summary: 'You start to cry then, silently and without motion—you remember thinking she was going to die; she is your best friend, and you just slept with her, and you love her, and you are fucked.' quinntana 4x14 & AU aftermath.
[an: so i watched 4x14 yesterday & dumb dumb quinntana. please don't hate me for writing them, this is a completely different universe than faberry, & i promise faberry will always be my babies.]
...
it seems to me i have known something the whole time (there is no meaning in saying so, in uttering this truth)
.
471. it is so difficult to find the beginning. or, better: it is difficult to begin at the beginning. & not to try to go further back.
—ludwig wittgenstein, on certainty
...
Quinn tastes drunk. Heady wine and rose lipstick; her hands are not necessarily steady.
You are not nearly drunk enough to do anything other than pause while she's beneath you, breathless, eyes greener than you've ever seen them, and ask, 'Are you sure?'
She says yes.
.
She's grown softer at Yale, just a little. Her eyes, the jut of her cheeks, the press of her hipbones. Quinn, for as long as you've known her, from that first day at cheer camp, has always been beautiful. Painfully so. Devastatingly so.
Right now, when she comes in a breathless flurry, you are sure that some part of you has wanted this for a very long time. She is nothing like Brittany: Quinn's muscles are thin, strong, gentle, but her hands are demanding and harsh, calluses on the tops of her knuckles, one scar on her left palm. A strange part of your brain remembers her rambling last week on the phone about the sublime apocalypse, but all you really know is, when she arches into you without any sound, she is the most terribly pretty thing you've ever seen.
.
She falls asleep after reciprocating, which she does well and with power. She falls asleep, surprisingly, cuddled up against your chest. You brush aside her hair from her face—it's gotten long again, but it's still as soft as ever.
The sheets are down around your waist, and you trace the scar down her spine so lightly, then the thicker, almost purple scar that snakes around her shoulder blade and between her ribs.
You start to cry then, silently and without motion—you remember thinking she was going to die; she is your best friend, and you just slept with her, and you love her, and you are fucked.
.
When you say, 'We can make this a two-time thing,' Quinn is sober, and she has this little sexy smirk after she wakes up and you crawl away quickly.
But this time, she's gentle, and she goes down on you first. Brittany made love to you, absolutely, but never quite like this: Quinn is purposed and far too intelligent to not mean every motion.
It scares the hell out of you.
.
The two-time thing turns into a six-time thing. Not once do you touch Quinn's scars until after, until she's resting her head on your chest again, turned and folded into your body.
She doesn't say anything and neither do you; you suppose that yes, before tonight you had seen them before—in the hospital, at nationals, swimming during the summer—but not like this. Never like this.
You kiss the hickey you'd left on her pale collarbone unintentionally. 'You bruise so easily,' you say.
'Yeah,' Quinn says a few quiet moments later. 'I do.'
.
'What do we do now?' she asks, again.
You finish lacing your boot and look toward her. She's hunched over a little on the bed, and you wonder if she's sore or just constantly a little hurt by the world, scared.
'Look,' you say, and you sit down next to her. Her knuckles are rough and callused, which is unexpected. You take her hand, lace your fingers. 'I love you. No strings attached.'
It feels like a lie, and you wait for Quinn to call you on your bluff.
But she only husks out, 'I love you too, San.'
.
You visit her a few weeks later. You can't say why, and you don't want to say why. She's Lucy Quinn Fabray, and she has always held far, far too much power.
You don't really visit with any warning, and when she answers the door she's in a Yale t-shirt and boxers, and there's a messy semi-circle of books around her laptop and a blanket on the floor.
Her eyes dart nervously to your lips before she smiles, and you laugh and say, 'Did you build a book fort or something?'
She hugs you tightly, then tugs you inside. 'Synthesis essay, and it's good to see you too.'
.
You only kiss. It's scary, because Quinn is a fabulous kisser and you're so goddamn turned on and so goddamned sober.
The next morning you wake up wrapped around her, and never in your life would you have pegged Quinn as a little spoon but you kiss the back of her neck. She turns over groggily a few minutes later and kisses you fully and unreserved.
'Hey,' she says, and her voice is rough, and you sort of wonder why anyone broke up with her in high school, because here's this very pretty girl in a dorm at Yale burrowing into your chest sleepily in the morning.
'Good morning, Quinn,' you say quietly, and she smiles before kissing you again.
.
She shows you around campus and then you go to brunch—'so fucking WASPy,' you make sure to say at least eight times, but you'd never turn down waffles and a good mimosa—and then as you head back to the dorm, Quinn takes your hand.
You stop immediately. 'What are you doing?'
Quinn's eyes flash. 'This,' she says, straightening to her full height, jaw clenched.
'Quinn—I—'
'What are we doing, Santana?' she asks, and there's a hollowness to the question that shakes you.
'I don't know,' you finally admit.
She nods, squeezes your hand, and turns to continue walking. You have never had any choice but to follow.
.
'I'm going to hurt you,' you say.
Quinn shrugs. 'By nature of existence, absolutely.'
'Don't be a smartass, just this once.'
She looks up from her book, clicks her highlighter four times. 'I'll hurt you too.'
.
'How long have things been like this?' you ask four weeks later, one morning where Quinn is curled in front of you in bed.
She doesn't face you when she says, 'Already always.'
'You're so full of bullshit, Fabray.'
She laughs fully and turns over.
'You need a haircut,' you say, running your fingers through blonde strands.
'Are you feeling an impeding breakdown telepathically or something?'
You roll your eyes. 'You're such a fucking bitch.'
'And don't you forget it.'
.
The next time you see her is two weekends later when you take the train to Yale, and her hair is short and messy and you can't help but kiss her at the train station.
She lets you for a few moments and then backs up with a raised eyebrow.
You take a deep breath.
'What are we doing?' she asks, rough knuckles and pink lipstick and this dumb pretty scarf.
You swallow. 'What—'
You're really worried she's going to start crying—you hate seeing Quinn cry—when she says, 'Are we, like, lovers?'
It makes you want to laugh, because she says it in such a scandalized tone, but she's terribly pretty in front of you. 'Quinn, do we have to—I—you're my best friend—'
The minute it's out of your mouth you hate it, and Quinn stiffens.
'You're more than that too,' you admit, 'but I don't really know what that is—Do you?'
Quinn heaves a breath, coughs, and tries once more. She presses into you harshly then, whispers 'I don't fucking know, Santana. I don't know,' against your lips.
It feels a lot like giving up, so you kiss her back.