Santana spends the first week of her summer getting up at noon and never bothering to wear more than tank tops and sweatpants. She doesn't leave the house, opting instead to watch every Disney movie she owns on VHS in her basement and living on ice cream and anything that takes less that takes less than five minutes to prepare. Every once and a while she finds herself spinning around in her desk chair, refreshing facebook every five minutes for lack of anything better to do.
Fuck it, she thinks, at some point on Sunday night. She was not going to spend her entire summer wallowing in her own misery.
Brittany's on vacation, she thinks. Deal with it.
She groans, running her hands through her hair. Her usual, organized summer is gone—no cheer camp in July, and Brittany's family thought it would be an excellent time to take a vacation into the middle of fucking nowhere.
And it's not like any of her other friends would want to see her (and she sure as hell wasn't going to ask them), even if they weren't busy. Mercedes is in North Carolina, and Kurt is too busy swooning over Blaine. The boys are at football camp, and she can only take so much Black Ops anyway. Tina and Mike have Asian camp, and Rachel is doing some sort of theater production. It's not like Santana can stand more than five minutes with her, anyway. Ok, maybe ten.
But there is one friend who might be able to alleviate her boredom.
Quinn answers the door with her hair sticking in every direction and a confused look on her face. She's wearing her glasses, and looks even more annoyed than usual.
"Santana?"
"Get in, loser. We're getting jobs."
It takes twenty minutes to convince Quinn to leave the house ("and god damn, Fabray, put on some better clothes") and another ten to drive to the nearest strip mall. They find a HELP WANTED sign outside of a froyo joint, and the next morning they find themselves dressed in god-awful polos and orange visors. There's a quick training for them, but honestly, how hard is it to weigh froyo?
One hour into it, Santana's already bored. She mutters random insults under her breath, and Quinn just laughs when she hears them.
By the second week, they've developed a routine. Quinn will work while Santana relaxes against the wall behind the counter, usually filing her nails. Quinn will get irate and force Santana into working, which will result in a rapid stream of Spanish pouring out of her mouth. Santana will take breaks as often as she can, and Quinn will pretend to be upset and drag her back into the shop. They squabble, but they actually find themselves enjoying each other's company. For a while, at least.
It's just past the afternoon rush when Santana excuses herself to take a quick break, as usual. She sits on the steps out of the back door, and before she knows it she's pulled out a pack of cigarettes and has one deftly lit.
"Are you smoking?" comes Quinn's incredulous voice from behind her.
"Fuck off, Fabray."
Quinn sighs, stepping down and sitting next to her on the steps.
"Where'd you get them from, anyways?" she asks.
"Puck," she pauses, flicking off ash from the end of her cigarette, "bastard."
"It's probably bad for your voice," Quinn says.
"Look, I'm bored and I have nothing better to do besides weighing stupid people's stupid froyo," Santana snaps.
"This was your idea," Quinn replies, taking off her visor and shaking out her hair.
"Yeah, well, I'm sick of it. I'm sick of this fucking summer."
She takes another drag from her cigarette.
"It's just as bad as last year was," she adds under her breath.
Some sort of recognition passes through Quinn's eyes.
"You miss cheer camp."
"Like hell," Santana replies, though she looks away.
"You miss Brittany," Quinn continues, leaning forward and turning her face to look at Santana.
She does doesn't say anything; she just sits there, taking slow drags from the smoldering cigarette and flicking ash from the end.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Quinn presses, nudging her knee into Santana's.
"No," Santana spits, but after a beat, her face softens.
"Iloveher," she says, her voice less than a whisper, "…fuck."
Santana pinches the bridge of her nose with her spare hand.
Quinn laughs, ever so slightly, and places a hand on the darker girl's shoulder.
"Okay. I kinda knew that already."
Santana shrugs off the hand, turning apprehensively.
"That's it? That's all Sister Christian is going to say?"
"Who am I to judge? I've cheated—twice—, gotten knocked up out of wedlock, and had nearly as much alcohol as you have. There are a lot worse things than loving someone, Santana."
Santana looks away, strands of her hair falling out of her cap and flying across her forehead with the wind. She takes another drag from her cigarette, then frowns down at it.
"Like smoking," she says.
Quinn gives a small laugh.
"Sure, Santana. Like smoking."
And with that, Santana puts out the cigarette on the step next to her, flicking the butt into the nearby trashcan.
"Come on," the blonde girl says, getting up from the stairs, "we have froyo to weigh."
Santana gets up as Quinn turns to walk back into the shop.
"Hey, Q…" she starts.
Quinn turns, slightly surprised at the use of her old nickname.
"Yeah?"
"Thanks. Or something," Santana says, awkwardly playing with her fingers.
Quinn just smiles, and turns to walk into the shop.