AN: This is an AU set in high school where Quinn is a closeted trans girl and a jock, and Rachel is a cis intersex girl and a popular dancer.

This is part 1 of 2. I'll post the second part tomorrow. I hope you enjoy!

Warning for dysphoria, misgendering, cissexism, mentions of transphobia (some internalized), body image issues.

Quinn wakes up in a surge when her phone's alarm rings at 5:30 in the morning. She's got an hour before morning football practice, and honestly, getting dressed, eating breakfast and riding to school would take no more than thirty five minutes at most. But today she knows their school's dance group is scheduled for an early morning practice as well, and so she brushes her teeth in a flurry and shaves in quick, practiced motions and impatiently shoves on her uniform and distractedly finger combs her hair and drinks her energy drink on the way, and makes it just in time to spend twenty solid minutes pretending not to be watching the dance practice, hiding behind her big, bulky algebra textbook.

McKinley High's dance group isn't an official club – they don't have a supervisor or a club room, they don't participate in competitions, and they certainly don't receive an actual budget. They have unofficial but mutually agreed upon practices before or after school, and there's an unspoken agreement between all cultural clubs that the auditorium is theirs whenever it isn't otherwise in use. They mostly perform on breaks between classes or after school, in the courtyard, on the field, in the corridors, in the stoner space under the bleachers, even in the cafeteria.

They're not an official club and they never win any trophies, but whenever they get together to perform, there is always a crowd at least twenty students thick gathered around in an instant. Sometimes a teacher would stop by to watch, usually Schuester or Pillsbury, but sometimes Coach Sylvester too, seemingly equally critical and evaluating.

The reason for this is simply that their school's unofficial dance group is just very, very good.

They really are very good, but that is not why Quinn would jump out of bed before the sun's even risen to watch them practice. The reason for that, in all honesty, is Rachel Barbra Berry.

Rachel isn't the best dancer in McKinley High; that would probably be Mike, or Brittany. She's not the most popular, either; that honor, as well as that of being the worst grump, belongs firmly to Santana. Rachel is small and loud and a really bad dresser. But when she dances, absolutely nothing in the world exists except for her, as far as Quinn is concerned.

She could watch Rachel dance for hours; she could watch her forever. The way she jumps and crouches and stretches, muscles flexing and sweat soaking through her clothes; the way she smiles while doing it, intent and breathtaking and happy. Her every movement deliberate, yet somehow almost careless. She's so obviously perfectly comfortable within her own body, and Quinn can't help finding that remarkably compelling.

And that's why Quinn gets up half an hour before she needs to, and sits crouched down on the bleaches, and covertly squints at McKinley's unofficial dance group from behind an unread algebra textbook, before running off to football practice, pretending she just got here.

Quinn loves football. She really does. The physicality of it is real, reassuring. It's one of the only ways, the only times she feels comfortable and fine and right in her body. She loves the pounding of her shoes on the ground, loves the burn of her muscles contrasting with the rush of endorphins, loves the way her mind narrows down into nothing but motion and direction and effort. When she plays, she is complete. When she plays, she is completely herself.

"Good practice, Lucas," Puck shouts to her and rams into her shoulder affectionately. "See you in the locker room!"

And just like that, the illusion is shattered, and once again she is too big and too buff and too male to really be anything but fucking Lucas.

She shakes her head and bites the inside of her cheek as she heads into the boys' locker room. It really was a good practice, she reminds herself, and allows herself to enjoy the rest of her runner's high, at least.

She's eating lunch with Puck in the cafeteria when Rachel Berry, laughing and chatting happily, walks in, accompanied by a scowling Santana and a grinning Mercedes. Quinn stops chewing and stares, clutching her sandwich in both hands.

"Loosen up, Luke," Puck drawls, smirking. "You're gonna squirt thousand island sauce all over yourself."

Quinn swallows her half-chewed bite ruefully and glances down.

"Should I call them over?" Puck suggests.

Quinn glares at him. Her leg starts to bounce under the table. "Don't you dare."

He does anyway, but Santana just gives him a look, Mercedes shakes her head pityingly, and Rachel doesn't even notice. They sit down at a table with Brittany and Mike on the other side of the cafeteria.

"Impressive," Quinn remarks.

Puck laughs, unconcerned. "Guess Santana's still mad I made out with Brittany."

"You deserve it."

"Whatever, we had fun. Britt even said I was her best boy kiss."

Quinn shakes her head and focuses on her sandwich. She tries to keep her attention away from the table where Rachel sits, eating and smiling with her friends. But once she's finished her lunch, her eyes keep drifting in Rachel's direction.

Puck kicks her under the table. "So when are you gonna ask her out," he says casually, taking an enormous bite from his burger.

Quinn shrugs.

"What the fuck's even stopping you? You're a pretty hot guy. Your guns aren't as awesome as mine, obviously, but I'll admit you've got decent abs. And you're the fucking quarterback. Do you seriously think she'd reject you?"

Quinn fidgets with the empty wrapping of her sandwich, chews on the side of her tongue. "Yeah," she admits simply.

Puck groans. "Dude, you're becoming a fucking liability. I can't have guy friends who are virgins."

"Literally all your guy friends are virgins," Quinn informs him mildly.

"Okay, but none of them are as obvious as you are, god. I have a reputation to uphold and shit."

Quinn shrugs again. Puck's reputation is somewhere along the bottom of her list of things she cares about. She tells him so and he laughs.

"Yeah, I love you too, man. Fucking virgin boy."

She wonders what he would say if she told him. She could say, Actually, I'm not a boy. Casual, confident. Irrefutable. She tries to imagine his reaction. Would he be repulsed, and lash out? Or would he think it's hot, and offer to get rid of her virginity for her? She's not sure what would be worse.

She thinks about telling him anyway, from time to time. He's Puck. Posturing, but ultimately harmless. Her friend. But then she remembers the first and only time she told someone, and she thinks better of it.

Besides, Puck's not really her friend, she reminds herself. Just Lucas's.

The rest of the day passes without incident, and Quinn's last class is even dismissed five minutes early. She has enough time to pass through her apartment and spend ten minutes flipping through channels and munching on unheated leftovers from last night before heading for work. It's not even four pm yet, but she's already halfway to exhausted. She promises herself a long bath after work today.

Work goes well, too. She makes some deliveries and helps the new girl fix the cash register and takes some short covert naps in between. Soon enough it's ten o'clock and she takes two espresso shots before getting on her bike to head home.

Once back in her apartment, Quinn wolfs down the rest of the leftovers (heating them up this time) and spends an hour and a half squinting at her homework and getting as much of it done as she can manage. Finally she puts her notebooks and laptop away and spends several minutes just stretching, savoring the fact that she's done for the day and can finally take a needlessly bubbly bath.

She strips down to her briefs, throwing her work clothes in the dark-clothes hamper and walking into the bathroom, pointedly ignoring the mirror. She turns on the hot water tap and spills in a great deal more bath salt, oil and foam than is strictly necessary.

She peels off her briefs and turns off the tap, submerging one foot experimentally in the water. It's fragrant and warm and wonderful, washing over her skin like a familiar tune.

Unbidden and unwelcome, but not entirely unexpected, thoughts of Rachel Berry pop into her head. She thinks about the dance practice this morning, remembers the cute ballerina-style bun Rachel wore, neat and tidy except for the stray locks of hair coming loose at the bottom, caressing Rachel's neck as she danced, clinging slightly to her damp skin; the way she moved, comfortable and confident in tiny shorts, the muscles of her thighs standing out, powerful and elegant.

Quinn feels herself start to get hard. She makes the mistake of glancing down at herself, standing as she is naked in her bathroom with one leg in pinkish foamy bath water. Her fists clench involuntarily, the muscles in her arms jumping. She pulls her leg out of the water and her underwear back on.

She skips the bath. Puts on a worn shirt instead, and goes straight to bed.

Tuesday afternoon at school, Coach asks Quinn to bring some papers to the staff room before practice. The room's completely empty save for one other person, their back to Quinn, leaving something on a desk. With a jarring jolt, Quinn recognizes Rachel Berry.

Rachel turns to leave the room, and, Puck's unhelpful encouragement in the back of her mind, Quinn finds herself calling out. "Hey, uh – Rachel, wait!"

Rachel turns to face her, eyebrows lifted in surprise. "Hi," she says, looking Quinn up and down. "Uh… Lucas, right? The quarterback?"

Quinn suppresses a wince at hearing that name, spoken in Rachel's voice. "Yeah," she forces out. "I'm… that's me."

Rachel regards her expectantly, looking mildly confused. "Can I help you with something?"

"Um." Quinn chews her lip for a moment, her toes curling nervously in her shoes. She forces herself to look at Rachel and take a breath. "I love your dancing," she blurts out. "I mean, I love the way you dance. There's so much honesty in your movement, it's almost scary. You're really… really beautiful. The way you move makes me feel, um – sorry, I'm messing this up. I think you're amazing. Sorry for being a creep. Can I buy you ice cream sometime?"

Now Rachel definitely looks confused. "Ice cream?" she repeats.

"No, I mean, you're vegan, I know, we can have, um, sorbet – or, something else. That you like. If you want?"

Rachel eyes her suspiciously, frowning. "Are you asking me out?"

Quinn can feel herself flush. She rubs her bicep. She hopes she isn't sweating. She knows she probably is. "Well, um – yeah."

"On an ice cream date," Rachel states.

Quinn nods and glances down at her shoes. They look about twice as large as Rachel's. The thought makes her vaguely uncomfortable. "Sorry," she mumbles. "Forget I asked."

She sees Rachel move and feels a warm touch on her elbow. She stares at the hand lightly laid there, speechless. Rachel retracts her hand after only a brief moment, but it's enough to cause Quinn's blush to become all but fluorescent. "I like ice cream," Rachel says, smiling softly. "I know just the place."

Quinn's head snaps up to stare at her, slightly slack-jawed. She wants to ask Rachel to please repeat that, but her head's buzzing too loudly to form words.

"I'll pick you up after practice," Rachel tells her, looking almost like she's kind of smirking, slings her clunky messenger bag littered with Broadway musical pins over one shoulder, and walks out of the room.

Behind her, her face stuck somewhere between smiling and gaping, Quinn bounces on her toes excitedly several times before retreating to the bathroom to stick her head under a tap and go to practice – probably already looking as flushed and sweaty as if she's been running laps for hours.

Quinn is just in the process of getting dressed after her post-practice shower when she receives a text.

Hey Lucas this is Rachel, it says. Got Santana to give me your number. She was oddly reluctant.

Quinn smiles to herself. She zips up her jeans before writing a reply. Yeah she does that sometimes. She thinks I would embarrass her. She's mostly right.

That's good to know, Rachel texts back. I'm always looking for effective ways to embarrass Santana.

Quinn laughs. Ok I'm adding your number now, she writes.

You do that. And then come outside to the parking lot. I'll be the hot girl in the beat up Sedan.

Quinn pulls on a clean sweater and her jacket and tries to quiet down the colony of butterflies in her stomach. It really would not do to sweat straight through her clothes on a casual ice cream date with the girl she's been crushing on for the past several months.

Rachel drives like she's trying to get away after stealing from the mob. Having seen the exterior of her car, Quinn is in no way surprised. Just terrified.

"R-Rachel, please slow the fuck down," she pants as Rachel swerves so sharply her wheels have probably caught fire.

"I thought you couldn't wait to go on a date with me!" Rachel shouts over the sounds of a dozen cars honking at her.

"I don't want my first date to be in a hospital!" Quinn squeaks.

"Then you'd better hang the fuck on, right?" Rachel replies, cackling.

Despite that, Rachel does slow down, and no accidents occur, and Rachel's car suffers no new injuries. They arrive at the ice cream shop unharmed, and Quinn even has time to feel anxious about something other than traffic violations.

But then Rachel climbs out of the car and walks to the passenger side to open Quinn's door for her, and Quinn forgets to be nervous for a moment.

"Very chivalrous," she comments, smiling shyly at Rachel.

Rachel grimaces. "I hate chivalry," she says. "Bunch of patriarchal bullshit."

She still pulls Quinn's chair out for her, though.

"I'm intersex," is the first thing Rachel says once they sit down with their soy-based ice creams. "I think you should know that upfront. If you have any problem with that or if you're going to be an ass about it, I suggest you pay for our ice cream and get out of my face now."

Quinn stares at her, fidgeting with her napkin, slowly disintegrating the material between her fingers. "I – I – I'm sorry," she stammers. "I'm not sure I know what that means?"

"You're not sure you know, huh?" Rachel snorts. Quinn squirms. "Well, it can mean a lot of things, but for me it mostly means my body is intolerant to androgen, so I developed a vagina, even though I have testes and XY chromosomes."

"Oh," Quinn says. She feels a little bubble of excitement pop up in her chest. "That's ama– I mean. I understand. I don't have a problem with it." Her heart hammers in her chest, but Rachel seems not to have noticed her slipup.

"Good," Rachel says, nodding. "That aside, you should know that I'm a girl. I don't want to hear nonsense like 'biologically male' from you. Body parts have no gender; only people do. I use the pronouns she and her, and I expect you to respect that. And in case you are confused, the matter-of-fact manner in which I just told you about my body does not give you permission to speak about it to anyone else. I choose who I tell. Got it?"

Quinn nods rapidly, the bubble of excitement in her chest growing with Rachel's every word. "Got it."

"Great. Let's begin our date, then, shall we?" She sticks her little yellow plastic spoon in her ice cream and folds her hands on the table. "So, Lucas," she says, businesslike. "Tell me about your exes."

Quinn just can't help smiling at that. Rachel really does like laying all the cards on the table. Except that in this case, Quinn has an empty hand. "Actually, I don't have any," she tells Rachel honestly. "This is kind of my first first date."

Rachel raises her eyebrows at her. "Really?" she exclaims. "How boring!"

Quinn giggles. There's something about Rachel's loud tactlessness that strangely puts her at ease. "Sorry."

"All right, I guess mine will have to do," Rachel concedes with a sigh. "My first serious boyfriend was Finn Hudson. You probably know him. He was our school's quarterback before you."

Quinn nods. "He quit because of a knee injury, I remember. I know some of his friends."

"Well, he was sweet enough, but we had our differences. It was a mutual break, more or less." Rachel shrugs and eats a spoonful of ice cream. "Then I dated some loser from Carmel High," she continues. "He turned out to be an enormous piece of shit. Ever since him, I tell any prospective partners about my condition in advance."

Quinn feels her heart pounding against her ribcage, making it harder to breathe. "Did he – did he –?" she chokes out. She can't quite finish.

Thankfully, Rachel shakes her head. "He didn't hurt me," she says, and Quinn bodily slumps down in relief. "Not physically, anyway. But it was pretty bad after that for a while."

"Shit. That's –" Quinn can't find the right words. She shakes her head. "I really hate this guy."

Rachel smiles at her, looking amused. "Thanks," she says. "I appreciate that. He really is a very hate-able guy."

Quinn tugs anxiously on her sweater, waiting for her heart rate to decrease. "So, that's it? He was the last guy you dated?"

Rachel smirks at that. "The last guy, yes," she agrees slyly. "After that, there was Tina."

"Oh," Quinn says. The little bubble of excitement makes itself known again.

"You might not know her; she's from band. But she's an incredible singer, and a pretty good piano player. We performed together a few times. She's very sweet, and really funny."

"So what happened?"

"We are both simply too amazing, individually," Rachel says with a shrug. "We ended up really getting on each other's nerves."

Quinn smiles at that. She kinda gets it. She thinks about Rachel's incredible fluidity of motion and the unreserved self-expression that leave her breathless just to witness, tries to pair that with the gorgeously self-assured and straightforward personality she's been discovering Rachel to have. The result is almost intimidating.

"You are amazing," she agrees softly. "Rachel, you really are amazing."

Rachel looks at her, lips slightly parted, and stays silent for a long moment. Quinn finds herself imagining leaning over the table, knocking over their half-finished, completely melted ice creams, and kissing Rachel right there.

She could never do it, of course; just the thought has her hands trembling under the table. But in this moment, there's nothing she wants more.

Then Rachel laughs, and the odd tension immediately evaporates. "Why, thank you, Lucas. I already knew that, of course, but it's always nice to hear it from the cute person who's just bought you vegan ice cream."

Rachel chugs what's left of her ice cream while Quinn draws uneven circles in hers with a spoon, fighting a blush. When she's finished, Rachel grabs Quinn by the arm and leads her to her terrifying deathtrap of a car, and Quinn can't even bring herself to be scared.

"So, where to now?" Rachel asks once they're inside the car, already stomping on the gas pedal.

"Um, I need to get to my job, actually," Qiunn tells her.

"No problem, I'll give you a lift."

"Can you… can you just give me a ride to school? I left my bike there."

"You did?!" Rachel exclaims. "Why didn't you say anything? We could've just driven separately, saved the double trip."

Quinn blushes. "I kind of… I kind of just wanted to… ride… in your car." She doesn't add that that was before she'd actually seen her drive.

Rachel gives her a sideways glance. "That's kinda hot," she says with a smirk. "All right, I'll drive you to school. But you owe me a ride on your bike."

"Okay," Quinn mumbles. "Thanks."

"So what kind of bike is it?"

"Um. A Kawasaki Ninja 250R. It's kind of a sports model."

"Ooh," says Rachel. "Sounds expensive."

"Yeah. My parents got it for my fourteenth birthday."

"Could you even ride something like that at fourteen?" Rachel asks her.

"Not legally, no." Quinn smiles tentatively. "But I looked really cool."

Rachel flashes her another smirk. "My, you're a bona fide rebel, aren't you."

Quinn just blushes harder.

"Where do you work, anyway?"

"Oh, I'm a pizza delivery g– um – I, I deliver pizzas." Quinn feels herself start to sweat at the near stumble.

"Hm. Football and AP classes and a part time job," Rachel says. "You're a hard worker, huh."

"It – It's not really –" Quinn starts.

"Well, here we are!" Rachel announces, pulling into the school's parking lot and turning to look at Quinn. "I'd better be seeing you, Lucas Fabray."

"Me – me too!" Quinn stammers and tumbles out of the car, cursing herself for her complete lack of cool. Me too, for god's sake. It doesn't even make sense within the context.

Glancing back, it looks a little bit like Rachel is leaning her forehead on the wheel, laughing her guts out.

Quinn's not entirely sure whether she should be offended or relieved.

It's after midnight by the time Quinn gets home and eats and showers, and she's caught by surprise when her phone buzzes. She looks at it and feels her heart rate pick up. She got a text from Rachel.

Goodnight, Lucas, it says. Don't forget the bike ride you owe me.

Goodnight, Rachel, Quinn hurriedly texts back. I'll remember.

She falls asleep smiling that night.