A/N: For those wondering, babies are about fifteen chapters away. Minimum. I'm on chapter thirteen now, and they'll be going back to New York in sixteen. But I'm so excited to write about babies!
Still off the Key of Reason
Chapter 6: You Hold the Other Line
Rachel shut her eyes and breathed deeply and tried not to spin away into space. Never to be seen again. She clutched the Dalmatian pillow in one hand and Quinn's forearm with the other and wondered why in the world they had never tried this before.
When she opened her eyes, Quinn was still there. Still rocking forward and back, flushed and staring at Rachel with awe and delight and wonder.
They'd gotten the box in the mail yesterday. But Quinn had requested an "acclimatization period" of twenty-four hours. Sitting in the same room as the purple toy. Getting used to the idea. Observation from afar.
Rachel hadn't protested. It all seemed surreal anyway.
She wasn't completely sure where she was at the moment. Everything was blurry and blonde and warm. It really was one of the greatest ideas Quinn had ever had.
Rachel opened her mouth and garbled out something unintelligible when Quinn picked up her pace. Quinn was on her elbows, mouth hovering right above Rachel's nose.
"You-you have gunk in your eye, little-little…little-Rachel-bear." She panted.
There could be a tarantula in Rachel's eye and she wouldn't be aware of it at the moment. She wasn't too concerned.
It was a little off-putting to have Quinn saying "gunk" while they were doing what they were doing.
"Here, let-let me-" Quinn started.
Rachel shook her head vigorously and pressed her hips up and dug her nails into Quinn's forearm. The last thing she needed was her wife trying to get the gunk out of her eye during sex with a strap-on. Somebody would lose an eyeball.
"Raaaaaachel." Quinn whined lowly. "Why didn't-why didn't we do this months ago?"
Rachel really tried to respond. She ended up just shaking her head and garbling out some more words. She had absolutely no idea. She tightened her legs around Quinn and pressed her heels into Quinn's back.
"Rachel." Quinn whispered breathlessly. It sounded urgent. Rachel met her dark eyes and held her gaze.
"Did you…did you know polar-oh God-polar bears can eat eighty-six penguins in-in a single sitting?"
Jesus Christ.
They could take out a whole colony. Flock. Herd. Swarm. Whatever the fuck penguins were. Rachel flashed back to a Monopoly game where Quinn had shared that lions can mate fifty times a day.
"They're insatiable." Quinn whispered.
Rachel was feeling lighter and lighter. Her toes were tingling. "You're in-insatiable." She stuttered out.
"Both of us." Quinn corrected. "Like I'm the bear. And…you're-you're the penguins. We should-we should go see some wild penguins-some-sometime."
God. It was weird. The juxtaposition was just insane. Quinn's eyes were wide and hopeful and dark. Rachel knew she wasn't a dirty-talker, but she sure as hell was doing something right. With her stories of arctic animals and their eating habits.
The bed was bouncing and Rachel's hips were lifted permanently off the mattress. She was vaguely aware that she was lying on top of some kind of animal. Hopefully stuffed. If not, traumatized.
She groaned as the tingling spread from her toes. Quinn leaned over and kissed her neck. She kept her lips there until they both saw stars. Wave after wave. One of Rachel's hands dragged down Quinn's back and the other seized the Dalmatian pillow.
"Love you, love you, love you, love, love…" Quinn murmured into Rachel's neck before collapsing. She breathed for a moment and then blew a raspberry right where her lips had landed.
Rachel chuckled tiredly, too exhausted to brush her away. She found she was already locked in Quinn's octopus trap.
"Love you so much." Rachel breathed, tickling Quinn's back lightly.
Quinn laughed, face pressed into the pillow.
Rachel twisted and kissed her cheek. "Can you breathe, bear?"
"Barely." Was the muffled reply. Quinn turned her face and stared adoringly at Rachel. She brushed away dark hair from her eyes and palmed her flushed cheek. "I like this." She whispered.
And then she used her index finger to wipe the gunk out of Rachel's eye. It was charming. Lovely eye gunk.
"If I was a lion, I could mate forty-nine more times right now." Quinn commented, eyes shining.
Rachel snorted. She reached her hands up and fluffed out Quinn's hair. Quinn scrunched up her face and growled. She shook her head around and Rachel laughed and rolled her over, still caught in her trap.
"I think…you look like a lion now, Quinn." She said with a smile, dotting kisses over Quinn's cheeks.
For tonight. Quinn could be a lion.
~oooooooooo~
Time had never passed so quickly for Rachel. The rest of the summer skipped by in a blur of red trees and cloudy mornings and the golden hair of her wife. Rachel went back to work at the university, this time with a section of dance classes, and Quinn went back to school.
And then the leaves changed colors, and Quinn forced Rachel to make hand-turkey drawings and pumpkin pies, and Thanksgiving was upon them.
Rachel was lying on the couch with her feet in Quinn's lap watching the Macy's Day parade while the turkey and tofurkey roasted side by side in the oven.
Quinn wore a red sweater with a turkey on it and played with Rachel's toes.
"You'll be back there soon." She assured Rachel, squeezing her feet and nodding at the TV.
Rachel smiled at her. She must've been gazing a little too wistfully at her beloved New York on screen. The colors, the sounds, the people, the floats. She wanted to go back and just walk along Broadway for a day. Soak everything in. Get her fix. It was Rachel's crack.
But she could handle visits, as long as she had Quinn.
Who was tickling her feet in her turkey sweater and asking if the pumpkin pie was vegan.
It was. Rachel had made sure of that.
"And you could even be in the parade." Quinn added, tugging on the bottom of Rachel's fleece pants. "You could be Santa Claus."
Rachel laughed. There would be so many things wrong with that.
"Or an elf." Quinn said with a smirk. "You could be an elf and I'll be a reindeer, little bear."
Rachel shook her head. "I'm pretty sure the reindeer are animatronic."
If not, then cardboard. Plastic. Something inanimate. Rachel may be Jewish, but she'd been seven when she discovered that the parade reindeer weren't real, and it had taken a peach pie and five rounds of karaoke to cheer her up.
And then Santa Claus…Rachel still wasn't completely over it.
Quinn looked thoughtful. Her gaze flickered back to Rachel and her eyes were wide. Rachel was already running through places in her mind that might have real reindeer. She'd check the Sac Zoo. She sure as hell was not driving up to Canada or wherever the fuck real reindeer lived.
"We should go see some real ones for Christmas!" Quinn exclaimed. "Real reindeer! It'll be magical!"
Rachel smiled knowingly and nodded, nudging Quinn's stomach with her toes. She was ten steps ahead.
The turkeys were cooked by mid-afternoon and Quinn carved them up to serve. Rachel almost wished Puck had come out to California for the holiday since Quinn was dicing it up like Freddy Kruger, but they could make do. They'd have leftovers for weeks.
Quinn set eight bowls on the counter filled with various forms of kibble and sprinkled pieces of turkey over them while Rachel watched.
She eyed the rabbit bowl. Bunnies weren't carnivorous, right? They didn't hunt squirrels in packs and have mice for lunch or anything like that. Benjamin was probably capable of it, and Rachel wouldn't be surprised if he'd killed something in his lifetime, but rabbits in general were not carnivores. But that didn't mean they'd eat mountains of tofurkey instead.
"Quinn, you can't give Benjamin tofurkey just because he won't eat meat." Rachel stated wryly.
Quinn turned around and looked at her. "But…" she stared back at the bowl. "It's his-how will he know it's Thanksgiving?"
The giant hollow pumpkin he was given that morning might clue him in.
"Give him some carrots." Rachel suggested with a smile.
Quinn blinked. "He has carrots every day."
"And he likes them." Rachel stated, weaving through the animals to help Quinn put the bowls on the floor. "He doesn't need an eight course meal."
Quinn nodded resignedly. She removed the tofurkey from his bowl and dropped it in Jelly's. The animals had already finished by the time Rachel and Quinn started eating their own dinner. Quinn said a short prayer, filled Rachel's glass with wine, and then shoved a forkful of macaroni in her mouth before Rachel could stop her.
"Quinn!" she tapped her fork against the table urgently, trying not to laugh. "We have to say what we're thankful for first!"
Quinn swallowed hurriedly and coughed and wiped her mouth. "Sorry! Sorry, baby, I know." She said seriously.
Rachel shook her head and gestured at her wife to start.
Quinn cleared her throat. She smiled innocently at Rachel and reached across the table to take her hand. "This year, I'm thankful for you, most of all. Every single day, forever and always and after that. And Barnaby and Seal, the dog, not the stuffed animal, but I'm grateful for the stuffed animal Seal as well. Also, the seal named Dolphin… I'm just grateful for all seals."
Rachel chuckled at Quinn's clarification and waved for her to keep going.
"And then Cloud, Char, Jelly, Butter, George, and Benjamin Bunny. And also bears, lions, whales, and elephants, if I had to pick some animals. My education, your job. Our house and the flowers you planted…And your voice. And your face. And your arms and legs and feet and butt and-"
"Okay." Rachel interrupted, tapping her fork against the table again. Quinn rocked back in her seat and smiled at Rachel expectantly. She reached over and plucked the fork out of Rachel's hand, a move Rachel was very familiar with.
It removed the distraction. Quinn winked at her, looking very pleased with herself.
"I am thankful for you as well." Rachel proclaimed. She rolled her eyes like it was painful to say. Quinn stood up abruptly, banging her knee on the table and dangerously shaking everything on it, so that she could lean over and kiss Rachel. Rachel stood up as well so Quinn wouldn't pitch forward into the vegetables.
She let Quinn kiss her even though she tasted like mac 'n cheese.
"I'm thankful that Cornelius hasn't eaten the flowers I've planted, and I'm thankful for our jobs and friends…And for the fact that you didn't hurt yourself when you slipped this morning because you were dancing in the shower." Rachel listed with a smile.
Quinn flushed. Rachel had been in the shower as well, totally unable to stop her wife from pulling the whole curtain down. She was too busy dancing.
"And I'm thankful that you're naked at every opportunity." Rachel tacked onto the end. She reached over and stole the fork off Quinn's plate and started serving herself food.
"Amen!" Quinn said with a laugh, digging into the mountain on her plate.
After about twenty minutes, her pace had slowed down considerably. She was on her third helping of turkey, and about her ninth roll, and it was all being gradually funneled in to her mouth.
Rachel watched, sort of awed, sort of horrified. And then she stopped watching because she needed to focus on herself and her awful decision-making. She was trying to force her last few bites of tofurkey and stuffing down her throat without vomiting all over the table.
"Roghh ighg wagghna ight at boogh." Quinn spoke through her mouthful.
Rachel stared at her. She was seeing double. Or triple. But that was probably better than none at all, right? Or whatever Quinn was trying to do. She tried to focus while Quinn choked on her food. Rachel held her glass of milk up for her when it devolved into a coughing fit.
"Sip." She instructed hoarsely, holding a hand over her own mouth.
Quinn complied, dribbling it down her chin. She set it back down and took a few breaths. Probably to clear the gravy from her lungs.
"I wanna write that book." Quinn stated, watching Rachel. "The one you suggested a few years ago? I don't know what it would be about, but…I could start-I could start getting ideas, you know?"
Rachel nodded immediately. It took her a second to speak because of the massively overfilled stomach issue. "You could write it about me!" she suggested jokingly. "Dedicate a chapter to your early life, and then do ninety chapters about me and Broadway!"
Quinn laughed. She snorted halfway through, which made Rachel laugh, and hurt. So much. She had to stop. Quinn tapped Rachel's feet under the table until Rachel indulged her in a game of footsie.
"I don't-I don't think it would be autobiographical." Quinn said. "I mean, I could base it on us, but change the names and add some things, delete some things."
"Like Cornelius." Rachel nodded sagely.
Quinn chuckled and shook her head, peeling apart yet another bread roll. "No. He's one of the things I could multiply. I'll put twenty of him in the book."
Oh Lord.
"Whatever you do will be wonderful, baby." Rachel assured. Something shifted inside of her and she let out a groan. Her organs were displacing themselves to make room for her stomach.
"Should we lie down?" Quinn suggested, finishing off her roll and her milk, one after the other.
Rachel nodded silently, but didn't get up. So many things could go wrong if she altered her center of gravity. Quinn hurried around the table and kneeled down in front of Rachel, presenting her back for Rachel to climb onto.
"I'll carry you." She stated, even though she was moving slower than usual as well.
But, no way. Definitely not. There was no way that Rachel was intentionally pressing her stomach up against anything right now. She tapped Quinn's shoulders until she turned around.
"Can we do bridal style, bear?" she asked in a whine, probably exaggerating it a bit. She could actually walk. But the couch was very far away.
"Of course." Quinn agreed, scooping Rachel up and kissing her flushed cheek. "And if you throw up on me, I'll put that in my book too."
Rachel wrapped her arm around Quinn's neck and whined into her shoulder. She predicted that Quinn's book would need some kind of warning in the first few pages. A disclaimer. Especially if it contained twenty Corneliuses and all of Rachel's antics. Even under different names, they could only be written or performed by a crazy person.
~oooooooooo~
Rachel stumbled exhaustedly through the door the Monday of the next week and collapsed on the couch. She'd never thought she'd be so tired from dancing. She was a star! But really, eight hours straight on six hours of sleep. On top of some kind of food hangover from Thanksgiving.
Rachel was like death on legs. She was seriously getting soft. Broadway would not tolerate this. She was hungry and thirsty and she needed a shower, but she fell asleep as soon as her face hit the pillow on the couch.
The pillow might've been a cat, because it moved, but Rachel was too tired to care.
She woke up to someone coughing. Or hacking. Maybe a blender. Or the waste disposal in the sink. Hadn't Quinn broken that trying to fix the plug to give Jelly a bath? It took Rachel a while to process that it was an animal, and it was either vomiting or choking.
She sort of hoped it was choking because that would require less clean-up.
Rachel lifted her head off the couch, temporarily blinding herself. Her head was throbbing. Ready to crack at the temple. She squinted her eyes open and looked to the kitchen to find Cornelius wandering in a circle, head close to the ground, mouth wide open and hacking every few seconds.
"Shit." Rachel murmured.
Why was she always the one around when their animals were in danger? Or dying. Quinn would be suspicious soon.
Rachel tumbled herself off the couch and staggered blearily over to the kitchen. Her head cleared a little bit once she caught on to how serious the situation was.
Cornelius was drooling wildly. He was dripping in the circles he was walking and occasionally pawing at his face, nose to the ground. But the hacking was the worst. It sounded terrible. Rachel winced every time he did it.
She panicked for a minute because she didn't know the Heimlich or how to perform a spontaneous tracheotomy on a dog. Did they even do those for dogs? Did they even do those for humans outside of House?
All she knew about a tracheotomy was that it involved stabbing a pen into something's throat. It probably wasn't advisable to try that at home.
Rachel slipped on her shoes, grabbed her keys, flung her purse over her shoulder, and scooped Cornelius up under his legs.
It had finally happened. Rachel could see the mess of garbage on the other side of the kitchen as she hurried in the opposite direction. Cornelius was finally being punished for eating something that he wasn't supposed to. And Rachel Berry was the one forced to fucking ambulance him to the vet.
"Fucking Cornelius." She muttered, all the way down the stairs and out to the small parking lot. She deposited him gently in her passenger seat. She did not have time to worry about doggy airbag regulations right now. And she didn't know where her special doggy seatbelt was.
Rachel sped for about two miles before she had to stop at a red light.
Cornelius started wheezing and puffing out of his nose, and Rachel's heart hammered in her chest. She leaned over and kissed his fluffy black and white head. His eyes looked a little desperate. It was hard to look directly at them.
"Hold on, baby boy." She soothed quietly. She took off with a screech when the signal finally turned green.
She realized she would probably look like some kind of crackhead hobo breaking the law with a dog in dire straits if she was pulled over right now. She was just a mess. But she wouldn't slow down because she couldn't take Quinn's face if Seal died choking on whatever shit he'd gotten hold of this time.
Rachel reached the vet's office and parked sideways, rushing around to the other door to get Cornelius. She crossed the parking lot and pushed backwards through the office door with the dog in her arms. She ignored everybody else and rushed up to the receptionist, who stood up as soon as she caught sight of Cornelius.
"He's-he's choking." Rachel stuttered out, feeling like she was choking herself. Like it was contagious. She needed somebody to stab her with a pen. The woman was already ushering her to take the dog back into one of the exam rooms.
"Doctor! We've got a dog, something lodged in his throat." Rachel heard someone call from out in the hall. She deposited Cornelius on the table and kissed his head again, and then stepped back when the vet swept into the room.
He gave Rachel a glance and a smile and strode swiftly up to Cornelius's head.
"Three years old, border collie, no allergies." A tech informed, following the doctor and holding some tools. Cornelius flailed around on the table as his panic grew. Rachel pressed her hands to her temples to keep her head from exploding.
"Nope, can't see it. Those won't work." The vet said, gesturing at the tray of tools the tech was holding. He pulled Cornelius unceremoniously onto the floor and then kneeled behind him. He put both hands on the dog's chest and then pushed inwards, towards Cornelius's head.
After two thrusts he nodded at a tech. "See it yet?" he asked urgently.
She opened Cornelius's mouth and looked inside, and then shook her head. The doctor kept thrusting. Rachel leaned back against the wall, trying to stay out of their way. Cornelius was becoming alarmingly still. Rachel was feeling alarmingly sick.
She pulled out her phone and exited the room, dialing Quinn's number. She still had half an hour of class, so Rachel wasn't surprised when there was no answer. Quinn texted her a few seconds later instead.
Quinn: Hey, little bear. I'm in class. Everything okay? XO
Rachel shook her head to herself.
"It's coming up, it's coming up." A tech said loudly inside the room.
Something was definitely coming up inside of Rachel.
"He's not breathing." Another one yelled out.
Rachel typed out a response and inhaled deeply.
Rachel: At the vet. Seal's choking. Don't know.
Rachel's phone rang about twenty seconds later, and she answered it immediately, leaning anxiously in the doorway and watching the vet extract some kind of bone from her dog's throat. He was completely still.
"Rachel." Quinn said worriedly. She sounded breathless. Maybe on the verge of tears. Maybe just hurrying to her car. "What's-is-what's-"
"Hey. Hey." Rachel cut her off sharply, pushing off the wall. "Quinn, you listen to me okay. Do not get in that car yet."
The last thing she needed was for her wife to crash on the way to the vet.
"Recite one of your lists, okay baby? Focus. Do dog breeds, okay? Are you listening?" Rachel asked, talking faster and faster.
Quinn whined on the other end of the line, but she hummed affirmatively.
"Alright, bear, list a few for me, but then I'm going to hang up because it's chaos in here." Rachel instructed, voice softening. "But don't you dare start driving until you hit thirty. If you have a panic attack, pull over."
Quinn made another unintelligible noise and took a deep breath. "Okay, okay…hm."
Rachel's eyes stayed locked on the vet trying to resuscitate her dog while Quinn got her head together.
"Okay, uh, Airedale, Akita, Australian Shepherd…um, Bassett Hound, Beagle-"
Rachel nodded along. "Okay, good, good... Baby, I have to hang up. You keep doing that. You're okay, bear. Just take deep breaths and focus, and I'm waiting for you. Love you."
"So much." Quinn breathed out.
Rachel hung up and moved right across the hall into the bathroom, dropping onto her knees to throw up. Was her head actually splitting open? It must be. There was no other explanation. She grasped the toilet and emptied her stomach, but she didn't linger on the floor.
She was Rachel Berry and it was a fucking public restroom. She stood up, swaying a little, and washed her mouth out before returning to the exam room, cheeks burning.
Cornelius's chest was rising and falling, and the vet was leaning over him checking his vitals. He looked up when Rachel sort of collapsed into the doorway in relief, and he gave her a half-smile.
"Close call." He remarked. "We should be good now, though. We'll keep him here for a couple hours, if that's okay. He's breathing on his own and his vitals are fine. Just exhausted."
Rachel stepped forward and gently ran her fingers along Cornelius's fluffy back. Then she tugged on his ears and knelt down so she was level with his half-lidded eyes.
"Don't you ever scare me like that again, little Seal. Okay?" she whispered. "You're gonna be alright, bub. Your best bud's gonna be here soon." She tapped his nose and straightened back up.
Rachel shuffled back out to the waiting room, feeling even more like death than before, and collapsed into one of the uncomfortable chairs. She was pulling out her phone again when Quinn burst through the door, wild-eyed and messy-haired.
Her eyes landed immediately on Rachel and she dropped to sit on the edge of the chair next to her wife. Quinn leaned over the arm rests and gave Rachel a hug. She pulled back quickly and searched Rachel's eyes anxiously.
"He's fine." Rachel exhaled tiredly. "He got a bone out of the trash. They got it out and he's breathing fine now."
Rachel chose to leave out the fact that he had stopped breathing at one point. That would just upset Quinn further. And make Rachel vomit.
Quinn nodded, breathing deeply in relief. She settled back into her chair and then studied Rachel for a moment.
"You look like you need another hug, little bear." She remarked softly.
Rachel didn't know what the fuck she needed. Sleep, most likely. She sighed and closed her eyes. They fluttered open when she felt Quinn's cool palm on her face.
"Did you get sick?" Quinn asked quietly. "Do you have a headache?"
Rachel nodded slowly. She turned her dull eyes toward her wife. "Quinn, I can't-these-Cornelius-" she stuttered, and then sighed in frustration and pressed her hands into her eyes.
It kind of made everything worse. She saw spots.
"Rachel, maybe we could-"
"No." Rachel interjected. She didn't know what Quinn was going to say, but she had some misdirected, irrational anger to vent, and Quinn was just right there. "Our animals are fucking crazy."
Quinn flinched slightly, but Rachel plowed on.
"They destroy everything. Curtains, air fresheners, remote controls." Rachel stated, waving a hand around for emphasis. She laughed humorlessly. "They eat everything, they sleep everywhere, and, aaaggghgh-"
Rachel made a strangled noise of frustration. "They rip open garbage bags and drag it all over the god damn kitchen until they choke." She ended in a higher pitch than she'd started because she seemed to be losing a little bit of control.
There were actually tears in her eyes.
"Rachel." Quinn whispered, reaching for her hand.
Rachel let her have it. She clenched her jaw and shut her eyes and willed her head to stop pounding. "We should send them all away. To a huge farm in the country where they can fuck up to their heart's desire."
Hello, stream-of-consciousness. What filter? Rachel wasn't completely sure what she was saying at the moment.
"You don't mean that." Quinn stated quietly, squeezing Rachel's hand and moving dark hair out of her face.
Of course Rachel didn't mean that.
"Yes, I do." Rachel countered stubbornly.
"Well, if…" Quinn's voice wavered slightly. "If that's what you want, then…"
Rachel opened her eyes when Quinn trailed off to see tears shining in her wife's eyes. She was nodding. She'd give up the animals. Rachel sighed.
"Of course that's not what I want." She whispered. "Don't listen to me right now. I'm being an idiot."
"You don't feel well." Quinn defended for her.
Rachel shrugged.
"Everybody gets to be a brat when they throw up." Quinn added, squeezing Rachel's hand. Rachel's lips quirked up. She closed her eyes again and Quinn pulled her into her shoulder to rest.
~ooooooooo~
Rachel didn't know how in the world it happened, but when she woke up, she was in bed. Her lovely warm, soft bed. And it was dark. And Quinn was humming quietly next to her reading a textbook with a book light. The pounding in her head had faded to a faint ache, and a few of her memories were returning to her.
Quinn walking Cornelius out of the vet's office, and then coming back to give Rachel a piggyback to the car. Being carried up the apartment stairs. Having her shoes and pants and shirt tugged off gently and being kissed goodnight on both cheeks.
Rachel released a sleepy sigh and scooted closer to Quinn, snuggling into her side. Quinn looked down at her with concern.
"How do you feel, little bear?" she asked.
Rachel breathed contentedly. "Much better." She murmured.
Quinn ran her fingers through dark, tangled hair, illuminated only by the small book light. "Yeah? Can I get you anything?"
Rachel shook her head sleepily. "Just a weird, bad day. I'm alright, baby."
Quinn hummed. She turned off her light and put the textbook on the side table before scooting down the bed to wrap Rachel up in her arms. "If you're sure." She whispered.
Rachel made a tired, affirmative noise. She could feel Cornelius at the foot of the bed. He wasn't trying to maul her face, so he must be really tired.
"I know…you said that you didn't mean it, but if the animals are too stressful-"
Rachel groaned, shaking her head into Quinn's shoulder. "No, baby. No. I meant none of that. I love every single one of them." She said honestly. "I would never want to give them away. It's just…Cornelius sometimes, you know?"
And all the rest.
Quinn chuckled lightly. "I know you'd tell me if that changed though…If anything changed, and you did get…tired of them. Because you're more important." She reminded, kissing Rachel's head. "Also, it's your birthday in a few weeks, so…"
So Rachel had the right to get rid of as many animals as she wanted. Good to know.
"Quinn, those animals are going to drive us crazy for the rest of their lives. They're not going anywhere." Rachel assured.
For all her fussing about their fucking animals, she wouldn't be able to bear letting any of them go. She'd be more of a wreck than she was earlier today.
"I could put this whole day in my book." Quinn remarked softly. She slipped a leg between Rachel's and locked her into the octopus trap for the night.
"We are never speaking of this day again." Rachel mumbled. She pressed her lips to Quinn's chest and whispered. "Tell me a bedtime story."
Quinn opened her mouth and Rachel cut her off.
"A made-up one. No Goldilocks or Mother Goose or Red-Riding Hood." Rachel slurred insistently. She needed something original to distract her. Whatever Quinn made up would be wonderful. And happy and calm.
Quinn hummed. She was silent for a moment, staring into the darkness and tracing her fingers through Rachel's hair. And then she gave Rachel a squeeze and cleared her throat.
"Once upon a time, there was a beautiful girl. The most beautiful, talented, loveliest girl in all of the land. And her name was…Quinn."
Rachel snorted and thumped Quinn's chest.
Quinn chuckled into her hair. "No. Her name was Rachel. And all of the peasants and the king and all his men and Humpty-Dumpty came to see her sing every night."
Rachel shook with silent laughter. Her headache was completely gone.
"And then one day, lovely Rachel met a farmer. A brilliant farmer named Quinn."
Rachel hummed. "With hair like sunshine and an even brighter smile." She added.
Quinn nodded lightly, chin bumping Rachel's head. "And the farmer had lots and lots of animals. She had a herd of horses, and some black and white cows, and lots and lots of sheep. She had sheepdogs and barn cats, and maybe a few chickens because they provided her with eggs. She also had a pen full of bears and a stegosaurus-"
"Quinn." Rachel interrupted sleepily, knowing she could carry that on for ages.
"Rachel." Quinn said in exactly the same tone. "This is a bedtime story. The farmer can have a dinosaur if she wants one."
Rachel chuckled. "You just want a dinosaur."
"Anyway," Quinn continued, "the lovely Rachel settled down with Quinn on her farm. She stopped performing for all the king's men and Humpty-Dumpty, and they missed her. They missed her so much because there was nobody else in the kingdom who could sing as sweetly as she could. Except Lord Pooh Bear."
Rachel pressed her face further into Quinn's shoulder to muffle her laughter. She was supposed to be falling asleep. Not laughing all night long. But it felt so good.
"And then one day, the farmer rounded up all her animals and climbed onto the stegosaurus with lovely Rachel to move back to the kingdom." Quinn continued quietly. "Back to Rachel's kingdom. And farmer Quinn took care of all of all of the king's horses, and she put Humpty-Dumpty back together again. And lovely Rachel started singing with Lord Pooh Bear."
Rachel wanted Quinn to turn this into a movie. She'd love to see how it played out on screen.
"And farmer Quinn went to every show that lovely Rachel put on. She loved her the most and she clapped the loudest. And Lord Pooh Bear came home to live with them one day, and they all lived happily ever after with their stegosaurus." Quinn finished. She kissed Rachel's head again and chuckled in her ear.
"Thank you." Rachel mumbled.
"You're lovely Rachel." Quinn clarified softly. "And your kingdom awaits."