Title: The Pierce Family Traditional Drink
Author: headcannon
Pairing: Quinntana
Prompt: Body Swap
Note: I seriously couldn't come up with a title. I almost used "Donkey Face and the Hobbit. Totes." As a joke title; but … anyway, if I come up with something later, I'll change it.
Mostly AU. Very generally based on the show; but, I've removed Brittana angst. I may or may not have stolen some quotes from the show. And by "may or may not," I mean that I did. Stole Brody, too. (It's AU, I can do what I want! Party!)
Also? Little random note that's not important (but also kind of is): lemon juice makes milk curdle. Yum.
"In honor of what may be our last Friday the thirteenth together," Santana began as she filled glasses with ice, "I propose a break from tradition –"
Quinn rolled her eyes, interrupting her friend. "You always propose a break from tradition and we always veto you." She dumped the microwave popcorn into a large bowl before lifting it and cradling it in the crook of her arm.
"So, we're sticking to two traditions," Brittany noted happily as though they were accomplishing something close to a miracle. She poked the puree button on the blender just as Santana opened her mouth to argue. The other girl's newest concoction swirled around in the blender-glass cutting off any argument her friend might have tried to offer.
Their Freaky Friday the Thirteenth tradition began the summer the trio – not yet given the nickname The Unholdy Trinity – met at cheer camp. It was Brittany's idea to celebrate the day with a with a Friday the 13th slumber party.
Quinn hadn't known when she accepted the invitation that the date was also the name of a movie. When she informed her soon-to-be best friends that her parents didn't allow her to watch horror movies, Santana threw herself backward on Brittany's bed and groaned. Their other friend, however, just smiled and pulled out two DVDs: Freaky Friday, the original with Jodie Foster and the remake with Lindsey Lohan.
"Try this," Brittany said, sliding to Santana a mug with the words I Like the Nightlife, I love to Boogie on it.
"What is it?" the other girl asked nervously.
Santana had been on the receiving end of enough of Brittany's experiments to have learned to ask first.
There was once a shake made from mint chocolate chip ice cream and four cloves of garlic. And there was that time it took a week before she got over the nausea that came from the pureed cottage cheese, beets and graham cracker fiasco. At one point, Quinn didn't talk to Brittany for days after trying a drink that turned out to be apple juice, blueberries, oatmeal flakes and three different kinds of steak sauces.
"In honor of our last official Friday the 13thslumber party," Brittany announced, giving Quinn a Nyan Cat cup, "I've made for you a Peirce family specialty. Once you drink it, you'll be able to see yourself as other people see you."
Quinn rolled her eyes. Brittany's offerings always came imbued with some special powers or insights. She never actually believed any of it to be true but humored the girl by at least taking a little sip. The only power the drinks seemed to have was a stomach-upending power. It took most of her energy to control her gag reflex until Brittany's back was turned and she could make a hasty escape.
"What's in it?" Santana asked warily and then added, "And where's yours?"
Brittany shook her head and replied, "I don't need it. I know how other people see me." She tilted her head and counted off on her fingers, "Totally cute, super talented, really smart and all-around awesome."
Quinn bit her lip to keep herself from laughing. "And we need it because?"
The other girl sighed. "Because you're both going away and you won't have me to tell you, anymore."
With her friends' help, Brittany was able to eke out a grade point average that just barely allowed her to graduate. She didn't care that she wasn't getting honors, like Santana, or giving a big speech, like Quinn. She was walking with her friends and that's what she wanted.
In a way, she felt like she won the battle, but not the war. The Unholy Trinity started and finished high school together; but, unlike her two friends, she would be staying in Lima and taking classes at the junior college until she figured out what she wanted to do with her life.
"You skipped the ingredients, Britts," Santana gently said as she tried to not to dwell on the fact that their little trio would be breaking up. "Give it up. What's in here," she prompted, pointing to the mug.
"Vanilla pudding mix, milk, cinnamon …. " Brittany trailed off, as though trying to remember what else she put into the drinks.
Her two friends raised their brows at each other and, having not heard anything that wouldn't go with those ingredients, brought their cups to their lips and drank. They each only got about a swallow and half before a bitter aftertaste covered the cinnamon-crème flavor they only momentarily got to enjoy.
Santana rinsed her mouth out with water and spit it into the sink. "It tastes like the smell of rotten milk!"
"Oh! And lemon juice and cilantro!"
Quinn downed an entire glass of water and then grimaced at her friend as a shudder raced up her spine. "Never again," she vowed. It was the same vow she made at their last sleepover.
"You'll be thanking me when it works," the other girl sing-songed before skipping out of the kitchen. "C'mon, we have to DDR for the bed before we can start the movies."
Yet another tradition.
Brittany slept in a day-bed with a had a pull-out trundle. But that was only room enough for two; so, it was decided that her friends would play Dance Dance Revolution for rights to the extra bed. It was a better idea than having Brittany judge – she wasn't very good at choosing between her two best friends. The one time they tried it that way, Brittany slept on the floor, giving up her own bed rather than make the choice.
Nearly ten hours later, Santana awoke on the floor. They had stayed up later than usual and, in her sleepy haze, she'd forgotten all about her DDR high score and about taunting Quinn with "You suck, Quinn Fabray! I totally won!"
She stretched her arms over her head before dropping her hands to her chest, as she did every morning to greet the girls.
Giggles drew her attention to bright blue eyes staring at her. "You're super cute when you pout," Brittany told her. "I've only ever seen you frown before."
Santana stared dumbly at Brittany as the girl poked their sleeping friend in the roll-away bed and announced, "You have to see this! Oh! I should get a camera!"
Quinn snuggled deep under the covers and resisted being awakened. She mumbled, "Too comfy." After another poke, she pushed the covers down with a huff, her eyes narrow slits. "Cut it out, Brittany," she ground out, hardly recognizing her own voice. It sounded crisper, and more annoyed, than usual.
"It worked!" Brittany shouted, kicking her feet free from the covers and running out of the bedroom. She poked her head back in just long enough to say, "You're welcome!"
Santana sat on the floor slack-jawed as she watched herself sit up and rub the sleep from her eyes. She had to admit, she was pretty damned cute when she was sleepy. Except she couldn't be sitting on the bed being cute and sleepy because she was sitting on the floor being confused and – okay - probably still cute. She looked down at herself and moaned, "… so fucked up."
Quinn's hands dropped from her eyes and all of the air was knocked out of her body when she heard her own voice coming from across the room. Her mouth fell open as she looked herself up and down, clearly not able to figure out how her body could be sitting on the floor, staring at her – without her in it.
"Q?" Santana asked, pointing at the girl on the bed. Even if the whole situation didn't make sense, somehow her mind figured out that, if someone was in her body, it would be Quinn.
The other girl nodded before dropping her head into her hands and, like a mantra, repeated, "Wake up, wake up."
Brittany had just found her dad's camera when her two friends came running down the stairs screaming for her. When they caught up with her, she just smiled brightly, held up the camera and took a picture. "Now we'll have evidence!" she stated proudly, holding out the camera so the other could see the preview screen.
Quinn sighed and Santana rolled her eyes at the image. It was a picture of them in their pajamas. Neither felt like explaining that the photo didn't actually prove anything except that Santana slept in a sports tank and boxers. And that wasn't news to anyone.
"You need to make me a de-Quinnifying breakfast smoothie. Like now," Santana said, pushing her friend toward the kitchen. "I don't care if it smells like Finn Hudson and Noah Puckerman had an Axe-off at the garbage dump. You need to fix this."
"I can't."
Santana blinked rapidly, her head tilting and her eyes trained on Brittany. "You what now? You can't?"
"There isn't a Pierce Family anti-traditional drink," the other girl stated simply.
Quinn took a calming breath, trying not to notice how her ample chest rose with the gesture. "How long does it last, B?"
"I don't know," Brittany answered. "I'm pretty sure it's temporary. It's hard to say because I thought that tattoo I got was temporary but it hasn't gone away, yet." She pointed to her wrist where the Lord Tubbington was written in stylized script.
"Maybe you could just make the drink again and we can see if that reverses it," Quinn suggested smartly. "It might put us back where we belong."
"Oh, no. I can't do that," the other girl informed her friends.
"Why the hell not?" Santana crossed her arms and glared at her best friend.
"You made me promise last night to never make you another drink like that again." She shrugged and said, "I promised. What kind of friend would I be if I didn't keep my promises?" Without waiting for a reply, she answered, "A bad one."
Trying to appease her friends, she made them each a peach smoothie. While neither girl thought that their friend really understood the crux of the issue, they couldn't deny their smoothies were much tastier than the previous drinks she'd given them.
After breakfast, Quinn and Santana tried to figure out what they were going to do. Quinn wanted to stay at Brittany's and see if she could talk the girl into making another smoothie (the gross one, not the peach one) and Santana wanted to get as far away from her friend's house as possible. There was only one fact they both agreed on – that they should stay together.
Santana didn't trust Quinn not to make her go to church and fake-confess a bunch of made-up sins (and maybe a few real ones) to her priest and Quinn didn't trust Santana not to have sex with someone or tattoo her borrowed body.
The day was actually going really well (with the exception of whole body swap issue). It took a little while for them to get into trading places, but for the most part, they were coping pretty well considering the situation they found themselves in.
It was strange the things they noticed about each other – and themselves.
Quinn, for instance, had never noticed just how often Santana touched her. She decided it was a Santana's body thing because Quinn was always very aware of who she touched, when and how often. She'd always been very careful about showing her affection physically. But she couldn't stop herself from getting Santana's attention with a hand grab or gentle arm poke or from playing around with an elbow nudge or soft shoulder-check. Her body did it without any input from her mind.
Santana was the one with the short end of the stick. With every brush of Quinn's fingers against hers, a weird tingling feeling would shock her fingers. And when Quinn caught her gaze, she couldn't seem to not break eye contact and look away. Quinn's body, she decided, was a very uncomfortable place to be.
The two friends commiserated over coffee at the Lima Bean, flipped through magazines in the bookstore and wandered the mall aimlessly waiting for the drink's effects to wear off. There was a brief moment when they almost forgot they weren't exactly themselves.
It took a chance encounter to remind them of their situation.
"Hey, Rachel," Santana said, her sweet voice dripping with insincerity. "I wanted to take a moment to thank you and your somewhat talented flavor-of-the-week boyfriend for inspiring the name for my next Rock Band name."
Rachel wrinkled her nose in confusion and tightened her arm around Brody's.
"Donkey Face and the Hobbit," the other girl stated proudly. "What do you think? Classic, right? I'm thinking of making the drummer a bearded lady. You know, full on ZZ Top in your honor."
Brody clenched his jaw in annoyance but Rachel actually looked hurt.
"Quinn," she said softly, "is there a reason you're being so rude? I expect that kind of thing from Santana," she paused, her eyes skirting to where Quinn stared at her wide-eyed, "but not from you."
Santana cursed under her breath. Through clenched teeth, she forced herself to say, "Sorry, Rach." She worked hard not to roll her eyes at using the girl's nickname. "Spending too much time around Santana, I guess."
"Totes," Quinn added, for no other reason than she was sure she was supposed to say something. Santana always had something to say.
"Oh, good god," Santana said before dragging Quinn away from the couple. When she felt they were far enough away from anyone they knew, she whispered harshly, "I don't talk like that."
"You kind of do," Quinn stated firmly.
"I don't. And you need to," she said, stepping into the other girl's space and, just for a moment, she lost her train of thought.
"I need to what?" Quinn raised her brows and touched her friend's arm. "Are you okay?"
Santana swallowed roughly, shook her head and took a step back. "Uh," she began before clearing her throat. "You need to start being me because that was a shit impression you just did."
"It wasn't that bad," the other girl said, holding back a chuckle.
"One more totes out of you and I'll drop to my knees and starting doing Hail Marys outside of Victoria's Secret," Santana warned. "Understood?"?
Later, bent on at least a little bit of payback, Santana made the sign of the cross and said, "God bless you" to the boy who gave her change after she bought frozen lemonade. Quinn dragged her away complaining that she will never be able to never show her face at that kiosk again.
Once Quinn let go of her, Santana flexed her fingers and shook out her hand to get rid of the weird ache that pulsed up and into her arm. It was like the aches she used to get in during Cheerio practice when she would relax her muscles after having them tightened for so long. The longer Santana spent in this body, the more uncomfortable she found herself.
In an effort not to run into anyone else they knew, Quinn suggested they go back to her house to wait it out with a Bring it On marathon.
The breaking point wasn't when Quinn, ignoring that the couch was large enough to fit nearly all of their New Directions teammates, sat thigh-to-thigh with Santana. And it wasn't when Quinn pushed their shoulders together and looked up at her, beaming. Santana was pretty sure she'd never seen that big of a smile on her own face before.
What did it – what finally made her snap - was when Quinn giggled before leaning even closer to her and asked Santana if she remembered that last week of cheer camp when they decided they had to learn the opening routine. The spark that ran up Santana's spine short-circuited her brain and she jumped off the couch, pointing at her friend.
"Okay, what the hell is wrong with you, Q?" she asked. "Is it possible at all for you to control your body?"
Quinn blinked owlishly. "What are you talking about? I've never felt more relaxed and confident in my entire life." She didn't' want to admit it, but for a moment, she'd almost forgotten what it felt like to be in her own skin.
"Not your body!" Santana shouted point to her own body. "Your body!" She vaguely gestured to the body she was borrowing. "The way you react to the simplest things is making me crazy. It's like you're going to explode any second and I really don't want you to do that because I'm in here!"
Quinn pursed her lips and rolled her eyes. "Oh, and you're perfect? Why do you have to touch people for no reason?" She brings her gaze to meet Santana's and flops her hands in front of her face. "They do it before I can even stop them!"
"Your body doesn't seem to be complaining," Santana argued, her voice going from aggravated to teasing. "If anything, maybe your nervous little ticks are signs that you actually really like it. If I didn't know you better, I'd think you had the hots for me, Q. S'that it?"
Quinn's eyes widened and she pressed her lips together tightly.
Santana let out a huff. "You don't get to make your panic face until you have your face back. It looks ridiculous on me, so put it away until you have something to panic about, Let me continue to stand there looking effin' gorgeous, as always. Besides, I was totally just messing with you."
The other girl forced herself to inhale slowly. Quinn had no idea how it was that she was losing control but she didn't like it. If there was anything Quinn was, it was controlled.
"C'mon, Super Hetero Quinn with her Super Powers of Heteronormativity," Santana continued. "doesn't have the gay. You're too uptight for that."
"I'm not too uptight," Quinn said half-heartedly. Controlled and uptight weren't synonymous to the girl.
"You kind of are."
"I am not, Santana."
"You realize you're arguing with me about whether or not you should get an invite to Dinah Shore Weekend, right?" Santana asked, chuckling under her breath. "Not sure it's that important for you to be right on this, Q."
Quinn let out a long breath and repeated, "I'm not too uptight."
"Okay," the other girl began before offering, "a test." She reached out her hand and said, "Hold my hand."
After rolling her eyes at the ridiculous instruction, Quinn stood up and took her friend's hand. "This proves nothing. We've held hands before."
"M'not done." Santana threaded their fingers together and held her hand for a moment longer before squeezing Quinn's hand and letting go. "Okay, hug."
Quinn blew out a frustrated breath and stepped into Santana's embrace. It wasn't like their usual quick hugs. There was no space between them and there were no butterfly pats on her back. Their bodies were flush up against each other's and, though Quinn didn't feel her normal anxiety, she was afraid that Santana might start to.
The flip in Santana's stomach and the way that her fingers twitched warned her that Quinn was going to win this argument.
Stepping back, Quinn started to pull out of the hug. When she was just far enough to meet Santana's eyes, the other girl tightened her hold and didn't let her escape. There was no time to consider an exit strategy before Santana brought their lips together.
Santana wouldn't say that she saw stars when she kissed Quinn, but there were definitely fireworks and maybe a mushroom cloud or two exploding in her chest. Without opening her eyes, she muttered softly, "I'm gonna need a shitload of therapy because I'm totally attracted to me."
When she opened her eyes, Quinn was staring back at her with nervous, hazel eyes. Her bottom lip shyly caught in her teeth, it was clear the other girl didn't know what to do - about anything at all. The confidence and freedom she'd felt had vanished and her body stiffened in Santana's arms anxiously.
Santana didn't know what kind of response the other girl was expecting. Did Quinn think she would make fun of her or maybe just blow it off? Santana couldn't bring herself to do either. She pushed Quinn's hair behind her ear and said, "Last test."
"We're back, Santana. No more tests," Quinn argued nervously. She put on her brave face – the one where her eyes get cold and her face impassive – and nodded, as though it was decided.
"The test," Santana explained evenly, "isn't for you. So suck it up and kiss me, again." She smirked and looked Quinn in the eyes. "I've been you. I know you don't mind …"
The other girl rolled her eyes and pressed her lips into a thin line. "One kiss."
She didn't make Santana wait very long, probably because she knew that the longer she waited, the more nervous she would become. Quinn cupped Santana's cheek and tentatively brushed her lips across the other girl's mouth. When Santana splayed her hands against her back, pulling her friend closer, Quinn's hesitancy fell away and she allowed herself to let go of some of the control she held so tightly.
Unlike most of the kisses Santana had received, this one was slow and measured. It was as if Quinn was forcing herself to take her time, to explore and note every detail of Santana's mouth on hers - to commit the moment to memory.
Quinn was the one to pull away and Santana almost thanked her for it. The intensity of the kiss brought the mushroom clouds and fireworks back. She kissed the corner of Quinn's mouth before resting their foreheads together and jokingly whispered, "… and I thought I was going to need therapy when I was attracted to myself ..."