A/N: I know it's been a long time since I posted the first chapter. I've had this one written for about two weeks now, but I decided to take a beta reader on board because the story is very different from my others. It took a bit of polishing, but here it is.

Thanks for your amazingly helpful advice, Heather!

To those who reviewed - thank you so much! This one will be a bit of a long ride and I hope you'll keep reading and reviewing!

The dusk shrouds Santana's room in a strange light. The vague, blurry blue of the sky chases away any trace of the deep darkness that preceded it. Santana is still wide awake. She can barely hold her eyes open and has to stifle a yawn every five minutes, but she can't fall asleep. Not with Quinn lying next to her, dishevelled and steadily breathing. Lightly snoring. A calming snore, not an annoying one, she muses.

Santana rolls her eyes at her own thoughts. Pathetic. She knows that if it were anyone but Quinn, she'd be so vexed that she'd wake the other person up to kick them out. But who is she kidding? This is Quinn Fabray and for as long as she can remember, it has been like this – Santana Lopez, so easily riled up, can put up with anything if it comes to Quinn.

She decides to make herself useful and stands up, stretching her lithe body before she enters the bathroom. She grabs a few Advils and then goes downstairs to retrieve a bottle of water and a glass.

A few hours later, Quinn is still sleeping soundly. Santana doesn't want to stare. She wills herself not to stare. She forbids herself, but she can't help it. Her hormones are raging, she can feel them surging through every fiber, almost hear them. Her eyes rake over Quinn's body, taking in every perfect curve, dimple, mark, scar. Quinn was a tomboy once, before it was deemed inappropriate by her parents. Santana breathes heavily. She leans over to her, plays with her hair, softly. Stroking it, wrapping it around her finger, careful not to tug at it. Her eyes take in her lips from up close hungrily. Parted slightly, glistening – although that might be her mind playing tricks on her. So, so ready to be kissed. It takes everything she has not to give in to her overwhelming desire. She imagines those lips in places – no, no, she can't go there. She presses her thighs together in frustration. Slick.

Quinn, for all her scheming and calculating every move, word, gesture when awake, is very predictable in her routines, especially those that occur subconsciously. She always wakes up slowly. It takes her a long time to actually get into the world of the living. They've had enough sleepovers for Santana to know the process by heart – because Santana never slept during those sleepovers. She has always found it impossible to let herself fall into a deep slumber if her friend was lying beside her, looking so fucking angelic it was surreal. So when Quinn flexes one arm, shifts her body a little, mumbles something and yawns, Santana takes that as her cue.

She descends the stairs again and heads back into the kitchen. Her mind is foggy with fatigue as she reaches blindly for the bottled water. The state she's in, Quinn will need a lot of it. She grabs as much as she can hold and brings it upstairs.

Quinn doesn't get drunk often. She must be having the hangover from hell. Santana enters the room and sure enough, Quinn is awake. She's facing the door, the blanket pulled over her, reaching to her shoulders. She eyes Santana, but no emotion is conveyed. Santana sets the tray on her vanity and walks over to the bed, sitting down. The bed bounces lightly, squeaks, breaking the thick silence more than the footsteps have done. Suddenly, Quinn seems to be wide awake.

"So loud," she mumbles, groaning. Santana wishes her mind – or rather her body – would not notice how fucking hot that groan is. She focuses on pouring a glass of water and handing it to her friend along with one of the pills.

"Have this, it'll help," Santana whispers softly, scooting over closer. She knows that to Quinn, it probably still sounds like she's using Sue Sylvester's infamous megaphone. If Quinn's facial expression is anything to go by, that's not a false assumption.

Quinn takes a sip, lets the water go around her mouth and swallows. She takes a pill and now takes a larger sip, finishing the glass of water in one go. She attempts to sit up, but falls back immediately. Santana grabs a few spare pillows, slips her arm under Quinn's back, willing herself not to feel her body. She feels like she's on fire, the close proximity does so much to her it really is ridiculous. As she holds her friend up, she quickly arranges the pillows. Quinn falls back against them and immediately presses her body into the welcoming softness.

She sits there silently for a while. The squeak of the bed has long lost its effect and Santana can almost see how she's retreating to that place between sleep and wake again. Finally, Quinn turns her head and looks at Santana as if she has never seen her before. Then, a flash of recognition. Slowly, the puzzle pieces start to fit. They click together. Santana can see it happening in her eyes.

"Santana," Quinn finally states, her voice hoarse.

"Quinn."

"What am I doing here? What happened?"

"Party last night. You got so fucking drunk I brought you to my place. My parents are away for the weekend and Diego is in Chicago. I didn't want to bring you back to your home, to your parents. You're staying here today."

"So many words," Quinn complains, scrunching her nose. She sighs. Gulps. "I'm falling."

"No, you're not," Santana replies patiently.

Quinn rolls away from the pillows, throwing the blanket off of her. "Lie there."

"What?"

"Do it. The way I was. You do that."

Linking the words to a message that actually makes sense, Santana stands up and walks to the other side of the bed. She settles against the pillows and next thing she knows, Quinn is draping her body over Santana's. Her arms around Santana's waist, her cheek resting against her shoulder, her legs around Santana's.

Santana stiffens. Then she remembers. Quinn is cuddly when she can't think or reason. When the world is a blur, a vague mess, nearly devoid of sound. Santana uneasily wraps her arms around Quinn's body, not used to this level of intimacy. Wanting a level of intimacy way beyond this one.

Later, she promises herself. She's glad she spent the night rehearsing her speech. The speech she has been thinking up since April. She realizes that if it goes wrong, this is the closest to Quinn she will ever get. She wraps her arms around her a little tighter.

They lie there like that for a while. Santana refuses to think, refuses to let her mind wander where it shouldn't go. She softly strokes Quinn's back and she purrs appreciatively. Santana closes her eyes, takes in a sharp breath. Fuck. Her heart is beating so rapidly, so hard that she is one hundred percent sure that Quinn must hear her. If she does, she doesn't let it on.

Santana doesn't care that Quinn stinks of sweat, sleep, alcohol. Quinn is in her arms, wrapped around her. She fights the tears in her eyes. I'm Santana Lopez. I don't cry. A Lopez never cries.

After a while, Quinn gathers her bearings completely. She announces that she's going to take a shower. Santana tells her she knows her way around the place. As Quinn leaves her bedroom, Santana doesn't move. She hears the shower, but doesn't move. She breathes through her nose. Doesn't move. Forces her mind to stop imagining Quinn naked, water running over her body. Of course, she can think of nothing else. She slips her hand under the elastic band of her shorts. It doesn't satisfy her the way she needs it, and the fact that she has to be quiet doesn't help either, but it will have to do.

Most of the rest of the day is passed in relative silence. They have brunch together and Quinn asks if Santana has slept at all. Santana says she hasn't and Quinn asks no questions. It's an unwritten rule between them not to ask too many questions. If one of them wants to share, they'll share. No prying. They have to put up with enough prying from others as it is.

They go out to the park to get some fresh air. They feed the ducks and Santana thinks of Brittany, then pushes away the thought. She doesn't like to think about Brittany when she's with Quinn, afraid that the guilt she feels deep down will show on her face. Quinn can read her like nobody else can and even though she won't press for answers, any small indication towards the truth is more than Santana can handle.

They go back to Santana's house and Quinn seems to have recovered. They're sitting in Santana's room again. Quinn is surfing around on the internet, checking her e-mails and some websites. She turns to show Santana something and it's then that Santana thinks she'll break and make her proposition to Quinn. She takes a deep breath, even says her name, but then Quinn is distracted and Santana loses courage. She wills her heart to stop pounding in her chest and focuses on the magazine in her lap again, as if nothing is going on. For the next couple of days, she keeps doing this.

It's only a week later that a moment presents itself again. A week of pure and utter agony because the lack of school means she couldn't distract herself by bullying some losers. They're at Santana's house again. They're lying on her bed, next to each other but not touching each other.

Quinn is talking about Finn. Talking about how awkward he is and that she doesn't know what he thinks about anything because he doesn't talk very much and when he does, half of the time he says something so stupid or ill-timed that she wants him to shut up again.

"Have you guys had sex yet?" Santana asks, suddenly out of the blue to Quinn, but it's all she's been wanting to ask ever since the conversation got to Finn. Santana knows the answer, but that doesn't matter. She needs to hear it.

"No," Quinn says, sounding a bit annoyed. "And now he's off to Hawaii for two months, as a trainer on that camp. Hawaii, Santana. He'll be surrounded by hot chicks in skimpy bikinis who will undoubtedly be amazing in bed and more than willing to let him know, and to show him."

"Does it bother you that you're inexperienced?" Santana asks, trying to sound casual. Her heart is nearly going in overdrive as she gets closer and closer to her goal.

"Yes," Quinn admits. "I mean, I want to be good for him, you know? I want it to be great. I want him to want me even more after we do it for the first time."

Santana wants to ask why, because Finn's basically a douche, but she doesn't. It's not relevant. It would only lead them to digress from where this conversation is going – exactly the direction she needs it to go.

Santana's body is nearly shaking, boiling, on the verge of snapping as she clears her throat, closes her eyes briefly, opens them again, then huskily says: "I can help you."

Quinn says nothing and Santana says nothing. Neither knows what to think. Santana can't stand the silence, all the words it speaks, the endless possibilities of its meaning. She repeats herself. "I can help you. I can help you... gather experience." She choses her words carefully, staying well within line, treading carefully.

"How?" Quinn asks, bluntly. What is she supposed to say? Think? Conclude?

Santana shifts her body slightly, now facing Quinn. She finds it hard to think, can't remember her speech. Her voice is thick as she continues. "I know this will sound creepy and maybe even pervy, but I just really want to help my friend out. If you really want to be good for him, great for him, I can teach you things." She hesitates, but only for a few seconds. "I can show you things. About... about sex. It wouldn't mean anything. I would just be... easing your body into it, so it wouldn't be tense, and telling you stuff and showing you stuff you can do to make it better for him."

Santana feels awful, but there's no way back. She doesn't know what to do with herself under Quinn's searching, piercing gaze. She knows she's being selfish. She knows she's lying to Quinn. She knows that all she wants is to make love to Quinn until she forgets her own name, her own existence, until she can't think or speak coherently and only see stars and feel catapulted into another world where nothing is ever the same again. She wants to take Quinn, all of Quinn. She wants to crawl into her, give everything she has to her. She wants to fill her and empty her and worship her and punish her for all the pain and the frustration that have been accumulating over the years.

The silence is killing her. Silence is what she's used to, especially with Quinn, and under any other circumstances she'd find the normalcy comforting, but not now. For the first time in her life, she doesn't fear words but craves them, needs them more than she needs air.

What feels like a lifetime later, Quinn opens her mouth. Sound. Lips moving. Santana is so focused on the vision that she can't hear the answer. She blinks. Quinn nudges her. She looks up, into Quinn's eyes. Quinn repeats herself.

"Okay."

"Okay?" Santana asks, baffled. She never thought it would be this easy. She thought she would have to convince Quinn, coax her into this with her smooth words and conniving ways. Be the worst part of herself to feed the worst part of herself. The part of her that doesn't deserve Quinn taking all the purity she is convinced Quinn possesses. For a moment, she panicks. She hadn't planned for it to happen like this. She's thrown off guard.

"Santana?" Quinn's voice sounds like it comes from far, far away. "I feel terrible right now, but later. You can... teach me later."

"Okay."

"Okay."

"I'm sorry, I have to... maybe... do you... uhm... I'm just going to... feed Fergus." Fergus is her goldfish. Diego won him at some stupid fair and he was so damn proud that Santana didn't have the heart to flush him down the toilet, as one would expect from Santana Lopez.

Quinn knows it's a lame excuse to leave the room, but she doesn't say anything. She needs some time herself to let this settle in. She's going to have sex with Santana and try as she might, she can't help but long for it. She takes another Advil. She doesn't want to contemplate what that feeling even means.