Title: Solace
Rating: Ummm... more than PG-13... but less than R
Characters: Rachel, Finn, Quinn, Puck...
Word Count: 1012
Summary: Two unusual and opposite people search for something in each other.
Disclaimer: Glee does not belong to me.
AN: Didn't have it beta-ed, sorry. Let me know if you find any mistakes or anything.

The first time it happens she doesn't know what to think. It's nothing more than a brush of body in the hallway but her body reacts. Pulsing in an unfamiliar way.

It's not a slushy in the face.

********

She's hurt and, well, she's hurt. She has been working towards her dream forever, thinking that eventually she would be able to have a normal high school experience, with a normal high school boyfriend who loves her.

What she gets is entirely different.

*******

She doesn't go to Glee practice anymore. Her time is spent rehearsing for the play or at dance practice. In fact, dance practice seems to start at the same time as football practice, but, of course, she takes no notice of this. She doesn't even think about him (hardly ever).

Her body has been stretched and pulled, twirled and posed a million different ways and the sweat tangles up in the stray hairs that have come loose from her carefully created bun. She walks down the hall trapped in her own thoughts of arabesques and pirouettes when she feels two rough hands on her arms. She's pulled into a darkened classroom, but can't do more than watch as the door closes behind their bodies.

She's maneuvered over to the wall more by his presence than any actual force. Fingers trail along her arm, and a strange tingling begins. Something that she's only felt once before, but she refuses to think about now.

When his hands come to rest on either side of her face she finally asks in a quiet voice why.

"Why not," comes the sarcastic and rough reply. "Don't you want to feel something?" One hand remains on her face, while the other travels down her side, lingering on her hip.

She can't quite recall who made the first move, but she knows that it was her choice. And she could have left if she wanted to. But the truth was that she did want to feel something. Something besides hurt and betrayed.

With unfamiliar lips pushing, caressing, opening against her own, she lets go. Her tongue traces his upper lip before brushing inside his mouth. He doesn't push, but moves closer to her, allows her body to rest between his and the wall. And she is absorbed by the moment.

For a time (the first in a while) her thoughts are not filled with kisses in an auditorium, blonde haired cheerleaders, solos, singing, pain, longing, her own inability to be normal. Everything is involved in keeping him with her, trapped in this moment for as long as it lasts.

When the moment finally ends, her lips are bruised. She mashes them together, keeping his taste inside, loving the feeling of normalcy, hating for those feelings of inadequacy to return.

"It doesn't have to mean anything more than that," he whispers into her ear before his hands and body leave hers alone in the room.

*******

He ignores her in the hallway. Ignores her in class. But she doesn't have to bring a change of clothes to school anymore.

*******

A few days after their first encounter she has a relapse.

Finn is everywhere. In the hallway, in her classes, in her head. He tries to talk to her, tries to explain. Even offers to talk about what happened between them in the auditorium again.

She doesn't want to think about it. So she ignores him. Walks away, but it simmers in her mind, rolling over and over and over.

At the end of practice that same day she stands hidden by the locker room.

She almost smiles, as the boy she's been waiting for exits the room looking just as dejected as she feels inside. She carefully checks to be sure that none of his teammates are following him before stepping out of the shadows.

"It doesn't mean anything, right," she says quietly as she grasps at his hands and leads him into the nearest enclosed space. She almost sees a smile or a smirk pass over his lips before her own smother whatever it might have been.

His hands are everywhere and she doesn't think. Doesn't do anything but kiss him back until she hears the soft singing coming through the locker room door.

It's enough to break her.

His hands soften against her, come up to her face again, brushing away tears she doesn't even know she is crying. His lips move to follow, gently kissing away her pain. She accepts it, but hitches her leg around his hips and moves her own mouth on him more urgently. Her sobs turn into sighs as he attacks a soft spot on her neck with his tongue and teeth.

Until finally her mouth finds his again, and she works hard to give him the same comfort. To give him the same release from whatever pain he has in his life.

********

It's not until they are both standing on opposite sides of the hallway, one week later, that she realizes that their problems are the same.

He wants to be something more. So does she.

He wants to get out of Lima. So does she.

Wants to do something with his life. Be somebody.

It's a stop off at Finn's locker that changes everything. There is Finn, rummaging through his book bag for something. She's still not speaking to him and he's too involved in his project to bother trying. Quinn comes up behind him and wraps her perfect arms around Finn's chest.

By chance, she looks up in the mirror attached to her locker and sees the body she's come to know quite intimately, looking just a little to the left of her. She watches as his eyes, eyes that go a molten chocolate when they are alone, follow the sway of blonde hair and the swish of red and white fabric as Quinn walks away, leaving Finn to his search.

She turns her head to look at him directly, across the way, an ocean of high school angst and drama between them.

And for a moment they both understand.

It might not mean anything, but it's enough just to take the pain away (for now).