It happens in slow motion.

It's not like Santana is staring at her legs or anything. It's just, she has good form and Santana appreciates good form and of course, it's kind of her job to work out how she can turn good form into fucking fantastic form.

So, they're at practice and she's just looking and because she's just looking, she catches the subtle ripple of muscles as they give into the pressure of holding up her weight.

She wants to scream out to Quinn to be careful when the wave starts in her upper thigh; she tries to yell to Julian to hold tighter before it makes its way to her ankle but the words stick to her throat and her feet are moving before she can even process what a really fucking bad idea her body is plotting.

And then Quinn is crashing on top of her.

And it hurts like a motherfucker.

"Jesus!"

She feels like she's been tackled by a football player.

Even worse, a sumo wrestler.

Maybe even a freight train.

She knows the rest of the squad are surrounding them. She can hear Julian's startled apologizes, as well as worried jumbles of "are you ok?" and then their Coach is telling everyone to give them space and take twenty while she summons the team doctor.

Even Julian leaves upon Coach Reyes' requests which Santana really hoped he wouldn't because now they're alone.

Now she's gonna have to come up with some bullshit excuse about why she did that.

Now she's gonna have to figure out why she did that.

"Jesus!" Quinn echoes Santana's earlier exclamation. "What were you thinking, Santana?"

Oh God. Here it goes.

"I mean," Quinn rolls off of her, although her hands are still on her, restless, fawning over her.

That's more like it.

"God, are you ok?" she touching her all over, like somehow her brief touch can assess if anything is broken or damaged beyond repair. Nothing is, Santana kind of feels all heavy all over but nothing's damaged, she sure of it. Ok, well, maybe her psyche is a bit, but as long as Quinn doesn't fixate on the why, then she's sure that can be fixed.

"Did I hurt you?"

She's about to shake her head no, but then the most peculiar thing happens—Quinn's hand stills. Like completely stops with her knuckles just brushing the underside of Santana's breast.

Santana arches an eyebrow at the blonde.

She's pretty sure Quinn doesn't roll like that. Not the her being a girl thing—she's always kind of thought Quinn secretly rolled like that—but the unsuspectingly groping people thing. Like that's not Quinn's style at all.

Quinn ignores her though, her own eyebrows furrowing as her knuckles press closer into supple flesh.

Santana has a snarky comment on the tip of her tongue—like a hilarious one that involves a closet and high school and Rachel Berry— but Quinn speaks before she can get it out.

"San, did you get your implants removed?"

She slaps Quinn's hand away so quickly that her own fingers sting from it.

"Maybe," she grits out, face blazing with embarrassment.

She's not embarrassed about getting the implants per se but she can't say that was a time in her life she was particularly proud of.

In fact, all she can really say that was particularly noteworthy about her getting the implants in the first place was being demoted to bottom of the pyramid, that fight with Quinn about her getting demoted to bottom of the pyramid and Quinn apologizing a week later, her eyes all soft and contrite, as she explained that she was worried about her, and not because of the surgery—although the dangers of that worried her too—but because she couldn't really understand why Santana felt the need to do that to herself.

And Santana couldn't understand why Quinn felt the need to get knocked up by Puckerman.

And that was that.

"That wasn't a soft landing at all," Quinn remarks, rubbing her elbow that collided head-on with Santana's collarbone.

"Yeah," Santana agrees, finally managing to sit up without it feeling like her lungs are twisting. "Well, I didn't know you weighed as much as a baby elephant, Q,"

Quinn laughs and it catches Santana off guard, again, the way moments of happiness just seem to burst forth from her and wrap tight around Santana until she tingles.

"I guess you are fine," Quinn chuckles, eyes rolling.

And she is. There's residual pain from the fall and her collarbone still kind of stings but she can move everything just fine and she's prepared to say it and keep saying it the moment Coach Reyes comes bursting back through the gym doors with Dr. Fontaine in tow.

As if Quinn can read her mind, she grins shaking her head lightly.

"You're not gonna let the doctor check you out, are you?"

Santana smirks; Quinn knows her better than she thought.

"Not a chance in hell," she agrees.

Quinn smirks this time, offering a hand to help Santana up.

Santana takes it.

"Wanna ditch?" Quinn asks, mischief curling her lips into an insidious smirk.

Seriously, Santana doesn't even have to think twice about that. She's halfway through a text message telling Julian to tell Coach that they're fine and just going to "rest" before Quinn even gets the whole question out.

And, she's halfway to the door already when Quinn surprises her with another laugh.

"What?" she asks, half-annoyed because Quinn's moving so slowly and more annoyed by the fact that Quinn keeps catching her off guard with her laughter.

"Nothing," Quinn murmurs through her laughter, shaking her head as if shaking out her intrusive thoughts. "Just remembered that time we ditched practice in our freshman year,"

Santana rolls her eyes but chuckles nonetheless.

"We had to run extra laps for weeks when Coach Sylvester found out your ankle was anything less than broken," she recalls.

Quinn nods, shrugging slender shoulders.

"Wouldn't change that either," she says, words reflective of their drunken conversation a week or so ago.

They haven't spoken of that conversation since but Santana's sure of what Quinn's implying.

"You wouldn't change that? Even after having to run all those laps?" She asks, incredulous. They hadn't even done much after they took off; they just went back to Santana's house and talked.

Oh.

They talked, like two people could talk before the pressure, before their battle for cheerleading captaincy, before the betrayals and backstabbing, before Santana was terrified of herself, terrified of saying anything to or near Quinn that didn't involve an insult of sorts.

Before they were not-really-friends.

"First time you'd ever called me your friend; still haven't gotten you to say it again since then," Quinn teases.

Santana rolls her eyes but chuckles.

"Don't get your hopes up on hearing it again, Q,"

/

Apparently, almost being injured calls for a party.

Well, it wasn't a party exactly but at least half of the squad had stopped by to check in on her and Quinn—she's still kind of disconcerted that they just knew they'd find Quinn at her apartment, but whatever—which lead to them all huddling around in her living room to watch movies.

The last person—Julian, of course—just left and now it's just her and Quinn again.

Not for long though. Santana can already feel her eyes dropping from exhaustion or at least, she wishes exhaustion would just seize her and carry her to sleep but the sharp pain in her collarbone is seizing her instead.

It's not that bad. It's not like that omg-it's-broken kind of pain, but it's the kind of sting from pressing down too hard and too long; the kind of sting it'd be stupid to even take a pain killer for.

She presses her fingers into the flesh experimentally, wincing when the pain spreads.

That attracts Quinn's attention.

"It still hurts?" Quinn asks softly.

Santana hums a diffident confirmation.

"Let me take a look,"

And that's when the exhaustion screws her because she tries to jerk out of Quinn's reach but her sluggish movement only seems to make it easier for Quinn to straddle her thighs and tug her shirt collar down until the purplish bruise is uncovered.

Quinn gasps in shock, fingertips just lightly tracing around the bruise.

"Santana, it's bruised pretty badly," she murmurs, concern etched into the lines of her forehead.

Santana rolls her eyes.

"Yeah, well, your elbow isn't exactly all cushion, Quinn,"

"Yeah, I know that, San. It's just—" She's staring at the bruise, eyes following the movement of her thumb as she gently massages around the area.

There's more than concern in her eyes, there's something Santana can't quite name or pinpoint except she knows it's there; it's in the subtle downward curve of her lips and it's bleeding through the hazy strokes of green dashing through hazel.

It's bleeding between them.

In fact, it's suffocating between them because it's only now—now that she can actually see the surges of green in Quinn's eyes—that she realizes how close they are.

Close enough that they're sharing the same pocket of air.

Close enough that whatever is brimming through Quinn right now is filling her up too.

She's on the verge of exploding from it.

"Just what, Quinn?" she hates how her voice comes out sounding pained even though it doesn't hurt; Quinn's circles have edged in on the bruise, but it doesn't hurt.

"Just—" she feels a little better when Quinn's voice comes out with the same breathless strain. "Just why? What were you thinking? You could have broken something. You could have—"

"I didn't want you to get hurt,"

Maybe tiredness works in the same way as drunkenness; maybe that's why the words slip from her lips before her brain even measures them for validity. Maybe that's why the "duh, so I wouldn't have to host anymore tryouts" that she thinks up after won't pull from her vocal cords the way she wills them to.

Maybe that's why she can't seem to stop her eyes from roaming over the supple curve of Quinn's lips.

They're close; so close.

If it were any other girl on the squad, she thinks she'd be having awesome "I-saved-your-life-you-should-be-extremely-grateful sex right now, but it's not any other girl.

It's Quinn.

And Quinn's lips are so closed to hers that she can practically feel the stickiness of her lip gloss.

It's Quinn but she's leaning forward anyway, so close that she's practically inhaling Quinn's breath from her lungs.

So close that she can practically feel a gust of air breeze across her face from the quick flutter of Quinn's eyelashes.

So close that—

"Oh God. I—" Quinn hurls herself off of Santana's lap, eyes wild with panic. "I—I'm gonna get you some ice,"

So close that she very nearly just kissed Quinn Fabray…

Maybe tiredness really does work in the same way as drunkenness.

Woah, close one right?

Hey guys, I'm glad you guys like the agonizingly slow killer pace of this story but I FINALLY advanced it some lol hope you guys like it!

Please review!

Also, as usual, you can hit me up at: downlikeyourinternet (.) tumblr (.) com