A/N: A ficlet written for my good friend Kel that combines our love of Brittana, Quack, and Xena in one fic. I hope you all enjoy it (and that there are some Xena fans out there who know what episode they're watching).
The Mack shovels another handful of butter-covered popcorn into her mouth before she passes the plastic bowl to the Cheerio on the other side of the couch. Santana grabs a few pieces for herself but keeps her focus on the dark-haired woman doing flips on her television screen. She smirks at the ridiculous handsprings and gymnastics of the warrior woman. No matter how many times she watches the show, she will never understand why the characters have to make things so difficult for themselves.
"I bet Sue would have loved to have her on the Cheerios," she says before she tosses a piece of popcorn in the air and tries to catch it. It bounces off her nose onto the floor. "Damn it."
"Stop wasting my shit, Lopez," Mack warns through a mouthful of food.
Santana narrows her eyes at the other girl, but her attention is back on the television. She grumbles under her breath and pulls her blanket up to her shoulders. Brown eyes flicker back to the show and watch as the warrior wraps her small, blonde sidekick in a hug. Her nose scrunches.
"Hold up. How did Xena get on the boat?"
"She flipped."
"What?"
"Yeah. Flipped right onto the ship." Mack twirls her index finger in a circle, as if that would make the feat more believable. "It was fucking badass."
"You've gotta be kidding me. Give me the remote."
Mack tosses the remote to Santana, who skips back to the beginning of the scene. Sure enough, the warrior flips from the top of a tree on a cliff onto the cursed boat her sidekick is stuck on, just as Mack said. What Mack didn't tell her, however, was how much her sides would hurt from laughing.
"Holy shit, it happened," she wheezes when she can finally stop laughing. Her chest hurts from lack of air and her sides hurt from doubling over so much. "She just flipped from that tree branch like it was a diving board."
"You're gonna be pretty useless through the rest of the episode, aren't you?"
Santana responds with another round of laughter and Mack rolls her eyes. She grabs the remote and turns up the volume so she can hear it over Santana. She would pause it until the laughing attack was over, but Brittany and Quinn are supposed to be over soon and she wants to finish the episode before they arrive.
Their Sunday ritual began while the TroubleTones were still around. There was going to be a team sleepover at the Lopez house and The Mack had showed up a few hours early just to get out of her apartment. Santana had been hoping it was Brittany coming over for some pre-sleepover sweet lady kisses, so her face had fallen pretty quickly when she opened the door and found The Mack instead. Still, she let the other girl in and, to kill time until the sleepover, they surfed through Netflix until they found a show that caught their interest. A show that involved a leather-clad warrior named Xena and the villager-turned-sidekick named Gabrielle. Neither of them questioned the others interest in the show.
After that weekend, The Mack would show up at Santana's door on Sunday mornings with snacks. They would watch an episode or two, silence between the two of them as the story played across the screen. The Mack would always leave before Brittany came over. It wasn't that she didn't like the blonde. Nah, she thought Brittany was pretty cool in her own way. But she knew three was a crowd and, even though the two of them hadn't said it yet, she had a feeling she would be keeping them from more intimate activities than watching an old television show.
After Finn outed Santana, the Xenathons stopped. Santana needed Brittany on the weekends, not The Mack. She understood that. It sucked, but she understood. She found it bothered her less when she started dating Quinn, but when Santana called one morning and asked if she wanted to hang out with her, the couch, and the leather clad warrior, she didn't hesitate to head over.
So now she spends her Sunday mornings in Santana's living room again, with popcorn, pop, and blankets. The only difference is she has something—or someone rather—to look forward to once the marathons are over. And she can hear that someone just outside Santana's front door. A smile tugs at her lips when the door opens and the two blondes join them in the living room.
"So this is the tall, dark, and deadly woman you've been cheating on me with," Quinn says with a smile. Mack chuckles and lifts up the side of her blanket so the blonde can join her under the covers. She gets more than she bargained for when Quinn sits on her lap, facing her. "I can see the appeal," the blonde admits as she places her hands on Mack's shoulders and leans forward to whisper, "I guess I have a soft-spot for bad girls."
"Fabray, you better keep your hands above that blanket while you're on my couch," Santana says in a low growl as Brittany pulls her closer. Santana ignores the glare Quinn sends her way and opts to cuddle against her girlfriend's side instead.
"San, you didn't tell me this show had gay sharks in it," Brittany says before she kisses the shorter girl on the top of her head. "I would have watched it with you sooner."
"Yeah, well… It's kind of a dorky show," Santana says with a shrug.
"Silly. You know I like dorky," she tells her, a wide smile on her face.
Santana's cheeks heat up and she burrows her face into Brittany's neck. "Can we just watch the show?"
"Of course, honey."
Brittany pulls the blanket tighter around them and rests her head on Santana's shoulder so she can comfortably watch the show. Quinn shifts her legs so she's no longer straddling Mack and is instead lying across her lap. She uses the armrest as a pillow and runs her hands through the darker girl's hair. Mack slowly becomes less interested in the show and more interested in Quinn. She pulls her legs onto the couch and shifts so she's lying behind Quinn with her arms wrapped around the blonde's middle.
Oh yeah. Letting Brittany and Quinn in on their Sunday morning ritual definitely made the Xenathons much more interesting.