"I'm here, I'm here. Hi guys, sorry I'm late!"
Quinn walked hurriedly towards them with bags of take-out on one hand and her purse held tightly in the other, the click of her heels slightly uneven as one of her legs barely limped as she walked, only because she was trying to get to them faster.
"The crew said we'd be over by seven, obviously they lied." She smiled.
"Don't worry about it." Rachel murmured, gently taking the blonde's purse from her so she could dig through it to find the keys.
"What were you filming?" Kurt asked curiously as he stepped away from their hug, eyeing the colorful glitter on her face.
Quinn blushed.
"An undercover scene… at a carnival."
"Really?" Rachel looked back over her shoulder as she opened the back door of the building, eyeing Quinn with a playful smirk.
"Yeah, you know, like the ones in Rio." Quinn bit her lip, looking at Kurt and smiling.
"Dayum." He joked as they went into the building.
The security guard turned to them with a serious face, which soon transformed into a smile when he recognized them. Or maybe just Quinn and Rachel, Kurt wasn't sure if he remembered him.
Once they got to the apartment, he dropped down onto the couch as Quinn walked into the kitchen to get their wine and Rachel headed to the bathroom.
"Sorry about the take out." She smiled as she set the wine glasses onto the coffee table and carefully opened the bottle. "It was getting late and I'm too tired to cook. I'm sure you feel the same."
"It's okay, Rachel was nearly falling asleep on my shoulder as we waited for you."
"I'm sorry." Quinn said once again, this time to Rachel, who was coming back from the bathroom with a make-up bag on her hands.
"I wasn't falling asleep." The brunette rolled her eyes. "And take-out is fine, Quinn. Now sit."
Kurt watched in amusement as Quinn chuckled but did as she was told, sitting on the loveseat after sipping her wine.
"So what's the news about Mercedes?" Rachel asked him absentmindedly as she sat carefully on Quinn's right leg and poured make-up remover onto a little ball of cotton.
"She's going crazy trying to make the seating arrangements on time. Says her wedding plans are behind schedule, and I think it's just fitting that a wedding planner would have troubles at their own wedding."
"How many times did he say wedding?" Quinn mumbled, opening the eye Rachel wasn't cleaning and smiling at the brunette's crooked grin.
"Is she driving her fiancé crazy yet?" Rachel asked instead.
"No, Mark's fine. I really don't know how he puts up with her and all that crazy."
"I'm sure he just loves her." Rachel said warmly, and Kurt looked away with a small smile when he saw the way her fingers brushed delicately across the faint scar on Quinn's forearm at the end of her sentence.
He couldn't help but think about their unspoken rule of never mentioning their ambiguous relationship when they acted that way around him; the soft smiles and touches, the charged looks, their intimate positions, not to mention the uncountable little kisses to mouths and corners of lips he'd witnessed over the years when they thought he wasn't paying attention. Kurt wasn't sure when they started, he thought he could remember some of those things from way back in High School, but he started noticing just a few years ago.
No one that knew them really asked about their romantic lives anymore, as they always got the same vague answers. A few years back he'd gossiped with some of their friends about the 'are they or aren't they' game, but now it was just futile. All the men Quinn had been photographed with since she became famous enough were either friends or co-workers, and she never gave a straight answer about any rumor, anyway.
It was their unspoken rule, don't ask about it and we won't hide from you.
"Santana called me today." Quinn mentioned as her fork dug into the carton of vegan takeout.
When did Rachel get off her lap and started eating? He didn't know, but his stomach growled at him to catch up to them.
"How is she?" Rachel was almost bouncing in her seat.
"Yeah, is she eating the walls yet?"
"She was actually crying." Quinn grimaced. "Brittany's gone for a week to film a music video out state and she was hormonal."
"Oh, did she miss her?" Kurt gasped, feeling sympathy.
"Not exactly." Quinn was laughing now. "She was… oh God, she was horny and felt fat."
Rachel almost chocked on her food and Quinn moved forward to pat her back.
"And what were you supposed to do about it?" She gasped out once she recovered.
"I don't know, she asked me what I did when I was pregnant."
Rachel flushed a soft pink at that and Quinn looked at her with tender eyes.
"Okay, but I don't want to know." Kurt interjected before any traumatizing information could get to his ears.
As Rachel rambled about back stage mishaps to Quinn, Kurt couldn't help but space out a little. His life was surrounded by musical theater and while it was his passion and dream, it sometimes got a little overbearing after two hours of a play each day. Rachel never seemed to get tired of it though, and Quinn was just happy listening to her ramble, even more if there was food involved.
He didn't know why he was remembering the past today, perhaps he was in a sort of melancholic mood because today had been the date, twelve years ago, when one of his most cherished friends almost took his own life. He daren't talk about it with his two friends, because that would undoubtedly remind them of Quinn's accident and he didn't want to kill the mood, even if he was sure they knew very well what day was today.
They'd come a long way since then, and the feeling of hopelessness they'd all felt that day was very hard to grasp now because their lives were much too happy for them to be feeling that kind of dread. But he remembered how they'd felt, that day and for many more after that, he remembered how hard it had been for Dave to go back to school and how much time it took for Rachel to stop blaming herself for the car accident, almost the same amount of time it took for Quinn to fully physically recover. But just how some wounds had been left forever a reminder of it for Quinn, he knew Rachel held those same scars inside. Quinn had confessed to him a few months back that she still dreamed the same memory of waking up to find Rachel sleeping with her veil covered head on her hospital bed.
But still, it was very hard to remember that kind of pain when life shined so bright in their lives now, it was hard to remember how it felt not to know if the future would be happy then, because they were living that future now, and it felt marvelous.
It didn't seem to matter that Rachel and Quinn were hiding the true nature of their relationship to the whole wide world, because they seemed to be happy, if Rachel boisterous laugh right then was any indication. Maybe it was wise that their vacations were undercover, that the only true evidence of their romance was the various items around Quinn's home that definitely belonged to Rachel. The outside world knew the three of them went to High School together, and he knew for a fact that pictures of the three of them and of Rachel and Quinn abounded on the internet, but they just seemed really close, affectionate friends, which they actually were. And just how occasional weekend trips and this dinner night they shared every week was Kurt's way to keep his sanity, he imagined the treasured world of Quinn and Rachel was their own way to remain sane, in a world that demanded so much of them.
Just in High School, he never thought the people he would get to see and love everyday would be Rachel Berry and Quinn Fabray, but through the years they got to be the most important people in his life besides his dad. They somehow found their way onto his hea–
"What's wrong Kurt, are you okay?" Rachel's face was suddenly right in front of him and he jumped a little in surprise.
"Are you crying?" Quinn asked concernedly, appearing behind Rachel and wrapping her arms around her waist, so naturally.
"What? No… this is just… a little spicy." He mumbled as he ran the back of his finger across his eyes.
Quinn looked amused while Rachel just eyed him confusedly.
"Right…" She drawled. Just then Quinn squeezed her arms a little and Rachel giggled, prying Quinn's arms away from her body but keeping both of their hands clasped at their sides.
"How about some ice cream to ease the spiciness a little?" Quinn offered.
He nodded enthusiastically and Rachel propped down onto his lap as the blonde walked to the kitchen. Kurt wrapped his arms around her waist while she struggled to take off her shoes.
"Are you sure you're okay?" She asked once the struggle was over, looping her arms around his neck and pulling away to look at his face.
He nodded.
"How are you?"
It was a loaded question, and the soft smile on Rachel's face showed she understood.
"Better every day." She grinned.
"I'm just glad to have some sense of normalcy at least once a week with you two." Kurt smiled affectionately, and Rachel crushed him into the couch with a bear hug.
"I believe the term normal never really applied to any us." Quinn announced, coming back from the kitchen with three spoons and three jars of ice cream.
"Hm. Perhaps you're right." He conceded.
The three of them huddled in the couch with Rachel in the middle and a blanket covering them all, ice creams ready and a movie already set.
"Oh, before I forget!" Rachel exclaimed suddenly. "I talked to Sugar yesterday. That spot in comedy with Tina Fey? Yeah, she got it."
Kurt could see his big proud beam reflected on their faces.
"God, how did she do it?" He mused out loud.
"It takes a while for people to realize she's not actually joking." Quinn stated, and the three of them burst into peals of laughter.
As the movie started and Rachel was cuddled between them, Kurt couldn't contain his happy sigh. Troubled times were behind them a long time ago, replaced with more adult issues that were really a little easier to handle considering all they went through when they were just kids. He eyed his friends lightly entwined hands over Quinn's legs resting on Rachel's lap and smiled.
They were good.