This story can work as a stand-alone one-shot. However, it does follow the Taking Back What is Mine verse and takes place roughly six months after Too Busy Thinking About My Baby. It is also inspired by one of the Faberry Week December 2013 prompts.
Rachel and that damn expression. It was plain enough not the look of love that Quinn thought she would see smothered across Rachel's now glowering face. She glanced down and across her bare ribcage. Should not seeing Quinn nearly undressed at least unravel Rachel the slightest bit? Well, not according to the pinched eyebrows and neatly pained glare beaming back at her.
"You seem…startled," Quinn ventured a guess.
A wrong one, of course. Rachel stomped her foot – the classic high-school diva rearing outward – and absentmindedly blew her bangs from her forehead. Quinn tilted forward and angled her eyes toward her torso. Everything in top notch order.
"I told you this was going to happen," Quinn was willing to aim at a defensive stance.
Rachel nodded but it was wooden, distracted.
Her silence eating at Quinn like the proverbial worm in an apple, she spoke before Rachel could fathom a reaction, "What is…troubling you about this, Rachel?"
Thankfully – mercifully! – the spirit moved her and Rachel found her tongue. "This is not what we agreed upon."
"I think this is very sentimental and…cute," Quinn countered.
"Your thinking is all the way wrong, then," Rachel fired back.
Pouting just a little, working her nerve to actually put her hands on Rachel, Quinn inched nearer to the source of her constant torment. Rachel, call it instinct or basic preservation, dodged Quinn, almost delicately. What a fine dance they crafted together whenever they teased the edges of each other's boundaries. They were diamonds in the rough, constantly in need of a good shine.
"I thought you were going to get the baby's initials," Rachel finally grazed her fingers on Quinn's skin.
Fighting the shudder that hit her like a cannonball every time Rachel honored her with a touch – or a pill – Quinn calmly closed her eyes and waited. Rachel would continue. The words were going to come before Quinn had the chance to do the same.
Sighing, a tad desperately in Quinn's estimation, Rachel tightened her grip on Quinn. "I don't know why you persist in fighting me, Quinn Fabray."
"It's so much…fun," Quinn countered, combating her body's natural yearning to take Rachel further into her space.
Rachel's laughter sparkled and landed on a high note that caused the baby in the adjoining room to coo. He was Rachel Berry's own tiny Greek chorus. Quinn inclined her ear toward the sound and Rachel pounced. Her fingernails biting deeply around the letters decorating the arena surrounding Quinn's abdomen, Rachel launched them – Quinn found her thoughts tumbling towards cannonballs again – backward.
"You should be happy that I never get tired of teaching you…" Rachel's clipped tone halted abruptly the second that Quinn toppled them onto the bed. From under it came the somber bark of Rachel's latest acquisition, their dog, Pearl. Being brought home to live with Rachel and Quinn and unceremoniously forgotten moments later could do that to a dog.
Quinn scooted across Rachel, careful not to let her too close to Quinn's latest victory. "I'm really not the mundane kinda gal who will settle for initials."
With something of a flourish, Rachel intertwined her legs with Quinn's and shook her head so fiercely that Quinn grabbed at her to stop. She was uncertain if this was anger or lust or both fueling Rachel in this moment, but she was ever eager to find out.
Rachel's hurtful tone seeped directly into Quinn's bloodstream, an unfortunate side effect of too much time spent nearly joined hip to hip with her. "This was your way of letting me know how special he is to you."
Quinn grinned, gingerly. "I tell you all the time. I show you every day how much I love him."
"You were five minutes and forty-three seconds late giving him his snack the other day because you lost the Xanax I gave you that morning." Rachel's accusatory and defiant stare cut into Quinn. It was a one-time slip in Quinn's otherwise brilliant parenting routine established over the past six months. He certainly did not starve and she eventually remembered his needs. A little late was better than never. And, in Quinn's more than humble opinion, the baby far favored her over Rachel. Such would prove the case when Quinn spent the majority of her time away from the American Horror Story: Behind the Mask of GLEE set with him, while Rachel was in the studio recording a solo album.
Ignoring Rachel's snort of derision at the memory of Quinn's lapse, Quinn dove back in, "I wanted something to commemorate us! It really turned out nicely."
Quinn felt certain that Rachel was wholeheartedly unaware that her eyes fixated on the spot in question. If Rachel's nonsensical humming provided her with any clue, it was that Rachel might actually be eating this up. Yet there was nothing gained by venturing to read the mind of the woman now bending over her. Quinn needed to hurry this dog and pony show to a conclusion.
Shifting so that Rachel had a better view, Quinn traced the tips of Rachel's fingers against the words that snaked a trail upon her. Heat flooded her as Rachel bowed lower and allowed her lips to weave a tale that Quinn knew and loved well. She ached to prevent the moan. It mockingly slipped past and she took Rachel's echoing response as consent. Pushing Rachel's head down, down, down, Quinn could scarcely deny that it would not take long for her to erupt. Like that cannonball lodged in her brain.
Rachel shot up – like a cannonball! – and withered Quinn with her grimace and her patented flailing of legs and arms. "Were you truly trying for oral sex right now?!"
To excuse away her actions…non-negotiable. Best pray for a speedy pardon. "I'm sorry! I figured we were being…romantic. Seeing as I got this extremely personal memento in your honor." Quinn nodded in the vague direction of where Rachel's eyes already re-landed.
Rachel's loud chuckle again. The baby's tut-tut carbon copy. Quinn's high wearing thin and leaving her feeling flat.
"Tell me how this is so profoundly intimate, Quinn, as I fail to follow your logic."
Quinn appropriated the appearance of a grave and wounded lover. "Do you not remember what you told me mere weeks ago…about our relationship?"
Rachel blinked rapidly, took a fortifying breath. "I recall saying a lot of things concerning our relationship, so perhaps it might be best for you to remind me."
Helpless to fend off an onslaught of giggles, Quinn stated her reasoning. "You said that our love is like a cannonball and, come on, how could I not get that as a tattoo?"
Rachel's face morphed from one expression to the next so swiftly that Quinn grew tired from the looking. "I…I don't believe I meant that as a completely…positive connotation. Sometimes, it's as if our type of love hits me like a cannonball and I wanna…fly away from it."
"Oh!" Quinn, devoid of giving a fuck as to how Rachel interpreted the quote, still maintained her façade of hurt. "Well…hmmm…okay….do we need to maybe reassess…"
Rachel hurried to interrupt, "But, don't mistake me, there's a great deal of…freedom and, uh, peace in this love as well and, yes, I can understand where you were going with this…gesture."
Quinn's teeth flashed in a warm smile. "Wonderful! Because this is permanent, Rachel. A sort of new beginning for us, a deeper commitment."
"Right, right, agreed," Rachel's voice wavered only slightly as she handed Quinn a pill from the bedside table. The cessation of Rachel's speech and her seeming desire to end the conversation was probably a brief reprieve for Quinn. Rachel always had a comeback, even if it took her a while to reach it. Quinn could muster her patience for another bout.
Quinn wiggled her eyebrows as she dry-swallowed the Xanax and pulled Rachel across her lap. "Light the fuse, Rachel."
Rachel did more than that. And Quinn flew…like a cannonball.