Hey. Some of you guys seem to think that I am good at this writing thing, so I guess this is now a two shot :)

The Lady and the Punk

Chapter Two

Like you'd known that they would, the insults have stopped.

When every muscle in Rachel's body winds so tight and defined that you feel she may snap in your arms, it's now with raspy utterances of how sexy she thinks you are, bumbling clumsily on her lips.

Somehow you don't mind.

There are bigger fish to fry anyway, like how she stalks every detail of your face when she thinks that you've drifted off into deep slumber beside her. Sometimes you feel the mattress shift, the feather-like warmth of a fingertip hovering just inches above your right eyebrow. Never the left. It's always the right, which you've recently gotten pierced.

Those things about you that she's always seemed so conflicted about are now a pure source of arousal for her, you're certain. It's clear in the way that she compliments the variety of nose rings that you alternate through, and in the way that she suggests punk clothing stores from her neighborhood. Ones that she thinks you'd like. It's all evidence of the fact that you've officially infected her, with your touch, your tongue. Your lewd hooded gaze. And this is the part of the tale where you'd usually get bored and opt out, even changing your number if necessary.

There's actually a tub of unused Vodafone SIM cards that lives in your apartment, and you've found yourself glancing at it.

But something keeps you away, and you sort of hate yourself for it.

She's getting much too comfortable with your apartment too. It may not have the long winding gold-trimmed hallways that she's used to - far from it. But she's been making herself at home anyway, waltzing up to your front door with arms that are barely capable clasped around multiple bags of shopping, and if she's staying over for the night, she'll often turn the dinky little television in your room on, because she can't afford to miss her TV shows.

She's got to go. You know it, Santana knows it, and you're pretty sure that she does too. But she seems to be drawing it out, squeezing out every last second and every last touch...

"Quinn!" she yells, petulantly thudding a closed fist to the mattress.

The shrill cry and the minor turbulence - it does its job. It gets your attention.

You roll bored eyes towards her. Really you just want to get high and kill some zombies on the games console. "What, princess?"

She points a finger at the TV and snuggles up closer to you, the strobe lights flittering over her intrigued face. "Who do you think should be sent home?"

This is what your life has come to; you're involuntarily sort of dating a hot older married woman, involuntarily, and she's managed to rope your eyes into American Idol long enough for her to be able to ask you who you think should be axed this week. She's like one of those cats that make space to burrow themselves into where there was no space to begin with.

It's ridiculous.

"Don't any of your rich pals miss you?" you ask instead of throwing out some random name and hoping that it's what one of contestants is called.

It's serious now. You know and feel that it's serious as soon as Rachel points the remote at the TV and the volume quickly decreases to nothing. She draws herself out of your warmth, peering at you bold and unblinking. "If you've got something to say, Quinn, then how about you just say it."

You ruffle your hair where it's been flattened by the headboard just behind and then sigh, because when did anything become so difficult for you to say?

You may not have found her cauldron yet, but this woman is a witch, you're sure of it. That's the only explanation for why you kind of feel like you should choose your words wisely.

But, of course, you don't, because it's not often that you go with your feelings. "I didn't sign up for this - nights snuggled up in front of the TV watching American Idol."

"I heard you humming along to one of the performances, so do not act like you're not enjoying the show, Quinn."

She's absolutely right. The show's not the problem here, even though it's boring as donkey shit.

You whip the covers off of your body and pull open the drawer that houses your Marijuana obsession. Inside of it, your little pink lighter waves at you, telling you that you'll feel much better once you're blazed.

You believe it. You always do.

"I'm gonna go for a smoke, and when I get back I'm fucking some zombies up on the Xbox!"

"You are such a jackass!" Rachel yells after you. "Come back in here and talk to me, like an adult!"

With each inhalation of smoke that strikes your lungs and hazes your head, you wonder what the fuck she thinks she's doing.

More importantly you wonder what the fuck you think you're doing. You know Rachel's type. Highly emotional, extremely sensitive, and needy.

The two of you are a match made in lesbo hell, for the simple fact that it intrigues you to see people starving for the reassurance that they need from the world, and from the people close to them.

You're kicking yourself because you should've known that this was going to happen.

"The fuck you and the midget arguin' about now?"

The moment that Santana steps out into your line of vision, all wrapped up against the cold, you shrug and offer her the joint, which she takes with a smirk.

You're supposed to be cutting back on weed anyway, because money is tighter than Rachel's perfect little waistline.

Santana's brow crumples and her cheeks draw in around the joint as she tokes, lighting up the ember at the end. She's always been nice to look at.

Maybe if you tell Rachel about how much sex went down when you and Santana first moved in together, she'll decide that you're not worth it and go back to her life of money and upscale events.

"C'mon. Open your mouth and speak, Q," Santana prompts you, blowing a long grey stream of swirls from her plump lips.

"She's annoying the crap outta me," you concede, staring out over the expanse of your communal garden. It's full of your neighbor's junk, old muddy toys and unwanted rolls of muddy carpet and shit.

"Well she buys us groceries and cooks sometimes, so you need to keep this chick around."

You brush away the itch under your chin and chuckle, because Santana is being completely serious and the two of you are one and the same. You both take and take and take.

"I just wanna get high and play some video games before I have to go to work later, but she's taken my TV hostage because she's watching American Idol."

"Ooooh," Santana grimaces, as if recoiling from flames. "That's rough. American Idol fucking sucks." She passes you the slightly diminished joint and folds her arms across her stomach. "What time do you have to be at the bar?"

"Ten," you answer, lifting the flaming joint to your lips.

"Well you needs to tell the midget that she has to be gone by then, otherwise you might come back and find us fucking."

You frown deep, quickly disguising it as a reaction to how harsh the tokes are on your tonsils. "If you're ok with sloppy seconds."

Since she knows you, Santana laughs hard and long. "Okay, I get it. She's yours. I'm hearing you loud and clear."

Good, you think.

But that's a far cry from what you actually say. "She's not mine. She's married and I'm not a relationship person, remember?"

"Well she sure as hell thinks you're hers. She may not have admitted it to herself yet, but the poor bitch is in love with you."

Your bedroom is stricken with icy silence when you walk in and shut the door behind you. The Xbox, which you always leave down on the floor, hooked up to the TV, is nowhere in sight.

Rachel's staring straight ahead at the television, like you haven't even entered the room.

"Where did you put my Xbox?" you ask, making a concerted effort to remain calm, because you know that this woman is going through a lot right now with her divorce settlement and everything, and you know that she's not made of the stuff that's necessary to survive Hurricane Quinn. Nobody is.

"I haven't touched your crummy Xbox," she mutters, her voice sharp, low, and tight.

"Funny that. It was here when I left, and now it's not. Doesn't take Einstein to work out that you hid it because you wanna keep watching this bullshit."

Rachel ignores you and your sardonic tone.

Clearly she's not in the mood for giving out clues today, so you look under your bed, in the bottom of the closet, and in a few drawers, all whilst she's sat comfortably on your bed watching the horse shit that is American Idol.

When you rip the TV's plug out of the wall mains, she glares you down, and when you move around the room to get to your weed drawer - because now you want another joint - the adorably non-threatening glare follows.

"Your Xbox is in the living room, beneath the mess of books in the corner. Now plug the television back in."

You don't look up from where you're rolling your joint. "What you need is a good fuck. Maybe then I'll get some peace and quiet before I have to go to work."

"Shut up," she huffs.

You cheeks pinch with a smirk. "Such a firecracker."

"You haven't seen anything yet!"

"Promise?" you husk.

Her lips purse tightly. "You're a perverted low-life."

"And you're a closeted perverted low-life, princess."

"Stop calling me princess!" she grumbles.

"But that's what you are."

You can't get over how you can be seething at her in one moment and ready to let her ride your jaw loose in the next. The woman is extremely gorgeous when she's in a mood. Everything raw about her energy comes to the surface, and everything manicured sinks.

"You're so fucking gorgeous," you tell her.

"Whatever. A moment ago you were telling me to go back to my rich pals," she snipes.

You drag your tongue along the earthy brown joint paper, and roll it complete, watching her the entire time. "This is... not what I signed up for, that's why."

"You should have thought about that before you took my panties off, and gave me my first ever orgasm."

You stand there for a few seconds, beating the joint off of your thigh, and then you say it. "First ever orgasm or not, you can't be here as often as you are. I'm not your girlfriend, and I'm a dick when I don't get my me time."

That seems to do it, because Rachel's out of you bed in an instant. "Where are my clothes?" she barks, glancing around with manic crazed eyes. She tugs off the long baggy t-shirt that she found in your closet, and her pert soft dusky breasts jiggle just a touch with the motion.

She's beautiful and doesn't even know it. The memory will never leave you - how panic-stricken her eyes were the when she'd begged you to leave the light off the very first time that you'd sat her down at the foot of your bed, and dropped to your knees between her legs. There had been something about her shuddering, gasping, and arching up against your mouth in the dark that had driven you wild. It's buried inside of you.

But that was then. This is now, and it's time to shake off the Rachel-induced stupor.

"Come on; when you were a little girl, did you really dream of being with someone half your age who has shaggy pink hair and no fucks to give?"

Rachel whirls past you, snatching her clothing up from various different places.

"Princess," you murmur, wrapping your fingers around her wrist and anchoring her to the spot.

Her brown eyes shimmer with something indecipherable, avoiding your face at all costs. That's probably a good thing, because you've made your eyes hard.

"I'm not your girlfriend," you repeat, needing to know that she's hearing you.

"I fucking know that!" she yells, tugging her wrist free of your gentle clasp, like it burns. "You make it abundantly clear at every opportunity! I don't even know what I'm doing here!"

You know what's she's doing here. She's part of a long line of women who've thought that they could weasel their way into your heart, given enough time and dedication.

With that thought you sigh and drop down to the squeakiest spot on your bed. "Where are you gonna go? I'm not just gonna let you leave if you have nowhere to go."

"Do you even really give a shit?" she snaps, gathering up her things. "You don't even like me. You just want my body."

"Look lady, your body's incredible but I do actually like you. Once you started to relax into yourself, I figured you were kinda cool." You shrug, knowing that some part of her needed to hear that from you.

Rachel's movements slow, but they remain sharp and angry, almost like she's now having to put effort into making them so.

It's funny to you until she slings her bag down and sits herself down on your lap. The weight isn't too much or not enough.

It's just right.

She tattoos your eyes with her weighty gaze, but her lips are stoic.

"What?" you ask.

Her eyes sear with intensity, and you almost want to look away because it feels like a lot to take on.

"Talk or get off of me, princess," you murmur light-heartedly.

It's then that she closes her eyes and gently brushes her forehead against yours, from left to right and back again. Her full lips radiate this purring blanket of warmth and sensuality.

You're smart enough to keep your eyes open. You use them to stare at the woman that is softly nuzzling your nose with her own, and you don't know what to think.

It's a small sensation that shouldn't reverberate up and down your spine at all, but when you feel her eyelashes sweep against your forehead, you breathe deep and tremble a little.

Then she pulls back and trails your right eyebrow with her fingertip. "You're not as opaque as you like to think you are, Quinn. I have sixteen more years of life experience on you, and because of that I can see you," she whispers, warm rushes of her breath gently tap-dancing against your top lip.