Prompt: NicoleQuinn + pillow


Nicole wakes up to the sound of murmuring. At first, she wonders if it's her own voice, because she remembers Dana saying that she never shuts up even in her sleep sometimes, but after a minute or two of lying in the dark she realises that it's coming from Quinn's room. Immediately, the gossip in her is intrigued, even as one part of her argues that Quinn is a friend and she should mind her own business. She presses her ear to the wall but still can't make out any of the words, but she figures the most likely scenario is that Quinn has snuck Mark in after hours, and that seems like a trick later down the line, especially if Lance ever actually asks her out.

She pads her way to Quinn's room, careful not to wake Zoey or Lola as she does so, and knocks on the door. Quinn opens it only an inch, her eye visible through the open space, before opening it properly with a surprised but not displeased look on her face.

"Did my pacing wake you?" she asks.

"No, I thought I heard talking," says Nicole, trying to subtly look over Quinn's shoulder to see who's in there with her but finding the room empty, though she does note with some concern that it seems to be almost glowing with a number of bizarre-looking contraptions.

"Oh, that was me. I talk to myself sometimes when I have a problem," Quinn explains.

"What's bothering ya?" Nicole asks. "I always find talking solves all of my problems." Quinn hesitates for a moment before ushering her inside, Nicole giving her an excited grin in return. "This will be fun, like a slumber party!"

She turns to find Quinn in her own world (or at least, more so than usual), worriedly biting on the corner of her thumbnail as she resumes her pacing across the room. Nicole frowns and gingerly sits herself on the corner of Quinn's desk, more than a little concerned that it will zap her or spray her with something else that could mess up her cute pyjamas.

"Did you mean it, when you said I can figure anything out?" Quinn asks, startling Nicole off the desk.

"Well, yeah," she answers after she's calmed her heartbeat. "You're like the smartest girl in the whole school." Quinn just sighs.

"I know, but I'm just - confused," she says, flouncing onto her bed dramatically. "I broke up with Mark," Nicole lets out a gasp, "and I don't know why."

"O - M - G," Nicole exclaims, moving to join Quinn on the bed. "Wait, what do you mean you don't know why?"

"It just didn't feel right," Quinn shrugs. "Even though he's perfect. Our last few Chemistry study sessions just didn't feel the same, so I knew it was time."

"Well…" says Nicole, trying to rack her brain for a polite way to say that maybe what she needed was someone who isn't mind-numbingly boring, "maybe you just need to find someone more, you know. Stimulating."

"Mark and I were completely intellectually compatible," Quinn frowns, then adds sadly, "I don't know if I'll ever find someone who agreed with me about quantum physics the way he did."

"I think you're just in a rut," Nicole says. She claps her hands together as an epiphany strikes her, forgetting that it's after midnight until Quinn shushes her. "I have an idea, what about a makeover? They always make me feel better," she whispers.

"Do you think that's it? He got bored?" Quinn gasps, and starts grasping at her pigtails. "I know I'm not as good as makeup at other girls or as pretty but -"

"No, no! I think you're super pretty. You don't need makeup," Nicole assures her. "Look, that came out wrong. I just meant that doing something a bit different can help. Like, I was struggling with this English essay so I moved from staring at boys on the tennis court to staring at boys on the basketball court and then bam! I had a great idea and a date. Or when -"

"I get it," Quinn says tersely, then sighs and drops her head. "I'm just…confused. I'm not used to feeling this way. I don't even know what I'm feeling." Gingerly, Nicole places a hand on her shoulder and tries to get Quinn to meet her eyes, offering her a smile.

"Hey, it's ok. We'll figure it out together," she says. "You know what always makes me feel better? When my mum brushes my hair. It makes me feel - safe. Like I can talk to her about anything. Do you wanna give it a try?"

After a moment, Quinn nods, gets up to grab a hairbrush and hands it to Nicole, who turns it over in her hands searching for some kind of button until Quinn giggles and assures that it is, in fact, just an ordinary hairbrush. Quinn seats herself on the floor, pulling out her pigtails as she does so, and Nicole begins brushing her hair, starting from the bottom to minimise any breakage or tugging. They just sit in silence for a bit, Nicole reflecting on the fact that this is actually what she thought boarding school would be like, before Dana came and yelled at her over a hairdryer and before Zoey got so busy with Chase. Not that she hasn't had fun with Zoey, or even Dana and Lola; they've shared clothes and done each other's makeup and played whispered games of truth or dare after lights out plenty of times, but she always thought they'd be inseparable, telling each other secrets and wiping way each other's tears.

"Why are you being so nice to me?" Quinn asks, breaking through her reverie.

"You're my friend," Nicole answers, continuing to brush through her hair. "Anyway, when did you start feeling different about Mark?" Quinn ponders for a moment, tilting her head so that Nicole has to reposition it slightly, her fingertips lightly crowning Quinn's skull.

"A few weeks ago, I think," she replies.

"So, around the time you were snoring and sleeping upside down and stuff?" Nicole says. "Maybe it was just sleep deprivation."

"No, it was a bit after that," Quinn says. "Besides, my experiment on sleep deprivation last year was quite conclusive, and I didn't really show any of the typical symptoms." Nicole shrugs and tucks a strand of Quinn's hair behind her ear so she can brush it more easily. "How have you been sleeping by the way?"

"Better," Nicole answers. "The guppies are working. But I think I was starting to get used to your snoring anyway, at least by the time you were trying to perform nasal acupuncture on yourself." Quinn murmurs in the back of her throat and Nicole puts down the hairbrush and starts combing her fingers through Quinn's hair, thinking to herself that the way it catches the soft lamplight is quite pretty. She starts to section it into three pieces and begins to braid it.

"I know my snoring was annoying," Quinn starts, "but spending time with you was…nice. I don't really have a lot of friends here, and that's ok, but we could maybe do it again sometime? If you wanted to?"

Nicole hums in agreement, still working away at Quinn's hair. She says, "We're spending time together right now, so yeah. And that night was kind of interesting when I think about it. Disturbing, but I do admire your dedication to the scientific method." Quinn tilts her head up and beams at her in response, Nicole smiling back as she finishes tying off the braid.

"There! Do you like it?"

Quinn leaps up to stare at herself in the mirror, even lifting the braid up to see how it looks. "I feel - pretty. Thank you." Nicole grins at her and gives herself a clap, quietly this time. Quinn bites her lip bashfully and scuffs the carpet with her foot before making her way back towards the bed, asking Nicole if she's getting sleepy.

"Maybe a little," Nicole replies, then promptly yawns. "But really, I said I wanted to help. Any ideas as to why you broke up with Mark yet?"

"I have an inkling," Quinn says, pursing her lips. She sighs and falls onto her pillow, staring at the ceiling. Nicole lies down next to her, staring at her profile, her brow furrowed as she asks what's wrong. "I'm not used to being surprised," Quinn answers. "It's one of the nice things about science. Usually, results are predictable. Or you at least learn to take all possibilities into account. I didn't think of this as an option."

"Ok, so…what is it?"

Nicole feels slightly miffed when Quinn doesn't answer but decides not to push it, instead turning to stare up at the ceiling as well. She's surprised and nothing short of delighted to find that all of it is covered in glow-in-the-dark stars and planets, a mini galaxy of neon greens and oranges and blues above her. She immediately asks Quinn to turn the lights off so she can see it in action, the room plunged into darkness except for the glowing stickers and whirring contraptions surrounding her. She can't hep but feel a little like some kind of sci-fi princess, on a spaceship exploring distant civilisations, and oddly she doesn't hate the feeling, as nerdy as it is. She glances at Quinn and finds her already meeting her gaze, her expression not quite discernible in the dark. Nicole offers her a smile anyway.

"Wanna hear a secret?" she asks, to which Quinn nods. "I still get nightmares and sometimes try to sneak into Zoey's bed to sleep better. I don't do it as much as I used to, but sometimes I'll still steal one of her stuffed animals. That's another secret, actually. Zoey pretends to be a big girl but she actually really loves stuffed toys. There's one under her bed." Quinn giggles and they both press a finger to their lips, promising not to tell anyone else. "What about you?"

"I don't have any secrets," Quinn answers. "At least, not one I'm ready to share. Yet. But maybe one day," she says. "You can stay here tonight, if you'd like. It might keep the nightmares away."

"Thanks. I might actually, it's surprisingly cosy in here," Nicole says, punctuating it with a yawn to prove her point. She nestles her faces deeper into the pillow, her head dropping until it's almost resting on Quinn's shoulder.

"What shampoo scent do you use?" Quinn asks.

"Strawberry. Why?"

"It's nice," Quinn says, and Nicole thinks that she's considerably less weirded out by that statement now than she would have been even a day ago.

Instead, she drifts off to sleep almost instantly and doesn't wake up until well into the morning. When she does, she finds her forehead almost touching Quinn's and their knees almost brushing, while Quinn's arm sticks out at an odd angle and rests on Nicole's shoulder. The position for either of them shouldn't be comfortable but Nicole can appreciate the warmth of it. She doesn't even mind the rumble of her snoring, guppies forgotten on Quinn's bedside table. In fact, she'd almost say she finds it cute.