I am flattered by the reviews. Lovely to know that the vibe I was aiming for was received by readers ;) This is most likely going to be a slow burn type romance between Rachel and Quinn. No guarantee though, since I go where the characters take me.
This is a long one, so grab yourself some popcorn, or whatever you like to eat when consuming media :)
KurtHummelIsGarbage, where did I come from? It's a secret, as per my pen name :P Thanks for that lovely review. I really felt it, and was inspired to write more because of it.
Othnaley23, lovely to hear that you are hooked after the first chapter. Let's see if I can still hold your interest with this second chapter :/ :)
ilovemycandy, me too. I love faberry, and I never want it to die. This is me trying to breathe a little life back into it and enjoy it again, instead of worrying about it slowing down.
Le Diablo Blanc2, thank you :) Let's see if you still like them after this chapter :)
Smix48, thank you :)
It started with a disagreement over something small and forgettable, two middle-aged women sharing opposing beliefs at a dinner party. First came the manufactured smiles to temper the heat behind each opposing point, then came the slightly elevated voices, and then came the contagious silence, much to the chagrin of dutiful host: Karen Maplebeet.
It continued because neither Shelby nor Quinn had been willing to back down to the other. Forth came the carefully wrapped digs, delivered with razor edge wit whenever they were within five feet of each other. Fifth came Shelby's attempts to turn the street against Quinn.
Then came Quinn's accidental discovery of Shelby's fiance's... hobby.
"Thank God I caught you out here," Quinn says, rushing across the pavement when she notices that Gary has just gotten out of his car. She touches his forearm and holds his eye as she tells him, "there's turbulence coming from Monica White's house. It might be worth checking out just to be on the safe side."
He's not in his Police Chief uniform, but Gary Harper doesn't need it - he becomes vigilant, stealth, and investigative right away, foregoing the flirtatious pleasantries he usually greets Quinn's with to peer down the street towards the White household. "What kind of turbulence?" he asks.
"Look, I don't want to say it," she tells him, smoothing down the lapels on her coat against the breeze. "People are always listening, and if what I think is going on isn't, it won't matter once the gossip begins to make the rounds. Monica won't appreciate -"
"No, sweet cheeks, I understand."
"Neither will her husband."
Something about Gary changes in that moment. His charming southern warmth dissolves before her eyes, settling in its place this air of tempered hostility that Quinn isn't used to. At least not from him, which she's always thought strange, considering her ongoing rivalry with Shelby, his fiancée. She imagines that this is the demeanor he projects when he argues with Shelby over small domesticities that have grown into mountains, and Quinn has to ask, "is there a problem?"
"I just don't think your concerns are unjustified here. I've been keeping an eye out ever since they moved in, and I don't like the way he orders Monica around. But this is what happens when good women marry down."
There it is - that something. Something about the way he says they, and it sends ripples of icy realization up Quinn's spine... which only intensify when she notices something pointy and stark white through the back seat window of his car. She knows what it is even before her mind can articulate it, despite the fact that the majority of the garment is concealed by the night.
Her eyes narrow into the side of his face. "Do you have a problem with Monica's husband?"
"We all have an issue with her husband, as we should. Difference is I'm the only one with the balls to say it."
"Say what?"
Gary's sight zips away from the White household towards the woman whose hobby is besting his fiancée, and in that moment he recognizes the potential harm that could come to his campaign to become Mayor.
"Say what?" Quinn repeats, stalking his face for the moment that he slides back in behind that mask.
"Oh!" And there's the moment that Gary, as she knows him, returns - the cunning mask even chuckles. "Oh no! Never that, Quinn." He shakes his head. "What sort of Mayor would I be if I was a-a racist?"
"What sort of Mayor drives around with a KKK frock in the backseat of his car?"
It grew worse when Quinn used her connections to cast light upon Chief Gary Harper's prejudices, effectively thwarting his run for Mayor and ruining his reputation to the point where fervent protests were held in the name of driving the bigot out of the community.
It became ugly when Gary left both Shelby and Premont Falls - a shadow of the man that he used to be - in search of a fresh start. First came Shelby's grief. Then came her need to harm Quinn Fabray in whatever way that she could, and from that came Kaitlyn Richmond, the daughter of an old drug buddy of Shelby's, who - for five thousand dollars - agreed to get involved with Blake Fabray-Evans in order to unearth some dirt on Quinn and report back.
It's still going on today because although it hadn't been the goal, Kaitlyn Richmond was successful in further damaging Quinn's relationship with her son, and Shelby Corcoran is going to pay for that. One way or another.
"Where is she?"
"Italy," James answers. He lifts a padded tan envelope from inside of his jacket and hands it to Quinn, adding, "yesterday afternoon she checked into a hospital there. She's there for a rarely performed surgical procedure, which is banned in the States due to its high-percent death rate."
Quinn's eyebrow arches up over the rim of her dark oval sunglasses. "Sounds serious," she muses, nonchalant. "Any idea what's wrong with her?"
"She has a condition that causes her immune system to attack her ligament tissue. Legalized treatment for her condition is hit and miss," James replies, looking out over the vast rural area that surrounds them whilst Quinn sifts through the photos he provided. "The guy in that picture's her surgeon. Dr Caliano. He's a pioneer in the bio-technology that is used to perform the procedure. But again, it's risky."
"Karma, well aren't you just a bitch," Quinn taunts to no one in particular, as she flicks through one shot after the other. "Is it hereditary?" she finds herself asking, images of Rachel dancing away on stage crossing her mind.
James chuckles. "I'm just a private investigator. Not a doctor."
Like the forceful blow of a hammer to a nail, Quinn's eyes leave the pictures to pin the tall man. Not that he can see the glare that's being directed at him through her dark sunglasses. But he sure as hell feels the surrounding air bristle.
"I pay you well to look into things. In future, leave no stone unturned. Am I making myself clear?"
"Crystal."
"Has she undergone the procedure yet?"
James shakes his head no.
Quinn drops the photos back into the envelope and slips it under her arm. "I want to know if the condition is hereditary. Oh and if she dies give me a call. It would be a shame to waste an opportunity to celebrate."
This is the first time that Quinn has ever set foot in a trailer park. She's seen them on television, but nothing could have prepared her for the grim reality.
A tattered doll head, half buried in the dirt, squeaks under her heel, damn near toppling her if not for her impeccable balance and the attentive bodyguard that walks at her side. She clicks her tongue and nudges it to the surface with her foot, continuing on her path. There are unsupervised children with sticky frowning faces looking her up and down with every step that she takes, hostile suspicion prominent in each one. Mud-slung trailer doors hang open, revealing the cluttered unsanitary guts of the stationary vehicular shells.
Every cell in Quinn's body tells her that she'd be much happier somewhere else. Like an Ibiza beach, or anywhere that doesn't have rats scurrying around. But the part of her that is fiercely protective of all that she's built is on a mission, and that part is all it takes for her to stroll up to the trailer that matters. She knocks the flimsy door and waits.
For a while, the trailer doesn't make a peep. But then dull thuds begin to ring out from inside, and that's when Quinn tells her guard to, "wait here."
Within seconds she's face to face with the woman who she's driven three hours to see. The skank who ruthlessly wreaked havoc in her family home.
"Hello Kaitlyn," Quinn says, climbing the two steps and barging her way into the trailer.
Kaitlyn doesn't say anything - doesn't react. She doesn't complain about the force with which Quinn has just collided with her shoulder, and she doesn't ask how Quinn found her. She simply stands there for a moment, trailer door wide open, and runs her tongue along her front teeth, resigning herself to the confrontation that's about to happen.
"Come in why don't you," she hisses to herself, slamming the door in.
Once it's just the two of them, Kaitlyn spins around with sarcastic cheer, chirping, "so what brings you here on this fine day?"
Having shoved aside a pile of unsanitary clothes, Quinn leans her elbows on the cramped kitchen counter. "I couldn't stop thinking about that kiss, and figured I just had to have you."
Kaitlyn barks a sardonic laugh. "No but, what do you actually want?"
"Well..." Quinn takes her time. She begins to trail a fingertip over the gold buckle on her purse, over the expert stitching; the shiny gold panel that has Lucy Q engraved in it. "I may or may not have a weapon with me." Her wildly stoic autumnal eyes flicker up to Kaitlyn's. "In my purse."
"What, you gonna shoot me? That big ogre outside gonna help you bury me?"
Quinn chuckles, and it's sinister even to the caged parrot's ears. "First you're going to agree not to sell any stories about that kiss, or even tell anybody about it. Then you're going to agree to contact Blake, and you're going to tell him what really happened that night - that you kissed and propositioned me."
"So you spend several months trying to get rid of me, and now you want me to talk to him again. What's in it for me?" Kaitlyn asks, sizing up everything from Quinn's fitted cape-style wool coat to her luxurious heels.
"Oh, I don't know - how about permission to continue this hellhole-life thing you've got going on here?"
"Bingo!" Kaitlyn retorts, folding her arms. "You could put a hole in me right now, and no one would flinch. In fact," she chortles, "I think a couple people be pleased. I have nothing. Trailer park trash is it for me. So don't think I'm about to tell you what I'm about to tell you 'cause you got a gun and you're threatening to use it. I'm telling you 'cause the bitch deserves it!" She plucks a cigarette from behind her ear, grabs a lighter from behind the other, and lights up.
That first pull of chemicals into her lungs eases her eyes shut, and when she opens them it's like she's been reset. "Shocker - you were right. I was only interested in Blake for money." She taps the cigarette ash off into a nearby ash tray and adds, "just not your money."
Quinn leans up off of the counter, her ears piqued.
"Shelby's money, however..." Kaitlyn reveals, looking the other woman in the eye; enjoying the power that she holds over her. "She promised to pay me five g's to get in with Blake and get solid dirt on you."
"Why are you telling me this now?"
"'Cause I got nothing out of it in the end, and I'm awful salty about it!" Kaitlyn snaps. "When Blake caught us kissing, I convinced him that you forced yourself on me, and he still froze me out. He wanted nothing to do with me, leaving me with no ins to collect more info on you." She puffs out wispy grey streams, shrouding herself. "So I went back and told Shelby it was over between me and Blake - that I had nothing tangible on you yet, and before I could tell her what I did find out about you, you know what she did? She snapped her fingers and had me escorted off the premises of her salon, like a worthless criminal."
"Aww," Quinn drawls, and it's dripping in false pity, "my heart truly weeps for you, Kaitlyn."
"Well my heart weeps for you too, Quinn," Kaitlyn shoots right back, tossing her head back in brief laughter. "See, you're trapped in your own life. You have all this money, and fame - power! But the one thing you want you can't have," she says, taking her free hand and snatching her own crotch. "This."
"You can make up all the warped fantasies you like -"
"Warped fantasies?" Kaitlyn barks, chuckling. "It took a while, but once you started to kiss me back that night, you couldn't stop yourself. Pussy makes your world spin. How'd you think I knew to come onto you in the first place? I found your secret cell phone - the one you hide in your desk drawer. Those text messages? Sure love yourself a mouthful of whoever this Brooke chick is, don't you?" She tuts. "Soon as I saw those messages, I knew I either had to get you in bed and make a sex tape to take back to Shelby, or catch you with your mistress and snap a few shots. Looking back, I should've stolen that damn cell phone and given it to Shelby. I'd be five grand better off. But no, I had to play it safe - put everything in your office back how I found it so you wouldn't know someone went through your things and suspect me."
"You're either profoundly brave or profoundly stupid. Really? Telling me how you infiltrated my home and family with such unapologetic candor, when you know what I can do to you? You truly must not value your life. But how about the lives of your children?"
That stops Kaitlyn in her tracks. Her cigarette halts just moments from her lips, muted terror flickering in her eyes.
Quinn unlatches her purse, pulls out a plastic bag containing six miniature polaroids, and tosses it at the other woman's feet.
Kaitlyn doesn't need to pick the bag up. Through its transparency, she sees the photo of her youngest son, and knows that five other photos rest beneath it.
"Jack, Kayla, Daniel, Cade, Jessica, and Dolan," Quinn lists, picking up the spoon that rests on the counter so that she can preen her hair in the reflection. "They're beautiful children. You know that. That's why you gave them up. Because you knew they deserved better than an addict for a mother. It'd be tragic if their lives were snuffed out senselessly. Don't you think?"
"Look, I did you a favor in the end, Quinn!" Kaitlyn hisses.
"And how have you drawn that fascinating conclusion?"
"I made sure that bitch, Shelby, got nothing out of me! You treated me like cancer when I was with Blake. I could've gone back and made sure that Shelby knows what I know about you, just to be a bitch! She might have even paid me for that info. But I didn't tell her. She has no idea about your penchant for pussy. If she did you'd be the glowing face of lesbianism in the press right now, because that woman wants to destroy you."
"You really expect me to believe that that was you doing me a favor?" Quinn scoffs, because it's not worth an eye roll. "You only kept your mouth shut because Shelby made a fool out of you and froze you out once she felt you were useless to her. You were getting ready to tell her what you knew before she had you thrown out. So, I think it's safe to say that when you filled yourself with spiteful pride, that wasn't the same as you doing me a 'favor.'"
"I..." Kaitlyn swallows, nodding like she's just made some sort of agreement with herself. "I did what I needed to, and I'm not gonna apologize for that."
Quinn knows she should pull out her handgun and pump this piece of shit full of lead. No one would hear a thing; the silencer would make sure of that. But beneath the spiteful lack of remorse, there's desperation and pain woven into the fabric of Kaitlyn's being. Quinn understands it perhaps more than she wants to admit, because there was a time when she was Lucy Quinn Fabray - a product of a hateful, religious, stifling WASP household that drove her to some pretty desperate acts of her own.
Like Sam. He'd been the sweet dorky star quarterback at the time, and she'd been Head Cheerleader. They were destined to be together... by everybody's standards but her own. Still, it was what was expected of her, and she'd known that becoming his girlfriend would quiet the condemning look in her father's eye. The one that she would receive whenever he saw her hugging her then best friend, Callie.
One desperate act after another, Quinn became everything that she inherently wasn't. Spiteful, cold, manipulative, controlling, anti-intimacy, power-hungry. Though a liar, she had always been.
Because no Fabray woman was ever complete without a man at her side, Quinn allowed her mother, Judy, to bully her into marrying Sam shortly after graduation. The same was true of her decision to plan Blake. Her talent for sewing had been her only outlet, allowing her an avenue of authentic expression in a life that was otherwise a chore. Desperate to lose herself in her one escape, she created Lucy Q Couture and funded it with the money that Judy and Russell Fabray had given her and Sam as a wedding gift, which if Quinn was being honest, was the primary reason why she had allowed herself to be bullied into marriage in the first place. For the money and the promise of escaping Lima, Ohio.
As Lucy Q Couture grew, so did Quinn's independence, as well as her exposure to irresistibly gorgeous women. She'd desperately wanted to kiss a few of them, especially when they were throwing themselves at her under the guise of garment fittings - some charmed right out of their panties by Quinn's classic beauty and quiet mystery. But, still plagued with years of homophobic conditioning, she learned to freeze those temptations out by emphasizing her armor. Once her cheerleading uniform, her armor grew to be this untouchable elegance. Severe updos, neck pearls, a majestic aura, one of a kind high fashion apparel, and a quaint but powerful smile. She became a performer in her own body, the stage being life. And when her cold detachment grew insurmountable, Sam left to serve in the military.
And when he returned, he was someone else entirely...
So Quinn gets it. She may not have taken on his surname (which had been an argument in and of itself) but she was once desperate enough to marry a man for approval and money - have his child and move to the suburbs to start a life that wasn't for her. Pretending to like some kid just to get dirt on his mother would be child's play to her, and she knows she'd do it in a heartbeat if desperate enough.
But she still wants to empty a round into Kaitlyn's chest, put her out of her misery, and watch the blood run. She can't though, because, "I've been recording this entire interaction. I'll snip it until I feel it's suitable for my son's ears. But he's going to hear the truth, and when he does I don't want him to put two and two together should they pull your bullet-riddled body out of some river thereafter. So I'm not going to kill you today. But," Quinn begins, slowly advancing on the other woman, "if I hear anything about any of this in the media, or if I ever see you again..." She takes Kaitlyn's cigarette and ousts it on the behind wall, letting it hiss. "I'll have you, your parrot, your kids, and your entire community massacred."
Brooke gently closes in the door behind her. Now that it's just her and Quinn, alone together, she dusts the creases out of her fitted blazer and primps her hair. "You, um, wanted to see me?"
Sat at the far end of the sleek boardroom table, Quinn continues to thumb through her sketchbook designs. "Just a second," she murmurs.
As Brooke stands there, waiting for her turn to matter, she can't help but be charmed by the angular, thinly-framed, black glasses that sit on Quinn's nose. She loves when Quinn comes into work wearing them. They soften, endear, further mystify, and sexualize her. All at once.
And now that Brooke has allowed herself to go there, she acknowledges - not for the first time - that she's also charmed by the way that Quinn multi-tasks. The way that she moves between assignments with a cool-headed air of unmistakable leadership - phone to her ear as she converses with clients, selects fabrics, and scans Lucy Q ad campaigns for anything that might offend the label's primary consumer demographic. Brooke is charmed; the way that Quinn gets that small crease in her brow when she sketches. The little things, like when Design Team Head, Ed Ferrera, poses an excellent idea and Quinn lights up. It's a sight to behold, watching Quinn run Lucy Q Couture. It's beautiful. Quinn is beautiful...
Brooke chuckles ruefully as she catches her thoughts, because she loves this woman, and now she doesn't even get those small scraps of her. The scraps that she eventually would've learned to settle for.
"You knew. You knew a long time ago that I was in love with you," she says, and there's something acutely accusatory about it. "You knew and the sex continued, so what changed?"
Quinn maintains her silence, eyes combing sketches. But the way that she sighs is an acknowledgement. The only acknowledgement that she's going to offer, and Brooke knows she has no other choice but to push harder: "I personally think there's someone else." She shrugs. "The woman from... the trailer park perhaps; Blake's girlfriend."
Quinn's indifference to Brooke's presence vanishes, and suddenly her assistant is the only thing in the world that she can see. "How do you know about that?"
"I sort of... followed you out there."
"Hmm," Quinn hums, composing her white-hot urge to lash out when she sees a gang of employees pass by through the door's glass panel.
"I-I only tracked you out there because I was worried about you," Brooke rushes to explain. "You'd been acting strange, and I knew you were lying to me when you told me you were blowing me off to meet with a -"
"You were snooping," Quinn interrupts. "And for you to think that I'd sleep with my son's girlfriend, yet still want to be with me speaks volumes."
"I love you."
"How can you love me when you don't know me?"
Brooke glares. "I do know you!"
"Keep your voice down or you're out of here!"
"Quinn, just give me a chance!" Brooke whispers harshly as she strikes the table with her palm. "I'll love you no matter what you do, and I'll support you even when you do fucked up things. That's what love is!"
"No." Quinn shakes her head, thinking back on her parents' toxic marriage, where there were no boundaries whatsoever. "That is not what love is," she says. "You let me get away with treating you like a whore, like my father did my mother behind closed doors. You have no backbone, and I don't respect you. As a result, I can't take the idea of a relationship with you seriously. If I ever fall in love it's going to be with someone who can stand at my side. I don't need a babysitter, nor do I need a yes man. Now are you getting it?"
It's all that Brooke can do to maintain her composure, her ocean blue eyes prickling with unshed tears. She'd pushed for something other than quiet disregard, and she got it. Now there are parts of her that feel like she shouldn't have pushed at all.
Her vocal chords constrict under the strain of her emotion, but she holds it together long enough to spit, "if you want me to be an asshole to you, Quinn, that's - that's what you'll get!"
"What I want is for you to move on with your life. Take Jessica out. You spend enough time flirting with her."
"This will never be over, Quinn. You got that? Is that enough backbone for you?"
Quinn pushes the sketchbook aside, stands, and closes the distance between herself and her employee. "Get Donovan Jessop on the phone, and apologize for the sizing mishap that took place last week," she whispers into Brooke's soft brown hair, feeling the other woman's resolve melt away in their proximity. "And don't ever track me again. There are sides to me that you truly do not want to meet."
Having lived for seventeen years, Blake Fabray-Evans has come to learn that people see what they want to see.
He's noticed that store owners are watchful of those with darker skin, whilst those with fair skin rob them blind.
He's noticed that his dad sometimes compliments his mom's 'new' perfume, when she comes home smelling of another woman.
He's noticed that men who show up bearing thoughtful gifts are just walking admissions of guilt according to paranoid women.
And Blake's noticed that, even with him, people see what they want to see.
He is angry. From the moment he awakens until the moment that he goes to sleep, it's there, simmering in the background; scanning the environment for anything that might allow it to take the wheel and cause the ten car pile-up that it craves. Those that interact with Blake - teachers, classmates, friends, neighbors - often disregard his brooding intensity, choosing to buy his charming swagger simply because it's easier than prying.
That angers Blake too.
Indeed. People see what they want to see, and Blake Fabray-Evans has long since learned how to exploit that...
He's in tears, het up, and trembling, pacing the pavement outside of Shelby Corcoran's house like he could decapitate a lion with his fists.
"Blake?"
When he hears the tentative utterance, he spins towards it to see Shelby standing on her doorstep. "I hate her!" he grits out, already knowing where the older woman's mind will take her. Banking on it. "She - she's an evil witch!"
Shelby's unsure of what she's walking into, and that is evidenced by her wary gait towards the young man. But her mind's already at work, connecting dots that will shape the picture she most wants to see. "Who are you talking about? Your mother?"
And bingo!
Blake balls his fists. "I don't know what to – I'm sick to death of living in her shadow! She -"
"Shh," Shelby's suddenly all too happy to soothe, gently taking the teen's shoulders and steering him up the garden path towards her house. "Not out here. Come on, I'll put some coffee on, and you can vent to me about it inside."
"I don't know..."
"I won't tell your mother that you came to me. I promise. Just..." Shelby heaves a deep sigh whilst rubbing the boy's shoulder. "Come on inside and calm down. I might even be able to help?"
"O-Ok," Blake hiccups, swiping at his blotchy tear-ridden face.
Moments before Shelby closes her front door on the quiet street, she peers over at the Fabray house and smirks a quiet deviousness, completely unaware of the fact that as Blake sinks into her sofa, he's smirking too...
"Got anything stronger?" he asks as Shelby places a steaming cup of coffee on the table before him.
"Doesn't every worthwhile Magenta Lane resident? But you're underage. And I'd prefer to keep within the law whilst I provide you with a shoulder to cry on."
A conversational lull settles between them, wherein Blake can feel Shelby's thirst for him to reveal any snippet of information that she might use to ruin his mother. She's standing over him wearing a mask of concern, which seems to have to reignite itself whenever he catches her eye, but her true agenda is so thick it's like the third person in the room.
He grabs his coffee and sips, flinching a hiss as the heat bites his tongue. "Damn it!"
"Careful, it's freshly brewed," Shelby warns too late, frowning. "My God. You really are all inside out, aren't you?" She peers at the young man. Though the tears have dried, his flustered nostrils still quiver, and his usually slicked back hair is chaotic. Her fingers gravitate to the soft tufts that obstruct his vision, gently combing them back off of his face. "It's ok, Blake. You're ok. Just relax."
"So I burned my tongue. Big deal. Nothing could hurt more than what my mom did," he growls.
Behind the concerned veneer, Shelby's pulse quickens and her eyes gleam. "Oh?" she gently urges, sitting down beside the boy. "What did she do?"
Blake sighs, grabbing his forehead. "I just - I'm sorry, can I use the bathroom first?"
"... Sure," Shelby chirps, blinking herself out of her disappointment. She grants the young man her well-practiced smile. "Once you've reached the second floor, it's the second room on the right."
"Thanks." Blake stands, and as he walks away from the older woman, he relishes the thought that she's going to pay for the things he heard Kaitlyn say on that recording.
His athletic jog makes quick work of the spiraling staircase, just as his knowledge of the area's classic home layout makes quick work of locating the master bedroom. Trailing light steps along the hallway, he opens the bathroom door and pulls it back in with enough force to make sure that Shelby hears, before tip-toeing into her room.
Just as he suspected it would be, the room is in immaculate order. Not a bra or sock out of place. Not a wrinkle in the duvet. Shelby Corcoran's bedroom is like a showroom, and as Blake pulls two wireless fine-sized cameras from his back pocket, attaches one to the wall cabinet, facing the bed, and the other to the wall cabinet opposite, he can't think of a more fitting choice of comparison, because everybody's going to be in for a show once he's finished.
"I don't want to bother you this early in the morning, but could I trouble you for an autograph?"
Rachel glances up from the letters that she's just collected from the mailbox, her sight settling upon her new neighbor, Blake Fabray-Evans. "You're asking me for an autograph? I feel as though I should request yours; we share near equal coverage on those dreadful gossip blogs."
As Blake draws closer he releases a charming chuckle, sliding his hands into his pockets with a shrug. "And to get it, all I had to do was be born," he retorts with a brief bark of laughter. But the underlying resentment is clear.
"... Um, what would you like me to autograph for you?"
"Oh - here!" Blake says, pulling a Rachel Berry: Greatest Hits album from his man-bag and handing it to her.
She smiles as she accepts the CD. It's warm, nostalgic, and perhaps her first genuine smile since arriving on the street. "I never would have pegged you as a fan of mine," she murmurs, taking Blake's marker and scribbling her signature on the case.
"Why not? Your voice is exceptionally beautiful, and so are you. You were bound to pull in the teenage male demographic. I also have a bunch of friends who are into your music. My friend, Dane - he loves it when you hit the high notes. Something about amazing breath control, and how that skill could inform other... skills. But from that statement, we both know he's a creep," Blake says, flexing a flirtatious smirk. "I'm clearly the much better choice."
Rachel's smile takes on an awkward lilt. She hands the CD back to him, taking great care to avoid skin on skin contact. "Well - uh... Thank you. But..."
Just then Monica White rolls by in her silver Lexus. The driver window descends, and she sends a glare that would bend steel Rachel's way, before zooming off into the distance.
"Wow," Blake comments.
"Tell me about it," Rachel echoes, her brow pinched. "That woman has been nothing but frosty ever since I arrived, and at Sugar's game night she was downright rude," she huffs as she watches the shrinking Lexus. "Perhaps I'm her husband's get-out-of-jail celebrity crush, and that's why she detests me."
It's a joke, an attempt to make light. Blake knows that, but he doesn't laugh, and soon enough Rachel's expression follows suit.
She draws her silk robe in closer around her body and asks, "what?"
"I don't know if I should be the one to tell you this -"
"Spill it," Rachel urges, unwilling to let the teenager off the hook.
"Well, Shelby had an affair with Monica's husband. You're probably just guilty by association."
"Oh."
"Yeah," Blake says, watching the attractive starlet soften as she digests the new information. "Somebody who must've known about it planted a camera in Shelby's house, and then they posted the video footage of her and Rick going at it through Monica's door. There was a street brawl and everything. Monica threatened Shelby's life."
"I'm sorry but did you say a-a camera, planted in there? The house where I lay my head to rest at night and take showers?" Rachel seeks to clarify, thumbing her earlobe uneasily.
"Yes."
"Well is it still there?" she exclaims, like she'd be a lot happier if only Blake would just keep up.
"No, of course not," he chuckles, amused by Rachel's theatrical quirk which, up until now, he'd only experienced via random glimpses of her interviews. "When news of the affair hit the street, Shelby denied it, certain that there was no proof. That was when Monica gave copies of the DVD to neighbors, citing that everybody needed to watch their husband around Shelby, which understandably made her public enemy number one. One of the DVD's must have fallen into her hands though, because she had a guy come and remove the camera the very next day. No one knows who planted it there. But Secure Homes is more than happy with the recent increase in home security system purchases."
Rachel relaxes a little. "Well thank Barbra for that! Shelby mentioned none of this when she asked me to house sit," she says, and it's a reminder of the fact that her mother's always going to be a closed book when it comes to her. A closed book whose love she must learn to stop coveting. "It's strange," she mutters through a forlorn smile. "The things you miss when you don't keep up regular communication with old friends, huh?"
Blake shrugs. "Welcome to Magenta Lane," he drawls with underwhelming pizzazz.
Rachel waves his gentle ribbing off, opting to take their conversation back to where it had been headed prior to Mrs White's drive-by glare. "By the way, allow me to clarify that I'm thirty-six; more or less the same age as your mother. So if you could hold back on the flirtatious admiration in future, that would be lovely. Though general admiration is more than welcome - if not encouraged."
Blake smirks. "Well it was worth a shot. You're stunning. I'm stunning. It only makes sense that together, we'd both be..." he trails off with a charismatic grin, letting the silence fill in the obvious blank.
"I'm perfectly serious. Those dimples may work on your female peers. But they're wasted on me."
"Do your dimples work on female co-stars?"
Rachel scoffs in half-hearted offense, swinging at the cheeky young man with the hanging material of her robe sash. "Living in the age of information is a curse. Go on, skedaddle."
"I'm going. I'm going," Blake laughs. "Thanks for the autograph. My friends are going to be sick with envy."
"Something tells me you wouldn't have it any other way. But you're welcome nevertheless."
As both Rachel and Blake part ways, Quinn watches studiously from her kitchen window, across the street.
She's been awake since five am, attempting to justify her desire to interact with Rachel. Quinn isn't any better off, now, in her quest to talk herself out of that desire than she was then. In fact, there's a freshly baked apricot pie in the oven with Rachel's name on it. But now that she's seen her troubled son chatting with the starlet about God knows what, Quinn feels she no longer needs to rely on the pie, because now she has legitimate grounds upon which to approach the star. She just hopes that Blake, in his never-ending quest to make her life difficult, wasn't foolish enough to say anything that she's going to have to clean up.
Two hours go by before Quinn's stood on Shelby's doorstep, awaiting an answer to her polite knock.
It requires three more for Rachel to answer the door; stood there in nothing but a towel as her dark tresses drip into the welcome mat. "Quinn," she states.
"Rachel," Quinn counters, her syrup-honey hazel eyes mapping the stretches of soft, damp, tan skin on display. "Here," she says before she forgets, offering Rachel the muffin basket. "My famous apricot pie, to welcome you to the street."
Rachel eyes the basket momentarily, and then takes it by the handle. "Thanks. Though I must confess my surprise, as I detected a smidgen of tension the last time we ran into each other. I trust that as much as this is a welcoming gesture, your famous pie is also an apology."
It's not a question, nor is it unsure of itself. It's a firm statement that Rachel expects Quinn to go along with, because that's what she feels she's owed. An apology for the needless sniping that took place at Sugar's game night.
Quinn can't shake fast enough how charmed she is by Rachel's no-nonsense demeanor. But no one would ever know that, and that is by design.
"Of course. May I come in? I wanted to speak to you."
"Where we're stood is as good a place to speak as any, is it not?"
Quinn gaze falls towards the ground as a demure smirk captures her bowstring lips, and when Rachel's unable to come up with a plausible explanation for Quinn's subtle amusement, she glances down at her own body, just to be sure that her towel is still intact, which of course only causes Quinn's smirk to flourish.
"What's so amusing?"
You're inconceivably beautiful, and it's taking all my restraint not to voice as much.
"Nothing Rachel. I just think we should talk inside. That way if your towel suddenly decides to unravel itself and fly away, the neighbors won't see a thing," Quinn reasons, so deadpan that most would miss the jesting sarcasm.
Rachel doesn't though. She catches it. But still her fist tightens around the area where her towel's tucked. "Actually... you have a point," she concedes with comedic ease, stepping aside to allow Quinn entry.
They're sat at the kitchen counter, both enjoying a slice of apricot pie before long. Rachel's on her second slice, and since that very first taste she hasn't stopped moaning her pleasure.
"You must, must, must give me this recipe!" she gushes, forking another bite in past her lips as she closes her eyes and groans.
Quinn respectfully averts her gaze, feeling like the near pained look on Rachel's face should be private. She clears her throat. "It's been in the Fabray family for generations. I'm not just going to hand it over."
Rachel's eyes jolt open, an exaggerated gasp tumbling from her lips. "What do you mean you're not just going to hand it over? Quinn Fabray, I demand this recipe!"
"All that talk of you being a diva is a lie then," Quinn muses, face completely stoic, save the devilish sarcastic glint in her eye.
Rachel brandishes her fork. "Need I remind you that I am currently armed with cutlery, and that I've had sugar? I will harm you if I need to."
Quinn gives the starlet a subtle smile but lifts a challenging brow. "Harm me and you certainly won't be getting the recipe. Not that I was ever going to give it to you to begin with."
"I'll remember this," Rachel threatens non-committally, to which Quinn chuckles. "So what did you want to speak to me about?"
And suddenly the air thickens.
Quinn clasps her hands atop the counter. "I saw you talking to Blake this morning, and I just wanted to ask you what he wanted."
Rachel frowns, feeling like there's some importance she's missing. But as long as she's eating Quinn's apricot pie, aliens could land and she'd be okay with missing it. "Nothing much. He requested an autograph and we chit-chatted. He's a pleasant, well-spoken, young man. Why do you ask?"
"Because it seemed like there were moments when he had stars in his eyes," comes Quinn's premeditated response. "And I just wanted to make sure that he wasn't bothering you in any way," she fabricates seamlessly, her real concerns soothed for now.
"Well, he did sort of ask if my dimples work to help me seduce my female co-stars."
"Excuse me?" Quinn asks, so abruptly rattled that she subconsciously touches her pearls, like she needs to be sure they're still there, clasped around her neck. The mannerism doesn't convey her inner panic though. It's quaint and royal, and everything that one might expect from a woman like her. Yet her heart gallops beneath her maroon silk blouse as she stalks the finer details of Rachel's expression, and attempts to work out whether or not she's about to segue to the part where Blake told her he has a mother who paints the world a picture of perfection, all whilst cheating on his dad with women.
"It was nothing untoward," Rachel assures her, quite happily popping another piece of pie in her mouth.
Quinn wills herself to regroup; takes her fingers away from her pearls to rest them in her lap. "Still," she breathes out, tagging on an airy chuckle, "I'll have to talk to him about prying like that. Especially when it concerns your alternative lifestyle."
"Quinn," Rachel stresses, chuckling, "I can assure you; it was nothing serious. It was tongue in cheek."
"Tongue in cheek one day. Invasive little cretin the next," Quinn says primly. "In future please don't entertain whatever lewd fantasies he might have regarding your Sapphic lifestyle. I'm not comfortable with it."
"Quinn, I hardly encouraged -"
And that's when it occurs to Rachel - what might actually be going on here. She lays her fork down and pushes her pie aside. Her dark eyes lock into Quinn's, taking on a probing cerebral glint that is seldom asked of her on-screen counterparts. "Quinn, if your true concern is that your interest in women was discussed, you have nothing to worry about."
Quinn grows cold. "What?"
"Well isn't that the real reason why you're here?" Rachel asks. "To ensure that I didn't say anything to your son about your alternative lifestyle?"
Regrettably, he already knows. But how the hell do you?
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Quinn denies with unyielding stern, "but I'm advising you to tread very carefully with your logically bankrupt accusations."
Rachel scoffs, though it's not in any way unkind. "Oh come on, Quinn. How many times have you and I made eye contact directly after you've checked out the likes of Jasmine LaCost or Laurel Callen backstage? I thought you knew that I knew, and were concerned that I might've let it slip to your son, which if that is the case you could have just come right out - pardon the pun - and asked me."
Quinn narrows a disdainful glare at the perceptive little starlet.
She can't bring herself to believe that she's been so careless. But the truth is that she has. She is. She was careless when she kissed Blake's live-in nanny all those years ago, only discover that he'd been watching through a crack in the door. She was careless years on when Sam found out about it and almost left, forcing her to admit that she'd been having those types of urges for a while - that she just didn't know how to tell him, and that it might save their marriage if they explored other women together. She was careless when she checked out the likes of Jasmine Lacost and Laurel Callen. And now she's sat at Shelby's kitchen counter with her rival's half-naked daughter, Rachel, who she's been finding it difficult not to think about since Sugar's game night. It's foolish and risky, and there's likely nothing good to be gained from what she wants to happen between them actually happening.
This isn't the sort of conduct that guards a secret. Neither is the salacious gaze that she sometimes feels it's safe to let wander.
But that's the problem. The genie never stays in the bottle when the genie is who you are...
"Quinn, I apologize for how that came out. I can be blunt, but my intention was not to maliciously call you out or put you on the spot," Rachel defends herself, because the way that she's being looked at makes her feel like she needs to. "Quite the contrary; I thought you knew that I knew, and I was attempting to put you at ease. Seventy percent of Hollywood is made up of closeted stars. I keep my mouth shut and I don't judge. So you really have nothing to worry about, and even less reason to subject me to that look. Monica White already has that covered."
Shaken by the finite casualness of Rachel's knowing, Quinn grabs her empty muffin basket from the counter and stands.
But Rachel stands too, quickly wiping off the crumbs that have attached themselves to her hand so that she can grab Quinn's wrist.
"Don't touch me," Quinn murmurs, and it sounds like an icy threat as well as a merciful plea.
Rachel drops the pale wrist and thumbs a few strands of damp hair behind her ear. "I'm sorry."
Choosing not to acknowledge the starlet's remorse, Quinn takes a measured step towards her, so that they're eye to eye. She schools her features to perform a stoicism so still that, for Rachel, it's like gazing into an eerie painting. "I'm not interested in women," Quinn tells her coolly. "You have it all wrong, and I'd like an apology."
Rachel knows she isn't wrong about this. About Quinn. She's seen Quinn's eyes devour many a female bosom, many a female midriff, and many a female rump. But she can feel something within Quinn begging her to acquiesce. So she takes a step back and smiles her show smile, everything anew. "Well, what an embarrassing assumption. My sincerest apologies. Though," she says, taking on a superficial wistfulness, "it's sort of disappointing that I was wrong. At least from an ego standpoint. I always sort of liked imagining that, with the right approach, I could garner your interest. There's a mystery to you that intrigues."
Quinn blinks once, her jaw pulsing with tension. "Apology accepted," is all she offers, before she pivots primly on her heels and heads for the front door.
The moment she arrives home she pours herself a glass of scotch, tosses it to the back of her throat, and pours another, the small tremor to her hands subsiding to the alcohol's influence. She presses both palms to the marble work surface, and just breathes.
"She's not going to tell anybody," she reasons with herself. "Relax."
"Where've you been?"
Quinn whips around with that of a mouse trap's snap. "Sam." She resets her pearls center-sternum, erasing the slump from her posture. "I was just at Shelby's, delivering Rachel's pie."
Sam slowly ambles into the kitchen, watching his wife closely until he has to turns his back to open the refrigerator. "Isn't she bisexual?" he quizzes.
"Um..." Quinn eyelids flutter on a blink. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"Maybe she'd wanna do something with us."
"Don't be absurd. After what we did with Brooke, those... desires left my system."
Without ever having taken any food, Sam slams the refrigerator door and turns to face his wife. "What if they haven't left mine?"
Quinn turns back towards the counter, leaning on it for support. She grabs her glass of scotch and throws it to the back of her throat, because it feels like she's going to need it. "What are you talking about?" she growls.
"Well. I did it for you. You're not the only one in this marriage. If I did it for you, you can do it for me, and I want to do it with Rachel," Sam says, his voice measured and somewhat calculated.
"What's this really about?" Quinn asks, knowing this version of her husband well enough now to know that things aren't always what they seem.
"I think you know."
"We're not having a threesome with Rachel! Or anyone else!"
"Why not?" Sam laughs humorlessly. "Oh that's right. It'll only work for you if I'm not there. My mistake." He takes evenly-paced steps towards his wife, caging her in against the counter with his front.
"Sam -"
"I saw the look on your face when you were baking that pie," he tells her ear, fraught with jealousy. "Either something's already going on between you and the pop star, or you want it to."
"Sam, move!" Quinn grunts, struggling for freedom.
"You don't look at me like you looked at that pie. You don't handle me with the care that you put into that pie!" Sam shouts, bringing down his palm hard on the counter to where Quinn flinches still. "The moment I asked you who the pie was for, and you said her name, I knew. Those desires still live."
"You're being ridiculous. This is why I didn't want to tell you about those urges to begin with. I knew it would cast doubt in your mind, and that at the slightest occurrence you'd question everything."
"Then make the doubt go away," Sam challenges, sliding a hand down and around her thigh to unzip her slacks.
A single tear, borne of anger, fear, and loss, cascades down Quinn's cheek.
She misses her best friend - her husband of old. The boy who'd stumble all over himself trying to get to the store to buy tampons when she was all out. The boy with the girlish blonde locks who, no, she wasn't attracted to, but loved for the kind, accommodating, dorky doormat that he was.
But this man. This man who returned from Iraq an aggressive, calculated, manipulative monster, married in with unexpected moments of kindness and affection in-between. This man who shaved off those girlish blonde locks in favor of a buzz cut fade.
This man is... what she deserves, and as Quinn struggles to adjust around his hard seven inches, she can't help but wonder if this is God's way of punishing her for the scroll of sins that she knowingly commits every day.
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