A/N: Thank you all for reading! I honestly only feel motivated to update this so frequently because of your reviews and your kindness/interest. My goal is to have a hundred followers/reviews BEFORE I hit ten chapters O.o. Um, this chapter is shorter because, again, the next one will be long. THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR SUPPORT, YOU ROCK! To answer a few of your Culry Q's (Questions, haha).

1. The action is going to be majorly insignificant for awhile, I want to focus on how they feel and not just them doing dirty things, I've never been particularly good at delving into that. I want to make it clear that this will be a long fic, so I hope you're not all expecting a quick ending.

2. Kay: It was not my intention to make her seem like that girl at all, but it works, I suppose! :)

3. Sammy will be a presence that pops up more than once, for those of you that enjoyed her.

4. Boringsiot: Your reviews are always endearing, thank you for being so kind.

ON WITH IT!


She's a Killer Queen

(Guaranteed To Blow Your Mind, Anytime)

Someone once said that life was 10% what happens to you and 90% what you make of it, but Santana thinks that's a bunch of crap. She calls bullshit, because sometimes you can't make anything out of your actions and sometimes it's the rest of the world that makes it for you.

No. Life is all about give and take. You give a life, they take one. You take an opportunity, they (society) give you reasons to feel condemned over it.

Overall, Santana thought it was stupid. She thought it was absolutely ridiculous to assume that everyone was heading somewhere, because how could you be heading anywhere if you had no idea where your destination was? Isn't that merely drifting?

She couldn't be a drifter, she couldn't. She had to be more successful than her brothers.

Her brothers, God, they weren't terrible people, they were great men. They were successful in their own ways. They were the type of men and people that others could build futures on, they were reliable. Her oldest brother, Daniel, fell in love when he was seventeen and Santana was three. She remembers it because she was in the shopping cart waiting for someone to pick her up so she could grab some candy and her brother just froze, he literally stopped moving and breathing and living.

At the time Santana didn't know what had come over him but for years, Daniel would call it love. She admires him, in a sense, having found the person that made him feel complete at such a young age, and still being with her to this very day. Daniel and her sister-in-law Claire were obviously still in love, they had three kids (who were beautiful and sweet and loving) and they were doing okay. Not great, but okay.

The thing is though that Santana knows Daniel doesn't regret meeting Claire or marrying her or loving her, but Santana still considers it a loss. Daniel was on his way to UCLA on a football scholarship, his dreams were going to make it out of Lima. Instead, he got Claire pregnant and decided to step up, stay behind, and support her. He currently worked as a Janitor for Dalton Academy (which, yes, weird) and Santana can only shake her head at his mistakes. Love made Daniel weak, it made him sacrifice himself and his dreams in order for something that he considered to be better.

To Santana, though, nothing that consisted of a future in Lima could ever really be better.

Her second eldest brother was no better.

Michael had fallen in love when he was sixteen and Santana was four. She doesn't remember this one because this was the age when Santana was too preoccupied with creating worlds in the sandbox to ever really notice grown up things. Michael had always been close to Daniel because they were only a year and three months apart, so when Daniel had moved out to be with Claire, Michael had been incredibly lonely.

Love hit Michael like age hit the world, he didn't see any day to day changes until all the shifts in his life and his ethics happened all at once. He had fallen, hard, for this girl who worked at the gas station.

This girl was three years older and too much to ever really love Michael back. It didn't change anything though, because he loved her. She didn't want Michael, or the baby they accidentally conceived.

It broke his heart when she left Lima.

It tore him apart when she gave away their child.

He still lives in Lima now, he works at that very same gas station. He drinks entirely too much and squints far too often, as if he can see the memories that linger all around town, as if he's hoping that one day time will reverse itself.

Then there's Matthew.

He's married to a girl he doesn't love, fathering a child that isn't his, but doing it all because he loves the kid. He works as a Principal at Lima Middle. He didn't fall in love with the girl, but he fell in love with the girls daughter, and wanted her to have the best life possible.

He was nineteen when he made the decision to stay behind, Santana was nine. To this day, Lola still thinks that Santana is her biological aunt, and Santana doesn't know if any of them will have the heart to tell the eleven year old girl otherwise.

Eric.

By far her favorite and closest brother, he was the one that had always mattered to her most. So when he decided to give up his scholarship so that he could move with his 'high school sweetheart' to help her pursue her dreams, Santana had been angry. Eric was the last one left who could really go places, and he gave it all up for a girl who ended up leaving him when she finally became successful.

Now he's twenty-six, at a dead end job in Chicago, divorced, and he only sees his daughters twice a month. He loves his girls and Santana knows he wouldn't ever give them back for anything in the world, but she also sees the regret, and she hates the choices all of her brothers made.

Life isn't what you make of it, it's what it makes of you, and Santana couldn't let something as silly as love change her. She wouldn't let it.

She's not a screwed up girl, not by literal means. She has two parents, a family that loves her, and friends. That's more than Quinn had while growing up. But, the thing is, her brothers are all years older than her. She had no girls to bond with as a child because she was surround by boys, and her mother was always around catering to her brothers.

Her father was there for her, financially, but he was just as absent in her childhood as her mother. Don't get her wrong, they loved her, they truly did, but they had spent fourteen years raising kids before Santana ever came along. They were tired, resigned, and it showed.

She's not insinuating that her parents didn't love their family, what she's saying is her parents resigned themselves to roles in their lives. Her mother was the homemaker and her father the supporter, it didn't matter where they wanted to go before because that's where they ended up.

Santana knows her parents love her, she truly does, but she also knows that her parents don't really love each other. Not like they should. It's a marriage of convenience, of tradition, and they're just too old to go back now. They've spent so long together that it's too late to try and change, and Santana sees it in her mothers disappointed looks geared towards her brothers. She hears it in her mothers voice whenever she asks about New York, she feels it through Quinn whenever she's around.

She feels like she never learned how to love things, not properly, because she spent far too much time in the background to ever pick up anything substantial. Her parents had been so tired from raising four kids that when she came along, they weren't as ready to put in the effort anymore, they were not as willing or as openly affectionate as they were with the others and Santana feels like she lost something along the way.

Growing up with four brothers, she only really learned how to own something. She only knows how to be possessive with the things that she believes are hers, because she feels like she owns the rights to these things she doesn't want to share them, she doesn't know how to.

Santana didn't ask for the hand she was dealt any more than Quinn asked for shitty parents, but it happened and Santana's had to make it work. She's had to make room for Quinn and Brittany and Rachel, she's had to learn how to love things the best that she could.

It's a little difficult sometimes, it feels like she's suffocating from feelings and all she wants to do is push them down and pretend they don't exist. All she wants to do is end up farther and further away from her brothers and her parents.

For the past five years Santana has been pushing these things called feelings away, only for them to come back twice as strong. It goes to show just how much of a bitch life could be sometimes.


You ever have those moments where you know what's right, you know what you should do, and yet you still do the opposite?

It's like watching a movie you can't rewind, playing a character you can't take back.

She loves Brittany, she does, and sometimes Santana believes she is in love with her. It's just... a lot of the time she feels okay, she's just okay, and she feels like really great love wouldn't feel like this.

Brittany would likely go to the end of the world for Santana (and Santana would do the same out of loyalty), but Brittany also has this unwavering faith in her, she expects Santana to be tied down, and maybe that's what love is, maybe it's knowing who you're with and knowing what's coming.

But maybe that isn't love. Maybe that's friendship. Maybe Santana's in a relationship with her best friend, and it's more of a friendship then it really is a relationship.

Brittany supports her. She helped her out of the closet, she loves her. But she doesn't really challenge her, she doesn't surprise her, she doesn't push her. No, she needs Santana like Santana needs her, but maybe that isn't love. Maybe that's just a fear of change.

The thing with Quinn is completely different and if she's being honest, was years in the making. Santana knew it the moment she laid eyes on her, the moment Quinn first said sure, the moment when Quinn first kissed her...she knew those moments were all something that would happen.

Santana knows it because when she had first looked at Quinn, when she had seen that girl sitting alone on a bench, Santana had seen a future.

She looked at Quinn that day (and every day since) and saw herself at eighty. Have you ever looked at someone and seen your whole future? Because that's what happened every time Santana looked at Quinn, and it's terrifying. She sees marriage, commitment, and love, and it terrifies her to her core because she isn't sure she even knows how to do commitment correctly. Let alone love.

When she looks at Brittany, Santana only sees safety, and that's a more true testament to their relationship than anything Santana could ever say out loud.

It's scary, not just because she could lose Brittany or Quinn or because she doesn't know how to handle something so loaded, it's scary because she doesn't know who she is, not anymore. She doesn't know how to stop kissing Quinn or stop being with Brittany, she doesn't know how to see Brittany like she sees Quinn, she doesn't know how to let herself do anything but take what she can from both girls.

Sure, it's wrong that she can't let go of either girl, it really is. It's just-maybe she knows she isn't as happy as she could be, maybe it does feel like she's settling, but who's to say she'd ever be this happier with Quinn? Sure, the feelings were there, but there was also a fight there, too.

Santana would be too possessive and Quinn would be too destructive, they wouldn't work because any time they've come together, it's blown up in their faces. They've left a trail of fires everywhere they've gone together, and that type of relationship is only one that could end in chaos.

Not to mention if this thing with Quinn is actually a thing, if Santana decides it's worth giving a go even though everything is screaming at her that it isn't. What is Santana attempts to do something with Quinn, only for Quinn to decide Santana isn't worth it? What if she's not even gay? What if she decides to leave Santana behind for some prep school boy just like she left Santana for Yale?

Then she'd have nothing, she'd be nothing. And if there's one thing her brothers ever taught her: it's Santana Lopez could never be a zero.


She's busy washing her face when she hears her cell phone ring. Santana glances at the caller id and answers quickly so her ring tone doesn't wake Quinn. It's well past two in the afternoon and Quinn is still out like a light. Santana doesn't know how to be anything but protective and possessive in times like these because she's never been good at expressing her love, let alone her worry, so she does what she can.

Unfortunately for Santana, doing what she can usually results in bitchy defensive Santana, and that's exactly the attitude she has when she snarls a greeting into the phone.

"Are you okay?"

Brittany doesn't seem phased by Santana's behavior, and for once, Santana wishes she would just say something instead of accepting Santana's behavior. Santana sighed. "Yes, B, I'm just super tired."

"Did they release Lola from the hospital yet? Or was the accident really bad?"

It takes a moment for all the gears to shift in Santana's head, for her to remember the excuse that spilled from her lips when she left New York in a hurry, instead of the honesty she should have relied on. Santana stays silent, knowing that now is the time to come clean and be honest with Brittany because she's seriously just screwing herself over at this point.

"S?" Brittany asks, concern floating through Santana's receiver, and it's the reminder Santana needs.

"No, she just hit her head, no biggie." Santana lies unnecessarily. It's the defining moment of their relationship, that Santana still can't give all of herself to Brittany and that she isn't even trying to.

It's even more defining that Brittany has no questions, no real desire to push Santana even though it's clear that her lies are not well told. They don't tie up and it should mean something, the fact that Santana has put very little effort into constructing this story, but it doesn't because Santana won't let it.

"I miss you."

Santana breathes a sigh of relief. This part is easy and she likes it the most, because there are no lies here, not when she says, "I miss you, too."

Brittany giggles, and Santana smiles on reflex. "When are you coming back?"

"My brother wants me to stay a few days," Santana lies, though this time she isn't really sure why when it's clear that Quinn is alive and kicking. "So I'll probably be back around Wednesday."

"Okay," Brittany accepts. "I love you."

Santana knows it's the end of the conversation because for the first time, she isn't sure she means it when she says it back. Regardless, she says it anyway, and she feels appropriately awful while doing it.


After hanging up with Brittany, Santana shoved her phone back into her pocket and exited the dorm bathrooms so that she could return to Quinn. She's still shirtless and the kids in the dorms are staring at her like she's a piece of meat, but Santana doesn't care. She has no intention of putting clothes on because Santana feels like her body is saying the things that she can't, at least, not yet.

She pushes open Quinn's dorm door and shuts it behind her quietly. Quinn is snoring lightly, even though she constantly tells Santana she does no such thing, and Santana falters.

She's sees it again, that moment, and it takes all of her willpower to not throw up at the vision. This time there is no marriage or 'I love yous' in the memory that she sees. No, this time Santana is eighty and she's curled up underneath a leopard blanket. She's eighty and she's laughing, because Quinn is eighty, too, Santana's laughing because Quinn's reading Santana quotes from her favorite book and she's doing it with a fake British accent, almost exactly like the one Santana hears in her head when she reads.

She's laughing because Quinn knows her well enough to know that that's what Santana hears whenever literature is involved. She's laughing because Quinn is eighty and her eyes are light, her face is covered in laugh lines that only make her more beautiful. Santana's laughing because the moment feels so damn happy, they look so damn happy, that Santana can't do anything else.

Santana almost trips over Quinn's shoe because the moment (the fake moment, the not-so-real-memory-but-the-memory-that-could-one-day-be-true) is all-consuming. It swallows her whole, it makes her falter, it makes her heart ache with so much damn sadness that Santana can't do anything but crumble under it's weight.

Because it isn't real, it's hopeless fancies, useless realities. It's her imagination besting her, trying to tempt her with the promise of tomorrow when Santana clearly can't even make it through today.

Santana doesn't know what to do, she doesn't know how to express herself or give love or even ask for it. She just wants the feeling to stop being all consuming, to stop devouring her whole. Santana wants it to go away, she wants to stop thinking Quinn is beautiful, she wants to stop feeling like her heart is setting in this weird sunset of love.

Most of all, she just wants, and it's awful.

Santana doesn't know how to handle it, she's not good at feelings and she doesn't want to be, so she does the only thing she can think of. She strips out of her pants, ignoring how cold it feels (and relishing in how cold she finally feels) before pulling back the blanket that's covering Quinn and slipping under the covers.

She shakes Quinn until the girl is half-awake from her deep slumber, because Santana doesn't want to feel like this alone, she doesn't want to be the only person in this position.

"Wha's goin' on?" Quinn slurs, one eye cracked open and the other eye still trying to sleep. She looks so damn beautiful in a moment where she should only look stupid that Santana hurries to get out of it.

Santana grips Quinn's pajama bottoms, her hands finding the button and unbuttoning it. Quinn pulls away, and to her credit, is wide awake in a matter of seconds.

Quinn turns in Santana's arms until she's facing her, her face is contorted in confusion and her eyes look bugged out. "What are you-omg, are you naked?"

Santana rolls her eyes. "No, I have underwear on, Fabray." Santana pulls on the Quinn's bottoms again. "Get on with it."

"Wait-I-that's still naked-you-okay." Quinn settles on, and it's attractive, how flustered Quinn is over something that most people barely relish. Santana knows that she's pretty, but most people are so eager to see her goods that they barely take time to focus on her, and in this moment, Quinn is only focusing on her.

It's exactly what she wanted, exactly what she needed, and Santana groans with relief when Quinn pulls her pajama pants down and kicks them to the foot of her tiny ass bed. Concern flashes over Quinn's face as she looks into her eyes, but she doesn't pull away.

"Santana Lopez, you have no idea what you do to me." Quinn whispers, and Santana thinks that if Quinn's reaction is anything to go by, Quinn never meant to say that out loud. Maybe Santana doesn't know, but it can't be worse than what Quinn does to her, what she's doing to her...what she's changing. So Santana smiles, false bravado her go-to whenever she feels overwhelmed from pure emotion.

"Show me."