It Starts in the Middle.

Why was Rachel Berry's kitchen floor covered in broken glass?

More importantly, why was Quinn Fabray naked, covered in lipstick stains and walking around on the glass covered floor?

The first thing out of Quinn's mouth, had she been asked why—and maybe what the fuck—would be something like "because it felt better than tiptoeing on eggshells."

Of course Quinn's platitudes could do so much and no more without the bigger picture; the tail-end of which happened a few hours ago when she knocked on Rachel's door.

….

"I didn't expect to see you today." Rachel said, sounding positively chipper as she floated past Quinn and locked the door.

"Yeah, but here I am." Quinn said, staring at the side of her head.

"Okay, well I was just about to have some mini peanut butter bombs. Want some?" Rachel asked, walking in the kitchen's direction.

"No thanks."

"Would you like something to drink then?"

"No." Quinn said, and she still hadn't moved from her place by the door

"I'm starting to feel like a bad host. Why don't you tell me—"

"Who you've been fucking?" Quinn added so plainly that she wasn't sure that Rachel had caught on, until she saw her freeze momentarily beside the umbrella holder.

Quinn expected an immediate flare up (maybe she'd even have the umbrella with the candy cane handle waved at her head) so when Rachel kept walking, she was more than a little puzzled.

Instead of walking right back out the front door, she squared her jaw and followed Rachel straight to the kitchen. Quinn wondered what was the point of playing deaf now when the last time she came here Rachel had an overnight bag on her shoulder—she'd even made it a point to say she was going on a date.

Quinn folded her arms, leaned against the doorway and right before Rachel opened the refrigerator she said, "Gleeclub would appreciate your sudden vow of silence, I'm sure, but—"

"So what if I am sleeping with other people. What gives you the right to say anything about it?" Rachel cut her off, before opening the fridge, and bending over to look inside.

Quinn's gaze snapped up to look at the ceiling lights. That skirt hadn't been the right length since pre-school.

"It's people now."

"You're ignoring my question now," Rachel said, liltingly, rummaging through the fridge.

"I thought a little heads up would have been polite if you were going to do that with other people," Quinn responded a little stupidly.

All the fire she'd brought with her on her way over her fizzled out, because Rachel was right. What rights did she have? She should have checked the fuck-buddy handbook before she came marching over here.

"So you came over here so tense that you practically vibrated through the door to call me impolite?" Rachel said ,a little too coolly, as she popped back out the fridge with only a bottle of water. She'd either lost her appetite or forgotten why she came in here.

Quinn frowned "Yeah..I should go. You're right, there was no point in me coming over just for that."

She pushed off the wall and turned when she heard Rachel sigh.

"Quinn, if it's bothering you—"

"It's not," Quinn said, tersely, spinning around to face her.

Rachel crooked her eyebrow and then actually fucking smirked at her. Quinn wondered when, exactly, Rachel Berry became such a cool customer.

"I'm not calling you of all people a bad liar…" Rachel trailed off looking way too pleased with herself.

"I overstepped. I get it. This is none of my business and it's not like you'd sleep with other people to get a rise out of me," Quinn said, noticing immediately how Rachel bristled. "…oh you've got to be joking."

"I wouldn't do that," she said, stiffly and a little pointlessly because Quinn's lips were already curled upwards.

"Finn would have balked at that…Puck too."

Because it was close enough to the truth it struck a nerve.

Rachel set down her bottle a little too firmly on the counter and said,"Leave my ex-boyfriends out of this unless you're jealous of them too."

"Fuck you," Quinn fired back before she'd given it any thought.

Rachel tilted her head. "After this summer too?" something in her tone made it miss the vicious sarcasm she was going for.

Quinn didn't say anything for a long time then she sighed and finally said, "It's fine if you want to play games…I get it." she frowned "I can't say this would have made up for two years of high school hell…but I get it."

Pretending to be bigger than their bad history had come back to bite Quinn in the ass.

"This isn't about—" Rachel tensed her jaw, and looked at the floor "Honestly, I used to hope your conscience would rear up in the worst way for what you put me through, and there's still a small part of me that—" she stopped and looked at Quinn who'd scoffed, and her expression softened "… I wasn't trying to hurt you, Quinn."

"I don't think I've seen you play these games with your actual friends, so I doubt it," Quinn said, wryly.

They'd cozied up to each other so much over the summer; laughing at the same dumb jokes; hanging out; getting drunk, and other little embarrassing things in spaces between illicit sex and the rest of their commitments. Quinn still wasn't sure how things went from "I'm sorry I broke the slushying truce." to "Let's fuck…casually"

What Quinn did know was that slushy stains didn't wash out completely, and nicknames and stories didn't unstick.

"I really wasn't —"

"I bet you weren't, because nobody is ever up to anything when they get called out." Quinn said cutting Rachel off, before gripping her own hip and shaking her head "why make such an effort when you already know all this shit dish worthy shit about me, anyways."

Quinn hadn't realized that she'd been rubbing her hip right over her scar until she saw Rachel staring (which she'd misconstrued at first).

That scar resulted from a botched attempt to seriously maim herself when she was a kid (under the conviction of If thy right hand offends thee then cut it off and all that noise). And if her penis was offending her parents so much then... something had to give, right?

If adults were confounded by biblical ambiguity then what chance did an eight year old with a hot knife and a little dangerous knowledge of cauterization from movies stand.

The pity read so clearly in Rachel's features that it made Quinn's eyebrows drop as quickly as her hand. Christ, what hadn't she told Rachel this summer.

"Quinn, I'd never do that to you," Rachel said, stepping around the island, before walking over to stand in front of Quinn. "I shouldn't have let old grudges ruin what the last few weeks gave us."

She looked so earnest, all of a sudden, that Quinn had to look away.

She stared at the glass spice rack sitting on the island in the middle of the kitchen for a while then said, "I believe you. You're still so decent even when you're being a bitch. But I also get why you wouldn't let me apologize when I wanted to." She looked at Rachel accusingly.

Rachel frowned at her for a second and then it actually looked like she'd swallowed her anger before she said,"I do one unsavory thing to you, and suddenly I've stooped to your level. Funny how that works…but it's still not what you think."

Quinn ignored the underlying guilt trip—Sam Evans for a best friend was guilt trip beta testing 24/7— and actually waited for an explanation this time.

When Rachel remained silent Quinn just nodded and laughed then said, "I'm sure it's not, but… umm… thanks for bending over while you plotted to fucked me over all summer—"

Quinn grabbed Rachel's hand before it came close to connecting and said, "As much as I deserve that, you haven't earned it."

"You don't get to decide what I've earned," Rachel said so coldly that Quinn's grip on her hand slipped.

Quinn stared at Rachel who looked livid at that moment. They'd gone right back to square one…right back at each other's throats. It was hilarious— not laugh out loud hilarious, but Quinn still smiled, before she tilted her head and said,

"You know that the original retributionary bitch-slap you had planned would have failed regardless of you being able to control your little tells."

"It's unpleasant when you're so sure of yourself." Rachel scrunched up her nose

"People have been trying to claim their pound of flesh at my expense way before this," Quinn continued as if she hadn't noticed.

"If you'd tried to make friends—"

"Then I'd have more backstabbers to watch for." Quinn cut her off "and here's a little pro tip from someone who mastered manipulation at thirteen— if you're playing the jealousy card on a hard ass, they won't admit their feelings for you regardless of your schemes…in the end you'll have nothing to throw back in their face."

Quinn felt smug until she noticed how Rachel looked at her all wide-eyed. And damn it, if Rachel didn't stop cycling through emotions every five seconds then Quinn would have her committed.

"Quinn… I didn't know," Rachel said, looking at her like she'd run over her dog or something.

"Shit," Quinn whispered, and spun around. She needed to leave in a hurry because she'd had enough of Rachel and her crazy.

She speed walked all the way to the front door, inches away from home free— when a hand tugged on her t-shirt and twisted her around.

The lips that pressed against hers actually hurt.

Quinn grabbed Rachel's shoulders and pulled her off. "Stop! You can't go around— just stop fucking with my head…please." she deflated at the worried look on Rachel's face.

She came here for some answers not to expose herself like this.

"I'm sorry…you were going to leave and—"

"Rachel, enough," she said softly "I've had my share of melodrama for the past few days so let's—this ends here, okay. You win—and no hard feelings. I don't deserve a break from you of all people but…" she trailed off, she was suddenly so tired that she just let her hands slip from Rachel's shoulders.

Even Russell Fabray's freudian slip, when he called Quinn his son at the baseball stadium a day ago, which actually made her puke out her guts in one of the cramped bathroom cubicles, even that didn't compare to how she felt right now.

There was the niggling feeling that she deserved to be laid bare like this because she'd been pissed at her dad when she scurried over here to get answers from ( pick a fight with) Rachel; just like she'd been pissed at Santana when she issued her first ever slushy attack at on Rachel in freshman year.

"Let's talk about this," Rachel, pleaded.

"When has that ever really worked for us?" she asked, softly, watching the crease form between Rachel's brow.

"Should have never listened to Santana," Rachel said, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"Santana, huh," Quinn said, rolling her eyes.

She'd long ago given up pondering the grey area that is Santana's morals. She'd spent half the summer making fixed gear bicycles with Santana for kids in a foster home…and setting herself up for this apparently.

Santana was the one she'd given so many last chances…honestly they'd probably end up the same old peoples' home unscrewing each other's canes after teaming up to beat up other grannies for tapioca. They were friends in the way that bitchy girls knotted in each other's secrets had to be.

Rachel was squeezing her nose bridge so tightly that Quinn had to intervene "Will you stop that before you squash your claim to fame," she said, but Rachel didn't budge.

Quinn's hands covered Rachel's before she really thought about what she was doing and pulled it away from her face. Rachel looked a little glossy eyed and Quinn felt her lips curling up without malice for the first time all afternoon.

"It's practically cyclic—these hurtful little antics," Rachel said, looking at Quinn's lips then back up to her eyes.

"One of us should really know better by now," Quinn said as she leaned in and kissed Rachel, and oops her common sense flew out the window.

They started off with those slow short kisses that tingled every time they pulled away that quietly said this is your last chance to back out, then Rachel nipped Quinn, and she responded by trying to steal every bit of oxygen that Rachel had in her lungs.

Rachel yelped when Quinn spun her around and slammed her against the glass door; Quinn only saw it as an opportunity to pry her lips further open with her tongue.

Rachel's finger slipped into blonde hair, sweeping her pinky over her nape and Quinn's growl vibrated through both of them. She held on the back of Rachel's neck and deep kissed her, until they both had to break away for air.

Quinn had barely taken a few gulps of air before leaning in again. She braced herself with her palm against the glass as Rachel pulled her closer and played with her venus dimples; which sent little electrically coded messages to her navel, telling her to thrust. She slipped her leg between Rachel's and they moved against each other.

She needed this— the little body pushing up against her like she'd forgotten they both had clothes on was the only thing that kept her from trying to figure out how this could have ever ended up half way decent for both of them.

Still, when Rachel's lips slipped to her neck, she couldn't help but drift a little to the hypothetical place where she and Rachel were going sock hop steady. This hypothetical universe was sustained by fickle little energy source of maybe ifs.

Maybe if Quinn had sacked up and actually given Rachel the sincere apology she deserved before they'd started this.

Maybe if Rachel knew about Quinn's feelings from the start…maybe if Quinn acknowledged her feelings from the start.

When Quinn got frustrated thinking of everything that could have been, she started angrily searching her mind for the little context clues that foreshadowed this whole thing blowing up in her face from the start.

As she hazily started making the connections, she was jilted out of her train of thought, because Rachel suddenly squeezed her tits through her t-shirt. Plus, there were all these little distracting mewling sounds she made.

Hot.

A small part of Quinn still wanted to tell her to cut it out then run through the front door, and drive to where ever so she could sulk privately, and maybe plot Santana's untimely demise via napalm.

Quinn knew that no matter how well Rachel could play heartless bitch games she was still Rachel Berry and this thing they were doing now was just her bleeding heart showing up to make amends after she realized she'd kicked in too many teeth just to get a solo… That was what the tears, Rachel thought she'd imperceptibly blinked away, had been about.

So when Rachel, slipped her hand between them and tried to grip her erection, Quinn grabbed the hand and stopped kissing.

Time to be the bigger person for once.

Time to do something a little bit unselfish.

"C'mon, take me to your room," Quinn mumbled against bruised lips and moved away to let Rachel pass. She wanted her pity fuck on a bed at least.

"Okay," she said, sucking on Quinn's bottom lip, smiling afterwards.

She reached out for Quinn's hand, and Quinn squeezed her hand lightly and then held her in place, "I know this doesn't mean anything to you and you don't have to pretend, ok."

No. Not at all. Time for a last hurrah. Quinn just needed to cover her own ass first. Rachel couldn't hurt her if she didn't have the tools.

"Quinn," she said, but the rest of the words got stuck in her throat because of the look Quinn gave her.

"Just..don't"

"If I told you I really like you, and this was just a big mistake it would fall on deaf ears wouldn't it?" Rachel asked in a small voice anyway.

When Quinn just stared at her, Rachel nodded in response and grabbed her hand

Quinn trailed behind her until she realized they were passing the staircase. Rachel was pulling them in the direction of the guest room…she'd accepted all the excuses for why they didn't use Rachel's real room in the past (given that they didn't always make it past the living room in most instances) but this time...

"No," Quinn's voice cracked a little, then she cleared her throat "If we're doing this then we're doing it in that shrine to musical theater you call a bedroom that you've been keeping from me."

Rachel breathed out audibly through her nose, letting go of Quinn's hand, as she moved past her.

"Aren't you coming?" Rachel asked when she reached the foot of the stairs. Her voice was husky and tinged with annoyance and something else.

Quinn stared at her then nodded and followed silently. She almost missed a step when Rachel's skirt flipped up as she marched up the stairs.

"This is it." Rachel said in a small voice as she stood at the door and rested her forehead against it.

Quinn just looked at her under her suddenly heavy brows.

She spun Rachel around, pushed her against the door and said, "All this waiting is driving me nuts." then she pressed her lips against Rachel's jawline "God, if it's such a big fucking deal then we don't have to—" She heard the door click open before she could finish her sentence.

She stared at Rachel, narrowing her eyes a little, and Christ…did this have to feel so dramatic. Was there some weird in there like maybe her two gay dads bound and gagged in a hostage situation, because, honestly, no one had seen them all summer.

Quinn ignored the urge to close it again and just fuck her hard right there against the wood panels.

She moved past her and slowly walked into the room.

She scanned the Rachel's room quickly, because there was a part of her body that was completely uninterested in window treatments and dressers at the moment.

The room, essentially: 6 walls, a window and furniture, but it was so Rachel Berry( though it wasn't the bright gold star wall paper and fuzzy pink everything that she used to have nightmares and weird fantasies about).

There were playbills neatly stacked on a book shelf with a little bobble headed witch on top. Quinn rolled her eyes and then grinned in spite of herself.

Of course she had a whiteboard in her room.

The furniture was all wenge wood with white accents. The walls were white, except the one at the head of Rachel's bed, that one had gold and brown wallpaper complete with a silhouettes of olive branches; and the throw pillows on the bed were dark olive green with little black owls on them stuck and they out against the white sheets.

The idea that Babs, Pati Lupone and Liza were about to see what she and Rachel had been up to in a few seconds unnerved her a little bit. But she had to admit the framed posters weren't completely gaudy.

It smelled like a mix of fresh laundry and Rachel's light orange blossom, jasmine scent.

The whole thing was a little mismatched, a little regal but actually sort of...

"Wow, it's even more ridiculous than I thought it would be." Quinn said. It wasn't like the ark of the covenant was near by, she wasn't going to get struck dead for lying just because she'd walked past the veil into Rachel's sanctuary.

"You insisted—deal with it." Rachel scoffed, as she suddenly appeared beside Quinn.

"Get on the bed," she instructed, and Rachel complied instantly.

The mood changed again.

She looked almost fearful when Quinn crawled between her legs.

Quinn suddenly wasn't sure that she wanted sleep with Rachel under such dubious terms.

"Do you want to do this?" Quinn still wasn't convinced even when Rachel nodded "If you're only letting me, because your conscience —"

"Oh, for crying out—" Rachel said, exasperatedly, grabbing Quinn's hand and pulling it down.

"Guess you can't fake that for my benefit." Quinn thought her finger might prune if she held it there too long.

"I'm not sure why you're suddenly making me out to be the altruist here, but I implore you to cut it the fuck out."

Not a chance.

"Ok."

Quinn leaned down and connected their lips and bodies. She had to move her hand or else this would be over too soon, so she walked her fingers up the side of Rachel's body and pushed them under her yellow blouse. Rachel writhed when Quinn made light circles on the skin over her ribs.

The way they were kissing now had changed drastically from the hungry punishing manner it had been downstairs.

Instead of biting and nipping they slid their lips against each other carefully. Wet smacking sounds accompanied their tender actions. Quinn tilted her head a little further to the left and lapped at Rachel's bottom lip and then pushed her tongue past those full lips into her warm mouth.

She couldn't tell who was groaning at that point because she was so lost in the flavor of Rachel's mouth. She could tell the time and the days of the week based on the taste alone.

The summer flavors—she'd spent the last few weeks taking in— were different from the school flavors. God, she knew the school ones from observation alone, way before they'd ever kissed and she could prove it too.

If anyone cared to know: peppermint patties (Probably from Sugar Baby: the only vegan bakery in Lima worth a dime) on Monday mornings, Quinn noticed she'd slip one between her lips minutes before she'd get slushied. That didn't change, even when the slushies stopped

Tuesday— once right before Ap Biology Quinn had seen Rachel by her locker with her head tilted back and her tongue sticking out as she let honey slide into her mouth straight from the bottle. When Quinn realized that hadn't just slowed down to watch, but completely stopped she was given an earful. "I'm sorry you had to see that, Quinn, blah blah blah lost my spoon blah blah honey before singing is a must blah blah vegan guilt." She spent the entire gleeclub meeting scrunching up her nose, wondering if kissing Berry could actually make someone a better singer.

Wednesday— Lychee juice when…oh fuck.

She lost track of the rest of the week because Rachel shifted up against her hips

She breathed deeply through her nose and delved back in, sucking Rachel's tongue for good measure.

"Peaches." Quinn whispered against bruised lips. She'd forever associate peaches with August Friday afternoons.

She'd given up trying to savor the taste anymore because Rachel was lighting a fire under her. At that point all they were doing was breathing in each other's mouths.

Quinn pushed her hips down forcefully. The seam of her pants was perfectly lined up with Rachel's slit in those soaked through black boy-shorts. She hissed every time Quinn bore down.

Quinn realized the sensation from her end wasn't nearly as pleasurable as it could be so she stilled her hips completely then braced on her hands and knees. She chuckled thickly when Rachel whined.

"You want it?" she husked

"Yeah"

"Say it" Quinn plucked the button open and tugged the zipper down.

"I want it, Quinn— I want you." Rachel said, staring up at her with those big doe eyes. Quinn had to close her eyes and kiss her again.

They separated and then she pulled Rachel's panties and skirt off without ceremony, before doing the same with her own shirt and bra, finally moving to her jeans.

Santana was right, skinny jeans were impractical. Quinn barely managed to pull her pants down past her ass when she finally gave up and just pulled herself out her underwear.

"Am I still the only one who…were you safe with… them," Quinn asked, rubbing herself against the outside of Rachel's folds, bathing her cock in the wetness she found there.

"Yeah."

She'd suspected as much and tried her best not to celebrate… to be mature about it, but her cock twitched and Rachel felt it. Game over.

"Stop that, smug is my thing not yours," she said, wondering about the exact moment that she turned stupid for Rachel Berry.

Quinn lowered her hips and then drove into Rachel slower than they both knew she needed right now, enjoying that open mouthed furrowed brow look Rachel got whenever she'd take her in…the only time words ever completely failed her.

She wasn't sure where the urge to have the raunchy fuck fest that their fully blown pupils and frustrated kisses had set the pace for earlier had gone. All she wanted to do right now was drag herself through Rachel's tight, silky insides. It was comforting.

"Faster…please," she whimpered, wrapping her legs around Quinn when she'd finally run out of patience.

"I'm not in the mood for requests," Quinn growled, speeding up shortly after anyway.

"Oh shit!" Rachel mewled, keened and hissed her gratitude, letting one hand slide into Quinn's boxer briefs so she could grip her ass and encourager her to go faster still, while the other hand gripped the edge of the mattress. The pillows had long since been pushed off. Quinn plucked Rachel's hand from the mattress and wrapped it around her neck.

She slipped her hand between them and played with Rachel's clit, squeezing it and pushing the skin back so she could tease the most sensitive part with her fingers in the way that made the girl below her conflicted between spasming and bucking her off. Rachel was a trooper, she tried to do both.

Quinn pitied, and released her.

There was a twisted little part of her smiling as she bucked into Rachel see your cunt still loves me even if you don't… and she was just about far gone enough to say it, so when the words slithered up her throat, she latched on to Rachel's ear lobe and then slowly undulated her hips like a little wind up before flat out hard fucking her.

They kept pushing the air out of each other's lungs, as their communication whittled down to oh fuck and oh yeah.

Quinn slipped her hands between the mattress and Rachel's ass, when she felt walls tightening around her, and squeezed.

"Oh God…Quiinn!"

Rachel came arching of her back clean off the bed, and Quinn wasn't far behind. She pressed Rachel back into the bed when she stopped shaking, pushing herself as far in as she could. Her toes clawed the sheet pushing herself forward even though she was in up to the hilt.

"Let go 's ok just...ahh…fuck," Rachel whispered, and started shivering again when Quinn jerked and sprayed cum all over her walls.

She stayed collapsed on top of Rachel, who was still so hot, but she couldn't bring herself to roll over, or even pull out.

The sweat dripped between them and Quinn only thought of how Rachel's stupid yellow blouse was getting in the way.

When she finally rolled over she palmed her dick tiredly and stuffed it back in her underwear.

Finally Quinn closed her eyes, because she really just needed to rest them for a minute…or two hours. Only, her budding conscience had other ideas.