Six Instances When Songs Said It Best
Title: Six Instances When Songs Said It Best
Author: Rachel Berry/Quinn Fabray
Rating: ranges from G to light PG-13
Spoilers: We'll just say Season 1 overall, for S&Gs.
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Summary: Series of short (mostly unrelated) song-ficlets.
A/N: I am notoriously bad at doing things concisely; this is practice. And for anyone interested, the songs are, in order: Matt Nathanson’s “Princess”, A Fine Frenzy’s “Near To You”, Matchbox 20’s “Last Beautiful Girl”, Our Lady Peace’s “Wipe That Smile Off Your Face”, Dishwalla’s “Until I Wake Up”, and Remy Zero’s “Perfect Memory”. Whoo.
The Pauses, They’re All Stops Anyway (And I Could Use A Win)
Oh, princess, you make the party with your hands in your pockets and your innocent eyes, and all those things runnin’ around in your head.
Quinn Fabray moves through the crowd like she’s walking on water, every inch the carefully-controlled, drop-dead gorgeous goddess in a sea of drowning mortals. To her left, Santana Lopez laughs meanly at Finn Hudson when he trips over the beer pong table and nearly sends it crashing to the floor. To her right, Brittany shoots a plainly adoring look at Santana, swinging their interlocked hands carelessly. Quinn resists the impulse to push past them both, so sick is she of their blatant and downright syrupy display.
She hopes they don’t think they’re fooling anyone. Having delusional minions is not what she’d call an accomplishment.
Sweeping wary eyes over her seething dominion, Quinn paints a calculating smile on red lips and waits. Any minute now, the boys will flock in, wine coolers and fruity vodka concoctions clutched in sweaty hands. Any minute now, it will begin, and Quinn will settle in to her usual Saturday night endeavors. She will sway her hips, twirling within safe reach of Brittany and Santana (who will, as per their obnoxious hormones, be off grinding in their own little world), hands pulling at her own hair to the ever-shifting pulsing beat. Those same vile chunky hands will grope for her ass in its skinny-jean casing, and she will slap them away with teasing smiles. It will be the most common of dances, and Quinn will perform every step flawlessly.
No one will ever see behind the shadows glittering in hazel eyes. No one will ever suspect why she does this every week to begin with. They will see the stone-strong cross at her throat, the sharp blade lurking behind the falseness of her smile, and nothing else. They will not see endless nights spent on her knees, screaming prayers into a pillow until her throat wants to bleed. They will not see desperate bids for freedom from herself, cast in iron each time she orders a hurled Slushee. They will not see the way her hand jerks away from her intellect from time to time, carving damning evidence into notebooks and bathroom stalls in black ink.
She will dance, pretending to let loose, and all the while chocolate eyes and flowing velvet curls will follow her movements, burned into her heart, chilling her bones. Big hurt eyes, long black eyelashes, a gaping miserably soft mouth, pacing polygons at her very core, where they’ve resided stubbornly since grade school. She will dance, and in doing so, she will try to escape.
She will not succeed. But Noah Puckerman’s eyes are almost the same shape, and his mouth is almost as secretive, and when he offers a wine cooler and a charming smile, Quinn will think that maybe this will finally save her.
Battle Scarred, I Am Working Oh-So Hard (To Get Back To Who I Used To Be)
Such pain as this shouldn’t have to be experienced; I’m still reelin’ from the loss, still a little bit delirious-near to you, I am healing, but it is takin’ so long.
There are things Rachel Berry can’t do. She is not a quiet person; she does not take direction exceptionally well. Cooking leads to fires, sewing draws forth blood blossoms, vacuum cleaners inexplicably take up the frayed edges of whatever curtain might be nearest. There is no point in her taking to a paintbrush, or a sketchpad, or a ball of clay-all ventures in art result in nothing better than faceless four-legged beasts vaguely resembling ponies. She has poor hand-eye coordination and all the height of a fifth-grader, and therefore has never fired off a jump shot or swung in a home run.
All in all, Rachel Berry has a great many flaws, a great many failings. She is not especially delusional about this fact.
But sometimes, when she spends her nights curled protectively around the sleeping form of Quinn Fabray, she thinks it’s okay that she’ll never be a world-class soccer player or the next Dali. When she strokes gleaming blonde hair off a dream-knitted brow, propped up on her own elbow to look into a face now devoid of all baby-related glow, it matters very little that Bobby Flay could wipe the floor with her and Oscar de la Renta would shank her on the spot. The fact is, all of those talents are impressive, and Rachel respects those who possess them.
But laying here with her knees bent behind Quinn’s, her fingertips running intricate circles on a rapidly-flattening belly, her nose tickled by hair just short of perfection, Rachel’s face aches with the force of her smile. Because those people are talented, absolutely-but not a single one of them knows what this feels like.
Holding Quinn Fabray as she sleeps, being the one person to draw her near when her whole world has come so close to crumbling-Rachel likes to think this is the most impressive talent of all.
A Thousand Lost Forevers (And The Promises You Never Were Giving Me)
Every fool in town would have left by now; I can’t replace all of the wasted days, the memory of your face.
She’s numb, watching it slip away. Her skin trembles on her bones, stretched too tightly over pale veins and sluggish muscles, aching and sore. Her lungs pump air to utterly random corners of her body, her heart unconvinced as to why it should continue to do its job at all. In fact, it is beginning to feel like the only bit of her still working the way God intended are her eyes.
She can’t stop seeing.
She sees big imploring eyes, cast around after humans larger and stronger than she will ever be. She sees laughter barely contained behind delicate palms, hidden so poorly that only an idiot wouldn’t catch on. She sees the way dance steps have started becoming more than, how they follow paths etched with a sick certainty into the future. She sees, and sees, and sees, until her eyelids clamp down vengefully, as if it is the fault of her vision itself instead of the girl on the other side.
Her fists knot at her sides when kisses come, swiped lightly across her unyielding mouth. Her skin flushes and burns when those same delicate fingers curl around her cheeks, her shoulders, her waist. Her whole body tightens up and refuses to let go when a once-gentle mouth presses low to her belly.
She feels cursed. She feels broken. She wants to scream and swing fists and feet until something outside finally snaps.
But that isn’t her. That isn’t prudent. It amazes her how, even after everything that’s changed, she is still so very concerned with prudence. With image. With right and wrong and the endless grayscale chasm between.
Watching the dark-haired girl across the room, she winds her smile up and pretends to ignore the scratch of bitten nails under her own floral skirt. Right now, that girl is all she’s got left.
Soon enough, she will be gone, and all that will remain is this empty, frigid ache.
This Is War (And I’m Gonna Wipe That Smile Off Your Face)
It’s just the two of us, a silver cross, and some strength that you won’t believe-see I’m not your friend, and I won’t pretend that I’ve come here for peace.
They don’t know how they’ve gotten here. Years of boiling resentment and tiny barbed insults have finally culminated in this, a despicably huge rainbow-hued hatred. And now here they are, standing on opposite sides of Emma Pillsbury’s office, screaming.
The ginger-haired counselor cowers behind her immaculate desk, fingers steepled over her horrified face. Quinn thinks idly that the woman probably should say something, be authoritative for the first time in her bug-eyed life. Rachel is too busy foaming with rage to think anything of the sort; truth be told, she’s kind of forgotten the woman is in the room at all.
“I am sick and tired of taking your mindless abuse day in and day out!” she is in the midst of shrieking, hands flailing on either side of her head. Quinn plants her fists against the stark red Cheerio skirt hugged tight around her hips and rolls her eyes.
“And I’m sick of your pathetic attempts to overthrow the system. God, Stubbles, grow up. Don’t you get it yet? High school is a game, and you? Lose. Every time. End of story.”
Rachel’s eyes threaten to bug right out of her purpling face. “Quinn Fabray, you…you…”
“Are much quicker on the uptake than you, Troll Hair,” Quinn sneers, pleased when the girl’s hands squeeze against the sides of her own skull. If Berry’s head explodes, Ms. Pillsbury might suffer a coronary, but Quinn’s problems will all be gone. Worth it.
“You’re a bitch,” Rachel heaves across the room, the words shrill and punctuated by a flying Kleenex box. Enraged, Quinn dodges and comes up with teeth bared.
“And you’re a weak little waste of space!”
“Religion-toting cretin!” Rachel snarls. Quinn’s fists flex.
“Attention-loving spawn of Satan!”
“Shallow, wretched tramp!”
“Slimy, vacuous swamp beast!”
“Unimaginative, bitter Sue Sylvester clone!” Rachel screams.
In a flash, Quinn has stormed across the small room and grabbed the lapels of Rachel’s ruffled button-down blouse. She pins the shorter girl against Ms. Pillsbury’s desk, ignoring the woman’s unintelligible protesting squeak.
“Listen up, Treasure Trail,” she growls, face so close Rachel can smell the peppermint tea on her breath. “I am done. I will say this one time, and one time only. After that, you can bet your hideous knee sock collection what follows will be the things nightmares are made of. You. Are. Nothing. You are a worthless, pitiful individual whose glory days are already a thing of the distant past. No one likes you. No one will ever like you. It doesn’t matter that you sing like a frickin’ angel, or that you have the prettiest smile in our grade. It doesn’t matter that you genuinely give a shit about the people around you, okay? What matters is, you are obnoxious and self-involved, and a pain in my ass. And I am done listening to you squawk about how unfair you think this all is. This is high school. This is life. Deal with it.”
Spinning on her heel, Quinn stomps from the office, head held high. Rachel is left breathing hard, the edge of Ms. Pillsbury’s desk digging into her spine, mind churning.
“I think,” she says slowly, “she just paid me a compliment somewhere in there.”
Behind her, Ms. Pillsbury slumps down and mutters something about bi-weekly therapy sessions.
Into The Clear Space (Vivid Visions See Her Shape)
Nothing in motion, and I’m not satisfied, no disappointment ‘til I wake up; I don’t wanna wake up.
A locker slams hard near Rachel’s head, and she jumps, shoulders going rigid with expectation. Monday went over well enough, but no two days in a row have ever been incident-free. She thinks she’s ready to take whatever’s coming; all good stars should be prepared for stress, regardless of whether they happen to be wearing their favorite blue skirt at the time.
What she’s not prepared for is finding Quinn Fabray’s hazel eyes, searing from inches away, reflecting something very unlike their usual threatening fury. She tightens her shoulders.
“Good morning, Quinn. Is there something I can do for you?”
Quinn tilts her head, silky blonde hair slip-sliding around her pale neck. The flash of silver around her neck catches Rachel’s wary eye, weighty and oppression-shaped as always. She thinks sometimes she hates that crucifix pendant more than that girl’s viciousness towards her; something about it screams tyranny.
Quinn continues to stare at her, alert and curious, and Rachel’s skin is beginning to prickle under her hair. She shifts from one Mary Jane to the other, confused.
“Quinn, I’m sorry, I’m not certain what it is you’re-“
“You ever have a dream, Berry?” Quinn interrupts, twisting the front of her pretty yellow dress almost anxiously. “A dream so real and aching that when you wake up, you can’t be sure you’re actually awake? You can’t even be sure the dream was really a dream, because it was so…real?”
Rachel’s mouth twitches, her tongue itching to unleash a litany of examples in reply, all the dreams she’s jerked out of involving stage lights and football quarterbacks and a world in which she hasn’t memorized every painstaking step to Slushee stain removal like the lyrics to a Wicked song. But the way Quinn is looking at her, intense and fevered, suggests the question is rhetorical, so she settles for nodding instead.
Quinn looks down upon her, inclines her own head, nods like she’s just won an argument with herself. She casts a quick look around, prompting Rachel to search with her for the source of her unspoken angst. Then, without another word, she ducks her head, slips a hand up to cup Rachel’s cheek, and kisses her softly.
Rachel barely has time to register the cool metal against her back and the warm serenity of lips on hers before Quinn pulls back, curling her arms tightly around herself, still nodding decisively.
“Yeah. Okay. See you later, Berry.”
Rachel finds she wasn’t exactly prepared enough this morning.
Everything You Hope Will Last (It Just Always Becomes Your Past)
I remember you, and the things that we used to do, and the things that we used to say; I remember you that way.
They are six years old when they meet. It is not the kind of friendship meant to last-not when one set of parents shimmers in the sun, exalting under arching rainbows, while the other shamelessly worships at the altar of Glenn Beck and their own collective self-image. Not when one religious tradition directly blames the other for traumas real and imagined. Not when both will grow to ultimately put perception above love.
Things will get bad. There will be hair pulling and name calling and endless nights spent sobbing into pillows when comforting shoulders are nowhere to be found. There will be callous words and piercing glares, and each will despise everything the other stands for.
But it starts much simpler than that.
It starts beneath a tree.
Rachel sits alone, an Animorphs book braced against knobby knees, sucking mindlessly on a grape juice box. Recess is her favorite time of day, not because she cares in the least about running around in the September sunshine, but because she can seclude herself like this with a chapter book. Wilder kids like Santana Lopez and Noah Puckerman generally leave her be as long as she stays far away from their kickball games and punching matches. She likes the silence.
Sometimes, when she knows no one is around to make fun, she hums.
She is doing so now, singing a Smash Mouth song under her breath as she flips the pages. She’s so caught up in the words that she doesn’t notice the new girl hovering over her until a smooth knee bumps into her own.
Prone to dramatics, Rachel screams a little and tosses the book. She didn’t need to tack on that last part, but it always looks like fun when people on TV throw things in surprise. She files it away as a worthwhile experience.
“Sorry,” the blonde says, her voice bell-clear. Long lashes nearly brush the apples of her cheeks when she blinks. Rachel is smitten in an instant.
“That’s all right,” she replies kindly, reaching around the girl to retrieve the paperback. “My name’s Rachel Berry. I have two gay dads.”
It’s not the best opening in history, but she’s working on it. The blonde arches an eyebrow curiously.
“I don’t know what that means,” she answers honestly, shrugging, “but I’m Quinn. What are you doing sitting here alone?”
“Reading,” Rachel says as if it’s obvious, shaking the book to prove her point.
“Oh.” The blonde frowns, rubbing the corner of her mouth. Something glints silver-bright at her throat; Rachel looks close enough to make out the tiny cross on a delicate chain.
“Pretty necklace,” she says cheerfully, rummaging under the collar of her sweater to show off her own. “Mine’s a star, see? Daddy says I’m going to be a star someday.”
“Singing?” Quinn guesses, tugging uneasily at her cross. “I believe it. You sound like the girls on the radio.”
Beaming, Rachel extends a hand, palm-up. “Thank you very much. Would you like to read with me?”
Blonde hair swishes back and forth. “I’m not supposed to read those books,” the girl half-mumbles, glancing over her shoulder as if she expects her father to come rampaging out from behind the nearest shrub. “Dad says there’s witchcraft and stuff. But I’d like to stay, if that’s okay. And just sit.”
The idea of someone not being allowed to read baffles Rachel to the absolute, but she likes Quinn enough not to comment. Instead she takes the girl by the sleeve and pulls her in until Quinn’s head is resting on Rachel’s slender shoulder. Then she pulls the book back to her nose and pretends she doesn’t notice Quinn’s lips forming the words on the page.
Things won’t always be this simple. There will be arguments and near fisticuffs, fat teardrops and hurtful accusations. For a while, they will want to kill one another. Even later, after they’ve gotten over all of that and come back to a place that strongly resembles this one, that sensation will never completely die. They will be vicious with one another, swearing and shouting, a life often laced with moments of mind-numbing rage.
It’s who they are, but it is not everything. Because there will also be this-security, comfort, the practiced ease-to fall back upon. There will be hope. There will be love.
And when Rachel curls up on the threadbare sofa in the middle of their apartment, humming softly into her battered classic of the week, Quinn will curl with her and feign disinterest, thinking all the while on how her girl sounds just like the girls on the radio.
Author: Rachel Berry/Quinn Fabray
Rating: ranges from G to light PG-13
Spoilers: We'll just say Season 1 overall, for S&Gs.
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Summary: Series of short (mostly unrelated) song-ficlets.
A/N: I am notoriously bad at doing things concisely; this is practice. And for anyone interested, the songs are, in order: Matt Nathanson’s “Princess”, A Fine Frenzy’s “Near To You”, Matchbox 20’s “Last Beautiful Girl”, Our Lady Peace’s “Wipe That Smile Off Your Face”, Dishwalla’s “Until I Wake Up”, and Remy Zero’s “Perfect Memory”. Whoo.
The Pauses, They’re All Stops Anyway (And I Could Use A Win)
Oh, princess, you make the party with your hands in your pockets and your innocent eyes, and all those things runnin’ around in your head.
Quinn Fabray moves through the crowd like she’s walking on water, every inch the carefully-controlled, drop-dead gorgeous goddess in a sea of drowning mortals. To her left, Santana Lopez laughs meanly at Finn Hudson when he trips over the beer pong table and nearly sends it crashing to the floor. To her right, Brittany shoots a plainly adoring look at Santana, swinging their interlocked hands carelessly. Quinn resists the impulse to push past them both, so sick is she of their blatant and downright syrupy display.
She hopes they don’t think they’re fooling anyone. Having delusional minions is not what she’d call an accomplishment.
Sweeping wary eyes over her seething dominion, Quinn paints a calculating smile on red lips and waits. Any minute now, the boys will flock in, wine coolers and fruity vodka concoctions clutched in sweaty hands. Any minute now, it will begin, and Quinn will settle in to her usual Saturday night endeavors. She will sway her hips, twirling within safe reach of Brittany and Santana (who will, as per their obnoxious hormones, be off grinding in their own little world), hands pulling at her own hair to the ever-shifting pulsing beat. Those same vile chunky hands will grope for her ass in its skinny-jean casing, and she will slap them away with teasing smiles. It will be the most common of dances, and Quinn will perform every step flawlessly.
No one will ever see behind the shadows glittering in hazel eyes. No one will ever suspect why she does this every week to begin with. They will see the stone-strong cross at her throat, the sharp blade lurking behind the falseness of her smile, and nothing else. They will not see endless nights spent on her knees, screaming prayers into a pillow until her throat wants to bleed. They will not see desperate bids for freedom from herself, cast in iron each time she orders a hurled Slushee. They will not see the way her hand jerks away from her intellect from time to time, carving damning evidence into notebooks and bathroom stalls in black ink.
She will dance, pretending to let loose, and all the while chocolate eyes and flowing velvet curls will follow her movements, burned into her heart, chilling her bones. Big hurt eyes, long black eyelashes, a gaping miserably soft mouth, pacing polygons at her very core, where they’ve resided stubbornly since grade school. She will dance, and in doing so, she will try to escape.
She will not succeed. But Noah Puckerman’s eyes are almost the same shape, and his mouth is almost as secretive, and when he offers a wine cooler and a charming smile, Quinn will think that maybe this will finally save her.
Battle Scarred, I Am Working Oh-So Hard (To Get Back To Who I Used To Be)
Such pain as this shouldn’t have to be experienced; I’m still reelin’ from the loss, still a little bit delirious-near to you, I am healing, but it is takin’ so long.
There are things Rachel Berry can’t do. She is not a quiet person; she does not take direction exceptionally well. Cooking leads to fires, sewing draws forth blood blossoms, vacuum cleaners inexplicably take up the frayed edges of whatever curtain might be nearest. There is no point in her taking to a paintbrush, or a sketchpad, or a ball of clay-all ventures in art result in nothing better than faceless four-legged beasts vaguely resembling ponies. She has poor hand-eye coordination and all the height of a fifth-grader, and therefore has never fired off a jump shot or swung in a home run.
All in all, Rachel Berry has a great many flaws, a great many failings. She is not especially delusional about this fact.
But sometimes, when she spends her nights curled protectively around the sleeping form of Quinn Fabray, she thinks it’s okay that she’ll never be a world-class soccer player or the next Dali. When she strokes gleaming blonde hair off a dream-knitted brow, propped up on her own elbow to look into a face now devoid of all baby-related glow, it matters very little that Bobby Flay could wipe the floor with her and Oscar de la Renta would shank her on the spot. The fact is, all of those talents are impressive, and Rachel respects those who possess them.
But laying here with her knees bent behind Quinn’s, her fingertips running intricate circles on a rapidly-flattening belly, her nose tickled by hair just short of perfection, Rachel’s face aches with the force of her smile. Because those people are talented, absolutely-but not a single one of them knows what this feels like.
Holding Quinn Fabray as she sleeps, being the one person to draw her near when her whole world has come so close to crumbling-Rachel likes to think this is the most impressive talent of all.
A Thousand Lost Forevers (And The Promises You Never Were Giving Me)
Every fool in town would have left by now; I can’t replace all of the wasted days, the memory of your face.
She’s numb, watching it slip away. Her skin trembles on her bones, stretched too tightly over pale veins and sluggish muscles, aching and sore. Her lungs pump air to utterly random corners of her body, her heart unconvinced as to why it should continue to do its job at all. In fact, it is beginning to feel like the only bit of her still working the way God intended are her eyes.
She can’t stop seeing.
She sees big imploring eyes, cast around after humans larger and stronger than she will ever be. She sees laughter barely contained behind delicate palms, hidden so poorly that only an idiot wouldn’t catch on. She sees the way dance steps have started becoming more than, how they follow paths etched with a sick certainty into the future. She sees, and sees, and sees, until her eyelids clamp down vengefully, as if it is the fault of her vision itself instead of the girl on the other side.
Her fists knot at her sides when kisses come, swiped lightly across her unyielding mouth. Her skin flushes and burns when those same delicate fingers curl around her cheeks, her shoulders, her waist. Her whole body tightens up and refuses to let go when a once-gentle mouth presses low to her belly.
She feels cursed. She feels broken. She wants to scream and swing fists and feet until something outside finally snaps.
But that isn’t her. That isn’t prudent. It amazes her how, even after everything that’s changed, she is still so very concerned with prudence. With image. With right and wrong and the endless grayscale chasm between.
Watching the dark-haired girl across the room, she winds her smile up and pretends to ignore the scratch of bitten nails under her own floral skirt. Right now, that girl is all she’s got left.
Soon enough, she will be gone, and all that will remain is this empty, frigid ache.
This Is War (And I’m Gonna Wipe That Smile Off Your Face)
It’s just the two of us, a silver cross, and some strength that you won’t believe-see I’m not your friend, and I won’t pretend that I’ve come here for peace.
They don’t know how they’ve gotten here. Years of boiling resentment and tiny barbed insults have finally culminated in this, a despicably huge rainbow-hued hatred. And now here they are, standing on opposite sides of Emma Pillsbury’s office, screaming.
The ginger-haired counselor cowers behind her immaculate desk, fingers steepled over her horrified face. Quinn thinks idly that the woman probably should say something, be authoritative for the first time in her bug-eyed life. Rachel is too busy foaming with rage to think anything of the sort; truth be told, she’s kind of forgotten the woman is in the room at all.
“I am sick and tired of taking your mindless abuse day in and day out!” she is in the midst of shrieking, hands flailing on either side of her head. Quinn plants her fists against the stark red Cheerio skirt hugged tight around her hips and rolls her eyes.
“And I’m sick of your pathetic attempts to overthrow the system. God, Stubbles, grow up. Don’t you get it yet? High school is a game, and you? Lose. Every time. End of story.”
Rachel’s eyes threaten to bug right out of her purpling face. “Quinn Fabray, you…you…”
“Are much quicker on the uptake than you, Troll Hair,” Quinn sneers, pleased when the girl’s hands squeeze against the sides of her own skull. If Berry’s head explodes, Ms. Pillsbury might suffer a coronary, but Quinn’s problems will all be gone. Worth it.
“You’re a bitch,” Rachel heaves across the room, the words shrill and punctuated by a flying Kleenex box. Enraged, Quinn dodges and comes up with teeth bared.
“And you’re a weak little waste of space!”
“Religion-toting cretin!” Rachel snarls. Quinn’s fists flex.
“Attention-loving spawn of Satan!”
“Shallow, wretched tramp!”
“Slimy, vacuous swamp beast!”
“Unimaginative, bitter Sue Sylvester clone!” Rachel screams.
In a flash, Quinn has stormed across the small room and grabbed the lapels of Rachel’s ruffled button-down blouse. She pins the shorter girl against Ms. Pillsbury’s desk, ignoring the woman’s unintelligible protesting squeak.
“Listen up, Treasure Trail,” she growls, face so close Rachel can smell the peppermint tea on her breath. “I am done. I will say this one time, and one time only. After that, you can bet your hideous knee sock collection what follows will be the things nightmares are made of. You. Are. Nothing. You are a worthless, pitiful individual whose glory days are already a thing of the distant past. No one likes you. No one will ever like you. It doesn’t matter that you sing like a frickin’ angel, or that you have the prettiest smile in our grade. It doesn’t matter that you genuinely give a shit about the people around you, okay? What matters is, you are obnoxious and self-involved, and a pain in my ass. And I am done listening to you squawk about how unfair you think this all is. This is high school. This is life. Deal with it.”
Spinning on her heel, Quinn stomps from the office, head held high. Rachel is left breathing hard, the edge of Ms. Pillsbury’s desk digging into her spine, mind churning.
“I think,” she says slowly, “she just paid me a compliment somewhere in there.”
Behind her, Ms. Pillsbury slumps down and mutters something about bi-weekly therapy sessions.
Into The Clear Space (Vivid Visions See Her Shape)
Nothing in motion, and I’m not satisfied, no disappointment ‘til I wake up; I don’t wanna wake up.
A locker slams hard near Rachel’s head, and she jumps, shoulders going rigid with expectation. Monday went over well enough, but no two days in a row have ever been incident-free. She thinks she’s ready to take whatever’s coming; all good stars should be prepared for stress, regardless of whether they happen to be wearing their favorite blue skirt at the time.
What she’s not prepared for is finding Quinn Fabray’s hazel eyes, searing from inches away, reflecting something very unlike their usual threatening fury. She tightens her shoulders.
“Good morning, Quinn. Is there something I can do for you?”
Quinn tilts her head, silky blonde hair slip-sliding around her pale neck. The flash of silver around her neck catches Rachel’s wary eye, weighty and oppression-shaped as always. She thinks sometimes she hates that crucifix pendant more than that girl’s viciousness towards her; something about it screams tyranny.
Quinn continues to stare at her, alert and curious, and Rachel’s skin is beginning to prickle under her hair. She shifts from one Mary Jane to the other, confused.
“Quinn, I’m sorry, I’m not certain what it is you’re-“
“You ever have a dream, Berry?” Quinn interrupts, twisting the front of her pretty yellow dress almost anxiously. “A dream so real and aching that when you wake up, you can’t be sure you’re actually awake? You can’t even be sure the dream was really a dream, because it was so…real?”
Rachel’s mouth twitches, her tongue itching to unleash a litany of examples in reply, all the dreams she’s jerked out of involving stage lights and football quarterbacks and a world in which she hasn’t memorized every painstaking step to Slushee stain removal like the lyrics to a Wicked song. But the way Quinn is looking at her, intense and fevered, suggests the question is rhetorical, so she settles for nodding instead.
Quinn looks down upon her, inclines her own head, nods like she’s just won an argument with herself. She casts a quick look around, prompting Rachel to search with her for the source of her unspoken angst. Then, without another word, she ducks her head, slips a hand up to cup Rachel’s cheek, and kisses her softly.
Rachel barely has time to register the cool metal against her back and the warm serenity of lips on hers before Quinn pulls back, curling her arms tightly around herself, still nodding decisively.
“Yeah. Okay. See you later, Berry.”
Rachel finds she wasn’t exactly prepared enough this morning.
Everything You Hope Will Last (It Just Always Becomes Your Past)
I remember you, and the things that we used to do, and the things that we used to say; I remember you that way.
They are six years old when they meet. It is not the kind of friendship meant to last-not when one set of parents shimmers in the sun, exalting under arching rainbows, while the other shamelessly worships at the altar of Glenn Beck and their own collective self-image. Not when one religious tradition directly blames the other for traumas real and imagined. Not when both will grow to ultimately put perception above love.
Things will get bad. There will be hair pulling and name calling and endless nights spent sobbing into pillows when comforting shoulders are nowhere to be found. There will be callous words and piercing glares, and each will despise everything the other stands for.
But it starts much simpler than that.
It starts beneath a tree.
Rachel sits alone, an Animorphs book braced against knobby knees, sucking mindlessly on a grape juice box. Recess is her favorite time of day, not because she cares in the least about running around in the September sunshine, but because she can seclude herself like this with a chapter book. Wilder kids like Santana Lopez and Noah Puckerman generally leave her be as long as she stays far away from their kickball games and punching matches. She likes the silence.
Sometimes, when she knows no one is around to make fun, she hums.
She is doing so now, singing a Smash Mouth song under her breath as she flips the pages. She’s so caught up in the words that she doesn’t notice the new girl hovering over her until a smooth knee bumps into her own.
Prone to dramatics, Rachel screams a little and tosses the book. She didn’t need to tack on that last part, but it always looks like fun when people on TV throw things in surprise. She files it away as a worthwhile experience.
“Sorry,” the blonde says, her voice bell-clear. Long lashes nearly brush the apples of her cheeks when she blinks. Rachel is smitten in an instant.
“That’s all right,” she replies kindly, reaching around the girl to retrieve the paperback. “My name’s Rachel Berry. I have two gay dads.”
It’s not the best opening in history, but she’s working on it. The blonde arches an eyebrow curiously.
“I don’t know what that means,” she answers honestly, shrugging, “but I’m Quinn. What are you doing sitting here alone?”
“Reading,” Rachel says as if it’s obvious, shaking the book to prove her point.
“Oh.” The blonde frowns, rubbing the corner of her mouth. Something glints silver-bright at her throat; Rachel looks close enough to make out the tiny cross on a delicate chain.
“Pretty necklace,” she says cheerfully, rummaging under the collar of her sweater to show off her own. “Mine’s a star, see? Daddy says I’m going to be a star someday.”
“Singing?” Quinn guesses, tugging uneasily at her cross. “I believe it. You sound like the girls on the radio.”
Beaming, Rachel extends a hand, palm-up. “Thank you very much. Would you like to read with me?”
Blonde hair swishes back and forth. “I’m not supposed to read those books,” the girl half-mumbles, glancing over her shoulder as if she expects her father to come rampaging out from behind the nearest shrub. “Dad says there’s witchcraft and stuff. But I’d like to stay, if that’s okay. And just sit.”
The idea of someone not being allowed to read baffles Rachel to the absolute, but she likes Quinn enough not to comment. Instead she takes the girl by the sleeve and pulls her in until Quinn’s head is resting on Rachel’s slender shoulder. Then she pulls the book back to her nose and pretends she doesn’t notice Quinn’s lips forming the words on the page.
Things won’t always be this simple. There will be arguments and near fisticuffs, fat teardrops and hurtful accusations. For a while, they will want to kill one another. Even later, after they’ve gotten over all of that and come back to a place that strongly resembles this one, that sensation will never completely die. They will be vicious with one another, swearing and shouting, a life often laced with moments of mind-numbing rage.
It’s who they are, but it is not everything. Because there will also be this-security, comfort, the practiced ease-to fall back upon. There will be hope. There will be love.
And when Rachel curls up on the threadbare sofa in the middle of their apartment, humming softly into her battered classic of the week, Quinn will curl with her and feign disinterest, thinking all the while on how her girl sounds just like the girls on the radio.