A/N:
1. So, as I mentioned on my Tumblr, I ended up needing (for personal reasons) to deviate from my weekly update schedule. I'm going to try really hard not to have that happen again. With the holidays and (again) personal stuff, I simply can't guarantee. As a reward for waiting, I used the word "duck" a lot. How that's a reward, I'm not really sure. But, still. I ended up using "duck" more in this chapter than I've ever used in anything (sans conversations about Donald and/or Daisy and/or Howard the).
2. Random something: I'm planning some one-shots from this 'verse. If there's something I've already written that you want to know more about, let me know. I've got insane head canon on this ... insane.
3. There is no three. But it felt weird to have a numbered list that only had two items.
"When you asked if you could bring your beer," Lucy says as she eyes the six-pack - minus one bottle - sitting on the edge of the sink and grimaces, "I didn't realize we'd be talking in a bathroom."
Santana shrugs from where she is reclining in the tub. "Too late." She brings the bottle up to her lips and tilts it, taking a healthy swig. "Just don't think too much about the color," she suggests with a wink.
Lucy looks around the bathroom and smirks when she spies a Darth Vader rubber duck sitting on a shelf next to the tub.
Santana turns her head to see what her friend is smiling at. She points to the rubber, helmeted mallard and announces, "That's not mine."
Her friend raises an eyebrow and decides to change the subject. Catching her friend with Star Wars bath toys, while entertaining, isn't what she was hoping to accomplish with this talk. "Why are we in here, again?"
"I like the acoustics."
Lucy leans against the sink, tilts her head and stares at her friend. She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth and waits for the other girl to start.
She hadn't planned to run into Santana or, more accurately, to be delivered to the girl's doorstep. Had Lucy had any idea she'd be in the same room with her – about to have the talk – she would have prepared something. At the very least, she would have practiced her glare for when the girl really started throwing barbs.
Instead of a tirade, as she expects, Santana simply looks at her from the corner of her eye and quietly says, "If you think that standing there looking uncomfortable is going to score you my spot in the tub, forget it. You can have the toilet."
Lucy rolls her eyes. "I prefer to stand, thank you." She wrinkles her nose in disgust as her friend takes a long drink of beer.
"You can stop being grossed out," Santana says. "I have guests. I cleaned the bathroom while they were at the show. Toilet's whiter than," she looks the other girl up and down. " … eh, too easy. Can you stop doing that? You're making me nervous …"
"Doing what?"
"Looking at me," Santana answers in a clipped tone.
Lucy shakes her head and crosses her arms as she stares at the shower curtain. She squints and tilts her head. "Is that Asteroids? No – the other one with the UFO that goes across the top …"
"Galaga. And yes." Santana nods a few times before they once again fall into silence. "So …"
"… so?"
"So, talk," the girl in the tub says.
"I don't really know what to say that I didn't say in my email," Lucy confesses as she leans against the counter. "I've been trying to come up with something to – I don't know – fix this but I haven't figured it out yet." She glances at Santana and adds, "I really didn't think you'd be this mad."
The other girl shrugs and picks at the Blue Moon label on her bottle. "I never said I was mad."
"You didn't reply to my email," Lucy says as though that is basis enough for her assumption.
"Maybe I was busy. Because, you know, I could have just been really busy."
"So, you were just busy …" Lucy says slowly.
"No. Not really," Santana replies lightly. "I've had a lot of down time since I finished my last request and even wrapped up one of my freelance contracts."
If she really wanted to twist the knife, she could let the other girl know that, up until her friends arrived, she'd been bored out of her mind. Bored enough, in fact, to watch one of those drummer-with-a-heart-of-gold Finndie movies.
That's what she'd taken to calling Finn Hudson films: Finndies.
Lucy rolls her eyes and frowns.
"That's not an attractive look," the other girl offers before drinking her beer. After lowering the bottle, she squints at her friend. "You're blond again … no connection to my previous statement, by the way."
Santana gets a shrug for the effort of her observation.
"Are you mad that I didn't reply to your email?" she finally asks. She can't seem to tear her eyes away from the torn label on her beer bottle.
Lucy's brows furrow. "I don't think mad's the word …"
"Furious? Enraged? Incensed?"
The other girl laughs. "No …," she draws out the word before continuing. "More like," she clears her throat," Disappointed or … sad or …" Lucy hesitates. "Sorry, I didn't eat a thesaurus today like some people …"
Santana's eyes immediately shift to the girl leaning against the counter. "Sad, though?" she asks in disbelief – or is it hope?
"I thought we were friends," Lucy explains simply. "I know I didn't handle the identity thing so well, but I thought we could still be friends and when you so easily cut me off …"
"It wasn't easy," the other girl says under her breath.
"What?"
Santana rolls her eyes and looks away, a scowl settling on her face. "Do you have any idea how stupid you made me feel?" Her eyes are trained on the label, again, as she carefully peels it away from the glass. "Like Lois Lane, right? Not able to see Superman because of a boring hairstyle and pair of hipster glasses."
"That wasn't my intention," Lucy tries to explain. "And you have no reason to feel –"
Santana glares at her. "But I do."
The other girl swallows roughly and nods. "I'm sorry," she says. "I really never expected –"
" – to want to be friends with some online geek patrol," Santana finishes for her. "I know. You were going to troll around, get what you wanted and then disappear, right? Get people to think-" she holds up her fingers and air quotes – "Lucy is really great and then just have her go away when you got what you needed."
"I am Lucy."
"No, you're Quinn Fabray," the other girl corrects her. "Lucy doesn't exist."
Lucy huffs and crosses her arms over her chest. "That's hardly fair! What should I have done? Would you have believed me if I told you who I was? Or, even better, would you have even bothered with me?"
Santana narrows her eyes in confusion and grimaces. "What the hell does that mean? Bothered with you …"
"You made it very clear how you feel about Quinn Fabray on many occasions." Lucy's mouth is pulled down into a frown and her voice gets louder. "So, excuse me if I didn't jump right in with and I'm her."
"So you pretend to be someone else because you can't take a little criticism?" Santana accuses.
"A little?! A little? I could practically feel the venom in my veins when you wrote about me getting the role in this movie." Lucy's eyes well up but she purses her lips and juts out her chin, willing herself not to get too emotional.
"Yet you still wanted to be my friend …"
The other girl exhales. "It wasn't about being your friend. I told you – that came later. But I do," the girl strains to keep her voice steady, "I still do. That's why I wrote you the email. I wanted to you to know me because the person you were talking to online was me – I wasn't pretending to be anyone. That's me."
Santana doesn't respond. She just scoots down, rests her head against the back of the tub and closes her eyes.
"Santana …"
"Lucy Q …"
Santana's eyes remain closed.
"Is there anything I can say that will make this easier?"
The other girl hums softly as though considering her friend's question. "I really don't think so."
A loud knock against the bathroom door makes both girls jump. Lucy's hand rests against her chest as she stares wide-eyed at the door and Santana lets out a stream of expletives after she spills her beer on her jeans.
"Be nice!" Brittany says loudly.
There's a scuffle from the other side of the door and they can hear Tina stage-whisper, "You weren't supposed to say anything. Now they know we were listening … "
Brittany whispers back just as loudly, "But Santana's not apo-!"
From her place in the tub Santana shouts, "Get away from the door or you both sleep in Mike's rental car tonight!" She frowns and chances a look at the other girl. "It's a compact, so … you know."
Lucy grabs a towel and gently tosses it to her friend. "It's fine," she says. "I'm heading out anyway."
"You're leaving?" Santana asks, surprised.
The other girl glares at her. "Why would I stay? Short of some sort of ritual sacrifice, it seems there's nothing I can do to right this. What's to stay for?"
Santana points to the door. "Tina. Britts." She rolls her eyes. "You came to hang out with them, right? I mean, they asked you to hang out and you agreed. So, go – hang out. It's not like I asked you to come to the meet up or anything and you didn't, you know, show up."
Lucy clenches her jaw before stating in a deadly calm voice, "You didn't reply to my email. I told you I was emailing you. I asked you to respond if you still wanted me to go." She points at the other girl. "You didn't."
"Maybe I didn't get your email."
"You got my email, Santana."
"Did you do a read receipt?"
"You got my email. I know you did."
"How can you be so sure?" Santana challenges the other girl, a slow smirk spreading across her lips.
"Why are you making this so difficult?" Lucy finally shouts.
There's a short rap on the bathroom door and then Brittany timidly calls out, "If you knock each other's teeth out, I get your pizza, okay?"
Santana frowns and whispers harshly. "You made me look like a fool. Even worse," she adds, "you made me feel like one."
"How?" the other girl asks desperately. "My not telling you who I was … am … has nothing to do with you. Can't you see that?"
Santana looks down at her jeans and pokes the spot where her beer spilled. From the corner of her eye, she sees Lucy watching her and, with an exasperated huff, she reaches forward and pulls the shower curtain closed.
"Does this mean we're done?" Lucy asks softly as she stares at an 8-bit alien on the black curtain.
"No," the other girl replies sullenly. A hand holding an empty beer bottle pokes out from behind the curtain. "Another, please."
"Santana," Lucy says as she takes the bottle and places it on the counter behind her. She fishes out the bottle opener from the beer carton and, after popping off the cap, she pushes a full bottle into her friend's hand. "I get that you're upset that I lied – well, didn't tell the entire truth – but I was hoping we could get past it."
"Why?" Santana asks, chuckling humorlessly. "See, that's the part I just don't get. Why do you even care after what I said about you?"
Lucy grabs a beer and, after a cursory look at the toilet – honestly, it really does look very clean – opens it and takes a long drink. She grimaces after swallowing. "Your beer's not even cold."
"So. The pizza will be and that's a good counter-balance."
Lucy shakes her head and smiles. "I care because the stuff you said wasn't about me. Not really," she explains. "You don't like Quinn Fabray? Fine. You don't have to like her." She pokes her head through the curtain and looks down at her friend. "But understand that Quinn is the one who doesn't exist, okay? Lucy does. And Lucy is the one who is concerned that you don't like her anymore."
Santana looks up, her cheeks coloring slightly. After a brief moment, she clears her throat. "You're not going to Norman Bates me are you? Like, a weird Sybil version or something?"
The other girl closes the shower curtain and before her friend can say anything, she pulls it back at the opposite end of the tub. "Move your feet. I'm tired of standing."
"I told you, you get the toilet," Santana reminds her friend even as she moves her feet to make room.
"We're not that close yet," Lucy says as she slips into the tub and tries to find a comfortable position without jabbing herself in the back with the faucet. "I don't sit on the toilet in front of just anyone."
"But we're close enough to share a bath?" the other girl asks, her smirk in full effect.
Lucy chuckles. "Hardly," she says, raising an eyebrow. "I don't take baths with people who are giving me the silent treatment," she says haughtily. She juts out her chin and rolls her eyes away from her friend.
"I'm not giving you the silent treatment," Santana argues.
"You didn't answer my email," Lucy reminds the girl.
"You didn't sign in to chat."
"You didn't let me know you wanted me to."
"You didn't even try to text me."
"Again, you didn't give me a reason to think you wanted me to."
"Well, you –"
The other girl laughs. "You do realize that you're arguing with me about us taking a bath together, don't you?"
Santana's mouth snaps shut and she stares down at the bottle in her hand.
Lucy nudges her friend's leg with her own. "Silent treatment?"
The other girl rolls her eyes and tries to glare. "I'm not good at this kind of thing."
"Sitting in a bathtub, fully clothed and drinking beer?" Lucy asks, the corners of her mouth twitching. "Because you seem really good at it. Do you do this often?"
Santana grumbles, her eyes never leaving the beer label, "You're supposed to be on the other side of the curtain."
"I was kind of hoping I wouldn't have to hide anymore," Lucy says softly.
The other girl sighs. "I don't want you to hide. That's not – it's – that's not what I was saying."
"So, what were you saying?"
"Forget it."
Lucy stretches her legs out and props her feet on the edge of the tub. "I'm pretty comfortable now, so… I can wait …"
"You're not going to out-stubborn me, Lucille. It's not going to happen," Santana raises her eyebrows, challenging the other girl.
"You have a lot to learn about me," her friend answers. "And it's Lucy."
The corners of Santana's mouth curl down as she presses her lips together. "Please, you'll fold the second that beer hits your bladder."
"I'm not the one working on my second." Lucy holds up her nearly full bottle, smiling widely and raising one eyebrow in an answer to the other girl's challenge.
Santana frowns. Her friend has a point.
"So, you're mad at me because …" Lucy prompts.
"Currently? For being in my tub."
"I'll add it to the list," the other girl says. She holds up her hand and start ticking off reasons she thinks her friend is mad. "I wasn't entirely truthful – " When Santana glares at her, she defends herself, "I never pretended to be someone I wasn't. I just didn't give you important information about who I am."
"Fine."
"Okay, I wasn't entirely truthful," Lucy repeats. "I didn't contact you after sending you an email requesting that you contact me …"
Santana rolls her eyes and shakes her head.
"I don't know what else."
"You're not a very good listener, then," the other girl says, her mouth falling into a small pout.
"I'm trying. Doesn't that count for anything?"
"You put me in a place I hate to be, does that count for anything?"
"What place?" Lucy asks, exasperated. "The bathroom wasn't my idea."
Santana doesn't know how to say what it is she wants to say. If only Lucy was on the other side of the damned shower curtain things would be so much easier.
She could say that she felt badly about the things she wrote in her blog. She could say that she didn't know how to apologize without making it look like she's only apologizing because she feels like got caught doing something wrong.
And that's not the case at all. Sure, the artist has been known to rant and have blog-rage over plot twists in her favorite comic books, characters deaths in her favorite shows and, as is the issue at hand now, casting of her favorite characters in comic book movies. But after the rage dies down, there is usually a post accepting and even promoting whatever caused her to lash out in the first place.
Only twice did she let her anger-blogs stand with no follow up - and both followed WhedonThon, an annual marathon she and her friends created. Last year's marathon was Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the blog appeared after "Seeing Red" in which Willow's girlfriend was needlessly gunned down. The year before the blog was pounded out after watching Serenity and reliving Wash's death for the thirteenth time.
Santana frowns.
"Santana?" Lucy asks with an amused smile that is flirting with the idea of growing into something bigger.
"I'm thinking."
"Does it hurt?" the other girl asks with a chuckle. "You look like you're in pain."
"I was just thinking about something and – " Santana shakes her head. "It doesn't matter."
"So, this place you hate to be …"
The artist glances at Lucy to find the girl's eyes fixed on her. "Can you not look at me or something?"
"Why can't I look at you?"
"Why do you need to?"
"Fine, give me your Darth Vader duck," Lucy says as she holds out her hand.
"Duck Vader," Santana corrects her friend as she hands it over. "And he's not mine."
"Sure he's not."
Santana rolls her eyes.
"I'm not looking at you," the other girl points out to her friend. Her eyes are fixed on the duck as she pokes its little mask. "This is actually really cute …"
Santana allows herself to look at the girl sitting across from her in the tub. She can't help the smile that starts to form as she watches Lucy intensely investigate the rubber duck in her hand. The girl turns it upside down, looks under the duck-bill of the mask, squeezes it to see if it squeaks (it doesn't) – she's very thorough, indeed. The concentration she sees on Lucy's face is somewhere between amusing and adorable.
"If you're allowed to look at me, then I should be allowed to look at you."
Hazel eyes suddenly meet hers and Santana inhales sharply. "I wasn't – I was just making sure you didn't break him."
"He's made out of rubber," the other girl says.
"Still."
"I'm not going to break your duck."
"He's not mine."
Lucy rolls her eyes. "Are you going to tell me what you're upset about or are we going to talk about your – " she stops and rolls her eyes again "- not your duck?"
"I told you," Santana says, sitting up and pulling the toy out of her friend's hand. She sits back and fidgets with it. "I'm not good as this sort of thing. Maybe if I knew you were coming over, I could, I don't know, draw you a cartoon or something but … " The girl lets out a long sigh. "This kind of thing isn't for me."
"What, talking? Because we've spent the last few months talking … "
"No." Santana bites her bottom lip. "Apologizing, I guess."
Lucy's brows push together and she purses her lips. "Why would you need to apologize to me? I told you, I'm not angry about the email thing."
The other girl's eyes flit around, never once meeting her friend's. "I can admit when I'm wrong but," she stops and pushes her lips into a thin line. "I've never really had to do it like this."
"In a bathtub?"
"In person."
"Oh." Lucy eyes the shower curtain. "Do you want me to …" she points at the vinyl piece.
Santana doesn't acknowledge her friend's offer and, instead, says, "I'm not, you know, crazy or anything. Like, I know how to talk to people without hiding behind a computer. So, if you're thinking that –"
"I'm not."
"What are you thinking, then?"
"That I still don't know why you're apologizing." Lucy reaches over and pulls the duck from her friend's hands. "My turn."
Santana watches her give the toy a few experimental squeezes. "He doesn't squeak."
"I know, I figured that out."
"Then why do you keep squeezing him?"
Lucy shrugs. "Just because he doesn't squeak doesn't mean I don't want him to."
"You're weird."
"You chose to talk to me in a tub in your bathroom."
"Again, the tub was supposed to be mine," Santana comments. "I gave you the toilet."
"Are you apologizing for offering me the worst seat in the house?"
"No," her friend says, glad that Lucy is so focused on the bath toy. "Because I said some stuff – wrote some stuff – that wasn't very nice."
"I told you – "
" – and it made you feel like I wouldn't like you if I knew who you really are."
Lucy ponders her friend's words as she balances the duck on her knee cap and presses its back with her finger. "So, you didn't reply to my email, making me think you hated me," she begins, "because you felt badly that I might think you wouldn't like me anymore?"
"Well when you explain it like that …" Santana says, frowning as she snatches the duck off of her friend's knee.
"Hey! I wasn't done."
The other girl holds the bath toy over her head. "My turn. And he doesn't squeak, no matter how you press him."
Lucy leans back and lets her head rest against the tile. "So, you don't like the way I interpreted what you said?"
"I didn't say I didn't like it," the other girl says. "I just meant that, when you say it like that, it makes me sound – dumb. And, in case you don't know, it's embarrassing to sound dumb."
"It does not make you sound - " Lucy starts to argue. "It makes you sound like you care what I think about you or …" She wrinkles her nose as she thinks aloud as she lifts her head and looks at her friend, "… or that you care what I think about how you think about me? Or about what I think about-"
"You've been talking to Tina too much."
"Hey!" a voice cries out from the other side of the door before being hushed.
Brittany whispers, "I don't wanna sleep in the car tonight!"
Santana simply rolls her eyes and holds the duck up in front of her face so that, when Lucy talks to her, it looks like she's talking to the duck. "See why meeting people you know from the internet isn't all it's cracked up to be?"
"Hey!" two voices cry out.
"Away from the door!" Santana demands. Though her head is turned, she hasn't lowered the bath toy. "And I didn't meet you online, Brittany. Calm down."
Lucy lifts her head and softly laughs. "Lower your weapon so we can talk."
The other girl turns back to her friend, confused. When she sees Lucy eye the duck, she slowly lowers it. "So, does anything I've said count as an apology yet?"
"How much do you really dislike Quinn Fabray?" Lucy asks curiously. "Like, on a scale of one to –"
"Zero."
Lucy frowns. "Wait." She holds up her hand. "What is one?"
"One is," the other girl presses her lips together as she thinks. "One is 'I don't dislike her at all.' In fact, it's more on the 'she's a little bit cool' side of the spectrum."
"But you said …"
"Look, I know what I said," Santana interrupts. "I know, okay? I also wrote a scathing entry about splitting up Emma and Regina for so long but, you know, I wrote something else later about how much I'm still enjoying the show despite that fact."
"So, you like Quinn Fabray despite the fact that she's a talentless-"
"Hey, no!" the other girl points her finger at Lucy, stopping her from continuing. "I never said she was – " she stops and shakes her head, "you were talentless. I said the opposite, remember? I said you were too good for comic book movies. If anything, I was being nice."
"I recall a remark about spandex."
Santana has the presence of mind to look ashamed. She glances down at the toy in her hands and says, "I can explain that."
"You don't have to."
"I want to," she says quietly and looks up at Lucy through her lashes. "You took that movie because you wanted to break out of historical dramas, right? Well, that's not why it was offered to you. They just wanted to find some gorgeous girl to dress up in spandex, hook up to wires and fling around in front of a green screen."
Lucy smiles softly. "And you don't think I know that?"
"But there are so many girls who fit that type," Santana argues. "And that's all they do. They're just eye candy."
"Okay …"
The other girl sighs. "When you were interviewed for My Life Closed Twice, you said that you learned so much from your cast mates, those who had more experience than you. Did you even bother to watch the other interviews?"
Lucy bites her lip and shakes her head. "I didn't watch my own, actually. I don't like seeing myself on screen."
"Well, your very talented and much revered supporting actress said that she had nothing to teach you," Santana informs her. "You took risks, but smart risks. You played subtleties and she said that she often didn't go to her trailer so she could watch your scenes even if she wasn't in them. Does that sound like someone who's eye candy to you?"
"But you didn't say any of that on your blog," the other girl says after a long moment of silence.
Santana shrugs. "I was too busy with commissions and … talking to my new pal, Lucy."
"We did talk a lot." Lucy offers the girl a smile. "And this past week has kind of sucked not talking to you."
"I am kinda cool to talk to." Santana smirks and offers her friend Duck Vader.
"Kinda," the other girl repeats, holding back a laugh. "When you're not making fun of my alter ego …"
"Don't you get Sybil on me when you've got my duck."
"Your duck?" Lucy's brow quirks up.
Santana bites her lip at the wicked gleam in Lucy's eyes. "A duck that's in my bathroom." She corrects herself as she pouts and picks up her beer. "Shut up."
On the other side of the door, Tina whispers, "They're laughing. That's good!" She looks over to find her friend's mouth pulled into a deep frown. "What's wrong? It sounds like Lutana could be back on …"
"That's my duck."