Author's Note: Couple of things: this work is inspired by the fanart of konako( konako dot tumblr dot com/post/59522273734 & post/59067079455 & post/59053589271 / & post/58939202068 / & post/59728073452 ) who posts some amazing pictures and I felt i just had to write something.

Two: this started off as straight smut one-shot, but I can't do dub-con, so it transformed into fluff and now multichapter. Oh well.

Three: reviews always welcomed

Four: unbetaed, so if someone betas faberry fics, let me know.

October 31st

Rachel Berry was not afraid of anything. She had to repeat this mantra to herself as she ran away as fast as her short legs could carry her. The elliptical had prepared her endurance, but never for speed, and even then, she felt her knees start to ache, her legs burn, and her breathe shorten. It wouldn't be long before it caught up with her.

Halloween of all nights, she had to cut through the forest to get home. Didn't she learn anything from those stupid horror films Santana forced them to watch. Rachel was an avid reader of tvtropes and should have known better. As a virgin, she certainly should avoid dark, cold places where serial killers liked to hang out as well as the various monsters on the films that didn't exist except for the one chasing her, which was faster than she expected, smarter than she wanted, and Barbara, bigger than she could have imagined.

She wheezed and weaved her way through the trees, trying to just avoid the low branches and knots, but stupid Lima and it's stupid forest preserve and-

Rachel tumbled ass over tea kettle as her feet found the one boulder in the entire forest that her eyes could not see through the full moon. She considered herself lucky as she slid on the relatively empty forest floor - how strange - and coming to a stop right in front of some large tree. Oak? Pine? Christmas tree? This wasn't covered in biology class and what little they did talk about plants was worthless given the focus on the animals. She scurried to her knees and crawled around the large tree-plant-thingy and sat against the bark. Breathing was hard, much harder than singing. This wasn't normally true, but Rachel felt that running through the forest in Barbara knows what direction from some kind of monster-creature right out of her dreams entitled her to such thoughts. It was only fair.

Her legs pushed her against the tree, trying to meld into it so that she was hidden. Rachel wanted to run more, to get up and flee as quick as possible from the much nearer monster, but her body refused. Her lungs burned as they tried to suck as much air into her as possible with each breath, and the breathing exercises she trained ehrself to do before each performance to calm herself fled her mind as quickly as her feet did early, who also refused to work. "Betrayed by my own body." Had she not needed them for dancing, she would have hung her feet at the gallows for such actions. They truly deserved it.

A branch snapped, and Rachel froze. Her arms and legs had pushed her so hard against the tree-plant-thingie that her butt hung in the air. She couldn't breathe, even the deep gulps of air were gone.

It had found her. The thing that had first caught sight of her, she was so certain, outside Puck's place, when she left through the back door in hopes of escaping the horribly drunk jocks there who seemed only interested in grabbing her ass, pressing themselves against her breasts, all the while breathing in horrible beer breath. The party sucked and she was alone in her dislike in it. Every other gleek enjoyed themselves, and once again Rachel was left by herself to defend herself. Hence leaving early and apparently getting stalked by some crazy psycho monster killer beast thingie

Rachel pulled her knees under her and turned so she could look around the tree. The pale full moon gave enough light, even in the sparse forest, for her to see nothing. Nothing was there chasing her; no monster waited for her around the tree to grab and eat her. Rachel giggled and released her breathe: it was silly after all, just her imagination of the harsh breathing, the swift, almost silent, pounding of something as it stalked her. She sat back down, her back pressing against the tree once more and arms wrapped around her knees. It was silly to think that something would care that much about her to play the-

She opened her eyes and stared at the closed maw of some cat-like beast before her. Mist formed out of its nose as it breathed onto her. Onto her. The thing was so close that its nose almost touched hers. The beast stepped forward and pushed its face into her hair. Whiskers grazed her cheek, and Rachel fought a smile down. This was not a good thing; it took a deep breath in and exhaled against her ear. She sighed and almost leaned towards it, but paused as it pulled away, feeling soft fur rub her face as it did so.

The creature sat down close to her, so its front paws were touching her feet. Rachel looked closely at the creature now, trying to understand just what it was that tracked her and why it wasn't killing her(thought she was thankful for that little aspect). It was a tiger, or at least, what she could understand a tiger would be if it was an actual Siberian tiger, but much larger and bulkier than anything she saw at the zoo, though it was probably just a gross miss-representation as she was much closer to this animal than she ever was at the zoo. The thing's shoulders were almost a yard wide, and if it's height was any indication of how long it was, Rachel feared for her safety. The tiger stood at least a eight feet tall, and stared down at her, trying to size her up she bet. Determining just what was the most tasty part of her that it wished to-

"Oh my Barbara," She gasped as her eyes drifted down its belly to the partially unsheathed penis. Rachel figured he was the appropriate gender moniker for the tiger.

He titled his head and looked at her. The stripes glowed, with what Rachel figured should be orange became a yellowish color, somewhere in between yellow and white. She frowned at her inner dialogue, why couldn't she have known more colors. it wasn't like music and singing and dancing took up so much space in her head that colors were unknown to her. Stupid brain for being so limited. She should fix that.

The tiger had moved into her personal space again. Rachel also should pay attention more, she figured, rather than focusing on-

"Hey," she said, and brought her hands up as he began to sniff at her, rubbing his nose on her chest, slobbering on it. "This is a rental."

She wore a black and red cheer-leading outfit that looked somewhat similar to the daily wear of the Cheerios. Santana had dared her to wear something like it, even picked it out for her. Said live a little. Might actually get the attention of some boy besides Finnosarous, or whatever negative moniker she used. Santana had many. Brittany was highly enthused about the costume. Quinn had just smiled at her.

The tiger continued to sniff at her, pushing her arms up as it went for her arm pits, grazed across her neck(where Rachel shivered as the hot breathe pulsed along her pulse), then her chest again, pausing at her breasts.

She breathing was heavy, pushing her chest up against his snout,and Rachel didn't know why. She refused to think why. Because it was wrong. Rachel was certain of it, and it was certain that this tiger was just trying to decide what part to eat of her first. She wish she could run away, but somewhere in her mind, she knew that tigers sprinted faster than humans. It would be stupid for her to run. Rachel just wanted to tiger to-

"Oh, fuck." The tiger had shifted down to her relatively non-existent skirt and was trying to stick his nose underneath. "No," she said, trying to push his face away. "No!"

The tiger pulled back and sat down again, this time closer to her. He lowered his head and looked at her, tilting his head back and forth, trying to understand her. Rachel felt revitalized by her exclamation. She stood up slowly, eyes focused on the tiger's. "Bad tiger," she said.

Standing now, she notice that he wasn't as big as she thought it was, maybe only three, three and half, feet sitting down. Standing now, she was just taller than him. "Bad tiger," Rachel repeated. The tiger lowered his head, and averted his eyes. He was ashamed; and she smiled at that. "You do not force yourself on others like you were going to do."

The tiger shook his head.

"Oh no?" She asked. "What do you call pushing yourself underneath my skirt?"

He smiled a toothy smile.

"You are not going to eat me, and you are not going to eat me," Rachel stood with her hands on her hips, trying to emulate her best Quinn-glare that she could. Cheerleader uniforms were empowering, she decided. "Understand?"

The tiger nodded, though still smiled.

"Good," Rachel replied. She stood for a bit, looking at the tiger. Neither moved underneath the moonlight, and Rachel let out a slow breathe. Her heart no longer pounded her chest rather hard, and her limbs started to shake. The wind blew through the forest, and even behind a tree-plant, Rachel shivered. The tiger stood up again and stepped forward towards. "What did I tell you?"

He didn't stop.

"Please?" Rachel stepped back, and felt the plant-tree again.

The tiger stepped so he was almost touching her.

"You are not going to-" Rachel nearly fell over as the tiger sat down nearly on her. "What are you doing?" He lied down, taking her with him. He curled around her, so she was underneath him, but not crushed by his weight. Her head rested on one of his forelimbs, which was rather taught and she could only guess strong. He was really, really warm, with his legs over hers, hiding her almost now frozen toes. "oh."

The tiger released a breathe and shifted back and forth before settling as close as possible to Rachel, hugging her to his body. He wanted to keep her, apparently. "I don't- What do you want with me?" Which was stupid to ask, she realized. The tiger couldn't speak. In fact, she didn't know if the tiger even understood her. "Are you going to eat me?"

He shook his large head, which moved a mane of sorts, and Rachel found that little part of him adorable. A tiger with a mane, so cute.

"Are you - Do you want to keep me warm?"

He nodded, and Rachel giggled as the fur tickled her face.

"Thank you, I guess," she said. The tiger's heart beat, despite his size, seemed to match her own. She yawned and turned into the giant fur ball-blanket that pulled her closer. It was late, and she was tired, and the tiger probably wasn't going to let her go home. Maybe she could wake up early and slip away before he noticed. At least he was warm.

"Well, we'll talk tomorrow," she said, her words stretching out with another yawn. "Night, tiger." She lightly took some fur in her hand and promptly fell asleep, a little snore escaping her.