Title: are you two years ago
Author: timorous-scribe
Length: ~5k
Rating: M
Pairing(s): Unholy Trinity
Spoilers: anything up to 5x12 - 100 is fair game
Summary: Reuniting a little threesome called the Unholy Trinity for some Toxic performance practice and one last sleepover before they have to return to their big kid lives (and all the issues that go with) at MIT, New York, and Yale.
Santana never expected to feel like she's the most 'put together' of the three of them when she imagined having the Unholy Trinity together again.
It's not even that she's doing super awesome or anything with whatever the whole trauma with Rachel can be called—refusing to crawl through a minefield of unabashed self-importance? immunizing against head-in-ass disease?—but she has the understudy spot for a headlining Broadway musical, she has a girlfriend that doesn't cheat on her and isn't a crazy person, and she's got a steady job that even though may suck sometimes, pays the bills for the roof over her head that she earns on her own. Things could definitely be worse for Santana Lopez.
But coming back to this shithole, again, always just feels like regression all over the place. It makes Santana feel like she's stuck out-of-phase somewhere between the independent woman she's worked (working) really hard to become in New York, and the insecure and indecisive girl she left behind. Just standing here looking around her old bedroom is enough to call up countless moments spent here that all run together in a blink, and the avalanche blurs her new reality of New York into a haze. It feels like some kind of afternoon dream, a weird sort of fantasy she's supposed to laugh at and then shake off—living with Rachel and Kurt, trying to get on Broadway...seriously?
It's unsettling to realize that just being in this place can feel like it scrambles her somehow, undermines so much of what she's accomplished and reverts her right back to high school. She's supposed to spend the first part of the day tomorrow dancing in the choir room with Brittany and Quinn, for chrissake. It really shouldn't be such a surprise that Santana feels like everything is two years ago.
She calls Britt because she really just doesn't know what else to do with herself and it's what being here in the time warp makes instinctual: attach to Brittany. As soon as she hears Britt sounding all washed out on the phone, Santana's ennui or whatever—she's obviously been living with Kurt if she's using words like 'ennui,' so that's comforting—is suddenly less important. The blonde's talking circles about formulas that "equate to negative inertia" and how she's basically lost that internal rhythm that always kept her dancing, and it's really just kind of heartbreaking in a way that has nothing to do with their romantic history. Once Santana actually processes what Brittany is telling her, she's already trying to come up with something (anything) she can do to fix it. Something's intrinsically wrong with the world when Brittany doesn't want to be dancing.
Santana hears the remote echo of Britt's mom on the other end of the call, and then Brittany's hanging up with a promise to be over after she has dinner with her family. The familiarity of the arrangement really doesn't help the whole wibbily wobbly timey wimey situation, but Santana's pretty much ready to stop twisting about it and just let things be and see what happens.
That in mind, she gets a random idea that maybe doesn't fully form before she's already dialing Quinn, and by then it's too late to renege, anyway. The call turns out to be more than enough to make her feel better about whatever this dissonance thing she's got going on is, because she doesn't even know where to begin with Quinn's whole damage.
In some sick way, it's kind of comforting to know she was totally right to expect Quinn to be a trainwreck of self-denial, all propped up on some weak excuses. In past experience, Quinn has always run to some guy she doesn't want—but really wishes she did, and tries to force herself to—when what she actually wanted got too distasteful for her WASP-y sensibilities. Santana supposes she should take it as a compliment; apparently that night got to Quinn, enough to catalyze her most recent backslide into what Santana always thought of as 'Judy Stepford mode.'
The parallel of her own lapse of behaviors isn't lost on Santana, but she's always known they were similar in too many ways for comfort and it's much easier to look at when it's Quinn fucking up and not her.
Having lived through Quinn's schizophrenic approach to problem solving several times over, Santana is only half surprised when Quinn seems to be all about the idea of a last Unholy Trinity sleepover, despite the Yalie souvenir she'll be leaving to entertain himself in her hotel room. Santana hangs up the phone with the distinct impression that Quinn is intending for a very certain kind of reminiscing, and really doesn't seem too concerned that Brittany will also be present.
Marveling at the sort of 'issues' that seem to pop up in her life, Santana shakes off the feeling of impending doom—she still hasn't found a good time to tell Britt what went down (it was her) at Schue's not-wedding last year—and heads downstairs to lift her mom's keys in a perhaps questionable decision to acquire tequila before the other two arrive. The way Santana is looking at it, even if alcohol won't exactly help her problem, it'll make her less concerned with it for at least the short term. Besides, she's trying to just be, and being with tequila for this evening is what's going to happen.
About a half hour later, Quinn pulls up in the driveway right as Santana is parking her mom's Benz, and Brittany follows behind not long after. It's strange at first, Brittany is placid somehow in a way Santana's never seen her, and Quinn is wearing her senator's wife smile—not too wide nor too snarky, hands folded neatly in front of her and spine straight. Santana just blends the margaritas and wonders if this is some kind of reality check, a reminder of how different things really are between the three of them.
Then Brittany hops up to sit on the island counter, just like she had so many other afternoons back before life shuffled the deck and dealt each of them out into the world. The weird tension just evaporates like that, and they slip into their habitual dynamic like an old pair of jeans. It only takes about an hour (and maybe a few margaritas) before they're talking and giggling up in Santana's room, Britney Spears blasting from the iPod dock and a feeling like Dani and Biff, MIT, and all of it maybe doesn't have to matter for a little while.
"Oh my god, Santana, how much lingerie do you own?"
Santana rolls her eyes from her position on the bed, head hanging upside down off the side while Brittany counts steps of choreography for their dance tomorrow and Quinn digs through god knows what in the closet.
"Not everyone can be happy in life wearing bikini cut Hanes Her Ways, Q-Fab." Even upside down, the look Quinn shoots her makes Santana's nipples tighten, both of them remembering a conversation a few months ago.
"Bikini cut briefs, Q? Really?" It's chuckled into Quinn's thigh, a single slender finger snapping the waistband with the taunt.
"If you hate them so much, why are they still in the way?"
"It's better than the granny panties she used to wear." Brittany's comment floats over undercut with breathy numbers as she counts the time of her movements. A quick snap of her hip and arm later she adds, "I don't even bother buying underwear anymore. I can never find them again after I wear them."
It takes a few moments for the statement to register, and it's only after it does that Santana realizes she's been staring hypnotized as Brittany flows with the music. She glances to the closet to see Quinn frozen in a similar trance and decides it's time for more margaritas. She can tell there's an energy brewing in the room that it feels too early to name, and at this point more tequila can only be a good thing, right?
"Imma go downstairs." Santana rolls her way off the bed and wavers on her feet for a few seconds as the blood rushes from her head.
"Hey, see if these fit, I think there's enough in here for costumes…" Quinn tosses a black skirt and red bra at Brittany, and Santana gets her bearings, waving her empty cup in the air.
"Tequila."
Brittany nods with a quick smile and drops her pants to the floor, bending over to step into the skirt and stopping Santana in place. She knows that she's staring again, and she definitely knows that it's not healthy (nor wise) to let lust for her ex-girlfriend run so freely unchecked. It's especially not a good idea when she and that ex-girlfriend are getting drunk together, along with the last person Santana had sex with (unbeknownst to her ex-girlfriend) before hooking up with her current girlfriend, who—in the coup de grâce of this little fiasco waiting to happen—isn't even present. Seriously, what is her life when these are her problems?
Santana knows all of these things, and they still don't stop her from letting her gaze climb up the length of Brittany's creamy thighs, getting lost in the blend of muscle and softness until her fingertips literally twitch with the urge to touch. She spots Quinn's smirk from over Britt's shoulder and it shakes the fugue, spurring her out the door and down the stairs. Whatever. Britt's hot, it's impossible not to stare when she takes her clothes off. It doesn't mean anything.
Santana doesn't even think she takes that long downstairs, even though she did get everything poured and then stop in the middle of blending it to unplug the appliance, loading herself up with tequila, margarita mix, ice, blender and all to carry upstairs. It didn't seem like that long, but somehow it was long enough for what she's seeing on her bed to have started, and really, Santana just can't grasp how that is.
"Are you fucking serious?"
Brittany is wearing the skirt from earlier (but not really much else) and sitting on top of Quinn on the bed, her hands busy inside Quinn's blouse and her tongue in Quinn's mouth. They stop kissing at the question and Brittany smiles brightly at Santana standing dumbfounded in the doorway with her arms full of margarita paraphernalia. She knew there was an odd kind of thrum going on, but she really didn't expect it to rocket forward so quickly into… whatever the fuck this is.
"Oh you brought the stuff back, perfect!" Brittany tumbles off of Quinn and bounds over to take the tequila from Santana, kissing her cheek before turning back to the room with her prize. "Sexy shots, guys?" She asks with a mischievous grin.
Quinn doesn't look unsettled in the slightest—though her lips are swollen and her eyes are heavy-lidded, trained on Santana since the door swung open—and Santana's starting to think Quinn might've been planning for something like this all along.
It's not like it's the first time they've messed around or whatever, the three of them spent the entire summer the Fabrays were visiting colleges with Frannie getting drunk on Judy's wine and 'experimenting.' Quinn got pregnant the next year and it turned into much more than experimenting for Brittany and Santana, but there were more than a few times over those last couple years that things went a little… weird between them all when they slept over, and 'weird' doesn't even begin to cover the night in New York for Nationals.
It's not something they ever really talked about—Santana knew confronting it with Quinn would just end up in another Judy Stepford cycle—but the history was there, and they always seemed like they were a little closer to each other for the experience, weird or not.
"You mean body shots?" Quinn's voice is a little rough as sits up and runs a hand through her hair, the messy curls she's sporting this week mussed and somehow sexier for it.
"Do you have a lime?" Brittany directs the question to Quinn, who arches a brow and looks down at her unbuttoned blouse.
"Doesn't look like it, no." She deadpans the response with her trademark brow arch.
"Then we can't do body shots, can we?" Brittany answers smartly like it's the natural conclusion, settling herself back on the bed next to Quinn. She puts the bottle between her crossed legs, unscrewing the cap and tilting her chin in Santana's direction. "Santana knows how to take sexy shots…" She trails off with her blue eyes pinning Santana, waiting with this calm expectancy that makes Santana feel like maybe everyone was planning for something like this but her.
It strikes Santana in a heartbeat of lucidity that even though this maybe isn't the worst thing that could be happening right now, that certainly doesn't make it a good thing, either. She looks from one blonde to the other, her brain screaming too many different warnings at once for anything to form into action: She has a girlfriend. Quinn has a boyfriend. Brittany doesn't know about her and Quinn. She has a girlfriend. This cannot possibly end well. Her heart starts to feel like it's beating too hard to be healthy and she can feel the panic sweat beginning to gather under her breasts.
She takes a shaky deep breath and turns towards the dresser, buying herself a moment to process by calmly setting down all the margarita stuff she's still holding, one item at a time. She can feel their eyes on her, waiting patiently while she stretches thinner and thinner between the desires that are gaining right alongside her blood alcohol, and the girl that waits for her back in New York.
It seems so far away, New York, and it has only gotten farther since Santana stepped off the plane this morning. It's an afternoon dream, a weird sort of fantasy she's supposed to laugh at and then shake off—dating Dani instead of Brittany, best friends with Rachel instead of Quinn… seriously?
Brittany wordlessly hands the Cuervo to Quinn and gets up from the bed, walking over to where Santana is motionless staring into the mirror over her dresser. Her expression is tranquil as she slowly wraps her limbs around Santana from behind, keeping eye-contact in the mirror. They've always been able to communicate so much better without words, and the connection calms Santana on some core level she can't reach on her own.
Brittany kisses Santana's shoulder with a private sort of smile, then slowly turns Santana's slight frame until they're facing each other. She takes Santana's hands in her own and walks backwards toward the bed, not letting go of them until after she's sat down next to Quinn again. Taking the bottle back, she holds it out to Santana with that same smile and a steady patient burn of desire in her eyes. Santana takes it and stares at it in her hand for a few moments, the music still playing in the background a perfect soundtrack to this whole scenario.
It's getting late, to give you up… I took a sip, from my devil's cup… slowly, it's taking over me...
The seconds feel like they're stretching forever and Santana feels her resistance tremble. Brittany still has that same aura of quiet confidence that this is happening, while Quinn wears an almost predatory hungry look. It strikes Santana in that moment that this is different than it's ever been with them—they're both looking at her for their cues, and not Quinn. The realization of the subtle shift and all the reasons behind it are enough to hitch her breath in her chest with a rush.
"Show her how to take sexy shots, 'Tana..." There's so much more than just the direction wrapped around Brittany's husky words, and the command finally breaks it for Santana. Her lips twitch, the swagger persona sliding on without her really meaning for it, and she takes a step closer to push Quinn back against the pillows at the head of the bed. Brittany grins wickedly in triumph and scoots up next to where Quinn's reclined, leaning in to nuzzle at her neck.
"She's a great teacher, watch." The words are whispered against Quinn's ear, a hot rush of breath that raises the hair at the back of Quinn's neck.
"Sexy shots," Santana begins, crawling up onto the bed to sit across Quinn's thighs, "are for when you don't have a lime chaser." She wiggles her hips to settle herself more firmly against Quinn's lap, then tips the bottle up for a quick swig, watching Quinn from under her lashes as she sips. Swallowing with a quick wince and a raspy intake of breath, Santana leans in to kiss Quinn before the blonde even realizes what's happening. Then Quinn's lost in a rush of Santana's spicy scent, spiked with the acidic tinge of alcohol, and the brunette's tongue leaves a slight burning sensation as it slides across Quinn's lip before slipping into her mouth.
Quinn can feel Brittany's shaky exhale against her neck, but has no idea which hands tugging her shirt further open and stroking paths across her abdomen belong to whom. The Cuervo bottle is cold against her side where it's pressed between her and the heat of Brittany's body, and the contrast feels like a subtle tether to the other girl while she kisses Santana. Santana breaks the connection slowly, sucking on Quinn's lower lip in her retreat and grinning a lazy sort of smile.
"So you have to find some other flavor to chase the shot with." She licks her lips and rocks her hips just so with the sentence, her smirk spreading when Quinn's jump slightly underneath her in reply. Brittany hops up on her knees next to Quinn's hip, bringing the bottle along with her as she rises.
"Me next, me next!"
She swigs like a champ, dropping the bottle to the bed almost immediately and leaning in to cup Santana's jaw and bring their faces together. Brittany's been waiting for way too long to taste Santana again, and the feeling is like every particle in her body has reverted back to a very high energy state—a little unstable and in constant motion, but all forces of nature are unified into one. She can't help her whimper of relief as soon as their lips press together, the plush softness of Santana's mouth is a homecoming in every way that counts.
They get lost in the kiss for a while, the delicacy present at the start of it giving way to an open-mouthed raw sort of thing that Quinn watches transfixed with shallow breaths, her hands stroking aimlessly up and down Santana's thighs. There's a graphic beauty to the way they mesh together, and Quinn's always found it hypnotizing as much as it left her envious.
A moment later her hands are pushing gently at Santana's hips and the brunette tries to follow the prompt without breaking her kiss, ending up gracelessly falling over Brittany until she's sprawled across the blonde pushed back on the bed.
Santana giggles and tries to look back to check on Quinn, but Brittany's hand in her hair grips into a fist and needily pulls her back, and she figures Quinn can mind herself for another minute. The next thing she's aware of aside from the cotton candy scent of Brittany's skin and the insistent hands crawling under her sports bra, is her yoga pants being tugged down off her ass, and only 'aware' in as far as she has to move her knees for Quinn to pull them off. Then Brittany's using her greedy handfuls of Santana's breasts to urge her upwards, the kiss breaking into harsh pants as Santana kneels and Brittany shoves the stretchy fabric of the bra up Santana's ribcage and arms until she can toss it to the side.
Quinn shuffles across the bed on her knees to press behind a now fully naked Santana, sliding her hands up to cover Brittany's as they knead supple flesh while she runs her tongue up the cord of Santana's neck.
"Isn't that better?" It's husked directly into Santana's ear and in three words, there's no worry about Quinn's commitment to what's happening here.
Amidst the blitz of sensation competing for her sanity, Santana is struck with the same awareness from earlier: their trinity has definitely shifted, and she's become the point of the triangle. It certainly doesn't detract from the feelings she's drowning in, instead gratifying the toppy part of Santana that's always enjoyed telling other people—especially Quinn, who normally fights obedience so fiercely—what to do.
Brittany pulls away from sucking at Santana's nipple to lay back on the bed, rearranging her position around the other two until Santana ends up straddling her. She pauses for a second to look up as Quinn uses one hand to replace Britt's mouth pulling at Santana's nipple, and the other to turn the brunette's chin into a kiss over her shoulder. It's just so pretty to look at, and it's fascinating to Brittany see that same competitive pulse in sex that they've always had in everything else. It's almost savage the way their mouths slant together, all nipping teeth and sliding lips, and Britt's pretty sure there was a growl in there from one of them.
"That is so hot, you guys." She says it on a breath as her hands run from Santana's hips to Quinn's, reaching forward to squeeze at Quinn's ass still covered by her sleep shorts. There's a grunt that floats down from Quinn's chest at the move, her hand moving from its grip on Santana's chin to cup her neck and pull the woman deeper into the kiss.
Craning her neck to look for the Cuervo, Brittany reaches back and rescues it from its precarious position leaned against the pillows. The cap was lost somewhere in the beginning and the bottle was tilted just enough to not soak the sheets with its contents. Sitting up, Brittany strokes sure fingers up Santana's thigh, raising the bottle in her other hand.
"I know what I want for my next chaser…" She lets her touch graze over the length of Santana's slit, just enough to feel the radiating heat and tease an involuntary jerk of the brunette's hips. The murmured comment rips a moan from Santana's throat as she releases Quinn's mouth and nods, scrambling her way up Brittany's body in singular pursuit.
Britt barely has a chance to swallow the shot and drop the bottle before her eyes are rolling closed with a reverent 'yessss' while Santana's thighs close around her ears. Santana's natural scent mixed with the musky flavor on her tongue has Brittany whimpering without realizing it, her neck straining upwards to get closer while her hands pull at Santana's hips. This is exactly what she's been missing for just entirely too long, and she lets the sensory overload intoxicate her.
Santana is nearly delirious with how Brittany's mouth is dismantling her, the blonde knows her so well, knows just how to touch her to have her eyes crossing and jibberish falling from her lips. Somewhere in the back of her mind she wonders what Quinn is doing, and finally looks back to see when a sharp cry from Brittany vibrates through her flesh.
Santana's momentarily dumbfounded by what she sees, her brain short circuited and refusing to process the image as a whole. She narrows her eyes and tries to focus on Quinn's long legs stretched the length of the bed, following them up to the perfectly round swell of her ass and over the valley of her lower back. Santana forces her eyes to stay open against what Brittany's doing, watching as Quinn's back flexes with the movements of her neck before finally letting her gaze fall on the blonde head moving at the top of Brittany's thighs.
She turns and falls forward on her hands, pumping her hips into Brittany's mouth and hoping somewhere that she's not breaking her nose in the process. The memory of the last time she'd watched Quinn do that same thing is all too fresh in her mind, scrambling her senses along with the reality of how she's doing it now, until it occurs to Santana as she hears herself moaning that she's glad girls can keep going, because she's already embarrassingly close and they've barely gotten started.
It slams into Santana a few minutes later, after Brittany bucks into whatever Quinn's doing to her—Santana's pretty sure she knows exactly what that feels like—and slides her fingers inside Santana in the same moment. She knows she sounds like she's dying or something, but with her body spasming in jerky little shudders and Brittany not letting up, it's all she can do to not let her quaking legs give out and fall on the girl under her. Wiggling out of Brittany's grip after she catches her breath, Santana manages to swing her leg over the blonde's head and slide down next to her on the bed, leaning in to kiss the leftovers of Britt's 'chaser' from her lips.
Brittany can't keep the kiss connected, her lips parting to pant and her eyes squeezed closed in concentration. It's not very long before Quinn's moving up the bed with probably the most smug expression that Santana's ever seen on her face, after Brittany's finally released the 'Britt-trap.' In the past Santana's almost lost more than one weave to the Britt-trap, where the blonde curls her whole body in and clamps her thighs down when she comes. Quinn doesn't seem to have minded, still wearing that self-satisfied smile as Santana and Britt pull her down between them.
They scoot in closer to Quinn, pressing her shoulders to lay her back as each of them props on an elbow to grin down at her. It's a little intimidating for Quinn to have them both so focused on her all of a sudden, and Santana finds it doesn't bother her (for the moment) to have the triangle shift back again. Brittany catches her eyes and they share a brief wordless conversation across Quinn's chest, grinning at each other in agreement before they look back down to Quinn and each run a finger up one of her thighs.
"So, I'm right handed." Brittany says it conversationally, like it's an answer to a question Quinn had asked.
"And I'm left handed." Santana chimes in, their fingers meeting at the crux of Quinn's thighs and moving together through the wetness they find. Quinn's eyes flutter closed and she gasps at the contact. "It works well." Santana's using that low tone that Quinn's only heard before tonight in that hotel room at the not-wedding, and on the nights she eavesdropped—or more than eavesdropped, when things went 'weird' or whatever—at sleepovers in high school. It has the same effect it always has, rippling over her nerves just as thoroughly as a touch.
"You two always were—" Quinn gasps again in the middle of the thought, digging her nails into Brittany's lower back, "fuck, that's good—were a good team." With the two of them working together, it's not surprising that Quinn is next on the happy orgasm train, but she is far from the last of the night.
— — —
By the time morning comes around they're in a pile under Santana's silk sheets, vaguely hungover and very sore. Santana decides threesomes are fucking gymnastics, and wonders how the hell she's going to get through singing and dancing in a few hours in the choir room. Quinn's the first to actually get up, all kinds of awkward trying to steal the sheet to cover herself as she slides out of the bed.
"I've sucked on every piece of you that's covered in a bathing suit, Quinn. We're probably past the point of needing a sheet." It's muffled by the pillow she's laying on, but Santana's rough grumble hits its mark anyway.
"I-I need to go shower. And change. Before glee club." The sentences are punctuated by Quinn bending down to pick up random pieces of last night's clothing—seriously, how the hell does it get strewn around the entire room when she undressed by the bed?—as she turns around in circles looking for all of it. "And Biff, Christ." She's stumbling into her shoes, her shirt still hanging unbuttoned as she heads for the door. "I'll see you guys later. There, or whatever. Bye."
The door closes behind Quinn and Brittany tightens her hold around Santana, the action comforting and warm at the same time as it sends spikes of guilt coiling in Santana's guts.
It is way too early to deal with being the most 'put together' of the three of them, or with Quinn's damage, or with trying to be the lead point of this triangle right now, and Santana just closes her eyes. Future Santana can take on that mess, she's just going to be and see what happens.