Is the piano a percussion instrument? It's the only thought running through my mind as I watch you walk away. My cheek still burns from the impact of your hand, and my own palm tingles in response, red and buzzing. I can barely breathe around the ringing in my ears and everything seems muffled and faraway.

I know it's a silly question, but I really can't recall the answer to it. Memories surface of music class in the third grade, the frenzied rush to beat out everyone else for a favorite instrument. I was never interested in the piano (or its miniature, the keyboard) – that was for pretentious, snobby types like Rachel Berry (and you) – I wanted the moroccos or the drums, and I would wrestle Puck to the ground in order to get them. I usually won. I'm trying to remember the sound of Mrs. Wyatt's voice as she went about trying to educate us, reciting over and over the different families that the instruments fell under, but the ghost of her words are interrupted in my mind's eye by my own furious rattling. I was an energetic kid. Too easily distracted.

Brittany, standing sheepishly in the doorway, snaps me out of my frazzled memory. I smile at her – a kindness – because her eyes still shine hurt. But I'm thinking of you. And I think she knows that.

Later, after the sun has gone down and the wind turns bitter and biting, I drive out to the smallest bar in Lima. It's located right on the county line. Not much more than a shack, really. It's the one I took you to on your sixteenth birthday – because they don't ID here if you show enough cleavage – do you remember? I watched you get drunk on glass after glass of mint juleps, and spent the rest of the night holding your hair back as you knelt in the gravel, heaving.

"Don't you ever tell anyone about this, Santana." Your face was ghost pale, your lips red and shining in the ugly yellow light of the nearby streetlamp. I can still remember the glassiness in your eyes, and the way you wouldn't meet mine. "I'll ruin you, if you do."

That was back before boys and babies and life had taken their toll on you. You stood on a pedestal, Quinn Fabray; better than everyone else, and so adamant on proving it. Everything about you reminded me of a queen – something that I admired, even when I hated it. For most little girls, just becoming a princess would do - but not you.

"I won't." I said, and something made you look at me with suspicion and doubt in your witch-hazel eyes.

"I could do it, you know,"

I saw it then – the first time I ever glimpsed a chink in your armor. The first time I ever realized there was something small and fragile skittering along the underbelly of the image you have so carefully constructed. It was in the hesitant way you said it, as if you were affirming it aloud not only to me, but to yourself – as if you needed a verbal reminder that you still had the power to, even then, with your vomit stinking up the sagebrush beside us.

"I know."

You seemed even more surprised by the gentleness in my tone. I suppose I was surprised, too, because the next thing I said was – "Let's get out of here, Fabray. You need some mouthwash."

I've thought about that night and that exchange in particular several times over the last few years. I would give anything to be inside your mind for just an instant – did your eyes snag on the crack in me, too? Did you notice? I've often wondered.

Tonight, this place is crowded, full of wannabe cowboys and women with too much hairspray. The change in temperature is dramatic, from frigid to stifling, and I'm shrugging the jacket off my shoulders before I reach the bar. Even though part of me expected you to be here, my body still jangles with exhilaration when I spot you, at the very end, staring at your glass. The thrill of being right is always something I've treasured, even when only in competition against my own intuition.

You don't acknowledge me when I slide onto the stool next to you, but that's okay. I nod at the bartender and hold two fingers up. "Doubleshots," I say, leaning in to make myself heard over the din. "Patrón."

I catch the way your nose wrinkles in a grimace out of the corner of my eye, and I can't help but grin.

You're sipping whiskey, but not the too-sweet, syrupy mint julep drink that ushered you into the world of alcohol and hangovers. I tip my finger against the rim of the glass, tilting it, and make a face when I catch the scent of it. "So Co, Q, really?"

You roll your shoulders in a shrug. I've often wondered why, of all things, you prefer cheap liquor to the stuff I would expect you to like – grey goose martinis or something chic, like raspberry mojitos. I know how you hate the way cheap liquor makes your body feel, as if it's been ran over twice. I've sat with you through enough hangovers to know that you always regret it the next day, especially when the world spins and your body shakes, and the thought of food repulses you.

I think it's the masochist in you, really, Quinn. I think, for whatever reason, you relish the gross burn of it during consumption, and maybe you even enjoy the punishment your body inflicts on you the next day.

I know that it's a hopeless endeavor, but I want to understand your motives. Especially the dark ones, the secret ones, the ones you won't admit to even yourself.

I think it's because, sometimes, looking at you is like looking at a reflection of me. The way we were before – before everything. You think that I don't know it could have just as easily been me? I wouldn't have been as brave as you, Quinn, if it had all happened to me. Maybe that's what fascinates me about you. Your courage.

You watch me when I lick the bridge of my thumb and forefinger, and as I pour salt over the moistened skin. It isn't sexual – so why do I get a tightness in my belly when your eyes flick to mine, and stay there? You watch me knock back the shot, and you give nothing away, except in the subtle widening of your eyes. I think you watched my tongue slide against the salt – and yes, I'm sure of it now, because your eyes are definitely watching as I bite into the lime.

I'm smiling widely when I pull the rind away, and you cover the one creeping across your face by bringing your glass to your lips. Sipping whiskey – it's the opposite of shooting tequila, I think. Whiskey is rugged and dark, and it scorches. Tequila hurts in its own way (bitter and acidic) – but it's over and done in a flash, forgotten in an instant. That's how I like to experience painful things, Quinn. Like ripping a band-aid off and slapping the skin to make the sting go away. I never could endure slow agony.

Like I said before, I'm not brave like you.

"What's on your mind?" It's hard to talk, because of the music and the noise, but I try anyway.

Your gaze skitters across my face, assessing with that steeled, detached expression that means it's anyone's guess whether what you say next will be the truth or a lie.

"I was thinking about how many more drinks it would take for me to get drunk." Your eyes dip, down to the scarred wood of the bar, and then back up to mine. "And you."

At least some of the truth in that, I suppose. I smile, because my chest is warm from tequila, and my lips already feel hot. "I can still out drink you, Fabray,"

"No doubt," but I can hear the sarcasm in your tone. You tap the edge of your glass with a nail, making dull tink tink tink noises. "Tell me about Louisville."

I take the second tequila shot and order another two – because it's the holidays, right? What else are they for, if not to get hammered with old friends? – and then I tell you. I know you asked so that I would fill up the silence between us, so that you wouldn't have to talk (and reveal more uncomfortable half-truths, like the one about your thoughts, or feel the need to boast about your accomplishments at Yale), and the liquor makes it easy to oblige. Over time, the words come more quickly, tumbling and mashing together. You listen, occasionally glancing at my face, but more often staring at your whiskey.

You down the last quarter of the glass in a single gulp, and you surprise me by ordering another one. I didn't believe you about getting drunk, though by now I'm at least halfway there. You're usually very careful about drinking in public (you hate losing control, or worse, reminding yourself of Russel Fabray), and honestly – even though I really wish it didn't – a tiny bit of worry begins to niggle at me, and maybe it's the Patrón, but I wish, sometimes, that we weren't always the kind of friends who spent so much time slapping at each other. Literally and figuratively.

"Do you sleep with the girls there?"

Your question catches me off guard. It throws me off my rhythm – and it halts the storm cloud of worry that had begun fogging my brain – and the challenging, angry way you say it makes me think that by the end of the night you might be hitting me again.

"In Kentucky? Do you sleep with them?" You raise an eyebrow, but you won't look me in the eyes.

"Why?"

"I was just wondering," you say it slowly, enunciating every word around a mouth turned numb by whiskey, "If you're back to your old tricks – now that you aren't with Brittany."

I can't find anything to say. It's like my mind is whirring and ticking, thoughts and words jangling around, but my tongue cannot catch onto any of them. "Uh—"

"Why did you break up with her?"

That was really the last thing I expected from you.

I never expected you to sound so furious, either, but then again – I know the amount of alcohol in your system, now, so it makes sense.

It stings. I can feel my throat tighten, and I swallow.

That's how I know that I'm done drinking.

"It was better." I clear my throat. I can tell you're straining to hear me – I wasn't particularly loud – and I can practically see you getting frustrated. "For her."

You chuckle, and the sound is full of bitterness. I reach over and tug your half-empty glass away from you, and your fingers fall away without a struggle. "Why do you care, anyway? You never did before."

I watch as you lick your lips, and then press them together. Your face is hard, with only the slightest wrinkle between your eyebrows, and now your fingers tighten into fists on the bar.

"Ask me again."

I feel like reality skipped – somehow I missed something. You can tell that I'm confused, because you inhale deeply and say, "Ask me what's on my mind."

"Okay?" I can't read your body language. You're closed up tight, so rigid and contained; so afraid of giving one little thing away, or losing one iota of control. "Penny for your thoughts, Q."

There is no hesitation this time. Your movement is stuttered and jolty, but you surge forward, and wrap your hand around my wrist, pulling me off of my barstool. I stumble, but you catch me around the waist, and we're squeezed into the tiny space between the two seats. I have only an instant to take it in – the way the floor is slowly tilting, and the way the blood is roaring in my ears; the smell of your perfume (exotic and expensive, I bet) and the feeling of your breath against my cheek – before your lips are hard on mine. The contact steals my breath away, and you take advantage of my shock to slide your tongue into my mouth. I'm overwhelmed by the suddenness of you, the taste that is mostly the sick, sweet licorice of Southern Comfort and something else, and the way your tongue is slick and demanding against mine. Your fingers curl into the jut of my hips, and I can tell that in the morning I will have bruises that match the pattern of your fingertips; in a moment, your teeth are nipping against my lips, and I can't breathe.

My head is swimming, but I surge against you. My hands find their way up to cradle your neck and dive into your hair – longer, now, and more like the sixteen-year-old Quinn Fabray that puked her guts into the gravel on a hot June night – tugging and twisting, keeping you close.

Kissing you is something I've never let myself think about, because it always seemed taboo; best friends, right? I already went down that route once.

But then again, maybe you were always a different kind of friend.

I can't hear anything beyond the buzzing in my ears, and I can't feel anything except the hot blood in my face and the way your body fits against mine, skin on skin. Kissing you is just like fighting with you – passionate and heated, with undertones of violence and the slightest hint of danger. It makes my heart jackknife in my chest, spiking so suddenly that it actually aches against the confines of my ribcage.

I don't want to ease up, even though I'm drowning. I can feel your chest heaving against me, so I know that you're gasping to breathe. When our lips finally peel apart, I hold you close, our faces touching, so I can hear that I've stolen your breath as fully as you stole mine.

Your eyes are dark and so, so large. I imagine that I can almost trace refractions in them, from pupil outward.

"I want you," You say it soft and low, but so urgently.

I inhale sharply. "Are you sure?"

Maybe you can hear it – the insecurity. Maybe you can see it, in the way I tuck my lips into my mouth and gnaw on them slowly.

I said that to someone, once. I just want you. I can't help but think of it now, even when every single part of me is yearning for you.

"I'm sure." You press another kiss to my lips, but this time more gently (but still so, so hot), and it chases away the demons that crowd the corners of my mind.

"Okay." Slowly, I pull away from you, and glance around. "Pay for my drinks, Quinn."

You do.

I didn't really think that you would.

I don't know that either of us should be driving, but because you look at your car like it's a mountain you have to climb instead of a means to an end, I take your hand and lead you to mine. I watch the way you fasten your seatbelt, and then how you grip your fingers in your lap and stare pointedly out the window.

It's cold. Your breath fogs up the glass. I start my car and pull away, and the moisture on the gravel has turned hard, now, and frosty. The sound is ominous, crack-pop-hiss, crunching as tiny rocks roll beneath us, but my tires have good tread. Before long, we're on the highway, and the concrete is still too warm for ice to stick to it.

"No," You say, when you notice that I'm taking the way back to my house. I look at you curiously, but you are still staring out the window. "Go to a motel. I'll pay."

You direct me to the one where Sammy Evans lived during our junior year, and the place is kind of trashy. But I don't mind. I'm just grateful that it isn't the same one where I let Finn Hudson dump the last bit of his childhood inside of me, and then tell me that it meant nothing.

Old wounds. I wonder if coming back to Lima will always feel this way for me, if every single inch of this town will hold some kind of skeleton or rotting, fetid memory. I will always associate you with pianos, did you know that? Even if I leave this place and never come back, and never see your face again, every time I glimpse a piano I'll think of you, and I'll wonder – is the piano a percussion instrument, or not? The same way that hearing I want you reminds me of Brittany, and cheap motels remind me of Finn, and West Side Story will always remind me of Rachel and the long hours we spent rehearsing alone in the auditorium.

It's more than that, though. I think the smell of spearmint will always remind me of you, and expensive perfume, and the image of you in a prom dress in a wheelchair will always be with me. Don't you want to leave this place having made a difference?

When you close the door behind us and walk towards the bed, I watch you, and I think that right now, in this moment, you're going to erase shoddy motels from my repertoire of Finn memories.

Our bodies come together again, and it's a hungry, brutal kind of kiss. It takes only an instant before my skin is hot and sensitive, and my hands itch with the need to touch you. I slip one palm beneath your jacket, sliding it away from your shoulders, and the other dances up your shirt, pressing against the soft skin of your stomach. I can feel the hard definition of your ribs, the low curve of your waist, and it makes me even more frantic.

You just hold me close, hands locked along my pelvis, and kiss me. I don't know how you're so still, because my urge to move against you is overwhelming. I feel it like a zap of static through my veins when you sigh against my lips, as I slip a palm beneath the cup of your bra. It makes me frenetic and crazed, and I want to push you against the bed – but you hold me steady, and strong, with your tongue lapping into my mouth. Your throat vibrates and hums, electrifying my skin; I whine, and press into you with my body, insistent –

Your teeth nip my bottom lip, slowly, and when you begin to suck I can do nothing but moan and shudder against you.

You take the time to undress me, peeling my sweater over my head. I don't give you a chance to look – the second that I'm free, my mouth is battling against yours, furious and hot. I know that I'm wet, because every part of me is throbbing.

I never knew I was so hungry before I tasted you. I never knew that I wanted you this badly.

"God, Santana," It comes out as a groan, because I moved my mouth from your lips to your neck and I can feel the way your pulse is hammering there. It makes everything inside of me feel rushed and dizzy, like riding a tilt-a-whirl. I reach to pull your shirt up, and you allow the space between us – when it falls away, I can feel you pull back. You watch my face, carefully, and for a moment I don't understand why, but then it clicks:

Your scars.

They stretch out across your upper body. Some of them are as thick as my finger, and others are small willowy, dancing shyly along your skin. I can see the way they wrap around your left hip, and then scuttle across your ribs. One of them claws over your shoulder, pink and shiny.

They make me think of glass and blood, of metal twisted and horrific; it makes me think of crushed spinal cords and numbness and complete terror.

I take them in in an instant, and when I smile at you, I can sense your relief. I press a kiss to the one just beneath your bra, on your ribcage, and I feel your lungs inhale.

Your scars aren't ugly, Quinn. They're like a roadmap of your life, written in permanent ink across your body – they tell the story of you. And even though there are so, so many of them, I know that you carry more marks inside of you than the ones shown here.

"Lay down," I whisper.

You go to lie on the bed, but I stop you – instead I pull you towards the floor and the rough carpet. You have the barest moment to settle before I'm on top of you, and my mouth is kissing a trail from your lips to your jaw and then beneath, licking at the slick, sweet skin there. Our bare stomachs graze one another, and I can feel your hipbones against mine.

You lift your hips when I slide your jeans away from your body, and I can feel you watch me when I tug my own pants away. I kick at them, impatient, because you're naked and looking at me, with your hair spilled around your head and I just want—

But then I'm on top of you again, and your body is so warm and compact beneath mine. Your hands explore the divots of my back; I can feel the meat of your palm on my spine. I shiver, and you smile, and it makes me kiss you.

I want to touch you; I feel like I've been dying to do it. I shift until there's space between our bodies, and I support my weight on one arm while the other glides down your torso and then back up again. Our kisses are more gentle, now, more patient – as if we both have realized we have time, that we can take the time to do this right. I love your body, Quinn. I loved it when you were sweating and red-faced from Cheerios practice, or when it was swollen and full of Beth; I loved it even with pink hair and a nose ring, and I love it now – scarred and battered, but still so strong. I can feel your muscles jump and dance beneath my palm. You move reach down, impatient, and press my hand against your breast. I kiss beneath your earlobe when my fingers find the clasp of your bra and pull it away – you're groaning and squirming, now – and then you arch, biting your lip, when my fingers find your nipple. I slick my tongue over the other, and now your body thrashes; I can tell by the rhythm of your hips that you want me to touch you more.

It never occurred to me to think of doing this as making music, because let's face it – there's little romance in me – but the way you sigh reminds me of my favorite song. You brace yourself as I taste every inch of you, meandering down the pathways of your torso, beneath your navel. Your hips lift impatiently and you help me by wriggling out of your panties, and the second they're tossed aside you reach for me, drawing me close, arching into me.

It's not my usual style to go slow, or to tease, but seeing how completely you want me makes me feel drunk on power, and I love watching you squirm. My fingertips slide against you, gently, and I watch your face as they explore, slipping through you, and finally into you. You don't gasp – instead it seems as if sound has escaped you, and instead you shudder. I can feel you tighten, and you're warm and soft and incredibly wet. My fingers slip out and then back in again, and you find your voice; you stutter out a moan, and your spine arches (no sign, now, that it once was shattered), hips dancing fervidly against me.

I want to keep going slow – I want to watch you as you soar and crash – but I can't; I've caught your heat, and now I'm crawling up the length of your body, my wrist pumping into you, and I cover your mouth with mine to swallow your gasps. I writhe against the force of your hand against my back, the bite of your nails along my hip; my nerves jangle and hiss when you reach around, low, and slip your fingers beneath my panties. I pull back and bite my lip, hard, to stifle the way I want to groan; but still, it slips out, the same time you slip into me.

I press my forehead to your shoulder and now my muffled sounds mingle with yours. Our bodies glide and crash together – and I think, I never expected you to be good at this. How could you be? This is your first time – isn't it? (Would you tell me if it wasn't?) But you know my body better than I imagined, and I know it won't take long – your fingers are long and I don't know how you can concentrate, how are you so steady? My own rhythm got lost a few moments ago, but your body draws me back into it, and now we're in sync, and I can no longer think.

I feel you spasm and clench only a moment before the same thing happens to me – my forehead, sweat-slick, scoots from your shoulder to the cradle of your neck, and the sound of you coming reverberates there. I can feel your body vibrate, stretching tight and taut beneath me; I collapse a moment later, and the force of your breath moves me up and down.

My whole body feels both numb and too sensitive all at once; everything is swollen and raw, but distantly. Your lungs are struggling for air, and I can hear it, but I can hear my own heartbeat pounding in my ears.

Slowly, the sound is replaced by the thud of your heart, pounding in your chest. You sigh when I pull my hand away from you, and I press a kiss to your collarbone when you do the same. I want to look at your face – I wonder the shade of your eyes, the color of your lips. But I can't, not yet, and I know it's because of my own fear.

You swallow, and your voice is hushed and ragged: "Santana – you never told me.."

Slowly, I raise my head, because the way your words quiver puts me on guard. "God, Q, don't cry."

You close your eyes, tight, and it makes me nervous that you really will cry. Jesus, what's wrong with me? How am I always doing this?

"Why – why didn't you ever tell me?"

I clench my jaw, and I know that I could pretend – I could lie. I could say I don't know what you're talking about, or seem indifferent, or deny it.

But I can't, Q, I just can't.

"I guess I didn't know." I shrug, because old habits die hard, and when you finally open your eyes, I look away.

"Santana, come here."

I don't know why it frightens me, but fear jangles along my nerves, starting from my heart and radiating outwards along my nerves. I settle down on top of you and try to relax, with my head on your shoulder, but my stomach is in knots. I feel restless and tense, because I want to run away. It takes every ounce of restraint that I have to lie here.

"We don't have to figure it out now." It sounds like you're thinking aloud.

I could say something snarky – there's nothing to figure out or stop being such a girl. I can feel them rising up on my tongue, but I let them die when you run your fingers through my hair.

A moment passes, and despite myself, my muscles begin to unwind. It's in the way you breathe and quiet thud of your heart, the secret whish of the blood swimming through your veins.

"Hey, Quinn," I murmur, nearly half-asleep. "Are pianos a percussion instrument?"

"Yeah," You answer, not missing a beat. "Why?"

"Of course you would know that."