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Tina enjoyed being an RA. Really, it was easy enough, she got to meet a ton of interesting people and it gave her a good in with a lot of the staff at NYU.
And sure, that might make her sound nerdy, it was something Santana managed to mention on several occasions, but look who suddenly wasn't complaining when Tina had managed to talk Santana's business studies professor into holding off an essay deadline for an entire week because Santana was too 'sick' (hungover) to finish hers.
Plus Tina’s dorm room was double the size of a normal singles room. There really was no downside.
At least, in freshman year there hasn’t been any downsides…
About a month into her second year at NYU, Tina got a new neighbour in the dorm next to hers.
Her old neighbours had consisted of Finn Hudson, who Tina had to admit she wasn’t fully sure how he’d gotten into the college or what he was studying, and Rachel Berry, who Tina was terrified of and purposefully tried to avoid.
She’ll admit they made an attractive couple, especially Rachel. She was armed with luxurious hair, big brown eyes and a mega watt smile that made boys and girls heads turn. Santana I-Hate-That-Berry-Bitch Lopez had even once drunkenly admitted to having a very detailed sex dream about her. Excruciatingly detailed, actually. Detail Tina could’ve gone her whole life without hearing about. Seriously, she still cringes every time she sees a whiteboard eraser.
And Finn had his appeals too. His general cuteness combined with him being as tall a baby giraffe (which is still pretty damn tall, seriously, Google it) gave him a whole ‘gentle giant’ angle that Tina assumed some girls must have found attractive. Personally she didn’t see it, but that might have more to do with the fact that Finn once punched a wall in his dorm room. The side of the wall he SHARED with Tina.
Apparently though, some people still found him attractive. Tina’s not sure how else Rachel could have found him with his pants around his ankles and another girl in their bed.
The sight left Rachel, who was already prone to dramatic expressions of feelings, throwing an especially LARGE dramatic expression of her feelings.
She had chosen the rather cliché jilted lover move of throwing all of Finn’s things into the hallway. Tina hadn’t heard the whole exchange but there were a lot of exclamations of “betrayal!” And “What am I going to do now?!”. That, and a lot of swearing.
This was the first time Tina regretted being a TA, because even though she had to admit it was pretty hilarious watching Finn hop around trying to pull his pants up while simultaneously trying to apologize to his girlfriend through song, and then watching him get knocked over when Rachel threw a shoe at him, she had to act as the adult and shush the other onlookers. Maybe her first job should’ve been going over and stopping Rachel or helping Finn. But it’d been a very long day and Tina didn’t feel like getting hit with a shoe.
So, after that debacle, Finn had moved out and no one had heard from him since. Tina’s still not fully convinced he actually ever attended the school. Now Rachel’s issue was money. Even working part time and getting financial help from her fathers, she couldn’t afford a double dorm room on her own, and there were no single rooms left. Which meant she needed a new roommate.
Enter Quinn Fabray.
—
Tina was aware that part of an RAs duties is solving roommate disputes. But usually that was small stuff. “My roommate keeps drinking all of my Soy milk” stuff. But the level of complaints she was getting from the Quinn/Rachel room meant it was better classified as a war than a dispute.
It had started on Quinn’s second day as Rachel’s roommate.
Quinn had stormed into Tina’s room, wearing only a towel around her hair and a dressing gown Tina was certain wasn’t hers (if the embroidered 'RB’ initials on the pocket were any indication) and started the first of many complaint visits.
“She sings in the shower. You can hear her right? I’m pretty sure the dorm across the street could hear her. And isn’t in the music program? Dot you have to be good at singing to get into that?!” Quinn crossed her arms, before quickly adding “,Plus she uses all the hot water.”
Tina had been too shocked to respond. It was a lot to process at 8:14am and Tina was too busy being dismayed at the fact that Quinn somehow managed to look naturally pretty even right after a shower.
Still she’d eventually calmed Quinn down, suggested she talk to Rachel and thought that would be the end of it.
It was NOT the end of it.
It was later that day that Rachel came into Tina’s room, without knocking, in a rage.
“Quinn threatened my stuffed bear with a pear of scissors until I said she could have first access to the bathroom. I think the University should be aware they have a mad woman just gallivanting around threatening people, and I want her removed immediately!”
It had taken Tina a lot longer to calm Rachel down and explain that unless Quinn actually threatened a human with violence, there wasn’t anything she could do. Rachel had huffed and stamped back to her room. And Tina hoped (with a little less confidence) that that would be the end of it.
As you can probably figure, it was NOT the end of it.
“Rachel keeps putting these annoying post it notes everywhere telling me to do things!”
“Quinn’s stealing my clothes!”
“Rachel broke my lamp!”
“Quinn left the fridge open and now my Soy milk has gone bad!”
“Rachel put a red scarf in with my white bed sheets and now they’re PINK!”
Those examples alone were only a weeks worth of complaints. Tina was exhausted.
But if she thought it was bad in the beginning, things only got worse once Brody Weston was introduced.
—
Rachel met Brody in her dance class with Miss July. He was everything Finn wasn’t. Muscular where Finn had always been a little gangly, tanned where Finn had always been pale, direct where Finn had always been confusing. She liked being around him, and he seemed to like being around her, so when he asked her out to coffee she couldn’t find a reason to say no.
Rachel liked kissing Brody for a lot of reasons. Firstly, she didn’t feel like an elf trying to kiss a bear when they kissed, which was a pleasant change. Secondly, Brody was pretty good at kissing. And thirdly but possibly most importantly, Rachel liked how upset it made her hellish roommate.
Sometimes Rachel would even make sure to wait until she knew Quinn was coming back from her art history class, which she always came back from in an especially bad mood, to start making out with Brody. Quinn would always pull a disgusted face and scoff, leaving the room again, probably to complain about it to Tina.
The reaction always made Rachel smile. It meant Rachel was winning whatever kind of argument this was.
Sometimes she even imagined that if she did it enough, Quinn would just leave and never come back. Rachel hummed pleasantly at the thought, and was then brought back to reality by her boyfriend groaning in response. Right, Brody, kissing, focus should not be on Quinn.
She’ll have time to think about Quinn later.
—
Quinn was aware that it could seem from an outsiders perspective that she was overreacting. Complaining every time she walked in on Rachel and her boyfriend kissing, could be seen, to an outsider, as crazy irrational. But Quinn doesn’t think she should have to be subjected to her roommates depraved dry humping sessions every Tuesday evening, dammit!
And now because she’d been pretty much kicked out of her own room for the next few hours, she had decided to go down to the Student bar and get drunk on wine coolers.
Quinn hated Brody.
It was all Brody’s fault really. If he wasn’t there Rachel wouldn’t have anyone to be all over and then there’d be no problem. Quinn didn’t know what Rachel saw in Brody anyway. First of all, Brody is a dumb name. A dumb name for a dumb guy. Which Brody WAS.
He wasn’t even that good looking! He had weird cat eyes, like a cat….
Quinn HATED Brody.
—
Rachel hated Brody.
Well, okay she didn’t hate him but it felt like she hated him right now. She hated a lot of things right now. Brody’s bed. Condoms that only work 99% of the time. The fact that you have to wait 5 minutes for a freaking pregnancy test to work.
And obviously that’s how Quinn has to find her. Sat on their tiny bathroom floor in her fluffy polka dot pajamas, with a pregnancy test on the floor in front of her, while she angrily mutters about how much she hates Brody and furiously wipes at her tears.
Rachel’s not sure what she expects Quinn to do. Laugh? Probably not, Quinn’s mean but she’s not cruel. Hopefully she’d just ignore Rachel. But is that what Rachel wanted? To be left alone to deal with this? Oh God but she would be alone with it, wouldn’t she? It’s not like Brody’s going to—
“Rachel?” Quinn’s voice was barely a whisper but it still cut through Rachel’s panic. She walked into the bathroom, not taking her eyes off her roommate, and crouched down to her eye level.
“Is that.. are you..?”
“Don’t know yet,” Rachel’s voice was croaky “, timer goes off in 4 minutes.”
“Okay.” She sat down across Rachel, the pregnancy test still between them.
“…Do you know what you’re gonna do? ‘Cause there are options…”
“Look I don’t think you’d really understand—“
“I do.” Rachel let out a gasp and actually looked up at Quinn for the first time.
“I do,” Quinn repeated, her voice wavering slightly “,back in my sophomore year I was doing the exactly same thing you’re doing, sitting in one of the girl’s bathroom stalls, staring at one of these things, at that stupid big plus sign.”
“..it was positive?” Rachel sniffed and looked down at her test, which still had no result on it. She tried to imagine how she’d feel if it had a plus sign on it.
“Her name is Beth. I-,” Quinn couldn’t take her eyes off the test now it seemed, as they began to water “,I still get to see her sometimes, and Shel- her mother sends me photos and things..”
“Oh, Qu—“ Rachel was cut off by the beeping of her phone alarm. The test was ready, and suddenly Rachel couldn’t look.
“Could you.. please?” She closed her eyes tightly, holding back another wave of tears. The silence between them seemed to stretch on for years.
“It’s negative.”
“What?”
“It’s negative, you’re not pregnant Rachel.” Quinn had moved closer to Rachel, her hands cupping her roommates face.
“I’m.. I’m okay?”
“Well, I think we should still go to the local clinic just to be sure, but yeah, yeah you’re okay.” Quinn flashed her a smile and suddenly Rachel was throwing herself into Quinn’s arms.
“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!” She was yelling and still crying but she’d never felt more relieved. They stayed like that for another ten minutes at least.
—
“So what is the correct way to spell it?”
“There’s a bunch of different ways, I spell it Hanukkah because it’s easier I suppose.” Rachel shrugged as she put a big poster over her bed. It said ‘Hppy Hunnuka Rachel!!! Luv Sam’ with an A trying and failing to squish itself into the first word.
“And you’re allowed to keep those candles in here? The last time you lit a scented candle you set the kitchen sink on fire somehow.”
“That was one time, I’ll be more careful this time!” Quinn rolled her eyes and continued to watch Rachel struggle to hang up some festive blue bunting for five minutes before she gave in.
“Will you just let me help already? You look like a baby giraffe trying to reach the leaves of the tree, it’s getting depressing to watch.”
“FINE,” Rachel huffed “, but I’m gonna help you decorate your Christmas tree because that thing looks like it’s already been through the wood chipper. Also, have I told you yet about how many Trees get slaughtered at this time of year?! People just go around uprooting trees and then decorating their corpses do you realize—-“
—
Tina wouldn’t say the complaints had stopped necessarily. Just that they’d changed…
They were still mostly inane things that Tina couldn’t even do much about (they seemed to seriously overestimate her power in the University hierarchy) but both girls seemed to be aware of that now. It was like the only reason they were still complaining was because they felt like they had to.
But finally, after five full months of complaints, Tina had a solution. Quinn was just in the middle of complaining about how Rachel left her bras everywhere, when Tina cut her off.
“I’m actually glad you’re here, Quinn! I’ve checked around and a new dorm room has opened up, a single like you wanted originally, over by the Law and Accounting building.”
Quinn was quiet. Which was pretty unnerving considering how used to screaming-and-Shouting-Quinn Tina was.
“Oh? But.. but wouldn’t Rachel not be able to afford her room again?”
“Oh don’t worry about that, I’ve found her another roommate that—“
“I think I might stay.” Tina didn’t try to hide her shock at the statement but she did have to suppress her annoyance.
“Yeah, because… I like.. the room a lot. It’s got a nice view, really, and I- it would be such a hassle to pack all my things and drag them around, I just, I think it’d be easier to stay. Thank you though.” As Quinn was talking she slowly backed out of the room.
“This means you’ve got to stop complaining to me now! You realize that right? Right? I’m not putting up with it anymore!” Tina started yelling after her, but she got no response.
—
Quinn didn’t know how to react to the scene in front of her. How does one react to seeing her roommate in her underwear, with one guy measuring her and another reading one of Quinn’s magazines.
“Wha?” That’s how apparently. Rachel looked up and flashed her a smile.
“Hey Quinn!”
“What’s? Why? What?” Very eloquently put, Quinn.
“Oh, this is Kurt,” the man measuring her waved but stayed focused on Rachel “, and this is Blaine.” The man on the bed smiled.
“I met them in my performance class and it turns out Kurt here is also taking fashion design, and needed a female model.” Okay, that explained.. some of it.
“Why are you in your underwear?”
“For measurements, duh.”
“Why’s he in his underwear?” Quinn pointed Blaine.
“Rachel said she felt more comfortable if someone else was also in their underwear.” Kurt said.
“Right, well I’m going to just go then.” Quinn turned to head out, although she’s not sure where to since she wasn’t really allowed to complain to Tina anymore.
“No Quinn stay! I was just talking about that thing you said about contemporary abstract expression, and you can explain it a lot better than I can.” Quinn knew better than to argue with Rachel, so she went along with it.
It turns out Kurt and Blaine were dating, which put Quinn at ease for some reason. Kurt was in his second year, double majoring in fashion and performing, and lived with his best friend since middle school, a girl called Mercedes Jones. Blaine was in his first year, took almost all the same classes as Rachel, and lived with Sam Evans, apparently the same guy Rachel kept bringing up but Quinn had somehow never met.
Kurt and Blaine were also sickeningly sweet together. They’d only been dating for a few months, but they were already at the basically married stage. Every time they even looked at each other Quinn couldn’t help but feel like she was intruding on a deeply private exchange.
She was surprised by how much she wanted it. Wanted someone like Blaine who told the story of how they met (a pretty normal story on its own, Kurt asked him for directions one day) like it was the greatest love story ever told. Someone like Kurt, who knows exactly how Blaine likes his coffee and kisses his cheek as he walks past with their drinks.
Quinn wanted that too. But more than that she knew who she wanted it with.
—
Eventually they met even more of each other’s friends.
Rachel was especially fond of Artie, Quinn’s oldest friend, who had all the best embarrassing stories to tell about her. She wasn’t so fond of Artie’s boyfriend, Puck. For some reason she didn’t like the way he acted around Quinn. Which was weird, because he didn’t really act any way around Quinn. They didn’t talk, or really look at each other and Rachel had never seen them hang out alone before, but still, something about Puck irked her.
When she’s tried to complain about it to Kurt, he’d rolled his eyes. Blaine had been more sympathetic, but also confusing.
“I get it, I feel it too sometimes when Kurt hangs out with Adam, but it’s just an instinctual thing, to be jealous of your partner’s exes. I’m sure Quinn still likes you the most.”
Which Rachel didn’t really get because she wasn’t jealous. She was just… protective. Maybe she was a little jealous of this fond look she sometimes caught Puck giving her. Or maybe she was just standing up for Artie! The only person Puck should be giving fond looks to! (And okay, yes 99% of Puck’s fond looks where directed at Artie, but still!)
—
“I think we should break up.” Brody didn’t look very surprised by the statement, which kind of annoyed Rachel. At least Finn was a little dramatic.
Brody just kind of nodded his head and shrugged.
“Yeah I figured that out when I saw you on that date with your roommate last week.” What?
“What?” Rachel
“You and the blond chick? The one that threw a slushy at me once?”
“Okay, she didn’t throw it at you, she tripped and you got like, three splashes on you, and secondly—"
“Rachel, it’s cool, I’m happy for you if you’re happy. What we had was fun but let’s face it, it’s not like we were gonna get married or anything. And it was pretty obvious you were just using me to make her jealous.” The rest of the class had already left and Brody looked like he was moving towards the doors as well, leaving Rachel in her state of shock. Before leaving, Brody turned around and flashed her a smile.
“Oh, by the way, congrats. That roommate of yours is cute.”
—
Rachel came home late from her dance class that night. She came in and stood by the end of Quinn’s bed for a long time, sighing dramatically. On the third unnaturally loud sigh, Quinn finally looked up from her work and asked what was wrong.
“Did you know I’m bisexual?!” The content of the question was nice, but the tone was very accusatory, Quinn noted.
“Uh, no? But congrats? Did you know I’m a lesbian?” She responded carefully.
“Good for you! But you knew you were a lesbian already right?! I have JUST come to this realization.”
“Okay? This is a very dramatic way of coming out by the way.” Rachel seemed to take that as a compliment, like Quinn knew she would, and it calmed her down slightly.
“I broke up with Brody.” Interesting.
“Oh?” Quinn, master of hiding her emotions, was able to hide her excitement.
“Yeah.”
“Because you’re bisexual? You know that means you still like guys right?”
“No! And yes, Smartass. I broke up with him and then realized I was bisexual.”
“Well… Mazel tov?”
“I have a whole new dating pool to look at now. I’ve always thought I sounded better duetting with a girl, it’ll be much easier to find my musical match now! I won’t have to look for men who have female like vocal ranges. And this actually explains so much about that dream I had about Santana…” Rachel rambled off and Quinn started to block her out. Suddenly she didn’t even care that she had to hand in a 30 page essay in two days about her interpretation of Post-Impressionism. She was just in a much better mood now.
—
It as a few weeks after the ‘Brochel’ breakup. They were laying on Quinn’s bed with Chicago playing in the background.
“I’ve always liked the movie,” Rachel had said as she put it on “, but I always thought it was for the musical numbers. I never considered it might be because of all the women in sexy 1920s clothing. Now I’ve gotta watch it back and figure out if I like the movie in a nerdy way or a bisexual way.”
Somehow the discussion had changed to Quinn’s ‘skank’ phase in high school.
“I swear I had the worst dye job for two straight weeks, it was bright pink, and I hadn’t bothered to do my roots or the ends of my hair properly so I ended up cutting loads off! No one at school could look me in the eye!” Quinn giggled shoving blurry selfies of herself in Rachel’s face.
Rachel tried to speak through laughs, “You wan.. wanna talk about….. bad hair d-dye? My friend Sam used to… he used to dye his hair with lemons!!” She exclaimed before collapsing into more heaps of giggles.
They both laid there laughing until their eyes were watery. Quinn was faintly aware of how close Rachel was, how her hand would graze hers when she moved. Soon, it was all she could think about and her laughter had died down. Rachel’s had stopped too, almost like she could read Quinn’s mind.
They were so close Quinn could feel Rachel’s breath on her cheeks, she couldn’t seem to decide whether to look into her roommates eyes or let them drop down to look at her lips.
Quinn had never kissed a girl before. She’d kissed guys, quite a few actually, but what if girls were different? What if just kissing Rachel was different? What if— Quinn was distracted from any further worries by Rachel finally giving in and moving forward.
Oh, kissing girls was definitely different. But not in a bad way. They were softer, there was something gentler about the way they moved, it was more considerate. It was different, better Quinn would argue. And Quinn couldn’t get enough, but she didn’t dare move and break the moment.
Eventually, they had to break away. Quinn held her breath, still too scared to move, and just looked at Rachel. Focusing on the little endearing details of her face, like her eyelashes, the tip of her nose, the one strand of hair that always seemed to fall over her face no matter how many times she tied or pinned it back. She wasn’t how long they payed there, in Quinn’s pink bed staring at each other, it might have been hours but it was probably only seconds, but then Rachel was moving.
But not away. She rolled even closer to Quinn, almost on top of her, with one of her hands on Quinn’s waist and another propping herself up so that her face was inches away from Quinn’s again.
“Is this okay?” She whispered, her breath still hot on Quinn’s face. Quinn didn’t even reply, she cupped the back of her partner’s head and brought her down against her lips again.
—
Quinn wasn’t sure why she was here. She’d needed someone to talk to and gone to the first place she could think of.
“Rachel and I kissed.”
If Tina was shocked at the announcement she didn’t show it. She did, however, show how pissed off she was. Which was understandable, with it being 11:50pm but Quinn had had to wait until Rachel had fallen asleep first!
“And you’re… complaining about this?”
“Well no, I just- I don’t know what to do.” Up until this point Quinn had not been much of a lesbian in practice. She knew she was gay, but she hadn’t done anything with the information. She’d never gotten as far as kissing a girl, what came after that?
“Well you could just say all that to her.” Oh, great, apparently she’d said all that out loud.
“She’s still figuring things out herself right? She probably won’t want to go too fast either. I do know she’ll probably freak out if she wakes up and you’ve snuck out though.” With that, Tina shut the door on her. Quinn thought about calling Artie, but he’d probably tell her the same thing, if not a bit cruder, and then hang up on her. He’d also probably tell Puck about it and Quinn’s not sure if she wants him to know all of her business like that.
Realizing she was still stood outside Tina’s room, she walked back to her dorm and snuck back into her own bed. It was only then that she realized there was something missing.
“Rachel?”
—
“Rachel, it’s 12am what do you want?” Kurt stood outside his dorm room that he rudely hadn’t invited her inside of because Blaine was trying to sleep and ‘no he will not wake him up and get him involved in whatever disaster she’s got herself wrapped up in because he has an exam tomorrow’.
“I kissed Quinn.” Rachel whisper yelled. Kurt took a while to respond.
“Yeah I kissed Blaine today. Well we did more than kiss, he—“
“Shut up! Why are you not making a big deal out of this big deal?! I full on made out with Quinn, my very pretty and mean roommate, in her bed! Like four hours ago!!”
“Good for you? I’m not gonna give you a round of applause for making out with your girlfriend, Rach, now can I please go back to sleep?”
“My WHAT?!”
“Girlfriend? Partner? Lover? Your main squeeze? Whatever you call each other.” Kurt sighed and rubbed his eyes, like he was the one feeling put out by this conversation.
“I- we- me and Quinn, we’re not… Oh my GOD she’s my girlfriend!” Rachel feels like she’s gone through about fifty different emotions in the past few hours. Confusion was a big one though, so in a way it was a relief to finally have some clarity about something. It was also very embarrassing, which is why Rachel chose to run away after having this epiphany.
—
The next morning Quinn had expected a few different outcomes. Rachel not being there. Rachel moving out. Rachel sitting there waiting to tell her it was a mistake but she hopes it doesn’t impact their friendship.
Quinn wasn’t sure which was worse.
What she didn’t expect is to see Rachel, nervously sat at Quinn’s desk with a tray of pancakes in her lap, gripping a small collection of buttercup flowers and daisies.
“Rachel?” Her roommate almost dropped her tray, she stood up so fast.
“Quinn, hi, hello, how- how are you? Good, I hope. Not that you have to be good, you can feel however you want about anything—“
“You got pancakes?”
“I made them! Or, well, okay I tried to make them, but they got all burnt and runny and I almost set the communal kitchen on fire, so instead I got Blaine to make some, so you know they’re good because Blaine can actually cook!” Usually Quinn would let Rachel ramble on, but today is different.
“You made me pancakes? Is this your way of letting me down easy because I think I’d just rather you say it.” she couldn’t make eye contact with Rachel as she said it.
“Let you down easy? Why would I want to do that?” That was not what Quinn was expecting her to say.
“I actually wanted to tell you.. well, it’s kind of embarrassing but… wevebeendatingthiswholetimeandeveryoneknewbutus.” Quinn wasn’t actually aware humans could speak that fast. Her face must have given away her confusion because Rachel breathed in and tried again.
“It seems like we’ve been dating this whole time and I don’t think either of us were aware of it… unless you were which would make things even more awkward..”
“How have we been doing that?” Quinn asked but she’d relaxed a lot. It seemed whatever Rachel was talking about it didn’t sound very ‘I’m leaving don’t try to contact me again’-y. She made grabby hands at the tray and Rachel came over and sat on the end of her bed to pass her it, while she tried to explain.
“Well, we go on dates, we’ve met each other’s friends, we live together and we did make out a lot last night. A lot.”
She made some good points. Especially that last one.
“Okay, fair enough. But now we’re both aware of it, do you want to.. keep dating?” Quinn said after pausing to swallow a mouthful of the best pancakes she’d ever had. Rachel took a while to respond, and Quinn was just beginning to panic when she squeaked a small response.
“Yes.”
Quinn smiled and took that as her cue to pull Rachel in for another one of those damn good kisses. Rachel responded keenly, cupping the back of her blonde hair with her hands and kissing back as hard as she could.
“Whoa, you’re eager.” Quinn pulled back just a little but rested her head against Rachel’s.
“You taste like Blaine’s pancakes.” Was all Rachel said in response.