Title: Tortured, Tangled Hearts
Rating: PG
Pairing: Quinn/Rachel, Brittany/Santana
Spoilers: none
Summary: Both Quinn and Santana are in the doghouse.
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Fox and Ryan Murphy. No copyright infringement is intended and no profit is being made from this work of fiction.

Quinn sat slouched against the wall of lockers in the Cheerios locker room, fiddling with her phone, and annoyed at life. The door opened with a loud bang and she raised her head to see who it was. Santana stormed in and looked like she was about to punch a locker door when Quinn cleared her throat. "Um, Santana, I think that'll hurt you more than the locker."

Santana whipped her head around, ready to rip into whoever was talking to her. When she saw it was only Quinn, some of the anger left her face and she just sneered weakly at the blonde cheerleader, "That's what you think. You've never been punched by Santana Lopez." She dropped her fist and moved to where Quinn was sitting, leaning against the bank of lockers and sliding down until she hit the floor. She glanced at Quinn and pulled out her own phone.

They sat together in silence for a few minutes, each checking their phones every ten seconds. Quinn finally turned to Santana and asked, "So, what did you do?"

"What makes you think," Santana asked indignantly, "I did anything wrong?"

Quinn raised an eyebrow, "This is you and Brittany we're talking about; it's always you who did something wrong." She waited, staring at Santana, daring her to disagree.

Santana looked like she wanted to retort, but thought better of it and just deflated. Her head dropped forward and she studied the floor with great interest. "She may or may not have found some dirty texts from Puck on my phone." A hand reached out and smacked her against the back of head, "Hey! What the hell, Quinn?"

"Well, what the hell were you doing exchanging dirty text messages with Puck at all?"

"I didn't send any! He was just being an ass and sending them to me! I must have been out of the room, and Britt picked up my phone when it rang or something." Something in Santana's face changed, and Quinn picked up on it right away. It was the look Santana got right after Brittany had been hurt, and right before Santana went to kick the ass of the culprit. This time, however, Santana didn't quite know what to do.

Quinn reached out slowly and gently touched Santana's knee, watching as the brunette flinched slightly. "Well, why don't you just tell her that?"

"I did, but she doesn't believe me. And then she just said that sex wasn't dating anyways, and she just looked so fucking sad." Santana looked like she wanted to punch something again. She closed her eyes tight, sucking in a breath and releasing it quickly. When she opened her eyes again, her eyes were suspiciously bright, but Quinn didn't comment. "So what's wrong with you, Quinn? Trouble in your paradise?"

Quinn sighed, "I think I might have accidentally insulted Judy Garland." Quinn turned at the slightly strangled noise coming from Santana, who seemed to be trying to suppress a laugh. "What? Rachel takes her musical theatre very seriously!"

"You really think it's all about Judy Garland? Really?" Santana raised her eyebrow and fixed Quinn with her best 'bitch, please' glare.

"Fine, maybe not just that. We were in the hall and she tried to grab my hand and I may or may not have freaked out a little bit. It was only for a second, but by the time I calmed down she looked like she was about to cry." Quinn leaned her head back against the cool metal and wondered aloud, "Why is dating a girl so freaking complicated?"

Santana straightened slightly, squared her shoulders and turned to look Quinn directly in the eye. "So let's un-complicate it."

Quinn pursed her lips and asked, "What did you have in mind?"

Santana just smiled.

/ /

Rachel was standing with Brittany by her locker, taking her books out and keeping an eye on Brittany, who looked like she was going to burst into tears at any second. Rachel closed her locker door and reached out for Brittany's hand, squeezing it tightly and trying to come up with a sincere smile. The smile was hard to force, but Brittany gave her a watery half-smile in return, so it was worth it.

Neither noticed Quinn and Santana standing at the other end of the hallway, watching their respective quasi-girlfriends closely. They looked at each other, nodded and took deep breaths before striding down the hall in Rachel and Brittany's direction. When they reached the other two girls, both Rachel and Brittany turned to them with half-nervous, half-angry looks, which promptly turned into surprised expressions when the two determined cheerleaders grabbed them by the back of their necks and kissed them desperately in front of the entire school.

Rachel's eyes widened and her hands went to Quinn's hips before she realized what had happened. She pulled back far enough to look into Quinn's hazel eyes, "What…?"

"You're my girlfriend, and I thought everyone should know it," Quinn stated fiercely, and then her expression faltered as a bout of delayed nervousness suddenly hit. "That's alright, isn't it?"

Rachel brought a hand up and lightly ran a finger along Quinn's cheekbone, leaning in for another kiss that was cut short when there was a loud bang behind her. They both turned to see Brittany pressing Santana up against the lockers hard, kissing her thoroughly. Quinn's eyebrows shot up when she noticed exactly where Santana's hands had ended up and she cleared her throat loudly.

A grinning Brittany half-turned away from a dazed looking Santana and then bounced over to hug both Quinn and Rachel at the same time. She squeezed them tight before releasing them and moving back to Santana. She grabbed the Latina's hand and inspected the way they looked with their fingers interlocked, a bright smile spreading across her lips. Santana just watched with an uncharacteristically tender look on her face.

Quinn turned to Rachel and offered her own hand to the brunette, "Walk you to class?" Her response was a blinding grin and a soft kiss to the cheek. As she was pulled away, she twisted around to say to Santana, "Good plan, Santana."

Santana just looked at her and brought Brittany's hand up to kiss lightly. "I always have the best ideas."