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“I’m going to be really bad at this”
Quinn can’t help but snicker from where they sit across from Rhonda, she’s balancing the guitar carefully over her lap while she clips a few stray hairs away from her eyes - her hat long abandoned in some corner of the music room.
It’s painful how beautiful Rhonda is, she seems so effortless with it as well, everyone sees this snarky version of her - sees the outer walls she’s put up over the past 60 years. But all Quinn sees is the 17 year old girl, almost shy, with a bark far worse than her bite.
It's still taking some adapting to think that this beautiful girl wants them.
“It won't be that bad, and even if it is - so what? Everyone starts somewhere”
Rhonda rolls her eyes, and this is what Quinn means, she may seem fed up - but if you really look, you can see the crinkle by her eyes when her grin ticks up ever so slightly. The one that shows that she’s joking, that this specific jab isn’t one that's meant to hurt.
“Save the inspirational message Cutie, it’s okay to let bad be bad”
Cutie, god who let Rhonda have this much of an effect on them with just a simple word. They can feel the heat spreading over their cheeks, and see the way Rhonda’s eyes track the path their blush takes.
They nod numbly - eyes never leaving Rhonda’s. They keep getting distracted like this, it’s been over an hour since Rhonda had muttered something about getting guitar lessons from Quinn. An hour of them going back and forth while moving from where they had sat (cuddled together, much to Quinn's immense joy) on the sofa, to the middle of the room, to getting the guitar out of its case, to finally back to the couch - where Quinn sits on one of the uncomfortable metal chairs across from Rhonda.
Truthfully? Quinn almost curses the distance. But unfortunately, they can’t really teach her guitar curled up by her side, they kinda need to be able to see the guitar.
Neither of them had been so big on physical touch until recently - well, they both quite liked the idea of it, but the execution was sometimes a bit wobbly. Rhonda had a few nasty memories of touch that made her less receptive for the most part, and Quinn had gone 20 years without touching another soul, and that's on top of most of their teenage years - so it was safe to say they were both slightly ‘touch starved’. It’s why that day on the bleachers, the day that Rhonda had come after them after they’d tried to go back to looping, was all the more important to Quinn.
It was the day they realised they really wanted to kiss Rhonda.
No one had ever cared for them like that, most people at school thought they were invisible, and even if they had seen Quinn - they hadn’t ever really sat with the possibility of liking girls. Sure, they maybe liked Veronica Mars a little too much, and maybe they saw the occasional girl pass by and had a strange feeling brew in the pit of their chest, like vines coiling round their lungs. But they’d just written it off as some form of envy that they had no problem being in their own skin.
But when Rhonda sat in front of them, pleading for them to not leave her, that she needs them as much as they need her. Everything came crashing down. In the best way possible of course. It might not have been something they expected, but it felt like everything was starting to come together.
And then she hugged them.
It was slightly awkward, the way Quinn's shoulder pad dug into Rhonda’s collar bone, the way their jacket couldn’t really crease properly to make it comfortable. But it warmed Quinn anyway. To finally have someone give them physical comfort, something they couldn’t even really get from their mother in the last few years of living. That was the selling point for Quinn.
But the first couple of weeks of actually being together, was an awkward tango of apologies, stutters and longing looks.
They both had to adapt, they liked being close to each other sure, they’ve never really had that much of a gap separating them when standing as a group. The 6-inch tuba distance got thrown away pretty quickly after that first hug, and since then they’ve always sorta been drawn to each other. But it was adapting to being able to touch, to being allowed.
But once they got going - god did they become inseparable.
So even now, while Rhonda sits across from them, their legs are hooked together, their knees putt against each other with each movement.
“Alright. Teach me how to play guitar” Rhonda taps her foot against their own, breaking them out of their tangled thoughts.
“Right, okay” they clear their throat, assessing the position of the guitar “First off, you’ve got it the wrong way round”
Rhonda scowls a bit glancing down at the guitar making Quinn laugh.
“Your dominant hand has to be the one plucking the strings - here” They lean forward to adjust the guitar “I remember when I first started to learn, it completely threw me off. I always wanted to use my dominant hand to control the chords, it made more sense to use my stronger hand to hold down the strings”
Rhonda watches them carefully “I suppose I do see the logical sense in that”
Quinn smiles at her from where they’re leaned over, adjusting her grip on the guitar “I know right? But I mean, I found out later on that music doesn't really make logical sense… that’s the beauty of it”
They can’t really get over how Rhonda looks at them, the look in her eyes - it’s honestly the most invigorating thing ever. There's a softness to her face, her usually closed off expression seems to crumble around them, it gives them so much energy they feel like they could run from here to Manhattan, compose the most complex of melodies - they feel like Atlas holding up the earth.
“So, now just strum without pressing any down in your left hand - just to get a sense of the strings”
Rhonda pulls her eyes away from them, nodding slightly, before slowly strumming the strings. It comes out wonky, hesitant, and the grimace from Rhonda shows just how she feels about it - but Quinn grins anyway.
“Great! One more time, no need to be shy about it, where's that confidence you always have?”
She rolls her eyes playfully once more, before giving the strings another strum, and it comes out better.
“See! You’re a natural”
“It was one strum Cutie, and my second attempt”
“And? It was good, you’re just learning Rhonda - every step is important”
She nods, giving Quinn the signal to keep going with their lesson.
“Alright, we can start with the C chord - your fingers are going to be on the second, third, and fifth strings. Each finger should sit right above a fret - these metal bars on the neck, see?” Quinn continues, pointing out the frets as they do.
Rhonda follows their instructions, pushing on the strings lightly in the positions that Quinn pointed to.
“You need to push a bit harder, your fingers’ll hurt a bit but the more you practice the better it will be”
“I don’t think it will ever get easier for me, can’t exactly build up callosus’ when your dead, hon”
Oh. Right.
It sometimes hits them in weird moments, the reminder that they died.
It’s strange, they may be dating someone who is literally from the 1960s, and they may have aided in a bunch of weird ghost buster quests - but you get so used to being here, and seeing all the ghosts, you sometimes forget you’re one too.
When they first woke up from looping, they thought they’d never really wrap their head around it - it’s not like a huge amount had changed, the school was crumbling then, it's crumbling now, even the students wear the same clothes they did back then, maybe with the exception of less lowrise jeans.
They got the hang of it once everything picked up with Maddie and Van Heidt, to be fair, but now that everything's calm, that the barrier is down and they're free to roam - they aren’t as good at remembering.
“Quinn?” Their eyes shoot to meet Rhonda’s, and when they do, they can see the worry reflected in pools of brown “You alright? You went out of it for a sec there”
They give her a smile, they know it’s maybe not the most convincing thing, but they can’t bear to see her worried.
“Sorry, just… forgot for a sec”
Rhonda nods solemnly, she understands - every ghost does. It’s a big thing to adapt to being dead, especially when you’ve only really just started living your death a couple months ago.
“You wanna talk about it?” she asks, placing the guitar carefully resting on the arm of the sofa.
She’s gotten pretty good at reading Quinn's emotions, deciphering what they need, and how best to help. It goes both ways of course, but it’s still heartwarming to see. It makes them wonder what they would’ve done without her.
“Do you think… if we both lived… we would’ve still found each other?”
If Rhonda seems shocked by the question she doesn’t show it, although the sly smirk that grows on her face does slightly worry them.
“What? With our 40 year age difference? Would you break me out of the rest home and take my zimmer for a spin?”
Quinn grins despite their previous mood "Don't tell me you wouldn’t want to brag to all your old friends that you have some hot young thing to parade you round town?”
The pair of them just grin mischievously at one another, and Quinn feels their melancholy disappear. Rhonda typically has this effect on them, it swells their chest with love. And they do, love Rhonda that is, so much it's almost unbearable. To think that they love someone they never would’ve met if the worst day of their life hadn’t happened. To think that Quinn wouldn’t even exist.
Rhonda is the first to speak up again “I think… that in an ideal world we would still meet, i don’t believe in fate, nor do I hope that either of us die before we’re due ever again - but I’m really glad I met you. In this shithole, I’m glad that I at least have you”
“I’m glad I met you too, and I’m really glad you screamed at me that day in the field and told me to wake up”
Rhonda’s eyebrows shoot up “Woah, I wasn’t screaming at you - I was, you know, the whole band of loopers”
Quinn laughs “I know”
They sit peacefully for a bit, simply just enjoying each other's company, hands and arms reaching across the gap to link together once more. It’s at the point that it’s only natural, that if there is peace, Quinn’s hand must find Rhonda’s.
“I think you would’ve been a great musician” Rhonda says, breaking the silence “Even in the off chance you didn’t make it big - I think you would’ve made a good teacher”
Quinn finds themself smiling once more “You’re just saying that because you would be hot for teacher”
It earns them a shocked gasp that holds no real malice “I can’t believe - oh what am I saying? Come here”
And suddenly Quinn’s getting dragged in by the straps of their bibbers, and a familiar mouth is getting crashed against their own. They’ve done this plenty of times now (the thoughts of when it goes further makes Quinn blush), they mold into each other so easily, they adjust and move in sync just like they have from the very first time on the cafeteria table.
Forgive them for being so tacky, but Quinn fully believes that they harmonize together, each gasp, moan, grab, is added to the score sheets, a melody so beautiful it rivals Apollo’s own melodies.
And as Rhonda’s tongue slips into their mouth, Quinn thinks that even if the guitar lesson ended up abandoned - music was being made none the less.