Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 86th cycle. Now cycle 87!
IT'S THE FIFTH ANNIVERSARY CYCLE OF GLEEKATHON! - Five years! Five years! *insert flailing* Okay, not quite, but by the end of this cycle, it will have been five years of daily stories (sometimes twice a day! ... and for seven very frightening days a couple years back, three times a day!). It will also be the end of this crazy ride. I started thinking about ending gleekathon months ago, and I wanted to finish my ongoing series before that happened. It made it so I could finish out this fifth year, and it couldn't be any better that this cycle is actually ending on October 22nd 2014, which was the day it began, in 2009... Now here we go!
This story is 'Do it with a song' for Can & Can't Do, a Runaway Bride series story originally posted on January 23rd 2014.
"Piano Men"
Rachel/Quinn, Leroy/Hiram
Runaway Bride series
Their movie night date had ended in the basement, wrapped up in one another's arms, which was easily where they wanted to end up. It more than made up for how the rest of the evening had unfolded. The plan had been simple enough. They would sit in Rachel's living room, cuddle up on the couch, watch a few movies or marathon a bit of a show, maybe end up… well, here. They'd had their number of 'cover dates out in the open,' and those were nice, but movie nights had been where they'd started off, when they'd still been figuring out their relationship and their way of having this relationship, and it felt good to go back there once in a while.
"You're not upset are you? About my dads, and how they just…" Rachel asked, and Quinn chuckled, kissing her shoulder.
"Well if I had been, this would have more than made up for it," she promised, dragging her fingers along her side, sending chills up Rachel's spine. "So, no, not upset. I... I actually had fun back there." Rachel smiled.
"You did? Really?"
"Yeah, really. Your dads are great."
The evening had started off, for a bit, as planned. They'd grabbed dinner before coming back to Rachel's house, and then they had started browsing for a movie or show to watch. They had almost reached consensus when they first heard the tinkling of the piano.
"Oh, no…" Rachel breathed, and at Quinn's look, she explained. "They've been at it every couple of days lately, I completely forgot."
"Been at what?"
"Porter fest," Rachel led her to follow to where Leroy sat at the piano, with Hiram standing at the other end. As Leroy played, Hiram hummed and tapped his feet. Rachel cleared her throat, and they stopped.
"Quinn, hello!" Hiram greeted her and she smiled, raising her hand to return the greeting. "I thought you girls were going out tonight."
"Nope, staying in," Rachel corrected him.
"Oh, then please, join us," Leroy offered, and though Rachel tried to shake her head, her fathers had quickly latched on to the idea. "Are you familiar with Cole Porter, Quinn?"
"I, uh… I've heard the name," she spoke uncertainly. Leroy and Hiram grinned, and Rachel leaned in at Quinn's ear.
"You've heard more than that," she whispered.
"That's not all you heard, I'd bet on it," Hiram told her with a nod, and Quinn kept herself from laughing out loud. "Come, come," Hiram waved them over. Quinn looked to Rachel, who had 'I'm sorry' eyes, before stepping up toward the piano.
"Honey, come sit here with me, we can tag team," Leroy called to Rachel, so she went and sat with him, while Hiram brought Quinn to stand with him. "How about…" he thought for a moment, sharing a look with his husband, who seemed to have an idea. Hiram hummed the first few notes, and Leroy began to play, so Hiram sang, eventually signalling for Rachel to jump in. As much as she'd tried to keep her and Quinn away, so they might have their movie date, she couldn't claim herself a child of this family and not know these songs front and back. She sang along, and Quinn beamed, listening to her. They'd been right, she did know this one.
[Hiram] "Like the beat, beat, beat of the tom tom / When the jungle shadows fall / Like the tick, tick, tock of the stately clock / as it stands against the wall / Like the drip, drip, drip of the raindrops / when a jungle shower is through / So a voice within me keeps repeating you, you, you."
[Hiram, Rachel] "Night and day / You are the one / Only you beneath the moon / and under the sun / Whether near to me or far / It's no matter darling / where you are, I think of you / Night and day / Night and day / why is it so / that this longing for you / follows wherever I go / In the roaring traffic's boom / In the silence of my lonely room / I think of you / Night and day / Day and night / under the hide of me / There's an oh, such a hungry / yearning burning inside of me / And it's torment won't be through / Till you let me spend my life / making love to you / Day and night / night and day."
Rachel was looking to abandon the piano and go back to her quiet movie night with Quinn, but then her girlfriend didn't entirely look like she was dreading this. It could have been that Quinn was that nice and able to play along. As much as Rachel usually liked being here at the piano with her fathers, she couldn't help but look at Quinn, waiting to see some sign of her not liking this. She would find a way to excuse them from her fathers if she saw the slightest hint out of the blonde.
But Quinn either continued to be a good sport, or she was forever ingratiating herself to Hiram and Leroy by cultivating an appreciation for the beloved songwriter. They treated Quinn to some of their favorites, incited Rachel to join in again and again. They must have been at the piano for nearly two hours, until finally her fathers had retreated up the stairs. Rachel was ready to move away from the piano bench, so they might salvage what they could of their original plans, but then there was Quinn, standing of all places in the place where Hiram had been standing at the start of the evening, just as Rachel sat where Leroy had sat, and she was smiling.
"What?" Rachel asked.
"I was just wondering," Quinn shrugged. "Your dads both played me their favorites, but I didn't get to hear yours."
"Are you sure you don't want to watch a movie instead?" Rachel nodded back to the living room.
"I've never seen you turn down a performance before," Quinn approached. "A request especially." Rachel gave an amused squint.
"Fine, if you insist." Quinn nodded, smiling. "It's slower," she revealed.
"That's fine," Quinn assured her. "I just want to hear it." Rachel motioned her forward, and once Quinn was sitting next to her, she took a breath, and she sang.
[Rachel] "Every time we say goodbye, I die a little / Every time we say goodbye, I wonder why a little / Why the gods above me, who must be in the know / think so little of me they allow you to go / When you're near there's such an air of spring about it / I can hear a lark somewhere begin to sing about it / There's no love song finer but how strange the change from major to minor / Every time we say goodbye, every time we say goodbye."
When the song had ended, she'd turned to look at Quinn. She was about to tell her about how she'd always loved this one, how it made her feel so much, but then it had made Quinn feel a lot, too, and before Rachel could speak, she'd turned and kissed her.
It wasn't five minutes more before they had left the piano and snuck down to the basement, shed their clothes and found the bed and each other. Now here they remained, in one another's arms, recalling the change of plans in their evening.
"Next time we'll go to your house," Rachel promised.
"Rachel, I told you I liked it," Quinn patiently reassured her. "Besides, the more I know about them, then the more I know about you."
"Oh… well there's that," Rachel relented.
"Yes, there is," Quinn stroked her cheek. "That, and so much more," she kissed her, pulling her close again.
THE END
A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.
In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are
always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!