It takes a day for that gnawing feeling of dissemblance to set in.

It's been two weeks and Santana's pretty sure the walls of her apartment are conspiring to turn her clinically insane.

It's not that she misses Quinn or anything; she still sees Quinn like almost every day at practice and stuff but even then, Quinn just avoids her eyes and doesn't even complain when Santana insults her form and inversely compliments her form and tortures her at the same time by forcing her to do a series of round offs for demonstrative purposes.

She guesses what she really misses is the idea of Quinn because for someone as irritating as Quinn is (most of the time at least), they coexist surprisingly easily.

And it's not like Santana even really wanted someone to coexist with—hence the one bedroom apartment—but Quinn fills the space so subtly, not like most of the girls who end up at her apartment, aggravatingly eager to please and just as easy to displease.

And, well for someone who fills the space so subtly, she also fills it so wholly because Santana can't open the fridge without being confronted by things she generally as a rule wouldn't eat unless Quinn cooks it and she finds a book that Quinn has suggested she read on just about every surface that a book can lay, along with a note from Quinn about why she should read it and if she should read it before or after the last book she suggested (those notes are kind of helpful because last time she started to read the book Quinn placed on the dresser before she started the one on the kitchen counter and she was completely mind fucked for like six chapters until she realized she was reading them out of order).

Her apartment even kind of smells like Quinn now but she realized that's because she's been using the same shampoo as Quinn ever since she found out it made her hair like really soft and was actually cheaper than the one she was already using.

Quinn's kind of awesome at spotting really great products and—ok so she really does miss her but Quinn's the one who decided to start acting all shifty instead of talking about what happened—not that Santana has much to say about what happened. Or almost happened; Quinn was just really close is all, and jeez, it may be Quinn Fabray but Santana really is only human.

Besides, she is hardly the only one to blame— Quinn was the one that initiated the proximity in the first place and even then, that pull (that deep tug in her chest, hauling her forward like her body was attached to chains) was mutual. She could feel Quinn drawing closer just as much as she was. She could feel that tightly restrained need and—

Fuck, she wanted to kiss Quinn Fabray…

And she's pretty sure Quinn Fabray wanted to kiss her back.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

/

"So, when are you two gonna kiss and make up?"

Santana practically snorts her water, like seriously, dying by Dasani is so not the way she wants to go but that mouthful of water goes down about a million ways wrong and she's not entirely sure if she's choking or drowning but she's entirely sure she's dying.

Julian pats her back patiently, waiting for her coughing to subside.

"So?" He asks expectantly.

Santana clears her suddenly burning throat, glaring at him through watery eyes.

"So, what?" she aims for nonchalant, but it comes out as a squeak; she blames that almost dying thing that just happened.

"You and Quinn? You're fighting, right?"

Santana sighs; she should really be suspicious of Julian asking her to go jogging with him by now since three of his last four invitations have somehow managed to become about Quinn and that one time it wasn't about Quinn, he actually just invited Quinn along with them instead.

"We're not fighting, Julian," she answers and for a moment she almost feels bad for lying to him, and then she realizes that she really isn't lying; they're not really fighting.

"You're not?" he asks, completely incredulous. "So, you made her do those extra back handsprings in practice the other night because her form was really sloppy? And she hasn't been in your apartment the last few times I've been over because the luxury of campus living has increased dramatically in the past two weeks?" he laughs but it's not amused, "I call bullshit, Santana. So you may as well tell me what happened so we can patch it up now before it gets out of control,"

"Nothing happened," Once again it's the truth since technically their whole issue is the something that really didn't happen but she's not gonna explain technicalities to Julian.

He shoots her a skeptical glance.

"Seriously, it's nothing,"

"Fine," she shrugs, "you don't have to tell me," he takes off jogging again—when did he even get so fast anyway?— but his words come floating airily back to her. "But I hardly doubt you'd let most people shack up in your apartment with you if you didn't really like them so you better be careful you lose this rare friendship over nothing,"

/

Fuck Julian being so perceptive and wise. She has to go through a humongous stack of paperwork to find out Quinn's dorm room number and then finding it down a dimly lit hallway with oddly numbered rooms is another feat in itself.

She finds it eventually though and raps her knuckles against the stark white door.

She recognizes the girl who answers immediately from Quinn's description. Weird roommate.

She can totally see now why Quinn would be worried about having her head cut off in her sleep; this girl looks nothing short of psychotic, all the way from her horrible bleach dye job to her hand ripped clothes.

She kind of hopes she doesn't have Quinn's head in storage somewhere already.

"Hey," she taps the door frame with her fingertips idly. "Is Quinn around?"

The girl kind of just stares at her for a moment.

"Quinn?" The girl finally calls back into the poorly lit room and Santana can just barely hear Quinn's quick response so Quinn totally can't pretend not to be home now when realizes it's her. "Someone's here for you,"

The girl kind of just leaves her at the doorway after that but Quinn comes to the doorway very soon after and she looks like she might just find an escape route once she realizes who it is.

"Quinn, can we talk?"

"Do you need me to demonstrate another round off a hundred times?"

"Depends. Have they gotten any better?" The snark comes easily—defensively— complete instinct for being called out for something she knows she shouldn't have done but she is really bad at this talking it out thing although she's trying which is more than she can say for Quinn right now. "Look, sorry about that, ok? Can we please just talk?"

"Ok," Quinn agrees reluctantly, leaning against her doorway expectantly.

Santana swears she can see creepy roommate lurking in the background.

"Like in private? Like, say, my apartment? 'Cause I know you're freaking out about your advertising class without your textbook that's just sitting on the coffee table,"

/

The ride to her apartment is completely silent but as she leans her back against her closed front door, she knows the talking is going to have to start.

A bunch of words run through her head but nothing sounds quite right; nothing will leave her lips and the silence has never been more deafening.

"So, I guess you wanna talk about what happened," Quinn boraches carefully.

"No," Santana's thought about it, she's thought about everything she could say about it; hell, she's thought about what she could do about it, but fact is, she really doesn't want to talk about it.

It's just not worth it.

She's lost one best friend over not being able to keep these feelings in check before; it's not worth losing another.

"As far as I'm concerned, Quinn, nothing happened," she says calmly. "Nothing happened, and even if something did happen, it wouldn't be worth losing your friendship over,"

"Santana—"

"Let me finish," Santana swallows, hard, tongue darting out to wet suddenly dry lips. She really sucks at this heartfelt confession shit. "I've denied it, and I'll probably deny it a million more times after this, but you are one of the best friends I've ever had Quinn and I know we've had our ups and downs, more downs that ups really, but this time I want to get it right, Q. I don't want anything to stand in the way of our friendship, ok?"

Quinn's smile is soft, one that spreads from the corners of her lips all the way to her eyes.

"Ok," she agrees, nudging Santana slightly with her shoulder. "I see you've started Tolstoy," she says, reaching for the book she left by the DVD stand.

And just like that, it really is like nothing happened. Quinn settles on the couch listing off reasons why Santana will like the book by the end (which Santana highly doubts because it really is long and dreary) and it feels normal. No queasy feeling of dissemblance, no urge to jump Quinn's bones or anything like that.

Just she and Quinn as friends.

Julian was right, nothing would be a stupid thing to lose this friendship over.

TBC…

Review please! =)

And I promise there's gonna be more Quinntana romantic feeling soon now that I think I've caught their friendship in a pretty little mason jar, it's the perfect time to give it a shake!