Chapter 4: The Doucheslayer

The following morning Quinn headed out to Bushwick and tracked down the apartment where Rachel and Kurt now lived. She knocked and heard footsteps approach; the door slid open, and then suddenly Rachel was there, squealing and giving her a welcoming hug.

"Quinn! It's so good to see you, I'm so glad you could come for a visit!"

Quinn hugged her back and followed her into the loft. "I'm glad I finally had the time. There's always so much going on in college."

"Oh, I know."

"So this is your place?" Rather out of the way, but they did have a lot of space.

"Yes. Kurt's out right now at work, though we'll see him tonight, hopefully, his boss is always so interested in his opinions that she hardly spares him time to sleep."

Flattering... or taking advantage, Quinn wondered. Probably both.

"But that is his room," Rachel gestured to one curtain, "this one is mine, and the rest is a common area. We're working on fixing it up more, it was an empty shell when we got it."

Quinn looked around with appraising eyes, landing finally on Rachel herself, who looked very different. From her trying-too-hard-to-be-chic clothes, to her ombre hair, to her heavy makeup – sad when Finn used to praise her natural look – she was very different. Her body language still showed the same Rachel Berry uncertainty that had so attracted Quinn and the others to pick on her in the early years of high school, though. Despite her change in outward appearance, she still gave off the "victim" aura that attracted sharks. "You've been doing a little 'fixing up' yourself," Quinn commented, nodding at her.

"It's a new me for my new life in New York," Rachel chirped, though her line seemed very rehearsed.

"A new you?" Quinn sighed internally, seeing evidence that she had been encouraged to change, as Brody had boasted. "I had finally gotten used to the old you." And she meant that seriously; it had taken a long time for Rachel's usual ways to strike her as "endearing" rather than "annoying", and definitely a long time to fully accept her with Finn. To see all that effort wasted was frustrating. It was also disappointing to see someone who had been so proud of her individuality despite her insecurities suddenly cave to pressure, especially after she'd survived high school.

"Well it's not that new, though Kurt and his boss at Vogue dot com did give me a makeover," Rachel replied. She smiled self-consciously. "And a lot of new clothes."

And far too much makeup, apparently, Quinn thought. It's like she's trying to disguise herself as someone else. She knew she had had her own times like that, the tattoos and piercings and pink hair of her skank phase. Rachel was apparently still holding fast to her nose, which at least was something, since while Quinn didn't regret her own nose job she knew Rachel would, and Finn would be devastated if that happened. (She had even had a good sense of that, back when she had encouraged Rachel to get one; it had been one of her meanest moments, wanting Rachel to change to validate her own past changes and make it hard for Finn to look at Rachel the way he used to.)

For now, Quinn smiled at her friend. "I wonder if they have any in my size," she said, and she relaxed and listened to Rachel chitter happily about the things they could do that day.

There was a friend that Rachel said they could see, an unnamed upperclassman from NYADA who had been helping her, and Quinn readily agreed that she would love to meet him for coffee. Excellent.


Quinn and Rachel were having coffee at the back of a cafe close to NYADA when Quinn spotted Brody coming through the door. She stared for a moment, making sure to be obvious enough about her shock and ambivalence so that Rachel would pick up on it.

As Brody came closer, Quinn rose to approach him. "Brody?" she asked, doing her best to sound stunned. Pretend you just ran into Shelby with Beth, she told herself.

"Hi, uh..." Brody reacted to her knowing his name, but otherwise seemed very confused. Good.

"Oh my God, Brody!" Quinn rushed to give him a very awkward hug. "It's Quinn, remember? Quinn Fabray from Lima?" She stepped back with a tentative grimacing smile. "Well we met here in New York, when I was here for that show choir competition, but I'm sure I told you I was from Lima. Lima Ohio."

"Ah... should I remember...?" His expression was frozen, like the deer in the headlights cliche.

"We did spend most of the weekend together, aside from when I was actually at the competition." She watched Brody shake his head, confused, and slowly hardened her expression. Rachel had risen and was standing next to them, looking surprised. And now, increasingly, concerned. "You said you'd show me around New York, but you mostly showed me the inside of your dorm...?" Quinn gave a pointed frown. "Seriously, is this not ringing any bells for you?"

"No..." Brody trailed off, looking from her to Rachel and back again.

"Come on, you don't need to pretend. I know I didn't take the whole 'no hard feelings' thing well then, but I understand now, it was just a weekend and we just took things as they came, you were helping me move on and you didn't promise more. We can be grown-ups about it now." All some of Brody's favorite lines on girls he was "mentoring", according to the taunts he'd thrown at Jesse.

Quinn quickly glanced at Rachel, and she smirked internally as she could see the brunette's thoughts flash across her face. Nationals in New York – she had sneaked away quite a lot, especially after they hadn't advanced to the showcase, and before the competition Rachel had been out too much herself to know where Quinn had been. That summer, after they'd returned to Lima, Quinn had completely crashed and burned, something that couldn't be accounted for by simply being dumped by Finn and having him reunite with Rachel, even given how public that reunion was. She had never told any of her friends about the big fight she'd had with her father when he had visited right after school was over, how she'd called him a hypocrite and he'd called her a whore that he was ashamed to think was his child, and how even her sister seemed to agree with him at the time. She'd felt irrevocably ruined, thought that maybe she took after him, and had decided to at least enjoy it; having since pulled out of it for Beth's sake, she had no regrets about now implying that her slide into skankdom was because she had been taken advantage of when she had been vulnerable, especially since that was clearly this guy's modus operandi. By the look on Rachel's face, she was making the connection Quinn intended.

"I did have the tattoo removed, however. Not that there's anything wrong with tattoos, but given how things ended I didn't want the memento." She smiled at Brody again, her face sporting her best let's-be-mature-about-this look. "Do you still have those cute musical notes on your butt?" She flashed her smile at Rachel next, pretending to ignore her growing discomfiture. I'd like to thank the Academy... she thought. "He said it's to remind him to move it to the music, and boy did he ever. From what I remember." Jesse had said he'd overheard Brody talking about what the tattoo meant, way back during the dance class in that workshop; hopefully Brody wouldn't realize how she knew about it. He didn't seem to recognize her from that other cafe the previous day.

Brody paled noticeably, and Quinn fought down a snicker. At this rate she'd have him believing that their weekend had actually happened and he'd been too drunk to remember it.

Her plan was working brilliantly. When she'd talked to Jesse, they had decided that any direct accusation of Brody was unlikely to work. As well as them being short on credibility, Rachel tended to see the good in people and could be very protective of her friends. But that included Quinn herself; by not accusing Brody, but acting like she'd been hurt by him but was trying not to make a big deal about it, Quinn was invoking Rachel's protective streak for her, against Brody. Rachel wouldn't protect herself, but she would protect Quinn, and any denials from Brody would just make him look worse.

By the look in Rachel's eyes, and her body language, it was working like a charm.

"So you know Rachel," Brody said, pulling her attention back to him.

"Yes, we –" Quinn started slowly, but she was unexpectedly interrupted by Rachel, who stepped to her side, facing Brody directly.

"We've known each other for years, we went to high school together," Rachel stated. "Quinn's an old friend of mine from Glee Club. She's visiting from Yale."

Quinn could almost have cheered at Rachel's reaction, better even than she thought would happen. Right away, Rachel was clearly stating to Brody that if it came to sides, she was on Quinn's.

"Oh. Right." Brody looked from one girl to the other, looking very awkward. Stunned, even, as he should be, on finding that his current target was an old friend of someone acting the part of a previous victim. He didn't look like the confident and narcissistic young man she had seen yesterday taunting Jesse, quite the opposite. "Well, any friend of Rachel's..." he trailed off, clearly still unsure what to say or do. As Jesse had predicted, the approach had left Brody unable to cope easily, just as Jesse had admitted his own reaction would have been, back when he had been manipulating Rachel himself.

After a moment more he gave a sharp nod and turned to Quinn. "So Quinn, it's good to meet you... again." He swallowed. "I, uh, no hard feelings, right? I did think I was giving you what you wanted."

Quinn almost broke her facade entirely at hearing Brody essentially admit to what hadn't happened. She looked at the ground, giving herself a moment to recover, hoping that her efforts at suppressing laughter would be mistaken as stopping herself from crying. Of course, she thought. Naturally he would have some phrases worked out to say if one of his previous conquests accosted him. Presumably he'd simply tapped into those, since the current scenario had taken him by surprise. And since he didn't know about her subsequent tailspin, he had no idea what she was really accusing him of - but Rachel did.

"Well..." Quinn eventually looked over at Rachel, who was looking at her with extreme concern. "I was very mixed up, I really didn't know what I wanted," she said finally. This has the benefit of being true, for that time.

"I, uh... yes." Brody stopped and looked at Rachel, who was avoiding his gaze to focus on Quinn. "Well, under the circumstances... I should leave you to your weekend. Enjoy New York, greatest city on Earth."

"You said that before," Quinn said softly, needling him a little.

"Right. It still is. I'll see you around, Rachel. And Quinn, all the best. You look like you're doing great." With that, Brody turned and walked away.

Is he playing along or has he started to believe it himself? Quinn wondered. I suppose it doesn't matter. "Same here," she called after him as he walked away. Hey douchebag, she thought as she eyed Brody's retreating form. Stay away from my friends.

Quinn turned to Rachel with a smile. "So, I can't believe you know Brody Parker," she said. "And they say New York is so big."

"Parker? Um, what?" Rachel blinked, suddenly stunned even more. "It's Weston," she whispered. "Uh, Brody Weston," she said, more loudly.

Quinn widened her eyes. "Really?" She giggled self-consciously. "I'm sure he told me Parker, before. Oh well, what could I expect, I suppose." She shrugged, pleased at how well her little suggestions were being picked up on. She and Jesse had decided the first name was rare enough to confirm that she remembered the guy, since Rachel hadn't mentioned his name to her; getting the last name that badly wrong could only be because he'd lied to her, or at least that was what they wanted Rachel to think. Quinn's memory was far too good for it to be a mistake on her part, and she knew Rachel knew that. She turned back to the other girl. "Oh, I am so sorry," she said sincerely, and this part wasn't an act. "I know he's your friend."

"Almost the only person at NYADA who was nice to me, at least at the start," Rachel said sadly. "I suppose it was too good to be true."

Quinn simply looked at her, carefully assessing what Rachel was thinking about what had just happened. Rachel seemed to have fallen completely for Quinn's story and what Quinn wanted her to think; though the whole thing was a lie, it was a lie that told the truth about the sort of person Brody was. Surely there were other, better, people at NYADA for Rachel to be around. She just needed a confidence boost. Soon Rachel spoke again.

"Quinn... I know what people are probably saying, that I broke up with Finn because of Brody, but please believe me that nothing could be farther from the truth," Rachel said. She bit her lip, and Quinn nodded noncommitally, encouraging her to continue. "Finn may think that, even though I told him otherwise, and Brody certainly seemed to think that, but it's wrong." She sat heavily. "Finn refuses to be in New York with me, he refuses to let me be anywhere else with him, he didn't contact me at all for four months after putting me on that train so suddenly, when we had a problem to work out he left in the middle of the night – I love him so much, and I know he's lost and hurting, it kills me that I can't help him, but we can't have a relationship like that. I can't help him or be with him if he runs away and won't even talk to me." She sighed. "All I did was put a name on it."

"And Brody?"

"He's here, he's been so attentive, I won't deny that it feels good to be wanted..."

Puck was good at that too, Quinn mused. Swooping in on the underappreciated, making you feel good. But sometimes the target is you.

"But I love Finn. I know he'll find his way, I just have to trust to that. And Brody, well –" she blushed, looking sheepish. "It's exciting to be pursued, and it made me feel special, but I guess he's good at doing that sort of thing. Pursuing." Quinn nodded. "So, not so special after all, I suppose. And obviously I don't know him very well. I thought I might like to, but..." she sighed again, and suddenly stood and hugged Quinn. "I was so lonely. And I'm so sorry, for what happened when you met him before, and for you having to face him again now, I know you say you're over it but still."

"New York isn't what we thought it would be, is it?" Quinn responded, wanting to avoid elaborating on the lie.

Rachel gave her a sad smile. "I know." She sighed. "I thought it was going to be so different, like somehow I would magically fit in, find people like me, be encouraged..." She paused, looking at Quinn, her demeanor starting to brighten a little. "I'm so glad you came to visit."

"So am I," Quinn said sincerely. She cleared her throat. "Now let's go out and have some fun, show the Big Apple we can take it on," she said. "And when we get the attention we deserve, all we need to do is soak it up." A little of her old head Cheerio attitude would be useful here, she decided. Rachel needed to understand that she was entitled to have others pay attention to her, instead of getting sucked in by some man just because he did.

Rachel nodded with a smile, and the two girls walked down the street together.

Later, when Quinn had a free moment alone, she sent a text to Jesse: Mission accomplished.

.

END


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