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Quinn is an expert at deception. Half truths, rhetorical questions and bold lies rolling off her tongue with ease. It's her default setting, to maintain the status quo- make people question if you're even human, or rather an android with an incredibly sophisticated AI.
It's not really her fault, after all. "White lies don't hurt a fly", Quinn's grandmother used to say as she put on make up and perfume to take out the trash. She would stay out of the house for hours and then say she had to rescue a kitten on her way back.
It's conditioning. A Pavlovian response.
So when Rachel marches up to her and ask her what the hell was she doing eating frozen yogurt with the enemy, Quinn raises an eyebrow and suggests she gets her eyes checked. Even if she was in fact sharing a mango and lime froyo with Sebastian just the day before.
Thing is, Quinn remembers Jesse St. James- apparently unlike Rachel. She doesn't want to deal with the idiotic drama even when it should be clear she's way too smart to fell in Sebastian's half-hearted attempts to get information out of her. Besides, it's not like she's choosing to spend time with him.
"And she put it on a pan! So I've said to Mary- dear, that's really not the way to cook pork."
Quinn clicks her tongue and catches Sebastian's amused smirk as their parents laugh and hold hands and are all cute and disgusting.
"But enough about my silly stories, how are you doing, Quinn dear?" Judith asks wiping a corner of her eyes and Quinn bites her tongue.
"Average."
"Oh, surely you must have done something. Did you have fun in glee club? What was the theme this week?"
"Yeah, what was it? Friendship and love with a side of backstabbing?" Sebastian asks, and Quinn nods.
"Basically."
"Choir does sounds hardcore these days." Austin laughs eating away at his quiche.
Quinn likes Austin. He's big and handsome and looks ready to whip out a guitar to sing about how much he misses his wife since she lost her to his alcoholism and the wide green plains of the south.
"It's a riot." Quinn raises her eyebrows.
Sebastian steals a roast potato from her plate. She kicks him under the table.
Quinn likes Sebastian too.
She likes it all, really. To have dinner together twice a week and go to the movies with Sebastian and talk about politics with Austin. To feel like men aren't a hopeless cause after all, at least for as long as they can all watch Star Wars and argue whether or not Han shot first.
Which is way she knows her mother is going to fuck it all up. That's what the women in her family do, after all.
The doorbell rings and Sebastian shots up.
"Blaine. He has to get some notes."
"My favorite boy. Just in time for dessert."
"I don't think he's staying." Sebastian half shouts walking out of the living room.
"Yes, he is." Austin shouts back. "I need to talk to him about the last match since somebody thinks football is just lacrosse for- how was it? Hillbilly pansies?"
But Sebastian doesn't reply, the sound of the door cutting to the dining room.
Sometimes Quinn doesn't like it, how close the Smythe's are. How they shout and push and fight and still adore each other trough it. It makes something ache, for her father, for her mother too.
She's dwelling in her misery when Sebastian comes back with Blaine on his side. Her mother's smile yells ELIGIBLE BARCHELOR in delicate sparkling cursive at the sight of an expensive woolen coat, what looks like an original Burberry scarf, and dark curls slicked back in a soft wave straight out of a silent movie.
Except he's not eligible. Maybe. Quinn yet has to understand what their deal is.
"Ladies." Sebastian says with his hands in his pockets and comfortable smirk. "Blaine Anderson. Please admire the temporary exhibit."
"Sebastian."
Blaine rolls his eyes and smiles and Quinn can feel her mother's eyes on her.
"Nice to meet you. Sorry for interrupting your dinner, Miss-"
"Just Judith, darling." her mother chirps standing up to shake his hand and kiss him on both cheeks. "And that's my daughter-"
"Quinn Fabray, McKinley High, Head Cheerio." he intercepts. "We're very trough in our show choir espionage." he squints his eyes in amiable conspiracy.
Quinn frowns when she sees her mother's smile tightening a bit, her eyes darting to Quinn, no doubt wondering whether a pregnancy had already stomped her chances to snatch the catch.
"Dessert?" she asks, and her mother's eyes lit up.
"Oh, I've got the most perfect little crockenbush. Just you wait." her mother says skittering away to the kitchen.
Quinn sees Blaine's eyes running to Sebastian, obviously having no idea what a crokenbush is. Sebastian shrugs and thugs at Blaine's scarf. He swats his hand away and leans on his toes for the quickest, most innocuous peck on the lips Quinn has ever witnessed.
Plates crash. Quinn sighs.
So that's where her mother fucks everything up.
"Oh, silly me. Dear, do you have a broom?" she laughs in a high pitch and Blaine is disappearing in the hallway before Austin is out of his chair.
"Let me." he smiles taking off his coat.
He doesn't seem particularly fazed by the timing of the mishap. Sebastian does. And Austin, too.
By the time Blaine is back with a broom to sweep up the ruins of white dinner plates, nobody has said a word and Quinn would really just like to go to bed and forget anything that happened after she and Sebastian finished watching a Scrubs rerun on TV.
"Thank you, son." Austin says, and Blaine flashes him a easy smile that tells the nickname isn't news, but it's been used now for a reason.
"Oh, well. At least I didn't drop the crockenbush!" Judith announces cheerily, and Quinn would groan out loud if she hadn't been raised a lady.
Sebastian makes a point of touching Blaine all trough dessert. Blaine looks at him funny when Sebastian tucks curls that weren't astray behind his ear, but it's fond and he doesn't seem to mind.
Maybe their deal isn't so nebulous as show choir legends make it out to be. Then again Quinn is fairly sure her mother wouldn't have picked it up if he hadn't witnessed the manifest scandal of a kiss.
She's toying with her third serving of dessert when Austin decides it's the moment to test his new sweetheart. Decide whether this is going to be their last dinner together and if it will be the last day Quinn could fool herself into thinking she had a brother.
"Staying over tonight, son?" he asks at the first moment of silence.
Blaine's eyes dart to Sebastian like he's considering whether or not to sin.
"I shouldn't. I really need to study for the chemistry test, the new teacher fails Vocal Adrenaline with suspicious ease. Apparently she used to be in a rival show choir when she was in High School and she's never made it further than sectionals."
"That's why you shouldn't even bother, B." Sebastian's slurty voice drawls his way in. "She's gonna fail you anyway, and it won't matter when you're gonna get the school another national trophy, and all your grades will magically fix themselves with a few extra credits and a kiss from the dean."
"That is exactly why I should bother, Sebastian. If I'm gonna have to pass because of favoritism, I want to at least know I would have earned the results anyway."
Sebastian's eye roll is so fond it's almost as disgusting as Blaine's earnest work ethic.
"Then stay and study."
"Because studying with you is always very productive."
Sebastian's smile goes from meerkat to mongoose in a split second, and Blaine's actually wets his lips.
"Come on, B, we'll have mother Mary joining us to guide our conscience." Sebastian says with a hand on his heart.
Blaine seems in no rush to stop checking out Sebastian, but when he turns to Quinn his eyes lighten up, wide and kind, the image of purity and innocence.
Blaine Anderson is dangerous. Even more so because Quinn knows he isn't faking the good boy front, he just effortlessly slips into polite smiles and well mannered habits. Quinn can respect that.
"I will bless your study group with my prayers, but only if you pay me a tribute." she rolls off her tongue."Loverboy tells me you make great breakfasts."
"Loverboy is absolutely right." Blaine says, turning to Sebastian like he knew a kiss was going to land on his cheek, which it does.
"Sebastian might be useless, but at least he got me a son-in-law who isn't." Austin agrees pointing at him with a fork. Sebastian smiles, clearly amused.
"You know, when they'll ask how come I burnt myself out by the time I'm forty, I'll make sure to mention my father never believed I could be anything but a trophy wife."
"And what's wrong with that?" Blaine asks, squinty eyes and mischievous sweet smile. "One of us has to stay home with our 2.5 kids, Sebastian. It's just sensible."
Sebastian squats his neck, Austin laughs, and Quinn doesn't move her eyes from her mother, who's clutching her fork like it's the last spark of sanity.
"I guess I'm staying then." Blaine caves in eventually.
Quinn guesses when you turn to the devil in time of temptation, the choice is already more than halfway made.
"Isn't Quinn staying in the guest room, dear?" Judith asks, and Quinn sighs.
There it is. The moment it all ends.
She's got her keys in the pockets of her coat, it will be a quick stop by the guest room to retrieve her overnight beauty bag.
"Of course. The boys have been dating for two years, we went over the house rules already. Call me a free spirit, but better safe under my roof than prey to a serial killer in a lover lane off the country roads." Austin replies, apparently calm.
Sebastian's easy smile has slipped back in the smirk of the mongoose ready to strike.
And then there's Blaine, no smile on his face and clear eyes, in the mute warning that this is has been his home well before Judith crossed the threshold. Maybe he did notice the suspicious timing of the broken china, after all.
Her mother looks at Quinn, and Quinn know she's being cold. That her mother searched for support and found another enemy.
Quinn is grateful her mother changed her mind. That she decided her daughter was more important than her stupid pig of a husband. But she won't forget that night in her living room, crying without false pretenses, her mother turning her back on her.
Because of that, Quinn smiles. She'll hate her for taking away a family from her, but she can't turn her back on her right now.
Her mother's smile is nervous, but it's sweet enough. She takes a breath, quick and rapid, and puts her hand on Austin's.
"Of course." she says. "Can't wait for those pancakes tomorrow morning, darling."
Quinn's eyebrows shoot up against her will, the clench in her stomach dissolving.
Sebastian goes back smiling and takes Blaine's hand. Blaine says an of course that's still more polite than genuine, and Austin kisses her mother's temple.
"I thought you only ate low-fat food until six pm." he jokes, and Judith jokes back, and Blaine chimes in, and Quinn
can't breath.
Not really.
She looks over them all, smiling and laughing, and she can't help but think: this is how it could be.
She knows her mother's pliancy is mostly due to keeping her man. That that's what she does, compromising her positions for the sake of a relationship. That the problem it's bound to come up, sooner or later.
But this time, Quinn thinks as her mother asks her if she wants coffee to send the night off, maybe this time she did it for Quinn too.
Her mother blows her a kiss.
Maybe this time, Quinn wonders as her mother walks away to the kitchen and Austin leans over to Blaine, as Sebastian dissociates as soon as the word football makes it past Blaine's lips, maybe this time she can hope.
Quinn smiles and eats the last bite of crokenbush.