Raging, Rolling (Glee, Rachel/Quinn-implied)
It's been so long since I posted! I'll totally make one of relevance to sum up my crazzzyyy year which was 2011, but, before that, have a fic.
Raging, Rolling
Glee. Rachel/Quinn-implied. Set during Season 1. PG-13. 1,551 words.
Trigger warning: miscarrying.
Later, if she’s feeling honest, she’ll be relieved.
The doctor will tell her it’s not uncommon, tells her that it’s unfortunate really and he’s just going to need to put her under a light anaesthetic, just to clean her up. Out. He’ll ask her if there’s anyone they can call.
Her head’s heavy as she leans back on the hospital bed, the blood between her thighs sticky, staining the paper hospital gown a sickly red like that time her she spilt her communion wine down her best church dress, and the doctor is painfully gentle, cleaning the curette and then her like she’s the child instead of the almost-mother. He asks her something, and her eyelids flutter because she’s suddenly so, so tired.
&
The thing is, it’s not even entirely out of the blue.
She’d been feeling sick since the morning, skin pale and head too light and she’d skipped school in lieu of going to the park and the chemist and the maternity store. She takes too many vitamins and spends the rest of the morning vomiting into the bushes by the playground.
There’s a toilet next to the gas station and she just, she feels so sick and she just wants to press her forehead against cool tiles, her fingers beneath the tap, even if it’s dirty. And she does and it is, and the next thing she knows a woman is yelling out for someone to call an ambulance and the pain in her head tells her maybe it’s not such a bad idea.
At the end of it all, she’ll have lost her baby to the tiles of a public bathroom and she’s not sure which part is more humiliating, the pregnancy or this sort of end, because if she was going to lose this thing, it was always going to be on her terms.
&
Before she even wakes up, the relief is there, unfurling in the pit of her belly where the baby should’ve been.
“I thought you would have called Noah,” Rachel hums, and the smile is obvious, pleased at what must look like an unparalleled instance of trust. It’s late now, almost eleven, and Rachel looks like she took too long to dress, outfit chosen for its situational propriety - high-necked collar and long skirt, conservative and matronly, and Quinn just sighs, shifting in her paper nightgown.
Rachel doesn’t say anything for a few minutes, her stance growing more awkward and she takes the silence from Quinn either as encouragement or pain, because she stops waiting for a response sooner than even Quinn would’ve thought. “You know, this sort of thing can be good for an upcoming starlet. Nicole Kidman famously miscarried whilst she was married to Tom Cruise and this was just before her turn as the show stopping Satine in Moulin Rouge!”
She doesn’t get the response she wants - Quinn turns, looking vehemently out the window, and Rachel’s shoulders sag pointedly, her line of sight dropping. It’s a visible deflation, and Quinn shouldn’t feel as validated by it as she does, but something about this feels a lot like control again.
“Quinn,” Rachel reaches out, fingers hovering, but she can’t bring herself to drop her hand, to cover Quinn’s own, and it’s an extension of the weakness Rachel has already given her, something for Quinn to cling to and tear apart.
“Leave it,” she hisses, and she pushes away again, swings her legs over the side of the bed and pulls at the bag of clothes Rachel brought with her and Rachel’s staring at her again, eyes wide and lips open and dumb, and she doesn’t leave it, because she can’t.
“People will understand. Glee club will - I mean, everyone loves you, Quinn. You’re so -“
“There won’t be anything to understand,” Quinn says, undoing the tie of her paper gown, “Because you won’t say anything.”
“Of course I won’t! But, I mean. It’s not something you can hide forever.”
Quinn shrugs out of her paper gown, pulls on the dress and it’s one of Rachel’s - plain, but ugly and the fabric scratches at the skin on Quinn’s chest and stomach and thighs and that’s it really, the first thing she’s felt properly since that morning and the realisation uncurls like a baby in a crib. That it’s Rachel’s dress and it’s Rachel who’s here, and --
“I have no one,” she can feel her fingers curl in the hem of the dress, tight until her knuckles lose colour. “And now I have nothing.”
Rachel suddenly looks so lost, eyes not leaving the curve of Quinn’s neck and the tight curl of her fingers and she can’t say anything, not really, and Quinn can almost see where the words catch in her throat.
“My Dads’ made up the spare bed, I mean, or we could drop you somewhere. I just figured -“
Quinn sighs, short and coarse, loosens her grip and says, “Well, where else am I going to go?” with the same sort of voice she used to use when correcting Brittany’s cheer form or Finn’s wandering fingers. Rachel nods sharply and goes to find Quinn’s things whilst Quinn wonders loosely, blindly what the hell’s wrong with her - why she’s the one that’s always being left behind.
&
The car ride is too long for the distance, and Quinn spends it looking out the window, at traffic lights and late night joggers. Rachel’s parents hardly say a word to her, but they look at her with sad, drawn faces like what she’s feeling matters.
Rachel’s house is quaint on the outside and full of Rachel on the inside - all photos and costumes, tapes and home-recorded CD’s. There’s a family portrait set up in the living room that mirrors the one at Quinn’s, only it’s two Dads’ and no Mom and no one’s wearing a cross. Quinn imagines colouring in Rachel’s toothy smile.
“The spare room’s just down the hall,” Rachel says suddenly, curtly. She’s stopped making eye contact - like this is too much even for her, and Quinn glances back at her from the picture. “It smells a little bit musty, but that’s just because my Aunt Dolores was over last week and that’s just what she smells like. It always stays in the house for so long after, I used to think she’d leave something behind in the rooms - just so we couldn’t forget she’d been here.”
Quinn snorts a little, brushes her hair away from her face where it’s still flat and damp from fevers and sweat. Walks after Rachel into the spare room, and it is musty and there’s cats on the quilt cover, but the thought of bed is more welcoming than she cares to admit and she clambers into it like it’s home.
There’s an ache in her chest like something’s trying to claw its way out, pry apart her ribs and sweep away the tissue. It’s been hours since public restroom floors, but it’s here and now when, with the bed beneath her and Rachel in the doorway, she realises it’s her heart.
“It was all for nothing,” Quinn mumbles, and it was, the stretchmarks and the Cheerios and losing her parents and Finn and keeping Puck and the hundreds of dollars on sonograms and vitamins and the baby blanket she’d stolen from her grandmother’s closet.
Rachel doesn’t say anything for a while, just looks at her with those big, dumb eyes and nose and ugly hair and finally says, “Maybe not, I don’t know. I don’t think I would have even considered picking you up from the hospital at the start of the year. I don’t think you would have called me anyway.”
Quinn scoffs, turns her face into the pillow and she doesn’t cry right away, but Rachel leaves and the tears well like they’ve been waiting in the wings and Quinn’s skin is suddenly a stage, like this is another performance and any minute there’ll be an applause and she’ll snap back to reality without ever having been pregnant at all. Her parents will still love her, and she’ll still be head cheerleader and instead of Rachel coming back to sit with her, it’ll be Finn, and it’ll be his fingers curling around her ankle and his mumbles that’ll be more comforting than she could ever admit, and it’ll be him saying “I’m not the one you want, but I’m not no one either.”
She dreams of waking up and it all being over and in a way it is. She’s not pregnant, but the ache she’d mistaken for relief is still there, pulsing and spreading like a disease. Rachel’s beside her, curled in the sheets with her hair braided and her old-lady-nightie irritating the skin of Quinn’s back.
Quinn’s not sure whether she wants to push her away or hug her, so she does neither, but when Rachel wakes up, disheveled and past her alarm telling her to start her morning routine and looking at her like she’s fragile, Quinn rolls her eyes and says, “If you stop looking at me like that, you can hold my hand.”
And Rachel does. And she does it again at dinner when Quinn can’t stomach the casserole, and again the week after, when Quinn, on shaky legs, finds her way back to school.
Raging, Rolling
Glee. Rachel/Quinn-implied. Set during Season 1. PG-13. 1,551 words.
Trigger warning: miscarrying.
Later, if she’s feeling honest, she’ll be relieved.
The doctor will tell her it’s not uncommon, tells her that it’s unfortunate really and he’s just going to need to put her under a light anaesthetic, just to clean her up. Out. He’ll ask her if there’s anyone they can call.
Her head’s heavy as she leans back on the hospital bed, the blood between her thighs sticky, staining the paper hospital gown a sickly red like that time her she spilt her communion wine down her best church dress, and the doctor is painfully gentle, cleaning the curette and then her like she’s the child instead of the almost-mother. He asks her something, and her eyelids flutter because she’s suddenly so, so tired.
&
The thing is, it’s not even entirely out of the blue.
She’d been feeling sick since the morning, skin pale and head too light and she’d skipped school in lieu of going to the park and the chemist and the maternity store. She takes too many vitamins and spends the rest of the morning vomiting into the bushes by the playground.
There’s a toilet next to the gas station and she just, she feels so sick and she just wants to press her forehead against cool tiles, her fingers beneath the tap, even if it’s dirty. And she does and it is, and the next thing she knows a woman is yelling out for someone to call an ambulance and the pain in her head tells her maybe it’s not such a bad idea.
At the end of it all, she’ll have lost her baby to the tiles of a public bathroom and she’s not sure which part is more humiliating, the pregnancy or this sort of end, because if she was going to lose this thing, it was always going to be on her terms.
&
Before she even wakes up, the relief is there, unfurling in the pit of her belly where the baby should’ve been.
“I thought you would have called Noah,” Rachel hums, and the smile is obvious, pleased at what must look like an unparalleled instance of trust. It’s late now, almost eleven, and Rachel looks like she took too long to dress, outfit chosen for its situational propriety - high-necked collar and long skirt, conservative and matronly, and Quinn just sighs, shifting in her paper nightgown.
Rachel doesn’t say anything for a few minutes, her stance growing more awkward and she takes the silence from Quinn either as encouragement or pain, because she stops waiting for a response sooner than even Quinn would’ve thought. “You know, this sort of thing can be good for an upcoming starlet. Nicole Kidman famously miscarried whilst she was married to Tom Cruise and this was just before her turn as the show stopping Satine in Moulin Rouge!”
She doesn’t get the response she wants - Quinn turns, looking vehemently out the window, and Rachel’s shoulders sag pointedly, her line of sight dropping. It’s a visible deflation, and Quinn shouldn’t feel as validated by it as she does, but something about this feels a lot like control again.
“Quinn,” Rachel reaches out, fingers hovering, but she can’t bring herself to drop her hand, to cover Quinn’s own, and it’s an extension of the weakness Rachel has already given her, something for Quinn to cling to and tear apart.
“Leave it,” she hisses, and she pushes away again, swings her legs over the side of the bed and pulls at the bag of clothes Rachel brought with her and Rachel’s staring at her again, eyes wide and lips open and dumb, and she doesn’t leave it, because she can’t.
“People will understand. Glee club will - I mean, everyone loves you, Quinn. You’re so -“
“There won’t be anything to understand,” Quinn says, undoing the tie of her paper gown, “Because you won’t say anything.”
“Of course I won’t! But, I mean. It’s not something you can hide forever.”
Quinn shrugs out of her paper gown, pulls on the dress and it’s one of Rachel’s - plain, but ugly and the fabric scratches at the skin on Quinn’s chest and stomach and thighs and that’s it really, the first thing she’s felt properly since that morning and the realisation uncurls like a baby in a crib. That it’s Rachel’s dress and it’s Rachel who’s here, and --
“I have no one,” she can feel her fingers curl in the hem of the dress, tight until her knuckles lose colour. “And now I have nothing.”
Rachel suddenly looks so lost, eyes not leaving the curve of Quinn’s neck and the tight curl of her fingers and she can’t say anything, not really, and Quinn can almost see where the words catch in her throat.
“My Dads’ made up the spare bed, I mean, or we could drop you somewhere. I just figured -“
Quinn sighs, short and coarse, loosens her grip and says, “Well, where else am I going to go?” with the same sort of voice she used to use when correcting Brittany’s cheer form or Finn’s wandering fingers. Rachel nods sharply and goes to find Quinn’s things whilst Quinn wonders loosely, blindly what the hell’s wrong with her - why she’s the one that’s always being left behind.
&
The car ride is too long for the distance, and Quinn spends it looking out the window, at traffic lights and late night joggers. Rachel’s parents hardly say a word to her, but they look at her with sad, drawn faces like what she’s feeling matters.
Rachel’s house is quaint on the outside and full of Rachel on the inside - all photos and costumes, tapes and home-recorded CD’s. There’s a family portrait set up in the living room that mirrors the one at Quinn’s, only it’s two Dads’ and no Mom and no one’s wearing a cross. Quinn imagines colouring in Rachel’s toothy smile.
“The spare room’s just down the hall,” Rachel says suddenly, curtly. She’s stopped making eye contact - like this is too much even for her, and Quinn glances back at her from the picture. “It smells a little bit musty, but that’s just because my Aunt Dolores was over last week and that’s just what she smells like. It always stays in the house for so long after, I used to think she’d leave something behind in the rooms - just so we couldn’t forget she’d been here.”
Quinn snorts a little, brushes her hair away from her face where it’s still flat and damp from fevers and sweat. Walks after Rachel into the spare room, and it is musty and there’s cats on the quilt cover, but the thought of bed is more welcoming than she cares to admit and she clambers into it like it’s home.
There’s an ache in her chest like something’s trying to claw its way out, pry apart her ribs and sweep away the tissue. It’s been hours since public restroom floors, but it’s here and now when, with the bed beneath her and Rachel in the doorway, she realises it’s her heart.
“It was all for nothing,” Quinn mumbles, and it was, the stretchmarks and the Cheerios and losing her parents and Finn and keeping Puck and the hundreds of dollars on sonograms and vitamins and the baby blanket she’d stolen from her grandmother’s closet.
Rachel doesn’t say anything for a while, just looks at her with those big, dumb eyes and nose and ugly hair and finally says, “Maybe not, I don’t know. I don’t think I would have even considered picking you up from the hospital at the start of the year. I don’t think you would have called me anyway.”
Quinn scoffs, turns her face into the pillow and she doesn’t cry right away, but Rachel leaves and the tears well like they’ve been waiting in the wings and Quinn’s skin is suddenly a stage, like this is another performance and any minute there’ll be an applause and she’ll snap back to reality without ever having been pregnant at all. Her parents will still love her, and she’ll still be head cheerleader and instead of Rachel coming back to sit with her, it’ll be Finn, and it’ll be his fingers curling around her ankle and his mumbles that’ll be more comforting than she could ever admit, and it’ll be him saying “I’m not the one you want, but I’m not no one either.”
She dreams of waking up and it all being over and in a way it is. She’s not pregnant, but the ache she’d mistaken for relief is still there, pulsing and spreading like a disease. Rachel’s beside her, curled in the sheets with her hair braided and her old-lady-nightie irritating the skin of Quinn’s back.
Quinn’s not sure whether she wants to push her away or hug her, so she does neither, but when Rachel wakes up, disheveled and past her alarm telling her to start her morning routine and looking at her like she’s fragile, Quinn rolls her eyes and says, “If you stop looking at me like that, you can hold my hand.”
And Rachel does. And she does it again at dinner when Quinn can’t stomach the casserole, and again the week after, when Quinn, on shaky legs, finds her way back to school.