Title: Crowd Surf Off A Cliff (1/13)

Pairing: Santana Lopez/Brittany, side Rachel

Berry/Quinn Fabray
Rating: R/NC-17ish
Spoilers: AU
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Summary: Santana Lopez hates school, Lima, and
those damn Cheerios--for the most part.
A/N: Title swiped from the Emily Haines & The Soft
Skeleton song of the same name.

Santana Lopez hates McKinley High.

She hates everything about it, from its pristine

hallways to its wholly-unnecessary steel drum band.
She hates the purple curtains in the auditorium, the
blistering green turf of the football field, the glare
reflecting off of rows and rows of metal lockers. She
hates its teachers, from Will Schuester and his
dismally-optimistic dreams of a better world to Sue
Sylvester and her glorified god-like ego. She hates
the way their football team never wins, and their
basketball team never cuts anyone, and their
racquetball team exists.

More than anything, she hates those goddamn

cheerleaders.

Boiled down, Santana Lopez really, really hates

school.
Waking up on her first day of junior year, then, is not
her favorite moment. She can hear the flurry of
activity outside her room, her brothers racing each
other down the hall, her mother bellowing after them,
and to listen to it, one would think one or all three are
on the verge of breaking their necks. It’s not the
world’s loveliest wake-up call. Groaning, she drags
the blankets tighter around her head.

“Santana!” Her mother is in the doorway, eyebrows

drawn in annoyance. “Get out of bed, lazy girl.”

“I’ve been thinking,” Santana calls back, muffled by

the comforter, “maybe I’ll just skip this year. Take a
load off, maybe backpack across Europe. Never too
early for some quality life experiences.”

Her mother snorts and thumps the door with one

hand; Santana hears her shoes clicking across the
floorboards as she moves down the hall. She sighs.

Told Fabray she wouldn’t buy that shit.

Thankfully, as the only girl in a family of four, she’s

got her own bathroom. Within twenty minutes, she
has showered and thrown on a mostly-clean pair of
jeans and an acid-wash Styx t-shirt. She is lacing up a
battered pair of Converse high tops when her mother
reappears, frowning.

“That is your first-impression outfit?”

First-impression outfits. Her mother has this crazy-ass
idea that, somehow, putting on a button-up blouse
and a nice skirt might do Santana a world of
personality-altering good. It’s almost cute, when she
tunes out the sheerly inane elements of such a
philosophy.

“I’ve been dealing with the same freaks for ten years,”
Santana drawls, scowling when one lace twists the
wrong direction. “Pardon my not giving a singular shit
about changing their opinions of me.”

“Language, mija,” the woman reminds her wearily,

rubbing her forehead. “Fine. Do what you want.
Just…try to avoid detention on the first day, all right?
For old time’s sake?”

Santana wants to ask which “old time” her mother is

recalling, since her memories are chock-full of
mischief galore, but she’s pretty sure the poor woman
is edging on a migraine as it is. She settles for smiling
winningly, amused when her mother throws her hands
into the air and shakes her head.

“You’ll be my death, dear,” the older woman

mumbles. Santana chuckles.

“I’d put money on Tonio for that. At least I don’t have

an ‘artist’s appreciation’ for fire.”
She half-expects a cuff over the head for that one, but
all her mother shouts back is, “Quinn’s here. Get out
of my house and learn something.”

Rolling her eyes, Santana straightens up, grabs the

woebegone satchel on her desk, and bounds down
the stairs. Sure enough, Quinn Fabray is waiting in
her driveway, piece-of-shit blue Chevy and all.
Santana slips into the passenger seat, punching her
best friend’s shoulder companionably.

“Mornin’, Blondie.”

Quinn’s mouth pulls into an annoyed grimace. “Quit

hitting me. Mom’s been wondering about the bruises.”

“Wimp,” Santana responds, almost affectionately,

thumping the girl again with a gentle fist. Glowering,
Quinn swipes blindly back, eyes locked on the road.

“I’m driving, you ass. Would you like this to be your

last day on earth?”

“Depends,” Santana muses. “Would that mean

skipping first-period Geometry? I fuckin’ hate
triangles.”

“At least you don’t have Spanish this year,” Quinn

grumbles. “Schuester won’t get off my ass about
tutoring. He seems to think I’m going to be able to
somehow get through his Golden Boy’s potato head.
Which is completely impossible, Hudson’s got all the
intellectual finesse of a croquet mallet. He still thinks
Taco Bell is the pinnacle of Spanish culture.”

Santana makes a sound of acknowledgement, as if

she actually cares, hauling her knees up to her chest
and planting both sneakers on the marred dashboard.
Out the window, Lima rifles by with all the pizazz of
roadkill. It’s days like these—this one and every other
she can remember—that make her want to hop a bus
with twenty bucks in one pocket and her iPod in the
other, never to look back.

“I want out,” she says, leaning her head against the

cracked window. Quinn slides an easy glance her
way, knowing her exactly too well to question the non-
sequitor.

“We’ll get there,” she replies confidently, drumming

long fingers on the steering wheel and just missing a
suicidal squirrel. Santana frowns.

“I want out today.”

“Well,” Quinn says calmly, “you’ll just have to be

patient, won’t you? Punch Puckerman a few times in
the gnads, it’ll make you feel better.”

Despite herself, Santana brightens. “Always does.”

They turn into the furthest parking space from the

door, because Quinn refuses to park outside of BFE
—she claims it gives her a sense of mystique, but
Santana knows it’s secretly because Quinn failed the
parking portion of her exam three times and is
anxious about hitting other cars on the way in—and
clamber ungracefully out. It takes Santana thirty
seconds to fumble out of her seatbelt and escape.

“Your car is a goddamn death trap,” Santana

observes, as she always does, and like always, Quinn
rolls her eyes.

“You wanna pick up a job and buy something that’ll

run on more than two wheels and a chain, you can
say whatever you like. Until then, shut the fuck up
about my car. Betty is perfection.”

“Betty hates me,” Santana retorts. Quinn’s pretty face

splits into a grin.

“Like I said. Perfection.”

She dodges Santana’s dive for her throat, laughing

and adjusting the white t-shirt under her black zip-up,
and looks towards the looming building with obvious
disinterest. “Two more years.”

Sobering, Santana runs uneasy fingers through her

hair. “Yeah.”

Quinn claps a hand on her shoulder. “Piece of cake.

Come on. I want to see if I can find Rachel before
class.”

“Stalking is so an attractive quality,” Santana snips.

Quinn shrugs.

“She wants me. She just doesn’t know it yet.”

“Mmkay, that’s called creeping, Fabray. You should

check that book out from the library, give it a good
read. I think you’ll find yourself a heavily featured
character.”

Quinn shoves her, then stuffs her hands into the

pockets of her jeans and sets off for the school.
“Look, just because you have a heart of stone doesn’t
mean we all have. Some of us are looking for a
relationship.”

“Read: sex,” Santana snarks. Quinn’s shoulder

collides heavily with her own.

“Relationship. Look into it. It’s that thing that happens

when two people actually give a shit about each
other.”

“And then hump like bunnies,” Santana fills in brightly,

because it is too much fun watching Quinn’s face turn
that shade of purple. The blonde girl growls until
Santana extends both hands in a peaceful gesture.
“Sorry, sorry. Right. Just because you want to throw
Berry’s midget frame over your only-slightly-less
midgety shoulder and take her off to fuck in the
Batcave doesn’t mean you don’t care. Deeply. And
disgustingly. For her annoying-ass personality.”

This really is the best part of her day, aside from

kicking Puck in his man-bits, because as much as she
loves Quinn—the girl’s a lunatic and listens to way too
much indie bullshit, but she is her best friend—
someone has to step in and tone down her sick love
of all things Berry. Rachel’s nice and all, and not
awful-looking, in a big-mouthed, someone-call-an-
exorcist sort of way, but she’s not anyone to moon
over. Which is what Quinn has been doing for the
better part of six years. It kind of makes Santana feel
ill, because Quinn is too smart for lame crushes. This
should have died out when they were eleven and
Rachel discovered the wonders of argyle, but
unfortunately, Quinn’s kryptonite—mini-skirts—came
into the picture at the exact same time, and well…

Downhill explosion from there.

So here they are—and have been for several years

longer than Santana believes is entirely necessary:
Quinn, lapping at the heels of some straight-ass, tight-
ass chick who would rather sing a Celine Dion medley
than get down and dirty, and Santana, racing
alongside her, just close enough to grab her by her
hood every now and again and yank her bodily
backwards into sanity. Like a dog with a leash.
Sometimes, Santana really doesn’t want to know how
she got to this place.

They reach the main hallway, and sure enough,

Quinn’s head rotates immediately. She arches up on
the toes of her sneakers, angling to see over throngs
of melancholy teenagers, and Santana has to remind
herself that it is still too early in the day for extreme
bodily violence. Which doesn’t mean she can’t glare
like her life depends upon it.

“Q,” she growls, reaching out to snag the back of the

blonde’s hoodie. “Q. Seriously, cut this shit out. God,
how have you gone this long without starting your day
with an icebath?”

“Think it has something to do with every rational

person in this school being petrified of my best friend,”
the girl replies absently, swinging around. “Do you
think she’s got the same locker?”

“What, you mean the one three down from yours?

The one she’s been assigned for two years?”
Santana’s getting annoyed now. “Gee, I think that
might be a distinct possibility.”

Catching on, Quinn stops vulturing for a second,

places her hands on her hips, and narrows her eyes.
“Don’t be a bitch,” she snaps, which sounds pretty
rich coming from a girl who tends to hate on just
about everyone she meets. “I’m allowed to have this
thing, okay? Just one thing. It makes me happy.”

“It makes you crazy,” Santana corrects. “Crazy, and

sometimes emo and obnoxious, and seriously,
Fabray. It’s Rachel fucking Berry. Move on already.
She’s not interested.”

Quinn’s expression goes soft around the edges in a

way that makes Santana solidly uncomfortable. “You
don’t know that.”

Santana shifts, gripping the strap of her bag

unconsciously. “No,” she admits after a second. “But
you don’t know either. You can’t keep doing this to
yourself, Quinn. It makes you fucking miserable, and
it’s pathetic, because then I get miserable. So let’s
make a pact or something, okay? This year? How
about you stop staring and moping and masturbating
—“ (Quinn winces) “—and actually do something
about it? For the sake of all of us.”

“All of us” only really entails Santana, Quinn, and

sometimes Puck, who joins up with them in between
sexual conquests, but the point still stands. It’s time,
and if Fabray isn’t going to man up, Santana will just
have to do it for her the only way she knows how: with
brute force.

Quinn’s jaw has gone rigid. In a rare moment of

snark-less affection, Santana touches her shoulder.
“What’s the worst that could happen?” she asks softly,
giving the girl a small shake. Quinn licks her lips.

“She could sic the full force of the American Civil

Liberties Union on me. Or punch me in the face.”

Santana laughs. “Give me a break, Fabray. If she so

much as pokes you the wrong way, I’ll drop kick her
down the stairs. She’s all of the size of a football
anyway.”

Quinn cracks a smile. “Fair enough.”

Smirking, Santana tosses an arm over her friend’s

shoulder as they pick up their slow trek down the hall
once more. “So it’s settled. You’re going to stop being
an enormous pussy and hopefully get the girl, and I’m
going to stop hearing about it. Maybe this year won’t
suck so much after all.”

One perfectly-groomed eyebrow arches. “You do

realize, if this all works out and Rachel and I start
dating, you’re going to be stuck hearing even more
about it, right? And seeing it? You do know that’s how
this works.”

The blood slowly drains from Santana’s face. “Fuck.”

It’s enough to make Quinn laugh, jostling the Latina

happily. “Great! Okay, your turn.”
“Sorry?” Santana fires back, mentally churning over
the image of Quinn and Rachel becoming Quinn-and-
Rachel, forever in her line of vision. Ew.

“I’ve got a goal for the year,” Quinn replies

impatiently. “Your turn to pick something. Oh come
on, Santana,” she adds when the girl pulls a vile face.
“You need one. More than me, even. You’re like, ten
seconds from dropping out, and I can’t pay for a
Manhattan apartment on my own on a college
student’s salary. You have to stick with me here.”

“I don’t need a goal,” Santana grouses, kicking out at

an empty Gatorade bottle and sending it sailing down
the hall. “I’m peachy keen. No worries.”

“Fuck that,” Quinn says primly. “Find something. It’s

only fair; we’re making a pact here, and your side
can’t just be ‘watching Quinn work’. That’s some over-
easy bullshit.”

“I don’t think—,” Santana begins, mind working

furiously for a legitimate argument, just before she
collides heavily with something tall and soft.

It’s strange, partially because Santana’s usually too

graceful to go plowing into people at random, but
more so because she can’t remember the last time an
indescriminate student had the gall to come within
twelve feet of her at school. People know her just well
enough to brand her a deadly mystery; they couldn’t
tell her favorite color from her favorite brand of shoes,
but they all know what happens to bitches who step to
Santana Lopez. She’s heard the rumors and even
laughingly spread a few herself (that she carries a
small blade in her left high-top is a personal favorite),
because school sucks a little less with everyone living
in a blind state of fear.

So this? Having some chick run smack into her on the

first fucking day? Weird.

So weird, in fact, that Santana can’t seem to find the

words to describe it. She stares at the individual in
question, a young woman with golden hair standing a
couple of inches taller than Santana herself, baffled.
The girl is new, obviously—you’d have to be, to play
chicken with Santana—and wildly pretty. Stunningly
so.

She is also clad in one of those goddamned Cheerio

uniforms.

Santana feels her lip curl. “Watch it.”

Quinn’s hand settles on her shoulder, restraining a

fight Santana’s not sure she even feels like starting.
She’s a Cheerio, clearly, but the girl doesn’t look like
she’s interested in duking it out. Her eyes are huge
and blue and horrified, and even though she’s
dressed to the nines like every other cheer-based
drone, there is something missing in her attractive
face.

Arrogance, Santana decides. She lacks that self-

important vibe Sylvester seems to hand-pick her girls
for. Instead, she looks apologetic and nervous, like
she honestly believes she has hurt Santana and could
not be more regretful about it. It’s almost intriguing,
that someone as sweet-looking as this could end up
on that squad of airheaded terrorists.

“Sorry,” the girl says, reaching out a hand, and

Santana realizes with a start that this ridiculously
lovely thing is actually intending to touch her. She
steps away instinctively, just out of range, and tucks
her thumbs into her back pockets.

“It’s fine,” she replies, unsure as she said it if she’s

even speaking the truth. “Just…watch it. There are
worse people to ram into.”

“Not true,” she hears Quinn murmur behind her. She

opts to ignore it.

The blonde nods almost frantically, clasping her

hands across the front of her skirt. “I’m sorry,” she
says again, bouncing a little on the balls of her feet.
“It’s just, I’m new, and I don’t know where I’m going,
and I’m really bad with directions, so—“

“Hey.” A Cheerio—Santana thinks her name might be

Mallory, though she couldn’t care less, because all
Cheerios have looked the same to her since the first
day at McKinley—grinds to a halt at the new girl’s side
and grasps her by the elbow. “What are you doing?”

Confused, the girl tilts her head in Santana’s direction.

“I walked into her, so I was saying sorry, because—“

“Whatever.” Mallory-or-whatever performs an eyeroll

almost epic enough to invoke Santana’s envy. “I’ll cut
you some slack just this once, but for the record? It’s
crucial to know your riffraff. These delinquents are
below us. Steer clear.”

“Bite me, cheer-bitch,” Santana sneers. The new girl’s

eyes expand even wider. Mallory-or-whatever sniffs.

“I’d watch my step if I were you, Lopez. You may be a

psychopath and everything, but we own this school.
Never forget that.”

The Cheerio’s smirk is just haughty enough for

Santana to rationalize smacking it right off her face;
Quinn’s hand tightens on her shoulder.

She sucks in a breath, counts to twenty, pictures

exactly what Sue Sylvester would do to her body if
she actually attacked one of those damnable red
skirts.

It’s enough to take her rage down a few notches. By

the time she can see straight again, the new girl is
being led away by the arm, glancing worriedly over
her shoulder as she does and mouthing, “Sorry”
again.

Santana grits her teeth, waiting until both girls are out
of sight, then slams an open palm as hard as she can
into a locker. A freshman boy jolts in surprise and
darts away. Wise instincts.

“Well,” Quinn drawls behind her, “that was bracing.”

“I fucking hate those bitches,” Santana snarls, teeth

clenching around each word.

“New girl seems okay,” Quinn notes with a shrug,

shifting her backpack higher onto one shoulder.
“Sweet, even.”

“She’s just pretty,” Santana grumbles. “Pretty bitches

are the worst.”

It doesn’t take a moment for her to decide she does

not like the arch way Quinn is looking at her.

“What?”

“I think we’ve found your side of the bargain,” Quinn

says brazenly, taking hold of Santana’s crooked
elbow and dragging her towards the mathematics
wing. The Latina jerks free, irritated.
“Come again?”

“The girl. The ‘pretty bitch’. I saw the way you were
gawking.” Quinn grins. “You like her.”

“Okay, A: not true. I only just met the chick, and she
ran her ass right into me.” Santana flicks up a second
finger to join the first. “And B: she’s a goddamn
Cheerio. Spawn of Satan, minons of…well, Satan.
Even if I did think she was smokin’ hot—which, yeah,
okay, I’ve got eyes—I wouldn’t touch that with a ten-
foot fuckin’ pole.”

Quinn shakes her hair back with a maddening air of

superiority, and Santana wonders fleetingly why she
keeps the girl around in the first place. “Whatever.
You like her.”

“What’s your fucking proof?” Santana demands,

rushing to catch up. Quinn wiggles her eyebrows.

“You didn’t punch her when she plowed into you.”

“So I’m practicing a little self-restraint. It’s called

growing up, Fabray. You should try it sometime.”

“Didn’t look so much like you wanted to restrain

yourself with Mallory,” Quinn points out. Santana’s
fists tighten.
“I’m gonna quit restraining myself with you if you don’t
cut this shit out,” she threatens half-heartedly. The
blonde laughs.

“A deal’s a deal, Lopez. I go after Rachel. You go

after New Hottie. Neither of us go dropping out of
school or committing pathetic emo suicide. Sounds
like a plan to me.”

“You’re insane,” Santana proclaims, gaping at the

other girl. “You know that.”

“And you can’t resist a challenge,” Quinn jibes back.

“Come on. Tell me with a straight face you don’t want
in that tiny red skirt.”

“It’s a skirt from Hell,” Santana growls, but she lowers

her eyes all the same, annoyed with how easily the
blonde can read her after so many years. She doesn’t
like New Hottie—she doesn’t even know her fucking
name, how can she like her? There’s nothing to like.
But attraction? Sure, there’s something there.
Santana’s always been a sucker for a pair of baby
blues.

“Whatever,” she says at last, grudgingly. “I’ll bite. But

only because this town is too fucking boring not to.
And Fabray, I swear to your God, when she turns out
to be a vapid, tempestuous little bitch like the rest of
them, it’ll be your pretty little white ass I come after.”
Quinn is too busy letting out a triumphant whoop as
she bolts towards the Spanish room to respond.
Gritting her teeth, Santana drags her feet all the way
to her own class.

This year is going to fucking blow.

A/N: Title swiped from the Emily Haines & The Soft
Skeleton song of the same name.

Three days go by without seeing New Hottie again

(she really does have to figure out the chick’s name, if
she’s going to play Fabray’s mindless little game;
Santana’s kind of a traditionalist that way, when it
comes to stalking beautiful women without their
knowledge or consent). She tries not to think too
much about it, reminding herself time and time again
that she isn’t actually interested.

In the meantime, she’s pretty well distracted by

Quinn’s side of the fence, which lately seems to be
peppered even more with blathering about stupid little
Rachel Berry than usual.

It’s been three days, and already Santana is mentally

stocking up on duct tape.

“Fabray, shut up,” she groans, throwing back her

head and staring mournfully into a never-ending blue
sky. They’re sitting outside the school, Santana with
the backs of her arms resting on a picnic table, Quinn
cross-legged on the table’s top, soaking up the
sunshine. It should be a place of peace and
tranquility, but all Quinn can talk about is the skirt
Rachel wore today and exactly how many inches of
“perfect, God-verifying leg” blessed her field of vision.
Santana wants to vomit.

“Like you didn’t notice,” Quinn scoffs, making it even

worse because, for some reason, the blonde cannot
fathom a world in which not everyone wants in Berry’s
likely-grandmotherly panties. Santana reaches back,
blindly, and smacks the girl’s calf with as much force
as she can muster.

“I didn’t. Because, frankly, I would rather roll that girl

in bubble wrap and ship her to Timbuktu in the world’s
largest cardboard box than check out her stubby-ass
legs.” That last part is not entirely accurate; Rachel
actually does have freakishly attractive legs, but the
moment Santana admits such a travesty out loud,
she’s confident the ground will gnash open and
swallow her whole. Best to stay safe and avoid that
nonsense.

Luckily, Quinn is ignoring her, probably lost in

daydreams of all kinds of perverse RuPaul-related
activities. Santana doesn’t care so much, as long as
she doesn’t have to listen to any of it; it affords her the
chance to nudge her aviators up her nose and enjoy
the sun toasting her skin.
Three days isn’t all that long, but it certainly has been
enough time to remind Santana exactly why she
dreams nightly of fleeing this town on a midnight-
running transit. Between Sue Sylvester performing
her hourly dinosaur stomp down the halls, Principal
Figgins’ masterfully-pathetic bids for authority over the
PA system, and that look Ms. Pillsbury gets every
time she spots Santana—like she wants to save her
soul and give her an acid bath at the same time to
cleanse her of all possible traumas—Santana is
already just about done.

She hates to admit it, but the only thing keeping her
from faking the flu is the idea that Quinn might
actually fling whatever potential shot at lesbo-joy with
Berry she’s got out a window without the Latina
around to stop the train wreck. It’s not that Santana
believes Quinn is stupid—she just knows the girl gets
a little too over-zealous sometimes.

Especially where Berry is concerned.

Santana sighs.

“So how’s your thing going?” Quinn asks, doing a

pretty impressive job of feigning interest. If not for the
way she’s reclining on her hands, head tilted back
and eyes closed, Santana might actually think the
other girl is up for a conversation.

“I have nothing to go,” Santana reminds her anyway,

doubtful though she is of Quinn’s attention.

“Sure you do,” the girl responds absently, twisting her

fingers through the blue mesh of the tabletop.
“Whatshernuts. Cheery Blue Eyes. You talk to her
yet?”

It’s a stupid question—which, knowing Quinn, only

means it isn’t a question at all. Rather, it’s supposed
to serve as a manipulatory reminder, letting Santana
know that, despite having been left alone for a few
days, she isn’t off the hook.

It annoys Santana exactly as much as it’s meant to.

“If I had talked to her,” she grumbles, “I wouldn’t be

talking to your ass about it.”

This seems to get Quinn’s attention, at least. “Why

not?” she demands, straightening up and shifting her
own sunglasses down until hazel eyes are able to
bore relentlessly into the side of Santana’s head. “I
tell you everything about Rachel.”

“Yeah,” Santana deadpans, barely glancing over.

“Everything. It’s fucking gross, Q. The day I start
heaving glitter all over your shoes, feel free to smack
me with a hammer.”

“Oh, I’m not that awful,” Quinn gripes back, thwapping

Santana over the head.
“Trust me, Fabray, you are that awful and beyond.”
Grinning, Santana nudges back into Quinn’s open
hand. “You’ve practically been Pucking me lately.”

It’s exactly the worst comparison she could have

made. Puck spends the majority of his time with them
leering over every lewd and vile detail of his latest
conquests, until both girls can do nothing more than
subtly slip headphones into their ears and nod often.
It’s not the only reason Santana beats on him, but she
thinks it's a valid enough cause for the well-deserved
swift kicks he recieves to the ass (and other locations)
on a weekly basis.

Sometimes, she wonders why he even hangs out with

them. Santana’s abusive and Quinn’s just a bitch; she
knows the guy prides himself on having two “lesbros”,
but really, even mohawked jackasses should have
more self-respect than that.

At any rate, she can tell without looking that Quinn is

insulted. Feeling more than a little proud of herself,
she slouches down further and gazes carelessly
across the quad.

Fifty feet away, doing a mad impression of an ant

colony, Sylvester’s horde of cheer-bitches are running
drills on the football field. From this far off, Santana
can’t discern one uniform from another, which is by
far the way she likes it. Unceasingly aggravated by
her inability to touch even one member of the hive,
she finds it’s easier to take them in as a singular
entity. It makes her feel less hopeless, less like a
failure, because when they band together into a giant
Terminator of school spirit, she thinks no one could
hope to take them down. Not even the most badass
chick in Ohio. Not alone, anyway, and it’s not like she
can depend upon Quinn and her puppy-love or Puck
and his reality-retardant libido to help her out. They’re
sort of badasses too—in a lame, apathetic kind of way
—but they actually accept the status quo as it
currently stands, shrugging it off and moving on the
way Santana intellectually understands she should
do, and that makes them completely useless.

So she prefers to look at it this way: even

superheroes can’t destroy gods, and as sick as it
might make her, the Cheerios construct McKinley’s
entire pantheon. Sue Sylvester is their Zeus,
thunderbolts and raging inability to jot down
consequences and all. There is no defeating them,
not until the moon turns purple and the earth begins
to rotate steadily backwards.

Santana’s biding her time for that day. Pending that

occurrence, she’ll have to settle for nuclear-caliber
scowls and flipping the bird until premature arthritis
sets in.

“Whatcha lookin’ at?” Quinn sing-songs, apparently

already over the Puck comment. Santana rolls her
eyes.

“Plotting Sylvester’s demise. What do you think would

have a better chance, silver bullets or a bazooka?”

Quinn’s legs thunk down beside her seconds before

the blonde slips off the table and onto the bench.
“Bazooka, definitely. The woman made a deal with
the devil; might not mean she’s indestructible. Bitty
bits are still bitty bits, soul or no.”

“I respect your eloquence,” Santana replies soberly,

smirking when Quinn’s shoulder rams into her own.

“But seriously,” the fairer girl presses after a moment.

“You really haven’t talked to the hottie with the legs
yet?”

“What is it with you and legs?” Santana demands. “I’d

see somebody about that if I were you.”

“No, you’d just load up on thigh-and-calf porn,” Quinn

says cheerfully. “Quit playing me off. What’s the
deal?”

Exhaling noisily, Santana plucks the sunglasses off

the other girl’s face and tosses them obnoxiously into
the grass. “There is no deal. Just because you’ve got
some fucked-up idea of a pact doesn’t mean I actually
need your coping mechanisms. The girl’s got some
junk in her trunk. Good for her. I still don’t know her
name, and I still don’t care. I’m not you, Fabray. I
don’t need some chick to validate my existence at this
school.”

Quinn goes quiet for a moment, then asks in a

strangely soft tone, “Then what do you need?”

Leaning back again, Santana shrugs. “An early

diploma? Full ride out of Nowheresville, USA? A
fucking break from the assholes and jerkoffs who
constantly stare at me like I’m some kind of bisexual
miscreant?”

“You are a bisexual miscreant,” Quinn reminds her, as

only a best friend can. “Except mostly for the bisexual
part. Having a crush on Alex Hoffman in the third
grade doesn’t count, you know.”

Santana rolls her eyes. “Fine, I’m a miscreant. I’m just

saying, it takes one to know one, bitch.”

“You’re the one who eggs the cars and swipes the
janitor’s keys,” Quinn points out. “I just tag along to
keep your Spanish ass out of jail. Don’t go sticking me
with your delinquent brand, Lopez.”

Santana would smack her, she really, really would,

except she is distracted at the last moment (literally;
her hand is in the air, fingers spread for optimum
aerodynamic what-the-fuck-ever, it’s not like Santana
pays attention in Physics) by the shadow rolling
slowly over them both. She looks away at the least
opportune moment, just in time for Quinn to dodge the
slap and wrap an arm around the darker girl’s throat.
Santana squirms indignantly, equal parts displeased
and stuck.

“No fair headlocking,” she complains, trying

ineffectually to punch at Quinn. “Get off, you ass.”

Quinn, however, seems to have gone temporarily

stupid. Her forearm remains rigid, clenched tight
around Santana’s neck, but the rest of her is
completely disengaged, distracted by the girl standing
before them both with her hands on her hips.

“Why do you have Santana in a headlock?” Rachel

Berry asks curiously, brown hair falling into dark eyes,
and shit, Quinn has been petrified. Fucking great.
Santana wriggles, lashing out with an elbow until she
collides with Quinn’s kneecap.

“Because she’s a whore,” the Latina explains,

wrenching free the second Quinn goes slack.
Rachel’s nose wrinkles.

“She’s the president of the Celibacy Club,” she points

out, as if it makes a difference. Santana knows all too
well that Quinn’s only in that group because it’s a
solid excuse not to play with boys. Clearly, Berry
hasn’t gotten the memo.
“Still a whore,” Santana settles for grumbling. “Of the
bitchtastic variety.”

Stupefied, Quinn says nothing. Rachel, naturally,

takes it upon herself to berate Santana’s vernacular,
stiffly mumbling something about disproportionate,
hostile behavior doing damage to otherwise glowing
relationships. Santana isn’t really listening; her mind
is better occupied plotting ways to burn Berry’s
unicorn-stamped sweatshirt.

She tunes back in only when Quinn manages to jerk

free of her lust-induced stupor long enough to
breathe, “Hi, Rachel.”

The tiny brunette arches an eyebrow, probably

because she’s been standing there yapping for all of
five minutes now and Quinn has only just
acknowledged her presence.

“Hello, Quinn,” she replies pointedly. “Has your rough-

housing cut off access to your manners?”

It’s such a Berry thing to say, overflowing with smug

self-importance, and Santana kind of wants to jab the
girl with a stick for it. Quinn, of course, grins.

“Have you ever put someone in a headlock before? It

can be a very distracting kind of fun.”

Santana whips around to stare at the blonde,

because, ew, way to make it sound dirtier than it was.
Rachel smiles her obnoxious “I know everything”
smile.

“I’m a pacifist, Quinn. I don’t do—“

“Fun?” Santana pipes up brightly, shutting up when

Quinn’s hand discreetly connects with the back of her
head. Rachel sniffs.

“Violence, Santana. Something you are all too

appreciative of, I understand.”

Santana’s fingers clutch against her own jeans, torn

between the temptation to smack down any bitch with
the stones to challenge her and the understanding
that Quinn will not tolerate her marring Berry’s
massive nasal structure.

“So, Rachel!” Quinn cuts in, warningly yanking on a

few stray locks of black hair when Santana leans
ominously forward. “What keeps you around so long
after school?”

It’s a question that would be better directed at the two

of them, Santana thinks, since Berry is involved in just
about every after-school activity in Figgins’ playbook
(barring, of course, the athletics; Rachel Berry is a
teacher’s pet and a hell of an overachiever, but Mia
Hamm, she ain’t). It’s actually kind of dangerous; now
that the inquiry is on the air, they’ll probably have to
sit through a long-winded diatribe on the importance
of the Equality For Inter-sexed German Students Club
or some shit. Santana bites her tongue.

Shockingly, Rachel does little more than shrug and

calmly say, “Glee practice. I meet with Mr. Schuester
for one-on-one time once a week, so he can better
assess which songs would suit my vocal stylings.”

Santana’s eyes widen. She can practically hear the

rusty little gears pistoning away in Quinn’s head, and
no, no, no, that is not okay. It isn’t that she has
anything against music—Christ knows, she’s
assembled a mental playlist for every occasion—but
Gleeks fall even lower on the shoddily-carved
McKinley totem pole than burnouts and psychopaths.
Santana might not give a singular shit about her
reputation, but even she isn’t disconnected enough
for Will Schuester’s merry band of underdogs.

Her ability to telepathically control Quinn’s body

seems to be short-circuiting today, however. No
sooner than Santana realizes what is about to
happen, the blonde girl’s mouth unhinges and out
pours their damnation.

“Sounds like a lot of fun. Are you guys still looking for
members?”

Sharp teeth click down again on a tender tongue.

She’s going to start bleeding soon if she keeps this
method up.

Rachel, for her part, lights up like a fucking beacon.

“Yes! We need twelve members to compete, and
we’re short a small handful. I don’t suppose you’d like
to…”

She trails off, nudging the toe of one hideous flat into
the grass hopefully, and Quinn practically leaps off
the table in excitement.

“Absolutely. It’s just, like, singing and stuff, right? I

can sing. Totally.”

Rachel looks like she’s ready to burst off this mortal

coil and do laps around the stars. The force of
Quinn’s smile might actually make her face explode.

Santana wants to kill them both.

“Santana’s got a pretty good voice too,” she hears

Quinn add, and oh Jesus, now she’s really going to
jail, because she’s pretty sure justifiable homicide
does not extend to the murder of thy best friend in
times of rep-crushing crisis.

“Nope,” the Latina says firmly. “Can’t carry a tune in

the slightest. Sorry.”

Quinn’s glare threatens to dismember every inch of

their friendship, starting with the spread of Santana’s
secrets and culminating in a horrendously brutal
mutilation of her body during fifth period gym class.
Despite herself, Santana swallows hard.

“I mean…public vocalization isn’t really my vibe.”

“She’ll do it,” Quinn interrupts rudely, fingers

clenching around the back of Santana’s neck as
discreetly as possible. Rachel seems unconvinced.

“You sure?” she asks nervously, giant brown puppy

eyes locked with a death grip on Santana’s. “I would
hate to pressure you into something you’re
uncomfortable with…”

“She’s sure,” Quinn replies firmly, smiling with every

square inch of gleaming white tooth in her mouth.
Santana would respond, if not for the misfortune of
Quinn having found a pressure point beneath her skin
and bearing down upon it. The most she can do is
squeak in reply. Rachel seems to take this as an
affirmative.

“Wonderful!” the little diva chirps happily, clapping her

hands together and staring up at Quinn like the
blonde is her own personal Jesus Christ: Superstar.
Santana can’t decide if it would be more satisfying to
puke first and kill later, or reverse.

Quinn waits until the object of her hideously-irrational

affections has flounced away, having instructed them
both to show up on Thursday at three-thirty. Finally,
just as Santana is beginning to wonder if a person
can be paralyzed from Vulcan Death Grip alone, the
blonde’s hand unlatches and returns to its holster in
Quinn’s pocket.

“Look, I know what you’re going to say—“

“Does it involve the words ‘no’, ‘fucking’, and ‘way’?”

Santana asks sweetly, rubbing the tenderized skin
under her hair. “Because, seriously, Romeo, this is
just fucking unacceptable. You are whoring me out to
nerds.”

“Okay, I get where you’re coming from,” Quinn shoots

back helplessly, rushing to sit again beside her friend.
“But you told me this was the year I had to go for it.
I’m going for it. Music is Rachel’s life, and once she
sees I’ve got some talent in that area, she’ll totally
fall.” She pauses, worrying her lower lip with her
teeth. “I’m only doing what you told me to.”

“I told you to get the girl,” Santana corrects. “Not drag

my ass into it. In fact, I think I expressly mentioned
the part about leaving me out of your shit. Didn’t I?”

“Yeah, okay, fair point.” Quinn looks desperate. It

would almost be kind of heart-breaking, if not for
Santana’s mind-numbing rage. “But come on, Lopez. I
can’t do this alone. You know me, you know what I’ll
be like if it’s just me and her. I’ll, like, lose my shit and
start shaking, or forget all my guitar chords in the
middle of a romantic ballad or something—“

Santana flings up a hand, disgusted. “Back up.

Romantic ballad? Guitar? You won’t even play that
fucking train wreck you call an instrument for me, you
conniving bitch.”

Clearly anxious, Quinn wrings both hands under her

chin. “Please. I swear, I’ll never ask you for another
favor. Just do this for me.”

Santana sucks in a breath, wincing a little when her

neck zings. “Dammit, I think you crushed something
back there.” Quinn raises an apologetic eyebrow.
Santana sighs. “Fuck it. Fine. But goddammit, Fabray,
this is it. I’m not joining, like, Rainbow Streisand
Lovers of America or anything. I don’t care how bad
you want under that atrocious little skirt.”

For a second, she’s afraid Quinn is actually going to

hug her; to be safe, she crosses her index fingers and
holds them out to ward off potential fluffy evil. The
blonde settles for beaming her face off.

They sit for a second, contemplating the rather

sudden (and, Santana thinks, happiness-destroying)
turn their lives have taken.

“Fuck, Q,” she says abruptly, nosing her sunglasses

back into place and leaning into the sun once more.
“Who in their right freakin' mind is going to be afraid of
us now?”

Quinn throws back her head and roars with laughter.

A/N: Title swiped from the Emily Haines & The Soft
Skeleton song of the same name.

“Why the hell would I join Homo Explosion?” Puck’s

mouth is curled into a baffled sneer. Santana nudges
his ankle with the toe of her sneaker.

“Maybe because I told you to?”

“And I’m, what, your little monkey boy now?” He

cocks an eyebrow, thicker and darker, but almost as
impressive as Quinn’s in terms of sheer height. “Fuck
you, Lopez. I’m not game.”

Her hands clench in the pockets of her navy blue

hoodie as she reminds herself that violence, while the
primary language between herself and Noah
Puckerman, is not the permanent best course of
action. It’s a difficult battle, but eventually the slightly
less destructive side wins out. She breathes.

“Look,” she says quietly, glancing over her shoulder to

ensure no one overhears, “Fabray is losing it.”

“I could’ve told you that,” he replies agreeably, tucking

a book into his locker and running a hand over his
newly-trimmed mohawk. “She’s got it so bad for
Berry, it’s gone past being hot and straight around to
scary.”

“Exactly,” Santana confirms, leaning against the wall.

“That’s why you have to do this with me. I can’t
protect her from herself on my own, I’ve got, like…a
life.”

“Doing what?” Puck snarks, immediately shielding his

face with both hands. “All right! Jesus. Fine. But there
had better be some hot chicks.”

“It’s Glee Club,” Santana replies dryly. “The hottest

thing there will be the three of us.”

“And Berry,” he adds, shrugging when she pins him

with a glare. “What? Just ‘cause she’s got Fabray’s
panties in a twist, I can’t appreciate her hot Jew
nature?”

“Not near Quinn, you can’t. She’ll kick your ass all the
way to Detroit.”

He pales. “I would not do well in the ghetto.”

“They would shave your head and call you Sally,”

Santana agrees, grinning. He shakes his head,
swinging the locker shut and giving the lock a
disinterested twirl.
“Whatever. I’ll do it. I’m enough of a rock star to get
away with it, and I’m pretty sure Hudson will kiss my
fucking feet for easing up off his back about the whole
thing.”

“Since when do you give a crap about Hudson?”

Santana wonders, less bitter and more genuinely
curious. She has never particularly enjoyed Finn
Hudson’s company, what with all his video game
obsessions and knee-jerk reactions to pretty girls
ending in fresh changes of pants, but lately, Puck
seems weirdly drawn to the guy. She thinks it
probably ties back to their shared absent-daddy
issues or something equally predictable. It's the kind
of thing she is blissfully too smart to fall into,
regardless of her own mountain of family drama. Her
only hope is that Puck never takes the road Finn’s
been bearing down, using Will Schuester as an
acceptable father substitute.

Schue’s a nice guy and all, but he’s married to a

psychologically-abusive wretch and is otherwise
hopelessly devoted to a woman who can’t go ten
minutes without a Handi-Wipe party. He’s kind of a
pitiful mess.

She tunes back in just in time for Puck’s go-figure

bored response. “He’s a decent dude. Got a solid
Xbox system, and his mom’s got some pretty nice
cans. We hang.”
Disgusted, Santana stares up at him. “Please tell me
you haven’t banged his mother.”

“Not yet.” He waggles his eyebrows saucily before

dropping the act with another shrug. “Nah, I wouldn’t
do that. Carole’s a nice lady. Has coffee with my mom
sometimes, always brings an extra donut to share
with the Puckster. She’s like an aunt or something.”

“An aunt you check out,” Santana fills in, still half-
grossed out. He grins.

“I’m a dude. We operate on a system. There’s no

cheat code out of it.”

“Of course,” she grumbles, shaking her head. “I really

don’t need to know. So you’re in?”

For the first time, Puck almost looks apprehensive. “I

guess,” he says at last, ruffling his dark strip of a
haircut again. “The band isn’t gonna be too psyched.”

“The band” consists of a few metalheads and an REO

Speedwagon enthusiast, all of whom are well into
their twenties. Somehow, Santana doesn’t see that
organism working out.

“It’ll be fine,” she settles for assuring him, punching

his shoulder lightly enough to suggest friendship
instead of the usual mistreatment. “Thursday, okay?
Three-thirty.”
He waves her off, already striding towards the science
wing as if he’s actually going to stay awake during
Chemistry this year. Rolling her eyes almost fondly,
Santana turns on her heel and makes a beeline for
the gym.

It’s the one class a day she actually enjoys, mostly

because Ken Tanaka doesn’t give a shit what the girls
do as long as they break some kind of a sweat in the
process. He’s kind of a sexist pig that way, but it
leaves Santana free to swim laps one day, lift weights
the next, and pelt lesser mortals with heavy rubber
dodgeballs whenever she likes. She figures it’s a win-
win situation—for her, at least.

The only downside is Quinn not being in her class

anymore, thanks to a last-minute switcheroo pulled by
Figgins’ utterly-inept secretaries. AP kids—such as
the multi-talented Ms. Fabray, whose acceptance of
college-level U.S. History is in Santana’s mind a total
crock intended to pacify her otherwise routinely
disappointed parental units—have been swapped
around with abandon, leaving slackers like Santana
and Puck to their blow-off classes and third-year-
running re-enrollments.

She’s a little bummed out, since even gratuitous

violence loses a measure of its shine without Quinn
snarking up a storm by her side, but still—it’s gym
class. It takes next to no effort, keeps her in sexy
shape, and allows her to obliterate fools like that
creepy Jacob kid when they attempt to slyly catch a
look up her shorts.

Really. Win-win.

The locker room is nearly empty when she clatters

down the stairs, mentally weighing the pros and cons
between a hearty tennis volley with some
unsuspecting loser or an hour spent in the pool. She
isn’t particularly concerned by the lack of other
students getting changed; being late means almost
nothing when half the teachers are afraid of you and
the other half—like Tanaka—couldn’t care less.

The only thing she notices is how the singular other

occupant of the room has her shirt twisted
uncomfortably around her head, knotted in such a
way that she clearly is struggling to pull it down (or
up? Santana can’t really say for certain, mostly
because the girl has the best body she has ever seen
outside of televised beach volleyball matches, and
she’s unabashedly gaping at the thin line running
straight up the girl’s flat stomach).

She looks away only when the girl gives a frustrated

squeak and stumbles, crashing into the row of lockers
and emitting a muffled curse into her shirt.

It’s sad, and lame, and she’s hot, so Santana sets

aside the instinct to whip out her phone and post this
little mess all over Facebook and moves to lend aid
instead. Her good deed for the day, to appease her
mother’s worries that her daughter is a secret felon.

The girl shrieks when Santana’s hands fall on her

shoulders (at least, Santana thinks that explains the
jarring noise, muffled though it is), but before she can
swat the Latina away, the shirt is settling properly
around the girl’s torso. Santana steps back, thumbs
curling through her belt loops, and tilts her head.

“Pretty sure that’s what God intended when the shirt

came into being,” she comments roughly, her smirk
lasting exactly until the moment the girl turns.

Of course.

Why wouldn’t it be New Hottie, fresh off the clumsiest,

most ridiculous display Santana has ever borne
witness to in public? Why wouldn’t it be this girl—of all
the possibilities in the school, in Lima, in the Midwest
—displaying a hearty mixture of adorable behavior
and the sexiest abs Santana can handle seeing in
person?

Naturally, it’d be this chick.

Santana makes a mental note to clock Quinn on

principle after class.

“Oh, hi,” the girl says, clearly surprised to see

Santana staring her down in a deserted locker room.
“I didn’t know you had this class.”

She wonders why the Cheerio would care in the first

place. It seems fruitless to ask outright, so she shrugs
and mutters, “Same. Hi.”

The blonde turns on a beaming smile, like she

couldn’t be happier about their little meeting, and
Santana has to admit Quinn is right about one thing.
The girl is kind of ungodly beautiful, in a model-esque
way, exactly the kind of woman Santana goes weak in
the knees for. When she’s just standing there, looking
nervous or lost, it isn’t so hard to bear, but in this
moment, wearing that expression of sheer simple joy,
the girl has managed to render Santana Lopez more
or less speechless.

She shakes her head, discreetly pinching her own

thigh through denim. “Anyway. Might want to be more
careful next time. With…shirts…”

The cheerleader has the grace to look mildly

embarrassed—although not, as Santana expects, so
utterly mortified that the only reasonable course of
action would be to fling herself off the school’s roof
immediately. “It’s too tight,” she explains. “I keep
trying to ask Coach if I can wear non-cheer-related
stuff to school, but she gets this look on her face like
she’s going to punch me in the mouth, and…she’s
just very scary. Have you met her?”
Santana’s teeth click together as Sue Sylvester’s
snarling visage worms its way into her mind’s eye.
“Once or twice,” she replies gruffly. The blonde nods
knowingly.

“So you know. Totally freaky. But the woman’s kind of

a genius. I mean, the dance program here is
incredible.”

As deeply and utterly as she loathes the Cheerios,

Santana can’t argue with six consecutive national
titles and a standing invitation to appear on Fox
Sports Net. She nods grudgingly, accidentally eliciting
another blinding smile in the process.

“I’m not very good at school stuff,” the girl confesses

in a conspiratory whisper. Against her will, Santana’s
head inclines in an effort to hear better, even as she
wonders why on earth this girl is still talking to her.

“School’s rough,” she hears herself say, even though

she doesn’t believe it’s exactly true. Well, it is, but not
for academic reasons; the only reason Santana
appears on a surface level to be struggling is because
she just doesn’t give a shit. She can’t be bothered to
try. The rest of it—the memorization and routine
bullshitting required for just about every course
McKinley offers—is a cake walk.

It’s the getting through each long, suicidally-

monotonous day part that makes her head spin.

She realizes the girl has stepped close, well into

Santana’s unusually vast personal bubble, and is
standing with one hand extended. Her eyebrows are
raised expectantly, her lips pursed, and Santana can’t
help but think it’s somewhat adorable—in a totally
annoying, driven straight from Hell kind of way.

“What?” she asks dully, eyeing the proffered hand

suspiciously. The girl’s mouth twists into another
smile.

“This is the part where you put your palm like this,”
she says cheerfully, reaching out with her other hand
and dragging Santana’s into her grasp. The Latina
resists the urge to snap her wrist back to her chest,
biting her cheek. “And then you move your arm up
and down, like this.” Still holding firm, she induces a
handshake Santana feels wholly awkward about
experiencing.

The blonde does not seem to agree, if her easy grin is

any indication. “And then we do this.” She sucks in a
breath, eyes pinning the smaller girl where she
stands. It strikes Santana that they are so late for
class just as the girl announces in a strangely formal
tone, “I’m Brittany.”

Brittany. It’s just a name, not a spell or a curse.

Santana has known no fewer than seven Brittanys in
her life. The disappointment the name invokes is
more concerning than the two-syllable structure itself.

Brittany’s eyebrows raise again, her head rolling

forward on her neck impatiently. Swallowing her
confusion, Santana mutters her own name in return,
all too relieved when her hand is released. Brittany
claps.

“Now we’re friends,” the girl says simply, giggling

when Santana bestows upon her a decidedly
dumbfounded stare.

“We’re what?”

“Friends,” Brittany repeats, breaking eye contact at

last as she turns back to her locker. Santana finds
herself jerking her own eyes to the ceiling when the
blonde retrieves a pair of crimson shorts to match her
Cheerio-emblazoned t-shirt and immediately drops
her skirt to change. She isn’t quick enough to miss the
way the girl’s legs go on for miles (maybe Quinn’s on
to something with that whole leg fetish after all), and
she somehow feels guilty for looking.

Maybe she’s coming down with something.

“Why do you think we’re friends?” Santana asks

helplessly, shoving her hands into her pockets to
keep from accidentally reaching for smooth skin. Out
of the corner of her eye, she sees Brittany shrug.
“I dunno. I could use one. And you always look pretty
lonely when I see you around. I figure we make a
good match that way.”

She’s taken aback by the notion that this girl watches

her—and, moreover, has admitted to doing so. Nearly
four days since their initial meeting have gone by
without Santana glimpsing even a daring flash of gold
and pale, yet somehow Brittany thinks she’s seen
enough to peg her? It’s absurd, and Santana wonders
if she should feel insulted. It’s as if this girl thinks
she’s an open fucking book or something.

“We’re not friends,” she blurts, wincing when Brittany

turns slowly to pin her with another long, searching
look. “Anyway,” she hurries on, for some reason
feeling desperate not to be caught too long in this
severely unsettling conversation, “you’ve got friends.
Or, y’know, the likelihood for them. You’re a Cheerio.”

The word feels scratchy and coarse in her mouth,

overwhelming her with the need to spit. Brittany
shakes her head slowly.

“I really don’t like the other girls on the squad much,”

she admits, with all the intricacy of a comment on the
weather. “They’re bitchy.”

“And you think I’m any better?” Santana has not felt
quite so incredulous in nearly seventeen years of
living. “You’ve barely even spoken to me.”

“It doesn’t take much to make a friend, Santana,” the

girl says quietly. Something like a shiver cascades
down the Latina’s spine.

“I wouldn’t know,” she replies shortly, turning away

and yanking the hem of her shirt up over her head.
She can feel the heady weight of blue eyes on her
back, sucking her in, and does her best to ignore it.

Disturbingly, she hears Brittany take a cautious step

closer. “Well. If we’re not friends now, maybe we
could be. Later. Or something.”

It’s bothersome, how certain she sounds, especially

considering this is a girl who has been in the McKinley
district for less than a week, a girl who is already
under the thumb of the most evil woman to traverse
boring Midwestern streets, a girl who, not ten minutes
ago, was fighting her own shirt. Santana grimaces,
rummaging for a clean black wife beater and
squirming into it.

She steps into a pair of baggy gray sweats and

swivels to find Brittany lacing up her tennis shoes,
ears still perked in Santana’s direction. A sigh slips
from her lips as she rakes dark hair into a messy
ponytail.

“Listen, you seem like a nice girl.”

Unexpectedly, Brittany bristles a little around the
edges. “Do I.”

“Yes,” Santana says firmly. “Very nice. Too nice for

Sylvester and her militia of cheer-bitches, and way,
way too nice to be loitering around someone like me.”

Blue eyes flame high and strong. “I think I can judge

for myself, thanks,” the blonde replies icily, resting her
hands upon bent knees. Santana shakes her head,
licks her lips.

“I don’t usually waste time talking shit out like this, but
I'm feeling kind of charitable today, so listen up. I don’t
do people. I don’t do nice, or friendly, or whatever it is
you’re looking for. I don’t care. The friends I’ve got are
only around because that’s the way it’s been since we
were kids, and they are just as miserable and
apathetic as I am. I’m here because we’ve got an
annoyingly perky truancy officer in this town, and
because my mother would have a fucking stroke if I
dropped out now. That’s it. The end. I’m not looking
for friends.”

“You’re lonely,” Brittany observes stubbornly. Santana

smiles wanly.

“I am,” she agrees, softer than intended. Brittany’s

expression levels out as she shrugs. “That doesn’t
mean I need someone to step in. I’m not a charity
case. I don’t know what it is you think you know about
me, but whatever it is? Drop it. As a favor to us both.”

She can’t explain why she’s saying it—it certainly isn’t

doing much other than to trample all over any notion
Quinn’s got of this girl being the perfect antidote to
Santana’s relative misanthropy. She only knows what
she feels—and what she feels is that this girl, this
lovely little angel of a thing, deserves much better
than a bitter, aggressive bitch who cares about all of
three people in this world. Half-ass pacts be damned;
this is more important than proving to Fabray she can
get into the pants of just about anyone.

(Which she can. For the record. But this matters

more.)

She can’t explain why she cares any better than

Brittany seems able to articulate that pitiful desire to
save Santana from her self-imposed solitude, but she
does. Care. And that’s really all the counts.

This all has gotten too deep too fast for a second
conversation, and Santana has had enough. She
shakes her head, tightens the loops of her laces, and
moves for the door.

“I’m not, you know,” she hears Brittany call after her.
“So nice. Or innocent. Or whatever you’ve got in your
head after speaking to me twice.”
“You’re better than me,” Santana mutters. The blonde
snorts.

“All that high-and-mighty talk. You’re better at doing

that than I am—talking. But you seem to be forgetting
something.”

Santana glances back, hand on the door. Brittany’s

eyes are hard, her mouth determined.

“You don’t know me either,” the girl says with aching

calm.

Santana swallows the mad urge to retort and leaves.

For the next hour, she pounds volley after back-

handed volley into a shrieking wimp of a brunette
while, from the other side of the field, blue eyes dig in
deep.

A/N: Title swiped from the Emily Haines & The Soft
Skeleton song of the same name.

“So let me get this straight,” Quinn says slowly,

tapping her pencil against the underside of her desk.
“You have gym class with New Hottie—Brittany. You
are in the perfect position to watch her undress every
single day. You think she is undeniably sexy. She
wants to be your friend. And the very first thing you do
is shoot her hot ass down?”
She doesn’t even wait for Santana to reply before her
hands are flying everywhere, smacking against the
back of the darker girl’s head with brutal abandon.
Cringing, Santana shifts into the wall in an effort to
escape.

“Ow! Fuck, Fabray, cut it out!”

Ignoring her, Quinn digs her nails into Santana’s scalp

and gives an angry yank. The dark-haired girl yelps.

“What the fucking hell is wrong with you, you crazy

fucking bitch? You’re a hair-puller now? Jesus Christ,
are we seven?”

“Ms. Lopez!” Their wizened Literature teacher has

materialized, mouth stretched unattractively in a
disapproving scowl. “Watch your language, or I will
send you straight to Principal Figgins.”

It’s an empty threat, not because she won’t do it, but

because they both know Figgins is too weak-willed to
do more than wag a finger in her face and boot her
back off to class. All the same, Santana slouches in
her seat wordlessly until the woman teeters back to
her desk again.

“You fucking idiot,” Quinn hisses the second the

teacher sits back down. “You’re decimating the damn
pact!”
“It has nothing to do with whatever fucked-up
agreement you think we have,” Santana defends,
annoyed. “Which, for the thousandth time, I feel
inclined to remind you: I never really agreed to in the
first place.”

“You need a rock!” Quinn snarls. “She’s got the body

of a fucking goddess! What the hell is your problem?”

It’s a question Santana wishes with all her might she

could answer, but unfortunately, she’s just as
stumped as the seething blonde beside her on that
front. Drawing her shoulders up as far as she can
force them, she sinks her nose into a battered copy of
Hamlet. “Drop it, Fabray.”

“You’re an idiot,” Quinn grouses, slamming her pencil

into her notebook so hard, the lead snaps off and
ricochets across the room.

Normally, Santana would be all over an insult like that

one, shoving Quinn’s head against the desk and
holding her there until the blonde begged for mercy.
Today, she miserably thinks she agrees with the
sentiment.

It’s uncomfortable, feeling like this—like a loser—

because Santana Lopez is a motherfucking champ.
She takes shit from no one, and though people in this
school aren’t particularly fond of her, most of the
spineless fools she shares space with would bend
over backwards to stay on her good side.
Disregarding those freakish pep-zombies of
Sylvester’s, she is the fucking boss around here, no
matter what Mallory what’s-her-face has to say about
it.

But ever since telling Brittany to back the fuck off in

the locker room, she’s been unable to tap into her
inner badass. She kicked the shit out of Dave
Karofsky yesterday just to get a little of it back (the
four-day detention is so worth the way he sniveled
around the blood pouring from between his fattened
lips), and it still took two days just to ‘fess up the
whole state of affairs to Quinn. Now that she’s said it
out loud, Santana’s not entirely sure she did the right
thing.

More worrying, she still can’t explain why she did it to

begin with.

Who does she think she is, anyway? Telling some

chick what’s best for her, throwing hypocritical
character assessments into the girl’s face when very
similar judgments have been grating on her own
nerves—she can’t imagine why she did it. Worse, she
can’t shake the memory of Brittany’s face, the
determined look in her haunting blue eyes. It’s like
Brittany thinks she knows her, even though no one
knows her; even Quinn can’t wrap her obnoxiously-
brilliant mind around Santana most the time. She just
accepts that she’s friends with a fucking mystery
cloaked in a candy-coated enigma and moves on.

Brittany, on the other hand, looked as though she was

fully prepared to wait Santana out.

She doesn’t even know what that means, but it scares

the living hell out of her.

It’s stupid because this should have been so easy: do

a little light flirting, trail her fingertips across some
skin, fuck the girl into next week the minute she saw
an opening, and race ahead before the blonde even
knew what hit her. Instead, it’s been a week, they’ve
met twice, and already she’s more afraid of what
Brittany might want from her than she’s been in years
concerning anything—and that includes tornadoes.

A week into school, and Santana is stuck.

To make matters exponentially more aggravating,

today happens to be Thursday. Which means, come
three-thirty, Santana and her irrationally-anxious state
of mind will be huddled in an orange plastic chair at
the back of the choir room, watching Rachel Berry
prance merrily about on her makeshift stage.

Rachel will belt. Quinn will drool. Santana will impale

herself upon a ruler out of sheer desperation.

She should have stayed home today.

When that last bell rings and Quinn drags her things
into her arms, Santana sluggishly follows suit. She
doesn’t feel much like going through the motions just
so Fabray can finally get the girl (or fail spectacularly
trying), but she doesn’t have anywhere else to go;
home is where her mother’s disappointed eyes follow
from every corner, where homework lies mockingly
upon a cluttered desk, where Santana feels mostly
like sleeping the second she steps through the door.
She never gets anything done at home. At least here,
held captive in the choir room, she won’t be alone.

“I can’t believe we’re about to pussy out and join

Glee,” she mutters anyway, displeased with the notion
that Quinn might actually think they’re doing
something wise. The blonde shoots her a tense
glance.

“It’s just singing,” she says sharply. “How hard can it

be?”

Santana wants to explain how it isn’t the singing she’s

so worried about as much as that god-awful cherubic
expression on Will Schuester’s face, but it wouldn’t do
any good. She settles for throwing her belongings
unceremoniously into her locker and slinging her
satchel over her head.

“We’d better do songs not featured on Broadway,”

she grumbles instead. Quinn’s mouth droops, like she
hasn’t even thought of that.
“Shit,” she mutters. Santana punches her arm
reassuringly (and, yeah, sort of harder than necessary
as revenge for the slapping thing earlier).

“Just don’t jump Berry’s bones while I can see it, all
right? Paying for therapy out of pocket would end my
credit rating before it even got good.”

“I don’t think you really get how that works,” Quinn

comments mildly, still looking like she’s going to throw
up at any moment as they wind through the doorway
into the choir room. Santana shrugs.

She shouldn’t be surprised to find they’re the last to

show. The room is sparse, containing a handful of
chairs, a drum set (behind which Finn Hudson is
reclining in all his giant glory), a piano (the man
behind the instrument looks at Santana with plaintive
eyes, silently begging to be set free; she wrinkles her
nose uneasily), and nine other students. Most of them
are what Santana would deem ‘the usual suspects—
that wheelchair kid from History, his unironically-goth
girlfriend, the gayest kid ever to flame, a sturdy black
chick with whom Santana once exchanged blows in
the cafeteria over a blueberry muffin (what? PMS
really fucks with her head sometimes).

There are also, surprisingly, a few football players

(Mike Chang and Matt Rutherford, both of whom look
more than a little anxious to see her; she can’t resist
waggling a few mocking fingers and watching them
squirm) in the mix. Of course, there’s also Puck, arms
clenched across his broad chest, booted feet up on
the back of Asian Goth’s chair. He fixes her with a
murderous look as she leads Quinn over to sit beside
him.

“Not fucking impressed,” he hisses from between

clenched teeth. She rolls her eyes unapologetically.

Hudson and Berry round them out, making certain

they are exactly the most rag-tag, hopeless bunch of
geeks ever to indulge in show choir. In this moment,
as much as it pains her, Santana agrees with Puck’s
evaluation of things.

“Last chance,” she murmurs against Quinn’s ear. “We

can make a break for it.”

Except they can’t, because suddenly there’s

Schuester, face cracking in half due to his over-
excited smile. Defeated, Santana sinks back in her
seat and discreetly punches Puck in the thigh just for
the adrenaline pick-me-up. He winces.

“Fuck you, Lopez.”

“Guys,” Schuester begins, and Santana gets the sick

feeling she’ll be listening to him talk all the time now.
“As you can see, we’ve picked up three new
members. Say hello to Quinn Fabray, Noah
Puckerman, and Santana Lopez! They’ve put us that
much closer to the twelve-member required minimum,
so please make them feel at home in our little family.”

Gag. Santana briefly imagines lunging off the risers

and battering Schuester’s curly head with her satchel
until he loses consciousness. Quinn’s hand settles on
her knee, a gentle restraint. She closes her eyes.

“Now, I’ve been thinking about the best way to take

on Sectionals,” Schuester continues, drawing a
disturbingly thick sheaf of papers from his leather
man-bag. “I think it’s best if we combine a healthy
variety of genres—a little musical theater, a little rock,
maybe a jazz number. I want you all to choose three
songs each, three songs that fit together in some
unique way, each of a different musical genre. We’ll
share them next week, and at the end, we’ll vote on
which set will be performed at Sectionals.”

His face shines as though he’s just told them the

world is coming to an end, but it’s all going to be okay
because he built an ark meant for twelve.

Santana wonders if she could slit an artery with the

tape dispenser in her bag if she tries hard enough.

Predictably, Rachel looks like Hanukkah has come

early, totally missing the longing gaze Quinn is
sending her way. “I think this is a wonderful way to
showcase my exquisite range, Mr. Schue. I want you
to know I’m very excited about this assignment.”

Assignment. Well, fuck, if Santana had known there

would be homework, she would have clubbed Quinn
over the head the second the blonde even thought of
volunteering them for this little shindig.

“What happens if we don’t do it?” she asks bluntly,

voice carrying from the back of the room. Schuester’s
blissful smile fades.

“I beg your pardon?”

“If we don’t do the assignment,” she clarifies, rotating

her shoulders uncomfortably. “Do we get, like, kicked
out?”

Quinn’s glaring at her; Puck seems to be silently

naming her his personal god. Rachel has gone dead-
pale.

“Why wouldn’t you complete the task?” the tiny diva

demands. “It’s homework.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t mean so much to some of us,”

Santana sneers back, unperturbed when Quinn’s
elbow finds its way between two of her ribs. Leaning
against the piano, Schuester’s face is quickly taking
on a pretty stellar kicked-puppy frown.

“I can’t kick you out, Santana,” he says slowly. She

arches an eyebrow, and he rushes to amend, “I
mean, I could. But I won’t. Glee Club needs you in
order to compete.”

Well, gee, if that doesn’t make her feel wanted.

Seemingly realizing how that sounded, Schuester

shakes his head. “What I mean is, I don’t kick people
out of this club. I firmly believe every student—every
person—has the right to express him or herself
through music, no matter what. You have a right to be
here, Santana, and I honestly believe it could be good
for you.”

“Meaning what, exactly?” she derides, because even

though she doesn’t exactly want to get into her
personal issues in public for the second time in as
many days, the notion that first Brittany, and now Will
fucking Schuester think they can save her is just too
much. She’s sick of this ‘reform the delinquent’ act
everyone seems so thrilled to be putting on; no one’s
targeting Puck or Quinn this way.

Because Schuester basically lacks the corner of his

brain meant for observation skills, he completely
misses the threat lurking behind her mocking tone.
Gently, he says, “I’ve seen your record, Santana.
Fights, failing grades, that fire last year in the chem
lab.”

That was so not my fault, she wants to growl, but it’s

pointless; somehow, the second you take to snapping
a Zippo lighter in class out of relentless boredom,
everyone brands you an arsonist. She leans back,
looking down her nose at the earnest man wordlessly.

“You need something,” he is saying with that same

stupidly-tender expression on his handsome face, and
God, Santana is getting sick of hearing that from
people. “I think Glee could be that thing.”

Glee, friendship, Brittany—why does everyone think it

will take nothing more intricate than one tiny life shift
to make everything better again? To make the
dreams of escape less suffocating, to make the bleak
depression shuffle aside until there’s room for
sunlight? Does she really look that easy, that lacking
in layers?

She shrugs. “Look, I’m going to do the damn

assignment. Whatever. I just wanted to know how
you’re running this thing. If I’m gonna waste my time
here every Thursday, I’d like to know it’s going to get
me somewhere.”

She’s lying through her teeth, but the thing about Will
Schuester is, he is so willing to see the good in
people—good that, oftentimes, isn’t even there—that
he will believe anything. He believes his wife every
time she lays a fumbling fabrication in his lap,
believes Emma Pillsbury each time she vehemently
denies her obvious wanting for him, believes Rachel
Berry when she says she’s happy. Why wouldn’t he
believe this too?

Schuester’s a pretty good guy, but hot damn, is he

dense.

All she has to do is drop that line about wanting this

all to matter, and he’s grinning his face off again. To
her right, Puck cocks an eyebrow as if to ask what the
fuck that was all about. Santana smirks, shakes her
head, the picture of jeering control.

A row below them, Rachel bites her lip pensively.

The rest of the meeting goes slowly, with Santana

checking out, eyes on the words her nails are tracing
into her jeans. This club is kind of stupid, honestly: it
mostly consists of Schuester lecturing like he’s pulling
every word off a pre-written notecard, Rachel flinging
out advice no one is interested in, and then some
kumbyaing at the end. Santana can’t figure out how
this system works. Why is it Kurt and Mercedes can
blather on in the corner for minutes at a time and
never get told to shut up? How does Tina manage to
get up on stage and sing her lungs into oblivion when
she can’t give a two-minute speech without stuttering
unintelligibly? What the hell is Artie doing in a club
that revolves half around dancing if it’s true that his
paralysis is so absolute he will never do so much as
wiggle a toe again?
And for God’s sake, why is Schuester so twitchy
about this twelve-member minimum bullshit? He’s got
an entire six-piece band over there in the corner;
what, they aren’t musically talented enough to qualify
for this kareoke parade?

It’s stupid, and she doesn’t see it lasting for more than
a year, not when they’re relying on Finn’s classic-rock
voice to carry them through complex notes. Not when
they’re expecting Rachel’s ego to miraculously shrink
three sizes and allow other girls to sing once in a
while. Not when they’re so fucking pathetic.

If there’s one thing Santana hates more than

Cheerios, it’s losing, and she gets the nasty feeling
that will be rather unavoidable.

By the time Schuester lets them go with another

shining hippie smile and a wave, Santana has come
to the conclusion that she will have to murder Quinn
for dragging her into this whole mess. It can only end
in Fiddler on the Roof medleys and an ultimately
crushing defeat at the hands of just about any other
school. It’s miserable.

“I hate you,” she grumbles, dragging her feet as they

slump down the hall. Puck nods his assent.

“That was seriously fucking painful, Q. What the hell,

man?”
“It wasn’t so bad,” Quinn argues dimly, brushing a
lock of hair out of her eyes. “I’ll admit, I don’t
understand why Schue had to go for the whole
rapping thing, but…”

“But nothing,” Santana interrupts. “That club is a

goddamn train wreck. I can’t be seen with them. It’ll
tank my—our—entire reputation.”

“We’re already in,” Quinn says, her voice firm and

unyielding. "We're staying." Santana narrows her
eyes.

“And who exactly appointed you master of our little

universe, Fabray? Last I checked, you being on a
hormonal power trip is not a legit enough excuse to
run my life.”

The blonde stops in the middle of the hall, nonplussed

when Hummel accidentally runs into her and darts off
again, muttering apologies. She takes Santana by the
shoulders and looks her in the eye, more serious than
Santana has ever seen her.

“I’m not the boss of you,” she says slowly, gripping

until the skin beneath Santana’s frayed t-shirt begins
to burn. “But Schue has a point. You need to get a
grip. This could help.”

“Like you’re doing this for me,” Santana sneers, not

trying very hard to pull free. Quinn bows her head.
“I’m not. You know I’m not. I’ve got my reasons, and
I’ve made them perfectly clear from the beginning. But
I’m serious when I say you are in serious need of a
grounding, and if you’re going to expend so much
energy pushing away the hottest girl who has ever
looked your way, we’ll move on to something else. To
this. You think I don't know you broke Karofsky's nose
the other day? You think no one heard about that?
You need to figure your shit out, Lopez, and you need
to do it fast. Before you punch the wrong kid or deface
the wrong building and find yourself in the middle of a
friggin' lawsuit.”

It’s almost too much for Santana to take. “So, what?

This is a fucking intervention?”

Quinn smiles, predatory and oh-so classic Fabray.

“Something like that. Stick with it, San.”

Behind them, Puck rubs his head. “Are you two, like,
gonna make out or something now? Or are we gonna
bail? I’ve got practice in a half hour.”

Kicking him in the balls has never felt so satisfying.

When he hits his knees, a high-pitched whine leaking
from his lips, and Quinn dutifully high fives her,
Santana smiles.

“Fuck it. Whatever. We’ll do this shit. But I am not

dancing with Hudson. That’s a goddamn promise.”
A/N: Title swiped from the Emily Haines & The Soft
Skeleton song of the same name.

“This is the worst song I have ever heard,” Santana

mumbles into the forest-green blanket. She’s on her
belly on Quinn’s bed, trying her hardest not to fall
asleep while the blonde girl positively inundates her
with boring indie music. It is not the way she’d prefer
to spend her Saturday.

“Fuck off,” Quinn snaps from the desk chair she’s

straddling. “Animal Collective is fucking awesome.”

“They’re whiny bitches,” Santana corrects, thumping

her crossed ankles against her friend’s pillow.
“Anyway, I don’t think it counts if you’re doing three
different versions of obscure rock music. Isn’t the
point to, y’know, mix it up a little?”

“Death Cab and Animal Collective are nothing like

Metric,” Quinn whines. Santana rolls her eyes.

“Fine, yes, you’re the master of combining whiny

bitches. Are we really doing this right now? It’s the
goddamn weekend. I’m not down with this homework
bullshit.”

“You’re never down with homework,” Quinn notes

absently, scrolling through her iTunes and clicking
another song. “How about this one? Andrew Bird is
classic.”

Santana listens for all of four seconds before

burrowing deeper into the mattress. “Is he seriously
whistling? People still do that?”

She hears Quinn huff noisily and click the spacebar.

The music dies instantly, and Santana sits up.

“We done? We leaving? Come on, Fabray, I’m getting

caged here.”

The blonde crosses the room and flops down beside

her, hugging a pillow to her chest. “I don’t suppose
you’ve got an idea of fun that doesn’t involve beating
up a freshman or spray-painting runes into the side of
Figgins’ house.”

“You have to admit, that one was good,” Santana

recalls wistfully. “I heard him tell Tanaka last week
about the coven plotting to turn him into a ferret.
Totally brilliant.”

“Yeah, well.” Quinn prods the dark-haired girl in the

forehead. “Summer’s over, Lopez. Time to start
focusing your energy on non-crime-related concepts.”

“It wasn’t crime,” Santana counters defensively.

“Just…a prank. Well, okay, the beating kids up thing
might be decidedly crime-like. What with the money
swiping part. But the rest of it is harmless delight
taken from creativity and…uh…art.”

Quinn snorts. “Whatever, Picasso. I’m not indulging in

any art with you tonight.”

“How about some rowdy tequila shots?” Santana

suggests, teasingly grasping the blonde by the hips
and pulling her in close. “We could get wasted, play a
little tonsil hockey, give Puckerman a sweet case of
blue balls.”

“Oh my God, that was one time,” Quinn wails,

pounding her over the head with the pillow. “You have
to let it go someday, bitch.”

“I’m just saying, you want to make Berry jealous, I’m

so very here for you.” Santana laughs. “You’re a tight-
ass, Fabray, but you also have a tight ass. Sure, I
need to be drunk off my gourd to be interested, but
who likes the sober life anyway?”

“Fucking. Bitch,” Quinn repeats primly, rolling onto her

back and staring at the ceiling. “Just because you’ve
got a thing for hot blondes…”

“Off-limits, Fabray,” Santana reminds her coolly,

adjusting her belt restlessly. “We’re not going there
tonight.”

“But we are going over to Puck’s?” Quinn asks,

looking wary. “Even though the last time that boy
threw a party, it ended in shattered windows and
police lights?”

“Man knows how to jam,” Santana shrugs. She

bounces off the bed and rummages under the skirt for
her sneakers. “If you’ve got a better idea, I’m all ears,
but I have to warn you: if it’s anything less wicked
than starting a fight club, I’m going to ditch you
anyway for booze and beating Puck’s ass at
Quarters.”

“You’ve never won Quarters in your life,” Quinn

retaliates, locating the missing shoe and chucking it at
Santana’s head. “He better have something other
than beer and wine coolers. I don’t know who told him
I like that shit, but it’s all he ever fucking hands me,
and I wind up with the most pitiful little buzz to go off
of.”

“I’ve got your back.” Santana reaches into the

blonde’s closet, fumbling until she produces a brown
leather jacket. “Fucker, I knew you still had this.”

Quinn doesn’t even pretend to look abashed. “You’ll

get it back for good when you return my Dark Knight
DVD. Tit for tat and all that.”

“I’ll tat your tit,” Santana quips, shrugging into the

jacket and adjusting the lapels. “You ready?”

Quinn drives, because it is classier to show up in a

four-door than on the handles of Santana’s brother’s
bicycle (not by much, given the battered nature of
Betty, but it’s extra difficult to balance with a hundred-
and-fifteen pound blonde on the handlebars). In less
than ten minutes, they are in Puck’s living room,
staring with unsurprised wonder at the mohawked
young man standing on his coffee table with two large
bottle of rum clamped in his broad hands.

“Gentlemen!” he roars. “Sexy babes! Tonight, we

drink in Hell! This! Is! Sparta!”

“I fucking hate 300,” Santana remarks casually. Quinn

shrugs.

“The queen was hot.”

True enough, but so not the point. “Puckerman! Off

the fucking furniture, you animal!”

He grins and leaps back onto the carpet, swaying a

little. “Babes! You came, you’re here, you’re in. Want
some tequila?”

Quinn lowers her head like she’s going to ram it

straight into his chest; Santana’s hands close over the
girl’s arms. She raises an eyebrow.

“You’re misquoting shitty action flicks, Puckerone.

You really didn’t wait for us before getting toasted
beyond reason?”
“Not very gentlemanly,” Quinn adds, breathing deep
around her obvious urge to bodyslam their host. He
shrugs, unbalancing himself and tipping sideways
onto the couch.

“It’s been three hours, bitches. Not my fault you can’t

be on time for shit.” He nuzzles sideways into the
unlucky girl beside him. “I’m too comfy to move, so
you can serve yourselves. If you see any jerkoffs
heading into my room, stab ‘em for me, will you?”

“Always,” Santana promises, patting him patronizingly

on the head. She spends plenty of time ripping Puck’s
manhood a new one (mostly proverbially, although
she can’t imagine all the kicks to the junk have done
wonders for his sperm count), but when the chips are
down and he’s too tanked to move, she’s got his
back. Quinn’s on the same page, although the girl’s
Christian background still acts as a manacle around
her ankle when it comes to the really fun violence.
She’s a hundred times more likely to insult one of the
aforementioned jerkoff types rather than hit him, but
Santana figures that’s okay; it makes for a healthy
balance.

They head for the kitchen, Santana happily belting

some rocker kid in the stomach when he gets a little
too close, and before long, there’s a bottle sweating in
her hand. Quinn’s downing some fruity-ass drink (not
a wine cooler, Santana notes with a a smirk, but
pretty amusingly near), bobbing her head to the truly
appalling song blaring from Puck’s iHome. It’s not
paradise, but it’s as good as a Saturday night in Lima
ever gets. She’s content.

Half an hour later, she’s sitting cross-legged on

Puck’s kitchen table, watching Quinn bound her drunk
ass around with two rocker chicks and Puck himself,
all four of them whooping like children. Amused,
Santana watches Puck give an exaggerated bounce
and plow his head directly into an open cupboard.

It’s kind of a wonder he’s never been concussed.

She shakes her head, watching Puck clap a hand

over the injury as Quinn points and laughs, and thinks
that this is just about the only thing she likes about
high school. There won’t be many years of her life
dedicated to drinking, partying, and having a mindless
good time—not unless she’s willing to be branded an
alcoholic and start carrying around little plastic chips
on her keychain.

“Lopez!” Puck roars, already over his insta-migraine.

“More ale, wench!”

“You’re not a fucking pirate,” she reminds him, lips

brushing the mouth of her bottle. “And I’m not your
goddamn bartender. Figure it out yourself, or start in
on the water.”
He deflates for a second, then brightens back up,
pointing a wooden spoon like a sword. “If I were a
pirate, I’d have you walkin’ the scurvy plank, you
scrap of whorish mutton!”

It’s actually a pretty good insult, for him being so far

gone. Impressed, Santana good-naturedly flips him
the bird and swings her head back with the bottle,
practically pouring beer down her throat.

When she looks again, Quinn has picked up a spatula

and is dueling with Puck in the center of the small
kitchen, her back up against the refrigerator. He spins
on black-and-white tile, swiping the air with his sad
little weapon and laughing when her socks slip and
she nearly goes down.

“You fuckers are going to kill yourselves one day,”

Santana comments blithely, thunking the bottle down
between her legs and grinning. “And I’m not gonna do
a thing to stop it.”

“Well, that’s not very nice,” a husky voice drawls

behind her. The grin dying on full lips, Santana’s
entire body goes rigid.

Fuck, who invited her?

Reading her mind, Quinn ducks under Puck’s arm

and scampers over. “Hey! New Hottie!”
Brittany arches a quizzical eyebrow, and Santana
thinks this must look very strange to her: Quinn
Fabray, drunk off her ass and wielding a faded blue
spatula, Noah Puckerman and the bump under his
mohawk shouting in a poorly-rendered pirate accent,
and Santana Lopez, half-sober and mocking them
both. This is the crock team of misfits responsible for
terrorizing McKinley High; it must look pretty damn
sad.

“Her name is Brittany,” she mumbles in Quinn’s ear.

Her best friend grins.

“Right, yeah, I knew it was a pop star name. How do

you know Puck, Brittany?”

The blonde Cheerio shrugs. “I don’t. Mallory wanted

to come, so…”

“Mallory’s here?” Puck cuts in, stumbling over and

grabbing Brittany by the shoulders. “Mallory Wills?
Did she say anything about me?”

Frowning, Brittany glances first at one hand, then the

other, clearly uncomfortable. “You’re touching me.”

He doesn’t move. Santana reaches over and belts

him across the back with the butt of her bottle.

“Hands off, Puckerman, or I’ll aim lower.”

Releasing the blonde, but stepping closer, he
bounces on the balls of his feet. “What did she say?
Did she tell you anything? What does she want?”

“Something about riding you until you black out and

orgasm your way into an early grave?” No voice has
ever been so uncertain. Puck’s eyes about bug out of
his head.

“I knew it! I knew she wanted me! Hot fuckin’ damn,

Lopez, I’m getting’ laid tonight!”

He rushes from the room, smoothing his mohawk as

he goes. Leaning forward on the table, Santana
shouts after him, “You pick up any diseases, they are
your goddamn problem, Puckzilla. Fuck a dog, deal
with the consequences!”

Brittany peers at her with wounded eyes, and

something twitches in Santana’s stomach. “Sorry,”
she adds in a mumble. Quinn, completely oblivious,
rests an arm on her shoulder and continues to stare
at the Cheerio.

“You really are pretty hot,” she says conversationally,

like this is something she points out to arbitrary girls
every night. “I mean, you’re not my type. Not really.
Blonde chicks, tall chicks, I don’t really…I mean, even
if I did, it wouldn’t matter, because I have someone.
Well, sort of. Not in the official, technical, ‘she knows
about it’ kind of way, but still. She’s there. And she is
smokin’. Like a bomb. That has gone off already. A
sexbomb. Although, truthfully, I don’t think she’s ever
had sex.” Hazel eyes widen. “God, I hope she hasn’t
had sex. Who would she have sex with? Finn? Fuck,
I’m gonna kill that overgrown manchild. I’m gonna
scalp the spike right out of his hair.” She turns to
Santana, mouth set in a grim line. “Is he here?”

“Fabray,” Santana cuts in gently. “Go sit. Somewhere.

Somewhere not here.”

The blonde brightens. “Can I think about Rachel?”

“To your disgusting little heart’s content,” Santana

drawls. “But if I hear you’ve got your hand down your
pants out there, I am cutting it off, got me?”

Ever the over-cheerful drunk, Quinn prances away,

leaving Santana with the one girl she just cannot
handle. The Latina fidgets, plunking her feet down on
the nearest chair and leaning back.

“So. You’re here.”

“Seems that way,” Brittany agrees. Santana is

surprised—and a little aroused—to see the girl in
something other than cheerleading-speckled attire.
Her jeans are dark and her halter is purple under a
nice jacket. It’s nothing Santana hasn’t seen on a
million other girls, but it’s making her head feel fuzzy
all the same. She swallows another mouthful of beer.
“Why are you here?” she asks when her throat clears
again. Brittany steps closer, resting her hip against
the table, and runs a hand through her hair. This is
the first time, Santana realizes, she’s seen that hair
loose, flowing around the girl’s shoulders in thick
waves. She’s never comprehended the sheer travesty
of the ponytail before this moment; another reason to
destroy the soulless automaton that is Sue Sylvester.

“Why?” she presses again, because Brittany still

hasn’t replied, choosing instead to meet Santana’s
gaze defiantly.

“You hang out with Puck,” the blonde comments at

last, neither a question nor an explanation—not really.
Because there is just no sense in believing this girl
came to a party just because Santana is known to
kick the guy throwing it in the gnads from time to time.

Right?

“Yeah, I hang out with Puck,” she says, calm as she

can manage with her nails digging into the soft skin of
her forearm. “What’s your point?”

Brittany shrugs, inching even closer and shifting until

each hand is pressed against the table, brushing
Santana’s upper thighs in the process. She leans
forward, smiling.
“He’s your friend. Him and the drunk girl, the one who
called me hot. They’re your friends.” Santana’s
beginning to wonder if this girl is truly as sober as she
seems, because she’s going in the same crazy circles
Quinn was rambling over a few minutes ago. Plus, if
she keeps leaning forward like this, Santana’s not
going to be able to keep her hands where they need
to be short of actually sitting on them.

“You are beginning to sincerely damage my calm,”

she opts to remark instead of grabbing the blonde by
the back of the neck and hauling her in. “Get to the
fucking point.”

“You have friends,” the girl whispers, like it's a secret,

nudging Santana’s ear with her nose, lips grazing
skin. The Latina is simultaneously struck with the urge
to laugh and scream.

“Like I said the other day,” she grinds out, teeth gritted
around the desire to clamp down on the blonde’s
pouting bottom lip. “The friends I’ve got are kind of
bitches. Or did you miss the way Puck bolted out of
here to shove his dick into your Satan-squadmate?
Believe me, he won’t be calling her bruised ass in the
morning.”

Brittany arches her head back, baring her neck

dangerously close to Santana’s lips, and smiles
triumphantly. “Doesn’t matter. You have friends, and
you hang out with them in school, and get drunk with
them on Saturday nights. You’re not so special, you
know that? You’re not so different.”

Something cold drops into Santana’s stomach,

something strangely akin to nausea. She shakes her
head. “Fine, I hang out, I get drunk, I laugh at those
nearest and dearest to me when they make massively
poor life choices. I also punched a kid until he spat
two bloody teeth out from the roots on Wednesday. I
also keyed the shit out of my Biology teacher’s car in
retaliation for looking down my shirt in class. I also
tagged ‘Die Cheerio slutbags’ across the cafeteria
window. You can pick and choose the things I do with
my time all you like, but it doesn’t change the fact that
I do them all. And I’m still not interested in wasting
your time.”

Brittany watches her almost sadly, unmoving. “Who

says it’s time wasted?”

“Ask your little friends,” Santana snipes, too bitterly.

She can’t figure out when she started caring this
much—or why—but that isn’t the part that bothers
her. It’s more the fact that she can’t stop showing this
girl exactly how easily she’s gotten under the Latina’s
skin that makes irrational rage well up in pulsing
waves. People don’t do this, not to Santana, not since
she learned to shut off impulsive interests like this in
the sixth grade. Feeling it all again now, on top of all
the people telling her exactly what she (apparently)
needs to get by, is just too fucking much. She can’t
take it. Sooner or later, she’s going to explode.

But for now, she is just drunk enough to be mouthy,

not enough to be sloppy, and she knows the
explosion can wait.

“They aren’t my friends,” Brittany reminds her, thumbs

skimming the seams of her jeans. “You are.”

“I’m not your fucking friend!” Santana growls. “How

many goddamn times do we have to go through this?
Watching me in gym class like a stalker does not
make you my friend. Keeping tabs on who I talk to
instead of beat the crap out of does not make you my
friend. Following me to my friend’s party just to egg
me on into something I cannot handle doing does not
make you—“

“What can’t you handle doing?” Brittany interrupts

curiously, tilting her head like an errant puppy seeking
absolution for a chewed slipper. Santana’s teeth
clutch her tongue in a sudden death grip.

Okay, maybe a little drunker than I thought.

“Nothing,” she mumbles. “Forget it.”

She moves to slide off the table, which turns out to be

just about the worst move in the history of life’s giant
chessboard, because her feet aren’t even on the
ground by the time she realizes she is completely
within Brittany’s personal bubble. Or Brittany is in
hers. Either way, they are eye to eye (or, as Brittany’s
pretty tall, eye to chin), an inch from touching,
Brittany’s arms pinning her against the soft wood. The
blonde lowers her chin, sets her mouth.

If Santana doesn’t move now, she will kiss her.

Check-fucking-mate.

Clutching the last remaining vestige of reason she’s

got left, she bumps one arm out of the way and slips
under, reversing their positions.

“Stop following me,” she snaps, sucking in a heavy

breath. “Stop doing whatever the hell you think you’re
doing. It’s not worth it, I swear to you, and I do not
have the energy for it.”

“I don’t take that much energy,” Brittany tries, doing

her best to step back into Santana’s bubble. The
Latina backs off, hands raised.

“Whatever you take, I don’t have to give,” she says

softly. “I don’t know what the hell you want from me,
girly, but there are far better people to ask. I’m really
not up for breaking you, not now, not ever.”

“You care,” Brittany observes softly, moving forward

carefully, as if zeroing in on a wounded bird.
“I don’t,” Santana denies, all too aware of the
miniature size of the Puckerman kitchen. Three more
steps, and Brittany will have backed her into yet
another corner.

“You wouldn’t tell me to keep away if you didn’t,” the

blonde observes in a murmur. Santana aches to
reach out, to grasp her by the lapels of that jacket and
shake her until whatever this thing is between them
shudders and burns out.

“It’s my good fuckin’ deed for the year,” she snaps,

pivoting towards the door. “You’re sweet, Brittany.
You’re different. It didn't take me ten seconds to see
it. You are the opposite of everything I hate in
Sylvester’s minions, and that instills a sort of…
obligation to keep you safe. I don’t know why, I don’t
really care what the reason is. I just know that you
need to back the hell off. For real. For good. I’m
serious.”

“It’s not your job to protect me,” Brittany says

resolutely.

“It’s not your job to save me,” Santana counters. “But

here you fucking are.”

“You want me here,” Brittany claims, lifting her chin

regally. “You do. No one pushes this hard unless they
want to pull instead.”
She can’t see the logic behind it—suspects, in fact,
that there is no logic—and shakes her head.

“I have to go,” she mutters helplessly. “I’m drunk, and

you’re pretty, and I…”

Blue eyes light up for the first time in long, stunning

minutes. “You think I’m pretty?” Brittany asks, wonder
painting her voice. Santana feels like smacking
herself.

“I have to go,” she says again, turning on her heel and

fairly running for the door.

She’s three blocks away before she realizes she has

forgotten Quinn.

The bitch will have to deal.

A/N: Title swiped from the Emily Haines & The Soft
Skeleton song of the same name.

“My head is exploding.”

Quinn’s voice, dull and gray, echoes tinnily in

Santana’s ear. She winces into the cell phone,
bumping her shoulder up to press it harder into the
side of her head as she scrubs a particularly horrid
dish.

“Should’ve had some water.”

“My head,” Quinn repeats dangerously, “is exploding.
I have the fucking hangover from Hell. And do you
know why I have this hangover?”

“Because you chugged too many fractions worth of a

fifth after that fruity piece of shit you started off on?”
Santana guesses, chipping at a sudsy patch of
crusted chicken grease. Dish duty is a pain in the ass,
but at least it shuts her mother up when Santana
refuses to attend church on Sunday mornings with the
rest of the family.

“Maybe it’s because,” Quinn growls, edgy and pissed

off, “some bitch left my ass to pass out on Noah
Puckerman’s goddamn piece of shit futon last night.
Can you imagine who that bitch might be and where I
might find her so that I can kick her sorry Latin ass,
Lopez?”

Cringing, Santana sets the dish aside as a temporary

lost cause and starts in on a plate instead. Quinn
must be seriously angry, if she’s flying in the face of
her religion with the whole breaking a Commandment
thing over it.

“Look, Fabray, I’m sorry, I just couldn’t deal with—“

“You can’t deal with anything,” Quinn explodes,

hissing into the phone a second later. Santana hears
her swallow, and when she speaks again, it’s in a low
rumble. “That’s the point lately, Lopez. Ever since we
picked up our fucking schedules for this year, you’ve
been a bigger miserable wreck than usual. Two
weeks in, and you’re falling apart at the feet of some
girl. It’s pathetic. Jewfro is cooler than you when it
comes to emotion management.”

That’s a little cold, Santana thinks with an instinctual

stab of irritation.

Quinn, ignoring the stony silence from the other end

of the line, barrels on. “I know you hate school,
Santana, okay? I know you think it’s a waste of time, I
know you think it’s a big box of injustice and
stereotypical profiling and all that bullshit. I know,
because I know you, all right, better than you’ve been
giving me credit for lately. I’m your best fucking friend.
And I am telling you, as your best friend, that you
have got to stop this. Ever since you mentally signed
away the end of your summer, ever since you
stepped back into that school—fuck, ever since you
met that Brittany chick, you’ve been a spacecase and
a half. It’s a mess, you are a mess, and sweetheart,
when you’re making me look like the sane one in this
relationship, we have a problem. Figure it out. Stop
running away. Talk to the hottie with the legs, or push
her down the stairs, or whatever it is you need to do,
but do it. Like, now.”

She pauses, sucking in a breath. Santana waits.

“You done?”

“No,” Quinn snaps. “You also need to find your

fucking songs for Glee, because if you show up in that
choir room empty-handed, I am going to march down
to Sylvester’s office and tell her you’re secretly dying
to be her right-hand towel bitch. And so help me God,
if you think I’m lying, just fucking try it.”

Santana almost laughs. Quinn exhales noisily into the

receiver.

“Now I am done. Your turn. Asshole.”

She drops the plate back into the soapy sink and rubs
her hands on a dishtowel. “Gross, I’m all pruney.”

“You’re fucking doing dishes while I yell at you again,

aren’t you?”

“Never,” Santana teases, sobering when Quinn

doesn’t reply. “Listen, I’m sorry. I’ve been kind of an
asshole.”

“Kind of. Asshole.”

“Thought it was my turn,” she sniffs. Obediently,

Quinn goes quiet. She sighs. “I’m sorry. Really. I don’t
know what’s got me so crazy lately.”

“It’s the girl,” Quinn cuts in again. Santana scoffs.

“It’s not the girl.”

“It’s the girl,” Quinn repeats stubbornly. Santana flings

her hands into the air, nearly dislodging the phone in
the process and sending it to a sudsy, soggy death.

“Fine, it’s the fucking girl.” Defeated, she sags against

the counter. “Fuck me, I don’t even know what it is
about her.”

“New Hottie is extremely hot,” Quinn observes

helpfully. “And it would explain why you’ve been such
a spaz lately. I mean, Santana, nothing’s even
happened this year. Aside from your valiant efforts to
break your knuckles, anyway, but how is that news?”

She’s got a point; the Cheerios, though big on the

sneering and throwing confectionery treats from
around corners, haven’t been especially creative in
their labors as of yet. The jocks are all too damn
terrified of what Santana could do to their precious
testicles to even come near her, and it’s too early to
worry about flunking grades finding their way to her
mother’s email inbox. The only thing that’s getting on
her nerves is this obnoxiously gorgeous girl.

Santana isn’t one to be thrown off-kilter by a pair of

killer legs and the abs of God. It’s the least
comfortable sensation ever, after a Slushee down the
bra.
“There is the Glee thing,” Santana points out weakly.
Quinn coughs out a chuckle.

“If one of us should be so concerned with ‘the Glee

thing’, it oughta be me. Santana, Rachel is going to
hear me sing on Thursday. What if she doesn’t like it?
What if she thinks I sound like a screech owl being
shoved into a blender or, or a…Disney Channel
twerp?”

“Yes, Q, your lesbian-ass self is clearly meant for the

Wizards of Not-Hogwarts, or whatever,” Santana
replies dryly, secretly pleased that their little spat is
over so instantaneously. This is the best part about
being friends with Quinn: even when she’s being
crazy, even when she’s been flipping out for no
reason whatsoever and acting like a tool in the
process, Quinn will call her out on it once—and only
once—and they will move on until the next time
Santana fucks up. There’s an easy rapport here that
she’s never found with anyone else, and expects
never to find again.

Except, something dark and surreptitious mutters

from behind her sanity, she’s already kind of at that
bare-it-all place with a certain other blonde.

She’s trying not to think about it when Quinn calmly

asks, “So, what did she say to you, anyway?”
“Who?” Santana stalls, leaning heavily against the
counter. Water seeps into the back of her tank top,
frigid on her lower back.

“The girl who sent you running out of Puck’s place,”

Quinn says, and Santana can actually hear the smirk.

“She…wants to be friends,” she says uneasily. “Still.”

An exaggerated gasp stings her ear. She scowls as

Quinn pitches her voice an octave higher that usual
and wails, “Well, bless my stars, Santana Lopez. She
wants to be friends? How unreasonable and wayward
of her!”

“Shut the fuck up,” the dark-haired girl snaps, rubbing

her forehead. “You know the deal there, Q. You know
my feelings on the subject.”

“Fuck and run, yeah, I got it,” Quinn says in her

normal voice. “And, uh, how’s that working out for
you?”

“Screw off, Fabray.”

“No, I’m serious,” Quinn insists. Santana hears some

shuffling in the background, followed by a grunt that
likely means the blonde has thrown herself into a
mountain of pillows. “You’ve never had a serious
relationship—“
“Honey, I’m hurt,” Santana cuts in mockingly. “You
mean what we have isn’t serious?”

“Shut the hell up and listen, douchebag. You’ve never

had a serious relationship, you act like a spaz on the
rare occasion you actually find yourself interested in a
girl for more than how loudly she can moan, you’ve
got daddy issues coming out your pores…”

Good humor evaporating, Santana scowls. “Low blow,

Fabray. You’re treading a thin line here.”

Quinn knows as well as anyone that her parents’

divorce--and the man whose fists and adultery set it
off--is strictly out of bounds as a conversation topic.
She has only broken this law twice, doing so solely
when she’s had damn good reasons. Which, given
how fucking absurd she’s been acting, Santana
supposes this qualifies as.

“Santana, the thing is, I think you really like this girl.
No, really,” the blonde adds when Santana opens her
mouth with a mortifying little squeak of protest. “I
really, really do.”

“I’ve spoken to her three times,” Santana objects.

“You’ve never heard of love at first sight?” Quinn

counters prissily. Santana coughs. “Don’t need a
whole lot of talkin’ for that.”
“You’re fucking kidding me.”

She hears a rustle and takes it mean Quinn has

shrugged. “A little, but that doesn’t change anything. I
saw it the second she ran into you that day, San. You
looked at her the way I know I look at Rachel: kind of
loony, sort of creepy, entirely stupid. Like you could
keep looking forever without getting bored or needing
to blink.”

“I’m not you, Q,” Santana says quietly, meaning a

hundred little things at once. Quinn makes a small
sound of assent.

“No, you’re not. But you’re not totally different either.

And San, you know how I really knew you wanted
her? In a way you haven’t wanted anyone since I’ve
known you?”

Santana says nothing. She hears Quinn smile, hears

the way her eyes crinkle at the corners, and grips the
counter tightly.

“You didn’t hit her when she used you as a human

crash cart,” Quinn says fondly. “You didn’t look like
you even wanted to try. Santana, since we were
eleven years old, since your father walked out, you
have met every person on this earth with fists or fuck
yous, but with this girl…you just stared. And you told
her it was okay.”
Santana swallows against an orange-sized lump,
frustrated with herself. “You’re such a sap, Fabray.”

“And you’re opening up to being human for the first

time since puberty,” the other girl replies simply.
“Ease into it, Lopez. Don’t hurt yourself.”

“Fuck off,” she tries to say again, but it comes out

more as a breath than anything. Quinn’s laugh rasps
against her eardrum.

“Whatever will our peers say when they find out

Santana Lopez is in possession of an actual beating
heart? Woman, your reign of vampire terror will be
over.”

In spite of herself, Santana can’t ward off a burst of

laughter. “Shit,” she gasps when she can breathe
again, “don’t tell Puck. Without his fear to keep it in
check, the earth will shoot off its axis and collide with
the moon.”

“Gotta put the world first,” Quinn giggles. “We’re like

superheroes or some shit.”

“Absolutely,” Santana agrees, leaning her forehead

against the cabinets and filling her lungs as far as
they will expand. “God. This has been such a fucked
up semester.”

“All two weeks of it,” Quinn adds, probably too

cheerfully for someone with an alleged hangover from
Hell. Santana nods bleakly.

“Two weeks. Goddamn, we’re going to be here

forever.”

“Look on the bright side,” Quinn says after a beat.

“That gives you a really friggin’ long time to get over
yourself and sweep New Hottie off her fancy feet.”

Santana breathes for several minutes, staring into the

sink as bubbles sweep gently from side to side.
Because she is Quinn, the blonde lets her.

At last, Santana’s lips part. “I can’t date her, Quinn. I

can’t even be her friend.”

It isn’t what she wanted to say, but it’s true

nonetheless.

“And why the fuck not?” Quinn demands, because of

the two of them, Quinn has always been the romantic.
She believes in love conquering evil, in the healing
properties of some well-thought-out lyrics and a
bewitching piano solo, in a world where sexual
orientation is just a guideline and eyes meeting
across a crowded room can change everything.

Santana believes in nothing of the sort.

“I just can’t,” she says feebly, curling her shoulders

protectively up around her ears. Quinn makes a
sputtering noise.

“You like her.”

“Yeah.”

“You really fucking like her. And she likes you.

Enough to stalk your mean, grouchy ass, even.
Enough to take your insults and your high-horse
bullshit attempts at nobility.”

“Yeah,” Santana says again, flatly. Quinn makes that

obnoxious confused noise again.

“You don’t make a damn bit of sense, Lopez.”

“I know,” she seethes, crushing the phone against her

ear until it hurts. “Jesus, Fabray, I’m aware that I’m
out of my goddamn mind. I’m aware. Thank you.”

There’s a pause. “Well,” Quinn says at last. “As long

as you know.”

It’s probably not appropriate for Santana to laugh until

she cries.

A/N: Title swiped from the Emily Haines & The Soft
Skeleton song of the same name.

It feels more or less like a miracle, but Santana has

made it to Thursday without incident. True, there have
been a few close calls—Karofsky limps away as fast
as he can when he sees her coming, but some of his
football buddies are not nearly as quick of learners,
and ever since Puck banged the shit out of her,
Mallory has taken to stalking around after Santana
like it’s her fault he conveniently lost her number the
next morning. But the fact remains that Santana
hasn’t had to beat anyone to a pulp in almost a whole
week, which is kind of a record for her, and it makes
Quinn a little less anxious and Puck a little more so,
so it’s a good fuckin’ deal all around.

She hasn’t seen Brittany since the party—by which

she means she’s seen Brittany (in gym, in the hall, in
the lunch line), but they haven’t spoken. It’s
depressing, but comforting to think that just maybe
the girl has given up on her already.

It’s so much easier to avoid hurting people when they

avoid you first, she knows.

Quinn hasn’t mentioned their phone conversation

since it happened, preferring instead to obsess over
Schuester’s Glee assignment. It’s a relief, but if
Santana has to hear one more bearded, flannel-loving
hippie harmonize about his metaphorical love for that
girl he’s only seen once, she’s going to take a
flamethrower to the blonde’s iPod.

Puck is mostly just spending his time as he always

does, skipping class and ducking scorned bitches like
Mallory as he performs his heat-seeking sex missile
dance, searching for his next lay. Santana hasn’t hit
him in three days, mostly because she swore he
wouldn’t see it coming next time and has spent all
following hours watching him jump at shadows.

All in all, things are better, as long as Santana can

keep a lid on those vile things Quinn keeps calling
feelings.

And then, naturally enough, Glee has to get in the

way.

They’re early this time because Quinn is having a

goddamned stroke, turning her acoustic guitar over
and over again until each string is absolutely perfect.
Santana sits at the piano, running her fingers along
the keys as if she’s got the first idea what they mean
(thanks to a highly short-lived set of lessons, she can
play all of one scale, and she can’t even remember
what notes she’s hitting when she does). Puck has
hiked his shirt up under his armpits and is inspecting
his bellybutton over in the corner. She’s trying to
ignore him; this is apparently going to be one of those
rare days when she can’t understand why the hell
they keep Noah Puckerman around.

“It sounds fine,” she tells Quinn for the forty-seventh

time. “It sounds just like it has the last six times
around. Can you please put the fucking thing away
before you snap a string?”

Quinn’s eyes just about depart her skull at the

prospect. “Damn, I didn’t even think of that.”

“Of course you didn’t.”

She can see the blonde gearing up to fight back,

wound as tight as she is, and grins over her shoulder.
“Berry, good to see you’re rocking the smallest scrap
of fabric you could find. Very classy. Not at all Moulin
Rouge.”

Rachel, in her perversely tiny skirt, sets a stack of

pages on the piano lid and turns uncertainly to Quinn.
“She’s making fun of me again, isn’t she?”

Her face bloodless, Quinn nods. Rachel sighs.

“Wonderful to see you too, Santana, as always.”

“You didn’t bring a bunch of songs from Grease and

shit, did you?” Puck demands from his corner, still
working a finger in his bellybutton like he’s expecting
to come up with diamonds or something. Rachel
wrinkles her nose.

“Noah, what on earth—“

“Don’t ask,” Santana steps in. “Don’t indulge him at

all. Ignore him for long enough, and we’re hoping he’ll
vanish altogether.”

She can feel his offended stare through the back of

her head. “Bitch.”

“Tramp,” she fires back without sparing him a glance.

Quinn raises her head, smirking.

Rachel drums the fingers of one hand against her arm

uneasily. “I never understand any of you.”

“But it’s sweet that you try,” Santana jeers, grinning

when Quinn shoots her a blazing glare in retaliation.
The blonde steps instinctively closer to Berry, as if
she thinks Santana is actually going to expend energy
getting up and terrorizing her physically. Like so many
things involving Rachel, it would be cute—if only it
didn’t involve Rachel.

She knows Quinn well enough to read murder in

those big hazel eyes, but the rest of the club is
filtering quickly into the room, affording too many
witnesses. Holding the blonde’s gaze, Santana winks
and mouths, ‘Fucking chill’ until the lines in the girl’s
forehead smooth out.

“All right, guys!” Santana really wishes Schuester

could enter the room with his mouth closed, just this
once, but the man seems all kinds of jittery. She
figures it would be a wonder to go only twenty
minutes listening to him yap, the way he’s smiling.
The piano man—Brad—is standing with his knees
jammed against the bench she’s on, staring soullessly
down at her with all the compassion of a serial killer,
so Santana stands and strides to the seat between
Puck and Quinn. Schuester’s eyes sear through the
back of her skull all the way, making her skin crawl
unpleasantly.

“Make him stop smiling at me,” she grinds out to

Quinn, who is busy forming desperate chords with her
left hand. The blonde looks up helplessly.

“I think I’ve forgotten B-minor,” she hisses back,

looking utterly terrified. Rolling his eyes, Puck leans
over and demonstrates.

When her friends choose at last to sit back like normal

people, Santana does her best to refocus on the front
of the room where Schue and his frustrating tie are
pacing relentlessly.

“I’m very excited to see what you’ve all prepared

today, so, without further ado, I’d like one of you to
volunteer—“

The door bangs open, cutting him off, and before

Santana can pick a god to thank for the intrusion, a
sweaty, breathless blonde with gorgeous blue eyes is
standing before them all.
“Am I late?” she gasps out, bending to plant her
hands on her bare knees, red skirt swishing lightly.
“I’m late. Crap.”

No, no, no. This isn’t her day, it isn’t her luck. Santana
can’t breathe because this girl, this aggravating, pain
in the ass girl is really standing there, looking at
Schuester with wide, imploring eyes, for all the world
resembling tangible temptation.

“Fuck me sideways,” she hears Quinn whisper. From

the row below them, Rachel looks back and forth from
one side of the room to the other, like she’s watching
the tennis match of the century.

“If I’m too late, I could go,” Brittany is saying, speaking

to Schuester even as she locks eyes with Santana. “I
just thought maybe I could…”

“No!” Schue exclaims so directly into the blonde’s

face, she actually leaps back a step or two. “I mean,
don’t go. You’re not too late. You’re fine, you’re
great!”

He looks like he might actually pass out from

excitement. Santana has gone past hating his pink
face to mostly feeling bad for him, because any man
who gets this jazzed about a high school show choir
is certainly missing a crucial element from his life.

“You want to join Glee?” Kurt Hummel asks,

practically dripping with scorn. Santana’s fists tighten
against her thighs. Calmer now, Brittany nods.

“I’m an okay singer,” she tells them all, eyes still on

Santana. “Mostly a dancer, but my singing’s okay. I
think. I could sing for you now, if you…” Trailing off,
she uncertainly darts a glance at Brad, who stares
boredly back.

“We can do the formal audition later,” Schuester

bleats excitedly, clasping his hands under his chin
and beaming (Santana takes a moment to mull over
the prospect of an audition, something she and her
friends somehow managed to escape). “I’m sure
you’re fantastic, though, you’re all fantastic. And with
a twelfth, we can actually compete now!”

Most of the kids manage wan smiles, at least, even

Quinn and Puck. Santana is too busy gaping
shamelessly at the Cheerio by the piano to care about
bolstering Schuester’s already overfull balloon.

“You’re…joining Glee,” she states haltingly when

Brittany makes her way up and drags a chair between
Santana and Puck. “You’re joining Glee Club. This
club.”

“I’m a great dancer,” the blonde says with a faux-

modest shrug. “Kind of really great, actually.”

“It’s Glee Club,” Santana repeats harshly. “No one in

their right damn mind joins Glee.”

“You did,” Brittany points out, and Santana barely

catches herself before she blurts out the reason
behind that little nugget of truth. Rachel is already
looking at them oddly; it would be a pretty inopportune
moment to out Quinn, all things considered.

“Yeah, well,” she settles for grumbling, “I’m…

different.”

Brittany almost looks amused, annoyingly enough. “Of

course you are.”

“Listen, you can’t just come in here and—“

“Ladies? Having a problem back there?” If he keeps

standing like that, with his hands on his hips and his
head tilted perplexedly to the side, Santana thinks
Schuester might actually turn into a woman. She
pastes on her very best haughty smirk.

“No, sir. Please, carry on. I’m sure whatever you’re

rambling about is very interesting.”

Schuester frowns a little, but doesn’t call her out for

back-talking, which kind of feels like a waste. Quinn
shoots her a look that plainly says, ‘You asshole, I’m
too freaked out to laugh, stop it.’ Puck tosses his head
back and chortles. Brittany looks a little confused.
“You’re even mean to teachers?”

There’s a pang of something that Santana thinks

might border on guilt. “Only when they deserve it.”
When Brittany gapes at her, she rolls her eyes. “I told
you I’m not friend material. What, did you think I was
making up stories to see which ones you’d swallow?”

“Always swallow,” Puck advises with a lecherous

wiggle of his eyebrows. Without looking, Santana
slams a hand into the crotch of his jeans and
squeezes hard. He goes completely still, makes a
keening sound, and gulps desperately for air.

“Don’t help me, Puckerman.”

Brittany looks really confused now. “I thought you two

were friends.”

“We are,” Santana replies, frustrated. It’s a good thing

this girl’s prettier than God, because she’s apparently
running a little low on gas in the brain department. “I
told you—“

“But that doesn’t make sense,” Brittany declares

softly, looking to Rachel, of all people, for aid. The
diminutive brunette shakes her head.

“Don’t ask me, I just sit with them.”

Santana’s getting a little tired of this whole charade,

so when Mercedes is called to the front of the room to
share her three songs (Alicia Keys' "No One", Aretha
Franklin’s “Respect”, and Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”),
it feels like a welcome change. Besides, apart from
being a soulful pain in Santana’s ass, Mercedes is a
really good singer; listening to her belt like her life
depends upon it is enough to shut the whole damn
room up for a few minutes.

Finn goes next, wailing as best he can on his triad

(Styx’s “Blue Collar Man”, The Smashing Pumpkins’
“The Beginning Is The End Is The Beginning”—which,
for the record, sounds really fuckin’ terrible coming
out of Hudson’s mouth—and Matchbox Twenty’s “If
You’re Gone”—which, she hates to admit, totally
makes up for the Pumpkins travesty). Puck’s looking
at the boy with some serious newfound respect, and
Schuester looks as though he’s going to burst into
tears at any moment. Santana leans back and props
her feet up on Rachel’s chair, tuning out the look the
small girl gives her.

“They’re really good,” Brittany observes right in

Santana’s ear when Artie has finished crushing his
songs (Frank Sinatra’s “Fly Me To The Moon”, The
Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby”, and Train’s “Lincoln
Avenue”—Santana is mildly scarred to find that, for a
cripple, Abrams has a pretty spectacular set of pipes
on him). “I don’t get why the girls on the team don’t
like them. There’s talent here.”
“Talent and the most awkward social skills you will
ever see in one place,” Santana replies out of the
corner of her mouth as Tina nervously takes center
stage. “Real bad combination.”

Rachel shoots a death glare over her shoulder for

Santana even considering speaking during
someone’s performance; exaggeratedly, the Latina
mimes zipping her lips, turning the gesture into a
middle finger salute the second Rachel whips back
around. She thinks she hears Brittany giggle.

Tina’s selection of some Dresden Dolls song, the Goo

Goo Dolls’ “Dizzy”, and Pat Benetar’s “Heartbreaker”
has Santana wondering if the girl is holding back
more rage than is entirely healthy, but when she’s
finished, the petite Asian bounds right to Artie’s side
and kisses him proudly.

Maybe not.

“Fantastic job, Tina,” Schuester enthuses. “Who’s

next? Puck, what’ve you got for us?”

Santana fully expects the boy to say he’s forgotten—

or, given how hard she just crushed his balls, maybe
to falsetto an excuse out of the situation. To her
immense surprise, Puck gingerly stands and half-
limps down to the piano.

His renditions of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman”,

Foreigner’s “Hot Blooded”, and James Morrison’s
“Nothing Ever Hurt Like You” are achingly beautiful.
Santana reminds herself to go easy on his junk for a
couple of days as a sort of ‘I’m proud of your stupid
face’ present.

Matt and Mike perform together, which Santana finds

a little weird, and they do a trio of songs so deeply
electronica, Santana has no hope of recognizing even
one. Schuester scratches his head when they finish,
clearly lost.

“That was…unique, guys. Not sure you entirely got

the assignment, but, uh…great job!”

Santana rolls her eyes. Leave it to Will Schuester to

be completely incapable of realistic criticism.

“Who’s up? Rachel?”

The brunette is on her feet before the second syllable

of her name, pelting for the piano like she expects it to
play Lucy and jerk away at the last second. Quinn
gives a soft, obnoxious sigh of delight; Santana
elbows her.

“Keep it in your pants, Fabray, she hasn’t even

opened that big mouth yet.”

Brittany shifts her gaze between them both, clearly as

confused as ever, and Santana does her best to tune
the girl out. Sure, she’s pretty and kind of destroying
Santana’s ability to think straight (does she really
have to sit so close? Her leg is practically on
Santana’s chair), but this is likely to be one of those
crucial ‘hold Quinn back when she tries to mount
Berry in front of everyone’ moments, and it’s probably
best to pay attention.

She’s fully expecting Berry to pull out the stops with

Broadway classics, so when the girl proceeds to husk
her way through Ella Fitzgerald’s “Fever”, Santana
finds herself sitting up and taking notice. To her left,
Quinn leans forward, fingers twisting against her
knees, mouth falling open. To her right, Brittany leans
close and brushes her cheek against Santana’s
shoulder.

That is almost enough to undo her.

Rachel goes from that song straight into a silky

interpretation of Snow Patrol’s “Run”, and then,
because she’s Rachel Berry, proceeds to completely
kill RENT’s “Without You.” Santana does not clap
when the girl is finished, because that might give the
impression that she actually likes her (which she
certainly does not, though even Santana can admit
when a person’s talent outstrips their awful
personality), but she does incline her head in
recognition when Rachel, beaming and flushed,
bounces back to her seat.
Beside her, Quinn is visibly trembling. Santana
wholeheartedly hopes the blonde isn’t planning on
lunging from her seat and tackling Berry with her lips,
because the girl’s angel voice has managed to lower
the Latina’s guard just a smidge too far to be entirely
helpful.

Her reaction time is usually on par with Spider-man’s,

so she thinks she’d still be able to catch Fabray
around the waist and throw her out of harm’s way, but
she’d rather not play with fire.

“Absolutely incredible, Rachel,” Schuester says

warmly. “All right, how about Quinn? Got something
great to share?”

Santana thinks it’s entirely possible the blonde will

pass out before she even leaves the risers. As
inconspicuously as she can, the dark-haired girl
wraps a hand around her friend’s wrist and helps her
stand.

“Don’t blow it, Q,” she murmurs through a smile.

Quinn looks entirely too willing to throw up all over
them both.

“I’m going to fucking die,” she hisses, reaching shakily

around her chair for her guitar. Santana punches her
lightly in the leg.

“You’re going to fucking sing,” she corrects, doing her

best to tune out the interested stares they’re receiving
from just about everybody. “Kill it, woman. Kill it
dead.”

She sounds more confident than she truly feels where

Quinn is concerned, because the blonde is literally
swaying as she picks her way down to where
Schuester is glowing with excitement. She looks
miserable, and terrified, and so not like Quinn Fabray
that it almost makes Santana want to leap up and
stand with her, a firm hand on the girl’s quivering
shoulder.

But that would defeat the purpose of pushing Quinn

out of the nest.

Leaning close, Brittany touches her lips to the shell of

Santana’s ear and whispers, “Is she going to faint? I
think the nurse is out sick today.”

“She’s fine,” Santana snaps, not at all dizzied by the

blonde’s warm breath against her skin.

Quinn doesn’t look particularly fine, nervously

dragging a stool from behind the drum set and
dropping heavily onto it. She fiddles with the guitar on
her lap, tapping a staccato beat against the hollow
body, and makes the strangest humming sound
Santana has ever heard.

“Quinn?” Schuester asks, bowing his head and

peering at the girl with clear concern. “You ready?”

That noise again. Santana has not felt such a strong

case of second-hand embarrassment since certain
episodes of Boy Meets World.

“Quinn,” Rachel says suddenly when the blonde

continues to do nothing. “Look at me, Quinn.”

Hazel eyes snap to, thick, dark eyelashes stroking

pale skin. Rachel smiles.

“It’s perfectly normal to feel nervous,” the brunette

claims gently. “Stage fright. You can get past this.
Take a few deep breaths.”

Quinn obeys, chest rising and falling steadily. Rachel

waves a hand in the direction of the guitar.

“Now play. We’re not here. Mr. Schue isn’t here, I’m
not here. None of us. Just you and the strings. Go.”

And Quinn does. Her fingers stutter on the fretboard

once or twice, and her leg drums maniacally against
the floor the whole time, but her songs come out
beautifully. Her voice is breathier than anything
Santana usually listens to, but lovely, and for the first
time, Santana realizes she has never heard her best
friend sing before. It isn’t something they do, which
now feels sort of regrettable.
They’re all songs Santana has been subjected to over
the past week—Laura Marling’s “Ghosts”, Cat
Stevens’ “The Wind”, and Joni Mitchell’s “River”—and
she hated each one when it was emanating from
Quinn’s scratchy laptop speakers. Now, though, she
listens and can’t resist the blind force of her smile.

The response that follows Quinn’s performance is

deafening, mostly because Puck has taken it upon
himself to launch out of his chair, shove his fingers
into his mouth, and whistle like a madman. Santana
pounds her hands together, eyes bleary with pride,
not even bothering to paste on a grim expression
when Brittany’s fingers latch onto her knee and knead
happily.

For her part, Quinn looks dazed, clearly unable to

believe her numbers were successful. She stands and
smirks that classic Fabray smirk at last, jerking her
guitar above her head in pure rock star form.

She is met at the bottom of the risers by Rachel, who

has never looked more cheerful.

“That was wonderful, Quinn. I don’t know what you

were so worried about. You’re very talented.”

For a second, Santana’s afraid Quinn will mack on the

girl then and there, but the blonde simply runs a hand
through her hair and grins bashfully. “Thanks, Rachel.
I mean, it’s not anything like your voice.”
“No,” Rachel agrees mildly, reaching out and giving
Quinn’s hand a quick squeeze. “But it’s impressive
nonetheless.”

She looks like she wants to say more (which would

probably be more productive than Quinn, who just
looks starstruck), but Schuester is flailing like a big girl
again, interrupting everything. They sit, Quinn on
Rachel’s right this time with her guitar between her
knees, and Santana leans forward to bump her fist
against the blonde’s.

“Ditching me now, Fabray?” she asks through her

smile. Quinn raises a warning eyebrow, teeth flashing
brilliantly.

“Astonishing, Quinn, your choices were absolutely

beautiful.” Schuester is preening. “I want to thank you
for sharing that talent with us. The guitar was an
especially nice touch.”

Blushing lightly, Quinn shrugs and grins. Santana

shakes her head in amusement, mentally preparing
herself to take the girl down a peg or two before her
head swells up. Tomorrow, because it’s only fair to
give her a few hours of feeling like a rock god first;
Santana’s not the best friend in the world, but she at
least can offer that.

She’s so distracted by her thoughts (and by Brittany’s

hand on her knee; though she’s shooting the girl
pointed looks of forced annoyance, the Cheerio is
blatantly pretending she hasn’t noticed anything
awkward about their position) that she almost doesn’t
hear him when Schuester blurts her name in his over-
zealous fashion.

“What?” she asks numbly. He smiles.

“Your turn. Show us what you’ve got.”

The club turns as one, waiting expectantly for her to

stand and take her place center stage. Santana only
crosses her arms over her chest. They aren't going to
like this. They aren't going to like this one damn bit,
but fuck them, because Santana is sick of everyone
thinking they can shove her into a box. Quinn had her
moment of bliss; the rest of the meeting no longer
matters.

They aren't going to like this, but whatever; they'll just

have to get over it.

"Fine," she says tonelessly, holding up three fingers

and ticking them down again. "Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’,
Sara Bareilles’ ‘Come Round Soon’, Incubus’
‘Warning’.”

Schuester blinks owlishly up at her. She smiles coldly.

“That works, right? I mean, there’s absolutely no

crossover in genre there. Fits the assignment.”

“Um.” His mouth works frantically, his hands circling

one another in the air. “I, uh…the assignment was to
perform—“

“Nope,” she corrects him, eyebrows arched. “The

assignment was to share the songs with the class. I
just did that. They’re all on YouTube and everything. I
can even write down the titles if you’ve got a
particularly lame memory.” She glances at Finn,
smirking when his whole face tightens in
bewilderment.

“Santana, uh…this is Glee Club,” Schuester points

out haltingly, digging his fingers into his hair. She
wonders how his wedding ring doesn’t catch more
often on the longer curls. “We’re kind of, erm, about
the singing here. You’re…really not going to sing?”

“Not feelin’ it today, Schue,” she shrugs off, settling

back in her chair and discreetly pushing Brittany’s
hand onto the girl’s own lap at last. “Ask me again
next week, we’ll see how the wind’s blowing then.”

He deflates, gaping at her. Around them, her fellow

Gleeks murmur in confusion. Brittany eyes her
curiously, clearly trying to read something Santana
refuses to paint on her face. Rachel looks like she
wants nothing better than to hit Santana for her
outrageous behavior.
Quinn catches her eye and frowns. Santana says
nothing.

She’s here by force, a support structure and nothing

more. She doesn’t have to like it, and she certainly
doesn’t have to bend to Schue’s every drab little
whim. If she doesn’t want to sing, she doesn’t want to
sing—period. As for explaining herself to these losers,
well…

It sucks a little, to see the disappointment in her best

friend’s eyes, but the thing is, Santana has already
had enough of people telling her what she needs and
how to go about things this year. She’s done. They
can catch her by the shoulders and hold her back,
battering her around with advice all they like, but at
the end of the day, she is Santana Lopez. She knows
what is best for her own life, and that’s it.

She’s done playing their little games. It's high time

she started one of her own.

A/N: Title swiped from the Emily Haines & The Soft
Skeleton song of the same name.

The semester continues to crawl by. After Santana’s

little display of dominance in Glee, things have
mellowed out a bit at meetings. Schuester stops
looking at her with unbridled joy and starts watching
his step. The rest of the kids mostly tune her out, save
for Puck, who doesn’t give a shit how she handles
herself, and Quinn, who seemed kind of pissed at first
but got over it the way she always does. It helps that
Rachel splits her time evenly now between flailing
over Quinn’s voice (and her instrumental talent; the
minute Berry realized she had a personal guitarist at
her disposal, everything got that much more annoying
for the rest of them) and scowling at the side of
Santana’s head. The more attention she gets, the less
Quinn seems to worry about Santana single-handedly
obstructing Glee’s path.

Brittany is still creeping cautiously around her, and

Santana can sense that little problem is far from over,
but the girl has stopped trying to stick various body
parts in the Latina’s lap. She guesses that’s a good
thing, but every once in a while, Brittany will brush just
a hair too close and Santana’s skin will vibrate like the
shoddy motor in Quinn’s piece of shit car.

She still hasn’t opened her mouth to sing, but she

dances when they do group numbers, mainly because
dancing is a great way to keep in shape and keep
near her Cheerio stalker without letting the girl know
she’s doing so on purpose. It’s a dangerous little
game she’s playing, verbally pushing the blonde away
while physically tucking her near, but she’s got a
handle on it. She’s Santana motherfucking Lopez. Of
course she’s got this.

Mostly.
“You’re playing with fire,” Quinn reminds her after the
fourth consecutive “accidental” trip into Brittany’s
back. “You’re, like, throwing the fire around with a pair
of flame-retardant gloves. Eventually, the no-flamey
characteristics are going to wear off.”

“It’s fine,” Santana snaps, relishing the memory of

Brittany’s body molded to her front. “She’s not too
bright; I doubt she gets it.”

“She joined Glee for you,” Quinn retorts disbelievingly.

“And she’s gone almost a month without Sylvester
and her bitches catching on and giving her a Slushee
bath. She’s not an idiot, Lopez.”

Okay, so maybe there’s a point there.

“Whatever,” she says anyway, because she’s not

really up for giving Quinn anything to gloat about right
now. The girl’s unbearable enough lately, what with all
the attention she’s been getting from their resident
midget. Santana’s happy for her, in her own way, but
if she has to hear one more time about the exact
angle at which Rachel’s hand dusted across Quinn’s
bicep during practice, she’s going to bury her fist in
some material not meant to be struck.

Like concrete.

Or Quinn’s ovaries.
That could be kind of fun.

“Why are you screwing around like this anyway?” the

blonde demands, rifling through her locker in search
of one long-lost study guide or another. “She’s been
leaving you alone. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

Santana shrugs. The truth is, ever since Brittany

stopped mooning around after her, it’s gotten harder
and harder to feign disinterest around the girl. It’s one
of those stupid things that Santana does sometimes,
where she wants what she can’t have, what she
knows she can’t handle, and she’s pretty sure she
only wants it because it is the exact thing that will turn
her into a cowering mess on the sidewalk. Brittany is
so very obviously that thing, because even with all the
energy she’s put into pushing her away, Santana still
can’t breathe correctly unless the blonde is within
eyeshot.

She doesn’t know when that started, but she suspects

it had something to do with that night in Puck’s
kitchen.

It’s stupid, and it’s making her feel crazier than usual,
but she can’t do anything about it. Not if she wants
the girl to remain safe—although, whether she’s
protecting her from the other Cheerios or from her
own issues, Santana’s long past saying. She prefers
to imagine it’s all about Sylvester’s bitches, because
the second they get wind of Brittany’s (rather obvious)
obsession with making Santana a better person (or a
happier one; she’s not sure there’s a distinction),
they’ll go off on her like a school of tiny scowling
grenades.

The fact that they’ve been collectively silent about the

Glee thing makes Santana even more certain that
something big is coming. They’ve never been this
quiet for this long, not where she’s concerned; by this
time last year, they’d slashed Quinn’s tires for parking
in a designated Cheerio spot, shoved Santana down
a short flight of stairs (and then threatened an all-too-
real lawsuit when she caught up with the perpetrator
and held her head dangerously near a shop class saw
blade), and introduced Puck’s system to a whole host
of STDs.

That part, she reflects with some amusement, was

entirely his own fault.

The thing is, this hatred she feels for those swishing
red skirts? It’s not exactly what one would call
unfounded. She’s sorry that it makes Brittany’s nose
crinkle unhappily, and that it’s an emotion with the
power to send her own self into a crippling state of
self-doubt, but overall? They’re bitches. Bitches get
what’s coming to them. Even if it’s entirely karmic and
entirely due to the force of Santana’s loathing.

(It won’t be, if she has anything to say about it. The
moment one of them crosses her for real this year—
or, worse, crosses Brittany because of her—she’s
determined to crush them utterly. For good.)

She’s keeping her head down for the sake of all of

this, for the sake of some girl she doesn’t even have a
reason to be interested in (aside from the obvious, but
honestly, she’s got some standards; it takes more
than a pretty smile and a spectacular ass to rope in
this particular Lopez), and it’s making her crazy. With
each day that slips into history, she forgets a little
more why she’s really doing this to begin with.

And then Puck does something to piss her off, or she

catches herself with a freshman’s throat under her
clenching fingertips, and she remembers. The thing
about being a Lopez—about being this Lopez, in
particular—is, she’s a fucking mess. Dangerous.
Forget the commitment issues (a parade all on their
own), and forget the gasping black hole that is the
fear she will never leave this town, never rise about
the fuming aggression and bullying tendencies, never
amount to anything better than a grocery store clerk
with a few cats. Forget all of that. She’s a Lopez, and
if there’s one thing she’s learned about that unlucky
biological condition over the years, it’s that Lopezes
kind of suck at protecting the people they love.
Specifically from themselves.

She’s seen the way her older brother’s teeth and fists
grit when he’s near his girlfriend on a bad day. She’s
seen the bruises left on her aunt, the product of fury
uncontrolled. And of course, she’s heard the splitting
sound of tears late at night, when her mother thinks
the house is comatose. The sounds of prayers left
unanswered, of ‘why me’ and ‘why us’ floating
directionlessly on chilled night air. The sounds of a
woman battered and abandoned.

Santana is not a good person. It’s not in her genetics

to be good. She’s not sure she could be if she tried,
and so she never has. People like Quinn and Puck
accept her this way because, frankly, they’re pretty
fucked up too. Puck’s got all those immeasurable
hours waiting up for a father who never came home—
not sober, at least—and Quinn’s tribulations with her
overbearing God stretch on for miles in every
direction. They all kind of suck at this growing up
thing, and it’s made for a surprisingly hefty bond.

Brittany, she’s not like them. Not even a little bit, and
Santana knows that’s why she’s so drawn to the
blonde in the first place. She can see it in her eyes, in
her skin, in the way she carries herself when she
walks: Brittany isn’t damaged. She’s whole, and she’s
beautiful, and she shines in a way Santana can’t
recall seeing in anyone before. It isn’t that she’s
unlikely to accept Santana and all her broken, torn
baggage—it’s that she’s likely to get sucked in.
Maybe more likely than anyone Santana has ever
met, including the likes of Will Schuester, with his
desperate need to mentor every wayward student
who crosses his path, and Emma Pillsbury, who has
probably read Santana’s file no fewer than fifty times
over the years. Brittany, with her stubborn attitude
and endless optimism, likes her, and that is more
dangerous than anything, because people who like
Santana don’t stay happy for long. Not if they started
out that way.

Quinn and Puck, they’ve never been happy. Brittany

is. Santana doesn’t even have to know her to see it,
to smell it on the air when the girl walks into the room.

She can’t break that. She won’t.

She would say this all aloud, would arrange the words
on a platter and present them to Quinn—or, even, to
Brittany herself—if she thought it would make a
difference. But it won’t. They’ll only look at her the
way she grimly regards herself in the mirror each
morning: curious, pitying, frustrated. Wishing she
could just punch free of her family’s mistakes and join
the ranks of the normal and well-adjusted.

Her mother already looks at her that way every day.

Santana can’t take disappointing anyone else.

But holy God, is it hard to remember all of this when

Brittany is dancing three feet away, all hips and hair
and searing little-girl grins. It’s for the best, this
distance she’s created from day one, but Brittany just
looks so pretty, so sexy, so confident in her every
move, and it’s beginning to bolster an ache Santana
was unprepared for.

She’d explain it to Quinn now, if she could, why it is

she’s sticking her hand in bear traps and rooting
around in flaming coals, but Quinn wouldn’t
understand. How could she, when even Santana
doesn’t? Her brain isn’t matching up with her body
anymore, hasn’t been since that night at Puck’s, and it
just makes this all very, very confusing. Her body
wants to give in, wants to believe the haunted look in
her mother’s eyes, the one that suggests there’s just
a little too much Lopez running through her daughter’s
veins, is entirely wrong. Her body wants Brittany close
all the time, wants to feel soft hair and softer skin,
wants to taste salt and smell sanctuary and coax
screams of pleasure and giggles of delight into the
world. Her body wants, pure and simple. Her mind, on
the other hand, would do well to shove Brittany on a
plane to Alberquerque, or maybe Africa, forgetting the
girl even exists. Her mind wants nothing better than to
save them both from the inevitable misery Santana is
bound to invent out of nowhere at all.

Very. Very. Confusing.

She’d love to explain it all, but she can’t, so instead

she shrugs again and says, “Whatever, Fabray. Like
your pea brain is capable of understanding anything
other than the desire to shove Berry against that
piano and fuck the future fame right out of her.”
Quinn’s eyes glaze over instantly, which, ew. Santana
smirks a little regretfully. When the girl comes to,
she’ll be a little indignant and a lot annoyed, but for
now, her impeccable logic is out of the Latina’s hair.

It really is about the little things in life.

Taking advantage of the blonde’s dirty little daydream,

Santana trots off in the direction of the gym, mulling
over how nice it will be to work off some of this pent-
up energy in the weight room. She can’t remember
the last time she was this fucking worked up, this
unbelievably horny, to the point where even random
acts of violence don’t make a dent in the abject desire
to do awful, awful things to her newest Cheerio not-
friend.

A year ago, she’d be screwing her way through the

volleyball team, every member hating herself—and
Santana—for how easily the Latina has always been
able to manipulate women into her bed. A year ago,
she’d be fucking women who think she’s about on par
with dirt, grime, and serial killers, just to clear her
head a bit.

Now, she can’t even do that, because the second she

so much as glances at another girl, alarm bells
screech in her head, accompanied with maddeningly-
attractive images of blonde cheerleaders wearing
nothing more than a pair of fire-engine red spanks.
It’s a little hard to compete with that.

She’s frazzled, and it sucks, but she’s trying to look

on the bright side here. Schuester has stopped trying
to manhandle her into vocalizing, Quinn has mostly
stopped her moping (although Santana’s not sure she
can take much more of the gushing that has replaced
said moping in recent weeks; Rachel has taken to
being a bit more handsy, all excited hugs and hand
grabs, and Fabray’s losing her shit over it something
fierce and obnoxious), and Puck still makes the best
faces when she junk-punches him. Plus, although
Mallory and two of her mannequin-inspired pals
attempted to corner her using football-courtesy pee
balloons yesterday, most of the school has been re-
frightened into leaving her be. The Brittany thing is
shitty and impossible, but otherwise? Santana likes to
think she’s doing pretty well.

This week, at least.

She clatters down the steps to the locker room,

humming softly (damn Schuester and his penchant for
only picking the most addictive melodies for his kids
to perform; AC DC’s “Shook Me All Night Long” may
not be the most appropriate song to belt at one’s
students, but it is seriously impressive at sticking in
her head). A quick change and she can be pumping
her sexual frustration away in no time—in the least
naughty (and therefore helpful) way possible.
All things considered, it somehow isn’t as surprising
as it should be to find Brittany waiting for her, legs
crossed primly at the ankles. Santana’s sneakers
slide on over-smooth concrete, seeking purchase
when she slams to a too-quick halt.

So much for the bright side.

Brittany’s still wearing her uniform, biting her lip,

looking suspiciously like she never planned on
attending gym today at all. Santana can’t imagine this
means anything good.

“We’re about to do that thing we do again, aren’t we?”

she says almost conversationally, nudging as much
nonchalance as she can manage into her tone.
Brittany’s head tilts to the side, even teeth worrying
her lip steadily.

“What thing would that be?”

Santana turns away, clenching her thighs as she

walks in an effort to keep cool. She pries open her
locker, shucks off her jeans, ambles into her faded
sweatpants; just because the girl she’s so desperate
be around is here, waiting for her for the first time in
almost a month, doesn’t mean she can’t get ready for
class. There is iron to pump and arousal to flush away
in a burst of sweat and adrenaline. Damn anyone who
thinks they’re going to get in the way of that.
“You know,” she calls back over her shoulder, tugging
her t-shirt over her head and rummaging for its holey
black replacement in the locker. Blue eyes bore into
the space between her shoulder blades, plainly trying
to burn her bra strap away; she smirks, because
totally unhelpful though it may be, she’s allowed to
feel smug about Brittany’s obvious interest.

“I don’t,” Brittany replies calmly, and Santana actually

hears the girl lick her lips. She shakes her head,
leaning one arm against the locker above her own,
smiling wryly

“The one where you try to tell me you want to be

friends, and I tell you to fuck off because I’ll only wind
up making you miserable. The one where you’re all
cute and fuzzy, and I crush you under the heel of my
high-top. And then you’ll try to touch my shoulder or
grab my arm, and I’ll leap away like some kind of
jumpy-ass jungle cat, and you’ll do the big hurt puppy
eyes.”

She half turns, peering under her arm with that same
smirk. “You know. That one.”

Brittany’s head gives a slow, scrupulous shake.

“We’re not doing that today.”

Santana lifts an eyebrow, picking up the gym shirt and

tossing it between her hands. “We’re not?”
“Nope,” Brittany says, smiling a little. She stands, the
movement singular and leisurely, more of a liquid flow
from the bench to the floor than anything human.

“Huh,” Santana muses, eyes on the pipe-laden

ceiling. “Funny. I was sure that was our thing.”

“Not anymore,” Brittany states with certainty. Santana

gets the sudden feeling she’s being circled, which is
basically impossible, given her position against the
lockers. Still, it’s unsettling.

“Why’s that?” she asks, doing her best impression of

blank indifference. It must need work, because the
blonde chuckles huskily.

“Because. I don’t want to be your friend anymore.”

The sentiment hits her like a bucket of ice water.

Santana raises her chin, stretching the t-shirt between
her hands and poking her head through the hole.

“Is that so?”

“Mm hm,” Brittany hums, pacing a little too saucily for

Santana’s comfort. This is going somewhere, she can
feel it, and she’s willing to bet her little brother it’s
somewhere bad.

“Well,” she replies coolly, dragging the shirt down her

body and sliding her arms in, “I guess it’s about
fucking time. Finally got all those brightly colored
memos I was sending, huh?”

“Something like that,” Brittany drawls, pausing directly

behind Santana with one hand clasped to her hip. Her
fingers tangle in the waistband of her skirt, fiddling the
material this way and that with no apparent sense of
anxiety.

Santana rotates on her heel, folding her arms across

her chest and leaning back against the locker. “About
fucking time,” she repeats, looking the taller girl
straight in the eye. The bench between them
suddenly seems far too small and insignificant to use
as protection, terrifyingly enough. If Brittany’s playing
at something, Santana’s not sure she’ll have the time
and restraint to flee before she succeeds.

Although she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t curious.

She watches Brittany saunter closer, hips swaying

almost obscenely, bangs obscuring eyes tinted dark
by secrecy. The urge to lunge forward (or back) is
overwhelming, but Santana holds her ground because
she will be fucked if she lets some pretty-ass girl get
the best of her.

Even if that pretty-ass girl happens to be portraying all

the subtlety of a lion at dinner time.
“So if you don’t want to be friends,” Santana says
slowly, eyes dragging up the Cheerio’s undeniably fit
frame, “what exactly are you looking for? Because
right now, it’s mostly just looking like a failing grade
for gym today.”

“Tanaka doesn’t give a shit whether or not I show up,”

Brittany retorts, smirk mirroring Santana’s own. She
reaches the bench, bumping it lightly with her calves,
and twists the skirt a little higher. It would be prudent
of Santana to control her eyes, but the pale skin is too
damn tempting for its own good.

“Tanaka doesn’t give a shit about much of anything,”

Santana says, hating herself for how breathy the
words come out. “He’s a putz.”

She doesn’t like the way Brittany’s smiling. More

precisely, she likes it too damn much. If this doesn’t
go somewhere now, Santana thinks she might have
to break something as a diversion and tack the only
class she actually enjoys onto the list of “places too
dangerous to venture.”

Her question is still out there, hovering between them

nastily like a mocking ten-year-old with a water gun.
She watches Brittany’s hand trail down the side of her
skirt, flicking the pleats absently, and raises an
eyebrow.

“If you’re just going to stand there gaping at me, I’m

out of here. I’ve got a date with some fifties and a
medicine ball, neither of which has ever managed to
stalk and corner me like some kind of goddamn
creepy lioness—”

“Shut up,” Brittany says, still smiling in that

maddening, beautiful way. It’s the first time anyone
outside of her brothers or Quinn has had the balls to
give her that particular order in years; Santana’s
surprised enough to allow her teeth to click shut on
what was quickly and mortifyingly transforming into a
mother of a ramble.

“Good girl,” Brittany adds, which should sound less

sexy and more rage-inducing, but all Santana can see
is the seductive crawl the Cheerio’s fingers are
performing up the front of her uniform. She sucks in a
breath, arms clenching harder across her t-shirt.

“What the fuck do you want, Brittany?” she hears

herself ask softly, from some great distance she can’t
remember traveling.

The girl leans across the bench, planting her hands

against the lockers on either side of Santana’s
shoulders. Her lips pull back. Santana suddenly feels
like dinner.

“We’re not going to be friends,” Brittany breathes, still

too many inches away to kiss, but close enough that
her raspberry-scented lip gloss is making Santana’s
head feel heavy. “So how about we try being
something else?”

It’s cheesy.

It’s clichéd.

It’s wrong.

Santana closes her eyes, leans forward, and nods.

A/N: Title swiped from the Emily Haines & The Soft
Skeleton song of the same name.

This is exactly the opposite of everything she has

been working towards, exactly the opposite of why
she’s been kicking the shit out of her own wants and
needs since first laying eyes on this girl, and truthfully,
the whole thing is beginning to remind her
uncomfortably of a porno she saw once—but
Santana’s having one hell of a time putting a stop to
it.

“Bad idea,” she mumbles, inhaling something so

completely Brittany that her head spins. “Bad, bad,
bad idea.”

“Bad,” Brittany agrees, craning her long neck forward

until her words etch themselves lightly onto Santana’s
skin. “But we’re doing this. Aren’t we?”
“No,” Santana denies unconvincingly, lips brushing
the other girl’s like the caress of a ghost. “No, we are
not.”

“Think we are,” Brittany breathes, barely touching her,

and fuck, Santana wants so very much to die at this
moment. She feels the weight of the girl’s hands
hovering over her shoulders, sees the promise in blue
eyes, and simultaneously knows what it is to love and
hate absolutely everything.

“Think we shouldn’t,” she replies distantly, waiting,

praying for footsteps to clatter on the stairs outside.
The door’s unlocked, she remembers. Anyone could
burst in. Anyone could save them both.

“You’re not exactly running away,” Brittany points out,

and Santana really wishes the girl would refrain from
using words like ‘running’, because her lips come
even nearer when she says it. She swallows, watches
the girl’s gaze dart from her eyes to her lips and back
again.

“I am,” she insists softly, clutching her own arms so

tightly, it actually feels like she’s leaving bruises
behind. “In my head, I am halfway up those stairs
right now.”

“Your head is a crappy place,” Brittany teases, and

Santana tacks words like ‘crappy’ onto her list of
‘things Brittany’s mouth should not speak when
hovering almost flush against Santana’s’. She shakes
her head.

“If we do this—“

“Shut up,” Brittany pants softly against her mouth, and

they’re kissing now, Santana’s lips slipping and sliding
under Brittany’s assault. She whines into the other
girl, digging her nails into her own skin.

“If we do this—“

“Still talking,” Brittany admonishes, leaning

uncomfortably across the bench and pressing her
mouth ever closer.

“I need you to listen,” Santana insists, though her lips

are kissing back entirely without the input of her brain.
“I need you to hear—“

“I’ve listened enough,” Brittany proclaims, moaning

almost soundlessly when Santana catches her lip
between curious teeth and tugs. “I’ve heard it. You’re
scared. You don’t want to break me. Yada yada. It’s
old, Lopez.”

Santana can’t think of anything to say to that, so she

decides to stop operating on two separate planes of
existence at once, instead pushing off the locker and
kissing back hard. Her arms slip around Brittany’s
shoulders, yanking until the blonde makes a frustrated
noise and swings both legs over the bench, winding
one arm around Santana’s middle and punching her
right back into the wall again with a metallic clang.

“Fuck,” Santana hisses, because no matter how

turned on she is, a handle to the spine is never
delightful. Brittany makes an apologetic sound,
followed immediately by a hungry one, nipping at her
lips.

“Sorry.”

You’re going to be, Santana can’t resist thinking

morosely, splaying her fingers across the back of the
girl’s pristine uniform. It’s oddly delicate, for
something that symbolizes so much hate and anger;
only the best for Sylvester’s underlings, she
supposes. If it were any other article of clothing, she
might consider donning it herself.

But it is what it is, and there’s no denying that—even

though Brittany seems all too keen to do so, roping
Santana along for that dismal little ride.

This is such a bad idea.

She threads a hand into Brittany’s taut ponytail,

tugging a few strands loose as she gropes hopefully
for the black tie hidden within spun gold. “Why,” she
demands after a second of yanking as gently as she
can, “do you wear this stupid thing all the time,
anyway?”

“Have to,” Brittany grinds out, trailing quick, wet

kisses alone Santana’s jawbone. “Flogged if I don’t.”

It’s a mark of Sylvester’s evil reign that Santana

doesn’t even think about questioning the reality of that
claim.

“It’s stupid,” she says anyway, finally easing the tie

free and running her fingers through Brittany’s hair.
“It’s really fucking stupid. What’s the point?”

“Winning, I guess.” Brittany’s teeth graze hot skin

seconds before her tongue follows suit, licking a
blazing path to Santana’s ear. “Coach likes to win.”

“So do I,” Santana admits, groaning when blunt teeth

meet her sensitive lobe. Her body tries to arch off the
lockers, her mouth seeking Brittany’s skin; the blonde
shoves her back, hands to hips, grinning.

“Are you winning now?” she asks playfully, biting

down harder and sucking until Santana’s nails scrape
her scalp desperately.

“Could go either way at this point,” the Latina

manages. A low chuckle fills her ear.

“You’re about to get lucky in the locker room,” Brittany

points out, pulling back and raising an eyebrow. “If
this isn’t winning, you are so playing the wrong
game.”

Santana growls, pushing her hips forward. She’s

hoping to catch the girl off-guard, but Brittany meets
her halfway, kissing her with a slow, easy patience
that strikes Santana as both maddening and beautiful.
Tongues brush and caress, and though Santana may
not be much of a dancer—not the way Brittany is,
anyway—this tango is one she knows intimately. She
pulls Brittany closer, cupping the back of her head
and urging her mouth to open wider, pleased when
the girl gasps.

“You’re good,” the blonde observes when Santana

breaks off for air.

“Not good enough, if you’re still running that mouth,”

her dark-haired partner returns, smiling tensely.
Brittany laughs and kisses her again and again, body
molding close, breasts warm and weighty against
Santana’s torso.

She feels Brittany’s hand coast under her shirt, toying

against her abdomen with a child’s innocence—
something she might actually put some stock in if not
for the hearty way the Cheerio sucks down her throat,
leaving blatant marks that will be an absolute bitch to
cover up. Santana thinks she might just not bother;
Quinn will shoot her some unrepentant looks of
annoyance, and her mother will probably give that
familiar ‘my daughter is a whore’ frown, but the fact
that these marks are proof of Brittany’s place in her
life—fucked up and confusing though that place is—
almost makes it worth it.

As if sensing her drifting thoughts, Brittany gives a

particularly voracious suckle and grins into Santana’s
skin when her hips jump forward again. “Focus, stud,”
she teases, running that adventurous hand up high
enough to skim just below Santana’s sports bra.

“I’m focused,” Santana replies instantly, curving into

the girl’s touch as it inches ever-higher, kneading her
through fabric. “I’m suddenly very…very focused.”

“Awesome,” Brittany chirps, almost too sweet for what

her hand is doing under Santana’s shirt. She gives
the nipple a quick pinch, clearly pleased with its
pebble-hard response to her ministrations. Santana
catches the back of her neck, guiding pink lips back to
her own.

“We could get caught, you know,” she says when they
part, one hand tousling Brittany’s hair. She smiles. “I
like it like this. All messy. You look sexy.”

“I’m always sexy,” Brittany bites off, squeezing with

abrupt roughness. Santana groans, back bending on
command. “This is coming off now,” the blonde adds
as a sort of afterthought, grasping the hem of the shirt
and directing it upwards. Santana moves, letting her
make short work of the clothing, until she stands
naked from the waist up. She shivers.

“Fuckin’ lockers.”

“Cold?” Brittany asks innocently, tracing a winding

path between Santana’s heaving breasts with one
finger. The Latina bares her teeth, hands clenching
just under the edge of that damnable uniform top.

The banter’s fun and all, but she finds she

appreciates Brittany so much more with their lips
crushed together, sinking her tongue deep into the
blonde’s waiting mouth. Somehow, Brittany’s shirt
joins her own on the floor, and Santana finds herself
hoisted up, back scratching painfully against the
grating on the lockers, until her legs are wound
around the blonde’s waist. She moans embarassingly
loudly when Brittany’s head bows, mouth latching
onto air-cooled skin, hips advancing to press Santana
harder into the wall.

This is new; usually Santana is the aggressive one,

calling all the shots and grinding against the women
wrapped around her body. It’s new, but it’s not
necessarily bad, not with Brittany’s wildly-talented lips
doing that thing against her breast, drawing the skin in
tight and painting sizzling circles around the bud.
Santana feels her shoulders roll back, her hands
fisting in the girl’s hair, taking every wave of pleasure
with guttural retorts until the soaking heat running
down her thighs grows too intense to ignore. Her
pelvis has developed a mind of its own, as it always
does during sex, canting frenziedly into Brittany, but
thanks both to her position and the sweatpants she’s
still wearing, it isn’t doing much good.

She presses her lips against the halo of blonde hair,

tugging until Brittany’s head tilts back, eyes searching
out Santana’s. “Not enough,” she pants, kissing the
girl breathless. “More. Now.”

Brittany shifts her hands under the Latina’s thighs,

lifting her a little higher, and rears back until her body
connects with the bench. She drops into a seated
position, pulling until Santana straddles her lap, and
grins charmingly.

“Better?”

It would be cute, except the word is punctuated with a

deft roll of her hips, and even through the weight of
her sweatpants, Santana feels something. Her hands
lock around Brittany’s neck, her own body responding
with a hungry rhythm, and it doesn’t matter that they
aren’t touching as much or as perfectly as she needs.
Brittany has one hand on her hip, the other palming
her cheek, her mouth fluid and wanting as she kisses
Santana to the point of stupidity. It isn’t enough in the
way Santana is so accustomed to, the shiver-all-over-
and-scream breaking point, but it feels blissful all the
same.
She loses track of time as they ride together,
Brittany’s breath hitching each time Santana comes
down against her. She loses track of everything—who
she is, how she is, the darkness her name pins her
with. She loses track of the locker room, of the
absurdity that is her involvement in Glee Club, of how
very much she despises McKinley and the
unoriginality it stands for. Her thighs clench on either
side of Brittany, her knees prying into the wood, and
though the angle is awful and there is still far too
much clothing involved, their kisses are hungry
without being hostile, delicious in some desperate
way. It’s something Santana has never known before,
this feeling of utter desire without loathing, the rub of
Brittany’s tongue against her own, of Brittany’s
breasts against her own, of Brittany’s smile under
hers.

The warm hand on her hip slides around, Brittany’s

body bucking up, and Santana finds herself rising up
on her knees just enough to create space for that
hand to move in. Her mouth swings open at the first
press of Brittany against her, burning through the
sweats, cupping with light pressure.

Brittany’s eyes meet hers, uncertain for the first time.

“Okay?” she asks softly, grinding her palm carefully
up when Santana releases a low whine. “Good?”

Santana can only nod feverishly, riding up and down,

urging the heel of the girl’s hand where it needs to go.
She clutches the back of Brittany’s neck, fingers
sweeping under thick waves, nails digging in,
groaning when Brittany’s fingers replace her palm.
The girl rubs in slow, heavy motions, each stroke a
promise of something deeper and more real, and
Santana’s body carries itself away without her
consent.

She kisses the blonde again, reaches down, wraps

slim fingers around Brittany’s wrist. Shifting, she
pushes their hands down the front of her sweats, into
the underwear lurking beneath, and moans huskily as
Brittany curls straight inside. Bowing her back,
Santana impales herself upon strong fingers, her own
hand stroking her clit in sharp, fanatical motions that
directly oppose the measured, deliberate pattern of
Brittany’s thrusts.

She’s never been one to keep her eyes open during

sex—has never particularly cared to see who’s doing
the deed—but right now, it would be impossible to
look away. Brittany’s eyes seem to go on forever,
dark rings tinging vibrant blue. Santana gazes deep,
taking every thrust and twist with rocking hips, making
mad, wild sounds the likes of which she’s never heard
before. She strokes herself hard, slamming down with
her whole body, walls clenching convulsively, and
tastes Brittany’s pleased groan as she cries out.

Brittany kisses her until the aftershocks fade away,

until Santana can find the energy to slip from the
Cheerio’s lap, hand easing out of her sweatpants.
She kneels on the concrete ground, fully aware of
how unsanitary it is (for Christ’s sake, she’s having
sex in a high school locker room—how hygienically
appealing could any of it be?), and runs her hands up
Brittany’s legs, spreading the girl.

Blonde hair shivers, Brittany’s hand finding the top of

Santana’s head and gently coaxing her down. She
smiles, hooking her fingers into the material blocking
her path and pulling until she’s faced with a red skirt
and light curls.

She tilts her head up, peering at Brittany through

hooded eyes, enjoying the heat from the hand
pressing down. “Hi.”

Brittany’s lips quiver. “Hi.”

She feels words on her tongue, waiting to be

released. It’s so tempting to tell the girl everything—
why she pushes her away, what her family is like,
what Santana is like. But the hand on her head is
pushing gently, guiding her, and Santana allows the
distraction to happen. It’s so much easier—so much
better—to lower her mouth to Brittany’s flushed skin,
to trace intricate little patterns with her tongue against
swollen flesh, to loop her arms under the girl’s open
legs and run one hand up firm abs. It’s so much better
—so much safer—to lick and suck, feeling the weighty
press of Brittany’s heels against her shoulders,
hearing the throaty appreciative moans reverberating
off the walls as Brittany thrusts up into her mouth. She
opens her eyes, gazing up the plane that is Brittany,
to see the Cheerio’s head thrown back, her lips
forming unintelligible words. The hand in her hair tugs
hard enough to hurt in some faraway delicious way,
urging her closer; Santana bumps her nose against
the girl’s clit, drags her tongue up and down and in.

Brittany’s free hand remains on the bench, steadying

her body as she bends up onto the air, hips churning
almost hard enough to dislodge the dark-haired girl
between her knees. The ground is getting harder and
colder under Santana, her legs whimpering in
frustration, but Brittany is beginning to wail, thighs
clamping around Santana’s head. The pain fades off,
distracted by the way Brittany cups the back of the
her neck under her hair, begging silently. Santana
flattens her tongue, scratches her nails up the
blonde’s all-too-perfect abs, and sucks greedily at the
wettest, softest part of the girl. She feels Brittany
explode, feels the trembling in her muscles and the
release of every inch of tension she’s ever carried,
and closes her eyes against a sudden sadness.

It takes a moment to work up the motivation to pull

away; her mouth isn’t done, isn’t ready to leave this
world behind, her ears unprepared for the idea that
she will likely never hear those sounds of desperate
pleasure again. She trails long, lazy licks down one of
Brittany’s thighs, kisses her way slowly and serenely
back up the way she came, feels pale fingers drawing
shapes on the nape of her neck.

Brittany makes a low purring sound, tilting her hips to

receive the open-mouthed kiss Santana leaves on
slippery flesh. “Mm. Not bad, Lopez.”

Dark eyes flash, unreasonably put off by both the

cavalier use of her last name and the implication
behind it. “Not bad? You want to go again, Blondie?”

Though she’s joking, her entire body jolts excitedly,

arousal snapping straight to her core again. Brittany
smiles lazily down, fingers coasting through dark hair,
tapping her toes against Santana’s upper back.

“I’m up if you are,” she says casually, bright eyes

sparkling, and Santana has to bite down on a sense
of extreme lust. She wants to say no—needs to say
no—because this cannot be a thing. Sex isn’t dating,
it’s true (hell, it doesn’t even have to be friendship;
she’s never before had sex with someone she didn’t
in some way look down on or deplore), but that
doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerous. She should say no,
extricate herself from the dancer-strong legs around
her, pull her sports bra and shirt back on and go
upstairs. She should go to class.

But Brittany’s sitting up there in her red bra and skirt,

expression so open and hopeful that Santana thinks
it’s a wonder they haven’t both lost their minds from
this whole thing. Maybe they have; maybe that’s what
this is. She’s concerned, she can’t deny it, but Brittany
is tracing what she thinks might be a duck into the
back of her neck, and she’s smiling, and Santana has
never before felt quite this wrecked.

She crawls up, back into the blonde’s lap, hooking her
fingers under the straps of the girl’s bra and pulling
her close. It’s bad, she thinks as her mouth descends
feverishly, and it’s wrong, and Quinn is going to be so
confused when this comes to light, but she can’t help
it.

And anyway, what’s one more time?

Brittany’s tongue vibrates against the roof of her

mouth, and suddenly Santana isn’t thinking so much
anymore.

A/N: Title swiped from the Emily Haines & The Soft
Skeleton song of the same name.

Maddeningly, it’s like nothing has changed. They see

each other in the halls, between classes, in Glee, and
nothing happens. Nothing explodes. No part of
McKinley comes crashing down. There is no
screaming, no bleeding, no dinosaur stampede or
invasion of those creepy-ass bastards from Alien.

Nothing ends, but Santana can’t shake the feeling

that it’s only a matter of time.

She tries to distract herself from such bleak thoughts,

because frankly, Brittany doesn’t seem too damaged
by what they’ve done. The smiles sent across the
choir room are the same, but the girl hasn’t attempted
anything further—which, if she’s honest with herself,
is kind of making Santana crazier than ever. It isn’t
that she wants to keep shoving Brittany away, but the
idea that she could have fucked the girl until she
screamed and then not received a follow-up in
attention is just plain baffling.

When she snaps one afternoon and grouses this to

Quinn, the blonde’s eyebrows just about dive into her
hair.

“You’re kidding,” she says flatly, staring Santana

down. It’s October now, nearing fast on November,
and though it is too chilly for this sort of thing, they’re
laying out on Santana’s roof. It’s the sort of activity
she can only finagle her friend into doing once in a
great while (Quinn’s got this whole mad thing about
heights, ever since an incident with her tree house in
the fourth grade), whenever Quinn is at a particularly
serene place in her life.

Which, as she’s started tutoring Rachel Berry in

Spanish—a circumstance both convenient and (in
Santana’s mind) totally unnecessary, since Rachel is
notorious for her precise note-taking skills and honor
roll status—is unavoidable.

For the first time since Santana can remember, Quinn

is more likely to be happy than not. It’s awkward, and
confusing, and Santana is happy for her.

She only wishes her own life were traveling down a

similar path. Instead, she gets this: memories of
flicking her tongue between Brittany’s legs, of sticky
heat and sweaty skin, of Brittany screaming her name
until she was forced to clap one hand over the girl’s
mouth to prevent them from being found out. She gets
to indulge in dream after unwanted dream of things
they haven’t even done (showers seem remarkably
prevalent; Santana actually kind of hates shower sex,
for all its bumbling, slippery nature, but the idea of
pressing Brittany face-first into one of the dividing
walls and pounding three fingers into her from behind
is entirely too alluring). She gets, in short, to live
inside her own head, feeling progressively more
obscene every time the blonde turns a sunny smile on
her as they sing about togetherness or undying love
or whatever the hell it is Schuester’s picked out that
week.

It’s making her completely insane, but not quite

insane enough to break past her own guard rails.
Which, Santana supposes darkly, she should be
thankful for. It’s keeping the balance.

“Santana,” Quinn says, concern flashing all over her

face, “let me see if I’ve got this right. You meet a girl
—pretty as hell, totally into you for some ungodly,
illogical reason—and you tell her you can’t be friends.
You tell her this over and over again, until she finally
takes the hint. And then, out of nowhere, you fuck the
shit out of her in the locker room—and suddenly
you’re the wounded puppy? Suddenly, you’re all
upset that she’s not hopping along at your heels,
desperate for another go-round?”

“Something like that,” Santana mutters, eyes on the

sky. A cloud strongly resembling John Lennon
saunters past; her gaze bores into it like it’s the most
intriguing thing to cross her path.

“But you don’t want to date her,” Quinn presses, rising

up on one elbow and fixing Santana with an arch look.

“Can’t,” Santana replies as coolly as she knows how.

“You just want to screw her?” Quinn asks, clearly

doing her best to restrain the horror in her voice and
doing a damn poor job of it. Santana flinches.

“Can’t really do that either,” she says, choosing not to

comment on how, no, she does not want to ‘screw’
the girl. She just wants to make her happy. Very, very,
scream-and-shiver-and-shatter happy. Again.

“Why?” Quinn demands, leaning over until her

irritated face fills Santana’s entire field of vision. The
dark-haired girl tries to glance away; Quinn’s fingers
latch around both cheeks, squeezing like she’s some
five-year-old who’s just swallowed a quarter.
”Santana. Come on, I'm done with this whole bottle-it-
up routine. Talk to me.”

“I…” Santana frowns. This shouldn’t be so hard; it’s

fucking Quinn, for God’s sake. This is the girl who has
seen her at her very worst and not batted an eye, the
girl who watched her fall off her two-wheeler for the
first time, who gripped her shoulder when Santana got
her first tattoo, who picked her up the first night she
tried a little too much vodka. This is the girl who has
gone along with every harebrained scheme Santana
has ever cooked up involving fireworks, spray paint,
or stolen lunch money. The girl who cradled Santana
on the nights her parents’ fighting grew to be too
much, prompting the ten-year-old to clamber out her
window and sprint under cover of darkness down the
street. The girl who silently bandaged her split
knuckles the day she found out her father was
leaving, unable to process the jumbled emotions
warring within her eleven-year-old body. The girl who
accepts every word, every misstep, every shred of
chaos that is Santana with a shrug and a glancing
punch to the shoulder. It’s Quinn.

Quinn, who is staring at her now with unshrouded

concern, because this is the first time in their lives
Santana has held something back.
She inhales, a whistling breath through her teeth, and
clenches her hands behind her head. “I’m scared,”
she admits finally, raising her eyes to stare above
Quinn’s hairline.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees one eyebrow

curiously lift. “Of her?”

“Of me,” Santana says, voice rough with raw honesty.

“She’s perfect, Quinn. Cheerios and all that shit aside,
she is fucking incredible. I mean, have you seen her
move? The way she dances, like there’s nothing
between her feet and the air? And the way she
speaks—it’s like she just loves every goddamn inch of
this life. She’s so…vibrant, so lively, and everyone
fucking adores her. She’s…Brittany.”

To her credit, Quinn waits wordlessly. Santana

breathes.

“I don’t even know her,” she continues dumbly. “I

don’t know her at all. She doesn’t know me. I don’t…I
don’t get how this can be so strong, this thing
between us. She’s a cheerleader with a nice smile,
and that should be all, but it’s not. And I can’t deal
with that right now. I’m…I’m barely getting through
each day, you know? Like always. Get up, go through
the motions, slam through every obstacle until it’s
time to sleep again. My only focus is getting out.
Except now…now, it’s not. Now it’s her. And when
she approached me in that locker room, when she
kissed me and didn’t give me that chance to squirm
out, I thought maybe it would be enough. Just once,
just one time, feeling her, feeling it—and then I would
let it go.”

“But you haven’t,” Quinn finishes, brushing a lock of

hair out of Santana’s eyes with startling tenderness
when the wind stirs it. She blinks.

“Not remotely. And…I mean, you know me. You knew

my dad. You know everything. Quinn, I can’t go two
days without ramming my fist down someone’s throat.
I go to that school every day, telling myself to chill the
fuck out, to keep my hands to myself. And then I see
Mallory, or one of her bitch friends, or Karofsky or
Azimo, and I just…they’re soulless. They don’t care
about anything outside of the moment, outside of
putting on their letterman jackets and running
everything. They’re futureless little machines straight
out of a goddamn nineties teen flick, and still
everyone falls to their knees in front of them. It makes
me so fucking mad, what they have, what they
haven’t done to earn it. And I lose it. I see the way
everyone scurries out of their way, I see the way the
teachers bow and scrape, I see the uselessness of it
all, and it hurts. And I need to hurt something back.”

Her throat is beginning to burn. She swallows hard. “I

can’t stop. I can’t stop hurting people, I can’t stop
hating people. And my mom…she looks at me with
this…emptiness. This hollow expression, like she’s
too tired to even be disappointed anymore. She
doesn’t even try to make me…better, or more
worthwhile, or less him. She looks at me, and I can
tell she wants something more, but I can’t…I can’t put
my finger on it. I can’t give it to her.

“These looks Brittany keeps giving me? The ones

she’s been giving me since that first week of school?
They’re the looks my mom used to get on her face,
before he left. These little hopeful smiles, like if she
waits long enough for all the bad stuff to fade out,
something really amazing will be left behind.
Something to make it worth it. Brittany looks at me
like she thinks that, even though she doesn’t know the
first thing about me, even though I won’t let her near
enough to see, there will still be that moment.
Someday. When it’s all worthwhile, when it all makes
sense. But the thing is, it won’t. Life doesn’t happen
that way. Even if I make it out of this crappy town,
even if I walk away forever, I’ll still be me. I’ll still have
him. I’ll still be so angry, and so fucking certain of the
stupidity of this whole thing, and...that’s just never
going to be enough for her. She doesn’t know it yet,
but someday, she will. I can’t watch that realization
dawn again.”

Spent, she closes her eyes and presses her lips into a
thin line. Above her, she can feel the weight of
Quinn’s frown.

There is silence for just about forever, and then Quinn

says softly, “Hey, Lopez?”

She cracks one eye, chest crushing inward with self-

pity. “What?”

The hand comes down faster and harder than

anticipated, smashing across one cheek with single-
minded force. Caught off-guard, Santana shrieks and
flails automatically back, catching Quinn across the
mouth with the back of her hand.

The blonde glares down at her, apparently

unconcerned with the blow she’s just taken. “You,”
she hisses murderously, “are a fucking idiot.”

Jerking up on her elbows, Santana gapes at her.

“What the fuck, Fabray?”

Quinn pokes a finger into her face, glowering stonily.

“I don’t even know where to start. First—idiot. You are
not your fucking father. You’re a bitch, yeah, okay.
You’ve got some anger management issues, and you
would probably benefit from some serious fucking
therapy, but Jesus, Santana. You’ve never done what
he did. Ever. You’ve done some jacked up shit, but he
was…he was incredible. He was beyond anything you
could ever dream to do to someone. Get that through
your fat-ass head right the fuck now, because I do not
know how to say it more clearly.”

Cupping her cheek, Santana stares. “What—“

“Shut the fuck up,” Quinn snarls, threatening cocking
her wrist back again. “Second—what the hell are you
doing, plotting out what it is Brittany wants or needs or
whatever? You’ve known her for like three months.
You talk occasionally, you’ve fucked once, and that’s
it. You think you, like, love her or some shit? You
think you know what’s best? You think you can
protect her from something? You don’t even know her
favorite friggin’ color, Santana. You’ve never seen her
house, or asked if she likes Thai food, or held a
conversation that lasted more than a few tense-as-
shit minutes. I know you think the sun shines out of
her perfect little ass, but for all you know, the girl
could be more fucked up than even you are. Get the
hell over yourself, Lopez. Ask her on a fucking date,
bring her a chocolate bar, but don’t do this noble
Peter Parker bullshit. It is the stupidest thing I have
ever heard from you.”

“I—“

“And third,” Quinn powers on, running both hands

through her hair with blind aggravation, “will you
knock off this feeling sorry for yourself thing? You are
Santana motherfucking Lopez, all right? You think the
world bends to the will of football players and
Cheerios? The whole school respects your ass.
Sometimes literally—your ass. Sure, they’re kind of
petrified you’ll beat the shit of them if you’re crossed,
but for the most part, they respect you. Okay? This
whining, ‘my daddy issues are consuming my soul’
bullshit is so not going to help. You’re a fucking head
bitch, babe. Own it.”

“Quinn—“

“Finally,” Quinn says, gradually growing calmer.

“Finally, I’ve got this to say, and I'm thinking it'll sound
kind of familiar. You want the girl? You can’t eat, can’t
sleep, can’t stop, even though you know there’s no
rhyme, reason, or reality to it? Do something about it.
Do something now. Because I’ve seen the way Finn
looks at her, the way Mike dances with her. She’s not
going to be available for long. She’s not going to wait
around forever. She likes you, Lopez, and you’d do
well not to fuck that up before you’ve even gotten
started. You’re not going to find another girl that crazy
again anytime soon. And believe me, she has got to
be out of her fool mind, to want your whiny, punch-
happy ass.”

She sits back on her haunches, rests her hands on

her thighs, and smirks. Her lip is bleeding lightly, her
hair a tangled mess. Santana has never seen her so
satisfied.

“Where,” she asks at last, “did that come from?”

“Truth hurts, baby,” the blonde replies smartly. “What,

you think you’re the only one with the right to snap
people back to the real world?”
Two weeks ago, Santana would have immediately
answered yes. Right now, she’s kind of thankful her
best friend is an opinionated bitch with low tolerance
for anyone’s whining apart from her own.

“What am I going to do?” she asks as calmly as she is

able. Quinn smiles.

“Lopez, you are going to get your shit together.”

It is the best and worst advice she has ever received.

Slowly, painfully, Santana grins.

A/N: Title swiped from the Emily Haines & The Soft
Skeleton song of the same name.

Come the next day, Santana intends to take Quinn’s

advice—although, really, why she’d do a stupid thing
like that is beyond her. Quinn is her best friend in the
world and all that crap, but her being a hapless
romantic and something of a hypocritical wimp who
still hasn’t advanced beyond guitar solos and history
books when it comes to Rachel Berry…well, Santana
almost thinks she’d be better off going to Puck for
input. Except, of course, for the part where his
inevitable counsel would come in the form of strap-
ons and handcuffs—assuming he was even able to
speak around his own raging hormones to begin with.

Santana sometimes thinks she needs to find more

useful friends.

The point is, she intends to take Quinn’s advice, as

ridiculous as it feels. She wakes with butterflies
playing bocce ball in her stomach, anxiety running
rampant over her usual cool demeanor. She’s out of it
enough to trip down the stairs for the first time in
years. She burns her hand on her morning Pop-Tart.
She comes real, real damn close to forgetting to tie
her shoes.

It’s a weird morning, but when she piles into Quinn’s

piece of shit vehicle, she’s still feeling determined.
She’s going to get her shit together. She’s going to
make this day different.

Except, somehow, Brittany doesn’t seem to be in

school.

Not that Santana is actively seeking the girl out, or

anything (she has decided stalking takes too much
effort to be her thing), but it’s weird not to see her
around. It usually seems like Brittany is everywhere,
hovering on her periphery with a preternatural talent
for making her head spin. Today? Nothing.

It’s a good thing Santana is exceptionally skilled at

pretending not to be a champion worrier.

Quinn, predictably, is unsupportive. “Maybe

Sylvester’s training program of doom finally took her
out.”

Santana groans, burying her head in her arms. “Shut

up.”

“What?” Hazel eyes bat innocently down the table.

“Shit happens, San.”

“Shut up,” Santana growls a second time, batting

Quinn’s hand away when the girl reaches out. “This is
your fault, you know. Being all…’act like a normal
person, Santana; ask the girl out on a date, Santana’.
You’ve thrown off the balance of the universe.”

“Yes,” Quinn drawls sardonically. “As retribution, said

universe has clearly shipped Brittany off to Iceland.
That is totally how it works.”

“Totally,” Santana mutters mournfully, tucking her chin

under her arms so only her eyes and up are visible.
Rolling her own eyes, Quinn smacks the top of her
head.

“You’re an idiot,” she says, not without a certain

amount of affection. “The chick probably caught a
stomach bug or something. Maybe from necking with
you in the least sanitary corner of this school. Don’t
fucking freak out over it.”

It’s another batch of advice Santana truly intends to

follow, but she can’t help herself. Something feels off.
She sleepwalks through the remainder of the day, not
bothering to rouse even when a couple of the male
Cheerios fire catcalls after her. On a normal day, she
would beat the living crap out of them for it—or die
trying (not entirely figurative, she supposes; the last
time she dared lay a hand on a Cheerio, only blind
luck prevented Sylvester from gunning her down from
the high-rise seat in her bright red Hummer)—but
today, she feels drained. It’s as if her entire body
spent the night pumping itself up for an emotional
triathlon, and now, without the proper outlet, she has
more or less shut down.

It is—

“Pathetic,” Quinn observes coolly, pushing hard on

the Diet Coke option on the school’s one and only
vending machine. “Come on, you fucker.”

“Figgins hasn’t paid to refill it in two weeks,” Santana

says monotonously, leaning into the tiny space
between the box Quinn is swearing at and the wall.
“His hands are tied, don’t you know.”

“Fuck Figgins,” Quinn curses, pounding the machine

half-heartedly with the side of her fist. She grimaces,
shaking out her hand. “Damn. How do you go around
punching people all the time? It’s like bruising yourself
for shits and giggles.”
“Tends to bruise other people more.” Santana shrugs.
“Takes the edge off. So have you seen her?”

“Seen wh—oh.” The blonde shakes her head almost

regretfully. “Santana, sweetheart, you have got to pull
it together. When I said you should go for it, I didn’t
mean with a single-minded lack of grace reminscent
of a fucking Twilight character. You’re kind of starting
to creep my shit out.”

Santana chews on her lip contemplatively. “It’s just…I

want to get this out of the way. You know me; you
know how I am with waiting.”

“Shithouse,” Quinn provides helpfully. It’s an

assessment Santana can’t exactly argue with.

They set off down the hall, Quinn still muttering about
cheapskate authority figures and caffeine
withdrawals. It takes all of three minutes for Santana’s
frazzled state of mind to be put into words.

“Oh, God, Lopez,” Quinn snaps at last. “You’re

seriously worried about this, aren’t you?”

Santana becomes abruptly enamored with her own

sneakers. A semi-irritated fist swings into her arm,
catching her just above the elbow.

“She’s fine,” Quinn jabs, shaking out her hand again.

“She probably forgot to write a paper or something
and skivved off to get it done. Also, ouch. Seriously,
that hitting people thing? Totally irrational. Leads only
to bruising and ice packs.”

“There’s a reason you’ve never been the brawn of our

little operation,” Santana taunts wryly, tucking her
hands into her pockets and looking back at the floor
again. “And, no, I’m not…worried. Exactly. More
like…mildly concerned.”

“She’s fine,” Quinn repeats. “She’s fine, and you’re

late. Again. Get to class, felon.”

“Fuck off, hypocrite,” Santana returns. Quinn flips her

the bird.

“I’m telling her tonight!” she shouts back over her

shoulder, words almost lost in the rushing hallway din.
Santana widens her eyes in mock surprise.

“I’ll believe it when you’re sucking face with the

midget, and not a minute before.”

That finger again. Santana smirks. She might be a

mess and a half today, but let it never be said she’s
not talented at irking those who need to be irked.

A glance at the nearest clock tells her Quinn was right

about the being late thing. Not that she especially
cares; it isn’t like she’s ever going to use Biology in
the real world. But she figures there’s something to be
said for not flunking out midway through her junior
year, since she’s managed to come this far and all.
And also since it’s taken her this long to meet
someone who makes her actually want to stick
around.

Or, more accurately, makes her want to grasp the girl

around the waist, toss her over Santana’s shoulder,
and board the first bus to New York. Whichever.

She’s three doors from the correct classroom (she

thinks; she kind of hasn’t been there all week, and
she’s found the rooms in this building are
exceptionally talented at blurring together after a
while) when a hand snaps out from what she believes
to be a lab room, grabbing her by the back of her t-
shirt and hauling her bodily inside.

The door clicks shut, and for one bizarre instant,

Santana has a mental image of McKinley’s entire nerd
population, banding together at last and bearing down
on her like a singular buzzing vengeance entity.

She turns sharply on her heel, fists raised in

preparation, only to be met with an amused cobalt
gaze.

“Hi,” Brittany says, like she hasn’t been suspiciously

absent all day long—and, also, Santana thinks warily,
like this isn’t the first time they’ve been alone together
since the locker room.
“Hi,” she replies, not because she thinks that’s a
legitimate response under the circumstances, but
because twenty-four hours were just enough time to
dull the heat that flows through her at the sight of that
goddamn uniform. Now that she’s been properly
reminded, it’s a wonder she’s still standing so many
feet away from the blonde.

“What’s up?” Brittany asks, as cheerful as she’s ever

been, and it’s weird how very nonchalant this whole
thing is. Like Brittany didn’t just more or less kidnap
her into this room.

“I’m never going to pass a class again if you keep

getting in the way.” It isn’t what Santana wants to say
at all—she’s much more interested in dropping to her
knees and panting out a whole poorly-constructed
diatribe involving trust issues, asshole fathers, and
habitual fight clubs, actually—but it will do in a pinch.
She reaches discreetly behind herself, clutching at a
desk with white knuckles. Brittany smiles.

“You don’t like class,” she observes in that same mild

tone, swinging her clasped hands in front of her body.
Against her will, Santana stares, remembering exactly
what those hands are capable of.

“Um,” she says, a pillar of intellectualism. Brittany’s

grin stretches wider across her face.
“Besides,” the girl says brightly, “you’ve missed me.
Don’t deny it.”

She couldn’t even if it weren’t the truth. It’s not that

Santana Lopez is an inept liar (please; she’s
practically a goddamn gold medalist) so much as that
she’s got a sincere weakness for those eyes.

“Where have you been?” she asks, instead of biting

off some retort about neither wanting nor needing
Brittany around to begin with. As she watches,
something visibly melts off the taller girl. She stands a
little straighter, skirt swishing a little less frenetically
around strong thighs.

“Around,” Brittany says, almost coolly. Santana

arches an eyebrow.

“Around where? Sylvester’s reign of homicidal terror

is impressive, but even she requires you to attend
classes here and there.”

“Oh, is that why you’ve never joined?” The words are

teasing, but something is still off about the way
Brittany is holding herself. Santana frowns.

“That, and I value my soul just enough not to sell it to

the devil. Seriously, around where?”

“Just…” Brittany blows out a breath, and Santana

catches herself thinking the girl is actually trying to
hide something from her. It amazes her how strange
this seems.

“I’ve been looking for you,” she blurts, before Brittany

can weave a reasonable enough lie. She doesn’t want
to hear it, actually—doesn’t want to know that Brittany
is capable of such things. Lying is a Lopez quality, a
Puckerman quality, a Fabray quality. She doesn’t
want it to be a Brittany quality too.

She’s not sure what she expects, but when Brittany

quirks an eyebrow, her beautiful face splitting into an
intrigued smile, it feels about right.

“Have you really?” the blonde asks, leaning back

against the teacher’s desk with arms crossed over her
uniform front. Santana shrugs.

“Kind of.”

“Kind of, or really?” Brittany presses, lips parting in

the halting birth of a giggle. Santana’s more than a
little uncomfortable now; people just don’t see her like
this. It’s not allowed. She’s pretty sure there’s a law
written about it, and if there isn’t, she’ll have one
penned and faxed in by seventh period.

At any rate, Brittany doesn’t wait for a response. She

pushes off the desk and fairly struts closer, skirt flitting
distractingly, grinning all the while like she knows just
how dry Santana’s mouth has gone at the sight.
“You’ve been looking for me,” she drawls, twisting her
thumbs in the belt loops of Santana’s jeans and
reeling her slowly in. “All day?”

Santana thinks about denying it, but the whole point

behind Quinn’s half-assed little plan is truth-telling. It’s
not something she’s innately good at, perhaps, but
everyone has to start somewhere.

“All day,” she confirms at last, heart feeling just a little

too full when Brittany’s familiar smile bursts across
her face. It’s not quite as clear as usual, perhaps;
there’s something taut there, residing just below the
surface, which is weird. In the large handful of weeks
they’ve known each other, Brittany’s smile has not
once looked strained in the least. It’s weird, but it’s a
smile nonetheless, and in Santana’s world, a smile is
perplexing enough on its own.

“Why?” Brittany challenges, fingertips hot through

denim. Santana swallows.

“Because,” she says, willing her voice to be still.

“Quinn told me I should…”

“Mm?” She wonders how she’s supposed to think with

Brittany doing this—smiling, holding on so firmly, her
body pressing warm and close and real in a way
Santana is just not accustomed to. She wonders how
she’s supposed to achieve anything at all with Brittany
standing inches away, hips jutting forward to nudge
against Santana’s own, looking up through her
eyelashes like some perverse attempt at purity.

(She’s seen this girl with her legs arched up, one
hand positioned firmly on the back of Santana’s head,
groaning like her whole world was coming apart with
the force of her orgasm—if there is one thing Santana
Lopez now knows, it is how not pure Brittany is.)

“Quinn told me I should tell you,” she forces out at

last, trying to ignore the teasing stroke of two fingers
against the small of her back. “Tell you that I…uh…”

Spit it out, Lopez. Get your shit together. Man up;

don’t be Quinn.

“Ikindofmaybelikeyoualittle,” she closes out, staring

Brittany in the eye. The blonde’s forehead creases in
confusion.

“What?”

“Just a little,” Santana surges on, hooking her hands

into her back pockets and taking a reflexive rocking
step back. “I’m not like…in love with you or
something. That’s stupid.”

That beautiful brow furrows deeper. “It is?”

“Well. Yeah. I mean…love. Love is stupid. It’s all…

coarse and needy and you can’t rely on it for
anything.” This is all coming out so wrong, but she
can’t seem to shut herself up, can’t seem to find the
nozzle for this particular stream. “Once you fall in
love, you get all douchebaggy and useless. Weak.
And people always wind up hurt. Someone ends up
leaving, or—worse—everyone ends up staying, and
it’s just a big fucking mess.” She swallows a lungful of
air, gulping until it burns to breathe. “So I’m not. In
love. With anyone.”

Brittany cocks an eyebrow, looking much less

seductive and much more legitimately confounded by
the whole word vomit fiasco. “So you were looking for
me all day to tell me…you’re not in love with me?”

“Yes,” Santana replies, then winces. “No. Ish.”

“Ish.” Something hard is casting its way over

Brittany’s delicate features—something Santana
decides immediately (as immediately as she crashed
down on her head for this girl to begin with, in point of
fact) not to like. She hurries to explain, to untangle
this mess before it freezes in a sterling knot of threads
twisted too finely together.

“Quinn keeps telling me that I’m being stupid with this

whole…protecting you vibe. She wanted me to get off
my high horse, stop being a coward. Which, when you
think about the way she’s been drooling over Berry for
fuckin’ forever, is kind of a huge joke. But anyway, the
thing is, she’s right. She’s right, I’ve been a wuss, and
there’s no excuse. So I’m asking you out. I owe it to…
one of us.” She’s a little confused herself, to be
honest. “I’m not entirely sure which one.”

“This is you asking me out?” Brittany asks

disbelievingly, dropping her hands from Santana’s
sides. The dark-haired girl misses the warm,
comforting weight instantly.

“Yes,” she replies dumbly. “Kind of. Ish.”

Blue eyes flash almost dangerously. “Say ‘ish’ again,”

Brittany says, too calmly. “That’ll help.”

“Look,” Santana says, sort of desperate and sort of

angry at the same time, “this isn’t my decision, okay?
I shouldn’t be doing this at all, I shouldn’t even be
talking to you. Okay? You’re a goddamn Cheerio.
Your kind hasn’t done me any favors in three years at
this god-forsaken school, and I’m not expecting
anything especially wonderful to start now. Especially
given, y’know, who I am. I’m not expecting anything,
but my ass is getting ridden so hard over this. I hate it,
okay, I hate that you’re a fucking cheerleader, and I
hate that I can’t stop thinking about you, and this
whole thing is so fucking stupid, but I needed you to
know. Okay? I needed to tell you before it ate its way
out of me.”

It takes less than two seconds to realize how not the

right thing to say that all was. If she thought Brittany
seemed cold before, the girl has now gone downright
glacial. Santana fidgets uncomfortably.

“Say something,” she snaps, annoyed with how

nervous she feels. It doesn’t help that Brittany’s
response is to retreat two steps.

“You know what I’m sick of?” the girl says in a

distressingly detached, eerily conversational, tone of
voice. “You know what’s really getting old? This…
Santana Lopez versus the Cheerios bullshit. That’s
getting so very tired. I have been at this school for
almost three months now. I’ve been a Cheerio for
almost four. I’ve been watching you since that first
damn day, and do you know what I’ve seen? Nothing.
Not one hint of a two-sided war between you and my
‘people’, as you call them so casually. I’ve seen you
being angry, and snippy, and kind of a bitch, and I’ve
seen people like Mallory giving you as good as you
send out, but that is it. I’m tired of you telling me you
can’t be my friend, or my girlfriend, or whatever it is
this week, all because I chose to do something with
my high school career other than paint curse words
on walls and beat up anyone who looks at me
sideways. I’m tired of the fucking excuse you keep
falling back on. It’s boring, Santana. I am bored. Find
a new damn song to sing.”

Santana’s mouth drops open, her eyes narrowing on

instinct. “You don’t know the first thing about me, or
about why I do what I do—,” she begins sharply.
Brittany throws both hands into the air, bowing her
head with an aggressive little toss of her ponytail.

“I don’t,” she agrees. “And right now, God help me, I

don’t even know why I want to. You’re crazy,
Santana. It’s a very attractive kind of crazy, and God
knows I’m interested, but you can’t tell me you’re not.
I don’t know what your problem is, and right now, I
don’t care. I want you. You want me. Whenever
you’re ready to get your head out of your pretty little
ass and stop this pathetic fucking vendetta, whenever
you're ready to see past this stupid uniform and look
at me? You feel free to give me a call.”

She’s halfway to the door before she pauses and

flicks over her shoulder, “Oh, and today? I skipped
class to look for the perfect place to try one more time
to ask you out. I thought after the other day, if I could
find the exact right place to do it, you might be ready
to grow the fuck up and be happy. Guess that was a
mistake, huh?”

Before Santana can so much as swallow against the

tightening stone in her throat, she’s gone. The Latina
purses her lips, fingers clenching around the edge of
a desk.

“Fuck me,” she hisses. “Fuck me.”

A/N: Title swiped from the Emily Haines & The Soft
Skeleton song of the same name.
“Well,” Quinn says calmly. “That wasn’t exactly what
we rehearsed, was it?”

Santana’s only response is to kick the wall as hard as

she can. Which, considering the relatively flimsy
nature of her sneaker, is possibly not the best option.
She winces.

“Hey,” Quinn snaps, “no holes in my parents’ walls. In

about two days, I’m going to have to tell them about
Rachel, and I need them as well-buttered as possible
for the occasion.”

Because Quinn, fuck it all, actually held up her side of

the bargain. And now Quinn, fuck it all, has that “I’ve
got a girlfriend” look obnoxiously splayed all over her
stupidly pretty face.

Right now, Santana would prefer to be kicking Quinn,

rather than this wall. She bites her tongue, resisting.

“How did this even happen?” her friend goes on,

oblivious to how closely she is edging to new bruises.
“How on earth does ‘ask her out’ warp into ‘insult her
enough to make her leave’?”

“I have no idea!” Santana growls, though that isn’t

entirely true. “I was just…talking.”

She pretends to ignore the arch look Quinn slides

down the desk. “You talking,” the blonde comments
with a certain amount of serenity, “is rarely a good
thing where girls are concerned. Or have you
forgotten how every person you’ve ever slept with
hates your ever-lovin’ guts?”

“Nope,” Santana grinds out through her teeth.

“Haven’t forgotten. Thanks, Q.”

She watches the blonde swivel from side to side in

her desk chair. It’s more than a little annoying how
even her hair seems blindly cheerful, all swishy and
pleased.

“Next time,” Quinn is saying when she tunes back in

(that hair is damn distracting; she thinks that might
explain how Quinn was so successful with the
brunette midget she’s been jonesing for—instead of
opening her mouth, she probably flicked the girl in the
face a couple of times with that hair and bada bing,
insta-girlfriend), “maybe you should try keeping to the
script.”

“What script?” Santana asks dully, flopping back on

the bed and folding both arms over her face. The
leather of her jacket still smells bitterly of Quinn’s
closet—repression and alcoholism, just like the rest of
the Fabray household—but she thinks that’s better
than the Brittany-smell clinging to the rest of her outfit.
Brittany-smell is equal parts intoxicating and
maddening, since it only serves to remind her of
failure.

Quinn already has a pen in hand, scrawling across a

pristine sheet of notebook paper. “This one,” she
replies mildly, not bothering to glance up. “The one
you will carry in your back pocket in preparation for
the off chance she ever chooses to speak to you
again.”

“Fuck you, Fabray.” The words are automatic, but

insincere. God help her, she’s almost curious.

She waits for Quinn to finish, inhaling and exhaling in

steady streams to keep calm. Her own personal brand
of meditation, almost, and it’s just about working when
Quinn plops down beside her and slams the notebook
into her chest.

“Here,” the blonde says when Santana coughs and

lifts an arm to glare out from under it. “Read.
Memorize. Use as needed.”

“Take two and call you in the morning?” Santana

mocks, sitting up and pulling the notebook to eye-
level. “Who are you, Dr. Fabray: Lesbian Therapist?”

“Just smarter than you,” Quinn snips, wisely migrating

back to her chair before Santana can swing the three-
ring into her face. “Do yourself a favor, Lopez. Quit
with the self-effacing shit. Thwarting your own efforts
is one of those things that stopped being cute after
the first time you scored on your own soccer goal.”

“I was eight,” Santana reminds her witheringly. One

eyebrow performs its typical trick.

“No excuses, Lopez. Talk to the girl tomorrow. Read

straight from my impeccable handwriting if you must.
Don’t fuck it up again, okay? You being a shithead
bums Brittany out, and when Brittany’s bummed out,
we all kind of wind up feeling shitty. And when Rachel
feels shitty, she gets bossier. Which is fine in the
bedroom, but when it’s in Glee, Kurt’s head always
looks like it’s going to blow off. And frankly, I’m getting
sick of Schuester doing his ‘I’m going to cry soon’
routine.”

“She’s already been bossy in the bedroom?” Santana

smirks. “All right, Berry, get down with your kinky-ass
self.”

“Don’t tell her I mentioned it,” Quinn warns, her ears

going more than a little pink. The Latina swings a
pillow smartly through the air, chuckling.

“Secret’s safe with me, Q. Until you piss my shit off.”

She ducks the hastily lobbed baseball with

remarkable agility, she thinks—and there’s a certain
poetic justice in Quinn’s horrified expression as she
beholds the small puncture in the plaster behind her
bedpost.
“Oh, look,” Santana says lightly. “A hole.”

Quinn has never looked so hilariously murderous.

***

All kidding aside, Santana is pretty sure she’s going to

throw up when she finds herself at Brittany’s locker
the next morning. The hall is emptying quickly, the
typical sleepy ruckus dying down as kids make
various shuffling bids for the proper classrooms, and
Santana wonders blankly how it is she keeps getting
away with this skipping thing. She’s good, it’s true, but
she’s normally not so good that Figgins doesn’t toss
out a detention slip now and again. Not that she goes;
that man is damn near the most inept authority figure
she has ever come across. The most he ever
manages to achieve is a phone call home—and it isn’t
as though such things come as any sort of shock to
her mother by this point.

All the same, not a single teacher bears down on her

as she leans against Brittany’s locker, aiming for
casual. She’s almost positive she’s hit the mark,
despite continually removing Quinn's notes from her
pocket and mulling them over, when she spots a
familiar ambling form down the hall.

“Late again?” Puck greets her, protectively settling his

books in front of his crotch. She smirks.
“Is it really considered late if you don’t plan on ever
showing up?”

He pauses to consider, cupping his chin thoughtfully.

“Probably not. You lookin’ for Hot Blonde Chick?”

He’s not the most perceptive creature on the planet,

and she knows it. It would be kind to ignore his idiocy
and simply respond in the affirmative, but really—
she’s standing at Brittany’s locker. Literally; she’s
blocking the goddamn thing.

“No,” she snipes nonchalantly. “I’m getting ready to

polish her locker for her. Sort of a ‘sorry I’m an ass’
giftie, if you will. Think she’ll like it?”

“I’d have gone with flowers,” Puck says with a shrug,

and for a moment, Santana is certain she’s waltzed
right into a parellel dimension in which her best guy
friend has traded bodies with Finn Hudson. Then he
grins. “Smart-ass. Anyway, if you really want to chat
her up, I’d try the football field. I saw her out there
with Mallory and some of the other sexy bitches who
want me strung up.”

“And you mean that in a strictly homicidal, non-sado-

masochist fashion, yes?”

Thick eyebrows give their usual lecherous wiggle.

“Believe what you will.”
“Creep,” she blows back affectionately, bumping his
shoulder as she steps around him. He bumps back,
albeit more cautiously.

“Hey, Lopez?”

She turns, pushing swinging hair out of her face.

“Yeah, Puckerman?”

His smile has dimmed, his expression transformed in

a heartbeat into something disturbingly like gravity.
“Might not wanna blow it this time, eh?”

Any other day, she would punch him for suggesting

she’s capable of anything less than success. Right
now, she feels just as faithless as he looks. She tries
a wan smile.

“Don’t worry. Quinn wrote me a script.”

“Ah.” He nods wisely, combing fingers loosely through

his mohawk. “The proverbial lady killer. Or…Berry
killer.”

“Half a lady,” Santana can’t resist snickering.

“Either way,” he says almost cheerfully, though his

eyes still weigh heavier than she likes. “Chick knows
her shit about other chicks. You’ll be fine.”
As long as you aren’t you, she hears him finish
silently, shifting his books under one arm and lifting
the other in a quick wave goodbye. She sighs. Steels
herself. Sets off for sunshine.

Brittany is indeed on the field, uniform neatly pressed,

bookbag slung over one shoulder. Her forehead is
creased under side-slashing bangs, her hands
digging into her sides as she faces down three of her
Satanic brethren. It looks almost like they’re arguing—
something she knows she should stay out of. It isn’t
like Brittany wants her help right now.

All the same, Santana takes a breath and steels

herself.

“Hey!” she calls while still halfway across the field. It

probably isn’t her wisest decision; alerting Brittany to
her presence this early gives the taller girl a better
chance to hoof it away as fast as strong, gorgeous
legs can carry her terribly fit body. However, although
Brittany’s head snaps around quick enough to
instigate a little whiplash, the rest of her stays put.
Santana takes this as an okay sign.

“What do you want?” one of Mallory’s flunkies sneers,

all hateful green eyes and flawless skin. Santana’s
pretty sure she is one of the girls who ordered the hit
out on Quinn’s tires last year and resists an instinctive
middle finger salute in greeting.
She settles instead for raising both hands to the level
of her ears, as peaceful as she was made to be. “Hi,”
she says quietly, looking only at Brittany for fear of
slipping up and decking one of the others. The
blonde’s lips twitch.

“Hi,” she replies, and shifts under the weight of her

bag. Santana’s fingers itch to remove it from slim
shoulders, to cast it carelessly over her own back.

“Listen, about yesterday—,” she begins, flinching

internally when Brittany’s eyes harden.

“She has nothing to say to you, Juvie Hall,” Mallory

jeers, stepping protectively in front of the taller girl.
“She knows better.”

Santana fires a helpless look over her head,

searching for Brittany’s gaze. “Brittany. Listen. I was
an ass.”

“You’re always an ass,” the third Cheerio pipes up, a

little sweeter than the other two, but just as inherently
evil. The Latina's teeth clamp down jarringly upon her
tongue.

“I was a bigger ass than usual,” she presses on. “But

I’m sorry. I wanted you to know that I just…kind of
panicked. I don’t think well when you’re around.”

“You don’t think ever, Fisticuffs,” Mallory bites off,

giggling. The sound is uncannily hyena-like, enough
to set Santana’s nerves on their very furthest edge.
Brittany’s eyes raise, something sharp and uneasy
sliding across her features.

“Anyway,” the green-eyed bitch adds, stepping so she

is shoulder to shoulder with Mallory, “you should run
along now. We were having a little members only chat
with Brittany here about certain…decisions she’s
made of late. Straightening some things out, you
know how it is.”

“See,” the third girl chimes in, “when you’ve got

friends, sometimes interventions need to be made. To
prevent…undesirable consequences.”

Undesirable consequences. It's hard to ignore the fact

that this is what she is—not just to scumbags like
these three, but to the whole school. Against her will,
Santana’s head droops, shoulders cuffing up around
her ears. Brittany’s expression remains unreadable.

“Fine,” she says shortly, though the urge to knock

skulls together and draw screams from bruised
throats has grown nearly deafening, racing like boiling
blood through her head. “Forget it.”

“Wait,” Brittany starts, making as if to move past her

bodyguards. Mallory swivels, one hand pressed
decisively to the blonde’s shoulder.
“That’s another thing we should be talking about,” she
smarms, eyes dangerous and edgy. “First Glee, which
honestly is pathetic enough without any additions, and
now this…thing. Whatever it is. It’s like you’re trying to
get yourself axed.”

Santana lifts her head, feeling even more murderous

through her not-inconsiderable shock. Glee is their
first priority? Glee is more scandalous than Santana
Lopez?

Well, fuck that.

To her credit, Brittany is standing taller than ever,

shoulders thrown back, chin pointed down. “I’m not
trying to do anything, Mallory, except enjoy high
school. God, the way you all talk, you’d think that was
a crime or something.”

“Practically a felony,” Mallory shoots back, digging her

nails into the soft material of Brittany’s uniform. “The
way you’re going about it, anyway. You’ve got
everything right now. Why are you so inclined to throw
it all away? And for a few cheesy heart-warmers and
this piece of trash, no less.”

She jerks her head towards Santana, who is feeling

decidedly miffed about her role as an afterthought in
this whole situation.

“That’s what’s worth it to you? Singing and prancing

around like an idiot with some bitch who’d sooner
knock you out in the heat of the moment than keep a
civil tongue? That’s what’s worth losing popularity and
power and status?”

Santana feels her whole self go livid. Brittany’s eyes

drop. “I’m just trying to—“

“You’re just trying to wreck everything,” Mallory

snarls. “We have taken Nationals every year since I
joined up. We will do it again, provided you pull your
head out of your ass, quit this sneaky gay behavior,
and drop that pathetic excuse for a club.”

She turns, flicking her ponytail with royal arrogance.

“Sue’s orders,” she adds over her shoulder. “You’re a
Cheerio. Start acting like one.”

Santana’s fists ball, and before she knows it, her feet
are propelling the rest of her after the retreating
uniforms. Or, at least, that’s the unconscious aim—
before a strong hand snaps out and latches onto the
back of her hoodie.

“Don’t,” Brittany says almost sadly. “You were doing

so well at keeping it together this time.”

Santana’s shoulders sag. Without turning, she

mutters, “They’re bitches.”

“Is this the part where you say you told me so?”
Brittany asks, sounding the vaguest bit amused. Her
hand is warm on Santana’s back, still pinching fabric
to restrain the smaller girl. Mechanically, Santana
leans back into the touch.

“No,” she says, voice trembling with the effort of her

calm. “This is the part where I say again that I’m
sorry. Me telling you what to do, me telling you how
evil those girls are…it’s really no better than them
telling you how trashy I am, or how useless Glee is.
You’re a big girl. You make your own choices.
Regardless of their…undesirable consequences.”

She chances a glance over her shoulder. Brittany’s

hand slips from her back, resting instead behind the
blonde girl’s own neck. Chewing her lip, she looks
genuinely contemplative in a way Santana has never
seen before.

“I won’t do it,” she says slowly. “Quit Glee, I mean. I

don’t want to. I like it too much—I like what it is, how it
makes me feel. I like dancing with Mike and talking to
Kurt and watching Rachel pretend not to be in love
with Quinn.”

“Won’t be much more of that last part,” Santana

murmurs. Brittany’s eyes brighten.

“Good,” she says simply. “Anyway, I’m staying. They

can’t make me quit.”
“Sue can kick you off the squad,” Santana points out,
body still angled away from Brittany’s. “She can crush
you.”

Brittany snorts. “Crush me how? By taking away the

uniform? By giving me back my old diet and the
chance to sleep in on weekends? I’m sure it would be
really hurtful.” She shakes her head. “Anyway, they
need me. I’m the best dancer they’ve got—better than
Mallory and those other girls put together. I’m their
best shot at Nationals.”

At a loss for what to say to that, Santana nods. Her

gaze remains trained on the grass, her shoulders
tense. From the corner of her eye, she sees Brittany
hug herself.

“Was there something else?” the blonde asks

eventually, sounding about as uncertain as Santana
feels. The dark-haired girl shrugs.

“I’ve got a whole list of things I’m supposed to say,”

she admits. “But honestly, I think sorry about covers
it.”

A slow nod; she knows Brittany wants more, expects

more, but Santana can feel the rush of hatred flowing
through her veins, can hear the blood pounding away
in her ears. It's too much to finagle around right now,
especially working in tandem with her overwhelming
anxiety.
The girl waits a second more, then merely says,
“Okay.”

She can feel Brittany starting to walk away, can feel

the girl slipping through her fingers for what feels like
the thousandth time, and still, she cannot say what
she feels. Screwing her eyes shut, she presses the
back of one hand against her mouth.

“Santana?”

She turns, frustrated. “Yeah?”

Blue eyes sparkle. “It’s a start. I’ll see you in Glee.”

Brittany is fifteen feet away when Santana realizes

what she has to do. She sets her jaw, smiles tightly,
and strides off in the opposite direction.

Though she hopes it will be the last time this will be

the case--she needs Quinn.

A/N: Title swiped from the Emily Haines & The Soft
Skeleton song of the same name--and because I'm
classy, yes, it is the same song used here. And for the
record, I'm so not satisfied with this ending...bah. This
whole thing kind of went in a direction I didn't intend
for it to. I'm of mixed mind on it, so feel free to critique
the hell out of it.
“This isn’t going to work,” Santana mutters as Quinn
blows through the door and flops down beside her.
“Your taste in music is too fuckin’ shoddy, it’ll never—“

“It will be fine,” Quinn says, like Quinn always seems

to be saying these days. Her soothing voice is
beginning to sound a little more like nails on a
chalkboard than anything else, and Santana is feeling
more and more like punching everything when she
hears it. It has gone way past being just mildly
counterproductive.

“Sure,” Rachel pops up from Quinn’s other side,

nestled into the blonde with her chin resting on one
slim shoulder. “Totally fine. Quinn’s very romantic,
you know. Just the other day, she took me out for a
picnic and we—“

“I don’t need to hear about your sordid little flings,

Berry,” Santana enunciates carefully, smirking when
both faces turn sour. “What you and Fabray do in the
bedroom so needs to stay between you.”

Rachel cranes her neck to look up at Quinn, eyes

grim. “Was she by chance dropped on her head as a
child? I believe her to be emotionally stunted in a very
real, very serious fashion.”

Quinn snorts, bowing her head and brushing her lips

across Rachel’s. The brunette sighs happily. Santana
gags.
“You two are pathetic,” she grumbles. “And this had
better fucking work.”

This is, after all, her last idea. Brittany’s standing firm
right now on the whole ‘do what I want regardless of
people putting me down’ thing, which is pretty
admirable—especially in this wastoid school—but
Santana knows this place well enough to know
mindsets like that don’t necessarily last. There’s too
much to fall back on—too many teachers like Sue
Sylvester, too much pressure from the likes of Mallory
and her drones, too much fear like Santana’s own.
Leaving fragile things out in the open for too long is
more than minutely dangerous; more often than not,
such things are broken beyond repair.

It isn’t that she thinks Brittany is weak. It’s that she

knows what love can be like, how easily things can
fall apart. She knows how long bruises can last, how
deeply scars can run, and she knows that things
worth having are the easiest to smash in the first
place.

Brittany isn’t weak, but right now, what they have is.
It’s real—real enough to make her skin hum, real
enough to haunt her in her sleep and disturb every
square inch of the perfectly detached life she’s built
up until now—but it’s tentative, tenuous. She has to
do something about it now.
And since she obviously can’t form words properly to
save her life…

An elbow rams into her ribcage hard enough to

capture her attention. Her head comes up dizzyingly
fast, just in time to see Schuester twirl into the room
on his usual cloud of fairy dust and dreams. He
gesticulates excitedly in her direction, fully aware that
this is a momentous occasion for the both of them.

For him, because nothing pleases Will Schuester

more than succeeding with a difficult student.

For her, because if this make-or-break attempt fails,

she’s got no other choice but to kiss this idea of being
happy for the first time since childhood goodbye.

She thinks her side is more imperative, but it’s not like
she’s unbiased.

Doing her best not to hyperventilate, Santana rises.

Grasping her chair, she raises the thing over her head
and plants it directly in front of the piano. Quinn
smiles.

“I, uh,” Santana hears herself say gruffly. She clears

her throat, rotates her head uncomfortably along her
neck, cracks her back. “I’ve got something. To share.”

She wishes she could tune out the excited way

Schuester claps his hands together. It’s making the
unpleasant flipping sensation in her stomach feel all
the uglier. She swivels her upper body, wanting so
badly to glare at him and snap that it’s just a song, not
a bid for world peace.

Instead, she makes eye contact with Brad over her

shoulder and gives an uneasy nod to let him know
she’s ready. Which, really, she isn’t—but she figures
it’s best to get this sort of thing over with before she
drops dead on the spot from apprehension.

She sinks into the chair as the first notes pour from
the piano’s belly, slow and heavy. It’s melancholy, too
deep for Santana’s usual tastes, and therefore feels
perfect for the occasion; after all, it isn’t as though
Brittany has ever been to Santana’s usual tastes.

She begins, shaky and tense, hands pressed to her

knees as the initial lines sidle from her lips. She can
barely hear herself over the roar of nerves, screaming
all the while that this won’t do it, this won’t be enough,
that Brittany won’t be able to see past the pictures
Santana has already painted for her. That paint is
drying so quickly, and with every sad attempt at
alteration Santana makes, it seems to get worse.
Does she really think one song is going to make a
world of difference?

Cursed with a love that you can’t express; it’s not for a
fuck or a kiss. Rather give the world away than wake
up lonely; everywhere in every way, I see you with
me…

She hates this—hates singing, hates opening herself

up, hates the way Will’s eyes shine and Quinn’s
soothe. She hates Glee for giving her this as her only
option, hates Kurt and Mercedes for their knowing
smiles, hates Puck for his smirk. She hates this song,
hates the woman who usually sings it, hates Brad
behind her for never missing a single note.

What she doesn’t hate is the way Brittany is arching

forward in her chair, eyes roving over Santana as she
sings, fingers twisted in her lap. She finds she doesn’t
hate that much at all.

She can’t hear herself, and doesn’t care; whether or

not her voice is Rachel Berry-powerful or Quinn
Fabray-lovely or Noah Puckerman-smooth, she
couldn’t care less. The words don’t even matter as
much as the fact that she’s doing this in the first place
—and from the glaze to Brittany’s sapphire eyes, she
can tell the girl understands. Her heart lifts in her
chest, floating higher as she continues, nudging
against lesser organs as if to call attention to itself.

We’re out here screaming, “The life that you thought

through is gone”—can’t want out, the ending
outlasting the movie; I wake up lonely…

Behind her, the notes die off, but Santana really isn’t
here anymore. Her mouth slides shut, her eyes fixed
on Brittany’s, and though she can hear Schuester
squealing his approval, she’s not taking it in. Brittany’s
smiling, and that’s all she needs. She stands.

“That’s it.”

She shrugs a little, embarrassed, ignoring the

applause and Quinn’s wolf-whistle. Leaving her chair
behind, she pushes her hands into her pockets and
walks straight up the risers, straight to Brittany’s side.
The blonde cranes her neck to look up at her, eyes
bright.

“Hi,” the girl says. Santana bites her lip.

“That kind of sucked, didn’t it?”

“Well, as grand gestures go, it was a little

predictable,” Brittany teases, taking the sting out the
instant her hand winds with Santana’s own. She
slides their fingers together and squeezes, and
Santana’s heart damn near fires up into her throat
with glee.

“I’d have picked a less shitty song, but my iTunes has

been cracky of late,” she says, trying for levity. Out of
the corner of her eye, she sees Quinn’s smile dim into
an annoyed pout seconds before Rachel giggles and
kisses it away.

“It wasn’t exactly the ideal love song,” Brittany agrees,

using Santana’s arm to pull herself to stand. She
bends her head a little, cups Santana’s cheek with her
free hand, smiles blindingly. “Kind of depressing, if
you want the truth.”

“Blame Fabray,” Santana breathes, edging into the

touch and closing her eyes. “She picked the damn
thing.” Quinn makes a more-than-miffed noise; she
grins.

“Quinn, you need happier music,” Brittany informs the

other blonde. “Maybe something involving cowbell
and a little less of the heartfelt midnight piano.”

“I like Emily Haines,” Rachel proclaims loyally,

rubbing Quinn’s back in sympathy. “She’s very
talented.”

“See?” Quinn mopes. Santana throws her head back

and laughs.

“But your voice is very nice,” Brittany adds, applying

pressure to Santana’s jaw and fixing her with a
scorching smile. “Very sexy. I approve.”

“Do you?” They’re nose to nose, Santana tilting up on

her toes in an effort to press closer. The fingertips on
her cheek stroke low to cradle her chin.

“You’re still going to be kind of mean and ornery and

impossible to deal with, aren’t you?” Brittany asks
huskily. Santana shrugs.

“It’s kind of my thing.”

“And you’re going to keep fighting with the Cheerios

until one of you draws blood?”

She can’t resist a smirk. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“But you’re going to stop telling me what’s good for

me and what isn’t?” the blonde presses, eyes serious.
Santana’s gaze drops.

“I’ll try,” she says honestly, because a Lopez doesn’t

make promises well, and keeping them is even less
simple. Someday, she’ll tell Brittany everything—
twisted together in bed, cradling the blonde close,
she’ll lay the cards out on the table. Her father, the
abuse, the lies, her own personal demons. Someday,
she’ll do what it takes to tug free of the shadow that’s
been pinning her to Lima since she can remember
understanding.

Right now, she leans up and brushes her mouth

silently against Brittany’s, sealing the first pact she’s
made of her own accord in God knows how long.
Brittany makes a soft, delighted sound, kissing back
with more fervor than Santana could have thought
possible. Behind them, Puck whistles.

“This show keeps getting better and better.”

Santana pulls away, eyes still glued to Brittany’s
beaming face. “Hey, Puckerman?”

“Yeah?”

“I’ll give you a five-second head start.”

He’s up and scrambling for the door before her next

breath. Brittany laughs like the world is perfect.
Grinning, Santana rears up and kisses her as hard as
she can before turning on her heel and bolting after
her prey.

This year, she thinks as she watches Puck’s sneakers

slip and send him sprawling halfway down the hall,
could most certainly be worse.

*******

Title: Crowd Surf: So Let Me Get This Straight (You

Say Now You Loved Me All Along)
Pairing: Rachel Berry/Quinn Fabray
Rating: R
Spoilers: AU
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Summary: An outtake from the Crowd Surf ‘verse,
because I did not give Faberry enough love in the tale
itself. Includes slightly-bossy-when-horny Rachel and
over-excited Quinn. Would we have them any other
way?
A/N: Title from Anberlin's "Day Late Friend". Have I
gone a little title-happy? I might have gone title-happy.
Whoops.

It takes some time, but the novelty of being inside

Rachel Berry’s bedroom eventually wears off, leaving
Quinn in a bizarre comfort zone. It isn’t like being in
Santana’s room—for one thing, there is far less in the
way of earth tones and Bruce Lee posters, and the
fear of being punched for absolutely no reason is
greatly diminished—but it’s nice. Very nice.

They’ve taken to studying here four nights out of the

week, with Rachel primly set up at her desk (“Good
posture is key for higher cerebral functioning,” she
once explained cheerfully to a somewhat baffled
Quinn) and Quinn stretched out on the girl’s floor.
Once or twice now, she’s entered the room with the
full intention of setting up shop on the bed, but
something always stops her. She thinks it has
something to do with it being Rachel Berry’s bed.

Minor details, really.

Tiny anxieties aside, Quinn is really enjoying this

whole system they’ve worked out. She’s always liked
Rachel—much to Santana’s chagrin—but they’ve
never really been big on the talking thing before. Hers
has mostly been a gaze-longingly-from-afar sort of
admiration, and while she can appreciate the Angel-
to-her-Buffy romance of the whole thing, life has
improved tenfold since she joined Glee. Singing was
all it took to capture Rachel’s attention, and now?
Now she believes she’s truly got a chance with the
girl.

This being friends thing is especially awesome

because Rachel, although somewhat unexperienced
when it comes to normal human relationships, has
proven herself to be a wildly touchy-feely individual.
The exact kind of behavior that would normally put
Quinn off has her coming back desperately for more,
thrilled with the notion of spending yet another
evening on the receiving end of light touches and too-
quick hand grabs.

She is supposed to be studying history. She’s

supposed to be behaving like a good Christian girl. It’s
what she told her parents in order to obtain their
blessing upon leaving the house.

In all actuality, she thinks tonight is the night.

Quinn Fabray, after years of pining like a little bitch

(Santana’s words more than her own, although Quinn
can’t argue with teeth-gritting truth), is going to ask
Rachel Berry…something.

She hasn’t exactly put her finger on that last part yet.
Which is weird, for a girl whose entire life has been
based around lists and expectations, but who could
blame her? She’s been in love with Rachel since she
was old enough to know what the combination of a
short skirt and a dry mouth meant to begin with. This
is, not to put too dramatic a point on it, bound to be
the most important evening of her young life, one way
or another. Things this huge just don’t sit well with
notebook-paper play-by-plays.

But that changes nothing. She is going to do it.

Tonight. No way out, no squirming free at the last
second. She’s told Santana in advance and
everything.

Tonight, Rachel Berry will be hers.

Or, just as possibly, she will learn how hard Rachel

Berry can punch.

She shuffles uncomfortably, rotating a couple of

papers and flipping aimlessly through her textbook.
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Rachel’s head
turn. The attention simultaneously thrills and horrifies
her.

What am I doing?

“How is that paper coming along?” Rachel asks,

smiling. She stretches her arms over her head, baring
the slightest hint of skin under her flimsy tank top; not
for the first time, Quinn is filled with gratitude that
Rachel’s at-home attire differs so greatly from her
school sweaters. The girl has one seriously rockin’
bod.

Santana has no idea what she’s talking about.

“It’s, uh…kind of a nightmare, to be honest,” Quinn

answers after a beat of disguised staring. “All this
crap about the Black Plague and rats and stuff. A
yawn-fest.”

“Sounds exciting,” Rachel disagrees mildly, tousling

her own hair with one hand. “Europe certainly had its
share of wild times. A little disgusting, perhaps, what
with the biological warfare and…the pustules, but
fascinating all the same.”

It should probably disturb her that Rachel’s use of the

word “pustules” does nothing to diminish the level of
attraction Quinn is suffering from at this very moment.
Her lips curve.

“Well,” she drawls in her very best come-hither tone,

“maybe it would be more interesting if I wasn’t
drowning alone in this river of vermin and
disgustitude. You should come down here, study with
me.”

“I’m not in your class,” Rachel reminds her, but she

rises from her chair anyway and steps lightly across
the clean beige carpet. Quinn sits up a little straighter
and extends a hand, capturing Rachel by the wrist
and tugging her down. The squeak of surprise Rachel
releases is, she thinks, the most adorable thing she
has ever heard.

The face she makes as she catches sight of Quinn’s

textbook is almost as precious. Quinn supposes boils
and keening torment aren’t for everyone, though
Puck’s cursory glance through these pages ended in
giggles and mimed gagging death fits.

Her friends are not lacking in strangeness.

“I cannot imagine what one gets out of these classes,”

Rachel comments, flicking haphazardly through the
book. “Death and gore and doom. You might as well
be reading a horror novel.”

“Not all history’s that bad,” the blonde replies, smiling

when Rachel, coming across a particularly hideous
page, grimaces and slams the book shut entirely.
“Besides, there’s that whole adage about learning
from past mistakes. The more you know, the better off
society’s future will be.”

“I hardly think upgrading to nuclear weaponry and

suicide bombers qualifies as ‘better’, Quinn,” Rachel
sniffs. “There is equally as much genocide now as
there was a few hundred years ago. Those residing in
categorical minorities are not much better off, what
with bigotry and violence. Persecution and warfare…
these continue to be human qualities through and
through, regardless of how much knowledge we
possess.”

“Since when are you of the ominous, cynical sort?”

Quinn questions, only half-amused. There is
something in Rachel’s eyes she does not like, a sort
of heavy shadow she feels unaccustomed to noticing.
When Rachel does not reply instantly, Quinn reaches
across the short distance between them and lays a
hand upon the smaller girl’s arm.

“My dad,” Rachel says at last, shrugging a little and

covering Quinn’s hand instinctively with her own.
“He’s facing something of a minor inquiry at work.
Nothing serious, really, but…someone found out.
Again. And now there are questions. Small
accusations. They won’t go through, of course; this is
not the first time such a thing has happened, nor will it
be the last, but it always…”

“Sucks,” Quinn fills in bitterly. Mr. Berry, she knows, is

a pediatrician—and apparently, not all parents in Lima
are keen on placing the health of their children in
homosexual hands. It should, by all rights, be a non-
issue; few doctors are as compassionate and
dedicated as Richard Berry, who has striven harder
than Quinn can possibly imagine to top off his field.
But where there are good, honest men, there will
always follow suspicion and questions. Quinn knows
this better than anyone; she wouldn’t be particularly
astounded to find her own father leading the torch-
wielding masses on such a subject.
“Yes, Quinn,” Rachel replies softly, eyes burning
holes into her bare feet. “It sucks.”

Their hands are still joined, Quinn notes, resting

almost casually upon the soft skin of Rachel’s arm.
Even under the burden of the girl’s melancholia, the
connection is nothing short of electric. The hair upon
the back of Quinn’s neck stands stiffly at alert, her
skin prickling all over. She swallows.

“Rach.”

Brown eyes lift to meet hers, curious and hopeful in

some way Quinn is able only to pray over. “We’re at
nickname level now?” the girl asks, sounding perfectly
delighted at the prospect. Quinn smiles.

“More than, I’d hope.” She brushes a rogue lock of

hair out of her eyes impatiently, rocking up onto her
knees and staring Rachel down. She probably looks
too intense for the circumstances, but damn it, she
has to do this now. If she loses her nerve—as she
has a hundred times over, it seems—Santana will
never allow her to live it down. And then, naturally, the
girl will allow New Hottie to slip through her own
fingers, and this whole thing will be a big, ugly mess.

She’s doing this. Tonight. Terror and indescribable

potential for failure be damned.
“Rach, I wanted to tell you something,” she says,
hurried and breathless. Rachel is already cocking her
head, her thumb moving in unconscious strokes over
the back of Quinn’s hand. It’s almost enough to
remove her nerve entirely.

“Is it a secret?” the dark-haired girl asks, teasing.

Quinn’s smile falters.

“Kind of. No. Just…you know, just to you. For you.”

She can tell by the way Rachel’s head tilts further

towards her own shoulder the girl does not get where
she’s going with this. Sucking in a deep breath, she
squares her shoulders and evens her chin defiantly.

“Rachel Berry, I’m…I’m kind of in love with you.”

It is exactly as direct as she has always imagined,

though the violent quaver behind the words makes
the whole thing decidedly less romantic. Still, she
holds fast to Rachel’s arm and gaze, praying with
everything she’s worth that the next thing she feels is
not a slap.

She can’t decide if the girl’s hand stilling upon her

own is better or worse than expected.

“You’re who now?” Rachel asks, mouth slipping open.

Quinn winces at the sheer skepticism.
“I’m in love with you,” she repeats, feeling rather
stupid about it under the fire of Rachel’s stare. “Kind
of madly. Kind of since we were kids. Kind of thought
it was time you knew.”

“You’re…” Rachel shakes her head, retracting her

hand completely. Quinn’s heart sinks faster than
she’d thought possible. “You’re…in love. With me.”

“Yes.” Maybe this whole thing was a pathetic idea.

Maybe she should have waited even longer—or done
it differently. Not in Rachel’s room, on Rachel’s turf,
for instance. And not so simply. Perhaps she should
have factored in rose petals, or a small mariachi
band, or hell, even her own guitar.

Why the fuck did I not think of the guitar?

Rachel pulls herself to a standing position, hands on

her hips. Instantly, Quinn feels all of two feet tall,
staring meekly back up.

“You’re in love,” Rachel says slowly, “with me. With

the girl who can barely hold down a singular
friendship, who can’t avoid morning sugar baths, who
has to meet weekly with Ms. Pillsbury to discuss ‘a
prolonged and irregular obsession’ with Patti Lupone?
You. Are in love. With me?”

“I really don’t feel like it’s that difficult to believe,”

Quinn begins, startled when Rachel throws up one
hand in a gesture for silence.

“Quinn Fabray,” she says sharply, having the full

audacity to sound kind of pissed about the whole
thing. “This is quite possibly the cruelest thing I have
ever heard of.”

“What?” Quinn asks stupidly, blinking. Abruptly,

Rachel flings both hands above her head and casts a
desperate glance heavenward.

“I knew you were friends with the likes of Santana

Lopez,” she grumbles. “I knew there was some
potential for malevolence in you, but I never thought
you would be so vile as to try to trick a person into
thinking you loved them. I mean, really, Quinn, are
you that utterly bored already? The school year’s
barely begun; surely you could have come up with
something less…awful to expend energy upon.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Quinn protests,

completely puzzled and kind of annoyed about it. She
scrambles to her feet, stepping as close as she dares.
“Who’s tricking anyone? I’m in love with you, Rachel.
Seriously. I wouldn’t kid about something like that.”

“Wouldn’t you?” Rachel demands, striding forward

and jabbing an accusatory finger into the taller girl’s
face. “Look at me, Quinn. Rachel Berry:
Laughingstock of McKinley High. Nerds are too cool
to give me the time of day. I practically have to bribe
even the teachers into speaking with me after class.
You can’t honestly believe I would think you, of all
people—with your gorgeous eyes and your perfect
bone structure and the most astonishingly superlative
rear end I have ever laid eyes on—could love me. I
mean, that’s…” She sputters for a second, clearly at a
loss for words. (Quinn takes that beat to glance over
her own shoulder, curiously inspecting her ass.)
“That’s absurd.”

Quinn opens and closes her mouth several times,

stunned. “Rach, I—“

“I think maybe it’s time for you to go,” the brunette

says softly, averting her eyes at last. “I’ll get more
work done without you here.”

Taken aback, Quinn bends to obediently gather her

things, watching Rachel chew her own lip uneasily.
This is all wrong, she thinks unhappily. This is not
how it should have gone, not in any imagining. Rachel
should have been swept away, or embarrassed, or
angry, but not disbelieving. Not when Quinn’s never
done anything to give her reason to distrust her
intentions.

She’s halfway to the door when it hits her how unfair

this is. How ridiculously over the top Rachel is being.
It’s stupid, and it’s inane, and frankly, she’s come too
far these last few weeks to let this be the end of it.
She barely registers the slam of books upon the
ground, or the squeak Rachel lets out when strong
hands coil around her tiny waist. She barely registers
how it feels to back Rachel against the desk, or how
wide the girl’s eyes have gone. All she has become is
this need—mad and fervent and wholly out of control
—to prove herself true.

Quinn Fabray, Champion of Truth and Love, is not so

easily averted.

“I love you,” she breathes, as Rachel’s eyes flicker up

and down her face. “I love you, and fuck it, Rach, I’m
gonna make you believe it.”

It’s so totally the lamest thing she could have said

(she can practically hear Santana’s sneering cackle in
her head), but before Rachel can muster a rebuttal,
Quinn angles her head down and snares the girl in
the most searing of first kisses. She can feel years of
desire welling, snaking around her heart and holding
firm, spurred on by the gasp Rachel emits when the
blonde’s tongue nudges her lips open and sleeks its
way inside.

The rest of it—the telling, the argument—was not

what she’s spent so many hours dreaming of, but this
is. Bending Rachel backwards over the desk,
supporting her with tender hands, stealing her every
suspicion and doing away with her self-doubt with the
power of a kiss—this is what she’s been waiting for.
And from the way Rachel’s small hands curl around
her neck, cupping the back of her skull as she kisses
back, it seems the feeling is pretty damn mutual.

“This is crazy,” Rachel gasps against her lips when

they break for air.

“I’ve never been much of a proponent for sanity,”

Quinn remarks, pressing a happy kiss against the
girl’s jaw. “I mean, fuck, I hang out with Puck.”

“I’ve never understood him,” Rachel agrees, arching

until her neck is flush against Quinn’s searching lips.
“God. God, you’re good at that.”

The idea that she is finally here, in Rachel’s room,

nipping at her throat while the brunette moans
beneath her, is almost more intoxicating than the act
itself. Quinn shivers.

“I’ve been dreaming,” she murmurs, taking a bit of

skin between her teeth and sucking until Rachel
whimpers, “of doing this for so long. You don’t even
know.”

“You never told me,” Rachel points out. “You barely

spoke to me, and when you did, it was always in
those perplexing choppy—uhh—sentences. I always
just thought you were—oh my God—making fun of
me.”
“Never,” Quinn swears, burying her face against the
girl’s collarbone and biting down lightly. Rachel
squirms, hips bucking erratically as her hands spread
across Quinn’s shoulders. “Well. I mean, maybe when
we were like six. But I also liked Blue’s Clues and
tuna back then. Things change.”

“I just never thought you might actually—“ Trailing off,

Rachel gives a mewling gasp that fires straight to
Quinn’s soul. The blonde growls with satisfaction,
teasing her tongue along tan flesh, kissing every inch
she can reach. “I thought you were a pipe dream, you
know? A fantasy. Something to keep me burning on
cold nights, an image to pleasure me when I was at
my loneliest. It was almost like you weren’t real.”

The idea of Rachel spending any night at all

pleasuring herself to thoughts of Quinn is almost too
much. The blonde dips her tongue slowly beneath the
strap of the smaller girl’s tank top, relishing the heave
of Rachel’s breasts in response.

“You thought of me?” she asks softly, tickling a thin

trail down the girl’s shoulder. Rachel moves fluidly,
hands seeking skin under Quinn’s t-shirt, her back
bowing off of the desk. It’s all Quinn can do not to
crush her down atop papers and laptop cords and
claim her in the next heartbeat.

Barely told the girl a thing, and already you’re itching

to fuck her senseless. Real romantic, Fabray. Lopez
would be so proud.

Rachel doesn’t seem to mind, however, which makes

the whole thing less guilt-inducing. Instead of looking
displeased, the diminutive girl is wearing an
expression that falls somewhere between shy and
coy, touching a hand to her cheek.

“Often,” she confides quietly, trailing that hand slowly

down her neck until her fingers are toying with the
collar of her top. Quinn’s mouth is suddenly desert
dry. “You have no idea how many nights I've spent on
that bed…legs spread open, stroking myself…mm,
imagining it was your hand…”

A little quick on the draw, but hot damn, who’s

minding here?

Rachel seems to realize all at once what has just left

her mouth; her face goes pink, her hand dropping to
her side. “My God,” she mumbles, “I actually just said
that.”

“Fuck yeah, you did,” Quinn growls, surging forward

and planting her palms upon the desktop. Rachel,
sufficiently pinned, loses that mortified flare almost
immediately.

“You don’t mind?” she asks, moaning throatily when

Quinn’s lips collide again with her skin. “You’re not—
mm—put off?”

“Fuck no, I’m not.” She’s standing between Rachel’s

legs, the desk supporting the smaller girl almost
entirely as she rocks her hips forward. Dark eyes
flicker.

“You curse a lot,” she observes, casting her head

back with the next thrust of Quinn’s hips.

“Sorry,” Quinn says, snagging the tank’s material with

her teeth and pulling. She bows her head until her
mouth covers one concealed breast, sucking harder
to the rhythm of Rachel's cries.

“No apologies,” the brunette gasps when she can

speak again around heaving breaths. Quinn rolls her
tongue, flattens it out and strokes boldly across the
nipple revealing itself so pointedly through the
garment. “It’s so very hot.”

Pale fingers dig into Rachel’s waist, pulling her in

against the push of Quinn’s pelvis. She bites down
gently, pleased when one small hand cradles the
back of her head and urges her to continue.

“Keep doing that,” Rachel commands rather bossily,

groaning when Quinn acquiesces. “Fuck. Keep…keep
doing that, and touch me.”

Quinn’s hand is sandwiched between their bodies

before the sentence is complete, hot against the front
of scandalously short red shorts. Rachel whimpers
into her ear, head bent so she can hiss demands
softly.

“Harder, Quinn. You’re not going to break me. I need

to…I need to feel you. On me, on my skin, I need you
to—oh.”

Practically shivering with ancipation, Quinn curls her

fingers into damp underwear, startled to find smooth
skin coated slickly all over. She groans, using her
other hand to push the tank top up over the smaller
girl’s breasts, and nuzzles between them desperately.

“I didn’t expect to go this fast,” she insists, even as

Rachel rubs herself frantically into her willing hand. “I
thought maybe…dinner, a movie…some light petting
to start off.”

“If you stop now, Quinn Fabray,” Rachel threatens, “I

will—oh fucking God, yes.”

She does not care to know what it is Rachel will do,

because the idea of stopping is both ludicrous and
painful. She focuses her full attention on dragging a
nail lightly across Rachel’s heat, on the pitch-perfect
cry Rachel utters. Grasping at the hand not currently
digging its nails into her skin, she guides Rachel down
the front of her jeans and cants furiously in an effort to
catch up.
“I need, I want, I,” Rachel babbles, clumsily caressing
Quinn in return. “I’m so, I’m so close, I’m so—“

Rachel would be a talker during sex, Quinn thinks

rather smugly as she gives a perfectly-timed pinch
and watches the small girl curve up into her body.
Rachel would also be disturbingly capable of riding
out an orgasm while frenetically guiding Quinn to one
of her own. She’s just that kind of over-achiever, and
frankly, Quinn’s never been happier about that fact.

She collapses forward, feeling Rachel’s arms come

around to cradle her close. It’s not exactly
comfortable, what with Rachel sprawled gasping upon
her desk and Quinn using the girl’s quivering, spread
legs as a center for her own balance, but she certainly
can’t complain.

“Eventful study session,” she observes when

breathing comes more easily. Rachel’s hand drifts
down the back of her head, stroking her hair
complacently; she nearly purrs in ecstasy.

“Are you going to be sarcastic about it, or are you

going to finish the job?”

Lifting her head, Quinn blinks in confusion. “But

you…” She hesitates, uncertain. “I mean, you did,
right? I saw you. There was moaning, and I think you
scratched the shit out of my back.”
Dark eyes twinkle. “I was talking about something a
little less lust-oriented, Quinn. Like making this
official?”

Quinn thinks her face might shatter if she keeps

smiling this broadly, and how fun would that be to
explain at school?

“For the record,” Rachel says, brushing her hand

against Quinn’s cheek and smiling charmingly. “The
answer is yes. Naturally. I’m not the sort of girl who
can…do that, and not expect a follow-up of more
romantic proportions.”

Now that she’s come down from her high, she looks
more than a little embarrassed. Quinn thinks she has
never looked so beautiful.

“So you wanna?” she asks, thumbing Rachel’s bottom

lip hopefully. The brunette wraps her legs around
Quinn’s waist.

“I wanna,” she says, rather more adoringly than Quinn

expects. The blonde beams, hooking her hands under
deceptively strong thighs and lifting the girl off the
desk.

They’re halfway to the bed when Rachel leans down

and kisses her hard enough to nearly send them both
tumbling down. Quinn is sure she’s about to shatter
into a million Rachel-loving pieces.

She has never been happier in her life.