CHAPTER 2

~Quinn~

"like there's no sunrise like the taste of your smile"

Santana growled so suddenly, Quinn jerked away from her.

It was Rachel, Santana had caught on to this 'riveting' story.

"... I believe that I am beginning to sound confusing, why don't I address this person as 'Admirer A'."

Quinn rolled her eyes. Admirer A, how neat. How degrading.

"So, I asked and admirer A agreed, our first date was... something... well it was disastrous... actually. Admirer A was late, a whole 10 minutes late!" Rachel huffed. Big deal, considering you were just playing with me! Santana growled again.

"10 minutes! What horrors!" She mocked.

Rachel ignored her. "Our date started on an insult that Admirer A thought she could pass of as humor. Admirer A was a horrible liar when complimenting vegetarian food... my father Tommy almost wanted to cry because Admirer A couldn't hide the grimaces no matter how hard admirer A tried. I even found this person eating Bacon in the comfort room." A hint of a smile played on Rachel's face, must be imagining how humiliating I freaking looked. "Then the white wine was presented and my fathers got drunk, slobbering all over each other... in... compromising positions... "

: :

The date was more awkward than the telephone conversation. It couldn't even be called a date since Rachel's fathers were there. Quinn said the dumbest thing the moment Rachel opened the door.

"Vain much, Berry. What's up with putting your face in your sweater?"

Rachel got adorably confused fast. Brows knitting together and lower lip jutting out into a pout. She looked down, then she was just mad.

" Very funny, Quinn. Remind me again to give you one of these."

There was a monkey on her sweater.

: :

The dinner was... horrible. The vegetarian crap was so bland, the water tasted better. She almost wanted to cry when they brought out whatever shit they were trying to pass of as Bacon on the table.

The other with the glasses... Tommy, asked her how was the food and she was thinking 'kill me now' but she was sure she said 'Wonderful, Mr. Berry." Rachel was hiding in her napkin but Quinn could hear her giggle.

Tommy looked depressed by the end of the dinner, but... but... she tried her best!

: :

Rachel first looked horrified and then horrifyingly amused when she found Quinn hunched over a tupperware of bacon- courtesy of Mercedes, angel!- in the bathroom. Quinn could only quirk an eyebrow before Rachel was laughing. Laughing so freely, Quinn didn't mind the humiliation that much, instead when Rachel guffawed, she snuck a piece of Bacon into the brunette's mouth.

Rachel spent the whole scrabble game spelling things like 'murder' 'pig' and 'cruelty' on the board. How she managed it, Quinn would never know.

::

The white wine bottle was drained by David and James. Rachel wasn't allowed even a drop of it and Rachel glared her into declining.

"You didn't have to bring anything, Quinnie." David said, halfway through his 5th glass and Quinn just grinned at him.

"Believe me, Mr. Berry, you're helping our family by drinking that bottle."

By the time they were making out in the couch, Rachel had pushed her out the door.

Quinn looked up into starless night sky.

"It's going to be raining soon."

Rachel nodded, looked inside to her fathers still doing the happy, her face was hilariously and worryingly pale.

"I guess... well this was..." "horrible."

Rachel paled more and then she was just flushed and angry. She jabbed a finger to Quinn's chest.

"It isn't all MY fault, you didn't have to be so CRASS!"

She was adorable.

Quinn laughed and then just for the hell of it seized her by the wrist and pulled her in for a hug. Rachel smelled so clean.

"I... tell you what... it wasn't horrible... per se... I- ithadyousoit'sokay... I'm going home."
She stepped back, releasing Rachel who was wide-eyed.

"It was horribly great..." Quinn smirked, "just like you."

~Rachel~

Rachel made a quick sweep of the room with her eyes, glossing over Noah who happens to be in detention-again- for the 4th time that week leering at Brittany, and even in her unfocused state she could see Santana Lopez fuming in anger and, as per her peers' slang, flipping him the bird. She barely registered the twinge of annoyance that passed through her after spotting one of her fellow detention mate sleeping while she was obviously passionately speaking her mind. Her eyes registered the room in one blurry swirl of colors until she found Quinn, sitting in her chair, both hands clasped together on the desk, looking in her general direction but not really seeing her. She could feel that thing coiling in her stomach again, and as Quinn turns and averts her eyes again to the parking lot outside she could feel it expanding and crawling up to her chest. She took a deep breath because god... people already thought she was a drama queen, she didn't need to cry in detention class to add to it.

Quinn swallows down audibly, tilts her chin up a little and Rachel could feel her eyes watering.

She didn't need them both to cry in the middle of McKinley's dreary detention.

: :

Quinn Fabray was beautiful. Not even she could deny that and with the lithe light the moon was throwing over her features, playing with her admittedly extraordinary bone structure, that fact had never been truer. Rachel watches her for a moment, the door knob still in her hands, the lyrics of Chris Bell's speed of sound playing from the vinyl as her father Randy began to sing with it, the small puff of breath Quinn was breathing out, making her head hazy. The blond raises her hand for a moment, makes like she was going to hold Rachel's hand that was on her side, that weird look coming over her face, but then she drops it and that's what woke Rachel up from her trance.

Then Quinn went and insulted her, and all her earlier thoughts were negated.

: :

The blonde looks around their living room the moment she stepped foot in it and Rachel understands that, Quinn had always been inquisitive. Quinn skimmed her eyes over the framed vinyl-s hanging in the walls to the battered couch that her father's didn't want to throw away because of a memory of a summer's Sunday, to the flat screen T.V. equipped with high defined stereo's that Rachel begged her father's for and to the carpet designed to look like bear skin with its matching head to boot. Quinn turns to her at that, an eyebrow tilted up and amusement in her hazel eyes.

Rachel shrugs and shoots a look to their kitchen, where she could now see her dads slow dancing. She thinks she threw up in her mouth a little. "It's my dad's… Randy. He does things like this once in a while to irritate my dad and I. We're both vegans and daddy isn't."

Quinn laughs a little and Rachel finds herself leaning in to hear it better.

"Boundaries, Berry."

She clears her throat as Quinn proceeds to the mantle above their synthetic fireplace, skimming her hands over Rachel's memories on frames, fingers sliding on glass.

"Well, Quinn, first let us go over our itinerary for the night so that if you have reactions or suggestions you can inform me about it and we shall adjust our plans accordingly, well the first thing on th—"

"I don't care, Berry. Just… just… I'm not going to complain about anything, well maybe your clothes a bit—but.. it's okay… or whatever." Quinn finishes fidgeting again and looking at a spot behind Rachel's right shoulder.

"Actually… I brought something for your dads."

"You didn't have to."

Quinn smiled a genuine smile that borders more on mischief than happiness.

"Oh, believe me Rachel. I'm actually doing myself a favour, we have tons of this at home and well… when it's over, it doesn't look nice." She raises a bottle of tequila into Rachel's view neatly wrapped in some decorative paper.

: :

Her fathers both eye Quinn warily as the blonde sat down with them at the dinner table after complimenting everything and anything in the Berry household, her voice breaking sometimes or registering a pitch higher, she even hit her foot in the table's leg in her haste to shake hands and help her daddy who was then putting down plates.

"So what do you think of the food?" her daddy Tommy said, pushing his spectacles up his nose and tilting his head down to peer at her. Quinn coughed a little, ran a shaky hand through her blonde locks and beamed at her father, and Rachel had to say it was pretty amazing how effortlessly she pulled herself together.

"It was very delicious, sir. I particularly enjoyed the uhmm... stir fry." She says, smiling in that way that only people with that certain kind of face could quite execute.

Her daddy smiled back because she must admit that well... who could not? She almost laughed out loud though as her dad raised an eyebrow at her and both of them smiled at the memory of Quinn's first taste of their meal: The blonde raised her spoon of faken to eyelevel, peered at them and then made a little fist pump with her left hand, murmured something that suspiciously sounded like 'you can do it, Fabray' and shakily brought the utensil to her mouth, that slight cringe between her eyebrows deepening, her face perceptibly freezing up to avoid frowning... or vomiting. She then looked around again to probably gauge if they had noticed her reaction.

Rachel found it confusing the way she was finding Quinn's antics adorable and slightly fascinating... for Barbara's sake, the girl was insulting her daddy's cooking and she was finding it enchanting.

It was terribly confusing her though, because from Quinn's clever little greeting at the start of that evening, to her fathers' disapproving stance of the whole thing, Rachel thought that the night would be horrible and that all she'll want was to push Quinn Fabray out the door. But from the moment Quinn started bumping her body parts on furniture Rachel could feel the indignation just pouring off of her into thin air. And that moment, standing in the bathroom entrance hunched down in disbelieving laughter she realized that the indignation was no longer there, charmed away by this other side of Quinn Fabray-this bumbling, stuttering version, shoving illicit bacon down her throat like a starving person, so obviously and almost desperately trying to prove herself. If she had her doubts before, every little peeks of Quinn's hazel eyes in her direction every other second had completely obliterated it. How had she not seen this before? An admirer with this degree of devotion!

When she was watching Quinn walk back to her car at the end of the night, the blonde turning and walking backwards just to wave at her some more, that flash of smile almost lighting up the darkness around her, when she had moved forward to wave back instead of turning around and closing the door, Rachel realizes that she had enjoyed the evening immensely, enjoyed it so much she didn't want her to leave.