Title: there is no curse (we haven't spoken)

Summary: quinn can only kiss Rachel in darkened spaces. Post 2x22 "new york", faberry.

Notes: I got a few requests for a sequel to "there is no hell", so here is your follow-up :). I tried to make this less bleak, but in my head high school Faberry is a black, angsty abyss because I have this irritating need to make it fit around canon (and this is why I write chaptered college fic to keep from hurling myself right out of a window.) Anyway, I hope you all enjoy.

Also: on a whim I decided to make a tumblr for my writing (thisyears-girl dot tumblr dot com) I won't clog it up with chaptered fic updates, but you'll find one/two shots like this, and some original material of dubious quality. It's totally bare bones at the moment, but I'm going to try not to be lazy about it.

And if you prefer AO3, I'm now on there, too (iateyourheart).

Reviews are loved and appreciated. Thanks for reading.

The Mack has a few dime bag clients at the Lima Country Club, and the first time Quinn caught her selling to the mayor's son out behind the pool, she fully intended to call the police. But a moment of clarity struck in which she realized familial status outweighed the law, and nothing really mattered anyway in the long run, so she tightly gripped the towel draped around her neck and casually walked by the two, taking on her lifeguard post perfectly in time.

Every other Tuesday between the hours of four and six, Quinn would pass The Mack. Towel grips and straight-ahead eyes became curt nods in general directions, and Quinn tried once very late at night (while floating in an irritating space between sleep and wakefulness), to pinpoint exactly when it was that 'nodding' had become 'sharing cigarettes', but her head was always cloudy these days and one moment drifted into another creating endless streams of existence she neither cared to, nor had the energy to make heads or tails of.

One evening she spent her break tossing cigarettes out the passenger window of Mack's Firebird, when the other girl got a sudden serious look on her face and said, "I want you to come to a party tonight."

Quinn didn't bother to hide the fact she was drunk when she made it home some time after six that morning, because in the unlikelihood Judy woke up from her stupor, Quinn would simply tell her to embrace one of the few things they had in common.

"Look, I get it if you need some time to be miserable- make a voodoo doll out of Finn's back hair or whatever you gotta do to cope with that loss- but, if you don't bring your ass to the next glee practice, I am going to unhinge my jaw and swallow you whole."

"It's summer break."

"You tell that to Berry, because after I've finished digesting her, I'm coming after you."

"All I want is my three months away, San. Come September, I'll be more than happy to start gearing up for another loss at Nationals."

"You are a goddamn bummer, you know that? We all want a break, but if you're gonna be a part of this team you gotta put the work in."

From her bedroom window Quinn watches Mack's car pull up alongside the driveway. On the second horn blast, she cradles her cell to her ear, throws her purse over her shoulder and heads for the door.

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yeah," Quinn says as she passes by her mother's listless form on the living room couch. "Consider me officially off of the team."

The funny thing about The Skanks is they all hail from the well-off part of town; Shelia's adoptive parents are dentists, and Ronnie always manages to smell like sour milk but her house is immaculate, and Mack's dad baked oatmeal cookies the first time Quinn slept over (Quinn never mentions the discrepancy between the group's persona and their reality. She understands the need to be something you're not.)

They dye Quinn's hair in Shelia's bathtub, and spend the rest of the night chucking rocks at cars from the top of an overpass.

"You have to be a member to swim here."

Rachel is standing in front of Quinn, towel clinging to her waist and gym bag dangling from her hand. It is June 10th and Quinn hasn't seen Rachel since New York. Up until now, she had a very good game going whereupon all knowledge that a Rachel Barbara Berry was a living, breathing thing sharing the same zip code, the same stretch of sky was banished to the back of her mind. Quinn let text reminders of glee practices and strategy inquiries pile up unread in her inbox. She stripped Rachel's contact entry of its name. It was a faceless number that belonged to no one with any bearing on her life (and certainly not the bane and center of her existence.)

(And Quinn has never truly hated Rachel, except for right now - and it is so deep and white hot of a feeling that if Rachel were to go down in the pool from a leg cramp or crack her head on the diving board, Quinn would not rush to save her.)

"I - I have a visitors pass." Rachel extends a small slip of paper in Quinn's direction that names Mike Chang as her sponsor. Quinn will never let him in for an early swim again. "I hit a plateau with my elliptical, and there's this old guy at the community pool that keeps trying to touch my hair, so Mike offered to let me swim here."

Quinn slips her sunglasses back on, rakes a hand over her ponytail to smooth out any ridges, and walks away thinking 'whatever' but not having the energy to say it.

When her father moved out, Quinn stopped going to mass. There was a week or two where Judy woke bright and early on Sunday morning, and peeked a disapproving head into her daughter's room, but then she started drinking her lunch and along the way forgot to try to keep up appearances.

"Hey, bitch! You got eye problems?"

From her position against the hood of Mack's car, Quinn can make out Rachel's form in the distance. Rachel doesn't move an inch or say a word, and Quinn briefly directs her gaze to Shelia, and the razor blade she's palming through her pocket.

"You need to not be so hostile." Mack rolls her eyes.

"Noo, what I need is for someone to tell that chick no one over here is in a staring contest, because I'm not here for that shit. You know I'm not here for that shit," Shelia says.

Quinn watches Rachel shift her weight from one foot to the other, back and forth, and back and forth again.

"Fucking chill - she's just staring at Quinn. She does it all the time, she's got a hard-on, Stabby McStabberson."

"Did I say I was gonna stab her?"

"Nonverbally."

With a huff, Shelia faces Rachel once more and cups her hands around her mouth. "Hey, bitch! Look over here one more time, and Imma fuck you up."

Rachel always does two hundred laps. Rachel always wears hair caps and modest racing swimsuits. And with her sunglasses on, no one knows it's Rachel, Quinn's always watching from the tower.

"You gotta hold still…"

"I know."

"I'm serious, dude. I don't wanna poke your eye out."

"Good. I don't want my eye poked out."

"Ready? On three - one…two…"

They pierced Quinn's nose with a safety pin some time after Mack's dad went out to pick up Chinese.

Quinn feels as if she's been punched in the face (or what she imagines being punched in the face must feel like since despite all deserving actions, she's never found herself on the receiving end of a fist.) Sitting cross-legged on Mack's bed, she miserably holds an icepack to her right nostril and sips occasionally from a half-empty bottle of apple pucker.

"Don't be such a pussy," Mack teases.

"Is it supposed to be oozing like this?" Quinn grumbles, and Mack shrugs turning her attention back towards the pile of marijuana and the scale on her desk.

"I'll take full responsibility if your nose falls off."

Quinn catches her reflection in the dresser mirror - swollen and red, her face neither feels nor looks like her own, and she almost hopes it never heals. She pictures her perfect, little nose turning into a rotting, putrid thing. It overtakes her features, makes the flesh necrotize and her eyelids droop, and the world's best surgeons would fail to save her sending her back to being an ugly slip of a girl that no one expected anything from.

"Just don't pick at it," Mack says. "It'll be fine in a few days."

"I'm never going back to glee club, so you should go waste your summer elsewhere."

"As much as I would love to see you with us in the choir room again, I don't come here to try to get you to help me win a trophy."

"…Then why do you come here? There are ten other pools in this town I don't work at that you could go to, Rachel. Ten."

"I…I don't have an answer for that."

"Cut the shit."

"Honestly! If I said I come here three days a week to keep you from screwing up the looks of my extracurricular achievements on my application to Julliard, or - or that I'm here to Gaslight you, it would be a complete lie. There really is an old man who's obsessed with my hair, but I asked Mike if I could use his membership. I don't know why. I wish more than anything I could tell you."

Her nose heals, and manages to look more elegant with the tiny, gold hoop. Quinn contemplates taking it out.

It is July 4th and when her shift at the pool ends, she finds Mack and Ronnie waiting for her at the edge of the parking lot. Mack's already cramped car is filled with fireworks, and as Quinn approaches, Ronnie launches bang-snaps at her feet.

"Are you ready to celebrate 'Murica, Quinn?" Ronnie asks with an exaggerated Southern accent.

"We are gonna get so stupid tonight," Mack says. "I have to make a quick pit stop to pick up some party supplies, but other than that everything's golden, dude.

"We're gonna ride the wave of freedom on the backs of double whoppers and Toby Keith…"

"Sounds awesome," Quinn says.

Ronnie fires another bang-snap at Quinn's toes. "We're gonna make it rain eagles, and those eagles will turn into baby Jesus's just before they're cradled safely to the ground…"

Mack grins. "I see Jeepers Creepers didn't have any special plans for the day."

"We're gonna skull fuck you with red, white, and blue…"

Quinn doesn't bother turning around. She knows that just over her shoulder, Rachel is off in the distance leaning against the brick wall with her eyes trained on the edge of the parking lot. "You ready?"

"Yeah - yeah, give me a sec. Hey!" Mack waves in Rachel's direction. "Hey! C'mere for a minute!

Quinn feels the earth slip out from under her feet. "What the hell are you doing?"

Mack ignores her. "Just for minute!" she shouts.

"I'm serious," Quinn says around the hard knot in her throat, "leave her alone. She's harmless."

"What?" Mack gives her a look. "If Creeper's got no place to be, then she can come and be no place with us." She shrugs. "I'm feeling charitable today."

"Mack," Quinn says just before her chest begins to cave in, "where is she supposed to sit?"

The length of skin where their thighs are touching grows increasingly clammy, and with every turn Rachel slides just a little and looks at Quinn - eyes full of pained apologies - as she readjusts.

Fifteen miles. Quinn rides fifteen miles to a truck stop outside of Lima with Rachel Berry sitting in her lap; though she wills them at her side, her fingertips drift towards what's not covered by Rachel's shorts. Quinn's fingers brush. They hold still. They dig into the seat. They brush again.

Mack says she won't be gone long, and Rachel squirms when the car door slams.

In the Super 8 parking lot across the street, two boys chase each other with sparklers, and there's a steady breeze blowing through the downed windows that carries the scent of barbeque and it whips Rachel's hair so that Quinn's senses are full of steak one minute, and lavender the next.

"Sorry," Rachel whispers.

Quinn's fingers hold still. They curl against Quinn's chest. They hold still again. They sweep Rachel's hair over her right shoulder.

"Gawd, I gotta pee," Ronnie announces from the front seat. Without another word, she makes a big show of climbing out of the car, and Rachel squirms in Quinn's lap.

Quinn's fingers grip Rachel's side. They press firmly. They ease up. They never move.

"Be still."

When Rachel gives her another pained apology, the sky casts a purplish shadow over the car, and a tire burns out from near the intersection.

Rachel's hand - previously folded in her lap - comes up to rest just over Quinn's heart. "You remember that episode of Buffy where Riley's heart starts going crazy, and he thinks he's like Superman?"

Quinn swallows. "I wasn't allowed to watch it."

"Oh," she says. "The way your heart's beating...it just reminded me of that."

Rachel's bangs blow to one side in the wind; Quinn's fingers brush them back into place.

"Quinn…?"

"Yeah?"

"I realize I'm making a stereotypical judgment here, and if I'm wrong please don't hesitate to correct me. But, I sort of got the impression that you come from a place where sharing feelings is punishable by death- unfortunately, the Berrys are a talkative bunch so I have to at least get this out, and I promise I'll never mention it again."

"Whatever."

Rachel's eyes screw shut, and Quinn's ears fill with blood and bass from the rap song pouring out of a passing truck.

"I knew you weren't Finn," Rachel says. "That day on the subway - I knew you weren't Finn, and I can't stop thinking about it."

Quinn can feel blood seeping out of every pore in her body. "And what's that supposed to mean to me?"

"I don't know," she says softly.

The street lights flicker on, and Rachel keeps scrunching the fabric of Quinn's shirt, and their foreheads are touching but they aren't saying anything, and Quinn wishes New York never happened because she can only ever kiss Rachel in darkened spaces and if she starts now, she won't be able to stop. She imagines forming a republic along that right shoulder with her mouth, and molds hills and valleys over Rachel's legs with her hands.

Upon seeing his daughter for their first scheduled weekend together, Russell Fabray turned very red and told his soon-to-be ex wife, that no child of his would go anywhere with him while looking like that. So Quinn takes her bags to Mack's, and decides to let Shelia's cousin give her a tattoo of Ryan Seacrest's face.