AN: Slight Finn Bashing and Santana slamming. R&R.

"What do you want, Lopez."

Santana took in the sight of Quinn Fabray. Honestly, it was hard to take her bitch look seriously when her when she looked like such a sap. Either way, it still seemed to do the trick as the peasants cleared the hell out of the hallway.

As great as their thirst for gossip was, they knew better to stick around when the two HBIC's faced each other like that, lest they become part of the carnage. When titans clashed, civilian casualties were a given.

"I was just wondering if you'd like to join the rainbow parade. I mean with you and stubbles, the numbers are really growing." Santana smirked, her hands coming to rest on cocked hips.

The blonde's features twisted immediately, forming a furious glare and growled. "You have no idea what you're talking about."

"Oh please." Santana sassed, rolling her eyes. She stalked towards the blonde who stiffened at the Latina's growing proximity. "After a show like that and you running around like a crazed banshee? Look Q, your girl can sing, but that wasn't the only show I was watching."

After eying the girl for a few moments, without more than a hardened glare for a reaction, Santana began to circle the blonde slowly.

"I mean, I shoulda known earlier. You two fight over the Finoccence like he's a damn fire hydrant. And sure, you guys act like a couple of bitches in heat, but neither of you are looking at him when that little itch comes around."

Santana frowned. Quinn was ignoring her. That wouldn't do.

"Not to mention all the eye-fucking you two did at prom." She drawled, circling up behind the fringed blonde slowly.

Smirking as if she were dangling a mouse before a cat, Santana leaned towards the ex-captain's ear and taunted, "Tell me, was Berry any good in the sack?"

That did it. The Latina could practically feel the girl next to her bristle.

She barely had enough time to brace herself when her back slammed into cold metal and razor sharp fingernails curled into her bare shoulders. The blonde was in her face, seething.

"Feisty." Santana exhaled, slightly caught off guard. Sure she'd meant to rile the girl up. She needed evidence after all, and it was easiest to just go straight to the source: the queen of pressed lemons herself.

Besides, it's not like Quinn could hurt her. Well, not that badly anyway. She'd taken the bitch before and she could sure as hell do it again.

Quinn was raging. Anger was flashing through her eyes like warning signals as she ground her second in charge further into the lockers, their bodies flush against one another.

"There is nothing going on between Rachel and I." The blonde grounded out between clenched teeth.

For her part, Santana just smirked in the furious girl's face. "Rachel, huh? And is this what you call nothing?" She motioned to their position.

If Quinn had been thinking now, she'd have realized that she was giving away everything by her reactions. The exact situation Santana had baited her into. But the blonde only saw red, lots and lots of red with Santana's face smack dab in the middle like a bull's-eye. Her muscles were tensing, squeezing her fingers tighter around Santana's shoulders preparing for a strike.

Every frustration with her life: her family, her baby, her failures, Rachel. She could take it out on the infuriating bitch that always just had to dig her long, constantly manicured, Satan red, fingernails under Quinn's skin at every turn. And the witch was just practically daring her to do it, that taunting smirk and twinkle of mischief in her eyes.

No, her tell didn't matter. It wasn't even in the realm of her mind. Not when every inch of her body was burning to wipe that smirk of that arrogant face.

Quinn felt her dominant arm reel back as the leer on the Latina's face seemed to deepen when a voice shattered through the red haze concealing her mind.

"What the hell!"

The indignant squawk bounced around her mind, deflecting her rage in favor of confusion for a split second. It was the moment needed to bring her vision into clarity.

Santana was smashed against the lockers with a shocked look on her face and her own pale arm was tensed to throw a punch: into her best friend's face.

Quinn stumbled backwards unsteadily, a look of shame and horror etched in her features. The death grip on the brunette was released and the ex-cheerleader slackened slightly against the lockers. A terribly awkward and disturbed Finn Hudson stood ten feet down the hall, watching the scene in complete confusion.

The Latina wasn't always the best of friends, but she was still her best friend. She would never hit the girl. Well, at least not punch her dead on in the face, scratch, claw, and slap maybe. No matter how much the girl made it her damn job to poke the flames within her, that, would have been taking it way too far.

What the hell was wrong with her? She was completely out of control. And Quinn Fabray, was never out of control.

Hot anger was still coursing through her veins and it was so much different than the times they had fought before. She hadn't cared so much about Santana telling her to stay away from Puck. That had been a bitch fight about who carried the bigger stick down the halls of McKinley High. This had been something else entirely. If that oaf hadn't stumbled upon them, she would have done everything in power to beat the living shit out of Santana. And quite frankly, other than being an annoying bitch and an ever present pain in the ass, Santana had nothing to do with her anger. That hadn't stopped her from taking things out on other people before, but this, this had scared her.

Quinn caught movement in her peripheral, snapping the moment of still shock between the three of them.

The blonde shot a helpless look between her best friend and Finn, her mouth moving to attempt some explanation. But as for so many of her actions lately, there was none. She couldn't explain why Santana's taunting about Rachel had pushed her so far. She couldn't explain how a few jabs, the sort the Latina threw her way daily, turned her into a raging monster. She couldn't explain how angry and frustrated she was or even why. All of it was her fault anyway; how she'd been about to break Santana's nose, why Rachel brought up so many unrestrained emotions within her, and how there was absolutely nothing she could do about it now. She'd brought it all on herself, again.

She felt the sting of fresh tears at her eyes and with one last pleading glance to Santana, Quinn took off down the hall, her face covered with her hands.

Santana blew out a long breath between her teeth as Quinn disappeared around the far corner.

She'd expected Quinn to get mad. Hell she'd planed for it.

Santana held no false pretenses about the friendship she and Quinn shared. They weren't the normal type of friends that shared secrets at sleepovers or talked about their feelings, like, at all.

It would be easy to say they didn't have feelings because they were just cold hearted bitches, a fact Santana practically encouraged others to believe, but she and Q shared a secret sort of bond over the truth. It was a strictly unspoken one, but both Santana and Quinn definitely had feelings and they both understood what it was like to have them trapped inside.

Of course they each had their particular reasons. Santana kept hers under her hot bitch persona because it was easier than having to deal with rejection. From friends, from family, from Brittney; it wasn't so much the being unpopular part. Santana fully believed if you were unpopular, it was probably because you were annoying, ugly, or a big fat loser. But even unpopular people were accepted.

Santana's problem was the crippling fear of being rejected because of who she was, for not being accepted for who she was. She couldn't understand how the most pure emotion she'd ever known was so outright disgusting to so many people. She couldn't understand why adults like the Fabray's condemned people for love. It killed her inside.

Kurt was out, but it wasn't as if he could have ever hid his gleaming rainbow beacon anyway and people expected him to be gay. It was almost natural. But for Santana Lopez to be a lesbian? The guys would trample her, convincing her that she wasn't. That they just needed to show her what it was like to be with a real man. The thought made her absolutely sick.

They made it seem like the way she felt about Brittney, just wasn't real. It was experimenting. It was for their entertainment. No, Santana's true love, didn't exist.

So she hid it. Protected her love. Kept it pure.

Okay, maybe she wasn't going about it the right way either, but she couldn't help it. She was so damn scared.

So believe it or not, Santana understood where Quinn was coming from. The girl could even possibly have it worse than she did. Quinn Fabray kept her feelings frozen and cut off as she walked around like an ice queen because she was expected to. God forbid her parents ever suspected her for the raging lesbo that Santana now knew she was, the Fabray's condemned feelings. Period.

It was no wonder the girl's capacity for showing, much less talking, about her feelings was crippled worse than Artie. What, it was just the truth? At least the boy still had a functioning upper half. Quinn on the other hand, well, you get the idea.

So when Santana decided to find out just how deep Quinn's feelings ran, it wasn't as if she could just ask the girl about them. That would get the girl locked up tighter than the ginger consoler's legs. Instead Santana enacted one of her more creative methods. Okay so maybe it wasn't creative, but it was effective.

Instinctively Santana traced the angry fingernail marks on her shoulders. 'Damn well effective.'

"What the hell is going on here, Santana!"

The girl was pulled from her musings by the high pitched cracks in Finn's strained voice.

Santana had completely forgotten about the dim-witted giant standing in the hallway. She frowned before turning her gaze towards him.

His eyes were slightly bugged out and he had blobs of perspiration on his completely lost face. He also looked scared. That could possibly explain the twisted up nature of his expression, a reaction to the fact that the friendly green giant had just shit himself.

"None of your business, Man-boobs." She snipped. The situation was more serious than she thought; she'd have to do some more scheming before she did anything else.

Finn clenched his fists as his face twisted into an aggravated glare.

Nothing was making sense today. Rachel had seemed off for half the day, even though he'd been really nice to her that morning. Then Rachel had sang such an emotional song about him, but there had been something weird about Quinn when she was in the doorway and something had just felt off. And now he saw Quinn pinning Santana to a locker and looked as though she was about to punch the other girl's face in?

He couldn't shake the fact that for some reason all of these things felt like they had something to do with one another, but he couldn't figure out why. It's not like Rachel had ever been friends with Quinn and definitely not Santana, so that shouldn't be related, but the feeling stuck with him. Could it have something to do with the fact that all three of them had kissed him before?

Santana was just turning to leave so Finn grabbed her arm.

Santana jerked out of his grip the instant she realized his meaty paws were on her. She fixed him with her cruelest glare, growling so deeply he cowered slightly. "Don't. You. Dare. Touch. Me."

She couldn't believe the nerve of the boy in front of her. What made him think he had the right to just grab her? Hadn't she made herself clear enough when she'd blown him off five seconds ago?

Finn gulped slightly. Was it unmanly of him to be scared of Santana? He couldn't help it; the girl was Satan's spawn herself. Sure he'd been scared of Scary Quinn, but that was because she was his girlfriend at the time and she was just plain intimidating. Then again, what he'd witnessed moments ago was something else. He'd never, ever, seen Quinn like that before, even when he'd broken up with her. Hell, he'd never even seen her that emotional before. Even if the brunette scared him, he had to find out why Quinn was acting like this.

"Just tell me what is going on! You, Quinn, and Rachel are acting all weird and I don't get it!"

Santana's glare remained, but she scoffed at him. "As if that's any new for you, Finept. You never understand what's going on right in front of your face, much less your relationships."

Finn scrunched his eyebrows. What was she talking about?

Seeing the confused expression deepen on the giant toddlers face, Santana smirked.

"Oh, let me guess," Her fingers and thumb came to rest on her chin in a mockingly thoughtful manner as she walked towards him with her chin cocked, sneering, "Do you think that all of this has something to do with you?" She finished, raising an eyebrow tauntingly.

The boy seemed to gulp slightly. 'Of course he did. Typical Finaptatude, thinking every girl in the McKinley cries over him.' The thought irritated her. Why did guys always think they were the center of a girl's world? 'Screw scheming. I'ma knock some sense into him right now.'

"Oh please, you overgrown man-child. Do you really think the epic Quinn-Rachel squabble has been over you're dumb ass?" She emphasized, stalking towards him menacingly. "Grow a brain, Finept. You're a mediocre jock who can barely spell his own name. I mean, really dude, its four letters long. You're leading man potential is about as long as you lasted in bed, which was very short. And you look and smell like a sack of potatoes on a good day. " Santana finished, backing Finn against the lockers with the distain in her voice alone.

Finn was speechless; he looked to be on the verge of tears, clenching his fists despite his vulnerable position.

Santana almost had to sigh. She was not about to watch the overgrown man-child, actually become an overgrown man-child. That was one of the things on her list she hoped she'd never have to see. It would be so pathetic, she may actually die by witnessing its pathetic-ness.

"Look Finn. I'm not sayin' that someone…somewhere out there won't love you…someday." She paused, looking away, annoyed that came out as almost nice. "I'm just sayin', all those crappy ass love songs, the pathetic puppy dog stares, the over the top berry-style drama, and their incessant squabbling?" She eyed him seriously, "Yeah, not for you."

Finn's face sunk back into confusion and Santana actually groaned in frustration.

"Whatever. Figure the rest out yourself." She said rolling her eyes as she turned to walk away, before adding, "Even you should be able to do that."