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Rachel Berry did not hate anyone. It simply wasn’t in her nature. Life, in her grand philosophy, was far too fleeting for the luxury of grudges. Hatred was a waste of passion—something she preferred to reserve for her craft, her art, her endless pursuit of excellence.
Still… there were a few unfortunate souls who had wandered dangerously close to awakening that unholy sentiment within her. The barista in Paris who’d spelled her name as “Rachelle” on her almond latte after she had clearly articulated the “L”—that had been an ordeal. Then there was Leonard Parker, her acting professor at Juilliard, who once told her she was “too theatrical” for Shakespeare. (As if Shakespeare himself hadn’t been theatrical!).
And, of course—because life has a wicked sense of humor—there was Quinn Fabray.
Quinn “Little Miss Perfect” Fabray.
God, even thinking her name made Rachel’s pulse quicken with a mix of rage and… well, let’s call it creative irritation. The woman was a walking trope—blonde, effortlessly graceful, always camera-ready, as though heaven itself had appointed her to mock mortals. But Rachel knew better. She always knew better.
After three excruciating months of filming across continents, smiling beside her, pretending—acting—as if she desired that maddeningly flawless creature, Rachel had reached the brink of artistic martyrdom. Surely, one night, Quinn Fabray would end her in her sleep, and the headline would read “Tragic End for Star: Slain by Co-Star’s Perfection.”
But Rachel Berry was, above all else, a professional. A consummate professional. The constant, barely-veiled sparring between them did not escape the eyes of the crew, and naturally, the vultures of the press followed soon after.
The first headline dropped the morning before their press tour began—bold letters across a glossy page, the kind of scandal that could ruin or redefine a career.
Just what Rachel needed, apparently. Before she even had time to process the scandal, she was packed onto a plane bound for Los Angeles, sitting beside Eleanor—her eternally exasperated publicist—who was in full lecture mode about Rachel’s supposed “immaturity.”
“Let me tell you, the studio is not happy about this,” Eleanor said, her tone halfway between warning and fatigue. “I know you two have mountains of disagreements, but you and Quinn are going to have to work this out if you want that Oscar nod for this movie.”
“That is simply not fair!” Rachel groaned, crossing her arms as though that gesture alone could shield her from accountability.
“I know,” Eleanor sighed, “but you should know better, Berry.”
There was a beat of silence. The quiet hum of the plane filled the space between them, the kind of silence that made Rachel acutely aware of her own breathing.
“What… are the executives going to have us do?” she asked at last, her voice barely steady, betraying a small tremor she hoped went unnoticed. She knew she had crossed a line somewhere—it was childish, perhaps—but still, she was not the villain here.
“No idea,” Eleanor replied briskly. “I’ve talked with Quinn’s manager. She said Quinn’s up for whatever they see fit.”
“That little…” Rachel muttered under her breath, her jaw tightening. So that was how it was going to be, huh?
If Quinn wanted to play Little Miss Perfect, then fine. Game on.
Rachel Berry had survived worse. She was Broadway’s golden child—the prodigy who’d conquered the stage before she could legally rent a car. Three Tonys, two Grammys, and an Emmy for playing a scandalous teenager in a limited series at twenty-five. She was a whisper away from completing the sacred circle: the EGOT.
And there was simply no universe in which Quinn Fabray—no matter how celestial her hair or devastating her smile—would be the one to stand in her way.
If Rachel Berry had to play house with her to get there, then she’d do it. With grace, precision, and a dazzling, camera-ready smile.
After all, the show must go on.
.
Quinn Fabray hated—just hated—Los Angeles.
It was hot, impossibly hot; people actually recognized her here, which was simply appalling. Did Americans not understand the sacred art of personal space? And the city itself—God, what an aesthetic tragedy. Every street looked as though it had been designed to be seen rather than lived in. Nothing was walkable, everything was artificial, and everyone was pretending.
Yes, fine, she was a cliché. The stereotypical Brit. She liked her damp mornings, her sullen skies, her steaming tea beside a novel she’d never admit she’d already read three times. She liked blending into the gray hum of London, where people were too dignified—or too bored—to care that a critically acclaimed actress was walking right beside them.
But she wasn’t in London anymore. And she wouldn’t be for a long, long time.
Then there was The Rachel Berry Problem.
If Quinn were being honest—and she rarely was when it came to Rachel—she enjoyed getting under her skin. It was delightful, really, watching Rachel lose her composure in slow motion: the way her brows nearly touched when Quinn contradicted anything she said; the controlled inhale, the heavy exhale, the visible effort it took to keep her from shouting. And that look—oh, that look—the one Rachel gave her when she’d finally had enough. Quinn lived for it.
So yes, if she couldn’t have Rachel the way she wanted—if she couldn’t touch her, keep her—then she’d make damn sure Rachel remembered her name another way.
It was childish. It was cruel. But then again, no one would ever believe that Quinn Fabray, Sweetheart of the Silver Screen, had a single wicked thought in her body. She was all dimples and politeness, tragedy roles and tasteful gowns.
Until that day.
It happened faster than she could process. The words slipped out—sharp, stupid, unforgivable—and before she knew it, Rachel’s hand had connected with her cheek. A sharp bang! echoed through the soundstage. Twenty people stood frozen.
The cameras had missed the words, of course. They always did. All that remained was the image: Rachel Berry, eyes aflame, hand raised; Quinn Fabray, stunned, her cheek blooming red, her head slightly turned as though the air itself had struck her.
So, yes—she’d do anything to make this go away.
Anything.
She just couldn’t, for the life of her, get that image out of her head. It was burned into her eyelids like ink, seared into the back of her mind in that irritating, magnetic way certain memories have. Rachel had been so mad—so unbelievably enraged. Her voice trembling, her eyes wide, her whole body alive with it. But—Christ. Was she sick for thinking she was just so—so hot?
God. How pathetic. Acting like some teenager with a crush on her debate team rival. It was humiliating.
“Get. A hold. Of. Yourself,” she hissed at her reflection. Her voice was calm, but her pulse was not.
The noise from outside—screams, chanting, flashes—poured faintly through the walls. The fans always sounded like a single, living organism: hungry, electric. She adjusted the strap of her dress, smoothing imaginary wrinkles that didn’t exist. The fabric caught the light in a way that made her shoulders gleam. A little revealing, maybe, but she had the figure for it. So what if people stared? Let them. It wasn’t like they were going to see her fall apart.
She couldn’t help but wonder what Rachel would wear. Probably blue. Or black. She always went for that soft kind of elegance that made everyone else look overdressed. Quinn could already picture her stepping out of the car, face serene, eyes unreadable, every camera turning toward her like she owned the night. She would look like an angel. A furious, impossible angel.
“Miss Fabray, the car is ready,” called one of the assistants waiting just outside.
“In a minute,” she replied, smoothing her skirt once more before slipping into her practiced smile—the one that made journalists like her even when she didn’t like them back.
The corridor to the elevator smelled like perfume and nerves. By the time she slid into the SUV, Mia was already typing furiously on her phone.
“Berry’s already there. You’re late,” she muttered, not looking up. Her tone carried that mix of frustration and loyalty Quinn had learned to appreciate.
“Not my fault,” Quinn said under her breath, though both knew it probably was.
“Could you just try not to bite her head off today?” Mia said, exhaling hard. “The video’s already enough. The press is favoring you—they think she overreacted. Please, Quinn, don’t make this worse for her.”
The silence that followed wasn’t comfortable. Quinn stared out the tinted window, pretending to fix her lipstick in her reflection. She wanted to say she hadn’t meant to—hadn’t thought the joke would sting like that. But the words felt thin, dishonest even in her own mouth.
“I didn’t—”
“You did,” Mia said flatly. “I know that’s how you Brits joke, or whatever, but I specifically told you not to mess with Rachel. If she was furious before, now it’s time for you to be scared.”
Quinn didn’t respond. There wasn’t a good comeback to that.
The car slowed, and suddenly the sound outside became deafening. Screams, camera shutters, chaos. She could practically feel the heat of the lights before the door even opened.
They shared one last look—Mia’s resigned, Quinn’s defiant—and then she stepped out.
The crowd roared. The flashbulbs exploded in white bursts. She smiled—not entirely fake, not entirely real either. It was the kind of smile that lived somewhere between survival and vanity. She waved, signed a few things, let herself be adored for a moment. There were worse addictions.
Then she saw her.
Rachel stood a few meters away, talking to her publicist. Her hair fell perfectly around her shoulders, her gown a soft midnight color that made her skin glow. When Rachel turned, their eyes locked—and for one strange, suspended second, the noise blurred into something distant and almost cinematic.
Oh. Wow.
“The studio wants photos of you two together,” Rachel’s blonde publicist said, glancing between them impatiently.
“Of course,” Rachel said smoothly, her expression unreadable. Then, after the smallest pause, “Quinn.”
She extended her hand.
For a heartbeat, Quinn didn’t move. Her brain short-circuited somewhere between what the hell and don’t make it weird. Then she took it. Rachel’s fingers were cold, steady, deliberate. Mia’s face, in the background, was a perfect portrait of disbelief.
Hand in hand, they stepped onto the carpet.
How utterly strange.
How very Rachel Berry.
They took a few photos, the crazy row of cameramen shouting for them to smile, to hug, to get closer. Rachel’s hand rested on her bare back—steady, perfectly composed—and Quinn could feel the heat of it crawl up her spine like a warning.
Then came the interviews.
“So, I know it’s kind of a hot topic still,” said the redhead with the microphone. “But could you talk about the video? You just seem so friendly to—”
“May I answer this one?” Rachel cut in, her voice smooth as glass. The reporter nodded, relieved, like she’d been handed a lifeline.
“Well,” Rachel began, the smile barely holding at the corners of her mouth, “Quinn and I have had our differences. We clash, we argue—but at the end of the day, we get one another.”
She looked at Quinn when she said it. A long, cold look that made Quinn’s chest tighten. Rachel’s hand was still there on her back, polite for the cameras, but rigid now.
“This isn’t an easy industry,” Rachel continued. “There are good days and bad ones. I had a bad day, and I reacted in a way that was… unkind. There’s no bad blood between us.”
“Rachel’s been nothing but kind to me,” Quinn said quickly, her voice almost too bright. “Not everything you see online is true. Sure, we had a rough start, but we talked it out, and this film—” she forced a smile “—means everything to us.”
They smiled. They lied. They looked immaculate doing it.
Quinn could feel her pulse pounding behind her ears. Every time Rachel shifted, every time her hand moved, even slightly, Quinn’s body reacted before her mind could. This wasn’t reconciliation—it was performance. And God, Rachel was winning.
Hours later, after the screening, Rachel still hadn’t looked at her once. Not during the applause, not during the champagne toasts. It was infuriating.
So, Quinn followed her.
“Rachel, can I—”
“Stop.”
The word sliced through the air.
They were in the bathroom, its echo sharp against the marble. Rachel’s back was to her reflection; Quinn could see both of their faces in the mirror, both too tired, too polished, too close to breaking.
“I don’t want to hear your carefully rehearsed apology,” Rachel said, voice shaking—not weak, but contained, like it cost her to stay calm. “I don’t care that you’re sorry. I’m not doing this for you.”
She turned around. Her heels clicked like punctuation marks.
“You think you can just float through everything, don’t you? That people will excuse whatever comes out of your mouth because you’re charming, or talented, or British?” She laughed—short, bitter. “You could burn a house down and they’d still photograph your good side.”
Quinn tried to speak, but Rachel was already stepping closer.
“You had everything before you even opened your eyes,” Rachel said, jabbing a finger into her chest. “Money, reputation, safety. And you still want sympathy? You waltz in here with your accent and your condescension and think you can humiliate me for sport?”
“Rachel, I didn’t—”
“Don’t,” Rachel snapped. “Don’t you dare say it wasn’t your fault. You knew what you were doing. You wanted a reaction, and congratulations, you got one.”
Quinn blinked, breath unsteady. Rachel’s face was flushed now, her voice raw around the edges.
“You are nothing but a spoiled, self-centered, thoughtless, manipulative brat,” Rachel hissed, the words hitting harder with each syllable. “You hurt people and call it ‘honesty.’ You humiliate them and call it ‘wit.’ And the worst part is—you don’t even see it.”
Quinn swallowed hard. The sound was embarrassingly loud in the silence that followed.
Rachel’s chest was heaving. She looked like she wanted to throw something, to scream, to run—but she didn’t. She just stood there, shaking, her reflection looking almost feral behind her.
“For what it’s worth,” Quinn said quietly, “I’m really sorry.”
Rachel exhaled a laugh that wasn’t a laugh at all. “Of course you are.”
The words hung there, sharp and final. And for a moment, neither of them moved. The applause from the theater filtered faintly through the door, as if it belonged to another world entirely.
Rachel’s perfume mixed with her breath made Quinn dizzy. Champagne, and, God help her—berries.
She didn’t—honest to God—didn’t know what she was doing. It was desperate, hungry, feral. One moment Rachel was still spitting words at her, voice trembling with rage, and the next, Quinn was closing the distance between them without thinking.
It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t even tender. It was a collision — breath against breath, fury meeting fury, two storms clawing for air. The sound that left Rachel’s throat wasn’t a word but something caught between disbelief and fury. She shoved Quinn back, palms flat on her shoulders, but Quinn didn’t move far.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Rachel hissed. Her eyes were blazing, mouth parted, the line of her jaw rigid with restraint.
Quinn’s breath came fast. She could still feel the shape of what she’d done lingering on her lips, like the echo of something unforgivable. “I—Rachel, I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t you dare,” Rachel snapped, cutting her off. “You think this fixes anything? You humiliate me in front of the world and then—then you decide this is how you apologize?”
Quinn shook her head, desperate, words tripping over each other. “I wasn’t thinking—”
“No, you never think!” Rachel’s voice cracked on the last word, anger splitting into something unsteady. “You just do whatever you want and people let you, because you smile, because you make everything look effortless—because you never have to feel small.”
Her hands were still trembling. Quinn’s weren’t any better.
For a second, they stood there, breathing hard, the air thick with the kind of silence that comes after something irreversible.
It was Rachel who kissed her again.
It was all anger, it was pure rage, despair, need. Rachel pushed her until her body was against the marble surface without breaking the union of their lips. Quinn didn't know what was happening, but there was no way she could stop the singer now. Rachel's hands walked through her body as if it were clay, taking everything she could, her body stuck closer to Quinn's, aggressive, carnal.
Rachel was small, all tanned long legs and long hair, so when she picked up Quinn to sit her on the dresser, the blonde was more than impressed. The Brit did not dare to say a single word, the only thing that sounded in the room was the indecent sound of a burning kiss between the two of them.
“Open your legs,” Rachel said, ordered. Quinn did not object, obeying the second that the words left Rachel’s mouth. The brunette settled between them and began to lift Quinn’s delicate dress until it was bulging at her waist, the white lace thong adorning her intimacy.
“Ra—”
“You don’t get to speak,” Rachel cut in, starting to descend with open mouthed kisses on Quinn’s perfectly accentuated jaw.
Quinn was in heaven. The pain between her legs was overwhelming, it was too much, it was not enough. Rachel didn’t seem to care that the blonde was made a mass of arousal.
“You like this, don’t you?” She spoke, low enough to make Quinn wetter—as if that was even possible.
“Please,” Quinn whispered, squirming, the smile on Rachel’s lip made her moan loud, too loud.
“Please what?” She said, biting Quinn’s pulse in her neck, hard, not caring if it left a mark.
“Fuck. Fuck me!”
Rachel took Quinn’s hips to bring her closer to her, the wetness trespassing the lace that covered her core.
“Does people putting you in your place turn you on?” Rachel let out this—sound, Quinn could only moan. Rachel’s breath right on her ear, bitting her earlobe again, “if I knew, back then, that all it took to silence you was doing this,” the singer cupped her sex, Quinn’s legs opened impossibly. “I might’ve done it a long time ago.”
“Rachel, bloody Christ!” Quinn moaned when the brunette’s hand started moving again through thin lace, leaving nothing to the imagination.
To say Quinn was ashamed of how easy it had been for Rachel to get her this wet, well, what an understatement. The girl hadn’t even touched her properly yet.
“Oh, please don’t tease, please just…” the words simply died in her throat. Rachel’s hand began moving slowly against her sex, spreading her wetness.
“What do you need?” She spoke. “Fuck, you’re such a slut”
Yeah, Quinn could not hold it for more than that. The moan that escaped her was a painful one, Rachel finally pushed the lace aside, finding her clit, and without second thought began circling it, hard and fast.
“Oh, oh, yeah. Fuck, please don’t stop… for the love of… Fuck!” Quinn’s knuckles turned white on the marble of the sink.
“You’re so wet, Quinn. What would all those people out there say? What would they say if they found out that Miss Perfect likes being called a slut, huh?” Quinn saw white, red, she saw fucking stars. “God, you touched yourself after I slapped you, didn’t you?”
Two finger teased her entrance, Quinn’s legs trembled, she was not coming out of this bathroom walking like a normal person.
“I asked you a question, Quinn.” Rachel hissed, sounding mad.
“Yes! God, yes… fuck.” Quinn closed her eyes as those marvelously skilled fingers stretched her.
“What did you imagine, Quinn?” She began fucking her, hard, oh, so damn hard and fast.
“Y-you…” she moaned, not being able to swallow the sound. “God, Rach, I-I can’t… fuck!” Her hand flew to the brunette’s neck, holding her close, she began rolling her hips to met her trusts, wet sounds all over the small room. “I-I thought of how good you would fuck me. Goodness, Rachel. I-I’m so clo-shit!”
“Fucking come, Quinn.”
She felt her own walls clench against Rachel’s now three digits buried deep in her core. She was a goner. She almost fell to the floor, wetness spreading along her thighs; she would’ve been on her knees if Rachel weren’t holding her in place.
There was a beat of silence that felt like forever. Then… well.
The door clicked shut, and the sound echoed like a gunshot in the small, sterile bathroom. Quinn sank against the counter, knees bent, fingers gripping the edge so hard her nails left tiny marks in the marble. Her chest heaved. Her head was spinning.
Rachel left.
She didn’t move for what felt like forever, just staring at her own reflection, seeing herself in pieces she didn’t recognize: flushed, trembling, heart hammering, mind racing with a dozen conflicting thoughts she couldn’t sort.
What had just happened? Was that real? The room smelled faintly of Rachel—sharp, intoxicating, infuriating—and Quinn’s stomach twisted with a mix of guilt, awe, and something she refused to name.
Her mind replayed every second: the words, the intensity, the way Rachel had looked at her—like she could see everything, like she could strip her down to the rawest parts and leave her there. And Quinn had let it happen. She hadn’t planned it. She hadn’t anticipated it. She had been… unthinking, feral, desperate.
She pressed her hands against her face, trying to will her racing heartbeat into calm. It didn’t work.
A laugh, bitter and small, escaped her. What am I even doing? She whispered to herself, shaking her head. Her hands slid down her face, leaving streaks of heat and cold along her cheeks. The room was silent except for the thrum of her pulse.
Quinn sank fully onto the floor, back against the counter, knees pulled up. Her reflection loomed above her, distorted by the tension in the glass and the tilt of her body. She felt exposed, raw, and—dreadfully—alive in a way that terrified her.
Minutes passed. Nothing changed. The world outside continued without her, unaware, unbothered, and yet she couldn’t imagine moving, couldn’t imagine leaving this small, suffocating space.
And somewhere in the back of her mind, the echo of Rachel’s words lingered, sharp and unrelenting. Her voice was quieter when she spoke, but no softer. “You don’t even know what you want, do you?”
And Quinn — for once — didn’t have an answer.