No matter what Santana says, Quinn doesn't hate straight people.
Really, she has no problem with them, except the bible-waving, lynching lunatics, who stand outside her apartment five times a week, or the ones at school whom shout dyke at her, or that one barista at Lima Bean who overcharges her every single time.
And anyway, one of her best friends is straight, and okay, she can only take so much of Mercedes in one go, but that's only because 'Cedes has a tendency to ramble about her boyfriend, and in those moments, it doesn't matter how much Quinn likes Anthony, she does not care about how perfect his lips are.
Okay, so maybe the straights irritate her more than, say, gay or bi or any other kind of queer folks, but that can also be because she only knows four or five, not counting herself, and they are all amazing.
And when she mentions it to the others during their little weekly gay-meeting at the Bean, Kurt gets this crazy look in his eye that she absolutely hates, and the next thing Quinn knows is that she's in the choir room after a grueling Cheerios practice, putting up a banner that says "Gay-Straight Alliance!" with her little merry band of gays and most of – what she assumes is – the Glee club. There are a few of the Cheerios in the room, which spikes her curiosity. She also spies a few underclassmen too, and she's actually surprised by the number of the group, because it's close to thirty and they are still in the last circle of hell, Ohio.
When she sees the devil himself, she almost falls off of the ladder she's standing on, and Sam has to stabilize, then hold back her.
By the time Santana and her pin up the banner in a way that Kurt and his freakishly loud, but cute friend are satisfied with, ten different kinds of food have arrived, and she doesn't even know what to start with. She settles on a questionably looking pizza and plops down between Sam and Santana, resting her head on the latter's shoulder, while popping up her leg on the former's chair. Santana's breadstick crumbs somehow fall on her head every ten seconds and Sam somehow kicks his legs against hers at least ten times, but she's surprisingly content just sitting there, listening to others' chatter around her. She can feel her eyes close, and she doesn't stop it.
A throat was cleared, and she snaps out of her pizza-induced coma-like state, and Kurt and the short brunette from earlier stand in front of the piano. She expects Kurt to be the first one who talks, but she's pleasantly surprised when the girl takes the lead with a blinding smile while bouncing on the balls of her feet.
"Good afternoon, I'd like to welcome everyone to the first McKinley Gay-Straight Alliance meeting! Hope everyone's day went swimmingly. Kurt and I thought that for the first-ever meeting, we could all get acquainted with each other. Nothing fancy, just our name, and if you feel comfortable, your sexuality and pronouns. I would also like to say, that everything that we say in this room is confidential, and if something somehow gets out, we'll make sure the culprit gets their rightful punishment. If you let me, I'll start. My name is Rachel Berry, and I identify as bisexual."
Quinn's not sure the girl took a breath during the whole speech, but when she's done after rambling about bisexuality, she sits down on a chair next to Finn, her archnemesis. She feels like the boy's only here to taunt her, but he hasn't even looked at her yet. If he values his life, he won't, but she knows how dumb that boy is, and waits for the Inevitable.
She absent-mindedly listens to the others introduce themselves. She's slightly surprised when Madison, a freshman Cheerio, introduces herself and says that she thinks she might be a lesbian, and actually surprised when the she-devil known as Kitty, the next in line to be Head Cheerio introduces herself as pansexual.
She wonders if Coach Sylvester has some kind of super-gaydar and only recruits people who are part of the community. There's an image in her brain about how it may be the crazy coach's plan to world domination and a better, gayer society, but it cuts short when she hears Sam introduce himself, trying to explain what pansexuality means and failing spectacularly when someone asks for the tenth time if Sam's just confused. She's not surprised that it's Finn fucking Hudson who can't wrap his head around it. Sam just gives up, sitting down with a loud sigh.
She glares at Finn for a good ten seconds before she even attempts to talk, and the awkwardness that radiates from him tastes like sweet victory. She doesn't even bother standing up like the rest of them before she makes the small introduction in the most bored voice she can muster.
"Hi, I'm Quinn, and thanks to that idiot giant over there, everyone knows that I'm gay."
Finn frowns at her, and when he opens his mouth to probably defend his actions with his usual "I wasn't thinking when I said that, you shouldn't hold that against me!" Santana's booming voice takes over.
When she sees Rachel visibly stiffen as she realizes that her probably-boyfriend outed one of his peers she feels bad for half a second for Hudson before a sudden glee overtakes her. She doesn't know Rachel at all, have never even seen her before today, but Quinn has a feeling that the girl will give the idiot a piece of her mind, probably complete with a fucking PowerPoint presentation and call it a day.
When the last person, a guy from the football team introduces himself, Kurt asks everyone to put their hands up in the air if there's anything they want to talk about. Madison is the only one who does so, and Santana pushed her off her shoulder. The other girl thinks that she's like, a lesbian Jesus in Lima, so she gives the girl her undivided attention, leaving Quinn frowning and without a pillow.
If she were a better person, she'd pay attention to what the younger girl is saying, but as it is, she just smirks at her best friend, who's trying to give some kind of advice about dating and parents. After that, since no one else wanted to talk about anything, they decided to end the meeting earlier today, and Santana's glad, because that means she can actually go home and properly shower before she has to get to her job.
As she goes out of the room, elbows locked with Santana, she feels a looming presence behind them, and before she knows it Finn starts to walk alongside her. It triggers her flight or fight response so badly, but she just closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and stops. She spots Sam out of the corner of her eyes, probably ready to tackle Finn if it all comes down to it, and she's never been happier for that he's part of their little rainbow-squad
Quinn opens her mouth, ready to just send him away, out of her sight -
"When are you going to let it go? It's been two years, aren't you over the whole thing?"
Okay, it actually starts out way worse than she anticipated. She thought maybe he would ease her into it, asking her how her day's been, chatting her up before being a fucking asshole. Not that she'd be responsive to that either, but the lack of tact is truly astonishing, even to Santana who's known to have zero filters.
"I'm not over it, and I'm not letting it go. Is that all? Because unlike you, I actually want to get out of this hellhole and to do that I have somewhere I need to be." She hoped to entice an insult, anything, but instead he just straight up glares at her, huffs, and turns on his heels. "Okay, good talk, Hudson!" she yells after him.
Well then. She has better things to do, anyways.
After a soul-snatching, harrowing shift at Breadsticks, she finally stumbles through her front door at quarter to twelve. It's not even that her shift was that long, but between all the extracurricular activities she does she tires out easily. She's ready to fucking perish from her miserable existence, and as soon as her head hits the pillow, she's out like a light.
The next day she wants to cry when she's rudely awakened by her alarm. She doesn't, she just throws it against her dresser and almost goes back to sleep. While she adores Sam and she's grateful that she doesn't have to bear the burden of teenage homelessness alone, he always makes sure she gets up before Coach Sylvester skins her alive. It's nice of him, but not when the only thing she craves is just five-more-minutes.
Which makes her feel so damn appreciated at fucking five am, thank you very much.
Sue sees her state of miserableness, and instead of making her do whatever hellish exercise she had planned, she lets Quinn sleep on the couch in her office. It's comforting to know that she has at least one adult in her corner.
When she wakes up it's already halfway through her homeroom. Sue has already written a permission slip for her, and when she stumbles in half-awake, her teacher sends her a somewhat sympathetic look, given that she just had a tango with the devil.
The rest of her day goes by surprisingly fast, and when she's at her locker after her last class she hears a large splash and the laughter accompanying it. Her curious eyes land on the red, drenched figure. She instantly recognizes Rachel, and takes the girl to the nearest bathroom, ordering a bunch of underclassmen to leave with only a well-practiced glare.
It feels good to be feared, in situations like this.
She observes the girl in front of her, taking in the damage. Her skirt may be salvageable, but the sweater is beyond repair. She leads Rachel to the sink, grabbing a paper towel. She's not sure that Rachel would be appreciative of a stranger rubbing her face, so Quinn just hands it to her.
"Do you have a change of clothes?" she asks softly, not entirely sure why she's being this nice to the girlfriend of the guy who turned her life for the worse. Rachel's either too embarrassed to talk, or just still in shock over being slushied, so she just shakes her head. "Okay. Would you, um, feel comfortable in one of my sweatshirts? Or should I just, I don't know, find Kurt? I'm sure he has something that would fit you. Or maybe one of the girls from glee club is still around and I can –"
"Your sweatshirt is fine, Quinn." and okay, she may actually die from the small smile Rachel sends her way. It's not fair, for someone to have a smile that heart-stopping.
"Okay, cool. I'll be back in a second." and with that she takes off, going back to her locker, taking unnecessarily long because, for all she tries, she just can't get her hands to stop trembling long enough to put in her locker combination.
She's not totally stupid. She knows that she's attracted to Rachel, knows that it could develop into a full-blown crush if she's not careful enough. It's unnerving because she hasn't really been into anyone since her brief crush on Santana in seventh grade, so she chooses to ignore whatever small fluttering her cold, dead heart feels, and grabs her favorite shirt, because it's the fluffiest, warmest, comfiest one she owns, and Rachel would surely feel better in it.
When she gets back, she knocks, and after a muffled come in, she opens the door.
She wasn't expecting a shirtless Rachel Berry, and after a squeak, she throws the piece of clothing at her before abruptly turning around. Rachel, bless her heart, fucking cackles at her, and even though Quinn's blushing furiously, she's proud of herself for making her laugh.
One small step for humanity, one huge step for the sapphics.
"You can look now." Rachel says, her voice teasing and when Quinn turns around her heart starts to melt. The brunette isn't that much smaller than Quinn herself, but the sweatshirt somehow looks ridiculously large on her. Her hands are fully covered, the neckline isn't anywhere near where it's supposed to be, and her skirt is virtually unnoticeable. It's the cutest sight she's ever seen, and Quinn once saw a video of two baby pandas play fighting.
"Sorry that it's a little big, but you're ridiculously tiny." she offers a smile. Rachel glares at her. It doesn't have the same effect it'd have under normal conditions, so she coos at her, deciding to rile up the brunette a little more. "Are you all cleaned up?"
"Sans for my hair I think so. But I'll just wash it out when I get home. Does this happen often?"
Quinn winces because while she's not ordering slushies left and right anymore, once upon a time she was responsible for the gallons of sticky liquid being poured over unsuspecting freshman.
"Yeah, it's pretty common, but nowadays it's been actually better." for good measure she adds a small eye-roll and a shrug.
"What happened between you and Finn?" she asks in a soft, caring tone that has an underlying curiosity in it.
"You remember yesterday when I said that he outed me?" Rachel hesitates for a moment before she nods. "Honestly, that's it."
"How did he do it, if I may ask?" this girl could ask anything anytime, and Quinn would willingly tell her everything, at this point.
"God, I don't even know. We just had a fight at my house, and the next thing I know is him telling my father."
The word dyke has never been a favorite of hers, but when it came out of Finn's mouth it hurt more than anything. Well, at least at that point in her life, because her father did try to exorcise her a few days later, with everyone in her family watching on. That hurt more than Finn's spiteful dyke.
"I'm really sorry that you had to go through that. No one deserves to be outed."
"It's okay, I just really thought that we were friends, y'know?" and she really did. Finn and her have been best friends for a few years at that point, only second to her friendship with Santana. When she confided in him, he hugged her, told her it was okay. She guesses it wasn't. "Whatever. Do you want me to walk you home?"
"No, it's okay. I have a car. Do you need a ride?" ah, the choice of a lifetime. Ask the pretty girl to drive her home to her awful, crappy apartment, or walk the thirty-minute distance while she curses Sam for taking the car to fucking Westerville to see his boyfriend?
She chooses the latter, obviously. The whole walk she beats herself up, because she just flirted with Finn's probably girlfriend, and she absolutely wants nothing to do with him.
The next day she still puts on a ban on slushing Rachel, and when she sees one of the football players almost ignoring her orders she siccs Sam on him. It works, because while Sam isn't the biggest guy around he can be intimidating. Or at least to people who haven't seen him dance around in his Spiderman underwear at five am after a night of underage drinking.
During lunch, she usually sits with her best gays and their token straight friend. Now, when some of the GSA members linger around their table with longing glances, she locks eyes with Santana and Sam, and with a nod, they invite them. Their little table now consists of Unique, a trans girl who isn't out yet, Marley, a girl who's still questioning her sexuality and she thinks that she may be bi, Noah Puckerman's brother, who says that he's only here as emotional support to Marley but glances at Sam every few seconds, and Madison, the cheerio from the meeting. The only people whose missing is Kurt and Mercedes, but they texted them something about an emergency glee meeting, feathers, boas, and wings.
Quinn is too afraid to ask them about glee ninety percent of the time, and it's no different.
They join them halfway through lunch with Rachel in-tow. The fact that Rachel has her sweatshirt on makes her heart flutter, her head confused and her stomach turned.
She doesn't look at Rachel the whole time, doesn't even engage in conversations that she starts. Maybe she wasn't as mature as she thought she was. Sam and Mercedes notice, of course, and she's happy that Kurt is oblivious to it because while the other two know to leave her alone, Kurt would pester her to either his or her death.
Rachel sends her confused glances during the whole day, and when she approaches Quinn at her locker after classes, she tenses. It's never a good sign, she knows it by now, so she tries to relax, starting with moving her shoulder just the tiniest.
"Okay, what's with you? You were perfectly fine with me yesterday, and now you won't even look at me?" the smaller girl's voice gets almost shrill by the end.
"Nothing is –"
"Oh, don't give me that." Rachel cuts in and rolls her eyes.
"Look, I don't know what you want me to say. I saw you get slushied, I felt sorry so I helped." her tone may have been cold and menacing, but she swears that It wasn't voluntary.
Rachel purses her lips "Are you sure that that's it? Because to me, it felt like -"
"Look, whatever you felt like is irrelevant. I know that you and Finn are a thing or whatever, and I don't feel comfortable around you while you're together."
Rachel looks confused at the mention of her relationship with Finn and doesn't say anything for a few seconds. Quinn takes it as the end of the conversation, so she slams her locker shut. It seems to snap the smaller girl out of whatever trance she's in.
"I'm not with him."
"Oh?" she really, really tried to keep the hopeful smile off of her face, but she can't. It's coming out in full force.
"I…We were almost together, but then the GSA meeting happened and I don't associate with homophobes"
"Oh. I'm sorry."
"I can tell that you're not." a small smile dances on Rachel's lips "I'm not either." she adds, almost as an afterthought.
"Now that I understand your reluctance to spend time with me," Rachel smirks, actually smirks, and it looks so good on her that Quinn wants to cry "what do you say we hang out after school?"
"Believe me, I want to, but I have to work tonight."
"Then tomorrow? After GSA?"
"Work again. I'm free on Friday though, if the offer still stands?"
"Friday night it is." and then, she rises on her tip-toes and kisses her on the cheek. "See you tomorrow." and with that, Rachel walks, no, more like skips away and Quinn can't help the dopey smile on her face as she watches the tiny diva.
"What was that?" and she jumps out of her own skin, shrieking. She spins around and slaps Sam on the arm lightly.
"First of all, fuck you for that. Second, I think I have a date?"
"You think?" Sam pokes her stomach.
"I don't know. I mean, we didn't say that it's a date but she kissed me on the cheek, and isn't that something people do when they like you?" Quinn pokes back.
"I mean, you kiss me all the time." Another poke.
"No, I don't. And it was a different kiss." as he tries to poke again, Quinn grabs his finger, glaring at him.
"Yeah, you do. See?" and presses his face to the girl's lips, like a mad man. Quinn just gives it a big lick, even though Sam just had a gym class and is all sweaty, and he just jumps away with a look of disgust. "God, I have your drool all over me now. Thanks."
"You were the one who pressed your face into my face!" Sam just rolled his eyes. "And really, she asked me to hang out, and then kissed me. It's a date."
"Whatever you say, Fabray."