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Written for the prompt: When Brittany gets into a fight with Santana, it's nice to know that she at least still has Quinn in her corner to protect her.
She hears the door downstairs slam shut. It's quarter till five, so Brittany's home. And naturally, Santana would be there with her.
She listens for multiple footsteps, but she ends up only hearing one set of them. She pulls herself to a sitting position on the bed as she looks at her door. When she hears it click open, she props her book on her belly and watches Brittany enter the room.
Brittany drags her feet, more so than walks, towards Quinn. She's pouting, so Quinn knows something's up. But Brittany's eyebrows are furrowed, so she knows that she's trying to look angry. There's a bit of a quiver on the other girl's chin and Quinn's figured it out.
She knows that look.
It happens often enough that she doesn't even have to ask who did it, just what did Santana do this time. Sometimes, it'd actually be Brittany's fault, but her demeanor would be different – the pouting is replaced with round blue eyes trying not to cry.
Quinn breathes deeply, just pats the space beside her. Brittany obliges dutifully and walks around the bed to sit beside her. On the way, she takes her Cheerios jacket off and throws it on the floor instead of hanging it on the back of the chair. Oh boy, it's serious.
Brittany lies on the bed, on her stomach, facing away from Quinn. Her hands are balled up and her arms are folded underneath her. Quinn sighs heavily and she puts her book on the nightstand before shifting herself a little. She starts rubbing the other girl's back. She's trying out this being nice thing and she knows that a back rub calms Brittany down, so she goes with what she knows.
Before she even opens her mouth, Brittany sniffles a little. She gives it another ten seconds until she hears muffled words come out of Brittany's mouth.
"Santana made fun of Kurt again."
Quinn rolls her eyes because really, she needs Santana to bite her tongue, or she's going to have to bite Santana's head off if she has to keep calming Brittany down. It's almost the same thing every time, one of the other glee members get made fun of. She doesn't think that it's the hormones that are making her have to grow up and think that anything high school is petty, but damn. She's having a baby in a couple of months and all people do is make fun of each other like little brats.
"What'd she say this time?"
Brittany sniffles again, into the pillow. Quinn feels more than hears the sharp intake of breath as her hand rests on Brittany's back. "Sh-she was calling him names with the other cheerleaders after practice today. I told her to stop but she just brushed me off, laughing with the other girls."
"Oh, Britt," she says, now rubbing circles on the other blonde's back. She promises on the baby inside of her that she's going to have to literally knock some sense into that idiot girl for making her have to deal with this.
Brittany turns her face around so she's looking up at Quinn, as Quinn puts her hand back on her belly.
"I thought we were all friends! I mean, all the stuff she said at Sectionals and all the celebrating we all did together afterwards. Sometimes I wish she wasn't so mean." Quinn's quiet for a moment.
"That's just the way she is, Britt. She doesn't know what she's doing sometimes," she offers lamely. She wants to say that Santana's more stupid than she is mean, but figured that kind of remark would beat the purpose of being mad at Santana.
"Yeah, but she's never mean to me. I'm just like the other glee members. I mean, people think I'm a little slow and people think Rachel's annoying, it's all the same." Quinn can't find a fault to this reasoning, so she just keeps her mouth shut. Brittany seems to have more things to say anyway.
"I just don't get it. Like, a lot of people know about us now. Some of the footballers even whistle at us, telling us to kiss and stuff. We basically go out, even if it's not official-official. That's pretty gay, right?"
Quinn just nods because yeah, that is and they are pretty damn gay.
"So why would she make fun of Kurt for being gay?"
Because she's an idiot and a bitch and there's nothing we can do about that is the first thing that pops in her head, but she shakes her head and brushes the hair out of Brittany's eyes. "Some people aren't like you, B. You like everybody. Some people just don't like a lot of people, like Santana."
Brittany bites her lips and thinks this over like it's the first time she's ever heard the words. Quinn's pretty positive that they've had an identical conversation about this about half a dozen times before. But she's trying to be a better friend here – or a friend in general - so she goes with it, tries to be there for Brittany. It's the least she can do for being offered a home.
"Well, when she was done talking to them, I told her I was mad at her for not being nice because Kurt's our friend. Then she told me that I was overreacting for being mad at her, saying I was acting like a baby when she was the one being childish by making fun of Kurt!" Brittany practically yelled the last part as she got up from her spot on the bed, clearly undignified. "We were supposed to hang out tonight for a little bit, but I told her to drop me off here. She didn't say anything in the car. So now we're in a fight."
So now they were in a fight. Quinn doesn't know what they're going to do because the last time the two girls got in a nasty fight with each other, thanks to her great advice of ignoring Santana, it felt like apocalypse was upon them. Brittany cried for almost two weeks that even back rubs seemed ineffective. And Santana made a lot of freshmen hate her and wish death upon her for letting slushie attacks run rampant around the school. There's no coincidence that the reign of terror and Brittany's crying lasted the same amount of time.
Quinn doesn't have any good relationship advice to give Brittany. She's not exactly an expert on the matter given her current predicament. So she tries to see if the girl she's consoling has any ideas of her own. That way, she can just support it, like a friend. A possible win-win for everyone.
"So what are you going to do?"
Brittany sighs before adjusting herself to sit back by the headboard before dropping her head on Quinn's shoulder.
"I don't know. I hate when we fight. But I hate that she can't even be considerate even a little bit. What do you think I should do?"
They're silent for some time and Quinn still doesn't have a clue, regardless of how many times she's had to sit through Brittany's sniffling because the two of them were fighting.
"Maybe you can hold off on the sex for a while. Tell her to stop being so mean. That should get her to say her sorry faster." Brittany picks her head up from Quinn's shoulder and looks at her with a raised eyebrow, looks a little hesitant to say anything.
"Quinn, I know you're trying to help, but that's kind of a stupid idea. No offense." Thankfully, before she can suggest another equally bad idea, Brittany's phone rings. It's Santana. Of course it is.
"Should I pick it up?" The phone rings two more times. Something close to panic almost sets in Brittany's face and Quinn has to try not to laugh at how ridiculous she looks right now.
"Nah," she says finally, taking the phone and silencing it. "Let her sweat it out for a bit. Call her after dinner." She puts it beside the book on her nightstand before standing up from the bed. "C'mon, let's go eat. The baby's kicking so that means she's hungry. And so am I."
Brittany looks at her and then her phone on the nightstand then back at her again. She rolls her eyes when the other girl makes no effort to move, just stares at her.
"Trust me, she'll be fine. You'll call her later tonight and everything will be fine, okay?" Brittany's still uncertain, but slowly makes her way to the edge of the bed. Quinn extends her hand out for Brittany to take and looks at her expectantly. "I promise."
She ends up waiting about ten seconds until Brittany takes her hand and gets off the bed. She knows that the sooner the two girls talk, the better. But she's super hungry and the baby's kicking and really, Santana can get over it.
Two hours later there's an incessant knock at the door. Quinn's sitting on the couch flipping through the channels when she hears it. She calls for Brittany to get it but realizes that Brittany's upstairs taking a shower. As the knocking grows progressively more irritating, Quinn eventually makes it off the couch and by the door. She dons her trademark scowl and opens the door quickly. "What do you want?"
"What the hell, preggo." Santana crosses her arms and matches the scowl on her face. Hell no, this isn't happening right now.
"What do you want, Santana?"
"I need to speak to Brittany."
"She's in the shower."
"Then I'll wait for her. Let me in, tubbers." Santana tries to take a step forward, but Quinn stays in place, puts her hand on her hip and grips the door knob tightly. She'd have to get pushed away for Santana to come in. And even though she's pretty sure that it's not above Santana to hit a pregnant woman, she's banking on the fact that Santana wouldn't.
"No. You are an idiot and you know that Brittany doesn't like it when you make fun of the kids in glee." She stepped forward to block Santana and every time she said 'you', she effectively pushed her finger down on the other girl's chest, making her point.
Santana swatted her hand away, looking annoyed. "Look, you don't know the whole story, okay, so I suggest you move your fat ass out of the way and let me talk to her."
"She told me what you two were fighting about. And really, it's getting old. They may not be your friends, but they're her friends. And you know how sensitive she gets about them. So stop being a bitch and maybe I wouldn't have to keep telling you."
Quinn tries not to flinch at how Santana's clenching and unclenching her jaw, her eyes narrowed and dark. She's seen that look before and she knows that there's hell to be paid, but she's not going to back down. Santana's really going to have to go through her pregnant body before she gets to talk to Brittany.
"I didn't really mean what I said about Kurt, okay?"
She raises her eyebrows when she sees Santana's shoulders slump a little and look away from her. This isn't what she was expecting.
"What?"
"Don't play dumb. You heard me."
"Then why did you do it?"
"Because it stopped them from talking about us." Quinn looks at her expectantly. Santana just rolls her eyes and shifts her weight back and forth from one leg to the other. Quinn knows that look well enough to know that Santana's nervous.
"The more they talk about other people, the less they talk about us. I may be the captain these days, but Coach can't lose any more people, especially after you got kicked off the squad. So I can't just kick them out for being bitches. Even if I can kick all of their asses, they don't take me as seriously as they did before they found out about me and Brittany. It doesn't help that we're still in glee club. So as long as I play along enough, they don't have to talk bad about us."
Santana stops rocking side to side and Quinn loosens her grip on the door. "So you do that by being mean to Kurt?" she asks, a little confused.
"He gets talked about anyway!" Quinn raises her eyebrows again and Santana exhales loudly. "Don't pretend like you're any better. You know that Kurt and the other glee kids are fair game. I did what I had to do, okay? You might not get that, but I'm doing this for her. So I'm gonna ask you one last time to get out of my way."
Quinn blinks a couple of times before opening the door wider and moving to the side. She motions for Santana to come in. She's not sure if it's a grateful look that Santana gives her, but she takes it anyway. Santana's only taken a step past her when she turns around and looks at her seriously.
"Don't tell Brittany." Quinn nods. But she has to ask.
"So what are you going to tell her?"
"That I'm an idiot and I'll try not to do it again." Santana just shrugs.
"It's going to happen again, though." In a moment of sincerity, Santana looks at her and answers quietly.
"I know. But it's better that she's mad at me because she thinks I'm being stupid and she can forgive me than being sad because she's being made fun of and can't do anything about it." Santana clears her throat when it seems like she's realized what she said. "Plus I'm really good in bed. So she forgives me."
Santana winks at her before walking towards the stairs. She's not surprised that Puck is Santana's best friend.
She's only a few feet away from the first step when Quinn calls out to her.
"I told Brittany to withhold sex from you so you'd apologize faster." Quinn's not sure if she heard a growl, but she's not going to ask. Santana turns around with a menacing look on her face, a drastic difference from the way she looked just moments earlier.
"But she told me that was a stupid idea. So she was going to call you after her shower."
"Stop trying to give her advice, Fabray. You suck at it."
"Well, here's one: try to pick fewer fights with her. Or I will kick your ass because this is getting tiring. I'm too pregnant to keep dealing with her coming home looking like a kicked puppy because you apparently did something stupid even if it's for her own good. But I'm not too pregnant to fight you."
"I can't make any promises. But I'll try."
Before Quinn can say anything else to that, Santana's already taking the stairs two at a time. She just sighs, closes the door, and goes back to watching t.v.
An hour or so before midnight, she hears multiple footsteps come down the stairs. She hears whispering by the door and tries not to listen in, but she's a teenager too, so she gives in and tries to decipher what they're talking about.
All she ends up hearing is the door closing. She looks out the threshold of the room and watches Brittany walk towards her, a shy smile on her lips. Her eyes excited.
She knows that look.
She tries not to think about how the two of them probably just got done making out upstairs. She tries really hard.
Brittany plops down beside her and rests her head on her shoulders. She smells the flowery scent of the shampoo in Brittany's hair and she takes a lungful of it. The atmosphere's different, so she knows that everything's better now.
"You two done fighting?"
Quinn feels Brittany nodding. "Yeah."
Brittany picks her head up and looks at her. Quinn feels her staring beside her so she ends up turning her head. "What?"
"You told her that if she didn't try really hard that next time, you'll really kick her ass even if you were pregnant."
Quinn shrugs, not really sure where Brittany's going with it. "Yeah I did."
Brittany puts her head back down on her shoulder and gets comfortable on the couch. Quinn's confused, but she drops it because Brittany stopped talking. She focuses her attention back to the t.v.
It's not a minute when she hears Brittany mumble something to her shoulder that sounds remotely close to a thank you.
Quinn smiles and the two of them watch some show for another hour or so before they go to bed.
She's getting better at this whole being a real friend thing, and she likes it.
-l-
End