Well this poured out faster than expected. Must be because it is the weekend. This chapter continues on a couple of hours after where the last one ended :)
Not one person would have known that Judy Fabray had been crying, and that was just how she wanted it. No one would have known that she'd just smoked a blunt either, due to the fact that she had ushered away the crimson that webbed her eyeballs with some eye-drops. Her black heels struck the pavement and steps with purpose, strong and willful, until she was standing before the quirky red door - her fist poised to knock.
It stayed that way, suspended mid-air, for a while.
She could hear laughter on the other side. The kind that made one weak – spaghetti-like. Judy couldn't help but ask herself why her household never sounded like that? Maybe it was the impersonal furniture, or the fact that her family didn't sit around a table and eat together. Or maybe the problem was Russell, and the unattainable standard of perfection that he demanded.
Or maybe it was her…
Judy was a terrible parent, and she knew that. Nobody outside of the Fabray household knew it, but she did and so did her daughter. No wonder Quinn was seeking affection from girls, Judy gleaned. Quinn was probably seeking the bond that she had neglected to give her, recreating their dysfunctional relationship with other girls in an even more dysfunctional manner in order to fill the void.
Judy had read about it online, specifically on a website that belonged to an organization called Hope For All. HFA was a gay-to-straight conversion camp. The price to send Quinn there for the required two months was steep, but the organization claimed to have a seventy-five percent success rate.
Judy was sold. She would sort everything out regarding that tomorrow, but she had to do something else first, and that something involved a little chat with the Berry family – better known as the fags down the block by some of the more myopic residents of the town.
It was time to start being the mother that Quinn deserved, and it was all going to start with a knock.
Judy swiftly brought her knuckles down on the door and then waited. She preened her hair, hiked her slipping purse strap up on her shoulder, and stood strong as a tall shadow crossed the front window.
She was staring up at a tall thin man, who wore glasses and was greying, before she knew it.
"Good evening." He smiled pleasant and kind. "How may I help you?"
"I – hi," she stumbled, smiling it off. "My name is Judy Fabray. I have a few things that I'd like to discuss with you, your husband, and your daughter. It's important."
Hiram frowned and stood up straighter; his family were not to be played with. "Important like you've come to evict us? Or important as in -"
"Your daughter," Judy interrupted, smiling to keep the disdain out of her voice, or at least mask it. "Your daughter," she voiced again, "she's… involved with my daughter…"
The woman's blonde hair cast Hiram's mind back to when he had seen Quinn sitting in her car. There wasn't much of a resemblance besides that, but the connection still struck. "A-Are you Quinn's mother?" he asked.
Judy nodded stiltedly, uncomfortable with the fact that this man seemed to know her daughter. "Yes. Now may I – may I please come in?"
"Rachel made it perfectly clear that she wasn't romantically involved with Quinn, and I believe and trust my daughter."
"She's a teenager," Judy pointed out, a little sharp with it. "Teenagers lie."
Folding his arms, Hiram cleared his throat, which was still a little phlegmy thanks to the flu. "They don't lie if you teach them that it's ok to be who they are, and that it's ok to have the opinions that they do," he said, beginning to take offense. "We're very open, and we encourage Rachel to be open too, which she is, even when her honesty has me and my husband cringing."
"I didn't catch your name but -"
"Hiram," he clarified, staunch.
"Hiram, I didn't come here to argue with you on your doorstep. Someone sent me a video of your daughter – Rachel – kissing my Quinn. Then I found pictures of them both on my daughter's cell phone. Pictures where they're a little too close for me to think that nothing's going on. Now, you may be alright with your daughter – Rachel – being a-a lesbian, but I'm not ok with Quinn being that way inclined. It just – we can't have that. I won't accept it!"
"Despite my best efforts to stay out of town gossip, I've heard about you Fabray's. I didn't know that Quinn was a part of the clan. But if she's romantically involved with Rachel, which I am certain that she isn't despite your evidence, then I can only hope that you will support her. She will need it."
"Are you telling me how to raise my daughter?"
Hiram shook his head wistfully. "No. I remember how I felt when I told my parents about me. I couldn't hide. I was an obviously gay little boy, and an obviously gay teenager. I thought that my parents didn't love me anymore when I finally put them out of their misery and told them, and that is the worst feeling that you can ever make your child feel."
Judy hadn't really thought about it that way. She'd immediately begun to look for solutions – a cure for the problem – as soon as she had seen that picture on her daughter's phone.
But she didn't want a gay child. At all. Aside from that issue, there were a whole load of other issues involved too. Judy didn't want Quinn to be the recipient of any abuse; it was bad enough just being a woman in today's society, without being a gay woman too. Also, there was rape culture to worry about – boys not being able to help themselves around a girl of Quinn's beauty, and raping her, or slipping something into her drink, once she rejected them with the explanation that she was a gay.
It weighed heavy on Judy's shoulders.
"I can't have a gay daughter!" she exclaimed, her voice echoing into the night. "She's going to face enough hardship in her life, without being a part of the LGBT community too!"
"Well," Hiram calmly began, "I don't know Quinn very well, but if Rachel is spending any time at all with her, then that means that Quinn is smart; because Rachel doesn't suffer fools well. With that said, your daughter is extraordinarily beautiful. She's not like me; she can blend into today's heteronormative society. Not that I support having to blend in, but when it comes to her safety I would hope that she'll be discerning enough to know who will accept her for who she is, and who will not."
Judy closed her eyes, but it all became too much – they whipped open. "I want Rachel to stay away from Quinn!" she snapped.
Some shuffling behind Hiram, just then, alerted Judy. Her eyes left the tall thin man and found Rachel, who was actually better-looking than that video had told.
The two made lingering eye contact…
"R-Rachel, I'm Judy Fabray. I want to talk to you about your relationship with Quinn."
Rachel glanced up at her dad, and swallowed. "I – well…" She sighed, and allowed for a struggling smile. "What aspect of my relationship with Quinn are you looking to discuss?" she settled upon asking.
"The aspect that entails you pursuing her romantically," Judy replied, without missing a beat.
"No," Hiram interjected. "We're not discussing this out here. Let's take this inside."
Judy took care not to accidentally touch or brush anything as she walked into the lounge. She didn't often associate with homosexuals – or at least she hadn't thought so up until today. Not that her and Quinn actually spent any time together.
Still, she didn't know these people and…
"Have a seat if you'd like," Rachel chirped at the older woman. "I just need to use the toilet. I won't be a second."
Before either her daddy or Judy could question her, she took off upstairs, only to have the quiet classical music that poured through the cracks of the bathroom door remind her that her dad, Leroy, was soaking in the bath...
Downstairs, Judy remained standing as Hiram poured himself a glass of scotch.
She eyed the strong liquid lustfully; she could almost smell it.
"What?" Hiram challenged her gaze, as he sat the fancy bottle down on the table. "Were you expecting something pink and fluffy, like a Cosmopolitan cocktail, to be my drink of choice?"
Upstairs, Rachel gently eased her bedroom door shut and dialed Quinn's number.
"Pick up, pick up, pick up," the brunette chanted quietly, pacing back and forth…
"Rachel?"
"Quinn, your mother is at my house! She is downstairs. I said that I had to use the bathroom so that I could call you! Now tell me what the frack is going on?" Rachel quietly demanded into her phone.
"Shit!" Quinn spat. Her eyes darted around the kitchen, frantic. She stopped pouring her drink, and held her phone to her ear properly. "Are you – what did you say to her?"
"Tell me why she's here!"
"Some asshole sent her footage of you kissing me at school," the blonde growled. "She asked me if I'm gay. I told her that you kissed me, and that I wasn't expecting it, and that I was going to make you pay for what you did! I can't – I can't believe that she's annoying enough to just show up at your fucking house!"
"Gee thanks, Quinn. I suppose you expect me to go down there and say that I go around just forcing myself on girls! That is not going to happen. So what else would you suggest?"
Quinn sighed, and a congested wheeze entered Rachel's ear. But other than that the blonde didn't speak…
"Hello?"
"If you remember correctly that's exactly what happened!" Quinn eventually snapped. "You forced that kiss on me, and I wasn't expecting it, and now everybody and their mother has probably seen that God damn footage! If my dad sees it, I'm done!" She sighed gruffly. "This is such a fucking mess!"
"Stop trying to make me sound like some sort of sexual deviant. You hired me for the part, Quinn Fabray!" Rachel swiftly reminded her. "I simply gave a convincing performance."
"That's bullshit! You were trying to antagonize me!" Quinn raised her voice. "Yes, I deserved it and more. But let's not make it seem like that kiss was an act of righteousness! You fucking hate me, and that's why you did it!"
"I do not fucking hate you!" Rachel whispered, matter-of-fact. "If you need to hear me say that repeatedly, until it sinks in, then we can hash the issue out later. But I'm afraid that, right now, we don't have the time for a round of marriage counseling!" she bit impatiently.
"Is… Did she seem drunk? My mom, I mean. Did..." From the corner of her eye, Quinn saw something grey fly out from behind the toaster oven. She glanced up at the ceiling fan, which was now spinning cold air down at her head. It had been turning itself on ever since her father had tried to fix the other problems that had been plaguing it...
Despite Rachel repeatedly calling her name, Quinn lowered her phone to the shiny black work surface, and picked up what appeared to be a grey sock up. The first thing that she noted about it was that it was nowhere near her father's size. The second thing that she noticed, as she turned it around in her hand, was the Zelda pattern that was stitched into the material.
Her eyes broadened.
"Sam," she whispered.
"Quinn, where have you gone?" Rachel asked, sighing.
"It doesn't matter anymore," Quinn finally responded. There seemed to now be a certain stiffness to her already congested voice, an air of despondence almost.
"It… it doesn't matter anymore?" Rachel echoed, her voice thinning soft as her shoulders released some tension. "What do you mean?"
The blonde ran her thumb over the sock as she gazed down at the familiar pattern that was woven into it, just to be sure. Her stomach lurched, but she breathed the feeling away. "Listen to me carefully. I'm going to call my mom in a few seconds. Wherever you are, stay there! She'll be gone in a few minutes, I promise."
The phone then suddenly went dead.
"Quinn?" Rachel whined, resisting the urge to stomp her foot…
The atmosphere downstairs was tenser than ever. In fact, it had grown so thick that Judy no longer cared to watch her words. "Maybe you should go and check on your daughter. Make sure she hasn't fallen down the toilet bowl."
"Excuse me?" Hiram challenged, not liking this woman's tone in the slightest.
"Oh stop being so naïve! We both know that she's up there calling Quinn right now, when she should be down here facing the music!"
"I really don't like the tone that you are taking in my house."
Judy's pocket began to vibrate just then. She frowned down at it and quickly retrieved her phone.
After a small hair-flick, the device was at her ear within the second. "Quinn; what a surprise. Before you say anything, I'm just trying to do what is best for you. You were complaining about me not being very good at that earlier. So don't complain when I try to do something about it. I'm going to be on your every move after you've completed the conversion therapy, to make sure that there are no relapses."
"Conversion therapy?" Hiram huffed, quite frankly appalled that such places still existed in two-thousand-and-fourteen! He didn't care what anybody said; those places were blatant scams. You were most likely graduating there one week, and then sucking a stranger's dick behind a nightclub the next.
Judy angled her body away from the nosy man, and quietened her voice to a murmur. "I saw that picture of you and Rachel," she spat, adding, "on your phone. So don't spin me some lie about how she forced herself on you. You're going to get help -"
"Mom!" Quinn yelled.
"What?"
"Firstly – and I'm only going to say this one more time – I'm not gay, and Rachel isn't my girlfriend! She's a friend, and that God damn kiss was just some method acting for a role that she's playing in drama club. If you were more open, maybe I would have felt safe enough to come to you and tell you the chaste truth," Quinn lied, though it wasn't like there was zero truth to it. "Secondly… how long have you been sleeping with Sam Evans?"
Judy almost dropped her phone.
Hiram watched her stumble and quickly crossed the space between them, ready to catch her in the event that she should fall to the floor.
Steadying herself, Judy ended the call. She ran trembling fingers back through her hair as she glanced around in panic. "I've – I have to go!"
Upstairs, Rachel was peering out of her window. She watched Judy's silver Convertible manically pull off down the street…
Hiram soon poked his head around her bedroom door, and she span around to face him.
"I thought you said that you and Quinn were just potential friends?" he asked, crossing the room to sit down on the bed. "Apparently there's a video of you kissing her? I know that you're a teenager, and I know that there will be some things that you'll want to keep to yourself. But lying to my face like that?" A hurt frown passed through his features as he cast his gaze down at the carpet.
Rachel couldn't stand to see it. "Daddy, I wasn't lying when I told you that Quinn wasn't my girlfriend," she said softly. "She's not gay, and despite the fact that she's heart-wrenchingly gorgeous, I can't say that I'm attracted to her personality. That kiss was…"
Hiram looked up at his daughter.
"It was…" A sigh left her; did she want to lie to her father? Not at all. She had such a close bond with her fathers because of their openness with one another.
"Quinn and I are pretending to be an item at school, and you know me daddy. I'm a stickler for a well-paid role. And by well-paid, I mean any role at all. Even the ones that don't pay." With a small shrug she smiled, light and tentative, like a mother dipping her toe into the bath water that she'd prepared for her child.
Hiram may have found it charming if it were not for the fact that he was so confused. "Why are you pretending to be Quinn's girlfriend? Surely she can get a date to the school dance without having to hire anybody – and another girl at that."
"Well," Rachel began, sitting down on the wide windowsill, "Quinn is in love with a boy at school. They were dating, but he broke-up with her. Now she's willing to do anything to get him back," she explained, gesturing at herself as if to depict what anything had amounted to. "He loves her too. But he's just being stubborn. Quinn thought that if she pretended to date me – a girl – then not only would he realize that he couldn't bear to see her with anybody else, but he would also think that he had broken her heart severely enough for her to explore romantic relationships with other girls."
It wasn't the whole truth, and Rachel wasn't happy about that. But it would just have to do for now. "She came to me because of my acting skills. I said that I would help her out because I wanted to see her get her happy ending, and because I can't resist a juicy role."
Hiram coughed into his fist, and then rubbed his chest as he swallowed. "What in the world has happened to teenagers? In my day you simply went to school and focused on your studies." His tone wasn't stern in the slightest. Just incredulous.
Maybe he was a little naïve…
Look asshole, I know about you and my mom. You're going to meet me at Araway Grove in an hour. If you don't show up, I'm going to come to your house and cause a scene!
Quinn's thumb worked quick to send the text message to Sam.
Once that was done, she sat there on the sofa just staring into space.
The abrupt end to her phone conversation with her mom was all the confirmation that Quinn had needed.
Truthfully, she was still in complete shock. Not to forget disgust, as that was honestly the main ingredient. Sam Evans was her age! He was a school boy, for fuck sake! Yes, he was over the age of consent. But that didn't mean a God damn thing in her mind.
Mr Simmings had paired them up for a class project. Quinn had only brought him to the house so that they could work on it together – what – five times? Despite the rumors, nothing had gone on between them. Sam had tried to get something going though, a few times. But, at the time, Quinn had shot him down at every turn. He wasn't her type.
"No guy's hair should ever blow in the wind and look prettier than mine," she had once told a sniggering Santana. That, and Sam was a geek in popular kid's clothing, who liked to leave his house wearing grey Zelda socks.
He was a sly little snot, Quinn concluded. She hadn't swooned at his boring little jokes, so he'd gone for the older and more desperate model.
Her mother.
Maybe the big-jawed boy had a thing for women who were already taken…
And then there was Russell to consider in all of this.
It wasn't news to Quinn that her parents despised one another. Most days didn't pass without some sort of argument. She wasn't naive enough to think that her father wasn't out sleeping with other women either. But he was a do-as-I-say-and-not-as-I-do type of guy, and if he sniffed even a particle of Sam, a tornado was going to tear through the house and leave no brick unharmed.
Quinn didn't want that. But she was going to threaten to pour just enough gasoline on the simmering fire, in order to subdue her disgrace of a mother.
After putting her phone down, she reached for a tissue and blew her stuffy nose. Sam's sock sat beside her…
The front door quietly clicked open, and swung back heavy enough to shut itself.
Judy's feet hesitated, as if scared to venture any further. She regarded her daughter carefully, attempting to size her expression up, before deciding that her nerves were getting to be too much. She took the bottle of brandy from her purse, unscrewed the cap, and put the bottle's lips to her own – gasping once every drop had swam down her throat.
Quinn swallowed hard on her already scratchy throat, but her face remained expressionless. "Did you hunt him down, like the thirsty cougar that you are?" she jabbed. "Or did he do the chasing?"
Judy figured that she should at least try to act like she wasn't guilty. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said, tossing the empty brandy bottle at the trash.
It missed.
"I found this in the kitchen," Quinn said, holding up the sock and eyeing it in disgust. "It's not dad's size, or his style. Zelda? The only person that I've ever seen wearing these is that geek, Sam, and I remember you flirting with him – always asking him if he wanted nibbles when he was coming over to work on our school project. He wasn't at school this morning, and then I come home to find you here! It all adds up, unfortunately. And the kitchen? Seriously? What, were the two of you hungry for snacks as well as each other?" she spat, incensed.
"Lucy Quinn Fabray!" Judy tried, standing back.
"I can't believe that I was unlucky enough to score you for a mother! You're a disgrace!" Quinn shouted, finally letting the anger pour from her pores. She rubbed her nose back and forth, sniffing. "You can think that I'm a lesbian all you want, and you can think about sending me off to some facility all you want too. I'm past explaining myself. But I'm not going anywhere, and if you do anything to rock the boat from now on, dad's going to get a special sock in his birthday hamper, along with the story that goes with it."
Judy shook her head as tears gleamed in her eyes. She could not believe that this person who was blackmailing her was her own daughter – the baby that she had nurtured all those years ago. Such anger etched Quinn's face.
Such anger…
Araway Grove was a seven minute walk away.
Quinn zipped her black hoodie up; her sneakers swift and graceful against the night's pavement. She could see her own breath as she powered her legs faster.
Having already contracted the flu, she knew that she should've been tucked up in bed, and not out walking the streets at seven-thirty in the evening. But she needed to speak to Sam.
Her cell phone, which was already clutched in her hand just in case Sam decided to grow some balls and text back, suddenly rocked with its usual jingle.
Quinn lifted the glowing device to her face, and glimpsed that it was Rachel who was calling.
"Hello?" she answered.
"A part of me is just phoning to be nosy about the sorcery that you worked on your mother earlier. But mostly I just wanted to check in and see if everything is alright on your end," Rachel explained, her voice compassionate and warm – if not a little upbeat.
Quinn sighed. "I'm fine."
"You sound pretty congested," Rachel softly pointed out. "I noticed earlier when we spoke, but I kind of didn't have time to mock you about it, for obvious reasons."
"Is there an actual point to this phone call?" Quinn snapped, immediately scolding herself for it. But she didn't have the wherewithal to apologize. Truthfully, she could hardly breathe.
"Yes," the brunette replied, as if everything was just that simple. "Your mother seemed to be in a lot of distress, and then she was gone – poof – just like that! She took off like a bat out of hell, leaving me worried for what would happen to you next. Apparently she mentioned sending you off to one of those conversion camps to my father. So, the point of this phone call is to check in and see if everything is alright on your end."
"Why do you care?" Quinn asked glumly, trudging along.
"I shouldn't." Rachel retorted dryly. "Foolish? Certainly. But contrary to popular belief, I don't hate you."
"Well then you're an idiot, aren't you?"
"Yes, well I think we've already just established that part," Rachel chirped, swiftly moving along: "Still, I'm not an inherently hateful person. As someone once said to me: I'm never going to be your biggest fan, and you're never going to be mine. But we can operate under mutual respect. Maybe my definition of respect is just that little bit broader than yours, hence why I deemed this phone call necessary."
Quinn slowed her gait down, although the muscles in her legs were still flexing with every step. "I think that it was Sam who sent my – Judy – that video."
"And why would you think that?" Rachel asked, failing to connect the dots.
"I don't know yet…"
"Well that was highly informative. Thank you."
"Why aren't you off texting Noelle?" Quinn probed, fancying a change of topic. "That's all you're good for these days."
Rachel sort of snorted a sardonic chuckle and scoffed at the same time. "I'm going out soon to buy some soy milk. Do you want me to pick you up something for that flu?"
…
"Tick-tock, Quinn. A simple yes or no will suffice."
The cheerleader had stopped walking altogether now. She ignored the fire in her muscles and peered down the street, just listening to the brunette breathe. "N-No. I'm fine. But… thanks for the offer."
"Ok then. Well, I'm going to get moving before the store closes."
"Bye."
"Bye Quinn."