind that. She didn't need them, any of them - this time next year she would be the pokémon league champion and send all of these people away with fits of tears and wounded pokémon.
Judy Fabray didn't like this ambition - she said that a desire to crush people's dreams was far from ladylike. Quinn laughed coldly at the hypocrisy. Russell stated simply, when his wife told him of their daughter's plans, that as long as she no longer lived at home he didn't really care. Well, that was fine she thought sullenly, slouching down in her window seat at school. It wasn't like she needed them anyway. She didn't need people - she needed pokémon.
The teacher had been droning for ten minutes when chocolate brown eyes darted towards her from the front of class, and Quinn’s own rose to meet them for the briefest of seconds. Then the other girl moved her gaze and attention back towards the teacher, leaving the blonde to ponder idly why one of the most popular girls in school was catching her eye in class. Rachel, she remembered her name as. Stupid perfect Rachel, who did everything right and whose parents were proud of her and supported her every endeavour. Perfect Rachel who got the attention of half of the boys in class - the ones her mother had told her she could have, once upon a time. Quinn sighed quietly to herself, now redirecting her glare from the back of the other girl's head to the world outside her window. From here, she could see the tower, a hulking mass that cast a shadow that almost reached the very seat she sat in. A few ghastleys floated their way around the building, weaving an intricate dance amongst the pillars and beams and the teenager watched with interest. 'That,' she thought to herself sullenly, 'is where I can learn about pokémon. Not here.'
A wet nose against her palm brought her back to reality, and she glanced beneath the desk to find her Luxray gazing up at her knowingly. Automatically, she flattened her palm against his head, running her hands through the course dark hair that sprouted all over his body. He gave a slight whine of contentment, and she shushed him as quietly as she could while looking up to see if Mr Schuester had heard - the man carried on unperturbed, rambling on about Weedles and Caterpies and the properties of an antidote. Did he think they were five?
She found her attention flickering back to Rachel periodically, whom she was surprised to find was taking notes now that the teacher had moved onto the more complex parts of the day's lesson. Really, there was something she didn't know? All the class did was express enthusiasm for her vast knowledge. Quite frankly, it got on Quinn's nerves. Other people knew things too - just not everyone felt the need to voice absolutely every "interesting" fact they had learned, and instead simply stored it for future use. Other people like Quinn.
The blonde now glanced at the pen in her own hand, one had that had not graced the notebook in front of her with any words. She set it down on top of the lined paper, deciding that, having zoned out of more than half of the lesson, it really wasn't worth starting to listen now. Instead, she devoted the remainder of her time to stroking the pokémon settled comfortably between her knees.
After what felt like an eternity for Quinn, the lecture was over and she was free to go outside and breathe some fresh air. She was still debating internally whether or not to come back after break, when she knew there would be a group of trainers by the water in New Bark Town raring for a battle at this time. Just as she was about to grab her bags and use the interval as a cover for her leaving, she heard a voice above her and she looked up to meet the same eyes as she had earlier.
“I, um, made a copy of some notes for you. Just in case you wanted to learn more about it - there are footnotes of additional information that I thought you might,” the girl’s flurry of words stopped, as though she had just noticed that Quinn was glaring openly at her, and she finished weakly, “…find interesting.”
As the words the other girl said registered, Quinn's eyes furrowed into a frown that she directed first at the notecards and then to Rachel. What did this girl think she was, some charity case? She tried not to give a visible reaction to her classmate, but the way she stood abruptly blatantly betrayed her annoyance. Picking up the notes from her desk, she thrust them back into Rachel's chest and allowed them to flutter to the floor as she released them. "I don't need your help." Her lips almost betrayed her with a smile as she saw Rachel’s mouth drop open in shock at her unabashed rudeness. She hiked her rucksack higher onto her shoulder and let a defiant hand settle on her hip. "Okay?"
After a few brief seconds to evaluate the girl opposite her Quinn turned to walk both away from her and away from the classroom. As she did so, the school bell rang, signalling the end of the five minute break and the teacher requested that they all take their seats.
"Great." Quinn grumbled, casting a dark look at Rachel while she slumped back into her seat, "Just fucking great." It looked like she would be saying for the after-break lessons after all.
The trainer watched with a sour expression as the other girl offered a diluted smile followed by a sheepish, “Sorry.” For a brief second, she almost a small sliver of remorse for snapping so harshly at a girl who had only tried to do something nice for her - and then the second was over, and her steely demeanour was swiftly back in place.
“Just keep them, yes? It’s no problem,” the brunette continued to ramble, despite Quinn's obvious annoyance at her presence and the notes she had tried to pass on. Rachel still left the papers on her desk and insisted again -irritatingly- that she kept them. The blonde grumbled a reluctant agreement and scooped the papers, unread, into her bag. “You can thank me later!” was called back in a sing-song voice as the perfect student found her seat at the front of the class.
Quinn’s eyes didn't find the other girl again until a figure at her desk caught her eye, and Rachel's too she imagined. She watched with mild interest as Rachel's cheeks pinked, in an oddly cute fashion, as Finn Hudson left a note on her desk; she then forced her eyes away. The very last thing she needed was this girl in her life, messing things up. She didn’t care if Finn was professing his love for Rachel Berry by note in class - although she doubted he could even spell ‘love’. Still, she didn’t care. She didn’t. The whole "liking girls" thing was something she was trying to purge her system of, before her parents managed to get their hands on the information. Inviting a girl to be close to her was not working it out of her system. Still, she couldn't help but feel -just the teensiest, tiniest bit- that this wasn't something she could cure. Maybe she just had to accept life as a...lesbian. God, she hated that word. No, she wouldn't do it. No matter how many irresistibly cute girls passed lecture notes her way, she would not succumb to this...this sin. But, there was no harm in looking - was there?
And so look she did, for the remainder of the lesson, the teacher's imparted wisdom falling upon deaf ears. Rachel, she deducted (purely for analytical reasons), was reasonably attractive. A good few inches shy of herself, hair a gorgeous chestnut brown to combat her own blonde locks, eyes a warm shade of brown rather than her own steely gaze of hazel - everything about her just exuded warmth and comfort, a sharp contrast to the cool exterior that Quinn showed the world. As the class ended, Quinn quickly averted her eyes from the unknowing subject of her gaze; she leaned back, cracking her knuckles, and made a point of showing no interest in anyone in the classroom - particularly not a certain brunette suck-up.
“I know we don’t know each other very well,” the other girl started and Quinn snorted derisively.
“And don’t you think there’s a reason for that?” the blonde asked and again, she stood to find said brunette suck-up looking at her and again offering kind words.
“We don’t know each other,” Rachel continued, as though Quinn hadn’t spoken, but the blonde could see that her open hostility had shaken a girl who was used to only kindness from the world. Maybe, Quinn thought, I’m the harsh reality check that she needs. “But, I think it would be nice if we did get to know each other. Don’t you?”
Silently, Quinn approved. Silently, she liked that Rachel was willing to try so hard to befriend her. Outwardly, she showed nothing but indifference and began grabbing her things and shoving them into her bag to actually get to leave for once. “Not really, no.”
“Come on, what harm could it do? I know for a fact you have no other friends.” Almost instantly, Rachel’s hand clapped across her mouth - she hadn’t meant to say that. Quinn hoped she didn’t notice the brief flash of hurt that had flittered across her face. She didn’t care what Rachel said, she didn’t care that she had no friends - she just didn’t care, goddamnit. “I’m sorry, Quinn, I didn’t-“
“Don’t say you didn’t mean it,” Quinn interrupted snappily, “we both know damn well you did.” She glowered at her companion and then shook her head. “It’s true anyway, isn’t it?” the blonde continued with a flippant shrug - if Rachel noticed the hurt in her tone she knew better than to mention it. “So, is that all you wanted to tell me? That no one likes me? Got that memo, thanks.”
“I like you.” The words were open, honest as were the muddy depths of her fellow pupil’s eyes when she glanced up to meet them.
“You don’t even know me,” Quinn argued, slinging her bag over her shoulder as she did so.
“But I think we’ve covered that I’d like to, don’t you?” Rachel said, her voice bordering on exasperation - the first emotion other than kindness that Quinn had heard from her today. “Please, Quinn.”
“Why does it mean so much to you?” Quinn questioned, looking past Rachel to the door that she is so desperate to leave through. She didn’t miss the shifty, guilt-stricken look that appeared fleetingly on the other girl’s features when she turned her attention back.
“I think there’s more to you than other people give you credit for, Quinn. They just need to scratch the surface.” Something about the words touched Quinn - not so much that she wants to befriend Rachel, but enough to leave her more open to the idea. When she next looked to the other girl, a thoughtful look had spread across her features.
"Tell you what," she said, gesturing for Rachel to follow her from the classroom, "we'll have a battle. Right now." She nodded, deciding for herself that this was the best course of action. "If I win," 'Which I will,' she added in her head, "then you will back the hell off and leave me alone. And if you win, I'll go on a little...friend date or whatever with you. Agreed?" Then, without waiting for an answer, she continued, "Good."
“Wait, what?! A battle?! Quinn, do you really think that’s the best course of action? Surely there is some other, non-violent, way we could resolve this issue?”
“No. There isn’t,” Quinn answered simply. “You battle me, or you don’t. Your choice.”
“I still think-“
“I don’t care what you think.”
“But, but, a battle-“
"Yes, a battle," Quinn shot back almost mockingly, "That is what we breed pokémon for, right?" The question was blatantly rhetorical - of course that was what pokémon were bred for. As she listened to the rest of what Rachel had to say, the blonde found that her hand strayed instinctively to the cool metal of the balls strapped to her waist, itching to throw one to the centre of the miniature stadium they now stood at the entrance of.
“I don’t know…” Rachel said, biting her lip, “maybe we could just talk it out over tea?”
"’Talk it out over tea?’ Are you eighty?" Quinn demanded, annoyed that Rachel seemed so against her idea.
“Don’t you think your pokémon get tired fighting all the time?” Rachel accused, “They need to rest, Quinn!”
Her annoyance then escalated to fully-blown anger, her eyebrows narrowing at the suggestion that she didn't treat her pokémon fairly. Her fists clenched, her jaw set rigidly and she had to remind herself that it was pokémon that were supposed to fight - it didn't make the over-whelming urge to hurt the perfect pupil in front of her any less. She could, however, inflict a great deal of damage to her pokémon with ease.
Quinn knew that other people hailed Rachel as the best trainer in the class - Quinn also knew that they were wrong. When it came to raising her pokémon, moulding them into the perfect warriors and companions, she was superior. There was no doubt in her mind, even though there was a lot in everyone else's when it came to Quinn Fabray. She didn't understand why everyone looked down on her so much, putting the dampener on her dreams and aspirations - what had she done in the past to make people believe she was incapable? That she was the bad seed of the academy, besmirching its name? Internally, she found the irritating voice of wisdom telling her that Rachel hadn't said such a thing yet.
“Well, I didn’t mean just your pokémon of course!” the brunette tried to backtrack, “Everyone’s pokémon should rest! In fact, my pokémon should rest too! I bet they’re famished, sitting in the pokéball while I’m busy all day exercising my grey matter! Don’t you think? And anyway, maybe our pokémon would like to be friends!”
Sick of listening to the other girl try to dig herself out of the hole she had just dug for herself, Quinn found her infuriation with her grew even further. "A battle. Now." The words came out almost as a snarl, followed by a growl of, "Or you can just go, and leave me alone - without trying." She sneered at the shorter girl. "How..." the teen made a show of searching for the right word, finally saying, with as much venom as she could muster, "pathetic."
Her eyes strayed over the other girl as she waited to see if Rachel would take the bait. Despite herself, she found that she quietly approved of what she saw. A lean, not quite svelte figure and big puppy dog eyes that were sure to melt even the coldest of hearts - well, Quinn would be damned before it thawed her's.
“Fine,” Rachel retorted, pulling herself up to her full height -which wasn’t particularly high-, “fine. I’ll show you how a real trainer battles.” She unhooks a ball from her belt and throws it to the middle of the arena, “Go, Jolteon!” Despite the authority in her voice, she didn’t look particularly at ease with the situation.
Watching Rachel Berry’s obvious discomfort, Quinn allowed a small smirk to flit across her face before turning to the Luxray standing at her side. She knelt to her pokemon, running a hand across its head - a gesture he knew to be loving. "Okay, Luxray, you can do this. Take that stupid little furball out." She then stood, watching her pokémon saunter to its starter line and settle its haunches. A glance at her opponent and a deep breath later, and Quinn was ready to call her first command.
"Luxray, thunderfang!"
The teenager looked on in awe as Luxray did nothing of the sort. "Thunderfang!" she repeated, her voice even sharper."Thunderfang!" Nothing, not even a glance of recognition from the pokémon in the arena. From her place on the other side, Quinn thought she could see her opponent stifle a laugh.
Quinn's eyebrows furrowed - did pokémon forget their moves often? The trainer couldn't recall, ironically, but she was fairly certain that amnesia wasn't common in Luxrays and particularly not instantaneously. She sighed noticeably, before crying out the name of another move to the stoic pokémon: "Crunch!" The canine made no indication that he had heard. 'Is he deaf?' Quinn thought to herself angrily, repeating herself in an even louder voice, "Crunch!" There was an almost imperceptible twitch of a furry black ear.
A wave of realisation washed over the young trainer as she looked into the deep brown eyes of her best friend, who had now turned his head towards her. 'You want me to give her a chance, don't you boy?' Her expression changed slowly from enraged to thoughtful - she wasn't sure whether to feel betrayed by the creature's actions or touched. While his refusal to fight was irksome, Quinn took it as further proof to what no one else seemed to believe: she and her pokémon had a bond. He was trying to do the best for her, as she tried to do the best for him. She gave a slight nod, one that Luxray recognised as an agreement and he quickly stood. Win or lose, Quinn would talk to her challenger - maybe even befriend her. She knew that, and he knew that. The teenager trusted her pokémon and his judgement more than she trusted herself.
"We don't have to fight if you don't want to," Quinn offered, after a few moments of watching her pokémon from the sidelines. These were the first friendly words she had directed to Rachel Berry. She felt almost like she should be embarrassed by Luxray's unwillingness to fight, particularly after the accusation that her classmate had just made, but she couldn't bring herself to be. He was her pokémon, and she was proud of all of his actions regardless of whether or not she had asked for them. Her lips quirked into the slightest smile and she called across, "It looks like you were right. Maybe my pokémon want to be friends with yours."
Rachel’s mouth was set. “But you won’t talk to me if I don’t.”
“An hour. Pick me up tonight, and you have an hour.”
Rachel’s face split into a wide grin. “Okay.”
She quickly programmed her address and number into the other girl’s PokéGear, an odd feeling of butterflies overtaking her as she does so. Shaking them off Quinn began to walk away, but paused just at the entrance to the stadium. “Don’t bring anyone else.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” the brunette admitted, far too quietly for Quinn to hear.
Although she would be loath to admit it, Quinn spent almost double the time she was going to spend with Rachel getting ready and that same time panicking about what the evening would entail. What did friends actually do? Unlike Luxray, Quinn didn’t think this companion would settle for nothing more than a belly-rub and a biscuit.
She considered, briefly, asking her parents what friends should do - it was almost instantly that she thought better of it. Neither of them would even believe that she had a friend. The saddest part was that they were right: Rachel was not her friend - they were associates at best. So why, oh why, was she stressing herself so much over nothing at all? She looked over her outfit - it wasn’t a great deal different from the one she had worn to school, except a tad less scruffy. A pair of worn grey jeans and an old band t-shirt from a concert she’d been to in Goldenrod, completed, of course, with her trusty pokéball belt. It wasn’t an especially classy outfit but what did it matter? It wasn’t like this was a date or anything. Far from it. Then why was she so damn nervous?
She pacing round her room for the fourth consecutive time when she heard a complex rhythm beat against her front door - what was wrong with three plain knocks like everyone else? “Hi, I’m here for Quinn?” the teenager heard drift up the stairs, muffled by the closed door, and she tore out of her room and bounded down the stairs like her life depended on it.
“What has she done this time?” she was in time to hear Judy Fabray ask, slurring her words together only slightly despite the almost empty martini glass in her hand. “I swear that girl is nothing but trouble. Quinn. Quinn!”
The young trainer winced at her mother’s shrill shriek up the stairs, muttering, “I’m right here, mom.”
“Don’t get lippy with me, Quinn Fabray,” the older blonde snapped, taking a hefty swig from her drink. “Why do we have school people here again? I thought we sorted this nonsense.”
“Oh, no! I’m not-“ Rachel began to explain, but Judy continued to talk to her daughter as though the stranger to her home was no longer there.
“You know what your father said!” the adult warned, brandishing a finger at her daughter, “If, if…sorry, what’s your name again?”
“Rachel,” the teenager answered, “but-“
“That’s right! Rachel! If she came around again, you’d be going to school in Kanto!”
“But Mrs Fabray, I’ve never been here before.”
Judy waved a hand at the information. “Details, details!” She leaned into the brunette conspiratorially and stage-whispered, “The sooner she’s gone the better to be honest.” Rachel’s expression was a mingling of shock and horror - she could never imagine either of her fathers saying such cruel things about her, and especially not in company!
“Mrs Fabray-“
“Don’t bother, Rachel,” Quinn finally spoke, quietly but without any hint of surprise or upset at her mother’s words. “Let’s just go.” The brunette nodded, glancing between mother and daughter confusedly with her eyebrows furrowed. She had been taught not to be a rude guest, but she had also been taught not to lie - there was no way she could say it had been nice to meet Quinn’s mother, but she also couldn’t leave without a word.
“It was certainly…interesting to meet you, Mrs Fabray,” Rachel offered, but the woman only sniffed without a glance in her direction. The teenager raised a questioning eyebrow at her daughter, but got only a shrug in return. It was almost as though this was nothing out of the ordinary - but then, she supposed it probably wasn’t. Following the shrug was a nod towards the door, and so both of the teenagers turned and left - Quinn not uttering a word to her mother.
It was the blonde who first broke the silence once they were at the water’s edge, the tense atmosphere having followed them for the whole kilometre walk. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”
“I’m sorry it happened,” Rachel answered back almost immediately, and was met by yet another shrug from Quinn.
“I should’ve asked you to meet me outside, I just wasn’t thinking I guess. I don’t usually have…” she had been going to ‘friends’ but the word seemed to catch on her tongue before she had a chance to spit it out, “people over.”
The popular girl nodded understandingly, and Quinn shrugged again. “You are allowed to talk to me, you know,” Rachel informed her strangely stoic companion, only half in jest. “I think we could be friends.”
There was that word again: friends. What did it mean, that was what Quinn wondered. Would they have slumber parties? Braid each other’s hair and talk about boys until the early hours of the morning? It didn’t sound at all appealing to Quinn. However, she got the feeling that she shouldn’t say that they wouldn’t be - something about Rachel told her that they could be close, maybe, if she let down her walls a little. Plus, she also got the feeling that the brunette had a perfect pout to whip out as soon as the need arose. Everything else about her was perfect after all - and she was beginning to resent that less and less.
“Sure,” Quinn conceded, not looking at Rachel but at their reflections in the water where she kneeled to swish her fingers through it, “maybe we could be.” The watery Rachel beamed widely and joined her on the grass, curling her legs beneath her in a ladylike fashion. Quinn watched with the smallest of smiles - they were so different that this companionship should never ever work, what with Quinn’s legs sprawled across the riverbank without a second thought. It should be a sign that that they were doomed to fail from their very beginning; despite her initial instincts, the future champion hoped that they wouldn’t be.
They spent hours at the water, sometimes making small talk, other times letting a comfortable silence wash over them. The one hour they had agreed to spend together stretched into three, and then four but Quinn still didn’t want to leave. Mostly, she didn’t want to go back home to her reality - a friendless life, with only her pokémon for company. Although she was having a wonderful time with Rachel, she couldn’t help but have the niggling thought in the back of her mind that the other teenager was doing this only out of sympathy. She probably didn’t even like her. That thought made Quinn feel especially, inexplicably sad.
It was midnight before they finally went their separate ways, after spending almost an hour pointing out shapes in the stars. “Look,” Rachel had said, bubbling with her usual bright enthusiasm, “there’s a psyduck. Oh, and a squirtle!” After a few more minutes of star-gazing and shouting out the wondrous shapes that the night lights brought to her mind, Rachel rolled over to face the blonde girl lying comfortably next to her. “Quinn?”
“Mhmm?” the other girl answered drowsily, bringing the most adorable smile to the brunette’s lips.
“What do you see?”
“Where?” she asked, and for the first time Rachel noticed, with a bit of playful annoyance, that her companion’s eyes were shut. One eye cracked open and she arched a golden eyebrow skyward, “Oh, are you still going on about all that star shit?”
“Quinn!” Rachel scolded, “This is meant to be a bonding activity!”
The blonde rolled her eyes, but in the end did point them into the heavens. “There, look,” she whispered, almost ten minutes later, “a heart.”
Rachel squinted this way and that, but eventually had to shake her head. “Nope, Quinn, I just don’t see it.”
Sighing exaggeratedly, Quinn grabbed Rachel’s arm and slowly traced the outline of the heart she had found in the sky. Finally able to see it for herself, she smiled gently as she gazed up at it. “Right above us. What are the chances?”
“Yeah, right,” Quinn agreed, instantly tearing her hand away from the other girl’s wrist as though it had begun to burn, “what are the chances?”
Rachel was seemingly too busy checking the time on her PokéGear to notice the almost dejected tone to her voice. “Oh shit!” the brunette muttered, the first swear that Quinn had heard her utter, “It’s half-past twelve already! Dad and daddy will be so mad.”
‘Dad and daddy?’ Quinn thought to herself, but didn’t say a word about it. “Yeah, I should getting going too, I guess,” she admitted, standing heavily on numb legs before offering her hand to Rachel.
“You guess?” Rachel questioned as she was pulled up, “You mean, your parents don’t mind that you’re out this late?” As soon as she had asked it, she knew it was a stupid question. Of course Quinn’s parents didn’t care - Rachel had met one half only a handful of hours before, and had been far from impressed by her parenting skills. Maybe, she concluded, Quinn had reason to be so introverted, no matter how infuriating it was to her.
“No,” Quinn answered quietly, “They don’t.”
Foot meet mouth, Rachel berated inside her head, instantly regretting causing the sadness that crept into her new friend’s tone. At least, she thought they were friends.
The walk back to Quinn’s house was quiet, but not unpleasantly so. There was the odd mewl of pokémon, or the buzz of Rachel’s PokéGear as her parents checked up on her whereabouts - nothing of the sort for Quinn, who would be lucky if her parents had even remembered to leave the door unlocked for her. When they reached the doorstep the first uneasy silence they had experienced crept over them. “So, goodnight then,” Rachel managed, although neither of them really wanted to say it.
“Yeah, goodnight,” Quinn repeated, staring at the space between them awkwardly - should they hug? The blonde wasn’t quite sure. Rachel made the decision for her, wrapping her arms very lightly around her friend’s waist as though she wasn’t certain it was appropriate. When Quinn reciprocated she relaxed slightly, allowing herself to breathe in the intoxicating scent of her fellow student. After what felt like it could have been an eternity but had really only been a few short seconds, the brunette pulled away from the hug with a slight tint to her cheeks that hadn’t been there before. Quinn assumed it was from the cold. “So, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Quinn said, adding, “at school,” though it wasn’t really necessary.
“Yeah.”
“Save me a seat.” The smile Rachel wore almost cut her face in half.
“I had a really good time tonight,” the brunette admitted shyly, “Who knew badass Quinn Fabray would be able to find hearts in the sky?”
“I know,” agreed the older trainer with a laugh, adding just before she finally shut the door to go inside: “It could have been so romantic.”
Rachel sighed as she made her way down the porch steps. “I thought it was,” she told the solid oak separating her from the girl she now called a friend.
True to her word, as always, Rachel kept the seat next to her empty for Quinn when she arrived. It had surprised her how easy it was to get Finn to agree to move to the back, and sit at the spare desk beside Kurt Hummel. She raised an eyebrow as the pair began to make animated conversation behind her - she didn't know they were friends. Yet they obviously were, Finn's usual dopey words bringing out high-pitched eruptions of laughter from the smaller boy whose eyes sparkled every time the sportsman so much as glanced in his direction. Slowly, the brunette felt her lips tug into a smile; maybe there was more to the two boys than met the eye. She didn't have too long to speculate on it because soon there was a warm body sitting next to her and she turned, grinning fully, to face a grumpy, early morning Fabray like she'd seen on so many school days before. Surprisingly, so much so that even Mr Schuester looked up from his desk and gave Rachel a subtle thumbs up, the blonde was smiling. It wasn't a huge smile, or even particularly warm, but there was something in it - a shy reservation - that made the other student's heart melt instantly.
"Good morning!" Rachel greeted, as soon as she had managed to get her brain and mouth connected again. Several students looked around at the exuberant, chipper display of character with mild disgust - who could be so…happy at this time in the morning?
"Morning," Quinn replied, much less jovially but lacking none of the enthusiasm for seeing her fellow pupil. Her voice was hoarse, a quality that Rachel suspected came from rolling out of bed ten minutes before school began, but still retained its same husky tone from her ordinary speech.
"Thanks for saving me a seat…" the blonde bit her lip, insecurity shining through her the chinks in her tough exterior, "This seat was for me, right?"
Rachel laughed, and nodded. "Yes," she assured her friend, "That seat was for you."
"Good," Quinn said, relieved, and she became more at ease in the situation. "Where's what's his name? Tall guy, funky haircut?"
Rachel laughed again, a sound that brought attention to the pair again from the rest of the class. Quinn felt her ears turn pink - was it something she said? Their fellow students were thinking exactly the same thing - surely it wasn't Quinn Fabray making popular and pretty Rachel Berry laugh? It couldn't be possible. "Finn?" asked, once her laughter was again under control, "He's sitting at the back for today."
"Oh," Quinn murmured, glancing around to see where the boy was indeed sitting at the back of the classroom, deep in conversation with a perfectly-quaffed boy whom she didn't know. "So, he didn't mind moving? Even though he's your boyfriend?"
If there had been laughter before, it was nothing compared to the uproarious sound the brunette was making now. "My-my b-boyfriend?" she snorted out between giggles, leaving Quinn feeling stupid and awkward at the sideline. All Rachel seemed to be doing this morning was laughing at her - was she wrong about them being friends? "Sorry, Quinn," Rachel managed, noticing that the blonde didn't really seem to be finding it quite so funny as she did, "I shouldn't laugh but-" The thought was cut off as the girl dissolved into another fit of giggles. "Honestly, Quinn where did you get that idea?"
Quinn shrugged, acutely aware of the fact that all eyes in the room were now on her. "I don't know," she murmured, embarrassed, "you guys just always looked so…"
"Finn's gay, Quinn," Rachel informed the girl so out of the social loop.
"Gay?" Quinn semi-whispered, shocked, turning in her seat to look back at the boy undisturbed from his conversation. "And he tells people? ...And they don't hate him?"
Rachel's eyebrows furrowed in confusion, "Uhh, yeah? We don't live in the stone age, Quinn." She couldn't help but feel that this hit home particularly close for the blonde, but she couldn't say how. All she knew was that the girl now had a thoughtful expression, looking down at her notepad on the desk. "You okay?"
"Yeah," Quinn assured with a nod, and a smile slowly spread across her face, "Yeah, I am."
Before Rachel could say another word, Mr Schuester stood and began writing his notes on the blackboard and all conversation had to be left until the end of class. The lesson seemed to drag on even longer than usual for Quinn, now that she had someone she could be talking to during it, and she found herself hard pressed to care about the optimal time to use super potions in order to be cost effective. Rachel, however, was writing everything the teacher said down neatly - colour-coded, in order of helpfulness. She glanced up from her page only once, apparently feeling Quinn's gaze on her; she gave only a quick smile, before returning swiftly to her learning.
The blonde looked down at her jotter, at her own notes. They were an untidy, very barely legible scrawl. Her eyes sneaked across to Rachel's page again - maybe she should use the notes she was given yesterday.
"And remember guys: homework due Monday! A two page essay on the importance of stocking up," Mr Schue said to tie up the lesson, turning to wipe chalk from his clothes before he returned home to Emma. Pupils left the classroom in dribs and drabs, until only Rachel, Quinn and a handful of other students were left present.
"So, do you maybe wanna grab something to eat? Or check out the gym battle on TV? It's an international, from Petalburg," Quinn asked, trying not to show how desperate she was to spend time with the brunette. This whole friend thing was a little addictive, she found.
"Quinn, I'd love to," the blonde's face lit up, "but I have Contest Club." Her features promptly fell.
"Contest Club?" Quinn question, a perfectly sculpted eyebrow arched, "Seriously?"
"Yes, seriously!" Rachel informed her with a laugh as she packed her things away, "We work on the best ways to dress up our pokémon, and teach them to dance and make them learn the prettiest moves we can!"
Quinn couldn't help but smile at the way the brunette's eyes had begun to sparkle, but she still shook her head disbelievingly. "Only you would go to Contest Club."
"No," Rachel disagreed with a pout, "Lots of people go." There was the tiniest trace of genuine hurt in her tone, but it was quickly replaced with pride when she added, "Mr Schue says some people just go to hear me sing." She smiled, running a hand over one of her pokéballs affectionately, "Skitty only dances when I sing."
"Alright, I get it," Quinn said to interrupt Rachel's reverie, with a playful roll of her eyes, "It's great. So, go sing them some…whatever it is you sing, and then maybe call me later?"
"I will, definitely, call you later," the singer assured her, while pushing their desks back against the wall to make room for the club.
"Awesome, so I'll see you later, maybe," Quinn said before turning to leave the classroom.
"Definitely," Rachel repeated, now moving another set of desks. "Wait, Quinn…"
"What?" the older trainer asked, pausing on her way out of the building.
"Well, why don't you stay for Contest Club?"
Quinn fought the urge to laugh out loud at the idea, trying to picture her pokémon decked out in contest gear: Luxray with a bow on his tail, Sneasel covered in the several ludicrously coloured pom-poms littering one girl's desk. "Maybe next week?" she tried.
"Definitely next week," Rachel corrected her for the third time.
Quinn rolled her eyes, "Definitely next week. Later, Berry."
The brunette grinned at the affectionate use of her last name, and reiterated the sentiment. "Yeah, later."
As Quinn left, she saw Rachel beginning an in-depth discussion with Mr Schuester and watched as the other girl glanced furtively in the direction of the door she had just left through. She had thought they were talking about contests, but now the blonde wasn't so sure. She had the feeling, a gut instinct, that they were talking about her. The question was: why?