Drama Queen

"Okay, guys, who wants to go first?" Mr. Schuester asked the assembled glee club Wednesday afternoon. Predictably, Rachel's hand shot up. Completely unexpectedly, Quinn's did too. Will's eyes widened, and he smiled. "Quinn, let's hear your song."

Rachel's head jerked around in surprise as she watched Quinn glide down the risers with a sway and a saucy grin. Kurt settled back in his seat, preparing himself for whatever she had in store. He hadn't really had a chance to fully organize with his fellow co-conspirators yet, but the little scene at lunch yesterday had seemed promising, and Rachel had been in a particularly good mood today, apparently having avoided breaking out her slushie emergency kit for two days running. Although today's pink and green plaid disaster could really have benefited from a dousing.

Quinn passed out her sheet music to the band, then sauntered back to the center of the room. She didn't offer any preface or explanation, but then she didn't really need to. The instant she opened her mouth to sing, it became all too clear.

"You're such a drama queen.
You always make a big scene.
You never get what I mean.
It's just all about how you're feeling."

The band joined in with an unmistakable Ska flavor and the trumpet riff wailed over a bouncy, upbeat rhythm as Quinn danced over and pointed at Rachel.

"You're such a drama queen.
You always come off kinda mean.
You always gotta to intervene.
It's just all about how you're feeling."

Quinn spun away, tucking her hands behind her back and swaying her hips as she rapidly fired off the lyrics.

"Someone asks you to consider
but you don't give them a chance.
You just want to get your point across
and make 'em feel bad.
I'm asking you to step back
and take a look around.
Cause all your negativity is bringing us down.
Make it seem like we're in battle
and we wanna see you fail.
We just wanna move together
we just want to move ahead.
Do you think that everything you say
will simply be forgotten?
We think that everything you said
would make us feel so rotten.
Drama queen…"

Objectively, Kurt had to admit the song was kind of catchy, and Quinn had picked a style of music that was completely out of her comfort zone, effectively completing the assignment Mr. Schue had given. Four months ago, he might have been laughing and thinking that someone had obviously written this song with Rachel in mind, but now he was just feeling really uncomfortable and horribly guilty.

He chanced a look at Rachel, and saw her sitting perfectly still with head down and eyes fastened unmoving to the floor. Finn sat next to her staring stupidly at Quinn, not even making a move to comfort his girlfriend. Idiot. Glancing around the rest of the room proved that no one really knew how to react to Quinn's performance. With the exception of Brittany, who seemed content to bop along to anything, they were all shifting around uncomfortably, clearly trying to avoid looking at Rachel. Santana had her arms crossed, shaking her head in disbelief at Quinn's performance, and Puck just looked pissed. Yes, they had all thought those things about Rachel—and even voiced them from time to time—but never in such a premeditated, drawn out, humiliating way. He was suddenly rethinking the wisdom of the whole Quinn-Rachel thing.

"Don't wanna understand your view, oh no.
Not gonna understand your view, oh no.
Overreaction ain't the thing to do.
You have to realize that we're fed up with you.
You're such a drama queen..."

When the song finally came to an end, Brittany was the only one to clap. Mr. Schue just stood there with his mouth open like a useless buffoon, so nothing new on that front, and everyone else was frozen in place. Rachel choked back a single sob before she rushed out of the room. Kurt stared after her, his stomach twisting in sympathy for his new friend. Strangely enough, (or maybe not so much) he noticed that the first one of them to move at all was Quinn. She took two steps toward the door, almost like she was about to follow Rachel, before she stopped, wrapping her arms around her stomach and looking suddenly ashamed of herself as she stood chewing guiltily on her lower lip.

Mercedes kicked the back of Finn's chair. "Go after her, stupid." He lurched forward with a jerky nod and glared at Quinn as he walked past her. Kurt only hoped that his dopey stepbrother wouldn't make Rachel feel even worse, like he tended to do on most occasions. He considered following them both and making sure Rachel really was alright, but Mr. Schue finally woke up from his inaction (really, he couldn't have cut Quinn off after the first chorus?) and decided to act like a teacher.

"Quinn, that was completely inappropriate. I told you to stop with the negativity and you still intentionally picked a song that you knew would hurt Rachel's feelings. You need to go apologize to her."

She huffed out a breath, lifting her head in defiance. "But…"

"Now, Quinn," he ordered, pointing at the door. "I don't want you to come back into this choir room until you've worked it out."

"Then I guess I won't be back," she shouted at him, stalking over to her chair and grabbing her bag before disappearing out the door.

"Ah, I think I should probably," Sam trailed off, gesturing after her girlfriend.

Mr. Schue sighed, "Go ahead."

•••

Fifteen minutes later, neither of the couples had returned to the choir room. Artie had hesitantly volunteered to perform his song, a fun version of "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" by Stevie Wonder, obviously dedicated to Brittany, and the mood of the remaining kids had lifted for a few minutes, only to crash again when the music ended and no one else wanted to sing. Mr. Schue dismissed them with a frustrated sigh, instructing them to be ready with their songs at the next meeting. Puck volunteered to give Artie a ride home, and Mike tagged along after them.

Kurt remained sitting next to Mercedes. "Well that was just awkward," he complained, brushing an errant hair back from his forehead.

The girl heaved a sigh and nodded. "Yeah, I'm starting to think you're right. We need do something drastic or Quinn's gonna rip Rachel to shreds and glee club will be done for good."

"Of course I …" Kurt stopped, realization dawning, and he turned his head to his left. "Ah, Tina? Don't you have somewhere to be?" he asked the Asian girl who was still perched on her chair and staring off into the empty space in front of her.

"Quinn likes Rachel, doesn't she?" she blurted out, finally looking over to Kurt. "Like…in a gay way."

"Duh!" Santana snorted from behind them.

"When did you figure it out?" Kurt asked Tina, genuinely curious now that yet another person had clued into the tension without any prompting from him.

"Yesterday in American Lit. Quinn spent half the class staring at Rachel and freaking out because she was sitting with Santana," the girl disclosed.

Kurt glanced back to cheerleader with brows raised. "You sat with Rachel again?"

"Willingly?"

"Mercedes, please," Kurt admonished with a frown.

She shrugged. "Sorry. I'm trying, but you know what they say about old habits."

"The nuns totally sleep in them," Brittany chimed in.

Santana leaned forward, hands braced against the back of Kurt's chair. "First thing you bitches need to realize is that Fabray is a total control freak. Worse than Berry. Mess with her perfect, little, neat and orderly world and she goes crazy. Me being nice to Mini Mouth, that's gonna fuck with her judgment—case in point, that over the top serenade we all had to suffer through," she reminded them with sarcasm. "She busted my ass in practice yesterday, too. She can't decide whether to be jealous or scared shitless that I'm gonna out her dirty little secret, and she's taking it out on Berry like she always does. It's funny as hell any way you cut it," she finished with a self-satisfied smirk and sat back in her seat.

Kurt narrowed his eyes. "We're not doing this for your personal amusement Santana. If that's why you agreed…"

"It's not, okay."

"Well, you certainly aren't doing it out of the goodness of your heart."

"Yeah, 'cause you don't have one," Mercedes needled.

"Yes, she does," Brittany defended, then looked over at Santana with a sad, little pout. "She's just really good at ignoring it."

Santana looked away, her face hard. "Look, I have my reasons for helping. That's all you need to know."

"Wait. Helping with what?" Tina asked, looking lost by the whole conversation.

Kurt flashed her his biggest smile. "Operation Cupid, of course." Because Quinn's little show of guilt, however small, added to what Tina and Santana had just told him were enough to recommit him to his prior course of action. He was convinced that Quinn just needed a big old push out of the closet to cure at least half of her anger issues. It was obvious that she was more passionate about Rachel than anything else in her life. She just didn't know how to express it properly.

"That's the lamest name ever," Santana mocked.

"We should call it Kitty." When they all turned to look at Brittany in confusion, she rolled her eyes. "You know, because Quinn wants to pet Rachel's pus…"

Santana quickly moved to slap her hand over Brittany's mouth, "Don't say it. I don't need that visual, B."

"Too late. Ew," Mercedes said with a shudder that Kurt wholeheartedly agreed with.

"We get it," he told Brittany as Santana released her.

"So you guys want to get them together? As in together together?" Tina clarified.

"Exactly," he said.

"You're all crazy," she accused.

"Like a fox," Kurt insisted.

"No, like a gay shark," Brittany corrected happily.

"Look, Tina, we're doing this with or without your help. You may choose to not participate, we only ask that you don't interfere."

Tina pressed her palms over her knees, tapping her fingers thoughtfully. "Okay, assuming we're actually right about Quinn's feelings, that doesn't change the fact that Rachel likes boys," she pointed out, much to Kurt's annoyance. She was totally bursting his little, gay bubble.

"Rachel's totally bilingual."

Mercedes choked out, "What?"

Santana bit her lip thoughtfully. "I think you mean bisexual, Brit."

"That too," she nodded.

"What makes you think that?" Tina asked skeptically.

"She told me."

"She did," Kurt squeaked excitedly.

"No way," Mercedes insisted.

"When did she tell you that?" he pushed, wanting his own suspicions about Rachel validated without actually having to broach the subject with the girl. They may be friends now, but he wasn't quite ready to hear all the details of her sexual fantasies. Listening to her go on about Finn was almost bearable—Kurt was attracted to boys after all—but he did not need to know which girls at McKinley got Rachel's motor humming.

"I'm not supposed to say," Brittany hedged.

"Uh, B, you kind of just did," Santana informed her gently.

"Besides, for this plan to work, we need full disclosure."

Brittany's head tilted, and she looked at Kurt like he was dense. "Well, yeah. How are they supposed to have sex if they don't take their clothes off?"

He shook his head. "Never mind that. You need to tell us everything."

She looked at Santana uncertainly, and when the girl nodded back, Brittany took a breath and started talking. "Well, I just felt really bad when Finn broke up with her at Christmas, because it's supposed to be a happy time and Rachel was so sad. I wanted to make her feel better, so I went to her house with the fruit cake that Aunt Hilda always gives us that we end up throwing away 'cause it's super gross, and we hung out for a little while. I told her there were other dolphins in the lake. Like how I found Artie after…" she snapped her mouth closed and glanced at Santana again with eyes full of hurt. When the other girl looked away, Brittany faced forward again.

"Anyway, we just started talking about lady kisses and she admitted that she was curious if it was the same as kissing guys—it totally isn't. I asked her if she wanted to make out with me, because, you know, she's still on my to do list, but she said kissing just got her into trouble and she didn't want Finn or," she paused again, eyes darting back to Santana, "anyone else to find out and get mad."

"Ah, Brittany," Mercedes said gently, reaching out to pat the girl's knee reassuringly, "I think maybe Rachel was just letting you down easy."

Brittany shook her head in denial. "No, she was totally interested. I can always tell. She was really touchy and was doing this thing with her thumb on the back of my hand." She demonstrated with her own thumb, and grinned endearingly. "It felt really good. Plus, she always checks out my legs when we're changing for glee numbers. And Quinn's ass," she added after a beat. "Oh, and Santana's boobs, too."

Santana jerked straight up in her seat, scowling. "What? I kill the little perv."

Mercedes waved her hand dismissively. "Please, girl, she's probably just worried they're gonna spring a leak and drown us all."

Santana was lunging forward in a heartbeat, stopped only by Brittany's quick reflexes and strong grip around her waist. "I swear to God I'm gonna put your tater tot loving ass on the floor," she screamed as Kurt and Tina both moved to help hold her back.

"Stop it, Santana," Brittany said sharply, surprising them all with her authoritative tone, and all the fight seemed to go out of her counterpart.

Kurt straightened and fussed with his hair. He hated physical confrontations. "Ladies, can we please get back on track? We have been given important information that seems to support Rachel's potential reciprocation of Quinn's attraction. We need to get down to business. Tina, in or out?" he demanded.

She glanced around at them all, then sighed in resignation. "In."

"Wonderful," he clapped. "Let's formulate a plan of action, shall we?"

"Wait," Tina interrupted again, and Kurt sagged in annoyance. "Quinn kind of just humiliated Rachel via song in front of the entire glee club. I really don't think she's just going to get over that anytime soon.

"Leave Rachel to me," Kurt said. "If there's one thing I've learned, it's that she's very forgiving."

"Too forgiving sometimes," Mercedes agreed guiltily.

"Yes, well, I believe that if we can get Quinn to apologize…"

Santana snorted, "Good luck with that."

"I'll talk to Quinn," Mercedes volunteered. "I need to anyway. I kind of called her out on Monday and I think I might have made things worse. I mean, if she's really this messed up about liking girls, she's gonna need her friends to support her. Right?"

Kurt smiled and hugged his best friend. "You are amazing."

"God, would you two turn off the sap fest? You're making me nauseous."

He scowled at Santana. "You are a very bitter girl, Santana Lopez."

"Actually, she's kind of salty," Brittany told them.

Santana buried her head in her hands, mumbling "Ay, dios mio. Por favor, máteme ahora."

"That can be arranged," Kurt informed her, only to met with a one finger salute, but he hardly cared. He was too busy plotting ways to turn Quinn's repression into positive energy.

After their strategy session ended, Kurt texted Rachel to make sure that she was okay—not trusting Finn to have adequately taken care of her. When she failed to respond promptly, he tried Finn instead, thinking they were together somewhere, but the response was not encouraging. His stepbrother was apparently already home playing with his Xbox because Rachel told him she wanted to be alone. That boy just didn't understand his girlfriend at all.

Kurt drove over to the Berry house, after a minor detour, and rang the bell, waiting through the chimes until the door swung open to reveal a tall, black man with a warm smile. "Good afternoon, Mr. Berry."

"Kurt, I've told you call me Leroy," he admonished, even as he guided Kurt inside and took his coat.

One of the nicest surprises to come from his new friendship with Rachel was the introduction of her fathers into his life. While having Blaine to talk to and confide in had helped immensely, they were still contemporaries both struggling to make their own way in the world. Leroy and Hiram Berry had already triumphed over high school hell, colleges, graduate school (Leroy) and medical school (Hiram,) gay marriage and raising a child together in this homophobic little town. They were proving to be amazing role models (even if Hiram was a little high strung and Leroy spoiled his daughter rotten.)

"Sorry, Leroy. Is Rachel home?"

"She's been up in her room since Finn dropped her off," and the inflection spoke volumes about Leroy Berry's opinion of his daughter's boyfriend. "Did something bad happen at school?" The again was left unsaid, and Kurt felt his stomach churning for the second time today.

"You know my policy on disclosure," Kurt reminded the man. Rachel didn't want her dads to know every little detail of the bad things that were so often said or done to her. She told them about the incidents that really mattered, but she preferred not to worry them over what she deemed 'minor character building tribulations.' Kurt couldn't help but respect that.

Leroy sighed in defeat, knowing he'd have to wait for his daughter to confide in him when she was ready. "Go ahead upstairs. Maybe you can cheer her up."

"I intend to," he promised with a smile; a smile that quickly fell when he reached Rachel's door and heard Daniel Powter whining 'you had a bad day.' Ugh, she could have at least picked a better soundtrack. He raised his fist and gave two quick raps on the door before he twisted the knob and walked in without waiting for an invitation.

Rachel was sprawled face down across the bed, clad in baggy sweat pants and a hoodie with left arm dangling over the edge. "I'm not hungry, daddy," she mumbled into the mattress.

Kurt hit the power button on her iHome to silence that god awful song. "And I'm not your daddy, sweetie."

Rachel shot up into a sitting position so fast it was almost comical, rubbing her tear streaked cheeks before self consciously attempting to straighten her rumpled hair. "Kurt, what are you doing here?"

He raised a brow, thinking that was fairly obvious, and wordlessly held up a bag from Andersons Market. Rachel's face lit up as she scurried off the bed.

"You didn't?"

Grinning cockily, he reached in and dramatically revealed the container of Peanut Butter Zig Zag. "I did."

Rachel squealed happily and bounced over to him, pulling into an enthusiastic one armed hug while simultaneously snatching the pint of her favorite dairy free ice cream right out of his hand. "You are amazing."

"I've only been telling you this for years," he joked, and she grinned back at him gratefully. Kurt held up the two spoons he'd stolen from her kitchen before heading up the stairs. "And you will be sharing that, Rachel Berry."

"Of course," she promised, accepting the offered utensil and then, after a moment of uncertain hesitation, kissing him swiftly on his cheek. "Thank you."

The two dug into the frozen treat, humming in appreciation at the first taste. Kurt had been astounded the first time he'd tried the vegan friendly soy based ice cream, certain that there was no way it could actually be as good as the 'real thing,' but he'd been so wrong. A few minutes passed in comfortable silence while they ate, until Rachel's spoon stilled, and she asked him in a small, shaky voice, "Am I…am I really that bad?"

Kurt gently pried the spoon and pint out of her hands and set them on her night stand, then took her hand with one of his as he used the other to tenderly lift her chin until he could look into her eyes. "No, sweetie, you're really not. Quinn was just trying to hurt you to build herself up. She's afraid…"

A choked little half laugh, half sob escaped, and she shook her head in denial. "No, she isn't. She was only saying what everyone thinks."

"That's not true." She pierced him with an incredulous look, and he sheepishly amended, "okay, maybe it's true sometimes," and pain flashed in her eyes before she closed them and attempted to pull away. "But that's not who you are all the time," he insisted, holding fast to her hand. "Rachel 'Gold Star' Berry may be insufferable on occasion, but you, Rachel Barbra, are so much more than your ego. True, the ego does tend to overshadow the sweet, intelligent girl underneath, but I am truly grateful that I am getting to see who you are when you're not greedy for applause. Because, sweetie, you're amazing."

A tear slid down Rachel's cheek before she pulled him into a hug. "You're a really good friend, Kurt," she told him quietly.

"I know I am." He rubbed her back supportively, then pulled away, placing his hands on her shoulders and staring intently into her eyes. "Now, let's get down to business. We have a lot to accomplish before tomorrow morning."

"What are you talking about?" she asked with an adorably confused expression.

Sly grin curling his lips, Kurt teased, "You'll see."


Ah, dios mio. Por favor, máteme ahora. - Oh my God. Please kill me now.

Song:
"Drama Queen," by The Afterbeat (2005)


A/N: Typically, I dislike using song lyrics, but I try to only do it when I think they're moving the plot along. You probably don't like Quinn much right now, but musical warfare is something that Rachel can respect. I'm thinking 'Gives You Hell' wasn't exactly pleasant for Finn (although he certainly deserved it.) Things will start picking up from here, I think. A little more pleasing to go with the teasing.

As always, thanks for the reviews - they always make me smile.