Hey guys!
We'd like to apologize for the horrible delay of this fic update but you can totally blame DementedPanda's schedule.
I have actually written down at least the (very) rough draft 12 chapters of this fic but of course, I need DementedPanda's awesome brain to make this fic complete. What we can promise you is, we will definitely finish this fic, even if it will take 10 years (DementedPanda's words, dont hurt me. Hurt her XD).
As a token of our apology, here is the longest chapter yet of the fic and we hope you enjoy it. There was less fighting this time when we edited the chapter LoL
Please R&R, the more you give us critics or comments, the faster I can bribe my gf to do her parts. Also because we really appreciate your enthusiasm and they always make our days better. Cheers!
-Kenmura
It's been a week since the break up and Santana is sitting on her university's field bleachers, taking a break from cheerleading practice. It's been hell of a week to say the least but only the Ladybirds' practices can take her minds off of the break up. The U of L's cheerleaders are known to be some of the best cheerleaders in the state and have won numerous consecutive National Championships. The team wouldn't be winning all of those championships with just normal practice and for an ex-Cheerio like Santana - it's nothing new. That doesn't mean it's any easier for Santana, seeing how Coach Carrie is indeed more demented than Sue Sylvester herself.
The Ladybirds are having their break, sitting on the bleachers, chatting away with each other as Santana's mind wonders off, thinking of what happened last Monday. She went to McKinley as she promised and broke up with Brittany. Of course the blonde didn't take it well and it hurt Santana to see her best friend crying - because of her - but the break-up went more smoothly than she expected. I guess Brittany knew what was coming too.
Quinn had texted Santana again last Thursday night, asking if she had watched The Silver Linings Playbook. She remembers thinking how Blondie couldn't get any more random than that - getting an actual text about some movie from Quinn as well enduring a conversation with the blonde that mostly consisted of Quinn's psychology mumbo jumbo. Freud is a repulsive pervert. The highlight of their conversation happened, when Santana had casually compared Quinn to Jennifer Lawrence's character, with an emphasis on their shared volatile behaviour; a comment that turned their semi-neutral texts into another battle of insults.
Babbling about a movie with Quinn reminds Santana of junior year, when there was only the two of them - doing everything together. Mostly evil plots of how they would keep their reign in McKinley. The two have never really talked about personal things; it's just not who they are, but Santana has always enjoyed their shallow small talks about the latest movies, cheerleading, and music. Occasionally Quinn would quote a book she just read, which was strangely endearing, but mostly nerdy and therefore should and would always be followed by mockery: It was completely justified. Besides, she knows it's Quinn's way of showing off the fact that she reads more, let's be real, story books are for uglies and Santana only reluctantly tolerates Quinn's tendency to nerd in private.
She used to be the one to distract Quinn with parties, foolish decisions, and small but memorable moments, whenever she had sensed the other girl was being too stressed. In return, Quinn had intuitively evoked Santana's ambition whenever she had been taking things too lightly. A part of her misses it.
They might resemble territorial alpha wolves and their friendship could be seen as a clash of power, but miraculously they balance each other out.
Santana's lost in her own thoughts when Elaine intentionally brushes her hand against the Latina's lower arm.
"Daydreaming about my boobs again?", the girl playfully whispers in Santana's ear. Her breath is tickling.
Santana's caught off guard and her neck hairs are standing, but playfully responds back anyway, "Hey there, carrot-top. If I were daydreaming about you, I'd be daydreaming about your goddess-like sculptured ass and not your boobs."
Elaine chuckles, before putting her palm against Santana's forehead, "Are you okay? Since you visited Brittany you've seemed sorta off, like in a bad mood."
Santana groans her disapproval. Not that she minds the direct contact. However, she'd rather avoid the girl's question all together.
"I broke up with her", She admits, figuring she'd have to tell her friend sooner or later anyways.
"Oh, that's too bad", Elaine pulls her hand back and feels genuinely sorry for her friend. "How are you holding up?", Elaine asks again. The answer is obvious but Santana appreciates her concern.
"From what you just said, I guess not well at all", Santana manages to tug a smile.
"Well, you should've said something. I would've suggested a few physical activities to take your mind off of it."
Santana's voice catches in her throat before Elaine playfully rolls her eyes, "Physical activities like running the field every evening or accompanying me to the gym. What were you thinking about?" The redhead asks, feigning an innocent expression.
Santana looks at the girl unimpressed but amused, "You're unbelievable", she states just as her phone decides to go off. She doesn't recognize the number displayed but answers the call immediately, "Yes?"
"Uh, Hi. Santana?"
She recognizes the voice of an overly grown toddler right away, "Speaking."
"Yea..This is.. Finn. Finn Hudson? Um, I hope I'm not disturbing you." Only Finn would actually feel the need to remind another ex Glee club member of his existence.
Santana pinches the bridge of her nose. Oh my God, now what? Did I miss a letter about a McKinley reunion week?
"You are. I'm very disturbed that you're calling me. I assume you need something, so spill. What do you want, Whale-A-Saurus?"
"Gee, Santana. Nice to hear you too. I see that college hasn't changed your habit of name calling people. Anyway, you're right I have a favor to ask. If..- you don't mind."
Santana starts to feel annoyed by Finn's typical uncertain tone. If there ever a right time to call her, now would be very far from top of her list.
"I hear that even military school failed to succeed in manning you up, Ham-Beast. And yes, I would mind. Your pre-pubescent-like insecurities are already getting on my nerves."
"But, you haven't even heard what I'm going to ask you."
"I don't have to, because you annoy me. I would rather sit through all of the High School Musical movies than listen to another word coming through your mouth-breathing trap."
Several of Santana's friends are now intently looking at her with raised eyebrows. She knows how spiteful she sounds. They probably think the guy is the biggest asshole on earth, from the way she's talking, but they haven't really seen much of Santana's bitchy side.
"Yea, okay. But, this is about Glee club."
At the mention of the Glee club, Santana stops herself from wanting to just end the call. She has to admit that Glee Club had been an important part of her life throughout the years. Particularly when she considers the friends she's gained.
"I'm listening and make it fast."
Finn doesn't waste time, knowing that Santana won't hesitate to hang up if he doesn't manage to interest her.
"I'm back at McKinley helping Mr. Schue with Glee club. They're planning to do a Grease musical but something happened to our Rizzo. So I'm wondering if you're interested to fill in the part."
Santana is confused; how Finn is suddenly involved with Glee club again is a mystery to her, yet she still can't care enough to find out why that is, and instead focuses on the favor, "So, let me get this straight. You guys are doing one of the best musicals ever, but from all of the kids that currently attend McKinley, you actually asked me, an alumnus to play Rizzo."
"Yea. Exactly."
Santana can imagine that dopey expectant smile on Finn's face right now. She glances at Elaine when the redhead mouthes, "Musical?" with a surprised expression.
Santana ignores Elaine and gives Finn a faux moment of silence to think, obviously not wanting to seem too willing. "Brittany's in the play too, right?"
"Yes", Finn knows this will be in his favor, despite being unaware about the girls' recent break up.
Santana knows it's not a good idea to come back again to Lima so soon, especially if this means she will be seeing Brittany in Glee practice, but she's going to play Rizzo. Her favorite character in any musical, ever. "Fine, Finnessa. I'll do it for Brittany."
"Awesome! Mike and Mercedes are coming too. I promise you that this is going to be fun."
"I don't care, Hudson", Santana answers immediately attempting to feign apathy. Because seeing her other friends too is an added bonus. I did miss a letter about reunion week, didn't I?
"Right. Well, thanks anyway. And when can you schedule to visit Lima to rehearse your part? The opening night is really close actually", Finn's voice trails off in the end, feeling unsure about the inconvenient schedule working for Santana.
"Depends. When is the opening night? Also, one, you will be paying my expenses going back to Lima. And two, you don't tell Brittany. I'll tell her myself when I get there", She stands up when she hears Coach Carrie screaming on her megaphone, calling the cheerleaders to get back to practice. She runs down the stairs telling Finn that she has to go.
There was a brief moment of silence when Finn heard about paying expenses trip, but he realizes that he doesn't really have a choice. "Cool. We'll be in touch then." Santana imagines the grin on Finn's face before she ends the phone call.
Elaine touches Santana's shoulder to get her attention when they're finally on the side of the field, telling the Latina, "I don't think it's a good idea to return so fast while the wound is so fresh", before she turns around and runs into the middle of the field, leaving behind an anxious looking Santana.
…..
It was barely 9 o'clock on a Friday night and Quinn had almost finished all of her assignments. She even finished the two papers that are scheduled to be submitted next week. Since middle school, she discovered that burying one-self in school assignments is the best kind of distraction, and at the same time, it satisfies the perfectionist in her. The difference between school and college is, after the accident, her back really can't handle sitting for hours in the same position all tensed up.
The last couple of weeks have been quite exasperating too, even though she already ended things with Alex, she's still his assistant in psych class and for obvious reasons, she can't just drop out of the class or stop being his assistant. It will damage her psych grade. It's one of the things she wishes she had thought through, before impulsively choosing to sleep around with her professor.
There had been a close call, where he caught her off guard and kissed her, but she managed to stop it before it went any further. She had been feeling fat again that night, but this time, there was no wine cooler to blame. She reminded Alex that she wanted their fling - or whatever it was - to end. Alex initially seemed to back off , then after several meetings he began to make inappropriate advances again; brushing his hand against hers on the desk, sitting too close, sending personal texts. Quinn can't really do anything than ignore him. He's out of line and she wants to tell him off. However, she can't afford the university finding out about their affair.
She's remained active in the secret society and still finds it amusing how easily she got accepted. The group makes her feel like she belongs, which is lucky considering there is nothing more important for Quinn Fabray than to feel accepted, somewhere, anywhere. One of the new pledges, Harriet, has become quite a good friend of hers, even outside of the secret meetings they do once a week.
Her train of thoughts is distracted by a notification box on the bottom screen popping up, "Stripper is online". She bites her pen, feeling a sudden urge to call Santana, - just because. Anyways, she needs a reason to stop being a loser, who's only burying her nose in textbooks.
She clicks, "call" without really thinking and it only takes about five calls before Santana's face shows up on her screen.
"Hey", Quinn greets the Latina, her voice succeeds in maintaining a rather indifferent tone.
"Hey, you. So is this going to be a thing now?", Santana casually asks.
Quinn observes the dark-haired girl who moves to sit in front of her laptop. Santana looks dressed up, like she's ready to go out.
"What thing?"
"You calling me on Skype anytime you want."
"Last time I called was weeks ago", Quinn makes a face. She's not going to make Santana think she needs her around or anything.
"Yes, but you've texted me every other day since", Santana deadpans. She's not wrong. They have been texting each other quite a lot in-between classes. Well, a lot if Quinn is comparing their interactions to the girls' last year in high school. It's become a habit of theirs, turning casual conversations into text-offs containing nasty, but humorous insults. Somehow, Quinn always sends the first random text. A fact Quinn is completely aware of. Besides if the other girl didn't care, she wouldn't even have bothered replying.
The other day, Quinn was fortunate enough to find a tiny dead ladybird inside of her salad in the cafeteria, and automatically sent Santana a Snapchat with the picture of it and a text saying, "Is this you?". Santana, on the other end, had let out a small smile, somehow not disliking that the other girl had thought of her when discovering a dead animal inside of her lunch. Santana was amused with the excessive amount of crap Quinn would talk about, and would always return with snarky and witty comments.
"Will it be a problem then?", Quinn bites the inside of her cheek, challenging Santana with a look.
Santana is tempted to say "Yes" just in spite, but she doesn't mind at all. She likes it? Quinn's random texts are quite entertaining. And the idea of them being friends again isn't completely appalling. She hasn't failed to notice Quinn's weird distraught behavior, and chooses to ask indirectly, "So..any particular reason for you to call?"
"Not really", Quinn states as she absentmindedly starts to write on her paper again, which she doesn't realize; her defense mechanism working at full force. Santana's face-cam is still on a small window, but she doesn't pay much attention to it. Unconsciously, however, Santana's presence feels a bit as a " security blanket".
"That's not an answer, Fabray. And if we're gonna do this thing, you need to actually look at me", Santana spits out and sits back on her chair, crossing her arms.
Quinn takes a deep breath, fidgeting on her chair for the fifth time since she started the call. She finally looks at the face-cam before answering. She doesn't really like to talk about her back pain, because the usual response from people has the kind of sympathetic tone that makes her feels uncomfortable.
"I'm too...jiggy. I need to calm down", Quinn makes up a quick lie.
"Jiggy?" Santana tilts her head, can't help remembering the naughty definition of the word.
"Yea, like that song 'Getting jiggy with it, nananananana...'" Oh God, now I remember why I try to stop being a liar. I say all the stupid things.
The Latina raises her eyebrows and almost snorts, "I know what jiggy is. Did you just make a reference to a Will Smith song?"
"Oh shut up, Santana."
"So what's that suppose to mean? Are you horny?"
Now it's Quinn's turn to raise her eyebrow.
"What? It's what the word means.. Google it", Santana defends herself, still grinning widely.
"It's not that. I mean, somehow I can't sit still and I seem to end up finishing a lot of my papers whenever I return to my dorm", Quinn shifts again on her chair and decides to grab the pillow from the bed, propping it behind her and using it as a back cushion. She then continues to type on her paper, hoping Santana won't start to pry her about the actual reason.
Santana eyes her suspiciously, "Are you using? Has the great Quinn Fabray become a coke-head?"
"God, Santana. You actually think I would do drugs, let alone snort coke?"
"..Coming from the girl who dyed her hair pink, got a nose ring, joined with The Skanks losers and got the Ryan Seacrest tramp stamp in senior year? I don't even wanna know what other freaky shit you've done behind our backs", Santana throws her hands up in disbelief.
"Touché", Quinn's unconsciously touching where the nose ring was.
Santana chuckles briefly, then tries to guess yet again, "So what you're trying to say is you're hyper?"
For a moment it seems like it is the word Quinn's looking for, "Right, hyper. But it's not that either."
Quinn sighs before giving in, "I'm.. frustrated."
"Because..?", Santana probes. The brunette knows if Quinn has symptoms of an ADHD pre-schooler, there's gotta be something on her mind that she can't shake off.
"I don't want to talk about it."
"Wow, not predictable at all", Santana exhales. "Alright, I know what can make you feel better."
Quinn frowns to Santana's face-cam. She remembers the last time she heard Santana utter those words and how she completely embarrassing herself by thinking the other girl was offering some kind of sexual activity. Which, to be perfectly honest, wouldn't be the worst thing to have happened. Minus Brittany in the equation at least.
Santana takes off her denim jacket and Quinn quickly responds over her best judgment, "Whoa there tiger, I've told you once that I'm not that into that."
Santana laughs as she rests her denim jacket on the back of the seat, then stretches her arms together in front of her, "You are so full of yourself, Quinn. I was just got back to my room when you called me and it's beyond hot in here. I feel like I just made out with Hades. Anyway, here's what I meant."
Santana types something on her laptop, clicks some things and pastes a link to the chat window. She thinks Quinn could use some distractions too tonight.
"What's this?", Quinn clicks on the link and the browser opens to an online mini games page. "Oh my God, Santana, you're such a loser. Are you seriously telling me to play computer games?"
"You can call me a loser, Barbie. But if you lose over this game, I have all the rights to call you names, as you officially got your sweet ass owned by no other than Santana Lopez", Santana puts on her best smug face. She definitely knows how to push Quinn's buttons and she knows that Quinn will never ever back down from a challenge. Especially if it's against her.
And exactly like Santana predicted, Quinn looks straight at the camera, feeling incredibly challenged, "Oh it's on, Santana. Now tell me how we're going to do this." The blonde straightens her sitting position.
"It's pretty simple actually. All you have to use is the mouse to move around the little people. The red clothes will be yours and the blue ones will be mine. Here's the catch, you can only control the right leg and I'll be controlling the left leg. The Q buttons to insert the balls to the right circle and the W to insert the balls to the left circle."
"How is this a competition when you can sabotage my turn by not moving your leg? Why are there two circles? And wow the mouse is very sensitive to the movements."
Santana rolls her eyes before continuing, "I'm not done explaining, Quinn. One of the circles will light up and that's the circle where we have to put the balls in. Yes, we're going to have to work together on the legs, but the movements will be completely on our own. Hence the sensitive mouse you talked about. The scoring will be based on how fast you can get the balls in by helping your opponent. You get that?"
Quinn is listening intently while looking between the screen, the mouse and the keyboard, trying out what Santana just explained to her. She just hums Santana a confirmation that she understands.
The first round begins, it's Quinn's turn and the little red person keeps on falling off flat on it's face because, turns out, controlling it is very difficult. Especially when Santana is not doing her part on moving the left leg.
"Stop cheating and move that damn leg", Quinn snaps at Santana.
Santana grins, watching as Quinn is still trying to excel at the mechanism of the game.
The blonde dramatically looks up at the face-cam, her expression unmistakably annoyed by the game, when she sees Santana smiling at her, "What?"
"Nothing, I'm enjoying your frustrated face."
Quinn rolls her eyes before focusing back to her screen and her keyboard. "I'm so going to kick your ass in this, Lopez."
…one hour later…
"PUT IT IN! NOW! OH GOD, SANTANA! DONT STOP PRESSING IT!"
"NO! WRONG HOLE! RIGHT THERE! FOLLOW MY LEAD, FOR GOD SAKE, FABRAY! YES! THAT'S IT!"
"NO! YOU HAVE TO LIFT UP YOUR LEG FIRST! JESUS! YES! YES!", Quinn yells excitedly as Santana manages to drop the ball in the correct circle and they both end up laughing.
Quinn fails to notice that they have already been playing the game for more than an hour. Every time Santana has managed to obtain a score higher than hers, she just couldn't give up. She's completely forgotten whatever was hovering in her head an hour ago.
"Damn, Quinn. You just have to win, don't you?" Santana comments, still focusing on trying to make her character move forward to the light up circle.
"You were the one who challenged me. You knew how this would end."
"Hell, I was just trying to cheer you up", Santana presses the Q button but fails to drop the ball under the time limit.
"Yes!" Quinn fists the air when she sees the ball rolls over. The other girl only throws Quinn the stinky eye for a split second, before directing her attention to the game again.
"You do realize you are the one who just lost a point right? Again.", Santana is practically growling when she says it. She doesn't realize that she's just as competitive as her blonde friend.
Quinn is suddenly surprised by a knock on her door.
She doesn't really want to answer the door, but from the volume of her last outburst, she can't possibly pretend to be out or sleeping.
"Hold on. Someone's on my door", Quinn gets up, ignoring Santana's whine; muttering something about the game and how it cannot be paused. She opens the door and sees Ashley, a friend of hers whose room is across from her own.
"Dear, I know you're having one of the best nights of your life, but can you tone it down a bit? It's pretty loud", Ashley says half whispering.
"Oh, I'm sorry, Ash. I didn't realize I was that loud. I guess I was too excited", Quinn says apologetically, finally realizing the disturbance she made.
Ashley peeks inside, specifically glancing to Quinn's bed, and says with a smirk, "So where is this Santana guy? Is he in the bathroom?"
"What? Oh, no, Santana is not a guy. She's an old friend from high school."
Ashley's face emits a clear show of surprise, until she lightly punches Quinn on the arm. "Wow, I wouldn't have guessed that you play for the other team. Now I need to see the girl."
Quinn frowns, beyond confused by the other girl's comment. It takes her a couple of seconds, when it finally sinks in what Ashley had meant, and she's about to clear it up when Santana's voice from her laptop cuts her off, "Fabray, can you just tell whoever your guest is to scram, because my hands are seriously starting to cramp now. I need to even the score."
Ashley's eyes darts to Quinn's laptop and her eyebrows jumps under her blonde bangs, "Whoa..I didn't even know that cyber-sex could be that exciting. She's hot by the way. Now I'm just gonna let you go back to your girlfriend but keep it a bit down this time, yeah?" The girl waves at Quinn and walks back to her room.
Quinn stands in utter shock; mortified at the incident. She covers her face in embarrassment, feeling her cheeks burning. Ashley's last comment had caused certain mental images to pop up in her mind. Her face is flustered, and she's surely unable to say anything that would help her. She locks the door, walks over and sits back into her chair and scowls at Santana.
"What?", The brunette asks half-heartedly, she's is completely oblivious of the incident and continues to rant; saying how Quinn intentionally walked away when it was Santana's turn to score a point.
"I demand a re-match, but not tonight because my wrists are hurting", Santana massages her right wrist as she speaks.
"Fine. But it's obvious that I won this round", Quinn sighs still recovering from the heat that had crept up her neck and to her cheeks. If Ashley had heard them, it's safe to assume the girls' whose rooms are located on each side of her room had too.
"By cheating."
"Look at the points, Santana. I keep getting a higher score, because I was always able to drop the balls faster than you."
Santana laughs before answering her, "Damn right you always do."
"Very mature", Quinn deadpans.
"Okay, I'm sorry. I'll be waiting for our next match", Santana smiles.
"How do you even get these games? This is more like Brittany's thing."
Santana's face visibly fell upon the mention of her ex-girlfriend, "Yea, it is Brittany's thing. We like.." liked, she almost adds a 'd' to the word, too aware of the word's past tense, before continuing "..to play once in a while when we're talking through Skype."
"How is she?", Quinn notices the change in Santana's bearing.
"She's doing really well. She's the captain of the Cheerios now and is getting more parts in Glee club. Which, frankly, is about time."
Quinn nods, and an awkward moment passes by, neither knowing what to say, until Santana informs Quinn that she broke up with the taller blonde.
Quinn is genuinely surprised, when she hears Santana blurt out the words. If there were a couple from Glee club that she considered actually having a chance of lasting, it would be Brittany and Santana.
"I'm sorry to hear it, Santana."
She won't pry the reason of the break up because it's not her business. "It's weird though. Rachel finally broke up with Finn too, though we all know that relationship should have ended at least two years ago. It's like everyone can't wait to move on from high school. It's only five months since we graduated."
"Five months is enough to know if a relationship works out or not, Quinn. But how do you know about Rachel so much? I mean, I'm happy for Rachel. It's just about time before Finn will go overboard on his self-pity now that he's unemployed." Santana appreciates that Quinn is not pushing her to talk about the break up. Which one of the things she likes from the blonde. They both just know when it's time to shut up. When their emotions are in check, that is.
"Oh, Rachel sends me this weekly update about her and Kurt through email", Quinn flips her hand non-chalantly; casually failing to mention that she responds the emails weekly too.
"Interesting. Of all the people from high school, you stay in touch with Yentl? You really kept that promise with her, huh?" Santana remembers the last time they hang out together and talked about how they think college life will be, Quinn mentioned that she and Rachel are going to try to keep in touch, even as far as getting a train ticket for the animal sweater lover. Santana always suspected there's something more about it that Quinn just wouldn't admit, but brushed it off whenever Quinn jumped to her newest boy toy.
Santana visibly shudders at the thought of Quinn getting freaky with the Hobbit.
Quinn shrugs, "She's more tolerable through emails than in person. At least with email you can pause and have a break from her rambling."
"Amen for that. I mean knowing you, I already have a preview what it's like to be a friend of a yapper. I mean, Jesus."
"What is that suppose to mean? If I'm a yapper, you're not any better Santana Lopez."
"Pft, yea right. I rarely say more than like, two sentences when I talk to people. I know how not to waste people time."
"It's because you only have the brain to form two sentences at a time", Quinn says lazily while looking at her fingernails.
"I swear, Quinn if you're here right now, I would already slap you."
Quinn only respond with smirk. "How do you know Finn is unemployed by the way? Isn't he in the army?"
"Oh I saw him when I was back in Lima. He was helping the Glee club with this Grease production. Apparently his army days are over because he shot himself on the foot. No surprise there. He's fine though. He doesn't need to borrow a wheelchair, in case you're wondering." This time Santana is the one leaving out the detail about her being part of the production.
The Glease show was a success and she had a great time. She only needed to go back to Lima once (paid by Finn) right before the opening night. Things had seemed too normal being around Brittany, it was so fast since their break up and neither had any desire to mention it.
Up until the show started at least, when Brittany approached her behind the stage. The ditzy blonde hadn't just mentioned about how she missed her, she had also propositioned the idea of the two getting back together. Although it killed Santana, she turned her down.
She had sung her big number and channeled her emotions through the lyrics, with a glance at Brittany, realizing that she had to move on and she couldn't keep holding on to the past. Elaine was rarely wrong and this was no exception.
"Wait, weren't you in that show too? I just remember Rachel mentioning it in the email. You were playing Rizzo's part and she said, I quote 'Even though it wasn't a particularly memorable performance, but she did hit every note sufficiently.'" Quinn's question brought Santana back from her thoughts.
"Hey! Considering I only practiced the night before the opening show, I did brilliantly. And that hairy loud-mouthed dwarf needs to learn when to shut up", Santana states grudgingly with a grimace.
"I'm sure you did great, Santana. You've always nailed your part", Quinn admits, sporting an honest smile at the brunette, who's taken aback a bit and is oddly flustered by the other girl's genuine compliment. Santana rarely receives compliments from Quinn and when she does, she feels accomplished, in a sense. Santana loathes feeling second in command, although, if Quinn Fabray is the one behind the wheel, she might just tolerate it, seeing how it's basically it's Jesus himself - herself.
The Latina stretches before getting up and lie on her bed. She moves her monitor's camera so it's facing her.
"Tired?"
"A little bit", Santana puffs her pillow under her head so it feels more comfortable. She can feel her tiredness catching up on her fast.
"Just one more question then. I'm wondering, on Christmas holiday, maybe we could hang out? I can stay in Louisville, knowing that you've been going back and forth Lima a lot. If you don't have any plan that is", Quinn adds quickly.
If Santana is surprised with Quinn's idea, she doesn't show it, "Sure. That could be fun. I mean, I guess there are worse things than listening to your non-stop blabbering. And no, I haven't got any plans for Christmas."
"I just don't want to stay in Lima too much. The upcoming Thanksgiving will be enough for family time."
"I know what you mean."
Judging from Santana's effort to keep her eyes open and the dragged out replies, basically muttering her words, Quinn expects the other girl to pass out fairly soon. She knows Santana and a tired Lopez is far from being able to make a coherent conversation soon enough.
"Aren't you suppose to change or clean up first?"
"Too tired and I showered earlier."
"Gross."
Santana ignores the other girl as her eyes drop - glued together.
"I'm gonna let you rest then. We'll talk about Christmas later."
"Mhmm." Santana lets go a yawn and waves weakly to the camera. She doesnt even have the energy left to reach to the keyboard on the desk to end the call.
Quinn waits a moment and watches her friend's features softening, the rise and fall of the brunette's chest displaying that her breathing getting heavier, suggesting that she's already asleep. Quinn thinks how silly it is that Santana Lopez, of all people, is the one making her feel a little bit better that night.
"Goodnight, Stripper", the blonde whispers, a small relaxed smile forming at the creek of her lips. She then clicks the red End Call button.