OPENING NIGHT: INTERLUDE
PROMPT: Kurt, Santana, and Quinn are at the loft, getting ready to go see Rachel perform. Quinn is waiting for Kurt and Santana to get ready, and she's bored because she arrived at the loft already dressed and ready to go. She's got a bottle of whiskey and pours herself a drink, and she's just sitting there as Kurt and Santana are running around. Then Santana spots Quinn casually drinking her drink, wondering where the whiskey came from, and for some reason it's just so attractive, the way Quinn's completely owning the room without even trying...
IT WAS the biggest night of their lives.
Well, the biggest since the night after the Glee Club had won at Nationals, anyway. Which wasn't so long ago, really, although now it seemed like it happened another lifetime ago. So much had taken place since then, Santana could hardly remember all of it.
But the one thing she couldn't forget was what she and Quinn had done that night, and how much she'd wanted to repeat the experience since then.
It was strange that she was thinking about that and not about the fact that Rachel, who had worked so hard and been rejected or relegated to roles not nearly worthy of her talent so many times, had finally won a starring role on Broadway. And not just any role, at that – it was her fucking dream role, the one she'd wanted all her life, the one she truly believed she was born to play. Santana was proud of her. Not that she would ever let on just how proud, because that just wasn't how Auntie Tana rolled - but the little hobbit with the big voice knew just the same. And besides, she had Kurt gushing over her every other minute of the goddamned day, so it would have been overkill if Santana had done the same.
No, she was thinking about Quinn, as she often did, even as Kurt was running back and forth between his room and hers, asking incessantly about changes to his outfit for this historic evening. Blaine would be at the theater, as would the rest of the Glee Club (even Mr. Schuester and Ms. Pillsbury, now happily married and blissful new parents), so he wanted to look his absolute best. Santana had long ago mastered the art of nodding and smiling and even throwing in an actual helpful suggestion now and then when Kurt was in one of these near-hysterical panics, and it wasn't as though she didn't care, because honestly, she did. Though, again, she would never let on how much, because she really didn't need him bursting into tears and getting the shoulder of her dress all wet when he inevitably insisted upon hugging her despite her repeated protests.
But she was having the hardest time paying attention to his worries when Quinn fucking Fabray was in the other room, looking perfect and elegant and goddamned exquisite as she always did, just waiting for them to catch up to her, as always. It was Rachel's, Santana's, and Kurt's loft, but like any other room where Quinn was present, it was her room.
From where Santana was seated, trying to put the finishing touches on her makeup, she could see Quinn sitting at the makeshift bar that Kurt's father had built for them (reasoning that they were adults now and he would rather they do their drinking in the loft and not at some dive bar somewhere in the depths of the city), and she had a bottle of whiskey in front of her and a shot glass in her hand, and damn if that wasn't the sexiest fucking thing Santana had ever seen. It didn't even matter that she had no idea where the hell the whiskey had even come from, because Rachel would only permit wine and beer in the loft, or when Quinn had taken up drinking it. All that mattered was that the legendary ice princess of McKinley High had at some point morphed into the ice queen of Yale University and was now swirling a shot of golden liquid around in her glass, her thoughts as unfathomable as ever, the light caught and held in her evergreen eyes.
Santana was so taken with the image that she actually found herself fumbling with her lipstick, and silently both praised and cursed the blonde for being so ridiculously beautiful. To this day, she hadn't met anyone who could rival Quinn in the looks department, and at this point it was hard for her to imagine that she ever would. Rachel had said it best: Quinn was the prettiest girl any of them had ever met, but she was a lot more than that.
And it was the "more than that" part that always tripped Santana up. For all of her Lima Heights Adjacent bravado, there had always been something about Quinn that Santana had found both inexplicably intimidating and insanely alluring. She would never dare to tell anybody this, but the truth was, she had always put the blonde ex-cheerleader on kind of a pedestal, and that was something she had never done with anyone else. It wasn't just about the way Quinn looked; no, it was about the way she carried herself, the way she moved, the way you could always tell when she was thinking, but you could almost never tell what she was thinking about. If she let you in, it meant you were special, and Quinn had only ever truly let two people see behind the mask of cool detachment she wore most of the time. Santana was proud to know that she was one of them - one of the only two people who had ever gotten past her walls to receive the gift of knowing the 'real' Quinn, who wasn't a princess at all, but a scared and flawed and vulnerable person like everyone else.
(The other was in her dressing room right now, thinking only about her lines and dance steps and how her two gay dads would be in attendance tonight along with all her friends, and how much she really did not want to mess anything up in front of them, never mind the fucking New York Times theater critic, who would surely be there as well, lurking in the crowd. This night, her very first opening night on Broadway, could very easily make or break her career, and she was not about to let the moment grow too large for her.)
Santana watched Quinn in spite of herself, the way she always had since the very first time they'd met. It made her feel like a voyeur, like she was spying on her longtime friend, but she couldn't help it; Quinn was just so damned watchable. She watched Quinn down the shot, watched those gorgeous hazel eyes close as the liquor went down her throat, watched the small smile that quirked up the corners of her full, perfectly glossed and made-up lips as she savored the burn, the warmth that bloomed in her chest. Santana knew that feeling herself, but she couldn't imagine that she looked anywhere near as classy when she drank whiskey. She continued to watch out of the corner of her eye even as she applied her mascara, taking in the view of Quinn pouring herself another shot and smiling to herself as though she'd just learned a secret that no one else knew, that no one else could possibly know. It occurred to Santana, seeing that smile, that Quinn was like a living, breathing Mona Lisa, only a lot blonder and a hell of a lot hotter.
It made her want to go out to the living room and tear the immaculately tailored formal gown Quinn was wearing off her immaculately toned and sculpted body, then tear off her own dress, and take the blonde right on top of the bar. But if she did that, Rachel would never forgive her for missing this show of all shows, much less ever let her hear the end of it, so instead she finished applying her makeup. Then she rose from her chair, letting out a long, low sigh of mild frustration, and went over to Kurt's room.
"Hey, Ladyface," she said coolly, using the high school nickname he claimed to detest (but she knew he secretly loved it). "You just about ready? We need to meet the rest of the Glee Club at the theater."
He glanced up at her with a worried smile, adjusting his tie one final time. "Ready as I'll ever be, I guess."
"You look good. Blaine will have a hard time keeping his hands off you."
"Shut up, Satan," Kurt retorted, but there was no heat behind the words. He looked beyond her to Quinn, who was putting the cap back on the whiskey bottle. "Ready to go, Quinn?" he called.
"I've been ready," Quinn replied with a soft chuckle. "Just waiting for you two."
Santana and Kurt joined the blonde, whose radiant smile greeted them as they looped arms and made their way over to the loft's sliding door. Santana barely suppressed a shiver at the contact, acutely aware of where her skin touched Quinn's.
"Let's go," Quinn said (to Santana's nose, her breath was only slightly laden with the scent of whiskey), and moments later, they were out the door, down the stairs, and heading into the cool Brooklyn evening air.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This prompt was given to me by my friend and sometime collaborator DivineEscape, whose excellent work you can also find and read on this site. I would like to thank her for planting the seed of this story in my brain, and I hope she enjoys the resulting flower. I would also like to thank the creators and owners of "Glee," who are unfortunately not me, for the show and the amazing characters they gave us.