Diva On A Half Shell - 7

[griefofdawn]

Chapter Title: Frosting
Disclaimer: Fox owns the Glee money making machine and RBI came up with the original show idea. Still not mine. Sunnydale belongs to Joss Whedon and Co.
Characters: Rachel/Quinn.
When/Where: AU. Rachel and Quinn make frosting and talk
Note: This is a bit out of sequence. It should be approximately no. 18 but I wanted to get out one more fic for Halloween before NaNoWriMo starts in a couple hours.
Word Count: 1,240 (7 of ?)

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"Try this!" Rachel said, holding a spoon in front of Quinn's face.

"Rachel!" Quinn said, moving it away.

"Please?" Rachel said, sticking it in her face again.

Shaking her head, Quinn pointed the remote at the TV and paused her show. "What is it?"

"It's the frosting for the cupcakes for the party," Rachel said.

Quinn cautiously licked the spoon. "Interesting flavor," she said, suppressing a shudder at the flat chalky taste. "Is it vegan?"

"How'd you guess?" Rachel asked. "What do you think?"

"Honest answer?" Quinn asked. Rachel nodded.

"Is it that bad?" Rachel said, flopping onto the couch next to her with a sigh.

"It isn't going to win any awards," Quinn said. "There's too much of something in it."

"What's the flavor?" Rachel asked.

"Chalk?"

"There's no chalk in it," Rachel said, leaning her head against Quinn's shoulder. "What are you watching?" she asked, pointing at the TV, paused at a shot of a large lake from the air.

"It's a show about the top ten natural disasters of the last fifty years," Quinn said.

"That's not a cheerful subject," Rachel said. "What's that one?"

"The mysterious Sunnydale collapse," Quinn said. "An entire town in California fell into caverns below the town."

"I don't remember that," Rachel said.

"I'm not surprised," Quinn said. "Very few people do. Of course, we were eight when it happened."

"Did lot of people die?" Rachel asked.

"Now who's being morbid?"

"It's a natural question," Rachel said.

"If you say so," Quinn said.

"Well?"

"That's part of the mystery. The townspeople started evacuating several days before it happened and no one knows why," Quinn said. "Before it filled in, and became that lake, the investigators discovered half a dozen bodies, all young women, where the local high school used to be."

"That's creepy," Rachel said, shivering.

"Yup. There are conspiracy websites and books devoted to the subject. They claim there was a cover-up. But Sunnydale seemed to be that kind of place. Lots of unexplained mysteries."

"Huh." Rachel frowned. "Why are you watching it? You don't usually go for that kind of thing."

"No, history is exciting enough without making up conspiracies," Quinn said. "It had a segment about New York and the Hurricane of 2012."

"Oh," Rachel said.

"That was your freshman year at NYADA, wasn't it."

"Yes."

"I never did hear what you did that week," Quinn said. "You didn't update your Facebook for weeks."

"You were checking out my Facebook?" Rachel said, surprised.

"Well, you never used that Metro-Pass or called me, so I had to keep track of you somehow."

"Kurt and my Dads knew where I was," Rachel said.

Quinn shook her head. "They weren't about to tell me where you were," she said.

"How do you know?" Rachel asked.

"They had no reason to," Quinn said. "So what did you do?"

Rachel looked at her for a minute before answering, sure there was something Quinn wasn't telling her. "My roommate's younger sister was a student at a private boarding school on the Hudson, up near Albany. A few of us stayed there until our dorm reopened and classes started. It was an interesting experience. What did you do that week?"

"Nothing quite so exciting," Quinn said. "Spent it with Shelby and Beth up in Boston."

"Oh," Rachel murmured.

"That's how Puck got his business started," Quinn added. "Doing hurricane clean up. He was busy for months."

"He mentioned something about that to me once," Rachel said, nodding. She stood back up. "Come on," she said, holding out a spoon free hand. "You can help me figure out what's wrong with the frosting."

"But…"

"You can tell me all about your Sunnydale theories," Rachel said, tugging on her girlfriend's hand.

"There are some doozies," Quinn said, following her into the kitchen. "There was supposed to be a secret military base under the college."

"Government conspiracies are good," Rachel said, lining up her frosting ingredients on the counter. "I'm assuming there's no proof."

"Not a scrap," Quinn said, bending down to look at the things on the counter. "What do you have?"

"Margarine, dark agave syrup, vanilla, cocoa powder, and soy milk powder," Rachel said, pointing to each.

"Hmmm…" Quinn pick each one up. She cautiously tasted the agave syrup, the vanilla, the cocoa and soy milk powder. "Not tasting it," she said. "Maybe it's the combination?"

"Okay." Rachel took out a clean mixing bowl. "I'll put in the ingredients. You can help mix."

"Okay."

"What other odd things happened in Sunnydale?" Rachel asked, watching Quinn folding the cocoa powder into the margarine, vanilla, and agave syrup mixture.

"Well, there seemed to be a lot of gas leaks. The high school blew up one graduation and they blamed it on a gas leak."

"Wow. What else?" Rachel asked.

"There was a sudden case of laryngitis," Quinn said. "No one in the town could talk. That was blamed on a gas leak."

"That must have been scary," Rachel said. Quinn nodded in agreement.

"And then there was Halloween," Quinn said. "One year, people claimed to turn into their costumes."

"That could be fun," Rachel said.

"It could be dangerous," Quinn said.

"How?"

"Think about it, Rach," Quinn said. "I know you'd probably dress up as one of your idols and serenade everyone, but what if someone suddenly thought they were Superman and tried to stop a train? Or jumped off a building thinking they could fly?"

"Oh!" Rachel gasped. "That could be bad. What other kinds of things happened?"

"Supposedly, there was a day when all of the adults started acting like teenagers."

"Gas leak?"

"Nope. Hallucinogenic candy," Quinn said, shaking her head at Rachel's frown. "The town was home to a large gang population. They always seemed to be on PCP, if one were to believe the police reports that survived."

"So the candy was plausible?"

"Yes, though there's no photographic evidence," Quinn said. "Do you think that's enough stirring?"

"Yes," Rachel said. "Ready to taste it?"

"Okay."

Rachel took out two clean spoons. Scooping up a small dab of frosting in each, she handed one to Quinn.

"Here goes," Quinn said, sticking the spoon in her mouth. "Are you sure this is the same recipe?"

"Definitely," Rachel said.

"Well, whatever is wrong with the first batch, this is good," Quinn said.

"Really?"

"Yup. You'd never know it was vegan," Quinn said, reaching for the bowl with her spoon.

"Don't do that!" Rachel said, grabbing the bowl.

"But. Frosting!" Quinn said, pouting.

"For the cupcakes," Rachel said, pointing at several rows of them on cooling racks on the kitchen table.

"If I help you frost, can I have one?"

"Maybe," Rachel said. "How much of that is true?"

"About Sunnydale?" Quinn asked. "I don't know. There's no proof for most of it."

"I think I would rather pretend it isn't," Rachel said, nodding to herself. "Let's go watch something cheerful and uplifting."

"With music?"

"Of course," Rachel said, smiling at her.

"Can we keep within today's theme?" Quinn asked hopefully.

"We haven't watched 'Wicked' in a while," Rachel said, leading the way back into the living room.

"Works for me," Quinn said, sitting down, pulling down Rachel with her.

"Quinn!" Rachel shrieked, cuddling up against her. Leaning down, Quinn kissed her before picking up the remote and flipping to their online movie collection.

"Hush! I'm trying to watch this," Quinn said, giggling at Rachel's affronted expression.

Note:[1] The vegan frosting recipe Rachel uses is from www.veganbakingsecrets.com, though I haven't tried it myself. [2] This doesn't really fit with the rest of the series. Although this series includes characters and locations from The Devil Wears Prada, and The Gilmore Girls it isn't really much of a crossover. I'm not really sure I want to add Buffy the Vampire Slayer to the mix so this might be an AU episode of the whole thing. There might be no other references to things Buffy in this story. Only time will tell.