For the first time in years, Rachel was reluctant to leave the warmth of her bed and face the day. Too much of the night before had replayed in her dreams, images of the pink haired girl beckoned, teased, flirted, demanded "Kiss. Me. Again." and Rachel, scrambling to obey, would lunge forward, only to find that Quinn, like a mirage, melted into vapour between her fingers. It was infuriating, this constant chase which led to nothing.
As soon as she awoke, Rachel wished she hadn't, but the alarm clock, screeching in her ear, didn't allow her the luxury of falling back asleep. So she arose, but slowly, with dread increasing at every moment; she was so struck by this want to stay home that she even missed her morning session on the elliptical; she had taken one look at the machine, groaned, and sat down on the edge of her bed instead. She hadn't missed a morning work out in four years.
This wasn't normal for Rachel; even at the worst of times, through a myriad of personal dramas, she had always found the will to continue with her life as she always did. Perseverance was what Rachel Berry was good at. But last night, Quinn, and the kiss she hadn't wanted to end had thrown her, as if it had all jolted her so badly from her normal pattern that she couldn't fall back into her own life.
Alas, the world kept turning and the clock kept ticking, and Rachel, as always, found herself at school at the usual time. Even as she walked through the corridor, her eyes searched for pink. With every glimpse of the colour, her heart would lurch, only to settle when she realised that it was only a shirt or a bag - not the girl she was simultaneously desperate to see and desperate to avoid.
Rachel was on edge, much more than usual - much more than she had ever been, if she was being honest - and the slightest of things scared her. She almost jumped out of her skin when Finn tapped her on the shoulder while she was at her locker.
"Are you ok, Rachel? You seem kinda jumpy," he stated, staring at her with concern.
"Yes, thank you, Finn, I'm fine."
"Are you sure? Because you nearly jumped a mile into the air a second ago, and now you keep playing with your bag strap. I know how you fidget when you get nervous," he said. It was true; Rachel was scrunching and unscrunching the adjustment strap of her backpack in her hand. She stopped as soon as the boy brought it to her attention. Flashing a shaky grin, she linked her arm with his, forcing him to walk her to her first class, just as the bell rang.
"You're definitely ok?" he asked again as he left her at the classroom door.
"Yes, Finn. I'm fine," she repeated, and watched as he nodded then walked back down the hall, towards his own class. As she gazed at his retreating back, the person who had been making her nervous all morning came into view, pink hair brushed up and to the side, held in place with what Rachel imagined to be several cans of hairspray. She was wearing a loose black singlet with a skull on it, and her favourite torn black jeans; Rachel knew they were her favourite because she wore them all the time.
In that moment, Rachel wanted to hate her, she wanted to confront her about the night before, she wanted to act nonchalant towards her, wanted to pretend that she didn't care about the other girl's existence. But the pull in her navel couldn't force her to lie to herself - as much as she wanted those things, she wanted one other thing more - she wanted her.
She wanted Quinn in all her rebel glory. She wanted her with all her quirks, with all her flaws, with all the scars of her past; they didn't matter. Rachel had experienced Quinn at her worst, but that hadn't changed her opinion of her. It had endeared her more to the brunette, because there was someone out in the world, apart from Errant, with whom she felt empathy; she felt that they had experience the same deep cutting pain, even if for different reasons.
She tried to smile at the girl as she came towards the classroom, but Quinn shouldered past her, jaw clenched. The gesture hurt Rachel - not that she had expected any warmth from the girl, but she hadn't expected to be ignored either. Frowning, she turned on her heel and flopped down in her chair.
If the teacher had been trying to teach her something that lesson, it flew over her head. She paid no attention to the lesson, mindlessly copying the notes from the board into her notebook, spending most of her time staring at Quinn, who sat two seats down from Rachel, in the row in front of her own. She was trying to sort through the thoughts which stifled her mind, many of which involved the girl now staring out the window.
Rachel knew one thing: she wanted Quinn. She hadn't known it until moments before, standing in the doorway, watching the girl walk towards her with her newfound swagger and punk look. Whether Rachel wanted her romantically, or whether she wanted her because of the new feelings she sent vibrating through Rachel's body, she didn't know, but she knew that she wanted more than just a simple repeat of last night's kiss.
The rest of her thoughts were a mess. She worried, ceaselessly about a million different things. She worried about her new feelings, the way they sparked her blood into becoming a restless torrent of arousal, the way they sent shivers crawling up her spine when she looked at Quinn, the way they wouldn't stop her from looking at the other girl; the way they made her question why she didn't feel that way with her boyfriend. She worried about this the most. Wasn't that how she was supposed to feel when she was with him? When he said last year that he'd felt fireworks with Quinn, she'd wondered why he had never felt that with her and why she hadn't felt it with him, but passed it off - not all love was so cliché. But now, with the clichés burning through her, she wondered if maybe she was looking at the wrong kind of love with Finn. That thought sent her blood cold.
She fretted about the fact that she was questioning her sexuality over this girl. Quinn was, well, Quinn was Quinn, and she was secretive and manipulative, a downright bitch sometimes, and, admittedly, all together gorgeous. Rachel had always helped Quinn when she could, not out of kindness as most people, including Quinn herself, probably thought, but because Rachel felt it a necessity. She had this deep rooted concern for the girl, despite the torturous things she had done to Rachel over the years. The brunette hadn't held those things against her, in fact, they helped promote the concern she had that there was something deeply wrong about Quinn, that she kept her feelings hidden inside herself too much, and they were manifesting themselves in all the wrong ways.
But those wrong ways were also all the right ways; the hair, the look, the attitude - they were all so right. Quinn Fabray had never looked sexier. And Rachel Berry was lusting after her. Yes, that's what it was: lust; not love, not romance, but pure lust, so strong it was slowly killing her while the object of her need was again staring out the window, clenching and unclenching her hand on the desk. Rachel stared at her; she couldn't help it.
She was jolted from her reverie involving Quinn when the bell rang to signal the end of class. The pink haired girl was the first out, disappearing before some people even registered that class had ended. Rachel stared after her, wishing that she could have stayed just a little bit longer. She sighed and glanced out the window, wondering whether Quinn had even seen the deep azure sky and the grass so green that it was almost luminous, or whether, like herself, Quinn had been gazing, but not seeing.
It was at times like this that Rachel wished that she already lived in New York, away from the turmoil of her own mind, away from the confrontations that were bound to happen, but she so desperately wished wouldn't, away from the consequences that would follow if she ever decided to act upon her feelings. Living in such a small place had its disadvantages, and great ones, at that. She imagined that the night lights of Times Square would burn away her uncertainties and her inhibitions, and unbind her from the fears which took hold of her heart. She imagined the New York buildings would shelter her from the storm of inevitable consequences. Rachel was still lost in her escapist daydream as she trailed down the corridor, not entirely sure where she was going, when she was jerked entirely off her feet as someone grabbed her arm and pulled hard.
She hadn't quite recovered her balance when she was pushed against the wall, the sound of the thud echoing in the tiny space, which Rachel realised was the janitor's cupboard. A pair of lips found hers, forceful, hungry, pushing against her own, tongue begging entrance into her mouth, while hands, with fingers digging into the flesh on her hips, demanded more.
"Quinn," Rachel moaned, as the pair of lips began tracing her jaw line, and teeth nipped at her skin. She was certain of her assailant's identity; it was impossible for her to mistake that faint scent, or the flash of pink hair she'd glimpsed before the door closed to shut them in the dark.
"Shut it, Berry," the other girl growled, then ran her tip of her tongue over Rachel's lips, and roughly pushing her hands up her shirt, holding the girl's body up against the wall. Rachel gasped sharply when Quinn bit down on the soft flesh of her neck.
"That's going to leave a mark!" she panted.
"Good," grunted the other girl, and Rachel felt her lips smirk slightly against her skin, before moving back up to attack her mouth once more. Rachel was drawn into the kiss she'd been dreaming about: desperate and hot, frantic and needy, each of them wanting the other to the point of ferocity, biting lips, fencing tongues, combating for control. But even as she fought for the upper hand, Rachel knew that it was Quinn's; the other girl was directing every move, instigating every kiss and every frenzied pushing together of their bodies, always too close, but never close enough.
Rachel wanted more; more than the feel of Quinn's fingertips on her torso, setting her skin aflame, more than passionate kisses and territory marking bites - she wanted Quinn, all over, everywhere, at once. She wanted hands and tongue, kisses and bites, grinding and pinching, roughness and frenzy. But not there. She couldn't do it in a janitor's closet, as desperately as she wanted to. Rachel Berry was self respecting, if not anything else.
"Quinn, I can't," she whispered, pushing her off her, extracting her limbs from those of the other girl.
"You can," the pink haired girl said, kissing her again, trying to entice her back into the passion they'd been sharing but a second before.
"No, I can't. Not here at school in the middle of the day, hiding in the janitor's closet. Whatever you may think of me, Quinn, I have standards," Rachel said, pushing away again. She felt Quinn give way; they both knew that was that - nothing more was going to happen, not today. A pink haired head laid its forehead on Rachel's shoulder, and arms crept around her waist.
"I want you," Quinn whispered. In a second, Rachel's heartstrings became undone, and she almost, very nearly, tackled the girl to the ground and picked up where they'd left off. Instead, she put her arms around the girl and drew her close, so that the entire length of their bodies were touching, trying to tell her, in not in so many words that she felt the same.
What she was getting into with this girl, Rachel didn't know, but the webs of their lives were slowly getting more entangled, interweaving and entwining in ways neither of them imagined; this encounter in the cleaning cupboard was just a tiny rung in the ladder. Rachel could recognise that, even if she didn't know the rest of the steps.
"Where do we go from here?" she asked the girl whose head was still resting upon her shoulder.
"My bed would be nice," Quinn replied, and Rachel could hear the smile in her voice.
"Be serious!" she exclaimed, poking the girl in the ribs with her index finger. Quinn squirmed a little and Rachel subconsciously noted that the other girl was ticklish.
"I am," the girl replied, and while Rachel lusted after the girl, and the idea of being in her bed was so, so tempting, something held her back. Those insecurities she'd always felt about herself crashed through her thoughts, leaving her desire in tatters, making her pull back just when she most wanted to move forward. Her insecurities were the main reason she wanted to wait to have sex - she simply wasn't comfortable being unclothed with another person, so vulnerable, so unprotected without those layers of fabric. Rachel figured that by the time she was 25, she would be a Broadway star, living in the most amazing city in the world, and therefore all her past worries would have become obsolete, and she would be ready for that.
"I'm not ready," she whispered into ear of the other girl, "I want you too, but I'm not ready to have you. Not ready to let you have me. I hope you understand."
Quinn lifted her head from Rachel's shoulder, eyes finding Rachel's brown ones, even in the dark; they'd softened, as if in sympathy or concern, in a way that Rachel had never seen them before. If eyes were the windows to the soul, then Quinn, the Quinn Rachel was used to, had a soul of cold ice - but this Quinn proved otherwise. Behind the Doc Martens and the pink hair, the chains and the rebel attitude, lay the true Quinn Fabray, the one who cared, the one who would wait for Rachel to be ready. Rachel could see the decision in the hazel eyes before it was articulated.
"I'll wait."
"Thank you," Rachel replied, giving Quinn a half smile, embarrassed that she was making the other girl wait, but glad that she was willing to, all the same.
"Do I have to date you or something?" Quinn asked, frowning at her. Rachel's stomach sunk at Quinn's tone; she might not have wanted romance, but she didn't want to be a friend with benefits either - the first was too much to think about, and the latter made her feel like she was disposable, like some kind of whore.
And then there was the matter of the rest of the school finding out if she and Quinn dated. What would they do? They already had one gay person to pick on - they would have a field day if one suddenly became three. But Rachel knew, in her heart of hearts, what she wanted. Whether it made an outcast or not, it wouldn't matter - Glee had already done that for her. So, choosing her words carefully, she answered the other girl.
"It would be ideal if you and I dated, in order for me to become better acquainted and therefore more comfortable with you, which would lead to my becoming ready, but it's not necessary. I can accept it if you choose for us not to date, as difficult as it may be for us later."
"Right. Breadsticks tonight at 8, then?" Quinn suggested, as soon as the words stopped tumbling from Rachel's mouth, as though Rachel had put the idea forward and Quinn was just reaffirming the details. Mildly dumbfounded in the quick turn of events, Rachel nodded, mouth agape. Quinn reached out and closed it with her index finger, then placed a quick kiss on her cheek, before rushing out of the closet, leaving Rachel standing there in the dark. She blinked a few times, and gave her head a slight shake, trying to make sure that she was actually awake and all that had not been some kind of very tangible daydream. But she could feel her heart beating against her ribcage, could hear the students milling past in the corridor outside. She was very much awake.
As her eyes readjusted, she made out words on the back of the door. Squinting, she realised that the recognised the handwriting, the way the letters all leant to the right, as if vying for reaching the end of the sentence first. She didn't need the signature at the bottom to know that this was another of Errant's pieces. Fumbling for her journal, she eventually fished it out of her bag, balancing it open in her hand as she began copying the poem. The notebook bounced up and down each time the pen touched the page.
I won your sweet surrender
On a ghostly autumn night,
When the mist made me feel
That I was floating in a dream.
But still a question remains:
In the war for your heart
Would you surrender to me again?
As she wrote, Rachel was once again struck by how much the piece reflected some of her own thoughts and experiences, as though the Poet had snatched them from her mind while Rachel hadn't been looking. Perhaps, because the presence of the girl still lingered in the room, Rachel thought of Quinn, and how the words applied to them, especially their little foray on school grounds the night before; the night had even been foggy. The last lines, however, did not so much apply to Rachel - she didn't want Quinn's heart; things became too complicated when love was involved - she simply wanted trust and comfort, and an eventual fulfilment of her desires.
Flipping the journal shut, trapping the words within the pink covers, Rachel deposited it, along with her thoughts about Errant, into her backpack. She had other things to worry about for the moment, without fretting over a mysterious poet who sometimes seemed to know her better than she knew herself. Opening the door, she let the light abolish the image of the poem from her mind. She had a date to prepare for, after all.
A/N: So, things are progressing. Thoughts? Comments? Questions? Let me know.