Ladies And Gentlemen, Listen Up Please (I Don’t Want To Be Your Hero) (17/29)
Title: Ladies And Gentlemen, Listen Up Please (I Don’t Want To Be Your Hero) (17/29)
Pairing: Rachel Berry/Quinn Fabray, Santana Lopez/Brittany Pierce, minor Artie Abrams/Tina Cohen-Chang
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Spoilers: AU
Summary: “Sometimes, people are born a little different.”
Come morning, Quinn regrets not being a big enough person to civilly let their little argument off the hook sooner. Sure, there’s no excuse for Rachel rifling through her head and sending her into a downward spiral of all-too-brutal pain, but for fuck’s sake-it’s barely six A.M., and the very idea of crawling out of bed and into another Santana-run sparring match is horrifying beyond reason.
She doesn't think the idea of sneaking out a window and shimmying down a five-story fire escape to the nearest hotel bed is an entirely unreasonable one, circumstances considered.
Unfortunately, she is not quick enough to do so before Rachel slips back into the room and forcibly shakes her shoulder, pointing wordlessly at a pile of workout clothes before slipping back out again. Rubbing her eyes, Quinn stands, dresses, and obediently goes to the living room.
The scene is pretty much the mirror image of how she left it last night. Rachel’s forehead is pressed solemnly to the window, eyes closed. When she notices Quinn, she hurries to hand over a cup of coffee and a granola bar, looking for all the Broadway posters in New York like she’d rather lay down and die on the spot.
“You don’t look so hot,” Quinn observes around her first scalding sip, as if she doesn’t feel the exact same way. Rachel lifts an eyebrow.
“As always, Ms. Fabray, you are a font of genteel etiquette.”
“Don’t give me that,” Quinn snaps. “You know what I mean. I’m trying to be compassionate here.”
The look Rachel gives in response is curious. Quinn flushes and opts not to think about it.
“Are the others in training?” she settles for asking, ripping off the end of the granola wrapper with her teeth. “Did you actually let me oversleep?”
The brunette smiles thinly. “No, Quinn. You are up exactly when you should be. As for the others, they happen to be…out this morning.”
A blind, deaf idiot would sense the secrecy behind the young woman’s tone. Quinn looks up from her breakfast.
“Meaning what?” she asks carefully. Rachel tries her hand at a careless shrug-and fails pretty admirably.
“It isn’t currently something you should concern yourself with,” she replies, brushing the hair from her eyes and tying it back. “Today, Quinn, it’s you and me.”
Oh, peachy keen.
It’s better than battling with Santana, but only barely. Santana might beat the living shit out of her, but at least there is no confusion as to where she stands with the angry Latina. Rachel, on the other hand…
After last night, Quinn thinks it is pretty safe to say her relationship with Rachel has taken a turn for the disturbing and awkward.
The girl has been inside her head-and not in that gently-guiding, normal sort of way (which, how distressing is it that Rachel’s unique manipulation skills strike her as at all typical)-and that freaks her out in a very complete way. More than that, the fact that, despite her blatant insanity and mild mistreatment of Quinn, the other girl seems so bent on being…friends? It makes her skin tingle unpleasantly.
At least…she thinks it’s unpleasant.
She has been having kind of a hard time deciphering those feelings, truthfully.
“Quinn?” One tiny, demanding hand rocks back and forth in her field of vision. The blonde shakes her head.
“Fine,” she snaps, “but if you so much as breach my cortex, I swear to God, Berry-“
“I won’t,” Rachel huffs. “Honestly, Quinn, you behave as though I go about prodding in your head willy-nilly. I have promised to take care of you, remember? That does imply a lack of impending…”
“Prodding?” Quinn fills in dryly. She doesn’t want to, but something tells her to believe in Rachel’s vehement insistings. For all her secrets and thinly-veiled darkness, the young woman exudes an earnestness not often found outside of third graders and labrador puppies. It is-Heaven and all its host help her-somewhat endearing.
Somewhat more so than when the brunette has her pinned to a mat, certainly.
She lets out a long-suffering sigh when Rachel allows her one more gulp of coffee and breakfast before relieving her hands of both and leading the blonde downstairs. It’s eerie to be in the training area without the company of others; the walls seem to thrum with a nervous, untapped energy, the weapons crying for use from their various mounts. The silence, Quinn feels, is not deafening so much as fraught with uncomfortable desire.
She kind of hates training even more now.
“What do you think?” Rachel asks mildly, stripping off her zip-up and rotating her shoulders. Reluctantly, Quinn follows suit, stretching her arms above her head as far as they will go.
“About what?”
“Training modes,” Rachel fills in, firing an experimental roundhouse kick at the nearest punching bag. Quinn leans back instinctively.
“I’d be partial to something that won’t leave me too bruised to walk for the next week,” she mutters, guarded. Rachel chuckles.
“I apologize, but that is just not an option. Let’s see, we’ve got the usual hand-to-hand combat…quarterstaffs…knife play…sword play…”
Quinn can practically feel herself turning green at the thought of facing down something sharp and intended for killing. “Can I put my vote in for the thing that doesn’t involve brutal weapons?”
Rachel’s dark eyes regard her curiously. “Quinn, I assure you, you will come to no harm under my watchful eye should we-“
“We shouldn’t,” Quinn cuts her off hastily. “We should very much not. Fists and feet, please.”
She doesn’t want to say so out loud, but when the pointy objects finally come out to play, she would much rather Brittany be loitering in the background to repair any severed arteries or digits.
Rachel looks disappointed, as if she spent what little sleep she was able to catch dreaming of fencing matches. All the same, she takes her place on the blue mat, bouncing on the balls of her feet. Quinn settles across from her, fingers clenching into experimental fists.
“I still hate this,” she informs the brunette, muscles already tensing in preparation for pain. “I’m a pacifist.”
“I sincerely doubt that,” Rachel replies lightly, surging forward and swiping at Quinn’s ankles. The blonde leaps clear and shakes her head.
“I am, actually. Kind of. I prefer to do my fighting in the verbal ring, you know? Less concealer wasted on bruises when it’s all bitch and no bite.”
“Unfortunately,” Rachel deadpans, dodging a backhand nimbly, “Rayne and his men aren’t particularly interested in talking out their problems. They are really belong more to the-oof-kill first, chat later camp.”
Proud of herself for actually landing a kick, Quinn is just distracted enough to take a knee to the chest. She doubles over, coughing. Rachel pauses, looking mildly apologetic.
“Sorry.”
“What,” Quinn wheezes, “are they interested in? You’ve never been…very…accurate. Fuck.”
Rachel settles back into a defensive stance, looking too innocent for someone who has just delivered a brutal punch to Quinn’s shoulder. “You’re not moving very fast today,” she observes. Quinn glares, deciding against the by-now redundant bitching over a certain brain invasion.
“Shut up and tell me. I think I deserve to know why this bastard wants me so badly.”
The brunette tilts her head thoughtfully, giving Quinn the perfect in for a swift jab to the thigh. When she’s through wincing and dancing clear of the blonde’s reach, Rachel says, “You know how, in all the superhero lore, there is always that one villain whose key desire is to sap the abilities from those in the gifted minority and keep said abilities for their own use?”
“Yep.” Another punch; Quinn ducks. Rachel shrugs.
“That’s pretty much it. He murders those he feels are useful to him, or a threat, or at all extraordinary in any way, and he steals their abilities. It’s fairly simple, woefully commonplace, and vastly dangerous.”
“Why dangerous?” Quinn demands, panting for breath. “How many has he taken?”
“Enough,” Rachel replies darkly. “The only blessing is his lack of prowess where learning to control stolen powers are concerned. It isn’t any more instantaneous a process for him than for anyone coming into their gift, which affords us small chances to slip in and dismantle the empire he has been building these past years.”
It really isn’t any more clarifying a statement than Rachel’s usual indistinct yammerings. Quinn sighs.
“And you dismantle him how?”
Rachel looks a little guilty. “Generally by sneaking into his domain undetected and, um…incapacitating his followers in numbers as large as we can manage before garnering his attention.”
It shouldn’t surprise her. She knows it shouldn’t surprise her. All the same, Quinn’s jaw drops.
“You kill his friends?”
“Minions,” Rachel hastens to amend. “They’re really more of minions, and it’s not so much outright bloodthirst as self-preservation, you understand, so-“
“So it’s okay?” Furious, Quinn drives the heel of her sneaker into Rachel’s side, dangerously near her previously-damaged ribs. The brunette flinches, clutching reflexively at the spot. “Rachel, these are human beings! You are a human being!”
“I am,” Rachel agrees. “And I’m a human being who would very much like to continue to be alive, so-“
“No! No ‘so’!” Whirling, Quinn ducks the next blow and swings the side of her fist into Rachel’s collarbone. “You’re committing murder, Rachel. Murder!”
“Self-defense!” Rachel argues, catching Quinn’s wrist and twisting just to the brink of bone-splitting pain. The blonde winces.
“You’re seeking it out!”
“You don’t understand what it’s like!” Rachel cries. “You haven’t been here, you haven’t seen what they do to people like us!”
“I know murder is never the answer,” Quinn snaps, kicking back into Rachel’s kneecap and jerking free. She pauses on the other side of the mat, hands on her knees, and fixes the brunette with her best glare. “Rachel, I can’t do this. You can’t think I’d ever be okay with…I mean, what you’re doing is the work of a vigilante. It’s horrible.”
“It’s the only way,” Rachel says softly, eyes solemn. “If you’d seen…if you knew…the things he can do, Quinn…It is cruelty of the most inhuman order. You must understand that, given half a second, he would do the very same to any one of us. Worse, he would strip us of who we are. For most of us, he doesn’t want us dead for any particular reason outside of his ability to use us. Like tools, Quinn. We are little more than objects to him.”
The blonde shakes her head, inhaling shakily. “I’m sorry, Rachel, but I don’t care.”
She watches the young woman’s eyes harden. “That’s too bad, Quinn,” she replies icily. “You’re just going to have to get past that.”
Quinn wasn’t lying when she said she generally likes to think of herself as a pretty passive person; it happens to be God’s honest truth. She’s a bitch, sure, but only when she has to be (is it her fault the world so often revolves around idiots with no sense of boundary or tact?), and otherwise has learned to go more or less out of her way to avoid conflict. It’s a sign of maturity, she believes, and deeply spiritual character growth, that she has come to embrace the casual over the neurotically nit-picky. Arguments just aren’t worth it.
These hours spent with Rachel Berry have undone every painstaking year she spent on that personal evolution.
“You are incredible,” she heaves out, charging forward, grasping Rachel by the shoulders, and snapping a knee hard into the girl’s abdomen. “Totally, completely, unbelievable. Do you know that?”
Dark hair swirls as Rachel twists away with all the grace of a professional dancer. “Why do I get the pesky feeling you are not intending that as a compliment?”
At another time, she might consider laughing at Rachel’s brash sarcasm; right now, Quinn feels like she’s expending every bit of energy trying to catch and punish the nimble midget.
“Rachel Berry, this isn’t funny,” she growls. “You are out there taking lives like they’re…like they don’t mean anything. That’s the most horrible thing I have ever heard, and you’re quipping about it?”
Anger, it would seem, is exactly the ingredient she needs to stay agile and clear of Rachel’s attempts to pin her down. She manages to get in four consecutive blows before the brunette’s proximity forces her to jump away again.
Rachel pants, pivoting in an attempt to catch Quinn up. “Humor,” she gasps out, “is very often the thing that keeps us going, Quinn. When you can’t laugh in our world, you quickly find yourself unable to function.”
It makes sense-keeping the spirits up when the body and mind are bogged down with violence and depression-but Quinn doesn’t want to hear it. It’s like all the logic has seeped out of her bloodstream, replaced by something heated and so full of rage, she actually feels heavier for its presence. Snarling, she lunges after Rachel again, twining the brunette’s shirt in her hands and pulling the girl close.
“I don’t like your world,” she snaps, slamming her forehead brutally into Rachel’s. The brunette stumbles, catching herself with one small hand on Quinn’s shoulder.
“You don’t have a choice,” Rachel repeats for the billionth time, looking less amused and more concerned now. “Quinn, you’re doing quite well, but maybe it’s time for a break-“
“Why?” Quinn hears herself roar. “So you can coddle me? Poor little Quinnie, all lost and confused. You think I don’t know what you think of me? You think I honestly believe you see me as some poor little stray you dragged in because you felt sorry for me? You think I’m a weapon. You think I’m dangerous. What do you do to dangerous things, Rachel? Tell me, how do you treat the things in your life you can’t control?”
Rachel stops, arms dropping to her sides. “Quinn,” she begins carefully, “I really think you’re taking this a little too far-“
She is. She really is, and she knows it, but it seems a little too late to be slamming on the brakes. Quinn feels expressly odd, like she’s been cocooned in a soft bubble inside her head, lined on all sides with something big and dark and extensive. It’s the strangest feeling, like being stuffed inside one of those hinged plastic Easter eggs lined with cotton, shut up in its soft, suffocating darkness. She can’t determine whether she should love or hate it; either way, she doesn’t have time to decide, because her body is still moving.
Charging, actually, straight for Rachel, who stares at her blankly, but at least has the presence of mind to dart out of the way. Something in Quinn’s chest snarls.
There is no talking after that; the thing running Quinn’s motor isn’t interested in conversation, and Rachel can’t afford to take the necessary breath to string syllables together. The meld of rage and frustration between them becomes a ferocious tango, all swift strikes and gasping moans of pain. It is amazing, but Quinn, for the first time in over a week, feels like she is winning.
She knows she can’t take the full credit for that herself, of course; if it were up to her, she’d be landing meager blows and taking them back three-fold. But this anger, this black, viscous mass coiling and uncoiling within her like a cobra from Hell, is impressive. It is responsible with the deftness of her motions, the quick-bullet caliber of each punch, the frenzy with which she grasps Rachel by the shoulders and yanks her around to face another volley. It is responsible, and it is strong.
It occurs to Quinn, as she watches her nails scrape relentlessly across Rachel’s right cheek, that it might be in her best interest to be afraid of that fact.
This isn’t a sparring match anymore so much as a death dance, and Rachel seems to sense it. She’s not pulling her punches anymore, and still Quinn can tell the smaller woman won’t be able to hold her off for long. The beast in her chest rumbles its approval; inside her egg-shell chamber, Quinn cries out against it.
Stop. Stop it, you’re going to hurt her. You’re going to kill her-
Rachel rolls free of her clawing hands, edging off the mat and stretching her own arms out. “Quinn. I think we’re done. You’re doing very well, and I’m impressed, but you’ve clearly taken this argument to heart, and-“
Move! Quinn screams silently as her body stalks forward. Rachel’s mouth snaps shut, her eyes narrowing as she retreats. It takes a moment for Quinn to realize what the other woman is trying to do, and when she does, she cringes.
Not the brain again, Rach, God, please.
Whatever Rachel’s doing doesn’t seem to matter. Quinn’s body keeps advancing, fists raised, and Rachel keeps backing away with an expression of utter concentration darkening her brow, and Quinn gets the overall dreadful feeling that this is not going to end well for either of them.
Her fingers are inches from Rachel’s tan throat when-
“Berry, you down there?”
Oh, thank God, Santana.
It’s inexplicable, but the Latina’s voice-or, more aptly, the tension weighing it down-seems to snap whatever’s in control of Quinn’s body out of the driver’s seat. The blonde steps shakily back, shaking her head. Rachel frowns.
“Quinn? Are you…”
“No,” Quinn mutters. “Not in the slightest.”
“Berry?” Santana calls again, accompanied this time by soft footsteps on the stairs. Quinn’s breath catches in her chest at the sight of the other woman.
“What happened?”
Santana grimaces, clearly all-too-aware that she looks an absolute wreck. Her shirt is torn diagonally down the middle, as though something with very sharp talons slashed it through; her jacket and pants are coated in a mixture of dirt and (Quinn’s stomach coils again, completely unrelated to the violent thing under her breastbone) blood. Her hair is everywhere, her eyes haunted around a hefty bruise, and there is a gash in her lip.
“Ran into some problems,” is all she says by way of explanation. “Berry, we need your ass upstairs. There’s been a…situation.”
Rachel’s lips thin out, eyes flickering uneasily from Quinn to Santana and back again. Though it takes a tremendous amount of strength not to demand immediate attention, Quinn waves a hand with an informality she does not feel.
“Go. Fix it, Fearless Leader. We’ll talk about my personal brand of crazy later.”
By the looks of it, Rachel doesn’t seem pleased with this answer. Santana, on the other hand, impatiently shifts from one foot to the other.
“We don’t really have time for fucking around,” she mutters lowly. “We got their attention a little earlier than planned, and-shit, Berry, it turned into a motherfucking slaying ground.”
Rachel’s head snaps up, dark eyes catching Santana’s. “Meaning?”
“Meaning we took out as many as we could,” Santana goes on tightly, rubbing her jaw. “And so did they.”
Quinn has never felt the air go out of a room so quickly.
“Who?” Rachel demands icily. Santana’s head bows.
“I’m sorry. By the time we saw, it was too late to-“
“Who?” Rachel snaps. Quinn is struck with the inane desire to reach out for her.
“Santana,” she says softly. “Just tell her.”
When the name leaves the Latina’s lips, it strikes Quinn like a boot to the gut. She doesn’t even know why; she barely knew Mercedes, and frankly, the woman seemed to be something of a vicious diva-especially where Rachel was concerned. But that doesn’t seem to matter now; Rachel’s tan cheeks lighten, something in her eyes goes stiff, her posture tightens. Santana, looking lost and worried for the first time since Quinn’s known her, bites her lip.
“What are you going to do?”
For a daring moment, Quinn waits for Rachel to say something crazy-something, perhaps, involving Quinn and the complete terror from moments ago. Instead, the brunette stands stock-still, staring right through her bruised companion like she’s not even there.
“Rachel,” she prompts quietly, touching the girl’s arm. It’s amazing how deeply it burns when the brunette twitches away.
“Berr-Rach.” Santana’s eyes are imploring, staring out from under thick, purple pain. “You need to keep it together. They need you up there. Hummel’s a total fuckin’ wreck, Brittany is…” She stops, takes a breath, collects herself. “I told Brittany to lie down. She’s not doing so hot, and the others are fucking losing it. You know…you know how they get.”
Quinn suspects ‘how they get’ is nothing compared to what Santana herself is feeling right now. The urge to just touch her arm, soft and careful, is too great to resist, and when she does so, the darker woman shocks her by offering a sad smile.
“We dragged you into something real shitty, Fabray. Sorry about that.”
Quinn manages a shaky smile of her own. As if working through a thick fog, Rachel’s head swings from side to side.
“Let’s go.”
The stairs are a struggle and a half; Quinn’s body feels weak beyond reason, her head jammed with cotton. The unimaginable strength from earlier has swept clean through her, leaving no trace of itself behind, and now she’s exactly as useful as a newborn puppy. Twice, she trips; Santana catches her arm, eyebrow raised, clearly too miserable to make one of her usual witty remarks.
When they reach the apartment door, Quinn steels herself. She has never known a person to die before-not apart from her grandparents, however, none of whom she was horrendously close to in the first place. She’s not sure what protocol requires. Should she put effort into looking as sad as the others undoubtedly will? Or will that come off as fake and pretentious? Should she instead follow Rachel’s lead and stand solemnly, tersely, like the event was her fault to begin with? No. No, that would be silly, a girl playing pretend in the middle of a very real war.
A hand closes on her shoulder, reassuring. “Just go,” Santana whispers, hoarse and wounded. Quinn nods dumbly and follows Rachel in.
They aren’t sprawled this time; in fact, if Quinn didn’t know better, she might actually think New Directions had been replaced with look-alike statuettes. Shoulders are taut, legs crossed, arms still. The lack of cheer is not only eerie-Quinn honestly feels like she can’t breathe in the middle of it all.
When Puck sees them coming, he pushes off of the wall he has been leaning against and crosses the room. Without a word, his arms come around Rachel, then Santana, then Quinn herself. She tenses against him, barely remembering to hug back before he pulls away and scratches his head.
“Britt’s still in the back,” he tells Santana, voice low. Quinn thinks she hears it crack, thinks she can see something wet and glimmering reflected in solid green eyes. Her heart contracts.
Silently, Santana moves off in the direction of the hallway. Quinn looks around the room, startled by the sheer weight of grief. She did not know Mercedes even half as well as these people, and something tells her she was missing out. Desperately.
“What happened?” Rachel asks, keeping her voice down even as her eyes flicker to Kurt. Trapped under Finn’s arm on the couch, the boy looks for all intents and purposes like whatever light keeps him going has been utterly and perfectly extinguished. There is no trace of his usual smug smile, or the almost-endearing arrogance of the omniscient; he looks like a ten-year-old stripped of his family and future in one fell swoop. Quinn finds herself aching for him.
Puck rubs his head harder, like the motion will remove all memory of the day’s events. Day, it strikes Quinn suddenly-it’s still day out there, still bright and sunny and normal. And here they are, in the most abrupt state of mourning. It’s sick. These are not sunny-day emotions; this sort of thing should not happen, not ever, and if it must, should be restricted to the bleak endlessness of midnight.
“Noah,” Rachel snaps urgently, not an ounce of tenderness behind the name. “What. Happened.”
“Got caught,” he rasps. “Got caught, got beat. Conquered. He…God fucking dammit, Rachel. We could have stopped it. I could have stopped it, I was right fucking there. Ten feet away. I could have fried his motherfucking ass, but he looked at me, and I just-I couldn’t-“
“Noah.” Her small hand flattens against his chest, right over his heart. He sucks in a breath, trembling violently. “Noah, it’s what he does. You know that. You couldn’t have helped it.”
“I could have,” he repeats brokenly. “I could have. Rachel, it’s…fuck, it was her, you know? It was Mercedes, and I…”
“She knew,” Rachel says firmly, only the ice of her gaze detracting from the determination in her tone. “Listen to me. She knew. We’ve been together for how long, Noah? How long?”
His head shakes, eyes closing. She presses her hand harder against the front of his blood-spattered shirt, insistent.
“She knew. And she knew what she was getting into. We all do, every single day, and we do it anyway. She died a hero, Noah.”
“She died a puppet,” Kurt snaps thinly, his voice even higher than usual. His cheeks are soaked, his hair rumpled. Blood is crusted beneath his carefully-tamed nails. It is sickening to look at him.
Rachel seems not to notice. “Kurt, listen-“
“No,” he growls, slamming his feet into the floor and shoving Finn’s arm away. “You listen. She’s dead, okay, Berry? She’s dead, and all because you sent us into the fray again. You shipped us off to war and she didn’t say a word about it. She never said a word. You annoyed the living hell out of her, and still she would have followed you to-Christ, she did follow you to her grave. You ripped her away from that car all those years ago. You convinced her to come along and ‘save the world’. It’s your vendetta we’re working, your master plan. You want to tell us to listen, Berry? Fuck that. Fuck you. I’m done listening. The best friend I have ever had is dead, and I am not going to cheapen it because you want to feel better about it the situation.”
He sways; Finn catches his arm, holds tight. Blue eyes continue to glare from around the scratches driven across doll-like features.
“I hate you,” he spits. “I hate you, and I hate him, and I-dammit.”
Rachel’s expression does not soften. “You are fully entitled to that hatred, Kurt. I understand your perspective, and I am not remotely disinclined to agree with-“
“Shut up,” he pants weakly, allowing Finn to hold him upright. “Just…stop. You don’t-you can’t-don’t do that.”
The brunette blinks, startled for the first time from her stiff-upper-lip reverie. “Do what?”
“Don’t…just accept it,” he chokes, eyes welling again. He pushes a fist against his cheek, furious and damaged. “Don’t just stand there and let me-you always stand there. And we always…she and I, we just…for years, Rachel, I-“
Quinn gets the feeling she is witnessing something very private and very horrible. She bats away the urge to look somewhere else only because no other person feels safer to watch. Artie is weeping soundlessly into the side of Tina’s head, her body draped over his lap; Mike and Matt sit like mannequins across the way. Puck looks like he might in the next handful of seconds crack in half.
She decides at this very moment to loathe this Rayne guy with everything she’s worth. Because no one should look like these people do right now. No one should hurt like this.
For God’s sake, that sun is still shining outside without a care in the whole damn world.
Rachel has moved to stand before Kurt, arms spread, eyes stony. “Kurt.”
“No.” He shakes his head. She frowns.
“Kurt.”
Finn’s brow furrows. “Rach, I don’t think-“
“Kurt, look at me.”
“I didn’t see it,” he cries, wrenching backwards, away from Rachel, away from Finn, away from contact. “I didn’t see it coming. I was so tied up in my headache, in last night, in the stupid belief that everything was going to work out just fine, and I didn’t-“
He’s on his knees before anyone can catch him; when Finn moves to try, Rachel’s hand on his bicep stills him gently. As the room watches, Kurt Hummel, pinnacle of strength and self-confidence, falls entirely to pieces.
Quinn does not belong here.
Motion captures her attention from the hall: Santana’s return, accompanied by an absolutely destroyed-looking Brittany, who is limping and leaning heavily upon the shorter woman. Stormy blue eyes lock with hazel and, ridiculously, Brittany actually tries to smile.
“Hi, Quinn.”
Hi, Quinn. It’s so simple, so beautiful, so totally out of place in this den of misery. Quinn wants to weep.
“Hi, Brittany,” she manages, stomach churning at the sight of the gorgeous blonde looking so completely undone. Her skin is paler than Kurt’s, her eyes rimmed by shadows. She does not look, thank God, like she’s been physically attacked (Quinn strongly suspects Santana would tear limb from limb anyone who tried to get into that personal bubble), but Quinn’s not sure that matters. She remembers what Rachel said about empathy, about the soul. How would it be, to feel a friend's death there, in that deepest, most untouchable place? Just seeing it is horrifying; the exhaustion and outright loss etched into Brittany's willowy frame is more disturbing than all the wounds on Santana’s body.
Santana leads her lover to sit and hovers next to her awkwardly, hands moving from her own hair, to her hips, to Brittany’s shoulder. She is so obviously lost that Quinn nearly goes to her side, grasps her by the wrist, and pushes her down beside the Healer.
“What’d I miss?” the Latina asks at last, eyes dimly taking in Kurt’s coiled form on the floor. “Oh.”
Quinn waits for someone to break the discomfort draped over the room-for Puck to comment on “Hummel losing his shit”, or for Tina to pull her face out of Artie’s neck and say actual words. Hell, she’ll even take more yelling, as long as it’s not this.
She meets Rachel’s eyes, willing the brunette to go off on some tirade about how they won’t take this lying down, about how they’ll march back in and tear Rayne down. She wishes Rachel would show some sign of emotion, but the girl continues to stand over Kurt, hands closing on empty air, blank as the wall behind her.
It’s too much.
“What are we going to do?” Quinn blurts, wishing she could take it back as soon as the words are out. Now she’s got the whole room looking at her, dismal expressions all around, and she’s got no idea where to go from here.
“What do you suggest we do?” Rachel asks, voice soft and frightening. Quinn shakes her head.
“I don’t…I don’t have a plan or anything,” she says helplessly. “I just…I kind of hate this.”
The brunette lets out a bitter laugh. “Good, Quinn. You’re finally catching on.”
“Watch it, Berry,” Santana warns. Quinn realizes it’s the closest she’ll ever get to being stood up for by the wild Latina woman, and can’t figure out if she wants to relish the moment or forget it’s ever happened. She settles for staring as deeply as she can into Rachel’s eyes, imploringly.
“I’m sorry.”
It’s not everything, but it’s just enough to melt the edges of the woman’s expression. Rachel presses the back of one hand to her head, sighing.
“You’re catching on,” she repeats with less venom. “You understand now.”
Quinn nods. “I do.”
Rachel steps closer. “Good. Then you must understand why we aren’t going to do anything.”
Kurt’s head snaps up with impossible force. Finn’s hand steadies on his shoulder as Puck pushes away from the wall again, hands clenching into fists.
“You’re kidding.”
Her eyes flash warningly. “Noah. You know I’m not.”
“We can’t just sit here,” he snarls. “Those bastards can’t-I’m not sitting around while they party. Rachel, they have her body.”
“And we will do something about that,” the tiny brunette replies stonily. “Later. When we are at full strength, when we can think straight again. Noah, you know battle strategy well enough to understand that going back right now would be playing directly into Rayne’s hands. He’ll be waiting for us at the door.”
“With newfound super strength to boot,” Santana adds glumly. Brittany’s hand finds hers, winding together until Quinn can’t tell their fingers apart.
“Fortunately for us, he won’t have worked out that part yet,” Quinn says, then hesitates and glances Rachel’s way. “Right?”
“Correct,” Rachel confirms, “but that won’t last. We will act, I promise you.” Her gaze finds Kurt’s, holding fast and firm. “I swear it. Just not now. Not like this.”
Quinn more than half-expects the room to come apart; she expects Kurt to surge to his feet, screaming and foaming all over again. Instead, he gives a weak nod, a hollow action that tells Quinn exactly how far away from this room his mind has gone. She zeros in on Finn’s gorilla hand, massive and incredible against the other boy’s slim shoulder, if only to evade looking too closely at the anguish scrawled so plainly across Kurt’s features.
“Right now,” Rachel goes on, speaking this time to the room at large, “I think it’s best if we all just take some time to ourselves. Mercedes was a dear friend and an amazing woman. She deserves to be memorialized to the best of our collective ability.”
Fresh tears stream down Kurt’s cheeks; Finn sucks in a shuddering breath. Tina’s arms clench impossibly tighter around Artie’s neck. Quinn swallows.
Rachel moves to pass her, and she can’t stop herself from grabbing the girl’s arm, bending her head to look her in the eye.
“Are you all right?”
“Fine, Quinn,” Rachel replies, clipped and lying so obviously, Quinn and all her strange stomach butterflies want to punch her for it.
“You can…” She pauses, steeling herself; this is just going to sound so stupid, regardless of how well she means it. “You can talk about it. If you want. To…to me.”
Maybe she’s imagining it, but for a second, it looks like Rachel softens.
“Thank you,” she says, briefly lifting a hand to cradle Quinn’s cheek. It’s so unexpected, and so intimate, that Quinn nearly drops the arm she’s grasping. Rachel almost smiles.
And then she’s pulling away and walking out the door, and Quinn is left, standing like an idiot, with one hand reflexively drawn to her burning skin.
Fuck this new life, she decides mournfully.
Just…fuck it.
Pairing: Rachel Berry/Quinn Fabray, Santana Lopez/Brittany Pierce, minor Artie Abrams/Tina Cohen-Chang
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Spoilers: AU
Summary: “Sometimes, people are born a little different.”
Come morning, Quinn regrets not being a big enough person to civilly let their little argument off the hook sooner. Sure, there’s no excuse for Rachel rifling through her head and sending her into a downward spiral of all-too-brutal pain, but for fuck’s sake-it’s barely six A.M., and the very idea of crawling out of bed and into another Santana-run sparring match is horrifying beyond reason.
She doesn't think the idea of sneaking out a window and shimmying down a five-story fire escape to the nearest hotel bed is an entirely unreasonable one, circumstances considered.
Unfortunately, she is not quick enough to do so before Rachel slips back into the room and forcibly shakes her shoulder, pointing wordlessly at a pile of workout clothes before slipping back out again. Rubbing her eyes, Quinn stands, dresses, and obediently goes to the living room.
The scene is pretty much the mirror image of how she left it last night. Rachel’s forehead is pressed solemnly to the window, eyes closed. When she notices Quinn, she hurries to hand over a cup of coffee and a granola bar, looking for all the Broadway posters in New York like she’d rather lay down and die on the spot.
“You don’t look so hot,” Quinn observes around her first scalding sip, as if she doesn’t feel the exact same way. Rachel lifts an eyebrow.
“As always, Ms. Fabray, you are a font of genteel etiquette.”
“Don’t give me that,” Quinn snaps. “You know what I mean. I’m trying to be compassionate here.”
The look Rachel gives in response is curious. Quinn flushes and opts not to think about it.
“Are the others in training?” she settles for asking, ripping off the end of the granola wrapper with her teeth. “Did you actually let me oversleep?”
The brunette smiles thinly. “No, Quinn. You are up exactly when you should be. As for the others, they happen to be…out this morning.”
A blind, deaf idiot would sense the secrecy behind the young woman’s tone. Quinn looks up from her breakfast.
“Meaning what?” she asks carefully. Rachel tries her hand at a careless shrug-and fails pretty admirably.
“It isn’t currently something you should concern yourself with,” she replies, brushing the hair from her eyes and tying it back. “Today, Quinn, it’s you and me.”
Oh, peachy keen.
It’s better than battling with Santana, but only barely. Santana might beat the living shit out of her, but at least there is no confusion as to where she stands with the angry Latina. Rachel, on the other hand…
After last night, Quinn thinks it is pretty safe to say her relationship with Rachel has taken a turn for the disturbing and awkward.
The girl has been inside her head-and not in that gently-guiding, normal sort of way (which, how distressing is it that Rachel’s unique manipulation skills strike her as at all typical)-and that freaks her out in a very complete way. More than that, the fact that, despite her blatant insanity and mild mistreatment of Quinn, the other girl seems so bent on being…friends? It makes her skin tingle unpleasantly.
At least…she thinks it’s unpleasant.
She has been having kind of a hard time deciphering those feelings, truthfully.
“Quinn?” One tiny, demanding hand rocks back and forth in her field of vision. The blonde shakes her head.
“Fine,” she snaps, “but if you so much as breach my cortex, I swear to God, Berry-“
“I won’t,” Rachel huffs. “Honestly, Quinn, you behave as though I go about prodding in your head willy-nilly. I have promised to take care of you, remember? That does imply a lack of impending…”
“Prodding?” Quinn fills in dryly. She doesn’t want to, but something tells her to believe in Rachel’s vehement insistings. For all her secrets and thinly-veiled darkness, the young woman exudes an earnestness not often found outside of third graders and labrador puppies. It is-Heaven and all its host help her-somewhat endearing.
Somewhat more so than when the brunette has her pinned to a mat, certainly.
She lets out a long-suffering sigh when Rachel allows her one more gulp of coffee and breakfast before relieving her hands of both and leading the blonde downstairs. It’s eerie to be in the training area without the company of others; the walls seem to thrum with a nervous, untapped energy, the weapons crying for use from their various mounts. The silence, Quinn feels, is not deafening so much as fraught with uncomfortable desire.
She kind of hates training even more now.
“What do you think?” Rachel asks mildly, stripping off her zip-up and rotating her shoulders. Reluctantly, Quinn follows suit, stretching her arms above her head as far as they will go.
“About what?”
“Training modes,” Rachel fills in, firing an experimental roundhouse kick at the nearest punching bag. Quinn leans back instinctively.
“I’d be partial to something that won’t leave me too bruised to walk for the next week,” she mutters, guarded. Rachel chuckles.
“I apologize, but that is just not an option. Let’s see, we’ve got the usual hand-to-hand combat…quarterstaffs…knife play…sword play…”
Quinn can practically feel herself turning green at the thought of facing down something sharp and intended for killing. “Can I put my vote in for the thing that doesn’t involve brutal weapons?”
Rachel’s dark eyes regard her curiously. “Quinn, I assure you, you will come to no harm under my watchful eye should we-“
“We shouldn’t,” Quinn cuts her off hastily. “We should very much not. Fists and feet, please.”
She doesn’t want to say so out loud, but when the pointy objects finally come out to play, she would much rather Brittany be loitering in the background to repair any severed arteries or digits.
Rachel looks disappointed, as if she spent what little sleep she was able to catch dreaming of fencing matches. All the same, she takes her place on the blue mat, bouncing on the balls of her feet. Quinn settles across from her, fingers clenching into experimental fists.
“I still hate this,” she informs the brunette, muscles already tensing in preparation for pain. “I’m a pacifist.”
“I sincerely doubt that,” Rachel replies lightly, surging forward and swiping at Quinn’s ankles. The blonde leaps clear and shakes her head.
“I am, actually. Kind of. I prefer to do my fighting in the verbal ring, you know? Less concealer wasted on bruises when it’s all bitch and no bite.”
“Unfortunately,” Rachel deadpans, dodging a backhand nimbly, “Rayne and his men aren’t particularly interested in talking out their problems. They are really belong more to the-oof-kill first, chat later camp.”
Proud of herself for actually landing a kick, Quinn is just distracted enough to take a knee to the chest. She doubles over, coughing. Rachel pauses, looking mildly apologetic.
“Sorry.”
“What,” Quinn wheezes, “are they interested in? You’ve never been…very…accurate. Fuck.”
Rachel settles back into a defensive stance, looking too innocent for someone who has just delivered a brutal punch to Quinn’s shoulder. “You’re not moving very fast today,” she observes. Quinn glares, deciding against the by-now redundant bitching over a certain brain invasion.
“Shut up and tell me. I think I deserve to know why this bastard wants me so badly.”
The brunette tilts her head thoughtfully, giving Quinn the perfect in for a swift jab to the thigh. When she’s through wincing and dancing clear of the blonde’s reach, Rachel says, “You know how, in all the superhero lore, there is always that one villain whose key desire is to sap the abilities from those in the gifted minority and keep said abilities for their own use?”
“Yep.” Another punch; Quinn ducks. Rachel shrugs.
“That’s pretty much it. He murders those he feels are useful to him, or a threat, or at all extraordinary in any way, and he steals their abilities. It’s fairly simple, woefully commonplace, and vastly dangerous.”
“Why dangerous?” Quinn demands, panting for breath. “How many has he taken?”
“Enough,” Rachel replies darkly. “The only blessing is his lack of prowess where learning to control stolen powers are concerned. It isn’t any more instantaneous a process for him than for anyone coming into their gift, which affords us small chances to slip in and dismantle the empire he has been building these past years.”
It really isn’t any more clarifying a statement than Rachel’s usual indistinct yammerings. Quinn sighs.
“And you dismantle him how?”
Rachel looks a little guilty. “Generally by sneaking into his domain undetected and, um…incapacitating his followers in numbers as large as we can manage before garnering his attention.”
It shouldn’t surprise her. She knows it shouldn’t surprise her. All the same, Quinn’s jaw drops.
“You kill his friends?”
“Minions,” Rachel hastens to amend. “They’re really more of minions, and it’s not so much outright bloodthirst as self-preservation, you understand, so-“
“So it’s okay?” Furious, Quinn drives the heel of her sneaker into Rachel’s side, dangerously near her previously-damaged ribs. The brunette flinches, clutching reflexively at the spot. “Rachel, these are human beings! You are a human being!”
“I am,” Rachel agrees. “And I’m a human being who would very much like to continue to be alive, so-“
“No! No ‘so’!” Whirling, Quinn ducks the next blow and swings the side of her fist into Rachel’s collarbone. “You’re committing murder, Rachel. Murder!”
“Self-defense!” Rachel argues, catching Quinn’s wrist and twisting just to the brink of bone-splitting pain. The blonde winces.
“You’re seeking it out!”
“You don’t understand what it’s like!” Rachel cries. “You haven’t been here, you haven’t seen what they do to people like us!”
“I know murder is never the answer,” Quinn snaps, kicking back into Rachel’s kneecap and jerking free. She pauses on the other side of the mat, hands on her knees, and fixes the brunette with her best glare. “Rachel, I can’t do this. You can’t think I’d ever be okay with…I mean, what you’re doing is the work of a vigilante. It’s horrible.”
“It’s the only way,” Rachel says softly, eyes solemn. “If you’d seen…if you knew…the things he can do, Quinn…It is cruelty of the most inhuman order. You must understand that, given half a second, he would do the very same to any one of us. Worse, he would strip us of who we are. For most of us, he doesn’t want us dead for any particular reason outside of his ability to use us. Like tools, Quinn. We are little more than objects to him.”
The blonde shakes her head, inhaling shakily. “I’m sorry, Rachel, but I don’t care.”
She watches the young woman’s eyes harden. “That’s too bad, Quinn,” she replies icily. “You’re just going to have to get past that.”
Quinn wasn’t lying when she said she generally likes to think of herself as a pretty passive person; it happens to be God’s honest truth. She’s a bitch, sure, but only when she has to be (is it her fault the world so often revolves around idiots with no sense of boundary or tact?), and otherwise has learned to go more or less out of her way to avoid conflict. It’s a sign of maturity, she believes, and deeply spiritual character growth, that she has come to embrace the casual over the neurotically nit-picky. Arguments just aren’t worth it.
These hours spent with Rachel Berry have undone every painstaking year she spent on that personal evolution.
“You are incredible,” she heaves out, charging forward, grasping Rachel by the shoulders, and snapping a knee hard into the girl’s abdomen. “Totally, completely, unbelievable. Do you know that?”
Dark hair swirls as Rachel twists away with all the grace of a professional dancer. “Why do I get the pesky feeling you are not intending that as a compliment?”
At another time, she might consider laughing at Rachel’s brash sarcasm; right now, Quinn feels like she’s expending every bit of energy trying to catch and punish the nimble midget.
“Rachel Berry, this isn’t funny,” she growls. “You are out there taking lives like they’re…like they don’t mean anything. That’s the most horrible thing I have ever heard, and you’re quipping about it?”
Anger, it would seem, is exactly the ingredient she needs to stay agile and clear of Rachel’s attempts to pin her down. She manages to get in four consecutive blows before the brunette’s proximity forces her to jump away again.
Rachel pants, pivoting in an attempt to catch Quinn up. “Humor,” she gasps out, “is very often the thing that keeps us going, Quinn. When you can’t laugh in our world, you quickly find yourself unable to function.”
It makes sense-keeping the spirits up when the body and mind are bogged down with violence and depression-but Quinn doesn’t want to hear it. It’s like all the logic has seeped out of her bloodstream, replaced by something heated and so full of rage, she actually feels heavier for its presence. Snarling, she lunges after Rachel again, twining the brunette’s shirt in her hands and pulling the girl close.
“I don’t like your world,” she snaps, slamming her forehead brutally into Rachel’s. The brunette stumbles, catching herself with one small hand on Quinn’s shoulder.
“You don’t have a choice,” Rachel repeats for the billionth time, looking less amused and more concerned now. “Quinn, you’re doing quite well, but maybe it’s time for a break-“
“Why?” Quinn hears herself roar. “So you can coddle me? Poor little Quinnie, all lost and confused. You think I don’t know what you think of me? You think I honestly believe you see me as some poor little stray you dragged in because you felt sorry for me? You think I’m a weapon. You think I’m dangerous. What do you do to dangerous things, Rachel? Tell me, how do you treat the things in your life you can’t control?”
Rachel stops, arms dropping to her sides. “Quinn,” she begins carefully, “I really think you’re taking this a little too far-“
She is. She really is, and she knows it, but it seems a little too late to be slamming on the brakes. Quinn feels expressly odd, like she’s been cocooned in a soft bubble inside her head, lined on all sides with something big and dark and extensive. It’s the strangest feeling, like being stuffed inside one of those hinged plastic Easter eggs lined with cotton, shut up in its soft, suffocating darkness. She can’t determine whether she should love or hate it; either way, she doesn’t have time to decide, because her body is still moving.
Charging, actually, straight for Rachel, who stares at her blankly, but at least has the presence of mind to dart out of the way. Something in Quinn’s chest snarls.
There is no talking after that; the thing running Quinn’s motor isn’t interested in conversation, and Rachel can’t afford to take the necessary breath to string syllables together. The meld of rage and frustration between them becomes a ferocious tango, all swift strikes and gasping moans of pain. It is amazing, but Quinn, for the first time in over a week, feels like she is winning.
She knows she can’t take the full credit for that herself, of course; if it were up to her, she’d be landing meager blows and taking them back three-fold. But this anger, this black, viscous mass coiling and uncoiling within her like a cobra from Hell, is impressive. It is responsible with the deftness of her motions, the quick-bullet caliber of each punch, the frenzy with which she grasps Rachel by the shoulders and yanks her around to face another volley. It is responsible, and it is strong.
It occurs to Quinn, as she watches her nails scrape relentlessly across Rachel’s right cheek, that it might be in her best interest to be afraid of that fact.
This isn’t a sparring match anymore so much as a death dance, and Rachel seems to sense it. She’s not pulling her punches anymore, and still Quinn can tell the smaller woman won’t be able to hold her off for long. The beast in her chest rumbles its approval; inside her egg-shell chamber, Quinn cries out against it.
Stop. Stop it, you’re going to hurt her. You’re going to kill her-
Rachel rolls free of her clawing hands, edging off the mat and stretching her own arms out. “Quinn. I think we’re done. You’re doing very well, and I’m impressed, but you’ve clearly taken this argument to heart, and-“
Move! Quinn screams silently as her body stalks forward. Rachel’s mouth snaps shut, her eyes narrowing as she retreats. It takes a moment for Quinn to realize what the other woman is trying to do, and when she does, she cringes.
Not the brain again, Rach, God, please.
Whatever Rachel’s doing doesn’t seem to matter. Quinn’s body keeps advancing, fists raised, and Rachel keeps backing away with an expression of utter concentration darkening her brow, and Quinn gets the overall dreadful feeling that this is not going to end well for either of them.
Her fingers are inches from Rachel’s tan throat when-
“Berry, you down there?”
Oh, thank God, Santana.
It’s inexplicable, but the Latina’s voice-or, more aptly, the tension weighing it down-seems to snap whatever’s in control of Quinn’s body out of the driver’s seat. The blonde steps shakily back, shaking her head. Rachel frowns.
“Quinn? Are you…”
“No,” Quinn mutters. “Not in the slightest.”
“Berry?” Santana calls again, accompanied this time by soft footsteps on the stairs. Quinn’s breath catches in her chest at the sight of the other woman.
“What happened?”
Santana grimaces, clearly all-too-aware that she looks an absolute wreck. Her shirt is torn diagonally down the middle, as though something with very sharp talons slashed it through; her jacket and pants are coated in a mixture of dirt and (Quinn’s stomach coils again, completely unrelated to the violent thing under her breastbone) blood. Her hair is everywhere, her eyes haunted around a hefty bruise, and there is a gash in her lip.
“Ran into some problems,” is all she says by way of explanation. “Berry, we need your ass upstairs. There’s been a…situation.”
Rachel’s lips thin out, eyes flickering uneasily from Quinn to Santana and back again. Though it takes a tremendous amount of strength not to demand immediate attention, Quinn waves a hand with an informality she does not feel.
“Go. Fix it, Fearless Leader. We’ll talk about my personal brand of crazy later.”
By the looks of it, Rachel doesn’t seem pleased with this answer. Santana, on the other hand, impatiently shifts from one foot to the other.
“We don’t really have time for fucking around,” she mutters lowly. “We got their attention a little earlier than planned, and-shit, Berry, it turned into a motherfucking slaying ground.”
Rachel’s head snaps up, dark eyes catching Santana’s. “Meaning?”
“Meaning we took out as many as we could,” Santana goes on tightly, rubbing her jaw. “And so did they.”
Quinn has never felt the air go out of a room so quickly.
“Who?” Rachel demands icily. Santana’s head bows.
“I’m sorry. By the time we saw, it was too late to-“
“Who?” Rachel snaps. Quinn is struck with the inane desire to reach out for her.
“Santana,” she says softly. “Just tell her.”
When the name leaves the Latina’s lips, it strikes Quinn like a boot to the gut. She doesn’t even know why; she barely knew Mercedes, and frankly, the woman seemed to be something of a vicious diva-especially where Rachel was concerned. But that doesn’t seem to matter now; Rachel’s tan cheeks lighten, something in her eyes goes stiff, her posture tightens. Santana, looking lost and worried for the first time since Quinn’s known her, bites her lip.
“What are you going to do?”
For a daring moment, Quinn waits for Rachel to say something crazy-something, perhaps, involving Quinn and the complete terror from moments ago. Instead, the brunette stands stock-still, staring right through her bruised companion like she’s not even there.
“Rachel,” she prompts quietly, touching the girl’s arm. It’s amazing how deeply it burns when the brunette twitches away.
“Berr-Rach.” Santana’s eyes are imploring, staring out from under thick, purple pain. “You need to keep it together. They need you up there. Hummel’s a total fuckin’ wreck, Brittany is…” She stops, takes a breath, collects herself. “I told Brittany to lie down. She’s not doing so hot, and the others are fucking losing it. You know…you know how they get.”
Quinn suspects ‘how they get’ is nothing compared to what Santana herself is feeling right now. The urge to just touch her arm, soft and careful, is too great to resist, and when she does so, the darker woman shocks her by offering a sad smile.
“We dragged you into something real shitty, Fabray. Sorry about that.”
Quinn manages a shaky smile of her own. As if working through a thick fog, Rachel’s head swings from side to side.
“Let’s go.”
The stairs are a struggle and a half; Quinn’s body feels weak beyond reason, her head jammed with cotton. The unimaginable strength from earlier has swept clean through her, leaving no trace of itself behind, and now she’s exactly as useful as a newborn puppy. Twice, she trips; Santana catches her arm, eyebrow raised, clearly too miserable to make one of her usual witty remarks.
When they reach the apartment door, Quinn steels herself. She has never known a person to die before-not apart from her grandparents, however, none of whom she was horrendously close to in the first place. She’s not sure what protocol requires. Should she put effort into looking as sad as the others undoubtedly will? Or will that come off as fake and pretentious? Should she instead follow Rachel’s lead and stand solemnly, tersely, like the event was her fault to begin with? No. No, that would be silly, a girl playing pretend in the middle of a very real war.
A hand closes on her shoulder, reassuring. “Just go,” Santana whispers, hoarse and wounded. Quinn nods dumbly and follows Rachel in.
They aren’t sprawled this time; in fact, if Quinn didn’t know better, she might actually think New Directions had been replaced with look-alike statuettes. Shoulders are taut, legs crossed, arms still. The lack of cheer is not only eerie-Quinn honestly feels like she can’t breathe in the middle of it all.
When Puck sees them coming, he pushes off of the wall he has been leaning against and crosses the room. Without a word, his arms come around Rachel, then Santana, then Quinn herself. She tenses against him, barely remembering to hug back before he pulls away and scratches his head.
“Britt’s still in the back,” he tells Santana, voice low. Quinn thinks she hears it crack, thinks she can see something wet and glimmering reflected in solid green eyes. Her heart contracts.
Silently, Santana moves off in the direction of the hallway. Quinn looks around the room, startled by the sheer weight of grief. She did not know Mercedes even half as well as these people, and something tells her she was missing out. Desperately.
“What happened?” Rachel asks, keeping her voice down even as her eyes flicker to Kurt. Trapped under Finn’s arm on the couch, the boy looks for all intents and purposes like whatever light keeps him going has been utterly and perfectly extinguished. There is no trace of his usual smug smile, or the almost-endearing arrogance of the omniscient; he looks like a ten-year-old stripped of his family and future in one fell swoop. Quinn finds herself aching for him.
Puck rubs his head harder, like the motion will remove all memory of the day’s events. Day, it strikes Quinn suddenly-it’s still day out there, still bright and sunny and normal. And here they are, in the most abrupt state of mourning. It’s sick. These are not sunny-day emotions; this sort of thing should not happen, not ever, and if it must, should be restricted to the bleak endlessness of midnight.
“Noah,” Rachel snaps urgently, not an ounce of tenderness behind the name. “What. Happened.”
“Got caught,” he rasps. “Got caught, got beat. Conquered. He…God fucking dammit, Rachel. We could have stopped it. I could have stopped it, I was right fucking there. Ten feet away. I could have fried his motherfucking ass, but he looked at me, and I just-I couldn’t-“
“Noah.” Her small hand flattens against his chest, right over his heart. He sucks in a breath, trembling violently. “Noah, it’s what he does. You know that. You couldn’t have helped it.”
“I could have,” he repeats brokenly. “I could have. Rachel, it’s…fuck, it was her, you know? It was Mercedes, and I…”
“She knew,” Rachel says firmly, only the ice of her gaze detracting from the determination in her tone. “Listen to me. She knew. We’ve been together for how long, Noah? How long?”
His head shakes, eyes closing. She presses her hand harder against the front of his blood-spattered shirt, insistent.
“She knew. And she knew what she was getting into. We all do, every single day, and we do it anyway. She died a hero, Noah.”
“She died a puppet,” Kurt snaps thinly, his voice even higher than usual. His cheeks are soaked, his hair rumpled. Blood is crusted beneath his carefully-tamed nails. It is sickening to look at him.
Rachel seems not to notice. “Kurt, listen-“
“No,” he growls, slamming his feet into the floor and shoving Finn’s arm away. “You listen. She’s dead, okay, Berry? She’s dead, and all because you sent us into the fray again. You shipped us off to war and she didn’t say a word about it. She never said a word. You annoyed the living hell out of her, and still she would have followed you to-Christ, she did follow you to her grave. You ripped her away from that car all those years ago. You convinced her to come along and ‘save the world’. It’s your vendetta we’re working, your master plan. You want to tell us to listen, Berry? Fuck that. Fuck you. I’m done listening. The best friend I have ever had is dead, and I am not going to cheapen it because you want to feel better about it the situation.”
He sways; Finn catches his arm, holds tight. Blue eyes continue to glare from around the scratches driven across doll-like features.
“I hate you,” he spits. “I hate you, and I hate him, and I-dammit.”
Rachel’s expression does not soften. “You are fully entitled to that hatred, Kurt. I understand your perspective, and I am not remotely disinclined to agree with-“
“Shut up,” he pants weakly, allowing Finn to hold him upright. “Just…stop. You don’t-you can’t-don’t do that.”
The brunette blinks, startled for the first time from her stiff-upper-lip reverie. “Do what?”
“Don’t…just accept it,” he chokes, eyes welling again. He pushes a fist against his cheek, furious and damaged. “Don’t just stand there and let me-you always stand there. And we always…she and I, we just…for years, Rachel, I-“
Quinn gets the feeling she is witnessing something very private and very horrible. She bats away the urge to look somewhere else only because no other person feels safer to watch. Artie is weeping soundlessly into the side of Tina’s head, her body draped over his lap; Mike and Matt sit like mannequins across the way. Puck looks like he might in the next handful of seconds crack in half.
She decides at this very moment to loathe this Rayne guy with everything she’s worth. Because no one should look like these people do right now. No one should hurt like this.
For God’s sake, that sun is still shining outside without a care in the whole damn world.
Rachel has moved to stand before Kurt, arms spread, eyes stony. “Kurt.”
“No.” He shakes his head. She frowns.
“Kurt.”
Finn’s brow furrows. “Rach, I don’t think-“
“Kurt, look at me.”
“I didn’t see it,” he cries, wrenching backwards, away from Rachel, away from Finn, away from contact. “I didn’t see it coming. I was so tied up in my headache, in last night, in the stupid belief that everything was going to work out just fine, and I didn’t-“
He’s on his knees before anyone can catch him; when Finn moves to try, Rachel’s hand on his bicep stills him gently. As the room watches, Kurt Hummel, pinnacle of strength and self-confidence, falls entirely to pieces.
Quinn does not belong here.
Motion captures her attention from the hall: Santana’s return, accompanied by an absolutely destroyed-looking Brittany, who is limping and leaning heavily upon the shorter woman. Stormy blue eyes lock with hazel and, ridiculously, Brittany actually tries to smile.
“Hi, Quinn.”
Hi, Quinn. It’s so simple, so beautiful, so totally out of place in this den of misery. Quinn wants to weep.
“Hi, Brittany,” she manages, stomach churning at the sight of the gorgeous blonde looking so completely undone. Her skin is paler than Kurt’s, her eyes rimmed by shadows. She does not look, thank God, like she’s been physically attacked (Quinn strongly suspects Santana would tear limb from limb anyone who tried to get into that personal bubble), but Quinn’s not sure that matters. She remembers what Rachel said about empathy, about the soul. How would it be, to feel a friend's death there, in that deepest, most untouchable place? Just seeing it is horrifying; the exhaustion and outright loss etched into Brittany's willowy frame is more disturbing than all the wounds on Santana’s body.
Santana leads her lover to sit and hovers next to her awkwardly, hands moving from her own hair, to her hips, to Brittany’s shoulder. She is so obviously lost that Quinn nearly goes to her side, grasps her by the wrist, and pushes her down beside the Healer.
“What’d I miss?” the Latina asks at last, eyes dimly taking in Kurt’s coiled form on the floor. “Oh.”
Quinn waits for someone to break the discomfort draped over the room-for Puck to comment on “Hummel losing his shit”, or for Tina to pull her face out of Artie’s neck and say actual words. Hell, she’ll even take more yelling, as long as it’s not this.
She meets Rachel’s eyes, willing the brunette to go off on some tirade about how they won’t take this lying down, about how they’ll march back in and tear Rayne down. She wishes Rachel would show some sign of emotion, but the girl continues to stand over Kurt, hands closing on empty air, blank as the wall behind her.
It’s too much.
“What are we going to do?” Quinn blurts, wishing she could take it back as soon as the words are out. Now she’s got the whole room looking at her, dismal expressions all around, and she’s got no idea where to go from here.
“What do you suggest we do?” Rachel asks, voice soft and frightening. Quinn shakes her head.
“I don’t…I don’t have a plan or anything,” she says helplessly. “I just…I kind of hate this.”
The brunette lets out a bitter laugh. “Good, Quinn. You’re finally catching on.”
“Watch it, Berry,” Santana warns. Quinn realizes it’s the closest she’ll ever get to being stood up for by the wild Latina woman, and can’t figure out if she wants to relish the moment or forget it’s ever happened. She settles for staring as deeply as she can into Rachel’s eyes, imploringly.
“I’m sorry.”
It’s not everything, but it’s just enough to melt the edges of the woman’s expression. Rachel presses the back of one hand to her head, sighing.
“You’re catching on,” she repeats with less venom. “You understand now.”
Quinn nods. “I do.”
Rachel steps closer. “Good. Then you must understand why we aren’t going to do anything.”
Kurt’s head snaps up with impossible force. Finn’s hand steadies on his shoulder as Puck pushes away from the wall again, hands clenching into fists.
“You’re kidding.”
Her eyes flash warningly. “Noah. You know I’m not.”
“We can’t just sit here,” he snarls. “Those bastards can’t-I’m not sitting around while they party. Rachel, they have her body.”
“And we will do something about that,” the tiny brunette replies stonily. “Later. When we are at full strength, when we can think straight again. Noah, you know battle strategy well enough to understand that going back right now would be playing directly into Rayne’s hands. He’ll be waiting for us at the door.”
“With newfound super strength to boot,” Santana adds glumly. Brittany’s hand finds hers, winding together until Quinn can’t tell their fingers apart.
“Fortunately for us, he won’t have worked out that part yet,” Quinn says, then hesitates and glances Rachel’s way. “Right?”
“Correct,” Rachel confirms, “but that won’t last. We will act, I promise you.” Her gaze finds Kurt’s, holding fast and firm. “I swear it. Just not now. Not like this.”
Quinn more than half-expects the room to come apart; she expects Kurt to surge to his feet, screaming and foaming all over again. Instead, he gives a weak nod, a hollow action that tells Quinn exactly how far away from this room his mind has gone. She zeros in on Finn’s gorilla hand, massive and incredible against the other boy’s slim shoulder, if only to evade looking too closely at the anguish scrawled so plainly across Kurt’s features.
“Right now,” Rachel goes on, speaking this time to the room at large, “I think it’s best if we all just take some time to ourselves. Mercedes was a dear friend and an amazing woman. She deserves to be memorialized to the best of our collective ability.”
Fresh tears stream down Kurt’s cheeks; Finn sucks in a shuddering breath. Tina’s arms clench impossibly tighter around Artie’s neck. Quinn swallows.
Rachel moves to pass her, and she can’t stop herself from grabbing the girl’s arm, bending her head to look her in the eye.
“Are you all right?”
“Fine, Quinn,” Rachel replies, clipped and lying so obviously, Quinn and all her strange stomach butterflies want to punch her for it.
“You can…” She pauses, steeling herself; this is just going to sound so stupid, regardless of how well she means it. “You can talk about it. If you want. To…to me.”
Maybe she’s imagining it, but for a second, it looks like Rachel softens.
“Thank you,” she says, briefly lifting a hand to cradle Quinn’s cheek. It’s so unexpected, and so intimate, that Quinn nearly drops the arm she’s grasping. Rachel almost smiles.
And then she’s pulling away and walking out the door, and Quinn is left, standing like an idiot, with one hand reflexively drawn to her burning skin.
Fuck this new life, she decides mournfully.
Just…fuck it.