Crowd Surf: So Let Me Get This Straight (You Say Now You Loved Me All Along)
Title: Crowd Surf: So Let Me Get This Straight (You Say Now You Loved Me All Along)
Pairing: Rachel Berry/Quinn Fabray
Rating: R
Spoilers: AU
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Summary: An outtake from the Crowd Surf ‘verse, because I did not give Faberry enough love in the tale itself. Includes slightly-bossy-when-horny Rachel and over-excited Quinn. Would we have them any other way?
A/N: Title from Anberlin's "Day Late Friend". Have I gone a little title-happy? I might have gone title-happy. Whoops.
It takes some time, but the novelty of being inside Rachel Berry’s bedroom eventually wears off, leaving Quinn in a bizarre comfort zone. It isn’t like being in Santana’s room-for one thing, there is far less in the way of earth tones and Bruce Lee posters, and the fear of being punched for absolutely no reason is greatly diminished-but it’s nice. Very nice.
They’ve taken to studying here four nights out of the week, with Rachel primly set up at her desk (“Good posture is key for higher cerebral functioning,” she once explained cheerfully to a somewhat baffled Quinn) and Quinn stretched out on the girl’s floor. Once or twice now, she’s entered the room with the full intention of setting up shop on the bed, but something always stops her. She thinks it has something to do with it being Rachel Berry’s bed.
Minor details, really.
Tiny anxieties aside, Quinn is really enjoying this whole system they’ve worked out. She’s always liked Rachel-much to Santana’s chagrin-but they’ve never really been big on the talking thing before. Hers has mostly been a gaze-longingly-from-afar sort of admiration, and while she can appreciate the Angel-to-her-Buffy romance of the whole thing, life has improved tenfold since she joined Glee. Singing was all it took to capture Rachel’s attention, and now? Now she believes she’s truly got a chance with the girl.
This being friends thing is especially awesome because Rachel, although somewhat unexperienced when it comes to normal human relationships, has proven herself to be a wildly touchy-feely individual. The exact kind of behavior that would normally put Quinn off has her coming back desperately for more, thrilled with the notion of spending yet another evening on the receiving end of light touches and too-quick hand grabs.
She is supposed to be studying history. She’s supposed to be behaving like a good Christian girl. It’s what she told her parents in order to obtain their blessing upon leaving the house.
In all actuality, she thinks tonight is the night.
Quinn Fabray, after years of pining like a little bitch (Santana’s words more than her own, although Quinn can’t argue with teeth-gritting truth), is going to ask Rachel Berry…something.
She hasn’t exactly put her finger on that last part yet. Which is weird, for a girl whose entire life has been based around lists and expectations, but who could blame her? She’s been in love with Rachel since she was old enough to know what the combination of a short skirt and a dry mouth meant to begin with. This is, not to put too dramatic a point on it, bound to be the most important evening of her young life, one way or another. Things this huge just don’t sit well with notebook-paper play-by-plays.
But that changes nothing. She is going to do it. Tonight. No way out, no squirming free at the last second. She’s told Santana in advance and everything.
Tonight, Rachel Berry will be hers.
Or, just as possibly, she will learn how hard Rachel Berry can punch.
She shuffles uncomfortably, rotating a couple of papers and flipping aimlessly through her textbook. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Rachel’s head turn. The attention simultaneously thrills and horrifies her.
What am I doing?
“How is that paper coming along?” Rachel asks, smiling. She stretches her arms over her head, baring the slightest hint of skin under her flimsy tank top; not for the first time, Quinn is filled with gratitude that Rachel’s at-home attire differs so greatly from her school sweaters. The girl has one seriously rockin’ bod.
Santana has no idea what she’s talking about.
“It’s, uh…kind of a nightmare, to be honest,” Quinn answers after a beat of disguised staring. “All this crap about the Black Plague and rats and stuff. A yawn-fest.”
“Sounds exciting,” Rachel disagrees mildly, tousling her own hair with one hand. “Europe certainly had its share of wild times. A little disgusting, perhaps, what with the biological warfare and…the pustules, but fascinating all the same.”
It should probably disturb her that Rachel’s use of the word “pustules” does nothing to diminish the level of attraction Quinn is suffering from at this very moment. Her lips curve.
“Well,” she drawls in her very best come-hither tone, “maybe it would be more interesting if I wasn’t drowning alone in this river of vermin and disgustitude. You should come down here, study with me.”
“I’m not in your class,” Rachel reminds her, but she rises from her chair anyway and steps lightly across the clean beige carpet. Quinn sits up a little straighter and extends a hand, capturing Rachel by the wrist and tugging her down. The squeak of surprise Rachel releases is, she thinks, the most adorable thing she has ever heard.
The face she makes as she catches sight of Quinn’s textbook is almost as precious. Quinn supposes boils and keening torment aren’t for everyone, though Puck’s cursory glance through these pages ended in giggles and mimed gagging death fits.
Her friends are not lacking in strangeness.
“I cannot imagine what one gets out of these classes,” Rachel comments, flicking haphazardly through the book. “Death and gore and doom. You might as well be reading a horror novel.”
“Not all history’s that bad,” the blonde replies, smiling when Rachel, coming across a particularly hideous page, grimaces and slams the book shut entirely. “Besides, there’s that whole adage about learning from past mistakes. The more you know, the better off society’s future will be.”
“I hardly think upgrading to nuclear weaponry and suicide bombers qualifies as ‘better’, Quinn,” Rachel sniffs. “There is equally as much genocide now as there was a few hundred years ago. Those residing in categorical minorities are not much better off, what with bigotry and violence. Persecution and warfare…these continue to be human qualities through and through, regardless of how much knowledge we possess.”
“Since when are you of the ominous, cynical sort?” Quinn questions, only half-amused. There is something in Rachel’s eyes she does not like, a sort of heavy shadow she feels unaccustomed to noticing. When Rachel does not reply instantly, Quinn reaches across the short distance between them and lays a hand upon the smaller girl’s arm.
“My dad,” Rachel says at last, shrugging a little and covering Quinn’s hand instinctively with her own. “He’s facing something of a minor inquiry at work. Nothing serious, really, but…someone found out. Again. And now there are questions. Small accusations. They won’t go through, of course; this is not the first time such a thing has happened, nor will it be the last, but it always…”
“Sucks,” Quinn fills in bitterly. Mr. Berry, she knows, is a pediatrician-and apparently, not all parents in Lima are keen on placing the health of their children in homosexual hands. It should, by all rights, be a non-issue; few doctors are as compassionate and dedicated as Richard Berry, who has striven harder than Quinn can possibly imagine to top off his field. But where there are good, honest men, there will always follow suspicion and questions. Quinn knows this better than anyone; she wouldn’t be particularly astounded to find her own father leading the torch-wielding masses on such a subject.
“Yes, Quinn,” Rachel replies softly, eyes burning holes into her bare feet. “It sucks.”
Their hands are still joined, Quinn notes, resting almost casually upon the soft skin of Rachel’s arm. Even under the burden of the girl’s melancholia, the connection is nothing short of electric. The hair upon the back of Quinn’s neck stands stiffly at alert, her skin prickling all over. She swallows.
“Rach.”
Brown eyes lift to meet hers, curious and hopeful in some way Quinn is able only to pray over. “We’re at nickname level now?” the girl asks, sounding perfectly delighted at the prospect. Quinn smiles.
“More than, I’d hope.” She brushes a rogue lock of hair out of her eyes impatiently, rocking up onto her knees and staring Rachel down. She probably looks too intense for the circumstances, but damn it, she has to do this now. If she loses her nerve-as she has a hundred times over, it seems-Santana will never allow her to live it down. And then, naturally, the girl will allow New Hottie to slip through her own fingers, and this whole thing will be a big, ugly mess.
She’s doing this. Tonight. Terror and indescribable potential for failure be damned.
“Rach, I wanted to tell you something,” she says, hurried and breathless. Rachel is already cocking her head, her thumb moving in unconscious strokes over the back of Quinn’s hand. It’s almost enough to remove her nerve entirely.
“Is it a secret?” the dark-haired girl asks, teasing. Quinn’s smile falters.
“Kind of. No. Just…you know, just to you. For you.”
She can tell by the way Rachel’s head tilts further towards her own shoulder the girl does not get where she’s going with this. Sucking in a deep breath, she squares her shoulders and evens her chin defiantly.
“Rachel Berry, I’m…I’m kind of in love with you.”
It is exactly as direct as she has always imagined, though the violent quaver behind the words makes the whole thing decidedly less romantic. Still, she holds fast to Rachel’s arm and gaze, praying with everything she’s worth that the next thing she feels is not a slap.
She can’t decide if the girl’s hand stilling upon her own is better or worse than expected.
“You’re who now?” Rachel asks, mouth slipping open. Quinn winces at the sheer skepticism.
“I’m in love with you,” she repeats, feeling rather stupid about it under the fire of Rachel’s stare. “Kind of madly. Kind of since we were kids. Kind of thought it was time you knew.”
“You’re…” Rachel shakes her head, retracting her hand completely. Quinn’s heart sinks faster than she’d thought possible. “You’re…in love. With me.”
“Yes.” Maybe this whole thing was a pathetic idea. Maybe she should have waited even longer-or done it differently. Not in Rachel’s room, on Rachel’s turf, for instance. And not so simply. Perhaps she should have factored in rose petals, or a small mariachi band, or hell, even her own guitar.
Why the fuck did I not think of the guitar?
Rachel pulls herself to a standing position, hands on her hips. Instantly, Quinn feels all of two feet tall, staring meekly back up.
“You’re in love,” Rachel says slowly, “with me. With the girl who can barely hold down a singular friendship, who can’t avoid morning sugar baths, who has to meet weekly with Ms. Pillsbury to discuss ‘a prolonged and irregular obsession’ with Patti Lupone? You. Are in love. With me?”
“I really don’t feel like it’s that difficult to believe,” Quinn begins, startled when Rachel throws up one hand in a gesture for silence.
“Quinn Fabray,” she says sharply, having the full audacity to sound kind of pissed about the whole thing. “This is quite possibly the cruelest thing I have ever heard of.”
“What?” Quinn asks stupidly, blinking. Abruptly, Rachel flings both hands above her head and casts a desperate glance heavenward.
“I knew you were friends with the likes of Santana Lopez,” she grumbles. “I knew there was some potential for malevolence in you, but I never thought you would be so vile as to try to trick a person into thinking you loved them. I mean, really, Quinn, are you that utterly bored already? The school year’s barely begun; surely you could have come up with something less…awful to expend energy upon.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Quinn protests, completely puzzled and kind of annoyed about it. She scrambles to her feet, stepping as close as she dares. “Who’s tricking anyone? I’m in love with you, Rachel. Seriously. I wouldn’t kid about something like that.”
“Wouldn’t you?” Rachel demands, striding forward and jabbing an accusatory finger into the taller girl’s face. “Look at me, Quinn. Rachel Berry: Laughingstock of McKinley High. Nerds are too cool to give me the time of day. I practically have to bribe even the teachers into speaking with me after class. You can’t honestly believe I would think you, of all people-with your gorgeous eyes and your perfect bone structure and the most astonishingly superlative rear end I have ever laid eyes on-could love me. I mean, that’s…” She sputters for a second, clearly at a loss for words. (Quinn takes that beat to glance over her own shoulder, curiously inspecting her ass.) “That’s absurd.”
Quinn opens and closes her mouth several times, stunned. “Rach, I-“
“I think maybe it’s time for you to go,” the brunette says softly, averting her eyes at last. “I’ll get more work done without you here.”
Taken aback, Quinn bends to obediently gather her things, watching Rachel chew her own lip uneasily. This is all wrong, she thinks unhappily. This is not how it should have gone, not in any imagining. Rachel should have been swept away, or embarrassed, or angry, but not disbelieving. Not when Quinn’s never done anything to give her reason to distrust her intentions.
She’s halfway to the door when it hits her how unfair this is. How ridiculously over the top Rachel is being. It’s stupid, and it’s inane, and frankly, she’s come too far these last few weeks to let this be the end of it.
She barely registers the slam of books upon the ground, or the squeak Rachel lets out when strong hands coil around her tiny waist. She barely registers how it feels to back Rachel against the desk, or how wide the girl’s eyes have gone. All she has become is this need-mad and fervent and wholly out of control-to prove herself true.
Quinn Fabray, Champion of Truth and Love, is not so easily averted.
“I love you,” she breathes, as Rachel’s eyes flicker up and down her face. “I love you, and fuck it, Rach, I’m gonna make you believe it.”
It’s so totally the lamest thing she could have said (she can practically hear Santana’s sneering cackle in her head), but before Rachel can muster a rebuttal, Quinn angles her head down and snares the girl in the most searing of first kisses. She can feel years of desire welling, snaking around her heart and holding firm, spurred on by the gasp Rachel emits when the blonde’s tongue nudges her lips open and sleeks its way inside.
The rest of it-the telling, the argument-was not what she’s spent so many hours dreaming of, but this is. Bending Rachel backwards over the desk, supporting her with tender hands, stealing her every suspicion and doing away with her self-doubt with the power of a kiss-this is what she’s been waiting for.
And from the way Rachel’s small hands curl around her neck, cupping the back of her skull as she kisses back, it seems the feeling is pretty damn mutual.
“This is crazy,” Rachel gasps against her lips when they break for air.
“I’ve never been much of a proponent for sanity,” Quinn remarks, pressing a happy kiss against the girl’s jaw. “I mean, fuck, I hang out with Puck.”
“I’ve never understood him,” Rachel agrees, arching until her neck is flush against Quinn’s searching lips. “God. God, you’re good at that.”
The idea that she is finally here, in Rachel’s room, nipping at her throat while the brunette moans beneath her, is almost more intoxicating than the act itself. Quinn shivers.
“I’ve been dreaming,” she murmurs, taking a bit of skin between her teeth and sucking until Rachel whimpers, “of doing this for so long. You don’t even know.”
“You never told me,” Rachel points out. “You barely spoke to me, and when you did, it was always in those perplexing choppy-uhh-sentences. I always just thought you were-oh my God-making fun of me.”
“Never,” Quinn swears, burying her face against the girl’s collarbone and biting down lightly. Rachel squirms, hips bucking erratically as her hands spread across Quinn’s shoulders. “Well. I mean, maybe when we were like six. But I also liked Blue’s Clues and tuna back then. Things change.”
“I just never thought you might actually-“ Trailing off, Rachel gives a mewling gasp that fires straight to Quinn’s soul. The blonde growls with satisfaction, teasing her tongue along tan flesh, kissing every inch she can reach. “I thought you were a pipe dream, you know? A fantasy. Something to keep me burning on cold nights, an image to pleasure me when I was at my loneliest. It was almost like you weren’t real.”
The idea of Rachel spending any night at all pleasuring herself to thoughts of Quinn is almost too much. The blonde dips her tongue slowly beneath the strap of the smaller girl’s tank top, relishing the heave of Rachel’s breasts in response.
“You thought of me?” she asks softly, tickling a thin trail down the girl’s shoulder. Rachel moves fluidly, hands seeking skin under Quinn’s t-shirt, her back bowing off of the desk. It’s all Quinn can do not to crush her down atop papers and laptop cords and claim her in the next heartbeat.
Barely told the girl a thing, and already you’re itching to fuck her senseless. Real romantic, Fabray. Lopez would be so proud.
Rachel doesn’t seem to mind, however, which makes the whole thing less guilt-inducing. Instead of looking displeased, the diminutive girl is wearing an expression that falls somewhere between shy and coy, touching a hand to her cheek.
“Often,” she confides quietly, trailing that hand slowly down her neck until her fingers are toying with the collar of her top. Quinn’s mouth is suddenly desert dry. “You have no idea how many nights I've spent on that bed…legs spread open, stroking myself…mm, imagining it was your hand…”
A little quick on the draw, but hot damn, who’s minding here?
Rachel seems to realize all at once what has just left her mouth; her face goes pink, her hand dropping to her side. “My God,” she mumbles, “I actually just said that.”
“Fuck yeah, you did,” Quinn growls, surging forward and planting her palms upon the desktop. Rachel, sufficiently pinned, loses that mortified flare almost immediately.
“You don’t mind?” she asks, moaning throatily when Quinn’s lips collide again with her skin. “You’re not-mm-put off?”
“Fuck no, I’m not.” She’s standing between Rachel’s legs, the desk supporting the smaller girl almost entirely as she rocks her hips forward. Dark eyes flicker.
“You curse a lot,” she observes, casting her head back with the next thrust of Quinn’s hips.
“Sorry,” Quinn says, snagging the tank’s material with her teeth and pulling. She bows her head until her mouth covers one concealed breast, sucking harder to the rhythm of Rachel's cries.
“No apologies,” the brunette gasps when she can speak again around heaving breaths. Quinn rolls her tongue, flattens it out and strokes boldly across the nipple revealing itself so pointedly through the garment. “It’s so very hot.”
Pale fingers dig into Rachel’s waist, pulling her in against the push of Quinn’s pelvis. She bites down gently, pleased when one small hand cradles the back of her head and urges her to continue.
“Keep doing that,” Rachel commands rather bossily, groaning when Quinn acquiesces. “Fuck. Keep…keep doing that, and touch me.”
Quinn’s hand is sandwiched between their bodies before the sentence is complete, hot against the front of scandalously short red shorts. Rachel whimpers into her ear, head bent so she can hiss demands softly.
“Harder, Quinn. You’re not going to break me. I need to…I need to feel you. On me, on my skin, I need you to-oh.”
Practically shivering with ancipation, Quinn curls her fingers into damp underwear, startled to find smooth skin coated slickly all over. She groans, using her other hand to push the tank top up over the smaller girl’s breasts, and nuzzles between them desperately.
“I didn’t expect to go this fast,” she insists, even as Rachel rubs herself frantically into her willing hand. “I thought maybe…dinner, a movie…some light petting to start off.”
“If you stop now, Quinn Fabray,” Rachel threatens, “I will-oh fucking God, yes.”
She does not care to know what it is Rachel will do, because the idea of stopping is both ludicrous and painful. She focuses her full attention on dragging a nail lightly across Rachel’s heat, on the pitch-perfect cry Rachel utters. Grasping at the hand not currently digging its nails into her skin, she guides Rachel down the front of her jeans and cants furiously in an effort to catch up.
“I need, I want, I,” Rachel babbles, clumsily caressing Quinn in return. “I’m so, I’m so close, I’m so-“
Rachel would be a talker during sex, Quinn thinks rather smugly as she gives a perfectly-timed pinch and watches the small girl curve up into her body. Rachel would also be disturbingly capable of riding out an orgasm while frenetically guiding Quinn to one of her own. She’s just that kind of over-achiever, and frankly, Quinn’s never been happier about that fact.
She collapses forward, feeling Rachel’s arms come around to cradle her close. It’s not exactly comfortable, what with Rachel sprawled gasping upon her desk and Quinn using the girl’s quivering, spread legs as a center for her own balance, but she certainly can’t complain.
“Eventful study session,” she observes when breathing comes more easily. Rachel’s hand drifts down the back of her head, stroking her hair complacently; she nearly purrs in ecstasy.
“Are you going to be sarcastic about it, or are you going to finish the job?”
Lifting her head, Quinn blinks in confusion. “But you…” She hesitates, uncertain. “I mean, you did, right? I saw you. There was moaning, and I think you scratched the shit out of my back.”
Dark eyes twinkle. “I was talking about something a little less lust-oriented, Quinn. Like making this official?”
Quinn thinks her face might shatter if she keeps smiling this broadly, and how fun would that be to explain at school?
“For the record,” Rachel says, brushing her hand against Quinn’s cheek and smiling charmingly. “The answer is yes. Naturally. I’m not the sort of girl who can…do that, and not expect a follow-up of more romantic proportions.”
Now that she’s come down from her high, she looks more than a little embarrassed. Quinn thinks she has never looked so beautiful.
“So you wanna?” she asks, thumbing Rachel’s bottom lip hopefully. The brunette wraps her legs around Quinn’s waist.
“I wanna,” she says, rather more adoringly than Quinn expects. The blonde beams, hooking her hands under deceptively strong thighs and lifting the girl off the desk.
They’re halfway to the bed when Rachel leans down and kisses her hard enough to nearly send them both tumbling down. Quinn is sure she’s about to shatter into a million Rachel-loving pieces.
She has never been happier in her life.
Pairing: Rachel Berry/Quinn Fabray
Rating: R
Spoilers: AU
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Summary: An outtake from the Crowd Surf ‘verse, because I did not give Faberry enough love in the tale itself. Includes slightly-bossy-when-horny Rachel and over-excited Quinn. Would we have them any other way?
A/N: Title from Anberlin's "Day Late Friend". Have I gone a little title-happy? I might have gone title-happy. Whoops.
It takes some time, but the novelty of being inside Rachel Berry’s bedroom eventually wears off, leaving Quinn in a bizarre comfort zone. It isn’t like being in Santana’s room-for one thing, there is far less in the way of earth tones and Bruce Lee posters, and the fear of being punched for absolutely no reason is greatly diminished-but it’s nice. Very nice.
They’ve taken to studying here four nights out of the week, with Rachel primly set up at her desk (“Good posture is key for higher cerebral functioning,” she once explained cheerfully to a somewhat baffled Quinn) and Quinn stretched out on the girl’s floor. Once or twice now, she’s entered the room with the full intention of setting up shop on the bed, but something always stops her. She thinks it has something to do with it being Rachel Berry’s bed.
Minor details, really.
Tiny anxieties aside, Quinn is really enjoying this whole system they’ve worked out. She’s always liked Rachel-much to Santana’s chagrin-but they’ve never really been big on the talking thing before. Hers has mostly been a gaze-longingly-from-afar sort of admiration, and while she can appreciate the Angel-to-her-Buffy romance of the whole thing, life has improved tenfold since she joined Glee. Singing was all it took to capture Rachel’s attention, and now? Now she believes she’s truly got a chance with the girl.
This being friends thing is especially awesome because Rachel, although somewhat unexperienced when it comes to normal human relationships, has proven herself to be a wildly touchy-feely individual. The exact kind of behavior that would normally put Quinn off has her coming back desperately for more, thrilled with the notion of spending yet another evening on the receiving end of light touches and too-quick hand grabs.
She is supposed to be studying history. She’s supposed to be behaving like a good Christian girl. It’s what she told her parents in order to obtain their blessing upon leaving the house.
In all actuality, she thinks tonight is the night.
Quinn Fabray, after years of pining like a little bitch (Santana’s words more than her own, although Quinn can’t argue with teeth-gritting truth), is going to ask Rachel Berry…something.
She hasn’t exactly put her finger on that last part yet. Which is weird, for a girl whose entire life has been based around lists and expectations, but who could blame her? She’s been in love with Rachel since she was old enough to know what the combination of a short skirt and a dry mouth meant to begin with. This is, not to put too dramatic a point on it, bound to be the most important evening of her young life, one way or another. Things this huge just don’t sit well with notebook-paper play-by-plays.
But that changes nothing. She is going to do it. Tonight. No way out, no squirming free at the last second. She’s told Santana in advance and everything.
Tonight, Rachel Berry will be hers.
Or, just as possibly, she will learn how hard Rachel Berry can punch.
She shuffles uncomfortably, rotating a couple of papers and flipping aimlessly through her textbook. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Rachel’s head turn. The attention simultaneously thrills and horrifies her.
What am I doing?
“How is that paper coming along?” Rachel asks, smiling. She stretches her arms over her head, baring the slightest hint of skin under her flimsy tank top; not for the first time, Quinn is filled with gratitude that Rachel’s at-home attire differs so greatly from her school sweaters. The girl has one seriously rockin’ bod.
Santana has no idea what she’s talking about.
“It’s, uh…kind of a nightmare, to be honest,” Quinn answers after a beat of disguised staring. “All this crap about the Black Plague and rats and stuff. A yawn-fest.”
“Sounds exciting,” Rachel disagrees mildly, tousling her own hair with one hand. “Europe certainly had its share of wild times. A little disgusting, perhaps, what with the biological warfare and…the pustules, but fascinating all the same.”
It should probably disturb her that Rachel’s use of the word “pustules” does nothing to diminish the level of attraction Quinn is suffering from at this very moment. Her lips curve.
“Well,” she drawls in her very best come-hither tone, “maybe it would be more interesting if I wasn’t drowning alone in this river of vermin and disgustitude. You should come down here, study with me.”
“I’m not in your class,” Rachel reminds her, but she rises from her chair anyway and steps lightly across the clean beige carpet. Quinn sits up a little straighter and extends a hand, capturing Rachel by the wrist and tugging her down. The squeak of surprise Rachel releases is, she thinks, the most adorable thing she has ever heard.
The face she makes as she catches sight of Quinn’s textbook is almost as precious. Quinn supposes boils and keening torment aren’t for everyone, though Puck’s cursory glance through these pages ended in giggles and mimed gagging death fits.
Her friends are not lacking in strangeness.
“I cannot imagine what one gets out of these classes,” Rachel comments, flicking haphazardly through the book. “Death and gore and doom. You might as well be reading a horror novel.”
“Not all history’s that bad,” the blonde replies, smiling when Rachel, coming across a particularly hideous page, grimaces and slams the book shut entirely. “Besides, there’s that whole adage about learning from past mistakes. The more you know, the better off society’s future will be.”
“I hardly think upgrading to nuclear weaponry and suicide bombers qualifies as ‘better’, Quinn,” Rachel sniffs. “There is equally as much genocide now as there was a few hundred years ago. Those residing in categorical minorities are not much better off, what with bigotry and violence. Persecution and warfare…these continue to be human qualities through and through, regardless of how much knowledge we possess.”
“Since when are you of the ominous, cynical sort?” Quinn questions, only half-amused. There is something in Rachel’s eyes she does not like, a sort of heavy shadow she feels unaccustomed to noticing. When Rachel does not reply instantly, Quinn reaches across the short distance between them and lays a hand upon the smaller girl’s arm.
“My dad,” Rachel says at last, shrugging a little and covering Quinn’s hand instinctively with her own. “He’s facing something of a minor inquiry at work. Nothing serious, really, but…someone found out. Again. And now there are questions. Small accusations. They won’t go through, of course; this is not the first time such a thing has happened, nor will it be the last, but it always…”
“Sucks,” Quinn fills in bitterly. Mr. Berry, she knows, is a pediatrician-and apparently, not all parents in Lima are keen on placing the health of their children in homosexual hands. It should, by all rights, be a non-issue; few doctors are as compassionate and dedicated as Richard Berry, who has striven harder than Quinn can possibly imagine to top off his field. But where there are good, honest men, there will always follow suspicion and questions. Quinn knows this better than anyone; she wouldn’t be particularly astounded to find her own father leading the torch-wielding masses on such a subject.
“Yes, Quinn,” Rachel replies softly, eyes burning holes into her bare feet. “It sucks.”
Their hands are still joined, Quinn notes, resting almost casually upon the soft skin of Rachel’s arm. Even under the burden of the girl’s melancholia, the connection is nothing short of electric. The hair upon the back of Quinn’s neck stands stiffly at alert, her skin prickling all over. She swallows.
“Rach.”
Brown eyes lift to meet hers, curious and hopeful in some way Quinn is able only to pray over. “We’re at nickname level now?” the girl asks, sounding perfectly delighted at the prospect. Quinn smiles.
“More than, I’d hope.” She brushes a rogue lock of hair out of her eyes impatiently, rocking up onto her knees and staring Rachel down. She probably looks too intense for the circumstances, but damn it, she has to do this now. If she loses her nerve-as she has a hundred times over, it seems-Santana will never allow her to live it down. And then, naturally, the girl will allow New Hottie to slip through her own fingers, and this whole thing will be a big, ugly mess.
She’s doing this. Tonight. Terror and indescribable potential for failure be damned.
“Rach, I wanted to tell you something,” she says, hurried and breathless. Rachel is already cocking her head, her thumb moving in unconscious strokes over the back of Quinn’s hand. It’s almost enough to remove her nerve entirely.
“Is it a secret?” the dark-haired girl asks, teasing. Quinn’s smile falters.
“Kind of. No. Just…you know, just to you. For you.”
She can tell by the way Rachel’s head tilts further towards her own shoulder the girl does not get where she’s going with this. Sucking in a deep breath, she squares her shoulders and evens her chin defiantly.
“Rachel Berry, I’m…I’m kind of in love with you.”
It is exactly as direct as she has always imagined, though the violent quaver behind the words makes the whole thing decidedly less romantic. Still, she holds fast to Rachel’s arm and gaze, praying with everything she’s worth that the next thing she feels is not a slap.
She can’t decide if the girl’s hand stilling upon her own is better or worse than expected.
“You’re who now?” Rachel asks, mouth slipping open. Quinn winces at the sheer skepticism.
“I’m in love with you,” she repeats, feeling rather stupid about it under the fire of Rachel’s stare. “Kind of madly. Kind of since we were kids. Kind of thought it was time you knew.”
“You’re…” Rachel shakes her head, retracting her hand completely. Quinn’s heart sinks faster than she’d thought possible. “You’re…in love. With me.”
“Yes.” Maybe this whole thing was a pathetic idea. Maybe she should have waited even longer-or done it differently. Not in Rachel’s room, on Rachel’s turf, for instance. And not so simply. Perhaps she should have factored in rose petals, or a small mariachi band, or hell, even her own guitar.
Why the fuck did I not think of the guitar?
Rachel pulls herself to a standing position, hands on her hips. Instantly, Quinn feels all of two feet tall, staring meekly back up.
“You’re in love,” Rachel says slowly, “with me. With the girl who can barely hold down a singular friendship, who can’t avoid morning sugar baths, who has to meet weekly with Ms. Pillsbury to discuss ‘a prolonged and irregular obsession’ with Patti Lupone? You. Are in love. With me?”
“I really don’t feel like it’s that difficult to believe,” Quinn begins, startled when Rachel throws up one hand in a gesture for silence.
“Quinn Fabray,” she says sharply, having the full audacity to sound kind of pissed about the whole thing. “This is quite possibly the cruelest thing I have ever heard of.”
“What?” Quinn asks stupidly, blinking. Abruptly, Rachel flings both hands above her head and casts a desperate glance heavenward.
“I knew you were friends with the likes of Santana Lopez,” she grumbles. “I knew there was some potential for malevolence in you, but I never thought you would be so vile as to try to trick a person into thinking you loved them. I mean, really, Quinn, are you that utterly bored already? The school year’s barely begun; surely you could have come up with something less…awful to expend energy upon.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Quinn protests, completely puzzled and kind of annoyed about it. She scrambles to her feet, stepping as close as she dares. “Who’s tricking anyone? I’m in love with you, Rachel. Seriously. I wouldn’t kid about something like that.”
“Wouldn’t you?” Rachel demands, striding forward and jabbing an accusatory finger into the taller girl’s face. “Look at me, Quinn. Rachel Berry: Laughingstock of McKinley High. Nerds are too cool to give me the time of day. I practically have to bribe even the teachers into speaking with me after class. You can’t honestly believe I would think you, of all people-with your gorgeous eyes and your perfect bone structure and the most astonishingly superlative rear end I have ever laid eyes on-could love me. I mean, that’s…” She sputters for a second, clearly at a loss for words. (Quinn takes that beat to glance over her own shoulder, curiously inspecting her ass.) “That’s absurd.”
Quinn opens and closes her mouth several times, stunned. “Rach, I-“
“I think maybe it’s time for you to go,” the brunette says softly, averting her eyes at last. “I’ll get more work done without you here.”
Taken aback, Quinn bends to obediently gather her things, watching Rachel chew her own lip uneasily. This is all wrong, she thinks unhappily. This is not how it should have gone, not in any imagining. Rachel should have been swept away, or embarrassed, or angry, but not disbelieving. Not when Quinn’s never done anything to give her reason to distrust her intentions.
She’s halfway to the door when it hits her how unfair this is. How ridiculously over the top Rachel is being. It’s stupid, and it’s inane, and frankly, she’s come too far these last few weeks to let this be the end of it.
She barely registers the slam of books upon the ground, or the squeak Rachel lets out when strong hands coil around her tiny waist. She barely registers how it feels to back Rachel against the desk, or how wide the girl’s eyes have gone. All she has become is this need-mad and fervent and wholly out of control-to prove herself true.
Quinn Fabray, Champion of Truth and Love, is not so easily averted.
“I love you,” she breathes, as Rachel’s eyes flicker up and down her face. “I love you, and fuck it, Rach, I’m gonna make you believe it.”
It’s so totally the lamest thing she could have said (she can practically hear Santana’s sneering cackle in her head), but before Rachel can muster a rebuttal, Quinn angles her head down and snares the girl in the most searing of first kisses. She can feel years of desire welling, snaking around her heart and holding firm, spurred on by the gasp Rachel emits when the blonde’s tongue nudges her lips open and sleeks its way inside.
The rest of it-the telling, the argument-was not what she’s spent so many hours dreaming of, but this is. Bending Rachel backwards over the desk, supporting her with tender hands, stealing her every suspicion and doing away with her self-doubt with the power of a kiss-this is what she’s been waiting for.
And from the way Rachel’s small hands curl around her neck, cupping the back of her skull as she kisses back, it seems the feeling is pretty damn mutual.
“This is crazy,” Rachel gasps against her lips when they break for air.
“I’ve never been much of a proponent for sanity,” Quinn remarks, pressing a happy kiss against the girl’s jaw. “I mean, fuck, I hang out with Puck.”
“I’ve never understood him,” Rachel agrees, arching until her neck is flush against Quinn’s searching lips. “God. God, you’re good at that.”
The idea that she is finally here, in Rachel’s room, nipping at her throat while the brunette moans beneath her, is almost more intoxicating than the act itself. Quinn shivers.
“I’ve been dreaming,” she murmurs, taking a bit of skin between her teeth and sucking until Rachel whimpers, “of doing this for so long. You don’t even know.”
“You never told me,” Rachel points out. “You barely spoke to me, and when you did, it was always in those perplexing choppy-uhh-sentences. I always just thought you were-oh my God-making fun of me.”
“Never,” Quinn swears, burying her face against the girl’s collarbone and biting down lightly. Rachel squirms, hips bucking erratically as her hands spread across Quinn’s shoulders. “Well. I mean, maybe when we were like six. But I also liked Blue’s Clues and tuna back then. Things change.”
“I just never thought you might actually-“ Trailing off, Rachel gives a mewling gasp that fires straight to Quinn’s soul. The blonde growls with satisfaction, teasing her tongue along tan flesh, kissing every inch she can reach. “I thought you were a pipe dream, you know? A fantasy. Something to keep me burning on cold nights, an image to pleasure me when I was at my loneliest. It was almost like you weren’t real.”
The idea of Rachel spending any night at all pleasuring herself to thoughts of Quinn is almost too much. The blonde dips her tongue slowly beneath the strap of the smaller girl’s tank top, relishing the heave of Rachel’s breasts in response.
“You thought of me?” she asks softly, tickling a thin trail down the girl’s shoulder. Rachel moves fluidly, hands seeking skin under Quinn’s t-shirt, her back bowing off of the desk. It’s all Quinn can do not to crush her down atop papers and laptop cords and claim her in the next heartbeat.
Barely told the girl a thing, and already you’re itching to fuck her senseless. Real romantic, Fabray. Lopez would be so proud.
Rachel doesn’t seem to mind, however, which makes the whole thing less guilt-inducing. Instead of looking displeased, the diminutive girl is wearing an expression that falls somewhere between shy and coy, touching a hand to her cheek.
“Often,” she confides quietly, trailing that hand slowly down her neck until her fingers are toying with the collar of her top. Quinn’s mouth is suddenly desert dry. “You have no idea how many nights I've spent on that bed…legs spread open, stroking myself…mm, imagining it was your hand…”
A little quick on the draw, but hot damn, who’s minding here?
Rachel seems to realize all at once what has just left her mouth; her face goes pink, her hand dropping to her side. “My God,” she mumbles, “I actually just said that.”
“Fuck yeah, you did,” Quinn growls, surging forward and planting her palms upon the desktop. Rachel, sufficiently pinned, loses that mortified flare almost immediately.
“You don’t mind?” she asks, moaning throatily when Quinn’s lips collide again with her skin. “You’re not-mm-put off?”
“Fuck no, I’m not.” She’s standing between Rachel’s legs, the desk supporting the smaller girl almost entirely as she rocks her hips forward. Dark eyes flicker.
“You curse a lot,” she observes, casting her head back with the next thrust of Quinn’s hips.
“Sorry,” Quinn says, snagging the tank’s material with her teeth and pulling. She bows her head until her mouth covers one concealed breast, sucking harder to the rhythm of Rachel's cries.
“No apologies,” the brunette gasps when she can speak again around heaving breaths. Quinn rolls her tongue, flattens it out and strokes boldly across the nipple revealing itself so pointedly through the garment. “It’s so very hot.”
Pale fingers dig into Rachel’s waist, pulling her in against the push of Quinn’s pelvis. She bites down gently, pleased when one small hand cradles the back of her head and urges her to continue.
“Keep doing that,” Rachel commands rather bossily, groaning when Quinn acquiesces. “Fuck. Keep…keep doing that, and touch me.”
Quinn’s hand is sandwiched between their bodies before the sentence is complete, hot against the front of scandalously short red shorts. Rachel whimpers into her ear, head bent so she can hiss demands softly.
“Harder, Quinn. You’re not going to break me. I need to…I need to feel you. On me, on my skin, I need you to-oh.”
Practically shivering with ancipation, Quinn curls her fingers into damp underwear, startled to find smooth skin coated slickly all over. She groans, using her other hand to push the tank top up over the smaller girl’s breasts, and nuzzles between them desperately.
“I didn’t expect to go this fast,” she insists, even as Rachel rubs herself frantically into her willing hand. “I thought maybe…dinner, a movie…some light petting to start off.”
“If you stop now, Quinn Fabray,” Rachel threatens, “I will-oh fucking God, yes.”
She does not care to know what it is Rachel will do, because the idea of stopping is both ludicrous and painful. She focuses her full attention on dragging a nail lightly across Rachel’s heat, on the pitch-perfect cry Rachel utters. Grasping at the hand not currently digging its nails into her skin, she guides Rachel down the front of her jeans and cants furiously in an effort to catch up.
“I need, I want, I,” Rachel babbles, clumsily caressing Quinn in return. “I’m so, I’m so close, I’m so-“
Rachel would be a talker during sex, Quinn thinks rather smugly as she gives a perfectly-timed pinch and watches the small girl curve up into her body. Rachel would also be disturbingly capable of riding out an orgasm while frenetically guiding Quinn to one of her own. She’s just that kind of over-achiever, and frankly, Quinn’s never been happier about that fact.
She collapses forward, feeling Rachel’s arms come around to cradle her close. It’s not exactly comfortable, what with Rachel sprawled gasping upon her desk and Quinn using the girl’s quivering, spread legs as a center for her own balance, but she certainly can’t complain.
“Eventful study session,” she observes when breathing comes more easily. Rachel’s hand drifts down the back of her head, stroking her hair complacently; she nearly purrs in ecstasy.
“Are you going to be sarcastic about it, or are you going to finish the job?”
Lifting her head, Quinn blinks in confusion. “But you…” She hesitates, uncertain. “I mean, you did, right? I saw you. There was moaning, and I think you scratched the shit out of my back.”
Dark eyes twinkle. “I was talking about something a little less lust-oriented, Quinn. Like making this official?”
Quinn thinks her face might shatter if she keeps smiling this broadly, and how fun would that be to explain at school?
“For the record,” Rachel says, brushing her hand against Quinn’s cheek and smiling charmingly. “The answer is yes. Naturally. I’m not the sort of girl who can…do that, and not expect a follow-up of more romantic proportions.”
Now that she’s come down from her high, she looks more than a little embarrassed. Quinn thinks she has never looked so beautiful.
“So you wanna?” she asks, thumbing Rachel’s bottom lip hopefully. The brunette wraps her legs around Quinn’s waist.
“I wanna,” she says, rather more adoringly than Quinn expects. The blonde beams, hooking her hands under deceptively strong thighs and lifting the girl off the desk.
They’re halfway to the bed when Rachel leans down and kisses her hard enough to nearly send them both tumbling down. Quinn is sure she’s about to shatter into a million Rachel-loving pieces.
She has never been happier in her life.