AN: Phew! Hello once again! I expected my finals to delay this chapter but they didn't as much as I thought they would.
There's a little of everything in this chapter - even a small Brittany POV section (hopefully it doesn't feel too out of place and/or random, I was trying something new there).
That's about all I have to say. Read. enjoy. review!
When Santana finally regains consciousness she's surprised to find herself standing in the middle of a hallway. Not like a school hallway though— no, this floor was carpeted and the hall had a high ceiling carved with elaborate decoration. Almost like a castle or something.
Santana honestly had no idea where she was. But she did know that wherever this place was, it wasn't Storybrooke, that's for sure.
Santana slowly turns around, still taking in her surroundings, and something immediately catches her eye.
There was a trail of ice at her feet.
The hell?
Santana follows the trail with her eyes, her gaze gradually pulling up the further along it went.
That's when she sees it.
Er, her, she should say.
Responsible for the trail of ice was a slightly out of focus blonde woman in shimmering blue was walking into the distance.
Santana blinks hard for a moment, trying to clear up her eyesight, before following after the girl, er woman? She doesn't hesitate, knowing the mysterious blonde could very well round the corner and disappear before she could get a hold of her.
"Hey, wait!"
The girl with the side braid doesn't seem to hear her — that or she's choosing to ignore her. Either way, Santana quickens her pace.
She had to get to this girl for some reason. Just had to.
Fortunately Santana's fast and able to catch up to the blonde relatively quickly. "Hey!" she tries again.
It's only as she's reaching for the blonde that Santana nearly slips up, realizing with a start that she actually knows this person.
"Quinn?"
While her snowflake noticeably tenses at the name, the blonde doesn't stop.
Santana frowns deeply at this.
...Okay? Quinn had clearly heard her but was choosing to ignore her. Why?
"Quinn. Wait." Santana says to no avail. "Quinn."
Now starting to get annoyed, Santana pushes forward and latches onto the blonde's wrist. "Quinn, what the hell—"
Quinn whips around so suddenly it's a miracle they both don't get whiplash. "Stop calling me that!" she yells, yanking her arm free from Santana's touch.
Santana actually recoils from the piercing hazel eyes staring so angrily at her. She's never seen Quinn like this. "What do you mean?"
What the hell did she ever do?
"That name! It's. Not. My. Name! It's never been my name!" Quinn cries angrily, her voice going hoarse. "For God's sake why can't you get that through that thick skull of yours?"
Santana is at a loss of what to say, despite all the questions currently running through her head.
Why the fuck was Quinn so mad at her?
Did she totally just space out on a conversation they'd been having?
What was up with the sparkle dress?
And what did she mean 'Quinn' was not her name?
Santana looks at Quinn and watches helplessly as Quinn's expression suddenly crumbles, Santana's lack of a response apparently having just wounded Quinn further.
Santana sucks in a sharp breath, the sight of tears in those pretty hazel eyes making her feel like she'd just been punched in the stomach. She hadn't meant to make her snowflake cry.
"Why can't you remember me?"
Santana swallows hard at that broken whisper, not even sure how to begin to answer that. She's never seen Quinn this raw and emotional before, and to be quite honest it was kind of freaking her the fuck out.
"Just tell me what I did." the blonde pleads softly, taking a step forward. "Please. Tell me what I did to make you forget me. Forget us."
Santana stops, backtracking those words with a frown.
Wait. Forget her?
Huh?
"Quinn what the hell are you talking about?" Santana demands, her own voice shaky.
"Stop calling me that!" Quinn shakes her hands out at Santana in frustration. "That's not my name. You know that!"
Santana opens her mouth to argue that but Quinn isn't done.
"I'm right here, Red." Quinn whispers. "Why can't you see that?"
"I...don't..." Santana trails off with a shake of her head, unable to handle the amount of hurt staring back at her.
This was all too much.
Needing to put some distance between them, Santana pulls back...only to smack her head full force against some kind of metal frame.
"¡Mierda!" she curses, awakened suddenly by the devastating blow.
The back of her head now screaming in agony, Santana's forehead drops into the floor, a pitiful groan escaping her.
Ow.
Santana waits for the pain to subside before attempting to lift her throbbing head.
What the fuck was that?
One really fucking bizarre dream, her brain immediately answers.
Not to mention super unsettling.
Santana's face is still contorted in a wince as she looks around.
Another thing that was unsettling? The dark, confined space she suddenly found herself in.
Why the fuck am I under a bed?
Santana slithers out from under the bed, only to balk at the astoundingly bright light she's met with.
Holy mother of God.
Why is it so goddamn bright? This is some surface of the sun shit.
Santana waits for her eyes to adjust enough to the light before attempting to get to her feet. The movement though, however careful, still succeeds in throwing her hungover ass for a loop. Like literally, her vision spins and everything.
Órale.
Santana shuts her eyes and lightly rests her hands against her temple. She's not sure how long she stays like that but it's probably an embarrassing while.
The dizzy spell passes.
Santana dares to open her eyes and take a better look at her surroundings.
She's in Rachel's bedroom, Santana realizes. The Broadway paraphernalia and the god awful gold stars everywhere made it a dead giveaway.
On the floor is random crap everywhere, mostly Rachel's clothes and sheet music. The whole room looks like it'd been ransacked or devastated by a hurricane.
Yeah, Hurricane Santana.
Whoops.
Now most of last night was a complete blank slate in her memory but looking around, Santana could conclude that she - at one point or another - had rifled through Berry's stuff.
Which wasn't surprising. It was a thing she liked to do. Sober or not.
And it's probably why she'd been under Rachel's bed. She must've passed out while looking for some embarrassing evidence she could use against her.
At that thought, Santana pats her bra for anything she might have found, like a photo or page out of the hobbit's diary.
What? Bras are very handy storage facilities.
...Not that she has a lot of space to work with.
She fills her bras out just fine thanks.
Shaking her head, Santana walks out of Rachel's room to find the others, the heel of her hand rubbing her sleepy eye.
Surprisingly, and she says surprisingly because from what little she remembered the party had been contained to the basement, the rest of Berry home looked like a scene straight out of The Hangover.
Santana just hoped there wasn't a fucking tiger in the bathroom.
Although that'd be kind of cool if there was and it like, swallowed Berry whole.
The thought able to bring a tired smile to her face, Santana follows her nose into the Berry kitchen where she smells freshly brewed coffee. Before locking eyes on the coffee machine she first comes across a just as hungover Brittany sitting at the island counter, lying face down with her head buried underneath her arms. Next to her sits a cup of half drunk coffee.
Now you know Britts was hungover if she was drinking coffee over her preferred hot chocolate.
"Remind me why the fuck we do this to ourselves?" Santana poses tiredly, walking around the blonde to pour herself a cup.
She's fairly surprised the Berrys even had a coffee machine considering she's pretty sure Rachel at one point told her caffeine killed the vocal chords.
Or maybe that was dairy. Or both.
Either way, whatever.
Brittany grudgingly lifts her head at the sound of Santana's voice. "Because alcohol makes everything more fun." she mumbles and rests her chin against her arm.
Santana snorts, the mug hovering in front of her mouth. "Yeah until it doesn't." she murmurs. She takes a tentative sip, then immediately pulls a face, the particular blend not to her liking at all.
"Where's Quinn?" she grimaces, reeling from the awful taste that lingered on her tongue.
"I don't know." Brittany groans, both hands now resting on either side of her face like simply talking was giving her an aneurysm. "I thought she'd be with you."
Santana shakes her head and sets down her coffee mug on the counter. "No."
Concerned, she leaves Brittany in her half-awake state and sets off to scour the rest of the house for their missing Trinity member. She ends up checking all the rooms uncaring if the doors were closed or not. Along the way she finds some of the glee kids passed out in random places but most were still down in the basement (and thankfully all still clothed).
Santana returns to the kitchen a few minutes later, empty-handed. She'd literally checked everywhere - even the backyard and the garage - and still no snowflake.
"Well the girl's MIA." Santana declares groggily as she walks back over to the kitchen counter. She glances down at her cell phone which she'd retrieved from the basement. "And she's not answering her phone. I sent her a text though. Bitch better call back before I fucking hunt her down."
"I'm sure she's fine. She probably went home." Brittany turns away from Berry's cabinets, disgruntled. "Rachel ain't got crap here."
Santana chuckles at her friend's uncharacteristic swearing. Brittany, like any other normal human being, got real grumpy when she was tired and hungry.
"She's vegan, of course she doesn't. All she eats is kale and mushroom juice."
Brittany sighs, then raises her brow expectantly at Santana, "My house then?"
"Hell yeah."
No way did she wanna hang around here when the others woke up. She could barely tolerate them sober, never mind hungover.
The walk to Brittany's house, however short, might as well been a death march. Being so early meant it was still beyond cold out and bright as fuck. And sure while they'd highjacked two pairs of Rachel's sunglasses from her room, they didn't shield their eyes nearly as much as either of them would have liked.
Thankfully they're able to sneak into the Pierce home undetected. In hindsight they probably should have headed over to Quinn's considering she was their alibi for this weekend but her place was too fucking far and their brains were barely functioning as it was.
Santana all but collapses on Brittany's bed the second she lays eyes on it. Now fed (she and Britt had quickly scarfed down some Eggo waffles in the kitchen) all she needed was about a month of sleep and she'd be good to go.
"Did Quinn ever text you back?" Brittany asks, glancing at her phone. Shortly after they'd left Rachel's house, she'd sent a text to Quinn too just to make sure she was alright. She still had yet to receive a response.
Santana rolls onto her stomach and checks. "No." she yawns, extending her arm and setting the device back down on Brittany's nightstand.
Brittany walks over to her window and shuts the blinds and curtains. "Should we check on her?" she asks when she's done, turning toward the bed.
"I'm sure she's fine." Santana yawns again, echoing the blonde's earlier sentiments as her her head sags against her pillow.
Brittany sets her own phone down on the nightstand before joining Santana on the bed.
"You're just saying that because you don't want to get up." Brittany smiles knowingly.
Santana shrugs, too tired to care. "That makes me a horrible friend, I know."
"Mmm." Brittany lies down next to her and the second her head hits her pillow, knocks out like a light.
Santana's on the verge of doing the same when she hears one of their phones beep on the nightstand. Instinctively grabbing hers, she unlocks the screen and reads over the new text message she receives from Quinn.
I'm home, safe and sound. Sorry I just left. I wasn't feeling well. I'll text you later when I've gotten some more rest.
Relieved, Santana texts back with a quick, K. Be sure to drink plenty of water.
She's just about to set her phone back down when it beeps again. You too, Santana. And remember, coffee doesn't count!
Santana scoffs quietly and lies back down against her pillow. Bitch don't tell me what to do.
Quinn replies almost instantly. Go to sleep cranky pants.
Fine. But I'm only doing it cause I'm hungover n tired as fuck, not cause you said so, she texts back.
Apparently Quinn was trying to end the conversation because Santana receives a rather exasperated response a few seconds later. You. Me. Sleep NOW!
Santana grins at the message, her body momentarily forgetting its fatigue. You wanna sleep with me, Q? Wanky.
You know what I meant.
Santana snickers to herself, clearly able to picture the blonde's embarrassment even through the text.
Wanky Fabray. That's so gonna be your new nickname from now on.
And I'm shutting off my phone now... Quinn texts.
GOOD OL' WANKY FABRAY!
That last text makes Santana snicker ridiculously hard for some reason.
Man, she is hilarious.
...and maybe still a little bit drunk.
—
Despite having literally slept away her Sunday, Santana walks into school Monday morning still very much hungover. And disgustingly tired.
She'd had some trouble getting to sleep last night, not only from sleeping through the whole day but from the repeat performance of that weird as fuck Quinn dream she'd had the morning before. She still had no idea what the hell any of it meant, but she wasn't gonna try and figure it out anytime soon.
What little brain function she had was gonna be put toward things like breathing and maybe blinking, and that's about it - forget interpreting convoluted dreams.
With coffee in hand, Santana slowly makes her way over to her locker, feeling very much like her poor brain cells were being shot point blank every time some dickwad decided to shout across the hall or slam their locker shut.
"Mondays should be fucking outlawed." she grumbles, walking up to the dazed blonde next to her.
Brittany nods in agreement. "I need to close my locker and the sound just may make my head explode." she grimaces, staring out behind over sized sunglasses at her open locker, dreading the inevitable.
Santana opens her own locker as delicately as she can, then shifts her gaze to her small locker mirror. Taking in her reflection, she muses with pleasant surprise, "Isn't it amazing how I can feel so bad and still look so good?"
I'm so awesome I make hungover look hot.
"Just one of the many perks that comes with being us." Brittany agrees, chuckling slightly, before dropping her gaze. "I hope one of those is for me." she says, catching sight of the cup holder in Santana's hands.
Santana looks back at her questioningly, then realizes what she was referring to, "Oh right. Yeah."
She picks up one of the coffee cups and passes it over to Brittany, lightly shaking her head. "I'm so not awake."
"Me either."
The blonde sighs gratefully when she first inhales the hazelnut aroma.
"So," Brittany turns around after a few sips and leans back against the lockers, now waiting on Santana. "Do you remember the party at all?"
Santana thinks about it for a moment before ultimately shaking her head. "Not really. Though I do remember you went all stripper status." she says, smirking over at the blonde.
"Again?" Brittany throws her head back in a silent groan. "Man, why do I always do that when I get drunk?"
Santana carefully closes her locker before responding. "Cause you love to dance and god knows you love to hang around in your birthday suit." she chuckles, starting them off toward class. "I have a feeling your parents let you roam around the house naked a little too much when you were a kid."
"Shut up, they did not."
Santana smirks behind the rim of her coffee cup. "Nature girl."
"Whatever." Brittany playfully glares. "Did your abuela suspect anything when you came home?" she asks, changing the subject as they rounded the corner.
"I wouldn't be surprised." Santana shrugs, unknowing. "I was dry heaving like all before dinner last night and when she asked what the sound was, I said I was practicing bird calls."
Brittany snorts a laugh. "That's the dumbest excuse I've ever heard. And that's coming from me." she says, stealing a teasing sidelong glance at her.
"Shut up, B." Santana scowls, lightly nudging her aside. "It was the best excuse I could think of at the time."
Brittany just shakes her head. "And people say I'm the 'special' one." she snickers.
"Says the girl who thinks a ballad is a male duck and a duet is a blanket." Santana scoffs in return.
"Yeah well..." Brittany trails off with a pout, before triumphantly reminding, "You made out with a shrub." she smirks haughtily.
Santana just rolls her eyes. "For your information it was a mannequin I made out with." she corrects, glancing back at the blonde somewhat incredulously. After all this girl was supposed to be her best friend. "I had the sex dream about the shrub. C'mon, B!" Santana lightly smacks her arm. "Get your facts straight."
Brittany stares at her, perplexed. "How can I when you're anything but?" she returns, slipping in the sass oh-so casually.
Santana shakes her head, the blonde barely able to contain her smile, and laughs in spite of herself.
"Touché, Pierce." she nods, raising her coffee cup and lightly bumping it with hers.
—
Santana shifts restlessly in her seat, bored out of her ever loving mind. She's been nodding on and off for the past twenty minutes now and it was really starting to tick her off. She wanted nothing more than to get her sleep on but she'd be damned if she became the girl who fell asleep in class and like started snoring or some shit.
Plus with her luck she'd probably get caught doing it and be humiliated by the teacher.
Yeah, no thanks.
Pinching the bridge of her nose, Santana sighs and straightens up in her seat. Just sitting here and not listening to the teacher lecture was not helping. She needed to do something if she was gonna keep herself from face planting right here on her desk.
Glancing down at the textbook she has tucked under her notebook, Santana actually considers taking some chapter notes.
Then realizes she'd brought the wrong book to class.
Well there goes that idea.
(Like she actually planned on following through with it anyways).
Huffing slightly, Santana rests her chin in her palm and looks elsewhere. The rest of the class looked just about as uninterested as she felt, with the few glee clubbers she never realized shared this same period looking particularly haggard.
When her eyes land on Quinn, who she'd actually forgotten was sitting a few feet away (huh, she was that out of it today), she perks up a little, a light bulb in her head immediately going off.
Santana turns back to her things and rips out a blank page from her notebook, using it to scribble a quick question on it. Once she has the paper folded up into a small triangle, she covertly flicks it onto the blonde's desk.
Fortunately they were both sitting near the back so she wasn't too concerned about getting caught.
(Not that she ever is).
Quinn turns her head and Santana immediately rolls her eyes at the blonde's questioning glance, then gestures for her to just read it.
Quinn does and a moment later the note lands back on her desk.
Santana quickly opens the note.
Under her initial conversation starter of, Go-to hangover food?, Quinn had written, Anything greasy, like french fries. Though that's not to say I get hangovers often...
Santana smirks to herself as she writes her response. Uh-huh. Sure you don't, snowflake.
When she gets the note back, she can't help but chuckle at the cute smiley face drawing with its tongue sticking out at her.
Underneath it Quinn asks her, What's your favorite hangover food?
Hot Pockets. She writes automatically before elaborating, The pepperoni pizza kind. They're totally disgusting when you're sober but are like heavenly goodness when you're hungover.
As she's scribbling out her reply, it occurs to Santana that they could just as easily continue this conversation the 21st century way (via text) but she's not gonna lie it's been like forever since she's passed actual physical notes in class and she kind of missed the old school way of writing secret conversation.
Before folding up the paper, Santana throws in another question at the bottom. Guilty pleasure snack? (Aside from bacon!)
Looking over, she watches as Quinn smiles at the comment. The blonde returns the note shortly thereafter with: You're so random...what's with all the food questions?
Santana looks up and shrugs at her before responding on paper. I'm bored and hungry. Answer, woman!
Quinn flicks back the note. Hostess Snowballs.
Santana snorts a quiet laugh. She really should have seen that one coming. Of course you like those!
Oh shut up! She could easily picture Quinn blushing while writing that. They happen to be really good.
I was always more of a Ho Ho girl myself, she grins.
Of course you are.
Sassing me are you, Fabray? Santana waits for Quinn to finish reading her response before quirking an eyebrow over at her.
Quinn merely responds with a cheeky smiley face drawing.
Santana shakes her head, still smiling to herself. She'd take those cute little drawings over stupid text message emoticons any day.
And you say I'm the dork!
This back and forth continues for the rest of the period. They get so caught up in it, in fact, that by the time the bell rings they're the only ones who don't hop out of their seats to leave, everyone else having been packed and ready to go ten minutes prior.
"Just when we started playing Hangman." Santana grumbles, grudgingly rising from her seat.
She'd had a good sentence in mind too!
Beside her, Quinn chuckles, having clearly heard that comment.
"We're so picking this up during lunch." she declares, the two of them making their way to the front of the room together.
They're just about to leave when Mr. Clippinger, their teacher, calls them back at the last second.
"Wait a minute ladies."
Quinn and Santana exchange a quick look before walking back up to the man's desk.
Without looking up from his lesson plan, Mr. Clippinger hands them two yellow detention slips. "It would have been less obvious if you two had been texting."
While Quinn's expression falters, Santana just stares in disbelief.
What the... seriously?
Too stunned to even think to fight the punishment, Santana just takes her slip while Quinn sheepishly mumbles their apologizes.
"C'mon, Santana."
Santana starts to follow the blonde only to be stopped once more time.
"And Ms. Lopez?"
Santana stills for a moment, then grudgingly turns back around. What now? she almost whines.
Mr. Clippinger dips his head to look at her above his reading glasses. "You do realize you weren't even supposed to be in this class this period, right?"
—
"Why the fuck didn't you tell me sooner?" Santana loudly exclaims the second they're out of earshot.
Quinn turns away with a shake of her head, still struggling to contain herself. The whole thing was just too fucking funny apparently. "I was going to tell you when you walked into class with me," she finally manages, breathless from all the laughing. "But then I figured you'd eventually come to it on your own, at least before class started."
"And when I didn't?" Santana scoffs, mortified.
"I don't know." Quinn shrugs, biting down on her lip to hide her grin. And failing. "Before I knew it we were passing notes and you were kind of the only thing keeping me awake...if I'd known how much it'd backfire on me and how you'd land me in detention, trust me I definitely would have said something."
Santana glances at her detention slip again and frowns in bewilderment. "Can he even give detention to someone not even in his class?"
"You have him later, don't you?"
Her eyes widening in realization, Santana throws her head back in a long exaggerated groan. "I don't have to go his class twice in one day, do I?"
Quinn shrugs unknowingly. "I still can't believe he actually gave us detention." she huffs, staring down at her own slip incredulously. "I mean, really, not even a warning for a first time offense?"
Santana smiles sympathetically at her, knowing that fact was in part her fault. "Sorry, Q, but you're a delinquent by association now. There are no warnings."
Quinn looks up at her, first dismayed, then worried. "Detentions don't go on your permanent record, right?"
"Who knows, who cares?"
Quinn raises her brow at her. "Colleges, for one."
Santana rolls her eyes and stops once they reach the end of the hallway. "I doubt any college worth going to gives a flying rat's ass if you were sent to detention once for passing notes in class."
Quinn shakes her head, unappeased. "You're a horrible influence, you know that?"
Santana just turns on her heel with a smirk. "You bet your sweet ass I am." she saucily replies over her shoulder. "See you in detention, snowflake!"
—
"Does it look like I give a shit?"
When Santana poses this question, it's later that day, and right in front of Quinn's locker.
Quinn, naturally confused by the greeting, looks over at her with a frown. "Huh?"
Santana stops and gestures to herself. "Right now. This face. Does it look like I give a shit? Because apparently to like all my teachers so far, it does."
"I'm afraid I'm not following." Quinn slowly says, her brow just scrunching up even further.
"It's like fucking pick on Santana Lopez day in all my classes!" she exclaims, involuntarily throwing her arms out. "Damn faculty. It's like they know I'm hungover and since they've got nothing better to do, they figure they might as well make my existence even more miserable."
Santana shakes her head, because honestly you'd think her teachers would know better by now than to pick on her...like at all.
"But you know what? Joke's on them because I swear Imma pull a Mike Tyson on the next teacher to fucking call on me with some stupid ass question they know I don't know."
Quinn blinks her surprise. "So you're going to bite your teacher's ear off?" she asks, looking mildly disgusted.
Santana pulls back slightly and quirks her brow in surprise. "You actually understood that reference?"
Quinn nods slowly. "Though I'm not sure what I'm more surprised by - my understanding or your referencing Mike Tyson in the first place."
Santana concedes a nod. True boxing references were kind of out of the ordinary for her.
"It's the hangover talking." she reasons simply.
"Literally." Quinn chuckles, before quirking her brow. "Does this mean you're going to sing Phil Collin's In the Air Tonight in glee today?"
Santana playfully glares at her. "Shut up, snowflake." Her hand comes up to rest against her temple, feeling her headache flare back up again.
Too much fucking brain activity, she guessed.
Sensing her dilemma, Quinn reaches into her locker and pulls out her make-up bag. "Here."
Santana lifts her gaze in time to see the blonde hand over two blue pills. "Fabray you druggie." she smirks.
Quinn rolls her eyes. "It's Advil." she sighs, lightly shaking her head. "It'll help with the headache."
"Probably help if I ate something too." Santana tosses back the small pills and takes the offered water bottle to wash it down. After swallowing, she returns the water and looks back at Quinn. "Speaking of which, did you bring lunch?"
She herself had totally forgotten about making lunch this morning. She was so out of it, it's any wonder she remembered to put on underwear.
"I've got...baby carrots." Quinn responds after a moment, reaching into her locker and holding up a clear plastic bag. Apparently she'd forgotten about lunch too.
Santana pulls a face at the offending item. "What are you, a rabbit? That isn't lunch, hell those don't even count as a snack. There's only one orange snack food in this world and that's cheese puffs."
Quinn stares at her and shakes her head in amazement. "How you can get away with eating so much processed food and still be so thin is beyond me."
"The sheer awesomeness of my genes prevents me from getting fat." Santana casually shrugs. "It also prevents me from being unattractive even when I feel like utter shit."
Quinn eyes her skeptically. "So you're saying it's physically impossible for you to look ugly?"
"Precisely."
Quinn turns away with a slight smile and closes her locker. "If you feel so awful why didn't you just stay home today?"
Santana pushes away from the row of lockers and starts them off. "Because then my abuela would want to know why."
"You could have just said you weren't feeling well." Quinn answers simply enough, walking along side her.
"Yeah," Santana sighs, "but then that would've given her a reason to whip out the Vicks VapoRub and no me gusta that shit."
Quinn just gives her a questioning look.
Santana shakes her head, not wanting to get into it. "Don't ask. C'mon lets rustle us up some grub before we head on over to detention."
She still couldn't believe they had to go through with that shit. So fucking stupid.
Quinn follows her down the hallway. "Pretty sure it's meatloaf day in the cafeteria. Oh joy." she deadpans.
Santana's whole face scrunches up. She'd sooner sell her abuela than eat that sad excuse for food, hungover or not. "Fuck that. We are so not eating cafeteria food."
Quinn frowns, not understanding where they'd get food if not from the cafeteria. "Then where...?"
Santana just fixes her with a knowing smirk. "C'mon, snowflake." she says, grabbing the blonde's hand and leading her around the corner.
—
"I can't believe they actually had Hot Pockets." Santana exclaims happily, moaning around a cheesy mouthful.
This day just got significantly better.
"I can't believe you made me sneak into the teacher's lounge to get them." Quinn retorts, glancing over her shoulder worriedly, half-expecting some teacher to come chasing after them for stealing from their mini fridge.
Santana glances back at her and scoffs, her voice muffled by food. "I didn't make you do shit Fabray."
Quinn glances down at the hot pocket in her grasp guiltily. "We're eating some poor teacher's lunch, Santana."
"So what?" Santana shrugs, too preoccupied with how amaze-balls her hot pocket tasted to really care. Stolen hot pockets were a hella lot better than regular ones for some reason. "We're doing them a favor. God knows ninety-eight percent of the faculty needs to go on Weight Watchers anyways."
Quinn doesn't look any less placated. "What if these are Coach Sylvester's? If they are she'll surely trace it back to us and then murder us."
Santana rolls her eyes. "Please that woman hasn't had a solid meal since 1987."
Quinn sighs to herself and, in spite of her guilt, takes another bite, unable to help herself. "As much as I hate to admit it - you're right." she says after a moment of savoring its taste. "These are actually really good."
Santana looks over at Quinn and chuckles at her adorably satisfied expression. "And that's how you know when you are still super hungover." she says, pushing open the door to their designated detention space.
Quinn thanks her and walks into the classroom first, Santana right behind her. "This is detention?" the blonde can't help but whisper as she takes in their lackluster surroundings.
Santana walks around her and drops their detention slips in front of their sleeping supervisor.
"What were you expecting Molly Ringwald and the rest of the Breakfast club?" she snorts, earning herself a mild glare in return.
"She's dead asleep." Quinn realizes, looking back and noticing Mrs. Hagberg for the first time.
Santana glances over her shoulder. "Yeah, she might just be dead." She nudges Quinn's arm and nods toward the old woman seriously. "You should check her pulse just in case. That funk might be legit."
Quinn's eyes widen in horror.
Santana cracks up, a grin spreading out across her face. "Just messing with you, snowflake." she laughs, placing a hand on Quinn's shoulder as they set off to find seats.
Being that it was detention there was plenty of room, with only five other kids scattered around. (All of whom lacked the originality to warrant a description).
Santana plops herself down in the chair closest to the window and furthest in the back, while Quinn chooses the desk next to hers and turns it sideways.
Once they finish with their hot pockets, Quinn presents her with two options from out of her bag.
"Animal crackers or trail mix?"
Santana's gaze flickers between each package, eyeing them both with an equal amount of disapproval. "Seriously?" Aside from stealing hot pockets she'd also managed to convince Quinn to raid the teacher's lounge vending machine - who knew the girl was so handy with a nail file? - but apparently it was a job she should have done herself.
Her head shakes in disbelief. "I said get the good snacks, Fabray."
Quinn frowns deeply. "Who doesn't like animal crackers?"
"Anyone above the age of four." Santana huffs, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. "Where's the chocolate, man?" She leans forward and grabs the girl's bag for herself. "You had better not be holding out on me, Fabray."
"I'm not-"
"Lies!" Santana exclaims, her mouth gaping comically as she peers inside. Shaking her head, she flips the bag upside down and dumps the better snacks onto her desk.
"Santana!"
"You little mentirosa!" Santana murmurs, her head still shaking as she picks out the snacks she wants from the pile.
"I'll have you know I wasn't lying about anything. I just wanted to show you the healthier options first." Quinn says, rising back up from picking up her things and promptly snatching the package of gummy bears out of the Latina's grasp. "Excuse me for trying to prevent you from getting Diabetes."
"I didn't want those anyways." Santana sniffs, her mouth already filled with two Oreos. "Who the hell has time for all that chewing?"
Quinn shakes her head at her, partly out of amusement and partly out of disgust. "Did no one ever teach you to eat like a human being?"
"Uh, excuse you." Santana scoffs when Quinn reaches over and snatches her last Oreo right out of her hand.
"What is it that Brittany always says? Oh right, sharing is caring." Quinn bites down and smirks.
"Last time I checked there is no fucking 'we' in 'food'." Santana grumbles sourly, crossing her arms and glaring hard while Quinn happily chews on her cookie. "No me gusta."
—
"What the hell is a Capricorn anyways?" Is what Santana currently wants to know.
They're sitting here, talking about random shit as usual, and for the past ten minutes it's been about their winter break and Quinn's upcoming birthday.
"It's a half-goat, half fish creature." Quinn explains, her one hand propping up her head while the other engaged in a thumb wrestling match with Santana's. "The constellation Capricornus is sometimes identified as Pan, the god with a goat's head, who saved himself from the monster Typhon by giving himself a fish's tail and diving into a river."
She's like a walking encyclopedia, Santana thinks.
"So what you're saying is it's a mermaid goat. A mergoat." Santana smirks to herself after successfully defeating the blonde with a trick move she learned from Puckerman. "You're a mergoat."
"Yes well you're a virgin."
"In the only sense of the word." Santana chuckles, indulging the blonde with another round even though she's lost twice already. "But you - you're a snowflake mergoat. A snowfloat. Add that to your ever growing list of nicknames."
"I should really give you a nickname." Quinn says, her brow furrowing in concentration. "You have so many for me. It's not fair."
"I don't need any nicknames." Santana scoffs, easily defeating her that time. "My name's awesome as is."
Quinn concedes to a nod, but isn't one to give up until she's bested Santana at least once. "The only name to have Satan in the spelling and still mean 'holy'."
"Talk about your contradiction."
"What about Little Red Riding Hood?"
Santana quirks her brow, amused, because hello, random.
"You wear red like all the time." Quinn explains with a shrug. "That could be your nickname."
"More like Little Red Riding from the hood." Santana smirks.
Quinn just rolls her eyes. "Dork."
"Speaking of clothes," Santana looks up from their little thumb war and eyes the scarf Quinn had wrapped around her neck all day. "What's with the scarf? I mean it's cute but you're inside."
Quinn stills for a moment, obviously made uncomfortable. "The weather's been colder." she shrugs and takes her her hand away.
Santana narrows her eyes dubiously. "But you never get cold."
"I just like scarves, okay?" Quinn sighs, almost defensively. "And it goes with my outfit."
"Sure you're not trying to hide a hickey?" Santana teases.
"That's preposterous."
Says the girl whose cheeks just turned a deeper shade of pink.
Santana raises her brow at this, her eyes widening in realization, "You are!" she hisses, shocked.
Santana shakes her head and laughs, Quinn sinking down in her chair confirming it. "Oh man, that's hilarious."
"Shut up, Santana."
Santana scoots to the edge of her chair and reaches out for the blonde's scarf. "Lemme see it."
Quinn immediately squirms away, trying to swat away at her hand. "No way."
"Aw come on!" Santana lunges forward and tries again, this time successfully yanking down the fabric. "Jesus, Fabray." she comments, peering closer to better assess the damage. "That shit looks like you got mangled by an animal. Or at the least had a run in with Chris Brown. Ever hear of cover up?"
"I have like seven layers on!" Quinn exclaims as quietly as she can. "You should see it without the make-up."
Santana's gaze lingers on her neck. For some reason, the longer she stares at the blemished skin, the less amusement she finds in it.
"Who did it?" she asks, sitting back and frowning deeply.
If it was Puck she'd fucking castrate him.
If it was Sam she'd gut him like the grouper fish that he was.
And if it was Finn...ugh don't even get her started on what she'd do to that lard loving hamburglar...
Turn him back into pink slime, that's what she do.
"I don't know." she hears Quinn murmur, snapping her out of her thoughts. "Or I don't remember."
Santana cocks her head to the side, eyeing Quinn curiously. "Is that why you bolted from Rachel's party Sunday morning?" she questions with a smirk, "You didn't wake up to find yourself curled up in Lady Hummel's arms, did you? I'll die laughing if he's the one who gave you that fucking hickey."
"I didn't wake up with anyone thank you very much." Quinn huffs indignantly.
Santana rolls her eyes and sighs. "We were all hammered - in your drunkenness you probably just decided to get very up close and personal with a vacuum cleaner." she says, trying to make light of the situation for the blonde's sake.
Quinn, obviously wanting this conversation to end, just nods her head.
"I think I ransacked Rachel's bedroom." Santana brings up after a moment, steering the conversation in a different direction - even though she still secretly wanted to know who the fuck had given Quinn that monster of a hickey. And then bash their fucking skull in. "It was a total disaster area when I woke up."
"Yeah I noticed that too." Quinn nods, forcing a small chuckle. "I vaguely remember you going through her things at one point."
Santana can't help but slightly raise her brow. So Quinn had been in Rachel's room with her then?
Huh. You'd think she'd have some recollection...
"So, you don't remember anything from the party?" Quinn quietly hedges.
Santana shakes her head. "But then again it's only Monday. Maybe later on it'll start to come back to me."
But then again maybe she didn't want to know what kind of shenanigans she got into during Rachel's party.
Ignorance is bliss, after all. And if Santana finds out she did something super embarrassing like play jingle bells on Finn's man boobs, she just might die.
Santana quickly shakes her head, needing to get rid of that disturbing visual she'd just given herself.
Anyways.
"So, yeah...my abuela wants to do dinner with us this week." she tries to mention casually, only to end up cringing a little, her transition admittedly not that smooth. But she needed to bring it up, having been unceremoniously reminded of it before she left the house this morning. And if she didn't give her abuela an answer by the time she came into work, she'd never hear the end of it.
"Us?" Quinn repeats, sounding confused and a little alarmed.
"You, me, and Britt." Santana confirms with a nod. "You're not like obligated to come or anything though. Last week my abuela was complaining how I'm always over at your guy's houses and blah blah blah..." Santana lets the eye roll speak for itself. "And basically she'd like if you guys came over to our house for a change. So yeah...I already talked to Brittany and she's in. But if you're not, it's fine with me. You'll be sparing yourself a long uneventful evening with a senile old bitty."
"When?"
"I dunno some time this week probably." Sensing Quinn's hesitance, Santana adds, "It's okay if you don't wanna do dinner. Don't feel like you have to just for my sake."
"No, it's okay." Quinn promises, lightly shaking her head. "Dinner with your grandmother sounds lovely."
"So naive." Santana says with a smile.
"By the way, you're gonna wanna prepare beforehand." At Quinn's confused glance, Santana explains, "Treat dinner with my abuela like you're going in for surgery. No food at least twenty-fours hours prior. My abuela will fill you with so much rice and beans you'll self-combust otherwise. I know this from experience, trust me."
Quinn narrows her eyes at her. "I can't tell if that's just another one of those things you tell people, like the whole razor blades hidden in your hair nonsense, or if you're actually being serious."
"Hey! I'll have you know the whole razor blade thing is totally legit!" Santana exclaims indignantly. "If I didn't like you so much I'd take those pasty little snowflake hands of yours and make you feel them for yourself. Your hands would come out looking like you just had a run-in with Sweeney Todd."
"Keep up with those Broadway references, Santana, and it won't be long until your transition into a Rachel Berry doppelganger is complete." Quinn quips, throwing her a teasing smile.
Santana's scowl deepens. "Bite me, Fabray."
"Mrs. Hagberg." Santana suddenly hears a voice say. "Mrs. Hagberg!"
Quinn and Santana collectively turn their heads toward the front of the class, both honing in on that oh-so annoying, and unfortunately very familiar, chirpy voice.
Santana instantly rolls her eyes at the sight of an exasperated Rachel waving her little muppet arms around, trying (and failing) to get the comatose teacher's attention.
Uncanny how that girl always seemed to pop up right after you finished talking about her.
"What the hell are you doing, Berry?" Santana says loudly, startling the shorter brunette. Rachel turns around, confused, then after realizing who was speaking to her, brightens and makes her way over to them.
Santana can't help but pull a face. She totally forgot the whole 'addressing a person' thing could lead to her having to actually make conversation.
Crap.
"Hello, Santana. Quinn." Rachel cordially greets, stopping in front of them. Her brow furrows slightly as she looks to them and wonders, "What are you two doing here in detention?"
"Quinnie here may or may not have punched a teacher in the face. And I may or may not have encouraged it."
"Santana." Quinn admonishes her with a mild glare. "We got caught passing notes in class." she explains to Rachel.
"Oh." Rachel blinks, then frowns. "Your teacher gave you detention for just that? It seems a bit unwarranted."
"No shit." Santana grumbles.
"Well that just goes to show how completely unfair and ludicrous this public school system really is." Rachel huffs, pulling up a desk and sitting down primly. "For the past twenty-minutes I've been in the school office trying to make an appeal against this uncalled for punishment," she waves around her yellow detention slip haphazardly, "But he was not one to be reasoned with. I'm still debating whether or not to go above all their heads and make an appointment with the superintendent myself."
Santana rolls her eyes, because, hello what a drama queen, and snatches the girl's detention slip out of her hand. She can only imagine what 'injustice' it was that got Berry's tail in such a knot.
Santana snorts when she reads the reason for the detention, given to Rachel by Miss Castle, the school's glue huffing batshit crazy badminton/astronomy teacher.
Scrawled in Miss Castle's messy handwriting and taking up the entire paragraph space at the bottom, read: SHE WON'T SHUT UP! UGH!
"Nice going, Berry." Santana smirks, flashing the paper to Quinn.
"See?" Rachel shrieks indignantly, snatching the slip back after Quinn reads it for herself. "It's absurd! A teacher can't give a student detention simply for asking questions - it's what we're supposed to be doing!"
"Berry, it's Monday." Santana groans. "How the hell are you so...loud? Aren't you even the least bit hungover still?"
Rachel shakes her head and straightens up smugly. "My dad has this recipe for a miracle hangover cure. Granted it's absolutely disgusting and will certainly test your gag reflexes, but it does the job and made my hangover disappear just like that." she says brightly, snapping her fingers together.
Ugh. Santana's hand moves to her temple. And just like that the headache's back.
"I can give you the recipe if you'd like for future use."
Santana shakes her head, every word out of the hobbit's mouth just making her headache worsen. If she didn't know any better she'd swear she was allergic to Rachel.
Maybe she was.
She should really look into it. It could be like a legit thing.
And then maybe she could get a medical marijuana prescription out of it.
That'd be amazing.
But until then Santana has to get away from Rachel asap.
"Sorry but not sorry, Berry. I can't deal with you sober, let alone alone hungover." Santana declares, rising from her seat. "C'mon, Q." She nods at the blonde. "Let's blow this popsicle stand and find Britt."
Nobody would care if they left anyways. Hell half the kids in here already ditched and since Mrs. Hagberg wasn't waking up anytime soon, not unless she got word back from the producers of Hoarders (apparently she was gonna be on an episode), there was no point in staying.
Fortunately they still had some lunch time to spare.
"Oh, wait." Rachel stands suddenly just as they're ready to leave, apparently remembering something important. "Before you go you should know I'll be sending you both a written estimate of the damage done to my room during er, Saturday's festivities. I don't mean to do this out of spite but the damage was quite extensive and my Patti LuPone bust alone cost—"
"What the fuck are you talking about, troll?" Santana interjects, both clueless and severely annoyed.
Rachel shifts her stance, hesitating under their expectant gazes for a brief moment. "You two were the only ones seen in my room that night, I know this because I asked the others, and while I admit most of Saturday night is still a bit hazy, I do distinctly remember walking in on you two making out on my bed."
Santana stares at the girl blankly, unsure if she just heard right or if her headache was just making her delirious.
It had to be the latter. Because Berry couldn't have just said that.
Her and Quinn? Making out?
As if—
"Look I'm not bringing this up because I want to hear the details or anything like that." Rachel assures, trying to bypass her own discomfort. "Frankly I'm probably better off not knowing what it is you two did after I left that caused the mess in my room, but I digress. I am simply looking for reparation for the damage done. Aside from my broken Patti LuPone bust, some of my sunglasses are missing and I found several of my sweaters stretched out beyond their size in the chest area." she adds, eyeing Santana specifically, obviously miffed.
Now normally Santana would have at least smirked at that comment, because hell yeah she was totally blessed in that area, but all she could do at the moment was stare incredulously. "What the fuck have you been smoking, hobbit?"
Her head turns to exchange a look with Quinn but the blonde doesn't catch it, apparently still in the midst of processing this new information herself.
"Oh come now, Santana." Rachel sighs, nearly rolling her eyes. "You can't play dumb with me. You two were all over each other and you know it. The proof of which I'm positive is underneath Quinn's scarf."
Santana follows the hobbit's pointer finger to the side of Quinn's neck and lifts her gaze.
Her and Quinn make eye contact for like, a split second, before sharply turning away from each other.
It can't be. No way. Just, no. That's the most insane thing she's ever heard of.
I think I'd fucking remember if I made out with my best friend, she scoffs, shaking her head to herself.
...
Right?
—
To say things got weird after that would have been a major understatement.
And not just for the rest of the day, but for the days that followed too.
Santana hated it but what could she do?
Apologize? They don't even know what really happened. All they had was the account of one drunk ass hobbit and a mysterious hickey. And hell for all they knew nothing happened. Berry could have been making shit up to fuck with them or simply been mistaken.
But even if something had happened between her and Quinn… okay, so what? They were both drunk out of their minds so it's not like it meant anything. No big deal.
Right?
So why can't Quinn look her in the eye anymore?
And why can't Santana?
Deep down Santana knows she should like say something – what exactly had still yet to be determined – but she didn't want to make things weirder by bringing it up.
The safest bet would be to just keep her mouth shut and wait things out. Eventually all this would blow over and they'd soon forget about why they were being weird in the first place.
Yeah.
But in the meanwhile Santana still wanted to know what the actual fuck went down that night. It was starting to drive her nuts that she couldn't remember anything.
Okay that's a lie. She was starting to remember some stuff, but it was all useless, non-Quinn related crap. Like helping Brittany draw a sharpie penis on the abs of a passed out Mike Chang or nearly peeing herself when Mercedes snorted soda out of her nose from laughing too much.
It was really fucking annoying. She was so desperate to figure out what the hell happened, that she actually looked online for ways to jog her memory. It was super lame, she knew, but she needed to do something about it.
As advised she'd looked at all the photos from the party that were on Facebook, hoping it would bring about some forgotten memory, but that didn't do shit for her. Then she tried writing down what she did remember, figuring if she reflected back on that night she'd remember what she had forgotten.
That didn't work either.
She also read that a good night's sleep could "trigger an increase in memory and motor skills".
If it wasn't for the fact that she's been incapable of sleeping lately, she would've had the most hope in that one actually working.
Yeah, just when she thought she'd gotten past these bizarre dreams, they come back tenfold and as ambiguous as ever. Only difference was lately these dreams were sticking with her, whereas before the memory of these dreams faded fast on her, evaporating before she could properly pin them down, leaving her with only vague bits and pieces.
Granted they still didn't make any sense, but at least she could more or less remember them now.
She kind of wished she didn't though. Having to deal with Quinn being weird in real life was one thing but to have to deal with her being weird in her dreams too was a whole 'nother.
And why the hell did she keep calling her 'Red'?
Does she look like a fucking ginger?
"Santana?"
Santana snaps out of her daze and turns her head to find her grandmother staring at her with a raised brow. "You keep chopping away at that onion like that and there won't be anything left to use."
Santana drops her gaze to the cutting board she had in front of her and sighs. The pieces of onion she was supposed to cut up for the salsa were beyond tiny. "Lo siento, abuela."
Without warning her abuela grabs her chin and forces her gaze forward. "You look tired, Santana." she says, inspecting her face closely. "Are you not getting enough sleep again?"
"I'm fine, grams." Santana assures, shifting her chin out of the woman's grasp. "Finals are coming up, is all."
With a shake of her head, her abuela goes back to heating up some tortillas on the stove. Santana more or less tunes her out as she rags on her coffee addiction, ranting about how it was not a substitute for sleep and blah, blah, blah...
The doorbell rings.
Santana sets down her knife so she could go and answer the door but her abuela beats her to it. Sighing, she quickly adds in the onions to the salsa and wipes her hands clean on a tea towel. By the time she makes it out of the kitchen, her abuela is still lingering in the doorway with Quinn and Brittany.
To be honest she's a little surprised Quinn even showed up given how distant they've been with each other these past few days. Quinn's barely spoken to her since Rachel opened her big fat mouth and every time they hang out together with Brittany, it's awkward to say the least.
Overhearing her grandmother muttering something about her two friends being 'too skinny', Santana comes up behind the woman rolling her eyes.
At this rate they've got about sixty seconds before abuela starts shoveling as much rice and beans as she can down their throats.
"You girls could hula hoop through a cheerio!" her abuela exclaims like the typical dissatisfied grandmother that she is. "That will not do."
"You say that about all white people, grams." Santana sighs, resisting the urge to roll her eyes again. "And they understand Spanish so keep that in mind before you try insulting their size again."
"Everything I learned, I learned from the Taco Bell chihuahua and Dora the Explorer." Brittany confirms, shrugging off her coat as Santana comes up beside her to hang it up.
"And the Telemundo weather girls." Santana mutters under her breath, exchanging a knowing smirk with Brittany, who quickly turns sheepish.
Her abuela clasps her hands together, thankfully having missed that last remark. "I hope you girls are hungry."
"I'm starved!" Brittany nods, setting her purse down by the coat rack.
"Your whole life by the looks of it." Her abuela agrees, placing a hand on Brittany's shoulder and guiding her into the kitchen. "Don't your parents feed you?"
After those two disappear into the kitchen, Santana turns back around to Quinn who was still hanging up her coat.
"I, uh, brought cookies." Quinn says, bending down and holding up a platter of chocolate chip cookies. "I hope they're alright. I wasn't sure what kind to make."
Santana smiles slightly, relieved more than anything that the blonde was actually speaking to her. "No worries. Dessert is dessert."
Santana reaches for the plate and Quinn moves to hand it over.
But as they're making the exchange, their fingers accidentally brush against each other and Quinn is thrown off by the contact and lets go of the plate too soon.
Fortunately Santana has fast reflexes and is able to catch the plate before it falls to the ground. "Uh, you okay, Q?" Santana jokes, eyeing her with slight concern.
Quinn's smile is tight lipped as she nods and moves past Santana.
Santana follows Quinn into the kitchen and sighs.
This was gonna be a long ass night.
—
About an hour later...
"Abuela, if you force feed my friends to death, Imma be pissed." Santana warns, looking up from her food only to find her grandmother forcing yet another helping of enchiladas onto her blondes' plates.
"I don't understand your generation's obsession with being skinny." her abuela sighs, as usual waving off Santana's concern. "Men want a women who have a full figure, not a woman who looks like they come from third world country. You should embrace your curves."
Santana resists the urge to roll her eyes. "It's not about being skinny, grams. It's about living past twenty-five." She shakes her head in disbelief as her abuela picks up the rice and beans. "God, quit making them eat! They've had enough already!"
Quinn and Brittany for their part were valiantly trying not to look as stuffed as they undoubtedly felt.
"But we'd love to take some home for later if that's alright." Brittany pipes up, not wanting to insult the older woman.
"Of course, mija." her abuela smiles, taking their leftovers to put it in to-go containers.
Santana just shakes her head. Quinn and Brittany were gonna leave here with about a month's worth of food, that's for sure.
"So, do you two have boyfriends?" her abuela asks, without any preamble whatsoever when she finally returns to the table.
Santana slams her fork down incredulously. "Abuela, seriously?"
"What? I'm curious." her abuela shrugs, unsurprisingly seeing nothing wrong with the question. "Beautiful girls like them are sure to have no problem getting dates."
"That doesn't mean it's okay for you to stick your nose in their business." Santana argues.
"It's okay, Santana." Brittany casually interrupts, before responding, "I'm single and ready to mingle, abuela Lopez."
"And what about you, mija?" her abuela asks, her gaze sliding over to Quinn.
"Abuela." Santana warns, shooting her grandmother a not-so-discreet look across the table.
"I'm just trying to focus on school right now." Quinn responds, smiling in that polite way Santana knew was her silently hoping it would be answer enough for the woman.
"You girls stay away from that travieso Puckerman though." her abuela warns seriously, pointing her fork at them. "He is no good. His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."
Santana can't help the eye roll that time. "Jesus, grams. Puck is not that bad."
Her abuela turns her head, unwilling to listen. "He's a bad influence." she maintains stubbornly. "Liable to get the next girl he looks at pregnant."
"Thank god that's now how procreation works." Brittany chuckles...only to then stop and exchange a worried look with Santana. "Right?"
Santana shakes her head, cracking a smile in spite of herself. "If it was every girl in town would be screwed."
"Language, Santana."
Santana rolls her eyes, her gaze settling on the clock on the wall. When she sees the time, she perks up gratefully.
Hallelujah.
"Hey grams, we might wanna wrap things up now otherwise you'll miss your novelas." she says, indicating the time.
Thanks to those god awful soap operas it looked like she'll able to get her blondes out of here before her abuela tries to force feed them another meal. Or interrogate them with further embarrassing questions.
Her abuela jumps up a little after checking the time for herself. "Ay dios mio! Vamos a ir al living room."
Wait, what?
Before Santana knows it, the crazy old broad is ushering all of them out of their seats. "Abuela, don't make us join you." she groans, as they're being cattled into the living room. Thankfully she manages to steal Quinn's cookie platter off the counter beforehand. "Quinn and Brittany don't want to watch your lame-o stories. And I sure as hell don't."
"Nonsense, Santana. You said it yourself they understand español. They won't mind."
"Yeah, I love Spanish telenovelas." Brittany nods, spinning around and plopping herself down on the sofa. "Son muy dramático." she chuckles, saying that latter part in a deep serious speaking voice.
Ugh Britt don't mention that. Santana silently glares at her. But too late, her grandmother was already inquiring which shows she watches.
No way she letting them go now.
Sighing, Santana plops herself down on the armchair, her back slouched against one armrest and her feet propped up against the other. She might as well get comfortable.
"Santana, siéntese!"
Santana rolls her eyes but doesn't look back at her abuela. "What? It's comfortable." she says, already with a mouthful of Quinn's chocolate chip cookies.
Which were amazing, by the way.
"Hey don't hog Quinn's cookies, Santana." Brittany says, reaching over and stealing the plate from her. "She didn't make them just for you, you know."
"Ay man." Santana turns her head indignantly. "What the hell, B?"
"Cállate Santana." her abuela orders, the novela's opening credits starting up on the television.
Santana grudgingly reverts her attention to the screen. Within the first five minutes she can't help but scoff to herself. She doesn't see how these kinds of shows could appeal to anyone.
English, Spanish - it didn't matter. Soap operas were beyond ridiculous and super repetitive. Every damn week it was the same shit - amnesia, coma, evil twin, cat fights, fake murder; then for some reason there's always at least one character with a fucking eye patch.
What was up with that?
Shaking her head, Santana whips her phone out of her bra. She spends the next ten minutes happily playing Angry Birds.
"Damn birds." she mumbles, struggling to massacre the pigs on one particular level. "I'll show you angry."
"Santana, dame tu cellular."
Hearing this, she loudly scoffs at her abuela, her gaze unwavering from the screen. "Porque?"
What the hell did she ever do? It's not like she even had the sound on.
"We are trying to watch la programa and your Nintendo is distracting." her abuela says impatiently.
"It's a fucking Iphone, grams. Not a Nintendo." Santana retorts, mimicking her abuela's pronunciation.
"My granddaughter has no respect. No manners." her abuela sighs, her eyes fitting to the ceiling. "Where did I go wrong?"
Oh hell. Here we go.
"Where do I even start?" Santana scoffs, finally looking up over her shoulder. "For one you fed me nothing but rice and beans growing up. It's any wonder I didn't turn out the Mexican Honey boo-boo. Tapatío boo-boo."
"See what I have to put up with?" her abuela exclaims to the blondes sitting on either side of her, shaking her head. "I tried to sell her once but needless to say no one wanted her."
"Hilarious grams." Santana deadpans. "You're like a brown Betty White."
Her abuela merely snatches her phone out of her hands.
But not before delivering a quick, discreet, smack to the back of her head.
Órale.
With no phone to keep her entertained, Santana resigns to the fact that she's gonna have to watch this novela whether she likes it or not. So she does, or at least tries to. After a few minutes her brain checks out of the show completely, leaving her gaze to roam across the room.
Of their own accord her eyes find Quinn. The girl hasn't said much the entire evening, only speaking when spoken to, and hasn't so much as looked in Santana's direction. Or so she knew.
Looking at her now, Quinn didn't look particularly bored or interested in the television program.
The blonde must have sensed a pair of eyes on her because in that moment she turns her head. Quinn, realizing it was Santana, and Santana, realizing she'd just been caught staring at her, quickly divert their gazes, both their cheeks flushing.
"Ay he's a bastard!" her abuela suddenly exclaims, frustrated by the scene playing out on the screen. The douchebag male lead had successfully seduced the wife of his late twin brother after spewing some of the sappiest, bullshit filled dialogue Santana's ever heard.
"But a good looking one." Brittany says next to her, watching as the female lead all but rips off his shirt.
Meanwhile Santana couldn't have been any less interested, even if the scene was all kinds of wanky. It's a shame they were wasting such a hot girl on that queer as fuck actor. They could have put her with an equally hot girl and made the scene so much better.
Rolling her eyes as the two characters lie down on the bed and proceed to get it on, Santana can't help but let her mind wander.
They're lying side by side on the bed, legs intertwined. Her hand trails down the blonde's side, gliding across the fabric of her dress. She squeezes her hip encouragingly while the blonde caresses her cheek, the tenderness of the gesture a stark contrast to the fervid kisses they found themselves exchanging.
Santana slips her hand back into Quinn's hair and presses their lips together more insistently, ripping a sinful little moan from the blonde's throat.
She could literally do this all fucking night.
Santana's just about to guide Quinn onto her back when she catches a glimpse of something over her shoulder, watching them. She makes a dissatisfied sound then, realizing what it was.
Fucking hell.
"What's wrong?" Quinn asks breathlessly against their lips. Santana kisses her deeply for a moment before pulling away with a wet smack. Huffing slightly, she nods over at the ceramic bust on Rachel's nightstand.
She was finding it increasingly hard to her get her mack on with Patti LuPone glaring her down judgmentally.
Quinn looks over her shoulder but doesn't think anything of it. "Just ignore it." she whispers, cupping Santana's face and redirecting her attention with a kiss.
Santana sinks into the kiss with a sigh and deepens it...only to pull away after a few seconds.
God damnit.
"I can't." she whines unhappily. She can still totally feel those ceramic eyes on them. "It's creepy as shit. Like Big Brother watching you."
Grumbling in Spanish, Santana grudgingly crawls over Quinn's body and reaches over to turn the ceramic bust around. But in her drunken struggle to do so, she only manages to knock it over and send it crashing onto the hardwood floor.
"Santana!"
"Whatever." Santana turns back around and straddles Quinn.
Problem solved.
"I'll buy her a new one." she mumbles, leaning down and capturing the blonde's lips hungrily.
Quinn wraps her arms around Santana's neck, humming happily in response.
Eventually Santana's mouth leaves her own. She trails her kisses down the side of Quinn's neck, lightly biting and sucking along, encouraged by all the delicious little noises emerging from the blonde beneath her.
"Santana, you're going to leave a mark." Quinn whimpers, squirming against the thorough treatment she was receiving.
Santana pulls back only to scoff down at the blonde. "Does it look like I give a damn about that?" she asks, before ducking her head back down and resuming her ministrations.
"Well of course you don't." Quinn huffs, trying in vain not to sound like she was enjoying herself as much as she was. "You're not the one who will have to go into school looking like a leper."
"But at least you'll be a cute leper." she murmurs, kissing across the blonde's throat to lavish some attention on the other side of her neck. "'Sides people outta know who you belong to."
"I'll have you know I am not yours or anyone else's." Quinn slurs matter-of-factly. "I am free! I am the queen!"
"Oh yeah, you're the queen huh?" Santana teases, lifting her head above Quinn's face. "Then what am I? Sexy knight?"
Quinn splutters a laugh and shakes her head. "You're not badass enough."
Santana's eyes narrow dangerously at that remark. "I'll show you badass, Fabray." she playfully growls before lunging to tickle her.
Santana startles back to reality, finding herself back in her living loom, a Spanish commercial for Clorox playing on the tv.
What the fuck was that?
Did she seriously just...?
Oh God.
Oh God.
Berry was right. She remembers now. She'd been hanging out with Quinn in Rachel's room, going through the girl's things, making fun of it and whatnot...then at one point Quinn had pulled her onto the bed and they'd made out periodically for like the rest of the night...
Santana turns away from that train of thought and her gaze unconsciously lands back on Quinn, who at the moment was talking to her abuela with Brittany.
Before any one of them could notice her staring, Santana quickly gets up, a sick feeling settling in her stomach. The memory of Quinn beneath her, meeting her every kiss and reciprocating in kind still lingered in her mind and it was all kinds of wrong - considering her abuela was sitting only a few feet away.
If she could see into Santana's mind right now, she'd crucify her.
Santana retreats into the kitchen, needing a moment to herself. She walks over to the refrigerator and grabs a cold water to cool down her uncomfortably warm body. She gulps down most of the bottle, half wishing it was tequila. That would certainly help wash away the memory of her and Quinn getting their mack on, if for a little while anyways.
But then again that would be such a bad idea. Alcohol's what got her here in the first place.
Jesus. How the hell were they ever gonna come back from this?
"Santana?"
Santana jumps so high she nearly spills some of her water.
Quinn winces slightly, hesitating in the entryway awkwardly. "I'm sorry, are you okay?"
Santana just nods, forcing herself to stare anywhere but at Quinn's lips, which were suddenly all she could focus on.
Not cause she wanted to kiss them or anything, she's sure.
"The, uh...show's over." Quinn murmurs, briefly gesturing back behind her. "Brittany and I are heading home now."
Santana watches her walk over and grab the leftover containers off the counter.
"So you want me to walk you home?"
The words fly out of her mouth, a force of habit. It's what she usually does after all...or at least did before things got weird.
"It's okay, I can manage on my own." Quinn nods with a hint of a smile. "But thank you."
"Okay then." Santana finds herself saying, a little disappointed. "See you, I guess."
"Goodnight, Santana."
Santana plans to leave her to it, but at the last second she stupidly calls her back. "Quinn?"
"I know we made out at Rachel's party and it's made things really uncomfortable between us but I feel like we should probably talk about before we stop being friends all together because I don't know about you but that would really suck and I like having you as a friend. And really I just want things to go back to the way they were."
Is what she wants to say, but none of those words come out. Nothing does.
It's all on the tip of her tongue but for some unknown reason she can't bring herself to speak up.
Meanwhile Quinn has a curious expression on her face, still patiently waiting on her follow-up. "Yeah?"
"Uh...night."
Quinn looks at her oddly for a moment, as if she could sense there had been more she wanted to say but doesn't comment on it. If there's disappoint there, she masks it well.
"Goodnight."Quinn says again, before leaving.
Meanwhile Santana stays where she is, left wondering when the fuck she suddenly became afraid to say what's on her mind.
—
Santana was both grateful for winter break and resentful of it.
Grateful because winter break meant no school.
Resentful because no school meant no Quinn.
And no Quinn made for an admittedly unhappy Santana.
Not because she missed the girl or anything, of course. That'd be super pathetic.
Santana shoves the dress she'd been contemplating back into the rack. "Hey Britt, have you found anything?" Maybe she was having better luck with this than she was.
Santana turns around only to find Brittany gone.
Sighing, she walks over to the blonde a few feet away, a little disgruntled to see she was still on the phone. She's been talking to Quinn for the past twenty minutes, trying to get the girl to give them an idea of what she wanted for her birthday.
But Quinn, of course, wasn't making things easy.
"Quinn you have to want something." Brittany sighs, holding her cell phone in one hand while browsing the clothing racks with the other.
"But I don't." she hears Quinn sigh over the speakerphone.
"I don't buy that." Brittany says, still talking to Quinn, but now looking at Santana. She mouths the words, "Find Anything?"
Santana just shakes her head.
"C'mon, Quinn." Brittany whines, reverting her attention. "Just me something to work with. A pair of heels? A purse?"
"Brittany you already gave me my birthday present, remember? That ball of fur we lovingly call Marshmallow?"
Brittany smiles fondly but shakes her head. "He doesn't count."
"Brittany I honestly don't want anything. I'm good."
Santana can't help but roll her eyes. Cause, seriously? Who the fuck doesn't want free presents?
"Tell her if she doesn't pick something she's gonna end up with something lame like argyle socks." Santana warns from across the way.
Brittany turns her head and holds out the phone to her. "Wanna talk to her yourself?" she questions, covering part of the phone so Quinn couldn't hear.
Santana shakes her head, waving the idea off, and turns back to the clothes.
Needless to say Santana and Quinn were avoiding each other for the moment, like most friends who share a drunken hookup do.
Not that it bothered Santana.
Because it didn't.
She liked having her one on one time with Brittany back.
One blonde was just fine for her, thanks.
"Look, Brittany, I have to get going." Santana hears Quinn says suddenly. "We're getting busy."
Over break Quinn's been volunteering at the animal shelter with Brittany and she was there now, picking up an extra shift.
(The animal shelter was just one of the many excuses she uses when trying to get out of hanging out with them, er with Santana, she should say).
"See you you later, Quinn." Brittany hangs up and rounds on Santana.
"Okay, what the heck is up with you two?"
"What do you mean?" Santana asks innocently, avoiding eye-contact in lieu of browsing through the racks of clothes.
Brittany comes up beside her and forces her gaze. "You guys have been avoiding each other for weeks. Nowadays it's like pulling teeth just to get you two in the same room."
"I don't know what you're talking about." Santana denies.
And here she'd been hoping Brittany had been oblivious to it all.
"The only reason I'm just bringing it up because I've been patiently waiting for one of you to talk to me about it or for you to patch things up on your own, but since neither one looks to be happening any time soon...spill. Did you guys have a fight or something?"
Santana's gaze shifts away. "No."
Brittany isn't convinced. "Well something happened. You guys haven't been yourselves since like, Rachel's party."
Santana doesn't even have to say anything for Brittany's eyes to widen in realization. "Something did happen at Rachel's party, didn't it?"
"Yeah, kind of." Santana relents, knowing there was no use denying it now. She was a crap liar when it came to Brittany. "Maybe."
"What do you mean, kind of maybe?" Brittany repeats, scoffing at her, "Don't you know?"
Santana rolls her eyes. "Okay, we kissed. Well, actually we did more than that, we made out, but—"
"You what?"
Santana can't help but make a face at the blonde's bug-eyed expression. "In our defense we were super drunk and you of all people should know we don't do shit we'd normally do when alcohol's involved." she says quickly.
Something clicks inside Brittany's brain. "So you're the one who gave her the hickey!"
Santana slaps a hand over Brittany's mouth, quickly shushing her. "For fuck's sake, Britt." she hisses.
They were in a public place after all.
"Quinn said she couldn't remember who had done it when she showed me," Brittany continues in a thankfully lower voice, "At first I thought maybe Sam had done it - I mean who else but someone with lips that size could do that kind of damage?"
Santana snorts at the very idea. Trouty mouth had nothing on her skill.
"But then I thought it might be Puck since he's like a connoisseur of hickeys but...now it makes sense." Brittany nods to herself. "That hickey is the size of Mexico."
"Why it gotta be Mexico?"
Brittany waves her off, still reeling with this new revelation. "I can't believe it. So that's why you two have been acting weird."
"Yeah, neither of us had a clue until Berry mentioned she saw us kissing in her room." Santana mutters. "I couldn't remember doing it at first, but then that night we had dinner at my house, I uh, got reminded of us making out on Rachel's bed."
Which she hasn't thought twice about by the way.
Nope.
Not at all.
"Does Quinn remember?"
Santana shrugs. "I dunno."
Even if they were speaking to each other, she highly doubted she could get Quinn to admit to remembering anything regarding that night's, ahem...activities.
"Well, did you tell her you remember what happened?" Brittany frowns.
"Not exactly..."
Brittany swats her arm, incredulous. "Santana!"
"What?" Santana whines painfully and grips her now throbbing arm.
"Now that you remember what you did you need to talk it out with her." Brittany tells her, like it's obvious.
Which it is, but Santana didn't need the painful reminder for that.
"And make things even worse?" Santana her head. "No thanks."
"Santana."
"Relax, would ya?" Santana sighs, annoyed. "This is gonna blow over eventually. And when it does it'll be like water under the bridge, so you know, no reason to bring it up."
"You know for two people so smart you two sure are idiots when it comes to communication."
"Shut up, B." Santana glares, then turns back to the clothes' racks.
Brittany rolls her eyes. "Whatever." she murmurs and grudgingly turns around too.
"So...Quinn's birthday." Brittany brings up after a short while of silent shopping. "What are we gonna do? It has to be epic."
Santana nods in agreement. Brittany was dead set on them spending Quinn's birthday together and even though she and Quinn weren't exactly on speaking terms, Santana still wanted the girl to have a good birthday so she had a few ideas already.
"I was thinking the three of us go to dinner at Tony's." It was one of the nicer restaurants in town and pretty much the go-to place for special occasions.
Brittany nods approvingly at first, but then her eyes narrow, realizing Santana's true intentions. "You just want some of their breadsticks."
"That may or may not have influenced my decision." Santana shrugs.
"Well you're only getting away with it because it's actually a good idea." Brittany informs her, laughing slightly.
"Oh hey!" Her eyes lighting up, Brittany pulls a shirt out of the rack in front of her and turns it around. "This is so you!"
Santana looks over and frowns at the t-shirt that reads: I'm hot. You're cold. Let's cuddle.
"Uh, thanks, B but while I am hot, I don't like to cuddle. Like at all."
Brittany just rolls her eyes.
"And we're supposed to be shopping for birthday presents, remember?" Santana reminds, walking away to search another part of the store.
"We're multitasking." Brittany corrects, following her with the shirt draped over her arm. "We still need to Christmas shop for each other anyways. So yeah, if you won't buy this, I will. You can wear it on those nights when you have cuddle time with Quinn."
If they ever get back to that, Santana silently adds. Considering the last time she slept over at Quinn's was before Rachel's party.
Not that she thought about it much or anything. Or missed it.
Santana follows Brittany's lead and continues browsing through the store for potential birthday presents.
"Hey, I'm gonna go try these on!" Brittany says, lifting up a few shirts overhead. Apparently she was having better luck finding potential gifts for herself than for Quinn.
Not that Santana blamed her. Shopping for other people was tough and Quinn was no exception.
"Just remember the changing room stall is not a bathroom." Santana says in return, chuckling at the blonde's playfully indignant expression.
While Brittany heads on over to the dressing room around back, Santana looks over the rest of the store. She ends up finding a few dresses that were Quinn's style but she wasn't certain about any of them.
Maybe she'll just get her a gift card.
Santana gives up and sits herself down by the storefront window, phone in hand.
Knowing Britt she'll have plenty of time for a couple rounds of Angry Birds.
A few minutes into her game, Santana hears the bell above the store entrance ring but she doesn't give it a second thought. Santana sighs, dismayed, when shortly thereafter, the level failed! screen pops up on her.
"Stupid fucking birds." she grumbles to herself, lifting her head away from the screen. "Can't do shit when you want them to..."
Her gaze wandering, Santana's words trail off when she sees her.
At first glimpse of girl's blonde hair, Santana's mind immediately goes to Quinn, but she isn't her much to her relief.
No, aside from the blonde hair - which wasn't even the right shade - the girl by the counter looked absolutely nothing like Quinn.
But was still really friggin' hot, in that chic rocker girl kind of a way, if Santana was being honest.
All of a sudden the girl in question glances Santana's way.
Santana feels herself freeze up. Like a deer caught in the headlights.
Uh...
As their eyes meet, a charming smile appears on the girl's face.
Meanwhile Santana can only stare and blink like an idiot.
The girl turns away and Santana quickly drops her gaze.
While pretending to be busy with her phone, Santana mentally chastises her behavior.
Seriously, Lopez? Ugh, what the hell was that? Could you have been anymore obvious? Where the hell's your game?
"Thanks Dani." Santana hears the lady behind the counter say.
"No problem."
Expecting the girl to be exiting the store, Santana dares to lift her head. Her breath hitches for a moment when she realizes Hottie McHotPants walking up to her instead.
Uh oh.
Be cool, Santana. Be cool.
Ironically enough, in spite of Santana's whole well...lady gayness...lesbians were so not her territory. (Which is definitely what this girl was judging by how loud Santana's gaydar detector was going off).
And here comes the sticky underboob panic sweat.
Great.
"Hi." Santana hears herself say. It wasn't as confident sounding as she would have liked but hey at least she'd sounded somewhat casual.
"Hey." the girl greets back with a small smirk. Up this close Santana's now able to see that the blonde totally has a cute dimpled chin.
Santana lightly shakes her head at that thought. "Can I, uh, help you with something?" she asks, needing to distract herself before she started straight up ogling the girl.
"No, not really." the girl confesses rather sheepishly. "I'm just here to pass out some flyers. Thought you'd like one." she says, handing over a neon colored flyer to her.
Santana looks the paper over and her heart seizes for a split second. "This is for Neverland." she realizes quietly.
As in the gay bar.
"Yeah. The house band is planning on showcasing a bunch of new material this weekend and the owner's slashing prices to commemorate it. It's gonna be this big thing and really fun."
Santana lifts her gaze and finds the girl staring at her with that smile again. And maybe it's been a while she's been on the receiving end of this kind of attention...but hot damn. "You should come."
Her words registering belatedly, Santana hesitates, unsure of how to reply to that.
"I'm Dani, by the way." the blonde introduces, sticking out her hand. The sleeve of her blazer jacket goes up a little and Santana catches a glimpse of a tattoo on her arm.
"I'm Santana." Santana greets back, briefly shaking her hand. "I, uh, dig your name." she says, not at all awkwardly. "Do you think your parents like knew that you were gonna grow up to be a lesbian, giving you that name?"
The words come out intending to be a joke but it obviously isn't received as one judging by how fast Dani's smile fades from her face. In all seriousness, she declares rather indignantly, "I'm not a lesbian."
Her eyes-wide, Santana fumbles with a response and ends up stuttering, "Oh uh, you just wear so much eyeliner..."
Good going, Santana.
"I'm so sorry!" she blurts out, mortified with herself. "I don't think before I speak sometimes."
Dani just stares at her, evidently still very much insulted, before cracking a wide spread smile. "I'm totally kidding." she grins, a throaty laugh escaping her. "I love lady parts."
"Dani is short for Danielle." she explains. "I never liked Danielle and to me Dani screams 'sapphic goddess' a lot more, don't you think?"
Santana's pretty sure she momentarily lost all brain function staring back at that awesomely suggestive smile.
"Y-yeah. Totally." Santana swallows nervously. "So sapphic..."
Jesus. Could she have sounded any lamer?
Man she really needs to fucking get out more.
Dani laughs again and Santana can't help but smile a little, oddly proud of herself. "You're cute."
Be cool, Santana.
"Thanks."
"Anyways, yeah." Dani's gaze drifts back down, where she points back to the flyer in Santana's hands. "This weekend. The music's rad. Alcohol's cheap but good. It'll definitely be worth your while."
"Yeah, I'll think about it." Santana nods, trying to fight a smile.
"Well here's hoping you do more than just that." Dani grins, cheekily crossing her fingers, before laughing at herself. "See you around, Santana."
"Yeah, see ya." Santana murmurs, a stupid smile now on her face as she watches the blonde and her super fine backside leave.
"Hey, Santana!"
Santana startles a bit, her head whipping around while instinctively shoving the flyer in her purse, out of sight.
Brittany, having just emerged from the dressing room area, waves her over from across the way, wanting her opinion on something.
Brittany gestures to the pair of hot pink pants she has on once Santana stops in front of her. "Well what do you think?" she asks, slowing turning around to show off all angles.
Santana, still with her mind on Dani, shakes her head at a loss. "That's a really good question."
—
Things between her and Quinn weren't any worse but they weren't any better either. Quinn was still avoiding her and Santana, to be honest, couldn't get that Dani girl out of her head.
Every time she was alone in her room, she'd pull that Neverland flyer out of her nightstand drawer and stare at it. She kind of really wanted to go, but she swore she'd never set foot in Neverland, at the risk of someone spotting her and it getting through to her abuela. But her curiosity was really eating at her these days and since things were so out of whack with Quinn and consequently their trinity hangouts, she was left feeling kinda lonely.
Nothing a little lady loving couldn't fix, right?
Plus she'd always wanted to hang around people who were more like her. Aside from Kurt, she was the only gay person she knew of at school, but even then they still didn't share the same preference. Sometimes Santana just needed a reminder that she wasn't the only one in the world with the lady feels.
And yeah sure Brittany was bi but it wasn't the same, and as for Quinn...for all Santana knew she was just a drunken mistake the blonde was trying her hardest to forget.
When Saturday finally rolls around, Santana's left with two options: either woman up and just go to Neverland or spend another night at Brittany's trying not to think of Quinn or what Neverland would be like.
Putting it simply like that makes Santana's decision fairly easy.
Santana gets dressed for the night and walks out of her house before she can wuss out on herself. Thankfully her abuela was out tonight playing bridge at the senior center with the rest of the town's old bitties, including Mercedes' grandmother.
Santana heads over to the marina on the other side of town, wishing halfway that she didn't live so fucking far and that her heels weren't so damn uncomfortable.
The bar is crowded, unsurprisingly, and Santana hesitates for a moment by the entrance, terrified in that exhilarating kind of way. While maneuvering through the crowd, she strangely feels a lot like a high school girl going to a bar for the very first time, even though she's frequented the Rabbit Hole for ages.
Maybe because this was a whole different ballgame.
Santana gravitates toward the bar, needing a shot of liquid courage to get her going. She ends up right in front of the bartender - a smoking hot blonde with a cropped pixie cut. She had piercing blue eyes outlined by heavy eyeliner looked like she devoured baby lesbians like Santana for breakfast.
"Hey, could I get a shot of tequila?" Santana requests, her voice steady and loud enough to hear above the music.
The blonde looks her up and down, eyeing her doubtfully. "You got id?"
Santana hands her fake id over, unfazed. This part she knew how to do.
The bartender's gaze drops down to the laminated plastic and then looks back up. "Okay, Rosario Cruz from Ketchikan, Alaska." she drawls, her tone sounding anything but convinced. "Tell me about yourself."
"I once punched Bristol Palin in the face. I'm the reason she got the face lift."
The blonde smirks, more than satisfied with that response, and hands Santana back her id. "I'll be right back."
Santana smirks to herself as the bartender moves to retrieve her drink and turns around to lean against the bar.
"Santana!"
Turning her head, Santana quickly locks eyes with the source of that familiar voice and smiles when she sees Dani moving through the parted crowd to get to her. "You made it."
"Sure did." Santana confirms, internally relieved she wasn't gonna have to stand around by herself any longer.
Dani eyes her up and down appreciatively. "You look hot."
"So do you." Santana nods in return, totally digging the badass glam look she was rocking.
"You having fun?"
"I just got here but yeah, I am."
"Well I'd totally ask you to dance but I suck at dancing." Dani confesses frankly, noticing how Santana's gaze had traveled to the dance floor. "Can I buy you a drink instead?"
Santana looks back at her and grins. She's just about to say yes when Dani's name is suddenly called over through the microphone by one of the guys on the stage.
"Fuck. Sorry." Dani apologizes with a cringe, remembering she had prior responsibilities. "Can you like hold onto that answer for just a minute? I gotta do this thing real quick."
She walks up to Santana and hops up onto the bar next to her.
"Wait, you sing?" Santana says in disbelief, watching the girl pull out a guitar from behind the bar.
"Play mostly but yeah, I sing too." Dani nods breathlessly, brushing back her bangs quickly. "I'm kinda the opening act."
Santana raises her brow, impressed. "Kinda?"
"Kinda. Sorta. Yeah." Dani laughs, shrugging modestly. "I'll see you in two shakes of a lamb's tail, okay? Try not to get seduced by any mermaids in the meanwhile!" she says, already retreating back into the crowd.
Santana just chuckles to herself, not quite sure what that all meant.
While Dani does her set onstage, Santana hangs out by the bar, enjoying the show from there. Every so often a girl would come up to her and hit on her but she played it cool, not promising anything, but not exactly shutting them down either.
What? It's not like she had anything - or anyone - holding her back.
This leads her to receive quite a few cocktail napkins with phone numbers on them, some even with dirty little messages written at the bottom.
Either forwardness was a universal lesbian trait or God was finally paying her back for all the shit he's put her through.
Either way she was fucking loving it.
"Hey, you were amazing!" Santana exclaims once Dani finally gets back to her, all flushed and sexy looking from rocking out. "Was that all original stuff?" She'd never heard any of the songs from Dani's set.
"Yeah. Wrote 'em myself." Dani nods, walking over and flagging down the bartender.
"Hate to be the loser that has to go on after you." Santana chuckles.
"Hey watch what you say they're my friends." Dani says lightly, before placing her order with the bartender. The blonde turns around and points to band setting up on stage. "Up there that's Elliot, the lead singer of the Lost Boys and my roommate. He goes by Starchild on stage though."
Santana covers her laugh with a cough. Starchild, really?
Once the bartender comes over with the two beers Dani ordered, Dani smiles sweetly at the blonde. "Thanks, Stell."
"No problem, sweet cheeks." the taller blonde winks.
Santana eyes them both before quirking a brow at Dani. "You banging the bartender, sweet cheeks?" she teases with a smirk.
"Occasionally." Dani shrugs, grinning mischievously against the mouth of her bottle.
Santana laughs. "Nice."
"What about you?" Dani wonders, looking over at her expectantly. "You bedding any hot blondes?" she smirks and wiggles her eyebrow suggestively.
Santana's smile fades, the memory of kissing Quinn senseless on Rachel's bed unwittingly resurfacing.
"Uh-oh." Dani drawls, catching Santana's expression change.
Santana snaps out of her daze and frowns deeply, maybe a little self-consciously. "What?"
Dani points at her with her beer bottle. "I know that look. You've got lady troubles."
"What?" Santana scoffs despite her cheeks warming up. Hopefully in this lighting Dani can't see it. "That's ridiculous."
"Don't even try, Santana." Dani smirks, narrowing her eyes.
"It's not like that." Santana sighs, shaking her head. "She's my best friend and lately things have been kinda weird between us. That's all."
"What did ya do?"
Santana hesitates, unsure of why she was even talking to Dani about this. "We kind of made out at a party." Dani eventually gets out of her.
"Kind of?" Dani snickers.
"Okay," Santana concedes with an eye roll. "We did."
"She have like a gay panic or something?" Dani guesses, taking another swig of beer.
Santana shakes her head unknowingly, although the thought had crossed her mind. "At first we were totally clueless anything had happened, then a so-called 'friend' of ours enlightened us, and yeah...that's when things got awkward."
Dani cracks a sympathetic smile before wondering, "Is she straight?"
"That has yet to be determined." Santana murmurs, sipping her beer. "She's never really dated."
"Okay," Dani nods, before questioning, "Do you like her?"
Santana can't help but make a face at the question. "Why does everyone think that?" she sighs, frustrated. She can't help but turn away briefly; she was just so sick and tired of people assuming that.
"Well you just said you made out with her!" Dani exclaims, laughing at her.
"I was drunk!"
"Yeah, but you could have subconsciously wanted it. Haven't you heard the expression 'A drunk man's words are a sober man's thoughts?' Well that sometimes applies to actions too." Dani explains with a shrug. "It's probably why you guys kissed in the first place."
"That's ridiculous."
Dani just rolls her eyes.
"Riddle me this then: how often do you think about her?"
Santana stares at her questioningly. "What the hell kind of a question is that?"
"A valid one. I'm taking your deflection as a lot, by the way."
Santana finds herself shifting uncomfortably. How the hell did this happen? When did this night turn into a therapy session?
"I wouldn't say a lot." Santana mutters. "Like a fair amount I guess. But Quinn's like my best friend, one of the few people I can tolerate. Of course I think about her more than other people."
"Huh. Quinn." Dani muses, testing the name on her tongue in a way that immediately rubs Santana the wrong way. "She sounds hot."
"She's more than that. And knock it off." Santana frowns, lightly swatting the blonde's arm.
Dani playfully glares at her for a moment before posing another question. "If you could kiss her sober and she wanted you to, would you do it?"
"I...I dunno." Santana stutters, caught off-guard by the question. "Maybe?"
When she realizes what she'd just say, Santana quickly shakes her head. "Why the hell are we even talking about this?" she demands. "Didn't you ask me here so you could get your flirt on?"
"I'm all for a challenge but I know better than to get involved in a losing battle. This girl clearly already has you hooked." Dani chuckles.
Santana frowns deeply. Dani could at least act a little disappointed.
"Besides now that I look at you..." Dani stares at her closely. "You do look a little young for me. Are you even old enough to drink?"
Santana pulls back astounded. "What the fuck are you talking about? I'm twenty-one!" Without thinking, she promptly whips out her fake id and shows it to her. "Bam."
Dani takes one look at the laminated plastic and grins. "Aw, a fake id." she coos, taking the card from her. "How cute. You're giving a thumb's up and everything. Adorable."
"Shut up, Dani." Santana playfully scowls and snatches her id back. "You're what? Twenty-one, twenty-two? Seventeen is not that much younger."
"Still jail bait." Dani shrugs.
Santana just rolls her eyes.
"Look, back to your girl." Dani sets down her beer and stares at Santana seriously, "Do you want my advice?"
"No, but I have a feeling you're gonna give it to me anyways. And she's not my girl." Santana adds under her breath.
Dani ignores her comment. "What you need is to talk things out with her. It might be uncomfortable at first but at least then you can sort through your feelings together."
Santana rolls her eyes. "What I need is some legit alcohol in my system." she dismisses, setting her now empty bottle on the bar. She looks over at Dani expectantly. "You in or would you rather I find a new drinking buddy?"
Dani rolls her eyes and sighs, before raising her shoulders. "Eh. I won't fuck ya but I'll sure as hell drink with ya."
Santana meets her grin and together they clink their empty beer bottles. "Good enough for me."
—
Brittany reclines on her bed, her back pressing against her headboard, while her legs prop up her sketchbook.
In the back of her mind she knows it's getting late but she can't set her pencil down just yet, needing to finish these last few sketches.
For weeks she's been having these weird dreams and while they sometimes kept her from sleeping, they also inspired her, providing her with new subject matter for her portfolio.
Once she's done, Brittany pulls back and takes a good look at the drawing in her lap. Most of the time she gets so caught up in everything that she doesn't even realize what she'd been drawing. She often has so many images flashing through her mind at the same time that it's hard to say which one ended up on paper first.
This time she'd drawn a circular living space with no visible doors except for a single window. Several murals adorned the walls.
It's a room she's drawn before, she realizes with dismay, plenty of times. "Why do I keep drawing you?" Brittany whispers to the page, shaking her head at the familiar scene. You'd think after the first dozen sketches her brain would change it up and give her something else to work with.
She had half a mind to crumble up the drawing and throw it away but she knows she never goes through with it. This room, and all the drawings of it, were special to her for some reason.
"Well, Tubby." Brittany looks over at the large cat sitting on the edge of her bed and shows him her drawing. "What do you think?"
Lord Tubbington, as usual, ignores her, too invested in his favorite Scientology magazine to pay her any attention.
Brittany rolls her eyes. "You're a real good friend, Tubs." she utters sarcastically, crawling off the bed, but not before kissing the tabby on top of his head anyways.
Even if he was sometimes kind of a jerk, he was still a cute fluffy one.
Speaking of friends...Brittany walks over to work space and inspects the canvas she had set up on her easel. She's been waiting forever for the paint to dry, wanting to add a new layer on top of it and not have it bleed into the other colors. This particular painting was Quinn's birthday gift. She was going back and forth between two paintings actually, the other being the blonde's Christmas present.
Brittany figured that if Quinn didn't want her to buy her anything, she'd just have to settle for a homemade present instead.
One painting was of an ice castle up on a mountain top and the other was of a regular castle built on a fjord. The images made her think of Quinn for some reason so she figured why not just give them both to her. She could easily see them hanging in Quinn's apartment, the paintings working well with the girl's color scheme.
Since the paint was still not dry Brittany, not wanting to risk ruining the painting because of her impatience, decides to run downstairs and make herself a midnight snack.
Well, not so much 'make' as 'find'.
Her parents had a thing about her using the kitchen appliances without their supervision.
(A couple of mishaps and suddenly she's a hazard).
After spending a few minutes rummaging through the kitchen cabinets, Brittany settles on the box of Lucky Charms. As usual, she pours herself a bowl full, then sits up on the counter with it in her lap.
Glancing down, she shakes her head at the seriously off marshmallow to cereal ratio.
Doesn't Lucky the Leprechaun know people only like the marshmallows?
He should really pay better attention to consumer feedback.
Brittany's in the middle of separating the cereal from the marshmallows when the front doorbell rings.
Frowning, she hops off the counter and walks out of the kitchen. Who could it be at this hour?
Brittany pulls open the door cautiously, half expecting some kind of suspicious character - only to be met with the sight of a very hot, small blonde stranger...holding up a very familiar brunette.
"Hey, are you Brittany?" the blonde breathlessly asks, struggling with her friend.
"Goldilocks!" Santana slurs, her glassy eyes lighting up the second she locks eyes on Brittany.
"Hey, Santana." Brittany greets back, smiling in confusion. "Oof!" Brittany stumbles back a step when the Latina all but throws herself at her.
Woah, drunk Santana.
"I'm Dani and I'm really sorry about this," the blonde hastily starts, "She drank more than I realized she could handle and then she wouldn't let me take her home. I mean not like that." she amends quickly, shaking her head at how that sounded. "I'm not. I don't. She wanted..."
Figuring the girl just meant Santana didn't want to be taken to her house (her abuela), Brittany just nods. "It's okay, but thanks for not ditching her and making sure she got home safely." she says, sending a small appreciative smile Dani's way.
"Yeah no problem."
"Well...night." Brittany says awkwardly, knowing she had to get Santana up to her room before her parents woke up from all the noise.
"By Dani!" Santana waves over her shoulder. "Thanks grrrl-friend!"
Brittany closes the door behind her. "Gotta be quiet, S." she whispers, keeping the brunette's arm around her neck while they head up the stairs.
By the time they reach her bedroom, Brittany's slightly out of breath.
Man, I should probably work out more, she thinks, tiredly depositing Santana onto her bed, much to Lord Tubbington's chagrin.
She's just glad her parents were heavy sleepers, otherwise they'd both be screwed.
"Britt," Santana props herself up by her elbows and drunkenly beckons her closer. "C'mere."
"What is it, S?" Brittany sighs.
"You should have seen me, B." Santana slurs, a lazy grin making its way across her features. "I was up to my ears in sapphic goddesses..." she says, having trouble pronouncing the plural. "It was amazing."
"Where on earth did you go?" Brittany wonders, leaning down to help the Latina with her heels.
Santana shakes her head, smiling like a child with a secret. "Neverland." she eventually reveals, whispering it behind her hand and giggling.
"Neverland?" Brittany's head snaps up. "But you said you'd never be caught dead in a gay bar cause that's exactly what you'd be if your abuela found out - dead!"
Santana waves off Brittany's concern and reaches into her purse. "Who cares about death when I gots all these numbers?"
Santana pulls a bunch of cocktail napkins out of her purse and throws them up in the air like confetti, before flopping back on the bed. "I danced. I drank. I conquered. The Almighty Snix for the win. Woot-woot!"
Brittany shakes her head and laughs, unable to help herself.
"The ladies love me, Britt." Santana mumbles, allowing the blonde to pull her up so she could get out of her dress. "Like Xena Warrior Princess."
"I'm sure they do, San." Brittany humors, sitting Santana back down once her dress is off and going to find some pajamas.
After grabbing a cotton t-shirt and a pair of sleep shorts, Brittany turns around only to find Santana with a trembling bottom lip.
Uh-oh.
Weepy girl drunk Santana didn't always come out, but when she did...as Santana would say, Órale.
Brittany rushes over. "Honey, what's wrong?"
"I miss my snowflake." Santana sniffles and two seconds later she bursts out crying.
"Quinn? She hasn't gone anywhere, sweetie." Brittany delicately reminds, sitting and wrapping a comforting arm around Santana. "You just have to talk to her."
"I can't." Santana wails.
"Why not?" Brittany leans against Santana's head and begins to stroke her arm up and down soothingly. "Why is it so hard?"
"Because she hates me now." Santana continues to cry, her body wracked with sobs.
Brittany sighs. "San, Quinn doesn't hate you."
She's more like confused probably.
Confused and in denial just like Santana.
"What on earth would make you think that?"
"Because it's true." Santana moans stubbornly, now burying her face into Brittany's t-shirt. "I can't remember her and she hates me because of it."
"What do you mean you can't remember her?" Brittany frowns. "You mean you can't remember the party? I thought you said you did."
"Not the party." Santana groans, pulling back with a shake of her head. "I hate it so much. My stupid stupid brain. How can I ever deserve to be with her if I can't remember shit?"
"So you're saying you want to be with her?" Brittany has to clarify, hope swelling in her chest.
Hello, now they're getting somewhere!
"She's my snowflake." Santana grumbles, turning and flopping down on the bed face first, reminding Brittany a lot of Lilo from Lilo & Stitch. "I never stopped wanting her."
"Does this mean you're gonna talk to her?"
Santana shakes her head, her voice muffled. "She won't listen to word I have to say."
"That's not true, San." Brittany says gently, stroking her hair. "That's not true."
Finally Santana turns her head toward her, watery eyes and all. "I just want her back, Blondie." she sighs, sounding unexpectedly sober.
"Then you'll get her back." Brittany gently assures.
Santana lifts her gaze, looking adorably vulnerable. "Promise?"
"Promise." Brittany nods, her smile soft. "You just need to stop being so stubborn." she says, lightly squeezing the girl's nose between her fingers.
Santana crinkles her nose. "That's what Dani says." she slurs, yawning tiredly.
Brittany can't help but purse her lips at mention of the new blonde. She didn't know what exactly Santana's relationship with Dani was like, or if they hooked up tonight, but she figured that if Quinn was still on Santana's brain, she shouldn't worry too much about it.
Brittany shakes her head to herself and helps the barely conscious Latina climb into bed.
Why is it that people are always so oblivious when it comes to love?
Brittany turns off her lights and sighs, this thought lingering in her mind.
All she knows is that if those two idiots she lovingly called friends didn't work things out soon, she was gonna lock them both in a closet and leave them there.
That always seems to work in movies.
—
You'd think after everything that happened at Rachel's party, Santana would know better than to go out and let herself get drunk again.
But in her defense it's not like she had intended to get drunk. She'd just wanted to have a good time — which as she would find out required a lot more alcohol as the night wore on.
Not because Dani or her friends were boring or anything. They were awesome. And getting hit on more times than she could count was awesome too.
Or, at least it had been, until the guilt started to seep in.
It was ridiculous, she knew, since she had nothing absolutely nothing to feel guilty about but however illogical it was, she felt it anyways and it only worsened the longer she was there. Which had led her to push the feeling down with as much alcohol as she could.
In the back of her mind she'd known it had something to do with Quinn but had refused to acknowledge it.
Quinn wasn't her girlfriend. Hell they were barely even friends these days.
Still it had gotten to the point where she'd catch herself comparing every girl who came up to her to Quinn.
Hair - wrong shade of blonde.
Eyes - not green enough.
Smile - all wrong.
The list just went on.
Santana, for her part, had fought stubbornly against these thoughts and the pang of guilt brought on whenever she tried to ignore them, but it was no use.
The morning after saw the return of that sick feeling, and it wasn't just because of the alcohol. She'd woken up feeling a hella dirty, almost like she'd cheated. It was a feeling her hungover self so didn't want to deal with but one she found herself contemplating anyways while she was sobering up in Brittany's shower.
It wasn't long after that Santana experienced a moment of clarity, where she was able to see past her own pigheadedness and instead see things for what they were.
It wasn't not some big, over dramatic, eye-opening revelation. Just her conceding to what she'd been stupidly denying this entire time.
That she had non-platonic feelings for Quinn.
A conclusion that admittedly took her a while wrap her head around but one that was hard to deny after her night at Neverland. After all if not even a night with hot willing lesbians could make her forget about Quinn, then she must really have it bad.
And as much as she hated to admit she'd totally been in denial this whole time, it all fucking made sense.
(Which just made things that much more embarrassing for her).
If she didn't have feelings for her why else would she replay all those instances when they kissed at the party, and wonder if she'd ever get to do it again?
It's a fact that scared the hell out of her to be honest. Not because she didn't want it to be Quinn, she just...didn't know what know what to do with that now.
If she were to ever tell the blonde how she felt and she didn't reciprocate, what was left of their friendship would be flushed down the toilet for sure.
But then again Quinn had been the one who started it right?
"I wanted you to kiss me."
Quinn had said it herself that night on Rachel's porch. So, maybe, she felt something too?
Nah.
Quinn was drunk. She didn't know what she was doing.
Or did she?
One kiss could easily pass as a drunken mistake, but it hadn't just been one kiss. Not on the porch, or in the bathtub, or in Rachel's room...
So they had to have both wanted it on some level, right?
No, Quinn totally regrets what they did at the party. If she didn't she wouldn't be shutting Santana out like this, refusing to look at her.
Which means she's not interested.
Which means Santana's screwed if these feelings don't go away soon.
While Santana does her best not to dwell on that fact, she's completely oblivious to the girl standing next to her, trying to get her attention.
"Santana?"
"SANTANA!"
Santana startles a bit, effectively yanked out of her inner thoughts by her name being yelled right in her ear. "What the hell, wheezy?" she glares, scowling at the shorter girl who'd probably just done irreversible damage to her ear. "It is way too early for your wailing."
"Well I wouldn't have to yell if you hadn't spaced out." Mercedes calmly sighs, rolling her eyes a little.
"Whatever."
Santana turns her head dismissively and steps forward when she hears her name being called by the barista.
The Coffee Hut was the closest thing to a Starbucks this town had, which is pretty damn pathetic considering the two coffee houses were nothing alike, but Santana wasn't complaining.
They had strong, good tasting coffee and that's all she cared about.
"So, how long is your list looking?" Mercedes asks as the two of them step outside and start toward their second destination.
"As long as an elephant's dong." Santana murmurs, grateful for the scalding warmth she now had to combat the bitter cold weather.
She was still pissed that her abuela was making her do this by the way. She hated grocery shopping this close to Christmas. Holiday shoppers were a fucking nightmare.
Fortunately for her, Mercedes was stuck doing the same for her family and her dentist of a father was letting her use the family car. This fact alone was the reason Santana insisted they come shop together, interested only in the storage space the Jones' car provided.
No way she was lugging eight bags of groceries all the way home in the snow.
Mercedes glances over at her after they cross the street and walk up to the market entrance to get carts. "You look tired. Late night?" she guesses.
"You could say that." Santana nods evasively, yanking a shopping cart free from the bunch with one hand.
She may not be in denial anymore but she was still confused as fuck. And those stupid Quinn dreams she kept having really weren't helping any.
"Another night of drinking at Neverland?" Mercedes chuckles, giving Santana a knowing smirk.
Santana's head swivels around so fast that she manages to choke on her coffee in the process. "How the fuck did you know about that?" she demands quietly, her eyes showing utter horror.
"Brittany." Mercedes casually says, pushing her cart through the automatic doors. After noticing Santana's murderous expression, she rolls her eyes at the girl. "Relax. I'm not gonna tell anyone. I could care less what you do there. Or who you do."
Her cheeks still inflamed, Santana snatches a roll of aluminum foil off the display, with half a mind to whack the shorter girl senseless with it.
Mercedes walks over to the refrigerated aisle and grabs a few necessary items. "So how's your break going?" she asks curiously, scrutinizing the expiration date on the milk before walking back over her cart.
"It's going." Santana mutters, looking down at her abuela's list.
Mercedes sets her things down and lifts her gaze hesitantly. "I hear things have been a little weird between you and Quinn...something happen?"
Though her body tenses, Santana wills herself not to snap at Mercedes for prying. She'd figured the gossip hungry heifer would eventually try and get the lowdown (though how the hell she knew about Quinn and her in the first place was beyond her).
"And that's any of your business why?" Santana asks as calmly as she can, grabbing three different cheeses off the shelves.
Mercedes rolls her eyes. "I'm just trying to make conversation, Santana." she sighs. "Whether you agree with me or not, I consider us friends. I'm here if you need to talk."
Santana pushes her cart around the corner, suddenly regretting this whole shopping together idea. "Yeah well I don't."
"Is it about what happened at Rachel's party?" Mercedes' dares ask, squeezing her cart through the narrow aisle so she could walk side by side with Santana.
Santana shakes her head to herself, her shoulder slumping in disbelief. Seriously? She knows about that too?
"What would you know about it?"
"Brittany says you two kissed at Rachel's party."
God damnit, B, Santana silently groans. "That girl really needs to learn to keep things to herself." she mutters.
Mercedes follows her into the baking aisle. "Hey it's not Brittany's fault." Mercedes says, feeling the need to defend the blonde. "Since you two eggheads weren't talking to her about your drama, she needed someone to talk with."
"Well I'm talking to her about it now so just drop it, okay?" Santana retorts, her patience starting to wane, not just with Mercedes but with this whole fucking outing. She fucking hated crowds and every mother, daughter, and grandmother in town seemed to be here grabbing sugar and flour. "Things are fine."
"The way you and Quinn are acting is affecting your friendship, which means it's affecting Brittany." Mercedes says, as if Santana wasn't already aware.
When Santana doesn't say anything in return, Mercedes shakes her head in exasperation and continues, "If you and Quinn would just talk to each other..."
Santana cuts her off sharply. "Aretha, I swear to God if you don't stop now, Imma Snixx out right here and right now. I don't care. Just butt out and let me deal with my shit, alright? I'm a big girl."
"But you're not dealing with it, that's the problem." Mercedes says, throwing out her hands. "You're ignoring each other and trying to distract yourselves. You with Neverland girls apparently and Quinn with—" Mercedes stops herself at the last second.
"Quinn, what?" Santana demands to know.
"Nothing."
Mercedes' gaze slips to the side, suddenly fascinated with the different kinds of vegetable oil.
"Wheezy, so help me God." Santana warns, in no mood for fucking games. "The things I will do to you I can make look like an unfortunate accident."
Mercedes sighs deeply. "Lord forgive for what I'm about to do." she murmurs to the ceiling.
Santana doesn't even have time to question that before the girl all but drags her to the produce section. "What the hell do you think you're doing, Queenie?"
Ignoring the jab, Mercedes stops them right in front of the bananas and discreetly nods her head to the side. "See that guy over there?" she whispers out of the corner of her mouth.
Santana follows her gaze and frowns, finding herself staring over at some pretty boy stocking apples.
"According to Kurt, he saw Quinn talking to that guy the other day."
Santana turns her gaze back to Mercedes, her brow still deeply furrowed. "So?"
"So?" Mercedes repeats, slightly scoffing. "They were talking."
Even with the emphasis, Santana still doesn't get it. "So what if she was talking to him? She was probably asking if they had any bacon flavored produce. The girl's obsessed."
Although now that Mercedes mentioned it, of the few times Brittany had managed to convince Quinn into hanging out with them, snowflake had been on her phone a lot more than usual...
"You might be looking at your new competition." Mercedes warns, snapping her out of that train of thought. "Okay I said my peace. Now you go on and do your thing." she shoos, waving her off. "I'll wait over here. I don't wanna get any blood on me. This is a new jacket."
"What thing?" Santana glares.
"Your 'thing'." Mercedes sighs, resisting the urge to roll her eyes again. "You know where you get all green with jealousy and Edward Cullen possessive and go over and set homeboy straight."
"You did not just make a Twilight reference."
And bitch sure as hell did not just compare her to Edward the Pasty Fucktard fairy.
"Shut up, Satan." Mercedes says quickly, slightly embarrassed.
"Hold on a second." Santana drags Mercedes back before she can shuffle out of sight. "We're not done talking. And for your information I don't do that 'thing', alright?"
"Are you kidding me?" Mercedes snorts, releasing a short laugh. "Just a few weeks ago you were picking bar fights because someone hit on Quinn. Puck said you smacked the guy down like the hand of god."
"Lotta girls go cray-cray during their time of the month." Santana defends, even though she hadn't been on her period at the time.
Mercedes shifts her stance and rests her hands on her hips, meanwhile staring at her incredulously. "You telling me you're just gonna let that white boy over there—" Her cheeks flaring up, Santana quickly pushes down Mercedes' index finger. The whole store didn't need to know they were talking about him. "—potentially sweep your girl off her feet and not do anything to stop it?"
"Why the fuck would I?" Santana exclaims as quietly as she can, well aware of the people around them. "For all we know nothing's going on. And even if there was—"
"Even if there was you'd be cool with it?" Mercedes finishes, raising a challenging eyebrow. "You'd be cool with Quinn holding hands with that boy, going out on dates with him, and kissing him? Maybe even doing a little more with him—"
Santana grits her teeth together, of course not liking the mental imagery Mercedes was throwing at her. But home girl didn't need to know the extent of it. "Shut it, Wheezy. Or I swear I'll..."
"You'll what?" Mercedes interjects, unfazed, knowing she'd successfully gotten to her. "C'mon, Santana." she sighs tiredly. "Just tell her how you feel. What are you so afraid of?"
"Nothing." Santana declares hotly, sharply turning her head away from the girl.
She's not afraid of anything.
Just, you know, fucking ruining things before they get better.
If they ever did.
—
"Brittany you are not backing out." Santana practically growls into her cell phone.
She's standing in the middle of her bedroom, having just slipped on her heels, and Brittany has the audacity to call last minute and drop this fucking bombshell on her.
"I'll make it up to her." Brittany says on the other line, her voice sounding like she had a stuffed up nose.
"Britt, you can't not go!" Santana exclaims, pacing around her room and gesticulating frantically. "Quinn's gonna think I set this up to be some kind of date."
Santana could practically hear the eye roll. "She will not."
"It's Tony's! It's got like that romantic atmosphere." Santana huffs in a quieter tone, not wanting to her abuela to come up and overhear anything.
The owner himself, Tony, liked going around serenading people with that stupid Bella Notte song every chance he got. "The three of us it's fine, but if it's just two, it'll seem romantic!"
"You're being paranoid, Santana. And I'm sick." Brittany reminds before releasing a horrible sounding cough right on cue. "I'd go if I could you know that!"
"Power through it, B!" Santana pleads through a groan. "Drink some Dayquil or some shit."
She hadn't been looking forward to this evening when it was gonna be the three of them and she sure as hell wasn't looking forward to it now. "I told you not to go out and play in snow with those damn Giardi triplets."
"I'm sorry, Santana."
Santana narrows her eyes and sighs in frustration, the blonde knowing she couldn't possibly stay mad when she uses the sad puppy voice on her.
Damnit.
"Brittany, you are so gonna make this up to me."
"I will." Brittany readily agrees. "Promise."
"Yeah, yeah you will." Santana mutters, disconnecting the call without another word.
—
Santana's been standing here, staring at her door, for the past five minutes.
Now she's only waiting because she'd gotten here earlier than she would have liked and wasn't sure if Quinn would be ready.
It had nothing to do with her being chicken. Nothing.
Pursing her lips together, Santana anxiously peers down at the phone. She's right on time now.
Santana shoves her phone back into her jacket pocket and raises a fist to the blonde's door, only to stop at the last second, realizing it would be weird if she just knocked out of nowhere. She had to make it sound like she just got here.
So she does that trick with the footsteps, starting gently at first and then gradually allowing them to sound more prominent.
Afterward Santana knocks on the door and takes a step back. Right away she hears the familiar sound of Marshmallow barking and of his eager little feet scampering across the room to get to the door.
Santana can't help but smile. As much as she hated to admit it, she kind of missed that furball.
The door finally opens and Santana barely has time to say "hi" before Marshmallow launches himself at her, pouncing on her excitedly.
Apparently he'd missed her too.
"Hey furball." she greets all too happily, bending down and scratching behind his ears. "Someone's gotten big."
"Hey."
Santana looks up and quietly straightens, those hazel eyes reminding her that she wasn't here for the dog. "Hey, uh, snowflake." she murmurs, shifting back awkwardly. "Happy Birthday."
For the special occasion Quinn had her hair in a fishtail side braid. A hairstyle eerily reminiscent of the one Quinn was always sporting in her dreams, only instead of having her bangs swept back, tonight they were casually pushed to the side.
Santana mentally shakes off the comparison. "You look good, Q." she swallows, nodding approvingly at Quinn's ensemble.
She looked really fucking beautiful, actually, but Santana wasn't about to make things weird right off the bat and say it aloud.
But she also looked a little tired too, Santana noticed, able to see it in her eyes. Was she still having trouble sleeping?
Quinn looks past her, and realizing Santana was devoid of her blonde counterpart, questions, "Is Brittany on her way or are we meeting her at the restaurant?"
Santana clears her throat uncomfortably. "Actually it's just gonna be us tonight." she says, her gaze drifting down to where Marshmallow was so ardently sniffing the brown paper bag she had with her. "Brittany's come down with the flu. She's in real bad shape."
Knowing what the furball was undoubtedly smelling, Santana lifts the paper bag out of his reach. Last thing she needed was him eating Quinn's birthday present.
"Oh," Quinn's brow creases in concern. "Does she need us to bring her anything?"
Santana returns her gaze and shakes her head. "No, I already checked. She says she has enough drugs to knock out an elephant."
At Quinn's silent nod, Santana hesitates for a moment before adding, "We can do something else if you don't wanna go to Tony's."
"No, it's fine." the blonde's quick to assure, even though her quiet tone wasn't all that convincing. "Unless you don't want to."
"No, it's fine." Santana agrees, feeling herself vigorously nod her head. "But you, uh, mind if I put this inside first?" she says, holding up her paper bag.
"Sure." Quinn steps aside and watches curiously as Santana heads over to the kitchen. "What is it?"
Santana returns quickly. "You'll find out after dinner." she smirks, bypassing the blonde on her way out.
—
This dinner, er outing - not date - is the first time in a long while they've been alone with each other.
So yeah, it's kind of awkward.
They exhaust all the usual subjects - school, Brittany, work - by the time their drinks come along but fortunately the salad and breadsticks arrive shortly thereafter, giving them something to do other than just sitting in uncomfortable silence.
Santana hates that she let things get this bad - hates Quinn for it too. Several times throughout the evening, she built up the courage to say something abut it only to back down at the last second, knowing that getting into it here, with people around, probably wasn't the wisest thing to do.
But she's really starting to lose her patience, especially every time she looks across the table and sees Quinn sending a text message under the table.
Santana didn't have to ask to know it wasn't Brittany she was texting.
After they finish their meals, Santana pulls the small box she had in her purse out, figuring now was a better time than any to give it to Quinn.
"Happy Birthday, snowflake." she says again, extending the gift toward her.
Quinn looks up from her lap, surprised at first, then obviously touched. "Santana, you didn't have to—"
"It's fine." Santana shrugs, cutting her off. "Not like it cost much anyways."
Nevertheless Quinn smiles gratefully.
Santana bites her bottom lip, watching with bated breath as Quinn unties the small ribbon and removes the box lid.
A short laugh escapes her as she lifts the laminated card. "Emily Stark." Quinn reads, smiling in disbelief.
"That's the name you said you'd use if you ever had a fake id." Santana replies, fighting a proud grin.
Snix for the win.
"Barely legal." Quinn nods, her eyes happily scanning over the card.
She stops over one part though. "I'm from Honolulu?" Quinn questions, looking up at her, slightly puzzled.
"You always said wanted to visit somewhere warm." Santana shrugs, leaning down and sipping her water through her straw. "You can use it now if you like." she says, pulling back and nodding to the two empty wine glasses left on their table. "Order us some dessert wine." she jokes.
Quinn lightly shakes her head. "I love it, Santana."
Santana knows she means it because she's smiling that genuinely happy smile, the one Santana hasn't seen in what felt like forever. "Thank you."
Encouraged by her response, Santana clears her throat and as casually as she can, brings up, "You know I was thinking after this we go to the movie house. They're playing some pretentious French flick from like the '60's." Her eyes fit to the ceiling briefly. "And well, I figure we can hide in the back and throw popcorn at the hipsters. You know make it fun."
Santana, seeing that Quinn's smile had faded and her gaze had dropped, stops.
"You actually want to see that movie." she realizes with a short laugh, the blonde's lack of eye contact saying it all.
"Maybe." Quinn shrugs, still looking down at the table. "And it's not pretentious." she mumbles.
"Okay, snowflake." Santana chuckles, grinning in spite of herself. "We'll go see it. Like, for real." she promises.
Quinn shakes her head, finally lifting her gaze. "I don't want to drag you to something you have no interest in."
"It's okay." she assures. "It's your birthday and I don't mind. As long as I can throw some popcorn at the hipsters."
Quinn concedes to a small smile. "Only a little." she stipulates, not one to condone such behavior but knowing better than to stifle it too.
Santana grins in response and tips her empty water glass back. "What about Jujubes?" she inquires, now sucking on an ice cube.
"No those hurt."
Santana quirks a brow. "You know from experience?" she smirks.
"Yes considering you've thrown them at me before." Quinn scoffs, glaring at her mildly.
Santana laughs at the memory - the last time the two of them had gone to the movies with Brittany. So long ago it felt like. "What? You said you liked them." she innocently shrugs.
"Yeah, when they're in my mouth not smacking me in the face."
"That's what she said." Santana snickers, grinning mischievously. Even in this dim lighting she could clearly make out the blonde's blush. "You gotta admit you so walked into that one, Fabray."
"Shut up, Santana." Quinn grumbles, her cheeks still tinged pink.
By the time the check's paid - to Santana's relief - things between them finally seemed to be back to normal.
That is until Quinn decided to change things.
Santana's signing off on their check when, out of the blue, Quinn quietly says, "I'm sorry I've been acting so distant lately."
Santana pauses for a moment, caught off-guard by the statement. She looks up and, after meeting the blonde's heartbreakingly apologetic gaze, realizes that she hadn't been the only one who'd been having a hard time holding her tongue this evening.
"I've been pretty distant too." she nods, closing the checkbook and pushing it aside. She wanted Quinn to have her full attention.
"It's just...Rachel's party..." Quinn trails off awkwardly, trying to find the words.
Santana nods understandingly. "Yeah."
She herself didn't even know where to begin with that.
"When Rachel told us what we did, I was just so—"
"Santana?"
Santana startles a bit, having been so focused on hearing what Quinn had to say she hadn't even noticed that one of the waitresses had stopped by their table and done a double-take.
"It is you." the blue-eyed brunette realizes, a grin spreading out across her features when Santana meets her gaze.
It takes a second before Santana recognizes who the girl is.
Elaine.
One of the bar waitresses from Neverland.
"Oh. Hey." Santana hears herself greet back somewhat uncomfortably. "You work here too?"
"Yeah, part time. I just started my shift." Elaine confirms with a chuckle. "This your girlfriend?" she asks, her smiling gaze drifting over to Quinn. "She's cute."
Internally panicking, Santana shakes her head quickly. "Uh, no. We're just friends. It's her birthday." she explains, suddenly hoping her cheeks weren't as red as they felt.
"Well happy birthday." Elaine smiles in earnest, to which Quinn just mumbles her thanks.
Sensing the blonde didn't appreciate the interruption, Santana opens her mouth to politely wrap up this conversation, but Elaine had already reverted her attention back onto her. "So when are you coming back to our neck of the woods?" she wonders, placing a lingering hand on Santana's shoulder. "You sure made quite the impression, the rest of the mermaids can't wait to see you again."
Santana clears her throat uneasily. "I don't know, maybe after the holidays."
Elaine, thankfully, doesn't call out Santana's noncomittance. "Well you should definitely stop by for New Year's Eve. It's gonna be a blast."
"Will do." Santana nods. She bites back a sigh of relief when she hears some other waiter call for Elaine.
"Sorry, S, gotta go. I'll tell Dani you said hi. Nice meeting you." Elaine quickly says to Quinn before scurrying off.
Santana waits until she's for sure gone before sighing. Now that the chance Elaine would say something she shouldn't was gone, she could relax.
Not that Santana had anything to hide really. She just didn't need Quinn hearing the details of her drunken antics.
When Santana shifts her gaze, hazel eyes are looking at her curiously.
"Mermaids?" Quinn repeats quietly, not understanding the reference.
For a split second Santana sworn she could've detected a hint of...jealousy?
Nah.
"It's a nickname for the waitresses down at Neverland." Santana briefly explains, mentally shaking away that thought. "They're into the whole Peter Pan theme down there. Girls are mermaids, guys are pirates..."
"Wait, you went to Neverland?" Quinn backtracks.
"Uh, yeah." Santana nods, awkwardly avoiding the girl's incredulous stare.
"I thought you'd never set foot in that place because of your abuela." Quinn says, frowning slightly.
Santana gets up so they can leave. "It was just a one time thing." she assures, really wanting to get off the topic. "This girl Dani invited me and it was kinda hard to say no. She's really cool. You'd like her."
"Yes, I'm sure." Quinn murmurs.
Santana could have sworn she saw a flicker of hurt reach the blonde's eyes, but it disappeared all too quickly for her to be sure.
Santana dismisses it without a second thought.
It was probably just the lighting.
—
Santana stops once they're outside on the sidewalk and turns back to Quinn expectantly. "So you wanna head over to the movie house now or maybe get some coffee first, or...?" she trails off, leaving the decision up to the blonde.
"Actually I'm really tired." Quinn says with feigned conviction, looking anywhere but at Santana. "I think we should call it a night if you don't mind."
Santana frowns.. "You sure?" she checks, glancing at the time on her phone. "It's barely eight."
Quinn nods assuredly, her lips quirking with a hint of a smile. "But thank you for dinner, it was lovely. And the id."
"Are you sure?" Santana can't help but press. "I mean we don't have to go out. We can watch a movie at your place...or mine." she belatedly adds, seriously hoping the blonde didn't take up that offer. Her abuela would probably make them hang out in the living room, and then insist on joining them.
"Maybe some other time." Quinn politely declines.
"Well let me at least walk you home." Santana offers, trying not to sound too irritated...and disappointed.
C'mon, snowflake, she silently pleads as the girl noticeably hesitates, Don't shut me out again.
"That's not necessary."
"Well your place is going my way anyways." Santana reminds, looking in the general direction of her house. "So we might as well walk together."
Quinn follows her gaze and nods. "Right." she agrees, reluctantly, since she couldn't very well argue that.
They end up walking side by side in relative silence, not unlike the way they walked coming here earlier.
Only difference was the silence wasn't so much awkward now as it was annoying. At least for Santana.
"So, who's the guy?" Santana finds herself reluctantly asking, after catching Quinn out with her phone again sending another quick text.
After ten minutes, or however the fuck long they've been walking, Quinn finally turns her head toward her. "Excuse me?"
Santana rolls her eyes over at her in a sidelong glance. "You've obviously been texting someone who isn't me or Britt. So who is he?"
"Who says he's a guy?" Quinn frowns.
"Isn't he?" Santana challenges.
"He is." the blonde confirms, her brow still furrowed. "But he's just a friend, if that's what you're wondering about."
Santana turns away with a shake of her head. Great. Just great. "That's how they all start out." she mutters, before sharply reverting her gaze. "Who is he?"
"He works at the market." Quinn answers casually, forcing her attention forward as they walk. "His name is Biff McIntosh."
Santana pulls a face, following her lead. "Like the apple?"
"His family owns the apple orchards in town." Quinn nods, pausing when the reach the corner. "So yes, like the apple."
"Bet he's proud of that fact." Santana scoffs under her breath. The swarmy shitface punk.
"He's nice." Quinn shrugs.
"He ask you out yet?"
Quinn shakes her head. "It's not like that."
"So no."
"I told you I wanted to try to make new friends, Santana." Quinn sighs, her irritation starting to seep through. "And I am. Just as you are it seems."
"Guys like that are only after one thing, Quinn." Santana says, leaning forward and trying to get the blonde to look at her directly.
"Not all of them." Quinn calmly disagrees, grudgingly meeting Santana's gaze. "But even if they were I'm a big girl. I know how to say no."
"Yeah, but guys are morons." Santana points out in return. "They think 'no' means 'yes' and 'get lost' means 'take me I'm yours'."
"Biff is just a friend, Santana." Quinn sighs tiredly, turning around to regard her fully. "You're friends with Puck, aren't you?"
"So not the same." Santana scoffs, stopping in front of her.
"Why not?" Quinn demands, now folding her arms across her chest.
"Because we only became friends after we stopped hooking up and realized we didn't really want each other." Santana says, her voice beginning to rise with her annoyance.
Quinn rolls her eyes. "Why is it so hard to believe that Biff only sees me as a friend?"
"Because he's a fucking dude!" Santana near-yells, throwing out her hands either way. "Who thinks with his dick 97% of the time! Watch one of these days you're gonna be texting back and forth and then he's gonna randomly send you a pic of his weird, white boy Apple strudel and his little Johnny Appleseeds, asking if you want him to put it in your pie hole."
If Santana hadn't been so frustrated she would have probably chuckled at the way Quinn was balking at her analogies. "Well thanks for ruining apples for me, Santana."
"Just stop talking to him and it won't happen." Santana resolves easily enough. "But if you keep talking to him, I guarantee he'll eventually make a move on you."
"He's not like that." Quinn maintains as calmly as she can, even though it was clear by the look on her face she was anything but. "He just wants someone to talk to."
Santana stares at her incredulously. "Yeah, and then bone!"
How the fuck could she not understand that?
"I'm done talking about this." Quinn declares finally, sharply turning on her heel.
Her jaw tightening, Santana exhales deeply. It would be so easy to fly off the handle and Snix out, and it's not like it'd be unwarranted (the blonde most definitely deserved to face her wrath of words with the way she's been acting).
In spite of this Santana reins it in. It isn't easy but she manages. "Hey! Slow your roll, bitch." she calls after Quinn, following after her. "I still have the rest of your birthday present at your place."
"I can open it myself, thank you." Quinn retorts, barely looking over her shoulder.
Santana comes up beside her and rolls her eyes. "Well good for you but I don't care." she drawls, beyond done with her attitude. "It's my gift and I'm giving it to you whether you like it or not."
—
Santana and Quinn enter the latter's apartment in a huff, still very much annoyed with each other.
As expected Marshmallow is all too happy to see their return but this time around Santana doesn't give the pup a second glance.
She walks straight into the kitchen and after searching the blonde's cabinets, pulls out a small dessert plate.
Quinn watches her move about her kitchen, still irked by her lingering presence but at the same time mildly curious. "Santana, what are you doing?" she sighs.
"Just sit down and close your eyes." Santana orders, her back still to the blonde. While Quinn grudgingly takes a seat at the counter, Santana reaches into the brown paper bag she'd brought earlier and pulls out its contents.
"Your eyes better be closed, Fabray." she warns, still in the midst of assembling everything together.
"They are in spite of my better judgment."
Santana rolls her eyes at the girl's tone and peers over her shoulder. True to her word, Quinn was sitting somewhat patiently across the counter with both eyes closed.
"Since you didn't want to order dessert at the restaurant...here." She sets the plate down on the counter and pushes it in front of the blonde. "The pièce de résistance."
Quinn opens her eyes and immediately looks down at what Santana had presented her with.
A Hostess snowball with a single lit birthday candle jammed in it.
"Happy Birthday, you frustrating as fuck snowflake." Santana says, her arms folded across her chest. "You're another year closer to kicking the bucket, congratulations."
Quinn doesn't look like she knows what to say. "Santana."
"Don't you dare get sappy on me, snowflake." Santana warns, not liking how her expression had softened. She was still mad at her. "Just make a wish and eat your damn Easter bunny testicle."
Quinn nods slowly, a small smile escaping her lips. "Thank you." she whispers anyways before leaning forward.
Like one usually does in this situation, Santana claps her hands when the candle blows out.
...but sarcastically.
Which Quinn totally catches. "Jerk." she playfully glares.
And fuck if Santana's anger wasn't melting away. Damn her.
Santana shrugs it off and walks over to the refrigerator. "Here. One last gift." She pulls her package off the top shelf and lets the door close behind her.
"Para ti." she says, setting it down in front of the blonde.
Quinn takes one look at the package before lifting her gaze. "You got me bacon?" she questions, amused but nevertheless delighted.
Santana rolls her eyes. "Not just that. A lifetime's supply of free bacon. Well, actually its only a year." she amends with a slight frown. "But yeah, as much bacon as you want, free for a year. I hooked you up at the market."
"Can you even do that?" Quinn wonders, eyeing her skeptically.
"I'm Santana Lopez." she scoffs, her arms crossed defiantly. "I can do whatever the fuck I want."
Quinn humors her with a nod. "Of course you can. Would you like a bite?" she asks, gesturing to her half-eaten snowball.
Santana wrinkles her in disgust. "No thanks."
"It's delicious." the blonde tries to sway, holding the pink dessert up.
"To a white person who don't know shit about food, yeah, probably."
"Hey!" Quinn scoffs indignantly.
"No good food is ever pink." Santana maintains with careless shrug.
"Just try it, Santana."
"Me and the color pink have been in an argument for seventeen years, and I ain't making nice with it now." Santana grimaces, ducking out of the way when Quinn tries to feed the offending cake to her. "Nope. No me gusta."
"Fine."
Santana watches warily as Quinn slips out of her chair and proceeds to walk around the counter toward her. "Fabray..." she warns, stepping back a peg, not sure of what she might do.
Seeing Santana recede back makes Quinn falter in her steps, as if the gesture struck a chord with her. An unpleasant one.
Santana shifts her stance, seeing the sudden change in the girl's expression, and frowns accordingly. "Hey," she says, stepping forward and gently bringing her back.
Quinn looks at her and blinks, then drops her head in embarrassment. "Sorry." she murmurs, quickly shaking her head of whatever daze she'd been caught up in. "Déjà vu."
When Quinn finally lifts her gaze again, Santana finds herself swallowing hard, the extent of their closeness just barely registering.
From there a prolonged moment of eye-contact is shared and it leaves Santana feeling slightly breathless.
Part of her feels inclined to step back, but there goes those fucking hazel eyes again, keeping her rooted on the spot and looking at her in a way she wouldn't even know how to begin to interpret.
Santana would have found it completely irritating it she wasn't so transfixed.
It was almost like they were searching for something.
Funny how one minute her and Quinn can't seem to make eye-contact to save their lives and the next they can't seem to do anything but.
She tells the blonde as much, needing to lighten the mood before things got way too intense...again.
And just like that, within the blink of an eye, the moment was over.
While somewhat disappointed, Santana's left feeling most grateful when the blonde tears her eyes away. If Quinn had kept staring at her the way she was who knows what she would have done...
No. She knows what she would have done, that's why she had to put a stop to it.
"Um," Hearing Quinn's hesitation snaps Santana out of her thoughts. "Do you maybe wanna stay for a while?" the blonde asks tentatively.
Santana stares at her with the word 'yes' right on her tongue but keeps the response right where it is, a part of her worried that if she allowed Quinn to pull her right back in, she'd just be setting herself up to be pushed back out again.
Something which seemed to be happening a lot tonight.
In spite of all this though, Santana was finding it increasingly hard to bite back that 'yes' when those irresistible hazel eyes were anxiously awaiting an affirmative.
"That depends," Santana drawls, quirking her brow. "You gonna keep texting the apple picker all night?"
Cause if she was, Santana was so out.
"No," Quinn shakes her head. "You promise you won't badmouth him?"
"I can't make any promises."
"Santana."
"Okay. Okay." Santana rolls her eyes, conceding to a sigh. "Fine. But how about this, let's just not bring up Biffani Amber Thiessen at all, alright? I won't bring up him if you promise not too."
"Before I promise anything," Quinn gestures back to the glass container on the counter. "Do you want any apple pie? I'm only asking now because if I ask you later you'll just assume I'm trying to worm him back into the conversation."
Santana eyes it dubiously. "Is it made from his apples?"
"Does it really matter if it is?" Quinn sighs.
"Uh, yeah." Santana scoffs, coming up beside the blonde for closer inspection. "I don't want his apples anywhere near your pie!"
Quinn just shakes her head and grabs a fork. "You're ridiculous."
"Am no—"
Before Santana knows what hits her, the blonde's whipping around and slipping a quick forkful of pie into her unsuspecting mouth.
Santana instinctively rears back and shoots the blonde a withering look. "What the fuck, snowflake?"
Quinn watches her chew. "It tastes good, no?"
To be clear Santana only swallows because she's too good of a friend to spit it out on Quinn's floor.
Well, that and because she knows the blonde would just make her clean it up if she did.
"That was literally the worse pie I've ever tasted."
"It was not, Santana." Quinn chuckles, shaking her head disbelievingly. "And you know it."
"Was so." To prove her point Santana picks up the rest of the pie pan and carries it back to the sofa. "In fact, it was so bad that I'm gonna finish me up this slice as to spare you the ordeal of having to eat it yourself. That's how considerate a person I am. You're welcome."
Quinn's eyes fit to the ceiling. "What a saint."
"I know, right?" Santana grins, leaning back and propping her feet up on the coffee table. "Got any ice cream?"
By the time Quinn finds some vanilla ice cream and puts it in a bowl, Santana's already eaten one slice and halfway into another.
"Santana!" There's a playful whine to her tone when she sees this, her brow furrowing adorably. "I never said you could eat my whole pie."
Santana chokes mid-swallow and coughs a laugh.
Quinn rolls her eyes, trying to distract from her now burning cheeks. "For goodness' sake Santana you know I didn't mean it like that."
"Still wanky."
"Still my birthday." Quinn trumps with a smirk, taking her pie back.
As the blonde settles down next to her, Santana scowls. "Whatever." she scoffs, eyeing the girl dismissively as she takes a bite. "That's pie's gonna make you fat anyways."
—
Their plan of going to the movies forgotten, Quinn and Santana end up spending the rest of the night in the apartment, neither really motivated to go back out into the snow.
At some point, after they exhausted their interest in watching movies and television, they end up lying on the carpet in front of the fireplace. In between listening to Quinn's ipod, they talk about random shit and it's so pleasantly normal that it's almost like these past few weeks of ignoring each other never happened.
Still, in the back of her mind, Santana knew they had to talk about what happened eventually. They'd seemed to be getting on the right track at the restaurant but then they'd been interrupted, and since then Quinn hasn't given her any indication that she wanted to pick up where they left off.
Santana had thought about doing so herself but ultimately chickened out; she just didn't want to risk ruining the good thing they had going for them.
Staring up at the ceiling, Santana quietly hums along to the acoustic ballad currently playing through the blonde's speaker system. It was some folksy song she's never heard before but was one she found she liked. The singer's soft serenade was comforting against the silence.
When the song ends and a new one takes its place Santana shifts and sighs, closing her eyes for a moment before opening them again. Judging by how dark it was outside it was pretty late. And while she was tired, she had no interest in sleeping.
Not when she knew she'd just be plagued with more dreams that would only add to her pent-up confusion and frustration.
She had more than enough of that already thanks.
It was seriously starting to become a problem. And she hated it. Hated the dreams, hated their familiarity—sometimes Santana found herself dreaming the same scenes over and over, and with Quinn included in some way. (And always in that same crazy blue getup, like what was up with that?)
She didn't understand it. These recurring dreams would play out like forgotten memories almost and then, sometimes, they'd change on her and suddenly she would have Quinn pleading with her to remember her.
Which begged the question, what the hell was she missing?
Santana, for the most part, remembered all that had happened at Rachel's party, so why did Quinn keep asking her that?
Ugh.
She's going around in circles here. She's been over this a hundred times already and it ever got her was more questions than answers.
Sighing in exasperation, Santana shakes her head to herself and closes her eyes. She stays like that for a while, willing her brain not to think of anything and just let the music drown everything back out again. The hand that isn't tucked behind her head continues its ministrations, her fingers lightly brushing through the blonde tresses of the girl who'd fallen asleep on her like an hour ago.
She doesn't remember how they got to this position exactly, with Quinn curled up beside her, head resting against her chest, but Santana didn't mind it.
It felt good having her close again. Felt, right.
Smiling to herself, Santana shifts her head and opens her eyes again.
Only to find a certain furball staring right back at her.
"The fuck?" Startled, Santana jerks back, not expecting Marshmallow to be right up in her grill, sitting patiently at her side and watching her like some kind of creeper dog.
Last she'd checked he was getting his zzz's on by the Christmas tree, Santana having worn him out when she was playing with him earlier.
And by 'playing' she meant pretending to throw his little rubber ball and watching him look around for it like an idiot.
Dogs were so stupid.
Anyways.
Santana narrows her eyes at him. "The hell do you want, dog?"
Marshmallow just looks at her with those big puppy eyes and whimpers.
Santana rolls her eyes. Like she knows what the fuck that means.
"Go back to bed, perro." she sighs, turning her head away from him dismissively. "Vaya a dormir."
Marshmallow whines pitifully, a small bark escaping him.
"Hey knock it off." she glares, warning him as quietly as she can. "You wanna wake the snowflake up?"
Marshmallow ignores her and continues his whimpering, jerking his head back to the front door impatiently.
It takes her a second before Santana realizes what was going on.
He needed to go to the bathroom.
"Okay, okay." she nods. That she could understand. "Calm yourself."
Turning, Santana grabs the pillows they'd been using earlier. Once she has them in place, she places a hand behind Quinn's head and slowly eases herself out from under the blonde, then gently lowers her head back onto the pillows.
All without waking her.
Her skills are seriously unparalleled.
Like a Mexican ninja.
"Be right back, snowflake." Santana murmurs before getting up.
Meanwhile Marshmallow is stamping his paws, moving around in what Santana assumes is the doggy version of a potty dance.
"Hold on. Hold on." she mutters, walking over to the door and grabbing her boots. "Don't get your juevos in a knot."
While she shrugs on her coat, and ignores the fact she was only in sleep shorts and a cotton tee, Santana looks around for his leash.
"Whatever." she mutters when she doesn't see one in plain sight. "C'mon, dog." she grumbles, pulling open the door and letting him walk through. "You're going commando."
"You better not try any funny business and run off, perro." she warns, hurrying down the stairs along side the eager pup. "Cause I will catch you and then I will have no problem selling you to the fucking Koreans. They are not above eating dog."
Santana yanks open the front door, allowing Marshmallow to barrel through and follows him over to the nearest tree. "You got thirty seconds, dog." she says, biting back a swear as the cold hits her full force. "If you freeze your fur off out here I'll never hear the end of it from your mom."
A few minutes later, after Marshmallow sniffs around and does his business, Santana all too eagerly follows him back to the apartment complex.
"Fucking balls, man." she hisses, quietly shuffling inside. Two minutes outside and she's pretty sure her nipples had frozen solid.
If they end up breaking off before they can thaw she's gonna be super pissed.
Cause she sure as hell ain't spending her Christmas bonus on nipple replacements.
Santana closes the door behind her and shrugs off her coat, while Marshmallow returns to his little bed. As she kicks off her boots she hears another soft whimper.
God damnit. She throws her head back in a silent groan.
Now what does that fucker want?
It isn't until Santana looks over her shoulder and hears the sound again that she realizes it wasn't even coming from Marshmallow.
Her brow furrowing, Santana returns to the living room and goes over to Quinn's sleeping form. The girl was no longer sleeping peacefully, she noticed, now shifting and murmuring in her sleep.
Santana kneels down beside her. Then ends up doing a double take.
Oh god, was she crying?
If the wet streaks on her cheeks were any indication then, yeah she was.
"S'okay snowflake." Santana murmurs, leaning forward and stroking the blonde's hair in a comforting manner.
This seems to calm Quinn, but only for a moment. Then she starts mumbling unintelligibly again with her brow scrunched up.
Hesitate to wake her, Santana watches in silence but continues to stroke her hair.
It's when Quinn flinches rather suddenly that she decides she should definitely wake her up. Whatever she was dreaming about was not pleasant.
"Hey, Q." Santana whispers, her hand sliding down to her shoulder. "Quinn."
"Conceal, don't feel." the blonde mumbles, curling into herself.
Not understanding what that meant, Santana pauses and leans in closely.
"I can't stop it..." Quinn shrinks back from her, still sleep talking, and sharply shakes her head. "Anna, please...Anna."
Wait, who the fuck is Anna?
Santana shakes her head of the thought - it can wait - and rouses the girl a little more firmly.
"Hey, Q. Wake up."
Quinn bolts upright so suddenly that Santana narrowly avoids a head butt collision. "Anna!" she gasps, all but choking on the name.
"Woah, hey. Take it easy." Santana soothes, watching the shaken girl look around wildly. "You're alright. You were just dreaming."
"Santana?" Quinn blinks.
Santana just nods, taking in her confused stare. That must have been one hell of a dream. "Yeah, it's me. You were having a bad dream, I think. I had to wake you up."
"Oh."
Quinn draws back and looks at her open hands.
Santana watches her stare at them for the longest time before closing her fists and shutting her eyes for a moment. It's crazy but she swears relief just crossed her features.
Quinn drops her face to her hands then and rubs her forehead, probably trying to make sense of what just happened. Whatever that was.
Knowing how disorienting, and unnerving, dreams could sometimes get, Santana waits in silence while the girl sits in silent reflection, knowing she was going to need a minute to fully return to reality.
"You good, snowflake?" Santana finally asks after a good while, placing a calming hand on the blonde's back.
Quinn lifts her head and nods slightly. "Yeah." she sniffs, though it didn't sound entirely convincing.
"Hey." Santana gently directs her gaze back onto her, her hand still resting her shoulder. Quinn turns around and after meeting her gaze, understands, and shuffles closer.
She slips into Santana's arms with a shaky sigh, her arms moving around her neck. The Latina can still feel her trembling, so she holds her close but not too tight, not wanting to suffocate her.
"You're okay." Santana repeats, and Quinn sinks into her embrace.
They stay like that for some time, holding each other in a content silence. It eventually gets to the point where Santana thinks Quinn had fallen back asleep on her shoulder again.
It's only when the blonde turns her head toward her and sighs that Santana realizes she hadn't.
"You'd better not gotten snot on my shirt, snowflake." she playfully warns, wanting to lighten the mood.
Quinn looks back at her with a hint of a smile but doesn't say anything in response.
Next thing Santana knows, she's burying her face back into her shirt and makes a show of rubbing her nose into the fabric.
"Bitch, you didn't not just do that." Santana scoffs, chuckling helplessly when Quinn's shoulders start shaking from barely contained giggles. Santana rolls her eyes, albeit it in a fond way. "You're such a dork."
With a mischievous smile, Santana sneaks her hand down and squeezes the ticklish Quinn's side, catching her off-guard.
Quinn squeaks at the feeling and instinctively jerks to the side. "And you're...evil!" she yelps, jumping up slightly when Santana gets her in that same spot again.
"Your fault for being so ticklish." Santana shrugs, meeting the blonde's mock glare with a smirk. Once the moment of playful eye-contact ceases, their expressions settle - the extent of their closeness suddenly apparent.
They were practically nose to nose and Santana could feel Quinn's every breath tickling her skin. Quinn's looking at her with those eyes again, staring at her in a way that manages to both excite and unnerve her.
Santana swallows hard, her gaze unconsciously flickering to the blonde's lips and back, before quickly averting her gaze. She really wished Quinn wouldn't do that cute little lip biting thing during moments like this.
Or at all really.
It made her want to do certain things.
Like, non-platonic things.
While her head is turned Santana blinks a few times to regain some composure.
"Uh, so...who's Anna?" she hears herself ask, breaking the silence that had stretched between them.
"What?"
Santana takes a breath and looks back at her. "You were calling out for someone named Anna while you were sleeping." she says, silently hoping she didn't sound bothered by it. She'd been lying if she said a hint of jealousy hadn't flared up upon hearing Quinn say another girl's name.
"Oh."
"Oh?" Santana can't help but repeat. "Who is she?"
"I don't know." Quinn says quietly, dropping her gaze.
"You don't know?" Santana frowns, not necessarily believing it. "Cause it sounded like you did..." she trails off for a second before scoffing a little. "What you've got like a secret crush or something?"
She means it as a joke but it comes out sounding a little more accusatory than she intended.
"Of course not." Quinn shakes her head at the very idea.
Yet she still can't make eye-contact with her. "Then who is she?"
"I just told you I don't know." Quinn sighs, her voice starting to rise defensively.
"No need to get pissy about it. I'm just asking." Santana leans back and holds her hands up, then rolls her eyes when Quinn pushes suddenly off her lap.
And just like that the walls are back up.
"Look," Santana sighs, rising to her feet. "If she's a girl you have a thing for just come out and say so. I'm your friend you can tell me this kind of stuff."
In the back of her mind she knows the very idea's ridiculous, that this was just her inner Snix reacting jealously to her snowflake having dreams about some other girl, but she couldn't shake the feeling that that name meant something.
Anna.
Why did that name sound so familiar?
Had Quinn mentioned her before and she was only just realizing it?
Did they go to school with this Anna? Did they have class with her?
"I don't like anyone Santana." Quinn tiredly sighs, moving toward the kitchen. "Let alone a girl I have no recollection of dreaming about."
Santana follows her but stops at the counter. "So no one... like at all?" she has to clarify, not only for the sake of calming Snix but for her own as well.
They kept sharing these intense little moments and she needed to know if maybe Quinn felt something too - if those looks she kept giving her actually meant something - or if she was just imaging things.
After a moment's hesitation, Quinn's eyes pull up to look at her across the counter. "Do you?" she asks, quietly. "Like someone?"
Santana stares back at her, lips pursed.
The way she sees it she could either lie and say 'no' or tell the truth and say 'yes' and risk opening a can of worms she's not sure she's ready to open.
"Maybe."
Or there's that.
Santana bites down on her bottom lip, anticipating the blonde's reaction - whatever it may be.
"That girl from Tony's?" Quinn figures, her gaze dropping as she turns around to make herself a pot of tea.
"Elaine?" Santana's brow knits together in confusion. "No," She shakes her head. "I mean she's... but it's not...no. No way."
"Oh."
Quinn's back was to her so Santana couldn't accurately gauge her reaction but to her ears that "Oh" almost sounded like a relieved one.
Then again, maybe that was just wishful thinking.
Santana shakes her head to herself. Man, what the hell was wrong with her? If this was any other person and she wanted to know what was up with them, she'd just ask them.
Yet here with Quinn she can't even manage that.
All she could do was stand here and second guess the blonde's every reaction, and hope she let slip some kind of confession that would let her know how she truly felt.
Just suck it up, Lopez, and ask her how she feels. If she rejects you, she rejects you. At least then you'll know for sure where you stand.
"Are we ever gonna talk about it?"
Okay, there. A step in the right direction.
"Talk about what?" Quinn asks, her voice slightly going up an octave, but with her back still facing Santana.
Santana moves around the side of the counter and comes up beside her. "You know what, Quinn. What we did at Rachel's party. What the hell's been going on with us ever since."
"What's there to talk about?" Quinn shrugs, still not meeting her eyes. "We were drunk. Everyone knows alcohol makes you do stupid things that you end up regretting later."
Santana crosses her arms over her chest, the 'regret' part of that sentence admittedly stinging a little. "Did you remember what happened before Rachel told us?"
Quinn shakes her head as she removes the whistling tea kettle off the stove. "All I knew was that someone had given me a hickey. I didn't know it was you."
"So if you didn't know it was me then why did you bolt the next morning?"
"I woke up alone in Rachel's room with no memory of anything. But I had a hickey the size of Texas on my neck—"
"Or Mexico..." Santana mutters, thinking of Brittany.
Quinn shakes her head, choosing to ignore her interruption. "—and I knew I'd done something really stupid. So I, of course, freaked out and bolted. I didn't think about it, I just...I had to get out of there."
"You weren't alone by the way. In Rachel's room, I mean." Santana feels the need to clarify. "I was passed out under the bed."
Quinn's brow scrunches up for a split second, confused, before settling. "I ran out of there so fast it makes sense I didn't see you."
"You must have passed out before I did."
Quinn nods in agreement. "The last thing I remember before blacking out was you ranting about how you were gonna find proof of Rachel's dwarf heritage and then sell her to TLC."
Yeah and then use the money to buy an island where her and Quinn could get their mack on in private, Santana recalls, embarrassed.
Santana mentally shakes off the vivid images that particular memory brought back and refocuses her attention.
"Do you really regret it?" she finds herself asking quietly, making Quinn pause. "What we did."
Quinn breathes out a long, unsteady sigh. "Everyone regrets the things they do while intoxicated, don't they?" she murmurs, more focused on preparing her tea than she is on Santana.
Santana's frown deepens at that non-answer response. "But do you?"
"Do I what?"
With a roll of her eyes, Santana enunciates each syllable of her next question slowly. "Do you regret kissing me?"
Quinn turns back around, scoffing a nervous laugh. "What kind of a question is that?"
"A valid one." Santana responds, cutting the blonde off and stopping in front of her, forcing her gaze. "Brittany's got it in her head that you like me. Like, like me like me."
"Funny she says the exact same thing about you." Quinn attempts to sidestep out of her way but Santana just blocks her again.
"Is it true?"
Quinn reluctantly lifts her gaze. "I don't know, Santana, is it?"
Santana shakes her head with a scowl. "Oh cut the crap, Quinn." she snaps, her patience finally beginning to give way. "I want a straight up answer - not another question thrown back at me."
"I don't know what you want me to say." Quinn shoots right back through gritted teeth. "There, is that enough of answer for you?"
"Do you like me?" Santana shouts, beyond caring at this point if she completely Snixed out on the girl. "As more than a friend?" she quickly throws in, before Quinn tried to deflect it with another stupid question.
Quinn, of course, doesn't answer her. Just hangs her head down and averts her gaze.
"It's a simple yes or no question." Santana exclaims, throwing her hands out in frustration when Quinn has the audacity to walk away from her. "'Yes, Santana, I like you' or 'No, Santana, I don't'."
Quinn returns to the living room and begins picking the pillows off the floor. "Santana, it's late. Now is not the time for this conversation."
"Oh no, right now is the perfect time." Santana comes to a stop a few feet away from her. "Now yes or no."
Quinn releases a strangled breath. "Santana, please."
"Quinn, I'm a lot of awesome things but a mind reader isn't one of them."
Santana drops her crossed arms in defeat, the blonde's watering eyes suddenly draining the anger from her. Attacking her wasn't the way to go about things, she realized with a heavy sigh. If anything it was just having the opposite effect of what she wanted.
Santana diverts her gaze for a second, nervously, before allowing it to settle back on Quinn.
"Well I like you." Santana murmurs in a significantly calmer tone, her arms shifting back to their folded position.
Quinn's head snaps right up. "You...like me?"
Santana shifts uncomfortably. "That's what I said, didn't I?" she huffs quietly, already regretting having said anything at all.
No girl who secretly wants to hear those words goes that pale.
Well it looks like Santana just got her answer.
Scared hazel eyes stare back at her. "Do you mean that or are you just saying that?"
Santana has to do a double-take at that question, not expecting Quinn to ask her that, of all things.
Like, really?
"What - of course I meant it." Santana scowls, her eyes flashing. "What, you think I'm fucking with you?"
"No, I just...Santana..." Quinn shuts her eyes, struggling to find the words. "You shouldn't like me."
What the hell is that supposed to mean? "And why not?" Santana demands, waiting on an answer.
"Lots of reasons." Santana just raises her brow, indicating for Quinn to elaborate. "For one I-I...think I need a psychiatrist." Quinn stammers, a humorless laugh escaping her.
"A psychiatrist?" Santana frowns, confused. "Q, I thought we went over this. You aren't crazy. Bacon obsessed, yeah. But crazy, no."
Quinn exhales shakily. "But I feel like I am, Santana." she says in earnest, pulling her gaze up to meet Santana's, showing that she was being absolutely serious. "I can barely sleep anymore. If I thought I couldn't before...I don't know, it seems like ever since Rachel's party...it's just gotten so out of hand." Quinn turns away and slumps back to the floor, defeated. Santana watches with sympathetic eyes.
Quinn brings her hands up to push against her temple, clearly overwhelmed. "I don't know what to do. I've tried everything, but these dreams won't stop. They're getting stronger and more vivid and they're making me feel like I'm going insane."
Santana sinks down next to her. Truthfully she always thought it uncanny that Quinn had trouble sleeping like she did and dreams that plagued her too, ever since she first mentioned it.
But it was just a coincidence.
...right?
Right. Of course it was.
"You, uh, wanna talk about them?"
She might not be able to figure out her own dreams, but maybe Quinn's were a little easier to interpret.
Quinn brushes away the tears that had collected with a quick swipe of her hand and shakes her head in refusal.
Unthinkingly, Santana reaches out and catches a stray tear with her thumb. "If you can't talk to me about them, then how do you expect to talk to some therapist?" she murmurs, not unkindly.
Quinn shakes her head unknowingly. "How can I even begin to explain to you what's going on in my head when I don't even understand it myself?" her breath hitches.
It's scary how much Santana could relate to that sentiment alone.
"Just try." Santana encourages gently, her hand dropping from Quinn's cheek and sliding over her hand.
Quinn's eyes follow the gesture, then after a moment, she begins in a hesitant tone, "Everything that happens in these dreams...it feels so familiar." she whispers, focusing on the way Santana's thumb caresses the back of her hand. "Like déjà vu."
Santana pauses her ministrations, Quinn's description so far sounding a lot like the one she used about her own dreams.
"So, you're dreaming about your past?" she questions unsurely, turning over the girl's hand absently and letting her fingers circle around her palm. The center of which was strangely cold, and brought about this tingling sensation when she touched it.
Weird.
"But it's not my past." Quinn continues, taking her hand away self-consciously. "It can't be. Everything that happens is too...fantastical. It doesn't make sense."
"Well it is a dream." she reasons easily enough, considering she's had similar conversations with herself. "Of course it's gonna be a little out there. Our mind's dream up the weirdest shit. I mean, I should know. I haven't been sleeping right either."
Quinn's gaze shoots up. "You haven't?"
Santana meets her eyes with a soft shake of her head.
"What are they about?"
Santana ducks her head. "Lately," she sighs, unsure if she should even be making this confession, "A lot of them have kinda been involving you."
"Me?"
"Not like in a kinky way." she assures, eyes pulling up quickly. Hopefully her blush isn't noticeable in this light. "Just...you're there. And it's like I'm with you, but it's not...it's not us."
Santana cringes slightly, not really sure how to better word it than that.
"I get that feeling too." Quinn surprisingly nods, evidently able to relate in spite of Santana's really terrible explanation. "Like I know I'm me but at the same time it's not me. Like it's some other person. It's very bizarre."
"Maybe we should both go see a psychiatrist." Santana mumbles, scoffing lamely under her breath.
They're having the same kind of dreams after all.
Which so isn't normal.
Santana shakes her head. "Whatever happened to the days where the weirdest thing you'd dream about was showing up to school in your underwear?" she wonders, needing to distract herself from that unnerving thought.
"I know right." Quinn sighs, a sad smile crossing her features. "I mean they were embarrassing but at least they weren't making me a headcase."
Santana frowns deeply at that comment. "Hey. You're not crazy." she says, tilting her head in attempt to get the blonde to look at her.
Quinn lifts her head and gives her a smile that doesn't quite meet her eyes. "Cause Santana Lopez doesn't hang out with crazy, right?" she chuckles, albeit feebly.
"You're not crazy." Santana maintains in all seriousness.
"I honestly hope you're right." Quinn sighs, her voice quivering slightly.
"Oh, I am." Santana nods, a casual smile tugging up her lips. "My psychic Mexican third eye says so."
A short laugh escapes Quinn. "Your what?"
"Psychic. Mexican. Third. Eye." Santana confirms with another nod, her finger tapping in between her eyes. "It's legit. My abuela had me tested."
Quinn cracks an unwitting smile and shakes her head, unsure of how to even respond to that. "You're ridiculous."
"Yeah, ridiculously awesome."
As soon as the words slip out, Santana feels her smile fade, caught off-guard by how the moment resonated with her.
Again with that fucking déjà vu.
Looking over at Quinn, she sees that her expression had faltered too. Almost as if she'd experienced the same thing...
Santana turns away from that train of thought and mentally shakes her head. Okay, maybe I'm the one going crazy after all.
"Maybe I should get some sleep." she mutters to herself, not realizing at first she'd spoken aloud.
"Oh." Quinn blinks, assuming she'd been speaking to her, and rises to her feet. "Yeah, if you want to, we can, I mean...I didn't realize how late it was."
Santana pushes herself upright just as Quinn does. "No, it's fine." she assures quickly. "I wasn't, I was just talking to myself."
"Oh, so you don't...?"
Santana shakes her head. "We can keep talking, I don't mind. Though it is kinda late." she says, glancing back at the clock on the mantle. Her abuela definitely wasn't gonna appreciate that.
"I am getting a little sleepy." Quinn admits with a slight nod.
Santana stares at the blonde unsurely. "It's okay if I like stay, right?" she has to clarify. She'd changed into her sleep clothes a while ago but only because Quinn still had them and they were comfortable. They'd kind of been playing things by ear as the night went along, neither wanting to assume that she'd be sleeping over.
"What? Oh, of course." Quinn nods, stammering sheepishly. "Yes. Should you call your abuela?"
"Too late now." If she wasn't already in trouble for not checking in she'd sure as hell would be if she dared call and wake her up at this hour. "But she knows I'm with you so it'll be fine."
"Right."
A long silence passes before they find themselves just awkwardly standing around, neither one making a move toward the bedroom in spite of what had just been agreed upon.
This would be their first time sleeping over since everything happened, and Santana wasn't sure if Quinn would be okay sharing a bed with her.
"Um, I can totally sleep on the couch if you want..." she speaks up, noticing how the blonde's gaze had dropped and turned distant, as if she was contemplating something.
Quinn drops her anxious hands and lifts her head abruptly. "Santana?" she questions, her eyes wide.
"Yeah?"
Santana doesn't know why she's all of a sudden nervous, but she is.
"I like you too."
For a few seconds Santana just blinks in utter confusion. "What?"
To say she wasn't expecting those words to come flying out of Quinn's mouth would be be a total understatement.
Quinn swallows nervously. "I never answered you before." she backtracks, her self-assurance shrinking along with it.
"You...like me?"
Santana wasn't intentionally mimicking the blonde's reaction from her own confession earlier, it just happened on its own. Hearing those words was kind of flooring; her brain literally didn't know what to make of it.
Quinn nods timidly. "As more than a friend." she clarifies, her head ducking briefly out of embarrassment.
"Seriously?"
Suddenly Santana feels like she's the one being fucked with.
"I wanted to tell you earlier. I did." Quinn insists quietly, forcing herself to meet her gaze. "But I was just too scared to admit it out loud when I wasn't sure if you felt the same or not. I didn't want to ruin things and make things weird..." her words trail off, a small bitter scoff escaping her. "Which is what I ended up doing anyways."
Quinn shakes her head to herself, continuing, "And I'm sorry about that. I handled things in the wrong way. Or rather I didn't handle them at all. I ran. I just figured that if I distanced myself from you these feelings would go away on their own and then once they did we could go back to being friends. But—"
"But that's not how things work." Santana finishes knowingly.
If only though.
"No," Quinn sighs, resigned to the fact. "I just didn't know what to do. I've never had feelings like this before. So I convinced myself staying away from you was right thing to do, even though I knew we should talk things out. I was just too scared. And as much as I hate to admit it, when I'm scared I tend to run."
Santana nods in understanding, but shifts her stance uncomfortably. If Quinn could be open and honest about this then it was only fair she do the same. "I was scared too," she murmurs, grudgingly. Terrified was more like it. "Almost made myself go crazy because of it."
At Quinn's questioning glance, she explains, "I wanted answers but didn't have the balls to get them. I started over-thinking everything only to just talk myself out of every little sign I thought I saw. Which so isn't me." Santana shakes her head, diverting her gaze for a brief movement.
"God knows why but you really affect me, snowflake."
And I'm not sure if I love it or hate it.
Quinn swallows thickly, trying to compose herself. "You affect me too, Santana, trust me. In the best and most terrifying way. If that makes any sense."
Santana purses her lips together. Fear. Terror. Those emotions seemed to be the consensus when describing their feelings.
"Why do you think this scares us so much?" she hears herself ask softly, her gaze pulling back up.
"Because it's new?" Quinn responds weakly, unsure of the answer herself. "Uncharted territory? Or at least for me it is. They say people fear what they don't know or understand."
Santana watches as the blonde's gaze sliding back to her hands. "Or can't control." Quinn adds under her breath.
Santana can't help but frown at the sight. What was it with her hands?
"Hey." Stepping forward, she gently brings Quinn back from whatever train of thought she'd gotten sidetracked on. "Look at me."
Quinn complies, but not without shifting self-consciously under her gaze. "What?"
Santana doesn't say anything. Whatever words she had at the ready having evaporated the second those hazel eyes found hers again.
You'd think after all this time the shock of familiarity would have worn off by now. But no, here she stands experiencing it all over again.
It's then that Santana feels something inside her ache. Like, really ache.
She liked Quinn, and Quinn knew it. Hell she actually liked her in return! She should be really fucking happy and relieved that there was no more second-guessing. No more doubt.
And yet she wasn't.
Why did it feel like there was still missing something?
What more could she want?
"I'm right here. Why can't you see that?"
Unintentionally, Santana jerks away from the haunting words the Quinn from her dreams had asked of her on more than one occasion.
The slight movement does not go unnoticed by Quinn. "Santana?" she prompts.
Santana meets Quinn's concerned eyes with a thin-lipped smile. "Sorry," she apologizes with brief head shake. "It's just...I've missed you, is all."
I still miss you. And I don't know what that means.
After all how can you still miss someone standing right in front of you?
Quinn's eyes search her face, with the sense that Santana wasn't telling her everything, but doesn't push it.
"I've missed you too." Quinn whispers, her eyes shining with sincerity.
In the back of her mind Santana knows they don't mean it the same way but she can't bring herself to truly care. Those words brought too much comfort to her.
Without a second thought Santana steps forward, her eyes staring intently, and closes what little distance was still between them. "You know I'm gonna kiss you now, right?"
"I was kind of hoping you would, but at the same time I was kind of hoping you wouldn't." Quinn confesses, almost breathless, her gaze flickering to Santana's lips and then back up again.
Santana tilts her head and shifts closer, undeterred. "And why not?"
"Because I already like you too much as it is. And if you kiss me now, sober, here like this, it'll just make things worse." she murmurs.
"Or it'll make things better."
Quinn looks away for a moment before returning her gaze. "Santana," she sighs, conflicted, a tentative hand moving to touch her cheek.
"If you're trying to discourage me, snowflake, you're doing a shit ass job." Santana mumbles with a slight grin, the girl's touch only beckoning her closer.
Quinn quirks her brow, a playful scowl on her lips. "You kiss your grandmother with that mouth?"
"No," A shy flush creeps up on the blonde's cheeks when Santana nips teasingly at her bottom lip. "But I'll kiss you with it." she smirks, capturing the snowflake's mouth fully.
Quinn moans into the surprisingly soft kiss, all but melting on contact. Santana slips her hand around Quinn's neck and angles it back, her mouth eager to refamiliarize itself with hers.
But in spite of this Santana forces herself to take it slow, not wanting this to be like their drunken encounter (however great it was).
They kiss over and over, exchanging passionately intimate kisses, each one making them more lightheaded than the last.
As amazing as kissing Quinn while drunk had been, it couldn't compare to what it felt like to be kissing her sober, Santana was quickly realizing.
And fuck, her taste was beyond addicting.
Their lips don't part until they're literally forced to break for air.
Santana pulls away first, slowly and reluctantly, and her forehead comes to rest against Quinn's. "Fuck," she breathes, her body trembling from that unexpectedly intense surge of emotion.
Quinn can only nod in agreement, still panting, her body just as worked up.
In the background Quinn's ipod is still going, now playing a familiar tune that instantly has Santana shaking her head. "I can't believe we just shared our first sober kiss to that song." she mutters while they catch their breath.
"Take My Breath Away." Quinn smiles fondly. "Seems appropriate."
Santana rolls her eyes and pulls back from the blonde. "It's from a fucking Tom Cruise movie." she groans, lowering herself back down to the floor.
Once she's seated cross-legged, she grabs Quinn and yanks her down, right onto her lap. "I hate Tom Cruise. He's hobbit sized and you know how I feel about them hobbits."
"It's a good song nonetheless." Quinn giggles, her breath catching when Santana sweeps her hair off of her shoulder.
"Yeah, sure." Santana mumbles dismissively, dipping her head to place warm, open mouthed kisses on the side of her snowflake's neck.
Quinn closes her eyes, relishing in the feeling for a moment. "Santana?"
"Huh?" Santana hums against her throat, lightly sucking on her hickey. Even after all these weeks her mark still hasn't fully healed and she was going to see to it that it never did. At least for a little while longer anyways.
"What happens next?"
Santana lightly bumps her nose against the side of Quinn's jaw on her way to reclaiming her lips. "I kiss you until my lips fall off. Or until I get hungry for waffles. Whichever comes first."
"Just making sure." Quinn breathes, turning her head slightly so Santana could easily close the gap between them once more.
AN: So, yeah. Those two are heading in the right direction. But it won't be all sunshine and roses just yet. They've still got some issues to sort out, and those dreams of course.
Anyways. And as always thank you for your continued support, it means so much!
P.S. To those anon Brittana fans who are being extremely rude in reviews (which I just delete by the way). It says this is a Quinntana story right in the description. I'm not trying to mislead anyone by tagging both Santana and Brittany in this story. I tagged them because along with Quinn they are the main characters. So please, enough with the hate.
I don't hate on any ship, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't group me with others that do just because I'm writing a Quinntana story. We don't all hate Brittana.
Finally, if this story isn't something you're interested in reading, then simply don't click on it. It's that easy. You're doing nothing but just wasting your time with those pointless comments.
